Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

October 2

Pseudocode operator

What does the operator := do? Example at Euclidean_algorithm#Using_iteration Steeltoe 00:49, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

It's the assignment operator in some languages. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

...most prominently ALGOL and its descendants such as Pascal. —Tamfang 21:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Early programming languages were concerned that the '=' symbol had two different meanings - one was assignment (A=6 meaning that whatever value A had before, it is now set equal to 6) - the other was a equality test (A=6 being 'true' if A really is equal to 6, 'false' otherwise). There was a concern that people would be confused about this and that mathematicians would start to tremble when they saw 'A=A+1' because this looks like an equation.

Some languages chose to replace the assignment function with an alternative symbol. Algol used a left-facing arrow - but when the ASCII character set became common, there was no arrow symbol - and Pascal adopted the ':=' to mean 'becomes equal to'...an assignment.

Other languages (FORTRAN for example) decided to stick with a simple '=' sign and used '.EQ.' for a comparison. Yet other languages (the original BASIC dialect for example) opted to use a key-word ("LET A=6" is an assignment in BASIC) - later versions of BASIC dropped the 'LET' and deduced what was intended from the context. That's dangerous because A=B=6 could mean 'assign 6 to B then assign B to A' or it could mean A=(B=6) meaning that A is true if B equals 6 or false otherwise.

The C language went the other way - it used '=' for assignment and added '==' to represent a comparison. Somehow, the C way of doing things has won out and this convention is used in pretty much all modern languages (C++, JAVA, PHP, Python, etc). Some formal or 'pseudo'-languages stick to ':=' and I guess that's what the article you found did. SteveBaker 13:47, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The idea behind its use is so that a person, regardless of what programming language they understand, will be able to read the pseudocode. It's sorta like an "international" programming language that focuses on program structure and not language syntax.--Mostargue 14:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I only read this RD occasionally, but am dropping in to note what I believe is an error in the above. As I understand it, the left-arrow character was in the original form of ASCII, around 1962, but the character set was revised around 1968 and the arrow was dropped because it wasn't much used and it was felt that the underscore (_) would be more useful. There was one other change made at the same time: the up-arrow was replaced by the caret/circumflex (^).

Note that the A in ASCII stands for American. Perhaps if ALGOL had been more popular in the US, there would have been a demand to keep the left-arrow character in ASCII. In any case ASCII wasn't really the only character set to consider: when it was new, there were several other character sets competing with it, and I don't think many of them, if any, had the character.

--Anonymous, 03:40 UTC, October 9, 2007.

processor

my machine just got bambooooozled by a serious case of trojans viruses and worms.i need help.i cant system restore,i cant access the task manager.they have gained access to my registry and have changed some things there.its pretty terrible,antiviruses arent working.i use kaspesky 7 but it kills some but some its says the voterai or sumthing trojan was not found.what the guaranteed way of getting rid of this wretched things...dont tell me to run xp again please. 2.in school our teacher refers to the cpu as the processor and also as the microprocessor.is the microsprocessor the same as the cpu.i thought a micro processor was a small processor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.81.186 (talk) 10:09, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry to hear that your computer was infected (212.49.81.186), but your situation seems serious enough for me to warrant a hard disk full format. However, there may be better solutions such as running a latest liveCD version of Knoppix and fighting the malware from there.

I hope to hear from other Wikipedians about the effectiveness of using LiveCD. In any case, I would suggest you to go ahead and read the wikilinked articles, if you have some time.

Please refer to Microprocessor for a full treatment to your second question.

Regards, Kushal --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 12:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The processor, microprocessor, and CPU (central processing unit) are the same. It is small, and is central, and is a unit, so you can add any of those terms, or not, if you want, or don't. The only possible confusion would be with the graphics processor or math coprocessor. The graphics processor is normally called a graphics card, though. StuRat 13:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

• A processor is anything that does calculations.
• A microprocessor is a processor that fits onto a single chip (which they all do these days). There are likely to be MANY microprocessors in your PC - there is probably one in the keyboard, another on the graphics card, probably one on each disk drive. Years ago, we had minicomputers and mainframes whose processors were too big to fit on a single chip - hence the distinction between processor and microprocessor is becoming outdated.
• The CPU is the central processor. In a PC, it's the processor that runs your programs and the operating system. You can sometimes have more than one CPU in a computer - in which case, they all run your programs for you.

The other processors are simply there to make their specific part of the system work - and perhaps to communicate that data to the CPU. Notably, many modern PC's include a 'GPU' which handles all of the graphics calculations for you. One company has even produced an ultra-specialised 'PPU' to solely perform that task of doing physics calculations in computer games. There are all sorts of specialised processors out there. SteveBaker 13:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

xp

i installed windows xp twice on my machine.i want to delete one installation.i tried by deleting the windows folder of one of the installation now one installation is corrupt.how do i delete the installation so that when i boot i dont get the option to select which installation i want to log into. 2.can i install 3 operating systems in my machine.i want linux,xp and vista.what are the demerits of doing so and what are the minimal specs my machine needs to be having?to maintain such a tall order. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.81.186 (talk) 10:15, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK, Yes, you can install three operating systems on your computer. I would suggest you to go in this order: first install Windows XP, then install Windows Vista, then install <strikethrough>Kubuntu</strikethrough> your distribution of GNU/Linux.

Regards, Kushal --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 12:17, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Since you only run one O/S at a time, you can have three available so long as the computer meets the requirements for each. The only thing cumulative about the requirements would be hard disk space. StuRat 13:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I once tried to triple boot XP, vista, and linux. IIRC you have to hide the XP partition from the vista installer so it thinks it's installing to the primary partition, then either do something really weird with GRUB or settle for separate Windows/Linux (GRUB) and Vista/XP (winload, which has to be manually configured with msconfig from vista) boot menus. I never could get it to work --froth^t 17:43, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Possible workaround: You could install two separate hard drives in your computer, and just alternate between them using the BIOS at startup. This would solve the problem of having XP and Vista on the same "machine". You could run linux on both of them very easily with a LiveDistro. This approach offers the lowest interoperability, with the highest simplicity of installation and maintenance, because none of the components will produce unexpected interactions. (See also, Category:Virtualization software) dr.ef.tymac 00:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How much would the US government pay for this algorithm

How much would the U.S. Department of Defense pay to get its hands on a BigO(log(n)) algorithms that solves the factorization problem or the discrete logarithm problem. I was just wondering because recently the RSA factorization challenges were removed and now there are no incentives to figure out new fast factorization algorithms. Since most asymmetric algorithms deal with this problem and many of them deal with protecting financial assets, would this algorithm actually be worth billions of dollars? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.227.158.141 (talk) 14:19, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

If you actually discovered such an algorithm, you'd probably wake up blindfolded and bleeding on the floor with a knee on your back and next thing you know, you're a terrorist without a trial serving a life sentence in guantanamo bay solitary under the Patriot Act. Publish far and wide anonymously. --froth^t 17:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, you might alert world governments a year beforehand so as not to cause quite so much chaos, but anonymously publish far and wide eventually. If you're trying to sell the algorithm under the threat of releasing it, you'd undoubtedly be considered a terrorist and taken down in secret.. they wouldn't just hand you a billion dollars and make you promise not to tell --froth^t 17:40, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

First off all, there is almost certainly not any O(log(n)) algorithms, maybe there exists polynomial algorithms, but certainly not logarithmic ones. As for how much money a fast way to crack asymmetric algorithms would be worth, billions of dollars is a conservative estimate. If you had an algorithm like that, virtually all transactions on the internet would be public, from terrorist communications, credit card transactions, bank sessions and everything else you could imagine. Believe me, the RSA factoring challenges were not, by any stretch of the imagination, even close to being a big incentive (the prize money was what, a few ten thousands of dollars?) Mathematicians all over the world are working their asses of on this problem, and it's not because they hope to win some prize. Almost certainly there are also thousands of people employed by various governments of the world working on this same problem. This would be the holy grail of modern cryptography. Personally, I'm fairly certain it's not possible. To get further, you need quantum computers. --Oskar 17:36, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The government would not pay you big money for your algorithm. They would declare it classified and arrest you for distributing it, if you distributed it (it would no doubt fall into one of the prohibited export restriction categories). And then probably use it without your permission. See Invention Secrecy Act, for example. Now maybe you could find someone else to pay you a lot of money for your algorithm, but rest assured finding a buyer without ending up in jail would be tricky, and you wouldn't necessarily be out of the legal thicket at all if it got traced back to you. --65.112.10.56 20:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

All this is so interesting to read. Adds a 'humane' touch to the impersonal academia questions at hand. LOL Anyways, before I say anything more and find remarks like rtfm on my talk page, I should leave it here. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 02:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

There is no "factorization problem". Any number can be factored in O(1) -- namely, in about 786,000 operations, which takes just milliseconds on a modern processor. 84.0.127.58 07:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC).

So if I give you the product of two very large prime numbers, you can factor the result into the two large primes in a reasonable amount of time? Epylar 23:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Antitrust laws: support for .odt

Isn't refusing to support OpenOffice files when OpenOffice supports .doc files, considered an anticompetitive strategy? --137.120.3.217 16:25, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

No. It would be anti-competitive to do otherwise. For example, you create your own word processor. Microsoft supports your format, forcing you to support theirs. Now, you have to set aside assets to develop support for MS Word or get sued for anti-competitive practices. -- kainaw™ 16:28, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

With all due respect, I find your logic somewhat specious and contradictory. Grandparent, I would warrant this question is more suited to the Humanities reference desk. wilymage 00:25, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I gotta say, Kainaw, that "explanation" makes no sense to me whatsoever. I think what you mean is, "It would be anti-competitive to force Microsoft to have to devote resources to ODT files" but boy you've picked a not very clear way to express it (and I'm not sure you're right, but I don't know a thing about anti-trust law). --24.147.86.187 00:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The OP stated the situation: OpenOffice supports .doc files, but Word does not support .odt files. The OP then asked if that was an anticompetitive strategy. I have to assume Microsoft was chosen in this example because they have been sued repeatedly for possibly illegal anti-competitive practices (and many times, they have to pay out large fines). So, I put it back on the questioner. What if he develops a word processor that does .wrd files. Then, what if Microsoft decides to support .wrd in Word. Now, does that mean that the questioner is using anti-competitive practices? Should Microsoft sue him? If that makes absolutely no sense, then I'm obviously not reading the question correctly. -- kainaw™ 01:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

"It would be anti-competitive to do otherwise".. are you saying it would be anti competitive for ms office to support odt? Yes you are, that's what we're confused about --froth^t 03:44, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I mean that it would be anti-competitive to make rules such that "if company A supports company B's format, company B is required to support company A's format." The question appears to me to imply that if someone supports your format, you must support theirs - and considers it anti-competitive to fail to support their format. I wanted to point out an example of how requiring everyone to support everyone else's format allows for anti-competitive practices. If Microsoft doesn't want to compete with you, they just support your format and then run you out of business by forcing you to go back and support all of Microsoft's formats. -- kainaw™ 18:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he was asking about your hypothetical rule. Tempshill 19:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

To 137.120, volumes have been written on this issue, and quite frankly, you are not likely to get a conclusive answer regardless of where you ask this question because there are multiple ways to evaluate the difference between "anticompetitive practices" and "legitimate trade secrets". Also, the answer you get will change depending on whether you ask an antitrust lawyer, an economist, or a VP of business development for a technology firm.

Unless you clarify which "angle" of this subject most interests you, the best starting point for you is probably Vendor lock-in, followed by Competition law. Also, as a side note "anticompetitive" does not necessarily equal "violation of anti-trust laws" ... just in case that wasn't obvious. dr.ef.tymac 01:11, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I would say it's anticompetitive, yes, but not illegal. Is it a good idea from the Microsoft POV ? Perhaps in the short run, since ODT files are only a small part of the total market so not supporting them isn't much of a handicap now. However, as that format grows in popularity, MS will either need to offer support or this will be seen as a serious limitation in their software, causing people to go elsewhere for their word processing needs (say Linux running Open Desktop). In short, such practices only work if you have a stranglehold on a market, and MS is rapidly losing their stranglehold. Thus, they will need to change strategies or go under. StuRat 14:13, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Wilymage is correct, this isn't really a technology question. That said, you should start with what your definition of "anticompetitive". Broadly speaking, "anticompetitive" might mean "doing things that are mean to your competitors", which is, broadly speaking, quite legal. I think what you are really asking is whether this is illegal unfair competition. In the US, at least, under the Sherman Act, it is illegal to restrain trade with your monopoly. So, giving away Office for free would destroy the market for OpenOffice, and therefore would probably be judged illegal under the same rationale used in United States v. Microsoft; but I think it's unlikely that a judge or jury would decide that Microsoft was restraining trade by not taking an affirmative step to make Office read and write other file formats. If such a decision were reached for some reason, it would introduce a weird slippery slope: is Microsoft therefore illegally abusing its market position 1000 times over, by suppressing the 1000 other commercial and shareware word processors and spreadsheets out there; and must Microsoft keep Office compatible with all of them? Tempshill 19:09, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How is schema definition referenced in an XML document?

In an XML document whose validity constraints are specified using a schema definition, how is the schema definition specified/referenced in the XML document? (I'm assuming that XML does provide a method for such specification/reference.) Is it required that a valid XML document specifies/references the DTD/schema with which its validity can be checked? --64.236.170.228 20:39, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

First, have you had a look at these? XML Validation, Document Type Definition, XML Schema (W3C), XML Schema Language Comparison. If yes, please be a bit more specific, since the answer is not the same for all of them. If not, please have a look at the articles first for a good overview. HTH. dr.ef.tymac 20:56, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

October 3

CNET / IT's most influential?

This section seems more appropriate than entertainment for this question: I'm putting together an article on the most influential 'critics' in a variety of fields, people whose opinions in their respective fields hold the most commercial influence, i.e. they often have a direct impact on sales. I'm including Walt Mossberg in the field of technology but need another name from this field. I realize this is opinion-based and thus not entirely appropriate for the reference desk, but I'm unfamiliar with this field; thus my question is whether there is someone at CNET or maybe Wired whose influence is similar to Mossberg's? Wolfgangus 03:23, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I would say that the only one who comes close to Mossberg in influence would be David Pogue. I mean, you can add a whole bunch of people, but those two are the big ones. --Oskar 09:52, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

John Dvorak, columnist, and Jerry Pournelle writing at BYTE Magazine were huge influences back in the day. I'm not certain about where they're at today. Tempshill 18:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Ok - thanks very much for the input. Greatly appreciated. Wolfgangus 07:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Finer intervals for Windows vista's parental control

Windows vista's parental control allows you to set the times children can log in to the computer, but only in 1 hour increments. Is there any way (without getting 3rd party software) to set it up in 30 minute intervals instead (i.e. by modifying some registry entrys or something)? 86.41.187.147 03:45, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you really just some kid who wants to registry hack the parental control (to turn it off)??? Anyway, I don't have vista but maybe this might work. Press start, the run. In the prompt type services.msc and in the description field look for a service that have something to do with parental controls. Then if you find it you double click it and make sure it is disabled as default (for your account only! or parents might find out). And then restart the computer and re-login.

I see no reason to assume this Q comes from a kid. To answer the Q, I doubt if you can do what you want directly. I suggest you set the times to allow half an hour more than you want, then just tell your kid which half hour during this time they aren't allowed to use it, and enforce this yourself. The computer should be in a common area, not the kid's room, for safety, in any case. It will probably be easier for you to manually enforce the starting time than ending time or you will get the inevitable "aw, just a couple more minutes ?". StuRat 13:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I hope Vista does not allow all users to modify the registry ... --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 03:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It does if you're an administrator. And probably it allows you to edit HKCU even if you're limited, because it only affects you.. I don't actually know this though --froth^t 04:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I got a limited account on my Windows XP once. Then I tripped over the power cord and some <root>/Doc&Settings/Username/.../Firefox/... file got corrupted and I could run firefox because I was on a limited account and apparently firefox could not rewrite the bad file with a new one so firefox could not start. Once I made myself an administrator and tried again, it worked. Bottomline: I don't know much about registry but I know that limited accounts have limited access to everything including their own documents and settings. I hope I am not angering anyone. .... --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 18:34, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Nobody likes running non-root (or at least without the ability to go root, for the nix security model), and microsoft makes it worse --froth^t 19:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Is it Internet Explorer or is it Google...?

For about the last week to 10 days, whenever I use IE to visit Google it takes well over a minute and a half for my hard drives to be scanned... I've tried disabling the Add-ons and deleting the cookies and temporary Internet files but without any positive results. Firefox is a bit quicker to bring up the Google site but still takes longer that IE did 10 days ago. Is this a known issue with a solution already figured out or is Google now including files on my personal computer in the searches and downloads it does online? 71.100.9.205 10:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The only files IE or Firefox should be accessing on your hard drive when you visit Google are the cache files, which shouldn't take a minute and a half, unless you have some sort of plugin or addon that causes it to also index your hard drive. I suspect you are suffering from some other problem, possibly spyware or a computer virus, or even a flaky hard drive. -- JSBillings 12:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The system was shut down during drive compression or defrag but that was after the problem originally occurred. Microsoft Indexing acted pretty much in the same way and it has been disabled so that leaves spyware although I am running Windows Defender so I don't think that is what it is which brings me back to whether Google has become the spy master instead. 71.100.9.205 13:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain Google hasn't installed spyware on their front page. What exactly were you doing when you shut down during drive compression or defrag? That sounds like a more likely culprit. -- JSBillings 13:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

How do you access Google ? If you're using a toolbar, try typing in the address instead, this will tell you if there is extra crap running when you pick the toolbar. If so, just add a favorite/bookmark for the address and get rid of the toolbar. Also, have you tried other search engines ? StuRat 13:43, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Okay, found it. What seems to have worked is decompressing the drive. Apparently the shutdown was during compression and some files or parts of files were compressed and others were not. I must have done the compression further back than I thought and it was the defrag that was done recently. After decompression, the defrag was done again and now everything is back to normal. Thanks. 71.100.9.205 15:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Why would you compress your operating system's hard drive?... --froth^t 20:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

To see how much space would be recovered. 71.100.9.205 08:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Loop through XML

Hey all,

If I've got an XML file, let's say it contains the actor names and roles. How do I loop through the data and show them in my php file? It's a bit different from showing the XML file with CSS. It's more like using the data in some other formats to be used later. Cheers - Imoeng 14:15, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Check out the section "XML Parser Functions" in the PHP docs. Basically you need to parse the XML, that is, make its data understandable to PHP and be able to put its data into variables, etc. With XML you should always try to use pre-existing parser functions rather than trying to parse XML as a text file (no need to re-invent the wheel, nor try to re-implement an entire standard on your own). Look at the examples in the manual and you can probably find one that can be modified to do what you want. --24.147.86.187 14:39, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think that these days with PHP5, the DOMdocument family of functions are the preferred set of functions for this sort of thing. A lot depends on how you're using the XML and the size of the dataset (the problem with the DOMdocument approach is that you need to load the whole XML into memory, while XMLreader will scan the file as necessary). Donald Hosek 20:57, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Cheap printers

I'd like my printer to be able to print lots of pages for the lowest possible cost without caring much about quality. Any ideas? --Taraborn 18:18, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Historically dot matrix and the even worse thermal transfer printers are used for this, for applications like cash registers. I don't think there's much market for such low quality printers in the PC printing market anymore, however, so a bubble jet printer may be the cheapest technology you will find for those. StuRat 18:29, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Taraborn is looking for TCO, though, not just the cost of the printer. If you really mean "lots" of pages then a cheap laser printer may be the best solution because toner is cheaper per page. Googling "printer tco" might help, though I saw lots of links to manufacturers' websites. Tempshill 18:54, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

An easy way to lower the cost-per-page more than changing technologies is likely to do is to reduce and print 2 or 4 logical pages on each physical page. --Sean 19:06, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to all, really informative answers. I'll follow your advice, Tempshill, and google that. --Taraborn 19:08, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

These days the cost of the printer and paper is negligable compared to the cost of the ink/toner. So...

• Make sure the printer has separate Black and Colour cartridges so you can replace the former without swapping out the latter. You aren't going to run out of coloured ink - so why pay to replace it!
• Check out companies that sell cartridge refill kits and make sure your printer is one of the ones they support - if possible, phone them up and ask which printers work best with their refill technique.
• Bear in mind though that you can't keep refilling them forever because in the case of inkjets, the nozzles fail or get blocked - and in the case of laser printers, the toner drum gets worn/scratched. Both things are designed to last only for the life of one cartridge and so after just a few rounds of refilling, your image quality will start to get worse and you'll have to buy a new, authentic, cartridge every few refills.
• When you are looking at the price of a printer - mentally add on the cost of a dozen print cartridges of the appropriate type before you decide buy it...it is very often the case that seemingly cheap printers are sold at a loss by the manufacturers who get their money back by sticking it to you with huge cartridge costs. Higher priced 'commercial grade' printers are more expensive to buy - but are frequently cheaper to keep fed with ink.
• By all means get a laser printer if you can afford it.
• Print only in monochrome (no colour) and reduce the contrast so you are printing in a lighter shade of grey - not utter black.
• Avoid printing large photos or white text on black background.
• Reduce font sizes and print two pages of text side-by-side on one sheet of paper. This saves ink as well as paper.
• Print on both sides of the page if you can...although I've heard stories that this is not good for laser printers...I have no idea why that might be.

SteveBaker 22:36, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The fuser units in some printers (that normally don't do "duplex" printing) don't cope well with toner "on the wrong side" but I've never seen a printer that was rated for "duplex" operation have much trouble with this. Yes, definitely print 2- or 4-up and duplex whenever possible.

Atlant 13:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, along the lines of Tempshill's suggestion, get a US$200 B&W laser printer, like the one the Fat Man uses. You could probably get one off eBay for much cheaper than that. Ink jet printers are cheap to purchase--but irritating to own and expensive to refill; they always run out of ink and print very slowly. Toner for a black and white laser lasts a comparatively long time.--The Fat Man Who Never Came Back 23:31, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

• Another nice thing about laser printers is that the print is waterproof. --Sean 04:52, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

A few more hints on reducing printing prices:

• Use Print + Preview before printing to be sure you won't waste paper and ink on a bad print.

• If there only appears to be one page to print, don't pick Print All, but pick Print Pages 1 to 1. Otherwise, sometimes you get a second page with nothing but a header and footer.

• If there are ads or other crap on the page you want to print, use the Print Screen keyboard button, then Edit + Paste in Microsoft Paint, then trim all the crap off the page before printing. Web sites which provide a "Print" button frequently insist on putting ads in the printed version, too, but you can prevent this, using the Print Screen method.

(Or just select what you want and hit "print selection". Print screen converts the stuff into screen resolution raster graphics, which is unspeakably horrible. Epylar 23:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC) )

• I like to feed paper in manually, one sheet at a time, instead of using the paper tray. One reason is that printers frequently seem to jam if you give them more than one sheet at a time. Another is that if the first page isn't coming out right (say one of the 3 colors isn't printing), I don't give it the next sheet, it sends an "out of paper" error to the PC, and I can abort the print immediately. If it has a paper tray full of paper it would keep going, and you can't stop it from printing short of pulling the plug, which isn't a very good option. The next time you plug it in it wants to continue printing, anyway. StuRat 13:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Fuel pump cuts out

My brother got a junk yard 2.4L '97 Chevy Cavalier engine, which he put in his Pontiac Fiero. He hasn't yet hooked the engine up to the dashboard computer. When he starts the engine, the engine control module cuts off the fuel pump after 1/4 second. He's trying to figure out why. I suggested that it may be that the ECM wants to get some feedback from the instrument cluster computer, basically a "yes, I am here" signal, and cuts the engine off when it doesn't get it (some type of security feature). What do you think ? StuRat 18:24, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

There are a wide range of possibilities - but most likely is that the ECU is expecting a fuel pressure signal from somewhere near the carb and not getting it. If the fuel pump starts running and the system does not get up to pressure then the odds are good that a hose fell off and gasoline is squirting all over the floor someplace - so the ECU turns off the pump after only a very short delay if it doesn't see the expected pressure increase. So it's possible that your fuel pressure sensor is broken, or the wire is broken - or it's simply not wired up right. There are perhaps other possibilities - there is a huge variation in what features are supported and how they are dealt with - so it's hard to be definite. SteveBaker 22:20, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you list some of the other possibilities ? StuRat 04:08, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If the ECU thinks that the engine either isn't running - or shouldn't be running, it's going to cut off the fuel supply - that could be anything from a bad crank angle sensor to the ECU thinking that the airbags went off (so there was a crash and we'd better turn off the fuel pump to avoid a fire). I'f disconnect the fuel pump from the ECU, put it on a manual switch and see if the engine will run well when the fuel pump is running OK. Hopefully that'll lead you to some other problem - and eliminating THAT will make the fuel pump work properly with the ECU. SteveBaker 21:03, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Connecting my computer to my TV

Ok folks, here's the dilemma, I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop with an "Mobile Intel 945GM express chipset" family video card that I want to connect to my 32" Panasonic LCD HDTV. I'm currently connecting the two via an S-video cable, but when playing some video files I get faint upwards scrolling white fuzz lines on the TV. It's most noticeable on an all-black or very dark screen, and I'm certain they're not present in the video files as they don't appear when viewing on the LCD monitor or on other computers. I'm looking to explore causes and possible solutions. My first suspicion was that they were due to some sort of frame rate mismatch resulting from progressive computer signal and the interlaced TV (the 29.97 vs 30 fps thing). However, a friend suggested they were the result of the poor quality of an S-video connection. Unfortunately I can't figure out how to make my video card output at anything other than 60hz to test the framerate theory. So I've been looking at other options. The laptop has VGA and S-video out (and a firewire port), and the TV has component, composite, HDMI, and S-video in. I've found cheap VGA-component cables but I don't think my video card nor the TV can convert from an RGB signal to Pb,Pr,Y so I would need a fairly expensive transcoder ($150). If this is the best/only solution I'm willing to go with it but I want to be sure that (a) it will solve the problem (b) there are no other cheaper solutions that are just as effective. So that's my question: Any ideas/thoughts on the cause of this fuzz/interference? Any ideas on how to test whether its the result of a frame rate mismatch or the S-video cable quality? Any ideas on solutions to the problem?

Thank you all very much, -Nick 24.82.140.138 22:05, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

The first thing I'd try is a different S-video cable to rule out a problem with that. Exxolon 01:08, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you may have been on the right track with the scan mismatch. Since the diff in scan rates is 1/33 second, does it take about 33 seconds for the lines to move across the screen ? If so, that would support your theory. Can you change the scan rate or progressive vs. interlaced setting ? If so, give that a try. StuRat 13:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

October 4

RAM thumbdrive?

Don't ask why, but I can't change the virtual memory on a computer to anything higher than 20 MB. Explorer keeps crashing it's so low... But it did give me the option of using a separate memory space - in this case, a thumbdrive. Is it even possible to use my thumbdrive as a sort of pseudo RAM? If so, what would I need to format it as? --69.144.233.96 02:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if you can use your thumb drive, I suspect you will still use it as a virtual memory. By the way, some details on the operating system and error messages would be nice. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 02:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot. I believe it's Windows NT... 200 some odd megs of RAM normally; bumped down to 20 because I was screwing with some stuff. I have a limited account coughschoolcomputercough, but it appears that I can change the virtual memory - just not on the C drive, if that makes any sense. --_{King of the Wontons} | _{lol wut?} | _{Oh noes! Vandals!} 02:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It makes total sense if C: is nearly full. Remember RAM is physical memory and virtual memory uses your hard drive as sort of "virtual" RAM. Having too little of one can't be offset more than a little by having insane amounts of the other. As far as format goes, since it's NT, use NTFS. Just don't forget to set the size in even multiples of 8. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 02:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thankees. --69.144.233.96 02:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

CAD thing

Does anyone know of a program that can allow you to build computer chipsets (like a mobo, graphics card, etc.)? I mean, one that allows you to add things like stock parts (PCI ports, CPU sockets, graphics chipsets, and so forth). Thanks. --68.89.95.20 02:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In priciple, any VLSI design package can accomplish this. In practice, you can't drag-and-drop components to create a viable PC chipset. — Lomn 15:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I recommend KICAD - it's free, OpenSourced and you can do schematics and circuit board layout with it. I've only used it for one very simple project - but I know of people who have used it for fairly serious stuff. SteveBaker 17:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Does this work for anyone?

Just wondering if the streaming video works for anyone here. If so, what is the direct url so I can put it directly into WMP. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.169.145.28 (talk) 02:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried but I could not see the video. Sorry :'(--Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 03:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Worked for me. [1] — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 03:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is a direct link to the .flv file, if that helps: [2] —Akrabbim^talk 16:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Resizing NTFS partitions....

I'm thinking of making a dual-boot system (with Ubuntu) on a computer that already has XP on it, but to do that I would obviously need to resize the NTFS partition. Can today's finest Partition editors do that? 83.249.113.29 10:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually if you just put in the LiveCD and actually went ahead with the installation you would find out that it can resize partitions (including NTFS) during installation, and then you can spend half an hour surfing or playing sudoku or whatever and have your new Ubuntu system with dual boot already configured. So much easier than a Windows installation. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what I thought, thank you :) 83.249.113.29 11:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Minidisc player down

Hello I have an electronics question about my sony MZ-R55 MD player that uses NH14WM batteries. Although I have several batteries for it, even fully charged by an independent charger, none of them last for more than 20 seconds. The Minidisc works fine when plugged into the mains via an adaptor. What could be the problem and can I do anything to fis this? Thank you Keria 13:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Is your minidisc player from the age when Sony was using lead-acid batteries in their rechargeable players? If so, the batteries are probably "sulfated" and past their useful life. Even if they're not lead-acid, is there any reason to suspect that these batteries aren't simply failed at end-of-life?

Atlant 13:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Well after I noticed the problem with the one battery I had I bought 4 'new' (packaged anyway) ones from ebay from 2 different sources with the exact same result: about 15 to 30 seconds of battery life and they've been charged until the green light goes on in an independant charger. Keria 13:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

All of the rechargeable battery technologies have problems of one sort or another. NiCd's get 'the memory effect' where if you don't discharge them completely, they gradually only accept less charge. Most of the other kinds are only good for a certain number of charge/recharge cycles before they die. Lead/Acid batteries don't like being completely discharged - and leaving them discharged for any amount of time is bad for them.

But the fact that your "new" batteries aren't working either is interesting. Look at it this way: either the batteries aren't getting charged - or they are being discharged very fast. If they were being discharged very fast, where did the electricity go? It wasn't powering anything useful - and a full battery charge would generate a lot of heat if it were shorted out or something. So did anything get hot during those 15 to 30 seconds? If it did then something is shorting the batteries out - and you'd better be careful because that kind of thing can make batteries EXPLODE! But if the batteries went dead over 30 seconds and didn't get amazingly hot - then they couldn't have had much electricity in them in the first place...so either the battery itself is faulty or your charger(s) are faulty. You claim to have new batteries - and from two different sources - it's unlikely that all three sets are bad (although who knows what you get from eBay). So I think the problem may be in the charger. Can you charge them some other way - at least as a test? How long does it take before the green light goes on on the charger? Are you sure the light means "Finished charging"? SteveBaker 17:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sulfated lead-acid batteries go to their "fully charged" voltage very quickly, but there's very little electrochemical activity that took place to get there so there's very little available charge stored in the battery. So they then go from "full charge" voltage to "no charge" voltage just as quickly. My first guess we'd be that all the batteries are of a similar age and all are dead.

Atlant 23:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

How safe is it to put banking details on a website?

I have a client who wants to sell things on the internet, and for those customers that don't have a credit card, he wants to provide them with his business's bank account details. I'm having great trouble researching online if this is "safe" or not - because every google search brings up results about providing your credit card details and bank account login information over the internet - which is not what I'm asking. If I gave you may bank account details like this:
ACCOUNT NAME: John Doe
BANK: Commonwealth Bank
BSB (Branch Code): 123-456
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 123-456-789-111-213
, what could a person possibly do with this information other than pay me?
Rfwoolf 13:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure sounds dangerous to me. Someone with that info could pretend to be you and empty your account. Perhaps banks require signatures and are supposed to check them against a signature card for withdrawals, but one lazy teller and you're account can be pillaged. StuRat 14:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Precisely right, this info can easily be used by a smart dude for identity theft. For those customers that he has that don't have credit cards (which can't be that many), how about just asking them to snail-mail him a check or something (not as fast, obviously). --Oskar 15:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

As a sidenote, lets see how wikimedia foundation does things. Please turn to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising which provides the following information:

Direct deposit Deposit money directly into our bank account.

The Wikimedia Foundation has a bank account that accepts money transfers.

Account holder: Wikimedia Foundation

Bank:

Dexia bank/Banque Dexia Pachecolaan 44/ 44, bvd Pacheco 1000 Brussels/1000 Bruxelles Belgium

Account number:

IBAN BE43 0689 9999 9501 BIC GKCCBEBB

National Belgian account number: 068-9999995-01 For transfers inside Belgium or from countries not supporting the IBAN-system

Does it pertain to this question at all? --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 17:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you have to give HIM your bank account details so he can deposit to it.. why would you be able to withdraw from someone's account with just the account number? You can only deposit --froth^t 17:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That does seem AWFULLY dangerous. But then the information you are giving out is only what is printed on one of the cheques in your chequebook - and you give those out to complete strangers all the time! But still - with the prevelance of identity theft - tell the bad guys as little as possible. Have people mail you the money - it's worth a couple of days of delay just for peace of mind. If you do decide to do this, I REALLY think you should talk to the bank. They are the true authority on what's safe and what isn't. SteveBaker 17:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Amen --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 18:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You can just put account number/sort-code up and have people use that to send money. I've no idea if it is a joke or actually true but in Private Eye (the magazine) they often have little comical 'begging' ads in the classifieds...Things like "trying to restore classic Mg but too lazy to earn the money myself, A/c: XXX XXXX and Sort Code: ZZ ZZ ZZ", or things like "just graduated, looking for rich individual to gift student loan A/C xxx xxx ..." (you get the idea). As noted it is perhaps not advisable but surely this individual can speak with the bank to have an account setup that will allow this (lots of firms seem to have odd accounts that look like normal accounts but are businessy instead). ny156uk 22:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

(http://www.eyeadvertise.co.uk/?section=classified&catid=13) there's the link...One says "just for fun, i'd like £200. Thanks! 12-60-60. 02423083. :)" ny156uk 22:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello, my name is George Agdgdgwngo, I'm from your billing society, and could I just have your bank account number and sort code? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 01:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

!!!Actually this is a common practice in europe, but the accounts are generally configured for deposits only and not withdrawals. You should talk to the bank and see what they are willing to support. I did know one company that wasn't set up properly and people were withdrawing money from the company instead of depositting it. A quick call to the bank sealed the leak but the company had to contact a bunch of customers and get the money back. Again please talk to your bank if this is advisable in whatever country you are doing business in!!!

Wich AMD?

1.Whats the suitable AMD CPU for 3D computer graphics, CGI, Animation , 3D displays and softwares?and because of what particular characteristic, that device is suitable?

2.and what about ATI graphic cards(when work with that CPU)?(I want a specific model and answer in both)Flakture 19:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Why AMD ? --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 20:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Athlon_64_X2 seems to be a good start. (I am biased against AMD for no reason.) --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 20:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer versus Firefox

It was taking well over a minute and a half for Google to load so I suspected the problem might be Google since other sites seemed to load okay. The problem appeared to be resolved when I decompressed my partially compressed C drive so I thought I was back to normal. However, IE will not allow Google maps to be viewed and all I get is a blank screen This happens with other HTML pages using IE so I loaded Firefox which I had unloaded at one point thinking it was part of the Google load problem. Sure enough after viewing several Google maps with FF I tried to use IE to open Google and again it took well over a minute and a half before Google would load with the hard drive light remaining on the whole time. Now I think its a war between IE and FF because my IE cookies had been disabled and I was no longer able to log on under several different accounts. So is that a possibility that IE and FF are fighting it out by messing with each other's settings and using my computer as the battleground? If so what can be done about it? Clem 22:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Opera (browser) ? StuRat 04:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You probably need to reinstall your OS. You're attributing way too much personality to software. IE and Firefox don't "fight" over each other's settings. You simply have an OS problem. Keep in mind that IE has been integrated into the windows operating system, so anything you've done to mess that up might show up in IE performance. On the other hand, software such as Firefox or Opera, once freshly installed, use far less of the OS's libraries. Since you have mentioned in this question and earlier that you partially compressed and decompressed your C:\ drive, I suspect you've somehow managed to damage or corrupt your OS install, which is affecting IE. I recommend reinstalling the OS from scratch, and NOT turning on compression. -- JSBillings 10:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

dead pixels

There a lot of dead pixels on my Ti-83 plus. Is there anyway to get rid of them? (Pressing on them made it worse)71.218.38.193 22:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Replace the screen? Having a look at dead pixel it seems some 'broken' pixels can be fixed/will fix themselves but other pixel problems are unfixable. ny156uk 22:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Never press on a LCD-screen. Never!!! It damages the screen.

195.35.160.133 14:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Martin

Bypassing DRM

I'm not asking how one does this, but rather I am doing a a short project on the Digital Rights Management technology associated with downloaded songs. Can the DRM technology, which for example allows a song to be played only a certain amount of times, be bypassed so that the song can be played an infinite amount of times on a computer? If so, how hard would this be? Thanks. Acceptable 23:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The analog hole is one way. If you haven't seen it already, Digital rights management#Digital Millennium Copyright Act might be of interest - in the US, it's illegal to produce or disseminate technology that allows users to circumvent DRM. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 23:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Another fairly obvious way is purchasing a non-DRM version of the media. If just one form of it is non-DRM (say, on a non-DRM CD) then it is exceptionally easy to create non-DRM digital versions. (So instead of buying a DRM-ed mp3, you buy/borrow a non-DRMed CD and turn it into mp3s). --24.147.86.187 12:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, every major DRM system has been broken, allowing people to strip the DRM protection off the protected media. The specific technique varies from system to system. --Carnildo 20:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's the problem (from the content-owner's perspective) in a nutshell: he wants to ship data (lets say audio, but it's the same for video) and not have it copied. To prevent usable copies from being made in transit (over a wire or on a medium like a disk) he encrypts it. But your eyes and ears don't understand encrypted data (it's just gobbledigook) so, before the audio gets delivered to you it as to be decrypted. So there are three places where the whole DRM scheme can be attacked:

• Before encryption: (this is the favourite of the serious, scary-dude Triad pirates) they just get a copy of the music/movie before it goes off to be made into a final, encrypted product. Using bribes (and maybe a bit of common theft) they get studio tapes, screener DVDs, insider copies, rushes, and other materials.
• Reading the encrypted data: as noted by others, above, the encrypted data can be read by unauthorised parties (and thus copied, generally to unencrypted data that anyone can read and copy) using a variety of methods (which vary by the encryption scheme). People can reverse-engineer existing players (that's how DVD-HD and DVD-BR were broken), or they can exploit defects and backdoors in existing players. DVD-VIDEO (that's regular DVD videos as used by most people now) was broken because the CSS cryptosystem used was very weak (and was badly implemented to boot) making a brute-force attack on it quite easy.
• After decryption:Some attacks against DRM capture the data after it's been decrypted (even before the analog hole, most OSes (including Windows before XP) allow you to capture the digital audio before it goes to the soundcard, and it's trivial to save that off); a partial solution to this is making the entire computer system part of the DRM framework, with trusted hardware and trusted signed device drivers (which is how TPM and Vista work) - but the downside of that is that it's very error-prone and inflexible, and relies on everything in the computer working perfectly (which no computer ever has done). Some people ascribe a lot of Vista's current reported slowness (in copying files, playing media, or doing graphics operations) to the omnipresent DRM infrastructure that permeates the whole system.

-- 217.42.190.82 00:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

IMO that permeating security so there's no "analog hole" in your hardware is desirable from a holy crap that's ultra cool hardcore security standpoint.. as long as it's not used against you. Anyway yeah, to restate your points perhaps more clearly, the goal of DRM is to distribute the work, but not actually let you have it. It's the classic paradox of DRM. They want to get it in your hands, they want you to buy it so it becomes your property, but they want to control it --froth^t 02:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

• As a linux user, I have to say that busting DRM is easy. I run Audacity with a duplex ALSA sound card - I play the drm media out in one direction, and switch Audacity into record at the same time. So I play out and take in what I am playing out. Then Whatever I have recorded, I export as MP3 and it takes about 5 minutes per track. We already have a codec base (libfaac & libfaad) for working on iTunes stuff which is coded in AAC or m4a. It's nothing to do stuff like this! Thor Malmjursson 11:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)

October 5

Stepmania

I was looking through Stepmania, and I was wondering, which one is the version that has the same steps as DDR? --JDitto 01:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

how do you install a copy of msn/wlm on a thumb drive?

so you can keep your emoticons and settings wherever you go? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.121.36.10 (talk) 02:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

U3? --froth^t 03:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

i have a u3 thumb drive but how do i install a copy of msn/wlm on it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 166.121.36.10 (talk) 06:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Or you can dump the bloatware and do this. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 09:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

registry

What are HKCU, HKLM, HKCR, etc called? I think I recall them having a specific name like registry domains or something but not that --froth^t 03:32, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

The Registry Editor help file calls them registry subtrees and predefined keys. --jh51681 10:07, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Our article calls them hives (Windows_Registry#Hives). 11:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jeltz (talk • contribs)

Must have "www."

Hello, I have a website but for some reason it can only be accessed with the www. at the front of the address (eg. www.example.com). If I try to access it without the www. (like just example.com), I get a "Could not locate remote server" error. Is there any way to fix this so the website can be accessed even if the www. isn't typed (say, through the .htaccess file or something), like any other normal site? thankyou —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.208.110.207 (talk) 07:11, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If you do an nslookup on the name "whatever.com" (without the www.), does it look up to anything? If not, you need to add an entry for it to the domain name server (DNS). Usually this is not handled by you; and you need to tell whoever is running your DNS to fix it. --Spoon! 08:43, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You have to modify your host file, instead of looking for www.example.com, remove the www. part and just leave it to example.com. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Like Spoon! said, you need a DNS entry for example.com, otherwise there will be no way for anyone's web browser to contact your web server. Once you have that, there are a couple methods you could try that redirect browsers to www.example.com, if that is your preferred domain. I use Apache's mod_rewrite for this. -- JSBillings 10:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

After doing a nslookup I can see that something is wrong with the DNS - I'll have to contact the company who manage my domain. Thanks for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.208.110.207 (talk) 11:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Your web server itself will also have the know the list of names it can be called by. Friday (talk) 15:35, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't get this. I thought that the site was, say, example.org and www.example.org is just one of the local servers (just like there could also be an ftp server and what have you). So shouldn't this be a local problem? Unless someone told the dns folk to be more specific than they normally are, or something. DirkvdM 06:13, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

example.com is just another DNS name, like www.example.com and really.long.name.example.com. If you don't configure an A record or CNAME record for that name, it won't resolve as the hostname in a URL. In this case, no one created an A record for example.com (you don't want example.com to be a cname, for a variety of reasons not worth mentioning here.) Some people and hosting sites don't automatically create them, either by preference or policy. -- JSBillings 14:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Image upload site

What is a very user friendly site to upload images and create a gallery? Thanks 81.241.103.75 08:56, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

[3]--Mostargue 11:10, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

http://flickr.com. Lanfear's Bane 12:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

imageshack.us 68.231.151.161 17:33, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Java vs. C++

I read about Java and C++ programming languages and I can't really find any big differences.

What ia the different between Java and C++? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.54.33.250 (talk) 12:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Generalized pointers, present in C++ but absent in Java are an obvious difference.

Atlant 13:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh come on, that's what you come up with? How about the obvious difference that Java is interpreted and C++ is compiled? --froth^t 15:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Java is not interpreted. Java is usually compiled into Java bytecode (which is usually JIT-compiled into native machine code at runtime), but can also be compiled directly into native machine code. --Spoon! 18:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

But it is interpreted. Human-readable Java source code is compiled into Java byte code, which the processor can't make heads or tails of. The JVM interprets the Java byte code. In a sense, Java is both compiled and interpreted. The .NET CLR does the same in MicrosoftWorld. In a sense, every language is interpreted. In machine code, the interpreter is the processor itself. I have myself written two interpreters, and have found them to be much easier to write than compilers, which I have very little expertise on. JIP | Talk 20:14, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

One of the most important differences is that in C++, you have to memory manage each and every object yourself, while in Java and C#, the runtime environment does it for you. JIP | Talk 20:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As interpreter says, "Any language can be implemented via an interpreter or compiler; there is no such thing as an "interpreted language" or "compiled language", only interpreted and compiled implementations of a language.". --Sean 20:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

It's a very broad question, and you haven't told us what perspective you're viewing it from. Do you want differences that matter to someone who studies the intricacies of programming languages? Do you want differences a CIO should care about? These are vastly different questions. Taking a fairly "big picture" view, Java is almost certainly the language where more active improvement is being made. Java has made vast inroads in enterprise application development in a way that C++ almost certainly never will. Java is more than a programming language- it's a platform. Friday (talk) 15:23, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

@ [87.54] And just to round out this thread of replies ... if you are asking from the perspective of someone who doesn't know anything about programming languages, and simply wonder why someone bothered to "invent" Java when C++ already existed and seemed to be doing a decent job on its own ... there are thousands of programming languages and programming language designers love "improving" things. There's more than one way to invent the wheel.

For some good background on programming language design in general, read a few essays by Paul Graham (Here are two good ones [4] [5] that talk about lisp, but have general application). dr.ef.tymac 20:27, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Follow-up: oh, by the way, in case you aren't enthralled by techie-types debating the nuances of "compiled vs interpreted" and the other kinds of perennial squabbles that are likely to show up in in response to your question, you might want to take a look at Comparison of Java and C++, on Wikipedia. dr.ef.tymac 20:44, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As others have said, a huge difference is that in Java, all objects live on the heap and are garbage collected. The programmer controls when objects are allocated, but the run-time system deallocates them behind the scenes when it can prove that they will never again be used. In C++, the programmer controls the full life cycle of every object (creation and destruction). This has major consequences for certain styles of programming; the idea that "resource allocation is initialization" is ubiquitous in C++ and nonexistent in Java. In C++ it's generally considered good programming style to use automatic (stack) allocation for most objects and avoid new and delete, whereas in Java new is everywhere. Explicit memory management also means that objects can disappear while references to them remain, which is a famous source of bugs.

In C++ when you write Foo x, it means that x is a Foo (automatic). In Java, Foo x means that x is a reference to a Foo; the actual object lives elsewhere (on the heap). In C++, if you assign to x, you're asking the object x to overwrite itself with whatever's to right of the = sign. In Java, you're changing the reference; no objects are involved. The closest thing to Java references in C++ is pointers; they're syntactically different but semantically very similar. C++ also has something called references, which are syntactically more similar but semantically rather different. Pointers in C++ are more general than Java references, because you can have a pointer to anything that can be assigned to, not just objects. In particular, you can have pointers to a particular element of an array, and pointers to pointers, both of which are useful in practice.

Another big difference is that Java comes with a huge standard library, while C++'s standard library is minuscule (at least by comparison). You can find C++ libraries for practically anything, but they have to be installed and configured separately.

C++ is normally compiled to native code while Java is normally compiled to the JVM, but that has essentially nothing to do with the languages themselves. I really don't understand why there aren't more C++ interpreters or native-code Java compilers. (They do exist.) Also, there's no reason there couldn't be a bounds-checked implementation of C++ (those exist) or an unchecked implementation of Java (well, the Java spec forbids this, but there's nothing deep in the design that precludes it).

I don't recommend Paul Graham's writings in general since he's painfully biased toward the Lisp way of doing things. I haven't followed these links, but everything he writes is like that; even when he's not talking about Lisp, he's talking about Lisp. You'll get a very twisted view of the world from reading his stuff. I love Lisp, but I don't exclusively love Lisp. Learn lots of languages -- most of them have at least a few neat ideas you won't have seen before. (Though Java's pretty boring, actually. C# is more interesting.) -- BenRG 21:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Ah - language wars. Gotta love it. Empassioned user of the two languages at each others throats. The deal is that both languages have their place. You certainly don't write high performance video games in Java - it's vastly too slow (not just because it's typically interpreted - some language features are just inherently slow). You don't write web applications in C++ - with pointers and programmed memory cleanup, it's not secure enough - and being designed to be compiled and having no standards for what a 'char' or an 'int' is, it's not portable enough. C++ definitely isn't for beginners because it allows you to create insanely hard to track down bugs. Experienced programmers hate that Java places you in a straight-jacket and cuts you off from the most efficient programming techniques (the very things you need to avoid teaching to newbies because they are error-prone). You can't program "to the bare metal" in Java. C++ lacks some of the nicely thought out libraries and middleware that Java has. Both languages will be around for a long time to come - each dominating in their own fields of expertise. There are areas of overlap where either language is perfectly adequate - and in those cases the preferences and experience of those doing the programming typically ends up being the deciding factor. There are other situations where neither Java nor C++ can cut it. Shader programming in graphics hardware for example - we use HLSL, Cg or GLSL for that. For generating host-side web pages we use PHP (that's what Wikipedia is written in). There are all sorts of programming languages out there - and they are generally not interchangeable for extremely good reasons! SteveBaker 14:08, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft Publisher and Word Processing Sofware

Can anyone tell me if Microsoft Publisher can be considered as a Word Processing software? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shelaghmccormick (talk • contribs) 17:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Device Presenter

Somewhere that present me the suitable devices of my given requirements and characteristics for PC?Flakture 18:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

How do I create a scraper?

I want to retrieve some data from a variety of websites for a personal project, and it looks like I need to create a scraper.

This is just a one-off requirement and it's simply to save me several weeks of manually inputting data into the websites and getting the results.

I don't have any web scripting skills (HTML is the most I have), but I do have programming skills in other environments (Oracle PL/SQL and VBA) so could probably learn if I have some good, clear examples to follow. I don't want to spend more than 25 quid on this (it's all coming out of my own pocket), so will probably have to do it myself.

How might I make a start?

(I won't say what the websites are or what the project is - it's a secret!) 81.151.177.230 18:25, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Perl? Perl + Lynx?

Atlant 19:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks but...

I need to understand the missing links. Really, I need to know how to knit the bits of technology together. Do I have to get some web space that can host and execute Perl? Or can I embed the script in an HTML page? Thanks.--81.151.177.230 19:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You can always get ActivePerl on your windows system, and use the native Perl modules for scraping web sites. There are also Python (programming language) packages too, if you'd prefer Python, as well as other packages. You could probably also write it in Visual Basic, but I'm unfamiliar with that language. -- JSBillings 20:04, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

If you have Microsoft excel, go to Data --> Import external data --> New web query --> then enter the URL you wish to scrape and it will load the data. --Open2universe 20:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

To answer your questions: 1) no, you don't have to; and 2) sure, you could, if you are familiar with the relevant HTML scripting language, but that would be an unconventional way to do it.

There is a multitude of ways you can go about it. The best way is to check the terms of use of the "target" web site(s) and ask the person in charge if they make the information available "pre-scraped" for you to download, or whether they have a Web API, or whether there is a third-party site somewhere that aggregates the content in XML or some other format. I remember seeing a website that did that XML idea with Wikipedia.

You could just directly save the text of the HTML pages to whatever machine you are browsing the internet from and then extract the information you want with a custom-made beanshell or perl or ruby or javascript, provided your machine has the relevant language interpreter or compiler installed on it. You could use a pre-made module such as some of the ones linked below.

You could probably pay someone 25 quid to teach you how to do this on your own, or write some scripts for you, although I'm not sure how ethical that would be if you didn't expressly state what you are planning to do first, and how you plan to use it.

Random ideas in no particular order: WWW::Mechanize Hpricot Mashup (web application hybrid) Web spider Aggregator Scroogle ... here is a site on a specific software package with a nice tutorial and pretty diagrams. If you need someone to spell things out for you step-by-step, you might have a better chance if you can show you've researched the above links (or related) and you've investigated the various options ... or you could just get a computer whiz to fall in love with you or something. dr.ef.tymac 20:15, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Finding a font

Where can I get a font for my Mac (OS X) so that I can see this diff correctly? Right now the ml link is just a series of identical and strange boxes. Dismas|^(talk) 19:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

• My method was to look at the language code (ml), go to its article (ml), see that it's for the Malayalam language, search for "font" on that page, follow this link, and end up with this font. --Sean 20:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
  • Hey, cool! Thanks, I learned something from that! In the future I'll try to be less of a n00b about finding things. Dismas|^(talk) 23:13, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Easy alternatives to DOS window?

I'm a mac user and very amateur C programmer... I've written a simple program that interacts with the user via the standard streams, which works great in the unix terminal. I'd like it to run on Windows machines, too, but the DOS window only has 80 columns and can't scroll. Do I have any other options besides learning what the Windows API is all about? Can this Win32 console thing help me? (In case it matters, I'm using Windows 98 and Open Watcom.) Thanks! --Allen 20:40, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried Cygwin? dr.ef.tymac 20:48, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

No... I'll read up on it. Thank you! --Allen 21:16, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can remember, you can click on the system menu and select "Properties" and set the number of rows and columns to whatever you want. If you set the row count to something large like 2000, you effectively have a scrollback buffer. You can also do this programmatically with the Win32 console API. -- BenRG 21:53, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm? Vista (and I thought XP too..) has an actual option for how many lines you want it to buffer. --froth^t 22:21, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

One sucky feature of the command prompt window is that the "screen buffer size" is fixed (you can change it in the window's properties, but it doesn't change dynamically when you resize the window - Windows just puts up scrollbars if you make the window smaller than the SBS, and prevents you from dragging the window bigger than the SBS). I guess the reason is that Windows really doesn't have a proper mechanism whereby the terminal can tell a program running inside it that the window has changed. Unix, by contrast, can sent client programs a SIGWINCH message - which lets smart terminal-aware programs like vi and less and emacs know that someone has resized the terminal - so they can cleverly resize their own displays to match. If you do use cygwin you can start a whole x-windows session and use a full x terminal (like xterm) and you get the SIGWINCH mechanism thrown in. Also (last time I checked) there is a cygwin port of rxvt that doesn't use X (it just uses windows calls, and this looks very like a regular command window) - but it does support SIGWINCH. It's a nice thing to have if you want real resizability but don't want the whole X system running on windows just to get that. -- 217.42.190.82 00:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Froth, I think you're talking about the same thing that I am. IP address, Windows does have a mechanism to tell applications when the window size changes: ReadConsoleInput(). The big problem with the Windows console system is that the metadata (cursor movement and window size change and so on) doesn't have an encoding as byte sequences, and hence can't be sent through a pipe. Console handles are not real NT handles, they're special values which are intercepted by the user-mode Win32 subsystem and routed via a private side channel (LPC) to the Win32 process that manages the console window. This is why the Unix world has lots of terminal emulators but the Windows world has only Microsoft's. I think they've now specified a way for third parties to hook into this system, or at least I seem to remember hearing that they were planning to do so. -- BenRG 22:03, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Cygwin is the right answer - it gives you a UNIX-like environment under Windows - once you've opened a Cygwin shell window, you'll be right at home with all of the tools you know and love. It comes with gcc, make and all of the other things you need. (And it's free!) SteveBaker 20:48, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone; I appreciate the help. --Allen 23:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

SUPER

I was lazing around the computing reference desk when I saw a solution to my problem: SUPER! I was trying to actually use the VideoDownloader add-on for Firefox...anyways, I downloaded the SUPER installation files (I think), but all I got was a box saying "Invalid Database. The installation will be cancelled." What exactly am I doing wrong?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 21:50, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Using SUPER in the first place for one. It's just a frontend to mencoder and ffmpeg- use those instead --froth^t 22:19, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, okay. I'm still in the dark here, so could you tell me a little about mencoder and ffmpeg? Thanks.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 15:17, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

There's an MEncoder and FFmpeg article. -- JSBillings 16:04, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Alright! I downloaded it, downloaded a video, and viewed it successfully! What I don't know how to do, though, is to convert videos from one format to another...--The Ninth Bright Shiner 20:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

installing xp on laptop with no cd or floppy

i have a laptop with xp pro sp2 already installed, as i just got it from a friend i want to do a clean install of windows to get rid of the junk, but the floppy drive/cd drives are external (floppy usb, cd rom uses some sort of smart card drive?) i've tried installing it but i realised that the computer cant recongise the cd drive as it would need a driver but the driver wouldn't be loaded at the point where windows installs itself. anyway round this?--Colsmeghead 21:51, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Most fairly new (certainly the last few years) BIOSes will allow you to boot of a USB disk (which should include a USB optical drive). So look in your BIOS - I think the BIOS will be able to make the optical drive appear as if it was IDE (as far as the bootloady bits of XP are concerned), so no driver would be required. -- 217.42.190.82 23:38, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

so just copy win cd to the usb drive?--Colsmeghead 09:51, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

theres no boot from usb option possibly because it doesnt have any usbv drives, you have to put it in a dock thing for it to have any kind of ports--Colsmeghead 11:09, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

HOW much does it cost?!

Due to processes I really rather wouldn't go into detail about, I can no longer install my Office Professional 2007 disc, because it's an upgrade. So, my only alternative seems to buy the cheapest available regular Office disc. What disc would that be? Standard is a frightening $400, which I certainly wasn't expecting. Doesn't Home & Student cost less? Is it even able to be upgraded? Thanks.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 21:55, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Look for the OEM install of Office Basic at online retailers. Office basic only comes with Excel and Word, which is most that almost everyone really needs (I run a couple of dozen machines at the office, and all but a few only have basic - occasionally people complain that they don't have powerpoint, but not enough to actually get up and walk over to one of the machines that do have it). The OEM disk (which is intended for system installers, but can quite legally be used by anyone) just comes in a little sleeve with the disk and the licence - no blurb, no docs, no box, no handholding. But really, before you spend money, do try OpenOffice.org - it opens every Word document I've ever had to throw at it, does everything I know how to get Word to do just as well. For 99% of people I'm convinced it's just fine; only people who do some pretty scary macro stuff find significant differences between Office and OO. And with OO you get all the suite for free. -- 217.42.190.82 23:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Hm...I found it at $180. Is that too high, or is that what it normally costs? Thanks again for the help.--The Ninth Bright Shiner 15:15, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Are you a college student? Microsoft likes to feel philanthropist and sell it at fair prices to college students. Check through your school's website- "Microsoft Office Enterprise 2007 Suite (Student Option)" costs just $14.40 + S&H for me. Vista Ultimate Upgrade (never buy the full, just upgrade twice for a clean installation) is $18.45. If your school doesn't have a fair deal with microsoft, you can still get software if you can prove your student status. This january when Vista came out, I ordered home premium upgrade from journey for $90, and all I had to do was get the registrar's office at my school to send proof of enrollment to the provided address. This is considerably more expensive than buying from the school however- That $14.40 office 2007 ultimate becomes $249.75 at gradware.com --froth^t 17:29, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Whoa. Now that's something. I'm in 10th grade right now, so would I be eligible for these discounts to end all discounts?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 20:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

October 6

Running IE

How would one run IE from a limited user account to a administrator account, if you know the password to both that is...ie. what does one need to type in "run" by windows to get it run IE as admin? Thank 209.202.45.185 00:42, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure but if you know which version of Windows you are using that could help.

If you are able to right-click from the limited account, try right-clicking and then clicking on "run as" ... the rest should be a piece of cake. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 15:04, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 2 Spell check

When typing a comment in a text field (such as this), I accidentally added the word "unverifyable" to its dictionary (The correct spelling of the word is "unverifiable"). I was about to clicked on the right word in the right-click menu, but not being as mouse savvy as I though I was, I click on the option JUST BELOW IT, which was "Add to dictionary." My question is how do I remove it from the dictionary? And why did they not at least put a separator between the suggestions and the add option, like what Microsoft® Word does? — Kjammer  ⌂ 01:34, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, if you look in your profile folder, you'll find a text file called: persdict.dat which you can edit. You might need to edit it when Firefox is not running. You should probably use a text-editor which can handle Unix line-endings. Wordpad will work if you're in a pinch. --Kjoonlee 16:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

How to find your profile folder: Profile folder at MozillaZine Knowledge Base --Kjoonlee 17:46, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, fixed the problem. I was looking in the Program Files section for something like this and could only find DLL files related to spell check, which do not store any data. Although you'd think there would be a viewable list in the options menu. — Kjammer  ⌂ 22:40, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Richard Stallman and Wikipedia

Hi all - thanks for any help with this query....

Has Richard Stallman ever written something or said something quotable specifically about Wikipedia that reflects his opinion of it? (perhaps particularly related to this article: http://www.gnu.org/encyclopedia/free-encyclopedia.html ) Thanks for any references, links and tips! 207.151.227.116 02:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Image Scanner Upkeep

Hello. What are the unobvious tasks in maintaining an image scanner? I know that I must regularly clean the glass cover but what else? What if my light tube that moves up and down when scanning burns out? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 03:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard of a light tube burning out; I'm sure it is possible but I've never seen it, and don't think it is very likely to happen unless you are seriously mishandling the scanner. As for other maintenance, there really isn't any, though if you transport the scanner you have to re-calibrate it occasionally as it can get a bit off of alignment when moved around (this is done via the scanner software). --24.147.86.187 04:11, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Energy consumption of the Internet

How much energy does the Internet use up? Worldwide and/or in a densely internetted country like the Netherlands. Not counting the endcomputers, because they may have been on anyway, even if there was no-one on the Internet. DirkvdM 06:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Everyone should read slashdot :] Not exactly what you're looking for, but go to the article and read through the documentation; there are dozens of sauces that you can use to figure it out for yourself --froth^t 06:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Wow, 5.3 % worldwide and 9.4 % in the US. Since I assume that energy waste in other fields will be higher in the US, that might be even higher in other western countries, especially in the Netherlands. But two thirds of that is due to the computers and monitors at people's homes, sort of like I expected, and it's not entirely fair to count that. But still, for the Netherlands it will probably be something like 5% of energy consumption, which is more than I thought. DirkvdM 17:56, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

IMO it's not really all that surpising. For every watt they're using, they waste 2 or 3 watts trying to cool the thing.. and my laptop uses a LOT of power for cooling- to keep it from overheating I use a USB-powered fan rig to pipe heat away from the bottom (my thinkpad tries to put out as much heat as possible through air cooling, and any extra it pumps directly through the solid metal bottom, so it's perfect for this kind of setup) as well as the built in internal air cooling system that runs air super fast through a little corner of the laptop and uses powered radiators to dump heat into that little fast-airflow space. I get about twice the battery life when I turn off internal cooling and unplug the fan rig --froth^t 18:50, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think they use more energy in cooling than actually for calculation. All my fans are just rated for a few watts, and I have 6 of them, which is way more than the average; that's just around how much power my 250gig hard drive uses. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:50, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

E-Mail ID

I want the E-Mail ID OF Tiffany Taylor.Now dont dismiss it as a borderline trollish question I am really crazy about her.218.248.2.51 07:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)Hedonister

Her website says it's dgi.business AT aol.com. Good luck! --Sean 13:49, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I would be really surprised if she actually ever sees any of the mail that goes to that address. If you get a reply - it'll be picked from a menu of pre-written replies. Forget it. SteveBaker 17:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I would not be surprised. If I got nearly as much attention, I would probably do that too. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 15:01, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Streaming music with wiki

Is there a way to stream music with wiki? For example using windows media player to play music in a wiki article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.75.79.220 (talk) 08:08, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in fact we've already got it integrated into many articles, like Eruption_(song). [Mac Δαvιs] ❖ 02:13, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Hardisk Failure

Hi friends, My PC's been suffering from Hardnisk failure.My configuration is (Pentium D 3GHZ,1GB RAM(transcend),Mercury TV tuner card on PCI slot,160 GB SATA Segate HDD,965 INtel Mainboard,Windows XP SP2) In C Drive I have installed Windows 2000 and in D drive I have installed Windows XP SP2.The thing happened was., that last week I found one partition was not formatted and it was about 12 GB space.I have already divided HDD into 8 partitions.Using disk management in XP,I assigned a new drive letter "Z" and clicked format,and next to that second, my system displayed Blue screen or stop screen error telling that Plug and play device is in faulty cond,could be due to bad\faulty driver.Before this incident,my HDD was just doing superb.I never got such problems...I disconnected all other devices and again booted using that faulty HDD, but to my surprise, it showed the operating system choice menu such as windows XP and windows 2000.Also I was able to detect my drive in BIOS.Once I boot xp, the HDD is loading which I confirmed by its sound and vibration but when the "windows XP loading screen" appears,my system again displayed stop or blue screen error stating the same problem.This was the permanent case.Later,I plugged in the HDD as plug and play into another PC after booting and login to windows XP desktop in my friends PC.The device manager detects the drive, but within seconds it displayed stop screen error with same quote.This is my critical case.I changed HDD cables,power cord,I reset the BIOS and set for default values,but nothing helped out...Booting sectors in my HDD seem to OK,but I thing some clusters might have been damaged...I have huge amount of precious data with many not backed up.I cant give to data recovery centre since that will void guarantee or if I send it to segate,they will return new product and I will lose all data..Please help me solve this problem by any means...Thanks a thousand in advance... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 08:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I suggest using a LiveCD for data recovery, such as Linux System Rescue CD or Rescubuntu, to recover it to another hard drive. Do it fast, since your hard disk seems to be near failure. Splintercellguy 20:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks But my hardisk is not at all loading.Only boot sectors seem to be fine...When my disk is being read by windows, the system automatically restarts.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.57.137 (talk) 08:34, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You can try burning a copy of a LiveCD version of GNU/Linux (I see a fellow Wikipedian recommended Rescubuntu) in another computer (I bet you could figure that out yourself) and then using that computer to transfer the data from your near to failing disk to the on in the computer. Your computer should not restart just because you have a failing (or even failed) hard disk connected to it unless you are booting from the failing hard disk. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:59, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

RAIDed external USB harddrive...

My dad wants to buy an external USB harddrive to back up all his important things. He's really, really worried about it crashing and only having one copy, so I suggested that maybe he should get one that had a built in RAID system (RAID 1, that is), because I imagined some USB drives came with that built in. There are, right? Can someone recommend one? --Oskar 09:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

They're pricey. This one looks perfect but it's way too expensive for only 400GB in RAID 1. Maybe this one, but there's a bad review. I don't know, just buy a nice low-end enclosure that comes with all the RAID parts, and then buy hard drives separately --froth^t 17:44, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think RAID is a good idea. It's too easy to imagine scenarios where both drives are lost at once -- power surge, controller electronics failure, earthquake depending on where you live. RAID mirroring is good for servers that need to be online all the time; when a drive fails, the server can keep running while you swap in a new drive. I don't think it's a good fit for an external backup drive that's only occasionally going to be switched on. I'd buy two drives from different manufacturers and alternate between them for backups, never having both plugged in at the same time. How much important data does your dad have? USB pen drives are dirt cheap these days. You could buy a dozen 4GB pen drives for the price of that Buffalo RAID array. -- BenRG 22:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

For critical data, I certainly wouldn't store it on the same computer - or even in the same building. RAID will save you from hardware problems such as a head-crash on one of your drives - but it won't solve the problem of you accidentally deleting a file you intended to keep - or of a virus or other malware taking over your PC and corrupting all of the drives in the RAID. That's why you need to mirror the data on another computer. But if your house burns down - it's not even enough to keep the data on two machines in the same building - so off-site backup is vital. My important stuff from home is mirrored onto the computer that does my web hosting once a week - as well as being copied onto my file server computer down in my garage every day. SteveBaker 13:47, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

If you are paranoid, maybe you can burn the data every few days on DVDs and mail copies to two reliable people living in abother county (or still better, another state or country). But I don't know how it would help for extended periods of time. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:52, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I am not a computer scientist, but from what I have read, USB hard disk drives are painfully slow and are suitable only as a back-up drive. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:53, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

problem of faint photos on internet viewing.

Hi, I am Tejraj Singh from Palghar, India, the problem I am facing with my computer is that when I connect internet, pictures/photos are seen faint not clear or say broken (like trying to hide fact in photos ) .this problem is with all internet sites that I had visited. Please help me how to overcome this problem on my computer, is their any short of software or else. Thanking you, Tejraj Singh.220.224.101.32 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.224.101.32 (talk) 11:38, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello Mr. Singh. Do photos/pictures that you have on your computer also appear faint? If so, it may be either a problem with your monitor, or your graphics card.--Mostargue 11:57, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

It might be something as simple as turning up the contrast on your monitor. This can easily be tested with something like the shades of grey on the right in greyscale, but for your purpose that would have to extend to pure white (where you would then have to see all shades). Don't we have that somewhere? DirkvdM 18:02, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

microcontroller neuron

Are there microcontrollers designed specifically to simulate or duplicate the learning function of a neuron or does such functionality have to be programmed into a standard microcontroller, and if so, is there an algorithm for such programming? Clem 18:05, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

No - microcontrollers are not designed to act as artificial neurons. You could possibly run a Neural Network simulator on one of them. The algorithms for this are widely published in books on the subject - but without understanding the workings of them, you'd find it very hard to use them - so you're going to need to get hold of a book on the subject anyway. What application did you have in mind? SteveBaker 20:45, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

The Artificial neuron article does not show how an artificial neuron learns but only how an artificial neuron functions after it has learned. Clem 05:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You need more than an encyclopedia article to cover this broad topic in enough detail to actually go off and implement a neural network. (You keep talking about a single neuron - I hope you realise that we need to talk about a network of many artificial neurons - typically all simulated in a single computer.) As I said previously, you need to get a book on the subject and be prepared for a significant amount of study. Training a neural network is by far the most complex part of the problem and there are a lot of techniques and gotcha's that have to be worked through. Very roughly, you start with a randomised set of weights for the neurons in your network. Then you present a typical input to the network and observe the output it generates. Then you reinforce the weights of the neurons that produced the output you wanted and you reduce the weights on the ones that messed up - and back-propagate those weights up the network towards the inputs. (Back-propagation alone is the subject of three chapters in the book I have.) Do this a bazillion times with different training samples, gradually reducing the amount of change you apply to the weights and eventually the network learns. However, there is a lot more to it than that - it's a huge field that's not easily summarized in the few pages that is appropriate to an encyclopedia article. The book I originally learned this stuff from ("C++ Neural networks and Fuzzy Logic") is wildly outdated and I couldn't recommend it - but there are plenty of more modern works which include sample code and worked examples. SteveBaker 13:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Your description of how an artificial neuron (and artificial neural network) learns provides the general answer I was seeking in an encyclopedia article. Can you add your description to the artificial neuron article with perhaps some Pseudocode that illustrates the algorithm as well? Since the artificial neuron is the basic component, structural element or computing unit of the network I need an explanation that is comprehensive enough to be able to progress to an understanding of how an artificial neural network learns regarding further complexities such as the technique you mentioned of back propagation. Thanks. Clem 14:32, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Generally, the implementation of an artificial neural network is a big array full of the weightings of the inputs to each neuron plus another array which contains the current state of each one and a third array that lists the connection pattern. Generally the connection pattern consists of an input layer - and output layer and some number of 'hidden layers' of neurons between input and output - with the connection pattern generally connecting all of the neurons on one layer to each of the neurons on the next (although MANY other variations are possible - and even commonplace). The main loop of your application shoves the input data into the input neuron's state array - then iterates over all of the neurons taking each of their inputs current state, multiplying by the weight for that input and then summing them to make the new current state for this neuron. Hence the whole system is (typically) just a simple 1D floating point array for the current-state of each neuron, a 2D floating point array for the weighting of each input of each neuron and a 2D integer array containing the array index of the neurons that connects to this input of this neuron (of course this could instead be a 1D array of structures or classes or something - but performance is the driving factor here - neural networks can take a long time to execute and cache coherency can be a big problem with the largest ones). Since there tend to be a LOT of interconnections (just as in a real brain, the number of interconnections is vastly more than the number of neurons) - the inner loop of the code is mostly fetching state, multiplying by weightings and summing. This being just a few lines of code, and given that it occupies almost 100% of processing time in running the network, it can be really carefully hand-optimised. This is a useful property of neural networks. SteveBaker 23:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

In terms of a practical application then suppose each input were a pixel of 32 bit color of a 600 by 800 array. Do there exist such neural network arrays for instance that might be built into the electronics of a CCD array which can be trained to recognize a set of similar pictures and then ring an alarm when anything like its training comes into view of the camera? Clem 00:17, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Bluetooth Webcam

Where can you get a bluetooth webcam?martianlostinspace ^{email me} 19:19, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there are any. --froth^t 19:22, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Really?martianlostinspace ^{email me} 19:26, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Bluetooth isn't really made for high speed, high bandwidth transfers, 2.0 transfers only about 3 Mbit/s which isn't all that much. It's designed to transfer sounds and and calendar entries and stuff. I think that it would be pushing it to use it for a webcam. --Oskar 20:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

You might be able to just get a USB webcam and bridge it over a pair of Wireless USB adapters. Belkin apparently makes them but I can't find them. --froth^t 21:06, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

But even if you could - 3Mbit/s isn't enough for video. You can't magically get bandwidth from nowhere - so it couldn't possible work. SteveBaker 13:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

python class method: does a function/method have a way to know it's own name?

Suppose you have the following python code:

   class person(object):
       def __init__(self):
           self.fn = 'homer';
           self.ln = 'simpson';
       def say_anything(self):
           try:
               this_func   = '__what_do_i_put_here__??';
               name        = this_func.__name__;
           except:
               print       "there was an error!";
               name        = 'say_anything';
           print self.fn +" "+ self.ln +" didn't "+ name;
   test    = person();
   test.say_anything();

The code produces:

   there was an error!
   homer simpson didn't say_anything

The goal is to produce the same output, but without the "error" ... which means I have to figure out a way to get a function/method to know its own name ... which means I have to figure out what to put in place of '__what_do_i_put_here__??'. Any suggestions? NoClutter 22:32, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

• See here. --Sean 14:46, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Removing lyrics from songs

Using existing technology and software, is it possible to remove the lyrics from an MP3 song, leaving behind only the melody, so that one can sing the song themselves with only the melody playing? Thanks. Acceptable 22:59, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia. You can easily look up this topic yourself. Please see Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2007_September_26#Karioke_Track. For future questions, try using the search box at the top left of the screen. It's much quicker, and you will probably find a clearer answer. If you still don't understand, add a further question below by clicking the "edit" button to the right of your question title. . dr.ef.tymac 00:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

As for a more nonautomated and quicker answer: No. [Mac Δαvιs] ❖ 02:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Quicker? Perhaps. Correct? Doesn't seem so -- especially since the previous answer to this question includes side-by-side demonstration audio files that you can hear with your own ears ... if you follow the "automated" link already provided. dr.ef.tymac 05:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Do I need to do this again? I used GoldWave again, on Rock Lobster (song) by The B-52's.. chosen because since the instrumental track is so distinct, goldwave separates it perfectly.

Template:Multi-listen start

Template:Multi-listen item

Convinced yet? It doesn't work with many songs, but if you have a good high-quality version (preferably lossless, though this is rarely available -_-) it turns out OK. Most of the time you have a ghost of the vocals left, but it's much quieter than before and it's perfectly easy to sing over. --froth^t 06:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

My son has been using the OpenSourced 'Audacity' audio processing program which has a pre-programmed filter for removing vocals. (He removes them from rock music so he can hear the guitar part better when he's learning to play a song). I presume it's using a similar technique to the 'invert-left-channel-and-subtract-from-right' - but it's got a bunch of adjustable widgets that let you play around to get the best possible vocal elimination. It's obviously not 100% perfect (nothing could be) - but it's amazingly good - you can cut the vocals down to such a low level that you can only just barely hear them during the quieter parts of the music and you can't hear them at all when the music is louder. SteveBaker 23:33, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

PSP Wifi

I have established a wifi connection on my PSP using my home computer's wireless access. I have noticed that the two devices use the same IP address. So...

QUESTION 1- If I were to, let's say, get banned from a site using my PSP (this has not happened, just an example), would I be banned from that site on my computer as well?

QUESTION 2- Let's pretend I have the Internet Service Provider SBC Global. Both of my internet connections, then, are provided by SBC Global. So, let's say that, on my home computer, I establish an SBC Global email account. Of course, I wouldn't have a pre-established SBC Global e-mail account on my PSP since I am simply using the connection. So, let's pretend that I set up a Gmail e-mail account for myself, that I will use when using my PSP. So, if I subscriped to something or ordered something using my gmail account, would anybody using the computer or SBC Global account ever be informed thru the SBC account of this? So pretty much, would the computer user be able to track the IP address and find not only the history of the computer, but also what has happened on the PSP?

QUESTION 3- Are there any extra fees thrown onto a wireless internet connection if there is a 2nd party using it via a PSP? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.23.84.129 (talk) 23:27, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll assume you're in a residential setting, and your PSP was connected to a home broadband router with wireless capabilities. For the first, The IP address associated with your connection would have been banned, so any machines that use the router will be blocked too. For the second, no. For the third, no, it's your wireless router, isn't it? How can the ISP track how many machines are connected to the router anyway? Splintercellguy 01:19, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

is the psp or iphone a better media player (widescreen movies).

it seems the iphone in widescreen mode playing a movie is similar to a psp doing the same thing. which is better? (the actual experience though maybe its because of brightness, physical size, resolution, dpi etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.127.58 (talk) 23:37, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea about PSPs. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 02:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The PSP appears to have a wider screen, but I have never even saw an iPhone in real life, so I would say the PSP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonathan (talk • contribs) 03:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I know the iPhone sucks but it might be the best thing for amatuers like me. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:45, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind that you must prepare almost all media you want to view on your PSP (outside of UMD movies and DRM-free MPEG-4 -- like video podcasts and movie trailers). You must compress any video yourself. The iPhone has the iTunes store, which carries lots of movies, TV shows and video podcasts. So the iPhone is far more convenient if you don't mind paying a couple bucks for content. And personally, the ability to have the internet available no matter where you go (even if it is slow AT&T Edge service) is something that will change your life. --24.249.108.133 22:49, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Surfing web without web browsers

Is it possible on a Windows XP/Vista to surf the internet without a web browser on your computer and instead using, for example, CMD? Thanks. Acceptable 23:43, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

Not sure about windows versions for these tools, but can you explain a bit more about what you need. There are some text-based web browsers, like the Lynx web browser. There are simpler tools for downloading, like wget, which are also text-based. For more complex stuff, there are scripts like python which could be used. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:07, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

See also cURL and links. --71.175.68.224 01:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I think if a software allows you to browse the web, it is a web browser. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 02:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You could hand-write raw ethernet frames in a hex editor.. that's about the only way you're going to be able to do it without using a networking program --froth^t 05:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

He didn't ask how to do it without a networking program, he asked how to do it without a web browser. It's very easy, as said below, just telnet into port 80 and write the HTTP request by hand. You don't even have to know what ethernet frames are, or that there even is any layer below TCP. JIP | Talk 05:41, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

OTOH, it has been agreed that you can surf the internet without web trousers (or even naked) 8-)[[6]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.198.32 (talk) 08:27, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

LOL --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:44, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

yes, you can telnet to port 80 and parse the site yourself. (imagine what it looks like). for simple sites you're familiar with, this isn't even insane. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.0.158.245 (talk) 20:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

October 7

On the verge of breaking...

On my Socket 754 motherboard 2 hooks on the side of the CPU that were holding the fan down broke off and the remaining one looks like to be on the verge of breaking is well, and my CPU is getting hot since the contact is not optimum. Is there any way I can remedy this situation, because this motherboard is really good for a file server (built in IDE/SATA RAID etc.) and I want to keep it in service even after I get a new computer. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You can use a thermally conductive adhesive to permanently attach the heat sink to the CPU. Clem 05:26, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

...like the standard Arctic Silver. --froth^t 05:55, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I always thought Arctic Silver is simply a thermal compound which has barely any adhesive power at all... Will it not put too much stress on my CPU since the heatsink is quite heavy (~600g). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

What? Why would it put stress on the CPU? If that beast of a heatsink is already sitting on the processor, the arctic silver won't make it any worse. You could try buying artic silver thermal paste and putting that in the middle, then dabbing a little of this insane stuff around the edges.. warning, it will NEVER EVER come off. Don't use globs. -froth^t 06:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Yes it's now pushing it in but if I had to use the epoxy once the remaining hook breaks off the CPU will experience a pull instead, due to the weight of the heatsink, and I'm not sure if it can withstand that. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:40, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You are correct - Arctic Silver (and other things like it) are NOT adhesives - they are thermally conductive pastes that fill in the microscopic gaps between the CPU and the heatsink to allow heat to flow from one to the other without there being an air-gap (air is a pretty good thermal insulator). When the clamp breaks, there won't be stress on the CPU - but then the heatsink will simply fall off - or a gap will open between heatsink and CPU which will probably allow the CPU to destroy itself. That clamp is there for a reason - you need it. If it breaks - buy an new heatsink and put fresh thermal paste onto the cpu before you clamp it back together again. SteveBaker 14:18, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the OP is referring to the tabs on the CPU socket. If so then again use a thermal adhesive versus a thermal compound to permanently bond the heatsink and CPU so as to permanently eliminate the air gap between the CPU and the heatsink. Do not mix the adhesive with compound. Doing so is unnecessary if the adhesive is a thermal adhesive. Using compound with the adhesive may prevent the heatsink and CPU from bounding allowing the heatsink and CPU to separate and an air gap to form. Clem 17:37, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

So does anyone know if the CPU can withstand the pull from the weight of the heatsink or would I have to lay it down horizontally? --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:08, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

What other choice do you have? --froth^t 04:34, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, there are many other choices... He could get a lighter heat sink. He could switch to a liquid-cooled system. He could use a bunch of zip-ties to hold the heat sink to the motherboard. He could underclock the system to keep heat down. That's just a start. There are certainly many more. -- kainaw™ 04:57, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

What's the plastic structure with the hooks near the CPU called? Is there any documented case of replacing that since I've found a faulty, near-identical board and it would seem a better idea to simply replace the hooks instead of gluing my CPU to the heatsink. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:50, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

customising pie chart in MS Visio

Help please! I want to create pie charts in MS Visio without showing the percentage text. Whatever I do, the result is like the one seen in the pic at the link. http://www.data.no/FilesUploaded/Publications/612/Images/tut1_fig4_chart.jpg What I want is a pie chart with custom text, like the following. http://tommcmahon.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2007/03/27/piechartalternative2.gif I suppose there must be a way. Can somebody please help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Weird connector (talk • contribs) 09:51, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't know Visio at all. Is it possible for you to do it in another program (like Excel) and import it? --24.147.86.187 20:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Visio seems to use the same chart engine as Excel anyway. To make a chart like the example you gave, insert a chart on to your Visio worksheet, then change the Chart Type to "Bar of Pie". Then go to the Chart Options, turn Show Legend off, and in the Data Labels tab, turn on whichever options you want to show on the pie chart. -Canley 02:55, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Reverting all Windows XP Display settings to default

I recently installed Battlefield 2, but somehow it changed all my GFX settings including the Display settings. The tahoma font setting is massive and ugly and makes me want to puke, the taskbar is massive. I need to know how to revert all the settings (icon, message box etc). My video card is Radeon 9200. - Vicer 13:21, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Try Right-clicking on the desktop to go to "Properties", then under theme tab, there is (or should be) a drop down menu, select Windows XP in the menu. Hit apply and then OK. This should work. Let me know if it does not work.

BTW, a small game is not supposed to interfere with you GUI. I hate it when games don't just mind their own business. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 14:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi, it didn't really work but I soon found out it was the DPI settings that caused it to look huge. Thanks for the help though. - Vicer 14:58, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

You are always welcome ... and congratulations! --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 15:05, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

October 8

Python

I have a question about python. I'm trying to write a program to do matrix operations. If I give the program inputs of n rows by m columns, how would I tell it to ask for (m x n) inputs? 68.231.151.161 01:36, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

midi files

I have collection of midi files from the late '80's. Some will not play using Windows Media Player with the problem being timing or rhythm. At first I thought it might be due to an outdated copy of WMP or the motherboard being configured for use spread spectrum, but no, it happens with all WMPlayers not what else is changed. Most of the midi files that WMP cannot play Quicktime can play so I'm able to listen to almost every file I have. What is the reason for this problem? Is there a difference in midi file format or what? 71.100.9.205 06:24, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

EMail ID

Earlier Iasked for the email id of Tiffany Taylor and someone gave it to me as dgi.business@aol.com.As planned I sent her a mail but I got a mail from MAILER-DAEMON@n2.bullet.mud.yahoo.com that the mail could not be delivered to that address.The remote host said that 550 MAILBOX NOT FOUND [RCPT_TO].What does this mean?218.248.2.51 08:45, 8 October 2007 (UTC)Hedonister