Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

May 7

why does windows sometimes resurrect deleted photos?

My boss uses Windows, and once she complained to me that the more she tried to delete JPEGs from a directory, the more new copies appeared. I didn't believe her until I saw it for myself, and today I saw it on another Windows computer. It happens whether one is deleting, or just moving to another folder. At first it seems to work, and then about five seconds later new copies of the pictures, with successively higher numbers, pop back into the original folder. Maybe the weirdest thing is that it doesn't happen 100% of the time, so that my solution to the problem is simply to keep deleting, like whack-a-mole, until they're finally all gone. Why does this happen? As a Mac user, I don't really care if I find a practical solution to this; I'm just curious to understand it because it's one of the oddest things I've ever seen a computer do. --Allen 01:22, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've seen that too. I think it happens because they are loaded into memory in a program which is currently running, which then recreates any pics that are deleted. The solution, then, is to close any running programs before attempting the move. StuRat 03:04, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I've seen this happen in a corporate network and it has been to do with file synchronisation. Without analysing the network specifically I don't think there is a standard fix you can apply. Keeping things neat and tidy or getting a profile reset once in a while can help, as can not using the off-line file feature, as long as you understand what that means. Vespine 03:13, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers! I bet it has something to do with an old attempt to network these computers, because I don't think I had any other programs open. It's still weird that it doesn't happen all the time, though. --Allen 15:35, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Other programs, such as explorer.exe, could be accessing it. Unlocker will allow you to check that no processes are using it before you delete :). JoshHolloway 19:18, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Japanese language in Windows

Its Windows XP btw. Usually, when I installed Windows it was enough to check the "Install files for East Asian languages" checkbox in Regional and Language Options in Control Panel to get full suport for Japanese language. That means I was able to both type japanese language and read japanese language. The current version of Windows Im using now seems to be screwed up. When I check that box I still cant add Japanese to keyboard layouts, and when reading I can read only hiragana, no kanji. [1]. Oh and I also cant choose Hungarian language in Keyboard layout options (Input languages). Can this be fixed short of reinstalling Windows XP? Shinhan 08:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Usually it takes some sort of Office is well to have full support of complex languages. This is one of the reasons I switched to Linux. You can try uncheck that box, ok, restart, and then check it to do a reinstallation of the East Asian pack. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

GCC register allocation

Is there any way I can get GCC to tell me which variables are in which registers (e.g., by annotating generated assembly)? Can I do this without going through the assembly and working it out myself? --User:Taejo|대조 08:25, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You could compile with debugging (-g -S) and look at stab debugging entries in the assembly file, though that isn't particularly easy... One problem is that a quality register allocator will split live ranges. This means that a variable doesn't reside in the same register all the time. At one place in the program a variable can be in one register, then in another register, then on the stack, ... There is no unambiguous simple answer "variable 'x' is in register '%r7' in this procedure". Weregerbil 12:12, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

The easiest way out of the box is to compile with debugging, and use objdump to see the C source intermingled with the assembler output. As Weregerbil says, it's not going to be explicit or long-lived, especially in register-poor environments like x86. Example below. --TotoBaggins 17:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

$ cat foo.c
int my_func(int x) {
    int num = x * x;
    while (num < 0xDeadBeef)
        num++;
    int half = num / 2;
    return half;
}

$ gcc -c -g foo.c
$ objdump --source --no-show-raw-insn foo.o
...
00000000 <my_func>:
int my_func(int x) {
   0:  push   %ebp
   1:  mov    %esp,%ebp
   3:  sub    $0x10,%esp
    int num = x * x;
   6:  mov    0x8(%ebp),%eax
   9:  imul   0x8(%ebp),%eax
   d:  mov    %eax,0xfffffff8(%ebp)
    while (num < 0xDeadBeef)
  10:  jmp    17 <my_func+0x17>
        num++;
  12:  lea    0xfffffff8(%ebp),%eax
  15:  incl   (%eax)
  17:  mov    0xfffffff8(%ebp),%eax
  1a:  cmp    $0xdeadbeee,%eax
  1f:  jbe    12 <my_func+0x12>
    int half = num / 2;
  21:  mov    0xfffffff8(%ebp),%edx
  24:  mov    %edx,%eax
  26:  shr    $0x1f,%eax
  29:  add    %edx,%eax
  2b:  sar    %eax
  2d:  mov    %eax,0xfffffffc(%ebp)
    return half;
  30:  mov    0xfffffffc(%ebp),%eax
}
  33:  leave  
  34:  ret

Downloading Webpages

Is there a firefox plugin that can be used to download an entire website to use for later offline viewing?

--Grey1618 13:50, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe so, mainly because it would likely have problems getting to every directory and knowing what that site is. Depending on the website though, you might be able to download it. It would help if you told us what it was- if it's something like a wiki, it might have dumps you can download and search through -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 14:51, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be looking to download fairly basic, static HTML websites. --Grey1618 15:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

wget will do this and is free. --TotoBaggins 16:59, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, use wget. It is out-of-control awesome. --140.247.242.96 19:40, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Just hold down option when you click on a link. It downloads the page instead of going to it. Ignatzmice^talk_contribs 20:26, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Alt on Windows — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 11:34, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Remapping URLs in browser

When I type in "google" to get to www.google.com, I find that if I mistype any single letter this is likely to take me to some bogus site which takes advantage of these typos to try to sell crap. What I would like to do is have a list of sites which, when typed in a browser, would remap to google, so I can avoid this. Ideally, it should work in all browsers. I realize there are other solutions, like downloading the Google toolbar or making the site a favorite, but I would prefer to type in "google", instead. There are many other sites where I would like to do the same thing. So, is there a way to do this remapping of URLs ? StuRat 14:52, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

You could always include your favorite typos in your "hosts" file, forcing your address translation rather than allowing DNSto route you to a cybersquatter.

Atlant 15:41, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Note that that will not work in all cases because many webserververs are configured to do virtual hosting based on what hostname the browser asks for. You could use hosts to point to a local server that would redirect to the proper hostname but that seems like too much work. -- Diletante 16:00, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

(edit: these solutions do URL typo correction, not search typo correction) OpenDNS does this by default, though it will send you to its search page if it's uncertain, which could be a bit annoying. There's also a Firefox extension that corrects some common typos, but it's a bit limited. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:42, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

From typosquatting; microsoft makes this. And a typo in google's URL will probably still take you to google.com because they have bought many of the common typo urls. Aaadddaaammm 02:11, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Firefox user? Good, then add google as a bookmark. Right click its entry in the bookmark menu and select properties. Type your fave typo under Keyword, and you're done. This is more commonly used for doing a search, but there is no reason why it wouldn't work here. Add as many bookmarks in the same way for however many typos you want. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info, all. StuRat 17:57, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Processor

Can anybody tell what does the 64 bit means in a 64 bit processor. Is it the length of registers or is it something else?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Freaky guy (talk • contribs) 16:47, 7 May 2007 (UTC).

Yep, from 64-bit, "64-bit CPU and ALU architectures are those that are based on registers, address buses, or data buses of that size." and "'64-bit' computer architecture generally has integer registers that are 64 bits wide. -- Diletante 16:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

What to do with old CRT monitors?

Hey All!

Was looking for any creative suggestions for what to do w/ old CRT monitors that either don't work, or just don't look good enough to use anymore. I have a few of them laying around.

The best blog post I have found just shows how to turn it into a trash bin... appropriate, no?

I don't think my city has an electronics recycler (or at least he/she hasn't made himself too well known...) Are there any 'national' component recycling services? Is it possible to open them up and manually extract anything of value? Any other ideas? (I'm looking for something I can either sell, or do and sell.)

Thanks!

NByz 18:03, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

For recycling, if you live in the United States, you might find this EPA page useful. I believe HP also offers some recycling services. In some cases, there is a small charge for recycling monitors. I can't help you with the sell/resell portion of your query. --LarryMac 18:20, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

How about offer it on Gumtree (select region) or craigslist (again, select region)? JoshHolloway 18:57, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I live in sort of a smaller city in Canada. It's not worth the shipping costs to get them somewhere else (for anyone, I think...) and there isn't really a market for them in my local papers or online auction sites. I was hoping to MAKE my own market somehow, but can't really think of anything... NByz 19:17, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Lots of information on recycling programs in Canada, here. --LarryMac 20:21, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

There must be something cool you can do with them, don't you think? They are vacuum tubes, after all. And a cool type at that. —Bromskloss 19:53, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

I must stress that you do not do this ! The inside of a CRT can, as noted below, hold extremely lethal charges for an extremely long period of time, not to mention that there is a very real possibility that your monitor was made with things that could poison you or in some other way harm you if you were to open it. Opening a CRT is like opening a house with asbestos insulation. You just don't do it, you get a professional to handle it -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 21:55, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Firstly, I must concur with the above: opening up a CRT is a very bad idea. Mind you, many years ago I had a computer (an Amstrad PCW) that had most of its components integrated into the casing of the monitor, so fitting extra chips to the motherboard required you to open up that case, something that was required to expand the memory until the advent several years later of plug-in "RAM packs". I remember the dire warnings given in 8000 Plus (a PCW magazine) to the effect that if you were going to upgrade the chips, you should leave the thing unplugged for several days before even thinking about taking the cover off. Loganberry (Talk) 00:27, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, firstly, Phoeba Wright and Loganberry advises against two different things – breaking the glass tube itself and opening the casing of the monitor, respectively. I, in the post that was generously struck over, assumed that the casing was already off, but did not mean that you should break the glass. That would ruin all the fun! A unbroken CRT is an evacuated glass tube with an electron gun and some other things. Awesome, that must be useful for something cool, was my idea. —Bromskloss 22:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Film something like this on YouTube? The only sensible thing I can think of is recycling. x42bn6 Talk 20:10, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Just keep in mind that monitors store a large electrical charge that can injure you (even after the monitor has been off/unplugged for a long time). Even if you discharge the tube properly there are still large capacitors that can shock you. -- Diletante

So remember to stand on a plastic box! (kidding, don't do it anyway) JoshHolloway 22:46, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Email server

Ok everyone. I've googled and googled but I can't find a mail server (smtp and pop3) for a mac. Could someone help me? I would prefer open source, and I reallllly don't want to pay for one. Thanks to all who help!--Ryan 23:24, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

If you are on OSX, all the standard unix daemons (sendmail, qmail, exim) should work. List_of_mail_servers has a nice table that shows compatability too. -- Diletante 23:36, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

There used to be a free product called Stalker Internet Mail Server (SIMS) which did POP3/SMTP for Mac OS 9, if you are looking for that. Don't know if it works for OS X but if you Google around you can find it. --24.147.86.187 01:52, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No idea if it will compile on OS X but I use postfix as my smtp daemon and have it deliver mail to Maildir's (done in the main.cf config file, put a slash on the end of the delivery path). I then use courier mailserver to access my inboxes from around the lan (www.courier-mta.org). You'll need authdaemon first and then the server to install afterwards (I use imap, but they have pop3 too). All free, if they work on your platform :). —Phill Upson

May 8

Random point in ImageJ

Hi

I'm trying to make a random point generator in ImageJ to randomly sample images. It should be really easy except I'm a biochemist. I've got:

//size of image in pixels
x = getWidth();
y = getHeight();
//first point
a=random()*x;
b=random()*y;
makeSelection("point", a, b);

But it comes up with "array expected [at "a"]". Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong. Aaadddaaammm 02:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like you need to declare the variables a and b. StuRat 03:02, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Is that not the "a=..." and "b=..." lines? Aaadddaaammm 03:03, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

No, that's an assignment statement, I believe you want something like this (at least you would in C):

int a;

int b;

Try it at the beginning of the program. Without a declaration, the program doesn't know what type of variables they are, and seems to be assuming they are arrays. StuRat 03:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... it doesn't like that: it says int is an "undefined variable". Aaadddaaammm 03:16, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

(ec) Let's wait until someone who actually knows about ImageJ comes along. I don't, and StuRat doesn't. (I don't think the problem is that the variables aren't declared, and even if that were the problem, the C-like declarations "int a;" and "int b;" would not be the way to declare them, because although ImageJ appears to be C-like, it's not that C-like.) —Steve Summit (talk) 03:30, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Does random() return an array? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.166.81.81 (talk) 03:24, 8 May 2007 (UTC).

I don't know. It works in this program, does it give u any clues?:

//length of line
length = 200;

//size of image in pixels
x=640;
y=480;

//start of line
a=random*x;
b=random*y;
//angle from start
c=random*2*PI;

//y coordinate of end
d=length*sin(c);
e=d+b;
while (e>y) {b=random*y; e=d+b;} //redo if point outside the image
while (e<0) {b=random*y; e=d+b;}

//x coordinate of end
f=length*cos(c);
g=f+a;
while (g>x) {a=random*x; g=f+a;}
while (g<0) {a=random*x; g=f+a;}
;

makeLine(a,b,g,e);

Aaadddaaammm 03:33, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I notice that in the program that works, the reference is to random, not random(). —Steve Summit (talk) 03:39, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Yea I was hoping I could just gloss over that. When I change it it makes no difference to either. This is what my random point code looks like now:

//size of image in pixels
x=640;
y=480;
//first point
a=random*x;
b=random*y;
makeSelection("point", a, b);

Aaadddaaammm 03:49, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

i don't know imagej but looking at the following example (from here)

x=newArray(1); y=newArray(1);
x[0]=90; y[0]=50;
makeSelection("point", x, y);

makes me think that you need to assign your variables like

a=newArray(1);
a[0]=random*x;

which would make the error message make sense because you are making a into an array. -- Diletante 04:31, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If this is C++, and if random is a function, then random*x is very wrong, as random would be the position in memory of the function. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:18, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, 203.166.81.81 (talk · contribs) is talking sense. Check if random() returns a number, an array, etc. --h2g2bob (talk) 18:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

I spent a little time this morning poking about in the documentation at the ImageJ site. In a nutshell, Diletante has it right. You have created variable a which is some random percentage of the x dimension, and variable b, similarly for the y dimension, however they are just numeric values. (From the documentation for the macro language, "Variables do not need to be declared and do not have explicit data types. They are automatically initialized when used in an assignment statement. A variable can contain a number, a string or an array.") Based on the description of the makeSelection function, the xcoord and ycoord arguments need to be numeric arrays. --LarryMac 13:44, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

SELinux

Isn't SELinux as vulnerable as the vulnerability of the root user account? If you are root, you can turn SELinux off, and so lose the benefits it gives you. Or am I missing something? 10:13, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Certainly. On any Unix-like system, if you can become root, you can do anything. But that's a big "if" -- you're not supposed to be able to just "become root" at the drop of a hat. Theoretically, you can't become root unless you know root's password. In practice, you can maybe also become root if there's some bug you can exploit -- but the system has been very, very carefully scrutinized to try and make sure there aren't any bugs like that.

The other part of the puzzle is, how much time do you (the authorized user) have to spend as root doing authorized stuff, and how much of the time are you therefore vulnerable to being tricked into doing something you didn't want to do? Stated another way, how many programs are there that have to run as root, such that if they're exploited (perhaps by a buffer overflow attack), the system can be completely compromised?

Another aspect of SELinux (as I understand it) is that you don't have to spend nearly as much time as root, because there is a fine-grained permission scheme. For example, under normal Unix and Linux, if you want to open a privileged TCP port, you have to be root -- so if a program wants to open a privileged TCP port, it has to be root, and then it has to be written much more carefully so it can't be exploited. Under Unix variants with fine-grained permission schemes, on the other hand, you don't have to be root, you just need the "is allowed to open privileged ports" permission bit.

When fully realized, a system with fine-grained permission bits ought to allow you to all but eliminate the root account. You'd never have to log in as or su to root, and almost no programs would need to run as root, and you could set root's password to something you didn't even know. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:22, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Steve. I suspected as much. Your answer was very helpful. 09:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: I've been reading up on the "fine-grained permission bits" scheme, because at the moment I have a program that needs to open a privileged port, and I'd rather not run it as root. Under Unix, POSIX, and Linux, the permission bits are called "capabilities"; on a Linux machine you can read more about them by typing "man 7 capabilities". (Note, however, that according to our Capability-based security article, these Unix/POSIX/Linux capabilities are evidently not nearly as flexible or powerful as the capabilities in a true capability-based operating system.) The capability I want is called CAP_NET_BIND_SERVICE.

Unfortunately there's a "last mile" problem -- currently, effectively, the only way to give a process a capability is... to be root! (Cf. "begging the question". :-) ) Ideally, and eventually, there will be a way to assign capability bits to executable files in the filesystem, so that they will automatically receive those capabilities when they run. (This can be though of as a fine-grained setuid mechanism.) But there's obviously a lot of extra security concerns in terms of getting that mechanism exactly right (not to mention that it likely requires filesystem changes). —Steve Summit (talk) 12:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Computer virus

I think my computer has a virus. VirusScan HAWK Alert keeps popping up messages saying that a virus is attempting to send emails. The subject lines in the emails are all about getting drugs. Please help me get rid of this virus.--71.185.129.251 14:36, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're simply getting e-mails with a virus attachment, then just delete. Your computer has probably not been infected, unless the e-mails contain an exploit for your e-mail viewer. If you're already infected, run anti-virus. If you need a free web-based scanner, try this one: TrendMicro HouseCall. Splintercellguy 14:57, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, no - as it "is attempting to send emails", then the machine is a zombie computer and has joined the almighty botnet. Run your antivirus software to fix this. --h2g2bob (talk)

There is good free software you can download to find and remove viruses/malware/spyware. I use AntiVir and it is one of the best (PDF report) anti-virus products available at the moment, and it is free for non-commercial use. I also use AdAware and Spybot - Search & Destroy to detect and remove malicious software (these are also freeware). You should also re-think your computer security. How did the virus get on your PC in the first place? --Phydaux 21:05, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

backup still running after three days

My XP laptop died suddenly on April 6; fortunately, I had a full C: backup only a few days old on an external hard drive. I bought a new PC with Vista home premium and immediately started having problem after problem; eventually I returned it to the store for a refund and bought another with the same OS.

But there were still more (but different, to keep it interesting :/ ) problems with the second new PC, starting before I restored the backup made from the first Vista machine to the second. Most or all (?) of the files were restored but the backup application also clobbered the built-in (logical) system recovery drive and did some other damage. Fortunately I had made system recovery DVDs and could safely remove that drive and recover from the other damage.

Comes time to do the weekly backup again (again using the native backup program on Vista and the same external hard drive). The backup has been running since Saturday noon, a full three days. The progress line indicates it is about 3/4 complete, and since it lists the names of files being backup up I can see that it is actually doing something. But why is it taking so long?

That's the first question. I assume the backup will complete in a day or so. The question then is, what to do? What should I be concerned about? What steps should I take to ensure a minimum of future trouble?

Also: I did a very stupid thing. The backup from the XP machine was a complete backup of C:. I restored it all to the first Vista machine. I don't recall if this is when my problems first started, but I'm sure it was a huge, if not the biggest, factor in all the trouble I've had. I hope the damage from that didn't carry over into my second Vista machine.

The backup of the first Vista machine didn't take that long, a few hours compared to days this second time.

BTW, I've unsuccessfully tried to find out how what exactly Vista backup backs up, by default. From the looks of the backup progress screen it looks like everything. Is that correct? --Halcatalyst 18:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Some questions and notes:

• What problems are occurring on the second Vista machine, other than the backup still being underway after three days?
• What software did you use to back up your XP machine?
• When you "restored it all to the first Vista machine", does this mean you restored the entire backup contents to a directory on the Vista machine, or that you replaced the whole Vista machine's hard disk with, basically, an image of the XP machine's hard disk, or that the XP backup's files were written willy-nilly to the Vista machine's hard disk?
  • The answer to that might determine what caused the problem. If you screwed up your first Vista machine's OS, then backed that disk up and then overwrote the second Vista machine's hard disk, then you've just copied a corrupted OS to the new machine.

Tempshill 13:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

1. First of all, the backup completed today with no error messages. :-)
2. I've used Windows Backup and Restore throughout: XP backup to an external hard drive; Vista restore to the first Vista machine (where I made the stupid mistake of overwriting the Vista OS). After this happened, I performed a system recovery. (Actually, more than one, but that's another story.) Then a Vista backup (standard), again to the external hard drive.+ At that point, I returned the first Vista machine to the store and bought another one. Then I ran Vista restore (standard) on the second Vista machine.

1. The computer manufacturer has a knowledge base article which says Vista restore overwrites their protected D: system recovery drive. IOW, Vista restore just takes over any free space on that drive, corrupting it. However, since I had the recovery DVDs, I was able to safely delete D: This was with the help of the manufacturer's help desk.
2. I would REALLY like to know just what Vista Backup and Restore do (what they back up and restore) in standard (default) mode. There is nothing on this in Vista Help.
3. + Note: On the backup of the first Vista PC I also copied My Documents to a DVD and utilized an online backup service. However, when I tried to Restore All from the online service, it didn't work. The company admits it's their problem and calls the situation a show stopper. If they can figure out the solution, I am still willing to Restore All, because I've been doing my work in an area that would be unaffected by the download.

1. I hope the above answers your third set of questions.
2. The other main problem on the second machine was that the Hardware Diagnostics program was clobbered during the restore to the second Vista machine. The manufacturer's help desk told me I had to do a full system recovery, but when I inquired again by e-mail (where they have the leisure to look up knowledge base articles), the agent explained how I could recover parts of the system, in this case the hardware diagnostics program, using the system recovery DVDs I had made. However, in order to verify that the program now works, I have to a restart, which I have been unable to do because the backup took FOUR DAYS. I'll restart as soon as I post this message.
3. Thank you for your interest in my problem! --Halcatalyst 19:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

• After the computer restarted I was able to use Hardware Diagnostics to create a diagnostic boot disk. Now I'm going to check out the hardware. (I have no reason to think there's anything wrong with the hardware.) BTW, during that loooooooooooooooonnnnnng backup, 42GB on C: were backed up as 8GB on the external hard drive. --Halcatalyst 21:10, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

May 9

LilyPond

I just downloaded LilyPond, and I'm wondering how good it is. I'd like to ask for an opinion on its effectiveness, and a comparison to other music writers like Sibelius and Finale. bibliomaniac15 03:17, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the answer, but I'd urge you to have a look at Mozart. I am very happy with it - and with the responsiveness of the developer (yes, that word is singular). Oh, I have no connection with Mozart software except as a customer and occasional reporter of bugs. --ColinFine 17:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

HTML

How do one insert images in their Web Pages say you have the image in your diskette?

The image must be on the web (somewhere). Chances are, your disk is not on the web. So, you must upload it to your website. Once there, you will know the file name. Assume it is "myimage.jpg". In your web page, add <img src='myimage.jpg'>. That is the most basic syntax for adding the image - assuming your web page and the image are in the same location. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're viewing a local web page, that is a HTML document that is on your computer and not some domain name (e.g. www.name.com). You can reference local files with something like <img src="file:///A:/image.jpg"> if you're using a Windows and your diskette is on the A: drive. Support for this varies across browsers, I think. —Mitaphane _?|! 23:36, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

If you're just practicing at home with html, you can tell it to look for the image on your computer, something like "C:\Wherever\Myimage.jpg", and if your file "myimage.jpg" is found there on your computer then it will work for you. But putting that same webpage on the net, and somebody else accesses it, it will then look on their computer for "C:\Wherever\myimage.jpg" - and they won't have "myimage.jpg" there on their computer. So that's the reason why the image has to be "somewhere" on the internet, usually at your internet host. So if the image was somewhere like www.mywebsite/myimage.jpg then anybody on the net should be able to find it. Technically speaking you can refer to "myimage.jpg" on your computer, but this is quite complicated and has its disadvantages - for one thing you'd have to have a static IP address, and then you'd refer to the image like this: "http://192.xx.xx.xx/myimage.jpg" (where 192.xx. etc is your ip address) - then that is an address that all computers on the internet can all understand and look at and if your computer is then on, and connected to the internet, and your IP address is static, they will be able to access the image. Good luck Rfwoolf 09:42, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I just wanted to clarify one more thing: when you put your html syntax for an image like this <img src="www.mywebsite/myimage.jpg"> you can get away with just putting the image name like this: <img src="myimage.jpg"> but only if the image file is in the same webfolder as the html webpage you've typed it in. So if mywebpage.html and myimage.jpg are both in the same webfolder (example: http://www.mywebsite/mywebfolder/) then on your mywebpage.html you can just say <img src="myimage.jpg">. Cheers Rfwoolf 09:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

One way to put your image on the internat is by uploading it on TinyPic or similar website, and then using one of the links it gives you. Shinhan 14:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

USB Numpad in console / DOS applications?

I recently bought a USB numpad (Labtech) to use on my laptop, particularly for Roguelike games such as Moria. It works fine with programs like Angband and ADOM, but it fails to work with Moria; I assume that is because Angband and ADOM, e.t.c use some kind of Windows API in the source code? Any suggestions or workarounds to get this happening would be appreciated. Magic Window 15:08, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like a driver problem. Are you running them in DOS or a DOS emu?

Tried them in DOS and DOSBox, DOSBox didn't pick it up either. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Magic Window (talk • contribs) 16:46, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Firefox default image problem

It seems like every broken image link is now giving me some annoying picture of a timelapse highway at night, instead of the standard "broken image". Wouldn't be a big deal, except that this image is stretching out tables, which really screws up forums.

I figure this is a problem with Firefox 2.0's defaults or something, but google results aren't really helpful. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 16:43, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you cleared out your cache? Tools > Clear Private Data... > Uncheck everything except cache — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:35, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

That sounds really strange, any idea how it happened? have you seen the image before? -- Diletante 22:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that somebody saved an image of a highway on top of the original (red X ?) picture. StuRat 00:07, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Could well be your skin. Change to default skin and see what happens. --h2g2bob (talk) 06:03, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

To the above, I've cleared out my cache, and I am using the default skin of course -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 14:59, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Check the file resource:///res/broken-image.gif. This would live somewhere like C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\res\broken-image.gif (not too sure on Windows). This can also be changed in chrome/browser/content/browser/pageInfo.xul, but lets hope it's not that... --h2g2bob (talk) 03:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Drivers in Windows XP

OK, this is something that's bothered me for a while.

Whenever possible, when I install hardware for my PC (e.g. my USB WiFi adapter, webcam, card reader etc.) I just put the CD in and let Windows pull the required files off itself. If at all possible I don't just run the CD setup - I never usually use the supplied software.

Is there some single location where I can find all the drivers for my stuff, and back them up to one CD, so that next time I format and reinstall XP I can pull all the drivers off that single CD? Would this be possible for the more internal stuff - motherboard, graphics card, audio etc. - given that I don't normally just pull the drivers off a PC for these?

For that matter, what IS a driver file? What extension? Is there somewhere I can look up in XP what hardware uses what file?

This confuses me.

Rawling4851 17:39, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

EDIT: Duh. I can find where the driver file is, via device manager. Is this file (I guess there are more than one in some cases) the ONLY file I need to work a particular bit of hardware? Rawling4851 17:42, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

No, no and no. A driver package will install a file, or a bunch of files, probably .ddl files in your system32 directory, but it will also more importantly register those files (in the registry;) )and probably also do other things you are not aware of. Simply copying those .dlls from your directory into another computer's system32 directory will almost certainly not enable the same device on the other computer. You need to run the driver package from scratch, which means if you removed those packages from the computer after installation you may no longer have them, in which case you can probably find them on the internet somewhere. I tried once doing what you are trying to do by installing everything from scratch and then making a ghost image, but by the time I was 'clean installing' my computer again, I found that I had a new hard disk, a new video card and enough drivers had updates that it pretty much made my ghost image completely obsolete anyway:( SO I had to start from scratch regardless…. Vespine 03:33, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

But if I put the listed files in a directory somewhere, and then tell Windows to look in that directory for the drivers, would that work? As far as I can tell, that's all it's doing when I put in the driver CD and tell it to look THERE. Rawling4851 12:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

In the past, I have successfully done this by copying from install CDs to my hard drive. You can usually cut down what you need to copy by cutting out manuals, other languages etc. I've never done it with just one file though. Another tactic I have used is to download driver installers from the various manufacturors/vendors websites for all of my hardware and burnt them all onto one disk. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 12:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Internet Proxies

Does anyone know of any internet proxies that are new and fast and will not be blocked by up to date filtering systems. Preferably one from peacefire.org. Cheers

Andimeister

x —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Andiman56 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 9 May 2007 (UTC).

Um, Tor network? SSH? I can think of a couple of ways. Splintercellguy 22:19, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

PCI-EXPRESS

What are the different types of PCI-Express ports, including their differences from the original PCI ports and each other, advantages, disadvantages, and importance to modern computing? --64.238.49.65 19:54, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Brent Spink, Bothell WA

You should check out Peripheral Component Interconnect and PCI Express, and let us know if they fail to answer any specific questions you may still have. --TotoBaggins 20:18, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Web Address Bar autocomplete issues

When using the web address bar with the "autocomplete" feature activated, typed entried are remembered for future reference. For example, when typing the letter 'A' into a blank web address bar, web sites that have been previously typed thet begin with the letter 'A' appear inside a menu that drops down from the address bar. This brings me to my problem. By using "regedit" or by using the internet explorer "tools" one can delete the list of previously visited sites, but not the list of sites whose addresses were manually into the address bar. The autocomplete function can be turned off, therefore eliminating the drop down menu alltogether, but upon re-activation of the autocomplete function, the old list with the same previously typed entries re-appears. I have looked several places for a fix to this problem with no solution. The microsoft site states that the typed entries are placed into a encrypted file for later referencing. Please help with this problem...

--64.238.49.65 20:09, 9 May 2007 (UTC)Perturbed!

Under Firefox (some versions, at least) you can use shift-backspace to delete entries from the address bar autocomplete list. But it sounds like you're not using Firefox.

(The standard wry advice is "don't have visited those sites in the first place", but I know, it doesn't help much after the fact.) --Steve Summit (talk) 20:41, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

On my version of Firefox (2.0.0.3), shift-backspace doesn't delete entries from the list, but the delete key does. On my IE (version 6) the help says to clear history, and this does indeed kill the autocomplete list. What version of IE are you running? Algebraist 21:59, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

May be something to do with index.dat, but I haven't looked into it much. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 22:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm quite surprised at your question - you simply need to delete your browsing history. In Internet Explorer 7, click Tools -> Delete Browsing History... -> History. That should do it. Rfwoolf 09:36, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

RAM --> Hard disk mechanism?

I'm having a bit of trouble figuring out a basic question I have about computer engineering. Through what mechanism is data transferred from primary storage - or RAM -- to secondary storage or the hard disk drive? I'm guessing that the CPU is involved in the transfer somehow. But what physical connection does the transfer occur through? Is it through the front side bus? The northbridge? The southbridge? The memory controller? Thanks. I don't understand much about hardware, and I'm getting a little lost amid the terminology. --Brasswatchman 20:29, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

AFAIK the CPU just talks to the hard drive like most other peripherals. Which means on the southbridge, usually over the PCI bus. Diletante 22:06, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

I forgot to mention that hard drives the days usually use Direct Memory Access. -- Diletante 23:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Even before split buses, computers used DMA to offload the transfer burden from the CPU. That requires the CPU to load a few registers in a DMA controller, write a few bytes to the disk controller and the transfer occurs by itself under control of the disk and DMA controllers over the system data bus, usually in access cycles interleaved with CPU and other DMA operations. Even floppy drives had DMA support since before 1990. I expect even USB drives make limited use of DMA. I say "limited" because of the large number of transformations the drivers have to make on the data stream. —EncMstr 00:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Moving to a new email address; forwarding archived email?

I want to move to a new email address but don't want to lose the thousands of emails I have archived. They're both web-based. (I intend to move from Yahoo! Mail to Gmail.)

Forwarding each of them one-by-one will take far too long so how do I program a bot to do it for me?

(PS: Of course I can program my Yahoo! Mail account to forward all new mail to my new Gmail address but two problems: 1. It will not forward the emails I have already received and archived before. 2. If I do not access my Yahoo! Mail account after a set period of time (several months or a year), the system will auto-delete the account and I will not receive any more forwarded mail. I can take care of #2 by changing my email details on the numerous websites I've signed up on, but #1 is a problem that I will need your help to solve.) --129.130.38.95 20:58, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Do Yahoo and GMail both support POP/IMAP access? --Worm 21:02, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

Gmail does POP in/out and Yahoo does POP out, but only if you have Yahoo! Mail Plus. There's a 30-day free trial for Y!MP at the moment, so you could sign up for that (make sure you cancel before the 30 days are up) and look on Yahoo's help pages for information on how to access your mail via POP. You can then go into Settings in Gmail and select Accounts, then add your Yahoo account under 'Get mail from other accounts'. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:57, 9 May 2007 (UTC)

May 10

Robotic Vacuum

Is there a R/C-like version of a vacuum which is like a R/C toy car but it vacuums and can be driven around??????--66.53.231.189 02:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The Roomba comes with a remote control (excepting the 1st generation model), but usually people just let them roam about on their own. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The company also has a kit that lets you experiment with robotics --69.70.21.10 16:27, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

CMOS settings

Is there a way to reset CMOS setting from the operating system after bootup or can this be done only at startup from the BIOS? 71.100.2.43 00:11, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Usually it can only be done from BIOS (or by a jumper on the motherboard). Some board/chip manufacturers make programs that will allow you to edit the BIOS inside of the OS - usually it is a Windows-only program. --Kainaw ^(talk) 00:22, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Though the user doesn't seem to be asking about modifying the BIOS (the name of an IBM-compatible PC boot firmware program), but rather the contents on non-volatile memory where the BIOS program accesses some configuration information. Most OSes provide some means of modifying this memory. In some OSes it's unprotected memory space that you can just write to, though most large modern OSes will require some system-level privileges to access it. You just need to find software that will do what you're after. A crude way I used to do this is to write some random bytes to the memory, which will cause its checksum to fail upon the next boot. Almost all BIOS programs will reset the non-volatile memory on POST if its checksum fails. -- mattb 05:15, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What I am trying to accomplish here is to reset the BIOS CMOS settings for scheduled alarm startup after the computer shuts itself down for the evening so that it will start iteslf up at a slightly altered time in the morning. I can do this now of course simply by rebooting and doing it from the BIOS CMOS setup program but then its a manual task I would rather the computer do for me. If CMOS setting are stored in memory that I can access and write to from the OS then that is all I need. 71.100.2.43 01:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure, but you'll also have to figure out where/how the particular setting you're after is stored. Hopefully someone has already done this for you, but if not it may be time to break out a hex editor... Neat idea you have, though. -- mattb 05:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually I've found more clues which may allow me to do this. I post it here whatever the method turns out to be. 71.100.2.43 18:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

VLC and Microphone/Camera

Is it possible, with VLC, to open a camera or microphone and "listen" to it like any other file? This means it could be "read", but also streamed and transcoded. Does anyone know of a way to make this happen on a Macbook pro? Many thanks!--Ryan 00:37, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Why in VLC? You could more easily do this, I am sure, in other programs. --140.247.242.215 14:53, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

What other program can do these things?--Ryan 23:30, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

My brain's not working very well today, so I dunno whether I've understood your question properly, but have you tried Audacity? --saxsux 10:53, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Processors

Which of the following is not a Processor Model?

1. 8081
2. 80486
3. UltraSPARC
4. K7VT4A —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.167.115.24 (talk • contribs)

I could tell you, or you could look up each of those on Wikipedia or Google and have the inner satisfaction of finding the answer for yourself (don't worry, it's very easy). -- mattb 06:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I've linked the two CPU's that Wikipedia has an article for, K7VT4A doesn't look like to be a CPU but a motherboard [2]. 8081 doesn't turn up anything is well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:40, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

The 8081 was an early microprocessor, but Wikipedia doesn't appear to have an article on it. However, we do have an article on the earlier 8080. StuRat 15:13, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the BogoMips article, there is a Motorola CPU called the 8081 - but a quick google [3] doesn't show anything. Davidprior 17:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Download From YouTube

How could I download video content from YouTube? Once I did, what software would I need to play it? (To head off a few timewasting replies, by section 4 of the Terms of Use, "If [I] download or print a copy of the Content for personal use, [I] must retain all copyright and other proprietary notices contained therein." I'm given express permission to create purely personal archives of their best stuff, as long as I don't file off the serial numbers.) Any help is greatly appreciated. Black Carrot 06:52, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Firefox has an extension you could download called "Download Video". Once it's downloaded, renamed it to whatever you want, but add .flv at the end. THen you can play it with quicktime or VLC.--Ryan 13:17, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

A Google search for "download from youtube" gives you, as the first result, a site that lets you download not only Youtube movies but a player for them as well. Enjoy :-) Rawling4851 13:23, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I develop UnPlug which allows you to download youtube videos (among others). Videos are downloaded by all tools as FLV files, so you may need to use a media player like VLC to play them. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

We should put this question and its answer at the top of this page, or something. It seems to come up every few days... --Steve Summit (talk) 20:57, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I feel stupid, I should have thought of at least one of those. Re Steve Summit, though, it looks like the question has only been asked an average of twice a month over the past six months, with none at all for about the past month and a half. Not worth the space. Black Carrot 23:26, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem, and sorry, I wasn't trying to give you a hard time. I must have seen the question somewhere else recently. (Maybe on the Miscellaneous Desk?) And I have nothing against frequently asked questions -- they've made me a certain amount of money! :-) --Steve Summit (talk) 23:51, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Sweet man. [Mac Δαvιs] ❖ 05:43, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Everything seems to be downloading fine, with one small exception: none of the systems I've tried can access password-protected content. Unfortunately, anything flagged as "inappropriate" asks you to verify that it's not their fault you're watching it, which requires a nominal membership, which requires a password. Each downloader says, in its own special way, that it can't deal with that. Any ideas? Black Carrot 07:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

If it's one or two videos, you could use Wireshark to monitor your internet traffic, using "http" as the filter. The video download is one of the requests in the list. This is tedious, but works.

I'm always looking to support as much as possible, so are there any example urls you can give? Or can you give more detail on what happens? Feel free to email (compunach@yahoo.co.uk) if you prefer. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

my qsn

If i want to take admission in BIT colleges without entrance exam , than what i have to do ?? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.226.64.150 (talk) 20:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

I suggest phoning or writing to the college, and convince them that you are eager, dedicated, hardworking, etc. They may agree to decide on your suitability based on an interview; or they may not. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:26, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Computational question

Let's say that I have a given set of nodes with x,y coordinates scattered around semi-randomly. What sort of computation should I do (that is, how should I approach this from a computational point of view) if I want to identify the outer-most nodes and to draw a line connecting them all (i.e. creating an outline of the entire node group)? Obviously this will involve stepping through them somehow but I'm having something of a hard time conceptualizing exactly how to go about doing it, what I would be looking for in each node's existing position vis-a-vis the other nodes in the set. (The language, if you care, is just Flash ActionScript, so it is a very javascript-esque syntax. I don't need it in a specific language, I'm just thinking through the problem.) I'm interesting in being able to identify which nodes would be a part of the "outline" and which would be contained within the outline, and then drawing a clockwise (or counter-clockwise) line through them all (creating the outline itself). Does this make sense? Let me know if I can try to clarify it. --140.247.242.215 20:49, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps Convex hull will help. 84.160.220.235 21:09, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's very useful, thank you! I think I've been going about it wrong anyhow. My points are not randomly generated, in fact — I define them ahead of time. If that's the case then I should know the order they should go in, and for the purposes of my project I can make them maintain that order. So in fact my whole approach is ridiculous, trying to find a very complex and generalized solution to what is in fact a far more limited problem! But I didn't quite see that until I looked over some of the Convex hull examples and realized they were computationally overkill for what I was doing. Thanks! --140.247.242.215 21:27, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Usb Webcam on linux 2.6.xx

What must be done to have an usb webcam working under linux 2.6.xx?

I plug in the device and /usr/sbin/lsusb lists an entry. Does that imply there already is a driver in the kernel for this? With 2.4.xx /var/log/messages showed information if the device was claimed by a module or not.

Somewhere below /dev/bus/usb (probably different for different linuxes) I find an entry appearing and disappearing when the device is pluged in or out.

Next, I guess that I should be able to use the streamer command on that entry to make snapshots and the like.

Is this correct (and deviceindependant) so far?

Now I get "no grabber device available". So whats missing?

84.160.220.235 21:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

lsusb simply reflects the device self-identification. A device showing up in the list reported by lsusb is just an indication that the device and the Linux USB stack can communicate to some extent, not that there's any driver support for the device. I don't really know much about webcam protocols, but I don't think there's any de facto USB standard interface for them (as there is for things like mass storage devices, HIDs, and to some extent photos). You may need to ensure that your particular model of webcam is supported by a Linux driver and whatever software you're using for capture. -- mattb 05:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

From what I have found on the internet so far there should be a driver for that cam in all reasonably new distributions. But I didn't find neither the name of that driver nor any clue on how to check if it's active. With 2.4 kernel there were messages in /var/log/messages about what module/driver claimed a pluged in device or if it wasn't recognized by any. This has changed and I don't know where to look now. 84.160.220.235 15:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Try checking the tail-end output of dmesg. -- mattb 15:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Domain Name and DNS Management

Alright so I'm planning to buy a domain and setup a website. I've heard that it's best to get hosting and domain names from different companies. Is this true? If so, how am I supposed to tell the hosting company so that they can have the domain name point to the correct IP address? If I wanted two domains to point to the same IP, how would I arrange that? How do I prove that I own a domain and after that who do I talk to to change my DNS settings. DNS management is the only part that still confuses me somewhat. BrokenSegue 22:14, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

It's got nothing to do with IP Addresses, not to you anyway and it's a lot easier then you think. You hosting company will give you a URL, something like www.hostingcompany.com/~YourUserID where you stick your web page, then you buy a domain called www.MyDomain.com, then at the place you got the domain name there will be a very simple admin panel where you redirect www.hostingcompany.com/~YourUserID to www.MyDomain.com.. A hint I can give you is make sure when you are building your website, that the internal links refer to the MyDomain address not the hostingcompany one, otherwise people will see the real address of the page by viewing the links or the source. Vespine 22:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh and you don't have to prove you own anything, you can redirect your domain name to anything you want. Vespine 22:46, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think he wants a web page. The original poster wants to set up a genuine host. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.35.117 (talk) 22:55, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

What's the difference? I think you are right though. BrokenSegue 02:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The reason to use two different companies is to ensure that you are listed as domain owner with the registrar instead of your hosting company. Only the owner of the domain can change the host it links to, and if your provider owns the domain you might be forced to chose a new domain when you want to switch providers and tell all your users the new address. This is a very bad but somewhat common business practice used by some providers to keep their customers. Good providers won't do that. Just check the whois entry on the domain right after you bought it and make sure that it lists you as owner. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.35.117 (talk) 23:02, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

To make the domain name point to the correct host, tell the company that sold you the domain where you want it to point to. How that works may depend on the company but it is the basic service you pay for. The information you provide will be propagated across the dns system (that may take some time). The hosting provider is not involved in the process. You can have as many domains pointing to the same host as you like. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.187.35.117 (talk) 23:10, 10 May 2007 (UTC).

Ah, thank you. And I will be pointing to an IP then? Or is it to the "www.hostingcompany.com/~YourUserID" thing mentioned by Vespine. Somehow I don't think I need to point one domain at another. Sounds inefficient. Also, what do I do if the whois says that I don't own it? BrokenSegue 02:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Every website doesn't have it's own unique IP address, we would have run out of IP addresses a long, long time ago. Redirecting to a URL is not unusual or as inefficient as it may sound. If whois is not showing the correct information you'll probably have to talk to your domain name provider, it may be part of their conditions or something, but I'm pretty sure it populates from there. Vespine 04:51, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, alright then. That makes sense. Thanks. BrokenSegue 12:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You need to tell the hosting company your domain name so they can set up their name server to point to the server holding your site. Once that's done they should give you their name server addresses (for example, ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com). You then need to tell your domain name registrar (usually through a control panel) these name server addresses. These changes can take up to 48 hours to propagate through the domain name system. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 09:11, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I looked up my host's ns, you're right. Thanks! BrokenSegue 12:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

No problem. Actually the DNS article says I'm wrong about the 48-hour propagation thing. Just be aware that it may be a few hours/days before everyone can get to your site using your domain name. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

May 11

keylogger...

I have an inactive keylogger (two months) in my computer but it hasn't hijack my computer or my account password (i.e. my PrestonH account). Is the keylogger dead or has the keylogger not been used?--69.228.148.219 01:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you know it hasn't hijacked any of your accounts? Someone could have been (for example) reading your private mail all along...

One of the reasons security compromises are such a pain is that it is such a pain to clean up after them. Theoretically, you should wipe your machine clean and reinstall the operating system and all your applications from scratch; that's the only way to make absolutely sure that no infectious remnants remain. Barring that, a good antivirus program can (I gather) do a decent job of eradicating malware (as long as it's known malware). But living with that shit on your computer, hoping it doesn't cause too much damage, that sounds like (sorry to be blunt here) a pretty foolhardy strategy to me... —Steve Summit (talk) 01:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I have an antivirus program, a firewall, and an anti-spyware program but I'm unable to remove the keylogger (Also I have parental conteols on so I don't get email). What should I do?--69.228.148.219 01:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you know that there's a keylogger there in the first place? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:14, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I ran an anti-spyware program and I found a keylogger.--69.228.148.219 02:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Remove it ASAP, and reformat if you have to. Splintercellguy 02:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Got it.--PrestonH^{(Review Me!) • (Sign Here!)} 02:32, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

If you cannot remove the offending software through a complete re-install of the system, your other alternative may be to boot from a LiveCD such as Knoppix (provided, of course, it comes from a source you trust). dr.ef.tymac 16:22, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Database query (MS SQL 2000).

How do I frame the query/ script to select a value from a database table if the value contains an apostrophe character (')? For example, a database entry which goes like this: MARCIE'S RESTAURANT MANHATTAN. I do not wish to use the LIKE filter when formulating the query. --203.199.21.58 08:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Try using double quotes around the words, so the where clause would look like this:

WHERE BUSINESS.NAME = "MARCIE'S RESTAURANT MANHATTAN"

StuRat 08:50, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Doesn't work. --203.199.21.58 09:20, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You use quotes to escape quotes, so your WHERE clause would be

WHERE business.name = 'MARCIE''S RESTAURANT MANHATTAN'

— Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 10:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Doesn't work. Only MARCIE will be read (if at all) since the single quotation mark ends after MARCIE. --203.199.21.58 11:29, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

What error message do you get when you run the query with that WHERE clause? It's definitely syntactically correct (I double-checked). SQL Server sees the two single quotes and interprets them as one single quote within the string, so it shouldn't only read 'MARCIE'. I agree with Steve Summit below - if it's a user providing the input you should probably be using parameterized queries. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 13:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Try this...

WHERE BUSINESS.NAME = "MARCIE" + Chr(39) + "S RESTAURANT MANHATTAN"

- X201 12:06, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Are these individual queries you're interactively invoking, or are you constructing them on-the-fly based on requests your users are submitting? That is, are your users typing things like "marcie's restaurant manhattan" into a search box, and you're constructing the SQL query into your database?

If the latter, you must learn about parameterized SQL queries (also known as "prepared statements" and sometimes referred to as "bind variables"). These are a little more abstract and require a little more work to set up at first, but they're less work than trying to reliably quote apostrophes and other special characters yourself. More importantly, though, they insulate you from code injection attacks.

If you construct regular (non-prepared) queries on-the-fly based on arbitrary user input, and unless you're fantastically careful, a canny attacker will figure out a way to construct goofy search strings which subvert your ad-hoc quoting scheme in order to execute arbitrary SQL code on your database! Not a pleasant thought. —Steve Summit (talk) 12:39, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know if you've managed to get a successful search string yet, but one thing to watch out for is that there are many things that look like single-quotes but really aren't. Users will routinely enter in backticks and double-quotes and smart quotes and weird MS-Word specific things that they've cut-and-pasted. It can be challenging to cover them all. Users are dum. :( --TotoBaggins 13:48, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

No, users aren't 'dum'. Database designers who fail to set up sufficient input masks to protect against good-faith data entry errors are 'dum'. Anchoress 14:40, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

It is a combination of both. How do you mask the entry field for "What city were you born in?" so the user cannot enter "A-Town Biatch"? Do you suggest a drop list of every city in the country? --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:42, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"A-Town Biatch" isn't a good-faith data entry error. Anchoress 17:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

While I was being somewhat tongue in cheek, I have observed over many years of engineering work that Murphy's Law is trebly in effect when there is a computer involved. --TotoBaggins 17:46, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Anchoress, any good programmer should check for likely inputs during the input validation phase. This would include using characters like "`" instead of "'". I would do so by remapping such characters, using a "code page", wherever they are found, before running the query, rather than have each query contain multiple cases. StuRat 17:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You could just use the ` symbol as an apostrophe. 71.34.246.188 00:21, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

World wind error

File:World Wind Error.JPG

error message

I downloaded NASA's World Wind, but I keep getting this error message and I don't trust myself to pick through my computer and fix it. Help? - AMP'd 18:03, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

World Wind needs an additional windows component, .NET, to run. Run Windows Update and it'll let you download .NET v2. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:09, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Go to microsoft's website and download the latest version of the .NET framework. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 18:23, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually IIRC .net frameworks across top level versions are not backwards compatible. If it ask for .net framework 2, you need the latest net framework 2. 3 by itself is no use. If it asks for 1, 2 or 3 are no use... Nil Einne 11:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

.NET 3.0 is a superset of 2.0, so 2.0 applications are compatible with 3.0. Our article on .NET 3.0 says that its installer will install 2.0 first if it's not present. Amp'd - you need to install this. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks a lot everyone, World Wind is working, albeit taking up the collassal amount of memory that it does. - AMP'd 22:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Fastest copy method

What is the fastest way to copy drive "C" onto another drive so that I can replace drive "C" with the other drive without having to reinstall Windows? 71.100.2.43 18:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Personally if I had to do this task I'd:

• boot into a live cd like knoppix or ubuntu linux
• dd the old disk to the new one
• (assuming the new disk is bigger than the old one) resize the partition with gparted

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

But frankly I'd try hard to avoid having to do this. It's a much better idea to keep your data (files you've created, photos you've taken, music and video you've made or downloaded) on a seperate disk to the operating system. That way you can safely upgrade the operating system without worrying about what'll happen to the data. You can even transplant the data disk into a new computer (even one with a different operating system) and everything should just work. So in your circumstance I'd really recommend:

• unplug the old disk, plug in the new one
• install windows fresh on it (although I'd worth pointing out that for many people that recent Linux distributions like the aforementioned Ubuntu linux really are quite a credible platform)
• plug in the old disk (with things set up so the new one is the one that boots) Lets say it gets the drive letter E:
• delete e:/windows and e:/Program_files
• now that e: is your data drive (and there's lots of space now, because you've removed windows and your applications)

This process is complicated somewhat by so many programs putting important stuff (like email) in the atrocity that is the "application data" folder. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:19, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

LAN and Intranet.

What the difference, there doesn't seem to be one. Ken 18:56, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

The chief difference is captured in the first sentence of Intranet - An intranet is a private computer network that uses Internet protocols (emphasis added). You can have a LAN that uses another protocol. Additionally, an Intranet can exist on a WAN. --LarryMac | Talk 18:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Consider a university campus. Each building has a LAN, and these are interconnected to form the University's intranet. Say the University has a second campus in another city - the two networks of each campus will be connected (by a leased line or a VPN connection) forming a single intranet. They're still distinct from The Internet as a whole because the intranet is still behind the university's firewall, and there will typically be lots of stuff that machines in the intranet will make available only to their intranet comrades. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:01, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

That helped until you mentioned the Campus in another city, I was under the impression that was an extranet. Completely unrelated is why an accountancy student (ie me), needs to know all this. Ken 19:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Please read extranet. It states that an extranet is used to provide connectivity to organizations outside the intranet's organization. So, if a university (as a single organization) is in two cities, the combined network that each uses may be connected as an intranet. If the government wants access to certain things to monitor what is going on, the government would be using an extranet -- part of the intranet designed specifically for use by an outside organization. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:13, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"extranet" seems to be a marketing word that means little. If anything, I'd take it's first meaning, as you say (the university allowing limited access to its outsourced payroll contractor is a rather less sinister example). The 2nd and 4th paragraphs of that article suggest the word extranet means whatever the guy trying to sell you one says it means :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:16, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

As to why an accountant might care (I'm goofing off here a bit...): Governments these days like to give grants and tax breaks to businesses and educational institutions for "Internet" things (because someone persuaded them that the internet was somehow a good thing). Does an intranet transmitted over an encrypted internet connection qualify for these breaks? Does an extranet (which allows the company to outsource functions to cheap workers in Ulan Bator? Persuade the revenue service or the tax court that it does and make your client happy. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:26, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

In the computing industry, any time some commercial outfit can successfully assign a new name to an old concept, there is a lot of money to be made in selling the old package in a new name. This is why you find a lot of stuff in cyber space that sounds like it is the same thing.

As an accountacy student you must be familiar with outside auditors. They have data on multiple clients, each with an Intranet, LAN WAN, whatever, they might not even be calling it by correct names. The auditors need to connect to the data bases on each client system to get whatever data they need, they need to keep it all confidential, they do not want one client to see another client's data. We have the same thing with all sorts of consultants and supply chain business partners.

Check out current C-Span hearings into Va tech & guns for people with mental health problems. The number of police data bases is staggering, along with the legal complexities of who may access which ones, for what purposes, and risks of errors in each.

You running some business. You want customers to see data on what you doing for them, but you don't want one customer to see your data on another customer. Good security is practical if any Internet connection is over something encrypted using reliable hosts. What if ma bell is breached? What if you using some other 3rd party in your communications and they are breached? This means that as soon as VPN or any other connection system becomes very popular, ti also becomes a hacker magnet, and there is temptation by some customers to buy into marketing claims of some alternative that is more secure. User:AlMac|^(talk) 20:39, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Changing movie format

Hello

Is there any way or program (free) that will allow you to change a movie from one format (particually .MOV) into one which is accepted by Windows Movie Maker?

(I have Windows XP professional edition)

Thanks, --84.64.34.174 19:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

This page and several others suggest that "RAD Video Tools" will work to convert MOV to AVI, which should work with Movie Maker. --LarryMac | Talk 20:31, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

VLC might be able to do the trick. Splintercellguy 20:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

VLC can - use File, Wizard, Transcode to file and follow the instructions. Might save the result in it's Program Files folder, just to be annoying. FFMPEG will also do it. --h2g2bob (talk) 19:12, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Computer going haywire

This sucks. So now, every time I turn on my laptop, it works fine for about a minute or two, and then an error board comes up telling me that svchost.exe has failed or something to that effect, and I can only press OK to close it or cancel to debug it. After I do either, an End Process message pops up to tell me that Generic Host Manager (I think) is not operating correctly and needs to close. Once this happens, my computer becomes nonfunctional in any variety of ways. The first is simply that it wont connect to the internet (when I ask it to connect it says it's connecting for an infinite amount of time)and the speakers wont work. When I click on the volume icon in the system tray, it says some garbage about the mechanism not being attached (these are laptop speakers we're talking about), and when I try to install them, it goes nowhere. The other thing that can happen is the computer will become a nonresponsive bunch of icons. If I click on, say, Mozilla, the cursor will turn to the loading hourglass for three or four seconds, but nothing will happen. I can double click indefinitely, and nothing will happen. This is the same with all my media players, the volume icon, Word, etc (though I can still open folders.) So then I have nothing I can do with my computer but shut it down or use already opened programs (my current situtation--I got on the internet before the svchost warning.) What the hell is the problem here, and how might I fix it? Is this something I should go see a computer specialist about, or can I handel it on my own? Thanks, 70.108.216.222 22:02, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Use windows system restore to wind the computer back to a time when you remember it being okay. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:08, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah. It's a Dell Inspiron with Windows XP on it. Only about a year old. And there are all sorts of things I could have done to screw something up. I download a lot of programs and music and various other things. A virus (AVG) search and two spyware searches (Spybot and Adaware) didn't help anything, though. 70.108.216.222 22:04, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

You might want to wipe your system. The most reliable way to do this would be to install another (linux) OS that will import your windows files, I believe Ubuntu can do this. Install it, MAKE SURE you tell it to import your windows files. Once you're on the other OS, back up all your files (don't back them up from windows, because you'll probably just corrupt your storage when the PC stops working. Once you have all the data safely backed up, reinstall windows if you still want to use it instead of Ubuntu/Linux, and replace your data. Sounds like a corruption problem to me... possibly DLL/driver problems, which can be hard to solve -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 22:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I believe that Ubuntu will offer to save and work with a Windows partition, which is good if you have extra space on the disk, but if the machine is from Dell, I guarantee you it didn't ship that way. Without that extra space, there'd be no place to install Ubuntu (or anything else).

My personal advice would be to get a LiveCD, like Knoppix or (if you know someone who'll make you one) BartPE. Use the cd to boot and see if you get any errors and if the computer is usable. If it isn't, then you're probably looking at broken hardware. If it is, then you can use the stable environment the LiveCD provides to copy off any files you want to keep, and then nuke the thing from orbit with the Dell restore CD (it's the only way to be sure...)--Ptelder 03:02, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Am I correct in reading into this that it is complicated enough for a semi-amateur to fix that I ought to just had it over to a computer guy? Does it change anything if I found a funny way around it? The trick is that when the errors pop up, I just ignore them and drag the error windows out of the way (into the corner of the screen). Not choosing to close or debug actually allows my computer to keep running exactly as usual, which seems pretty strange to me, as if there isn't really a problem, but my computer's just tricking itself into making one. Thanks, 70.108.216.222 05:41, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

maps.google.com updates

When I last looked at the satellite photos on maps.google.com of where I work, the photo was about 3 years old and my car was visible. Today I looked and the photo is still of similar age but it is a different picture and my car isn't visible. Strangely, it is visible at my house, where as it wasn't before. Also, the centre of Birmingham had photos about 4 years old, but now they are upto date. Two questions. How often are the photos changed? Is there a way to see the previous pictures? Thanks! --TrogWoolley 22:47, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

1. How often are they changed: not on a regular basis, but as often as they get new imagery from their many sources.

2. Can you see previous pictures: I'm pretty sure you can't; though some image servers (TerraServer) do allow you to sample from multiple time periods, Google doesn't. --24.147.86.187 00:28, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Converting Flash Drive to Mp3 player

Is there any accessory that can convert my normal usb flash pen drive into an mp3 player with headphones? I know there is one from Sandisk but I think it only works with their flash drives. Thanks. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.156.155.206 (talk) 22:54, 11 May 2007 (UTC).

There are some Chinese MP3 controllers that support USB OTG around, just don't expect too much of it. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

May 12

Parser function help

Here is my code:

{{#switch:{{{1}}} | online = <span style="color:green;"> Online [[Image:ButtonGreen.png|20px]]</span> | away = <span style="color:orange;"> Away [[Image:ButtonOrange.svg|20px]]</span> | busy = <span style="color:#FF0000;"> Busy [[Image:ButtonRed.svg|20px]]</span> | str = <span style="color:#FF0000;"> Wikistressed [[Image:Wikistress3D_v3.gif|20px]]</span> }} ---- <center><span style="font-size:8pt;">[[{{fullurl:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|action=purge}} purge]] / [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Spebi&action=edit&section=new contact]]</span></center>

I want when {{{1}}} is set to busy, the contact link disappears. If you could reply on my talk page or on here, that would be appreciated. Thanks in advance, –Spebi 00:07, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Invoke a java program

I downloaded a program GoGui [4] so that I could play a Computer Go program called Crazy Stone [5].

I am running Windows XP, and I can't seem to run GoGui. The documentation page [6] states that "GoGui can be invoked with the command: java -jar gogui.jar [options] [file]" and I don't know where to enter the command.

In general, how does one invoke a java program? Djbaniel 20:44, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Just type that string in the Run box. Splintercellguy 20:52, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

However, Windows XP does not have Java installed "out of the box." You may need to visit www.java.com to download the current package for Windows. If you go to that page, you should see a link near the top that says "Do I have Java?" Click on that and go from there. --LarryMac | Talk 20:55, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you LarryMac, I actually do have Java installed, but I can't seem to get to a command prompt from within Java (and don't know if that is exactly what I'm supposed to do, and don't know if the part of the string "[options] [file]" calls for something for me to input). Feel free to try it if you are interested, or please let anyone know who might be. Again the link is [7] Best, Djbaniel 22:35, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Just open the Run dialog box, and type the string. Any docs come with your JAR? Splintercellguy 22:59, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Splinter, I left you a message on your talk page... I tried that, it didn't work. Please check it out for yourself if you are interested (there are docs, see link) [8] Best, Djbaniel 23:30, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

"java" is your program, "-jar" is a switch telling it to compile from a .jar file, and gogui.jar is that file. So you will need to put "gogui.jar" in the same directory as the command "java", and then navigate to that directory within the command line (type in "cmd" at the run screen to drop into that), and then type in the command line "java -jar gogui.jar". --24.147.86.187 00:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you so much, that worked! Then it took me a while to figure out that I had to change the board size to 9x9 for Crazy Stone to run from within GoGui. Thank you again! Djbaniel 04:43, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If you installed Java, you can also simply click on the file "gogui.jar" in the file explorer or drag "gogui.jar" to the desktop to create a link there. --68.149.170.14 00:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Hard Disk Compatibility

I have an oldish (vintage 2001) Gateway desktop that I need to get a new internal hard disk for. How can I tell whether a HD from (say) Amazon is compatible with my machine? Tugbug 00:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking in your manual, or an online manual or service manual would help. Otherwise, does it look like the one you've got has a standard ATA cable attaching it to the motherboard? If so, most any ATA (aka IDE, ATAPI, PATA) hard disk should work. Because ATA-6 was only approved in 2000, the motherboard might only support ATA-5. Practically, that means you can't use a capacity greater than 128GB. But again, you need to check the manual, or look for one online. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

To amplify talk's point, you can buy a hard disk bigger than 128 GB and your Gateway will probably operate it, but no matter how big the disk is, the Gateway will probably think it's 128 GB; capacity beyond that point will be wasted. If you really want a bigger disk, you may need to install a disk controller card in your computer. If yo do that, buy one that works with the newer, easier-to-cable Serial ATA bus rather than your existing Parallel ATA bus. This will also give you better compatibility with any future computer that eventually replaces the Gateway.

Atlant 00:51, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually you may be able to access the whole partition in XP SP1 or later (or another OS with LBA48 support). However you should make sure your boot partition is 128 GB or smaller as otherwise the partition may suddenly fail to boot one day (happened to a comp of a friend) Nil Einne 11:21, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. Tugbug 18:17, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

External Hard Drive

Hello, I have an external hard drive case and I am going to buy a new hard drive. I was wandering if I should partition it if I plan on using it for file storage, and if yes, how can i partition it when it is in my external case. Thank you,--(Aytakin) | Talk 01:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You may want to read the article on disk partitioning. You have to have at least one partition to use it no matter what. Whether you want more than one partition is up to you, though on an external storage hard drive it's probably not incredibly useful. You can partition it as you always partition things, through some disk partitioner like fdisk, Windows' Logical Disk Manager, GParted, OS X's Disk Utility, etc. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Forum software

I was not expecting there to be so much software available for forums but unfortunately 90% seems to be written in PHP. Is it possible to simply upload this to either a Windows or a Unix based server and it will run without the need for doing anything else or will a server site administrator have to reset everything (permissions, etc.) for the software to run? 71.100.2.43 03:23, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The web server needs to support PHP, and there would probably be instructions that came with your forum package. Splintercellguy 16:03, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

And most http daemons do indeed support PHP. You can probably change permissions, etc. as needed with your FTP client. YOu will probably need a databse too. As Splintercellguy said, there will probably be step by step instructions in your chosen forum pacakage. -- Diletante 16:08, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Matrix inversion

What was the largest full matrix ever inverted? How long did it take? deeptrivia (talk) 04:14, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Such questions aren't usually the best ones to ask, because we know the complexity of matrix inversion algorithms, so we can just look it up and get an approximation of how many steps it would take. IIRC, the complexity of naive inversion is the same as Gaussian elimination, O(n^3) (see Gaussian elimination and Big-O notation), so a 30 by 30 matrix will take approximately 30^3 steps to invert. Take a processor which can perform 1 step in x units of time and you have a rough estimate of how long it would take. However, there are memory concerns to keep in mind as well, plus swapping and VM overheads as well. Theoretically you could invert an extremely large matrix, but predicting how long it would take would mean having to take into account stuff involving the operating system and how fast it managed memory, but you would have a baseline estimate in the computational complexity of the algorithm used. (Coincidentally, you can do better than O(n^3) -- IIRC the best algorithm out there is O(n^2.2)). You also have to ask yourself why one would want to invert gigantic matrices anyway -- the chances are there's a better way of handling the problem. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.125.155 (talk) 04:31, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

I meant, who is the current record holder for having inverted the biggest matrix. deeptrivia (talk) 04:45, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, but it doesn't have any real "interesting" implications, so I think it may be doubtful that anyone is pursuing this. There is no new knowledge to be potentially gained by inverting matrices. Contrast this to testing Riemann zeta zeros or finding Mersenne primes because there are interesting results that may be revealed by performing the respective computations. Then again, I could be wrong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.125.155 (talk) 04:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

What new knowledge is gained by stacking a larger house of cards than any other, or batting an infinitescimally higher average than the previous record? The point is to keep track of the best ever, not learn something. I wonder if Guiness has gotten in on this. Black Carrot 05:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Best ever what? Computer? There are much more useful and and accurate ways of judging computing power. Algorithm? Inverting large matrices isn't going to prove an algorithm's efficiency. I mean, this is all really ridiculous if you generalize. What about the biggest value of x² attained? Calculating successively smaller and accurate values of exp(x) as x gets small? Mathematics is about doing things that are interesting and useful, and is about learning things, and merely inverting large matrices is not interesting or useful as far as I can see, and we learn nothing at all by doing it. Developing new algorithms to invert matrices is interesting, useful, and educational, but that's not what you are talking about. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.125.155 (talk) 06:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC).

Usually you don't build massive, expensive computers only in order to break a silly record that very few people will ever know or care about. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Additionally there is no reason to keep track of this record vs. "who has run the biggest for/next loop?" What would it be a test of? Processor speed? That can be measured directly. Time to waste? Who cares about that? There's no talent involved and no implications, so no record. --24.147.86.187 14:56, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

The longest For would be windows ME with all its runaway loops ;) --froth^t 06:52, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have just inverted the Ackermann(10000) by Ackermann(10000) identity matrix in my head. I claim this record! Algebraist 17:51, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Logical equation reduction

Is anyone familar with the Harvard Chart Method of logical equation reduction and if so do you know whether it has been written in the form of distributed processing program? 71.100.2.43 04:37, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Video card

I am looking to buy a low end video card for gaming, with at least 4 texture units. The Geforce 6 Series and Radeon R300 are baseline chipsets, but I would be willing to pursue a more powerful card.

My computer has an AMD Sempron 3000+ (1.9 GHz) with 1024 MB of RAM (or 960 MB, as 64 MB are currently used for integrated graphics). I want to use my AGP 4x slot for the card.

On a related note, will a video card that is AGP 8x compatible work fine in my AGP 4x slot? I believe that this will be fine, but the card will perform with reduced potential (i.e. only to the potential afforded by the 4x slot). − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 09:36, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Check the section on compatibility in the AGP article. It looks like the biggest concern with compatibility is the voltage signaling. —Mitaphane _?|! 15:25, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

It is generally not wise to worry about raw specs like the number of texture units a card have. You should instead look at reviews comparing the card's performance in games. Feature set should also be considered although to be honest, I wouldn't worry about it too much at the low end since it's like you would have to use minimal settings anyway so feature set won't make much of a difference. Ultimately, it depends greatly on what your needs are. A 6600 or 7600 or similar mid range ATI card should be enough for a resonable res and without having to turn everything off for most current and perhaps 1-2 year future games. A 6200 or 7300 or similar low end card would probably mean a low res with most things off or on minimal. Bear in mind if you have a LCD monitor using any res other then the native might be a bit crappy. It also depends on what sort of games your talking about. If your just talking about light gaming like the Sims your needs are far less then if you want to play S.T.A.L.K.E.R. or Supreme Commander or other more demanding (and unoptimised?/poorly designed?) games Nil Einne 16:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I am talking about Everquest II. Upon trying to run the demo, an error message pops up telling me I need a video card with at least 4 texture units. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 19:11, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Opera, wheres the "Page info" thing

I recently switched from FireFox to opera, but i miss that thing in firefox where u could go tools > page info > media, and you could download embedded files easily from there instead of hunting though the source code. Also my bookmarks are all in the wrong order since importing them. What gives?

Thanks Plegrfcw 15:19, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Opera has a similar feature to that. There is the links panel, but I'm not sure if it achieves the same thing (I've not used the Firefox function). As for your bookmarks, Opera arranges them in alphabetical order and I don't think you can arrange them any other way. The folks at the Opera forums are generally pretty helpful, you might get a better answer asking there. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 17:34, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If you go to Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks then you can rearrange them, or View -> Sort By Created. This is how Firefox sorts them, to my knowledge. :) JoshHolloway 10:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

can't find my Google calendar

I set up Google Calendar using my native e-mail address, and also set up another one using my gmail address. I also let Firefox remember my password for the native e-mail address (intentionally) and I guess for the gmail address as well, because here's what happened:

I had a Favorites link to the calendar but deleted it unintentionally. When I clicked on the calendar icon on the Google web site ("even more") It took me directly to the (empty) gmail version. I went into Firefox and deleted all the Google-related remembered passwords. But clicking on the Google Calendar icon still took me to the gmail version. Deleted all the remembered passwords. Same story.

So how can I get to the Google calendar login screen in order to enter my native e-mail address and password?

I've searched Google and Firefox help to no avail. Hope you can help! --Halcatalyst 16:15, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Can't you just click the 'Sign out' link on the top-right of Google Calendar (or https://www.google.com/calendar/logout), or am I missing something? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes! Thank you. I feel dumb. But better to feel dumb that not to be able to access my calendar. <vent> I have had enormous problems over the last month after I [unwillingly] switched from XP to Vista. Not that this particular problem had anything to do with Vista. The functionality I needed most, but didn't have most of the time during my troubles, was Calendar. I missed several meetings and appointments. That's why I switched from Outlook to Google. </vent> --Halcatalyst 16:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

If you have to pick the first best N items from a list...

So I have an unsorted array, a number(N), and have to pick the first N best from the unsorted list, how do you do that? I'm doing it by sorting first and then picking the first few but is there a different way? Thanks, Jeffrey.Kleykamp 17:10, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

I had a program that needed to do this a while back (it was for evolutionary programming). The best solution I could think of was to make an array of size N and variables called lowest lowestpos. First I set lowest to zero and made lowestpos arbitrary (<N). Then I iterated over the unsorted array. Every time I found a number greater than the lowest I would place it into the array in the place of the lowest and then search that array for the smallest one and update lowest and lowestpos. It's only faster for certain sized arrays. For example if u want the biggest two from a set of 1000 then it's faster. If you want the biggest 800 from 1000 then sorting is probably faster (if you use a well made sort that is). BrokenSegue 17:44, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup. If you find the biggest N out of a list of N by that method, you are essentially doing insertion sort, which is O(N²), much slower than the O(N log N) you get from a good sorting algorithm. That suggests a rule of thumb: If you want to find the best K from a list of N, do the array method if K is less than sqrt(N), and sort otherwise. Tugbug 17:52, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, here is untested psuedocode to find the highest N numbers from an unsorted array of array of UNSORTED_ARRAY_NB elements:

    DO I = 1 TO N
      SOLUTION_ARRAY(I) = UNSORTED_ARRAY(I)
    ENDDO

! Sort SOLUTION_ARRAY in descending order (not shown).

    DO J = N+1 TO UNSORTED_ARRAY_NB
      DO I = 1 TO N
        IF (UNSORTED_ARRAY(J) .gt. SOLUTION_ARRAY(I)) THEN
          DO K = N TO I+1 STEP -1
            SOLUTION_ARRAY(K) = SOLUTION_ARRAY(K-1)
          ENDDO
          SOLUTION_ARRAY(I) = UNSORTED_ARRAY(J)
          GOTO 100
        ENDIF
      ENDDO
100 ENDDO

StuRat 18:17, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Jeffrey.Kleykamp 17:54, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

You could use heapsort that uses a max-heap and stop after extracting the highest N elements. Alternatively, you could find the Nth largest element using the selection algorithm and then you can use that as the pivot to partition (using the partition algorithm in quicksort) the list into the items smaller than it and larger than it. The latter method only takes $\Theta (n)$, where n is the length of the list. The former method can be implemented in $O(n\log N)$. --Spoon! 20:46, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Text file <-Firefox browsing history?

Is there any utility or add-on that will automatically export all of my browsed links for a day to a text file for later review? The little "tree view" Ctrl+H feature is cute, but extremely limiting as to what I can do as far as saving all the links I followed in a given day. NoClutter 19:20, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

Search Mozilla Add-ons. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:40, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

May 13

Removing the harnig virus

Hello friends. I am not speaking on my behalf but the behalf of my friend, who got the a trojan today called the harnig virus. Here is symantec's page on it. She's scanned her harddrive with CA Security 2007, CCleaner and AdAware. She reports that CA Security 2007 found the virus once and then said it was gone. The problem this is giving her is that when she starts up in regular mode, a few applications load as usual but after a few moments her screen goes completely black, no little blinky cursor or anything. For the record, she is running Windows XP Media Center Edition Version 5.1 with SP2. Here is a link to a screenshot of her msconfig startup panel: http://i7.tinypic.com/5zm2jnr.jpg Do any of these look particularly suspicious? Does anybody have any recommendations for how to remove this virus? Thanks! NIRVANA2764 00:16, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't see any problems with that startup list. When the screen goes completely black, I assume your computer has literally just turned itself off? x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Possible Virus

I have an odd problem with my computer, started about a day ago. It connects to the internet (wireless), but won't load most pages. It's fine with Wikipedia and Google, and can kinda handle YouTube and a few other random sites, but for most it gives the same response as if it wasn't online. This includes my antivirus update systems, so they haven't received updates in a few days. My sister's computer has started having the same problem. Does this sound like a virus, or spyware, or some sort of hardware problem, or what? If it helps, we're running Windows (XP I believe). 76.185.113.55 00:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried running anti-virus, spyware? It might be a networking problem if tools are a negative for virus/spyware. Splintercellguy 00:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

We've run AdAware, SpyBot S&D, and AVG. They all found minor invasions, as they always do, and got rid of them, but nothing's changed. By "networking problem", what do you mean? Is it something we could diagnose? If so, is it something we could fix? 76.185.113.55 00:46, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, can you access the router configuration and see the DHCP information? Can you trying tracert-ing and see what you can get? Splintercellguy 02:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I can sure try. How do I do that? 76.185.113.55 04:00, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Start -> Run -> cmd. Type ipconfig, and look at the Default Gateway field. That is your router's IP. Open up a web browser, and type http://<the IP here>. You may be asked for user and pass, consult your router's manual. Hmm, it may not be DHCP. What have you installed recently? Splintercellguy 04:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I got the IP, but I don't know the username or password. (My sisters set it up before I got here, I can ask them tomorrow.) The default password in the manual didn't work, so they must have come up with a new one. I'm not sure what DHCP is, or whether I have it installed or not, but if it helps we've got a LinkSys router, Model No. WRT54G, with the in-package setup CD, labelled Setup Wizard ver. 6.0. We've got cable DSL through I believe Time Warner. Does that answer the question? 76.185.113.55 04:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I may have gotten off-track with the router. Have you done the Repair operation for the affected computers' network connection? Splintercellguy 04:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, many times. I've also unplugged and replugged the wireless box, rebooted, turned off and turned on, uninstalled and reinstalled one or two things. No change. I've been seeing what I can access and what I can't, though, and can give a little more information on that. I can access Google and its search pages and any of its cached pages, but nothing it links to directly unless I could anyway. I've tried accessing proxies to see if that would effect it, and it hasn't. Those that I can get to (Google and BabelFish translation so far) don't give me access to anything new. I can get the Linksys support site, which is nice, but I'm not sure if I can get anything helpful there. I can get to Yahoo, but most of the flashy doodads don't come up. Mostly, what I can and can't get to seems pretty random, but stable over time. 76.185.113.55 05:29, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

(Going to bed, will continue tomorrow morning.) 76.185.113.55 05:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Wish I had access to your machine. Umz, could it be the browser? Perhaps trying to browse from a clean LiveCD? Forgive me if I am not helping as well as you would like. Could use some other editors' help :). Splintercellguy 05:50, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I fully appreciate any help I can get. I've gotten into the router configuration, and among other things it says "Automatic Configuration - DHCP". Later, next to "DHCP Server" the Enable button is activated. So, yes to DHCP. Also, I found a screen with "Ping" and "Traceroute" buttons. What should I do with them? 76.185.113.55 16:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

What's the assigned IP address and gateway? Make sure its not set to autoconfig or invalid IP. Jam release/renew to possible rectify that. Splintercellguy 01:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Good news! We called the tech support, and they suggested plugging the computer directly into the modem. My connection is fine now, so it must be the wireless router that was causing all the problems. We still haven't figured out what it's doing, but now we've got internet access. :) Black Carrot 05:39, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

AIM Profiles

I'm using AIM 6.1 and was wondering if there's some type of hack to make your profile bigger. Once it reaches a certain size, it won't let you save until you shorten it. I want to do this without using those profile sites that you link to. 69.117.143.204 02:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

CDs on iTunes

I'm having some trouble burning a playlist onto iTunes. The CD-R I'm using is an 80min/700mb disc and the playlist I'm trying to burn is only 55min/69mb and it still won't burn. I deleted songs and got it down to less than half an hour and it still says it's too large, yet when I tried burning an older playlist that was larger than my current one, it worked fine. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.82.135.128 (talk) 03:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

• You're probably trying to burn the playlist as an Audio CD, not a Data CD. An Audio CD will only support a limited amount of music, while a Data CD can support much more. --Ali 16:10, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

DVD-R Multisession

Any idea why the DVD-R multisession burnt on Nero cant be read on win-xp without service pack whereas it can be read by iso-buster??~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.244.211 (talk) 05:08, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

Depends on many factors. Did you burn it with UDF or ISO? Check these links for incompatibilities. If ISO, what were your settings? Did you heed Nero's advice on making the disk maximally readable under Windows? ISO buster (etc.) has been programmed to read non-standard formats of DVD's whereas your Windows kernel can read a limited set of formats. AFAIK SP1 and 2 did not upgrade DVD readability but addressed hard drives above approx. 130 gig. Sandman30s 16:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

As far as compatability is concerned, it is readable in xp on the machine where the dvd-burner is installed, but it is not readable on my machine even if I had installed sp2.only Iso buster can read it..210.212.194.209

Doesn't sound like an XP problem then. Most likely your DVD reader on your other machine using XP's native drivers cannot read the burned (multisession) format. Remember your burner comes with its own drivers to be able to read the non-standard formats it burns. Multisession is a relatively new addition from the original single-session disks that were written once. Certain DVD readers can read multisession but that is a whole new investigation by itself. Also try burning your disks in maximum-ISO-compatibility mode the next time. Or don't use multisession. Sandman30s 09:37, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

any idea if it can be solved??59.92.245.82

copy all your files to hard disk, then write them back to a new dvd using single session ISO mode with maximum compatibility settings. Sorry but this means the loss of a blank dvd which is a small price to pay for knowledge... Sandman30s 14:05, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

s/this/that

What are people referring to when they say "s/one word/another word"? (Punctuation doesn't Google very well, and a search for s-slash turned up everything but.) NeonMerlin 05:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a substitution operator, used most notably in vi and Perl. It means substitute the regular expression between the first pair of slashes with the expression in the last pair. (unsigned by 149.135.125.155)

It's used in IRC and online chat too sometimes, when if someone says a whole word in a sentence wrong they correct themselves with s/wrong/right/. JoshHolloway 09:07, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a reference to sed syntax (the same syntax is also, as noted above, found in vi and Perl). --cesarb 13:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

I supose technically it is a reference to ed (text editor), which sed is modelled after. -- Diletante 18:42, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Go back one more level: it's from QED (text editor), which ed was a simplified version of. --Anon, May 18, 2007, 23:29 (UTC).

Underscore number in a password

Is there a way to under line a number to log in to an account? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.255.75.57 (talk) 05:32, 13 May 2007 (UTC).

What do you mean by "under line a number"? What are you trying to log into? --h2g2bob (talk) 06:05, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

If you mean enter something like 12345678 as a password, then no, you can't do that, as that's not available using the standard characters on a keyboard. To create them here, for example, I had to type in "<u>12345678</u>". StuRat 14:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Eh, I don't know about that. There's some unicode character that usually renders as a # but when you put text between two of them it underlines that text. I have them around my counter-strike nick right now I think. --froth^t 18:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

International shipping

Hey, a little bit off topic but I figured if anyone knows this it'd be one of you guys. I'm about to order a laptop online (Alienware) and have it shipped to me in Japan, and while they don't give any indication that they are able to ship to Asia on their website, FedEx (with which who Alienware ships) is a well established courier here in Japan as well, and at the worst it will just cost me a few extra bucks (US) to route it my way.

My question is about customs. I have, on a few occasions, carried electronics across borders in Asia without any problems, but this will be the first time anything major comes in the mail, and I'm really not sure what to expect; am I going to be hit with a hefty tax, errr... duty? When will the charge me? Is some dude going to come to my house and get me to pay the difference or what? Does anybody have any experience with this, and can help me figure out about how much I might get charged? The system is going to cost me about $1,500 US POP. Thanks!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:31, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

A couple times a year I work for a gift company that used to do international shipping to some countries. Some countries had UPS and FedEx but we still didn't ship there due to the high duties that would have to be paid. The company only had one shipping rate for international shipping in order to keep things simple. What I'm trying to get at is that just because you have FedEx there, it doesn't necessarily follow that Alienware will ship there. I would double check with the company. Dismas|^(talk) 09:13, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I've sent a request but Alienware isn't really known for their speedy world class support. You're probably right that they could refuse to send it to Japan because of high rates. I've just spent a couple hours looking through a bunch of Japanese customs .pdfs and though I can find no specific mention of teriffs? on computers an electronics, the duty might be as high as 5%, though I don't know if that applies to single independant purchases, or if electronics even falls under the same category. The fact that buying laptops in Japan costs so much more than it does in the US (I show the specs and the price of the Alienware system to a budget laptop manufacturer and I get laughed at) makes me suspect that they're not going to make it easy for me to have it sent over here.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  09:30, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Japan has 5% GST/consumption tax which you will probably have to pay. Duties, if any, will be in addition. If AlienWare is willing to ship to Japan, you will be paying AlienWare. Expect it to be $75 or more extra. Bear in mind if your have a problem under warranty you will have to ship it back to the US at your own cost. You will probably have to pay to ship it back to yourself too Nil Einne 11:04, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

These laws vary from country to country, but as above you should expect to pay the tax PLUS customs processing fee which may not be insignificant. You are crazy ordering something before knowing the specific law. You should really find out beforehand. In Australia I buy a lot of stuff on ebay from America, customs duty is 10% for most things and the processing fee is about $40, even if your particular goods are not subject to custom duty! If the Japanese sales tax is indeed 5% you could still be up for over $100 extra and it won't be Alienware taking the extra money at the time of purchase, it will be Japanese customs once the laptop hits the shores, they won't release it until they have the money. In Australia you usually get a phone call to pay the customs with credit card, how good is your Japanese? If it isn't good enough to enquire about customs duty at your post office, maybe you should make a Japanese colleague the contact so that Japanese customs don't have a problem communicating, otherwise your laptop may end up in an illegal import sale. Vespine 02:14, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Movie Format

Hello,

• I downloaded the 'Bink and Smacker RAD Video Tool' thingy and managed to sucsessfully convert a .MOV format movie into .AVI but there was a problem. When i decide to play them using Windows Media Player or in Movie Maker they are very stuttery and the sound is practically un reconisable. How can i solve this?

• With the Mozilla Firefox Video Downloader when you download a video how do you download it in .WMV / .AVI format?

thanks, --81.79.98.115 12:15, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

With Video Downloader, you download it in whatever format the website hosts it as (generally flv) and convert it yourself. Try playing it in VLC; if that fails try this guide to convert with ffmpeg. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth purposeful blurring of a location?

Check out 41.943837,-70.576826 on Google Maps or Google Earth — Pilgrim Nuclear Generating Station. It looks like it has been purposefully blurred. It says that the data was provided by MassGIS, Commonwealth of Massachusetts — is it likely they blurred the data? (Personally I doubt there is any real security advantage to such a thing — it is trivial to find high-res satellite photography of the site on Google Images — but that's another question.) --24.147.86.187 14:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Same thing on Seabrook Station Nuclear Power Plant! ( 42°53'57.79"N, 70°50'58.93"W) Same image source! Note that there are plenty of other reactors which are not blurred — I suspect it is limitd to MassGIS's images. I wonder if Google knows/cares that they are receiving doctored images. --24.147.86.187

Indian Point Energy Center also looked blurred too but in a much more subtle way (not as chunky); they are New York GIS. Not sure what that is supposed to accomplish! --24.147.86.187 14:39, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It accomplishes the creation of a fig leaf. Since terraists are only smart enough to obtain aerial reconnaissance photography via Google Earth, if we obscure that data then the terraists can't possibly figure out where to aim their bombs. Or at least that's what they've told Georgie Porgy so he can sleep at night without a third glass of Jim Beam.

Atlant 11:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you know that it doesn't actually look like that from above? 213.48.15.234 13:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, this "blurred" image is a hell of a lot clearer than the image of my home on Google Maps. So, I guess I should assume that Bush is blurring my house to protect me from terrorists, right? --Kainaw ^(talk) 13:40, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's worked so far, right? You're still safe in your home? ;-)

Atlant 15:42, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not just Massachusetts. Take a look at the U.S. Vice President's residence. It's not even just the U.S. Look at this obscured location in the Netherlands and one in Russia. As for an explanation, I think we can credit bureaucracy, the "CYA" phenomenon, and morons who cannot grasp the idea that deliberately obscuring a location actually draws attention to it. --Tugbug 23:10, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you thing the goverment is so stupid? Are you sure that they are obscuring the 'right' hotspots? Perhaps they are covering some unimportant building to draw attention of the terrorists to the wrong places. Mr.K. (talk) 16:32, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Problem with WMP11 - Find Album Info

When I try to find album info for songs I have ripped from a CD I burned myself, Windows Media Player 11 fails to show the default "find album info" screen and instead shows "How do you want to search?," with the option of searching by artist, album, or "enter information for a CD you burned." How can I cause the default "find album info" screen to appear instead? I cannot obtain album art or album information properly with the new screen. Thanks! --Ali 16:06, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

ccApp.exe and ccSvcHst.exe problems

Hello. Usually, when I shut down my computer, a window appears and says it tries to end a ccApp.exe program followed by a window that says it has an application error with ccSvcHst.exe. That window says:

The instruction at “0x010ce0d4” referenced memory at “0x00000000.” The memory could not be read.

Click on OK to terminate program.

This window appears for a second or two and the computer shuts down. At other times, the application error with ccSvcHst.exe says:

The exception unknown software exception...

I did not have enough time to copy the rest. I searched for those files, finding them in Norton Antivirus 2007. How can I solve this problem? Thanks. --Mayfare 16:38, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Tried reinstalling Norton? --h2g2bob (talk) 16:48, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

DOSBOX/DJGPP

Is is possible to use DJGPP within DOSBOX or do I have to switch to DOSEMU? (I'm a Linux user) thanks

--Duomillia 17:26, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

DOSBox appears to be emulation at the hardware level (like Bochs), allowing the user to install any x86-compatible OS. If I remember right, DOSEMU does the emulation at a slightly higher level (like WINE does for Windows).

The DJGPP article says it runs on DOS, so if you run DOS within DOSBox it should work. It doesn't specify whether it works only with MS-DOS, or also clones DR-DOS, FreeDOS, etc...)

Cheers, Davidprior 17:58, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Should work fine. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:08, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Tracking

I remember that there was a website where on the bottom it said "Most recent visits" and it showed locations of the people that have looked at the site (with my location on the top). How is this done? 65.95.79.252 19:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

GeoIP, as below! It looks up your IP and finds the city it's in, then stores it in a database. JoshHolloway 20:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

IP address

Is there a way to know where someone is located based on their ip address? 65.95.79.252 19:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, take a look at Geolocation_software for information or HostIP.info to actually do it. It's accurate to the city, maybe suburb, but not more than that. JoshHolloway 20:01, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Note that it's accurate to the user's city/suburb at best - there are a number of things which can throw it off, most obviously the use of proxy servers. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 22:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

DNS records says you're in Ontario, Canada. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:06, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

...sitting in your bedroom at your computer in your underwear, while eating a peanut butter sandwich. :-) StuRat 06:05, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

...sitting naked in a bean bag eating Cheetos. Black Carrot 05:37, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Car SatNav

Can someone please explain in words of two syllables how a satnav works. I know it relies upon GPS signals, but how does that signal translate into verbal instructions. Sorry if this is not strictly a computer question but I'm sure it must come close. Thanks in anticipation of an answer that I might have a hope of understanding!--88.110.111.76 19:43, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

There are sattellites orbitting the earth which the satnav connects to. There will be 5 or 6 of these connected to your satnav at any time, sometimes more. Together they create a 3d electronic "map" of exactly where on the planet you are. The satnav unit itself has maps to the whole country and has a complicated method of working out the quickest route to take. As it knows where you need to go and where you are now, it can tell you what turnings to take etc. The voice which speaks to you will have pre-programmed phrases, such as "Turn right after 50 yards" and also be able to attempt to pronounce the roadnames. JoshHolloway 20:14, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

The GPS device doesn't quite "connect" to the GPS receivers. It simply uses the knowledge of the position of the satellites and clock time to calculate its location on the Earth. A receiver requires at least 4 satellites for good results. Splintercellguy 01:49, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Bzzt! Satellites is three syllables.

There are spacecraft in orbit around the earth. They have precise clocks on board. They use the time it takes for a signal to leave one spacecraft to each other to know how far apart they are. You receive that distance and the unit figures out where you are.

There's a quite-complex computer in the car's SatNav system, along with a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM full of programs and mapping data. The car's computer essentially runs software that is very similar to DeLorme's Street Atlas. Combined with the current-location information provided by the car's GPS system, that allows this computer to calculate a route to anywhere contained on its maps. As you move along the route, speech synthesis creates the spoken directions: "Prepare to turn right in 1000 feet", "turn right here", and the ever-popular "at the next convenient location, make a U-turn".

Where GPS doesn't work (like in tunnels or some skyscraper-surrounded city streets), the car uses dead reckoning to estimate its position based off of the last GPS data. This is done using odometer data from the vehicle's engine/transmission management computers and, usually, an electronic compass built into the car's navigation system.

Atlant 11:51, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I read somewhere that (in the uk at least) they were launching some new satellites that would increase accuracy even more, and that the new combination would allow for GPS to be useable for people "on foot" in cities (i.e. be able to direct people accurately with range of less than 10 metres). Also I suspect that the speech-package builds itself up from mini-statements/even just words into full sentences e.g. the sentence "in 500 yards take the second exit at the roundabout" may actually be an amalgamation of "In", "500 yards", "take the", "second", "exit", "at the", "roundabout". It might seem odd but then this way they save space (and time for the person recording the voice). I know that some software builds words in this manner (that's why you get the words [stressed]] unusually at times). ny156uk 17:16, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

There's been some interesting experimentation with "back-pack GPS" nav systems to assist blind people; as far as I know, the results have been pretty good, at least as long as the United States keeps Selective availability turned off. The new European satellite nav system should help with that last bit.

And yes, at least in my Audi, the nav system's speech synthesis is definitely canned phrases that are strung together as needed. It's especially obvious when it pronounces something like "Route 101-A"; the enunciation comes out something like "Route 101,,,,A". We always get a laugh when it says things like that.

Atlant 00:16, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Well I believe "the military" has to-the-centimeter GPS location worldwide already. --froth^t 18:19, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Unless you're using "differential GPS", GPS isn't that accurate. Propagation delay variations impose limits that are beyond "to the centimeter" accuracy.

Atlant 22:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Apple Ipod problem

When I first connected my new iPod about a year ago it downloaded from my Apply Mac system 10 all my music, all my photos and some only of my contacts. Now when I recharge it it up dates all those files but not my contacts. Why not and what can I do about it please. Any help will be much appreciated and acknowledged,--88.110.111.76 19:47, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

If you update your itunes and then plug in the ipod it should take you to the configuration panel and then you can pick what you want updated and what you want to stay the same --Nerdd

Thanks for this, but when I plug in the iPod to the Mac it just gets on with updating; no sign of a 'configuration panel'. How can I find that please?--88.110.111.76 21:18, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Later! your suggestion made me look deeper into the problem which I have now solved. Grateful thanks for your help.--88.110.111.76 21:41, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Subtitles for a video file (avi xvid)

Hi, does anyone have any experience with .SUB and .IDX subtitle files? The .SUB file is binary and the .IDX is a text file that contains settings and pointers to the binary images in the .SUB. Problem is that the subtitles of the movie shows as light green on yellow - unreadable! So I tried first to convert it to .SRT - problem is the converters cannot understand the binary text (OCR problem?) and ask me to type all the text in! Next thing I tried was editing the settings in the .IDX - makes no difference. Tried also various subtitle settings in VLC player, to no avail. Other players don't even show subtitles at all. Help :) Sandman30s 21:35, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Ah nevermind found the answer. Changed the settings to:

# The original palette of the DVD palette: 000000, 121212, 6d6d6d, d9d9d9, 000000, 121212, 848484, cacaca, 111111, 9a9a9a, ffffff, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282, 828282

Sandman30s 22:18, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Streaming video capture

I ran the demo of WMRecording 11.0. It automatically downloaded streams as soon as they started as long as the program was running. Are there any free capture programs with similar functionality to avoid all the technical stuff or should I use a program that lets me select a rectangular space on my desktop for recording. In short: I'm looking for free software that lets me record and save streaming video (or capture it off my desktop of the first is not possible). For those who are worrying: I'm intending to use it for saving promotional trailers. - Mgm|^(talk) 21:36, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

VLC media player via its wizard? Splintercellguy 01:46, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

VideoDownloader, Javamoya, UnPlug, Ook Video Ook, etc. can download videos from a website. VLC can save many formats. Linux users can also use MiMMS to download mms videos. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

• The programs you mention work best with specific websites, I want something that is website independant, like WMR. I already have UnPlug and VideoDownloader and several of the videos I wish to download are not found by these programs. If they are, only the stream link is downloaded rather than the actual footage, so those are not what I'm looking for. - Mgm|^(talk) 07:44, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Javimoya.com seems to be able to handle a large number of sites. Splintercellguy 08:27, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Which website - perhaps I can add it --h2g2bob (talk) 02:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

• I've opted for using an URL snooper together with a free download manager that looks a lot like HiDownload the name of which I forgot. So far it worked like a charm. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

May 14

De-tokenize a Dragon 32/64 BASIC

This file is a rip of a Dragon 32/64 tape containing a tokenized BASIC program. Either because of the cassette file's container-data or because Dragon BASIC is too dissimilar to GWBASIC, a typical detokenizer won't handle it. I also haven't been able to find an emulator that will route standard or printer output (from a LIST or LLIST command) to a plain text file. What is the text of the tape's program? NeonMerlin 04:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

This looks interesting. I didn't decode the text, but I did find some information about the file formats. Color BASIC Cassette File Format describes the format of the cassette file of the compatible CoCo computer. The CAS file you provided seems similar, but I noticed two differences at a casual glance: a. The CAS file has only 16 (not 128) bytes of $55 at the beginning. b. Each block begins with $3C only (not $55 and $3C). Once you extract all data blocks from the cassette file and put them together, Dragon Information Files has documents about the BASIC storage format and tokens. -Bavi H 06:07, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Single file download from Huge torrent file

Is it possible to download a single file(2.7Mb mp3) from a torrent archive(1.2GB) file??~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.212.194.209 (talk) 08:59, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

Yes. Use a torrent client that supports selective downloading (uTorrent on Windows supports this, for example). 09:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, unless the torrent is a single .zip or .rar. Try Azureus. APL 23:32, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't try azureus unless you particularly like the JRE sitting in your memory. Which I can't see could be anyone at this point.. --froth^t 06:46, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Missing taskbars in Xubuntu

I downloaded the Xubuntu LiveCD the other day so I could give Linux a try, but when I booted the CD, the taskbar and launchbar at the bottom and top of the screen were missing. However, the desktop icons still showed up and I could use the file browser and even open an AbiWord document.

I'm using an Acer TravelMate 2201LCi notebook with the following specs:

• CPU: 2.66GHz Celeron D
• RAM: 256MB (minus 64MB for integrated graphics)
• Video: ATI Mobility Radeon 9000 (integrated)
• DVD/CD Combo Drive
• Acer IPN2220 Wireless card
• HDD: 40GB

Can anyone explain why my taskbars are missing, and how I might get them back? --Lumina83 09:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Don't know why (I've noticed Ubuntu is tetchy with gnome-panel), but if you can get a terminal window, start "gnome-panel" from the command line. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.125.155 (talk) 10:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

I had this happen too, I believe due to Feisty's compiz use. Try sudo apt-get install compiz-tray-icon, and configure that. --- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION!

Sap Insurance

I did PG Diploma in Insurance and Risk management and have experience in insurance industry. I want to do SAP Insurance in India. Would U tell me where I can have it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.165.48.100 (talk) 10:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

You are looking for a job? If so, having worked in the insurance industry, you should be better qualified to answer that question that just about anyone else. If you really don't know, ask some of your friends/contacts in the industry. Or, if you are not looking for a job, please restate your question. --Tugbug 23:23, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

testing insurance projects

Do u have any information about insurance projects that you tested or come across. If so please let me have it. How can I become a best tester for Insurance projects —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.165.48.100 (talk) 10:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC).

What do you mean by insurance projects? Are you talking about some kind of software? You'll need to be able to write more clearly to succeed as a professional product tester. NeonMerlin 19:29, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Vandal Proof on Mac OS X?

Hello. I am running Mac OS X 10.4.9, and am trying to run VandalProof via CrossOver. I am recieving an error message that says:

Run-time error '445': Object doesn't support this action

Has anyone ever run this program via Mas OS X or can you point me to another similar program? Thanks, Curran (talk) 19:11, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

^{Fixed your VandalProof wikilink — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 19:52, 14 May 2007 (UTC)}

I used to use VandalFighter, but instead now I use the IRC channels and revert tools from a modified monobook.js. [Mac Δαvιs] ❖ 23:31, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

iPod hard drive model

Which is the ipod hard drive?

^{I've split your question into its own section — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 23:15, 14 May 2007 (UTC)}

The hard drive is the storage space for your songs. See also iPod. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:24, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Why don't companies make cheaper computers?

I was thinking, the Wii could be a very cheap computer, if nintendo made a few mods to it. First, turn the output into a VGA or DVI out, so it can be displayed at a decent size. Two, add a couple internal USB connections, and use cheap flash drives for hard drives (Could easily make 2-4GB for under 30$) Three, totally eliminate the Wiimote, package cheap but nice looking USB keyboard and mouse. Cut out the gamecube connectivity. I'm not saying the Wii specifically, but why don't companies make small, cheap computers like this? People have been able to run OS X on an Apple TV, Apple could easily repackage some units as "Mac Nanos" and sell them off cheaper than Mac Minis, bam, Mac just got market share. Obviously there's OLPC, but what good does that do to people who want to BUY a cheap piece of computing awesomeness? My point is, we have the technology to make a 100$ laptop, such as the OLPC would've been, India is even talking about mass producing laptops to make them 10$ each! Why isn't anyone really taking advantage of this blue ocean? Nintendo has shown that even people who aren't gamers can enjoy video games, someone needs to show that even people who aren't computer users can enjoy computers-- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 23:01, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all, seen from a long-term perspective, companies do make inexpensive computers. 25 years ago you couldn't get anything really usable for less than USD 2000. Now USD 400 will get you a decent entry-level system. Factor in inflation, and the price drop has been extreme. Second, beyond a certain minimum, apparently companies just don't make enough profit to stay in business. After all, it has been tried. Sinclair sold a computer for GBP 100 'way back when, but it didn't do them much good. --Tugbug 23:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Not only that, keep in mind that of that $400 computer, a good fraction of the cost is software. Every time you buy a home computer at least $100 is paying for Windows. Some home computers also come with Microsoft Office, which is probably about another $100. At that point, if the computer costs $400 total, the hardware doesn't cost much more than a Wii.APL 23:30, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

This is my point, software is cheap. Hell, a company selling cheap computers would probably want to run linux on them anyway, so software isn't a factor. My question is, why don't companies that could easily sell computers for 100$ do it, not are computers expensive nowdays. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 23:43, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Get rid of the Wiimote and it's not really a Wii anymore. In any case you are also talking purely in terms of hardware — companies are also recouping their R&D work, their advertising, etc. No computer product, especially an entertainment product, has its cost based purely on hardware. --24.147.86.187 23:57, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

One of the reasons it's so cost-effective to assemble your own computer rather than have a company do it for you. It's hundreds of dollars cheaper for an hour of work. --froth^t 06:48, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Another factor to consider is "fixed costs", like research and development, advertising, setting up distribution networks, customer support, etc. If it costs, say $10 million to do this for a new computer, and you sell 100,000 of that model, that works out to an additional $100 per computer, right there. StuRat 03:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking the Model T of computers though. Something that could be able to serve people's needs (and thus, stay in production) for a decade or longer (which is easier to do nowadays, since computers are becoming able to do more and more with less power, not counting graphical tasks). For example, I have an iMac next to me that's easily 7-8 years old, and can still do most things I do on a day to day basis, and do it smoothly. -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 07:33, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Colour Inkjet Refills

Hello. When I refill an HP 28 Colour Cartridge that is low on ink as indicated to me on my computer, I can only refill about 1 mL of each of the three colours (magenta, cyan, and yellow). The cartridge says it can hold up to 8 mL. Why can't I refill 8 mL of each colour? Thanks. --Mayfare 23:58, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Just speculation, but, if it's an airtight container and you are using a needle to inject new ink, you will need to draw air out to allow room for the new ink. StuRat 01:21, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your speculation, StuRat. However, I am not sure if my colour ink cartridge is airtight. I went on HP's website and couldn't find any information on it. I even tried searching on Google. No luck there. Does anybody know if an HP 28 Colour Cartridge airtight? --Mayfare 02:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not do an experiment and use the needle to draw some air out first, and see if that doesn't allow you to inject more ink ? StuRat 02:55, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

May 15

Flowchart

Two questions. 1. does anyone wanna fix the image at Image:LampFlowchart.svg. If you look closely, the word "yes" is missing from a part of it. 2. Is there software or any tool that can generate a "normalized flowchart" like the preceeding one from a purely "pseudocode" description? Im thinking along the lines of a bunch of "if then" statements that are clear representations of the "logic" ... in case you want to send the text of the chart to someone in an email and still have it be comprehensible. NoClutter 02:09, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about your question, but I did fix the image. BrokenSegue 02:14, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

re 2: Graphviz may, but it may require fiddling to get the output precisely what you want. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.125.155 (talk) 09:13, 15 May 2007 (UTC).

HP laptop reset button?

Hi

I have an HP laptop. I'm sure exactly what breed it is, it's part of the entertainment series. Anyway, it won't turn on. This has happened before and it was fixed by finding some magic reset button under the battery - I didn't see this done, though. So my question: where do I find this button? Thanks in advance for your help! 202.180.72.232 03:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Question retracted. It fixed itself! It's a miracle! Aaadddaaammm 04:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

what on earth is happening to wikipedia!

someone has glitched the toolbar at the top of every page that allows me to acccess my talk page, watch list and contributions! it keeps hiding behind the globe symbol!--Lerdthenerd 08:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no such problem. What browser are you using, what dimensions are you running the browser at (in pixels), and have you tried switching your skin? -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 08:56, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

it was normal an hour ago then it just went wierd, i think it might be a bug--Lerdthenerd 09:26, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

if you don't answer our questions, it's impossible for us to answer yours... -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 09:32, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

That happened a bit to me on IE 6, but now that I use Firefox it doesn't happen at all. --Lwarf 10:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Best device for writing on the go?

I like writing things, but I don't get much of a chance to do it, since when I'm on my computer I'm too busy forum whoring, and I can't use pen and paper (my handwriting looks like a cross between a first grader and a semi-literate seismograph, depending on how fast I write.) I'm thinking a PDA would be the best solution to this, but what would be the best combination of usefulness, comfort, and size? I've never took a terribly deep look into PDAs before, so I could really use advice. I figure my three biggest things would be: Display- Obviously if i'm going to spend a lot of time looking at a small screen, it has to look at least somewhat nice, and be easy on the eyes. Size - If it's very big, I won't use it. I figure this won't be a problem with the PDA, but with the keyboard. Compatibility - I'd prefer to avoid Windows CE, mainly because, in my previous experience with it, it's an annoying ass OS, but also because my main computer(s) use Ubuntu Linux (Feisty), so they must be compatible with that (and thus, use OpenOffice Writer files).

Then for the keyboard, I'm also somewhat discriminating. Size- Needs be small enough to fold up and be about the same size as the PDA, but also comfortable to use. Durability - If I do decide to punch out a novel, it needs to last. Tactile feedback - I love my G15. I really do. Most fold up keyboards i've seen are flat, like laptop keyboards, which I can learn to live with, but i'd like something that's at least somewhat more comfortable. Cost- I'm broke. This also applies to the PDA.

What would be the best to go with? I'm thinking something old and used off CL, what brands/models should I look for? What type of keyboard should I get? What kind of case should I get to hold said PDA and keyboard? Thanks -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 09:08, 15 May 2007 (UTC)