Revision as of 22:32, 13 April 2007

Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/headercfg

April 7

Photoshop Question

According to the Misplaced Pages article, Screenshot, it states:

Third party screenshot software There are many third-party programs available on different platforms to take screenshots with advanced functionality. Most computer graphics software (e.g., IrfanView, GIMP, and Photoshop) can acquire screenshots. Typically, these programs can be configured to include or exclude the mouse pointer, automatically crop out everything but the client area of the active window, take timed shots, areas of the screen not visible on the monitor (autoscroll), and so on.

But, I did not see any feature in Photoshop that says that it can acquire screenshots. Does anyone know how to capture screenshots within Photoshop?

Yes they can acquire images such as screenshots or just any other random image you have in your clipboard. But first you have to put it into clipboard by pressing printscreen if you want the whole screen screenshot or alt+printscreen if you want one window only. --antilived 00:26, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the GIMP can actually capture a screen shot directly into the program, as described here. The description on that page seems to imply that Photoshop can not perform this function. I certainly can't find anything like it within Photoshop Elements (although I am only running version 2). I don't have access to my copy of IrfanView right now, but some of the summaries I found by Googling seem to indicate that it too has this function. It is always possible that the information on any Misplaced Pages article is incorrect. I will go to the talk page for that article and see if anybody can confirm whether or not Photoshop has this capability. --LarryMac 01:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

As a follow-up, I got a response on the article talk page indicating that Photoshop does not have the screenshot capability, so the article has been edited. The respondent on the talk page mentioned that PSP also has the ability, so that is another option to the two that had been listed. --LarryMac 14:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Building a cheap linux box

Hi everyone. I'm planning to build my first computer, and make it a linux box. I have good experience with the software side of things, but not hardware. Could anybody refer to me a good (and cheap) motherboard and a compatible (and cheap) x68 processor? I'm not sure Intel integrated graphics comes to play in this, is it in the motherboard? Because I would really like to have Intel graphics (well supported in linux). Thanks everyone!--Ryan 00:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Most Linux distros can run well on pretty much anything, and if you just want integrated graphics, you're best off just buying a crappy computer (P2/P3) for $50 bucks in the classifieds, wiping its hard drive, and installing Linux on it. EDIT: Read your query above: if I may ask, what do you plan to do with this computer? Are you putting it together for experience? -Wooty Woot? contribs 00:45, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You could by a cheap P3 box, I've foumd I can run linux well on them (only problem is that the install is genraly quite slow) If your looking for somthing better than a P3, I'd go for a cheap AMD, however if you want intel and it must be better than the P3, i'd look around for a celeron the new versions go at 3gh. --Lwarf 01:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm building this for experience, so I don't want a used computer. I just want to build this for fun, experience, and to run an ssh server at home.--Ryan 03:28, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, if your building it then, this is what I recomend(This is assuming you are on a tight budget and want the most bang for buck) get an AMD CPU (They range for $50 - $500, I'd get an athlon the're the AMD version of Intel's P4), for a mother there are lots of cheap ones on the market, just make sure you get one with onbord sound and video(and SATA port if possable), now for RAM most brand are the same so this a price/memory issue, get 256MB min i'd recomend getting 512MB, now onto hard drives 20GB min, 40GB rec, 80GB if you can afford it when buying your hard drive try and get a SATA drive insated of PATA. On to the issue of optical drives, DVD-ROM is a min(just about all linux distros come on a DVD, you'll thank me later when you see that they come in packs of 6 CD's and 1/2 of them are broken and have to be sent back), if possable get a DVD-RW. Onto the topic of case one word formfactor amke sure the formfactor maches you motherbord's formfactor. Good Luck. For more nfo on building I think there is a wikibook on it if not take a llok round the net there's lots of great tips. --Lwarf 07:47, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Yea, this machine is just gonna get 256 ram. It's just going to be running an ssh server at my house. Do most motherboards come with built in networking? I just need 1 ethernet port. THanks again for all the help everyone.--Ryan 15:19, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Perl or Python

What are differences between Perl and Python and which one is much easier to learn? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.241.232.192 (talk) 01:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Python is more formal than Perl, somewhat closer to a strongly-typed language like Java. For example, saying: "print '44' + 5" will print "49" in Perl, but will give a syntax error in Python. Perl will generally try to "do what you mean", which can be convenient, but can also undermine comprehensibility. They're probably equally easy to learn, if you're starting from scratch. They both have excellent standard libraries, documentation, and community support, which tend to be more important than intrinsics of the language. You should write a few programs in both and see which one you like better. --TotoBaggins 01:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I would say that Python is somewhat easier to learn than Python. I would recommend that language 83.254.160.182 08:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd go with perl, I find it's great for writing up small tasks to do (I made one program that does my algebra for me). Beware becouse perl compiles at run time I've found you have to go to a lot of trouble to get it to run on windows (I've got around this problem by using Perl Edit but that cost money) so I'd recomend using linux. --Lwarf 10:09, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Windows versions of both Perl and Python can be had for free and with similarly easy installations from ActiveState. --TotoBaggins 13:41, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Bottom line: you are never going to get a complete, direct, unbiased, and useful (to you) answer to this kind of question. It's like asking whether Spanish is better than French. If you can learn a little of both then do so. If you have a specific project or some other constraint, ask specific questions in a forum like Perl Monks or Usenet. Better yet, if you have a friend who knows both, and is not a partisan of either, but simply uses them as tools to get a job done, learn as much as you can from him/her and ignore everyone else who tries to sell you on one or the other. dr.ef.tymac 15:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm of the opinion that if you can learn to program in one language, you will then be able to program in any language. I'm especially firm in this opinion if we're discussing languages that all have "familial resemblence", so any C-like language including C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, Javascript, PHP, etc. Among the C-like languages, I also don't think there's a clear "better first language". Learning to program in Java (or Python?) will probably teach you the best habits while Perl may lead you into sloppiness, but you'll probably be maximally productive fastest in Perl and that may give you a better sense of success in your early endeavors. I say this because Perl really is good at DWIM; this is good for a beginner but won't help you when you get to a pickier family member that is more strongly typed or has less intuitive I/O operations.

Atlant 00:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Monitor wont turn on

Wierd lines appeared on my monitor as if there was interference and my monitor went off and until now I still can't turn it on. I checked the cables the back, and when I unplug/plug back the power to the monitor, I hear a clicking sound in my monitor so I am guessing its receiving power. Anyone know a solution to this? I'd really appreaciate it. 65.95.21.81 01:47, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

The clicking sound sounds like the relays trying to decide what video mode to put your monitor into. Could be a problem with the computer video card

I don't think so cause the light in front of the monitor is not turning green~(or responding at all), as it does usually when the monitor is on.65.95.21.81 01:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

After detailed examinations, I found out that the cable that connects the monitor to the hardrive is missing one of the little needles, Is this the reason, or does someone knows otherwise? 65.95.21.81 03:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Probably not, unless the pin just broke off. It is common for some of the pins which aren't currently used (reserved for future use) to be omitted. I suspect your monitor is broken. I doubt if it can be fixed. I'd try it on another computer to verify that it's indeed broken, then get a new monitor. Unfortunately, monitors are one of the most expensive components of a computer these days. StuRat 05:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I had a monitor which was making clicking sounds before; after sending it to maintenance some times, I decided I'd end up wasting more money fixing it every few months, and bought a new one. Your monitor is probably broken too. --cesarb 17:13, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah you need to determine if it's your monitor your computer (and the monitor cable would count as being 'the monitor'). Try a different monitor. One thing I can offer is that in my experience, if some monitors just get power, but no signal, their 'power light' will be 'on' but will not be 'green' to indicate that they are not receiving a signal (such as when your PC is off but the monitor is switched on, or such as when you unplug the monitor's cable). The unfortunate thing is you may not remember if your monitor did this. Another thing you should try do is verify that your PC is outputing a signal, usually you just make sure your computer is indeed booting up - when you power on your PC your keyboard lights should change at first, and you should hear your harddrives firing up - but ultimately try plugging in some headphones or speakers into your sound card, and wait a while and try log into windows - looking out for any sounds/noises generated by windows such as the 'log in' sound or an 'error' sound (if you type in the wrong password). If you're sure your PC is indeed booting up, then you can only point your finger at the monitor itself, or its cable, or the video card (which should be showing SOMETHING). At this point you'd check if your video card is seated properly - and if there's power to it. Good luck Rfwoolf 19:39, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Monitor bonk

When I turn on (or wake up) my CRT monitor (a Hitachi SuperScan Elite 751), it sometimes makes a loud and reverberating (and somewhat disturbing) BONK noise. What causes that? Thanks! --TotoBaggins 02:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Degaussing? Our article would seem to imply that. Root(one) 04:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

That's right. I like the noise :) It does that to ensure that the picture is as free as magnetic artefacts as possible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 10:08, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Thanks, I guess that's it. It's just a lot louder than when I press the "degauss" button, but I guess that's due to it being off and accumulating bad juju. --TotoBaggins 23:53, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

limeware

is limeware is a kind of distributed system? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 202.136.68.194 (talk) 03:43, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Limewire is a P2P network, yes. Splintercellguy 03:44, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

More specifically, it runs on Gnutella (pronounced like the hazelnut spreat, Nutella). The person who created WinAMP (I have no idea who) wrote it. (wait... Limeware?)-HuBmaN!!!! 15:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Audio and Video problems.

Hi I have been searching for a long time now how to fix my audio and video problems for my computer and have yet to find anything useful. When I play a music file on my computer it will randomly decide to mute itself,the volume icon says that its not muted. When playing a video,like something from Youtube or Media Player, the audio shuts off and the video pauses and then stops and then pauses again. This is extremely annoying because every time the audio or video stops I have to reboot my computer. I also don't think that this has anything to do with my speakers. So if you could please help me, or give the name of another site that could, I would be very grateful.

-Godz Hammer

You could try installing newer drivers for your audio card, or you could check to see that the Windows Audio service is not unexpectedly stopping. Splintercellguy 05:11, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Strangely encoded MP4 WAV files

My MP4 player has a record function which can be used to record FM stations or from the built-in MIC itself. However, it uses some unusual format to encode the file which normal quality uses 32kbps, high quality 64kbps and recording from the radio: 256kbps. 64kbps on a fully empty 2GB MP4 (Exact value: 2,092,138,496 bytes) allows 70:56:08 hours of recording. I have to emphasise that the WAV file generated uses very strange encoding which it cannot be played by Windows Media Player/Audacity directly. Only by importing it with Audacity using the "Import RAW data" function at Signed 8 bit, mono, Sample Rate 8000 Hz, I managed to get the audible contents of the file, but it's so contaminated with noise that using the noise reduction is necessary. By then the quality is so poor that directly connecting the audio output of the MP4 to the computer is better. Is there any way to extract the WAV file without any noise? --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 05:52, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I can upload the file if you want to have a look at it; it's a WAV file, which Misplaced Pages doesn't accept.

Try running file on it and posting the results here, or if it doesn't return useful results, do an hexadecimal dump of the first few bytes of the file; it's probably not a normal WAV file. --cesarb 17:10, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I used the online file service (Because I'm using Windows) to check the file and the results are:

RIFF (little-endian) data, WAVE audio, Microsoft ADPCM, mono 16000 Hz

Since I already have the necessary data, I made an attempt to import it into Audacity but the Import button becomes greyed out when I select Microsoft ADPCM. For the Hex Dump, I couldn't do so since I don't have a proper Hex Editor. I just used Notepad on the file and I got this on the first line:

(First 16 chars)RIFFÿÿÿÿWAVEfmt (At the end before the long blank space) INFORock fish

That's all results I got. Regarding the attempt to open the file using Audacity, I learnt about the "patent restriction" thing that prevents it from opening specific files when I tried to open a WMA file. That's the reason why I can't import the file. Are there any other options on how to open the file? --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 07:53, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Then it's ADPCM instead of PCM. Most programs can only understand the common PCM WAV files. You could try using something like sox to convert it to the standard WAV format (use 16-bit samples when doing that to avoid loss of quality). --cesarb 15:50, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Finally I managed to extract the file noise free (Although the warnings were "Premature EOF on .wav input file"). This proves that to listen to WAV files recorded using a Chinese MP4/MTV Player, the recorded file needs to be converted first to the proper WAV format before it can be listened to on the computer. Many thanks for helping me out! --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 08:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

clearing up a pic

Hi After enlarging a pic from say 560x580 to 700x800 the pic becomes blurry or grainy depending on the original quality of the pic. Using Arcsoft photo studio 2000 does anyone know how to get rid of the blur or grain without losing the new size of the pic? Cheers —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.88.3.89 (talk) 06:14, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

That's something implied when you redimension an image to a higher resolution, unless it's a vector image. To actually reduce and/or avoid the blurriness you could try a combination of Lanczos filter and sharpen tool, both avaliable on the free Irfan View. --Sn0wflake 12:19, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

DVD Decrypter error or Videora iPod Converter error?

Hi today I ripped a DVD into my computer and tried converting it using Videora iPod Converter, the trouble with the output file is that the audio seems to be tuned down to a ultra-low pitch with an extra slow tempo, while the graphics remained applicable.

I used DVD decrypter, these are the EXACT steps I did in the software to rip the DVD 1) Insert DVD 2) Open DVD Decrypter 3) Go to mode and selected "IFO" mode 4) Go to tools and I selected settings, in settings I went to the IFO mode tab and in the File Splitting place I selected "By Chapter" 5) I confirmed the "By Chapter" setting and went back to the main screen of DVD Decrypter. I then clicked the icon "Decrypt" 6) Files are transferred to my computer.

I then converted it using Videora converter. Is there any way to fix the distorted sound? Thanks in advance! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.78.206.75 (talk) 09:16, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

Image:School_ip.svg

Hi, I recently created this vector image using inkscape(i'm not that familar with inkscape, I created the image to get the hang of using inkscape) but I'm having trouble making the background transparent. Can any one help me? Thanks. --Lwarf 09:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I've done it for you. I uploaded it as plain svg rather than inkscape svg which did the trick. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 10:24, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I think Lwarf wanted to know how it was done. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 22:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry to say this Theresa knott but your upload was reverted by someone (take a look here), something I've found though is that when I open up the image in my image viewer(gthumb) the image viewer says it had a trasparent background, also I thought in inkscape the white background is by default transparent. --Lwarf 00:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What I think is going on ( and I'm no expert) is that as inkscape svg is not standard so browsers are not understanding it. Whereas plain svg is standard. As far as I know the difference between inkscape svg and plain svg is inkscape preserves things like canvas size, layers etc that are useful when you are in the process of drawing the object but aren't really needed afterwards. I always habitually upload images as plain svg (which you can set when you save the drawing) because I really don't think that we should stray from the standards when we are on the web.I've no idea why I was reverted.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 07:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually I wasn't reverted. He uploaded some other versions , decided against them, reverted back to me then deleted his versions. So it looked like he reverted me.Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 08:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Good point it could be browser problem, however it might be a bug in thw iki meta severs, worth looking into? By the way thanks for all the help. --Lwarf 11:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah could be, I never thought of that. I left a message on the village pump (technical) for a developer to come look here and see if it can be fixed. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 12:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Either one of the developers fixed it up or it's a browser problem, I just loaded up in firefox and it looks fine (try looking at it here, I'm going to see what it looks like IE 7 insted of IE 6. --Lwarf 01:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown virus

I am positive I have a virus on my computer, but my antivirus (which I update daily) can't seem to catch it. It keeps deleting the ntoskrnl.exe file from my system32 folder (for some reason, every 48 hours) and now it deleted my windows profile. Any advice on how I should deal with it? —LestatdeLioncourt 10:37, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

There's a site (http://www.trendmicro.com/en/home/global/enterprise.htm) that lets you scan your computer online. I use it and it is generally very good at finding things. ny156uk 11:49, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm... foremost, "ntoskrnl.exe" is a vital system component, so you should use the Windows XP boot disk's "repair" function to install it again. Second, related viruses could possibly be: . --Sn0wflake 12:15, 7 April 2007 (UTC) PS: Fix your freaking signature.

Yes, I know how important ntoskrnl.exe file is. Luckily I have a linux partition, and I keep a copy of the file there. So, every time the file is deleted I mount the windows filesystem and paste a new copy in the system32 folder. The related virus doesn't seem to be a match. I'm very intrigued by the selective nature of the "virus" and it's periodicity, which I never saw in a virus before. How can I report my problem to people who develop antivirus software? —LestatdeLioncourt 13:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You might want use Task Manager to monitor your processes when the virus is again due to delete that file. If you can get the name and location of the program that starts up at that time you will then be able to get more help. StuRat 01:24, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Try Rootkit Revealer and xblock online scanner Glover 06:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Windows Vista Sleep

When you click start in windows vista and put the computer into sleep mode, the internet connection is automatically disconnected, is there any way to stop that from happening? I want to quickly resume working when I wake the computer up. Thanks in advance —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 219.79.61.119 (talk) 13:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC).

If you have a laptop, you can set your computer to do nothing when you close the display. If you do that, the only thing that will happen is that the monitor will turn off, saving some power. Your computer will stay connected. --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:27, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

How do you do that in Vista? Sorry but I'm relatively new in Vista!

If you have a laptop, go to start. Click "Control Panel". Then click "Mobile PC". Then, under the "Power Options" section, hit "Change what closing the lid does". Then select what you want. --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

This doesn't really answer the question. The fact is putting the computer in any sort of "sleep" mode will cut network connections. Changing what the laptop does when you close the lid doesn't mean that putting the computer in "sleep" mode won't cut network connections -- it just means that the laptop isn't going to "sleep". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Icon when image is loading in browser

You know that icon in your web browser that appears in the upper left corner of where an image is supposed to be before it has loaded? Usually, in both IE and Firefox, I remember it to be an assortment of shapes (triangle, square, etc.) of different colors. However, recently, in Firefox, it's been a red dot/diamond that appears in a white box. What is the name of this "placeholder" icon, and why has mine been a red dot recently? Thanks in advance. --JianLi 17:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

In IE if you go to Tools - > Internet Options - > Advanced Tab, under the 'images' settings section, there is a setting for "Show Image Download Placeholders" - so I think to answer that part of your question, I believe they may be called "Image Download placeholders".
Unfortunately I don't know the answer to your second part of the question because I'm not familiar with Firefox - although I can confirm that in earlier versions of IE the image placeholder icon was indeed a small picture of a square, circle, and triangle featuring the colours red, green, and blue. One possibility for your case includes that your version of Firefox uses that different image as an image download placeholder. Rfwoolf 19:29, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure it's not a matter of which version of Firefox it is, since right now it's back to the "normal" assorted shapes placeholder that IE also has, while when I wrote this question just a few hours back it was the "red dot" placeholder that had been puzzling me. --JianLi 23:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Firefox, Thunderbird trying to act as servers

Why does my firewall tell me Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird are trying to act as servers? Why do I sometimes have trouble connecting when I block them from doing so? I connect to the Internet through a LAN, and I'm on Windows XP Home. I have no Thunderbird extensions, and my Firefox extensions are: ChatZilla, Clustybar, DOM Inspector, Showcase, Google Notebook, Google Toolbar, Google Web Accelerator, IE Tab, McAfee SiteAdvisor, Talkback and Web Developer Toolbar. NeonMerlin 17:07, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Because it's trying to send more data that just the destination, which is picked up by the firewall as trying to be a server. I'm assuming ZoneAlarm is what you're using. At least, that's what I always assumed it does. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:55, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

BTW, Wirbelwind, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but I'm trying to help you out. You might want to ask yourself what you think is "the destination" and how is the firewall supposed to know about it? When would the firewall know when the application is not sending data to "the destination"? There may be a viable definition of "the destination" for some applications, but I'm not seeing one that matches common sence reasoning about destinations. When Firefox requests some service, the destination could be anywhere. Now, I suppose we might consider "the destination" to be a port range instead of some IP address on the internet As in, if there's some request to port 63000 on server xxx.evilbotnet.ru from Firefox, which should only (hypothetically) use https, http, or ftp, we might want to note the problem and have the firewall do something as a reaction. In reality, though, that may be far to limiting for personal use. Root(one) 00:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

ChatZilla is possibly the problem. When your firewall says Firefox is acting like a server, it means the execution instance is actually listening for and accepting connections, not just asking for connections on other servers. Several messaging protocols appear to need "server" access (If I recall correctly Trillian won't work with ICQ if it doesn't act as a server.) IRC (servers) also often requires usage of some sort of AUTH protocol. usage of the IDENT protocol for some reason. Root(one) 23:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Both firefox and thunderbird use loopback connections to talk to themselves, so your firewall thinks that it's acting as a server even though the only connections it's taking are from 127.0.0.1.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 02:12, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Quicktime, itunes in vista: lot'sa issues

Does anyone know of a way to get Itunes and Quicktime to work properly in windows Vista? Ive get the latest versions installed (i check for new ones about once a day)but they still don't work. Itunes wont play any sound (this makes lightening to music incredibly difficult). Quicktime also refuses to play any sound. I can get sound in all other applications and I know my sound card drivers are up to date. Ive tried running both app's in windows Xp service pack 2 compatibility mode but they still wont play sound. Apple and Microsoft downright refuse to be helpful (Microsoft tells me its Apples fault and to switch to there music player and Apple tells me its microsofts fault and tells me to switch to there operating system). Can anyone help me? IsaactheNPOVfanatic 17:22, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...I have no problems. --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 17:33, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok now ive tried a complete uninstall and reinstall of both programs. Please im gonna drive my slef mad if i dont get this fixed!!! *slams head into wall while curseing apple and microsoft*IsaactheNPOVfanatic 17:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

you're gonna have to wait until enough people are complaining at apple about vista being mean to itunes that they release a newer version for vista. did you try to run the programs in compatibility mode? 68.162.29.63 18:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

MACs and MP3s

I have a small problem. Everytime I delete data from my MP3 players using my MAC (by dragging to the bin), all the icons are gone and, of course, there is no music to play, as I expect. However, my 'available space' does not go up, and now I have an empty MP3 player with only 4kb available space, which is a bit of an embuggerance. I just borrowed a friend's MP3 to transfer some music from one PC to the MAC, and ended up with the same problem. What is happening, and how do I get all the memory back?

Cheers in advance.CCLemon-ここは寒いぜ！ 20:46, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you tried emptying the trash? Sounds like a dumb question, but USB drives wont show their full amount until the binned items are actually deleted. Sorry if thats not much help

Yes, I have tried emptying the bin both on the MAC and the Win PC I have. I still can't get my MP3 to be blank. (Signature changed ->)ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What type of mp3 player is it? What program are you using to delete the files? And are you sure you've emptied the trash on the Mac while the mp3 player is still connected? --24.147.86.187 01:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a Rio MP3. I was using no program to delete the files, just dragging to the bin, but, now you come to think of it, I don't think it was still connected..... So, what do I do in that case? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 01:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe mac stores the trash on the storage device from which you deleted the file? Sounds stupid, but nautilus does that. If so, just do a simple rm -r . --wj32 09:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Plug the mp3 player in and empty trash.--Ryan 15:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Macs store "trashed" items right on each volume, in a hidden directory/folder called .trashes (IIRC). So yes, to fully recover the free space you must first trash the files to be deleted and then empty the trash.

Atlant 00:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hard Drive (And More) Question

Hey. Some of you might remember me as the hapless fool who asked about fixing an internet problem. The "solution" has been to get a new (luckily free) computer. Unfortunately, I had a number of useful files on my old computer, and it stopped working after an acquaintance of mine fooled around with it. In the end I decided to try and move the hard drive to the new computer, which has been successful. My problem now is that the computer doesn't seem to be able to read Windows from my old hard drive, coming up with an error message. I have tried all three safe modes (Safe Mode, w/networking, and another) as well as restarting to the "last specifications" and trying to start Windows normally. Both computers (hard drives, rather) have Windows XP.

I should specify that the new computer is a Gateway, while the old computer was a Dell. The old hard drive was apparently an IBM, and I am not sure what the new one is. Everything is hooked up as it should be. I initially assumed it was a compatibility problem, but then thought it might

My questions on this problem:

1) Is it a compatibility problem? 2) Is the data just corrupt? 3) If the data is corrupt, can any of it be salvaged?

This isn't a life or death situation for me, but it certainly would be nice to get my data back. Thanks for your input. Robinson0120 21:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I've no idea to the answer to any of your questions above but one possible solution worth a try is to get a live linux disk such as knoppix and boot it from the cd drive, if it can see the contents of your old hard drive you can copy them onto a memory stick. Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 21:30, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You need not boot the drive to access the files on it. It might seem inconvenient at first to find the files, but persevere. Start by looking in X:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents where X is the old drive, probably D or E, which you can find under My Computer.

Booting windows from a drive which was set up in another system usually doesn't work. In the old days (~1995) this was probably due to differences in the hardware installed and the way drivers were configured for them, but modern Windows might be detecting what it assumes is fraud.

If you want to recover data on the drive, resist the urge to change anything on it, including deleting stuff. Various forensic and data recovery programs are then in a better position to find and salvage the data. —EncMstr 21:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

(After edit conflict...)

• It's unlikely a compatability problem - and yes some of the data could be corrupt and certainly windows could be corrupted on that drive. If you can't get Windows to boot up you can look at doing a repair using the Windows repair consol - technically by inserting your XP disc and booting with it - and it's actually an advanced operation, takes a long time, and if your hard drive isn't working so nicely I would not consider this option til later.
  

The best thing to do with this Windows that you want to boot up is to reinstall Windows. Unfortunately, that means reformatting the drive. So let's look at recovering your data before we resort to that.

To recover your data, you'd need an operating system (much like Windows XP) and a place to put the data. This means two options: 1) You do the repair thingy on the corrupted hard drive (not recommended in this case) or 2) Connect the corrupted drive to the working PC but this time as a slave or secondary drive - so that your PC won't attempt to boot from the corrupted drive, but will instead boot from the working drive (which should be set to be a "Primary Master" (as opposed to a "Primary Slave" or "Secondary Master" or "Secondary Slave" -- as you can see there is a hierarchy of drives and the one that is set highest is the one that your PC will try to boot from first)). Righto, so, you boot from the working drive, but have your corrupted one connected as a drive lower in the hierarchy. So now you have your operating system (Windows on the working drive) and you have your place to store the data (your working drive). Once you're in Windows, you'd go into My Computer and you'd try to access the corrupted drive - and this time it will show you everything it sees - and you just copy over whatever is salvagable. Once you've done that, you can look at either throwing the corrupted hard drive out the window, or you can format it and try use it.

Some possible obsticles in this solution:

1. You will need to know how to set your drives up in their hierarchy to keep the working hardrive as a "Primary Master" and make the corrupted harddrive something less in the hierarchy - if the working harddrive is configuered properly and is using the correct ribbon cable you probably won't have to do anything
   
2. If your corrupted hard drive is using a FAT32 filing system, and the working hard drive is using an NFTS filing system, there's a chance your working hard drive won't be able to read anything off the corrupted one. When you install Windows XP it formats the drive and it will have asked you if you want to format it to the NFTS format system or the FAT32 format system.
   

Well, that should give you some idea of what's involved - it's actually not that difficult, hopefully it's as simple as connecting your corrupted hard drive to your new PC, booting windows, and copying the files across - but make sure you know how to 'undo' each thing you do - make notes if you have to. Good luck Rfwoolf 22:03, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

What I had tried to do was use the cables attached to the hard drive, using them instead on the new hard drive. You said something about using the "correct ribbon." Would this cause a problem? I do have the old ribbon still- should I try to use that instead?

The XP CD boot idea looks good to me (even though you said it is advanced) because I don't want to fool around with the hardware as much, but the XP on my old computer is different from the XP on my new one. Would this cause a problem, or would I still be able to use XP to simply boot it? Robinson0120 19:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

The ribbon itself is only important in the following areas:

• a) if it's damaged or not,
• b) if it can plug into your hard drive on the one end and plug into your motherboard on the other end (some ribbons have more pins than others, and similarly some drives use more pins and some motherboards use more pins - but most of them are all the same),
• c) the place the ribbon plugs into on the motherboard -- look at the motherboard you are using, it usually has 2x or more ribbon cable plugs right next to eachother, and usually each ribbon cable furthermore connects to 2 drives - this is your typical 4-drive setup (which can include CD roms as drives). These 2x ribbon cable plugs on your motherboard, look closely to see if they're labelled 1 or 2 (or 'P1' and 'P2' etc) - because one would be a Primary and one would be a Secondary - once again this is all used to set up a hierarchy of hard drives so that your PC will boot from the most senior one. Then going down a ribbon, if the ribbon has 2x drives attached to it, by default the PC will see harddrive that is nearest on the ribbon as being senior to the one that is further away on the ribbon. To top it all off, a lot of this can be overridden by things called jumper pins on the hard drives themselves - and that is a difficult thing to adjust), oh and

Based upon the above, I wouldn't stress too much, in fact for now ignore (c) altogether - just use a ribbon cable that is not damaged and has the right pin-holes to connect your hard drive to your PC

I'm not sure what you meant at the last part of your question there - but if you go and plug your bad hard drive into your new PC and boot up using your good hard drive, it doesn't matter that the two XP versions are different between the two drives - in fact the bad drive needn't have XP installed at all. What does matter is that they use the same file system like I mentioned earlier (both FAT32 or both NTSF) - if they don't use the same file system then the bad drive just won't appear to have anything on it.

With regard to repairing the Windows XP on your bad drive, aside from being slightly advanced and all that, if you're certain the hard drive is corrupt or experiencing hard drive failure, then more often than not it isn't a good idea to keep the drive. But on the other hand it could be an okay drive that somehow got Windows corrupted and maybe you want to try it all again. So you can try look at a guide on repairing Windows XP here or do a google for "Repairing Windows XP" - and you also have some further options if you still want to use the bad drive: Like I said if you install Windows XP it has to format the drive it's on, but what you can do is insert your Windows XP CD and go into setup, and try to create a drive partition on the bad drive, which will actually 'separate' it into two drives - one that is full of data - and one that is empty, and then it will try install on the empty one - this will technically keep your data where it is and maybe copy it over to your other partition. The downside is once again, if the bad drive is failing, or is prone to data errors, why keep it? Maybe you still have a warranty on it - go and swap it for one that won't mess up your data.

Good luck. Rfwoolf 20:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

HDD Question

(Sorry, I usually make a point of not asking two questions at once, but...) Why is it that occasionally (about twice or three times a day) my WinXP PC's HD suddenly gets really busy (for a very long period of time), thus stopping me from working, as the PC just gets too slow and does nothing unless I go into the Task Manager and quit everything (and all applications say 'no answer'). I can understand this would happen when a scheduled application is meant to run, but it happens even when there is nothing. Can anyone help here? CCLemon-ここは寒いぜ！ 21:25, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Check your swap settings. Start | Settings | Control Panel | System, select the Advanced tab, push the Performance button. Click on the Advanced tab. Press the Change button at the bottom in the Virtual memory section. The bottom of this dialog should show a recommended value and actual values. Your description suggests there is way too much paging memory configured. Or it could just be that the CD/DVD is having a hard time reading the disc which—on my computer—pretty well shuts down other operations until it is concluded. —EncMstr 22:02, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Some anti-virus applications run periodic 'background' scans of all or selected files on a partition. The anti-virus program wouldn't likely show up in the application list, but should show in the process list of the task manager. Depending on the speed of the machine, the amount of fragmentation on the hard drive or the efficiency of the anti-virus program, these scans could slow your machine quite substantially. Defragmenting the partitions on the drive could also lessen the impact of the seemingly random activity. In relation to what EncMstr was saying, the task manager displays a graph showing your 'Page File Usage History' which would be worth checking after one of those periods of activity. See Commit Charge for more info on that. Johnnykimble 22:23, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, both of you. My PC is WinXP Prof, and doesn't have the 'Settings' in the Start Menu. I looked in Control Panel itself and found 'System', but there was no 'Advanced' tab. I was thinking that it might be something to do with the RAM and the Virtual Memory/Swap File, but could not really imagine why, as I am not using multiple applications at once (most of the time). I've defragged the PC twice in the last week or so (as I usually do), so I cannot think why it would be a problem with files being fragmented. The 'Page File Usage History' I will look into. Thanks again! ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 22:51, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

My Linux machines do this periodically, too -- the culprit is a cron job which is indexing the disk for use by the locate program. Since Windows machines (and Macs) have optimized, index-based file search programs, too, it wouldn't surprise me if they also fall prey to periodic slowness due to background indexing tasks.

Obviously a well-written and well-tuned operating system will not permit a less-important, batch-oriented or background task to usurp so many machine resources that foreground, interactive tasks are affected. Somehow, in my experience, Unix and Linux are absolutely stellar in this regard, Mac OS X somewhat less so, and Windows absolutely bletcherous. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:17, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. I actually bought a MAC about 6 months ago and put OS X on it (after getting used to OS 9) and found that it was considerably slower, and, furthermore, started playing the same game as my Windows machine, only with a multi-coloured spinning top as a cursor. I started thinking I was just incompetent with PCs after a while. Having said that, getting a MAC was a good idea, even though, nevertheless I will also use my Windows PCs. By the way, Steve Summit (talk) , is there any way I can get Linux on my Windows PC, without getting a CD, without having to burn downloaded files onto a CD, and only by single-clicking (everything you need all at once rather than lots of files) on a button on a website? We are going way off topic here, but I also wanted to ask this anyway.ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Moved to subsection below. —Steve Summit (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

From the fragmentation point of view, typical linux file systems usually do a much better job at keeping things in shape compared to file systems often used with Windows. So, when a background task does run, it completes quicker because the system is less fragmented. Johnnykimble 00:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

one-click Linux download?

...is there any way I can get Linux on my Windows PC, without getting a CD, without having to burn downloaded files onto a CD, and only by single-clicking (everything you need all at once rather than lots of files) on a button on a website? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 23:40, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of one, but I wouldn't be surprised if one exists. On the one hand, a CD seems to me to be the right way to do it, and a one-click web download sounds like a bad idea securitywise, but on the other hand, given how much else you can download and install from the net these days with a single click, why not? —Steve Summit (talk) 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, I'll keep looking. The reason I'm asking is because my CD drive is playing up too. Not having a good month with this PC, am I? ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually there may be a solution. You could run Linux as a virtual machine under Windows XP using something like VMware. You might want to look under its "See also" section if VMware is too expensive for ya. That's probably not a "single click" solution, but it may be possible that you could download a CD or DVD .iso and whatever Virtualization software you choose might be able to read from it BTW, I've never used it, but I've certainly thought it might be fun for some experiments. Root(one) 00:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

There is exactly something you want, but I forgot what it's called. There was this beta software that can install Ubuntu while running Windows, without using any new partitions (it uses a loop-back mount as a file on an existing partition). --antilived 01:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

, called Wubi for some reason... --antilived 01:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

look at Instlux --Spoon! 01:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Check out the ZipSlack distro. A 100mb version of Slackware Linux designed to fit on a ZipDisk (or USB pen). Haven't tried it myself, but just beware because I notice it only mentions FAT and FAT32 partitions in the installation section of the site, so if you are using NTFS for your Windows partitions it might not work. Johnnykimble 09:14, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think you can isntall SUSE with somthing like this, not sure but it might be worth looking into. --Lwarf 07:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

blocking ip ranges

Do you need to install any programs on a website for administrators and syops to block whole ranges of ip addresses such as 213.5.0/0 or 4.xxx because on paleos.org and evo wiki it wont allow administrators to block whole ip ranges.--Fang 23 22:20, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

If you own the server and running linux on it (otherwise go run linux on it), this is very easy to do with iptables. --antilived 23:58, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Or even .htaccess file can block IP addresses. These methods are not very graceful towards the blocked addresses though. --antilived 23:59, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use Apache's rewrite engine in your .htaccess, to redirect an IP range to a page that exlians the situation. risk 12:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

April 8

Custom Equalizer Changes In Songs

OMG I JUST HAD THE BEST IDEA....

ok so you know how you can't a custom equalizer for the ipod, BUT I thought maybe you could convert the files themselves using a certain EQ setting. This is certainly possible. Theres only two issues: What program would do this and could this program do all the files at once? Any ideas?

• also would be good if it didnt just convert mp3s, also converted m4a's*

152.7.20.253 00:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)name

Yes this had been around for quite a few years now. It is very easy to do with mp3's but a lot harder with m4a's because of the DRM. Anyhow, you don't need EQ. The CD's are mastered according to the music, and any EQ will just worsen it or be used to mask imperfectness in the earphones. You should try and get a better pair of earphones instead of fussing about EQ settings. --antilived 23:56, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok first: my m4a's have no DRM so that is not an issue. Second: I have $400 shur earphones so thanks for telling me what I should do but thats not an issue either. Tell me why then do most mp3 players (including ipods) come with the ability of changing EQ settings if natural EQ's are really desired. But anyway that's unrelated, ALL I want to know if there are any programs that do this. (Professional expensive programs to Cheap freeware, does not matter) 152.7.20.253 00:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)name

Ok, in that case, use foobar2000, open the files you want to EQise, select all of them, right click, convert, tick DSP processing, pres the "..." button, find "Equalizer" and move it to the left, select it, configure selected, move the sliders to whatever you want, ok 3 times, go to the place where you want to put them and wait til it's done. This is how you do it with MP3's and FLACS and stuff like that anywyas, and no guarantees it will work with m4a. --antilived 01:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yea, it's a personal preference thing. I find high pitched sounds annoying, so turn down the treble. Others may like them and turn it way up. I wish we had the individual tracks available from which the final songs were mixed, so I could turn up a decent singer and turn down an annoying drum machine. StuRat 01:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok thank you sooo much antilived thats all I was looking for ;)152.7.20.253 01:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You should know that this probably doesn't come free. mp3's and the like have lossy compression, which means that from the original to the mp3, you lose information (and thus quality). Any kind of change to the sounds in the file means uncompressing it, modifying the sound, and then compressing it again. This means you lose quality again on the recompression. The effect may be negligible for just two recompressions (depending on the settings), but then again, if you're used to $400 earphones... risk 12:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah i know, the program warned me of this also. But after I converted all my songs (mp4s included) they didnt seem to be a noticable decrease in audio quality, while at the same time the EQ change was evident. So I think this was a success...The only problem is the program takes roughly 24 hours to convert 6000 songs.152.7.20.253 23:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

MP3 players and cars

Why is it so hard for car manufacturers to make cars iPod/walkman compatible by merely having line-in jacks directly to the audio system? I don't know much about cars, but this seems to be easily possible for externally powered speakers, so why not with those of a car? It seems that the most common solutions right now are needlessly complicated, such as iPod specific adaptors or tape adaptors with line-in jacks. --JianLi 23:57, 7 April 2007 (UTC)

Many automakers are finally starting to come around and do this, my 2006 Nissan Sentra has a line-in port, and I'm pretty sure I've heard it advertised for other makes/models as well. Cyraan 00:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course, there is still the issue of the jacks becoming obsolete over the life of the car. Remember those huge jacks that headphones used to have ? Would you want to buy an old, used car which accepts that type of jack ? Maybe the same will apply to the current jacks in the future: "What kind of old, piece of crap car is this ? The jack doesn't even have the bandwidth to transmit standard holographic info !". StuRat 01:08, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Those 1/4 inch plugs are not really obsolete, just inconvenient for the average consumers. 3.5mm plug t 1/4inch plugs are still very common in these days. --antilived 01:45, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Multi-touch

Where could I purchase a Multi-touch tablet PC? -68.193.147.179 00:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

• Hmmm... not sure what that is, but you can look at Ebay, but if it is what I think it is, then you'd have to look at companies that supply the retail point-of-sale trade, you know, where in the supermarkets they can use their screen to press the buttons they want. Rfwoolf 04:00, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Unix and shells

Are there certain types of shells that cannot be installed on a given UNIX variant/OS? If so, are there any reasons in particular? Thanks.

137.99.165.83 01:58, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Anything not expressly written for POSIX? eg., Windows shells. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 03:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Display contrast

(I posted the monitor question above) - I bought a new monitor for my computer and it is supposed to have really high contrast resolution (3000:1). All I adjusted until now was screen resolution under display properties to the max. The sharpness of my screen is somewhat better but when I watch a video it's in poorer condition that it was on my old monitor. What else should I adjust? Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Just an idea: in your Display Settings, try lower your DPI to 96. Or of course try different numbers. Rfwoolf 04:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I would spend some time changing each of the monitor's settings until you get each to the optimal setting. For example, just because your monitor can support a max contrast of 3000:1 does not mean it's currently set that way. StuRat 04:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure what 3000:1 means and how good the picture is supposed to be. Can someone explain this to me please. Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm presuming it's a TFT and not a CRT monitor? If your new screen is bigger than the previous, it could be that the native resolution of the two screens are different. This means that the image could be stretched, resulting in an ugly blurry image. You'll have a similar lack of sharpness if the image is bigger than the new screen's native resolution. Check the manual of the new screen, or search for it on the internet, and you'll easily find the native resolution listed (it's one of the most important things when setting up a new screen). Ideally all applications you run on the TFT should be run in the native resolution. However, this doesn't necessarily explain your issues when watching video. Johnnykimble 20:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I think it depends on the context. It probably means 3000 pixels per 1 inch (unlikely) or perhaps it means 3000 pixels per 1 foot. Another context - although extremely unlikely - is the format of your monitor, where for every 1 inch high your monitor is, it is 3000 inchs wide. -- so I'm not sure. Rfwoolf 19:16, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Does the 3000:1 contrast ratio not mean the brightest colour is 3000 times more luminous than the darkest? Johnnykimble 20:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

That would indeed make more sense. But having a screen with the ratio of having its width 3000 times its height was a close second I'd say ... ;) Rfwoolf 20:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

My monitor is LCD flat screen 19" and on the corner it says "3000:1 Digital Fine Contrast". My old monitor wasn't flatscreen, but it was also 19". I don't know what the 3000:1 means, and I was wondering if someone knows if I am supposed to activate some option or adjustment, because the picture is fine when its still, but any video is poorer than my old monitor's. Hiilp 20:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC) One more thing, is it normal that as you change the angle from which you look at the picture on a LCD monitor, the color also changes - because this doesn't happen on older monitors.Hiilp 21:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If still pics look good but motion looks bad, perhaps the refresh rate is too low. If you have an option to change the refresh rate, try setting it higher. StuRat 03:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh hang on, it's probably a poor panel response time you're noticing. Forget about the contrast ratio, you don't have to do anything to adjust that. Check the manual for the response time specification. Ideally it should be about 8ms or 12ms. In the early days, response times of 25ms were common, which meant for any moving images, even moving a window across the screen, you would see blurriness and 'trails'. If your old monitor was a CRT monitor, then you'll be even more likely to notice the response time issue with the LCD as CRTs don't suffer from any problems with response time. Fast action or panning scenes in films will be most likely to show up the problem. Unfortunately if your new screen has a high response time, there's nothing you can do to improve it. Johnnykimble 10:00, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

And to answer your other question, yes, the viewing angle is an important factor for LCD monitors. Again, like response time and contrast ratio, this is a pretty important specification when deciding which screen to buy. The large the viewing angle, the more you'll be able to look at the screen from an off centre position without noticing any change in the image. Both horizontal and vertical angles should be considered. Johnnykimble 10:05, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Starting program

When you open a new file it automatically opens with a certain program. How do you change that default program (for .Pdf for example). Because my Adobe reader is not responding and I can't open the necessary files (as "open with" is not available in this case). Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

In Explorer, go to Tools->Folder Options, select the "File Types" tab, and you should see a list of recognized extensions (jpg, pdf, etc). Select the type of file you want to configure, and then click "Change" below it, there you can select the default program to handle it. Cyraan 02:39, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I had quite a few issues with Adobe Reader, from the huge update sizes, to frequent crashes when opening files - not to mention the occasional paralytic effect it had on my browser when viewing PDFs online. If Adobe Reader keeps crashing on you, you'll need an alternative program, and for that I'd recommend Foxit Reader. I've found it much more reliable than the Adobe one, and much much quicker. Johnnykimble 09:20, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, This solved my problems with default programs and now X-Adobe.Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Load up

Last question - My computer is pretty fast, but it takes 8 sec for a program window to open up when I double click on it (ex. Microsoft word - but every program does this) - and then it takes less than a sec to open lets say file/open. Can I somehow load up programs faster? Thanks Hiilp 02:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You can purchase & install more memory, or possibly a faster hard drive (SATA if your PC supports it). You can also free up some of the memory you already have by disabling startup processes you don't need, MSConfig can do this (Start->Run, type "msconfig" without the quotes, click the startup tab. Do not mess with the other tabs in it, especially if you don't know what they are). Many programs nowadays load one or more processes at startup you don't necessarily need to have constantly running and consuming resources, but be careful what you disable, when in doubt, google the filename, or leave it alone.

Also, a format & fresh install of windows can often speed things up a bit. Cyraan 02:46, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You can try defragment your hard drive - "So that your programs run faster" !. In windows, click Start -> Run, and type "dfrg.msc" and press enter.

Here's another helpful hint: Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc. This will bring up the Task Manager. Click on the "Performance" tab, which will show you on top how your CPU is performing, and on the bottom the size of your page file. The CPU of course handles all the tiny calculations your computer needs to 'compute' all the time, so when it's handling a zillion different processes your CPU usage will end up quite high. So the interesting thing is, if you boot up your computer and get into Windows, wait for it to finish, how high is your CPU performance? How high is it now? If it's excessively high all the time (when you're not really running any difficult processes) then you could have background programs that are stealing all your thunder. So go into the 'Processes' tab, and look for suspicious processes that are using up a lot of memory - and then, google their names to find out what they are and what they do - and if it's something you don't need or it's spyware then end the process. (Note: ending processes is considered only something advanced users would do - so exercise some caution but fortunately there isn't much you can do that a simple reboot of your PC won't fix - but more importantly you don't want to terminate your antivirus software or some important documents you were working on).

If your computer is still struggling, then look at upgrading your RAM or your processor. Good luck Rfwoolf 04:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys, this helped me a lot and solved many of my problems. My computer is now faster, as well as my long problem of having to close twenty programs upon a start up is now solved. Thanks Hiilp 17:12, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Good to know you came right. How did you end up solving the problem? Rfwoolf

I "End Process"ed many programs because it turned out that many programs/updates/and so on were running at the same time. And now my computer performs faster (I hope it lasts). (Also, the disabling of programs to activate when I start my computer saves me the trouble of manually closing down ten icons in my right down corner). But, I didn't go through the dfrg because it seems that I have 60% free space.Hiilp 21:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You should run the defrag anyway, free space has nothing to do with file fragmentation. Glover 02:46, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Backup problems

Over the past few years I have been backing up my PC to a 250GB External HDD. This has resulted in a massive mess. All my family files have mixed with my work files and resulted in a great big problem. In total the HDD has 240GB of my files on it -many files a duplications but their are also many originals. I have no idea how to attack this problem. Any suggestions? May Software that will aid in the sorting process? Many thanks for any help :) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by I.scheme.a.lot (talk • contribs) 02:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't know how to sort out this mess but I would suggest you to use a better method of backing up such as rdiff-backup. --antilived 03:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

It would be interesting if there was some software that can do this - I'm sorry I don't know about that - but here's just a suggestion in the spirit of helpfulness:

In windows Explorer, you can right-click on the column-headings which gives you a list of extra headings - make sure you've got "Date Modified" and "Date Created" open - as you'll need either of theses, and of course "Size" and whatever else. Then you could consider going into your mass of files and taking a chunk of it and -- in the case where all the files are in the same folder -- sort the files by "Date Modified" to determine which files supercede the others. Of course if you have two files with the exact same name then you can't put them in the same directory - but indeed that's another strategy altogether: it involves taking one folder, and copying its contents into another folder - when there are duplicate filenames, Windows will prompt you and ask "Do you wish to replace MYWORK.XLS (Size: 40KB, Date Modified: 25/12/1998) with this version: MYWORK.XLS (Size: 63KB, Date Modified: 06/08/2005) - and of course you must say "no" if it wants to replace the newer file with the older one! All in all this can get very complicated.

Another solution is to simply leave it as is, and whenever you need a file approach it on an ad hoc basis - you can push F3 and do a search (you can search *.xls for all "xls" files or you can type "week" for all files containing the word "Week" - and so forth.

Good luck. Rfwoolf 03:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If you are going with Rfwoolf's approach you might find Subversion (SVN) with TortoiseSVN (http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org/) is useful as a tool (it can run on most platforms e.g Windows). If used properly, the SVN system will help you keep track of all the file structure changes that you make as you try and sort the mess out. Once set-up, this means that you DO NOT have to agonise over the "Date Modified" or "file size" attributes etc to determine which files supercede the others. As an extreme example, you could just go-with-your instincts and don't worry about the consequences of ANY cut/copy/move/paste you make as you tidy up the situation. Using tortoiseSVN you could,for example, delete a whole folder of files if you think they are duplications of another folder and do this WITHOUT the dire consequences. If in 6 weeks time, you suddenly notice that you shouldn't have deleted 3 particular files in that "deleted" folder, you could revert your deletion and bring them back. If space is an issue you could even use the internet in combination with a "Subversion server hosting company" as a place to store your "tidied up repository of files". NOTE: This is an over-simplification to get the point accross. Read the software's manual first and learn the basics of Subversion, before you use the software! See: http://svnbook.red-bean.com/en/1.2/svn.intro.html#svn.intro.whatis

By the way, do not get put off and think its all too technical - Subversion is really easy to learn, and there is alot of help on the net from people who use it. (Its useful for anyone who stores digital data, which these days is pretty much everyone. I think it should be taught in schools like 'home economics for your computer')

Subversion is, if you like, a "Misplaced Pages on your computer". E.g Where your files are like peices of wiki content, that are susceptable to be modified, but it doesn't matter even if they are deleted because they could be brought back. In this analogy there just happens to be a smaller set of collaborators (you and your family).Ronnystalker 10:54, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

see: http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/01/06/svn_homedir.html

Another path to follow, (slightly more bizarre thinking here), might be to offer your self as guinea pig for researchers on "The MyLifeBits lifetime store" project. Or just pick their brains via email. They seem to have spent many research-hours on this problem. http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=The+MyLifeBits+system Ronnystalker 11:09, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Were you looking for something like FileSync? Its a program that compares two directories to see which files are different, which are newer/older and which are same in both locations. Thats what I used myself, but it seems rsync can also be used on Windows... Shinhan 11:28, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

MSAccess2000 problem with running wizards

I used to use Access a lot when I was in the IT profession, but I haven't had occasion to for several years. Two years ago, after I'd quit using Access, I reformatted my compy and reinstalled everything. Since then, I haven't had to do a DB until last night, when I discovered that none of the wizards worked. Thinking they just weren't installed, I spent about 2 hours doing supplementary installs, using the repair feature, etc etc to no avail. When I try to run the wizards it doesn't even show a dialog box or notice or anything. I would rather not have to uninstall Office and re-install it; any ideas? If not a fix, at least a good place where I could go to ask? I haven't gone to the MSKb yet, I'm hoping to try a couple of quick things before slogging through it. Anchoress 04:15, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... yeah, I don't know if there is going to be a quicker way than uninstall office and reinstall it. Sounds like something has borked and doesn't want to go back without a struggle. --24.147.86.187 15:35, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it's time in a way I guess. Not the time it takes to re-install, but the time it takes to reset all my customisation. But actually I did a bit of looking and it looks like a fairly common problem which re-installation doesn't seem to fix, so maybe it's better that I don't try it anyway. Anchoress 20:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

What does "mount a network drive" mean in Unix/Linux?

What does "mount a network drive" mean? I am new to Linux and have viewed my #history on my new dedicated server via SSH and i see the first line has the command

1. mount /somethingimnotgoingtosayincaseitsasecurtityrisk/

I've looked it up and everyone explains this command by just saying it mounts a network drive. BUT what on earth does that mean to a human being??? Arrgh. please help my head hurts. Thanks in a dvance Ronnystalker 04:49, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Look at your /etc/fstab to see the mount table associations. /somethingimnot...' is a name there, and probably has a filesystem type of nfs (if it's a "network drive"). —EncMstr 04:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that. However, i'm not too worried about the particular filename/folder/drive. I'm just trying to work out what "Mount a network drive" means. Does it mean, say, "copy all files from that drive to here" or does it mean "whenever i say x i mean the-network-drive-being-mounted". As far as the dictionary goes mount, means either a "mountain" (i don't think that applies here :o), to "get on top of" and so on... But, none of the dictionary definitions seem to explain exactly what happens in a "linux sense" when a "drive is mounted". I hazzard a gues to think that "one thing is being put on top of another thing". So, is one thing copying onto another thing. Or is one thing physically on another thing? or being Symbollicly linked to another thing, diverted to another thing. Any way hope you can help. P.s thanks for making me explore a bit more my linux anyway. I have now seen my /etc/ folder. ;o)

Nothing is copied, it's like defining an alias. That is, you are telling the computer "whenever I say /home, I really mean the hard disk in the primary master position on my PC". StuRat 05:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't answer the question. It means "make the file system available for access". It derives from the old days where disk drives nearly the size of clothes washing machines used removable disk packs (the size of a medium size wedding cake). An operator "mounted" the desired disk pack when a program requested access with a resource mount command. Under Unix/Linux/etc., it's still the case for tapes, DVDs and floppies, unless some automount software is running. The opposite—umount—disconnects the association between the mount point and the filesystem ("unmounts"), finishes up pending i/o (sync) and takes the file system offline, making it inaccessible. —EncMstr 05:55, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Except that I always got the error "Can't perform the unmount because the resource is currently in use", and I wasn't able to figure out what was using it. StuRat 06:03, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

For me, the most common user of the disk I can't umount is me, having cd'd to the volume and forgotten that fact. lsof can probably help determine who/what's using a volume.

Atlant 00:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Don't you wish the unmount command was actually named 'unmount' instead of 'umount'. I make that mistake every time :) Johnnykimble 09:25, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I do believe you could set up an alias so that 'unmount' points to 'umount'. Similar to aliasing 'rm' to 'rm -i' Freedomlinux 22:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, Pike (was it Pike?) stated that if he had his time over with Unix, he'd add an "e" to the creat system call ;)

Looks like it was Ken Thompson. Not that that old posting is a reliable source, but notice the code comment... Johnnykimble 09:57, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that StuRat and EncMstr, it really cleared it up for me. As always, it seems, once the good folk of Misplaced Pages have answered my question here, I end up finding the answer was already waiting for me on this vast resource. See http://en.wikipedia.org/Mount_%28computing%29 I hereby promise to invest some time in learning how to search this site more effectively. (Lol at the "scale references", I checked to see where you were from to see if you were American or not. Cakes and washing machines tend to be bigger over there).

On a side note, I have just read a book on Subversion http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ and been introduced to the whole concept of Revision Control Systems. "Aaahh I geddit! Misplaced Pages is a gigantic revision control repository for managing knowledge... ding!" - I'm now looking at this site in a whole new light. Ronnystalker 07:07, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Backup .bkf file with Vista

My PC died, but fortunately I have a recent backup of the entire drive c: on an external hard drive made with the Windows XP Backup utility, which creates files with the .bkf extension. However, Vista "Backup Status ad Configuration" on my new PC doesn't seem to recognize the file type when I try to restore. What can I do? Thanks. --Halcatalyst 05:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

P.S. I have Vista Home Premium --Halcatalyst 05:38, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Vista supports the old backup format... And anyway, if you tried to restore your whole backup then you would overwrite heaps of system files. --wj32 09:27, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Check out the Microsoft article which describes how to 'Restore a backup created on a previous version of Windows'. Johnnykimble 09:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I got the utility working and have restored some documents. Now the problem is to figure out which files (besides documents) I can transfer without breaking Vista. For example: can I restore applications? How do I find and restore my Microsoft Outlook data (outlook.pst?). Thanks in advance! --Halcatalyst 14:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

As far as applications go, you can consider them 'lost', i.e. you will need to reinstall them. Any application specific data, for example an Outlook address book, account data, or folder store, can often be 'imported' once you've installed the application again on your system. The procedures for restoring this data will vary between applications, but for Microsoft programs they should be well documented. Searching the Microsoft Knowledge Base should give you the answers you need. Johnnykimble 15:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Program to change the keys on a keyboard.

I remember PC World magazine once recommended this program which lets you change the keys on a keyboard. For example, you could change the Enter key to the spacebar, so that when you press the key labelled Enter, it acts as if you pressed the spacebar. I am looking for this program because my spacebar is spoilt. It does not affect my typing, but it does affect my gaming. Where can I find and download this program for free? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.189.64.225 (talk) 14:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

I don't know of a program to remap keys in Windows, but in most games you can change keyboard key assignments. If you look in the options for the game, you should be able to reassign whichever function was controlled by the spacebar to the enter key (or any key of your choosing). Johnnykimble 14:17, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Some games let me remap the controls if the default is the arrow keys, but for games which need me to use the spacebar, they don't offer options to remap.

Here is one option. I don't know anything about it, just found it during a search. --LarryMac 16:34, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

You could also get a new keyboard? They are not terribly expensive. --24.147.86.187 17:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

SharpKeys does a very good job of this . I've used it for similar problems (on a laptop where new keyboards are actually 'terribly expensive'), and also on desktops to remap Caps-Lock to Alt. 194.80.193.188 11:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

The Return of the Stickiness

Some of you might remember that I posted a question here earlier, about cleaning some coke out from some electronics, and I was directed towards isopropyl alcohol, rubbed in with a q-tip. Well, it worked great! But there are some more issues to take care of. When this coke can burst, it got into some really hard-to-reach places. The q-tip can't quite get into the "L" and "R" buttons of the Game Boy micro, or the "Start," "Select," and volume buttons, for that matter. There's also the issue of the game slots. Would it be safe to use the isopropyl inside the slots on the GBm and the Nintendo DS Lite (the GBA one)? And the "plug" for the DS Lite's second slot...it seems to have the pins necessary for a game, even though it's empty. Would anything happen if those pins were damaged? Thanks for all the help.--the ninth bright shiner 15:52, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm afraid that the game slots are a touch too sensitive, and could have been permanently damaged. Your best possibility would be seeking the help of a professional, as I doubt any "home" solution would be 100% effective. --Sn0wflake 05:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd suggest taking it apart: the plastic parts (and any screws and such) can probably be simply washed in soapy water, and the button sensors (which may be just thin film contacts) wiped with water or alcohol. If there's any of the gunk on the circuit boards themselves, which there might or might not be, use the alcohol. Just take care not to damage the boards with static electricity while handling them, and make sure you know how to put everything back together again after it's clean and dried. (A useful trick, in these modern days, is to use a digital camera to photograph everything you're going to take apart while it's still together — that way you can later use the photos to check what goes where.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 17:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, too bad about the pins. Both systems themselves work perfectly well, it's that there's still some sticky stuff around the GBA slots, is all. The digital camera would make taking it apart a lot simpler, true, but I'm probably too much of clutz to mess around inside. I'm going to see if I can possibly smash the end of q-tip to fit into the smaller nooks and crannies. So, just to be sure, the isopropyl will hurt the pins? Thanks.--the ninth bright shiner 20:37, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No, I don't think it should harm the pins at all. I was wondering how you were going to clean the slots without dipping the whole device in the alcohol if you couldn't fit a Q-tip inside them, but then I reread your question and realized that you probably weren't saying that at all. So, yes, I'd expect cleaning the slots with a Q-tip dipped in isopropyl alcohol to be OK. (CYA disclaimer: All this is just my guess based on personal experience. Don't sue me if it voids your warranty, makes the problem worse, explodes and destroys your house, or whatever.) —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't seem like the pins should be harmed, so I'll ask around a bit more. Nice disclaimer there, but don't worry, I won't and probably can't sue you. I'm too careful to take "I think" suggestions, only "I'm sure"s. Thanks for the help!--the ninth bright shiner 15:02, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

synchronization

confusing about which synchronization primitives is the best and why? i know about monitors ,semaphores,synchronization h/w.....etc . so i would like to know about it as i am new to this concept and what is the first operating system . help pls thanx in advance.Chakrirajini 17:05, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

"US Server down" for over 24 hours now

After calling through to my Internet Service Provider's technical support, they informed me that everyone's been having trouble accessing domains from certain countries such as the UK or South Africa - and they said the reason was that a US server was down (since over 24 hours now already), and believe it or not I think it's still down 'cos I'm still having trouble! Anyways, I'm not sure I still quite understand. Do they mean that a DNS server is down - or what? If major DNS servers go down, does anybody know where this would be reported? Isn't there like a DNS organisation that could give me some more information?
(If you're bored: Just for interest's sake, I'm having trouble accessing sites like www.madamandeve.co.za and www.iol.co.za - if you wanna try them and report back to me)
Thanks as always Rfwoolf 19:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

I can get on both of them - you could try proxying your way around if you are really desperate. Either way, I have experienced some trouble with my forum but not sure if it is the host's problem or a general network issue. Either way, I use this for a quick overview on whether there are any serious issues at the moment, looking for spikes. As for information, I have no idea and would like to know too. x42bn6 Talk 19:26, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Update:
Thanks. But all South African 'co.za' sites don't connect - I end up getting google's results on them - and even www.bsalsa.com (not South African) doesn't go through. One site that worked was iss.org.za but not even the South African government information portal is accessible! I'll just have to wait, but I'd really like to know WHY. Rfwoolf 19:44, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Try doing a traceroute, it'll show you where your connection is hitting a snag. --24.147.86.187 21:21, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want to see if it's DNS, try their IP addresses directly (which would require that someone with a working DNS give you said IP addresses). i.e. and are the two you provided. If they work, even if they don't lead exactly to the expected website, it's probably a DNS problem. In that case, you might be able to use OpenDNS or something as a replacement. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:32, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Update:
Just called service provider again, they say they're still working on it - something about a router system or whatnot - the previous consultant I spoke to said it's not a problem with the service provider and its not their fault - but this time this consultant said it is 'a problem with '. Information seems very very minimal - they can't tell me what kind of server, what I can google, what's wrong with it, where I can get more information - zip!
Doing a tracrt on one of the sites lists one IP address before timing out: "10.40.160.1" - which when I type in just gets me to a google search for that term.
Thanks for all your help anyways - when I get to the bottom of it I'll let you all know. Rfwoolf 21:42, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a local IP address, presumably on your ISP's network. That means you're probably not going to find out much about it except from your ISP. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Update: Well, after using a proxy I was able to access a lot more sites - even certain google caches that weren't working before were finally working. Then a few hours later I took off the proxy and things were back to normal. Rfwoolf 03:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Batch generation of SVG files

Over at Category:Images which should be in SVG format (or more specifically here) we have about 200 images which are simply Unicode characters (U+2100 to U+21D4). Obviously the requested conversion (well, recreation) should be easier to do with a batch script than doing 200 by hand. Is anyone able to write a script that can do this?

I'd imagine a possible sequence could be something like:

• Construct PostScript/EPS file containing just that character in a font that has it
• Set bounding box (somehow) to be tight to the edges of the character
• Use pstoedit to convert PS to flat PS with beziers.
• Use pstoedit again to go from flat PS to SVG
• Bot upload to WP or Commons, add {{vva}} to the .gif file, replace instances of files with SVG version. (Needs someone with a bot account, presumably.)

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to write any of these stages, and don't have a bot account. Cheers, Stannered 23:02, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Skills for user interface design

What is/are the most useful programming language(s) for someone interested in user interface design to study? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.42.111.47 (talk) 23:04, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Until someone who is more sure comes along, I would venture to say something in the lines of .NET programming through Delphi or MS Visual Basic or C#. Generally speaking when you create an application you can use components that help you with the interface design - or with some skill you can create your own. So it is possible to do nice interfaces (GUIs) with very little experience, just having the right components - assuming you are referring to Object-Orientated programming. Rfwoolf 23:13, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

.NET Progaming is very easy when it comes GUI design, how ever the software is quite costly, for a cheap c++ GUI try Trolltech's Qt, It's very similare to .NET and you can port it to Mac and Linux (which you can do with the .NET's via MONO, but I've found you can spen days getting it to work). --Lwarf 01:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

To get started in Windows UI design, Microsoft offers the free express edition of Visual Studio. You should be able to get a UI up and running really quickly with it. For someone starting off you don't have to code a thing to study the general layout of UI's. For Windows, I'd say this is definitely the way to go. Johnnykimble 01:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Though not a programming language, why hasn't anybody mentioned HTML, which is probably the most adaptable markup language for user interfaces? XUL may be interesting to research as well. Heck, many programs including the McCafee (sp?) virus scanner appear to use html/IE as part of the front end interface. Root(one) 04:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

XHTML + CSS, and any number of extra things (i.e. SVG, JavaScript). Good fun to be had. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

NeXT's Interface Builder, now in Apple Mac OS X (Xcode?) permits you to create interfaces and attach code to them very simply. It's oriented around an MVC scheme, which is key theory in interface design. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.208.4 (talk) 03:03, 11 April 2007 (UTC).

April 9

MAC vs. Mac

This may be better suited to the language desk though it's computer related so I'm trying here... Why do people, who in my experience are generally not Apple Mac buyers/users, call Macs "MACS"? It's not an abbreviation acronym and never has been. So why do people capitalize it? Dismas| 02:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm thinking it's three letters (like file extensions) and doesn't seem to mean anything at first glance, so it sounds to them like it should be an abbreviation acronym. And I've seen a few Mac users call them MACs :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:51, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about them, but MAC capitalized means MAC address to me, so the computers are Macs. Maybe they think it's like IBM and HP etc. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not supposed to be capitalized, whenever I se it I think MAC Address, too.--Ryan 16:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am both a MAC and a Win user, and I capitalize MAC, probably for the reason that Wirbelwind says. I don't capitalize Win, though. ScouseMouse - スカウサーUK! 00:23, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Hooking up N64 to PC

I have question. You see, I have a site for a Nintendo 64 game. The only problem is that it has no game pictures, and it wold be unethical to steal images of Google Image search. So I thought I may hook my system up to my computer to take screenshots. But how do I do this? Ftw I have both a MacBook Pro with Vista and Leopard beta. I also have an HP Pavilion a814x desktop computer (which I would prefer to use). How do I hook it up, or if that not possible, how do I take screenshots on it in general? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:12, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You need a TV / video capture card that can accept composite or coaxial or whatever type of video output you have from the N64. That, or an emulator along with the appropriate ROM. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

My desktop has NVIDIA GeForce4 MX 4000. Laptop has ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256 MiB GDDR3. Or if neither work, where may I find a free emulator? Thank you. --TV-VCR watch 04:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The best N64 emulator currently is Project64. Concerning ROMs, you are on your own, but in theory it's not illegal to own ROM copies of the games you phisically own, in case you are wondering. --Sn0wflake 05:01, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You would probably know if either of those were the TV tuner versions; it would say somewhere, and they might have come with an input cable or have extra ports for input. As for ROMS: there are (somewhat expensive) devices to copy them off of the carts, and there are websites/P2P networks/"etc." that distribute them. The legality of the latter method is, indeed, not happy. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Does ROM mean the game cartridge? If that is so, I own the game in question, San Francisco Rush 2049. :D --TV-VCR watch 05:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It refers to the data on the cartridge, which you need off of the cartridge and on your computer to use with an emulator. It's possibly legal to download the ROM file off of some site if you own the actual game, but I can't provide legal advice here :P. It's not ethically wrong. (And as an aside, I used to own that. Fun game :D) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:15, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I will download the P64 program, and contact if I have any questions. Thanks. --TV-VCR watch 05:19, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well now I have a question! How do I get the ROM onto my computer to use in in Project 64 v1.6? --TV-VCR watch 05:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Again, you need either to use a somewhat expensive device to do so, or simply search for and download a ROM that someone else has ripped. The latter is of questionable legality, though it may or may not be okay if you own the actual cart. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I am confused! Where may I find a ROM to download of SFR49? Or what is this device you speak of? --TV-VCR watch 05:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I lol'd! I searched for one and found one instantly! It is downloading as I type this, but my, it is 16.2 megabytes, and I am still using dialup while waiting for my DSL to activate! This may take a while. T_T --TV-VCR watch 05:49, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's common misconception that you can dl a ROM if you own the cartridge. In reality, the only ROMs you can legally own are those you ripped yourself from cartridges you legally owned and still legally own. Although we are not supposed to give legal advice here, I figured making you more worried as opposed to less could never hurt. ;) Chris M. 14:54, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is likely to depend on the jurisdiction, and in many if not most of them, on the specific interpretation a judge might arrive at when and if such a case ever came up. The specific circumstances, where a person in possession of a legal copy of a work would find it more convenient to download a second copy off the net than to simply copy his own are sufficiently recent, and even today sufficiently uncommon, that there are likely to be few precedents or statutes explicitly addressing the issue. In any case, in practice the legality might end up depending on secondary issues, such as what purpose the copy was downloaded for, whether the downloaded copy was identical to the original, whether the original was deliberately copy-protected rather than merely incidentally difficult to copy, whether the user had accepted any EULAs, whether said EULAs actually are legal and enforceable or not, and, perhaps most importantly, on whether the download was made through a file-sharing application that would simultaneously upload the content to third parties. In short, "it depends." —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 02:32, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It would nice if people just accepted that the final user is allowed to have a backup copy of a legitimately owned game. There will certainly be no legal case made against somebody due to the person merely owning a ROM version of a N64 game that ceased being produced over a decade ago, and if by some disturbingly impossible event that actually happens, I highly doubt soke kind of header check of the cart versus ROM or whatever will be made. So to the person who started the question, legalese aside, just go ahead and download the game. We cannot point you where, though. That would be ilegal. --Sn0wflake 06:40, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Why must all technical questions about file ripping/sharing be turned into arguments about the legalities? Why can't we just stay on topic, and assume that anyone who's going to commit (what might be ruled as) a copyright violation has weighed the risks? NeonMerlin 18:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Movies in ppt

Hey, I'm trying to put a movie in powerpoint and it won't work! I hit the Insert>Movies and Sounds>Movie from File... and the thing won't work. I mean, it doesn't even show up on the "Undo" drop list. Is there anything I can do? --JDitto 04:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Laptop keyboard - stuck key

I replaced my enter key. It previously worked OK without the little metal bar but I found it today and wanted to make the edges work well when I hit them (the bar makes it so that when you hit the edges it registers with equal weight as in the center). Well I tried with and without it and the key is stuck - it pops up a fraction of an inch, works, but won't pop up all the way. Laptop is a DV1000 series. Got suggestions? -Wooty Woot? contribs 06:27, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like the tiny spring isn't able to push the key up any more, possibly due to the added weight of the metal bar. Can you find a stronger spring with the same dimensions and substitute it in ? StuRat 06:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, it doesn't work even without the metal bar! I haven't messed with the button ("nipple" is the best way to describe it) but as a last resort that's an option. I just had a thought: perhaps the force of pushing it in rather misaligned the spring inside, so it no longer is pushing back on the key. Of course, this is just a hypothesis at this point. -Wooty Woot? contribs 06:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's possible, but this misalignment might have bent the spring beyond it's elastic limit, in which case it will permanently be weakened. In any case, I believe you need to pry that key off and see what's going on underneath. You could "borrow" a good spring from some key you never use (like "scroll lock", in my case). StuRat 18:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

There are too interlocking rectangles above the key "nipple" that I can't remove. I think either I'll glue the back of the key to the "nipple" (it works fine if I don't press and click it in) or replace the keyboard, since I can't get inside. -Wooty Woot? contribs 23:22, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, sounds like a plan. In the meantime, you can probably use the enter key on numeric keypad. StuRat 05:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Beginner's use of a database

I have an XML file that is a database formatted for MySQL. Each record has, among other fields, a name and three fields called HD, CR and LA. HD will contain a number (usually an integer, but occasionally a fraction with a '/' separating the sides) followed by a 'd' and some other text; the number before the 'd' is the part I'm interested in. CR will always be an integer, and LA will be either an integer or a dash (a dash is distinct from zero). What I'd like to do is create a table whose four columns are name, HD, CR and LA and copy it into OpenOffice.org Calc. Can I do this in OpenOffice.org Base, or straight in Calc? If so, how? (Base doesn't even recognize XML files as databases when I use the Open command, and there's no Import or Insert File command that I can see.) NeonMerlin 06:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

You could of course load it into MySQL and do an appropriate select statement to get it into a format that Calc will recognize, but a quick Perl hack might do. If the record you describe looks like:

<record name="some name" hd="42/19dSomeOtherText" cr="99" la="-">

Then a one-liner as below should give you a comma-separated values file that Calc can grok. --TotoBaggins 14:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

perl -wnle '@fields=qw(name hd cr la); for $field (@fields) { ($h{$field}) = / $field="(+)"/ or next LINE } $h{hd} =~ s/d.*//; print join ",", @h{@fields}'  <  db.xml  > db.csv

Unfortunately, the fields aren't parameters, but child tags of the record tags, like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<ms>
 <m>
  <name>Example</name>
   :
   : other fields
   :
  <hd>38d10 (xyz)</hd>
  <cr>22</cr>
  <la>-</la>
 </m>
</ms>

NeonMerlin 22:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

How about importing XML into MySQL and then exporting in csv format? Im sure PhpMyAdmin can export in csv, and Calc would have to accept csv. Shinhan 11:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In keeping with the perl one-liner theme, this rather dirty one should work for the example you just posted. It assumes that each record is within <m></m> tags:

perl -wle '$_=join("",<>); print "$1,$2,$3,$4" while (m#<m>.+?<name>(.+?)</name>.+?<hd>(.+?)d.+?<cr>(.+?)</cr>.+?<la>(.+?)</la>.+?</m>#smg)' <db.xml >db.csv

Johnnykimble 12:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Limewire not working

Lately when I try to open limewire, nothing comes up. I keep clicking and clicking and nothing's happening! What should I do? --124.181.241.101 06:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Sure it's not loading behind your windows? (it doesn't automatically go on top). Also check ctrl-alt-del and make sure only one copy is running. -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Limewire plugs your computer up with lots of malware/adware. Try something else? − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 07:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Not true, Limewire is malware-free. -Wooty Woot? contribs 07:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Try Phex if you want to keep using the Gnutella network. NeonMerlin 18:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey it's working for me. I have 4.9.33. Btw, you should also try Ares Galaxy. It's free (opensource), and it's good. --Hirak 99 07:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I miss the days of Audiogalaxy. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Uninstall Limewire and install Shareaza, Shareaza is free software, can access the limewire network (Gnutella) plus the Gnutella2 network plus the eDonkey network, all simultaneously Glover 07:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

~$ on Microsoft Word documents

Hi, When I save certain documents (in Word it seems to be randomly), it creates a hidden file, the name of which is the saved document's filename but with the first two letters of that filename replaced with ~$. Does anyone know what this is or why it happens? Thanks very much, Bioarchie1234 08:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I believe it is a backup. Try opening it to see. -Wooty Woot? contribs 09:03, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

When I try to open it it says the program needs a converter to open this. When I say yes it takes ages doing nothing and when I say no another conversion thing comes up but it wants to use Japanese (Shift-JIS). If it is a backup is it safe to delete? Thanks. Bioarchie1234 09:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a temp file, not a backup. It's created when you work on a file without saving it, or when the file is so large that it needs to save itself more often than your regular saves. I get lots of them when I am working with my really big (200 pages) tables. I mean lots, like a dozen during a sitting, despite saving regularly and often. It's nothing to worry about. Anchoress 09:17, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's right. You can delete them after closing your Word document if they don't delete themselves. JoshHolloway 09:53, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

There's an MSKB article for this: Description of how Word creates temporary files. The '~' sign is the standard sign for the temporary file. The '$' sign indicates the file is an owner file. See the owner file section in the article. Johnnykimble 11:42, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! Bioarchie1234 10:39, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

LINUX open source sponsoring

Any idea how the linux community churns out latest versions and updates for their software?Are there any sponsors?Any if they are volunteers, they are really really helpful people i guess...210.212.194.209

I don't know of any distros that have sponsers. Slackware from what I've read, pays for their CDs, web site bandwidth, and other expenses with the money they get from selling hard copies of their distro, Slackware books, and t-shirts. The software, AFAIK, is written by volunteers though. Dismas| 10:02, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Some major developers of key projects are actually employed by companies that have significant interest in open source software. This allows these developers to work full time on the projects that said companies make revenue off of. -- mattb @ 2007-04-09T16:01Z

The people behind Ubuntu offer bounties for some development tasks, but most of the software in Linux distributions is from unpaid volunteers. Johnnykimble 08:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Fedora's Core developers are RedHat employies and then I think there just a group of volunteers who help code translate and document. A lot of FSF software is used in Linux (or should I say GNU/Linux) and the FSF has lots of sponsors (I think google is one). --Lwarf 09:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

DVD BURN

I burnt two sessions on a DVD-R. The two sessions can be read on the same computer, but not on my home computer running XP, and only one session on Win98.Any idea why??~~ —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 210.212.194.209 (talk) 10:07, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

I'm not sure why, but the same type of thing happens to me. StuRat 18:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Tons o things come into play here, one thing could be the book type you used when burning the DVD in question. It is preferable to use DVD-ROM book type for higher compatibility, also if burning with Nero (sorry if you don't like its the first that comes to mind) then you can also check a check box for higher compatibility. Then you have to check the speed, despite how many times people may argue this, older DVD-ROM's are sometimes bad at reading new technology read: Dual Layer (DVD9), and it's higher technologies, and higher speeds come into play as well. Next some DVD-ROM's if they're not burners themselves, will have problems reading more than 1 session. If the DVD is not finalized will also cause non-burners to not pick up the info. One last tip is disabling Windows Burn feature for some odd reason cures this sometimes. To disable it Right click on the burner, select properties,and select the recording tab and disable it. Hope this helps. 200.12.231.42 22:29, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Samba asymmetrical speeds

I have a 'nix computer and a Windows XP SP2 box, with a share on the XP box. Downloads are nice and quick, yet uploading only takes place at about 15k/s. Is this an inherent Samba thing or what's going on? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.129.56 (talk) 10:56, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

All I can say is that it should be the same both ways, whether copying from the 'nix box to XP share or the other way round. It certainly shouldn't be as slow as 15kB/s (kilobytes). You are talking about transfers over your LAN and not the Internet? Obviously if you were talking about internet transfers, 15kB/s is a pretty normal upload speed. With many cable\DSL services, the upload is often ~15kB/s (128kb/s), ~30kB/s (256kb/s) or ~60kB/s (512kb/s), while the download speed can be as high as 2mB/s (16mb/s). Johnnykimble 11:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

No, this is indeed over the LAN. I've noticed from a little Google search that I'm not the only one with this problem and that there aren't any real solutions posed, so the question is still an open (and interesting) one.

You could take a look and see if there's any odd looking traffic in a trace when you're uploading. You will of course need to know what to look for (and what you're looking at), but if you're familiar enough with network protocols it might be useful. You can use Ethereal to get the trace (it's possibly already on your *nix box). Johnnykimble 11:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The XP box is running NAT for the 'nix box, but I doubt the overheads incurred by NAT would be so great as to swamp the Samba upload.

Do other protocols work correctly? For example, have you tried FTPing between the machines? Johnnykimble 08:53, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have a lot of time to set up a FTP server now, but I might try that later.

Have you tried:

socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192

Glover 05:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That didn't work. The comment options said "Linux" -- is that just an assumption or a Linux-specific optimization (just out of curiosity).

Full Screen

Hey guys, how would I exit fullscreen in a computer game (Starcraft-I know its old, but its still good) if that option is not available in the game option menu? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 65.93.133.10 (talk) 12:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

Usually Alt-Tab will get you out. Or you could try Winkey or Ctrl-Esc. If not, on Windows XP, you could try Ctrl-Alt-Del or Ctrl-Shift-Esc. x42bn6 Talk 12:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Alt-Enter is a common combination to toggle full screen mode in Windows. Johnnykimble 13:23, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Just plain ESC (escape key) works for some games. StuRat 18:11, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Some games have a command line option -w for windowed mode. Alt-F4 will just stop the game. Glover 05:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about bibliographic management software

How do programs like EndNote extract bibliographic information from online databases & library catalogues? 68.40.198.80 12:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)Susie

Ummm... have you tried EndNote#Operation? --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 16:21, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick response. I'm afraid I don't see where the page you mention addresses my specific question. 68.40.198.80 03:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)Susie

DVD burner not allowing the burning of DVDs

I have a DVD burner and I never used it to burn DVDs until today. I have a case of 50 blank DVDs and I've tried several. What happens is I put the DVD in the drive, then when I go to move a folder into the drive (as I would when burning a CD), it says "windows encountered a problem when trying to move this folder, what do you want windows to do?" I'm not completly sure if the drivers are correct but I'm also not completely sure where to find the make and model of this drive without opening up the system and unplugging stuff (if that would even work). If that is the only course of action I'll do it but I imagine it's somewhere on the computer, if that is the problem. Not sure what to do, so if someone can give me a hand, I'd appreciate it, thanks! Chris M. 14:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Personally I use Nero Burning ROM for burning, works better for me. Splintercellguy 14:59, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Any tips on how I can get that? Chris M. 15:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah me too it works nicely. Here, But it's a Trial. I can give you some pirate copies even, but I think promoting such on Wikipeida is not a good idea. --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 16:14, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that your DVD burner is compatible with the DVD blanks that you're trying to use? Aside from the question of DVD-R and DVD+R (different media!), there's also the question of burning speed.

Atlant 16:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yup, I have a +/- R/RW 16x burner and have 16x discs. Chris M. 17:33, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The Nero suggestion above is good, but I also wanted to mention why the drag and drop copy doesn't work. I believe some of the older current operating systems (like Windows 98) were written back when computers either didn't have any DVD drives at all or had read-only DVD drives. Thus, the O/S didn't include drag-and-drop DVD burn drivers. This is why you may need to run a separate software product, like Nero, to do copies to the DVD (even though you can copy from the DVD using Windows). Incidentally, I would have expected the DVD burner to come with the required software, such as Nero. You might want to check the box. StuRat 18:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

The reason for your error is what StuRat says, windows cannot address anything after the 80 mins on a normal disc. Even WinXP which is slightly newer cannot burn onto DVD's with it's built in burning engine. I do believe Nero now makes Nero Express Lite or something like that for free. You might want to look into that. 200.35.168.129 22:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

I have winXP and I was burning Data on the CD, not movies, so the time limit isn't an issue, but I'm looking into the Nero Express Lite you mentioned. Chris M. 05:50, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

In order to do a drag 'n' drop to a DVD, you need to have some kind of packet writing driver software running for your DVD burner. For Nero, the specific product is called InCD, there are some others listed in the packet writing article. If you have any kind DVD burning software installed, it might just be a matter of setting the properties on your drive. --LarryMac 13:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

acceptance testing

why is acceptance testing important? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 122.167.149.144 (talk) 15:50, 9 April 2007 (UTC).

We have an article for the Acceptance testing. Read it yourself, it will better than asking from someone, isn't it :-) --♪♫ ĽąĦĩŘǔ ♫♪ 16:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Do your own homework. The reference desk won't give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there's a specific part of your homework you don't understand. Make an effort to show that you've tried solving it first. JoshHolloway 16:08, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure this is homework, so I will assume good faith and answer.

Acceptance testing is important because it has the potential to find bugs not found in testing done by programmers. There are many reasons for this:

1) The most ominous is that programmers may intentionally hide a bug they know about.

2) Programmers inevitably see things from a programmer's POV, which often is different from what the customer wants. As a result they may not consider something to be a bug which the customers do. A programmer might say "You wanted the supplier list sorted in alphabetical order ? Why would you want that when it's already sorted by the hexadecimal supplier index number ?".

3) During acceptance testing, realistic use of the program is more likely. While the programmer might have tested the program alone, on a high-end computer, the acceptance tester might have other programs running which they normally would run along side the one being tested, and might use less powerful computers in different configurations, with a different operating system, etc. Some of this is also encountered in integration testing and cross-platform testing, but those tests still may not have the same combo that a real customer is likely to use. StuRat 17:28, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Content Based Image Retrieval

What is the current state of content based image retrieval?

Annevbast 18:13, 9 April 2007 (UTC)annevbast

It is possible to reliably retrieve porn by telling the CBIR to search for images with skin tone color. All joking aside, I wouldn't use any content based image retrieval solution unless your images are a very specific and small image domain. CBIR may be useful for retrieving particular fonts with qualities that you want, for example. But my experience has been that most CBIR systems are pretty much useless if your trying to organize random images semantically.

Source: (I did a lot of reading on this kind of stuff for my CS master's thesis 2 years ago). Root(one) 18:46, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

This is some very promising recent research. Even got picked up by slashdot. risk 18:35, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Free Video Edit / Subtitle

Hi,

I have a video taken from Sony handycam. I need to add subtitle to it. How can I do that?

Thanks Slmking 20:04, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Hey Slmking

this is normally a dvd site but feel free to look into it for it provides subtitling info and tutorials www.doom9.org http://www.doom9.org/subtitle_guides.htm i would recomend substation alpha,vobsub, and subrip

Also most editing software for videos has subtitle options in them, i use Sony Vegas for example or sometimes Premiere you can usually get trials for this software to see which best fits your needs. Hope this helps. 200.35.168.129 22:39, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Free tools for creating PDF file from HTML file with inline TIFF images?

Are there free tools available that can convert an HTML file with inline TIFF images into PDF? A requirement is that the tool must recognize some kind of size specification for the TIFF images. That is, the tool must recognize some form of specification, be it HTML or CSS, or something else, that specifies the scaled size of inline TIFF images (e.g. 4 cm x 5 cm).

(Converting the TIFF images into another format first would be an unattractive option, as the file size penalty would be substantial. The input to the process has a simple structure, so if a freely available tool does the job but takes a different source format, that would be OK, so long as it's relatively easy to convert the source document into that format.)

Thanks. --64.236.170.228 20:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well this may help - cutePDF appears as a printer on your PC, and anything you send to it to get printed it will convert to PDF and ask you where you want to save the file to. The nice thing about it is that it's freeware, opensource, and doesn't watermark itself on any of the documents. So in other words, if you're happy with a PDF of how the page would look like printed, then that's the solution to look out for. I'm not sure about TIFF image support - but if TIFFs can be printed from whatever program you're viewing them in then rest assured it can PDF it. Rfwoolf 03:19, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm aware of cutePDF and similar approaches for generating PDF files, but they are not the right solution in this case. To use cutePDF or something similar, you need an application that can handle HTML files with inline TIFF files. Popular browsers don't handle TIFF files, not natively anyway. The TIFF images are in that format because it yields the smallest file sizes by far for the desired quality. Any conversion process must preserve the file size advantage to be useful. I found a non-free solution that, fortunately, only uses tools I already have. Thanks nevertheless. --64.236.170.228 15:42, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Connecting my computer to my TV

My video-card has an S-Video out plug. Can I just connect that to my TV (using a SCART converter, for instance) to use my computer to show video on my TV? Obviously I would have to make a separate connection for the audio, but would it work other than that? Can I use any resolution (which is downscaled to PAL), or will I have to use some special resolution when doing this? --Oskar 20:58, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, I'm using Ubuntu --Oskar 21:06, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I've no experience of this on Ubuntu unfortunately, but this link looks pretty promising. You don't have to use a scart converter if your TV has a composite connection. In this case you can get an S-Video>Composite cable. On your TV, next to the composite-in, there should be two phono connections, for L and R audio. You can get a lead for this that connects to the 'line out' jack on your sound card. Composite is lower quality than S-Video though, so the converter might be a good idea (but get one that has audio connections on it if possible). Johnnykimble 21:20, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

I actually have a SCART-converter, so that's not really a problem. It has audio-inputs on it (that is, it has a composite video input, a S-Video input and two audio inputs). But is that all it takes, it just works? --Oskar 21:26, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Eh, yea. That's all you need as far as hardware is concerned. The hurdle is the software though. If you follow the instructions in that link I mentioned, and make the correct changes to your xorg.conf, it should just work. As far as resolution is concerned, you can just pick the one that looks best. On a 28" CRT TV, this is typically 800x600, anything bigger can look too small and blurry. Johnnykimble 21:30, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes I just read that link you provided the second after I posted. I guess it's not that easy :) I looks doable anyway, so I'll experiment with it. Thanks! (I do have windows installed although I almost never used it, so that's a last resort, I guess) --Oskar 21:32, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, one more other thing I forgot to mention was Macrovision. You might have some issues with the desktop displaying correctly, but any video overlays not showing up on the TV. This is usually to do with the Macrovision protecion on the TV-Out so that you can't record to a VHS tape or other media. In most cases however, you can get software to disable this. Johnnykimble 21:34, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

Recommender system

How does the recommender system in Amazon work to provide recommendation to users?

I don't know the exact mechanics but it records the products you buy and those you just look at and then it finds products which are similar. For example if you buy a copy of Season 1 of Battlestar Galactica then it will recommend Season 2 to you. Recommendations normally come with information on the exact reason it's been recommended to you.

The exact algorithm is no doubt a well guarded secret, but considering the amounts of data involved, it would have to be a very fast system. Something that only needs a couple of passes over the set of customer purchases. This is one way: http://www.sigmod.org/vldb/conf/1994/P487.PDF . A very basic method would be to estimate the probability that someone who bought product A, will enjoy product B, P(A|B) by the number of people that bought product A, B and both. The definition of Conditional probability tells us that P(A|B) = P(A and B) / P(B). The probabilities can then be setimated from the number of people who bought the items. So if you bought a Battlestar Galactica DVD, the system can check if you would like an Alias DVD, by calculating P(A and B) = the number of people who bought both DVD's / The total number of customers. And P(B) = the number of people who bought the BSG DVD / the total number of customers. Divide the first by the second, and you have an estimate of the probability that you want to buy Alias. Simply return those products for which that probability is the highest. This is all oversimplified of course, but I would guess that that's the basic principle they use. risk 22:24, 9 April 2007 (UTC) (NB: The first paragraph is an unsigned comment, not mine)

I agree completely with you risk, it's highly probably and likely. Also they do take into consideration key words such as directors,actors,and genre those are used as multipliers i would assume at the final product of risk's formula. it would increase the likelihood of you wanting to purchase it by lets say 1.25 if it had the same actors. that's my 2 cents 200.35.168.129 22:44, 9 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

As noted, the specific algorithm used by Amazon is most likely proprietary. We do actually have a (rather stubby) article about recommender systems, and there is more detail, in the collaborative filtering article which the first article references. The latter article also lists quite a few sources that may provide additional information. --LarryMac 12:59, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Climate Change

I am making a research on the environment for my personal use and will like to know some of the basic things such us climent change and things that can be done to save the environment

Manay thaks Benjji

Try typing climate change in the "search" box and clicking on "go". You will quickly find a very good answer to your question. --Kainaw 22:36, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

April 10

14 inch widescreen or 14" ordinary resolution

I mostly use the laptop for reading only. should I go for a 14" widescreen laptop or should I go for ordinary resolution (1024 * 768) 14" laptop? which would be conienient for me? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.124.223 (talk) 04:13, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

Normal. Trying to find applications that work well with widescreen displays is really hard, and 1024*768 is the standard for computing, although 1280*1024 will work too.

What are the resolutions? If the widescreen one is 1280×800 then get that since it got more pixels, but don't decide on laptops only by their screens though. --antilived 11:57, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends, you really should try to see the screen with something you would normally read on it. A widescreen typically is better for viewing movies BUT on a good widescreen you can actually view a text document two pages side by side at the same time, which I personally LOVE but a few people I know think the text is too small when you do that. So it really is a personal preference thing. No one can tell you which is better. Vespine 22:49, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

My widescreen monitor is good. It's 15.4 inches though. It's great for movies as said above. --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 00:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Processor comparisons

When I try to compare processors (CPUs and GPUs), their properties are listed as 'clock speed', 'L2 Cache' and 'FSB', none of which allow direct comparison of calculation power. Is there anywhere I can read the average Floating Point Operations Per Second or equivelant measure for current CPUs and/or GPUs? 81.157.191.238 10:24, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Toms Hardware Guide is usually my first port of call for comparing CPUs or GPUs. That link is for CPU comparisons and if you change the benchmark to 'SiSoft Sandra Arithmetic MFLOPS' you should get what you're looking for. I haven't seen this metric used for GPUs though. If you want to test on your own machine you can download SiSoft Sandra here. Johnnykimble 11:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I find that comparison has a strong bias towards Intel CPUS, as it says that a 2.8Ghz Prescott is faster than a 2.8Ghz Athlon64. I would refrain from using theoretical benchmarks and use real-world benchmarks instead (eg. games, apps etc.) that relates the closest to what you do (or gonna do) with the processors. --antilived 12:01, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but does that 'bias' not just mean the Intel CPUs have a better instruction set architecture/physical architecture to carry out the floating point operations? Johnnykimble 13:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

SiSoft Sandra is pretty biased to Intel. In its test, the measly Penitum 4 520 Pescott 2.8Ghz is slightly better than the Athlon FX-57, also 2.8Ghz. And yet, in the 3DStudio Max test, where floating point is also critical, the FX 62 wastes the 520, being one of the best single cored CPU. Time 3:09, it's almost 2 minutes faster than 20 at 4:53; The SiSoft Sandra heavily uses SSE extensions, which of course Intel processors are going to win. Also, you will find that floating point artihmics are not very useful in real world applications unless you're trying to run a rendering farm or something, so you shouldn't use it to compare CPUs, and is in fact more influenced by the optimisation of the software than anything else. --antilived 00:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

CPUs and GPUs are fairly different machines. The former is usually intended for general-purpose computing (though they are often optimized for a special application), while the latter usually excells at certain types of vectorizable problems. You can try to compare them on a per-application basis, but be careful about attributing more significance to such comparisons than is appropriate. A friend of mine did some research in solving partial differential equations (Poisson's) numerically with GPUs, and in his demonstrations the GPU could solve the equation sets an order of magnitude or two faster than a C program on a late CPU. However, he also pointed out that the GPU is impractical for code that branches (conditionals, complex loops) since it isn't designed for general purpose program execution. -- mattb @ 2007-04-10T15:48Z

That's a lot like asking "which automobile has the highest RPM or horsepower?" You can get an answer, but it's unlikely to be useful: How many passengers and how much cargo should it carry? What kind of suspension (off road or maglev)? Is the engine installed in a go cart, or NASA's shuttle ground transporter? The advice to try whatever it is you want to run on the candidate processors is the best and most reliable indicator of what performance you can expect. —EncMstr 16:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

That's a good site you recommend kimble sadly to me it's very PRO Intel, if you haven't been able to tell by the Ad's or the store. The problem here is not what is better, but what kind of use am I going to be using it for. For example I'm not going to build a computer with AMD, ATI, and then play one of those games that has a nVidia sticker on it, it's not optimized for that. unfortunately many things in the computer world are biased when it comes to this. I don't like Mac's but I do know they're usually better for graphics and art use. Work with what gives you results, not what works for another person or a program that might have been optimized for better use with different technology, that's my 2 cents. 200.12.231.42 18:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

I don't know what the all this talk of bias and pro-Intel is about. Are you suggesting they have fabricated the SiSoft Sandra figures for their processor benchmarks? I was simply responding to what was asked for in the original question, namely something that showed the FLOPs metric for CPUs, and I consider SiSoft Sandra a reliable program for doing that (and the Toms Hardware site has those benchmarks). I didn't read any more into the question than that. I'm in full agreement with everything else that has been said here, which means I agree that relying on the opinions from a single site is a bad idea. But then that's one of the advantages of benchmarks, you don't have to take someones word for it. Johnnykimble 19:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I was not criticizing the software but the website, tom's hardware is usually PRO Intel, and you're correct benchmarks do show the read deal of a system, but if you're not going to buy the exact same setup as the test system...then i would just recommend you always do a personal setup to best fit your needs. not really trying to argue kimble like i stated before..just my 2 cents and answering the question the program CPU-Z is also a good info tool, concise and small but good also take into consideration that calculation power is not based on FLOPS you have a lot of latency between memory and MoBo and diff technologies that the processors have for example SSE,MMX,3D NOW depends on what you're calculating... 200.35.168.129 22:34, 10 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Just to throw something else about benchmarks into the mix... A while back there was some controversy when the maker of 3D Mark claimed that nVidia were cheating in the benchmark by modifying their drivers so that they'd perform well. I don't think anything came of it in the end, but it goes to show that, moreso with graphics cards, benchmarks can be cheated above the hardware level, althought it would obviously be seriously bad form for a company to do so. Johnnykimble 08:17, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah i heard something similar, i do believe ATI at an opening event demonstrated with a nVidia how it would process faster than ATI in 3d Mark but not in the actual game reading FPS jaja xD 200.12.231.42 21:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Installing GCC

Hi, VP's! My name's felix. Well, I downloaded the GCC compiler 'cause I'm interested in programming though I'm no computer GURU. I opened the "installation" files... Now, that's all I could. I mean I GOT A HELL OF A PAIN IN THE @&!%*$!!! UNDERSTANDING WHAT THE WHOLE THING WAS ABOUT!! I just cannot get the GCC stuff installed... Can someone Be an angel and HELP me.... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.207.126.37 (talk • contribs) 2007-04-10T00:53:54 (UTC)

It would help a lot if you mentioned the operating system and GCC distribution you're using. Are you trying to build GCC, or is it a binary distribution ready for your OS + CPU? Are you trying to establish a cross compiler environment? What have you tried and specifically what does it say in response? —EncMstr 15:55, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I would guess you are using GCC in windows, as most other OS'es that use GCC will have GCC pre-installed. This is probably what you want: http://en.wikipedia.org/Cygwin I suggest reading the documentation. Glover

Or read DJGPP. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

MinGW is also worth a look. DJGPP (mentioned above) is for MS-DOS but works very well for text and some graphics but won't use the Windows API. A good place for advice (other than here, of course ;-) is the help files for the Allegro library and allegro.cc. --h2g2bob 18:35, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Print Screen

My print screen button is not working on my keyboard. It is a fairly new keyboard that is wireless. Is there another way to print screen shot and paste to a word document? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.120.225.24 (talk) 17:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

You can download a freeware utility designed for taking screenshots. I use Gadwin PrintScreen. Johnnykimble 17:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

I use Capture by George, can capture the screen, individual windows, or a delimited part of the screen. Not free but very cheap. --Dumarest 00:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Some keyboards have a function lock key or a special shift key, you may want to check this Glover 04:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

LINUX O/S

SIR. I AM NEW TO PCS, CAN YOU ADVISE CAN LINUX O/S BE USED INSTEAD OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS WHOM I DESPISE !!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.141.23.34 (talk) 17:29, 10 April 2007 (UTC).

It can, depending on your needs. However if you are, as you say, "new to PCs", you may want to stick with Windows for simplicity. -- mattb @ 2007-04-10T17:34Z

And for group support. You're more likely to have friends who know Windows than who know Linux—Unless your friends are artists, in which case they probably know Macs better. —EncMstr 17:56, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

As has been said, it depends on what you will be using the computer for. If it's just for email, web browsing or writing documents then there'd be no problem in going for Ubuntu. It has a huge community, and is really, really quick and easy to install. Johnnykimble 18:12, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Ubuntu is a good call especially as the most recent versions allow you to run what's called a Live CD on you PC giving you the chance to play with the OS to see if you like it before you have to install anything. Elaverick 21:51, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

restoring Firefox bookmarks

My XP computer died and I had to buy a new one with Vista (Home Premium). I reinstalled Firefox, and would now like to restore the previous bookmarks I have. I have a complete backup of my old drive C: and have found an html file which contains all the Firefox bookmarks. Is there a way I can use it to restore my Firefox bookmarks? --Halcatalyst 20:06, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully this tip can help. --LarryMac 20:14, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Et voilà! What could be simpler and easier? Unlike some of the travail I have been through the past few days. It worked! Thank you very much! --Halcatalyst 21:11, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Benefits of SL Island for a University

What are some of the benfits a university can get from purchasing an island in Second Life? Gohaf 20:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

For a university? lol is this a school essay? um well all i could imagine is the advertising aspect of SL. Hmmm and maybe in the future when SL is more advanced giving remote lectures? Damn that would be cool.

April 11

Inkscape

I need to know how to make good pictures in Inkscape. I'm doing a Stan Marsh picture, but it's coming out horrible. FictionH 00:07, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Go to art class and learn about highlights and shadows and things like that? Use the new blur filter so that your highlights and shadows are sufficiently blurred? But the best of all is to be a little more specific, how is it horrible?? --antilived 00:13, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

South Park characters are, as the creators admit, "poorly drawn", so you wouldn't want them to look very good, or they wouldn't look like South Park characters any more. StuRat 03:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Have you taken a look at the tutorials (under the Help menu). Other than that, I guess it's just practice. --h2g2bob 18:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Ad free services from Google

A number of Google services, such as Google Page Creator and Blogger do not carry adverts but are free to use. What is the commercial motivation behind the provision of services such as these? _Phil 00:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't know in this case, but companies will sometimes offer free products in an attempt to build market share. Then, once they are dominant in the market, they can start charging (or advertising) on future releases. StuRat 03:26, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Possibly for testing purposes, or to gauge interest or as loss leader. Glover 05:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If you're interested in it, take a look at this Slashdot article. The first comment sums it up - "This goes right along with the saying that "Any news is good news". As long has the Google name keeps getting spread around and people keep talking about the new things they are doing, this will drive viewers it its different pages and products.". Note that these are only opinions and not hard fact. JoshHolloway 10:28, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

What links to this

Pretty certainly a completely useless question, but I am puzzled. For no reason, I clicked the link in New England boiled dinner that gave pages that linked to it. Now, for no reasonable reason, I went to some of those pages and tried to find the link to New Wngland boiled dinner. Specifically, Misplaced Pages:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality, Misplaced Pages:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality log, and Eggs Benedict. I guess the only one I was interested in, other than 'what is this' was the eggs Benedict. But on all of those pages I could find no link to New England boiled dinner. Is it there, hidden is some way, or what does all this mean? --Dumarest 00:51, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

On the "What links here" page for New England boiled dinner (Special:Whatlinkshere/New England boiled dinner), the pages Misplaced Pages:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Food and drink articles by quality and so on are redirected from Corned beef and cabbage. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 02:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Unknown

But that leaves Eggs Benedict a mystery. --Dumarest 11:45, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Under Eggs Benedict#Notes, there is a link to corned beef and cabbage. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 19:37, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Windows task scheduler versus Unix Anacron

Hi, I would like to know how I can schedule tasks to run on MS Windows XP/Vista (preferably using the windows task scheduler or windows configuration, but if not possible then a 3rd party application, preferably freeware/opensource) , so that if the scheduled time passes and the PC is powered down, it will run at the next available opportunity, in a similar way to Anacron. I need to assume the PC cannot wake itself up using ACPI or APM.

Thank you in advance.

Glover 03:22, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

So why not run Anacron on XP or Vista? Install Cygwin and run Anacron. Actually it might be slightly more difficult. You'll have to set both(?) to run when you login. Maybe even when the system boots. —EncMstr 00:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have Vista, but are your sure you don't have Schedule Tasks icon in your control panel? Mine has a Virus Scanner running a (my) specified time. Root(one) 10:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

However, I will admit I'm not sure how to get it to work after the specified time passes. Root(one) 10:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Hi Root4, "get it to work after the specified time passes" is the whole point Glover 05:36, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Get Firefox to accept Opera so I can import bookmarks

My new download of Firefox 2.0 knows how to import bookmarks from MSIE, but not Opera. Is there any way to make Firefox recognize Opera, so I can import things in? 71.226.60.137 05:59, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, you can just export your bookmarks from Opera (File -> Export -> Bookmarks as HTML) and import them in Firefox. — Kieff | Talk 10:21, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Disconnections

I usually run Azureus overnight on my computer. Unfortunately, my DSL service has a habit of kicking out every so often when it's under a higher load like that. I'm pretty sure that's the cause of this, but... well, I guess I should just state my problem.

In the morning, I'll wake up and nine times out of ten my connection doesn't work. It'll work for the other computers in the house (usually) but not mine. It'll work again if I disable the connection in the "network connections" panel and then re-enable it, but I want it to be able to run at night, without me getting up every time it screws up. Looking around a bit, I THINK it might be because of that bit of windows that cuts out the connection if you have to many incompleted connections or whatever. I know it's supposed to slow down worms that just randomly poll IP addresses and such. So is there a way to test if that's my problem? and if it is, is there a way to shut that off? or even just knowing the limit so I can try screwing around with Azureus' settings would help immensely.

Also one other theory that I've heard from asking some friends of mine is that the modem itself is kicking out just because the NAT service is overloading (it's a netopia modem/router combo) and a fix would be to disable the NAT on the router and just buy a router to put between the modem and the rest of my network. Is there any credibility to that?

Sorry if that ran a bit long... anyways, I'm grateful for any help that anyone can give me in this. Koriar 06:35, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have DHT enabled? If so, that can cause low-end routers to "crap out". --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 08:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

If you use Linux or have a good firewall, try enabling DMZ onto your IP address so the router doesn't have to care about NAT for your IP address. --antilived 11:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is that you are getting static or interference in the network wire going to your computer. I'd check out the wire thoroughly for places it might be broken or have poor connections, and where you might have routed it near other wires or devices which put out an EMF field. StuRat 15:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Try limiting the number of simultaneous connections in azureus. Go to the Tools menu, click Options, select Transfer and then lower "Max connections per torrent" to like half of what you have now. Setting your computer to be the DMZ host (like Antilived suggested) might work if it is NAT that's kicking up a fuss, but if I'm not mistaken you can only do that on D-Link and Linksys home routers. --Oskar 22:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I can indeed do a DMZ on my router, though it calls it something else. Any recommendations for a firewall? I was just going to go with ZoneAlarm, as I've heard some good things about that one. As for static or interference, I don't think there should be any... the only real device that it runs by is a furnace... though to get it upstairs I did have to run it right by the cable tv line, would that do it? The line looks pretty heavily shielded... but I really really don't want to look for shorts, because most of it runs through the crawlspace... and with the rain we've been getting lately... well it'd be cold, wet, cramped, and spidery. Sooooo, no. As for the number of simultaneous connections I have put it pretty low in the past, though it does this with less than 100 peers connected (I only download one thing at a time) ... and actually now that I look at it my max is only 100... I'll lower it to 50 though, but that seems like it should be able to handle 100. Koriar 01:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

You might want to check the SNR margin in your router/modem. Generally you'd want a value over at least 10db downstream for a stable connection. I do believe bad weather can affect this value. However, a low SNR would mean a bad connection at all times, as opposed to just under high load as you seem to be experiencing. Johnnykimble 08:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I found lots of info in the "all status" page, I'd like to post the lot of it, in case someone sees something that could be my problem, but I don't know if I should post it here... (it's about 12-13 pages) are there length restrictions for this stuff? I'll just post one or two sections right now (the section with the SNR in it, and the last few lines of the error log)

                                Downstream  Upstream
                                ----------  ----------
    SNR Margin:                  25.50       20.00 dB
    Line Attenuation:            33.00       16.50 dB
    Output Power:                18.09       11.32 dB
    Errored Seconds:                 0           0
    Loss of Signal:                  0           0
    Loss of Frame:                   0           0
    CRC Errors:                      0           1
    Data Rate:                    1472         256
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Handshake Success
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Connect Success: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 SSL: Certificate Verify Success: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:58 AM L3 TR-069: Post Inform - reason 4 VALUE CHANGE 
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 TR-069: Closing connection
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 SSL: Closing Connection: s1.netopiatr069.net
    4/12/07 10:14:59 AM L3 HTTPC: No context found for closed socket 0
    4/12/07 10:15:30 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:25:27 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:35:34 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:45:21 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 10:55:29 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:00:18 AM L3 LHD: IP  192.168.1.4, MAC 00-03-93-c1-ed-90
    4/12/07 11:00:18 AM L3 LHD: Interface  N/A, State online
    4/12/07 11:05:36 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:15:33 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 11:25:40 AM L4 HTTP: "" host 192.168.1.1 logging out (timing out)
    4/12/07 01:50:32 PM L4 HTTP: "admin" completed login from 192.168.1.1

Those lines seem to be at the beginning of every time I'm disconnected. (192.168.1.1 is me) EDIT: So uhh... I guess it's not liking my line breaks for some reason... sorry about the formatting there, I don't know how to make stuff look good in wikipedia.Koriar 13:57, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, unfortunately, in my opinion those stats look good. Your SNR is good and your attenuation is good. Those stats are the most important, so there's no need to post any more router info. It does seem that the problems you are having are not related to your link to your ISP\local exchange. Johnnykimble 14:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... well, I seem to have entirely missed the suggestion about DHT. I'd really like that to stay on because I'm getting some things now where the tracker is down, but I'll try turning that off tonight to see if that's the problem. Also thanks to whoever formatted that for me! Koriar 15:29, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, I left it off last night and wasn't disconnected in the morning, so it looks like that might have done it! Thank you everyone for your help! Koriar 19:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

And things were looking up too... It disconnected again, so I guess I'm on to trying the DMZ stuff with ZoneAlarm. Koriar 07:19, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

winpe

What is this technology i keep hearing about

Try typing winpe into the search box and clicking on "go". --Kainaw 12:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Or see Windows PE --antilived 12:11, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Truth is i don't really know if this is a correct answer but if you look up Windows UE online you can find information i do think it is something of this sort where a windows comes with built in patches,hotfixes,programs,etc i hope this is right xD 200.35.168.129 22:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

This is a good one for starters Ultimate Boot CD for Windows Glover 08:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

video game composer?

Who composed the soundtrack to the NES game Megaman 2?--Sonjaaa 09:20, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

According to http://www.ocremix.org/game/megaman2/ they are

• Yuukichan's Papa
• Ogeretsu Kun
• Manami Ietel

But, that website is not authorative. --Kainaw 12:10, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Programming in excel

Could someone give me the step by step procedure for using VB in excel to add up two columns and put the sum in another column? Zain Ebrahim 12:57, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I will assume that we are going to add the numbers in column A and column B to make column C.

First set your start point (C1).

Range("C1").Select 'you could also use a variable here in place of the literal "C1"

Next set the value of the curent cell.

ActiveCell.Value = ActiveCell.Offset(0, -1).Value + ActiveCell.Offset(0, -2).Value

Next go to the next row.

ActiveCell.Offset(1, 0).Select

The offset values are the number of rows and columns relative to the current cell, so if we take cell C1 a offset by (0,-1) we would see the value of cell B1 If we took the offset of (1,0) we move to the next row (C2). You could also use a variable here for the row and column offset. Also notice the difference between the .Value and .Select methods. .Value allows you to read or write to the value of a cell changing its contents. .Select moves the focus to the cell you are selecting. I will assume that you know about looping and conditional statements which would control how many rows you calculate, and what you do if there is missing data. -Czmtzc 15:24, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

To simply get the sum of a column use Application.WorksheetFunction.Sum(Range(A:A)) To get the sum of column A and B and put it into cell C1 use this.

Range("C1").Select

ActiveCell.Value = Application.WorksheetFunction.Sum(Range(A:B))

-Czmtzc 16:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

printing a copy of the information

Hi, My question is, why is it when I attempt to copy the information at " censorship " is it that on the screen shows printing processing. All the times I have accessed wikipedia.org and copyed information without any problem. Now, and only now problem, that, I cannot print the information under censorship. Would you please, identify the difference in the information at censorhip, veses other information on or at wikipedia.org.

Thank You,

for you time and attention

Allen Walker

Maybe the printer has a problem? I'm not sure what Misplaced Pages has to do with this unless you clarify. Splintercellguy 21:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any trouble printing the censorship page. StuRat 02:48, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Homebuilt computer

Are there kits to build gaming computers at home (as I understand, this would be cheaper), or do I have to look for parts separatly? Would it be possible to purchase an unbuilt model of a normally build computer and put it together? If so, do all brands do this, or just some? I looked in amazon, but they don't appear to have them... Thanks in advance, whether you know the answers to my questions or not. · AO 17:08, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Kits? Not really. The closest thing to a kit would probably be a motherboard + case + PSU combo, which are more common with small form-factor PCs (i.e. Shuttle). Buying an unassembled version of a normal model would get rid of the most important part of building your own PC: the choice. Yes, you generally buy the individual components (from an online store, like Newegg in the U.S., or from a nice local store; not Best Buy or any of those electronics chains) and assemble it yourself. The assembly is actually pretty simple; the most difficult part will be installing the CPU, what with the thermal paste and all that. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:27, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. However, you say building an unassembled version gets rid of the most important part, but is it possible? Also, are you sure Shuttle was the right link, I couldn't find any build-at-home computers. · AO 17:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see. You meant the Barebones. Thanks Consumed Crustacean, I'll look into them. · AO 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah. I don't think that other thing is possible, and I doubt you'd save money if it was, considering that much of it is done on an assembly line. And on those barebones: like I said, they're most common in small form-factor PCs. If you're just looking to build a normal gaming PC it's not typical; it's just that small PCs need specially sized motherboards and such. If you don't know what components to buy, there are several review sites around, you could inquire at a gaming forum, or you could ask at a local computer shop (again, not Best Buy or any electronics chains: those guys will just feed you nonsense). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for the info. I don't mind if barebones aren't typical; as long as it gets the job done and is cheap, I'm happy. :-) I'll look around for the componets, as you say. Thanks again! · AO 17:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Just incase I was confusing, as I usually am: what I meant exactly is that the other gaming PCs that people build typically don't come with case/motherboard/PSU. Usually you'd buy all three separately, although some cases come with (usually poor) PSUs. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 18:01, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be good that it includes the case/motherboard/PSU? All I have to add is the CPU, hardrive, and RAM (according to the article), and I have a "normal" computer right? · AO 18:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Wait, Shuttle says it already has RAM, so are the CPU and hardrive all I need? · AO 20:52, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It depends on exactly what you're looking at. The descriptions I'm seeing for the barebone ones just describe the RAM slots, not actual RAM. Unless you're not looking at the barebones... -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I was just saying that you don't need such a 'kit' if you're building a normal sized tower. You just buy the motherboard and such separately. The only reason I mentioned Shuttle's barebones initially is because they're about as close to a non-assembled kit (as you inquired about) as really exists. Not to discourage you from Shuttle if you want a small form-factor PC, they are quite nice :P -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:58, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

No, those Shuttles seem nice, but I'm not quite sure I know how they work. :-P I'll ask at a small computer store for help, as you advised. However, I have one question: if Shuttles are just like a larger and bulkier PC in performance and use, but are actually cheaper, what does the company gain? (Are normal PCs that in-expensive to start with?) · AO 23:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I have a Shuttle, and think it's the best upgrade I've ever made. What you get with a barebones Shuttle is a nice small case with a motherboard installed. You'll find that the cost of this is usually a fair bit higher than if you bought a full tower case (which in the UK can be got for around £15) and a decent quality motherboard (say, about £60). So, my Shuttle, which was £190, was actually a good deal more expensive. As far as I'm concerned, the premium is worth paying if you want a compact, quiet and good looking PC. The high-end Shuttles will be even more expensive because they will be geared towards gaming, and thus require more complex cooling solutions (small case means less air flow inside the case). So, if you decide you want a Shuttle (barebones), all that remains is to get a CPU, RAM, hard drive and graphics card. One thing you must keep in mind however, is that a lot of high-end graphics cards these days take up more than one slot because they'll have a large heatsink and fan attached. So make sure the Shuttle can physically accommodate any graphics card you might decide to purchase. Johnnykimble 08:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Thanks for all your help guys! I'll make sure to bookmark this when it's archived. · AO 09:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Interchangability of Antennae

Can an indoor television antenna using a coaxial cable be plugged into and used with a wireless networking card? --Seans Potato Business 17:44, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

See Antenna (radio) to understand why an antenna length (size) determines how useful it will be for specific wavelengths. Television wavelengths are not the same as wireless network wavelengths. --Kainaw 17:48, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't quite answer the question. If your wireless card has a coax connector and it's compatible with (the right size as) the TV antenna, then you can certainly use the antenna with the card, but it's doubtful that the antenna will actually work well or improve reception. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.102.72 (talk) 10:06, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

Autoclicking with mid button

I had a small program from the Internet that made continuous clicks (left or right clicks) by holding the middle button, but I lost it. Does anyone know where to find it or how to program it (in Visual C++ if possible)? Thanks. --Taraborn 17:47, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

AutoHotkey. Website here. It uses the AutoIt language. --Russoc4 18:49, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Can't thank you enough, mate :P --Taraborn 21:14, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

RS232

I want to the know what the number(232)indicates in RS232 and what it means anandkumar 18:56, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

It's just the document number of the technical standard that defines that particular interface. "RS" stands for "Recommended Standard", so it's "Recommended Standard No. 232". In short, it means nothing. --TotoBaggins 19:18, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you look at RS-232? —EncMstr 00:20, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Simultaneous Connection To Multiple Wifi Networks

Is it possible to connect to more than one wireless network at the same time using a) one wireless networking card or b) two wireless networking cards? Ethics and legality aside, should it theoretically be possible to connect to one's own wireless network and that or those of neighbours to gain an increase in internet connection speed? --Seans Potato Business 19:55, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay, it's possible with multiple network cards and would be possible with one with software that some researchers are working on. I'm going to plug in my second Wifi card tonight and report back on how Windows reacts... --Seans Potato Business 20:06, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm completely guessing here, but I doubt that windows would do this automatically. It is technically possible, of course. You could write a custom network driver that would assign every other packet (or, in the case of TCP, every other connection) to different network cards, but as I said, I doubt that windows does this automatically. What you could do is to configure the two cards to work on different subnets, so that one handles all IPs that matches 0.0.0.0 with subnet mask 128.0.0.0 and the other handles 128.0.0.0 with subnet mask 128.0.0.0. That is, one card handles all IPs starting with 0 (in binary) while the other handles all IPs starting with 1. That would split the internet evenly in two. This would be effective only if the connections are of the same speed (if one is faster, you would have to configure that one to a bigger subnet if you wanted maximum efficiency). I haven't used windows in a while, so I'm not exactly sure how to do this, but I know it's possible. I don't think you can connect to two different networks with one card at the same time, but I might be wrong about that. --Oskar 21:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Does this exist?

Or could it exist? Is it possible/feasible to port QEMU to a Java applet?

You go to a certain website from any Internet connection, and log in. You then have access to a virtual machine using AJAX or just a Java applet. You can then run any program inside the virtual computer, accessing files which are stored on the server. Duomillia 20:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I know VMware makes server virtualization software which lets you do something like what you describe. Splintercellguy 21:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Will a Pentium M 478 pin processor work with a standard socket 478 motherboard?

I.E not a motherboard that explicitly states it'll work with a Pentium M processor.

If not, why not?

Thanks in advance... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Fred.frederick (talk • contribs).

I think not. But, I do believe that specialist 'desktop' motherboards for these CPUs exist. The M processors are designed for notebooks, which don't have as good cooling as tower PCs. As a result they have much lower power consumption, thus giving off less heat, thus requiring a smaller fan. All this was great for those wanting a cool and quiet desktop machine. As for the reasons why, I'm not entirely sure, but I'd take a guess and say FSB speed differences or voltage differences. It's more likely to be physical architecture differences than logical, but hopefully there's someone here who can give a more qualified answer than that. Johnnykimble 21:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Johnny. After a bit of research, it seems it'll be much easier to make a cool, quiet and energy efficient desktop machine using either a mobile Sempron or Turion processor, as these are well supported by a good number of motherboards.

I know it's a ghz world, but I do despair for the state of processing today(speed at any cost). Once you've sat at a desk with a noisy PC for any length of time it becomes a mental drain.

Surely there's a market for quiet, unintrusive PC's that don't cost the earth, isn't this what a lot, even most users really want addressed?. I'm suprised Intel etc can't see it. Fred.frederick 11:42, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I went down the Shuttle barebones route a few years ago and have to admit it's the best PC I've bought. When I originally bought it, I added a GeForce 6600GT graphics card, picked mainly because of it's reasonably quiet cooling. But just recently, I decided to use an 6 year old GeForce 2 that I had lying around. It doesn't even have a fan, and, but for the fairly noisy hard drive (Hitatchi Deskstar - planning to upgrade to a very quiet Samsung Spinpoint soon), the PC is practically silent. It sure makes using the computer a much more pleasurable experience. Johnnykimble 12:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

PowerPoint

In PowerPoint, how do I make six different pictures fly in at the same timebut from different directions? 68.193.147.179 21:02, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

In 2003 and 2007, give each a different effect, then right click each effect in the pane on the right. Click "start with previous". --TeckWiz Contribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 21:40, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Audio

Is there a way I could just take the audio from a streaming video? 68.193.147.179 21:39, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You could use VideoLAN player to transcode the audio to file. Splintercellguy 21:53, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) If you can open the stream in VLC media player (which you often can if it uses windows media or something similar), then yes you can. For instance, if you click a link that leads to an ASF file it usually pops Windows Media Player and streams it from there. Save the file to your hard-drive, then open VLC and click File -> Wizard. That will help you to re-encode just the audio into a sound-file. If you select the MP3 codec and encapsulate it in MPEG 1 format and name the file something.mp3, I pretty sure you will be able to play it in most audio-programs.

If it's a youtube video (or any other flash video) it's a little trickier. There are several extensions to firefox which allows you to download such videos as FLV files. Since VLC can read FLV files, you can convert them in a similar way.

The easiest way though is to use something like Audacity and set it to record whatever comes out of your speakers. This would slightly decrease quality, but it is very simple to do. I prefer the VLC way because taking advantage of the analog hole is way un-cooler :) --Oskar 21:54, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

I think that most soundblaster drivers allow you to set "What you hear" as the recording input. This way, you can use any recording program to record what you're playing, without the sound ever leaving your soundcard. There's still the digital noise to worry about (from recompresison), but it should work pretty well. risk 01:08, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

mplayer -dumpaudio

April 12

VPN and gaming

If I have a fast server computer A and a slower client computer B connected by VPN, can I play a game using A's processor (or, better yet, both processors in parallel) off a CD that's in B's drive? NeonMerlin 03:13, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Pretty sure the answer is no, at the very leasr VPN would not keep up with the framerate of any game, but there would probably be a multitude of other issues too. Vespine 04:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the other way round if the disc is not frequently used, but I don't think that is what you want. Splintercellguy 06:02, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Virus Isamini.exe

Dear sirs,

There appears to be adware on my computer, and there is a isamini.exe in my task bar which I cannot terminate. How do I get rid of this. Thank you very much. 70.48.255.209 04:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Try doing a search for a file with that name, then rename it to something like Isamini.exe.disabled. This will keep it from running again, but won't stop the current copy from running. Hopefully a reboot will do that. (The rename instead of delete is in case it turns out that it's something you need.) StuRat 04:39, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Reboot in Safe Mode and run eradication apps. Splintercellguy 04:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

• Which you should get from a reliable anti-virus website like symantec.com or mcafee.com . - Mgm| 12:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

According to this series of posts on the Lavasoft AdAware forums, AdAware with the most current definitions file will remove this particular piece of malware. The last post on that page also details some additional steps that can be taken if necessary. --LarryMac 12:47, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

HTML to wiki for use in MediaWiki-template

Hi all. I'm trying (on a wiki outside WMF) to make a template based on a template from Wikibooks. The problem is, however, that the HTML stuff (<table>, <td> etc.) doesn't seem to work, and as so I have to convert it to wiki-coding.

I used a HTMLtoWiki converter from the internets and the result became pretty weird. Now, the whole template seems screwed up and I don't know how to get it to work.

• The template
  • The HTMLtoWiki conversion edit
• An example page where the template is used

Can anyone help (btw, feel free to edit the template directly, I can learn from the history)? --Lhademmor 06:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

mp3 player file transfer

When I hook up my mp3 player to my XP PC, it recognizes it as an MP3 player and tries to use Windows Media Player to transfer files to it.

However, on a friend's XP PC, it recognizes the mp3 player as just a flash USB drive, making files transfers infinitely easier. How can I get my PC to recognize my mp3 player as just another USB flash drive? (without some overly complex solution e.g. installing new firmware or something) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.199.8.98 (talk) 07:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

The problem is probably that it is auto-opening with Windows Media Player on your computer, not that it isn't being recognised as a USB drive. Go to "My Computer" and look for a drive which could be it - then open it and copy the music in where you see the current music. A bit vague, I know, but you haven't told us the make or model of your mp3 player :)! JoshHolloway 10:54, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

actually that's part of the problem, it doesn't show up at all in My Computer...It's a SanDisk Sansa.

My mp3 player (Archos GMini xs100) has an option in its setup to appear as a hard disk or Windows Media device

will look into that thanks.

Disk change detection

How do floppy disk drives (specifically, the 5.25 and 3.5-inch disk drives) detect disk changes? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.94.148.218 (talk) 10:22, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

In simple terms, they don't. The system have no idea if a floppy is in or not when it's not accessing it (ie. when the green light is off), and it's when something like an I/O error occurs that the system realises that it's not there any more. --antilived 10:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

So it's continuously checking when it's empty? That doesn't seem very efficient? I know that when you put a floppy in it detects it and reads the name of it or whatever. Capuchin 12:18, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that's correct. Pressing the eject button or putting a disk in should cause the drive to send a Disk Change signal to the floppy controller, which the OS can then read. Here's an example from Linux (drivers/block/floppy.c):

           DPRINT("checking disk change line for drive %d\n", drive);
           DPRINT("jiffies=%lu\n", jiffies);
           DPRINT("disk change line=%x\n", fd_inb(FD_DIR) & 0x80);
           DPRINT("flags=%lx\n", UDRS->flags);

That "fd_inb(FD_DIR)" reads a byte from the controller's registers, and the "& 0x80" chooses the "Disk Change" bit. I think the green light is just for reads/writes. I don't know how the drives do it mechanically, but it's easy to imagine there being a little switch in there somewhere. --TotoBaggins 12:44, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

In DOS/Windows, I believe this is still handled using the old DOS disk services ($13 if I can remember correctly). The OS implements interrupt handlers for floppies, like when the drive door is closed or when a floppy is ejected. An interrupt is when some hardware event occurs and it is interrupted by software. I've even seen programs that created their own handlers to keep the drive spinning, as under certain conditions you could get a system hang or blue screen when the disk stopped spinning completely. CD's and DVD's are handled using similar methods. Sandman30s 13:00, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

On PCs, I'm pretty sure no interrupt is generated. On Macs, I'm pretty sure there is one based on its behavior. PCs do have a bit in the disk controller register indicating a disk change, but it's only checked whenever the operating system next accesses the drive. If the "disk changed" bit is set, the OS detects disk changes by a comparing the volume serial number of the expected volume (previously known to be in the drive) with what is actually in the drive. That was as far as vanilla MSDOS went, but I believe more sophisticated techniques are used in some OSs (NT 4 and above) which seem to compare root directory and/or FAT contents with the OS cache. They need be suspicious only when the disk changed bit is set, so it's pretty efficient without any need for ongoing polling. —EncMstr 14:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

See also the first piece of trivia in the Amiga 1200 article. Davidprior 16:24, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

A vivid definition of philosophy

What is philosophy? Identify the basic concept of idealism and state its contribution to educative process —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.204.224.10 (talk) 13:41, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

This looks a lot like homework, based on the way it is phrased. In addition, it is not a question for the Computing reference desk. Nonetheless, you might want to check the existing articles on philosophy and idealism. --LarryMac 13:55, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Linux and USB volumes

How does Linux figure out which USB volume is mounted through which device descriptor? If I have a USB hard drive and an SD memory card connected through a USB card reader, and have both plugged in at the same time, how does Linux figure out which is /dev/sda and which is /dev/sdb? Does it have to do with the types of the devices, which physical USB ports they are plugged in, or the order in which they are plugged in? Is there a way to always give the same mount point to the same volume, regardless of which device descriptor it is mounted through? JIP | Talk 17:25, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

It varies across kernel versions and Linux distributions, but it generally happens through some combination of udev and HAL. Yes, some USB devices have unique identifiers which would allow you to always mount them in the same place. --TotoBaggins 17:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Order it is plugged in, or there are device-specific features that order the drives.

rtorrent and screen

I happily run rtorrent with Screen by typing "screen rtorrent". I can then happily detach and reattach and everything in rtorrent works fine. I'd like to be able to start it by typing "screen -d -m rtorrent" so it immediately detaches without interaction. Currently when I do this, rtorrent will not respond to my "Ctrl-q" which I would normally use to quit, which is a pain. Any ideas? --87.194.21.177 18:05, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Question about Shared network

ok well where i am at we have a shared network of course. me and some friends want to know if the websites we go to can be monitored by the techs. (of course we know they can do it by checking the main network) but we are asking if they can still find out if they use our computers to do so After we have deleted all cookies and files and everything. i know once it goes by the ISP it can be tracked but since its shared they only see 1 IP. now if they were to go computer by computer will they ever find out? thanks in advanceMaverick423 20:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Any data that goes through the network can be monitored and logged. Imagine a straight road from A to B, and somewhere along the line someone looks what's travelling down it and writes down notes about it. That's essentially what they could do. Whether they do or not is another matter. I doubt it; however never be certain. Also, Misplaced Pages does not condone you looking at websites you shouldn't! JoshHolloway 20:33, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

no no no definatly not inappropiate sites just basicly sites like cnn and stuff like that. now on a second note though will they be able to tell which computer is sending that data and reciveing it? Maverick423 20:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

They'll be able to identify it by MAC address, Computer Name or description. The MAC address would only be identified as yours if they took your laptop and compared it, so if they don't do that you're alright. As for computer name/description, it can give you away. Go to Start -> Control Panel -> System -> Computer Name and change the description, and click "To rename this computer or join a workgroup, click Change". When I wanted to trick the techs I would find a computer name (such as LIBRARY-49") and add myself as a new one - LIBRARY-50. So much harder to find :). JoshHolloway 20:50, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Where my wife works, every new young male employee starts surfing the porn sites. They are always 'shocked - shocked' when the report instantly comes back. If you can randomly plug into any jack, or you use wireless, you have a better chance, but any company with half a brain can deal with this. --Zeizmic 01:23, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Converting torrent files

When I download torrent files it doesnt recognize file type. So i need to convert the same to Mp3 format type.... How do i do the same? Is it possible?

 Second question is regarding MS Excel How to remove automatic page breaks? 20:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

For your first question, what are the files in your torrent? Dunno about Excel. Splintercellguy 21:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Torrent files contain metadata and cryptographic hashes that describe files as well as point to a BitTorrent tracker which can provide further information on where to find the actual files. I'd suggest reading the article on BitTorrent and peer-to-peer in general. Your second question was already answered both times you asked it previously. Page breaks are defined by print ranges; look at the Excel help files. -- mattb @-13T05:37Z

The .torrent file is just a pointer - you open that with BitTorrent tracker software like Azureus. The tracker then downloads the file from other users like yourself. See BitTorrent. --h2g2bob 13:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

For second question, first go to View -> Page Break Preview, then drag all blue lines to the top right corner (except the right-most and bottom lines, you cant drag those).

If that doesnt accomplish what you were trying to do, go View -> Normal, and then File -> Page Setup; On the Page tab you will have Scaling section, where you can make it print it to one page wide and one page tall. Shinhan 21:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Problems with DualView with nVidia 8800 GTS

I've recently installed a BFG 8800 GTS 640MB and have been having problems setting up DualView.

My previous card was an ATI x550 and I ran a dualscreen set up with a 19" BENQ FP91G+ LCD monitor as my Primary Display and a 23" Phillips 23PF4321 LCD TV as my secondary. The monitor supported 1280x1024 while the TV only supports 1024x768.

After installing the new card I've been unable to get DualView to work on the TV. I've set it up using the same resolution and refresh rate as I used with my previous card and the TV displays a message about not supporting the video mode, the same message it would bring up if the resolution was increased beyond the level it could support with my previous card. I've tried to lower the resolution on the second screen down as low as 800x600 but it still is unable to display anything. As the TV is working fine otherwise and was able to function as a second screen with my previous card I can only assume that the problem is with the 8800 GTS.

I've connected each display individually and with the right resolution and refresh rate they were able to function as single displays and I've made sure that both ports are functioning properly but I've noticed that in addition to Dualview not working properly, if I have both displays connected and try to use the TV as a single display it doesn't work.

I've contacted BFG about this by E-Mail and after a couple of weeks of routine suggestions of upgrading drivers (now on 4th version and the problem remains) and asking me to check the ports are working properly they went silent and now four weeks later don't even respond to my E-Mails, which I'm taking as a sign that they've run out of ideas.

I've E-Mailed the shop who sold me the card and they focused on compatibility. I've contacted ASRock, who manufacture my motherboard and they've tested an ASUS 8800 GTS and that worked fine so it seems unlikely that's the problem.

After calling the shop's technical support line the guy on the phone seemed hesitant about taking the card in for testing and suggested I try and find a solution on the internet. Does anybody have any suggestions of how I may fix the problem? --Kiltman67 20:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Do you have a third monitor you can try in place of the TV? If it works, that would point at the TV as the problem; if it doesn't that would seem to be a problem with the video card. —EncMstr 21:01, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't because the card only has DVI outputs. But, I was attempting to do something similar by setting it up in DualView mode and then swapping the port it was connected to and following some fiddling with the settings I've managed to fix it. It would appear that even though the ports are identical and there is no suggestion that one should be primary and one secondary DualView will only work with the displays plugged in a particular configuration, which of course happens to be the most inconvenient and as a result the one I didn't use when I originally set it all up. Thanks for the push in the right direction. --Kiltman67 21:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Correction... The problem seems to have returned. Does anybody have any suggestions of how to fix it or even where the problem may lie. I'm wondering now if it could be a problem with the drivers, but I don't know what to do about that since I've never encountered anyone else with the same problem and as I said, I've gone through 4 versions of the driver and they all had the same problem. --Kiltman67 23:40, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

These were all green screen games for the Apple ][ or somethign from the Choplifter era. One was this game where you were on a boat in a side scrolling river and you had avoid obstacles and also pick up people and bonuses from islands (but you could lose a life by landing on an island with a lion say). I think the game was called "Congo" or something like that but am not sure. it was fun/ Another one was this maze game, sort of like pacman but with money symbols and these snapping monsters. this was also fun and i remember i liked it a lot better than pacman. If you someone knows where to look up these games like this (the green screen games, Im not that interested in teh colour games) and maybe play them online or download a emulated version or remake that would be great =)

1. All games for the Apple II were in color, unless they were text-mode games like Zork. You just remember seeing them on a green-colored monochrome monitor.

2. Neither of your game descriptions rings a bell with me, but there's a list of Apple II games at List of Apple II games. There were numerous Pac-Man clones, certainly. Tempshill unsigned comment was added by 88.111.43.11 (talk) 07:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

You probably didn't have an apple I. There were only about 200 produced, and they required assembly. The Apple II was the first production model. I agree with Tempshill. The Apple II was color capable, but I remember that I originally had a green screen, when my dad bought it, but we upgraded to a color monitor. I definately remember the Pac-man clone that used dollar signs though. You might find a version that is not in color, but it will probably be black and white rather than black and green.--Czmtzc 12:16, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure this is the pac man clone: Money_Munchers =) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.101.4 (talk) 21:20, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

Ok so I found both games playable on an online emulator (worked ok in Internet Explorer - I had problems in Firefox though) at virtualapple.org... Congo worked perfectly (hurray! you have to turn caps lock on though); and Money Munchers worked ok except I can't figure the up key (Alt is down, left and right are cursor keys; the normal up cursor key does nothing). It was all in colour which was weird for me. i think they looked a lot better in all-green (i think the emulator should have an option for that)... =) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.109.101.4 (talk) 21:47, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

btw Congo is just listed as Congo. Money Munchers is hidden under Pieman in the index.

Updater 5

I have Windows XP, and I keep getting this empty folder in "My Documents" called "Updater 5." Whenever I delete it, it always comes back in a week or so. Does anyone know what the purpose for this empty folder is? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.107.163.64 (talk) 22:43, 12 April 2007 (UTC).

I have a list of possible solutions jeje xD: 1) do you have any device that synchronizes to your computer read(PDA,Phone,MP3 player,etc) this could be the cause. 2) IIS if you don't what this is or have it installed then ignore this option 3) are you on a network? could be something to do with network shares. 4) some software on your computer depends on this, you can probably search the registry for the name of the folder and find something on it 5) possible spyware? if there is no logical cause for this folder to exist it could be some spy/adware. Anyways...the reason i made the list is for other people to draw from this...im pointing more towards the sync with devices folder...i remember windows mobile 5 made a folder with the same name but in a different location. 200.35.168.129 23:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

From what I could find, it seems to be coming Adobe Reader 8.0 (previously "Adobe Acrobat Reader"). This page has some information on relocating the folder; this one (post #6) indicates you can turn off the automatic updating completely. --LarryMac 00:36, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

April 13

Deleting spyware shit

• Yes, I cussed! I am very irritated. I do not know where this came from, but recently, whenever I would start my computer up and get my desktop, a window would pop up asking me to buy something called "windowblinds". I looked in Add/Remove programs and it is not in there. I looked in program files, and noticed a folder called "stardock" that was not previously present. I tried deleting it, but I get "Cannot delete tray.dll: Access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use." There are also 3 other files in there, named consecutively, "wbhelp.dll", "wblind.dll", "WbSrv.dll".

• Also another spyware issue. There is a nuisance called "clock guard". (I have alt+tab vista power-toy installed)

Not to mention upon startup, adding to the windowblind thing, it has a pop-up of it's own stating "Your free 30-day trial of Clock Guard has expired. The protection offered by the program will no longer be active until you register" (or something like that). I have looked in control panel, program files, and etc. and I cannot find it anyware. Not even a system search for "Clock Guard" or "Clockguard" finds anything. It only appears in the alt+tab function. Help appreciated! --TV-VCR watch 05:29, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Tell us what anti-spyware/anti-malware programs you are running now, like AdAware and Spybot - Search & Destroy. StuRat 07:13, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Also, what anti-virus? Is it up to date? - Akamad 11:17, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I use a combination of these freeware programs: Ad-Aware SE Personal, SUPERAntiSpyware Free Home Edition, AVG Anti-Spyware, and Spybot - Search & Destroy. I have provided links to highly convenient locations to download these programs, without directly linking to the .EXE files themselves. − Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 12:38, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that either of these items is actually malware. Both seem to be shareware, from what I can tell. WindowBlinds is produced by a company called Stardock. It can be purchased separately or as part of a package called Object Desktop, so you might want to look for entries in the Add/Remove list under either Stardock or Object Desktop. There is also a forum link available on the Stardock website, you might be able to find help on uninstalling it there.

Clock Guard also seems to be legitimate shareware from an outfit called Leithauser Research. The information on that page says "Remember that complete instructions are provided for uninstalling Clock Guard if you decide that you do not like it" but if you don't know where or how it was installed, I guess those instructions can't be found either. The installation program appears to be called cgarc.exe, so you might want to search for file or folder names similar to that. There is also a link on that web page to email the author. --LarryMac 12:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Buy a Mac! :) Not to be flip, but no viruses, no malware, no spyware! It's wonderful. Think of the programs you use the most, there's a 97% chance there's a Mac equivalent. --24.249.108.133 17:27, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The trouble with just deleting the directory of an installed program is that this doesn't always uninstsll the program - the program may have put its paws into your windows registry, put addons for internet explorer, and changed or added files in your system folder. That is what the whole Windows Installer thing is all about - when programs are installed, all the changes that it makes for the install are recorded so that during uninstall the process can be reversed. Nonetheless there are occasions where trying to delete the problem program from its folder is an option - but only really as a last resort.
I would really recommend in your case that you get a spyware removal tool - much like the ones Twas Now recommended.
Regardless, here is something you can try: Go into Internet Explorer, and click Tools -> Manage Addons -> Enable or Disable Addons (Note: This varies from version to version of internet explorer, the aforementioned instructions are for 7.0, but for previous versions you'd just have to look around for the equivalent section in your Options. Anyways, look at the addons that are listed, and look at their publishers. For all the suspicious ones, disable them. Obviously if the publishers are ones you trust you don't have to disable them - ones like Microsoft, Adobe, etc. By disabling certain addons, you would impede this spyware's ability to use internet explorer - but this may be only targetted at things that happen when inernet explorer is actually open. Rfwoolf 18:21, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Different permissions for subdirectory in Samba-share

Ahoy!

We have a Samba server managing all the shares in our network. Now there is a share called DATA where the users throw in transfer-stuff, and data that should be usually read- and writable by everyone who has access to the DATA share. In that particular share there is a subfolder. And that subfolder should now be made read- and writable only by a select few from all the users able to see DATA. I have already made another share PRIVATE, and it shows up as another share similar to DATA in the windows network explorer, BUT the problem is, when going into the DATA share, the folder PRIVATE is still showing up there and everyone is able to access it, although only the select few specified are able to access the real PRIVATE share. Is there any option available for the smb.conf file so that I do not have to transfer the PRIVATE folder away from the DATA folder but still the two will have different permissions?

The relevant entries in my smb.conf file look like this:

       
       comment = Data
       path = (...)
       read only = No
       create mask = 0640
       force create mode = 0640
       directory mask = 0750
       force directory mode = 0750
       inherit acls = Yes

       
       comment = Private folder
       path = (...)/private
       create mask = 0770
       force create mode = 0770
       directory mask = 0770
       force directory mode = 0770
       read only = No
       writable = Yes
       public = No
       valid users = aaa bbb ccc ddd
       inherit acls = No

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated because moving the PRIVATE folder out of the DATA folder is not really an option, sadly. Aetherfukz 11:26, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ahoy there! I don't think you need to make any changes to your Samba configuration for this. Why not create a new Linux group containing just the users that you want to have access to the private folder? Then just do chgrp private_group private/; chmod o-rwx private/; chmod g+rwx. Johnnykimble 17:28, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

MS Windows Multi-Monitor API

How can I programmatically find the dimensions and coordinates of all monitors connected to a Microsoft Windows computer? I've done a bunch of searching on the web without success, including at multi monitor. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the right search terms to give me technical, rather than user, information. Matchups 13:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I haven't had experience of this myself, but you might want to check out the documentation on the multiple monitors in the Windows GDI documentation on MSDN. Positioning Objects on a Multiple Display Setup might also be useful for you to have a look at. multimon.h in the Platform SDK also looks like a file you'll need to include. Johnnykimble 16:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

System forced shutdown

I have recently downloaded a driver for my USB mouse, but as soon as the installation process is completed, the screen suddenly turns blue with a lot of words. I only have time to read the first few lines abou the error message which is "Windows has to shut down due to a hardware change......." My laptop is operating on Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition and is bought around 2001 to 2002. Must I perform a system recovery? Has my laptop been infected with a virus? Note that my mouse is manufactured by LapMate. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Invisiblebug590 (talk • contribs) 13:48, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

That just sounds like a normal part of the install process to me, although they typically ask if you want to shut down to finish the install, rather than forcing it immediately. That is a bit rude. StuRat 13:58, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like the blue screen of death. You shouldn't really need to install a driver for your USB mouse, so trying uninstalling the driver, and just plugging the mouse in without it and see if it's detected. Johnnykimble 14:03, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you have time, try and note down the hex number (starting 0x...) next to the word STOP near the bottom. This should identify exactly what the problem is. Johnnykimble 14:04, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

It does sound like the blue screen of death (see link above), and you have not said if you're able to get back into Windows or not, and by "System Recovery" do you mean "System restore"? Anyways, one thing that may help you is this: to stop windows from shutting down, click start -> run, and type "shutdown /a" (/a = abort). The trouble is that because it's an "Abort" you usually have to type that when Windows is in the process of trying to shut down - which means you have to be quick. What I do when I need to use it, is run it once or twice by itself, and then a moment before the forced shutdown I do it again, and once again during the shutdown. Now all that will do is temporarily stop windows from shutting down everything and shutting down. I've used this in one case where a virus was forcing Windows to shut down all the time - which prevented you from uninstalling the virus or finding a solution - but yours seems to just be a hardware issue.
A system restore would help if you're having trouble getting into windows again since the bad install you did - but you can also try going into control panel and saying "remove hardware" and seeing if you can uninstall it. Otherwise if Windows isn't working so good do a system restore. Then I want you to check if there's any updates for Windows - and download and install any necessary ones. Finally you should check on the net for the manufacturer to see if they've released a new driver for the mouse.
Note that if it's a USB mouse there's a strong chance that all you need to do is just plug it in and wait a moment, and then start using it. Good luck Rfwoolf 18:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

tl;dr! JoshHolloway 22:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Monitor problem

A couple times yesterday my monitor went blank, then came back up immediately. Later that day, the computer (Windows 98) locked up hard (not even the Task Manager would come up) and needed a reboot. I'm thinking this sounds like a rather serious problem, possibly with the display driver or hardware. Any ideas what the problem might be or how to fix it ? (I've checked the display cable connections at both ends, they both look good. I also don't think it was a power outage, as the TV was on and unaffected, although I suppose it might have a capacitor that allows it to survive extremely short power outages.) StuRat 14:07, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd also be inclined to point to the display hardware in this case. I suspect that it is an overheating problem (now damaged beyond repair). You could try checking the graphics card fan to make sure it's spinning steadily and fast enough (i.e. it's not varying in speed). If you happen to have an old graphics card, you could try it instead. I've been unfortunate enough to have bought 2 faulty graphics cards, each exhibiting an overheating problem (although they were within warranty so I did get replacements). It can manifest itself in different ways but the problems you mention occurred on both occasions. If you happen to be gaming with a graphics card that has been damaged by overheating, you might also see texture colours mess up (no idea why this is). Sorry I couldn't be more specific but my inclination is a damaged graphics card... Johnnykimble 16:01, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks, I'll watch for that. The computer had been running for a good long time each time this happened, so heat might indeed be an issue. The problem hasn't recurred today, however. Was your problem intermittent like that ? Also, what are "texture colours" ? StuRat 18:49, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

My problems occurred when playing 3D games mainly. So, if I played a game I could be sure of a crash after a while, so not really intermittent as such. I did experience the desktop crashes you mentioned, as well as the monitor losing signal. That seemed intermittent, but I suspect was as a result of a high ambient temperature inside the case, which was enough to cause the graphics card to fail. As for the texture colours, it's difficult to describe. When the problem was occurring during a game, I would see reds, greens and blues in place of proper colours. For example, when faced with a brown brick wall, the wall would appear with patches of red, green and blue on it. It sounds quite odd, but it's a sure sign of a graphics card that has been damaged due to overheating. This effect will probably vary between cards, but have a look at this screenshot and you might get a better idea of what I mean.

If it is an old PC, it may well be worthwhile opening the case and taking a vacuum to it. A bed of dust on a heatsink can often be the cause of overheating components. Also, if you have any software installed that detects CPU temperature and/or motherboard/ambient temperature take a note of those. Ambient\case temperature will hopefully be in the 30s (Celsius) and the CPU temperature no higher than 65. You may also have a sensor on the graphics card if it's fairly new. To read this, the drivers should provide a utility - usually somewhere in the 'Display properties'. Johnnykimble 19:43, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

AI and reference librarianship

As Artifical Intelligence programming becomes more sophisticated, can I expect to be out of a job as a reference librarian in the next 10 years? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 141.211.8.13 (talk) 17:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

As much as i love AI i don't think you'll be out of a job. The reason for this is because there is always room for error, and besides it's just more comfortable talking to a live person than a machine. I think in any case this will make your job easier, for you will only have to supervise the program and make sure it doesn't commit errors, or fix them. if a machine makes an error it will not call the customer back and be able to say where it messed up, but a human on the other hand can. You'll be more like a Commander or Sub-Commander in the game Supreme Commander xD 200.12.231.42 18:12, 13 April 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

I don't think A.I. is as much as threat as telecommunications and regional/national disparities in compensation. Low cost workers in China/India/etc. can probably answer 90% of reference questions at like one percent of your price, so it stands to reason a few video conference computers in the library is the larger threat. In both 2001: A Space Odyssey, and BART, A.I. was thought to be a panacea and later a threat—and that was in the 1960s. Sadly, A.I. capability has grown disappointingly slowly, with little reason to suspect a sudden jump forward. —EncMstr 17:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Entry for Invicta Networks?

I saw the excellent movie, "Breach" last night. Chris Cooper's character spoke of using Invicta protocols for a new computer system. A Google search revealed this is an actual technology, but Misplaced Pages has no entry about this supposedly "unhackable" network. And the company's website seems to be down. Does anyone have any other info about it? --24.249.108.133 17:18, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I found a few articles on it and I'll write a stub at Invicta Networks. Recury 20:41, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's a (very) little information on their technology. It's basically just spread spectrum for IP networks. You might also be interested in quantum cryptography for a real unhackable network. --TotoBaggins 20:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

OS Choice Question

I am somewhat confused, what with the variety of OSes at large today. Someone reading this would say I've never even bothered to read the Misplaced Pages Articles on Linux, FreeBSD and such, but I have. I've even installed Ubuntu Linux Dapper Drake (KDE patched, not Kubuntu) and played around with it for a while. One thing I can say about it is that it is certainly a whole lot better than XP / Vista and such (I could go on and on about *cough* Vista *cough*, but...). But in some (few) aspects, XP still leads. Make a long story short, I wonder if someone could give me an overview of a few popular OSes. I'm particularly looking for native .exe support and NTFS support (Read-only or even RW). It should essentially be exactly like Windows, just with the bad bits filtered out (i.e. no IE, no frequent crashing, less emphasis on looks and more on performance, etc.) Since this is what a lot of people would want, I figure something must exist to represent it. There may be legal issues, but I'm no expert. The reason I want it is simple. I would like to abandon Windows, yet I'd hate losing support for all Windows-only applications (some of them games) for which there is no open-source/freeware counterpart or alternative. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Danielsavoiu 17:19, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

ReactOS is most likely going to fulfill your needs, but it's not feature complete and is still considered an alpha release. --LarryMac 17:34, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If you want Windows without getting Windows, get Linspire. Unlike other forms of Linux that try to do Linux well, Linspire's goal is to Windows well in a Linux environment. Of course, they get sued for saying that (which is why they changed the name from Lindows to Linspire) - but that is what it is. --Kainaw 18:59, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Dual booting or VMWare are both good options for mostly working in an alternative OS, but going back to Windows when necessary. Most of the things people want from a personal computer can be done fairly well in Linux now (video games being a big exception). A Macintosh might also be a good alternative. I personally have used only Linux at work and at home since 1998 or so, and the things I can't do on Linux I just do without. When I'm obliged to use other people's Windows machines I'm always shocked at how horrible it is, with the constant popups and things demanding your attention. --TotoBaggins 20:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

digital preservation programs at US businesses and organizations

Which US organizations and businesses have digital preservation policies or digital preservation programs? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.41.59.243 (talk) 20:08, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act obliges *all* large public companies to follow certain digital preservation guidelines in some financial areas. --TotoBaggins 20:55, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

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