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April 28

Antivirus Program

Hey guys! I finally figured out my downloading problem! Turns out it is a fairly common problem when upgrading AVG. It wasn't Internet Explorer's fault at all. All I did was uninstall AVG then reinstall it and I can download anything fine! :) The only problem is, now that I have reinstalled AVG, it has turned into a 30-day free trial, even though I've been using it free for 4 years! So, my question is: is it possible for me to get it to be unlimited again; and if that isn't possible, does anyone know a good, free, unlimited (and reliable!) antivirus program that I can switch to? Thanks! --Yellow1996 (talk) 01:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The 30day trial only applies if you have also enabled any elements of AVG Internet Security such as the firewall. To change it back (In AVG 2012 or 2013) just open Add/Remove Programs, select AVG and CHANGE. One of the options will be to switch to the free AVG Antivirus. Nanonic (talk) 02:29, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks a million! :) It worked, and now my computer troubles are finally over. --Yellow1996 (talk) 17:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

MS Word; do not skip to new page for new paragraph

In MS Word 2010 for PC, when I am writing in paragraphs, if my new paragraph begins on the last line of a given page, MS Word will automatically bump the new paragraph down to the next page as I am writing the paragraph. This leaves a one line blank on the bottom of the previous page. I understand that it is probably doing this to make the formating more aesthetically appealing, but how do I stop it from doing this? Certain paper submission guidelines, for example, want you to have x lines per page and maintain equal margins throughout. It is hard to follow this when Word automatically adds a break to move the paragraph to the next page, leaving a larger apparent bottom margin on the previous page. Acceptable (talk) 04:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Just ignore it. I guarantee you the editors won't even notice it. Looie496 (talk) 04:41, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Click the Home tab and then click the dialog box launcher in the lower right corner of the Paragraph group. Click the Line and Page Breaks tab in the Paragraph dialog box and uncheck “Widow/Orphan control”.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:22, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Antivirus products

Can an antivirus product detect and remove a virus which got onto a system before it was installed? Clover345 (talk) 16:34, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, an antivirus program will detect anything and everything malicious/infected that it finds on your computer, regardless of when the virus got there. --Yellow1996 (talk) 17:37, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Saying that an antivirus will detect anything and everything is kinda too broad of an assertion. Indeed, some antivirus will check what you are downloading, and block these virus. Anyway, most antivirus will only detect what it was programmed to detect, and won't protect against zero-day attacks, unless the program uses some form of heuristics. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The assertion that antivirus software can detect anything malicious is not even close to correct. First of all, there is no widely-accepted definition of "malicious software." In a recent posting, I declared "malicious" to mean any piece of software whose source-code satisfies my regular-expression search for "google" or its aliases - an uncommon, but legitimate, definition of "malicious." Secondly, it is implausible that any software can ever detect everything. This is, in fact, provably impossible - because antivirus detection is computationally equivalent to solving the halting problem, as you will find in nearly any reputable book or paper on malware research - our article links to Len Adleman's work, An Abstract Theory of Computer Viruses (1988). And it is worth pointing to Ken Thompson's famous paper, Reflections on Trusting Trust (1984). Basically, the logic goes like this: for any algorithm you come up with that detects malware, a malware can be designed specifically so that it is undetected by that algorithm. Alternately: for any code you validate to guarantee its safety, a compiler or a host interpreter exists that will surreptitiously convert that sanitized "safe" code into malicious "unsafe" code.

Instead of treating malware by detection-and-removal, there are other security strategies, like hardware-enforced application whitelisting, and cryptographic signature verification, to secure important computer systems. It is my opinion that commercial antivirus software is actually far less effective than simply using common sense, and running only trusted software. Nimur (talk) 21:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, you are both completely right. What I meant to say was "can delete" rather than "will detect" - because obviously an antivirus program can remove something that it detects. To the OP: as stated above, it depends on what program you have and what it has been designed to find (some are meant specifically for Spyware etc), or what you have configured it to find. But the answer to the question is yes - the time that the problem files got onto your system has no effect on whether an antivirus can detect and remove it or not. --Yellow1996 (talk) 00:53, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

There are some viruses which are antivirus aware, and either won't allow the antivirus to run, or will block the antivirus enough that it doesn't permit detection. As each antivirus runs differently, this can be antivirus dependant - the virus may block <popular antivirus>, but ignore, and thus be detected by, <niche antivirus>. The versions of the antivirus also matter. Once an antivirus maker knows there's a program that's subverting detection, they try to block the blocking. - The general rule of thumb, though, is that you shouldn't trust anything that is running on a system that is suspected of being compromised. Once an attacker has access to the core system, they can do basically anything. In those situations, it's recommended to use something like a bootdisk (ideally produced on a known clean machine) to start a known clean version of the operating system, and then scan the harddrive from the clean OS. (To be extra safe, you can change which operating system used - e.g. use a linux liveCD and a linux-based virus scanner to scan for Windows viruses, as Windows viruses typically can't work under linux.) -- 71.35.116.249 (talk) 19:23, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

more blender help?

I recently asked about setting a film as a background in blender, and received some helpful advice, but now I am having trouble again, and following the same advice doesn't seem to be working this time. so I wonder if anyone here knows what to do. I've got the film set as the background texture ok, but I can't see it at all while working, which makes it pretty much useless, any idea how to set it so an image/movie texture appears outside of renders, so I can see it while I'm working over it?

thank you,

213.104.128.16 (talk) 23:49, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

April 29

wifi problems

I have Comcast cable internet and the cable modem has a built-in wifi router. The wifi used to work fine, but now it often can't connect with some but not all of the computers in the house. With the Dell laptop I'm using (Windows XP) the router shows up very strong when scanning for signal, but connection fails. After a few hours it will sometimes connect and then work great for several hours before failing the same way. With a Lenovo computer it works solidly but an Ipad apparently doesn't find the signal at all. The hardware diagnostic on the Dell says everything is working. Any idea what's going on? 98.207.66.10 (talk) 00:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Those problems are suggestive of RF interference issues. Unfortunately there are a lot of possible causes, but the first question would be whether anything has been added to your environment that generates radio waves. (If not, it could be coming from a neighboring house.) You might read this article for background. Looie496 (talk) 16:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Is there a microwave oven on, or a bluetooth device (these both run at the same frequency as WiFi). Is there another WiFi access point using the same channel number as your point (I know how to check in Linux for this, but never done it in MS-Windows). CS Miller (talk) 21:27, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Max CD-RW size

What is the maximum size for reinscriptibles CD.

I know there are 900Mb CD-R, but I can't find the same size for CD-RW.2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 10:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The maximum size should be the same. The difference between CD-R and CD-RW disks is just in what materials are used to make the data layer. That said, the higher capacities of writeable CD work by violating the standard in ways that most (but not all) drives can deal with, and the lower contrast of CD-RW as compared to CD-R could reduce compatibility too much at the higher densities. --Carnildo (talk) 03:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There are no standard violations (like overburning), the standard has been updated recently. 900Mo can be read on any drive, You just need a writer that support it.

I often burn live CDs but, since the new standard most linux distributions seems to consider you have the largest size (900M).It is interesting to update the CD with newer iso rather than keeping all version.

My writer can't erase DVD-RW so this the reason of the question.2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 13:35, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Group website

I'm trying to find a website or similar service I can create a group on for a club I'm part of, somewhere people can talk and post information on upcoming events and things like that, a sort of social networking place. I'd want something quick and easy for people to sign up to, too. I've considered facebook, google+ and skype, but none of them are quite what we want

anyone know of anything like this?

213.104.128.16 (talk) 15:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

How about phpBB?--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:31, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe. I like forums, but they don't do real-time chat, which maybe we could manage without, and there's too much emphasis on lists of comments, rather than the other aspects, personal profiles, event planning and calendars, noticeboards and useful things like that. unless, I can get those added and/or made more noticeable and useful by the way I configure the basic layout of the site? 213.104.128.16 (talk) 10:05, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Nintendo DS/3DS Connectivity

Hey, guys. It's bugging me not to know this, so here goes. Say you have a Nintendo DS with a DS game loaded. You can normally wirelessly connect to another DS (for example trading Pokemon in the 4th or 5th generation games), BUT... is it possible between a DS and a 3DS, or two 3DS' with original DS paks loaded? Prompt answer, please. --JadeGuardian (talk) 17:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you are talking about protocols

it is possible in Wi-fi but what make think that nintendo don't use a custom protocol beetween their consoles2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 19:43, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I can say that yes, the two devices can connect to each other for certain. I do it all the time. Mingmingla (talk) 21:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe it has something to do with how the 3DS runs in "DS mode" when you have an original game pak loaded (correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember where I read this so don't quote me on it!) but regardless you should have no troubles communicating between the chips. --Yellow1996 (talk) 01:25, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

strong and weak entity sets

I'm currently reading "Database System Concepts" by Silberschatz-Korth-Sudarshan. I was going through the section describing the strong and weak entity sets in an ER model. Here's the section. An entity set may not have sufficient attributes to form a primary key. Such an entity set is termed a weak entity set. An entity set that has a primary key is termed a strong entity set. As an illustration, consider the entity set payment, which has the three attributes: payment-number, payment-date, and payment-amount. Payment numbers are typically sequential numbers, starting from 1, generated separately for each loan. Thus, although each payment entity is distinct, payments for different loans may share the same payment number. Thus, this entity set does not have a primary key; it is a weak entity set. For a weak entity set to be meaningful, it must be associated with another entity set, called the identifying or owner entity set. Every weak entity must be associated with an identifying entity; that is, the weak entity set is said to be existence dependent on the identifying entity set. The identifying entity set is said to own the weak entity set that it identifies. The relationship associating the weak entity set with the identifying entity set is called the identifying relationship. The identifying relationship is many to one from the weak entity set to the identifying entity set, and the participation of the weak entity set in the relationship is total. In our example, the identifying entity set for payment is loan, and a relationship loan-payment that associates payment entities with their corresponding loan entities is the identifying relationship. Although a weak entity set does not have a primary key, we nevertheless need a means of distinguishing among all those entities in the weak entity set that depend on one particular strong entity. The discriminator of a weak entity set is a set of attributes that allows this distinction to be made. For example, the discriminator of the weak entity set payment is the attribute payment-number, since, for each loan, a payment number uniquely identifies one single payment for that loan. The discriminator of a weak entity set is also called the partial key of the entity set.

First, it was mentioned that the attribute payment_number can be the same for different loans, so, the entity set is weak. Then again, it's said that the attribute has unique values for the same loan. So, it can act as a discriminator. Why in one case, different loans are taken, while in the other, the same loan? In simpler words, why are not, in both cases, either multiple loans taken, or a single loan taken? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.197.254.199 (talk) 18:16, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I can't really make sense of your question. In the first place, the sentence "the attribute has unique values for the same loan" is nonsense, and the passage you quoted doesn't say it. In the second place, I don't understand what the word "taken" is supposed to mean when applied to a loan. Let me try, though, to clarify the passage as I understand it. Suppose we have two loans: loan 1 is to Smith, loan 2 is to Jones. Both of those loans have a payment numbered 12. The attribute loan-number is not a primary key because if I simply refer to payment 12, you can't tell which loan is being referred to. However, within the context of the loan to Smith, knowing that the payment number is 12 is sufficient to tell me exactly which element of the database is being referred to. Looie496 (talk) 22:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Perhaps it would help to give some examples of table layouts. Here's one way:

 LOAN_PAYMENTS
 =============
*Loan number
*Payment number
 Payment date
 Payment amount

In this case, the combination of Loan number and Payment number is needed to form a unique key. Presumably another table would exist describing attributes of the loan, as follows:

 LOAN_DETAILS
 ============
*Loan number
 Loan amount
 Loan period
 Loan origination date
 Loan interest rate
 Loaner
 Loanee
 

For an alternate example, let's now suppose that you own a small business which only has two loans they've taken out. While the following approach isn't optimal, in that it doesn't scale up nicely when the business grows and has many loans, many might set it up as a table for each loan anyhow:

 RIPOFF_BANK_PAYMENTS
 ====================
*Payment number
 Payment date
 Payment amount

 REPO_BANK_PAYMENTS
 ==================
*Payment number
 Payment date
 Payment amount

In this case, the payment number alone is a unique key, within each table. StuRat (talk) 19:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

April 30

Dual opamps

Hello Sirs! Could you please enlighten me a bit on a few things here - I have a preamp that uses dip socketed mono opamps per each channel (lefr right - two opamps) that is they are mono opamps per each channel , so my concern is , is it ok to put a dual to mono opamp in there although it only needs one of them per channel, will the other just be idling or something without breaking anything or creating any problems? Thanks !! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.7.130 (talk) 12:29, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

It is a good idea to properly terminate or bias unused leads as per the spec sheet. Here [1] is a reasonable example of terminating an unused op amp. Dmcq (talk) 17:21, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

GameCube/Wii regional lockout

Hello. So I know this: Both the Wii and Gamecube are regionally locked, There exists a "Freeloader" lockout disabling apparatus for the GC, The Wii is backwards compatible with all GC games and most of its accessories. So is it possible to play a Japanese GC game on a North American Wii, using the freeloader? If so, is it restricted to certain firmware versions or earlier models? Thanks, --JadeGuardian (talk) 18:54, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The Wii is notorious for not supporting mods (and the official Game Boy Player - really too bad!) for the GC. Providing a link to the exploit you are interested in could help, but all I can say is it would probably be a better idea to check out a modchip for your Wii that would unlock it. As for the firmware, I don't think the Wii firmware has been updated in a while so if you are getting a new modchip then it will probably work (remember to always read the infomation for any hack carefully before you buy/download it!!! This applies to any electronics!), but for the GC mod I don't know. My guess would be that it would only work on very old versions of the Wii firmware. There are ways to downgrade, but getting an exploit for the Wii rather than the GC would be a lot less complicated and (In my opinion) safer. Hope that helps! --Yellow1996 (talk) 23:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't have an answer on if it allows getting around regions, but a modchip is no longer required for the Wii. Everything can be done through an SD card and the system software. There are GC loaders for modded Wiis, but I haven't researched region issues. It does allow playing out-of-region Wii games. 38.111.64.107 (talk) 13:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I wasn't aware of that, thanks 38.111.64.107! (I've been a little out of the hacking loop...) :) In that case I guess you'll need to find one of those SD-based hacks that does support region-free GC loading, if such a thing exists (probably does.) If not, the modchip idea would probably still work - I believe some of the newer ones are very easy to install, too. --Yellow1996 (talk) 01:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Kill javascript running in Firefox

Can you kill js (without killing Firefox) specifically? (This is not about disabling it). OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:59, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You can use some ad blocker to prevent a particular js file from loading. Ruslik_Zero 02:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

You can kill firefox, re-start it and allow it to restore your session, but disable JS in-between. :) ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

JS doesn't run as as a separate process from Firefox. The closest thing you can do is disable javascript from specific sources, and reload the page. NoScript does this. --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 06:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It is possible with windows because of WINAPI.Firefox (checked dor 3.6) use(d)? some basic javascipt part of windows API.You might not find a separate thread for each javasript program.

In UNIX all is files in Windows / OS/2, all is handles (more than files with unix). There is probably a directory that group all related javacript API actions.Then you can can create a basic C/C++ program for closing the handles you want. I think the WINAPI provides functions to deals with handles, so it should be easy.

The handles created by WINAPI might not be documented so you may have to look in internals windows functionement.

You may crash the process but don't forget that most of the time, firefox open a pop-up prompting killing the .js app or let it runing.You need to use this only if it doesn't open.2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 13:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Updating SSD firmware

Is there any way to update a drive's firmware if I can't install it into a computer? A Macbook Air doesn't have any native SATA ports. And I can't update firmware if I place the SSD into a external USB 3.0 enclosure, correct? --Navstar (talk) 22:09, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, with a disk enclosure you can do it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:22, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

May 1

Alcohol abuse and my netbook

A terrible thing happened: I spilled some delicious Corsendonk Christmas beer on my netbook, a Toshiba NB 505. (Trout me for it.) Now my space bar is stuck. I've figured out how to get the whole keyboard off, but that doesn't allow me to clean under the bar. On this netbook, do those keys pop off like on a regular keyboard? Even my previous laptop allowed that--and what I mean is that I could put it back on afterward. With this thing I don't know if they pop off and back on. I'll take any advice y'all have to offer. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That should teach you a lesson, if drinking, do not type. Anyway, I've never seen a key that wouldn't pop when pulled. but don't do it from the side, just pull two points along the bar. Otherwise a vacuum cleaner or a compressed air can can be of use here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

On spacebars (and some larger keys), there is a stiff piece of wire connecting the outside edges of the key together - the ends of the wire are attached to hooks on the underside of the key, and there are pivots on the PCB, attached near the middle of the wire. Slide the wire to the one side to unhook it from that end, and then slide to the other side to unhook it from the other end of the key. CS Miller (talk) 15:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Right, it's not exactly like other keys. For more detailed information, this is one of the rare cases when youtube is a better source than wikipedia. Try searching for "how to remove the spacebar" there. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Never done this before on a Toshiba NB 505 but look at this - it roughly follows what has worked for me in the past.[2] By about 3 minutes in, it shows you how to get the keyboard out. A simple agitated wash in a bowlful of weak detergent (20 mins minimum) and a very good rinse off on distilled or de- mineralized water followed by a couple of days to dry off in a warm airing cupboard may be all you need. If the laptop has been in use for a while you might like to refer to this on how to get rid of all the accumulated crud.[3] You have nothing to loose by taking the latter route first because it will be a good learning exercise, an further rub it in, that from now on you must be more responsible when handling alcohol. The exercise may come in useful for when your niece spills Florida Orange juices on her keyboard. Keyboards are not connoisseurs. Icky liquid is all the same to them, what ever the liquid's provenance.Aspro (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I watched that video yesterday, very helpful, and removed the keyboard though I stopped short of pulling that connector off, hoping I could deal with the one key individually. I'll try again to see if I can snap the one key off, and if that doesn't work I'm cleaning the whole keyboard. Thank you all for your help! Drmies (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

And, if the space bar just never works again no matter what you do, there's always an external keyboard. You can get a light and small keyboard that won't make your laptop all that much less portable. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• I managed to pry off the space bar, cleaned the metal connections, and it's clicking perfectly. Thank you all so much! Drmies (talk) 15:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Windows Media Player not updating metadata properly?

I borrowed a copy of Pixies' album "Surfer Rosa" from a friend. This is all very fine and good, and it even came with the tracks from their debut EP Come on Pilgrim. I decided, however, to split the albums into two using Windows Explorer, feeling it would be more organised to keep the albums separate than as one whole. I edited the metadata as is standard for Windows Explorer on Windows 7, but when I opened Windows Media Player I found that it was frustratingly refusing the accept that the two albums were now separate entities. What can I do to change this behaviour, or am I stuck? --Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 16:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Okay, now WMP is just claiming that the files don't exist altogether and actually offered to remove my entire library??? What the hell is going on? --Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 16:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It's also refusing to delete said files, or play them. Jesus Christ I hate this program. --Editor510 ^{drop us a line, mate} 16:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

VLC; GNU/Linux ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Did you remove the old entries from the library and re-add them? If their file path is even slightly different from what it once was, it will no longer find the file and needs to be re-added. -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

GPS-traces or elevations for European Highways

I investigates hybrid vehicles of different kinds and would like to calculate battery usage on different routes. It would be very useful to be able to get the elevation profiles and slopes of major highways in Europe such as E45 or E62. I am sure very many people have recorded such GPS-traces, some of them can be found on [4] but they only seem to be publicized in chronological order with no way to find a trace of a specific road. Do you know how/where to find this type of information? An other way would be to use the google maps API and do something like: [5] or [6] but the terms of use for google map data seems to be rather confusing at best regarding this type of use and it would probably require some programming to extract it as a text file table or similar from the API, the simulations will then be done in Matlab or Python. Do you know any web service that provides GPS-traces or orher sources of altiude-profiles of Highways? Gr8xoz (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There's a rough manual way you can do this in Google Earth:

• add->path, then click at various points along the route
• in the "places" section in the left bar, where the new path you created is shown, right-click on it and click "elevation profile" in the context menu that pops up.

It's very detailed (it's not just the altitudes at the points you clicked, but at all those on the line between those points). But I don't know how to save that profile (bar taking a screenshot) or how to export it (looking at the KML file you get if you export the path, the Z coords are all 0, which I take to mean an offset from the prevailing ground level at that lat/long). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Beyond that, I'd ask at the OpenStreetMap forum. They do have actual GPS traces, but really you don't want them - OSM weaves a tapestry of traces into a coherent mesh, and what you want is to be able to extract the altitudes for a given road or set of roads. OSM too has an API (here) - folks at the forum there should be able to advise you on how to proceed with it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The problem with OSM in this application as far as I understand is that the map itself is only 2D (With a few exceptions [7]) while the original traces often have altitude. This [8] google Summer of Code project seems to be an attempt to get the data I need by combining OSM routes with NASA radar measurements [9] but it does not seem to have any server online, maybe I could install my own but it seems to be a lot of work.

Gr8xoz (talk) 21:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Microsoft Word 2007 Problem

At my place of work, Microsoft Word 2007 seems to be having a problem. For example, when trying to make a hyperlink, you would normally press Enter after creating one; it would turn blue and become clickable, correct? In my case, it becomes something that looks like this:

{HYPERLINK "mailto:fakeaddress@somemail.com"}

Other hyperlinks do the same thing, such as:

{HYPERLINK \1 "MEETING"} {HYPERLINK \1 "DATE"}  {HYPERLINK \1 "ACTION_ITEMS"} 

Page numbers appear as:

{ PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT }

Can anyone help me return Word to normal operation? -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I think you have "show field codes" turned on. info -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That was it! Thank you! -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

May 2

Strange audio/video stuttering problems

Hi all. I've got a strong computer. An Intel i7 CPU and GTX 460M GPU seem pretty strong to me. And they often perform their duties admirably well. But they seem to trip up on really small things much of the time.

If I'm watching a video, the video may pause for a fraction of a second (with the audio still running normally), then skip ahead to where it would be if it hadn't paused at all. The intervening frames are either dropped, or played back very sped up. For example, if the video featured someone walking across the room, they would stop in place and then either teleport to the other side, or scurry over, their legs moving in a flurry. This can happen when watching any video online, and is particularly noticeable when watching videos on iTunes. However, I can't find any sort of common factor between occurrences. Sometimes it works just fine, other times it doesn't. One thing I'll mention is that I almost never see this problem happen with Crunchyroll's online video player, if that helps.

Both video and audio stutter when playing Minecraft, to an unacceptable degree. However, this only happens when the sound is on. For example, let's say I start the game up, and am standing where I last left off. Upon the first step I take, the game will freeze for about a second, and then the player character will slowly move forward, and the sound of walking on the surface I'm on plays. This freezing happens with every "new" sound that the game has to play back. That is to say, if I haven't walked on grass since starting the game, the first time I walk on grass will be rife with stuttering gamplay as each walking-on-grass sound is played for the first time. However, it still has a tendency to happen, to a lesser degree, with any sound. The game still seems to be running when it's frozen; time-sensitive processes will continue. For instance, Creepers are enemies that explode when you stand near them for too long. Several times I've run up to a Creeper and had the game freeze for a moment from either the sound of the Creeper starting to hiss, or me attacking the Creeper, or both. When the game unfreezes, the Creeper explodes, essentially making it instantly detonate when I try to attack it. Turning sound off in Minecraft's options mostly eliminates this problem, but I would like the sound back.

Left 4 Dead 2 has problems as well, but they manifest in a different way. "New" sounds that haven't been played before have a delay for when they should play. For example, if I pick up a shotgun and fire it, the first time I fire it will have the sound of its blast delayed for a second. It works normally for the rest of the game after that. This goes for all guns, grenade sound effects, and possibly others that I can't notice as well. This effect also manifests itself in the menu. When scrolling through menu options, the whole game stutters for a second if I scroll over something that has not been previously accessed. I can't move the cursor during that time, and the audio repeats a very short loop several times. For example, if the menu music had someone speaking in it, saying something like "Please include your system specs" and I scrolled over something in the middle of the sentence, I'd hear "Please include your clude your clude your clude your system specs." This happens to a lesser degree while playing BioShock.

I really don't know what to make of this. This is supposed to be a fairly strong computer, but it feels like its shoelaces have been tied together with these problems. I've tried updating my drivers through NVIDIA's Web site, but I feel like incidence of screen tearing during video playback only increased for a few weeks after doing so. What do you think could be the cause? What can I do to fix this?

Windows 7 Home Premium, Service Pack 1

Intel Core i7-2630QM

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M

Thanks for your time.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 02:49, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

(Oh, and one thing I forgot; timing for things spoken by the survivors in Left 4 Dead 2 can be pretty off. A survivor might make the relieved "ahhh" sound right before they actually take their pain pills. Speech might get cut off: instead of Ellis saying "That man is an American hero," he'll just say "That man is an American" and get cut off.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 02:54, 2 May 2013 (UTC))

I'm getting the impression that your worst problems are with audio. What sort of audio setup do you have on the system? (See Control Panel->Hardware and Sound->Sound->Manage Audio Devices, in case you have trouble finding it.) Looie496 (talk) 03:09, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Conexant SmartAudio HD?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 03:34, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Sounds a lot like a hard drive problem to me. Loading new sounds/assets into memory will freeze up the game since if waits on the (irregularly long) read, or the sound will play late and be cut off since it took too long to load. You should run a SMART diagnostic. 198.168.234.223 (talk) 19:28, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Graphics with Java: Applets and Applications

I am trying to convert a java applet to a java application. I have done all the conversions i needed, including changing the content pane to a JFrame. However, it seems the paint method doesnt work. I'm not sure what im doing wrong, but im guessing applications deal with painting differently. Does anyone know what is wrong? If it is necessary, i am willing to post the source code. The main class still extends JApplet, which i wonder if its part of the problem or not.

Again, let me know if posting some source code is needed.

137.81.118.126 (talk) 05:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Make sure you're adding children to the JFrame's contentPane, not to the JFrame itself, as shown in the JFrame javadoc page. While you can try to use JApplet inside a JFrame, without someone implementing all the stuff that an AppletContainer provides, all the utility methods in java.applet.Applet (e.g. getImage) don't work. Personally I'd recommend you don't use JApplet like that, and instead change your code to extend a JContainerJPanel instead. If you want to post your code for others' review, I'd recommend you post it at pastebin and only post the URL of that here; but make sure your code compiles with no warnings before you do that. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 07:01, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I tried to change to extending JFrame JPanel, with no luck. The program unfortunately has a few classes if you are wanting to have it compile entirely. I will get to working on it. 137.81.118.126 (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I sounds like you're trying with too complicated an example, and probably people won't be interested in helping you debug a whole application. It's much easier for people to help you if you can reduce your problem to a single class; often the practice of doing this will let you see the problem yourself. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 07:40, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

The source is all available now. I tried to make pretty decent comments noting the division between files. There are 5 classes, "Application", "Attractor", "Build", "Main", and "MouseListen".

http://pastebin.com/kkSj4zZJ

Edit: The only problem is within the painting of things. It wont involve digging into the "Build" class, for instance, which has nothing to do with the issue.

Edit 2: If the painting of things is fixed, instead of a gray empty area on the left, there should be a purple background with a gray dot you can drag around.

137.81.118.126 (talk) 07:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

You've gotten into a muddle because Application extends JFrame, but then in its init you create a new JFrame. You never display the Application, only the new-ed one, and your paint methods are on the frame you never display. So there's no painting. As a hack, you can see this by changing the line

        Frame frame = new JFrame("Attractors v2.0");

with

  
        JFrame frame = this;

and you get repainting. But really you should change Application.init() to be the constructor of the Application class. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:51, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally, painting on the same JFrame that you're hosting widgets on is, while it works, confusing. You'd be much better off created another widget (e.g. AttractorCanvas extends JPanel), adding it to the JFrame (BorderLayout.West) and having all the painting in there). Right now your Application.paint() call applies for the whole Application, which means it can paint over the controls on the left (if the clip is so set). Another incidental thing (I know you didn't ask for a full code review, but since I'm here...) your paint method gets much more readable if you use an iterator:

    @Override
    public void paint(Graphics g) {
	g.setColor(bgCol);
        g.fillRect(0, 0, 500, 500);

        for(Attractor item: attArr){
            int d = item.getR()*2;
            int x = item.getX();
            int y = item.getY();

            g.setColor(Color.LIGHT_GRAY);
            g.fillOval(x, y, d, d);
            g.setColor(Color.DARK_GRAY);
            g.drawOval(x, y, d, d);
        }
    }

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:36, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Finlay, your analysis of my program has been most helpful! I have made most of your changes, except for having the separate drawing pane, and reorganizing the paint method. I deleted the frame that is unneeded, and anywhere i used to reference "frame" i use "this" now. Ex: this.setSize(960,510); ..........

The images now show properly, but when i use things from the MouseListen class, they dont update the screen appropriately. The MouseListen class takes in Application by reference and calls its "repaint" method. Again perhaps im not familiar enough with applications as opposed to applets, but this appears to do nothing. How could i fix this issue? 137.81.118.126 (talk) 18:52, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It's nothing to do with applications vs applets; you're either not receiving the events because you've not listened on the correct control, or you're sending repaints to the wrong control. Your code is overcomplicated and distributes responsibility for control in a weird way. You should refactor it, with a single JPanel responsible for storing the Attractors, rendering them on itself, and handling its own painting and repainting. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

..a decent point. I will attempt to merge MouseListener class with the Application class.

Edit: I dont think this is possible because MouseListener extends MouseInputAdapter, and my application already extends JFrame. Java cant allow one class to extend two other classes. Not sure what to do but i see your point that power over the application is spread out.

137.81.118.126 (talk) 20:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I have had a look at debugging and all the paint methods work perfectly, there is just a different bug, and im confident i can fix it. Thank you for your help!

Resolved

137.81.118.126 (talk) 22:31, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

is there software that can determine a person's race

from their name? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.74.102.57 (talk) 09:14, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Obviously not, since anyone can change their name to anything they like. Even if you assume the input is a person's birth name, the most that could be achieved is a probabilistic guess at their parent's ethnic and cultural background (and note that this is not the same as their race) e.g. the parents of Dermot O'Leary are probably Irish. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:28, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

As just a case in point, compare George Clinton and George Clinton. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:44, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Race isn't something that can be 'determined' at all. It is a social construct - an arbitrary subdivision of humanity based on local cultural distinctions, rather than anything more concrete. One only has to look at the almighty tangles that apartheid-era South Africa got into trying determine who was 'what' to see that it is impossible to define objectively. It is also worth noting that those who have attempted to justify the subdivision of humanity into 'scientifically defined' races have singularly failed to even agree amongst themselves as to how many there are, never mind how you determine membership. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Just because something can't be neatly categorized doesn't mean it's arbitrary or meaningless. You might as well say languages are arbitrary social constructs (why are Swedish and Danish separate but not High German and Vorarlbergerisch???). We certainly can't agree on how many languages there are either. That doesn't make the concept any less meaningful or useful. That being said - yes, the original poster's question is certainly impossible. -Elmer Clark (talk) 22:45, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I once met an Asian man named Laquisha Brown and asked him how he got that name. He explained that he was waiting in line at immigration, the immigration officer asked the woman in front of him her name, she said "Laquisha Brown", and the immigration official wrote it down on her papers. When it was his turn and they asked his name, he said Sam Ting, so they wrote down Laquisha Brown on his forms too. :-) StuRat (talk) 18:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Two can play at that game, my friend!

I once met a German man named Sean Ferguson and asked him how he got that name. He explained that he had been advised to give the immigration officer a good American name, like John Smith, so he patiently stood in line repeating "John Smith, John Smith", but when he got to the front of the line he was so nervous it slipped his mind, and he said "Ach! Ich habe schon vergessen!" and Sean Ferguson he became.Gzuckier (talk) 21:22, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Bonus: You ever wonder if Ang Lee got his name because he became irritated waiting in line at immigration and told the officer he was angry? Gzuckier (talk) 21:24, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Making a single page of a section landscape in Word

I'm using Microsoft word for a document with a set of drawings at the end, which are numbered separately from the main pages (in the form X/Y, {Page}/{SectionPages} ). I want to make a single page of the drawings landscape, but the only way I know how to do that is by making a new section for the landscape page, so {sectionpages} doesn't work any more. Is there any way to either:

• Change {sectionpages} so that it shows the total of the last (n) sections (i.e. to include the portrait and landscape sections)
• make a single page landscape without changing section?

Unfortunately, the landscape part has to be in the middle of the drawings, and I'm likely to be editing either side of it, so I can't even just fudge it for all but the last section, and then use ={sectionpages}+Z for the final section. many thanks MChesterMC (talk) 14:50, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Follow up on this, I've worked around it my using {= {NUMPAGES} - {PAGEREF Bookmark}}, with the bookmark set at the last page of the previous section. It only works because I have only two sections total (the main document and the drawings), but it's good enough! A better solution would still be appreciated, since if this document gets amended and I have to insert more pages (which will go in as e.g. 5, 5a, 5b, 6) it will break the formatting again MChesterMC (talk) 09:32, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

"SecuROM" in The Sims 2/3

I recently bought The Sims 2 Deluxe the The Sims 3 Deluxe, after a long time with only The Sims 1 (Complete Collection). Only about purchasing the games, but not installing them yet, I read about the games and learned that they included something called "SecuROM" which a lot of people find horrible. In my research, SecuROM could cause problems to your PC in some cases. Why would Maxis/Electronic Arts knowingly release a game with such technology, and should I be worried about installing it? Thanks! -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 16:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Reading our SecuROM article will probably give you more information than any answer here could. Looie496 (talk) 17:05, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually did read Wikipedia's article; apparently there are multiple versions, some with differing bad characteristics. I'm looking for advice on what the SecuROM included with Sims 2 Deluxe and Sims 3 Deluxe would do to my PC, if anything. -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:58, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I've installed the Sims 3 before and I didn't notice any kind of DRM (other than needing the DVD to play) but it's been a while, and I didn't look very hard to see what it did to the cpu. Shadowjams (talk) 22:44, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Pokemon, 3rd gen. celibi

Hello. So I've heard that the only way to obtain Celibi without cheating is to transfer it from the Japanese Pokemon Colosseum pre-order bonus disk. Can you load this Japanese monster to the American Ruby, Sapphire, FR, LG or Emerald? And as a bonus, how rare are these disks and about how much do they go for? --JadeGuardian (talk) 19:29, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Uhh, hello? --JadeGuardian (talk) 21:10, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

You allowed two minutes between when you asked your question and when you posted about your impatience. There aren't Pokemon experts manning this desk 24/7. If anyone can supply the answer, they may in fact do that but getting pissy with the readers here will not really encourage them to assist you. That said, you may be able to get an answer more quickly on a specialized Pokemon forum or message board. To me, your question seems rather obscure and specific, so a specialized forum may be your best bet. Dismas|^(talk) 21:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Actually, I posted this much earlier, but came back because I forgot to add the signature. --JadeGuardian (talk) 21:22, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you can't. The Japanese disk only works with Japanese game carts (according to Bulbapedia; I haven't done it myself - I've been an AR user since the beginning! :) ) As for the price, eBay states a price window of $25-$75 but that is for both versions together (English and Japanese) - if you are interested in a Jirachi or are willing to purchase a Japanese version of one of the games, that is! --Yellow1996 (talk) 23:56, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Checking my mac's memory usage

 Model Name:	             iMac
 Model Identifier:	        iMac11,3
 Processor Name:	        Intel Core i5
 Processor Speed:	        2.8 GHz
 Number Of Processors:	        1
 Total Number Of Cores:         4
 L2 Cache (per core):	        256 KB
 L3 Cache:	                8 MB
 Memory:	                8 GB
 Processor Interconnect Speed:	4.8 GT/s
 Boot ROM Version:	        IM112.0057.B00
 SMC Version (system):	        1.59f2

Is there a way to check what percentage of my computer's memory is filled up? I have tried system profile but it just tells me how much memory I have in total, per above, 8 GB. Also, can anyone tell me how much memory I can use up without it significantly affecting my performance?--108.54.26.164 (talk) 22:48, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Try the "Activity Monitor" (Applications > Utilities). The "system memory" tab shows you lots of RAM information. Green is totally free, blue is "recently used" which means it is technically free but sometimes the OS doesn't free it up in a timely way (you can run the "purge" command in the Terminal to manually force it to free that up, if you're into that kind of thing), red is "used by really important processes" and yellow is "used by regular programs." More or less.

As for performance issues... basically if you drop down to levels where your machine needs RAM you don't have available, it will use virtual memory, aka hard drive space. This slows things down a lot because hard drive reads and writes are slow compared to RAM. Under the aforementioned "System memory" tab, look for the "swap used" item. If it is more than just a tiny amount, then you're running into performance issues based on not enough RAM free. Otherwise, your performance issues are probably not RAM related. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:23, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Mr.98. It says "Swap used: 261.7 MB" Does that ring any alarm bells for you? I know you said if it's more than just a tiny amount..., but when we're talking about 8GB, is 261 a lot? Most of my memory is taken up with video storage btw. Maybe I should put a lot of it on an external drive (they're fairly cheap) and off the computer's hard drive?--108.54.26.164 (talk) 01:16, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Blue is actually better described as "a good candidate for swapping out to disk": it's memory that a program has indicated it's using, but hasn't actually touched in a while. --Carnildo (talk) 02:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Mmm, that's not really what Apple says about it. "This information is in RAM but it is not actively being used, it was recently used. For example, if you've been using Mail and then quit it, the RAM that Mail was using is marked as Inactive memory. Inactive memory is available for use by another application, just like Free memory. However, if you open Mail before its Inactive memory is used by a different application, Mail will open quicker because its Inactive memory is converted to Active memory, instead of loading it from the slower drive."

As for swap... how much do you have in the "Page outs" category? My feeling is that a quarter of a gig of swap is kind of a lot. Not a ridiculous amount, but it indicates you are hitting your memory limits more often than one would expect to with that much RAM. As for your use of the hard drive space, it doesn't really matter to this question. Whether your hard drive is empty or full isn't what is at issue here. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:01, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

On the accuracy of floating point

I have a program that must complete the operation 18abcd - 4b³d + b²c² - 4ac³ - 27a²d², where a = 10.648, b = 638.88, c = 12777.6, and d = 85184. Both Wolfram Alpha and Google's calculator confirm that the answer is 0, but the program returns 0.00390625, which skews all its other results. Why is this and/or how can I fix it? I've checked the syntax very thoroughly, and it isn't the problem. Pokajanje|Talk 23:01, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

see Floating point#Accuracy problems. If you know the answer is zero, why do you need to calculate it? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:06, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

It's part of a function with the four arguments a, b, c, and d. I was testing it and discovered the flaw with those numbers, and I can't possibly make an exception for every case like this. Pokajanje|Talk 23:24, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

If you want exact results every time, you can't use floating point numbers. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:33, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

If I can't use floating point numbers that will render the whole program useless. Pokajanje|Talk 23:37, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Is it essential that you always get exact results? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:42, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Pokajanje|Talk 01:47, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Then, as has been pointed out correctly, you cannot depend on floating point. Floating point math can introduce numerical error. You can learn very advanced theoretical mathematical techniques that reduce that error in general; and you can learn advanced practical techniques that reduce the error for common applications (for example, by reading Numerical Recipes, most of which is available for no cost online at nr.com). You can increase the bit-depth of your floating point (to 64-bits, and in some computers, to 128 bits), but that doesn't guarantee you wont have floating-point error or other algorithmic error. You can learn about arbitrary-precision arithmetic; fixed precision calculations, and symbolic algebra systems. But ultimately, if you must prove that a computation has exactly zero error (... because almost exactly zero error isn't good enough! - mathematics is very pedantic!)... then you need to really really really deep dive into the theory of solving equations. Nimur (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

It sounds like you'll want to look into using an arbitrary-precision arithmetic library: it'll be much slower than native floating point, but it will avoid rounding issues. You should probably also re-consider your requirements and/or talk to someone with experience in numerical analysis, because having problems with rounding errors is usually a sign you're doing something wrong. --Carnildo (talk) 03:02, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

And, it's very easy to do something wrong without even realizing it. You don't need a complicated algorithm or invalid syntax! Consider the obvious approach to accumulating (adding one) to a floating-point variable:

Naive accumulator algorithm to demonstrate floating point error

#include <stdio.h>
#include <limits.h>
int main() 
{

  float x = 0;
  int i;
  const int max = 100000000;
  for (i = 0; i < max; i++)
     x += 1;
  
  printf("x=%f   max=%d \n", x, max);
  
  return (x == max);
}

The naive approach works on my computer - as long as max is less than something like 16.7 million! And the problem isn't with the syntax; that is perfectly legal C code instructing a computer to increment a value by one a lot of times. Hm... what's special about 16.7 million... might it be almost exactly equal to 2²⁴, where 24 is the bit-length of the mantissa of an IEEE 794 32-bit float? Take a look at the Kahan summation algorithm for the most straightforward error-reduction algorithm for floating-point accumulators. The original post was a request for a sort of polynomial solver - which is a lot more mathematical operations than an increment! It's just a direct computation, but it will suffer from the same numerical problems that a root-finder suffers. You'll want to read and learn all about those, and some of the numerous methods for solving those equations. If you study numerical methods, you'll independently discover that these methods don't work on all your favorite polynomials (... if you have no favorites, your professor will find some new ones for you). Nimur (talk) 03:26, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

In [10] Kahan spends twenty pages on various problems with the usual formula for the roots of a quadratic equation and various ways of fixing them so you don't lose too much precision. This type problem is the impetus for Interval arithmetic so one could get some sort of error bound easily.. Dmcq (talk) 11:32, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Each of your terms evaluates as something of the order of 1e+13 to 1e+14. With standard (32 bit) floating point arithmetic you get roughly 16 digits of accurracy. If you take the difference between two numbers of order 1e14, you therefore have to expect error of the size 1e-2. That is exactly what you are getting. So: either use more than 32bit floats (quadruple precision, arbitrary precision), or rearrange your equation, so that you don't take differences of such large numbers. Not easy in your case, but for example evaluating as a(18bcd-4c^3-27ad^2) - 4b^3d+b^2c^2 on octave returns 0, whereas your original formula gave 0.00390625. Note that this rearrangement still takes differences of number of order 1e+13 (rather than 1e+14), so its success is probably due to luck. 86.136.42.169 (talk) 23:04, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

May 3

Syncing files between home and work Win 7 computers including files on network via VPN

I have a laptop and desktop PC at home and my work station at work runs Windows 7. I can access network drives via my work station and via my home laptop and desktop PCs when connected via VPN. Is there some way I can keep copies of files in sync between these systems? I'm not allowed to install anything on the work machine but perhaps there is software that will work via the VPN to update files as needed? --129.215.47.59 (talk) 09:23, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I’d use a script combined with rsync. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:55, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I'd be more comfortable using something with a GUI so I can tell it's working. --129.215.4.176 (talk) 17:10, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

Windows installation not finding new SSD

Hi, I recently bought a SSD and am trying to install a new copy of windows 7 on it. I am finding that the BIOS is recognising it correctly as it appears in the list of booting priorities. However when booting from the windows CD and trying to install it, it isn't finding the drive as a potential place to install. I have tried to switch around SATA cables/power cables, also trying with the original drive and without, with no luck. Booting to the original drive works fine. Is it just that I need to boot to the original drive and install some firmware? Or is there anything else that I need to do? Thanks! (Specs for info: Samsung 840 SSD, WD Seagate barracuda 1.5 Tb, Intel core i7 920, X58 chipset DFI lanparty Motherboard, ATI 4850, usual bits and bobs) Thanks! 80.254.147.164 (talk) 10:48, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

You might find some useful information in http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/294328-32-unable-boot-windows-samsung, particularly the item near the bottom that begins "I found the solution...". (Or maybe not.) Looie496 (talk) 15:11, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

make optical disk look as normal drive

They were this page that work with the depracated ata driver, but how to do this with the new scsi driver or with usb optical reader.

The main purpose is for use with non udf(iso) file system.

Using packet writing is also accepted.I want a sequential access to the block device and not an UDF FS.2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

To be clear, your goal here is to install an iso file system on some kind of optical disk, in Linux? If so, could you say what kind of optical disk, and what Linux distribution you are using? Looie496 (talk) 15:20, 3 May 2013 (UTC)

I am currently using (enhanced)systemrescuecd but I could accept any other unix even windows/OS2 (it would be the cd-rom handle rather than block device in this case).

I could accept any media (exept blu-ray and DVD-RAM) but I would prefer CD-RW >700M or CD-R if it doesn't exist.2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 16:27, 3 May 2013 (UTC)