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December 13

Network printer not recognized under Windows XP but comes up no problem under Vista and Win 8. How can I fix it?

I don't know anything about networking. But I connected the printer to this: http://i.imgur.com/6eICqDM.jpg and the other computers see it, but my windows xp printers do not. I get this: http://i.imgur.com/dZnEtcC.jpg and even when I put the network and printer name, it doesn't work. Is there a program or tool or a way to make it work? Or should I connect the printer to a switch that is also in the room? If it helps, the printer is a hp color laserjet 5500. Thanks for the help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:5FC0:1E:15CB:3E18:656C:8F1E (talk) 05:12, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on your printer, you might be able to get it to print out a page of network information. Have a mess around with the printer's menu. That will tell you the IP address of the printer which you might be able to use in the Windows XP "Add Printer Wizard" dialog (your second photo). You might alsio be able to get the same IP address information by looking atthe printer properties from the Vista or Windows 8 PCs. Astronaut (talk) 11:18, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I have the IP, but I dont know where to enter it. The place where I put the IP in when you look in the picture isnt the correct place and I dont see any other place to put it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:E000:5FC0:1E:15CB:3E18:656C:8F1E (talk) 17:45, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean it isn't the correct place? If you select the second option, the place for the IP is I'm pretty sure the correct place for the IP of the printer. If it doesn't work, error messages or info on what goes wrong would help. One thing to bear in mind, I'm not totally sure what sort of network printers protocols Windows XP supports. I know it supports printers shared by Windows sharing (SMB) but I don't know what else. IIRC, some network printer protocols are supported but not installed by default (NFS or some Unix one I think, not CUPS). If I were you, I would first install any software and drivers provided by your printer manufacturer for Windows XP. This would likely ensure any protocol support is probably installed. P.S. According to [1], if you have a LPR printer, you possibly should set it up differently than a network printer, at least in XP. Nil Einne (talk) 19:26, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the reply. I put the IP there and tried it (and took the picture), but if you look closely, its not the field to enter the IP, its the field to enter the \\server\printer. I'm looking on the site and there are a ton of options as far as drivers, which one do I install?

1. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PostScript Driver 2. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PCL6 Driver 3. HP Color LaserJet 5500 PCL6 Point and Print Bundle 4.hp color LaserJet 5500 PostScript point and print bundle 5.hp color LaserJet 5500 ICC color profiles CMYK 6.HP color LaserJet 5500 ICC profiles sRGB 7. Driver - Product Installation Software - HP Printers Supported in Citrix Presentation Server Environments (PDF) and a few more, here's the page: http://h20565.www2.hp.com/portal/site/hpsc/template.PAGE/public/psi/swdHome/?sp4ts.oid=85197&spf_p.tpst=swdMain&spf_p.prp_swdMain=wsrp-navigationalState%3DswEnvOID%253D228%257CswLang%253D%257Caction%253DlistDriver&javax.portlet.begCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken&javax.portlet.endCacheTok=com.vignette.cachetoken — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.82.70.245 (talk) 07:02, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry I don't understand what you mean. Server would be the IP of the printer if that's what you're using instead of a domain name. So if the printer's IP is 192.168.0.245 the address would be \\192.168.0.245 which is the standard way to specify SMB network paths in Windows. As I mentioned, I don't know that much about Windows XP support for network printers other than those exposed with SMB, in SMB the norm would be for the printer to be exposed as something within the IP so for example \\192.168.0.245\HPprinter (which you could normally see by visiting \\192.168.0.245 from explorer) but I presume it's possible \\192.168.0.245 would simply work for some other protocols (alternatively perhaps try \\192.168.0.245\printer or \\192.168.9.245\print). There's definitely no where else to enter the IP of the printer, unless you are setting it up as something else such as http or LPR (which Windows considers a local printer connected to over a network port). As for the drivers, unless you want prefer postscript I would suggest the PCL ones as it's likely closest to what the HP printer uses internally, in fact in some cases the printer will need an addon before it even supports Postscript. The driver may be enough if it doesn't help, try the Point and print bundles as well. Installing the ICC profiles should help with colour matching although it depends on if they are used properly (but some software may do so automatically). In general there will be no harm to installing the ICC profiles unless you've set everything up with the assumption there is no colour matching and colour matching makes everything look wrong. Nil Einne (talk) 06:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

According to [2] about the "HP Color LaserJet 5500n printer (model number C7131A)" - "The HP CLJ 5500n printer contains all of the features of the base model plus an HP Jetdirect 615N print server (network card)". From [3] it sounds like HTTP may be supported. While I wasn't sure at first if Internet Printing Protocol is supported or just HTTP management or something, per [4] it sounds like it is so you may want to try the third option in the network printer config as well (http://192.168.0.245 may be enough if not you'll need to find the entire URL for IPP on your printer). Besides that since it seems HTTP management is also supported, try visiting the printer from your browser in Windows XP. In addition perhaps look at the stuff here [5], in particular for XP here [6] if the 5500n stuff doesn't do all you want it to do.

Note however if you can't visit the printer from your browser, but can visit it from a browser on one of the other printers this suggests there's something wrong with your network set-up preventing the two from communicating with each other. (And the document I looked at earlier also suggests the wizard should just work in XP.) You mentioned something about connecting the printer to the same switch, I presume you don't mean the printer and the Windows XP computer aren't connected to each other in some way at all but rather it's a more diverse route e.g. over multiple switches or perhaps wifi. This shouldn't generally matter provided the printer and Windows XP aren't blocked by a firewall or router and are on the same subnet. You should find out what the subnet for the printer and Window XP computer is and make sure they are compatible. For example, if the printer is 192.168.0.245 as given in the earlier example with a subnet 255.255.255.0 this means the printer will never be able to see the Windows XP computer if it's 192.168.1.1 regardless of subnet of the Windows XP computer without the involvement of a NAT router or similar. Also can the Windows XP computer see the other computers or at least ping them? For that matter can it ping the printer? If it can't there may be something off in your config. For example, getting back to an earlier point, make sure there is no firewall or router in between the two. (If there is one between, you'd need to set it up to allow the necessary traffic between the two and it sounds like that may be a bit difficult for you.)

Nil Einne (talk) 06:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Sound

I have a PC that's at least seven years old. 72 hours ago, when I went to youtube and listened to a video, I heard sound. Now there is no sound. This happened about three or four months ago. My wife phoned a company that she thought was microsoft (since it said so on Google) but was not. She paid money to find out that if you go to "Start" and choose "Control Panel" and then "Sounds and Audio Devices" and then something, you can hear sound again. Nothing like that is working now. Also, when I go to the task manager and choose whichever svchost.exe process is using the most memory and kill it, my computer suddenly starts working reasonably instead of behaving like a lawyer or like a wino who's about to die of inebriation two minutes from now. Is there some way I can hear youtube videos without paying ransom to a criminal? Michael Hardy (talk) 06:33, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does your computer have an active and up to date antivirus program? It sounds like you may have a trojan pretending to be a system file and this should be ruled out early on. Especially since it sounds a bit like ransomware, where you notice a problem and your problem redirects your search to a dodgy company, which then "fixes" the problem for a fee. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 11:47, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Such software is supposed to be there, provided by Comcast. I'm going to phone Comcast and ask about it.

Thanks. Michael Hardy (talk) 20:15, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Svchost.exe is a genuine windows process, often found running multiple times in the task manager. If you have to force close it to get your computer working properly though, there's clearly something wrong. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 13:05, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yes Svchost often ties up slower computers with not a lot of memory (like the one I'm typing on), and it is not always clear which process is tying up the system. Process Explorer might be useful in identifying the problem, which could be malware, or anti-malware doing a useful task, or just some other memory-intensive or processor-intensive program. If you've already identified the problem dll file as one supplied by Comcast then they should be able to help. Dbfirs 16:46, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What is the OS of your computer? Your Svchost problem might be related to WU. Did the latest WU go smoothly? Oda Mari (talk) 08:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm going to work on digesting all this..... Michael Hardy (talk) 20:09, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What I thought was this. [7] and [8]. All you have to do is disable automatic update, install IE patch first, KB2898785, shut down/reboot, go to MicroSoft Update and install the rest. Oda Mari (talk) 09:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

dictionary (english to english) with pronunciation

I want to install an offline dictionary (English to English) with pronunciation to my son's Samsung Galaxy star Phone. There are many dictionaries available at Google Play. To download which one? Kindly suggest a good dic. which will be helpful for his CIMA studies. Thank you.175.157.67.184 (talk) 08:35, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not clear on what you mean by "English-to-English". Do you mean a dictionary that gives definitions or a Thesaurus? Mingmingla (talk) 22:19, 13 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

By English to English I mean for an English word explanation is in English, Pronunciation and sample sentences. Thanks.175.157.98.38 (talk) 03:04, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed your formatting to make it more readable. Mingmingla (talk) 04:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I use Dictionary.com's app. I'm happy with it. It has an offline mode but I have not used the app with it engaged. If you're looking for free apps, I don't see anything stopping you from downloading them and trying them out to see which will suit your needs and then deleting those that don't. Note however that the offline mode will have to store the contents of the dictionary on your phone which may take up quite a bit of space if it includes sound files. Dismas|^(talk) 05:54, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 14

Jython programming

I'm investigating the makeEmptyPicture() function in jython for an assignment which is due shortly. If anybody knows how to incorporate the function into some scripting to do with assigning numbers to produce a picture, please let me know.

Thanks David Smith 14/12/2013. 15:44 Thesmithster (talk) 05:24, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you're using Jython Environment for Students. Some simple graphical code for JES is here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:10, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Stuck on a Java problem

I'm trying to finish up a game of the card game War with Java. I'm getting the following error when I try to run the program and I don't know why. Could someone help me understand why this is happening?

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 52

at Deck.DrawCard(Deck.java:88)

at War.main(War.java:36)

The relevant portions of code are here:

From my Deck class


	public Card DrawCard ()
	{
		Card c = _deck[0];
		int _numCards = _deck.length;
		for (int i = 0; i < _numCards; i++)
		{
			_deck[i] = _deck[i+1];           //This is line 88
		}
		numCards--;
		return c;
	}

From my War class


		warDeck.loadDeck();
		warDeck.Shuffle();
		
		while (!warDeck.DeckEmpty()){
			playerOne.AddCard(warDeck.DrawCard());    //This is line 36
			playerTwo.AddCard(warDeck.DrawCard());

Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 06:08, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Java arrays are zero-based, and the highest index is therefore the length minus one. You have an array of 52 objects, which have indices 0 through 51. The line _deck[i] = _deck[i+1]; will therefore throw an exception when i has value 51. JIP | Talk 07:33, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I changed int _numCards = _deck.length; to _deck.length=1; and that seems to have fixed the issue. Dismas|^(talk) 07:44, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could just deal the cards from the end of the array—then you wouldn't need that loop at all. That's the usual way of implementing a stack in an array. -- BenRG (talk) 08:37, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And just do something like this?

Card c = _deck[_deck.length];

return c;

I suppose I could. It's working the way I have it now though. Maybe if I get it working completely, I'll go back and make it cleaner. Right now I have it playing the first 26 hands and then failing when it goes to move the discards back to the player's hands. Dismas|^(talk) 09:19, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Annoying Google Chrome Message.

I have been using google chrome to explore the internet for a few years back.Everything was nice until a message started to appear whenever i started the chrome.The message is "Your preferences cannot be read. Some features may be unavailable and changes to preferences won't be saved." I searched for the solution on the net and tried many suggestions but nothing worked.I reinstalled Chrome, deleted User Data,changed permission settings and everything I could find. But the message is continuing to appear. Plz help.It is really annoying. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.235.40 (talk) 12:22, 14 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 15

getting os x mountain lion to run in vmware on windows

hello, i am running windows 7 and would like to have os x mountain lion running in vmware. i looked at the app store and i can buy mountain lion, but the page says i need to have a mac already. is it possible to buy the cd image of mountain lion, and then mount it & install in vmware? Grandmaester90 (talk) 05:33, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You can try, but it won't work, as OS X checks for hardware (even a specific computer model in some cases, according to VirtualBox documentation).--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:44, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Actually it's definitely possible with the right computer although does generally require some modifications to both VMWare and OS X. The former because VMware disables this sort of thing as it's not supposed to be supported (but they still have all the stuff to support it because Fusion shares a lot of code I think), and OS X largely using OSx86 and similar works to to fix hardware checks and stuff. As said, you do need the right computer, many Intel and some recent AMD can be made to work with Intel ones usually being easier for obvious reasons. (Last I heard AMD wasn't supported on Mavericks yet but this was not long after release. I don't see any particular reason why an AMD kernel won't be released if anyone can bother with it.) However because of the questionable nature of doing this, I don't think you should expect any help here. Nil Einne (talk) 12:00, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

See Hackintosh.-gadfium 00:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Phone model

hi....

i would like to know what series the Nokia 105 is a part off i couldnt find it on wiki and or any place else — Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.48.197.73 (talk) 06:53, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

List of Nokia products#3-digit series since 2011.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:56, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 16

Wikipedia page decline

Hi Whomsoever it may concern, I would like to ask you one question that I have created wikipedia page for my company Focus Softnet leading accounting software company in india, Middle east, far east and north America. For the first it was declined because I havent set more references but for the next time it was rejected and the reason for that it press releases are not a proper source of notability. So I would like to ask you what are the resources as references required by wikipedia so that I will be able to create our company wikipedia page.

Regards, Mirza Abid Ali Baig, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infoluckyids (talk • contribs) 11:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Please read up on WP:COI, WP:NOT, WP:NOTE, and then WP:RS - there are likely other guidelines and policies that applies as well, but those are of the top of my head. In short, you would probably be better served by waiting until your company is notable enough for someone who is not related to your company to write an article. WegianWarrior (talk) 12:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Reliable sources, which show notability. I could make my own press releases, but it wouldn't make my topic notable. Also beware of Conflict of Interest. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 12:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any magazine or newspaper articles which cover your company? For example, you could use this Reuters article as evidence of notability, however, you will need more than one article to prove notability. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

December 17

How to delete Null Zeros in XML file?

For Ex:

Input = Premium 00506.0800

Output = Premium 506.08

I want like the Output above. Please connect my name when anyone answer.--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

@Tenkasi: It's impossible to answer the question unless you tell us what software environment you're working in. XML is only structure, it doesn't determine process. Looie496 (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Environment Means?

OS is Windows 7 and XML is stored from web (Internet Explorer) as Simplified XML format. Is it enough or some other details you want?--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 19:19, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, maybe you will understand the problem better if I say that the simplest way to do it is to edit the file using a text editor (XML is just structured text), and erase those zeros. If you need to do it on too large of a scale for that to work, then you will need to write a program. But then it is necessary to know what sort of programs you are capable of writing. Looie496 (talk) 20:05, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You could load the XML file into your text editor, and then run a global search and replace from " 0" (that's a space followed by zero) to just " " (space). When that completes, run it again and again until you get no replacements occurring. Save the result using a different file name - do NOT overwrite your original file in case this method removes a zero you didn't want to lose. For example, it will turn "Premium 0" to "Premium ".

You will get a better result if you can use a programmers' editor which can search on regular expressions. If you don't understand what regular expressions are, ignore this paragraph. If you have such an editor, ask just below this paragraph and someone more versed in such expressions than I will give you suitable search and replace terms.-gadfium 00:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Can Word be persuaded to open XML files? If so, then the wildcards function in the replace tool is powerful enough for this. find " 0{1,}([1-9]{1,})" replace " \1" (without quotes, note the leading space on both expressions) finds a space, followed by at least one 0 followed by a string containing only the numbers 1-9, or a newline, and replaces it with the string (i.e. gets rid of leading 0s). For trailing 0s: find "(.[0-9]{1,}[1-9]{1,})0{1,}([ ^13^11,])" replace "\1\2" (without quotes, no leading space) finds any string starting with a . followed by at least two significant digits, followed by at least one 0, followed by a space, a comma or a newline, and replaces it with the decimal point and the significant digits followed by the space, comma or newline. find "(.[1-9]{1,})0{1,}([ ^13^11])" replace "\1\2" works for only one significant digit (but not if there is a significant 0 after the decimal point, e.g. 0.01000). More punctuation can be added into the final square brackets if needed (e.g. if you have something like: "process 003.04300;", then throw a semicolon in there. If you can't open the XML file directly, then copying the text into word and pasting it back into the file you want (making sure to keep the old file as a backup in case it all goes wrong) should work. MChesterMC (talk) 10:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Forgot to ping Tenkasi MChesterMC (talk) 11:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Facebook

Any way to prevent friends from seeing only the recent friends I added? thanks. Ben-Natan (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You previously could, as of now no. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone still use HTTP 1.0 anymore?

There is a security flaw in older versions of IIS that deals with HTTP 1.0. To fix the issue, one of the options we are considering is to turn off support for HTTP 1.0. My question is, does anyone still use HTTP 1.0 anymore and if so, how many? HTTP 1.1 was finalized in 1997, so I would expect that nobody is still using HTTP 1.0, but how would I know such a thing? This Microsoft Knowledge Base article indicates that this maybe a problem with some Windows XP users. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I've seen some proxies and some programs use only HTTP/1.0, so, I'm sure some would use HTTP/1.0, I don't think most notice, you don't support HTTP/1.0, But eventually someone will. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm going to see if I can gain access to our IIS logs to see if there are any 1.0 requests. (As a mere developer, I don't have direct access to our production servers. I have to go through a different team to see the log files.) AnonComputerGuy (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I think there are still enough HTTP/1.0-only clients out there that disabling it would be problematic (see this thread for example). If you do look at the logs I'd be curious to know what you find (assuming you're allowed to tell). -- BenRG (talk) 08:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was able to examine our production server logs and the results were very surprising. 70% of our traffic is using HTTP 1.0. I was not expecting that. So, completely blocking all HTTP 1.0 requests is not a viable option. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 18:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Memory Screenshow/Image states.

I wouldn't know how to call this, actually, but in the past, I've used some Virtual Machines, using VMWare, I've noticed it has a pause button, and a screenshot button, (which saves the actual state/image of the computer, not a raster image). So basically it can stop any arbitrary program and run it again from where it was, also some emulators like NES, SNES, WII, PS1 seem to have some "save mode" which saves the whole state as it was.

I wonder if I could do anything similar with an executable, pause it, save it, and maybe restore previous states, is there anyway I can do this? (I'm using windows 7.)190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Normally you would do that by running the program in a debugger. In order to re-start a program from an arbitrary state you need to create a core dump, which is generally more trouble than it is worth. Looie496 (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

And if the program has open files or handles (which it will) then there is pretty much no way to recover it perfectly after completely unloading it. The program doesn't run in isolation - it talks to the OS for all sorts of things, so the OS would need to be in the same state as well. Pause/unpause can be done with a debugger but usable save states won't happen. It works in virtual machines because the entire state of the system, including the OS, is saved. Katie R (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Steve Wilson on YouTube

Where is his video where he says "awful suffering" "the world will be in chaos" "it will not be business as usual"? it's almost certainly a may 21 (/may 21 2011) video.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Recovering a replaced file

My laptop is running Windows 7. I accidentally moved one file named "Note 1.txt" to another folder that contained a file of the same name. I accidentally clicked "Move and replace". How do I recover the file that was replaced? Is it deleted and then replaced? — Melab±1 ☎ 23:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The contents of the file will very likely still be present, unless you've done other things with that disk in the meantime, but you'll probably need file recovery software to get it back. Meanwhile: don't use that disk. Looie496 (talk) 23:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

How can I recover the file then if I can't use that disk? What software should I use? It doesn't make sense. — Melab±1 ☎ 01:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I believe that he means that you shouldn't use the disk until you begin recovering the files. This is because NTFS "deletes" files by allowing them to be overwritten. The actual information is still there, if one looks closely. But, by using the disk, you run the risk of writing over that information.

I used ntfsundelete on a folder containing several gigabytes of information, once. →Σ σ ς. (Sigma) 07:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) Recuva is a good undeletion tool for Windows. The data from your file will remain on the disk until it's overwritten with something new (unless it's an SSD, in which case the data is probably gone already). If you install Recuva on that disk, the files making up Recuva might overwrite the file you're trying to recover. Most other "uses" of that disk will create new files as well (for example, web browsers write files to their disk caches). Your safest bet is to download Recuva on another computer, install it to a USB stick or other external storage, plug that into the afflicted computer and run Recuva straight off the USB stick. You should also save the recovered file to the USB stick. Once it's successfully recovered, you can move it to where it belongs. -- BenRG (talk) 07:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I used Recuva but the files its showing me seem to be ones that HAVEN'T been deleted. — Melab±1 ☎ 19:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Isn't there a possibility that the data has already been overwritten when the contents of the file were replaced with the new contents. If the new file was longer then it may well have been written to a new location, retaining the old contents, but if the new file was shorter, a portion of the old file may have been irrevocably overwritten. Does anyone know the approximate probability of overwriting on a modern hard drive? Old floppy drives tended to use the first available space, but modern file systems and controllers are much more sophisticated. I know that overwriting is unlikely on flash memory where new contents are normally written to new space, even with a file of the same name, but won't most operating systems and hard drive controllers use the same space over again for a shorter file of the same name? Dbfirs 08:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

To partially answer my own question ... I was thinking of the old FAT system where the old contents would almost definitely have been overwritten if the new file was shorter. I think under the NTFS transactional system there is a high probability that the new file was written to new space and then the old file subsequently deleted. Have we an article that explains the process? Dbfirs 08:18, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Move and replace" doesn't overwrite the replaced file, it just deletes it and then proceeds with the move as though it had never existed. If you moved the file from another folder on the same disk then it almost certainly just updated directory entries and didn't touch any file data at all. On NTFS that means it just marked the replaced file's MFT entry as deleted/available, changed the parent directory in the moved file's MFT entry, and updated the directory indexes. Directory indexes are stored as files and can overwrite file data when they grow, but in this case neither directory grew in size, so I think that won't happen. Recuva and similar utilities just read the MFT and ignore the indexes, so you can always recover the file immediately after the move in this scenario. On FAT, the directory "indices" are the only record of a deleted file's former existence, and I think there's a good chance that the moved file would overwrite the deleted file's entry, making the file data much harder to recover (though it would still be there).

If the move did copy file data, I think there's a very good chance that it picked a different location on the disk to put the copy, especially if you have a lot of free space. I think you're right that the chance is higher on a transactional filesystem, but I don't really know. -- BenRG (talk) 08:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies if I seemed to be doubting your original reply. (My brain tends to get stuck in its memory of outdated systems.) I agree that there is a high probability that the original file contents are still there, and that the probability gradually reduces as the disc is used. My old version of Windows (Vista) seems to spend a lot of time on boot-up writing many small files, some of them for reasons that are not clear to me (though I expect it has good reasons for writing them). Presumably any of these could overwrite the sectors where the original file was stored, so booting from a USB or CD will be important. Dbfirs 09:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Recovering a lost file is elementary. Place the mouse cursor on the file name in Windows Explorer, right click and go down the options. You will see "Restore Previous Versions." click on that and it will give you the choice of dates. You should choose the date which predates your unfortunate move and your file will be restored. You can also do it with the whole sub directories as well. AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22[reply]

December 18

Why do people still say "w w w dot" when naming websites aloud?

I just saw a commercial for Lumosity, and in the commercial they say something like "just go to w w w dot ..." I haven't typed www. anything in years (does anyone?) You just type imdb.com, or google.com or whatever. Why do people still say it and is there any purpose in actually typing it, like some millisecond faster connection (that would not make up for the time saved in not typing it in the first place)?--108.46.96.174 (talk) 06:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Your IP address geolocates to the USA, which explains a bit. Sites in other countries have country codes on the end (e.g. .uk, or .au), which must be typed, or an American site may come up. You must also only ever go to sites with ".com" on the end, or use other means to get to this site. If you look at the url for this page, you'll notice it's got a ".org" there. Typing the full url still has its place at times for some of us. As for why American advertisers do it, maybe they're not all that computer literate. HiLo48 (talk) 07:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The question is about the www. prefix, which is equally useless everywhere in the world. -- BenRG (talk) 07:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Well to access the uk version of yahoo it's uk.yahoo.com not www.Dja1979 (talk) 10:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

There are plenty of less-popular web sites that only support www.foo.bar (or even only foo.bar). It isn't hard to support both but it isn't automatic either. If foo.bar redirects to www.foo.bar then the latter will be faster (and vice versa). I think that advertisers like Lumosity worry that some people would not know how to "go to lumosity.com" without the www to make it clear that it's a web site, but that's pure speculation on my part -- BenRG (talk) 07:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Human idiocy is unquestionable. About 10 people a day attempt to call our fax number at work every day, despite our business cards and catalogues stating FAX:xxxxxxxx and Telephone:xxxxxxxxx very clearly. I'm sure it's the same people who use email addresses as website addresses. Thanks ツ Jenova 20 ^(email) 10:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Does anyone?" Well I do, quite often. While Ben points out that www.foo.bar is a different address from foo.bar, not every where automatically redirects from one to the other, therefore I often put the www. in even if it is strictly not needed. Astronaut (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sniggering at Austronaut and his www.-triggered carpal tunnel syndrome.--108.46.96.174 (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I work at a college here in the UK, and we have to type www,www1,www2 and www3 depending on where were want to get to on our website servers. We also have cases were www isn't required, or is replaced with something else, eg vdi. I don't know why but that's the way it is and we just accept it (and yes it can be confusing). --TrogWoolley (talk) 16:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I can go one better; not only do I type in the www, I also usually type in the http://. I'm well aware it's not necessary, but I picked the habit up in the old days when you had to specify between HTTP and FTP on the browser (I'm assuming Netscape Navigator, but possibly other early ones as well). I find it useful to annoy my daughter as well, so the practice is not without merit. Matt Deres (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

One use of saying "w w w" out loud is to signal to the listener that a URL is coming. In some oral contexts that can be very useful. It may well be that such a signal is found conducive to an audience which also listens to an ad, besides watching it. For a radio ad it's very useful, I imagine, even if redundant. Drmies (talk) 19:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The Ali G multiplication problem?

What is meant by it?

Input: two d digit numbers (mostly 9s)
Output: the product of all the numbers

Is it something you would find in the serious literature? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to be meaningless babble. 'd' is undefined and "mostly" doesn't help much. The phrase "product of all the numbers" is odd - you'd expect it to say "product of these two numbers" or something...which implies to me that you don't have the question right. As given, it seems like there are an insane number of answers for any given 'd'. What is the context of the question? Maybe there is more information about it there that would help us to get you an answer. Certainly there is nothing in serious math literature that would be written this badly. SteveBaker (talk) 14:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It was from a ppt presentation, in the context of computability. The source is [[9]]. It is from the CS department of the Univ. of Virginia. See [[10]] too for the "10012 Things Every Self-Respecting Computer Scientist Should Know." OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem comes from this episode of Ali G. The point made in the presentation (and by Ali G), as I understand it, is that we'll never be able to build a computer that can solve any multiplication problem, simply because the input factors can be arbitrarily long (d has no bounds). --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

The problem seems more about the input and output. If you could input the two numbers and be able to output the answer then you could write a program to do the multiplication using Arbitrary-precision arithmetic. Such a system would be able to handle any number Ali G could think of but not any number a computer scientist could think of. --Salix alba (talk): 19:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

FORTRAN Compiler

I've posted here recently (To hire a programmer for a job, etc). I've got a few good suggestions and I am grateful for them. I've decided in the end that I will need a FORTRAN compiler. Years and years ago I did a lot of FORTRAN, so I hope the programming part won't be that difficult although now it seems the FORTRAN allows to do graphics, etc. The old FORTRAN of course did not have it.

I think StuRat, one of the participants here stated that he does a lot of his work in FORTRAN. I hope someone will recommend which compiler I should download. I checked the web. There is this crazy Intel FORTRAN "Composer" costing over a grand. I will need the compiler for a single task only so for me it won't be a good investment. There are "free" compilers but I am afraid to download from a website I don't know. So, I count on some compromise. BTW, my Windows 7 is 64 bit. Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22[reply]

Have you looked at gfortran?--Aspro (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

This is a bad decision. The only valid reason to use FORTRAN nowadays is if you have legacy code. Otherwise you are much better off using C -- the available tools are vastly superior. Looie496 (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

If the OP is the guy who was asking how to do a web-page, I'd say he needs neither Fortran (it's not FORTRAN anymore, BTW), nor C. He would be fine with html + CSS + JS. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I am the guy who asked how to build web pages. So what? I tried to do this project with Microsoft Visual Studio and C# recently but could not get the precision I wanted. As a matter of fact the iterative errors were overwhelming. At the same time years ago I did a similar job with one of the old versions of FORTRAN compilers and everything worked fine. I do not remember if I used double or even quadruple precision. Most likely it was double, 16 digits. I am waiting for StuRat's comment. He is using FORTRAN every day in his work. BTW, "Fortran" is highlighted by Wikipedia as an error. Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:56, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22[reply]

Request assistance from a C++ programmer

I'm attempting to compile the C++ code listed in this article, ISAPI Filter to reject HTTP/1.0 requests. However, I am getting the following error:

Error 1 fatal error C1189: #error :  Building MFC application with /MD[d] (CRT dll version) requires MFC shared dll version. Please #define _AFXDLL or do not use /MD[d]
c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 8\vc\atlmfc\include\afx.h	24

I'm not a C++ programmer. Can someone please help me to get this code to compile? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

What this error message is saying is that you cannot compile the code in question unless you have Microsoft Visual Studio. MFC stands for Microsoft Foundation Classes. They have multiple files to support the compilation and then run the code (dll's, etc) MFC is a part of VS. You can purchase the VS with MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) - about $800.00 - professional, 2013. AboutFace 22 (talk)AboutFace_22

I do have Visual Studio installed. I followed the instructions given in the article[11] and I'm getting the above error. Do you (or anyone) know what is wrong? If you (or anyone) have a copy of Visual Studio, can you try it and let me know if you get the same error? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 21:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Facebook linked to Gmail, maybe? [moved from "Miscellaneous"]

I had an email exchange with a Gmail user, and to my surprise my original message, in her response to me, had the layout of a Facebook wall post, complete with my Facebook avatar (though it had my real name, not my Facebook alias, next to the avatar). This is odd: the sender has a Facebook account too, but we're not friends, and she's not a member of the only group in which we could conceivably share membership. So, how does she (or her Gmail account) know my Facebook avatar? Drmies (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to ask this on the computer desk, given the subject and that that desk gets a lot more attention than this one. μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Will do (I mean, done)--thanks. Drmies (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Even if you are using Tor, proxying your IP address, using a newly-created email address, and avoiding disclosure of any personal information, it is still possible to uniquely identify which human you are. This is called data mining, and it is a reality of the 21st century. At all times, without even realizing it, you are leaking personal information - in digital form, and in other forms. A dedicated attacker (like Google or Facebook or a government police force) can use a strategy of centralizing trillions of pieces of insignificant information into one common repository for the purposes of producing meaningful connections. The exact nature of the connections, the exact details of which pieces of data forge the connections - are irrelevant. What matters is that if an organization collects enough tiny insignificant pieces of information - it can construct a very complete picture of the whole "situation." Two specific technologies that are used include Facebook Beacon and Google Analytics; these surveillance tools collect information about users on a wide variety of websites, even when the users perceive that they have no interaction with Google or FaceBook. No doubt, there are many, many, many trillions more pieces of information that these corporations use to "complete the picture." Nimur (talk) 20:24, 18 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]