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October 15

OC question

I'm currently overclocking a E6400, motherboard is a MSI P6N SLI Platinum. I can change the FSB speed, but it's rated as quad-pumped in BIOS (for example, it'll say 1066mhz rather than 266mhz). I accordingly multiplied my changes accordingly (for example, if I wanted to change it by 20mhz each time, I'd increase it by 80mhz total). It was fine up to a FSB of 1180, I took it up to 1260. Multiplier is x8. The motherboard supports 1333 FSB. On startup, I'm getting the following message:

"A 266 MHz system bus processor is installed. This system bus speed is not supported on this system board. The system will run at a reduced processor clock speed and system performance will be impacted."

This is confusing me. Is the motherboard somehow throttling my overclock? Should I keep going regardless? (CPU-Z and Windows are both telling me I'm running at 2.48 anyway) Reviews of the motherboard say overclocking does extremely well on this board, and I picked the processor for the same reason (even though it's only got 2mb cache /mumble)

EDIT: Aha! A known issue, or so it seems!. Still, the article really doesn't clear up whether or not the board is actually limiting the OC or not. Anyone (froth!?!) know the answer? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 06:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Are there wiki software that support structured records?

Are there wiki software that support structured records? By that I mean support for records with predefined structures, such as enforcing data types and supporting queries of the form:

(field_1 = value_1) and (field_2 contains value_2) ...

--96.227.90.4 07:06, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could you extend MediaWiki (something like a much more complicated version of Extension:SQLselect)? --h2g2bob (talk) 23:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

K&N air filter

how good will it be if one uses a K&N air filter in a 2 stroke Yamaha RX 135 bike? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.130.100 (talk) 13:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is a computing reference desk, not a motorcycle reference desk. -- kainaw ™ 15:58, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In other words, you might be better off asking this question on this misc desk. Algebraist 21:24, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

multiple wireless profiles

I have a wireless router at home and use two laptops there. While at home I find it convenient to have a static IP address for port forwarding purposes (it also has me connected faster - no waiting for a new IP on bootup). But when I leave the house and connect to other routers, the settings I use at home might not work. At this point I go in and select "obtain ip from server", which isn't that hard but I am a little lazy.

Is there a way in XP to associate different tcp/ip settings with different routers? I don't see this option in the control panels I've looked at, are there third party programs to do this? If I could also do this in Ubuntu also that would be cool, but I mainly boot into XP. Thanks, Man It's So Loud In Here 16:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This page describes how to use the "netsh" command inside batch files to somewhat automate the process in Windows. disclaimer - I've not tried this out. I'd imagine something similar could be done in a shell script with Ubuntu. --LarryMac | Talk 17:52, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For Linux you can have two (or howevermany) versions of the netconfig script (in /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices or similar, depending on dist) and your "go to DHCP" and "go to static" scripts do a ifdown, cp in your script, ifup. One word of warning - some dists leave dhclient (the DHCP client software) running after an ifdown (to my mind they shouldn't, but figuring out when to do so safely in a multihomed machine is, granted, rather hard sometimes), so you may have to pkill that. There is something on the Ubuntu Ip config panel labelled "enable roaming" or something (I don't have one to hand to check), but what that actually does I don't know. -- PrettyDirtyThing 17:59, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

flash player

Ever since I saw Animator vs Animation, I've been interested in flash. But I don't know how to make it! I downloaded flash player from the site in the article here, but after I downloaded a flash game on my computer, I can't even find the program to actually run it! What do I do? --Jeevies 17:56, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure to actually make Flash games or movies, you have to buy it from the official website. The Flash Player just runs the code in your browser. NASCAR Fan24^{(radio me!)} 22:36, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Second that. --Kushal^t 23:21, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

While the traditional way is indeed to pay a heap of money for Flash (a trial is available to get you started), there are cheaper alternatives. If your project is more of a program than an animation (like a game) you can program the whole thing in a script, and compile it into a flash movie using a free compiler. You can code in Actionscript 2 and use the MTASC compiler (no longer maintained though). Or you can code in HaXe (which looks like actionscript) and compile to an swf that can be played in any flash player. You can use swfmill to roll any pictures you may need into the swf. There is also an effort going on to create a full-fledged open source flash alternative, but I'm not sure it's usable yet. risk 23:45, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aww..so I have to pay "a heap of money"? Well, how about just playing flash games/movies outside of my browser? You know, like in my hard drive? --Jeevies 04:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Save the SWF file to your hard drive and you should be able to open it in your browser or in the free Flash Player you can get from Adobe.com. Try just opening it in your browser once you have it saved (File > Open) like it was any old file, and it should work. --24.147.86.187 14:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I opened it on IE and it still asks for the application. --Jeevies 16:30, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Do you guys think the OP needs to install a Shockwave player from Adobe? I think some games need Shockwave player. --Kushal^t 22:31, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Never mind, I just upgraded my IE 6 and I was fine. So is Actionscript, HaXE or MTASC free? --Jeevies 16:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perl and XML

I am trying to write the values in a certain array to an XML file, I used the code present in this page under the title of "Writing perl structures into XML". The problem is I dont want the <anon> tag to appear,instead I'd like something else to be written in it. I want my output to look like this

..<whatever>
......<country>england</country>
......<capital>london</capital>
..</whatever>
..<whatever>
......<country>norway</country>
......<capital>oslo</capital>
..</whatever>
..<whatever>
......<country>india</country>
......<capital>new delhi</capital>
..</whatever>

Any ideas ?

NB: I used the dots to show tabbing —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.219.146.147 (talk) 19:39, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Basically it looks like the XML::Simple library doesn't support very complicated XML output. I don't use Perl but surely some mucking around with one of the other standard Perl-XML libraries will come up with one that supports more rigorous output. XML::Simple seems to be used primarily for parsing XML for very simple things, not for forming it. (whatever you do, DON'T treat XML like it was just any old text file!!) --24.147.86.187 20:30, 15 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 16

SHA-512

I'm looking for a program that can create SHA-512 hashes on OS X (locally, no web apps). Are there any that aren't a pain in the ass to install? Cheers. --MZMcBride 01:01, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well... one half-way-there solution is to use PHP installed locally (which is very easy to to do on OS X—it often is already included) and run it off of the localhost as a "local" web app, and use its mhash functions, which seem to support SHA-512? I don't know if that would work for your needs (since I don't really know them), but it would be very easy to set up. --24.147.86.187 02:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure but you probably already have the shasum script. Just open up a terminal and type shasum --help and see if it is there. -- Diletante 04:12, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, shasum --help doesn't work. Frankly, I'm shocked that no one has created an OS X app for this yet (or at least I haven't been able to find one). --MZMcBride 05:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you can compile openssl to do SHA512 digests, according to the OpenSSL documentation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jsbillings (talk • contribs) 13:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Routers

I have some sort of a D-Link Router set up in my home, sharing an internet connection with a wireless adapter thing on one computer and a LAN cable going to another. It worked perfectly when I first started using it but then one day the computer hooked up wirelessly just stopped being able to connect to the Internet. I was also using the Wi-fi on my PSP and it stopped working as well. It said there was a DNS error. However, the wireless network status states that the connection to the router is fine, and the one connected with the LAN cable is still working. It's really frustrating. Does anyone know how this would be fixable? Thanks Mix Lord 04:42, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try the following: unplug and replug the power cable on the router, then go to start, click Run, type in CMD. When the command prompt pops up, type /ipconfig release, then when that is done, type /ipconfig renew. This should reset essentially everything and fixes most problems related to networking. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 05:47, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Okay I'll try that but if the connection with the router is still fine (which it seems to be) will that change anything?Mix Lord 00:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

information technology

hello sir/madam, my self lovenish mittal,me persuing my P.G. in M.Sc(comps.) from panjab university chandigarh. i have to give seminar on "PAST,PRESENT ANT FUTURE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY" and after searching a lot me not able find out the material as per my teacher's requirement. she wants me to cover each and every thing changed til now in IT sector,its growth,inventions like networking,internet,hardware-software devlopement etc..as IT is very vast topic but still m confused from where to get all this.if u can help me out i will b very thakful. and please mail me your answers on '*********@gmail.com'. i wil waiting for your feedback. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.11.194 (talk) 05:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

E-mail address removed. Do not provide contact information, such as your e-mail address, home address, or telephone number. Be aware that the content on Wikipedia is extensively copied to many websites; making your e-mail address public here may make it very public throughout the Internet. Lanfear's Bane 09:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could start with History of computing, but please remember we are not here to do your homework for you. 87.112.85.54 12:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remember that 'information technology' is technology used in direct association with information - it's storage and dissemination- in that sense it includes paper, printing press, telephone/vision, library, etc... that should get you started.87.102.12.235 18:13, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Faster Browsing

I was given advice to do this in Firefox; in the url box type about;config, then go to the filter text box type network, scroll until you get to network.http.pipelining; change that to true, and change the one below that from 4 to 10. Now always one to want faster, I tried it then tested my speed using [1], I did not get that different results. But I would like to know what this actually does, and what other editors think about this. Phgao 14:14, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think pipelining causes Firefox to download more than one element of the web page at the same time in parallel. This will not increase your maximum speed as measured by speedtest.net, but it may make web-pages load slightly faster in some situations. (If you (or the server) have a slow connection like a dial-up, this setting will probably slow page loading times.) 69.95.50.15 15:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MozillaZine explains. Turns on HTTP pipelining. --h2g2bob (talk) 15:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks guys! Phgao 16:57, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To the ip; why don't you consider getting an account :) ? Phgao 16:58, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Latest OSS Software

what is the latest open source software? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Opie kriss (talk • contribs) 15:07, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(add title) --h2g2bob (talk) 15:38, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you mean. The latest open source announced project? Who knows—dozens must be started every week. The latest finished application? (Can any of them be really described as "finished"?) The latest version of any given application? (So many to sort through, and what would be the point?) I think it would be better if you clarified what you were looking for and why you were interested in it. If you are trying to write a paper on OSS, for example, I would recommend focusing on the latest ones which have garnered a lot of attention and user base, like the Mozilla Suite or OpenOffice.org. --24.147.86.187 16:19, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Category:Free software contains all Wikipedia's pages on free software (free software and open-source software largely refer to the same thing). The latest versions of free software are available for download from...

The software authors' websites (examples: [2], [3]). These sometimes offer versions which are still under active development.
Many Linux distributions can update or install free software using software like synaptic, or directly from the website
Open-source software sharing sites, like SourceForge host many open source projects
Your friends who are already using the software may provide you with a copy

So there are quite a few sources for the latest free software --h2g2bob (talk) 16:46, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check out Ubuntu and navigate around the nauseatingly stupid disambig page.. to find that Gutsy is coming out in 2 days!! Unfortunately for use gnome-haters, KDE 4 has been pushed back till december. So meh. --⁪froth^t 00:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CSS positioning with Safari

I'm working on a website for a client who happens to be using a mac; I don't have access to a macintosh. While I see a nice gallery page here [4], she sent me a screenshot here: [5]. I've got it in a center tag with relative positioning to shift it from center to provide space; is this not allowed in Safari? example:

<p align="center"><span style="{position: relative; left:-2in}"> <a href="floral.htm">
 <img src="images/thumbs/flowerthumbnail.jpg" width="144" height="96" border="0"></a></span>.

Kuronue | Talk 17:10, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the Mac/Safari setup - but personally, I deeply distrust anything measured in "inches" because so many people set up the pixels-per-inch thing in their browser incorrectly. And even when they don't - do you really want the images two inches away on an iPhone or a PSP or something? I'd try setting a number in pixels - after all, you set the image dimensions in pixels. SteveBaker 17:21, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had it in pixels; she has a very, very large screen at a high resolution and complained that they were too close together (50 pixels of space looked fine on my screen but wasn't showing up on hers) so I tried inches; though, now that I think about it, that might have been the same issue, since it's not showing any space in inches either. Kuronue | Talk 17:27, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

First, I have to note that this would be MUCH easier with a table. But, keeping in the "table are evil/css is good" mindset, you can mimic a table. Wrap all of the images on the top row in a div with width set to 100%. Inside it, have three divs set to a width of 33% with text-align center and display inline. On some browsers, you can use spans - but I've had too many of them refuse to set a width on my span. So, you have three dive, each 1/3rd of the screen and an image inside them comes out centered inside the div. Repeat for the second row but with only two internal divs set to 50% width. -- kainaw ™ 17:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apple recently released a beta of Safari for Windows, so you don't need a Mac to test on Safari any more. You can download it from here. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 18:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like the problem is more to do with this insanely high screen resolution and (possibly) an improperly set up dots-per-inch thing though - I bet Safari has nothing to do with it. The problem is that there is no way (in general) for the computer/graphics-system to know how big the display is - so "inches" is never a meaningful measurement unless every user has gone in and hand-tweaked the settings for that (which hardly anyone ever does!). Using pixels is occasionally useful - and using percentage-of-window-size can help - but the trouble is that people use high res screens in two ways... some people have big monitors with lots and lots of small (but still pretty readable) windows - other people have smaller monitors with one really, really, crisp/sharp window. For the first community you need pixels - for the second window-size-percentages. Basically, we're doomed. SteveBaker 21:03, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I viewed the website in question in Firefox and Safari at the same resolution (1024x768) and I got the results shown in the screenshot, so the two are definitely rendering it differently. I don't know if either one is at fault or if it's a problem with the code. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 21:09, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The site in question is here [6]. Definately a Safari issue.Changing span to div makes it worse. Any other suggestions? Kuronue | Talk 23:15, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try the following...

<html>
<body>
<div style='width:100%;text-align:center;'>
	<span style='display:block;float:left;width:33%;text-align:center;'>FLORAL</span>
	<span style='display:block;float:right;width:33%;text-align:center;'>VINEYARDS</span>
	<span style='text-align:center;'>GRAPES</span>
</div>
<div style='width:100%;text-align:center;'>
	<span style='display:block;float:left;width:50%;text-align:center;'>COASTAL</span>
	<span style='display:block;float:right;width:50%;text-align:center;'>COMMERCIAL</span>
</div>
</body>
</html>

This works for me in Konqueror, which has the same engine as Safari. -- kainaw ™ 23:33, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh, that looks shiny, Kainaw, but I managed to figure it out with help from the apple forums: Safari doesn't like curly braces in its inline CSS tags. Removing them fixed it. Kuronue | Talk 13:40, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Flash issue exporting to QuickTime

I made a nifty animation in Flash CS3 that I want to export to quicktime so I can import it into Final Cut Pro. I did this MANY times and it worked fine—it exported fine and imported fine. Now, a mere minutes later, when I export it just exports as a black screen. The SWF itself runs fine (it is very code-heavy), but now it won't export at all to quicktime. It's driving me a little mad since I didn't change any of the settings — I just changed some of the code around, and it still works fine in the SWF, but no longer displays (the code changes I made were not major, and I have tried even reverting them to its original state—no dice).

I've tried restarting Flash and everything else numerous times but it seems totally borked. The status log generated by the export shows nothing suspicious. Any thoughts? I'm totally baffled here. --24.147.86.187 19:34, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK—now it works again. I changed the export filename, now it suddenly works. WTF. --24.147.86.187 19:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

64-bit processors?

Is it true that I need a 64-bit processor to take advantage of computer memory beyond 4 GiB? It makes sense because 2^64 B = 4 GiB, but somehow 32-bit processors still manage to address several tebibytes of hard disk space. If I upgrade to a 64-bit processor, will my 32-bit Linux OS (Fedora 7) and all its programs still work, or will I need a 64-bit version? JIP | Talk 20:00, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Disks can be broken up into sectors which hold an arbitraty number of bytes. You need only address the sectors, not each individual byte. Still, problems with sector numbering caused a similar problem, not too long ago. Maybe logical block addressing will explain it?

As for 32-bit apps, in general, 64-bit processors are fully backwards-compatible with 32-bit processors. However, you need to use 64-bit code to take advantage of 64-bit features. That is, Fedora 7 will still work, but they still won't be able to reach over 2GB (4Gb?) of memory. --Mdwyer 20:37, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's complicated. 2^32 is 4G - so a 32 bit processor can only access 4Gbytes of RAM memory quickly and efficiently. Disk drives don't need to be accessed really quickly so you can access any amount of disk space with a 32 bit processor. There are a few systems out there that use memory bank switching techniques to get more than 4Gbytes of RAM into a 32 bit box - but it is still the case that an individual program can't reach more than 4Gbytes. In some Linux setups, you can get a lot more speed out of your 32 bit processor by using only 2Gbytes of RAM - the reason for which is deep, dark and arcane - and you don't want to know about it!

A 64 bit processor can access over 16,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of memory. Which is more than any computer the size of yours will EVER have because there are only about that many atoms in something the size of a RAM chip! So artificial limits like 4Gbyte are gone forever. However, I doubt many motherboards will be able to accomodate the 8 billion or so memory sticks it would take to fully make use of the 64 bits - so there are bound to be limits still.

As previously explained, you have to be running the CPU in full 64 bit mode to take advantage of all of this wonderousness. I'm doing that with SuSE 10.2 on my AMD64-based laptop and it's working very well. I have no idea where Fedora is on this right now. SteveBaker 20:50, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's always a lot of confusion when referring to a processor or something as "64-bit" or "32-bit". It usually refers to the size of integers the processor uses. Some processors use 64-bits internally, but have a 32-bit interface. Or vice-versa. But the amount of memory a processor can handle is determined by its address bus, not the size of integers it uses. On [7], quoted from [8], it says the address buses usually aren't 64-bit, and it doesn't look like it will ever need to be.

As far as the software question, running 32-bit apps on a 64-bit operating system is usually a tricky (you need 32-bit libraries), but can be done. However, it is usually ok to install the 32-bit operating system on with the 64-bit processor, but there are some issues with that as well (see the webpage linked before.) --Bennybp 21:29, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Let's not be hasty with the "that's all we'll ever get" notion:

2^{64}

atoms of silicon is just 0.8 milligrams, so we could have another 16 or so bits to add in even a very small form factor (nearly 4 more if we can use each electron on each atom!), although admittedly 8 of those are taken up by it being bits and not bytes. --Tardis 21:59, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You know what they say about 640k... --⁪froth^t 00:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I'm very interested to hear why linux has problems with 4GB of memory. I thought this was a limitation of motherboard clocking/timing? --⁪froth^t 00:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a "problem", it's just a matter of making effective use of the 4G virtual address space. If you have 1G of RAM, you can offer 3G of address space to each user process, and keep the 1G of RAM mapped simultaneously so a process can make a system call and the kernel can access whatever it needs without changing the mappings. This is called the "3G/1G split" - 3G for user mode, 1G for the kernel. If you have 2G or 3G of RAM there's the possibility of using a 2G/2G or 1G/3G split, although those options are not widely used. The other main option, called "highmem", allows the kernel to use more RAM than the size of its side of the "split", but since it can't have all that RAM mapped simultaneously, it must do more page table manipulation, causing TLB misses, which slows things down a bit. With highmem, you can use a full 4G of RAM (or even 64G with the PAE extension which has been around since the Pentium Pro). The fact that you can find some tasks that are performed more efficiently with less memory is not because of a "problem" or bug in the big-memory usage, it's just that a certain optimization (mapping all RAM simultaneously and keeping it mapped forever) is not possible when RAM size equals or exceeds the size of the virtual address space. So there's your "deep" answer. (It may also be wrong in a few places. I'm not a kernel programmer and they're the only ones who really understand this stuff.) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 06:35, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah - I think you have that right - but I'm not a (frequent) kernel programmer either! Basically there is a trade-off between the total amount of memory and the amount that one program can use at any one time and between speed of operation through kernel calls. It's really horrible - and that's why we all need to rush out and buy 64 bit processors immediately! I'd really like to use the brain cells that store this useless and annoying crap for something else! SteveBaker 00:20, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

CRW on Linux?

My mother suggested that I finally move from a middle-end digital camera (Canon PowerShot S3 IS) to a DSLR - she has a Canon EOS 10D, she suggested a Canon EOS 400D for me. But the principal issue is, unlike my 100% Windows-only parents, I only use Linux at home. My mother has no problem with converting the CRW files her camera takes in Photoshop to PSD or JPG, but I fear I will not be so lucky. CRW is a Canon proprietary format, and what I have learned, Canon hasn't even learned Linux exists. JIP | Talk 20:04, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem! You can do it in either ImageMajik or GIMP with the right plugins. The low level decoder for these images is a package called dcraw [9] - that page lists about 30 applications that use the library and can therefore read CRW. There is a GIMP plugin that uses UFraw [10] - which in turn uses dcraw - so with some dinking around, you should be good to load CRW into GIMP. This page is a reasonable guide to what you need: [11]. You might want to get your mom to email you some CRW images to try out first before you go out and spend a fortune on the camera. There is a detailed description of the format here if you really want to know what goes on under the hood. There is an article on working with raw camera images up on Linux.com too [12]. SteveBaker 20:41, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

dcraw and the accompanying GIMP plugin were easy enough to install. But I found that when I open a CRW file in the GIMP, all I get is a dialog box with only a few checkboxes for conversion options, and when I click OK, the plugin automatically converts the CRW image into GIMP RGB (which I can then later convert to JPG or PNG or whatever by hand). From what I've seen from my mother's work, Photoshop allows much greater control over the CRW conversion, with a live preview. I'll never get the hang of raw conversion if I can't see by my own eyes which parameter affects what. Also, now I get an error message on stderr from dcraw every time I open a non-CRW file in the GIMP (it still works though). JIP | Talk 17:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm - well, there's not much I can do about the usability issues - try some other software for doing the conversion? There seemed to be at least 30 of them listed on the dcraw web page[13]. I suppose you could ask whoever wrote the GIMP plugin whether they would consider providing a preview panel - be nice, these guys work for no money! As for the error message - what does it say? Emailing that to the plugin author would probably be useful to him/her too. SteveBaker 00:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Holding on to what I'm doing

Just inquisitive, is there a program out there that can, prettymuch let me fully shut down my computer and then let me go back to the webpages I was on and all the tabs, with the taskbar the way it was before shutdown? I live an overcrowded life, and I'm turning the computer on, turning it off, then having to open up all of what I was doing again. Tried google, but I got a bunch of junk about Applied JavaScript and XHTML. Know of any? I know that it wouldn't work at startup, but would could it be used by clicking a button? YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-16-2007 • 22:16:07

Does hibernating the computer help? I know hibernating is not the same as turning off but for most practical purposes, it could be the same. Firefox lets you quit the browser and open the same web pages next time you open Firefox. (Opera, too, has the feature. Safari and IE7 should also have similar a feature for you to enable.) --Kushal^t 22:22, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I understand where you're comming from, and I probably will do that, but I can't get back what I was doing, for say last Tuesday when I came out of hibernation could I? I guess I could hibernate though. YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-16-2007 • 22:39:32

Both firefox and windows explorer will open all open windows again if you leave them open when you turn the power button off.--Dacium 23:35, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hibernate will restore your computer to exactly the same state it was in when you turned it off (Firefox and any other apps still open and with the same documents/web pages loaded), whether you turned it off yesterday or last Tuesday. As Kushal said, you can also set Firefox to automatically remember what tabs you have open and restore them when you close and re-open it. You can enable this feature by going to Tools > Options... and selecting "Show my windows and tabs from last time" in the very top dropdown menu. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 23:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks then! YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-17-2007 • 00:33:45

BTW, OP, your signature is cool. --Kushal^t 19:56, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just unicode characters *rolls eyes* Everyone's little brother uses them to make crazy arabic style names in Counter-Strike --⁪froth^t 20:43, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 17

Clipboard

Where could I locate clipboard on my computer? That options shows up when I close a word document and have worked with pictures. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.121.107.157 (talk) 00:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well if they are in your copy menu open a fresh word doc and click 'control+v' (i.e. ctrl + V) to paste. Alternatively (http://www.pencildude.com/tips/clipbook.html) shows how to locate it on XP machines. ny156uk 00:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

windows vista sound problem

i just installed windows vista on my Sony desktop which came with XP. Now my sound card doesn't work. In fact, the computer fails to recognize it. I don't remember much about the old card, it was made by yahama, I believe. How can I get it to work again?

Thanks,Rob —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.56.231.40 (talk) 01:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Check Sony's website. Usually, big computer companies have technical support websites where you can plug in your computer's serial number, and it will show you all the latest drivers & updates available for your model. However, it may simply be a case that there is no current Vista-compatible driver for your sound card. -- Kesh 01:25, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ask Microsoft. They caused the problem, so they should be able to help you solve it too. If you're in the Netherlands, there's a independant Help desk for Windows Vista problem. Sorry, forgot the address. The easiest solution is not to install Vista in the first place until all the kinks are ironed out (not likely) or if you already installed it, go back to XP. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does the Sony website have any information on it? --Kushal^t 19:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"UNIQ", "QINU" and more in a MediaWiki section URL

One section heading in Wikipedia, which includes several <ref> tags before the closing ==, has the unusually cryptic URL

http:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave#Parental_leave_rights_in_different_coun tries_around_the_world_.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-00000012-QINU.072.07UNIQ699896 e027ff968b-nowiki-00000013-QINU.07_.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-00000014-QINU.073.0 7UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-00000015-QINU.07_.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-0000001 6-QINU.074.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-00000017-QINU.07_.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-no wiki-00000018-QINU.075.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-00000019-QINU.07_.07UNIQ699896e02 7ff968b-nowiki-0000001A-QINU.076.07UNIQ699896e027ff968b-nowiki-0000001B-QINU.07

Where does 699896e027ff968b come from? What do "UNIQ" and "QINU" indicate? Why is the word "nowiki" included? What other tags than ref, if any, generate this type of URL when placed within a section title, and could useful tricks potentially be based on this or related behaviour? Neon Merlin 05:57, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm - it's a piece of poor editing that seems to have confused the renderer that converts Wiki to HTML. They tried to add 'ref' tags to a section heading. What a mess! Anyway, I've just fixed it. I would strongly advise you to put NOTHING but plain text into a section heading. Nothing else is acceptable to the Manual of Style anyway. The new link to that section is Parental_leave#Parental_leave_rights_in_different_countries_around_the_world SteveBaker 23:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Someone put it back, I fixed it again. Also removing that massive link cause it causes the RD to scroll right --⁪ffroth 21:57, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

2M Upload

With all the hype over the 2 millionth picture on wikimedia commons, does anyone actually know what the upload was? 195.194.74.154 07:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Nope - it seems nobody knows. Someone noticed the 2M mark had been passed when the total was already 2,006,000 or so. The problem of determining which one was precisely the 2 millionth is tricky - the problem is that images are deleted at a fairly high rate - so a photo might very briefly become the 2 millionth - only to fall back to being number 1,999,999 later on. So unless you are actually watching when the first one crosses 2 million - you'll never know. Even here on Wikipedia - where people watch the article counter like hawks when a major milestone is crossed - there is always considerable debate as to which is "officially" The One True Winner. SteveBaker 23:46, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Factory Fit Modules in IT Products

I'd like to know what is the meaning of the term/phrase factory fit modules in any product of the IT industry. I'd also like to have some article on the approach that can be followed for the same. Kindly help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hny13180 (talk • contribs) 08:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use the car analogy. When you buy a new car, you can get cheap wheels and replace them later with nicer/prettier wheels if you want to save some initial cost. However, it's much, much better to get the air conditioning installed when it's built. You can save some money at first by buying a car without AC, but the aggravation of later adding all the parts to a car that's already completely assembled makes the total cost much greater than if you had specified this factory option in the first place. Integration can be just as much trouble for an IT product as it is for a car. Thus "factory fit" as opposed to something you can add yourself later. SandyJax 19:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firefox help needed

http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/6232/firefoxpp9.png

As you can see above, my history tab seems to have completely gone. How do I restore it to its former glory?

116.12.146.226 09:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I am sorry but I don't understand your question. Could you clarify the question? If you ask me, I usually just use the keyboard shortcut. --Kushal^t 19:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is that 226 wants his browsing history to show up in the history menu one website per menu entry (as it normally does). If you go to tools>options...>privacy, is the box next to "remember pages visited for the last _ days" ticked? If you press ctrl+H to show the history, is that emtpy as well? risk 20:15, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A history list is shown in that menu (between Home and Recently closed tabs) on my "slightly older" FireFox (IceWeasel) so I imagine this is a feature which has recently been removed? Select "Show in Sidebar" to show your history in the sidebar. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:36, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No - the feature is still there. It looks like that if you just cleared your history cache (Tools/Clear Private Data) - or if you told Firefox to not record history in the first place (Check out buttons on the Edit/Preferences "Privacy" tab). Since there are a bunch of tabs open in that screen shot - all of those would be in the history menu if history recording were enabled unless it had just been cleared since the last tab was opened. SteveBaker 00:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

vista

i recently installed vista home premium.i put a password to limit those who use my pc,anyway i 4got my password and i just formated and re installed vista.after losing most of my info i remembered what my password was.i was wondering is there another way to log in if u 4get ur ur password.and dont have a paswword reset diskette?anyways thats the last tyme am using "knees" as my pasword. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.24.111.82 (talk) 11:18, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not to my knowledge - plenty of ways to do it with XP. Why not just make a backup administrator account? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 12:23, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Offline NT Password & Registry Editor? --Spoon! 22:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This works on XP so maybe it'll work for Vista at the login screen hit Ctrl+Alt+Del a box appears enter administrator and the password you set for the default administrator account that's created by default assuming you remember that one of course or just make a backup disk which is easy i think you can use a CD for it but not sure.Xor 24 ^{talk to me} 01:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

hard disk errors

I recently assembled a new PC from components that I bought individually. After just less than a month the hard disk died a death and I received a warranty replacement.

Two days after installing the replacement hard disk the computer is showing the same symptoms again - odd scraping and rebounding noises from the HDD, Windows XP blue screen errors (some with stop code 0x00000024, some disappear too quickly to note), and occasionally programs unable to find a particular file.

Is this just bad luck or is there a possible cause for the hard disk failures? The disk is a 500 Gb Seagate ST3500630AS Barracuda 7200.10, SATA300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5 ms, NCQ (as was the first one).

I'm currently running the Seagate diagnostic scan on the drive, and one of the things it notes is "POH 26". What is "POH" (Wikipedia has articles at pOH and Poh but neither are relevant) and is a value of 26 good, bad or irrelevant? Thryduulf 12:16, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A bad run of disks from the manufacturer? It's not unheard-of, and if you're not bouncing your system around and you are providing proper cooling for your disk(s), there aren't too many other explanations.

Atlant 12:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Bad luck, most likely. When things scrape, you've got the platter getting wrecked, end of story. Is your case extremely hot? Do you move it around a lot? Are your screws tight enough so that the drive isn't rattling around? (spinning drive = mini-gyroscope). Otherwise, try another manufacturer/brand. BACK UP YOUR DATA! -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 12:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The case doesn't get moved very much at all, but it does get quite hot in there I think. The CPU seems to run at between about 35 and 54 C with the motherboard typically staying at around 41 C according to the monitoring tools. The monitoring utility notes the current disk temperature is 37 C and the worst is 40 C, but I don't know if this is good or bad?

The hard disk bay is a firm fit (its a quick release case that doesn't use screws) and so it will not be rattling around. I haven't had any opportunity to create any un-backed up data since last time yet, so that isn't an issue! Thryduulf 12:29, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the drives aren't getting enough power, or getting intermittent power, and the read/write heads keep crashing? If so, the PSU's the culprit. I think POH stands for power-on hours (Google "Seagate POH", first result). Temperatures look OK to me. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 12:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Would there be any other symptoms of insufficient power? Is there an easy way to test it?

http://sucs.org/~cmckenna/newpc is the spec of my PC, although I'm using a different case and monitor and it has a 3.5" floppy, an IDE DVD-RW and and IDE CD-RW on the system as well. Thryduulf 12:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it still using the 350 watt PSU? I'm not sure 350's enough for that spec. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 12:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it is using 350 watts. If it isn't enough, what would you recommend? Thryduulf 13:11, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I can only find information online for the processor; at 125W it doesn't look promising (assuming I have the right one). I'll take a rough guess at 450W at least. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 13:59, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, just one thing. It could just be a bad power connector. Try a different connector from the PSU to the drive before you get a new PSU. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 14:55, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

easily embeddable interpreter language.

I see python is like 12 megabytes, Perl like 15. Is there a popular modern scripting language (perl python php ruby etc) that's minimalist and like 700 KB for the whole interpreter, frequently embedded, etc. uTorrent leads me to believe ANYTHING can be done in like < 1 MB.

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.94 (talk) 16:03, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Forth? Not exactly a "scripting language", but pretty darned useful. It's certainly small as it fits into Open Firmware boot ROMs.

Atlant 16:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Uh, I specifically said "scripting language". FOR EXAMPLE, say uTorrent were willing to embed a scripting language (for whatever reason) that's already minimalist and modern and completely prepackaged for embedding. And it wanted to increase in size by, say, 1 MB or 2 MB or something. What would it embed? Surely a couple of megabytes is enough to write a parser! Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.94 (talk) 16:47, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The reason I suggested Forth even though it's not exactly a "scripting language" is because many folks (including me) don't really recognize any hard and fast distinction between "scripting languages" and (what?) "non-scripting languages". If my suggestion of Forth offended you, please feel free to ignore it.

Atlant 19:14, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not aware of anything, but you're right that you could fit a parser in a couple MB. Applesoft Basic fit in 12K of ROM with room left over for the Monitor. Woz's original integer basic was even smaller. Donald Hosek 17:08, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

-- List answer to this question : PLEASE EDIT IN-PLACE:

Forth
Some old BASIC scripting language
Applesoft Basic + an emulator for the hardware and software it ran on (heh)
lua
tcl
Scheme

You can write comments below here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.94 (talk) 17:34, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do the statements "python is 12 megabytes, perl is 15" refer to? The amount of disk space taken up by a minimal installation? The amount of memory used to run hello world? In either case I think those estimates are too big. But lua is smaller. And maybe tcl. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 17:32, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It refers to the download size for the environment. I don't see a smaller, embeddable Python or Perl download, e.g. for Windows. What's the smallest, complete, command-line Python or Perl interpreter implementation?

What I mean is, say a minimalist program (my example is uTorrent, but you could use Notepad or whatever) wanted to add a form input, and a button to send the contents of that form (text-area) to an embedded interpreter. It doesn't matter why. Just a minimalist place for the user to do run arbitrary script in a given language. Now, what scripting language could they embed that would only bloat the program by a couple of megabytes (if that) and is MODERN and popular, along the lines of php, python, ruby, perl, etc, etc.

As for why someone would want to do this, I don't know. I often copy from the console instead of typing all the variations into a text editor, so you could picture my question as being about a Notepad.exe that includes an additional line to enter Perl one-liners, even for systems that don't have Perl installed. IE it's embedded. So that instead of writing: "perl -e 'for(1..10){print "$_: ", 1.7 * $_, "\n"}'" (unfortunately I don't have perl installed here so I can't test this) to give you a quick list of factors of 1.7 (for whatever reason) you can just write the part inside the single quotes and click the evaluate button and cut and paste the answer - even on systems that don't have perl. Embedding perl this way would increase Notepad's size from kilobytes to 10+ megabytes -- is there another, minimal, popular scripting language this isn't true for? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.106 (talk) 17:45, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

To be clearer, I'm repeating the question below, rephrased. (Not exactly the same question) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.106 (talk) 17:49, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby - which has a minimalist (< 1 MB) implementation you can embed?

Are any of the above programs, or modern, popular competition to them, minimal enough to where you can embed the basic interpreter language in a very small (couply of megabyte) program?

If these aren't, please answer up above about interpreted languages which are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.106 (talk) 17:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about the ones you mentioned (Is Ruby easy to embed in things? I'd like to know myself.), but depending on your purpose I know some people seem to like Lua. I've seen apps with embedded Lua implementations that are under a meg. --APL 18:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might be interested in Hecl, an open-source Tcl-like language that can run on the J2ME platform, which has some very small implementations. --Sean 20:26, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know anything about actually embedding the interpreter code within the executable (remember stupid licensing issues if you plan on actually doing this), but scripting languages have command line interpreters that you can just include in your package.. php.exe for the Windows PHP implementation, /bin/perl on linux systems.. I'm sure something similar exists for python and ruby. Lua is used in a ton of newer video games for AI or UI scripting and the code is freely compilable into commercial executables (via the fantastic MIT license) --⁪froth^t 20:37, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On my Linux box, the 'libpython' file for Python 2.5 comes out at 1.1Mbytes (this isn't a perfect measure of the size it'll be in main memory - but it won't be far off) - it's going to pull in some other libraries - but those are things like pthreads, the math library...stuff your main program probably already has loaded. It'll consume more memory once it's running - depending (of course) on how big the Python program it's running is.

For comparison, the 'libgcj' file for GNU's Java is 2.1Mbytes - and it pulled in a bunch of other stuff too. PHP doesn't seem to come with an embeddable version - the executable is over 2Mbytes.

The winner - by this measure - would be Ruby. 'libruby' is a mere 0.84Mbytes.

SteveBaker 23:22, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Websites Unknowingly Bookmarked

Hello. When I opened a printing dialog box on Adobe Acrobat, I clicked on Printing Tips, leading me to Adobe's website. Why/How does this website bookmark itself to my Favourites without my prior knowledge? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 17:54, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the first part of your question matches the second part, but I'll try to answer both. Any program running ON your computer has the ability to start up a web browser at a specific page. That's how clicking on "Printing Tips" got you there. As for your Favorites, any program on your computer is able to drop a .URL file into a favorites folder. Sometimes, programs will do this when they are installed. --Mdwyer 19:19, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mostly you see this behavior from malware and shareware; Acrobat is merely bloatware. It's possible the Acrobat software is doing this to you but I'd be surprised --⁪froth^t 20:31, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

mobile phones

Who invented the mobile phone. Which country were they from and in what year?217.171.129.68 20:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We have a whole article on the history of mobile phones — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 22:13, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yahoo Mail out of beta?

Is [new] Yahoo Mail still in Beta? I don't see the Beta sign in my mails. Has Yahoo! made any comments on it? --Kushal^t 22:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

This is the Yahoo Mail web log entry: [14] Red 23:02, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Checking file size from the command line

There has to be a way to check a file's size from the command line in Linux or Mac systems. I tried the file command no luck. Thanks for helping everyone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 23:53, 17 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On Linux, you use ls. Typically you do

         ls -l filename

and it displays something like

         -rw-r--r--  1 myname mygroup   35872 Aug 26 17:54 filename

which indicates that the file contains 35,872 bytes of content. There is also

         ls -s filename

which might display

         20 filename

indicating that the file occupies 20 blocks of disk space (blocks are 1024 bytes each when I do it, but I'm not positive that this is true everywhere). Some types of data file may contain "holes" that show as all bits 0 but occupy no disk space, so the sizes obtained in the two ways aren't always related in the manner you would expect. Usually "ls -l" is the one you want. If you need to parse out the fields from ls output in a script, you can use a simple awk program:

        size=`ls -l filename | awk '{print $5}'`

Another way to get the number of bytes in a file is "wc -c", but this involves actually reading the whole file instead of just asking the operating system how big it is.

--Anon, 00:18 UTC, October 18, 2007.

Actually wc (at least the GNU version) is smart enough to take a shortcut if you just ask for the byte count, and get the file size the same way ls -l does, without reading the contents. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Careful! The size of a file is not the same as the length of a file! A sparse file can be gigantic, yet only take a couple bytes of space! --Mdwyer 01:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Now you're just nitpicking the definition of "size". ls -l and ls -s have both been mentioned, so both possible definitions have been covered. There's a very good argument for defining the "size" of a sparse file to be the wc -c output and not the number of blocks actually occupied: wc -c is equivalent to the st_size field in the stat structure. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 02:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The same commands work on Mac OS X or any other Unix system.

Atlant 12:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ls -hs displays sizes in human-readable form, for example "8.8MB" rather than "8724". (For completeness, there's also stat filename to display all information about a file). --h2g2bob (talk) 13:23, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"ls" does not work as you'd expect on Mac. Resource forks are far less common on Macintosh than they used to be, but ls doesn't show them as being part of a file's size. --Carnildo 17:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does "du" work? I'd expect it to, at least with the right options, but of course I can't test that, not having a Mac available here. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 18

PowerPoint resolution

What is the default pixel resolution of a PowerPoint slide? In one of the options (Preferences > General > Movie Options on my Mac) it seems to think it is 640x480 (VGA), though when I have it zoom to 100% and take a screenshot, it looks more like 720x540 (NTSC). Which is it? When it is ported into a digital projector through a VGA cable, is it possible that it would go as high as NTSC or would it be limited to VGA anyway? Any idea how this works? --24.147.86.187 00:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think that PP slides really have a resolution. They are effectively vector art, which is automatically scaled to whatever pixel size is needed. PP slides will take on the resolution of whatever output device they are sent to, be it a printer, monitor or projector. BUT if you include bitmap graphics in your slides, they DO have a specific resolution. PowerPoint will try to scale these automatically for you, but depending on the picture, it might not scale very well. --Mdwyer 01:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The place you run into trouble, of course, is that PowerPoint slides are vector art edited in a bitmapped WYSIWYG GUI environment, so the vector objects may not be all that well aligned when viewed at a resolution other than the one the original editor was using. That is, when viewed finely enough, PowerPoint objects almost strive to be misaligned unless you take great pains to deliberately align them.

Atlant 12:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Animated GIFs

I've always wondered how you make animated Gifs but never known how to. Could some please tell me?Xor24 ^{talk to me} 00:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You need specialized software. Photoshop can do this (badly). Animation Shop is by far the best. IrfanView might pull it off. --⁪ffroth 01:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Photoshop CS3 (the latest version) does it quite well, actually. They basically merged all of ImageReady's capabilities right into the main program. It's pretty kickin'. --24.147.86.187 02:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone tell which of these are free.

Neither of them are free, though free trials are available for both. Ale_Jrb^talk 11:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(Anonymous poster's suggestion that one should steal software removed by Atlant 16:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC))[reply]

Keep in mind, of course, that piracy is a crime. Ale_Jrb^talk 12:36, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't repeat propaganda as fact. In many jurisdictions today, and until 1997 in the US, copyright infringement other than for financial gain is a tort and not a crime. Even today in the US, infringement that isn't intimately connected with distribution would have a hard time being labelled a crime. On the same subject, it's not theft either, as that involves deprivation. --Tardis 19:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I apologise then, a tort in some countries, and a crime in others. That doesn't change the fact that under most jurisdictions in developed nations, copyright infringement is against the law. Ale_Jrb^talk 22:11, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The Gimp is free, and it can export animated gifs. APL 13:05, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

i'm perfectly aware that piracy is illegal and didn't intend to do any of the sort; i was just hoping for some free software to make animated GIF's or any oter type of animated file really as long as it's free. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Xor24 (talk • contribs) 01:15, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

GIFsicle is a simple and free command-line utility for creating and editing animated GIFs. If you just want a tool that does one job (animated GIFs) and does it well, and are not afraid of the command line, that's what I'd recommend. The page says "for UNIX", but there are download links for a Windows version right at the top. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

touchpad mouse

Ive noticed that i cant operate th touschpad mouse on my computer with things other than my fingers. Ive tried the eraser on my pencil and other stuff that I happen to have in my hands while using my computer. How does the computer distinguish between my fingers and other objects? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.53.151 (talk) 01:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From touchpad:

“

Touchpads operate by sensing the capacitance of a finger, or the capacitance between sensors. Capacitive sensors are laid out along the horizontal and vertical axes of the touchpad. The location of the finger is determined from the pattern of capacitance from these sensors. This is why they will not sense the tip of a pencil or other similar implement. Gloved fingers may be problematic (such as in a cleanroom environment) but can sometimes work. Moist, sweaty, or calloused fingers can be problematic for those touchpads that rely on measuring the capacitance between the sensors.

”

Also, phear my new 1990s signature >:D --⁪ffroth 01:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No ophence*, but I removed the bling bling. That was easily the worst computer-related invention ever. Note that even the article finds it so inappropriate it shows how to do it, but doesn't show the result by actually doing it. DirkvdM 05:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC) *Or should that be with a double 'ph'?[reply]

But will you track every one of my contributions to remove the tag? --⁪ffroth 22:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, ok, I'll leave it here to show others what I mean. :) Tracking it would of course be extremely easy in this case. But not even necessary because I can just replace them all in one go in an editor. DirkvdM 08:37, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

He shouldn't have to.--24.2.176.64 16:55, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the "under construction" and loading bar override to scroll WELCOME 2 MAH HOMEPAGE? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 02:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You mean the status bar. And you forgot the javascript alert saying "Welcome!" --⁪ffroth 22:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

And looped MIDIs as well. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 12:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

population growth of india

what is growth of population of india from the year 1991-2007and also give bar graph for this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ankur.rukna (talk • contribs) 04:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One of the things pupils should learn is how to rephrase a homework question so that it no longer looks like one. Simply adding a question mark doesn't quite do it. Another thing they should learn is where to ask the question. Or where to look it up. DirkvdM 05:47, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why use a bar graph? Those things are overused and pointless for statistics. The Userboxer^Complain/_ubx 14:39, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Software

How to convert a file from .pdf file to .dwg (drawing file AUTOCAD) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Asarat chandra (talk • contribs) 09:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure you can - as far as I know, a PDF file stores images as rasters rather than vectors (which AutoCAD uses). You may be able to convert the PDF to an image and then import it into AutoCAD as a background image/texture but you wouldn't be able to do much with it. GaryReggae 12:12, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

respectfully disagree. many pdf's contain lots of vector graphics. just zoom in, and if it doesn't become pixelated, it's not raster (bitmap). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.234.80.59 (talk) 12:24, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the respectful disagreement. PDFs can contain bitmaps, but they are usually just PostScript, which is essentially a vector format. You can convert the PDF into PostScript. Can AutoCAD then import EPS or PS documents? --Mdwyer 16:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Firmware for K750i

To upgrade firmware on my K750i mobile to an W800i level, what do I do? The Updater would like to talk to you! 10:14, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have a look at the phone manufacturer's website (I suspect K7510i is Sony Ericcson) and you will probably find a 'Support' or 'Downloads' section where you can download the firmware. This will probably have some instructions on how to do it but I suspect you would need to connect your phone to your computer using the USB cable that (hopefully!) came with the phone. You may also need to install the driver CD-ROM that came with the phone although if you don't have that you can probably download these drivers from the Sony Ericsson website too. GaryReggae 12:16, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thx very much The Updater would like to talk to you! 00:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Excel — decimal alignment

Is there a way in Microsoft Excel to align a column by decimal point when the figures have varying significant figures? (For example, align 34.2106, 123.5, 23,104.25, 2,114 and 106.227 on the decimal points.) Because of the differing significant digits, adding leading or trailing zeros, then right-aligning the column would be inaccurate and isn't appropriate. Thank you. — Michael J 11:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sure there is. Highlight all the cells that you're going to have values in, right click, and choose 'Format Cells'. Under 'Number', go down to 'Custom' and type in '????.???????' where the number of question marks on each side of the decimal point is the same as the highest number of digits you'll have. If, for example, the number with the most digits is '1234.56789123', you'd put '????.????????'. Ale_Jrb^talk 11:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows XP instalation

Hi,

I'm looking to build a desktop PC from scratch using the ASUS M2N32 SLI Deluxe Motherboard, and a SATA HDD (a WD RaptorX). My Question is, is it necessary to provide a RAID driver on a floppy disk during the install of Windows XP sp2 even if you aren't using RAID? I've read that you need to do it with all SATA HDDs and would just like to confirm. Also, does anybody have any reccomendations for an ATX tower case? I'm still undecided on which one to use.

Cheers, Mike 132.244.246.25 12:02, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1. No, you don't need to install RAID drivers

2. Antec Nine Hundred is an awesome case. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 22:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Portable Internet Exploder

I'd like to be able to take the changes I make to Internet explorer (preferences, plugins, etc) with me on different computers. I've tried copying the IE folder from Program Files onto a USB drive but when I start the program from the USB on a different pc it actually starts the host computers version of Internet Explorer. As the IE folder is only about 1MB, I'm thinking thats not all the files needed. I've done some looking as it seems that a Chinese man, who wanted to customize his Internet Explorer browser, made a program called MyIE2. However, this apears to use the host computers IE but modify it only. How about a portable Internet Explorer that works inderpendent from the coputers IE (rendering engine and all) and prehaps might work on Linux on wine or something. xxx Hyper Girl 12:18, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea if this is possible in IE, but I suspect not. The best answer I can give you is to use Firefox (portable) which can do exactly that. Ale_Jrb^talk 12:26, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How to do a network update on a psp.

How do i do a network update on a psp to upgrade the firmware through it, or a umd? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.34.23.246 (talk) 12:35, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See this page. Ale_Jrb^talk 12:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

List of most popular software applications

Hi everone, I'm currently trying to find a list of the worldwide most used software applications. I looked at Application software but it seems it not going that deep. Anything would help: most used software in medical welfare, CRM-Software, groupware etc. A link to any actual research on this topic would be highly appreciated! thx in advance --MilesTeg 12:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Static noise

Is there any way to reduce or eliminate the staticy noise that occurs when the volume is turned up? I'm referring to when there is no audio playing, but white noise is present. This problem is very irritating for when I'm wearing my headphones and the DVD I'm playing is quiet, forcing me to turn up my volume, which increases the static noise I hear when not much is going on onscreen.--SeizureDog 12:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Speaker/headphone static is nearly always caused by your sound input. To get rid of it, go to 'Start' > 'Run' and enter 'sndvol32' to get the sound console up, then mute the 'Input Monitor' if it is there, or the respective mic input. This should remove the static, but you will be unable to use a microphone until you switch it back on. Ale_Jrb^talk 13:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much for your prompt reply. That made an amazing difference. Such a simple solution, I should have asked about it earlier. Now I can watch Hard Candy without irritation. :D Again, thank you.--SeizureDog 13:07, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No problem at all. Have fun! Ale_Jrb^talk 13:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible to purchase extremely outdated OSs?

I've got an old laptop I'm using to run various IRC bots (so it can be dedicated), but it was designed for windows 98 and is currently crawling along, struggling to run XP pro. I wish to downgrade it back to 98, but it was upgraded so long ago nobody has the original disks. Is it even possible to still buy windows 98 anywhere? Someone passed me a torrent but it was broken, and in any event that's piracy which is a VBT. Kuronue | Talk 15:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A quick search on eBay for Windows 98 in the Computers & Networking > Software > Operating Systems category shows quite a few new copies of 98 SE for sale. They look to be going for $40-$60 mostly... I'd imagine there's a fairly thriving market for it for just this sort of thing, as the most stable version that's going to run on significantly older hardware. Another place to check would be flea markets... most that I've been to that have permanent vendors have at least one booth specializing in older computer equipment. Pinball22 15:56, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try running them under wine in Linux, save some hassle tracking down overpriced old copies. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I expect you can run most IRC bots natively under linux. I suggest fluxbuntu, should be very easy to install (wireless might be a little difficult, but otherwise you should be fine) and it'll run lighter than windows 98.risk 11:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

One place where Linux really shines is in resurrecting ancient machines like this...and I'd be surprised if there weren't perfectly good IRC bots under Linux. You ought to at least give it a shot. SteveBaker 19:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still working on my perlbot, the bot I have running now runs under mIRC's native scripting language. But that's a good point - if I finish my perlbot, I could run it under linux, AND have a practice machine on which I could learn how the darn OS works. Kuronue who isn't logged in ATM 75.177.0.18 20:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

config.sys

how to open & see what is there in config.sys ?

122.164.62.176 15:55, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's a text file; just open it with any text editor. (For example, run Notepad and then drag-and-drop config.sys into it.) There's also a program called "sysedit" on at least some versions of Windows that'll open it. But I doubt you'll find anything interesting, since config.sys is a DOS-era relic that isn't normally used by XP or Vista. -- BenRG 17:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

C Header files

Is there any way by which we can view the contents of the functions refered to by the standard header files in C(or C++)? Also can we create our own header files? --Piyushbehera25 15:58, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On most implementations the header files are ordinary text files stored in a directory somewhere, probably called "include" (e.g. /usr/include). The definitions of the functions are less likely to be installed on your system, but usually they're available somewhere. The source code to GNU libc is freely available, and the source code to Microsoft's C library comes with the compiler (I'm not sure it comes with Express). Certainly you can write your own header files. Read a C tutorial to learn how. -- BenRG 17:25, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for ur help but can u be more specific about creating our own header files...I have referred to many books but I am not able to find any way. Can you atleast suggest a good book?? Thanks again..Piyush —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.125.184 (talk) 08:02, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Read Header file to find out what a header file is, and how it works. I get a strong feeling that your understanding of C programming is not complete enough for a meaningful discussion here. Could you give us some background on the programming environment that you use (gcc, eclipse, visualstudio), what you're trying to program and for whom, and what your previous experience with programming is? O Reilly's Practical C Programming is a pretty good book on C. risk 12:06, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the header file link...but my exact question is How to view the "source code, that is automatically included in another source file by the compiler". I am a student and do programming for educational purpose I use Visual and Borland C++. --Piyushbehera25 03:21, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My Laptop

Hiya, when typeing on my laptop, the letters do not correspond to the key board, for instance, if I type a o it will come out as 5 or if I type m it will come up as g on screen. how can I fix this, is it a virus? or it there any other possiblility. Further more, after trying to deal with this, i became rather frustrated and punched my keyboard...yeah, i know...So, how does one reattach keys that have come off as my K now does not work at all which can be a problem when trying to type co.uk Thanks guys, and girls 193.115.175.247 16:00, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you're using Windows XP, which your other post makes me think you are, go to the Control Panel, choose Regional and Language Options, then the Language tab, then click Details and see what keyboard layout it thinks you're using. Pinball22 16:21, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As for the broken keys, try just pushing them back into position. They should click in if they can be reattached. If it doesn't click in, and really doesn't work anymore, then you'll have to pursue buying a new keyboard for it, the price of which (and difficulty in installing) can vary depending on the model of the laptop. And yeah, punching your thousand dollar machine just because it isn't working the way you expect it to is pretty stupid. --24.147.86.187 20:03, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd bet that your FIRST problem was that you'd pushed NumLock. On a laptop that usually maps the "number pad" that a fullsized keyboard would have onto the keys over on the right of the keyboard. If you push it accidentally, it can be really confusing. But once you started physically attacking your machine, you wrecked it. The symptoms you describe are typical of a key being stuck down somewhere - you might try gently wiggling all of them one at a time and see if one pops up. If the K isn't utterly broken, you should just be able to push it back into place firmly...but I'm betting you already tried that. It may be the K that's stuck down...I have little sympathy for people who hit machines - it's dumb and it almost never helps. (Although, when I get a new keyboard, I do very gently prise off the NumLock, ScrollLock and CapsLock keycaps - then jump up and down on them and toss them with great violence into the trash.) SteveBaker 20:15, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Numlock is reasonably useless on a fullsized keyboard, but it's out of the way where you aren't likely to hit it by accident, and some old games require it to be in one state or the other to work properly. Scroll lock occasionally performs a useful function, like pausing the display in a Linux console display, and the rest of the time does absolutely nothing, so there's no reason not to leave it alone. Capslock is an abomination, but you can make the key location useful by remapping it as a control key or a second left shift key -- and in either case, leaving the key cap on lets you re-label the key with the new function. --Carnildo 20:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Caps Lock does have a function! Why it's everyones favourite push-to-talk button. We all need a useless, semi-central key for that. Lanfear's Bane 08:22, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hacker

I used to use a program called hacker, it was used to cheat at games. I used it primarily on Warcraft I and II and Daggerfall, but it could be used on most games that save...Lets say you are playing Warcraft and you have 200 gold. you save your game as ZYX and exit, open up hacker and ask it to find 200 in save game file XYZ then ask it to change this to 99999999999999. you then enter Warcraft again and open you save game and VOILA! you gold is now 9999999999999. It was really helpful, and since I am playing alot of old games again recently, I would like to find it again. does any one know of this file, and where to find it now days.

On a seperate note, could a program like this be used for Illegal purposes, eg edit my bank account. Obviously I would not do this but am curious, as it was SOOO easy to hack games.

Thanks193.115.175.247 16:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Second question...Technically yes. Of course there is encryption/firewall/security measures/logging etc. going on in bank's websites so it would be infinitely harder than hacking an old-game's save-file and updating the record that holds the gold value. In principle, however, it would probably work on the same basis, both will have a record specific to that thing (gold-value or bank-balance) that could be altered if one could find a way through the security measures. They may do one (all, some or none) of the following...track changes made, have multi-versions of the figure that require simultaneous updates or an 'alarm' is raised, encrypt data at great levels of encryption (128bit? I forget), protection to prevent individuals getting to the point where they could start decrypting the info etc. etc. etc. ny156uk 16:39, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Correct... but only if you actually were able to run a memory editor with root priviliges to be able to access another program's memory. In this case you might as well just use existing tools at the bank's disposal to change the value, since presumably you'd have access. But it won't happen- obviously these things are guarded.. mostly with guns, but also I would assume world-class computer security. Also I doubt it's anywhere near that simple- I'm sure there's no one shell access you could get to be able to change a bank balance- the value is probably shuffled around through a dozen servers and encrypted and mirrored at other banks.. not to mention logging. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a physical printer somewhere pouring out records just to be sure that a hacker can't delete logs to cover his tracks. This is the theft of money, the worst crime imaginable in America, they're going to guard it very well. Basically, using a memory editor is probably the most stupidest method possible for attempting to change a bank balance, and even the smartest methods would be essentially impossible to pull off --⁪ffroth 22:57, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What you are probably looking for is a type of Hex editor. Note that this sort of thing would only work if the data is stored in the clear, i.e. not encrypted or in a format that is not transparently obvious. --24.147.86.187 19:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows

Sorry to inundate yopu with questions but...If I loose my windows cd and licence ect, is it legal for me to use my friends disk to reinstall windows. I have bought a copy legally, but it has now gone walkabout. do I NEED to buy a new copy or can I download XP from some where, or just use a friends. thankx 193.115.175.247 16:10, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can speak with Microsoft who will issue you a new license key if you can prove you own a copy. What disk you install from isn't important, but the 'key' you use is. From a morality point of view i'd say that what you're doing is perfectly moral (though it could be argued otherwise), but from Microsoft's point of view you need a valid license key and unless you have one of those they'll consider the product invalid. ny156uk 16:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, you can't use "Some guy on Wikipedia said..." as an excuse if you end up in court. -- kainaw ™ 19:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have the licence code - Microsoft will sell you a replacement disk for $35. I believe that if you have the license code, you can use your friend's disk to install the software using your license code...I don't know whether that's legal or not - but I very much doubt anyone will ever know or care. HOWEVER, if you don't have the license code - maybe you can prove that you owned a legitimate copy - but I very much doubt it. The odds are very good that you're screwed...no matter what. Anything you beg, borrow, steal or download will require a license code and if you use the same one that someone else is using - you're in deep trouble and there is every chance that some Microsoft widget will figure this out, alert Micro$oft HQ and shut down your machine. Don't do that! Losing your license key is exactly the same as losing a $100 bill or a $100 wristwatch - you carelessly lost something valuable - and you have to suffer the cost of replacing it. When I have a license key like that, I photocopy it and tape it to the inside of my computer case! This has saved me more times than I can remember! (Although I now run Linux and license codes are a mere memory these days.) SteveBaker 19:52, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wanted: a data structure

I'm looking for a data structure that's sort of a queue with hash-table-like properties. I need to be able to efficiently add items to the end of the queue, remove items from the front of the queue, and determine if an item is in the queue. It also needs to be suitable for implementation on a disk, so extensive pointer chasing is a Very Bad Thing. --Carnildo 17:42, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "implementation on a disk"? This is a very difficult question for me. A queue can do insertion and removal in O(1) time but finding an item will take O(n) time. A binary tree should be able to do all of them in O(log n) time. This is of course assuming a well-balanced tree, if it degenerates then it will take O(n) time. A red-black tree might be of more help but unfortunately the only thing I can remember about them is that they are more complex than binary trees and this is somehow supposed to make them more efficient. JIP | Talk 18:01, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By "implementation on a disk", I mean that there's too much data to fit in the available memory, and the program will only read in pieces as needed. I know a binary tree can do the insert, lookup, and remove operations in the specified time, but I don't believe it does so in a way that maintains ordering -- and binary trees on disk are generally very inefficient, requiring many seek operations to find a given piece of data. --Carnildo 18:13, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You can maintain ordering in a binary tree by extending it to also include pointers to the next and previous items. Upon insertion and removal, just handle them like you would do in a normal queue. I can't help you with the inefficieny on disk though. JIP | Talk 18:32, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think you'd be best off with a combination of datastructures here. You can use a hashset for the lookups (which allows O(1)-ish addition, lookup and removal). Then you can use a linked list for traversal. This gives you O(1) popping and pushing, and removal of the start and end nodes. The only problem is if you want to remove something from the middle of the list (by identity or by index). You can do this in O(1) as well, but I don't want to complicate things for now. If you are working with harddisk sized structures, you may want to switch to a tree to save space, which would give you O(logn) for lookups, addition and removal (although you can still get O(1) for the start and end nodes). I think that all data structures can be translated from memory to the hard disk, and I'm sure that at least the hashset, linked list and various trees are available in libraries for your language of choice. risk 19:28, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

All data structures can be translated from memory to disk. Very few data structures can be translated efficiently from memory to disk. The linked list you suggested is one that translates extremely badly: the 100,000 pointer lookups needed to traverse a medium-sized list might take a couple milliseconds in memory, but on disk, could easily take fifteen minutes. As a rule of thumb, the closer something is to having the memory layout of an array, the better it performs on disk. --Carnildo 19:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see what you mean. Of course this only becomes a factor when you have so many objects that you need to use the disk, rather than having objects that are so large, that the disk needs to be used (in the latter case, you can store the objects on disk and keep the index in memory). I expect you know that already, but just in case. Anyway, in that case, you can replace the linked list by a vector. If you implement it based on a circular array, you can do pushing and popping in O(1), and you can link it to the hashset/tree to do lookups in about O(1). risk 20:41, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also, of course the linked list would be bad for lookups (that's true in memory as well). That's why you use the hashtable for lookups. The only function of the linked list is that when you remove the head of the list, you know in O(1) what the next head of the list is (no matter how often you pop). If you store the nodes of the linked list in the hashset (by the hash of the object they contain), then you can even do removal and insertion based on equality in O(1). The only thing this doesn't allow is lookups by index. risk 20:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I just realized I misread your post. You want objects stored in order in memory (ie. on disk), so you can read them sequentially instead of random access, which would make a big difference in a hard disk, you're right. That means the linked list is out (although you didn't mention you needed efficient iteration as well). Anyway, see my earlier post about the vector). risk 20:53, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Any binary search tree maintains ordering by definition. As for larger-than-core data sets, it sounds like you want a B-tree (or one of its variants). Am I right? --Tardis 19:30, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

A binary search tree maintains items in order by key, but does not maintain insertion order. For my application, insertion order is critical. Ordering by key is simply helpful in that it makes seeing if an item is already in the queue faster. Using insertion order as the key would maintain insertion order, but then finding an item requires a full traversal of the tree -- exactly the situation I'm trying to avoid. --Carnildo 19:51, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think I'd just use a hash table - and make a separate queue of pointers into the hash table. That requires that you do two disk fetches to pull an item off the queue and adds some grief to adding items to the queue too - but compared to the amount of nonsense involved in maintaining a hash table on disk, it's not really too terrible. If that extra access is terrible - then just cache the front end of the queue in RAM. Even if you are desperately short of memory, you can keep the next (say) thousand pointers in the queue in RAM - so now you have just the cost of accessing the hash table and (once in every thousand accesses) grabbing another block of entries off the front of the queue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveBaker (talk • contribs) 19:40, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I think this would work, but you'd have to be fairly careful when programming it to make sure that both the queue and the hashtable is synched-up and contains the same elements. As I understand it there are three operations that you want to do: popping, pushing and lookup. This is basically what you would need to do, for each operation:

Pushing
- Push down item on queue
- Add item to hashtable
Popping
- Pop the item from queue
- Remove item from hashtable
Lookup
- Looking up item from hashtable

These are all O(1), IIRC (amortized for the hashtables). Because you are going to do all that removing from the hashtable, you probably want to use chaining instead of open addressing, although that might not be suitable if it's going to be stored on a disk that doesn't do dynamic allocation and random access of memory all that well. --Oskar 20:59, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Carnildo, I strongly suggest you take a look at Berkeley DB. It gives you an on-disk hash storage, with the problem of what to keep in memory handled by the system. You should be able to do the queue behaviour as a secondary database using the "queue" access method (what other database systems would call an "index"). Don't be put off by the "database"; it's a long way from MySQL, but rather a low-level hash based storage engine, where you do more of the heavy lifting than you'd do in SQL but rather less than you would if you were manually hauling/memmapping data in and out of core yourself. Sadly (and perhaps unsurprisingly) the Wikipedia article spends three times longer waffling on about details of its licence than actually telling you anything worthwhile, so take a look at Oracle's "getting started" guide here. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:09, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Looks good. I'd been ignoring it (and MySQL, and GDBM) because databases generally don't do "queue" very efficiently. --Carnildo 22:29, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

BDB really shouldn't be called a "database" at all (and anyone hoping to simply migrate from a R-DBMS is in for a mind expanding paradigm shift), but rather a "storage engine". It's pretty darn fast in general ('though I've not done much with queues to affirm they're as swifty). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:37, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

...and it has transactions, so the problem of keeping the two stores in sync is pretty trivial. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:19, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps Hadoop has the data structures/algorithms you're looking for. They talk about handling petabytes in a distributed environment, so I'm guessing they've dealt with the memory/harddisk gap thoroughly. It was originally constructed for a search engine index, which usually means a b-tree basis, I think. risk 23:31, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Remapping MS Office Keyboard Shortcuts in Mac

I'd like to move to Mac as my primary operating system but the single thing holding me back is the difference in keyboard shortcuts for MS-Office apps versus Windows. For instance, I've been using Excel for many years on a Windows machine and use shortcuts like F2 (to toggle into the cell) and F4 (to absolute value references) and CTRL+PG UP/DOWN to navigate between worksheets. There are tons more.

I've looked long and hard and no one seems to have a great solution short of re-training myself. While feasible, most workplaces where I use Excel have Windows machines. I've also tried remapping the shortcuts within the program itself but several key ones can't be changed. I've also considered having bootcamp and toggling between two operating systems but that can be a pain to reboot. Another potential solution could be to run a virtual operating system (e.g., VM Ware software) to have a Windows window running Excel within the Mac environment but I imagine this isn't ideal.

Is there an easier solution I'm not thinking about here? Browser411 21:48, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if you have a pretty fast machine (i.e. 2GhZ MacBook), virtual machines (i.e. Parallels) work pretty well though it's a little silly to get a Mac if you are planning to do all your work in Windows. Unfortunately the Mac versions of Office are in many ways pretty different than the Windows versions (at the moment—maybe the new versions coming out in not too long will change that); hot-keys are probably the least of the differences. I know this sounds a whole lot like the "re-training" line, but I bet you'd be surprised at how quickly your hands learn the new keys once you start using them on a regular basis. --24.147.86.187 23:33, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Parallels sounds promising--would it be noticably slower than running under the native OS? I sometimes work w/lot of spreadsheet calculations. I probably do about 20-30% of my work in MS Office apps... To clarify why I want to move, I really like the hardware cohesiveness, UI, security of Mac OS as well its proprietary programs (e.g., Final Cut). Also, since we don't use Macs at work, it would require constant switching rather than re-training. In my searching, this seems to be a stumbling block for a small but vociferous bunch of folks fed up with Windows otherwise. Browser411 01:24, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Don't do it!! I'm just kidding, deciding what operating system you like best is a very personal decision that you make on your own. I work in a Mac environment but go home to an XP/ubuntu network. I do get a little confused with keyboard shortcuts, but you pick it up pretty quickly. What I absolutely can't get past is that they still put out laptops with a single mouse button. Look into a Linux/OpenOffice setup as an alternative to MacOS (its what all the cool kids are doing). Man It's So Loud In Here 17:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Biologically powered computer

I hooked my computer up to a cactus to try to use the ichthyothermal energy produced inside. It very briefly turned on and then froze. I think it was a power surge, but I don't know anything about electronics. Help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.118.87 (talk) 23:38, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't ichthyothermal energy come from fish? -- JSBillings 23:54, 18 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, well how exactly did you hook it up? Did you just put the plug right into the cactus? --⁪ffroth 00:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

B.S. on all fronts. --24.147.86.187 02:01, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Probably, the OP is thinking of a Galvanic cell - something like a Lemon battery. There is no way that there is enough energy in a cactus to power a computer. There is no possibility that it even briefly turned on. I get ZERO hits for ichthyothermal on Google. I too call "Bullshit". SteveBaker 10:52, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No, not from a cactus, but any internal batteries or capacitors may have given a brief jolt. I call shenanigans. (I have no problem with calling bullshit, I just love the word shenanigan). Do however look at Cactus#Uses, shame to waste a perfectly good cactus. Lanfear's Bane | t 12:21, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Careful - 'tis but a small step from there to malarky - and there, I'm afraid, we have to draw the line. SteveBaker 19:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 19

MSN spaces question

Dear Wikipedians:

I was browsing through the MSN spaces of other people when I realized that I was logged into MSN as myself for the entire time. So I had to ask this question which nearly freaked me out:

Is there anyway for the owner of those MSN spaces I had browsed to know that I have been browsing their spaces, in other words, do MSN spaces keep logs of the email addresses of people who visited those spaces?

Regards,

129.97.252.233 02:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

They might, but if visitor data is collected, it's probably for use by the creator of the site, rather than the owners of the individual spaces. If you're uncomfortable, you might want to take a belated look at the site's privacy policy. - Mgm|^(talk) 08:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

- Thanks Mgm. I read their privacy policy, and it didn't say clearly if owners of individual spaces ever gets to see who visited their spaces. But what you said about creator of the site is certainly true, and I think that goes for almost every website in addition to MSN Spaces. At the very least the IP addresses are logged, like what's done on Wikipedia here. 129.97.252.233 13:42, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]
You could simply register a space and see if you have the option. Unless you choose to reveal your identity to the owner, I doubt anyone but MSN employees can see that info. It would be a massive violation of privacy otherwise. To compare: at Lulu.com people can't see who visited their store either. - Mgm|^(talk) 10:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Tagline diff

Hi. Do you know what caused this weird diff to happen? I was happy to find it because I thought it was something rare, but an editor suggested that "Eloquence reverted everyone's edits all the way back to 4 October, and the 'MediaWiki' software version that Wikipedia used at the time had a small bug and displayed the timestamp of the revision the page was reverted to." If that's the case, then I think there must be more diffs like those, and maybe this is a known bug. Do the contributors here have more information? A.Z. 03:00, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Some sort of database hiccup? For a while there was a bug on pages with long page histories where people would be fed revisions that may have been months or even years old. This probably isn't related to that, but it is a pretty good example of what a minor glitch in the database can cause.--VectorPotential^Talk 12:45, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's an edit to the MediaWiki namespace. This is used by the MediaWiki software to edit the site messages (for example, to change it into another language). Special:Allmessages lists them all. --h2g2bob (talk) 16:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I believe the question was referring to the out of sequence edit from 2004 that comes after the revision from 2006. --VectorPotential^Talk 18:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I see now, the timestamps are wrong. The glitch here is that the very first version of the page is revision number 101,116,266 while the second version of the page is revision number 8,731,840. Revisions should only get bigger with time, so I'm guessing someone's added the edit with the wrong date or wrong revision number. That shouldn't be possible, but Eloquence is (or perhaps used to be?) a developer (Erik Moeller on the list); so would have database access. --h2g2bob (talk) 02:23, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Running Windows Vista and XP on the same machine

I recently bought a Dell Latitude D620 laptop for school, which came with Windows Vista. However, there are programs that I run which would work better in Windows XP. I have tried the compatibility mode but that does not help matters.

What I am wondering is if I can divide up my hard drive and install WinXP on a separate partition, so that it does not interfere with Vista. I am told that this can be done with the XP CD, so that I do not have any conflicts with the process. I went to the Dell support site and found that I can get drivers for both XP and Vista for the hardware in my computer. Is this something that is possible, and would it work?

Thanks very much for your assistance, --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 16:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you did it would be a major toll on the computer's resources. 130.126.67.144 16:41, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No it wouldn't. It would only take up some extra disk space; big deal. It may be a while before Vista is ready for real-world usage, so installing XP is a good idea. I'd go ahead and try it. Friday (talk) 16:48, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I Google searched your question (exactly as you typed it), and the first few links seem very relevant. I think, specifically that you want to go to this page: [15]. I applaud your efforts since I have heard absolutely nothing about Vista that makes me want to switch. Man It's So Loud In Here 16:56, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you can easily do that, it's called dual-booting. It's not just windows, you can dual boot other OSs (I dual boot to distros of linux, for example.) I'm not sure exactly how you would go about doing it, but the XP and Vista CDs would be a good place to start. --Dave the Rave (DTR)talk 17:13, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could Partition your hard-drive and use a virtural machine to do that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.11.202.166 (talk) 18:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't a virtual machine mean that I am going to use more memory and resources? I think that dual-booting sounds like the best option, and as long as I can get XP drivers for all my hardware it sounds like the way to go., but I am open to more comments and suggestions. --Willy No1lakersfan (Talk - Contribs) 19:31, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dual-booting is perfect for this sort of thing. If you partition your drive you could either install a custom bootloader (like GRUB), but the simplest way is probably just to configure your boot.ini file on your main windows installation. Search around the net for some guides, this is really something that is not all that hard to do, and pretty fun when it works. --Oskar 09:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Video Game Music

Does anyone know about sites that host video game soundtracks? All I can find are MIDIs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr. Poret (talk • contribs) 16:38, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Videogame soundtracks are copyrighted works. Have you tried searching iTunes or Amazon? --24.249.108.133 17:16, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kingdom Hearts Insider and Galbadia Hotel are great VG music sites. I'll trust you to use your own conscience with them :) -- -- DatRoot 18:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most older games used MIDI or some other note-by-note format ("Trackers") because they didn't have the CPU power to play MP3's and they didn't have the memory space to store large enough chunks of audio in an uncompressed format. Hence, authentic (older) video game sound tracks are often to be found in those formats. (By "older" - I'm thinking of Nintendo64-ish or earlier). There are other advantages to those formats for games - it's a lot easier to speed them up and slow them down without making them go out of tune for example - you can also get more variation by using the same note info by using different instrument sounds, tempos and mixes. SteveBaker 19:26, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's quite probably illegal but if you check emuparadise.org, it has a section devoted to video game soundtracks. Alternatively, if wanting the music off a game on either XBOX, PS2 or their newer counterparts you could record the music with the use of an optical cable and a MiniDisc or some other sort of digital recording. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mix Lord (talk • contribs) 04:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Over the Air HD antenna confusion

I went to go buy an indoor antenna for my HD TV (I'm living in the USA, btw). And I was very confused by the array of models to choose from. They all seem to emphasize old analog VHF and UHF reception, with barely a word about HDTV (except for a tiny logo in the corner). I thought all HDTV off air signals were UHF. Do I still need those goofy rabbit ears and giant hoop for HD reception? I was looking for a model that is sleek and compact and won't be an eyesore. --24.249.108.133 17:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You might find this site useful. --LarryMac | Talk 17:14, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Digital TV is broadcast in the same VHF and UHF ranges as analog TV. According to this FAQ, most digital channels happen to be UHF, but it's not required. antennaweb.org lets you enter your address and see an list of what over-the-air channels (analog and digital) are available in your area. It will tell you which are VHF and UHF. Help Choosing the Correct HDTV Antenna gives some tips for using this list to choose an antenna. --Bavi H 16:31, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

ActiveX Office Online Clipart

Ok, when I access online clipart for my school (I am a network technician) it requires me to install a .dll file into windows using activex. As soon as i install it it works. However, after i log off and log back in as another login name it requires me to do the same thing over again. And if i login as myself again i cannot copy the clipart anymore and it dosent come up with activeX anymore. I cannot go and login to each name our network has (over 30,000) and manually install the activeX and i cannot leave the computer on all the time. Is there anyone here who could tell me how to solve such a problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.11.202.166 (talk) 18:53, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How to make Windows XP Volume Control show recording & playback devices at the same time

In Windows XP, how do you make Volume Control show sliders for both playback & recording devices at the same time? I can do that on one computer I use but not on another. —64.236.170.228 19:47, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You need to open Windows mixer. It has independent controls for all types of signal —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.109.246.205 (talk) 10:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

When I open my volume control and go to Options -> Properties it lets me choose a few 'recording' controls on the 'Playback' view, eg Microphone, Line-in. -- DatRoot 21:08, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copying a DVD

Hello! I made a DVD+R using an LG VHS + DVD player/writer. When I put the finalized DVD in my computer and explore it with Windows Vista, I can see all the files on the DVD. If I copy these files to my hard drive, put in a blank DVD+R, and copy all the files to the blank DVD, will it play in a regular DVD+R player? (My computer's CD drive can write on DVD+Rs.) Thanks!--El aprendelenguas 20:54, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If the files you see have extensions like IFO, VOB, and BUP then you should have no problem doing just that. Man It's So Loud In Here 21:08, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Copy the disk image - there will probably be an option to do this in your DVD burning software. This makes sure it's an exact copy. This is a good idea because the DVD video format specifies more than just the files on the disk; but also the filesystem (UDF). --h2g2bob (talk) 23:58, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for both your replies!--El aprendelenguas 18:55, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What's the proper name for a "general warp map"?

What is the proper English language technical term for general non-affine warps such as is done to poor Mona, right. (I appreciate this specific effect is called "twirl"; I'm asked what the generic name for the whole class of such operations). For some reason I've got it into my head that they're called "general warp maps", but I think the book I got that from was translated from Spanish, as googling for shows it's not a term in much if any currency. So what this this whole class of operation properly called in English, and do we have an article about it? Thanks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:10, 19 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Distortion? —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 07:05, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 20

hosts file

Is there any way to protect a hosts file so that it can't be modified?--VectorPotential^Talk 00:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On what OS? On Unix/Linux (etc.) /etc/hosts should already be protected so that only root can modify it (if it isn't, chmod it), and obviously you should only let trusted people and trusted programs run as root. Equally on Windows, /WINDOWS/SYSTEM32/drivers/etc/hosts should have its ACLs set so that only members of Administrators can access it, and again you should only have people and programs you trust running on an account that's a member of that group. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:40, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Put other accounts in a different user group, give them the same access priviliges as Administrator, then take away access to host for that group. So they're identical to administrator but hosts is inaccessable and they can't change the permission themselves --⁪ffroth 00:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if maybe on Windows you could write a program to simply open a file in exclusive mode and not close it. Make it a background process so it runs all the time. This way no one else--running as you (presumably an administrator for most people)-- could edit the file. --Silvaran 00:50, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm running XP (which I of course should have mentioned up front) but what I was wondering, is there a way such that no one, not even myself logged in as an administrator could change it?--VectorPotential^Talk 00:53, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators can do everything (Froth and Silvaran's clever hacks might stop some odd program you want to reign in, but will be trivial for a human attacker to defeat). Administrators can install device drivers and so access physical disks and physical RAM. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:00, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't actually think it would be possible, but I did wager that if anyone knew how to do it, they would be here.--VectorPotential^Talk 01:02, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's really a self-contradictory question, rather than a matter of know-how. An administrator is by definition all powerful; you're asking for a non-all-powerful all-powerful account. Now what you can do is make an ordinary user account in a specific group, and assign to that group the specific capabilities (as few as possible) that it absolutely barely needs in order to get the job done. It might end up with some capabilities that traditionally are given only to admins but wouldn't itself be an admin (although I can't vouch for how long it would contain a hacker; bet on "not long") -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:10, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Administrators can do anything. That's why I said to give other people a slightly reduced account that can't edit hosts or install device drivers, and keep Administrator for just yourself --⁪ffroth 03:52, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How big is a "block" on a Wii?

When downloading things on the Wii's shopping channel, it says, "Blocks to Download"... how many bytes are in a single block? --Silvaran 01:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I have no idea, but the Wii has 512 MiB of internal Flash memory, so just take that and divide with the total amount of blocks available. --Oskar 06:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There are eight blocks in one MB. --24.249.108.133 20:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

SSL Facebook

I'm not too fluent with server side-scripts, but when entering the username and password for a Facebook account and after I press enter, am i sending some sort of SSL query to the Facebook servers? Acceptable 03:56, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes; as the form submits to https://login.facebook.com/login.php; the https in the url shows it's SSL. You should note that SSL really isn't anything to do with scripting, it's offered by the web server itself, not any script engines that run on it. --Blowdart | ^talk 11:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Most sites use an SSL encrypted connection to send log-in data (passwords), and then switch you back into normal HTTP (with a log-in cookie) after you have authenticated. Facebook is the same way. --24.147.86.187 14:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cables with ferrite cores

I was curious to the purpose of computer cords with ferrite core dongles? I notice some USB, Firewire, and power cords have a ferrite core attachment on them? Are they better than ones that don't? What purpose do they serve? --24.249.108.133 03:59, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is an article for some reason named ferrite bead (though I've never heard them called this) - they're there to reduce high frequency electromagnetic interference. (How they do this might be a question for the science desk)

So I suppose more is better - an it's not an expensive component - though 10 years ago I don't recall them existing at all - and I coped... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.17.46 (talk) 09:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Entering password into CGI proxy

Are there risks associated with entering, for example, a Hotmail username and password into a CGI proxy? If the server was unsecure, could the server owner find my password? If so, how exactly does he/she do this? Thanks. Acceptable 04:13, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usually proxy servers have logs of traffic only, but I'm sure that it is possible that the owner could keep track of data thats coming and going, and simple do a database dump and comb through all of the data. However, Hotmail and most other e-mail clients use encryption, and it is very difficult, if not impossible, to decode passwords and such. Finding passwords sent in plain text is definitely possible, however. The Userboxer^Complain/_ubx 14:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Duh, yes. The encryption keeps people from listening in on the connection, but once it gets to hotmail it's fully decrypted and the server can do whatever it wants with it- authenticate your login, mass email it to all microsoft employees, whatever. Usually for security they only store a hash of your password but don't count on it. Use lots of different passwords --⁪ffroth 15:46, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Anything going by http can be seen by the proxy. Anything going by https cannot. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

However, you can't use https over a CGI proxy (which we really should have a proper article on) — or, if you could, the proxy would be acting as a man-in-the-middle and would be able to see your passwords. Ultimately, if you use a proxy like that, you really have to trust the people running it not to record and abuse anything you send over it, because there's nothing stopping them from doing it if they want. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

psu heating

my power supply is overheating.its a new one and i its the 3rd one in less than 6 months.i think there is something i in my system unit that consuming an abnormal amount of energy or is my power supply weak.the fans are o.k.i have confirmed.is there a way to check what eating the power? 2.can u boot from a flash disk? can u also boot from an external harddisk.our teacher says u cant,there a guy who tells me its possible.so whats what? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.89.182 (talk) 08:34, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

1. Could be, what's the rated wattage?

2. Yes, you can boot from anything that can store your OS (floppy, flash drive, external hard drive, USB key, whatever) as long as it's big enough to hold it! -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 12:49, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

...and supported by your BIOS. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:03, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

How do you know for sure your power supply is overheating?--Silvaran 05:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it is overheating, and can't supply your PC properly, consider that buying cheap PSUs is clearly a false economy (put the cost of those three together, and what could you have bought?). Mine is a ThermalTake Toughpower 700W and cost £80. Remember, the number of AMPs on the 12v rail(s) is important. Check the internet for thorough review of the topic of PSU choice. __Seans Potato Business 16:32, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

network

my sister has just bought a pc.i want to connect them.she is in an adjacent room.how do i go about it.do i just buy the network cable and interconnect them or? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.89.182 (talk) 08:36, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you could

Or there are wireless connection methods Wireless LAN ( Wi-Fi Bluetooth adaptors are often sold - check the prices in you local computer store for 'wireless networking adaptors' they typically can be connected by USB etc)

In general a network cable will be cheaper, more secure, and faster than a wireless method - the only drawback is that you have a cable to route from one place to the other.

By the way the usual cable/connection type is ethernet ethernet cable 87.102.17.46 09:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at a common type of the cable. --Kushal^t 15:25, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Specifically you need a ethernet crossover cable. Just connect the network adapters and windows will figure it out. I don't know about linux --⁪ffroth 15:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Three questions, all on hard drives:

What is the largest single hard drive on the market at the moment. I've heard that a 4TB drive was released, but surely there are bigger sizes than that?
When your storing loads of large files (approx 700MB each for example), is it better to store them on one huge capacity HDD, or several smaller drives?
In terms of data recovery and universal usage, is it better to store files on portable HDDs or standard HDDs (ie internal vs external)?

Thanks for your help everyone!! xxx Hyper Girl 14:18, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From your questions, it appears that you are looking for a JBOD. It is external to the computer, internally contains many small drives, uses RAID to try and avoid data loss, and is accessible by just about any computer. -- kainaw ™ 14:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I like this idea! How would I do this? My computer can only hold two HDD at a time. Can you buy a sort of holder that joins them up outside the computer and connects via USB or one HDD lead (satia i think they call it)? Hyper Girl 14:47, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

JBODs are enclosures that sit outside your box. There are many types now. Some are called NAS (Network Area Storage). You plug it into a router. Some are USB - you plug it right into your computer. The most common are some sort of SCSI. You'll need to get a SCSI card for your computer. Your computer sees it as a normal external drive. It doesn't have to deal with the internals of the JBOD. As for size, JBODs can get very large. I have an 8TB at work for backing up our database. That's considered small. Just make sure you pay attention to your JBOD. When one drive fails, your data is still intact (assuming the JBOD is using RAID). If two fail, you will likely lose all of your data. So, when a light turns from green to red/amber, you need to race out and get a replacement drive right away. -- kainaw ™ 19:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Kainaw, I don't believe you're using the term "JBOD" correctly. The physical thing which contains a bunch of disks is properly called a disk array. How it is logically set up makes it a JBOD (when all the disks are just logically concatenated as if they were one big disk) or a RAID (where more complex arrangements are used). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hyper Girl: when you ask about what method is "better", you need to think about what characteristics you really want (which will allow you to define what "better" really means for your application). If you care solely about performance than RAID 0 is very fast (lots of spindles == lots of performance. If, however, you care most about absolute safety (if you data is very valuable, and you can't afford to lose data) then RAID 1 (a full copy of your data on each drive, which costs a lot but survives lots of nasty drive mishaps). And if you care about uptime (while having reasonable expectations for data safety too) then RAID 5 is for you. All of this is intended for users larger than a single person (a single 6 disk RAID-5 might be used for a workgroup of 20 people, or maybe a nerd with a particularly large pr0n collection) and larger and more sophisticated arrangements for larger groups or for specialist applications that are very data-intense. All of this costs - even a modest drive array typically costs thousands of dollars, which is a bargain for an enterprise user that depends on it, but might be offputting for you. If you can tell us more about your intended task, the organisational context, and your budget, we can get a bit more specific. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:54, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hyper Girl: you also asked about whether external drives are right for you. As above, that depends on you requirements. External disks with a USB interface are fairly slow (because the USB interface itself is fairly slow) but pretty cheap. External disks with SCSI, SATA, and Fiber-channel interfaces are fast (just as fast as their internal counterparts). External USB drives really are intended for portability, so if you're using them always on the same machine in the same place, that's not ideal. As far as I'm aware the largest single-disk drive made now is around 750Gb; if you need several times that (at a fixed location) then you might consider just buying a bigger case for your computer (one with more drive bays, better cooling, and a bigger power supply) and transplanting you existing computer's guts into it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for top posting but how often does the light go red in real life? --Kushal^t 20:32, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I manage two JBODs. One has 8 drives. The other has 4. Out of the 12, I lose one drive every three months or so. The last two times, two drives went out within hours of each other - which made me look good for having up-to-date backups of the data. -- kainaw ™ 22:42, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's good that you mention backups. I'll spare everyone my patented "RAID is not a backup" rant, but it's important to say that having a backup strategy that matches your storage needs (which again goes back to the specifics of the data) is just as important as having the live storage for in the first place. And the scary thing is that backup methods (tapes and stuff) aren't keeping pace with the growth of the arrays (and the drives they contain), so backing up to anything other than another array is becoming harder (and less pleasant) to do. If Hyper Girl is building a system for a business, she'll have to make one of those "what happens if x,y,z..." lists. Mine is pretty impressive, but even then it says we'll be okay if Godzilla or Mothra attacks; Godzilla and Mothra is too much for any plan to survive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 01:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What do you do in case a hard drive fails? Do you just remove the bad one and stick in a brand new one? Does that mean you need to stockpile on unused hard disk drives? (Sorry, OP but I think this question might be helpful to you too.) --Kushal^t 23:26, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If it's a JBOD you cry for a bit, because you just lost some data. If it's a RAID with increased reliability (like RAID 5) you indeed put in a new drive (operation of the whole array should be, from an external perspective, unaffected, as the array can survive losing a single disk). But most drive failures are just the drive firmware crashing (it happens remarkably often, with even the insanely expensive high-end fiber-channel drives) and resetting them (either from software or by pulling and replacing their caddy) often fixes them. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 00:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I read the RAID article and was wondering what would be the rebuilding time a new hard drive would need (for an ordinary 7200 rpm hard disk) after replacing a (really) broken hard disk. Can we calculate/estimate it from the disk's read write capacity? --Kushal^t 13:02, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(for RAID 5) In theory the reconstruction time is the time it'll take to completely fill the fresh disk (which is a function of the disk's IO bandwidth and that of the bus into which its plugged), but in practice there's computational load handling the parities (higher end RAID-capable devices do parity in hardware, cheaper ones and software RAIDs do it in software) and IO slowdowns associated with ongoing access to the other disks have to handle while the RAID is dirty. So "several hours" isn't unreasonable (and as disk sizes seem to grow faster than disk speeds and bus bandwidths, that's set only to increase). If you're thinking "what happens if another disk fails during reconstruction?" then you'd be right to worry - it's a rare occurance but it'd kill a RAID-5. This is one reason that most RAID-capable arrays are configured to have one drive reserved as a hot-spare (so if you had an array with 16 disks, you'd generally configure it with a 15-disk RAID 5 and one hotspare), so the system can automatically recon to the hotspare without intervention. This reduces window in which RAID-5 is vulnerable to a two-disk failure, but doesn't close it. RAID 6 will survive a 2-disk failure. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:21, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, if you're interested in messing around with RAID, but don't have a bunch of disks to actually try it out on, you can (on linux at least) use loopback devices and a software raid (manipulated with mdadm). You can even give one of your fake disks a fake error and sit and watch the fake raid reconstruct. Naturally you don't actually get any of the speed or reliability advantages of a real RAID, but it's fun to mess with. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks everyone for you input. I'm not sure JBOD if for me. I'd been using six normal HDDs of about 16GB each, but pulling them out and restarting the PC each time was a grind. For now at least I'll try a largish portable HDD (maybe a 500GB one, I hear they sell for around $200). USB speed should be ok, it was mainly a space requirement problem (what with the lack of it). Thanks everyone! xxx Hyper Girl 13:37, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Free DVD composition software

Ho there, old bean! What is a good DVD composition software, free or freeware, for either Windows XP or Xubuntu? I know about various DVD rippers, but I'm not looking for that sort of thing. I wish to make a slide show that is readable in a DVD player, consisting mostly of music and still pictures. I do appreciate your help! -L. G. Delacroix (216.178.50.6 19:04, 20 October 2007 (UTC))[reply]

I don't have a solution. I tried to look up Picasa but Picasa does not have the ability to create what you want. It does have a limited ability that plays back pictures on certain DVD players. See [16] --Kushal^t 23:24, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Googling for linux dvd authoring turned up this Linux Journal article as the first hit. It seems to match what you're asking for pretty well. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

computer search engine directories (email address removed)

Where can I find an outline of the basic characteristics of the different search engine directories. IE..how is google different thsn Yahoo? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.58.125.92 (talk) 21:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

^{Email address removed — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 22:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)}[reply]

A cursory glance reveals that List of search engines might be a good first place for you to go as (hopefully)other Wikipedians prepare a better answer for you. --Kushal^t 23:16, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

pfSense traffic shaper & Squid

I´ve got a pfSense gateway on my Lan with the Squid package installed and I want limit the speed of an IP. I went through the wizard with the penalty IP to that IP but that did nothing. Then I realised the connectin (flv) is going through the squid server so it´s not a direct WAN->LAN connection but 2 separate WAN->Squid & Squid->LAN connection, which doesn´t match the traffic shaping rules. How can I shape the Squid traffic? --antilived^{T | C | G} 21:28, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

No one here uses pfSense? --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's the weekend. Most folks who would know are probably out doing other things. Give it a little more time and someone may have an answer as the week goes on. -- Kesh 20:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

:( --Kushal^t 20:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OpenOffice.org Calc question

Hi all:

I am using OpenOffice.org Calc to prepare a template for polls. I have a table where I can input data and in another sheet I have some graphs generated by that table. The only thing I haven't been able to do is get the graphs to update automatically when any cell in the table is changed. This seemed to happen at first, until I saved the document and closed it.

I don't really need them to update automatically. It would be enough to have a button that did this.

Any ideas? Thanks people! --Waldsen 23:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 21

video bug

Yesterday I bought a new Envision monitor that has two input jacks: DVI, and an old-style DB (I don't know what that interface is called). My Mac Mini has a DVI output jack, and came with an adapter to the other standard, which I used up to now. With the DVI cable, my new monitor frequently blinks out for a sec or two. (With the other cable+adapter that problem goes away, but the colors are not as pretty.) Any idea where the problem is most likely to be? —Tamfang 00:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You could try replacing the DVI cable, it could have a contact error. Also, can you find out an event that's usually triggerring the blinks? – b_jonas 08:31, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Operating system breakdown?

Hi. Does anyone know what the breakdown is of operating systems? What percentage of people in the US (or world) use XP, 2000, Linux, etc? Thanx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Notahoo (talk • contribs) 00:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is that a homework question? I do not understand the first question. Does it mean a crash (computing)?

As for the second question, try the articles on Microsoft Windows and Linux. What OS people use is a difficult question. There can only be estimates and that too will probably be based on estimates from the number of computers and assuming an arbitrary number (maybe close to one or two) of users per computer.

Hope that helps, regards, Kushal --Kushal^t 12:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The OP just means breakdown as in a statistical breakdown — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 18:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for this stupid question, Matt, but what is a statistical breakdown? How does it relate here? --Kushal^t 19:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

As in, "X % of people use Windows, while Y % use a Linux variant, Z % run MacOS X..." etc. It's a common expression in the USA to call a numerical division of something a "breakdown," as you're "breaking it (down) into pieces." See also Pie chart. ;) -- Kesh 20:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

By way of example only... I think the OP wanted to know 65% of users use XP, 15% use Vista, 10% use Mac OS, 10% use Linux or somesuch distribution. Astronaut 20:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Breakdown in the context the OP used it just means subdividing something into more specific parts, so a pie chart which answered this question could be titled "Breakdown of computer users by operating system", with each pie segment representing the percentage of XP users, OS X users etc. If you've ever done any web authoring you might like this time breakdown of modern web design.

Notahoo - you might find this page useful. Bear in mind that their statistics are based on web users, so people without internet access will be under-represented. It will also be significantly biased towards personal/office computers - a huge amount of servers run Linux. Netcraft might have some data on OS statistics for web servers if you have a dig around. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 20:35, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perl and Python with Apache on Debian

I have Apache2 and PHP5 installed on my laptop (running Debian 4) and I'm trying to get Python and Perl working with Apache as well. However I'm having quite a bit of trouble. The modules are downloaded and installed However, attempting to execute any perl files results in a 403 error, despite the script being chmodded to 755. Trying to execute a python script results in an Internal Service Error, even though the code was taken from http://www.modpython.org/python10/

I've tried a number of solutions from all over the web, but still cannot get it working. Unfortunately, there seems to be no one tutorial that covers all the steps from start to finish, like there is with PHP, which is actually quite a bit easier to install. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Dlong 02:50, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I had bad experiences getting mod_python to work with apache - most problems arose due to ABI mismatches (the mod_python binary had been compiled against an apache that was sufficiently different to what I actually had installed). Eventually I gave up with packages and compiled mod_python myself (and as this expected a file generated during the apache build process, and which wasn't present in the Apache binary dist package I had installed, I ended up also compiling apache myself too). If you're getting all your packages from the Debian repositories then this shouldn't happen, however. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 02:59, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Always read your log files. Every time a client gets an error message, a line is written to /var/log/apache2/error.log or /var/log/apache/error.log which tells what rule was violated. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 03:00, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested in why you're trying to use mod_perl and mod_python in the first place. There's no particular reason why you shouldn't, but you don't actually need them to use Perl or Python on your web site — and, as you've noticed, getting them to work right isn't always trivial. The simplest way, by far, to run Perl or Python scripts on your website is simply via CGI. True, it's not the most efficient or versatile way there is, but for most purposes it's more than sufficient, at least unless you're running a high-traffic site like Slashdot (which uses mod_perl) or Wikipedia. If you need more speed than plain old CGI can provide, or if you have other reasons for valuing persistence, you can also go for something like FastCGI, SCGI or SpeedyCGI (a.k.a. PersistentPerl), which provide a very convenient middle ground between plain CGI and full-blown Apache integration, with many of the advantages of both. Personally, I have particularly good experiences of SpeedyCGI: it's what we've settled on at work to run our Perl-based web application framework. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 12:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Possibilities

Would it be possible (n any amount of time) to build a DNA based computer with full AI capability?NewDevilWiki 03:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Real AI has nothing to do with DNA, it has to do with brain structure. You could theoretically create DNA in the lab and have it somehow be "read" in order to drive a computer, just using it as a biological hard disk, but this is way off. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 04:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on how you define computer, you are a DNA based computer with full AI. You're a full-on Turing machine, executing algorithms all day and night. --Oskar 06:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, you could consider a the brain of a human being to be an "intelligent DNA-based computer" - but that doesn't count in terms of the question because the 'A' in 'AI' stands for 'Artificial' - and human intelligence isn't artificial. SteveBaker 22:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

We are just beginning to examine the possibilities for using biological molecules for computing - and some simple experiments using DNA have been done. However, we're a very long way from a full-up working computer - and it's not entirely clear that such a machine would ever be a commercial possibility because large, biological molecules are fairly fragile.

As for the AI part of the question - the term AI is a little problematic - it's meaning has changed over the years. There was a time when playing chess at grand-master level was considered to be an AI problem - but now we've solved that, we no longer thing of playing grand-master chess to be an AI problem. As fast as we solve problems that were once thought to be AI, the idea that they ever required 'intelligence' goes away. Right now, I suppose that passing the Turing test would be considered by many to be proof of a working AI - but people who are working on AI are frequently very unhappy about that judgement.

Since we can't (yet) produce DNA computers - and we can't (yet) produce Artificially Intelligent computers - there is no immediate prospect of making a DNA-based computer with full AI. However, it's not impossible in principle so it may happen someday. But please don't go away with the idea that somehow a computer could become intelligent because it were based on DNA. Remember, there are very few DNA-based plants and animals that we'd consider "intelligent" - so DNA does not imply intelligence!

SteveBaker 22:18, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Volume level, mute, etc....display on screen.

Hi folks. I used to have Windows 98SE and I could see my volume changes, and mute/unmute onscreen when I changed them. I could even change colors. Can the same things be done with Windows XP? If so, how? Thank you. Dave 64.230.233.222 04:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that Windows does NOT provide such functionality itself. The visuals you see in 98SE are likely from your keyboard drivers. Hopefully drivers exist for your keyboard in XP. In all likelihood, you'll get the same functionality with XP, but you might not get OSD (on screen display) for volume up/down/mute. Since you could change colors of the OSD, it likely means it's definitely some kind of custom software that came with your keyboard. I would suggest you contact your keyboard manufacturer, or visit their web site, to see if they have Windows XP drivers and software that can provide the same functionality in Windows XP. --Silvaran 05:04, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I`ll try that. Thanks very much for the prompt reply. Dave 64.230.233.222 05:08, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Quick follow-up: First, I left out a few, perhaps key, pieces of info. I suppose I should have mentioned that my keyboard was from an 'old' Compaq Presario 7479. Secondly, I really liked that/this keyboard and so attached it to this 'new' Dell Dimension 4300. Thirdly, the Dell`s hard-drive went bad and I have installed the Compaq`s drive. The Compaq`s drive had Windows 98SE on it but now has Windows XP. I went to Compaq`s website and indeed found Windows XP software for said keyboard. I attempted to download and install the keyboard drivers. About 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the install an error came up: It couldn`t find a certain Compaq file. I instructed the install to continue anyway. There was/were no noticeable change(s). To make a long story short,(too late already, I fear)nothing happened. I, right away, and just to be safe, returned to the previous drivers. Hopefully I suffer no long term problems. Just wanted to let you know. Thanks for helping me with this. Dave 64.230.233.222 15:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Semantic book search

I want to make a search function in a program wherein you only need to enter the ISBN (or something) and all the metadata (title, author, publisher, etc.) of some book is automatically filled in. I figure that there has to be some library database online where you can get all that stuff in an XML-file or something, right? I mean, I could use Google Book Search or something and simply parse the results for the data, but that seems like more trouble than it's worth. --Oskar 06:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I understand what exactly you want, if you want a totally offline database that would be huge, if you just want something you can put the ISBN in and get that info use this works very well, grabbed a few books off my shelf to confirm it had them, 0-671-80815-x comes up correctly as Ripley's Believe It or Not, Book of Americana, and 0-939798-34-4 comes up as my Saxon High School Calc book(no ribs about me keeping my high school books, the school got rid of all their old texts in 1999 and I grabbed a copy of each, I know I am weird. ;)). You can do it without the dashes also. Dureo 06:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That site also has a remote access API which should allow you to build its functionality into your own programs. --24.147.86.187 14:28, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Apple Mac G4 System x / TV

Can anyone advise me please on the type/name of the cable required to link the red/yellow/white connections on the TV to the computer and which 'hole' is used on the computer. (The manuals NEVER tell you the basics!). Thanks.--88.110.33.229 06:10, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is what you need, should get confirmation though, I personally have never tried. Dureo 06:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Also it says it is for a G5, but works with a G4. Dureo 06:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but no thanks! It connects with the computer OK but there is no way that the broad end will connect with the TV. Any other ides will be welcome please.--88.110.33.229 07:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.110.33.229 (talk) 07:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

"The video output port supports VGA, S-Video, and Composite video out." You'd have to use one of those cables off the tv to connect to the tv side, seems the S-video wins out if you have that type of connector on the TV, You can also use RCA_connectors with an additional adaptor if that is all the TV has. Dureo 07:46, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that is the correct adapter. That "broad end" actually has two plugs: the yellow Composite video-out, and an S-Video-out connector. You also need a simple headphone-to-RCA audio adapter for the sound, and plug that into the headphone jack on the computer. You can pick the audio adapter up at your local Radio Shack or audio/video store for cheap, along with the composite cable (if you don't already have one). -- Kesh 20:32, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image conversion

How does one convert an image.png to image.svg ? - Kittybrewster ☎ 08:49, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's very difficult - if not impossible.87.102.16.28 09:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

However it's not impossible see Raster to vector - look for something suitable there or use that term as a search term.87.102.16.28 09:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's very difficult if not impossible currently for a computer programme to convert it satisfactorily, but if you do it manually you can do it to an extent (don't even attempt doing it for real photos, or you'll hit barriers related to fractals on objects). --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:33, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use Inkscape. I believe you know what an SVG is and what its uses are. Unless it is a simple thing like a chessboard that you want to convert, expect to be disappointed. --Kushal^t 12:42, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the graphic and the type of application, you may also want to consider potrace. --71.162.241.172 14:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usually "converting" means "re-drawing" in this case. Simple mechanical conversion never really looks the same even if your original image is very vector-graphic-like in appearance. Vector tracing software usually can't even handle simple circles and straight lines and have them come out looking right. --24.147.86.187 14:29, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The OP did not say what the application was; the result of automatic conversion might just work for her(?) purpose. Plus, once converted, the resulting image can be fixed by post-editing. --71.162.241.172 15:43, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I have found it always easier to redraw. The angles are never right at all in automatically done things and they are usually a total mess of nodes, impossible to edit with any precision. Better to just draw it over again (or just trace it)—it'll likely take about the same amount of time that post-editing would, but look better and be better coded anyway. --24.147.86.187 00:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The image in question is Image:Lord-red.png - Kittybrewster ☎ 15:56, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That image is derived from Image:Lord.png, which was created by User:Steifer. It might be worth contacting him, either here or on the Commons, to ask if he can upload an SVG version. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 16:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Needs to be redrawn; the dithering on that will NOT translate well into SVG. There are people on here (I forget the name of the particular Wikiproject) who can re-draw things for you. It would not take someone experienced in Inkscape very long to do something like that. -24.147.86.187 00:52, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Couldn't you just open it in the GIMP and then export it as an SVG file?Mix Lord 01:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

windows vista probs (E-Mail address removed)

I recently purchased windows vista basic home edition. As administrator, after logging on, I am now greeted with a green screen and a cursor!!! There are no icons or toolbars.Other account users are not experiencing any difficulties. Is there any way I can recover my info or am I doomed to start again??? If I am , how do I make administrative and security changes???

Please help...Desperate

cozmic —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.247.159 (talk) 09:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

^{Email address removed — Dureo 09:51, 21 October 2007 (UTC)}[reply]

Its not the best way but under Windows XP (and possibly under Vista too), you can go to C: and documents and settings and then to the person's folder. If possible copy this person's (in this case administrator)'s documents and settings for backup. Don't jump into it yet, you might find better solutions in the coming days. Stay tuned. --Kushal^t 12:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If doing the above, try from another account with administrator privileges. User Access Control feature may not let you back up your data otherwise. BTW, do you have another account with administrator privileges? --Kushal^t 12:39, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

In Vista the path will be C:\Users\[your user name] — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 12:52, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the correction. I hope the OP has another account with administrator privileges. --Kushal^t 13:05, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Semantic markup

In web programming, what is that? 203.214.77.25 10:34, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See Markup language#Descriptive markup. Essentially it's marking up parts of the document according to what they are, rather than what they should look like. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 11:13, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Hard disk

I had a hard disk of 40GB from Western Digital Company. The jumper of this hard disk was on the last pair of pins from the left i.e. the first pair of pins from the left. Totally there were five pins. Recently, I bought a second hard disk of 200 GB and I fitted it in into the CPU. A data bus previously attached my old hard disk with something at the bottom of the CPU. There was another port on the same bus. I connected this port to the new hard disk. I removed the jumper of the new hard disk and kept it safely in my drawer. This new hard disk was from Seagate company. But when I started my pc there was a boot disk failure. It also said that there was a media test failure and it asked me to check the cable. It asked me to enter the system disk and press enter. I just pressed enter. But the same message kept displaying repeatedly. I asked my friend and he found a solution. He asked me to take the jumper of the old hard disk and fit it into the third pair of pins. I did. The computer started well. I formatted the new disk, assigned it a drive letter, and aslo copied data to it. And then I restarted the system. But the same media test failure came. The same disk boot failure and "enter system disk" message was displayed. But when I pressed enter the computer booted normally. Since then,whenever I start my pc the same message is displayed but when I press enter the pc boots normally. Can anyone explain this? Is it harmful for my pc? I would be very grateful to you for your help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.89.21.254 (talk) 10:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Guessing which cables and jumper settings are needed is not a good idea. Both Western Digital and Seagate provide product support (including installation and jumper settings) for their products on their official sites. The support information will help you select the correct connections and jumper settings for your required configuration. Of course, you might still have a hardware problem somewhere causing the media failure. Astronaut 12:16, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Seagate and WD drives have a slightly different jumper arrangement. Graeme Bartlett 01:55, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You should check the BIOS to make sure that the boot order is correct. It might be trying to boot from the non-system disc first (i.e. the one without Windows installed). It should be set to boot from your 40 Gig drive. --Seans Potato Business 16:25, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

airport express doesnt work

I'm 20 feet, as the crow flies, from an unprotected and working airport express which I can detect but not connect. My computer is wifi enabled, and normally does connect, just not to this one. I know it works because it has worked for other people before.--Jorgenssen 14:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you been able to connect to other wifi stations in the past with that computer? (Just trying to narrow down where the problem may be.) --24.147.86.187 16:03, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the Airport Express base station has MAC filtering enabled and your computer isn't on the list of acceptable MAC addresses?

Atlant 17:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no.--Jorgenssen 17:22, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

or, can you make the range bigger? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jorgenssen (talk • contribs) 21:30, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes and no. The range on the Airport Express can't be directly increased, but its position in the home/apartement/whatever will influence its range. Materials in between your computer and the base station will provide some interference. Also, the antenna & positioning on your own computer will affect the signal strength as well. -- Kesh 21:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You CAN put it in the focus of a parabolic dish and point it where you want the signal to be going, but then that's not exactly practical for most uses. --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neither computer nor base station have ariels its in a very central position..parabolic dish in the shape of say, a skydish, eg a shallow sauce pan?--Jorgenssen 08:53, 22 October 2007 (UTC) also, it seems to cut out all the time unless its encryptd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jorgenssen (talk • contribs) 08:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a Sky dish lying around somewhere in theory you can put your airport extreme base station slightly above the little plastic thing (the antenna) and point it to where your computer is to create a directional antenna and boost signal strength. A frying pan would also work, but I haven't tested any of the things I said and I'm just saying this from a theoretical view point. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I take it that dents the signal a bit on the opposiite side of the dish? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jorgenssen (talk • contribs) 13:45, 22 October 2007 (UTC) --Jorgenssen 13:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it would reduce the signal in the area that's blocked by the reflector. You can't magically raise the power in one direction without increasing the transmission power or reducing it in other directions. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or maybe there is open source firmware which lets you boost the signal further than mac stuff lets you...Jorgenssen 13:49, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Locked out of Word

I am locked out of my word program, I can get into it but can't do anything including typing. Could it be that I haven't registered my Office Suite yet or did I just press the wrong keys? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.127.97.65 (talk) 16:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have to register Word, but you do have to authenticate it. However if you are not authenticated it will tell you so. So something else might be wrong.

I recommend, in this order: 1. running a full virus scan while in safe mode; 2. running a full spyware scan while in safe mode; 3. if those don't turn up anything, find the file "Normal.dot" (the default Word file template) and delete it (it will automatically regenerate); 4. if all that fails, uninstall and reinstall. --24.147.86.187 16:44, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) If you don't activate Office it'll go into 'reduced functionality mode', which means you can open and read your documents but you can't edit them. Microsoft has information about activation here — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 16:48, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If your version of Office does not say that you are in reduced functionality mode, try the steps that User:24.147.86.187 suggested. If that does not work, use OpenOffice.org as a temporary solution. If you need assistance with the all-new Microsoft OpenXML file format and compatibility issues with OpenOffice.org, or have any other questions, feel free to stop by the reference desk again. I will be more than happy to hear back from you.

PS: We have made several assumptions in the process of suggesting you. Some of these might not be warranted. Please let us know if any of our assumptions are wrong. (For example, you might be using StarOffice Writer and called it Word which we assumed to be Microsoft Office Word 2007.)

Regards,

--Kushal^t 19:45, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

LCD screen failing

My PC LCD screen seems to be dying. I switched on the screen the other day and noticed a block of dead pixels had suddenly appeared. A block about a 1/2 centimetre square had gone totally black when it should be showing white. I tried to "massage" the pixels back to life but this just seemed to spread the damaged area beyond the original boundaries. Most of the damaged area is now showing blue (indicating dead RG pixels) while there is some cyan (dead R) and magenta (dead G) spotting. The weird thing is that the damage seems to be spreading by itself horizontally and turning more and more of the screen black in little horizontal strips. It almost looks like the screen is suffering from a virus (not a computer virus) with the infection spreading. Has anyone come across anything like this before? Jooler 19:19, 21 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like you created an LCD fractal I had the same problem on a laptop a long long time ago, learned that the rubbing on the screen made it worse (this was when lcd's first came out new, new technology) it didn't spread much beyond that though. I would check with the manufacturer for their dead pixel return policy if it is a newer monitor. Chuck it if it is older, they cost more than they are worth to have the lcd's fixed unless it is a cell phone, and you can do that yourself quite easily. Dureo 00:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 22

iDVD question: menu music

I am making a DVD menu in iDVD 6, and I have a little music clip to play while the menu is displayed. What I'd like to do is to have it play just once and NOT loop (I find looping DVD music pretty irritating and useless). I can't find an option that lets me not loop it; is this something about the DVD menu format in general or a limitation of iDVD in particular or can it be done in one way or another? --24.147.86.187 00:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

OK—poking around in the help file, the answer is apparently "iDVD just doesn't do this." Very sad, but I'll work around the limitation... --24.147.86.187 01:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

visual basic for applications

Is it possible to read the level of a sound card input at a point in time with visual basic for applications? If so how?

76.209.61.169 02:19, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Web/Tree building programs

Does anyone know of a free program which can be used to build complex webs or trees, perhaps like a very interconnected family tree? A software specific for family trees would not work for this - it's too complex for that. I heard about something once, but I don't remember the name - only that it might have been by one of the US phone companies and that it had it's own odd coding system.

Can anyone help? Thanks. 04:00, 22 October 2007 (UTC)

There is a Bell Labs program from the early 90s you might be thinking of. See

Koutsofios, Eleftherios and Stephen C. North. "Drawing graphs with dot" (PDF). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

For more recent programs of this kind, Google for 'Bell Labs graph drawing'. EdJohnston 04:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Ooh! Thank you both! That's great. 04:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.192.140.113 (talk)

Page Fault in nonpaged area- stop 0x50

    I built a computer from spare parts, being:
 
KT4V motherboard, AMI 3.1 bios

geforce 6200 256 mb DDR2 onboard memory

1.5 gb DDR 3200 mem, 1 gb, 512 mb

seagate baracuda 40gb

athlon xp 2700+

600W PSU

DVD-ROM, Floppy

System runs cool ~109 degrees F CPU, 80F case

I have tested EVERYTHING twice, except the hard drive (doesnt need drivers, btw, I checked that). Half way through XP installation I get the aforementioned stop code.

Linux works fine, though

I have a suspicion that it's the hard drive, even though that doesnt make sense for the error, but only because I am running Linux (ubuntu) off live cd and it, not using the hard drive, works fine

switching video cards out for a very old one (TNT 32mb) doesnt help either, and to reiterate I checked everything (memory using memtestx86)

I plan on putting Ubuntu on hdd to make sure hdd works tomorrow

Thank you in advance72.161.209.51 05:03, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sorry, I forgot to add please help, excuse me, I'm American72.161.209.51 05:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I very seriously doubt the hard drive is at fault. Have you tried installing the latest drivers for your peripherals? And what exactly does the STOP message mention? Splintercellguy 05:12, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

YEah, I know it doesnt make sense, although I whittled it down to that (I think). The stop message means the computer was looking for something in memory that wasn't there, which is odd I am getting this message because the memory tests good (disabling L2 cache doesn't make a difference, btw, so I think its good). I am trying to install with nothing I dont need, only card the video, nothing else.72.161.209.51 06:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

sorry about the double post, also72.161.209.51 06:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't "get" this error message. Can some guy correct me... but how exactly do you get a page fault in "a non-paged area"? Or does "paged" mean a page is swapped out to the disk? Does that mean Windows isn't unswapping a page from the disk? --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 10:27, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know, but I imagine it means that a driver followed a wild pointer to unmapped memory, which trapped to the page fault handler, which discovered there was no page to fault in and panicked. Unfortunately, like an access violation in user mode, this could be caused by almost anything. You need to look at the rest of the bluescreen information to narrow it down to a specific driver, which you might then be able to disable. -- BenRG 12:28, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

XP can be VERY fussy about hardware which other O/S's might cope with. I had a similiar problem and the culprit was the 'wrong' type of memory for the motherboard (for some reason the motherboard would only cope with 400MhZ DDR RAM, anything else, including older and slower RAM of the same type threw it. The comp worked OK until I tried to install XP. I reckon this is something to do with memory, check the motherboard manual or website to see if the RAM you are using is compatible, if not, get the right type. GaryReggae 14:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, not a hdd problem, Linux loaded fine. My motherboard is supposed to be able to take the memory I have fine,72.161.209.51 21:44, 22 October 2007 (UTC) though[reply]

PROBLEM FOUND- there must be a glitch where if the hard drive is not formated previously xp install wont either. XP installed fine after I put Linux on hdd to test it. Thanks for your input! Have a nice day72.161.209.51 22:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sub-dividing PDFs

I have a number of very large PDFs which were created by batch scanning a pile of documents (not by me). Hidden inside these batches are a few documents I am interested in. They cannot be reliable mechanically distinguished from the surrounding documents. What's the best method to find and isolate these documents from the rest? Ideally I would use a system that would let me quickly flip through the documents and tag the ones I want for removal and then later have the tagged ones extracted to separate files. But I don't know if any such program and PDFs are so unwieldly. Any thoughts? --140.247.41.66 14:07, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You don't say, but if you're on Linux or similar you can use Template:Websearch utilities to do things like "pdfimages input.pdf Images" to extract all the pages into individual image files for easy browsing, and then "pdftops -f FIRST-PAGE -l LAST-PAGE input.pdf output.ps; ps2pdf output.ps output.pdf" to select pages from the original document. --Sean 14:59, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't say what tools you have at your disposal. If you have Adobe Acrobat (the full version, not just the reader), you can do it using the Document->Extract Pages... dialog. If you don't, but you have a PDF reader and a PostScript printer driver, you can "print" a desired portion of the file to a PostScript file, and use a utility called ps2pdf to convert it to PDF. This is similar to the solution suggested by Sean. Another tool that can do the job is pdftk[17]. --64.236.170.228 18:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Neither of those are efficient means—they require laboriously going through the PDF (as with Acrobat) or knowing ahead of time the page numbers to specifically extract. I don't think there's a program that can aid in such subdivision on the market. --24.147.86.187 23:06, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Saying that there's nothing on the market that can "aid" is overly pessimistic. If the OP knows something about the content of the documents he want extracted, he can OCR and index the document and try to locate the portions that he want by searching. Once an approximate location is found, determining the exact starting and ending pages won't be that difficult. The problem with this approach is that when the number of pages is large, say 100000, you probably need to use a vendor that provides this kind of service, which can be quite expensive. --64.236.170.244 01:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

If you use the libpoppler method described in the first reply, you can browse through the different files with an image viewer (like irfanview). You might have to batch convert the files first, but I know that irfanview can at least read ps files. Then you can define a macro or a shortcut (there should be an image viewer with this functionality) to copy the currentfile to some directory. This way, you can flip through the files quickly, and copy a single file out of the collection with a single key combination. risk 12:53, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Cangjie character generator

I'm curious about how Chinese character generators (such as the Cangjie) work, but I can't find any information on the algorithm besides a wad of uncommented (even if it were commented, I don't understand Chinese) assembly. (I'm not all that interested in Cangjie as an input method - that's pretty simple - but I'm really interested in the character generator). Any ideas? AFAIK, there isn't even a patent to examine. --196.210.103.191 15:23, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't a character generator, assuming I'm understanding what you're asking correctly. All the characters in a Han character set are designed independently. I had started a research project on this before the first time that I dropped out of college in the late 80s and the problem was that while you can (theoretically) compose Han from radicals, the individual radicals change their shapes a fair amount from one character to the next. Add in the additional complexity of mainland-Chinese Han simplification, assorted strokes which don't really belong to any radical and the task is a bit more complicated than it seems. Then there's the additional problem that you end up with a programatic system which is rather alien to what designers would like to work with and it seemed a dead end. I did have some hope that it could be accomplished for Hangul at least since the interactions of the phonetic components is a fair amount simpler, but I've never really had the time to go back to the project in the couple decades which intervened. Donald Hosek 18:10, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

From our article on the Cangjie method

In the beginning, the Cangjie input method was not a way to produce a character in any character set. It was, instead, an integrated system consisting of the Cangjie input rules and a Cangjie controller board. The controller board contains character generator firmware, which dynamically generates Chinese characters from Cangjie codes when characters are output, using the hi-res graphics mode of an Apple II computer... A particular interesting "feature" of this early system is that if you send random lowercase words to the character generator, it will attempt to construct Chinese characters according to the Cangjie decomposition rules, sometimes causing strange, unknown characters to appear. This unusual feature, "automatic generation of characters", is actually described in the manual and is responsible for producing more than 10,000 of the about 15,000 characters that the system can handle. The name Cangjie, evocative of creation of new characters, was actually very apt for this early version of Cangjie.

I do think it would be a difficult problem, but these quotes gave me some hope. I'm more confident it can be done with Hangul. BTW, In what was is it "alien to what designers would like to work with"? --196.210.103.191 20:47, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Backing up open files

I would like my backup program to automatically backup files once per week. The problem with that is, that files will invariably be open when backup time comes. With notepad files, this never posses a problem but with openoffice files, for some reason, the file cannot be copied (restricting editing, I can understand, but innocuous copying??) while it is open. This makes me wonder, what about industrial applications - how do they backup files that are in use? I don't want to have to close my programs before backup begins (otherwise, it's not "automatic"). I like to leave any work that I'm working on open, until I finish working on it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Seans Potato Business (talk • contribs) 16:21, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

On the PC (running Windows XP) I use a program called Drive Snapshot which does a backup of your entire drive, including any open files. It's often used with a separate hard disk, hooked up via FireWire (for example) because of the size. For details see drivesnapshot.de. I think it cost about $50; it works well and is fast. On the Mac there are a variety of cloning backup programs that work well, some of which may even be free. I use one called Super Duper. It also handles open files without complaint. EdJohnston 02:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blu-ray/HD DVD aspect ratios

Just wondering, do Blu-ray and HD DVD support aspect ratios other than 4:3 and 16:9 as was the case with DVD (i.e. on DVD a 2.35:1 is encoded as 16:9, with the remaining letterboxing hardcoded into the image). Thanks - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 18:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Letterboxes are rarely if ever hard coded into DVDs today. They use anamorphic format to retain maximum vertical resolution. --24.249.108.133 20:09, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

amr files

I need to edit an .amr file, is any free software out there that can do the job? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.225.214 (talk) 18:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

According to [18] this type of file is a cellphone multimedia file, so you'll probably need some kind of audio/video editing software. Exxolon 19:22, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not to worry - sorted it out! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.225.214 (talk) 19:33, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Logout/Stop Script

I'm here to ask a question (yet again...) about an enforcitive measure to help stop him from making userspace edits. I think I would be able to do it, but I don't want to be accountable if I mess something up and screw up his account. I'm fairly certain it would have this in it, but the other parts I can think of are sketchy, though I'll try with the help of "An Intermediate Guide to JavaScript & AJAX".

if ( > ) {
      alert ("You may not edit this articlespace"). Bye!");
      window.location.href = ("http://"+document.location.host+"/w/index.php?title=Special:Userlogout&returnto=Main_Page");
    }
}

YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-22-2007 • 19:41:52

Note: This has to do with a RfC for Angel David. YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-22-2007 • 19:45:36

I'm confused about what you're trying to achieve - you want to stop someone from making userspace edits without their consent? You do know that you can't edit someone else's monobook.js and even if you could it would be trivial to disable? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 20:41, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, ignore the above - I've just read the talk page discussions — Matt Eason ^{(Talk  Contribs)} 20:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I don't get it- what talk page? I gather that this is a self-accountability sort of thing.. my advice is that you'll need to use document.cookie to track things --⁪ffroth 21:11, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It is almost always inadvisable to try to apply a technical solution to a non-technical problem. Friday (talk) 21:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't I just log him out whenever he edited his userspace? Why not just check his contribs? We're trying to prevent him from using his userspace for his own good. Check around with his contribs, the RfC may still be going on. Any ideas on how to stop him from clicking edit on his page w/js?YДмΔќʃʀï^→Г_C← 10-23-2007 • 01:39:24

LOL now that's creative. Use javascript to refuse to load the edit monobook.js page, heh. This is such a bad idea though, you'll never be able to come up with a solution he can't bypass, and why would he consent anyway? --⁪ffroth 02:41, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I want to defrag my computer the OLD FASHIONED WAY

Hello, I remember back in the day, defragmenting meant that there would be that awesome MS-DOS program where there were a bunch of rectangles and it would literally show the file pieces being read and written. WHERE IS THAT NOW??? Right now I am defragmenting my laptop and it is boring as hell just to watch a static screen. HOW DO I BRING THAT BACK???? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.142.51 (talk) 19:46, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

HEY SORRY ABOUT THAT IT SAID WIKIPEDIA EXPERIENCING TECHINCAL DIFFICULTIES —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.141.142.51 (talk) 20:01, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It wouldn't work for NTFS.. --⁪ffroth 21:14, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Windows' degragmenter has a mode that displays the clusters and such in a similar fashion. It was never as exciting as you seem to think... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:26, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Antivirus Software

Two questions:

1) If I buy Norton 360, do I have to pay an annual subscription fee on top of the cost of the software?

2) In your opinion, which offers better protection: Norton 360 or the free version of McAfee provided by AOL (which, as far as I know, is the complete version of McAfee)? Or are they just about equally effective?

Thank you!--El aprendelenguas 22:48, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Personally I recommend people go with AVG Free or Avast, both of which are free and are used by computer-savvy people all over the world. Norton 360 is really a bundle of products—anti-virus, anti-spyware (free alternative: SpyBot), and a firewall (Windows XP and I presume Vista already have their own built-in firewalls). In my experience Norton products often result in severe problems—major bugs, major slow-downs, even crashes and corrupt hard disks. I have no idea if Norton 360 does this but personally I stopped trusting the company with my data a long time ago. Anything provided free by AOL I would be pretty suspicious of, as they don't exactly have a great track record either. If you want my advice for avoiding viruses: use Firefox not IE; use Thunderbird not Outlook Express; make sure your firewall is enabled; make sure you have anti-virus (AVG) and anti-spyware (SpyBot) software installed; don't run anything you don't have a good reason to trust; don't run things that people send you unless you were already expecting them (if you have doubts, just ask the sender) even if you know who sent it; make sure your automatic updates are enabled. Two of those steps require you to be a responsible computer user and be careful about what type of code you let execute on your machine, the rest just require installing programs, checking settings, or avoiding programs with notorious security flaws. If you did these things, you would probably be fine even in the worst case scenarios. --24.147.86.187 23:24, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mcaffee suxor. Use NOD32 or Kaspersky if you simply must pay, or AVG Free if not. Steer clear of clamwin --⁪ffroth 01:22, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Mcafee is an improvement over Norton, though that's not saying much. Kaspersky (pirated, modified) is what trojan/worm writers use to secure systems they've infected, since they know it works. Practice common-computer-sense and you won't need to use Anti-virus at all. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:34, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

October 23

Sleep Mode

I have a HP slimline desktop. Whenever i place the computer in sleep mode it will go into sleep mode, however after about a second after it has entered that mode it turns back on. i try again and the same issue happens. I am wondering if anyone has any tips. i know that nothing is moving like a mouse, keyboard etc.. that would turn it back on from sleep unless i wanted it on.--logger 04:04, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming Windows (since others tend to specify their OS): Open the Device Manager, go into the properties for every USB device on the system, and turn off "Allow this device to wake the computer" in the Power Management tab. Might want to try that for some other devices as well, such as the network card. My ASUS motherboard suffers from this issue with USB devices. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:23, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Allright ill do that thanks for the help.--logger 04:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It was the Network card that did the trick. thank you.--logger 04:52, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Computer Security Cost/Benefit

A question not really sufficiently advanced for the Mathematics section, and I don't think there is a forum for economics. I saw a good graph once of the cost of a vulnerability vs. the cost of mitigating it - both were linear and one rising, one descending. I'm not sure what the axes represented to translate cost into lines. Then you divided one by the other so they got a hyperbole in between them. The tangent at the lowest point of the hyperbole would then represent the ideal total cost to spend with acceptable risk. Sort of a break even between known risks and paying for security. Has anyone seen this and perhaps a little more about estimating the numbers? This looks like a good model for communicating between techs and economists. --Wpks 08:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The graph that you saw was most likely not a plot of real data. In general, the more measures taken to protect a system, the more it costs and the fewer modes there are to compromise the system. Given that vulnerabilities, when exploited, leads to loss (monetary or otherwise), and that fewer vulnerabilities leads to lower costs caused by their exploitation, you would expect that the optimal choice lies somewhere between the extremes. That's generally true and hardly surprising. In practice, there are difficulties with estimating those cost numbers. For one thing, some costs are not monetary and may not be quantifiable in a way that everyone would agree is correct. For another, reliable data may not be available for loss events that rarely or has never occurred. You may have some statistics, but there may be great uncertainty about how reliable a conclusion you can make. In computer security, the threat sources of greatest concern are not random — the adversary is adaptive and learning. Before a vulnerability is publicized, historical loss due to its exploitation is zero. After its publication, you suddenly have a wave of attack trying to exploit the vulnerability.

The point of the graph you described is that there's a point beyond which the net return on investment is negative, but that's something the economists already know. --64.236.170.228 13:46, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why are you asking this on the Computing reference desk?

Economists are notorious for producing graphs like that with no numbers on the axes and vague definitions of what the parameters mean. All the graph conveys is the rather obvious fact that there is a trade-off between the size of your risk and the cost of mitigating it - so (of course) there is some point where spending more in mitigation doesn't cut your risk enough to be worthwhile (well, duh!). Nobody has numbers because it depends on too many other things. What is "vulnerability" anyway? A proper scientist would say it is some combination of the probability of a bad thing happening and the cost if that thing does in fact happen - it's not one number, it's two independent numbers - so you can't just give it a name and stick it on one axis of a graph. Economists love to use scientific-looking graphs - but they hate to be tied down to specifics because then it would become obvious that what they do isn't a science at all. Take a look at our article on Supply and demand for example...have you ever seen so many unlabelled axes in all your life?! They even had to come up with a new name ("Econometrics") for "Economics with actual numbers". Bah! SteveBaker 13:38, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Choosing a right video card!

Hi, My system config is 1) INTEL original 965 Ryd Motherboard of 833Mhz FSB. 2) DDR2 SDRAM (Transcend) 1GB of 667MHz FSB. 3) On Board video card, 256 MB shared(not needed) 4) Intel Pentium D(dual core) 3.00GHz (4 MB L2 Cache) of 833 MHz FSB. 5) Graphics card slots, PCe,PCe Express(1x,16X) 5) 160GB Seagate HDD of 7200 RPM

At present I can't play 3D games of current age.What type of (model,any brand) graphics card would I require if I want to play games like DOOM3, Half life,Oblivion, fear, etc with full\good resolution around (60 fps)?. To my playing style,I don't need higher fps say 125 or 150.A max of 60 fps seems more than fine for playing. So I put a limitation to fps of 60,not more than, so that I can play games at maximum graphics,resolution. My prob is, what type of video card is ok so that my config(CPU,motherboard) will utilize the card max.How much memory for video card maybe required?.My budget is around some US$ 250..I have seen many cards for this price,but don't know how it'll suit my config.

After upgrading with such card, will my pc outperform Playstaion2?..Becasue instead of investing 250$ in card, I could just buy PS2 for 140$.Any experts,anybody plz help me...Also if there exists any other site in which I can get more suggestions esp about buying graphics card, please do mention..Thanks in advance.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 08:37, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

$250 USD? Wow, that's heaps. A 8600GTS would cost around $150 (from some website), while a 8800GTS would cost around $300... So I really don't know. As for the PS2 question, I think my crap 8500GT (under $100) could beat that... See PS2 article. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:43, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For $250, you should be able to get something pretty good. I would recommend finding a reasonable nVidia card for under $150 (look for an 8000 series card) - the 8800 card is better than the 8600 (especially at higher screen resolutions) - but I wouldn't pay twice as much to get it. I took a quick look on eBay - and I saw an 8600GTS (sadly, just sold) for $108 "Buy It Now" - so shop around! The resulting system would certainly easily outperform a PS-2, and with your 3GHz CPU, it would beat a PS-3 in some sorts of test. But it's hard to compare a general-purpose machine like a PC with something that's specialised for a particular role like a game console - it's just not an "apples and apples" comparison. The games you list should run fine on your system once you've upgraded the graphics. Make sure you put the card into the 16x PCIexpress slot - don't use the 1x PCIe slot for graphics! SteveBaker 13:24, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

MediaWiki config problem

Hi! Sorry if I posted it here (I should have asked the guys at MediaWiki for this...) I'm having some trouble with my wiki; I configured it in the same way as my other wiki, but the following error shows up:

Fatal error: Call to a member function selectRow() on a non-object in /www/110mb.com/s/t/r/a/w/b/e/r/strawberrylandwiki/htdocs/wiki/includes/User.php on line 752

Can someone help me with this problem?

EDIT: OK, I already found the problem; it was some glitch with the SQL database... Blake Gripling 09:12, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

nvidia-settings: Auto Detect button disabled

In nvidia-settings (with Coolbits enabled), the Auto Detect button on the Clock Frequencies page is disabled even if I select the "3D Clock Frequencies" item from the list. How can I enable the button? I have a GeForce 8500GT. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:33, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Image Virus

Recently I got a virus through MSN Messenger ... there was a message frm one of my contacts which asked me to open a pic (it was a zipped file) ... i realized it was a virus but by then, it was too late and now its already uploaded on my laptop ... this is one of the many image virus ... can u tell me any way to get rid of it ... ???

Thanks a lot for ur help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.17.38.10 (talk) 10:06, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Try one of the many free Antivirus software programs, such as Avast or Antivir. I believe Trend Micro has a site that will do a basic scan from their website, using an ActiveX control. --LarryMac | Talk 12:40, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The image is only the means that the virus got into your computer. The virus itself should be killable using whatever anti-virus solution you already have. Deleting the image and (definitely) not emailing it to anyone else would be a smart move - but it won't get rid of the virus. You should look for an update that patches this vulnerability because it's very easy to get caught out this way. SteveBaker 12:44, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

utorrent "Add Peer"

On utorrent, when you add a peer (right click in peer tab, "Add Peer"), what does this do? I've tried it but can see no difference in speed or look when I do. Thank you xxx Hyper Girl 10:57, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

See peer exchange. Lanfear's Bane | t 11:35, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, that has nothing to do with it. The "peers" are the people that you are downloading from and uploading to. You get a list of peers from mainly three sources, the tracker, peer exchange (where you swap lists of peers with peers you already have) and decentralized tracking (which gets a list of peers from a decentralized network). However, if you know that some dude at a specific IP address has the file you want, you can also add that dude manually, using "add peer". However, there is virtually never any need to do this, so this is a feature you can safely ignore. --Oskar 15:19, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Is my 'gamma' wrong?

The new ref desk colours look 'right' when I view on a LCD screen way off the optimum viewing angle - eg if I tilt the screen back about 60degrees.. Problem is that everything else under these conditions looks like it's 'been kept for the last 50 years in a wood fired tar factory staffed by heavy smokers' ..

Is this effect intentional.?87.102.17.104 12:50, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't look that way to me, if that is what you are asking. --24.147.86.187 13:02, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yes - the colors are pale. So, you appear to be expecting bold colors for the title bars. If you expect to see "barely-noticeable-off-white-tint" colors in the title bars, they will be normal. -- kainaw ™ 13:27, 23 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]