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May 11

TI-89 Titanium

I have a TI-89 Titanium calculator. I am wondering what keystrokes is necessary to convert

$({\sqrt[{3}]{\frac {x}{y^{7}}}})$ to ${\frac {({\sqrt[{3}]{x*y^{2})}}}{y^{3}}}$.

Whenever I pass it through the calculator I get ${\frac {x^{\frac {1}{3}}}{y^{\frac {7}{3}}}}$. I use the keystrokes root((x/y^7),3). I need help!!! --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 01:27, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The calculator's answer is correct, even if somewhat unhelpful. Probably, its built-in simplifier prefers the form that doesn't have the root. I don't believe that you can change the way the simplifier works. (This forum post seems to agree.[1]) Essentially you and the calculator are not agreeing on what form is "simplest". You could work it out on paper, it's pretty straightforward. APL (talk) 02:18, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

That's right: the calculator algorithm separates the powers of x and y. Educational mathematics has a "rule" that there should be no root in the denominator. They are just different views of "simplest". Do you need help in converting one to the other, or were you just wanting the calculator to perform the conversion? Dbfirs 07:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I know ow to do it manually but I was just wondering if the calculator can do it faster for me... --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 16:07, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

PC won't recognize camera anymore

I've got a Canon PowerShot A95 from which I normally load pictures into my Dell Inspiron 6400 running Windows XP. In the past, I had no problem transferring the pictures from camera to PC. I haven't done so in the past few months, but I tried to do it today, and it wouldn't recognize my camera. So I went into Control Panel to try and manually add my camera as a device, and my model isn't on the list. What gives? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 04:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

No idea offhand, but here's a possible workaround: Go get a standalone card reader for the memory card. Shouldn't cost more than twenty bucks. Take the card out, put it in the reader, and hook that up to the computer. You should see a new drive show up in "My computer".

I admit it's a pity to waste the sawbuck if you don't have to, but a standalone reader has its advantages (doesn't drain your camera batteries, doesn't try to go through obnoxious proprietary software provided by the camera company). --Trovatore (talk) 04:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Any recommendations on which particular brand of card readers would be of best quality? 24.189.90.68 (talk) 05:21, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Even the really cheap ones (less than £5 in UK) seem to work OK, though there might be a speed difference. Does the Canon website have a download for a Powershot A95 driver, or did a CD with a driver come with your camera? Dbfirs 06:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The camera previously belonged to a friend of mine, so I honestly don't know if it came with a CD and/or a driver or not. As for any downloads, I went to their site, and there are some software updates, as well as a driver update for my OS released in 2006. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 08:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, PowerShot cameras expose themselves as some sort of image acquisition device over USB, which requires special software to access the images (unlike some other camera brands which act like memory card readers, which is a lot more convenient). The camera should at least show up in My Computer, though. -- BenRG (talk) 09:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

My PC used to recognize it like a normal USB device, so I can't understand why that changed all of a sudden. I haven't updated my drivers since I last uploaded pictures from my camera, so it can't be an incompatibility issue. 24.189.90.68 (talk) 10:05, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This forum post suggests that the camera decides whether to be a USB mass-storage device class or USB video device class object depending on the setting of the "playback" switch (presumably the little triangular "play" icon) when the USB connection is made. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:54, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Right, I'll second Finlay McWalter's statement: on a PowerShot you are supposed to move that switch to the little triangular "play" icon before you plug it in. If this still doesn't work, I'd use a memory card reader as suggested above. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

addEventListener

In theory, can the DOMNode::addEventListener() method be expected to work properly if called on a node before the node is added to the document? Is cloneNode(true) supposed to preserve event handlers? NeonMerlin 05:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It will help if you specify your programming language and/or environment. Commmonplace libraries in C++, Java, C#, Javascript, and thousands of third-party libraries have functions called "addEventListener()" - judging by your syntax, it appears you mean a C++ version. Can you specify? Nimur (talk) 07:01, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

No, I mean the one JavaScript uses from the W3C DOM specs. I'm only using the C++ syntax because AFAIK the class name isn't visible to JavaScript (which, given that class names are present in the DOM specs, suggests to me that the DOM is designed for multiple languages). NeonMerlin 08:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

From the Mozilla Documentation Center: addEventListener() works on any DOM element, even non-visible ones. It should be okay to instantiate a node and add a listener before adding the node to the document. The Node.cloneNode() documentation doesn't specify an answer to your second question, but it seems plausible that the actionListener would be added to the clone (but would not be cloned itself). This is worth testing. Nimur (talk) 13:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Software To Monitor Fan/Temperature On Ubuntu 10.04

Does anyone know of any software I can get which will allow me to monitor the fan on my Acer Aspire laptop running Ubuntu 10.04? The only monitors I am able to find in the Software Centre are for CPU, disk space, and a few other things, all of which are already available in System>Administration>System Monitor. I am hoping for a desktop widget or something. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:06, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The package lm-sensors installs the program sensors (and the setup utility sensors-detect) which reports the information provided by all the sensors it finds (sensors-detect leads you through all the different busses it can scan, and then shows what it discovers; I think the package install scripts actually run this for you, but you can run it yourself to see what it tries). You can monitor the results reported by the detected sensors by running sensors yourself or from a script, installing sensord which logs these to syslog, or installing xsensors which shows the results reported by sensors in a GUI window. There are probably Gnome and KDE widgets that do likewise. I don't know about the Aspire, but this finds two (unnamed) temperature sensors in my Acer Travelmate. - Finlay McWalter • Talk 11:51, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Ah, the gnome applet is just called the Gnome sensors applet. It's in package sensors-applet. In addition to the stuff reported by sensors, it also talks to the proprietary nVidia driver, to the kernel ACPI module, and gets hard disk temperatures from hddtemp using SMART. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

And the KDE application is Ksensors -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:11, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Cheers! I'll try that out a bit later on, then (different computer at the moment). Thanks! --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 12:17, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Update: Well, I've downloaded and installed them, and when I try to run them, nothing actually happens. I've followed the instructions on the websites but still no joy. Cheers anyway. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 15:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

On my desktop, sensors doesn't find any usable sensors, but the gnome applet (which you have to add to the top panel) shows GPU and disk temperatures. On my laptop it does find the two motherboard temps, and gnome applet finds the two cpu temperatures and the disk temperature. But if sensors doesn't know about the various chip sensors in a given laptop, it can't know how to interrogate them, and so shows nothing useful. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:59, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

GKrellM 129.67.37.143 (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

XP won't shut down

Hi my PC refuses to shutdown, a quick google search throws up a lot of guff about using registry cleaners to fix the problem, I am not a fan of theses tools anyone got any ideas what I can do? Thanks Mo ainm~Talk 12:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Does it shut down if you initiate the shutdown from the Task Manager? Hit ctrl-alt-del, then from the Task Manager window, go to the "Shut Down" menu, then choose "Turn Off" (or Restart, or whichever other option you want). I have found that this sometimes works in situations where Explorer in Windows XP refuses to acknowledge the "Shut Down" command from the Start menu. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:31, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You can also shut down the PC from a command prompt. Just enter the command

shutdown -s -f -t 00

and the PC will shut down. The command "shutdown -s" can even be entered from the start menu (in the "Run" box). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think the OP is actually asking us if there is any way to fix the problem and stop it from happening again. If they were asking about how to switch it off then we could point them to the OFF button as a last resort. I can't help, because you haven't given us enough information about the problem, but I thought I should just point this out for anyone who can. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 00:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried ctrl alt del and it would not turn off or even restart, the only way I could turn it off was to hold the power button. I haven't tried from the command line, but it is not really a preferred option to have to use this way (if successful). Would like to know a possible cause so I can fix it. I have added no new hardware of software and my Kaspersky AV throws out no infections. Mo ainm~Talk 08:54, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you do not in fact have any viruses (which can still happen even if your current AV solution does not pick up on it, but I'll agree it seems unlikely), you may want to run a Windows Repair. Back up your important data first. The Repair process does not wipe your data however it's better to be safe than sorry. Be sure you have your Windows key handy before you do this. If this does not work, you might need a full OS reinstall. Amordea (talk) 11:15, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Paste text greasemoney

Resolved

I want to write a greasemoney script that can paste a pre-written body of text into a text box. I would like it to function by right clinking in a text box, and in the menu that appears there's an option like "paste text" or something. Is this possible to do? I'm a noob at greasemonkey 82.44.55.254 (talk) 13:44, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK the only way to change the right-click menu with GM is to completely replace it, which you probably don't want. Perhaps it would be easier to add a little "paste the canned text" button next to the text box, or something like that? --Sean 18:50, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes that would be ok. How could it be done? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 19:33, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The following does it:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           TestTextArea
// @namespace      http://aaa.com
// @include        http://svnback.bustech.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi*
// @require        http://jqueryjs.googlecode.com/files/jquery-1.3.2.min.js
// ==/UserScript==

var canned_text = "my canned text";

jQuery('textarea')
  .each(function(idx) {
        var textarea = jQuery(this);
        var button = "<a href='#'>{INSERT}</a>";
        textarea.before(button);
        textarea.prev().bind('click', function(event) {
            event.preventDefault();
            textarea.val(canned_text);
        });
        textarea.before('<br>');
  })

--Sean 15:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! <3 82.44.55.254 (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Is a search box to the upper right "intuitive"?

Hi. I know this is not the best place to discuss the WP Beta, but I'm looking for opinions from knowledgeable Internet users. My question would be, is having the search box at the upper right hand corner of a web page "intuitive" as the Beta project claims it is? The project claims that "The new position takes advantage of user expectations from across the web". Please correct me if I'm wrong, but for any major website other than Wikipedia, you browse the site by links and whatnot, and only occasionally use the search box. That's why most websites put their search box, say, in the upper right-hand corner, for instance: so that it's for the most part out of the way, because searching is a secondary function for those websites. But for Wikipedia, this is not the case! Wikipedia's main browsing tool is the Search Box! Therefore, changing the search box to the upper right, in order to "align Wikipedia with many other major websites" [2], is not really a good enough justification, or is it?

I think it's also important to keep in mind that us westerners read from left to right; therefore, the most important elements of a website should be closer to the left than to the right, for easy and fast access, right? So, does moving the search box from the left to the upper right retain the search box's importance, or does it make it a hindrance to look for the search box in such a cumbersome place in the web page? Is it really a good thing to put the search box, the main browsing tool for WP, as if it were a secondary thing like in other websites? (They say they got good results on the new position of the search box in their research tests, but it seems they only tested 8 people, so that doesn't make sense to me either.)

Wikipedia is NOT like other major websites, because unlike other websites, Wikipedia's search function it's its main function! This is why I think there should be more prolific discussion about this particular issue more than anything else, especially before the big change is invariably forced upon everyone. Kreachure (talk) 13:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

You're right. This is not the place for such a discussion, nor for airing your views on the proposed new wikipedia skin. --Tagishsimon (talk) 13:57, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

This would probably be better suited for Wikipedia:Village pump (development), or perhaps the miscellaneous village pump page. Buddy431 (talk) 15:15, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Fine. I was looking for widespread discussion from buffs and experts (like the ones I usually find here), about a common subject that experts and non-experts could relate to; not technical discussion about technical issues at pages only technical users use. But I guess that if no one's all that interested in the discussion about their own website, then I shouldn't care either. Good times! Kreachure (talk) 15:35, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

It's not that we aren't interested (I don't like it much either and personally will choose the old UI) but that, as stated at the top of the page, the Reference Desk isn't a discussion forum; and although we at the Reference Desk are extremely powerful and influential, our levels of power and influence rapidly wane as you leave the Reference Desk pages, and the levels reach a value of 0 when landing on any other Wikipedia page, including those where it's appropriate to have this conversation. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

And any claim to academic discussion is undermined by your polemic last paragraph. --Tagishsimon (talk) 16:47, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about the paragraph where I said that the search function is the most important function in WP, and then I said that the change will be forced upon everyone as a standard (on May 13)? I don't get what's polemic about that. Kreachure (talk) 16:55, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Was there some ambiguity about "last paragraph" phrase"? Some lack of polemic in the upper case "NOT"? In the plea for more discussions (read the guidelines at the top of this page...)? In the "big change is invariably forced" phrase? It's fair enough that you don't like the change. Hijacking the RD to complain about it is not on. It would have been perfectly possible for you to ask the question in a neutral fashion. You chose not to. Your bad. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:13, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think people are getting side tracked from the core question OP asked; "Is a search box to the upper right "intuitive"". 82.44.55.254 (talk) 17:28, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

The sidetracking was from the original poster, for what it's worth, who is looking for "widespread discussion from buffs and experts". Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I haven't tried beta here on en.wiki but from what I've seen at the commons it looks awful, clumsy and unnecessary. And I agree with you that the new placement of the search box is stupid too. Wikipedia currently has a simplistic, easy to use interface that's so perfect for it's function that this change seems like the wikimedia foundation meddling because they were given a big donation and have nothing better to do with the money. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 15:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Browser size (permanent link here). -- Wavelength (talk) 16:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

To try and answer the question about whether the search box at the top is intuitive, as a brief exercise I went to alexa.com's Top Sites page and looked at the first few of the Top 10 web sites to see where their search boxes are, and found:

• Google: Front and center (web page is built around it)
• Facebook: No search field on home page, but login fields are at top
• YouTube: Top
• Yahoo: Top
• Live.com: Top
• Wikipedia.org: Left side
• Baidu.com: Front and center (web page is built around it)
• Blogger.com: No search field on home page, but login fields are at top
• Msn.com: Top
• QQ.com: Top

I know this doesn't equal "usability", but it's reasonable to suggest that if 7 of the other top 8 websites (excluding the two that are basically a big text field with some elements placed around it) have their primary text fields at the top of the page, that Internet users are being conditioned to look for the text fields at the top of the page. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:42, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Add to that the top-right placement of the browser search bar in most modern web browsers (well IE, Firefox and Safari at the very least, and I assume others).131.111.185.68 (talk) 22:02, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

(EC with above) In addition most modern browsers have a search bar. In fact it isn't just browsers but many programs including the OS themselves. Guess where that is by default? (The reason is of course partially related to the UI.) I also happen to be on eBay, DealExtreme [3] and [4] at the current time. Guess where their search bar is? Yep at the top (albeit mostly centre not right.)

I agree with others that this is the wrong place, and is a bit silly when it starts off with unproven claims like

Wikipedia is NOT like other major websites, because unlike other websites, Wikipedia's search function it's its main function

Personally I use search functions on other websites much more then wikipedia. Perhaps that's just me, I don't claim to be an average user (although do think that for a number of examples both me and CT have mentioned search would be important), but I also don't see any evidence presented for this claim and if a large chunk of your argument is apparently unsupported by any actual data, it usually falls flat on its face. When you've apparently failed to consider other obvious things as CT and me have IMHO amply demonstrated well then...

To put it a different way while I can't comment on their performance in particular, I'd trust professionals paid to do the job much more then I would some random person who makes a random OT complaint based on premises without any evidence and without even apparently considering some rather obvious issues. But perhaps that's just me.

P.S. If I'm not mistaken the WMF was given money specifically to improve usability. They obviously could have rejected that money OR tried to convince the donator to let them do other things with it (I don't know if they tried but I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't) but clearly whether or not they had anything better to do with it didn't come in to it. Someone specifically wanted them to improve usability and paid them to do it whether or not other people feel it's a worthwhile goal (and frankly I doubt they cared much about the opinions of former vandals).

I should also add that the opinions of 'knowledgeable Internet users' is unlikely to be what the WMF cared much about. These sort of people should be able to find the search box wherever you place it and more importantly are only a tiny proportion of people that use the website. In fact any discussion which tries to collate anything from the experience and expectations of wikipedia editors, and the small subset of editors that edit any specific page at that is inherently flawed. The vast majority of readers aren't editors. I believe one of the goals of the usability initive was to get more editors, so clearly finding ways to get more editors was important (although that still means trying to get something from existing editors is not necessarily the most productive avenue) however I'm pretty sure it wasn't the only goal and the location of the search bar in particularly is something everyone including readers may want to use. In other words, the knowledge and experience of web designers and others familiar with relevant research etc may be useful, but the knowledge of random editors based primarily on their personal experience much less so.

Nil Einne (talk) 22:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Another interesting thing. The first result on Google for me for 'search box location' is [5] which says "There are many possibilities, but only a couple of right ones. The most convenient spot for users would be the top left or top right of every page on your website, where users could easily find it using the common F-shaped scanning pattern." It also mentions the old wikipedia search box as a bad design albeit not because of the location. (The first result on Bing is [6] which is of limited use to this discussion although guess where their search box is located?) Nil Einne (talk) 19:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See Home Page Usability and Credibility Survey - Fortune 30 versus Inc. fastest growing companies; it might have some relevance here.

-- Wavelength (talk) 22:56, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it was better where it was before. You didnt have to drag your cursor from one side of the page to another. The box and other things you might want to click on were in the same place. Nor do I like the grey shading and blue lines on pages - again the previous version was better. I vote for reversion. 78.149.199.79 (talk) 15:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Using keyboard as a mouse on a laptop without numlock

Hi there, all:

My laptop has recently broken down overnight, with the OS disappearing. I'm using a friend's old laptop until I replace or repair my laptop, but unfortunately, it too has problems. Many of them I have solved myself, such as the incredible amount of scareware, but one big problem remains - the functionality of the touchpad comes and goes. At some points, it works like any other, without a hint of a problem; for hours at a time, though, it is stuck in one of two phases: either completely non-responsive, or jutting around and failing to click anything other than what one does not want to click.

I thought of finding a program to temporarily solve this, with which one could scroll the mouse across pages using keyboards. However, all of the ones that I have encountered rely on there being Numlock or a separate numbers keypad, neither of which this laptop has. Can anyone help with a way to scroll using a keyboard, without numlock?

All the best &c —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.36.198.62 (talk) 17:49, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Why don't you just connect an actual mouse to it? Theresa Knott | token threats 05:23, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Hello. I thought that folk would surmise that there was a reason why I should choose the rather more cumbersome method of using a keyboard rather than attaching a mouse - the USB slots do not work. All the best, &c. --82.36.198.62 (talk) 08:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Touchpad is "touchy" and USB slots don't work? Hmmm. You mentioned "scareware" in which case I'd strongly suspect a heavy virus infection (when you see one roach, you know there's bound to be many more hiding nearby). This could have done damage to your drivers or other system software components, which could account for the intermittent failures. You may need to reinstall these (via driver reinstall and Windows repair/reinstall respectively). Amordea (talk) 10:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for your suggestion; I'll try that right away! --82.36.198.62 (talk) 11:20, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Compress

I have 500 files that I want to compress with 7zip individually ie into a separate .7z archive for each file. Is there an option to do this with 7zip? Thanks 82.44.55.254 (talk) 19:24, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

On sh/cygwin find directory -type f -exec 7z a {}.7z {} \; -exec rm {} \; will compress every file in directory and its subdirectories. find directory -type f -exec 7z x {} \; -exec rm {} \; to decompress. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 21:14, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks but I'm not on linux / can't install the cygwin thing for windows. I was asking if there was a way to do this with the 7zip Windows gui 82.44.55.254 (talk) 21:58, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

7-Zip on Windows has a number of command line options. When I entered "7z -?", I got this:

7-Zip command line options

7-Zip 4.57  Copyright (c) 1999-2007 Igor Pavlov  2007-12-06

Usage: 7z <command> [<switches>...] <archive_name> [<file_names>...]
       [<@listfiles...>]

<Commands>
  a: Add files to archive
  b: Benchmark
  d: Delete files from archive
  e: Extract files from archive (without using directory names)
  l: List contents of archive
  t: Test integrity of archive
  u: Update files to archive
  x: eXtract files with full paths
<Switches>
  -ai[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include archives
  -ax[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude archives
  -bd: Disable percentage indicator
  -i[r[-|0]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: Include filenames
  -m{Parameters}: set compression Method
  -o{Directory}: set Output directory
  -p{Password}: set Password
  -r[-|0]: Recurse subdirectories
  -scs{UTF-8 | WIN | DOS}: set charset for list files
  -sfx[{name}]: Create SFX archive
  -si[{name}]: read data from stdin
  -slt: show technical information for l (List) command
  -so: write data to stdout
  -ssc[-]: set sensitive case mode
  -ssw: compress shared files
  -t{Type}: Set type of archive
  -v{Size}[b|k|m|g]: Create volumes
  -u[-][p#][q#][r#][x#][y#][z#][!newArchiveName]: Update options
  -w[{path}]: assign Work directory. Empty path means a temporary directory
  -x[r[-|0]]]{@listfile|!wildcard}: eXclude filenames
  -y: assume Yes on all queries

I've not actually tried this, but I'm pretty sure you could use this information to make a .bat file perform the same compression task on 500 files and make 500 .7z files (remember "dir > filelist.txt" will output the result of a dir command to a file rather then the screen). Astronaut (talk) 16:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming 7z.exe is in your path:

       for %d in (*) do 7z.exe a "%d.7z" "%d"

--NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:56, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

May 12

Script errors in email

Hi, all. I need a small amount of education about email scripts. I don't need to know how to write them, but I'd like to understand where they come from, and what in our environment I can reasonably do about script errors, if anything.

Although there are forty in our building, with a "corporate" mail server, each two or three of us are an independent contractor, responsibile for our own desktop system -- OS, mail client, etc. Our group uses Outlook Express on WinXP. Replacing either of those is not a viable short-term solution.

A typical error throws a dialog box -- If needed I might be able to capture one, and with help could upload it -- which must be dismissed. "Syntax error in script" is a common message, along with a line number and a token, e.g., At line 43, unexpected "}".

• In one case, we get this error on every single email from one particular vendor. So, my first reaction was that the script is part of the mail, comes from the vendor and gets executed for some reason after it arrives. (Why exactly? Not a clue.) If that's true, I can't fix it.
• In another case which started appearing recently, the subject mail is from a little old lady who could no more send along an email script than fly -- so, maybe it's not part of the mail. Or, perhaps it's something her ISP is tacking on "for our convenience".
• If there's a library of scripts that exist on our server, then why don't I get an error on every email? Well, that's because different emails take different paths through the scripts -- there are obviously if-blocks that execute some stuff and bypass other. If that's the case, though, somebody should be able to fix them locally, yes? They look like simple syntax errors.
• It is possible that the errors are mailer-dependent -- i.e., I get them because I use Outlook Express but somebody else does not get them because they use something else. Don't know.

Bottom line: Where are these errors coming from? and Is there anything *I* can do to get rid of them?

Thanks, DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:51, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

ubuntu workstation setup

I am planning to setup ubuntu 10.04 based workstation for development (web, python, eclipse, java), learning and also for a bit of entertainment (movies and build in games, mainly minesweeper) for two users.

I have one CPU (2GB RAM, 3GHz Dual core AMD processor, 120GB HDD), and two set of keyboard, mouse and LCD monitor. I would like to use either this as dual monitor configuration or two separate consoles, so that two users can login to this machine at the same time.

What hardware (preferably < $200) do I need more to setup this configuration ?

I would also like to add more CPUs to this setup but not in next year or two. --V4vijayakumar (talk) 03:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

You are asking about a multiseat configuration, where one computer is used by multiple local users. Here are instructions for MultiSeat Ubuntu - it seems that you will be forced to use KDE, but this should not be a problem for most purposes. However, in this era of decreasingly expensive terminals, have you considered buying a netbook for each user? These lightweight laptops can connect to the main Ubuntu terminal server, and also provide significant standalone functionality. They may even be cheaper than a monitor and keyboard. As far as adding CPUs to your computer, unless you have a multi-socket motherboard, this will not be an option without a major upgrade. Nimur (talk) 07:14, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia syndication

I am (attempting) to watch someone's Special:Contributions with atom. I have the appropriate feed in Google reader. I am having a few problems with it, and I don't know if it's me, the feed, the reader, or just how Wikipedia works. First, it takes hours to update, which kind of misses the point of a "feed" in my opinion. Six hours until another update seems like an excruciatingly long time to wait, but maybe this delay is normal. Second, it sometimes won't update at all: I once waited 3 days for a single entry to show up but another is still missing in action. Third, it bizarrely keeps trying to show me the same contributions over and over and over and over again. Sometimes an edit from last month will randomly pop up as a new entry, or a recent edit will just come up as new, repeatedly, for days. With all of these things combined, I'm finding the whole thing rather useless. I don't use atom for anything else so I don't know if this is typical of web feeds in general. Can someone more knowledgeable please tell me what's going on? Differentially (talk) 06:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Am I the only one watching contributions this way? Surely at least someone can say, "works fine for me, mate", even if they have no clue why mine doesn't? Differentially (talk) 19:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

New laptop

Hi

I've just ordered a Dell Studio XPS 16 Laptop and the specifications are as follows:

• Processor: Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHz,4 Cores/8 Threads,turbo up to 2.8GHz, 6MB Cache)
• OS: Windows 7 Professional 64bit
• Memory: 8GB (4GBx2) 1333MHz DDR3 SDRAM
• HDD: 500GB SATA 7200RPM Hard Drive
• Optical Drive: Slot Load 8X DVD+/-RW Drive with DVD+R double layer write capability
• Video Card: ATI Mobility RADEON HD 4670 - 1GB
• Battery: 9-cell (85WHr) Lithium Ion Primary Battery

I would like to know what kind of gaming this configuration can handle. Primarily, I'm interested in Strategy/RPG games. I would also appreciate if someone could suggest some good ones from these genres which I could play on my system. Also, while I know that Photoshop CS4 can run on my system, I want to know if it would run smoothly and not clam up the system while rendering.

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.170.25.229 (talk) 07:18, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

You have a very good CPU (well, the clock frequency is not very high, but I still think it is very high-end considered it's a mobile CPU), a lot of memory and given the overall feeling of high-end of the system, I suppose the GPU is very good as well (I am not at all very familiar with the different lines of mobile video cards), so you could probably play most games just fine, and PhotoShop will not be an issue. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:25, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. Would appreciate suggestions of any good (compatible) games from the Strategy/RPG genres. Also I would like some clarification about whether my video card is a dedicated one or integrated with my system memory. --122.170.25.229 (talk) 09:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

From what you posted, it appears to have 1GB of dedicated VRAM, which is becoming increasingly common in performance laptops these days. The specs on this laptop seem pretty good to me and should run any modern game and run it well. ATI Radeon is very popular and well-supported and any mainstream game should have support for this chipset. Amordea (talk) 09:27, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

The only real concern I'd have is from an upgrade standpoint. In two years, that 4670 will not seem so hot (it's already being pretty well supplanted by the 5000-series) and being a laptop, you most likely will not be able to upgrade this. Amordea (talk) 09:41, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I probably might look to replace it after two years. Reading some reviews of the Studio XPS 16, I have noticed that they all mention an overheating issue with this build. I have added 4GB of additional RAM to the laptop (making it 4GBx2); will this augment the overheating problem? --122.170.25.229 (talk) 10:16, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

No. RAM adds very little in the way of heat. The heat issue is an extremely common issue in performance laptops. Get yourself a nice cooling pad and monitor the temp. SpeedFan is what I use on my netbook since it can be minimized to the Notification bar with a real-time temp readout as the icon. Amordea (talk) 10:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Warcraft 3. I think it's compatible with your system, and it's my all-time favourite game. 174.114.4.18 (talk) 20:56, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Since any half-way decent computer built after 2003 can play Warcraft 3, yes it's compatible with his system. --DraconianDebate (talk) 02:59, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Can I customize my mediawiki to only allow people with our school's email address to create accounts?

I'm on the student senate at my school, and we want to customize our mediawiki install so it only lets someone create an account (i.e. edit) if their email address ends in @[school_name].edu. We also want to force their username to be the [first].[last]@ from their email address. Later, we might expand this to more schools, so we would want the flexibility to add other @[school_name].edu's to have the ability to create accounts.

Question 1: Is that possible?

Question 2: Howso? Thanks! AGradman / talk. How I saw it: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing at 15:36, Wednesday 12 May 2010 (UTC)

There are a number of different authentication schemes for MediaWiki listed at its Authentication page - but none seem quite what you're looking for. The $wgEmailConfirmToEdit feature forces new users to supply an email address and receive email on that address before they can edit, but I'm not aware that you can limit those email addresses. It shouldn't be too difficult to hack the code for that to reject email addresses that don't correspond with your school. I'd check with the folks on the mediawiki mailing list in case someone has already done that, or has a simple idea of how you'd add that. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:01, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

On mediawiki-l@lists.wikimedia.org, Wikia recently pointed to some code that could be used for this. kcylsnavS ^{screech} 13:17, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Can I own all copyrights?

Imagine I run a program that spits out all possible combinations of words, including computer code. If I register the copyright of this automatically generated texts, can I sue anyone who dares to infringe my rights? Which technical resources do I need for that?--Mr.K. (talk) 16:05, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Leaving aside the legal complexities, Cantor's diagonal argument says that such a program is impossible anyway. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:13, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

No, Cantor says no such thing. The set of all words ("finite length sequences of letters") for a given finite alphabet is enumerable. Of course, it is infinite, so enumerating it in practice takes forever. If you also want to enumerate infinite sequences, then Cantor comes into play. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

But since the OP said "all possible combinations of words", I assume this includes infinite sequences such as "a a a a ...". Gandalf61 (talk) 09:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

No. As a general rule, only "creative works" may be copyrighted, not the output of a mechanism. This Stanford University Library FAQ says "to receive copyright protection, a work must be the result of at least some creative effort on the part of its author. There is no hard and fast rule as to how much creativity is enough." The specifics of how much and what kind of "creativity" is enough will vary by jurisdiction, by dint both of varying statute and a complex web of jurisprudence, but what you describe is surely not "creative" anywhere. This leaves all kinds of interesting, but vexing, cases - for example, Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. says that in the US taking a photo of a 2D image isn't sufficiently creative, but the UK's National Portrait Gallery asserts that it is sufficient under English law (ref). Another interesting question is SSEYO's Koan computer program, which generates computer music based on algorithms, user input, and random numbers. SSEYO claims (or at least used to, a few years ago when I had a copy of it) copyright over the output of this program; I'd really doubt that such a claim would hold up in court, but I don't know if a comparable matter has been tested in court anywhere. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:19, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, copyright law generally requires some creativity, or at least hard work, to go into creating a copyrightable work, which you wouldn't be able to demonstrate (there is work required to create the program, but the work for each individual work is negligible). Even without that, do you know how many possible combinations of words there are? Even if we restrict ourselves to English, without proper nouns, there are hundreds of thousands of words. Even if you just had all possible, reasonably short, sentences (which wouldn't help you, since a work has to be of significant size to be copyrightable and a single sentence wouldn't be) there would be something like 10^100,000 sentences (you could reduce that a bit if your program understood a few grammar rules, but not enough to be useful). If you stored them as ASCII text, you need about 10^1,000,000 bytes. The total information capacity of the observable universe is estimated to be about 10⁹² bits. As you can see, your idea is completely impossible. --Tango (talk) 16:21, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the above; and Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service is relevant in some respects. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:33, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Curious, how is the "total information capacity of the observable universe" measured, exactly? Aylad ['ɑɪlæd] 16:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I expect Tango is using the estimate from Seth Lloyd (2002), Computational capacity of the universe, Physical Review Letters 88 (23):237901. Algebraist 17:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if you had all possible combinations of words, you'd be violating every existing copyright... ╟─TreasuryTag►quaestor─╢ 17:38, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

A tangential point is whether something like RAND's A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates would hold up in court. My understanding is that RAND believes the data to be copyrighted—even though its usefulness relies on its being "truly" random—because the algorithms/hardware used to produce and validate the data are "creative" as defined by copyright law. Numbers themselves can't be copyrighted, but data in specific orderings and arrangements can (they are what the copyright law calls a "compilation"). The question is: if that is true (which I'm not sure it is), why wouldn't it be true in the case of text? I imagine the courts would see a distinction; the data is specifically copyrightable because of its arrangement, but the text would be presumably interesting because of its actual semantic content. (You could probably copyright "A Million Random Letters" but not claim that there was any semantic meaning to the text itself.) Anyway, I'm not sure there is enough case law to know for sure what would really happen and what the exact reasoning would be. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:35, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

There is a good deal of discussion in legal journals about whether or not formulae - i.e. software algorithms - are or should be patentable. The same logic could potentially apply to the discussion of entitlement to copyright. kcylsnavS ^{screech} 13:20, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

MacBook cooling

On the newest model MacBook, how is it cooled? Where are the fans located and when do they kick in? Chevymontecarlo. 16:24, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

I really don't know what the newest model of MacBook is. If you could provide the actual model# yourself, that would make research easier for others. In fact, you could do it yourself. A simple Googling of the model plus the search term "service manual" will likely come up with a result that will show you the inner workings of the laptop with some nice line-drawn or photo figures.

Typically, though, most laptops have a fan over the CPU's heatsink which disperses the heat conducting through it. Some models may optionally have some small fans on the back or sides which pulls the hot air out if the CPU fan alone isn't enough to do the job. These fans are always on but are designed to run quietly (low RPM's) during normal operation. When you can hear them is when they are operating at a higher speed than normal, usually during high-load situations to disperse the greater heat that is invariably produced under load. Amordea (talk) 22:40, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I am talking about the 2009 MacBook. Chevymontecarlo. 12:06, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

MacBooks have an unique cooling system. Instead of vents on the bottom/side like ordinary laptops MacBooks pull air from gaps under the keys on the keyboard, through internal fan(s) and out through a heatsink located near the hinge of the screen. That way they can preserve the clean lines on the outside while delivering sufficient cooling (or not, as in the case of the new i7 MacBooks). --antilived^{T | C | G} 21:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Using a supercomputer

I've never actually "got my hands" on an actual supercomputer. However, I have occasionally used (at that time) enterprise-grade servers in one of my jobs. I'd imagine actually using a supercomputer is a pretty much similar experience - you just SSH into an external computer, where you get a UNIX command prompt and an X server. It's no different from using an average Linux desktop, only that everything works much, much faster. But how do people maintain the supercomputer itself? How is it powered up and booted up? There's got to be something they have to go through before it can even start up an SSH daemon, but what is it, and how is it handled? Is there some sort of direct user interface to the supercomputer? JIP | Talk 19:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

When you have a great many parallel computers, there is a special job scheduler, and special communications techniques to communicate between processes. For vector processors there are special instructions, and you also have to be careful not to waste the resources on a gazillion dollar computer. So it is more important that the program works. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

Google has something on distributed systems at http://code.google.com/edu/parallel/index.html, there seem to be videos too. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 22:39, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

"Supercomputer" is a fuzzy and vague term. This is especially true now that your average wristwatch contains more compute power than an early supercomputer from a few decades ago. Regarding the "experience" - many systems do run Linux (or look like they run Linux). The power of the Linux kernel is that it has been ported to all the x86 architectures, the Power architecture, many other types of RISC systems, and many obscure processor manufacturers; but some very esoteric processors still exist that really only run proprietary "unix-like" operating systems; and some do not even attempt to be POSIX compliant, but have a specialized operating system, with its own command interpreter, system libraries, and so on. It may support SSH or telnet. If the system does have Linux and can run X, you really wouldn't even know you're on specialized hardware until you start programming. Many "supercomputers" replace your standard "gcc" and "make" toolchain with a series of proprietary, special compilers, special build utilities, pre-processors, post-processors, optimizers, and so on. These might require variants of your favorite programming languages - special C preprocessor macros, FORTRAN inline comments to direct the optimization process, and so on. At the same time, the power of open-source software often means that these specialized programming systems are just variants of gcc or open64, tuned for some unique feature of the supercomputer hardware.

There are generally two classes of "supercomputer" hardware in 2010. First, there are systems organized like enterprise data centers. These are massively distributed groups of standard, ordinary COTS systems ("blade" centers). These run conventional Linuxes or Unixes, and the task of making them "super" lies in effectively harnessing software-level parallelism and peak utilization of your network resources. IBM Roadrunner probably falls in this category, though it has unique hardware and uses the Cell Processor. The second class of computers have "unique" hardware - very unconventional systems, special accelerators, unusual processor architectures and arrangements, and so forth. Sometimes, this means that the system can not run Linux or Unix at all. Other times, it means the system runs one of the "enterprise" Unixes - Solaris, AIX, and so on. SGI makes a sort of interesting hybrid, using single system image linux. This can be considered a sort of "virtualization" technology, and it appears that an entire server room is a single machine running a single operating system (with enormous quantities of RAM, CPU, and so on). Convey Computer makes a "hybrid" supercomputer, which looks like an ordinary 2U blade server, but instead of a dual-socket Xeon, one of the Xeon processors is replaced by an entire separate FPGA reconfigurable board that is optimized for vector processing or other specialized tasks. SciCortex (now defunct) made a 72-node single main-board, which looked like it was running Linux; in fact, there was a very minimal operating system running on most of the compute elements, and the front-end processor tasked jobs off to the compute elements with a hardware/network scheduler. NVIDIA has mainstreamed its CUDA architecture, which gives you the capability to turn a GPU into a pretty potent supercomputer. You might take a look at high performance computing - this is the new "buzzword" to describe "more expensive, fancier computer" now that "supercomputer" has lost its impact factor. I still struggle to comprehend that I have more storage capacity in my L1 cache than the entire memory capacity of all the computers in the Apollo Program. Supercomputers are as supercomputers do. Most people waste the power of their commodity hardware; mostly, because they have no interest in learning how to use it at peak performance.

If you're interested in working with high performance computing, it would serve you well to learn how to program a system programming language like C. You should probably have some intense familiarity with computer architecture, especially the various types of parallelism now available. You should be comfortable understanding the ugly interior of a POSIX operating system - what exactly is a shell and what exactly is a kernel function, and how those would map on to a different kind of CPU. Nimur (talk) 03:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

A person I know used to operate a supercomputer. Well, not really. An IBM 1800 in the 1970s. At first startup required entering the date and time via toggle switches before the system could be powered up, but later he wrote a program in FORTRAN (using Hollerith cards) to read this information automatically from the gubmint's systems. After that it was just pressing a couple of buttons, just like today. Oh, the computer took up the better part of a thousand square feet, room temp was maintained around 65°-68°, and 18"x18" floor panels were removed with suction grips in order to get at the cabling beneath the floor. It was a cool place for a 17 year old like me to be. kcylsnavS ^{screech} 13:43, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

May 13

Change icon

Hi all! I recently installed a free codec (this one) so I could listen to Wikipedia's music offline. Unfortunately, it comes with a horrid image of a fish that all .ogg files I download now have. How can I change this? I've tried rightclick-properties but that doesn't seem to wokr. Thanks. ~`76.229.213.156 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 02:28, 13 May 2010 (UTC).

HowToGeek provides an article detailing how to do this. Scroll down to "Change Icons for Regular File Types" which may apply to what you're looking for. Amordea (talk) 03:14, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Get rid of beta

I hate the new "beta" style on Wikipedia and I want it gone. Since I'm not using an account I don't have the option to remove it in preferences. So would it be possible to write a greasemonkey script that could replace the new "Vector" skin with the classic monobook skin? 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:21, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Get an account. It's free and easier than writing a GM script. Buffered Input Output 11:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, but I want to use a greasemonkey script for this. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 11:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

What's bad is that even after returning to the classic version you can't get rid of the new, ugly logo. Rimush (talk) 11:27, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

There's a discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#New logo. -- BenRG (talk) 20:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

ToggleKeys won't beep

Hello. I am on Windows 7. I activated the ToggleKeys option, but when I press the Caps Lock button, I hear no sound, not even at maximum volume. Keeping Num Lock pressed for 5 seconds does turn the option on and off, but it doesn't do much else. All other system sounds are perfectly fine. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. 190.157.140.227 (talk) 13:24, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't know about Win7, but on all versions of Windows I've used (up to XP), the "ToggleKeys" beep comes through the PC Speaker, which is the small internal speaker attached to the motherboard, inside the case, and not through the PC's sound card and external speaker setup.

This is an incredibly old-fashioned way of making a noise, and it's entirely possible that your PC doesn't even have a speaker attached to it, or you just can't hear it through the case, over the fans, etc. Unfortunately, I doubt there's a way to change this short of finding some 3rd-party software, and I'm not aware of any way of increasing the volume of the PC Speaker short of modding the hardware. Hope this at least explains the problem, even if it doesn't solve it. - IMSoP (talk) 20:26, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Logical path to URL

Using vbscript I am able to create a text file on the server and write text to it using a set statement to create the Server.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") object under ASP. The logical path on the server is '''d:\xxx\text.txt''' while the physical path is d:\ftp\xxx\text.txt. How do I move, convert, link to or make this file accessible as an http:// URL text page file, such as '''http://www.domain.com/xxx.text.txt'''? 71.100.0.29 (talk) 13:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you know what directory http://www.domain.com/ points to? --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I meant "domain" generically. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 16:09, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Where exactly the root of the domain points to in the file system of the server will depend on your ISP. I've had a number of different ISPs in the past and they all pointed to different directories. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

That should be irrelevant. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 17:26, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand what your question is—in that the answer seems too obvious to really be the question (but maybe I am wrong). On any web server the actual local file path will feature a local directory structure up to the directory which is served as public by the server. So c://whatever/username/apache/public_html/file.txt will be seen as http://www.yourdomain.com/file.txt because the server recognizes everything in public_html to be the root. So if you were coding this from the other side, where you knew the local file path, you'd just need to figure out what the snip out in order to be referencing the root directory (in this case, you snip out c://whatever/username/apache/public_html/). That should all be pretty obvious though, which is why I am confused by the question. If you are asking, how do I get the server to serve that information up as a web page in the first place, that requires the installation of an HTTP server, like Apache. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:33, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Server is already installed and uses drive D as the physical and logical drive letter. The physical path to my account on the server is named d:\ftp\myaccount\ and I can create a sub-directory called xxx with vbscript under asp using server.createobject("scripting.Filesystemobject") and write text to the file by uploading and running the script using FrontPage. The file shows up with a physical path on the server of d:\ftp\myaccount\filename.txt and with a logical path of d:\xxx\filename.txt and I can write to this file with another vbscript. Visitors, however cannot view the file with a browser nor can I find it using frontPage anywhere in the main or sub folders. It is no where to be found as a URL file such as http://www.domainname.com/myaccount/filename.txt. I know its on the server but I need to be able to access it from a browser and not just from a vbscript running under asp on the server. I need a way to move or copy the file from either the logical or the physical path to the URL path of my account. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 23:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It sounds as if you are putting them in a directory that does not have an HTTP server making it public (it looks like it has FTP access but not HTTP). If that's the case then no amount of rooting around with the right domain name will help you. That is, it sounds like you have FTP access to an account but that the folder in question is not public—is this right? If that's the case then the problem is making the directory public more so than finding the right directory. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Ironically enough FrontPage provides a "Save Results" web component or webbot to save the data collected by a form but I have not been able to get the webbot to work. Possibly there is a d:\http physical path but I can only reach the physical path through the creatobject which requires I use the logical path name. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 01:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

I found a way to get the saved results webbot to work so problem solved. Thanks. 71.100.0.29 (talk) 02:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Saving Passwords in Browser = More Risk?

Does saving my password and login information to websites in web browsers such as Firefox and IE increase my chances of having my passwords stolen in the event of spyware/malware infection? In other words, how well, if at all, are these passwords encrypted? Acceptable (talk) 14:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, a bit. Firefox does keep your passwords encrypted (ref) but it itself has the key to unencrypt that (otherwise the password store wouldn't work), so any malware that is smart enough to know how can figure it out. I'm not aware of any malware that does, and most password-stealing malware seems to do so by sniffing the keyboard instead, but there's no reason why this would be all that difficult. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:48, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

It could be argued that, since having the password stored removes the need to type it in, then you're less at risk from keyboard sniffers if you store your passwords in this way. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:34, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

If you choose strong passwords and memorize them, then you do not need to save them to websites. See Study: Frequent password changes are useless - Yahoo! News. -- Wavelength (talk) 15:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

But if you use the same password for all sites, mine included, then you would give me your password for your banking site when you logged into my site. Choosing a different, strong password for every site you log into, and memorising them all, is beyond the power of most people, myself included. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:53, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One tip I have found useful is to generate a different strong password for each site procedurally - for example choose an easy to remember phrase for each site and use that as your password, but type it in with your hands centred on a non-standard position on the keyboard, effectively turning a weak password into a strong one by using a kind of substitution cipher (I don't use that particular technique myself - I'm not going to tell you what I actually use). 131.111.185.68 (talk) 19:01, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Java escape sequences

I'm practicing manipulating data in Java through file input/output stream, and need to break a string into tokens. Surfing http://java.sun.com for StringTokenizer class but I am advised to use String.split() method instead (see here). Here is the exempli gratia on that page:

String[] result = "this is a test".split("\\s");

The split() method return an array of strings. In the example above each of them are 1 token seperated by space character. But I do not know why \\s represent the character space. I try to print it on the screen, like this:

System.out.print("\\s");

And receive the output: \s on the screen, since double back slash stand for the character backslash itself. I found the escape sequence reference on http://java.sun.com, but it does not cover my question. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 14:35, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

There are two layers to understand here. The first is the compiler - it takes that string literal "\\s" and stores it as an internal string that is just "\s" - so the \\ is for the compiler only. If you were to read a string in from a file or the user, you'd just enter \s to get what you want. Next is the String.split() method - it takes a regular expression - if you look at the Java documentation for its regexps here you'll see that \s is the regexp for "a whitespace character". -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Regular Expressions and Annotations are 2 last sessions in my textbook, and I admit I haven't read the book through to the end yet (I'm now stuck at the beginning of advanced Java). For now, I'd better pass a specific character (e.g: " " instead of \s) as an argument for this method. This seems to be less confuse and complicated than using the Regular Expression thing. Thanks for the answer. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 16:42, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I agree that passing a specific character is better for your purposes; you are probably already aware that it doesn't do the same thing, but you don't NEED it to do the same thing. It is one reason why I object to too much dependence on examples; it is difficult to make an example that doesn't depend on other knowledge, and that illustrates what you want and ONLY what you want, and to make sure that what you are illustrating is clear TO THE READER, which is supposedly the point. I must say that, in this case, the example seems to go out of its way to be obscure... Ralphcook (talk) 01:03, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Help me choose a username!

I really hate usernames, but Wikipedia requires one to have an account. So help me decide. I want a username isn't long, annoying, pretentious, or related to me in any way. Go! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 15:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm afraid this is a reference desk, where we help by providing information. As you should have seen from the notice at the top of the page, "if you need advice or opinions, it's better to ask elsewhere." ╟─TreasuryTag►sheriff─╢ 15:49, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Where would you suggest I ask for help on choosing a wikipedia username to use on wikipedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 16:02, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Username policy. -- Wavelength (talk) 16:31, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Alright, I asked my question there. I still don't see why you people here couldn't have helped, especially seeing as there's a question on the Miscellaneous‎ desk asking for opinions on what to buy a 20 year old girl for her birthday which got a load of helpful replies. Whatever man —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.70.113.44 (talk) 16:40, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

See this thread from last December, from the Miscellaneous desk. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

In addition to the many suggestions in that thread, you could try this generator of pronounceable letter sequences. Check prospective usernames here. -- BenRG (talk) 19:05, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Use the random page link on the left bar, and click it a few times until you land on something suitable. Check special:ListUsers to make sure it's not too similar to an existing user (you'll often find it is, but most claimed usernames have been used only for a handful of edits long ago). Don't use a name of a person or an organisation. A few minutes of messing around found the following, all of which are vacant and (to my mind) pretty good: Oligarcha, Sealguard, Engineered Wood, Trophime, Distortion Synthesis, Pulse Generator, Rusenu. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:51, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

No more please on this page. The question was subsequently posted at the help desk. PleaseStand ^(talk) 22:13, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

SQL question

I have a table of orders for particular products, and a table of products that are on sale. (It's not ideal database structure, but that's out of my control.) What I want to do is outer join the order table to the sale table via product number, but I don't want to include any particular data from the sale table, I just want a Y if the join exists or N if it doesn't in the output. Can anyone explain how I can do this in SQL? Keepscases (talk) 18:19, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

One way is to "cheat" and use a sub-select (and CASE) within your select. There are probably better ways, but this should work.

select
column1,
column2,
...,
case when OrderProductId in (select ProductID from ProductsOnSale) then 'Y' else 'N' end as 'On Sale?'

from
   OrdersTable ...

--Nricardo (talk) 02:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC) (edits shortly thereafter with better table/column name)

That certainly works. A join might be faster than a subquery, though. I'd tend to use:

select 
  case when sale_products.product_id is null then 'N' else 'Y' end as sale_flag
from 
  orders 
  left join sales_products 
    on orders.product_id = sales_products.product_id

198.161.238.18 (talk) 15:22, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you so much for these examples. Keepscases (talk) 20:41, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

mp3 player/recorder/FM radio doesn't work

My Transcend brand player twice the size of a pen drive is not working. I can still plug it into my system via usb and move files to or from. But It doesn't charge nor does it starts when I press the button. It's only a few months old and very sparingly used. On the lower side there is a very tiny hole with reset inscribed near it. If I put a pin and press what will happen? Will the factory settings be restored if it is not physical damage? How many seconds to press a pin down the hole? Thanks for any advice. --117.204.80.75 (talk) 21:37, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Can't comment specifically on the Transcend. (Model No. or a link to it may help.) Have you read the manual, if it has one? If so, following the advice there is a good start. I have a Creative Zen Neeon 2. It also has a reset hole and a few times I have used it when the player 'locked up' (meaning the software has crashed like a PCs 'Blue screen of death'. Using it is basically the same as resetting your PC or any other micro-processor based device. The bit about not charging might mean a battery problem, (internal battery?) or it may just mean it is again 'locked up'.

You should only need to push the reset for a second, if that. It will likely restore factory settings. I would suggest using something non-conductive, unless it specifically says otherwise. I think I pared down a match-stick & it worked ok. Here is a link to the Transcend web site Support page. [7]--220.101.28.25 (talk) 05:51, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I would always be cautious about exactly what a reset button will reset. As you can access the content on the player via USB, I suggest you back up what you can, before pressing the reset button. Under the hole, is an ordinary plastic topped button, or sometimes a flexible strip of metal. Depending on the size of the hole, an unfolded paperclip, a pared down matchstick or a pin will easily do the job; just stick it in straight while the player is on, push gently for a second or two and don't wriggle it around. Astronaut (talk) 12:55, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This [8] is the model.I tried reset and it didn't work.-117.204.84.191 (talk) 12:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you did check the troubleshooting section on p.38 of the manual and made sure the "hold" switch isn't on, it sounds like it is broken, the battery is broken or maybe just the battery charger is broken. I'm unsure of your rights to a replacement in your country, but here in the UK I would try to get a refund from where I bought it, or insist they replace it with one that works. Failing that, your MP3 player comes with a two year manufacturers warranty (p.41 of the manual) under which it could could be repaired or replaced. Astronaut (talk) 17:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Rapidshare

Resolved

I can't access rapidshare.com, and I heard VirginMedia ISP is blocking it deliberately. Any way to confirm if they are or if it's a problem at my end (I had difficulty accessing another site recently that turned out to be my computers problem) 82.44.55.254 (talk) 22:55, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Try http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/. It should tell you if it's on your end or theirs. If you want to see a little more clearly what is going on, consider running a traceroute and see where it fails. --Mr.98 (talk) 01:15, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Tried that and it reports it as fine. Pinged the site and it pings fine too. Try to browse and it fails. Try to browse through proxy and it works. As I said, there's talk that Virgin Media are blocking the site deliberately. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 08:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I just googled for it and they are deliberately blocking it, and other sites. Apparently it's a "technical error" (yeah right) that they'll be fixing later today. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 08:35, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I wouldn't put down to malice what could easily be due to stupidity/incompetence. As the very forum you linked to above says, it could easily be someone screwed up while attempting to throttle such sites or do something similar like set up a transparent caching proxy (or maybe they already have these and they got broken some how). The fact that they'll be fixing it soon also makes this likely, unless you know a reason they would bother to block it for a few days and then unblock it? While it's possible they really thought no one would notice or care and reversed their plans when they got complaints, this seems rather unlikely to me, they can't be that stupid. There's also the question of why they would want to block such sites. While I'm sure many ISPs would like they're well aware isn't worth the hassle particularly when there are far better options like throttling to do most of what they want to achieve by blocking. Edit: [9] another site with a different suggestion. Nil Einne (talk) 17:10, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Maybe you are right, but I can't help being suspicious, especially with the new Digital Economy Act 2010 and similar incidents in the past 82.44.55.254 (talk) 18:31, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

"it will go into effect on June 12 of the same year" so there's no reason for them do be doing anything yet. It's possible they're testing some future blocking set-up BUT blocking isn't that hard and they already have the IWF filter so I don't really see why they'd bother. Unless perhaps they're testing some set-up which decides which sites to block automatically but that seems unnecessarily complicated to me. Far more likely any blocking would be manual and of course as I implied earlier, if they do decide to block a site, it seems likely they would mention they did it because Digital Economy Act 2010 and unlikely they'd say it was because of technical problems and unblock the website a few days later.

I don't really get the relevance of the IWF example here (in fact it was one of the reasons I said don't put down to malice what could be due to stupidity). The reason for the blocking there was quickly explained and well established, whether or not people felt the decision there made any sense. No one claimed the blocking was anything but intentional (okay it's possible some of the earliest clueless tech support people did but I think we can all agree what they say is next to useless). And while they eventually backed down, they did it publicly after their own consideration (which took a fair while despite much adverse publicity), explaining why they backed down. They didn't then try to pretend they had never intended to block that image. They also never tried to block the entirety of wikipedia intentionally. There were various unintended consequence because of poor implementation which if anything just further demonstrates the point. And of course the link I provided above mentions that such unintended consequences from the IWF blocklist could very well be the cause of the entirety of Rapidshare being blocked.

To put it a diff way from my POV the IWF examples shows that when they do block things intentionally, they're not going to hide behind lame execuses or pretend it wasn't intentional and it also shows that many of the problems that appear (bearing in mind the issue also raised discussion of previous history and problems with blocks, and what many argued was the poor way the IWF blocks were implemented in general) that while there are unintentional blocks, other then being something they don't pretend wasn't intentional, they dwarf the number of unintentional problems including blocks that arise.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I know this is late but whatever. I understand what you're saying, but after seeing zshare, megaupload, rapidshare and today hotfile all being filtered it can not just be a coincidence or mistake on their part. Also, you said "they're not going to hide behind lame execuses or pretend it wasn't intentional", well that's EXACTLY what they did with Wikipedia, they served up a fake 404 error page claimed that the wikipedia server couldn't find the page, not that it had been blocked by the isp 82.44.55.254 (talk) 17:03, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia doesn't work on the PS3 browser

Not sure if this has been raised as an issue already, but Wikipedia pages do not seem to render correctly on the browser built into the PS3, since the introduction of the new page style. I seem to get two vertical blank strips, about a third of the way and two thirds of the way across the page, which probably blank out about half of an article's content. I have tried various settings on the browser but it always seems to render the same. SilverTrack (talk) 22:57, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

This issue has been raised a few times around WP - such as the WP:HD. Please try looking on there because I think a user posted some helpful links to a question on there somewhere... Chevymontecarlo. 11:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

May 14

Automated Photo Mosaic Maker for Mac OS X

I am looking for a photo mosaic maker that can automatically assemble a specific selection of photos into a mosaic.--153.20.24.67 (talk) 01:56, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Picasa does mosaics. F (talk) 10:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

That'd be a great program to use. It's created by Google and it's completely free! Chevymontecarlo. 11:16, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Scam Website

Hi, I came across a website claiming to be an authorized Mobile devices seller in Europe. After dealing with them I knew they are fraud! My question is who should I be reporting this to? Thanks - Kim —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.201.1.220 (talk) 08:29, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

This could be quite difficult if you ordered from Bahrain. What country in Europe was the website hosted in? For the UK, Trading standards would be the first point of contact.

(By the way, Kim, I'm not suggesting that you are responsible, but could you help us by discouraging others at your school from vandalising Wikipedia?) Dbfirs 11:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Integer division rounding up

I'm a very new programmer (VB.NET) trying to write a program for a vending machine for a school assignment. I've got it to return the specific coins given as change but it won't give me the right number sometimes because integer division rounds up if the remainder is above 0.5 (at least, that seems to be what the problem is, if not then I've got no idea). How do I get it to always round down? 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:01, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm. In nearly all programming languages, integer division does always truncate ("round down"), at least for positive operands. Are you sure that your data types are integers (not just the values?). If one of the operands is of type float (or whatever the language uses), the calculation will usually be performed using floating point arithmetic, and possibly rounded if assigned to an integer. Given that the numbers involved are small, why not just iterate (i.e. start with an empty set, add one of the largest coin until you would overpay, go to the next smallest coin, repeat. That also easily adapts to the case that you are out of certain kinds of coins). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Because we've not been taught loops yet. (That would require some kind of loop, right?) You might be right about the data types, I'll check when I get chance. Thanks! 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Mmm...that didn't work. 212.219.39.146 (talk) 09:59, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

If converting from float to integer always rounds to nearest integer, then you can force rounding down by subtracting 0.5 from the floating point result before converting to an integer (I am assuming that 0.5 rounds up here). Gandalf61 (talk) 10:25, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

It does indeed. Cheers, that should work. I'd considered it before but it seemed...inelegant. Ah well. Cheers! 212.219.39.146 (talk) 10:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I've often done it that way and I also find it inelegant. You should be able to use the more elegant Math.Truncate(). --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:53, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I would triple check that all of my variables were integer variables. Try to assign one something like 2.5; it should fail. vb.net has an "integer division" operator, the backslash ("\"); that one will give you a truncated division operation. For your homework problem, you also want to look at the "mod" function; it gives you the remainder of an integer division operation. I'll leave you to look up details as part of your learning process, and feel free to post questions back here.

Also, I think your instincts about the "inelegance" of the "subtract .5" solution were right on.

Ralphcook (talk) 00:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

gunzip from string in perl

I have a http response in a perl program. But the response encoding is gzip. How do I deflate it? Searching in the net I can only find how to unzip from a file. 59.93.209.146 (talk) 14:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I'm more of a python than perl person myself, but it seems like perl follows the same nomencature - gzip handles the full .gz compressed file format, using the zlib compression library. I think you need to use zlib yourself, as you're dealing with a simple compressed stream not a formatted file. Perl's zlib documentation is here; that, and not gzip/gunzip, seems to be what you need. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I am trying to use IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress. I have this code

$input= $response->content();
$in= \$input;
$output= "bingo";
$out= \$output;
print $$out;
anyuncompress $in => $out;

anyuncompress expects a reference but all I get is an error: Can't call method "anyuncompress" on unblessed reference What do I do ?59.93.209.146 (talk) 15:30, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

You forgot the "use IO::Uncompress::AnyUncompress qw(anyuncompress);" line. --Sean 15:50, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, any ideas on how to extract text between the html tags ? 59.93.209.146 (talk) 16:17, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:Websearch. —Sean 16:47, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

It'd be much easier to just call "gzip -c -d" from the sys function, or if you need to capture the output, from within backticks. This sacrifices some portability and elegance, but is much easier. Shadowjams (talk) 03:39, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Software for my retail shop

Hello! I am starting a new retail shop where I sell assorted items. Is there a free and simple software that I can use for printing receipts for my customers? I have windows and linux. Would prefer an open source solution, if that is possible. Thank you for your suggestions.--117.196.129.155 (talk) 20:19, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, that's an interesting question. I had a look around our articles, and I found Comparison of accounting software - there are a few open source packages listed as having point of sale features which I think are appropriate. Business software also looks useful. If I find anything else, I'll post again. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 21:40, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

OpenERP looks promising, as does Apache OFBiz, especially as the Apache Foundation is generally well regarded. Need third opinions on quality and suitability at this point, as I'm a little outside my specialism now. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 22:00, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! I'll check those up. Couldnt get anything much on googling earlier. So much appreciate the links. Will get back to you. --117.196.129.155 (talk) 22:20, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I would see if there is a trial version available of QuickBooks, which I assume is used by 98% of American businesses. If it suits your needs, buy it. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:40, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Windows XP DHCP problems

My computer won't connect to the network. I think it is a DHCP problem and hope somebody can help.

I've been trying to set up an old computer with its original Windows XP Pro installation. The idea was to get it online, then run Windows Update an infinite number of times to get it ready for use. Hence, I now have a fresh WinXP installation on it that came from a CD that was at least five years old. The problem is getting it on the network. I've tried both with a long LAN cable (the access point is some distance away) and the PCI WLAN card (Ralink 2500-something), for which I downloaded drivers on a different computer and transferred them via a USB stick. As far as I can tell the problems are similar for the two types of connection (I have not had them on at the same time). I've disabled all WEP/WPA on my Linksys WL500G router (which I have now tried to restart several times). The computer has worked with the router before. The router is servicing two other computers and a cellphone just fine.

The problem seems to be that I cannot renew my IP address. ipconfig shows a 164.* address that I believe to be a default for unconnected computers (my home network is 192.168.1.*). Ipconfig/release works fine. Ipconfig/renew shows an error about not being able to connect to DHCP server (or something to that effect; I'm translating from a non-English installation). I've tried to write "netsh int ip reset log.txt" and it didn't help. I can ping localhost and get a reply. The wireless connection shows as "connected", sends data packets, but never receive any. Pinging 192.168.1.1 (the address of the router) gives no reply (it works from other computers on the network). Googling for this is a bit tricky because a lot of things can go wrong with a network, but I've tried (that's where I got the netsh command from, for example). So do anyone have any ideas? I know 2005-ish WinXP is old and outdated but the idea was, as I said, to get it updated. I'm not willing to pay for a newer licence. I considered Ubuntu or some other Linux flavor but there's a lot of various PCI stuff connected to this computer and I know they've all worked under XP before while I've had problems with Linux. Thanks for any help! Jørgen (talk) 20:49, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Is there any MAC filtering on the router?

Do you have any remaining IP addresses on your router? (sometimes the range is intentionally shrunk to limit the number of connections to it, although this is not a good 'security' feature in reality anyway--neither is MAC filtering)

Is your SSID hidden? This can cause issues with some wireless adapters. (also a poor security feature)

Are your TCP/IP settings (Network Connections->Adapter Properties) pre-defined or set to automatically configure? (automatic is usually best)

Have you verified your ethernet cable is good?

I noticed you mentioned you have a lot of PCI devices installed on this computer. Are there any possible conflicts? Run devmgmt.msc to see if Windows has detected any.

Just a few ideas and things to try out if you haven't already. Be sure you check doubly that your drivers are the correct ones as well. -Amordea (talk) 01:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your advice - I think I have all those covered. I haven't verified the Ethernet cable but as I said I have similar problems with wifi. Also, most of the PCI stuff is disabled now as I haven't installed drivers yet. Maybe I'll have another look at the network drivers, but as I connect to the network somehow, I'm feeling that is not the problem... we'll see. Thanks anyway! Jørgen (talk) 07:44, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

If it is just DHCP, you could set a usable address manually. Control Panel, Network Properties, right click and select Properties, Internet Protocol.. Properties, Use the Following Address, 192.168.1.2 --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I would never have even attempted a wireless connection until everything was updated, for fear of unsolvable driver problems costing me infinite time to track down. I'd have done it wired - and in your case, I guess advising a replacement cable is the first thing I'd try. Sorry to sound lame, but I actually had a bad brand-new cable frustrate my net setup just last month. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. (Tried DCHP, didn't help (but I liked the idea), and couldn't find another 10m cable). I finally bit the bullet (is that an expression?) and installed some bloated WLAN interface made by the wlan chipset manufacturer. And voila, it worked! Apparently it installed something called an AEGIS protocol in addition to the TCP-IP (and likely a lot of other stuff, but I can always try uninstalling it again when all updates are in). It also allowed me to keep my wlan encryption on. So this is written using Internet Explorer 6 while downloading Service Pack 2. A nice weekend to you all! Jørgen (talk) 19:23, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Help me choose a language

I wish to create a closed source program that I will be selling. I would like the program to work across platforms. Which language would you recommend me to code in? Is Java used for desktop applications now-a-days? (can't seem to recollect any java application except those on mobiles). I googled around a bit and found Qt (under LGPL) and Mono as other options. So what do u suggest? Java/Qt/Mono/Qyoto/Jambi? Or something else? Thank you!--117.196.129.155 (talk) 21:39, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

I think you need to explain more before we can give an educated answer. Some questions I have:

• What is your level of programming proficiency?
• What languages do you already know? Which is your favorite, and why?
• Is this a large program or a small one? What is the type of application?
• What is the importance of performance?

Without answers to these questions, I think an answer is premature. Comet Tuttle (talk) 03:39, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I really don't want to trigger a debate, but you should consider whether using a cross-platform approach is right at all. In his seminal book About Face, Alan Cooper contends that using these cross-platform toolkits, you end up with a program that looks and more importantly works non-Windows on Windows and non-Mac on Mac, ultimately pleasing no one. He suggest focusing on the primary (i.e. most profitable) platform first. (I find Cooper an unsympathetic guy with a Jupiter-sized ego, but that doesn't mean he is wrong.) If for you that is Windows, I suggest using the standard Platform SDK from C++ or even C, which are boring and old-fashioned, but fast and reliable. Of course, whether that matters will depend on the type of application. For example, picking Java for a high-end engineering application like AutoCad or Design Compiler is a huge gamble performance-wise. Finally, and don't take this as an insult, but you appear to be leaning towards the hip buzzwords of the day. Ultimately, your customers will not care what it's written in, just how well it works. I could go on all day, but as Tuttle said, we need more details to be able to narrow it down. 83.81.60.11 (talk) 07:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Java is certainly used for desktop apps; OpenOffice.org, Vuze, LimeWire and NASA World Wind being some of the more well known ones. See Category:Java platform software for more. F (talk) 10:30, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

With all due respect to Alan Cooper (I have never read his works), I think he must have missed the Look and Feel chapter of the Introduction to JFC/Swing tutorial. It's nearly trivial to make your program look like the Windows GUI; it is the programmer's preference to follow Windows style and nomenclature guidelines for any particular platform. Nimur (talk) 14:26, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I don't think we need to know these things. The question isn't *that* complicated.

The OP doesn't tell us why he wants cross-platform capability, so questioning that he wants it is a bit presumptive. I do agree that there are lots of other considerations that are likely to drive the choice of language, but this is what the OP is interested in, let's try to answer that.

The only language I know of that had cross-platform capability as a design goal and is generally popular these days is Java. Yes, desktop applications are written in it, even large ones. I don't know about ones with specific CPU requirements, but I do know Java got a bad rap for performance when it was introduced 15 years ago, and has never quite shaken it. If you really need top performance, that requirement will fight with your desire for cross-platform capability. And do be aware that there is such a thing as "fast enough"; if your program spends most of its time waiting for the user to click a button, it doesn't matter in the least how efficiently it does that. Between clicking button(s) and getting desired results (assuming you HAVE a point-and-click UI, which you haven't said either), there is a level of performance that is necessary, and a slightly higher one that is nice to have. Spending any programming time and effort being faster than that is wasted effort.

There are claims to writing C code in a cross-platform manner, and it is possible, but I also think it's a lot more work than a higher-level language. C was developed as a "high-level assembler", not really in the same league with other high-level languages even at the time it was developed. It allows you to get as close to the machine as possible and still require something called a compiler instead of an interpreter. It will likely run a little faster than an equivalent Java program, given similar program design and programmer competence, but you will spend a lot more of your effort avoiding constructs that are machine or OS specific than if you write in Java.

I don't agree with Mr. Cooper's point, either. You can create a Java program that conforms just as well to Windows and/or Mac and/or whatever OS you want as many "native" programs on that platform (especially Windows). —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralphcook (talk • contribs) 17:57, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

FROM OP:Thank you everyone for the comments. I'd like to clarify. I'm making a GUI application that is of medium size and complexity. It is an internet enabled software (with a lot of clicking) that will be constantly communicating with my servers. I am a pretty good coder and am familiar with C/C++ and Java. I also know a few scripting languages. So I do not expect to face much trouble in learning up a new language if required. I have a personal preference for OOP languages, which lead me to consider Java, C#/Mono. Performance of the application will be important, because I want the end application to run on 128-256 MB RAM. Performance is my major turn off with Java, which is otherwise a language I love to program in. So what should I do? Should I heed Cooper, or go ahead with Qt/Mono? I do not have the time frame to develop for multiple platforms, and I'd like to roll them out all together.--117.196.133.44 (talk) 22:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

May 15

Touchpad and pointer options on a laptop

It's a employer supplied Lenovo T400 with XP. I had the tap function turned off last week but a software update has apparently turned the tap function back on again. All I want it to do is move the cursor around. Not in slow motion. Just move it at regular speed. I've managed to turn the touchpad tapping function off (good) but in doing so, this disables the TrackPoint (the red button thing in the keyboard) (bad). I want to use both the touchpad and the trackpoint for moving the cursor and I only want to click on things with the buttons below the trackpad. What am I doing wrong? #$%^ I hate Windows.... grumble... grumble... Dismas|^(talk) 04:09, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Never mind. A reboot fixed it. Why it takes a reboot of the entire f'ing system to fix, I haven't the faintest idea but it's working the way I want it to now... Dismas|^(talk) 05:32, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

On one of my old Dell laptops, I located and downloaded a (free) third party driver from the vendor who had supplied the touchpad to Dell. It was probably Synaptics. That driver gave me more options (including the removal of tap-equals-a-mouse-click) that the Dell driver did not support. May be worth a shot if you have problems in the future; but I can't remember exactly how I deduced that Synaptics was the creator of the little touchpad on my particular laptop. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:22, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Password crack

Hi,

I've installed a parental control software on my kid's computer (Tueagles Anti-Porn). I haven't saved the password, thinking I would never need to uninstall the software. Now this bloody program is blocking everything on the computer: it's impossible to use Firefox and plenty of pages are blocked for 'adult content' (including Google News, Facebook, Wikipedia, etc.). Is there a way I could crack the password to uninstal Anti-Porn? (there is not even a way to get the password by email).

Thanks a lot! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.10.221.71 (talk) 04:56, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

(edit - cleaned up the article by deleting duplicates) -Amordea (talk) 05:35, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You might be looking at some registry editing with that. I don't know what registry keys this program has changed and am not fixing to install it to find out! Without registry edits, I'd say what might work is manually deleting the files to the program first (by going into the program files folder which contains the program itself). You may need to shut down the program first to do this (via Task Manager) and/or reboot the computer a few times during the manual deletion process. You may even need a file unlocker. Your browser still might be locked after this, but you can uninstall Firefox, deleting all the old settings, and then reinstall it and see if that fixes everything. This is the simplest solution I can think of without getting into messy and potentially damaging registry editing. -Amordea (talk) 05:52, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry for suggesting the obvious, but: What did their customer support site say to do? Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:14, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

music extraction from song

Hello I have to ask you people,How can I extract the Music from a song not the voice of the song.please give any solution.Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 116.71.209.159 (talk) 11:50, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

You can do this quite easily in Audacity. In the latest beta, 1.3.12, the vocal remover can be found at Effects -> Vocal Removers (for center-panned vocals)... As the label suggests, it only works well if the vocals are located in the center of a stereo track, which should be the case for most popular music. If you choose to use the latest stable version, 1.2.6, instead, instructions for performing the same technique manually can be found here. For the few songs I have tried in the past it seems to work pretty well, although backing vocals are usually left in and some instrument parts may be cut out along with the vocals. Xenon54 (talk) 12:51, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Note that the above won't work as well as you may think. When any song is recorded in the studio, each instrument and vocal is recorded on its own separate track, and then all the tracks are mixed together. All that we ever hear on the radio or from an mp3 file is a final mix; we don't have access to the separate tracks. The "vocals deletion" technique mentioned above attempts to take out sounds that are at a particular range of audio frequencies, which will not catch all of the vocals, and which will stomp down instrument sounds in the same frequency range. The only way to get a really excellent vocal-less track would be if the original recording artist creates a new mix without the vocals track. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:20, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Comet Tuttle is right. Vocal removal is highly non-trivial. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

If the vocals are located in the centre of the stereo field, and are unprocessed (no stereo reverb etc.), vocal removal is trivial. One of the channels is inverted, and the two channels are mixed into a mono track. This will of course also remove or weaken other instruments that are located in the centre of the stereo field, and you end up with a mono track. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

But that method isn't vocal removal, it's common-mode signal removal. If (and only if) the common-mode ("center") signal is exactly and only the vocals, then common-mode suppression, as you described, will remove the vocals. In some cases, especially in commercially-produced pop-music, this is a suitable method; but most songs are not center-panned vocal-only. That would mean that every other instrument is exclusively on either the right or left track, which is rare. Actually detecting the vocal signal, using some kind of frequency filter or advanced signal-estimation method, is very hard - probably at the very far edge of "barely works in a research laboratory setting," let alone "ready for end-users to operate with a one-button vocal-removal tool." See our article source separation, particularly the "cocktail party" problem. Nimur (talk) 21:55, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I think all the answerers in this thread agree on the technicalities. It all boils down to what the OP wants to achieve. For Karaoke purposes, a mix of the stereo channels, with one channel inverted and amplitude-adjusted to match the other channel, will effectively remove the vocals for a lot of pop music, provided stereo reverb was not used in the recording. Using this technique will, obviously, remove instruments that you might like to preserve and leave you with a mono track. If you want to remove the vocals or any other instrument exclusively, it is of course an entirely different matter. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:28, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Rechargeable batteries

My home phone handsets use rechargeable AAA batteries. 1.2v, Ni-Mh, 550mAh.

I'm guessing that they're getting pretty old, as they don't seem to hold their charge as long as they used to - if the handset's off the cradle for more than a day then it dies, and call times aren't great any more either.

I went looking for replacement batteries, but the only ones I could find were 800mAh - I could find ones with higher numbers, but none lower, and no 550s.

So here's my question - can I just use the 800s? Or do I have to track down 550s?

Thanks for your help. I know Nyassa (talk) 18:10, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The mAH figure just refers to how much charge they hold, so the 800s will last longer, and in all other ways will be just as good. --Phil Holmes (talk) 18:19, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, great, thank you. I know Nyassa (talk) 18:29, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Internet connection won't last in XP

My laptop has a recently installed Win XP OS. I use an ADSL connection requiring id and password. I get connected and for a few minutes it is okay then the connection freezes invariably. It won't last more than three or four minutes. The connection just freezes and the system doesn't even display the disconnection. I can reconnect after a number of efforts but the browser wouldn't recognise the connection and no data transfer takes place then. What could be the problem? --117.204.83.115 (talk) 18:25, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Have you tried restarting ALL your devices yet? (modem, router, and computer...I know it sounds basic, but never underestimate the power of a device restart)

Having tried that, have you called your ISP yet? I would let them take a whack at it first since they are going to know your network better than we will. It might not be a problem on your end and only your ISP will be able to inform you if this is the case. -Amordea (talk) 22:20, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

I tried everything with devices but that doesn't seem to be the problem, unless the NIC of my laptop is broken. It couldn't be the problem at the end of the ISP either because the connection works alright on my desktop. --117.204.82.49 (talk) 01:46, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

It could very well be broken. But of course, you'll want to exhaust all your other options first since the NIC is integrated into the motherboard--usually not worth the cost of a repair (unless you happen to be handy with the soldering iron).

Intermittent failures are tough to track. Generally things work or they don't work. Hardware-wise, you may want to try a) plugging into a different port on your router, b) ensuring the cable is good (yes, I know you get a connection, that doesn't mean the cable is good--try switching it out with your other computer's to ensure it's not excessive line noise from a partially damaged cable) and that the plugs are fit snugly into both ends. That's about all you can do on the hardware end without spending money.

On the software side, it could be a driver issue. Download the latest driver, then uninstall the old one, then install the new one and reboot. If not a driver issue, I really could not tell you. I'd still recommend calling the ISP if you haven't. If it's some weird sort of authentication bug, I wouldn't be able to identify it for you, but they would.

If all else fails, both wired and wireless USB devices are cheapcheapcheap. You can get either on Newegg for ~$10-20 easily, so I wouldn't spend too much money on troubleshooting a potentially broken device.

Hope that helps! -Amordea (talk) 10:27, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Could you describe your exact set-up, please? Do you have a separate ADSL modem, and that's connected to a router which is connected to your laptop by Ethernet? Or is the ADSL modem connected to the laptop with USB and no router? Or what, exactly. Device manufacturers and types would also help. --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:05, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Application Server in Windows Component Wizard

I tried to install ASP.NET and SMTP as explained here and here, but I don't have "Application Server" option under "Accessories and Utilities". I tried to install the programs from "Internet Information Services" in the "Administrative Tools" file, but I couldn't find any "Details" option. Any Suggestions? Thanks, 20:27, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Which version of Windows do you have? If I recall, these features are only available on the Windows Server editions, and maybe on some of the Windows "Professional" releases. As you can see, the instructions for SMTP in IIS are for Windows Server. Nimur (talk) 22:02, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu/Windows 7 dual boot

I've decided it's time to stick it to The Man and get a Linux operating system. I'm not that radical, though, so I plan on keeping my Windows OS around and creating a Dual Boot with my Windows 7 (already on the machine) and Ubuntu 10.04 (downloading a disk image as I write this). This is my first time doing such a thing (I'm not terribly good with computers), so I sort of need step by step instructions. I've found this helpful guide. It's a bit out of date (gives Ubuntu 9.10 rather than 10.04), but I think it ought to work. I'd like it if someone could read over that and make sure I'm not going to turn my computer into a brick. I'd also like it if you could look at my understanding of the process, to make sure I know what's going on. I'm going to:

1. Back up my system (I'm actually already backed up) in case things go bad and I erase my files. I also have a copy of my recovery disk on hand in case I fail.
2. Shrink my Windows partition: I figure I can get it into 50 GB, or so.
3. Create two new partitions (using Ubuntu from the disk): one for Ubuntu (about 50 GB again?), and one for storage (the remainder of my ~300 GB hard drive).
4. Make an Ubuntu installation disk by downloading from [10] (doing that right now) and burning it onto a CD.
5. Insert my CD, restart, and install Ubuntu into my newly created partition (the smaller one).
6. Connect my libraries in both operating systems to the storage partition.

He also mentions creating a "swap file", and links to this FAQ that is a bit beyond me. I've got 4 GB of RAM: do I really need a swap file? If so, how should I make it (create a separate partition, or do it in storage, like the lifehacker guy recommends)? How big should I make it?

For the record, I'm running an ASUS U81A laptop with an Intel Core2 processor, 4 GB or RAM, about 300 GB hard drive, and Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit) (whatever that means). I've got plenty of space left of my hard drive (~190 GB). Thanks. Buddy431 (talk) 22:21, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

For someone in your circumstance, I'd recommend you skip this and instead install VmWare or VirtualBox, and install Linux in that. If you're not confident about stuff like partitions and not sure you'll like Linux, then this is a perfectly good way of doing things. Performance with a decent virtualisation environment like VmWare is very good. You can get the Linux "box" to see the contents of the Windows drive by exporting it over SMB (that is, making it a network share) and subscribing to that share in Linux. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:00, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

If you decide to do this, have VmWare allocate it a virtual disk of say 20Gb (I think newer VmWare versions don't actually consume that space until you need it, which you probably won't), have VmWare treat the .ISO you're downloading as a CD drive, and boot from that. Then boot the VM to that CD and let the installer take its default course. Once it's done installing, have VmWare stop using the .ISO as a drive, and you're all done. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:03, 15 May 2010 (UTC)

The guide you linked is geared toward a "technical" install of both on a new (blank) hard drive. If you already have Windows installed, the easiest way is using the (default) Ubuntu graphical installer instead [11] - it takes care of most of the work for you (unless you *know* you need something different, the defaults "just work"). The installer is smart enough to recognize that you have Windows installed on the disk already, and won't overwrite it unless you tell it to. Simply choose the "Guided - resize" option, and choose how much space you want each OS to have. If that still seems like too much of a hassle, there is also Wubi. With respect to swap files/swap partitions, there's currently a bit of debat about how much you need. Some say none is needed with modern memory sizes, others stick with a traditional 1-2 times your memory size. If you have the space to spare, there's no harm in putting swap in. Finally, you should be aware of ubuntuforums.org, the official unofficial support site of Ubuntu. Contrary to linux-geek stereotype, they're amazingly kind and helpful. -- 174.24.200.38 (talk) 03:28, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Forgot to add - on current linuxes, there's no difference in performance in a swap file versus a swap partition. The only benefit to using a swap partition is putting swap on a separate hard drive from the rest of your files - a separate partition on the same drive doesn't improve anything. In fact, I'm not sure that the graphical installer even asks you about swap anymore - it can take care of reasonable defaults behind the scenes. You can always change things later, if it ever becomes an issue. -- 174.24.200.38 (talk) 03:34, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

If you are unfamiliar with Linux, it might be a good idea to first try a Live CD and only go for the install paths mentioned above once you are happy that Ubuntu is the Linux distribution for you. A Live CD is a much lower risk option, especially if you have never tried this before and then find you hate Linux.

One other thing that the other answerers above haven't mentioned is that the download process usually gives you an .ISO image. This needs to be burned onto a CD (though I have heard of software that will let you skip that step). When burning an .ISO file to CD, you don't just copy the file onto a CD, but it needs to be burnt in a special way. Your CD burning software will probably have an option to do this. Astronaut (talk) 09:48, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I was certainly planning to run it from the CD for a while before I tried putting it on my hard drive. The virtualization route actually sounds like a pretty good way to go. I'll probably try that (assuming I like it). And assuming I do do that, how exactly would I get my "Linux in a box" to see my files? Mr. McWalter referenced a "SMB", which I have no clue what it is or how to set one up. Buddy431 (talk) 12:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

May 16

Readers/Writers problem in concurrent programming solution using busy wait?

Hi. Does anyone know a solution to the readers-writers problem in concurrent programming using only busy wait? Belchman (talk) 00:03, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Help with a Programming Logic in MS-Access-Visual Basic

I have a database with the following structure IDNO - Text(7), From Date - Date, To Data - Date, Year - Number, Full_Part - Logical.

what i want the program to give me the result is that i need to take out the missing date ranges for each IDNO for each particular year. ie.. i need to take out the year wise gaps for records. also, if the entire year is missing then the gap will be the entire year with the full_part field in the result showing F. so say.. in this example.. i need the program to return the result for

IDNO	 From Date	To Date	Year	FULL_PART

A247108 01-Apr-02 30-Sep-02 2002 P 
and 
A247111 01-Jul-99 30-Sep-99 1999 P
A247111 01-Jan-00 31-Mar-00 1999 P (year is 1999 because it falls in the 1999-2000 financial year)

A sample database is appended below :-

IDNO	 From Date	To Date	Year	FULL_PART
A247108	01-Apr-99	31-Mar-00	1999	F
A247108	01-Apr-00	31-Mar-01	2000	F
A247108	01-Apr-01	31-Mar-02	2001	F
A247108	01-Oct-02	31-Mar-03	2002	F
A247108	01-Apr-03	31-Mar-04	2003	F
A247111	01-Apr-00	31-Mar-01	2000	F
A247111	01-Apr-01	31-Mar-02	2001	F
A247111	01-Apr-02	31-Mar-03	2002	F
A247111	01-Apr-03	31-Mar-04	2003	F
A247111	01-Apr-99	30-Jun-99	1999	P
A247111	01-Oct-99	31-Dec-99	1999	P
A247124	01-Apr-99	31-Mar-00	1999	F
A247124	01-Apr-00	31-Mar-01	2000	F
A247124	01-Apr-01	31-Mar-02	2001	F
A247124	01-Apr-02	31-Mar-03	2002	F  

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Prasanth.moothedath (talk • contribs) 03:26, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

Formatted to make it legible. --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:44, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

buying songs intercontinentally

At amazon.com I can buy a certain album but I can't pay to download an individual song from it. So I went to amazon.de and found the song I wanted for 99 (European) cents. I tried to buy it and got a notice that said that since my billing address is in the USA, I couldn't.

Same thing with iTunes.

Is there some way around this? Michael Hardy (talk) 03:42, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a lot to do with preserving any the price differential in different territories. IIRC, when iTunes was first launched, tracks were US$0.99. When it launched here in the UK, tracks were initially £0.99 which at the time was considerably more than the US pricing. Even when the price fell to £0.79 it was still more than the US price (see here for more). UK customers complained about the higher prices and tried to buy from the US site but found they couldn't because they needed to use a US credit card to buy a download from the US site.

I can't say if it is the same with Amazon, but I have had no problems buying CDs (and DVDs, books, and other things) from Amazon.com using my UK credit card and had them shipped to me here in the UK.

A way round your problem? I doubt you would be able to open a foreign bank account without an address in that country. If you don't have a friend in Germany, you might be able to find a company who can buy on your behalf. I have heard of such companies, but only to allow people to buy from US suppliers who won't ship to non-US addresses, and not the other way round or with downloads. Astronaut (talk) 09:23, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

I have had similar problems before but with software. If you do not need the product to be physically delivered (such as being download-able), you may change the billing / shipping address for your credit-card to the appropriate country. For me, this is doable via online banking for my credit card without any checks. It may help to actually use an address of a friend or family there because a billing statement will be sent there. But you may not need the physical bill if you can pay online. Do not forget to change the address back after you are done. Very inconvenient, but I can tell you from experience, your options are very limited. 124.214.131.55 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 10:02, 16 May 2010 (UTC).

Difference between Office 2000 and Office 2010

Can someone tell me what is the difference between Office 2000 and Office 2010 for a grandmother who uses excel to do budgeting for organizing food and drinks for a party for 40-50 people. 122.107.207.98 (talk) 12:04, 16 May 2010 (UTC)