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November 4

Python 2.7 doesn't support xattr

I was trying to use an applescript basically identical to the script in this post on macworld. The script removes the "Where From" metadata on files (any kind of file.) The script uses "xattr" which apparently is a python program that allows viewing and editing of "extended attributes." However, when I tried manually going through the commands, I realized that when I try to run xattr, I get the following error:

python version 2.7.2 can't run /usr/bin/xattr. Try the alternative(s):

/usr/bin/xattr-2.5 (uses python 2.5)

/usr/bin/xattr-2.6 (uses python 2.6)

Run "man python" for more information about multiple version support in

Mac OS X.

Now I made the mistake of uninstalling the apple-supplied python, and I reinstalled python 2.7.2. So I don't have 2.5 or 2.6. I'm wondering: is there way of getting 2.7.2 to support xattr? Or is there a different command that will do the same thing? Or is there ANY way I can get it to work without installing the old versions of python?

Thanks. Inasilentway (talk) 00:57, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, I'd suggest reinstalling the old versions of python Apple bundles. There is no reason you can't be simultaneously running the 2.6 version they provide, alongside pre 1.0 versions and release candidates towards 3.3. Just keep every version on there that you really need. Nevard (talk) 04:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

1.5 TB WD MyBook won't show up on 2009 iMac

I am trying to access my Western Digital 1.5 TB MyBook on my iMac but it won't register. --Melab±1 ☎ 01:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Never mind. --Melab±1 ☎ 02:31, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Data remanence on an SD card

Is the possibility of recovering data from data remanence the same as that of a solid state drive considering they use the same technology? --Melab±1 ☎ 10:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Let me rephrase. I have a few SD cards that have been overwritten. Recently, some solid-state drives have shown to retain some data after being overwritten (data remanence). I assume that both SD cards and SSDs use the same technology, so is possible to recover some of my overwritten data on the SD cards in the same way that some data can be recovered from a solid-state drive? --Melab±1 ☎ 18:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Looking at Data remanence#Inaccessible_media_areas and #Data_on_solid-state_drives, my guess would be no they're not the same. A proper drive will come with a controller and an SD card is just a card, it would all come down to the software drivers. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:16, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Now I am looking for a program to repair corrupted JPEG files. --Melab±1 ☎ 23:00, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

SD cards also contains a controller (AFAIK only XD cards does not contain a controller). Directly accessing flash chips probably will be difficult, though (require disassembly). -Yyy (talk) 09:33, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

My computer display and computer takes too much time to do somethiing.

When I click on the computer to turn on, the pc hardware and fan, start to run, but only after 7-11 seconds later the pc start. Before those 7-11 seconds the computer monitor is doenst show any image on it like if the pc was turned off (the power button of the monitor even blinks), then after those 7-11 the pc start and monitor start to show stuff. What can be the problem? 201.78.162.193 (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

This doesn't sound terribly slow to me. It sounds typical for the Power-on self-test that occurs when you turn on a PC. Did your PC used to start more quickly? Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:27, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I am not talking that it takes 7-11 seconds to windows start. But to computer turn on. When I click on power button on pc the pc fan adn the other stuff start to run, but pc doenst start, the computer monitor doenst show anything like if the computer was turned off, then after 7-11 the monitor turns on and at the same time "the pc turns on", starting with the post. 201.78.162.193 (talk) 19:55, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Many BIOS settings now default to no display or some idiotic logo during the rudimentary self test, which takes place BEFORE the post screen. So, you get a few seconds of nothing until everything is checked. It is taking longer and longer for self test because computers have more and more to test. Just consider memory - it used to be a breeze to check 256KB memory. Now, it has to check 4 or 8GB of memory. -- kainaw™ 19:58, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, we've got some servers at work that take nearly over a minute to complete their checks before they even start to load Windows. It's possible that you can go into your BIOS and perhaps turn on a quick check option or skip memory check option, but if it's always been this long I wouldn't worry about it as it sounds just fine and you're best not really skipping any checks unless it's essential.  ZX81  ^talk 20:15, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Emulating joystick input in Linux

Hi! Is it possible to make a Linux program that creates a joystick device file and sends some joystick events into it? I have found that it's possible to create simulated mouse and keyboard events with uinput, but I don't know how to simulate joystick events. 88.148.251.200 (talk) 14:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

If you want to do it on a low level, a joystick will have a dev file like /dev/js0. That will will contain text indicating signals from the joystick. You can read that file directly like any other text file. So, you can have your program ask which dev file to use. Pick on in your tmp directory or something. Then, have a program send the text to the fake joystick file for your program to read. The big problem here is that you aren't using any of the easier human interface control libraries that remove you from reading and parsing the dev file. -- kainaw™ 14:57, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

It should be possible to simulate a joystick using uinput -- see this page. You'll have to delve into the innards of uinput and joystick event protocols to figure out how to do it, though. Looie496 (talk) 15:38, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

From uinput's perspective, a relative (REL) device is a mouse (and is assigned a /dev/input/mouseN name); an absolute (ABS) device is a joystick (and is assigned a /dev/input/jsN name). So when you create the uinput device, configure it thus:

    ioctl(fd, UI_SET_EVBIT, EV_ABS);
    ioctl(fd, UI_SET_ABSBIT, ABS_X);
    ioctl(fd, UI_SET_ABSBIT, ABS_Y);

And the events that you then inject have a type of EV_ABS, a code of ABS_X or ABS_Y, and a value is a "a signed integer between -32767 and +32767" where 0 is (in theory) centred. I have a working example if you need one, but if you've got mouse working then the changes above will make a joystick. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

What if I want to have buttons or more than 2 axes? 88.148.251.200 (talk) 13:55, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

How would a joystick with more than 2 axes even work? It might somehow be possible to design a joystick with 3 axes, but beyond that, the entire concept becomes difficult to imagine. JIP | Talk 22:38, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Well, for example, gamepads can have even 6 axes. But I've solved that problem. Now I have a few other problems: my program creates a device named /dev/input/eventX, but it doesn't create a device named /dev/input/jsX. And when I try to use the jstest command, it says: "jstest is not fully compatible with your kernel. Unable to retrieve button map!". 88.148.251.200 (talk) 12:00, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, an axis is just a range of analog inputs attached to a single device. So my old Dual Shock controller generates six axes (2 from the left stick, 2 from the right stick, and two from the arrow keys (these are really digital, but appear as analog devices from the input subsystem's perspective). There's no real way of knowing (from our perspective) whether ABS_X, ABS_X+1, ABS_X+2 etc. related to the same input or to different inputs on the same controller. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:09, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

And once you consider that this interface (as with most HID interfaces) lumps into "joystick" a miscellaneous bunch of analogy-controls that aren't very stick-y, more degrees of freedom isn't unreasonable. One could envisage a Wii-like control that had X,Y, and Z position axes, and roll, pitch, and yaw rotation axes. Add to that a squeeze-pressure axis and you have seven, all on the same device. Armed with that you could probably make some nice games and simulations of difficult 3d tasks (say Jenga or repair-the-space-telescope). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

It sounds like you've figured it out, but for the record you can just register more axes: they're named in /usr/include/linux/input.h, but really they're just ABS_X, ABS_X+1, ABS_X+2, etc. It also sounds like you've got buttons to work - buttons are just keys, and your simulated device can declare that it's also going to sent key events. I think BTN_0, BTN_1, etc. are the usual buttons that are sent (but I don't have a range of joysticks to verify what real joystick drivers actually send, given the plurality of control configurations they have). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:09, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

OK, I've solved all my problems now. Thanks for advice! 88.148.251.200 (talk) 12:56, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

This is all a very poorly documented area. I'd be interested to see your code. My own is here (I can't post it in Wikipedia, as it's derived from Gregory Thiemonge's example). It works okay, in that my own SDL input tester, and jstest, see the events I'm sending. I don't really have any Linux games to see if actual games like it. It does differ from what a real joystick (a Dual Shock) sends - the Dual Shock sends "initial state" events when it's opened, which I think show the number and range of each axis; my uinput code doesn't (and I've no real idea how to make it do so). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I wish to limit my upload bandwidth and am looking for a free program

I've done a preliminary search on Google but all I could come up with are programs you have to buy.

The issue is that I live in a house with other people, and if for instance I want to upload a video to YouTube, it chokes the connection for everyone and I have to stop. Is there a free program I can use that allows me to adjust my maximum upload rate so that I don't have this problem? Thanks. Vranak (talk) 17:10, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

You can use squid, and proxy your web browser through the squid only when you want to throttle your bandwidth. Here's a How-To guide for bandwidth throttling. See also, how to set up Firefox to use a proxy. Nimur (talk) 17:25, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

http://www.brothersoft.com/firefox-throttle-393035.html http://www.netlimiter.com/download.php In Unixland you can use the program trickle ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:19, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Virtual drive

hello,

how do I "deactivate" virtual drive during start. With Daemon Tools Lite. I have Vista. Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 17:23, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can't right click on the daemon tools icon in the tray and disable it with a preference, try hitting Windowskey+r, type msconfig and check startup; also the startup folder in the Start > Programs folder. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:21, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

No, you don't understand me. Everytime I start my computer, the drive run by itself; I already did the same as you said. Even if Daemon Tools is off, and I delete the drive, it still runs automatically.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 11:18, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Folder renames by itself, part 2

hello,

please read the thread [1]. It now renames not only the ZZ Top folder, but also other folders. He recently renamed "Woody Guthrie" into "L". It needs to be fixed, because it really sucks! Thanks.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 17:26, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

The answer is still the same. If you let iTunes manage your folders, which it does by default, it will read the metadata on the song files. If the song file has "C" for the artist, it will rename the folder to be "C". If it has "L" as the artist, it will rename the folder to be "L". So, this is all based on *IF* you let iTunes manage your folders. It appears that you should be looking into how to stop iTunes from managing your folders (which is in the preferences inside the iTunes program). -- kainaw™ 17:31, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

It is actually a useful feature. In the past I managed the folders myself, but it is really annoying to do that, as you need to change file and id3tag in iTunes. For example, if you rename the title of the song in iTunes, it won't update the file if I remove the tick at preferences. Can you explain why it does it anyway? I hadn't such problems in the past; maybe it is the latest update... I remember how Windows was updated, and you don't know how much I spent to fix the error...--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 17:46, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

In iTunes, check the song's info - all songs in the folder. It appears that one of them has an invalid name. Edit the name and save. -- kainaw™ 18:41, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I checked every songs by ZZ Top, but they were all correct. Anyway, thanks for your help.--♫GoP♫_T^C_N 11:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

GUI for CentOS Server

  Hi.

  I'm trying to set up a web server. I installed CentOS Server using the graphical installer on a computer, but after the installation finished and the system was rebooted, only the command-line interface is available. Is there a way to use CentOS Server via a GUI, or if there is no built-in GUI, is there any third-party GUI that is compatble with CentOS Server? (Once I get a GUI on the server, I'll proceed to install Apache Derby and MySQL.) Thanks, Vickreman.Chettiar 21:40, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I'd expect there to be a GUI already, unless you deselected it during installation. Try logging in as root and issue "init 5" to switch to to run level 5 (which is GUI on most Linuxes). If that does not work, the easiest is probably to reinstall the system and when asked for the software selection be sure to include X11 (and GNOME or KDE). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:27, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

On some systems, you can use the command startx or xinit to initialize the X server and the graphic interface. Our article is xinit. You may have to check the specific documentation for your installed version of CentOS - try typing man startx on the command-line. Nimur (talk) 22:58, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Android's kernel

Hi, I would like to ask you few question about the android opreation system. 1)Is there a diffrence between the kernels of each company which sells its device with the system? 2)What the program Odin does, and how it does it without making the Android callapse? I mean,if it switches the kernel, what respones to it? Exx8 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 22:24, 4 November 2011 (UTC).

Officially, Android uses the Linux kernel. Unofficially, each telephone manufacturer has their own version of the kernel, including proprietary hardware drivers for their device. If you peruse the Android Developer website, you will find very little information about the actual details of how Android works. If you are interested in Android internals, you should take a look at Dalvik, which is the common runtime environment across all devices. If you want to play at the kernel level on Android, you must have a specific type of telephone, the "Crespo" and you must use this specific version of Android source-code, which is not the same as the source-code used to build commercially-released binary distributions. You can patch your kernel by applying binary-distributed packages for certain development hardware, resulting in an operating system that is quite similar to, say, the Ginger-Bread released version.

The program "odin" is a utility that updates some of the firmware for certain telephones: that is, it modifies parts of the code that were released via such binary distributions, and not as part of the open Android source-code project. I don't know who makes odin, nor whether it is reliable, trustworthy, or safe to use. It is not part of any official, public Android development toolkit. Nimur (talk) 23:08, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm a little bit cofused. What download mode does? what is the diffrence between firmware to the opreation system? Did Samsung release its own version to the 2.3.6 firmware(or there is one global)? Exx8 (talk)

It can be quite confusing! In fact, there is a shortage of good documentation - I was quite disappointed, as I had been under the impression that Android was a totally open, free-software system. In reality, only certain parts of Android are open and free software. Most devices are actually proprietary platforms.

Conceptually, what you need to know is this: most modern computers, especially computers shaped like telephones, are NUMA architecture multiprocessors. This often means that the platform has many different pieces of code running on many independent processors. In the case of Android, you have, for example, a firmware piece to run a small computer that operates the screen. That software is not part of "Android." You can think of it as a "driver," but it is actually more complicated: it is a totally separate computer packaged inside the same box as your Android computer. The code to make that screen and its controlling computer work is called "firmware." It is actually completely independent from the Android layer, and communicates via a variety of protocols... pseudo- device files, in some cases. It may, or may not, share addressable memory with Android kernel, depending on the hardware.

Modern computer processors are complicated so it's even more mind-boggling than mere device-abstraction. For instance, you may have a hardware-accelerated TCP/IP stack - or memory controller - in other words, your device may require firmware in order to properly run certain operations that most programmers think of as "pure software operations" - things like malloc or fopen. Android is a little bit fuzzy about how much it actually does - which is why their SDK always starts with the assumption that you, as a programmer, stay at the DALVIK layer or above (So when you nead heap memory, you don't care if it comes from kernel, or from a hardware memory manager, or from the Dalvik runtime - you just have "heap memory" addressable by your program). If you try to compile the Android kernel, you may find, for example, that you do not have a functioning C standard library - because your standard library is hardware-accelerated, and that code is not part of Android's kernel.

If you are a classically trained systems programmer, you quickly recognize this scenario as "just another proprietary kernel implementation," (and you can probably learn to live with the constraints); but if this is your first time dealing with kernel code, it can be quite complicated to juggle the complexity of system design and the added complexity of opaque functionality from firmware you don't have access to. Nimur (talk) 17:21, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Very little of what you wrote above makes sense to me. How exactly is Android different from Linux on desktop machines? What is a "hardware accelerated" C standard library? Do you think that malloc() and fopen() couldn't be implemented in the Linux/Android kernel? -- BenRG (talk) 20:00, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sorry that my explanation was unclear. Android's kernel is different from Linux's kernel, in that the source distribution for Android does not include all the files needed to build Android for most platforms. This is because many parts of the Android kernel are not free software; they are distributed as binary packages (firmware - without sourcecode). The conventional explanation is that such binaries interface directly with the various devices' hardware. In general, the standard library is separate from the kernel; but key functionality, like memory management, must be provided by a kernel. Android, as you obtain it from source.android.com, does not contain everything necessary to support (e.g.) the gcc binutils and the GNU standard C library, because critical features are not implemented by Android's kernel (such features require device-specific firmware). This is why you rarely see programmers distributing C code intended to run on Android devices: it is unlikely that two different Android devices can both run a program compiled from the same C code. You can read some more about this issue in our article.

Without getting too convoluted, I will add that the Linux kernel does not export the C standard library either; but it does offer a consistent set of sysctl and ioctl on all platforms. On Android devices, the equivalent to a standard Linux ioctl" will often require a call into a non-free, non-public, proprietary firmware API. Nimur (talk) 22:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

November 5

Firefox restoring old session

I use Mozilla Firefox as a browser, and I have Googled for help with this question to no avail. I have an issue with Firefox, where I wish it behaved differently, and I can't find a page on the Internet to satisfy me on this point. I either want to ask how to make it do what I want it to do, or I want to suggest that it be modified so that I can make it behave.

When the computer crashes, for whatever reason, and there was a browser open, I can't open a new browser window without it trying to reload all the tabs I had open at the time of the crash. That's terrible, because seven times out of ten, the crash was caused by a tab I had just opened, probably in a grave error of judgment. Mozilla currently tries to restore my browser as it was at crash-time, and only when this fails does it offer to start a fresh session. This attempted reload has by now cost me n minutes, where n is some number between 3 and 525,600.

I want to tell Mozilla to open a fresh browser without even attempting to reload whatever perverted thing I had just been doing to crash the previous browser. Is this possible? If not, what does it take to make it possible? I thank you in advance for any responses. -GTBacchus^(talk) 07:18, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm no expert, but whenever this happens to me I just stop loading the tab then it ASAP before it even starts loading. I do this by using "ctrl + pageup/pagedown" to move from one tab to another then mash the "esc" key to stop it from loading.

Unlike internet explorer, I know firefox is more responsive especially when it comes to using shortcut keys. But if this doesn't work for you and it takes a long time to load (525,600 minutes!), I'd seriously consider just reinstalling it since I only have a couple of add-ons anyways. --Thebackofmymind (talk) 07:57, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

It's possible, but you have to go into about:config IIRC to fix it; http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_FAQs_:_About:config_Entries There might be more than one, but I think browser.sessionstore.max_resumed_crashes is one (mine is set to 0). Frequently what Thebackofmymind has suggested works, however, and you can also try starting the browser in safe mode with the -safe-mode switch. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:02, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Should be much easier than any of that. Assuming you're using a recent version of FF go to Tools>Options in the menus, choose the General tab, and right at the top is the option "When Firefox starts:" with a drop down list with three options, either show your home page, a blank page, or reload tabs from last time. I know this because personally I want it to reload all my tabs (I keep a lot open) and spent a while finding out how to make it do that, as mine was defaulting to reloading the homepage; horses for courses. :) --jjron (talk) 22:42, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Odd, mine does something not listed in those 3 choices: It pops up a window that asks me if I want to start fresh or continue with the old tabs. This is the best option, IMHO, although I do wish I could pick specific tabs to reload and others to close. StuRat (talk) 23:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I assume you have older versions of firefox too. Because in my version (Firefox 6.0.2) when firefox crashes there is a new window labelled "Well this is embarrassing..." showing a checklist of which tabs I want to re-open. I thought that OP was one of those people who didn't like new firefox so I told them what I did before. Also, in this firefox I can manually trigger Jjron's idea by hitting the new "firefox button" then clicking "History" then "restore previous session". Just thought I'd let you all know :) --Thebackofmymind (talk) 23:32, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, this is true (both comments above). I think in the newer versions if you have 'reload my tabs' selected in the General tab it comes up with the "Well this is embarrassing" thing with the options to reload or start fresh - this is in case one of the tabs caused the crash. From memory, if you have 'reload my homepage' selected (and presumably 'load a blank page' but I've never used that option) you don't get the choice, it just reloads the homepage/s, but as you say you can reload via the history (I also used that route a few times before I found the drop down list to set the default). I have v7.0.1 and I think it still gives the option at restart (but can't remember for sure, they seem to be updating it a hell of a lot recently). I also wondered whether the OP may have had an older FF; I seem to remember at some stage it automatically reloaded your tabs, which is why I went hunting for that when I got a newer version and suddenly it was just reloading my homepages. So the options - go the back-door route, or update to a newer version and use the built in options; it is free after all. --jjron (talk) 08:13, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

transparent window?

Is there a program out there that lets me type on a window that is semi-transparent, letting me see the contents of another window below? thanks --Thebackofmymind (talk) 07:48, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure, a few of them. Googling "transparent notepad" or "notepad transparency" turns up a bunch of similar programs. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:51, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

It is a function of the window manager. If I wanted, I can set my window manager to make all my windows transparent. I wouldn't be able to use it very well, but I could do it. Windows Vista and Windows 7 have added a lot more eye candy to their window manager. I'm sure transparency is in there somewhere. -- kainaw™ 13:21, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

PowerMenu is Windows freeware that can make (almost) any application window transparent, among other things. -- BenRG (talk) 19:36, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

BenRG, your suggestion looks the most attractive, but it doesn't seem to work for Windows 7.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about Kainaw, and Mr. 98 it was kind of suspicious to click whatever download you found on google but I went and tried them out. The 2nd one looked better, but my antivirus (F-secure) detected malware. The 1st one seems to be working fine though. Thanks people. --Thebackofmymind (talk) 21:28, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

PowerMenu works for me on Windows 7 32-bit, but it looks like it doesn't support 64-bit processes on 64-bit Windows. You could try sifting through the alternatives listed here—it's not clear which ones have 64-bit support. Or you could look for a 32-bit version of whatever application you want to make transparent, I suppose.

I'm almost sure the malware report is a false positive. False positives are very common, and are a serious problem for small software developers ([2]). According to VirusTotal.com, F-secure sees "Gen:Heur.MSIL.Krypt.2", which is obviously a heuristic. Interestingly, another scan of the exact same file less than three weeks ago triggered no warnings ([3]). I bet this "virus" will disappear in a few more weeks. -- BenRG (talk) 04:34, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

May I ask how you got PowerMenu to work? The program's icon appears on the bottom left, but right clicking on that or right clicking on any other windows of any of the programs doesn't bring up the additional options they promised. The "properties" section of "my computer" says that it's 32-bit, but maybe it's because it's Windows 7 starter?

And I don't know what a heuristic is, but I guess that is good? --Thebackofmymind (talk) 01:58, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I used an application called actual transparent windows, it's $20 but has a free 7 day trial, so if you need it for a once off thing that would work. I used it to trace some maps I had into level design program for a game. It was quite good, if I was going to use it more often I'd consider spending the $20. It works on win7 64bit, that's what I have, and you can set the level of transparency very easily. Vespine (talk) 05:36, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The PowerMenu options appear in the system menu of each window, which is the menu you get by clicking on the icon at the far left of the title bar. PowerMenu is a 32-bit application; I don't think a 64-bit version exists. It will run on 64-bit Windows, but the method it uses to alter the system menu (injecting code into the application) won't work with 64-bit applications because it's 32-bit code. It does seem to work with 32-bit applications on 64-bit Windows. It won't work with the bundled version of Notepad, but it will probably work with the 32-bit version of Notepad if you can get your hands on it (from a 32-bit version of Windows) and it will probably work with any third-party Notepad replacement as long as you use the 32-bit version.

A "heuristic" means that instead of detecting a specific known malware program, the antivirus software tries to detect things that are supposed to be "suspicious" in some way. Often "suspicious" means "characteristic of some known malware and also a lot of legitimate software". For example, some antivirus programs have marked anything that uses UPX as "infected" by UPX. As long as no large software vendor (with lawyers) uses UPX, they have minimal incentive to fix this because the false positives make people feel like they're being protected. In this case, judging by the name "Heur.MSIL.Krypt", F-Secure thinks this program is encrypted MSIL (.NET). It is a .NET application, but I looked at it with ILSpy and it's not encrypted. Even if it was (which it isn't), all it would mean is that the author didn't want people looking at the code with ILSpy, which is no more suspicious than not publishing the source code. -- BenRG (talk) 06:39, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

PowerPoint Compatibility

I'm using PowerPoint 2010 on a Windows 7 machine. I will be giving the presentation on an XP machine that uses PowerPoint 2003. I'm having problems with compatibility. When I tried to give my presentation on the old machine with the old version of PowerPoint, none of the animations would work, even though I had saved the presentation as a PowerPoint 1997–2003 .ppt file. In all fairness, Windows does tell me that my animations may not work. Does anyone know a work around? — Fly by Night (talk) 11:29, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

From the grumbling I hear from the powerpoint jockeys, animations are not cross-platform. Everything else has a workaround. The rule is to fake animations whenever possible by making multiple slides and moving objects a little on each slide. Then, use auto-advance or simply click forward a bunch of times. -- kainaw™ 13:20, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Is installing Microsoft's PowerPoint Viewer on the machine an option? Another possibility is to convert the presentation into another format, e.g. Flash, in a way that preserves the animation. I found this from a quick web search. (I have no experience with that software whatsoever so I'm not recommending it; I'm just point it out as an example.) --173.49.15.58 (talk) 17:31, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas. I'll take a look at the links now. — Fly by Night (talk) 20:35, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can't install the PPT viewer on the other machine, you may be able to load the viewer and show on a CD or USB drive and run them both off there (may depend on your access privileges though on the other machine). In the File menu go to "Save and send" and choose "Package presentation for CD"; this even automatically includes the PPT viewer on the CD. And if that fails, perhaps try the "Create a video" option (would depend on the nature of your slideshow how successful this would be though). --jjron (talk) 11:17, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

This is an interesting idea. I would only have very limited authorisation on the system. If it were to be saved on a CD, then would I need to keep pausing and unpausing all the time? — Fly by Night (talk) 20:35, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

No, if you do the first option it just runs as a normal PPT, just uses the viewer on the CD rather than relying on what's on the system. One thing to be wary of is that I have found PPT can struggle for speed if it's running off anything other than the harddrive if it contains any really big graphics or anything. If you did the second option, saving it as a video, then as I understand it, it uses all your set timings, animations, etc, to create the video (I've never actually done this cos I've never needed to). If your timings were out, or if you don't really use timings in any meaningful way, then yes, you'd need to keep pausing to get the breaks you wanted. --jjron (talk) 14:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. — Fly by Night (talk) 19:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Would it be possible to get a copy of PowerPoint 2003 for, and install it on, my Windows 7 machine? — Fly by Night (talk) 19:30, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Sure; I can't imagine there'd be any incompatibilities with Win 7 & 2003. A quick search on eBay turns up many copies of it, though you'd probably have to buy the full Office suite. They start from only about $30, so not dear. But most likely someone you know would have an old outdated copy laying around that's no longer in use and you could install. Having said which, some of those programs don't like having different version installed on the same machine, and perhaps you don't want to uninstall 2010, just want the option of using 2003. I can't say for sure about Office, but I have had different versions of various Adobe programs installed at the same time with no issues, same with various other less demanding software. And if you went down that path, you'd still have to go through and re-setup the PPT pres. --jjron (talk) 10:18, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Question about Android

What download mode does? what is the diffrence between firmware to the opreation system to rom? Did Samsung release its own version to the 2.3.6 firmware(or there is one global)? Does Samsung Kies update the kernel or both? Will it extint the mods of Orange? What is recovery mode?Exx8 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 13:29, 5 November 2011 (UTC).

This is a duplicate post. I answered above in great detail. Nimur (talk) 17:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Free software for motion-compensated de-interlacing

Are there free software tools that can perform motion-compensated de-interlacing of video? (From what I understand, de-interlacing algorithms incorporating motion compensation are computationally expensive and are usually implemented in silicon.) --173.49.15.58 (talk) 17:01, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

You can play with deshake in ffmpeg. The tool is free software, the algorithms are all free source code. The hard part is doing it well. You can iterate successive passes of deshake and deinterlace, making incremental improvements each time (I'm envisioning an iterative small-change in each pass, then using the result to re-estimate the shake, then re-deinterlacing, all using avsynth or some other tool to avoid recompressing intermediate results); or you could modify the algorithms to feed forward the motion vector estimates. "Computationally intense" is half the problem; "theoretically difficult" is more apt .... the problem is underconstrained, which means it cannot be done perfectly for all cases. And let's not even try to resolve rolling shutter. If you have interlacing and rolling shutter: your video is as good as it will ever be. Live with it, or blur it until you can't tell anymore. Fortunately, few sensors exhibit both effects. Nimur (talk) 17:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure deshake + deinterlace is the same as motion-compensated de-interlacing. It seems that deshake compensates for small camera motion within the duration a field is captured. Motion-compensated de-interlacing involves spatial-temporal interpolation across fields. --173.49.15.58 (talk) 19:23, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

High quality (often motion-compensated) deinterlacing is a common topic in the doom9 forums. [4]. I believe QTGMC is often considered subjectively one of the best at the current time but MCBob + NNEDI may also hold that role, but can also very slow. I'm not sure if either are completely free software however. (These often rely on several plugins so it's likely complicated to check.) Nil Einne (talk) 18:49, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I've also found TomsMoComp. An old comment I saw at http://forum.digital-digest.com was very positive about the quality of the results. --173.49.15.58 (talk) 19:23, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

'Old' may be important here, I believe TomsMoComp was considered amongst the best once but is now generally considered to have been superceeded in quality by QTGMC and others (see [5] [6] [7] for example). Of course as Nimur has said and some of the forum postings discuss, this does depend on the source and in any case is subjective. Also I'm not sure whether the quality difference is enough that you will generally notice the difference when watching the content. And if your interest is from a technical and free software POV, TomsMoComp may (I don't know if these are true, they are simply hypotheticals) have other advantages like being free software or being simpler to understand. I believe one of the advantages of QTGMC is it's generally considered easier to use and having a decent quality to speed tradeof, which may or may not be what you want if you're trying to learn how to do subjectively excellent deinterlacing. Nil Einne (talk) 10:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

November 6

Variable signal quality in WLAN network

What happens when you have a variable wi-fi signal quality. Neither the hot-spot, nor the computer is moving. It goes from 80% down to 0% sometimes. 88.9.210.218 (talk) 01:05, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Just a guess: interference from other transmitters (Wi-Fi and other kinds)? --173.49.15.58 (talk) 12:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Wifi can also be affected by people moving around in the house (as they can diffract the signal in various ways, potentially leading to destructive interference). Interference from things like microwave ovens, cordless phones or even a malfunctioning ballast on a fluorescent light can also be a problem. As far as other wifi transmitters goes, you might want to try switching your wireless access point to a different channel, in case the neighbours' wifi is set to the same or an adjacent channel and is interfering. You can apparently use tools such as this web based one to check which channels are used by wifi transmitters within range of your computer (I can't test this out personally as Linux doesn't appear to be supported, and unless you run Linux yourself I doubt instructions on how to run iwlist would be much help to you). This page from Cisco deals in quite some detail with the subject of wireless interference, and although it is from the perspective of a company IT department a lot of the information is more generally relevant. If you continue to have problems that can't be solved by switching channels, or be pinned down to e.g. your cordless phone system or wireless burglar alarm, you might want to go for the slightly ugly solution of just increasing your signal strength near your computer by putting a wireless repeater in between your access point and the computer. Note that this will generally halve your throughput on the wireless network, but for most people this won't be a problem as the choke-point in most home networks is the speed of the internet connection, not the LAN speed.Equisetum (talk | contributions) 18:46, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Alphabetically sorting icons in Excel

I have some excel tables that each have a column with a rating, expressed with groups of the symbols ★ and ½. The problem is that when I sort by that column, Excel uses the order: ★, ★★, ★★★, ★★★★, ★★★★★, ★★★★½, ★★★½, ★★½, ★½, ½. This is not the order I would like, it should be ★, ★½, ★★. etc.. Is there a way to make Excel sort them in the right order? Are there similar symbols that would sort in the right order (I already know that it does the same thing if I replace ½ with ✫)? If I replaced the spmbols with numbers from 1-10, is there a way to make them apear as icons? I know that "Conditional Formating -> Icon sets" has icons, but none of the available sets have more than five icons. Thank you. --96.52.144.175 (talk) 01:37, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

In Excel 2010 or, I believe, 2007, select the area on the spreadsheet you want to sort, then click the "Data" tab, then click the "Sort" button, then choose the "Sort by" and "Sort on" items normally, and then under "Order", in the popup menu, choose "Custom List...". Then choose "NEW LIST", and in the "List Entries" field, type ★, ★½, ★★, all the way up to five stars. You can see this is also how Excel figures out that March gets sorted before April. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:22, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

To answer your other question, the following formula (not very elegant, but that's Excel for you) will convert a number 1-10 in cell A1 into ½, ★, ★½, ★★, ..., ★★★★★:

   =IF(A1>9,"★","")&IF(A1>7,"★","")&IF(A1>5,"★","")&IF(A1>3,"★","")&IF(A1>1,"★","")&IF(MOD(A1,2)=1,"½","")

Gandalf61 (talk) 11:23, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

... or, more concisely:

          =LEFT("★★★★★",A1/2)&IF(MOD(A1,2)=1,"½","")

Gandalf61 (talk)

To do the opposite, I think you could use:

=LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "½",""))+((LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "★","")*.5))

To convert the star/half system to numeric values. I haven't tried it, though. It assumes there is no other data in the cell but stars and halves. (Then you could sort by this column, obviously.) --Mr.98 (talk) 13:25, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

gmail - web browser only?

Can gmail be accessed only through a browser, or is there software I can download to access it? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:45, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

You should be able to check it with any email program that you might have that allows POP3. Dismas|^(talk) 02:48, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Or IMAP. Shadowjams (talk) 05:43, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Or the e-mail programs on iPads and other mobile phones and tablets that connect with GMail more directly. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:24, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

iPod full - can't delete

My daughter's ipod (3rd gen) is full. She says that she can't delete things she doesn't need because they used to show an "x" in the corner to delete them, but now they don't. How can she get the "x" back, or how can she delete things she doesn't want? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:47, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

She should be able to connect it to whatever computer she uses to sync it to and change the playlists, etc. via iTunes. Dismas|^(talk) 02:50, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Hold your finger on the icon for several seconds. The "X" will appear. Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:25, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm reading emails from a Hotmail user.

He's sending messages to a YahooGroup. His emails do not appear to carry his IP. Only Yahoo and Hotmail IPs are present in the header. Odd. 66.108.223.179 (talk) 06:02, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

Do you have a question for the Reference Desk? Comet Tuttle (talk) 07:26, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

An email header does not usually contain the originators IP address. Email spoofing is also easy enough to make ANY information in the header, including the originating address, not very reliable. Vespine (talk) 05:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The first part isn't really correct. Many SMTP servers do add the IP address of the sender in the received: from portion. Many web mail providers do add the IP either in the same way or in some other header like X-Originating-IP. When Gmail started, they were notable for not doing so. A quick test confirms Hotmail still usually seems to (in X-Originating-IP) as does Yahoo mail (in Received). You're right that spoofing means the info needs to be considered with care but a careful analysis of the received: headers will usually give you a fair idea if those are genuine which will give you an idea if the X-Originating-IP or any other such header is likely to be genuine. Remember that while the sender can add whatever bullshit they want, they usually can't stop the intermediate servers adding their own info. Nil Einne (talk) 10:37, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

It's possible that Yahoo Groups removes IP addresses from incoming emails before reposting them to the rest of the group, in order to protect users' privacy. --Colapeninsula (talk) 12:00, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

It's possible. However at least in this public (you may need to be signed in to a Yahoo account but you don't need to subscribe to the group) archive [8] [9] it looks like all the headers are preserved (minus things perceived as email addresses which have been hidden) so in that case it would seem suprising if subscribers receiving the emails wouldn't also receive the full headers. In case anyone is wondering, in the first example I think the sender's IP is in the X-Yahoo-Post-IP field, I believe the sender did not actually e-mail the group but sent a message via the Yahoo groups web interface. While in the second it appears to be the bottom most X-Received and I think was sent via email via the Yahoo mail web interface. It may be there is a configurable option or perhaps they do it for lists which require subscription to view the archives (or perhaps those which require moderator approval to subscribe). Also if you are receiving a digest version, it seems likely most of the headers will be removed (although I'd be surprised if any headers showing the IP are preserved.)

Of course it's impossible to predict what happened in this particular case, especially without the headers itself, which should not be posted here for privacy reasons. For example, while many SMTP servers do add the IP address, I'm sure not all do. Both Yahoo's SMTP in the form of username@IP in the received: and Hotmail's SMTP in the received: and the X-originating-IP seem to. Although because of Yahoo adding it in the form of username@IP, if you are looking at web archives which hide email addresses, it's likely to be interpreted as an email address and hidden, as in this example. (I actually found out what's likely the sender's IP even in that case as Yahoo allowed me to try to send an email which as I predicted was a quick failure.)

This is presuming the IP really didn't show and it's not simply the OP missed it, the headers can be rather confusing when long. (Also, I know certain web mail interfaces particularly Gmail can mislead people unfamiliar with headers in to thinking 'show details' shows all the headers whereas you need something like 'show original' or 'show full headers' to see all the headers, although if the OP is seeing some IP addresses they're probably seeing all the headers.) BTW, I found that Yahoo also adds X-originating-IP when it receives messages to their mail servers but when I tested an e-mail sent from Hotmail to Yahoo Mail (not groups) it did not remove the original Hotmail X-originating-IP, so both were present.

Nil Einne (talk) 07:20, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

November 7

VLC seek bar

Hi,

I'm running VLC player 1.1.11 and it seems that they've introduced a "feature" whereby the time seek bar now only has access at fixed intervals. In other words it does not let me select a specified time, but jumps to a seemingly arbitrary step position when I click. Sorry for the poorly worded question. Has anyone had the same problem/know how to fix it? I'm running Windows 7 Pro

Cheers, --58.175.32.245 (talk) 05:28, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Actually after testing with other videos I think it was the video that was at fault (it was a video tutorial and the software must have thought it somehow useful to prevent you from continuous time seek! --58.175.32.245 (talk) 08:33, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Just guessing, but the video in question might have very few key frames (I-frames), and VLC may jump to the nearest key frame when seeking to avoid a long delay. -- BenRG (talk) 04:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

3d model evolution simulator program

I've seen videos of 3d models (for thermal heating I think) where the shape of the model (a reflector in this case) was determined by an evolution algorithm that, as far as I know, made a huge number of small changes to the shape and basically "evolved" the shape until its efficiency was at a maximum. The shapes it was coming up with were really interesting, and obviously not something you would come up with if you were to just try a bunch of different shapes and simulate them yourself.

I'm wondering if there is any of this kind of software that is freely available, or even user-friendly, though I imagine that there's not much need for such software outside of the manufacturing industry, so there's not much need for the public to have access to it. I would like to try some designs in aerodynamics and with fan blades. Thanks! 99.199.59.120 (talk) 06:46, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

YouTube viewer statistics

Anyone here interested in how Youtube's insight data representation works? I have been attempting to work out the total number of different people that have seen anything I have done on the site, however I have a question regarding what some of the statistics mean in practice. I looked into the total number of unique users data, which is given as a 30 day running total, would I be right in thinking then that where the total for the first 30 days is 1200, and for the subsequent 30 days is 2300, there is no way of knowing how many of those original 1200 are within the second group? Or does it discount people continuously from their first visit in spite of being a running total? I thought what this data meant was that the total number of interested people could be anywhere between 2300 and 3500, with no way of knowing more precisely.

But then, being me, I looked up the numbers of views at various intervals across the 30 days, divided one by the other to find the average number of views per person, and found that after rising quickly, it remains around the same level for the last couple of weeks, so I divided the total number by that, and what did I get..? 3500. So, does this answer my above question? Anyone here know more about how they calculate this?

148.197.81.179 (talk) 10:57, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

About Software development process

Hi,

I'm Ranjan.. I'm beginner to software(PHP) development job.. I had many doubts to creating web pages interactively.but i searched many of the websites still i remains poor. so i need wikipedia help. how to work efficiently and learning all about PHP(Hypertext Preprocessor)... Please give some tutorials to my mail,...

Thanks & Regards,

RANJAN — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ranjan111 (talk • contribs) 12:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

There are millions (if not billions) of things you can do with PHP. Without knowing what you plan to do, it is very difficult to point you to a relevant tutorial. -- kainaw™ 13:52, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Mozilla firefox

I have problem with my mozilla fifrfox browser. It is that I have re-install it every time or else if I try through my shortcut, web pages do not open. How do I solve this/ Sumalsn (talk) 12:33, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

What operating system is your computer running? What exactly happens when you launch Firefox? What changes if you reinstall it? Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:17, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Editable -> non-editable PDF

I have an editable PDF document that I edited recently with FoxIt (on Windows) and Document Reader (on Linux). I need to print said document at a local Kinkos, which has only Windows machines. However, I just learned that Adobe allows someone to fill in the fields, but not to actually save them. Thus, when I pull up the document in Adobe Reader for Windows, it clears the fields I've already typed in.

How can I save this document on another Windows machine so that I can port it back to Kinkos and print it out? 68.232.119.30 (talk) 16:24, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

If I "save as" a PDF form in Okular or "save a copy" in Evince (that's Document Viewer), both on Linux, the form-fillings get stored in the document. At least that's true for a simple PDF form I create myself (in Scribus); it seems some forms can have a "submit by email, don't allow printing" protection. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:32, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Character representations in ASCII and hexadecimal

I'm fairly sure I grasp how characters are represented in ASCII: it's a seven- or eight-bit code, with each binary string corresponding to a character. However, it is also possible (common?) to index these characters using decimal numbers within human to human communication. Is that right? I also need to know how characters can be represented using hexadecimal, and the differences between character representation in ASCII and hex, but it's not in either of the textbooks I'm using. Can someone fill me in? Thanks in advance. —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 22:14, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

ASCII is strictly a 7-bit code. Because computers work in bytes (now) character data was (at least until unicode became common) usually (in the west) sent with a tacit understanding (or sometimes an explicit declaration) of the extended alphabet that the 8th bit was used to support (often a code page definition). It's rare to see the character code spelled out except in technical discussions (mostly by computer or communication engineers), but when it is there's not much consistency - you might see it simply written in hex (13) where the base is implicit, with a prefix or suffix that denotes hex (0x13 or 13h) or a hex char (\x13), as the control code (^M) or as a textual description of what it is (carriage return). It's very rare to see characters described in octal (partially because octal is pretty rare in general, but mostly because we're not using some weird architecture like a PDP-1 where the number of bits in a machine word is a multiple of 3). As to which of these many representations is appropriate, I'm afraid it depends on context. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Stuff I forgot to say: it's also rare to write it in decimal and (unless you're talking about how bits are stored or transmitted physically) very rare indeed to consider then in binary. Incidentally, once you've got your head wrapped around this, take a look at UTF-8 which extends ASCII to support the gazillions of alphabets in the unicode domain in what I personally think is a wonderfully clever way. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:03, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Alas; what has happened to the hex notation of my youth? $200, $2000, $3D0. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:49, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

The ASCII code maps each character to a number. The base used to write those numbers can be whatever you feel like using. Looie496 (talk) 23:18, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

(EC)I think you just haven't firmly grasped the concept of hexadecimal, by your uncertainty about representing characters in ASCII and hex. Let's start off with something you're probably more familiar with. Whether you use the Arabic numerals 0, or spelled it out as "zero", they are the same number, just represented in a different way. When you have a capital "A" in ASCII, this is represented by decimal 65, which is equal in value to hexadecimal 41 (41 hex is adding 65 ones to 0 in base 16, or that the absolute value of 41 hex is the same as the absolute value of 65 decimal). In other words, there is no difference between character representation in ASCII and hex, other than the base used. Hope that helps. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 23:53, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your prompt help, all of you. The general consensus seems to be that there is only a superficial difference between the representations (Looie496 made this particularly clear). This is what I had always assumed, until I saw this question: Q 25 (a). Would it be appropriate to say something along the lines of what Looie said, or is there more detail to add? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:05, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

(My consternation is due to the fact that a 3 mark question generally requires as much as 100 words of discussion, and I don't see how there is that much comparing and contrasting to be done.) —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 00:08, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

At best it's a poorly worded question, and doesn't really compare like for like. It's perfectly reasonable to talk about an ASCII carriage return as 0x13; that's both hex and ascii. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:26, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

If you're thinking of the carriage return (^M), then it's D or 0D in hex, not 13. So it would be 0x0D, 0Dh or \x0D. 13 in hex would be 19 in decimal, meaning ^S. JIP | Talk 06:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Excel question

Is there a way to specify in an Excel formula "everything in the column from *cell such-and-such* down"? Suppose that I want this "summing cell" to sum everything in column B starting at row 15. The formula "=sum(B:B)-sum(B1:B14)" only works if this summing cell is not in column B ... and what I'm trying to do is put a sum row up in row 10. I could do "=sum(B15:B999)" but that strikes me as inelegant. Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:54, 7 November 2011 (UTC)

I think in Excel, you're stuck with "=sum(B15:B999)". In Google spreadsheet, this was solved with "=sum(B15:B)". --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 00:15, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if you'd call this "elegant", but you can use =SUM(INDIRECT("B15:B"&ROWS(B:B))). AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:50, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Hm, I'd call it educational rather than inelegant, personally. B999 it is! Thank you. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

November 8

Windows Media Player as default

I used to have Windows Media Player as the default CD player on my Windows 7 system. Now somehow itunes took over that. I want to get it back to Media Player but I can't figure out how to do it. I looked in the Control Panel under Programs and didn't see Media Player. How can I get media player back as the default to play CDs? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:40, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Try the "AutoPlay" control panel. -- BenRG (talk) 05:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Pretty sure you can right-click the CD icon in the 'Computer' window and use "Open with" to set a different default program. If the standard right click doesn't give you the 'Open with' option try a Ctrl-right-click or Shift-right-click. Sorry, can't remember for sure and am on machine with no optical drive so can't check. --jjron (talk) 10:23, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

(1) AutoPlay doesn't show Windows Media Player. (2) Right-click doesn't show "open with" (only Open). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:28, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

And in the control panel, programs and features, turn windows features on or off, media features, Windows Media Player IS checked. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:36, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Try opening the drive in Explorer and right-clicking one of the .cda files and using "Open with". This displays on my Vista box. --Phil Holmes (talk) 16:00, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Itunes was set as the default for .cda files so I unchecked that, but in the "other" programs to open with, Windows Media Player is NOT listed. It is as if WMP is gone. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:03, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

If you can start WMP, go to Tools/Options/FileTypes and select everything you want to play (or use the Select All button). If you can't even find WMP to start it, it should be freely downloadable from Microsoft, and the installation should ask about file associations while it is running. --LarryMac | Talk 18:38, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I can't start Media Player anymore. I can't find a place to download it because I'm already supposed to have version 11 (I did see a d.l for older versions and older operating systems.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 18:42, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Win7 uses WMP12. Search your computer for wmplayer.exe, that's what shows up in the task manager when I start WMP on my Win7 machine. Alternately, try this page, it might let you download the "Media Pack" - depending on the required validation. --LarryMac | Talk 19:06, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

The webpage talks about Windows 7 N and Windows 7 KN - what are those? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:09, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

I found that exe file and it starts WMP, but under Organize/options I don't see anything about setting it as the default, and I don't see any other options. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:14, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Linkedin invitations

Over the past week and for the first time ever I've gotten a bunch of linkedin invitations in my email. These are from people I know, not friends but business associates, three of them, completely unrelated to each other, all somehow writing on the same day. Accordingly, I am guessing that these are not "real" invitations. Instead, I am guessing that Linkedin has done something like institute a program that searches a member's email contact list and automatically sends out these invitations, probably without the person's permission except by some fine print in the terms of service allowing them to take such liberties. Anyone else experience this suddenly this week or know something about this?--108.27.102.123 (talk) 15:53, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Linkedin and Facebook both have "import your contacts" options, by which means members allow those services to vacuum their Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Google mail, or other webmail service, or upload a contacts file generated by Outlook or Thunderbird or whatever, and import these wholesale to the service. Anyone with half a brain then goes through these and removes all the incidental ones (all those one-off purchases and ex-girlfriends and stuff) - but then anyone with much regard for their own or their friends' privacy doesn't allow a service (that derives all its value from building a social graph with other people's relationship in it) such massive and indiscriminate access to their private information in the first place. So I think that explains why you got invitations for people you don't feel very connected to (and I think much of the blame rests with the people themselves - Linkedin isn't quite so indiscriminate). As to why they've come in a big bunch - I think that's a consequence of how people use services like this: they tend to neglect it for a while, and when prompted into action by one invitation or message they log in and do stuff. Plus the whole "friend of a friend" idea that both services rely on to generate new introduction suggestions means that you're likely to get invitations from related people close together. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:58, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

LinkedIn's explanation of what they do with the contact information that someone has mass-imprted is here -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:59, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. The link is helpful. It still doesn't explain why I suddenly got these all on the same day, which is quite a coincidence. Given their policy, this is what I am extrapolating probably happened. Even if Linkedin doesn't send these invitations without a member's permission, as they say, they probably recently sent a notice to members advertising the option and these three people, after being prompted, all clicked yes on that day, which would explain the singularity of the timing.--108.27.102.123 (talk) 17:35, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

There's a chance this could be some kind of scam, such as attempted phishing. If you follow the links in the emails, make sure they're going to the genuine LinkedIn site and not a forgery. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 17:46, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's very possible. Malware also scoops up people's contact lists, which can then be used to send one person on the list email masquerading as someone else on the list. It's an astute piece of social engineering: they know you're unlikely to be taken in by an email from Luba in Lviv, but Alan in Accounting may be more persuasive. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:11, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

November 9

Android's pixels

Hi, Many Android devices have some diffrent scales. So how in the largest devices you cannot see pixels? When Google launched Android, I am sure that it didn't know about the futuristic scales. Exx8 (talk) 00:07, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Android software can support many different resolutions. If someone wants to release a tablet with a 10 inch screen and a high resolution display, software can be configured to handle it. And don't assume that Google did not know. First, the first Android device only came on the market three years ago. Second, they are not in the business of not knowing things. There are probably many things that they knew back then that many of us still don't know now. :) --Itinerant1 (talk) 00:19, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Also, when things are drawn on screen, it's usually "draw a line that's 2 pixels thick", not "1/30th of the screen". So, creating larger displays with the same size of pixel will still be 2 pixels thick. It doesn't become stretched out and pixelated, because the pixels are the same size. "Seeing pixels" only depends on the size of pixels. Do you mean devices with the largest pixels? KyuubiSeal (talk) 01:52, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

That depends entirely on your graphics library. Some graphics libraries do allow the programmer to specify "1/30th of the screen" - for example, consider HTML/CSS, in which a div element can specify its width as a proportion of screen (or canvas) area. Some graphics libraries allow the programmer to specify drawing-size in physical units, and handle the needed device-specific conversion. A good example is a font-rendering library, where font size is often specified in picas or inches or points, rather than in pixels. Some graphics libraries will accept a value in points and render in pixels anyway. Some will convert from "inches" to "on-screen inches", scaled by a configurable, user-settable zoom-factor. (Consider the ruler in Microsoft Word, which displays in inches, irrespective of actual size on screen). The "100% zoom" is, theoretically, corrected for screen-size and resolution; in practice, though, this is often not exactly compensated. If hardware can't communicate its dots per inch or otherwise provide some conversion between pixels and physical units, all bets are off. For example, a VGA monitor uses a simple, mostly-analog protocol and does not publish its true size to the computer. Most Android devices use MIPI/DSI, or HDMI, so the screen can actually inform the operating system of its specifications. Nimur (talk) 03:37, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Converting a PowePint presentation for the web

A colleague is delivering a presentation and has produced it in PowerPoint. What would be the best way to present this on a website? The assumption being that PowerPoint as such is not an appropriate format for the web. The site uses Drupal, if that's of ay relevance. --rossb (talk)

Versions of PowerPoint up to 2007 have a "Save as HTML" option, but this option has been removed in Office 2010. However it's apparently still possible to do it using VBA - see this discussion. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 08:42, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

hacking

how the hacking of websites work? in the movie swordfish, hero is asked to hack FBI website and he did some coding.I mean where he write thee code and where he compile it.--nijil (talk) 09:03, 9 November 2011 (UTC)