Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

   

How can I get my question answered?

• Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
• Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
• Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
• Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
• Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
• Note:
  • We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
  • We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
  • We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
  • We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

• The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

July 4

Contact software

I need contact software that lets me enter in information for contacts and export it to a Vcard file.

This software needs to have autocomplete, so if one person has the same address as another company, I can just type the first few letters and it fills in the rest. If possible, I'd like one that lets you navigate similar to Excel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.122.155 (talk) 01:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If you are looking to copy them into Outlook this forum says that you can import directly to outlook from excel. I believe you can export the names from excel to a vCard format (.vcf)--omnipotence407 (talk) 03:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

i was able to import excel into outlook, than export from outlook to vcf

however, it had to save the excel as a csv, then match up the columbs in outlooks import wizard thanks for the help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.122.155 (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

IP logging of dynamic addresses

I know very little about computers. I've noticed that when I edit Wikipedia when not logged in, I'm logged as various different IPs -- some of which seem to be shared with other editors, since I've checked contributions history on them and seen edits I didn't make.

Does this mean I'm really anonymous when editing logged out -- and when commenting at other websites? Or can websites identify my computer exactly by combining the IP with other information they gather? The different IPs I see on wikipedia are always similar -- generally the first part of the address is sixty-something.

I'm not planning to troll anonymously anywhere! I'm just curious.

Dybryd (talk) 06:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There's probably some router nearby that is handing out different IP addresses. They will each be in the same range, though, like you said. And they'll move around, so, for example if you were 192.168.0.2 one day you might switch later to 192.168.0.4 and now your brother's computer now possesses 192.168.0.2. Consequently, if he went to check on the contribs, he'd see the edits you had made previously. Useight (talk) 06:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, you're fairly anonymous if you have a dynamic ip address. Law enforcement could probably convince your ISP to tell them who was using a particular IP at a particular time (if they bothered to log it), but otherwise people can only track you down to the range of IP addresses that your ISP uses. It's about as anonymous as being behind one NAT address with hundreds of other people. Indeterminate (talk) 08:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about your ISP, but mine (Comcast) keeps track of all the IP addresses I use and the dates that I use them. The IP alone may not be of much use to spies, but when coupled with other information, such as cookies and your browser's headers, spies can gather a lot of information about you. Your IP may change, but unless you clear out your cookies, most sites will know that you are not a different person. Some administrators here on Wikipedia have access to this type of information. I set my browser to prompt me for cookies and to automatically reject known tracking cookies. The problem with those is that people can use them to track you across the net. They will know not only if you visit their site, but weather.com, your local newspaper, your e-mail provider, and so on, because these sites use the same tracking cookies. They can also use banner ads (images) to track you based on your browser's request to load those images from site to site. I used to use a program called Privoxy that provided pretty good anonymity.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 08:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Privoxy by itself doesn't make you anonymous. It is usually used along with Tor, for programs that don't support Tor directly. --grawity 11:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I know. It helps with cookies, banner ads, and browser headers. It improves anonymity and eliminates annoying ads and popups. Using Tor slows your internet connection down dramatically, and I don't think it's necessary here unless he's doing something risky. Tor only hides your IP address. I use IE7 Pro nowadays as a replacement for Privoxy.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Powefu

What is more powerful: any of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008_June_25#music_and_programs or Max-MSP?

If there are things more powerful, please list and explain. I thank you so much.68.148.164.166 (talk) 09:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

What are you defining as "powerful"? More features? Better application of them? Faster? You might want to clarify what you are really looking for... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Free Domain Names

Hi all:

Does anyone know whether it is possible to register a new .com domain name for free?

I searched around and found out that I could get a .name domain name for free. There is also this organization offering free .co.nr domain names. Are there any other top-level or near-top-level domains that can allow people to freely subdomain off of?

Thanks.

76.65.14.12 (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You can get a subdomain at co.cc - it looks like top level, allows to use your own DNS servers, configure your DNS records (no AAAA yet) or just set up URL forwarding. --grawity 11:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

French keyboard emulator

Hi, does anyone know of any keyboard emulator that would allow for easy typing of French accented letters? I'm using a Cherry RS 6000 M keyboard and Windows XP. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 12:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Set your keyboard layout to "US International" you can then use accented letters by typing for example 'e, which will give you é and 'c to get ç. Also works with `a à "o ö, etc. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 13:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. You don't need an "emulator" to change your keyboard layout. It's somewhere under the Control Panel—international settings or keyboard or something like that, and you can set the "language" of the keyboard. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 09:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

sharing internet

hi...I want to share my broadband connection over my hostel's lan...how do i do this...I know that windows allows the internet connection to be shared but I don't know how please explain the complete procedure in detail...also the ip has to be set manually y the users so what is the correct subnet for internet connection sharing...also what's the difference between sharing the internet connection using proxy server and normal sharing i.e. without proxy server....thanking u in advance.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 14:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that by "hostel" you mean "host". This is amazingly simple. I've done this many times. All you need is a broadband router. I highly recommend Linksys. Quality stuff and it steps you through the whole thing. There are occasionally some bizarre situations (Such as: My niece could not load XP SP2. I host a web site on a server that uses a shared connection. Or, your ISP may not have DHCP, but that is very unlikely.) Those situations require tweaking you may not expect, but Linksys phone support is free and talks you through it.

http://www.linksys.com

What you will do is:

- Unplug the Ethernet cable from the PC.

- Plug that cable into the "Internet" (AKA In) port on the router.

- Use the cable that comes with the router and plug your PC into one of the numbered out ports on the router.

- Any other computers can plug into the other numbered ports.

When you are done, the IP address you that is normally assigned to your PC is assigned to the router instead. On each PC, if you were to run "ipconfig" from a DOS prompt you would see that the PC that powers up first is IP address "yada.yada.yada.100". The next one is "yada.yada.yada.101". etc. The router - routes all the traffic and keeps it straight.

Hope it helps. --Wonderley (talk) 12:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that it matters, but I wonder why you couldn't assume that "hostel" meant "hostel". --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You are assuming that I am a master of the English language. My brain was in computer guy mode - I was actually thinking he wrote "hostile." Yes, I have heard of the word hostel, but rarely and just didn't think of it at the time.--Wonderley (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(state of) computer games industry in Germany

Any know much about the above, or got any links. I ask specifically because of Sacred 2 Fallen Angel the only upcoming title from Germany I am aware of seems 'dire', literally many years behind the english speaking world in terms of programming complexity/features included.. And this from the country that gave the world The Settlers.

Have I picked a bad example, are there examples of AAA titles that match the best of the rest of the world? Thank you.87.102.86.73 (talk) 15:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC) (I've excluded crysis since the company appears to be turkish , is this correct?)

Well, Crytek is a German company. The guys who founded the company are of Turkish descent, but I believe they are German citizens, and in any case, the company was founded in Coburg, Germany. Germany has a pretty big video game industry (as well as as a huge and active video game market), but a large number of the games developed there never make it outside the country, as there are enough German-speaking people to support their own industry.

Still, it's true that these days, not a lot of really first-class developers seem to be currently hailing from Germany. Perhaps, at least in part, this is because of the dreaded German index poses certain challenges to game -- and all media -- development. Overall, the environment for creating action-heavy games in Germany is pretty hostile, as Crytek recently made a public statement on. From what I've heard as a gaming journalist, in many "polite" circles simply working for a video game developer can carry a fairly strong social stigma -- not just the general "nerd" thing, but more comparable to working in pornography. It really doesn't strike me as an environment conducive to creative efforts.

Anyway, in addition to Crytek, I can think of Factor 5, but frankly, especially with Lair being such a disappointing game, calling them an AAA list developer would be a real stretch. Egosoft has produced some pretty decent space combat games, as I recall, but they're definitely not in the category you're looking for, either. There may well be companies that I'm blanking on at the moment, of course! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for an interesting response, though I'm suprised that the industry has negative status.. Board games are very popular in Germany I believe and the country has a history of toy manufacture, plus being practically the birth place of the wargame. How strange.

Thank you very much.87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a little problematic topic, to be sure. Most German games developers aren't making violent games (simply because the laws about them are as strict as they are), but all games are often lumped together with violent games. That's not very surprising; the same thing happens just about everywhere else as well -- most people don't really know much about games, but they know about the games they hear about... so they think that the controversial Grand Theft Auto games, for example, represent some kind of an average product, when the reality is of course quite different. In Germany the gaming culture tends to be pretty different from that of other countries, because active censorship of games is a pretty serious and ongoing issue for the industry. Many games have had their content changed -- classic ways of doing this include changing red blood into green and changing human enemies into zombies, robots or aliens, for example. I imagine that people who make violent movies are treated much the same way, but the difference is, of course, that people don't assume that all filmmakers make violent movies. Movies are just more mainstream than games are, so people make a lot of assumptions to make up for their ignorance of the actual facts. If the many excellent German wargames and boardgames were more violent, they'd probably get treated a little differently as well... but, of course, that medium just doesn't lend itself well to explicit blood and gore. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, can't wait for the arrival of Sacred 2. This, and Titan Quest, have been the only games that have ever come close to being a Diablo 2 clone. While the world awaits Diablo 3, I guess Sacred 2 will have to do. Crysis was simply stunning as well (if not a bit irritating towards the end, floating around blindly in the alien dome) so as far as I'm concerned, Germans should continue with their great work! Sandman30s (talk) 21:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Snapter like software

Hi Wikipedians:

I am looking forward to making some ebooks on my own from camera snapping real books from the library. I downloaded this software called Snapter which purportedly could take the photos and spit out PDF ebooks in one step. Unfortunately it doesn't work on my computer, so I'm looking for other Snapter-like software, hopefully free and doesn't require fancy .NET frameworks.

Any good picks?

Thanks

74.12.39.232 (talk) 16:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, no, I've never seen anything else that did this, and I've been looking for something like this. (.NET isn't that fancy—my 5 year old PC running XP can run it just fine. Have you tried downloading and installing the .NET framework? It's not that hard...). Anyway, if your machine is too weak to run .NET... it might be nice if you told us what your machine specs were in the first place. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks 98.217.8.46, I've resolved the problem, turns out I've been running an older version of .NET, when I upgraded it to .NET 3.5 presto, all problems are gone. However, snapter isn't as powerful as I thought, so I was a bit disappointed :-( I'll keep looking. 76.68.9.250 (talk) 00:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Only one computer work with a wired connection to my cable modem

Hi all,

I have a cable modem and I used to pass my connection through a wireless router, with my desktop connected directly to the router and the laptops in my house connecting wirelessly. Recently, however, it looks like the wireless router has stopped working, so I thought it was the router's fault, but now I'm not sure. if I connect my desktop PC directly to the modem, it works fine. Here's what doesn't work: anything else connected to the modem. That's the router and both laptops (one Mac and one PC).

Is it possible that some setting has been changed so that only the desktop can connect to the modem? How would I find such settings, if they exist? Is there another likely explanation?

Any help very much appreciated, thanks! — Sam 18:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Your router probably has an "in" port and several "out" ports. Make sure the cable from the modem is connected to the in port of the router, and the desktop to an out port. I suspect you have them reversed; the in port acts as a crossover, which needs to be done for the incoming connection. If you plug it into an out port, but the working computer is on the "in" port, it's still being crossed over for that computer, but not for the others. See this diagram. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 18:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The ethernet cable is definitely going into the in port of the router, and yet no data lights light up. Likewise, the laptops can be connected straight to the modem in the same way as the desktop is, yet they show no connection. This is a new problem, I've never had the router or the laptops not work when connected directly to the cable box.

If it were just the router or just one of the laptops not working, I'd put it down to some problem there, but since none of them work, yet the PC does, I'm wondering if this is some kind of setting in the cable box... The box, btw, is a real basic Cisco Scientific Atlanta -- no buttons or switches or anything. — Sam 19:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

desktop to an out port. I suspect you have them reversed; the in port acts as a crossover, which needs to be done for the incoming connection. If you plug it into an out port, but the working computer is on the "in" port, it's still being crossed over for that computer, but not for the others. See this diagram. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 18:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The ethernet cable is definitely going into the in port of the router, and yet no data lights light up. Likewise, the laptops can be connected straight to the modem in the same way as the desktop is, yet they show no connection. This is a new problem, I've never had the router or the laptops not work when connected directly to the cable box.

If it were just the router or just one of the laptops not working, I'd put it down to some problem there, but since none of them work, yet the PC does, I'm wondering if this is some kind of setting in the cable box... The box, btw, is a real basic Cisco Scientific Atlanta -- no buttons or switches or anything. — Sam 19:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

My ISP gives me one dynamic IP address to work with. That IP address is assigned to a single network card. If I were to connect another computer to the modem without releasing the IP address, the new computer wouldn't be able to acquire a network address (I once had to call my ISP so they could manually release the lease; otherwise I might have had to wait a day or two). Now I have a router, and it works because I set it to emulate the MAC address of my computer's network card. Multiple computers can operate on my home network because the router is performing network address translation (NAT), so to the DHCP server at my ISP it is as if there is only one computer connected.

I suggest either making sure you release the lease on your IP address before switching computers, or make sure your router is both emulating the working PC's hardware address and performing network address translation. You could also ask your ISP if you have a similar setup (single dynamically allocated IP address). Many ISPs will even help you diagnose your problem in any case, so a call to their technical support number may be worthwhile. --Prestidigitator (talk) 21:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked perfectly! I worked out my network card's MAC address, logged into my router and changed it's MAC address to match my card's, and then plugged in the router, and it works! Yay! — Sam 17:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.120.108 (talk)

Semi-awesome bar for FireFox 3?

Hi all,

I've just switched to FireFox 3, and I'm wondering if there is some plugin or something that will combine the effects of the awesome bar with the old address bar.

Back when I had FF 2, when I wanted (for example) to go to Google News, I'd start typing in "news...." and the first choice would be news.google.com, and when I wanted to go to NYTimes I'd start typing "ny..." and the first choice would be nytimes.com.

Now, since I go to both equally, when I start typing in "news" I randomly get Google, NYTimes, sometimes even the Onion as the first hit, depending on where I was recently. However, I don't want to go back to a FF 2-like bar, since I do like the awesomeness of the bar... sometimes.

Is there any kind of plugin or setting that will let the first X choices in the list be what would show up on the old bar, and the rest of them be what would show up on the new bar? That way, when I start typing in "news..." URLs that actually start with "news" would always come up first, but, say, NYTimes would still show up there somewhere?

Bit of a long-shot, I know, but thanks for any recommendations! — Sam 19:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Type About:config in the addressbar, accept the warning
2. Type: Browser.urlbar.autoFill
3. Double click it to set it to true
4. ???
5. Profit.

Chris M. (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's actually Browser.urlbar.autoFill (with a dot, not a colon)...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 20:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I knew that >_>... fixed and thanks. 69.177.166.145 (talk) 22:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't work anyway, although it's handy. .froth. (talk) 03:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Windows Meeting Space, Windows Netmeeting and you

Currently I'm on a Vista Home premium desktop using Windows Meeting Space with another Vista Home Premium desktop (and it's great actually). When I return to college I want to be able to use a similar program from my XP Professional to this Vista Home Premium. Meeting space doesn't work with XP, and Windows Netmeeting doesn't work with Vista Home Premium (I checked).

I don't care if it's another companies software, I'm just looking for something that does what meeting space does just as well between an XP and Vista home premium.

Any ideas?

Thanks! Chris M. (talk) 19:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

repair windows xp professional

I have the above mentioned system, but I cannot boot it up. I dont have an emergency boot cd or even a cd-rom. I know that my computer can boot form usb, but what should I put inside the usb? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.128.154.226 (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

We'll need more information on what you mean by "unable to boot it up": can your computer go past POST? Or does it freeze when the Windows logo is displayed? But most likely you'll need a Windows CD in order to repair/reinstall the system. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I keep receiving the following message:

System Cannot Log You on Because Domain <Computername> Is Not Available

More about it here. I downloaded the hotfix from Microsoft, but since I cannot boot the computer, I cannot use it. :(

Meanwhile I have a cd-rom again and I am trying to find a Windows CD for it. I have Windows XP professional SP2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.59.92.109 (talk) 11:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Could it be done with Knoppix? And what if I want to abandone my old OS (Windows), save the file and install something else. What do I need then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.59.92.109 (talk) 11:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the knowledge-base article, this could be done with a linux live cd that's able to mount XP drives in a read/write fashion, and then doing using either method 1 or method 2 that microsoft recommends (method 1 would only work if you had the file to replace it with, but I suppose you could find it on the net somewhere. It's just basically move and rename operations, so it shouldn't be too complicated. I recommend the Ubuntu Live CD, it's excellent in every single way.

Are you good enough with computers to be able to do this (since you mentioned Knoppix, I assume you aren't a complete dunce), or do you need more detailed help? The easiest way would of course be to simply reinstall windows, but maybe you have files you want to save or something :) --Oskar 21:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you want to abandon Windows and install something else, you can use the Ubuntu Live CD for that too :D. You could even partition the drive in such a way so that the (malfunctioning) windows installation exists on one partition and Ubuntu on another, and then you'll still have all your files! Only in Ubuntu! Isn't Linux wonderful :) --Oskar 22:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. It seems that new versions of Knoppix are able to mount drives in a write/read fashion. I'll take a look at Ubuntu too. I will do a backup of my personal files and then proceeed to reinstall the OS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.128.154.226 (talk) 16:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

C++

I have windows vista. I want to program c++. What program (free) do I need?--71.185.138.77 (talk) 22:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Visual C++ Express Edition, from Microsoft, or gcc (via mingw) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Eclipse CDT with gcc in Cygwin is pretty good too, but it's a real pain to set up the first time. I've also used Dev-C++ a long time ago; apparently it is now developed under the name wxDev-C++. There's a list of IDEs at Comparison of integrated development environments#C/C++. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 00:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

July 5

Japan mobile phone web markup language alphabet soup nightmare

I'm contemplating the construction of a simple website (in English and Japanese) for consumption via mobile phones in Japan. My head's swimming with markup languages. Au's EZweb uses (used?) HDML. Docomo's i-mode uses (used?) C-HTML (with Shift-JIS). Whatever HDML and XHTML 1.1 Basic are, they don't seem to be the same; yet I think I read somewhere that au uses the latter. And there are other companies and "standards" besides: this commercial page waffles on about how this or that company uses the advertiser's services to convert its cHTML (NTT DoCoMo/iMode) site to HDML (KDDI/au), MML (Vodafone [sic]), Edge and PMDX (DDI Pocket/Feel H" & H")[...].

So far, so horrible. Yet Wapedia is billed as a single site that caters for all mobile phones in Japan. A quick peek at the source of its top page shows no DOCTYPE declaration, but clearly it's some flavor of XHTML Transitional (with UTF-8 character encoding). I'd thought that Transitional went out with XHTML 1.0; is this "XHTML Mobile Profile"? Or is Wapedia sniffing the user-agent string and just giving something identifying itself as "Mozilla" the XHTML 1.0 Transitional that it thinks computer browsers like?

I think I can assume that all potential readers would have phones that are less than three years old. (Most would have phones that are much newer than that.) If I don't need proprietary e-moji and suchlike gimmickry, is there a one-fits-most solution? -- Hoary (talk) 02:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

PS this tells me that the http header specifies XHTML and UTF-8. This shows me that when visited by a bot it has a DOCTYPE declaration invoking this DTD ("XHTML Mobile 1.0") and again that it's UTF-8. How strange: when I look at the source again with a browser (this time Konqueror), again I see no DOCTYPE; instead, the page starts with the HTML tag. -- Hoary (talk) 05:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think they do a lot of user agent sniffing and transform the website according to each individual browser and its quirks, before sending it to the mobile phone. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

What a bore. Ah well, my EZweb phone seems to understand both HTML and XHTML; I'll just have to experiment and then see if people using the other companies can see the results. -- Hoary (talk) 12:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

PPS I don't need forms (or any other kind of genuine participation by the bemused browser), but I would like to know what size/format of photos to dish up (my own, rather ageing phone manages to squash down fairly big ones, but quickly gives up with memory limits). And (deep breath) I'm thinking of supplying little videos too. -- Hoary (talk) 00:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Differences of software

What are the differences between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008_June_25#music_and_programs and Max-MSP?68.148.164.166 (talk) 05:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu Linux

How is it possible (if at all) to map a second drive onto Ubuntu Linux? I have a Vista machine which has two drives and my Ubuntu partition is only picking up one of them.

Thanks in advance.

--ChokinBako (talk) 12:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by drive: another physical harddrive or a partition? Does it show up on gparted or fdisk? (try sudo apt-get install gparted to install gparted or sudo fdisk -l to list all partitions in fdisk)? --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It should automatically show up in Nautilus. In the sidebar in Nautilus (that is, the file-browser), see if there is any items that says something like "120 GB Drive" or something. Otherwise, open up GParted (install if necessary), and you can mount it from there. --Oskar 14:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Got it in your fstab? .froth. (talk) 03:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

DVB-T question

Just wondering, am I correct in thinking that there is a method which DVB-T broadcasters can assign fixed channel numbers to channels (i.e. so that all receivers will place them in the same order)? If so, how does it work in the cases of multiple multiplexes where they are managed by different companies? Thanks for any help. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 13:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I can't find any reference for it in wikipedia I can tell you that each channel does (seem) to have a specific number attached to it eg in UK BBC1 is always 1, the auxillary BBC channels have numbers 301, 302 etc..

Digital Video Broadcasting explains that there are various bodies involved setting up the standards, I have no idea if the channel number is meta-data Digital_Video_Broadcasting#Encryption_and_metadata, or more fundamental

I'm not sure how different multiplexes could possibly interfere with this assignment? maybe I've not understood?87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Lost Windows XP admin password

I've fogotten my Windows XP admin password after a long vacation. How can I recover my data? I thought about demounting the HDD, connect it as an external HDD, backup the files and format it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 17:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

There are many boot CDs that will reset the password for you, like ERD Commander or Hiren's Boot CD. You just set your BIOS to boot from a CD, insert the disk, and restart your PC. You can also try starting your computer in safe mode by pressing F8 during boot time and then logging into the Administrator account. Windows XP creates an account named Administrator by default. Often the password for that account is blank.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way is to boot windows into safe mode by pressing F8 while windows is starting (after the BIOS has loaded, but before the Windows XP logo comes up. Press it repeatedly), and select "Start in Safe Mode". Everything will look like crap, but you get access to an Administrator account which you can use to reset the password for any of the accounts. No need to download anything extra or booting from a different drive. Easy as pie! --Oskar 21:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't see that Hello had already given this tip. How embarrassing :) --Oskar 21:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If you don't want to use Safe Mode, you can also press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice on login screen and login as Administrator.

If you lost the Administrator password, but still have the Windows XP CD:

1. Boot from the install CD
2. Select to install Windows on the top of existing installation
3. When prompted, choose "repair install"
4. During the repair, press Shift+F10 (or Shift+F12 - I don't remember)
5. Type control userpasswords2 or lusrmgr.msc

--grawity 09:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

BartPE is a little more elegant than partially IPUing .froth. (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Bear in mind if you've encrypted any files with Windows Encrypting File System you won't be able to recover them unless you either remember your password or bruteforce it. If you have done so and want to recover your files I recommend you do not follow any of the above advice and instead look into it first since reseting your password could make your files virtually irrecoverable Nil Einne (talk) 17:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Remote Access

I have two computers connected to one router, both running Windows XP. One is a wired desktop, the other is a wireless laptop. What would be the easiest way to access the files on my desktop from the laptop? --Russoc4 (talk) 23:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you make the Desktop folder a shared folder ? If so, I think that should do it. StuRat (talk) 01:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Make sure in the network properties that the PCs have the same workgroup name. In windows explorer on the laptop under the tools menu, select "Map Network Drive." For the folder name put //desktopPCname/c$, but for "desktopPCname" put the name of the desktop PC. It will ask you for the administrator password of the desktop. The drive does NOT have to be shared, but you may have to disable some firewall SOFTWARE. You are protected from the outside because routers have HARDWARE firewalls. Well, I know mine does. You may want to double check that.--Wonderley (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

July 6

Booting From a USB Flash Drive

Hello! I've been looking at Puppy Linux as the OS for booting from a 2GB Sony MicroVault I own, because I heard it is a fast OS and it comes with its own software to format the USB flash drive after you run it from a live CD. My two questions:

1. Once I boot from the USB flash drive, will I be able to access files from the hard disk drive on my computer, even though I'm using the OS on the flash drive?

2. Once I format the USB flash drive, will I be able to delete everything on it and use it as a regular flash drive again?

Thanks a lot!--El aprendelenguas (talk) 00:50, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

To answer the second question first: yes, formatting a drive will delete all data and software on it immediately. As for your first question: I've never used Puppy Linux, but, as a repair OS, it almost certainly has the ability to mount hard drives with various filesystems. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 01:29, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I've used Puppy Linux regularly for a couple of years now. Whilst compromises have been made to keep it under 100 MB, I certainly wouldn't call it a "repair OS". Booting from a CD, it creates a RAM-disk for the OS which explains why it is fast even on old hardware (it ran at an acceptable speed on a 400Mhz PII with 128MB of RAM). To answer your first question: Puppy has a drive mounter application on the desktop making it easy to access data on your hard drive. Astronaut (talk) 16:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Phone as Clock

I want to use a java enabled flip-phone as an alarm clock. It's small (so travels well), and it's one less thing to take on holiday. The idea being, when you go to bed you open it, and leave it there - of course because the screen sits at an angle to the keypad, it will stay open. But there are many, many, many java clocks out there for phones. Does anyone use one who can recommend it? Preferably one which fills the whole screen.78.144.174.167 (talk) 00:51, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what kind of a phone you have exactly, but I believe that all modern Nokia phones, at least, come with an alarm function as it is, and I'd be surprised to learn that other manufacturers have neglected to include it. I mean, I don't think I've owned a separate alarm clock for close to a decade now. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:58, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It's a Motorola, however. What I had in mind was one which the clock would dominate the screen, making it easier to see from your bed :-) like a conventional bedside clock. I discovered it has a function to use Java screensavers, I thought that would be a nice way of doing it. Then it would start automatically after a few minutes. 78.149.106.37 (talk) 13:05, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Vista

Resolved

 – StuRat (talk) 19:28, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Does vista have WordPad , notepad etc (or is it horribly broken!)..

seriously I'd like to know.87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:06, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

ok read the articles now. ignore or delete question..87.102.86.73 (talk) 13:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Impossible to enter my BIOS

I have a PC running Windows XP professional and after some changes to the boot sequence in my BIOS, I am not able to enter it anymore. No matter if I press F1, F2 or Esc. These buttons don't work anymore. The rest is working Windows boots as before. What should I do? Can the BIOS be reset from the OS? What has happened? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:41, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You can usually reset the BIOS by removing the battery from the motherboard and leaving it out for ten minutes. Google your motherboard type for help. Exxolon (talk) 17:13, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

It's also a good idea to search around in your computer manufacturers support pages and see if they have some helpful advice. Chances are you're not the first person that this has happened to. --Oskar 21:42, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I have an ASUS laptop and it should have a jumper somewhere where I can reset the BIOS. I still don't know where this jumper is. Should it be near the processor, RAM or HDD? These places are easier to reach since you have only two screws on them. Otherwise I'll have to take the whole laptop apart.

A long shot, but are you using a USB keyboard? They often fail during this part of the boot sequence, so keep a PS-2 board around just in-case. Also, maybe whatever you did to the BIOS changed the default key to enter it, so try some different combinations from here. Also try resetting the BIOS by removing the cmos jumper from the motherboard for a while. And if you know the maker of your bios, the manufacturer's web site may have a utility to reset and update the bios within Windows, without opening your pc. JessicaN10248 12:42, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

• A follow up question - out of curiosity - would be: what did it happen? And why is the OS still booting? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 08:39, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wiki diff question

Resolved

 – StuRat (talk) 03:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I have this diff: [1], and want to know which "-N" flag was removed from the wiki table. However, the diff doesn't seem to give me enough info to tell, except that it says the change took place on line 849. I'd really prefer not to have to count off 849 lines, however. So, is there an easier way ? StuRat (talk) 21:51, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Hit the "(edit)" link next to the "Revision as of 18:55, July 5, 2008" header.
2. Copy the full text from the textbox into your favorite text editor.
3. Use your favorite text editor's "go to line 849" command. (e.g. 849G if you have good taste)

Alternative method: use both "(edit)" links, copy the 2 versions of the wikitext into separate files, and apply your own favorite diff command locally.

The affected row was this one:

! style="text-align:left;" | RCA
| style="text-align:left;" | DTA800B1
| {{No}}
| {{Yes}}
| {{Yes}}
| Thomson_SA|Thomson
| [[Broadcom]] [http://www.broadcom.com./collateral/pb/3543-PB04-R.pdf BCM3543]
| SoC Integrated
| {{unk}}
| {{partial|Now/Next}}
| D
|-

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 22:31, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm on a Windows box here, so use MS Word as my not-so-favorite editor. Is there a way to jump to a line number in Word ? StuRat (talk) 00:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Use Notepad or Wordpad. Word is not a text editor. It is a word processor. In this case, the difference is huge. It is Ctrl-G in Notepad if I remember back that far into my distant past well enough. -- kainaw™ 00:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thx. StuRat (talk) 02:30, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If this problem comes up frequently, you make a Wikipedia feature request for some way of getting more context lines in a diff. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 05:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Best suggestions for a text editor on Windows, for this kind of usage: Metapad (which you can rename as Notepad.exe and just overwrite in the system folders). If you want more features, look at UltraEdit too. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all. StuRat (talk) 03:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Playing diablo2 on lan question

On my house i have 2 pcs on lan, "PC A" and "PC B". I can host diabblo 2 with PC A, PC B is able to enter on the lan game and play togheter with PC A. But if I host with PC B I PC A can not enter in PC B game. Why this is happening??? 201.79.38.20 (talk) 22:49, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing here, but the first thing I would check is whether PC B has a firewall installed that keeps PC A from seeing the hosted game. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:20, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

July 7

Document-centric XML database

Let's say I have billions biographical articles in XHTML format. They are all semantically tagged, for example:

<name><first>Joe</first> <middle>Snoopy</middle> <last>Cool</last></name> was a <gender>male</gender> <nationality country="UK">British</country> <job>inventor</job> who was born in <birth><place country="India">India</place> on <month>January</month> <day>1</day>, <year>1900<year></birth>. He died in ...

Joe Snoopy Cool was a male British inventor who was born in India on January 1, 1900. He died in ...

Each file, originally written for human readers, contains exactly one person's biography and each person has only one biography (or one file). They are certainly not very friendly to a computer. I can build a relational database using data extracted from the properly tagged articles. However, it may be more elegant to use a XML-based solution. After all, you may add millions articles to this database each day and thank God you have a really fast computer.

Now I need to read the biographies (full text) of all Australian soldiers who was graduated from the Happy Monkey College of Sydney and died in the 1950s or all of Joe Cool's grandsons (they are all tagged). What are the XML search programs that I can use? -- Toytoy (talk) 03:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I entirely understand what you want. Do you have a bunch of files in the above-mentioned XHTML format and you want to convert them into a relational database? Or into XML-format? Or what? --Oskar 03:37, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Querying XML documents tends to be referred to as a "twig-query". The XML can be reformatted into a tree of parent tags and child tags (the page itself being the root node). If you've taken any computer science courses, you've worked with data trees. Unfortunately, twig queries are slow and there is no standard (yet). Also, about 90% of the work on making good twig query systems is being done in Beijing - so learn Chinese if you want to study the latest stuff. I have a similar situation, but I don't use twig queries. Instead, I use grep and sed. For example, if you want to know the job of everyone with the middle name "Snoopy", you can grep for "<name>.*<middle>Snoopy</middle>.*</name>" and then sed "s/^.*<job>//" and sed "s/</job>.*$//". Of course, you'll pipe it all together into one line. Then, use sort and uniq to get a unique list. I've considered writing an SQL-like interpreter that produces the proper grep/sed command, but I've never had the time. -- kainaw™ 04:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I think I can implement the DB on a relational platform. But I think "twig-query" shall be much more elegant becaue you do not need to keep a separate catalog. If you create a new element (e.g., <salary>, <weight>, ...), it may be easier to update the XML-based solution to recognize the new element.

On second thought, I think I need to know some buzz words. How do people call this kind of search? What is the query language? What are the DB systems (commercial, open source, ...) that support this kind of search? -- Toytoy (talk) 05:31, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If you want to put it in a database that makes it easy search for stuff like "Give me all people between the ages 30-35, sorted by their last name" or "Give me all the firemen and the police officers", you want an SQL database, such as MySQL (which is open source). You would probably need to write a little script that parsed the input-files and put them in the database, but once that's done, it's super-easy to do searches on the data (and very easy to export the whole thing to an XML-file). How skilled are you with computers? Do you know how to code? And what do you need this for, are you just looking to do one specific search or are you setting it up so that that you can search the data repeatedly? Is this for a business you're doing this? A little more details would be helpful --Oskar 07:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't that grep only work if the name tags and the middle tags where on the same line? Seems to me to be a terrible assumption. --Oskar 05:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right- awk is the tool of choice in this case. .froth. (talk) 06:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You do know how to grep an entire file instead of line-by-line, don't you? Yes, awk could be used. You could do it with just sed. You could do it all in Perl. Anyone else have one of the million possible ways to find and print text in *nix machines? -- kainaw™ 12:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Then why did they develop native-XML databases if you can search inside these XML files? -- Toytoy (talk) 15:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Psi-Ops problems

I recently downloaded a copy of Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy for PC. I expected this to be easy to play, as my system can play Half-Life 2 (granted, on low quality settings) with good framerate. However, when I try to play, I experience massive problems with input lag: Namely, that it can take between 1/2-sec to, occasionally, 3 sec or more for my input to be recognized and the action taken. I even dropped the resolution to 800x600, and it didn't change a thing. Please, this is an excellent game, but I can't continue if I keep inadvertently dropping off a ledge for a 100-foot fall. I am running an Nvidia 6100 graphics card, AMD Athlon 64+ dual-core processor, and 2gb of RAM. 68.103.215.168 (talk) 02:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

All OVER google. http://forums.techpowerup.com/archive/index.php/t-3890.html .froth. (talk) 03:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

By the way, congratulations on hosing your system by installing StarForce. Nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. .froth. (talk) 03:16, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hold on a sec. The link you gave me (and everything else I can find) is about people running the control program for ATI cards. Could the problem on my end be with the Nvidia compliment? And if I do away with SF, does that mean I can't play Psi-Ops any longer? How do I go about nuking it? 68.103.215.168 (talk) 14:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Converting an M4A file

Resolved

 – JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 20:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I was sent a file with an .M4A extension (same as MP4). I copied it to a CD but cannot play it on the CD player in my car, which is about seven years old. Any suggestions on how best to convert it to something I can play? I have a computer running Windows XP and Real Player but no special software. Ma^t_chups 03:02, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You can't just burn data to a disk and expect it to be formatted as CDDA. Try downloading this MP4 splitter and installing the Audio component of ffdshow. Now you can use Windows Media player to burn the disk and WMP will automatically use Red Book formatting. .froth. (talk) 03:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

That seems awfully complicated. Probably the easiest way to do it is to import the file into iTunes, put it in a playlist, put a cd-r in your drive and press the "Burn CD" button. Easy as pie! --Oskar 03:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah if you use itunes. .froth. (talk) 03:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

True, but it's still easier than using WMP, installing mp4 splitter and ffdshow. One very easy to use program, that's quite handy for all your music needs! --Oskar 03:19, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

{{resolved}} I tried the iTunes idea but it said I didn't have the right XP service pack. But then I figured if iTunes could do it, maybe Real Player could too. Sure enough. And although it asked me to pick music from a playlist, I found that I could just drag and drop a file from Windows Explorer. Ma^t_chups 02:24, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

CSS em over px

What is the differences between "em" and "px" when witting in HTML and CSS; is there a preference between the two? ChyranandChloe (talk) 08:44, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

px is pixels - the fixed unit of size which graphics are rendered in. So an image or letter might be displayed as 7px tall, or 6 px tall, or whatever.

em (I think) is "multiples of standard spacing". So 2em is saying "use 2 x whatever spacing you would have normally used".

Check with others, but I think that's the difference. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

An em is (related to) the width of a letter m! Not to be confused with the html em. 163.1.148.158 (talk) 09:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I figured "em" were more adaptable (in terms of broswer support) than "px", but I was looking for more or less a preference between the two. ChyranandChloe (talk) 09:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I prefer "em", because it can make changes easier. For example, if you have this css

body { font-size: 14px;}

h1 {font-size: 21px;}

h2 {font-size: 17px;}

then if you later decide that all the text needs to be bigger (or smaller), you need to change every occurrence of font-size. However, if you write the css like this

body { font-size: 14px;}

h1 {font-size: 1.5em;}

h2 {font-size: 1.2em;}

then you can change the size of all the text on the page simply by changing the body font-size. Of course, this assumes that you want to keep the same relative sizing. Also, Internet Explorer used to have problems scaling if the font size was declared in pixels; that might have been fixed in IE7. --LarryMac | Talk 13:15, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Always prefer using em ('m's) whenever possible. The space grows or shrinks as the user decides to enlarge or reduce the font size or page zoom. Use pt (points) to place objects in specific positions, it should provide good results in both screen and print medias. Avoid using px (pixels), it is a screen-oriented measure unit, not suitable for printing. --Juliano (T) 14:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

As has been said, em will change based on your browser settings (specifically the font size), px does not. So keep this in mind when designating things as one or the other. Space between paragraphs, for example, should always be in em, not px, because if you make the text bigger (because you can't see tiny text), you'll want that space to change proportionally as well. If you have graphical elements that fit together, though, you need to use px on them, or else they'll all fly apart when enlarged (unless you are using Firefox 3, which seems to do enlargement as a form of zooming, last I checked). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 16:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I think this question is done. ChyranandChloe (talk) 20:18, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Windows XP Pro and Server 2003 Enterprise

I've been running XP Pro a long time on one of my machines. As I have to reinstall the box now (hardware failure/new components), I'm toying with the idea of trying Win 2003 enterprise as a workstation, rather than XP Pro. As an exceptionally heavily used box, the main incentives for this would be -

1. Increased application and system memory limits (32 GB+ RAM, rather than the 3.2 GB limit of XP),
2. Internal use of Storport rather than SCSIport for I/O (significantly increased SATA non-RAID disk speed),
3. Better stability (BSOD reduction, shutdown tracking, etc)
4. Better security
5. Avoiding bloat or slowdown at OS level (always a risk, Vista is reportedly much less resource efficient; for all I can tell Server 2008 may be as well)

The focus governing component choices is stability, and raw speed/processing power - the machine runs several terabytes of storage via non-RAID SATA, and a quad core CPU on the most stable motherboard I can find, and handles a huge array of very processor-intense tasks for work use. Running slow is "expensive", falling over is "very expensive".

I was originally going to hold onto XP until ready to transition to *nix in a few years, but am instead now considering using 2K3 until then, due to these possible advantages (if it doesn't lose out to XP in other ways).

Since Win2K3 wasn't marketed as a workstation system, the question is,

1. is there anything limiting in its use that might be a problem, such as software, or features and functions, that work on XP but not on 2K3,
2. a sense of lower perceived speed on workstation/desktop software (browser, office type packages, and the like),
3. areas of limited functionality compared to XP (due to it being designed for server rather than desktop usage), or
4. advantages listed above that wouldn't actually be realized?

Thanks for any and all input,

FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 08:50, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I've installed Windows Server 2003 before and hardly noticed any differences between it and XP. IIS still has to be installed separately. Interfaces for managing servers are installed to the Control Panel, but the servers aren't. The main difference is that the Themes service is not enabled by default. This wasn't an issue for me since I disabled themes inside XP, anyway. As for stability, have you had a lot of BSODs inside XP? They are extremely rare in XP compared to older versions of Windows. For many people, they don't happen at all. Another difference is that Internet Explorer prohibits you from visiting sites outside your intranet, although this feature can be disabled.

That was a 32-bit version (Standard), though. 64-bit versions of Windows — like Server 2003 Enterprise — have to use an emulator to use 32-bit programs. It runs automatically, so you won't notice unless you go into the Task Manager. The system comes with 64-bit and a 32-bit versions of IE, since certain 32-bit add-ons won't work in the 64-bit version. There may be issues with 32-bit hardware drivers, too.

In addition, you might want to consider Windows XP Professional x64 edition. As a 64-bit OS, it can use more RAM.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 17:41, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

BSOD is rare, but given significant uptime and heavy load, it happens occasionally and is worth reducing. x64 seems to be risking compatibility issues with some software more than 2k3 would (and if I ever add a new card, driver compatibility may also be an issue), which is my main concern there. It's mostly, is there much that works on XP pro, but won't work on 2k3? (For example, I discovered my anti-virus package won't - the commercial version is needed.) And how do they compare for speed and usability if the various "disabled by defaults" are enabled to match XP? That kind of thing. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 20:13, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I didn't install very much on it aside from servers: just MS Office 2003 and 2007, Adobe Reader, Mozilla Firefox, Quicktime, and Putty. All of those worked like a charm. I hear that certain applications aren't supported though, like Photoshop. But you can get them to work using the Application Verifier utility from Microsoft.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 22:47, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Live CD vs. live USB

If I take the files of a live CD and save them in a USB, a computer will not boot (even if it is able to boot from a USB stick). Why are the files in a live CD different from the files in a live USB? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 09:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason for this is that the CD has a boot sector, which cannot be copied simply by copying the CD's contents to the USB flash drive. I'm not that familiar with how booting from a USB flash drive happens, but I'd guess that even if you were to transfer the entire contents of a CD, including the boot sector, to the USB flash drive, it wouldn't work just like that -- the boot sector is located in a specific physical area of the CD, and unless there was some sort of an emulator program included on the USB flash drive, the computer wouldn't know to look for the boot sector data from the USB flash drive. I may be wrong, but I'm going to be a little surprised if I am. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:48, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Most linux live CDs have a script you can run, called something like "bootinst.bat" in DOS or "bootinst.sh" is Bash, to copy a boot sector to the USB drive. If you're looking for a good live USB, I'd go with Slax. It even has a prepackaged distribution to make a live USB download here JessicaN10248 12:29, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I would imagine that booting from a usb drive is the same as booting from an internal hard-drive, with MBRs and such. I mean, they're both drives, why would there be a difference?. The ubuntu wiki gives instructions on how to make a usb-stick with ubuntu on it. Essentially, you just install Ubuntu like you usually do, but on the pendrive itself (with GRUB and everything). --Oskar 19:11, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

IRC shenanigans

I use ChatZilla as my IRC client. I have been banned from several channels based solely on this fact.

Is there a script, plugin, or option to change the CTCP VERSION reply, or disable it altogether?

I would greatly appreciate help. I asked on the Mozilla IRC network but nobody seems to be answering. 75.184.96.180 (talk) 10:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Double underscore (_)?

Why do some variables and other things in source code in, for example, Linux, have double underscores? --212.120.246.239 (talk) 12:00, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

This depends on the language. In general, a variable that begins with a single underscore is something that you shouldn't mess with. A variable that begins with a double-underscore is something you really shouldn't mess with. The exact reason could be that it is a system library variable or a private class variable (depending on the language, as I mentioned). -- kainaw™ 12:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Ah, so they use that symbol to underscore the fact that you shouldn't mess with it ? StuRat (talk) 04:07, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe it is to make it unique. The idea is that you won't use an underscore variable/function in your own code. So, there won't be any conflict with names. Of course, that is limited to non-OO practices. In OO, object scope takes the issues of common names away. The underscores have a different meaning - still meaning "do not use this variable for whatever you like - it has a special purpose that you shouldn't mess with." So, it goes from an attempt to make it unique to a continuation of the old practice of underscoring the importance of the variable. -- kainaw™ 11:08, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It can also just be a convention, such as in the Linux kernel, where "__do_something()" often means "do_something()" but without any mutual exclusion locking. --Sean 14:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It's often system-variables and such. For instance, in PHP, there's stuff like $_GET which is the GET arguments in a HTTP request, in Python, there's stuff like the doc-string that documents a function and such, __doc__ --Oskar 19:04, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In a standard conforming C++ implementation (and likely other language implementations), names containing double underscores are reserved to the implementation. This serves at least two purposes. First, it allows the implementation to freely use these names in header (include) files and libraries for undocumented, implementation-dependent uses without interfering with names defined in a standard conforming program. For example, the mechanism for file I/O may contain numerous implementation defined functions and global data structures named with two leading underscores. Second, it is common for strongly typed languages to use name mangling to assign "decorated" names to user defined functions. These decorated names encode the original function name, argument and return types, and other contextual information. For example, the abs() in the std library might have different (overloaded) versions taking either an integer, float, or double value as an argument. The actual function name generated by the compiler might (theoretically) be called __std__abs__i, __std__abs__f, and __std__abs__d, so that the linker can distinguish between them. This also prevents accidentally calling a function that expects one type of argument from code that passes a different data type. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:32, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's a good answer for C as well. The ISO standard says:

All identifiers that begin with an underscore and either an uppercase letter or another underscore are always reserved for any use.

-- Coneslayer (talk) 12:27, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Reinstall missing qt-mt.dll

When I try to start up an application, an error message appears, telling me it has failed to start because qt-mt.dll was not found and that reinstalling it may fix the problem. I looked for it on my computer and obviously haven't found it; I googled the problem and I found out that reinstalling Apple's QuickTime might have been a solution. I did that {QuickTime version 7 for Windows Vista} and still that same error message keeps appearing. Any help would be highly appreciated, thanks for your time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.33.143.131 (talk) 16:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I suspect QuickTime thought it was doing an upgrade and that the file was already in place and unchanged. I would uninstall QuickTime, reboot and reinstall. However, I have QuickTime installed. Everything appears to work for me and I do not have the file either. - But, I'm XP and not Vista. --Wonderley (talk) 20:06, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm seeing a lot of references to Adobe Photo Album Starter Edition when trying to track this one down, but I don't have a specific answer yet. When you say "when I try to start up an application" do you mean any application, or one specific application? Do you Photo Album on your system? --LarryMac | Talk 20:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Wikis!

I am the webmaster for my company and I was given the job of finding a new host to do a complete rehaul of our website. The first thing I thought of was a wiki and I set out to do it. However the wiki I started it on does not like wikis that are made for "commercial gain" so it will soon be deleted. Try as I might I can't find a wiki-provider that lets you do this. Anyone know of one that will allow commercial websites? It can even be paid for, it just needs to be editable (word?) in wiki style. Thanks, schyler (talk) 20:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not an expert but I think you can install the MediaWiki software on your own paid for server and create your own wiki there. Exxolon (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It looks as if you have to have your own server and not use an outside host to use the MediaWiki software. Thanks for the quick response though. schyler (talk) 20:58, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Is Joomla! Something like what you are looking for? --omnipotence407 (talk) 21:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Where did you get that from? I have a MediaWiki installation running fine on shared hosting and I'm pretty sure there's nothing in the license prohibiting it. As omnipotence407 suggested, if it's a standard public-facing website you may be better off with something like Joomla. I've heard good things about Textpattern also. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 13:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You should be able to put MediaWiki on a GoDaddy free hosting account- they have PHP and SQL. Not sure what the display would wind up looking like with GoDaddy's banner, though. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 20:57, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you check cpu temperature?

I tried using speedfan but it only shows the temperature of my hard drive and nothing else. I remember I used the program about a year ago on a different computer and it was fine, but now I just downloaded it and it doesn't work.--75.187.116.121 (talk) 20:40, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

PC Wizard has an accurate sensor module, amongst other things... Sandman30s (talk) 20:53, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Try Motherboard Monitor. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 20:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

PC wizard doesn't show temperature for my computer and neither does motherboard monitor. Could it be perhaps my computer doesn't have any thermometers on it?--75.187.116.121 (talk) 21:24, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes; either you don't have a sensor, it's broken, or the software doesn't recognise it. Does your motherboard manual talk about a sensor? You could also try SiSoft Sandra which is updated often. Sandman30s (talk) 11:15, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Website hosting and making.

Hello. I came here because I'm currently looking for a free website hosting service, preferably one that is relatively good, reliable and trustworthy. Do you guys have any particular websites to recommend? Furthermore, do you have any other advice along the lines of you should start doing this, it would be convenient for you to do that, etc? I'm honestly not experienced in making a website nor in finding good services to host one, so any suggestions, ideas and information would be quite appreciated. Thank you in advance. --Laura K. O'Connor (talk) 20:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Google has a pretty basic, no-nonsense Google Page Creator that I have personally experimented with. Google Sites is a structured wiki. If you are looking for a simple, free of cost option for a small website (Google Page Creator has a limit of total size 100 MB, uploaded files have to be 10 MB or smaller), you should look into these options before forking out a lot of money. Kushal (talk) 01:28, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Your ISP might offer free hosting as a part of your packge wih them. Check out their home page. Astronaut (talk) 17:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Freeservers isn't bad, but it puts an insane amount of ads on your pages. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 20:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

One thing you might like to do is to look at some of the pages that are already hosted by a service you're considering - that way you can see what the ads are like. Also, have a look at how often you need to log in to avoid getting your site deleted. AJHW (talk) 19:56, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A file renamer

I need a Windows XP file renamer that is capable of:

1. Monitor a folder
2. Rename the file saved into the folder to:

• the time of saving, or
• the time of moving in, or
• a serial number.

For example, if I put the file New Text Document.txt (or whatever.jpg or .gif) into the monitored folder, the renamer shall rename the file to either:

• 200807071533.txt, or
• 07071533.txt, or
• 1533.txt, or
• 0001.txt

I want to sort the files. -- Toytoy (talk) 20:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I wanted to reply on this earlier but I was afraid of stating the obvious. You need to have some sort of programming knowledge to do this - perhaps VB scripting. This would be trivial to do in a high-level language such as Visual Basic, Delphi or C. Also, your specs are a bit vague so if someone is kind enough to write it for you, be a bit more specific. Sandman30s (talk) 11:19, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Sandman is right, you will need to create your own custom script to do this. If you are willing to forgo the "monitor folder" function, Métamorphose (renamer) might be able to do most of what you ask... — QuantumEleven 13:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there some sort of 'wizard' that could be downloaded that would convert filenames to date-included filenames on a user-prompt.? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.86.73 (talk) 14:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Send email from command line without having to specify an SMTP server?

Are there any programs out there that will allow me to send an email from the command line without specifying an SMTP server? maybe it has some SMTP thing built in? --69.74.33.222 (talk) 21:34, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

It depends on your ISP. Some ISPs block port 25 on computers. Atomic Mailer will do the trick, although it's not command-based. Of course, you can also just set up an SMTP server on your computer. If you have XP Professional, you already have one as part of IIS that you can install from a Windows CD. You'd then telnet into the local host (127.0.0.1).--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 22:59, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You only need an SMTP server on the receiving side. Any program can just open port 25 on the receiver side and send the mail. You don't say, but if you're on something Unix-like, doing a simple:

mail someone@somewhere.com < message.txt

will do the right thing. There's no SMTP server required on the client side. Check out Simple Mail Transfer Protocol#Sample communications for how it works. --Sean 19:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses, but i would like to know if its possible to bypass the SMTP server and talk directly to the email reciever (the host.com in rcpt@host.com). whats the output of the smtp server to the reveiver? --69.74.33.222 (talk) 15:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Read the link I gave; it shows the whole conversation. --Sean 19:14, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

When are we no longer at the mercy of our ISPs?

Dear Wikipedians:

Some of you may have undoubtedly heard about a Canadian Internet Service Provider, Bell, throttling its customer's P2P bandwidth. While feeling angry, I also felt quite helpless because there isn't even the option of voting with my wallet because the only other independent ISP in Canada is Rogers, which also practices throttling, even worse than Bell.

So my question is this: when are we no longer held at the mercy of our ISPs? I.e. when could we directly plug into the Internet without going through any third-party ISPs?

And on a related note, when can people who are harassed by their no-good governments such as Myanmar can get up and say "I've had enough, I quit!!!" and be able to settle into a new country and start a new life? I see both of these problems as being on the same philosophical ground.

Any input from you is much appreciated!

74.12.39.212 (talk) 23:10, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

My ISP (Comcast) did the same thing. So I now use Warez Bulletin Board. You download from Rapid Share through your browser. It's pretty fast (850 kps minimum), but you have to pay about $10 a month to use it. Now my ISP is considering throttling downloads across the board for certain users (i.e., me). I guess my downloading 4 DVDs a day was getting on their nerves!--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 23:17, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm...maybe I should consider getting a paid Rapidshare account too, almost everything is found on there nowadays. 74.12.39.105 (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Not anytime soon, I'm afraid. The reason for this is simple: somebody is going to have to install and maintain the actual network cables, DNS servers, pay for the electric bill on all that hardware, do the tech support when required and whatnot. In theory, we could just do all that ourselves, but in practice the costs would be prohibitive.

As for your second question... I suppose that in theory, at least, they can pretty much do it on the spot, and become refugees, and a lot of people have done so. In practice, though, it's a lot harder than that. To start with, they'd have to have the means to leave the country, which may not be all that easy. Also, a lot of them might not even want to leave their country, since it's still their home and probably the only place they've ever known -- at least over there they have friends and family. Also, unfortunately a lot of the people living under conditions like this aren't particularly educated -- I mean, in the case of Myanmar, according to the usually-dependable CIA Factbook over 10% of the country aren't even literate -- so their understanding and knowledge of what becoming a refugee might involve or how to go about becoming one may not be very good, even if they have the means... And in case of Myanmar, what with almost 33% of the population estimated to live below the poverty line, it's a safe bet that most of them would have a real hard time leaving the country without help. Obviously, these really shitty governments run by moral cripples generally aren't breaking their backs making things any easier for anyone on that front. That's just a part of the equation, though, since even though leaving these countries is often very difficult, settling into a new country may not be much easier. Unless you're educated enough to speak another language, getting a job in a new country is going to be difficult, even if you're accepted as a refugee. Your job skills might be pretty much worthless in another society. Racism is often a factor. Chances are it's pretty difficult. So when could we expect it to become any easier? Geez, I don't know. Not anytime soon, I'm afraid. Still, we've made progress on that front over the years. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 23:52, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed response Captain Disdain. That certainly sheds a lot of light on this subject and now I have a better grasp of what a refugee means. I also understand why "education" is top priority for so many charitable organizations working in Africa, because without it people are blind and helpless to change their predicaments. 74.12.39.105 (talk) 02:02, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

i recently heard a talk from somebody who'd been to myanmar and he said one of the residents said to him that if everyone in that country wasn't Buddhist, with their concepts of karma, etc., they'd have overthrown the junta years ago. Gzuckier (talk) 17:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

There is a common misconception that there is some sort of Internet to plug into. Anyone who has this view simply doesn't understand "Internet Protocol." There is no magical wire to attach your computer to. You just need to get your computer to talk to any other computer that is using the Internet Protocol. Then, if that computer is talking to other computers, you too can talk to them. That is basically how it works. Your computer talks to your ISP's computer which is talking to many others that talk to many others that talk to many others. This is easy to see if you have Linux by running traceroute on a connection. It shows you the name of every computer that your requests bounces through to get to the destination. As for being limited to one ISP - you aren't. You have slower dial-up services for less money. You have faster fiber access for a lot more money. You probably have only one home-based broadband service - not one ISP. As for throttling, the throttling I've seen (such as the work done by Comcast) is easy to undo. I just added one line to my ipchain file to ignore Comcast's attempt to reset my torrent connections and it doesn't bother me at all. -- kainaw™ 00:05, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Cool, could you tell us what is that one line you added?--76.79.202.34 (talk) 01:53, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Same here. I'm all ears! 74.12.39.105 (talk) 02:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

You can read a whole article about how it works and how to implement it here. -- kainaw™ 02:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

A place you can get some information on this is internet backbone. A while ago, there was a centralized network. However, it was long-ago decommissioned, and today's internet is a massive web of private networks (see Tier 1 network) that connect to each other via special peering agreements. You'll always be at the mercy of whoever's network you gain access through; all you can do is find a better network. The problem is this: let's say hypothetically, you were going to hook into UUNet, the largest (I think) Tier 1 network. Obviously, you'll have to pay them, since it's their network. You'd also have to run some type of cable from the point of connection to where you are. That's not cheap. You'd probably have to have other people share your connection, and pay you for it, and suddenly, you're an ISP yourself. In fact, Bell and Rogers are probably a number of tiers under Tier 1- they buy internet off of someone else who buys internet off of someone else... JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 21:13, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Vista vs XP

Pros, cons etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.171.151 (talk) 23:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Please see Windows Vista and Windows XP. Your request for "pros, cons etc" is apparently a request for opinions and an attempt to start a discussion. This is a reference desk, not a discussion forum. If you need to discuss this topic with others, please try using one of the millions of discussion forums elsewhere on the Internet. -- kainaw™ 23:55, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

A comparison can be made based purely on facts, not opinions. Vista generally requires a far more capable computer to run a given application than Windows XP. For example, a product I teach is called Zoom Text. Here are the minimum system reqs under each OS:

   Vista          XP
===========   ==========
1500 MHz      450 MHz
1000 MB RAM   256 MB RAM

As you can see, the Vista computer requires 3-4 times the resources to run the same app. Here's my source: [2]. StuRat (talk) 03:41, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

(It's dissapointing isn't it.. - makes me wonder how fast my computer would be if I still had windows 3.1) 87.102.86.73 (talk) 08:08, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

The questioner did not ask for a comparison. The question was for "pros/cons". Do you know why Vista requires more resources? It could be doing good things that XP doesn't do. It could just be the transparent window borders. It could be a pro. It could be a con. Labelling it as one or the other is a matter of opinion, not a fact. If the question said, "Please give comparisons between the resource requirements for Vista and XP," I would have given a completely different response. -- kainaw™ 13:35, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't really see the distinction. A comparison will show diffs which are either pros or cons (with perhaps a few "it doesn't matter" cases, like if the default desktop background pic is different). Therefore, I consider "pros and cons" to be synonymous with a "comparison", and neither require an opinion. For example, requiring more speed and memory in your computer to perform the same task is a definite con. If Vista does something wonderful enough to justify this sluggish response, I'd love to hear about it. StuRat (talk) 02:31, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It was a 'con' obviously. There are 'pros' as well....87.102.86.73 (talk) 20:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I've still got Windows 3.1, and the answer is "blindingly fast". I was able to overflow the year counter in SimTower simply by letting it run overnight at top speed. I'm sure other old games are equally fast. --Carnildo (talk) 22:09, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

(cool, is it freeware/abandonware now - I'd like to downgrade..)87.102.86.73 (talk) 10:35, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'd just say that an 'average' user will be able to do exactly the same things in XP as in Vista, (though not necessarily with the same ease) but look at Windows_Vista#New_or_improved_features bearing in mind what has been said above.87.102.86.73 (talk) 09:16, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

July 8

Image information utility

Does anyone know of any utility which is a perfect analogy to pictures/images as gspot is to media files? Is there a handy little app which will quickly scan a picture and display all relevant info (type of picture, resolution, dimensions, metadata (if any), etc.) about the image? Thanks!--76.79.202.34 (talk) 01:48, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

It's not quite a utility in the same way as GSpot, but IrfanView can open pretty much every image format out there, and its "properties" (Image -> Information) displays a lot of information about the image, including EXIF data (if any). Hope that helps! — QuantumEleven 13:03, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Windows Vista (and perhaps XP too) lets you add more columns to the display in explorer, including columns for thedata such as resolution, dimensions, colour depth etc. In detailed view, right-click on one of the existing column headings and choose "more..." Astronaut (talk) 17:59, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Looks like IrfanView is what I needed. Thanks--A Real Kaiser (talk) 04:27, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Broken track ball on Blackberry Curve 8310

I dropped my Blackberry Curve phone one too many times. Each time I dropped it, it literally broke in three pieces but I was able to put in back together and everything worked fine. But after this last drop, the track ball light does not work. How do you fix it? I already called the AT&T store where I bought the phone and they said that they don't do repairs. --Anthonygiroux (talk) 13:42, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I doubt if you can repair it. Does the device allow an external mouse ? If so, that may be a much cheaper alternative to replacing the blackberry. PS: Why do you drop it so much ? Are you trying to make blackberry juice ? :-) StuRat (talk) 02:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

From live CD to HDD

I have a working live CD with Puppy Linux and a non-working hdd (NTFS) with Windows. If I copy the files of the live CD on my Windows HDD, will my computer start from them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.128.154.226 (talk) 17:38, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Only if you set up your boot loader so it knows where the Puppy Linux OS is. Every computer I've built uses grub as the bootloader. I tell grub how to boot (where the OS is). I can have multiple OSs and grub will ask me which one to boot from. Just copying the OS to a harddrive is half of it. -- kainaw™ 17:50, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

If you boot Puppy from the Live-CD, you should be able to mount a NTFS partition using the disk mounter application. See http://www.puppylinux.com/faq.htm ("Q: NTFS partition") for more help. Astronaut (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Netgear

Can I use a Netgear "54mbps Wireless ADSL modem router" hub like a wireless card and connect to another wireless networks, like for example a hotspot, and use their internet? Or is the hub only an outgoing device? RHODOPSIN DRINKER (talk • contribs) 20:30, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know for sure, but most likely, it's outgoing only. If you're talking about a desktop PC, though, there are cards you can install to receive wireless. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 21:17, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

Round buttons in web pages: FireFox 3.0 on a Mac

I've recently downloaded FireFox 3.0 on my Mac, and while I don't mind the Mac-like UI for the browser shell (the address bar shape and such) I hate hate hate the addition of a Mac-like UI in the web-pages themselves (all form buttons being rounded, in particular).

Is there a setting or theme or something that will return the web-page rendering UI to the way it was before, or the way it is in FF on a PC?

Thanks! — Sam 21:00, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2/cat:all?sort=name has the different themes. If you look at it using Firefox 3 you should be able to pick a theme and then add it to Firefox. Just check the theme you want works with Firefox 3. AJHW (talk) 19:46, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

July 9

Video Editing

What's a program I could use to mute/delete the audio track on a video and replace it with a different audio track?

(Windows Movie Maker is not working--it lets me add the new audio track but won't let me mute the old one--the old track doesn't even show up on the screen for editing, as if it weren't there, yet when the video plays you can clearly hear that it is still there. T_T It's very frustrating.)

Note: the video file in question is a WMV.

Thanks in advance. 71.174.16.91 (talk) 02:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)HiouSama

You could try Ulead VideoStudio ... Sandman30s (talk) 12:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's been a while since I've used WMM, but I believe that somewhere there is a fader you can adjust so that you only hear your audio track. It's like a tab with video audio on one side and user audio on the other and you can drag it to either side. Somewhere in the menu options, I think. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme (talk) 14:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Reparing Windows XP quick and dirty

I have a laptop without Cd-rom (or similar devices) and my Windows XP professional was not letting me login. I have taken the HDD from the laptop and builded it as a external HDD to access and backup my data. I have also Windows XP on my desktop.

Q: if I take the dll from this desktop installation and copy them into the HDD, would my laptop boot up again? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.34.84.53 (talk) 08:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You can try, but it would be very unlikely that copying a few DLLs will fix your problem. If you can't login, it is likely a password problem. Put the drive back in your laptop and use one of the many password changing CDs to change the password on the XP machine. Then, log back in. -- kainaw™ 11:12, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I don't have a cd-rom on my laptop and I cannot login into windows. How could I follow your advise?

USB... PCMCIA... surely the laptop has SOME sort of external adapter. If not, it isn't much of a laptop. -- kainaw™ 18:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Scandisk

Hi everyone! What free software do Wikipedians recommend checking a hard drive for errors, similar to Windows Scandisk? It would be an bonus if it has a graphical display similar to DOS scandisk which shows the disk clusters. I am on Windows pc. 86.159.56.251 (talk) 10:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

TuneUp Utilities has a graphical defragmenter but you would have to register it after some time. I wouldn't recommend a 'free' utility that does this (if one exists), as running buggy software over critical areas of your computer could spell big trouble. Sandman30s (talk) 12:51, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The best alternative to Scandisk I've used is Disk Checker. No graphical display but has a nice info screen with basic information, scan speed and an error log. Don't use it on drives over 750GB though as it has a tendency to freeze, at least in my experience. JessicaN10248 14:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The Games Factory

Games made using The Games Factory are working buggy for me. After a few minutes of play, the sounds become repetitive, and the game slows down when I do not press a key. I know this has nothing to do with being on Windows XP, because these programs worked perfectly on another XP computer I used to have. What is causing this bug? 208.76.245.162 (talk) 11:18, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You might get a better answer on the official Games Factory technical support forum, since they're probably extremely familiar with the product over there. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 11:43, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Free bin/cue CD burner??

Hello. I've been looking for a free program (for Windows XP) that will let me record .bin/.cue files onto a CD for hours now, but I've only been able to find a bunch of demos that limit the file size, or only do test burning!! Could someone please point me to a nice freeware CD burning program for BIN/CUE files, please? (The test time in my comp for Alcohol 120 expired long ago.) Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 15:21, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

InfraRecorder -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:24, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

CDBurnerXP --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 15:26, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. Silly me, had I looked at the CD burning software freeware list first, I wouldn't be here wasting your time... >.< Kreachure (talk) 15:30, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Modifying PDFs?

As part of my work, I've been creating PDFs with Acrobat Professional 7.0: mostly images from a scanner, but also converting Microsoft Word files into PDFs. I've discovered typos in an unrelated PDF, also made from a Microsoft Word file, and I've been given permission to correct these. Is there any way to modify the text in the PDF, or do I have to edit the Word file (which thankfully I have) and make a new PDF from it? Nyttend backup (talk) 15:47, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The reason I ask is that this PDF is eight hundred pages long. I've already been encountering errors in much smaller documents, which I've simply corrected in the Word originals and recreated as PDFs. Nyttend backup (talk) 15:58, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Adobe Acrobat Professional can edit PDFs with difficulty. In this case, you'd go to View --> Toolbars --> Advanced editing, then click the TouchUp Text Tool button.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 17:36, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Okay, I was able to add to the text. One problem, though: the paragraph is justified, but by adding the missing letters (the typos are "ten" for "then" and "Green County, Ohio" for "Greene County, Ohio") each fixed line juts out into the margin a little. Is there anything I can do about this? Nyttend backup (talk) 18:32, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to say without looking at the PDF. Try this: select the text on the line with the TouchUp Tool, right-click on it, select Properties, and then change the horizontal spacing. They're using spacing -- not hyphenation -- for justification, right? If each line is an object, then you can also select a line using the TouchUp Object Tool on the same toolbar. It's either that or opening the PDF in Adobe Illustrator. If you're a masochist, you can also decompress the PDF using pdftk and manually edit the Post Script in Wordpad. By the way, Wikipedia lets you upload PDFs to the site. It treats them as images. ;)--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 19:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The PDF (posted online three years ago; if I can fix it, I'll submit the new version to be posted online in its place) is here (a little under 12 MB): p.331, line 7 ("ten") and p.511, the lines directly under the CAPITALISED NAMES. I'll try your suggestions when I finish the task from which I'm taking a little break. Nyttend backup (talk) 20:01, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Fixing the PDF sounds tedious, and 12 megabytes is not a very large file. Why not just fix the Word document and regenerate the entire PDF? Notice that there is a 'List of errors' at the end of the existing file. If you decide to regenerate the PDF, you could fix all those errors at the same time. EdJohnston (talk) 21:41, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It isn't tedious. I just fixed the spelling error and the alignment Nyttend cited in both Acrobat and Illustrator. Although PDFs are not supposed to be edited, I think it can be done easily in this case since no dramatic changes are being made. In Acrobat, you select part of the text on the line, right-click on it, choose Properties and then Character spacing. It was justified to begin with by varying the spacing between characters and words (the tracking) from line to line. So each line already has different spacing. However, the solution I propose is admittedly somewhat crude as it varies spacing for only part of the line. Nevertheless, readers will not notice any difference. This is one reason that I dislike justfication (aside from poor legibility). The process works much better in Illustrator. In that application, you do the following:

1. Open the PDF
2. Choose the page
3. Select the Type Tool in the Tools Palette to the left
4. Make the correction
5. Select the entire line of text in question
6. Click on the Character link toward the top of the screen
7. Change the tracking value (the AZ with the double-pointed arrow beneath)

Although Illustrator is an expensive application, you can download a free 30-day trial from Adobe.com.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 04:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I ended up modifying the text how I wanted it to look: not by Character Spacing, but by Word Spacing on the spacebars between words (highlighting and modifying just them, not the words), so as you (Hello etc.) noted, it doesn't look any different, even to me. In case you wonder, I knew about the list of errors: I'm the one who put together the project, and the list of errors was my way of tracking changes from the original text (if you look at other errors noted there, you'll see that the main text has them correct); it's just that when I produced this revised edition of the original book, I forgot to change "Green" in these spots. As far as "ten" (actually PDF 337; it's original page 331), the original book says "then"; it's simply that when I typed this section, I missed the letter, and my proofreader didn't catch it. Just got to wonder how many other such errors there are like this...Thanks for your help! Nyttend backup (talk) 17:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

GIMP layer stacking

Hi. Please see here, I'm asking on how to combine and stack two images together, one is an object and the other is just filled with a specific colour. Thanks. ~AH1^(TCU) 17:04, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I assume that you have multiple layers and, with all on, you see the image just as you like it in the edit window. If so, go to the layers menu and select "merge visible layers". It will merge all visible layers into one layer. -- kainaw™ 18:07, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Copy my response over from User_talk:The Transhumanist#GIMP_Globe_stand

You can do it by having a layer of solid gold on top of the original, and change the mode to colour instead of normal. There are also other possibilities like if you want to preserve more of the colour of the original and only add a tinge of gold you can change the mode to soft light.

--antilived^{T | C | G} 00:17, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

junk email

i am responsible for putting junk in email. Who am i ?Please help with this question. Which is the origin of junk in email. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.202.195.74 (talk) 17:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

you are Satan. Gzuckier (talk) 17:42, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

My, I always thought Satan was supposed to do more than just create a minor annoyance of modern life. I guess he's probably behind telemarketing as well! --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

See Spam_(electronic)#Pre-Internet_spam. -- kainaw™ 18:09, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Gary Thuerk. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:13, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

linksys befvp41 mystery switch

hi i just inherited a linksys befvp41 router and downloaded the documentation, but there's a little slide switch on the back which isn't mentioned in the docs. it's got what appears to be an X on one side and parallel lines on the other, or else an X on one side and an H on the other (the marks are really teeny). any idea what it is for? thanks. Gzuckier (talk) 17:49, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It is a MDI/MDIX switch for one of the ports (probably the port nearest the switch). --Juliano (T) 17:52, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Installing Windows Xp in a laptop without cd-rom

I have the Windows XP install CD and a desktop computer with Windows XP and a CD-rom device. I want to install Windows XP into a laptop without CD-rom. I have taken the HDD apart and connected it to the desktop as an external HDD.

Should I just copy the Windows XP files onto the HDD and put the HDD back in the laptop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.6.158.156 (talk) 17:55, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know, In a CD there is a specific boot sector, so everything should be in place to be booted. In the case of your laptop, your BIOS would look at the file boot.ini and try to boot. So, if you have the boot.ini, yes probably you'll be able to boot. I don't know yet, if you can install Windows this way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 18:05, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It is not true that the bios will look for a boot.ini file. Any disk you intend to boot from will require a Boot sector. APL (talk) 18:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

This will not work. You must connect a CD drive to the laptop and install from the CD there. -- kainaw™ 18:11, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

There is an alternative, supposing that you have already have Windows XP installed on your laptop and something went wrong(I suppose that, because probably you will not have done this to a new laptop). You could try to repair your old Windows installation with sfc /scannow

and the install CD and then put the HDD back to the laptop. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 18:16, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, you really should use a real cd-drive for this. Either get a hold of a usb-cd drive of some sort, or take the HDD, connect it to a computer that does have a cd drive, and install windows on the HDD from there, then plug it back into the laptop. --Oskar 21:03, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

The problem with installing it with the drive in another computer is that laptops often require strange drivers. They won't be installed if the drive is not in the laptop. So, he'll get Windows on the drive, put it in his laptop, and find out that something like the keyboard or video driver is missing and then come back asking what to do. -- kainaw™ 22:31, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't the Windows XP installer cache everything in the hard disk for installation? If yes, then can the OP use a disk imaging software to load the disk image on the hard disk and then work with it? Kushal (talk) 22:44, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not 100% sure but wouldn't putting the harddrive into another computer, complete the first phase of the XP install (text-mode), shut down, put it back into the laptop, and continue the GUI installation process solve the problem, provided that the laptop doesn't require some strange text-mode drivers? --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:24, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe you should go with your plan of installing windows XP on the external HDD then putting it back into the laptop. Although, as Kainaw pointed, laptop need special drivers, standard drivers will be enough to make it run. When you get it running use a virtual cd player to use your windows installation cd and install it properly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 12:56, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Outlook names / contacts.

People of the internet,

I am currently using outlook 2003 SP1

I cannot edit the way peoples names come up. Example: I want John Doe to be Doe, John. How would i set this up?

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.184.16.34 (talk) 18:35, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Under Tools, Options, Preferences click on Contact Options. In there you can change the default name order. Sandman30s (talk) 13:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

How to embed text file in a C program

I am modifying a piece of code written by another programmer and I want to have a text file, that is read at execution, embedded in the program itself. (This is to help hide this text file from prying eyes.) The text file is read into a fairly complicated struct and instead of hardcoding that struct, is there a way I can put this input text file into the C code itself so that it is inputted without being a separate text file from the executable? --Rajah (talk) 21:23, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

A common way is to have a script in your build process turn the text file (or indeed a binary file) into a C string literal and emit that as a .h file. Then your C program #includes that .h and initialises a const or variable with it. That script has to escape newlines, quotes, and nonprintable characters in the C manner. But really, this goes very little toward your goal of hiding the file - it's still trivial for anyone with a modicum of technical skill to extract that text. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:48, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

If the parser first reads the whole file in a buffer, that is sufficient. It is however more likely that the parser makes a lot of small reads. In this case, you need a string stream. That is, a stream that presents a normal file descriptor interface but reads from a string. An example is the fmemopen function in gnu libc. Turiacus (talk) 23:57, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

(Aside from the fact that, as it stands, it doesn't ROT13 the text or do anything else to hide it) is there a reason why the obvious approach doesn't work?

#include <stdio.h>

char * my_string =
  "This is a bunch of text.\n"
  "\n"
  "The C language standard assures us that all these strings\n"
  "will be concatenated at compile time into one big string\n"
  "that can be referenced by the my_string pointer.\n";
  "\n"
  "You could do anything else you want with the string\n"
  "including incorporating it into some more-complex struct.\n"

int main( int argc, char * argv[], char * envp[] )
  {

    printf( "%s", my_string );

    return( 0 );

  }

Atlant (talk) 19:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I suggest you leave it as an external file and encode it instead. The simplest encoding is just to apply an offset to the ASCII codes of the characters, say add 93 to the ASCII code of each character read from the file and subtract 256 if the result is 256 or more. Any codebreaker would have no trouble breaking such a code, so you can always get fancier if you want real security. StuRat (talk) 00:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Ignoring floating-point underflow in Excel

I have some data in Microsoft Excel which happens to contain very small numbers (~10⁻³²⁴), and Excel keeps giving me errors that must be floating-point underflow. I don't care about the underflow and don't care if these numbers get rounded to zero; it doesn't matter for my application. How can I tell Excel to ignore the underflow and round to zero without causing errors? —Keenan Pepper 22:14, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

You could use the TRUNC function on some of the values before the calculations. I'm sure there is more than one way to do it. Just be careful about round-off error. --Bennybp (talk) 00:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

TI-84

I am looking to connect my TI-84 with my 64-bit Vista Home Premium and I seem to be lacking drivers, does anybody have some?--omnipotence407 (talk) 22:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

July 10

How does one save two versions of a file in VB.NET

I'm trying to save two copies of a file in a VB.NET program - one version with extra formatting, the other version "raw" to make it easier for the program to read it.

Here's the gist of my code so far:

Dim ImportantFunction As System.IO.StreamWriter
Dim Save As New SaveFileDialog()
Save.Filter = "Plain Text Files (*.txt)|*.txt|All files 
 (*.*)|*.*"
Save.CheckPathExists = True
Save.Title = "Save"
Save.ShowDialog(Me)

 Try
  ImportantFunction = System.IO.File.CreateText(Save.FileName)
  ImportantFunction.WriteLine()
  ImportantFunction.WriteLine(TextBox1.Text)
 End Try

I want to save a second version of this file at the same time, using the same filename that the user inputted earlier, but with a different extension. So, for instance, if the user saves the file as "foo.txt", the program would also save a slightly different version (without the extra linebreaks, for instance) in "foo.sav". --Badger Drink (talk) 00:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

After you show the dialog, the filename that the user selected is going to be saved in Save.Filename or something like that. Just grab that as a string, remove the extension (easy to do with string manipulation, just clean off all text after the last period), add on the new one, then plug that into your function.

Or maybe I don't understand the question? I'll avoid questioning the wisdom of saving two different copies of the same file, even though it sounds like bad programming practices at play to me. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:46, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it's most assuredly terrible programming practices, but as this program is only for my own personal use, I would much rather do things the way I'm most comfortable with =) In this case, I want to have one file with formatting and section breaks, and one file that's basically a step up from a CSV, which will make Open.File a lot easier (I loathe string manipulation). Having separate dialogs for "save .txt" and "save .dat" is cumbersome. --Badger Drink (talk) 03:57, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, keeping in your comfort zone is no way to learn... and string manipulation is pretty vital and worth getting "comfortable" with... and having the same file split into two parts is a recipe for screwing something up, but anyway... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 12:48, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If you give a man a fish, he'll be fed for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he'll be fed for life. If you insist that the man row his boat to a certain set of GPS coordinates, throw the rod in a precise 254-degree arc, and reel in with a 5/4 6/8 alternating rhythm, you're acting like a computer programmer. --Badger Drink (talk) 17:44, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm no full time computer programmer, and I recognize fully well the value of tailoring your work to your particular situation, but we're talking about simple string manipulation here, not regexes. What you're suggesting is just a bad path to go down—in the end I think it'll lead to more work than just doing it the "right" way the first time. The reason one adopts good programming habits is not because of some sacred law about it, but because they don't lead to as many bugs and problems as bad practices too. But hey man, it's your time—spend it how you like! I'm just trying to help out. --140.247.249.99 (talk) 17:55, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Searching for URLs

Hey everyone. Is it possible to search for URLs that are linked to from a webpage? What I mean is something similar to how I can search for a piece of text on a webpage by hitting ctrl+f and typing in the text I'm looking for, but instead typing in a URL, or part of a URL, and seeing if it is linked to somewhere on the page. Hammer Raccoon (talk) 09:08, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I can't find any way to do exactly what you're asking, but you could open the source and hit ctrl+f to search within that. Hit Ctrl+u in Firefox or go to View > Source in Internet Explorer. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 10:39, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

That's great, thanks! Hammer Raccoon (talk) 19:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

YouTube

What is the shortest lifespan of a YouTube account? I kept mine for just five days. 208.76.245.162 (talk) 10:04, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I had mine for about 30secs, watched a video and then forgot the password.. does that count? Is it possible to be banned?87.102.86.73 (talk) 10:32, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you define the end of the lifespan of a YouTube account? Just because you don't use the account doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It is still there and, for some strange reason, you may decide to use it again in the future. Do you then refer to it as a born again account? -- kainaw™ 13:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If you load porn onto your youtube Account it can be suspended just a few minutes after you created it, but it usually takes a few hours . Try this experiment. Search for pornography on youtube (if your over 18!). Make sure you select Relevance = Date added. You'll get the video's posted in the last few minutes. There's always someone putting porn on youtube so I guarantee a few will come up. Then try again a few hours later and those accounts have (usually) been disabled. They're quick. Iiidonkeyiii (talk) 13:12, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

ip & CCTV Camera

what advantages have IP cameras over CCTV

Hemant Kumar —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.96.227.70 (talk) 10:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

If you consider it an advantage, you can view an IP camera from any Internet connection. This allows for surveillance from a remote location. It is merely opinion of this is an advantage or not. You are much better off asking what the differences are instead of advantages. -- kainaw™ 13:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Hiding WHOIS info

Is there a free way to hide one's whois information? I am not asking legal advice! Thanks, --217.227.108.232 (talk) 12:58, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Most registrars allow you to pay extra to have an anonymous whois entry. -- kainaw™ 13:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

yes, but in these case the owner of your registry is the registrar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.220.40.59 (talk) 13:02, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Me no wanna pay $12,99! Surely there is a free way? --217.227.108.232 (talk) 13:07, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Just pony up the thirteen bucks. ICANN specifically requires the DNS-record to have an owner (with phone-numer and stuff), and if you want some one else to take over that responsibility, it's going to cost you. So no, I highly doubt that there is a free way. --Oskar 14:15, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

And, I'm guessing that if it comes down to the boys in blue knocking on the door with a warrant, you will no longer be anonymous. Gzuckier (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

But will you still be legion? --Badger Drink (talk) 17:47, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Optical driver for laptops

Are all optical drivers for laptops compatible with each other? I mean, can I take one device (say a cd-rom reader) of an old laptop and connect it on a new one (and the other way round)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.220.40.59 (talk) 13:01, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe I'm not understanding correctly, but yes, you can usually swap hardware no problem. The drivers might not be exactly the same but that's usually easy to remedy—you just find the appropriate driver and install it on the software side of things. With laptops the biggest problem is usually "does it fit the housing of the laptop", since space is very tight on new laptops. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, and if I want to order one online, how can I discover what cd-rom reader or dvd burner fit my laptop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.6.158.156 (talk) 16:23, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose you mean optical drive (and not driver). The drive may be in most cases the same, but the case may be different for every laptop. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 16:28, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I would look up what your manufacturer offers, they'll surely fit. You don't have to buy the drive from said manufacturer, just get the make and model. --140.247.249.99 (talk) 17:53, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Burning .nrg without Nero...?

Hi (again). I'm looking for free software (for WinXP) that might be able to burn a .nrg file but that's not Nero, does something like that exist? I looked at most of the programs listed on CD burning software, but I couldn't find any that mention the ability to do so. Or, do I need to convert it to an ISO in order to burn it without Nero? What would you recommend me to do? Thanks in advance, Kreachure (talk) 16:16, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

NRG (file format) lists some converters. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:26, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

So do I need to convert it? Kreachure (talk) 16:36, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

You can use ImgBurn. It supports NRG images. --grawity 18:45, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Kreachure (talk) 19:20, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Reverse Lookup on local network

I know that one requires access to the reverse lookup table in a dns server when trying to edit the reverse lookup of their ip address. But what about the reverse lookup in a lan environment (usually ip addresses in the range of 192.168.1.xxx)? the dns reverse lookup of these addresses is the name of the computer. What generates this? Is it some program on my computer or is it something else? can I add aliases? thanks --69.74.33.222 (talk) 16:38, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Your local DNS server. Or /etc/hosts. Or a combination of both. The DNS server can fill the reverse zone with "dynamic updates" that the other machines send, if it trusts them not to lie about their names. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:09, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Very possibly, it's phishing ...

I was on the MSN (client: Miranda IM). A friend of mine is on a trip. I did not see her online. "She" sends me a message "[HER MSN ID]"@imagrshak.info ". And I clicked it. The system requests your MSN account and password because the image album is reserved for "friends."

The domain name is suspicious. The request of login information is ... . I guess its phishing. I just have no idea how they managed to penetrate the MSN system. After all, M$ services are supposedly strong and properly protected, aren't they? -- Toytoy (talk) 16:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

It sounds like phishing, sure. But what kind of system penetration are we talking about here? Is it possible that she, for example, fell for this, and thus gave these guys her login info and, though that, access to her contact list, which in turn led them to you? I mean, just by pointing your browser to http://www.imagrshak.info, you can see that login screen; she could've run into it anywhere. (The name is a take on ImageShack, of course, which is a far more legitimate site.) They don't need to hack their way anywhere when a bit of simple social engineering will do. I'd bet it doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft's security. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:40, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

There actually have been automated phishing MSN bots. I've never had one myself, and the only times I've been on the receiving end of it were from ancient contacts I no longer spoke to, so that's about all the detail I can provide. --Badger Drink (talk) 17:49, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure, but an automated MSN phishing bot wouldn't be able to log in with the poster's friend's account and send a message to him "from her" unless she either gave the malevolent party her login information or they managed to somehow make their way into the system and steal her login information. I think the first set of circumstances is the more likely one here. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

The weakest links in any security system are not technical, but personal. Hook a million people up to the internet, ask each of them to enter their login information, and you'll probably get a decent return no matter how shady it is. --140.247.249.99 (talk) 17:50, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

Internet bot

I still have no knowledge how to identify a spam bot or other internet bot? How do I understand an IP edited wikis like wikipedia is a bot? Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 20:19, 10 July 2008 (UTC)