Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

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Computing desk

[edit] March 28

[edit] Download some logic

Is there any place on the internet where musicians share their music, but in the form of say, Garageband .band files, or Logic song files, instead of mp3s or midis or aacs or something like that? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 00:01, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I can't help you with Garageband or Logic, but there is ACIDPlanet for users of the Sony's ACID Pro and ACID Music programs. --LarryMac 00:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] KOTOR 2 problems

After installing KOTOR 2, I run the game. I go through the menu screens and watch the first movie. Then, however, the screen remains blank (black) while music is playing. About 45 seconds later, a message box pops up saying that KOTOR 2 has to close. My computer is well within the system requirements (2.8 GHz Pentium D, 1 GB RAM, etc) with the exception of my 'graphics card' (really an IGP), but that has been offically supported since the latest patch, which I have already installed. I have all the latest drivers and the latest DirectX 9 build.

The KOTOR games are notorious for crashing whimsically on PC. I havent completed either of them due to the game crashing at one point or another and no matter what I try I can't get any further. I'm not entirely sure what to suggest. Maybe having a clean boot and having as little as possible running in the background. It's not an unknown problem with this game, though. Capuchin 08:44, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] grep

I'm trying to find lines in a file which do not contain any of the letters abc. How do I do this with grep? Thanks. --87.194.21.177 01:45, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

-v option. See [1] Root⁴(one) 02:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ja, v = das ist Verbotten. StuRat 03:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

So, I'd go with "grep -v a -v b -v c target_string". StuRat 03:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Eh, grep the executable, works on files, not target strings. You can test your regex by omitting the filename. But Upon looking at StuRat's suggestion, I did discover something. On another page about grep on gnu.org, it mentions that grep can accept lists of regular expressions (something I had not realized). Indeed, you can use multiple regexes with the -e option. But it appears that -v can only negate all regexes, not any specific one. So, although an easy way to accomplish what you want if you knew anything about regular expressions is grep -v '[abc]' filename, you could also grep -e a -e b -e c -v filename. The -e option is nice because you can give multiple regexes and have grep report back which files matched, etc without having to do a double pipe (Unix). Sweetness!

Root⁴(one) Pats StuRat on the back for his creativity. Root⁴(one) 04:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Interestingly, if you can use grep -v '[abc]' filename you should be able to use the reciprocate, grep '[^abc]' filename, however escaping it may be a little hard. -- ReyBrujo 04:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

One more tidbit. I feel like a jackass correcting people here, but this one misconception has convicted me more than once, so I think it would be helpful for me to share. I've been fortunate that the HTML form for which I used that type of regex as a validator (before I corrected) apparently has not been abused!. If you use [^abc], you have to make sure that you match that regex against ALL characters on the line (well, excluding line feed). grep '[^abc]' can match abc! This is a common misconception of how the negated character class works. All that character class says is "match any character that is not in this set". The line "abcd" works, because "d" is not in that set!!

So in that case a correct invocation for our intents is instead grep '^[^abc]*$' where ^ matches the beginning of the line, [^abc]* matches any character not in the set {a,b,c} zero or more times, and $ matches the end of line or eol character(s). The anchors {^,$} force [^abc]* to stretch from the beginning to the line to the end, just before the eol char if it exists.

This is analogous to predicate logic: if you want to declare that something must exist that has property p, you say $\exists x, p(x)$ . If you want the logical opposite, you say "It's not the case that x exists and p(x)", or rather "For all x, not p is the case", or formally:

$\neg (\exists x, p(x)) = \forall x, \neg p(x)$

The sad part of it is I have had mathematical training in thinking correctly about things like this and I still mess this construction up.

Root⁴(one) 14:12, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. -v is right there on the man page, don't know how I missed it - sorry! Those interested in silly dinner party games may be diverted by the result of "grep -v [mackerelMACKEREL] countries" where "countries" is a list of all the world's countries. I get 3 of them. Thanks again. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.194.21.177 (talk) 10:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

While we're doing character-class tricks, here's a rare use for a character-class with only one item in it:

 ps ax | grep '[f]irefox'

That command will show you firefox's process info, but not the info for the grep command itself, which it normally (annoyingly) would, since "firefox" matches the regex, but "[f]irefox" does not. --TotoBaggins 18:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Cute! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.78.64.102 (talk • contribs) 23:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Easiest way to let users interact with a website

Suppose I want to do a very basic "web 2.0" site. Letting people (1) create an account and login (2) upload text & pictures, (3) posts to forums. Now, ten years ago when I was on top of these sorts of things, I would have done this with custom perl cgis. Nowadays, I expect that would be re-inventing the wheel? What's the simplest way to do this sort of thing? --Wouldbewebmaster 02:35, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That sounds a lot like a wiki, like this one. StuRat 03:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No, I wouldn't want that level of anarchy. :) In particular, I'd want, for example, to approve submissions before they're added to the site, at least for new users. --Wouldbewebmaster 03:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The simplest way is to find a suitable Content management system. You can do as much or as little re-inventing as you want. If you want to code it yourself there are alot of web application frameworks out there, ruby on rails is very popular, I have been trying to learn to use catalyst (software) which a OO perl framwork -- Diletante 03:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Zope + Plone --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:20, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] my monobook.css

Hi all! I'm trying to gain some real estate on my edit pages by deleting the copywrite notices, etc. Did it in my .js file but figured it would be done better in my .css file, yes? no? Here's my .css file (the whole thing) (addapted from Mac Lover's .css):

 
/* Don't display some stuff on the main page */
/*   Thank you, Mac Lover */
/* body.page-Main_Page #lastmod,   */
/* body.page-Main_Page #contentSub,    */
/* body.page-Main_Page h1.firstHeading    */
body.page-Main_Page #siteSub, 
body.page-Main_Page #newarticletext,
body.page-Main_Page #userinvalidcssjstitle,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn2,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-copywarn3,
body.page-Main_Page #editpage-specialchars,
body.page-Main_Page #talkpagetext {
  display: none !important;
  }

Doesn't work. My first css; am I missing some punctuation or something? Thanks. --Saintrain 06:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC) P.s. do "//" inline comments work in css?

not sure what's wrong with your code - might sound obvious, but have you tried emptying your browser's cache/shift-refreshing the page in case that's the issue? And no, I'm afraid you're stuck with /* */ comments, CSS doesn't support // to my knowledge... _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 06:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks UKPablo. My problem is over-zealousness with ^C^V. A little snooping with firebug (Yaaay Firebug!!!) revealed that "Edit" pages aren't the "page-Main_Page". Duh! So changing it to:

<nowiki> */
/* Don't display some stuff on the edit page */
/*   Thank you, Mac Lover */
body #newarticletext,
body #userinvalidcssjstitle,
body #editpage-copywarn,
body #editpage-copywarn2,
body #editpage-copywarn3,
body #talkpagetext {
  display: none !important;
  }
/*

</nowiki> */

gets rid of half the, um, stuff on the edit page. I can live with /* */ --Saintrain 00:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DVD copy-protected disc

How can you copy a DVD copy-protected disc onto a DVD recordable disc?Dudforreal 07:00, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, strictly speaking, you cannot due to the wonders of the DMCA and the fact that recordable DVD medium lacks sufficient capacity to contain a pressed DVD. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T14:18Z

You could just do a 1:1 copy of the DVD provided you have a dual-layer blank. If you want to burn an unprotected DVD to dual-layer blank, or if you do not have such a blank, use DVD Decrypter or a related product to decrypt the DVD. Then, either just burn the files, or use something like DVD Shrink (though I think it’s not best quality) to shrink to 4 GB. Splintercellguy 15:07, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You are still allowed to make backup copies of software/videos that you bought legally. I suppose your question is about Video DVDs, not software ones. If so, try DVD Shrink. Aetherfukz 15:19, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

You are allowed to copy the bits verbatum, but commercial DVDs are encrypted, meaning that if you want to do any sort of meaningful backup you would have to decrypt them. That is illegal in the US, even if you own the damn thing. --Oskar 17:43, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes indeed, thus my comment about "the wonders of the DMCA". DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink, et. al. are in fact illegal to use for transcoding CSS-protected DVDs in the USA. This is the same law that could be used to make a reasonable case against the legality of black permanent markers, Scotch tape, etc (okay, this is hyperbole, but amusing nonetheless). -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T22:47Z

I'd personally recommend AnyDVD. --Sn0wflake 04:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Not everyone here hails from the US. In most european countries it is still (barely :D) legal to copy DVDs non-verbatum. You are allowed to make a backup copy of stuff you own. If the company hinders you from copying it you can remove the copyprotection. It's still a grey area here in the EU but there hasn't been any resolution. The law entitles you to you backup copy that is for sure, the only matter of discussion is wheter the law for a personal backup counts more than the law against removing copyprotection. Aetherfukz 12:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ripping songs with the Playstation 3

Yesterday, I finally got around to updating my PS3 to version 1.60 (Up from version 1.32!). I saw it could rip songs, so I tried it with a disc my brother burned.

He used NeroVision Express 2 SE, version 2.0.1.14
The "about" thing said that there are no updates available for it.
The disc used was a Memorex 24x CD-RW with 700MB free space. It had never been written on before. To be safe, I told him to burn it at 16x.

When I tried ripping the tracks, three (Out of 12) wouldn't work. One always got to 44%, and then quit. I tried it three times. Then I ejected the disc to see if it was dirty. It wasn't, so I put it back in and tried one more time. That time, it worked. The other two still wouldn't work. What is going on?____J.delanoy 13:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Nevermind... found answer...J.delanoy 23:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Indexes not being used in double join in PostgreSQL.

I have a view (of the type SELECT * FROM a INNER JOIN b ON (a.b_id=b.id) INNER JOIN c ON (b.c_id=c.id)) in a postgreSQL database. I've got indexes on the relevant keys. Here's the relevant query estimations (the results of a EXPLAIN SELECT * FROM view just after doing a VACUUM ANALYZE):

Aggregate  (cost=44360.44..44360.44 rows=1 width=0)
  ->  Hash Left Join  (cost=42395.22..44342.86 rows=7029 width=0)
        ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=40677.03..41127.79 rows=7029 width=30)
              ->  Sort  (cost=28626.47..28644.05 rows=7029 width=28)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28)
              ->  Sort  (cost=12050.56..12228.48 rows=71169 width=58)
                    ->  Seq Scan on b (cost=0.00..4465.69 rows=71169 width=58)
        ->  Hash  (cost=1430.15..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30)
              ->  Seq Scan on c (cost=0.00..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30)

Now with enable_seqscan disabled:

Aggregate  (cost=75750.29..75750.29 rows=1 width=0)
  ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=70878.75..75732.72 rows=7029 width=0)
        ->  Sort  (cost=70878.75..70896.32 rows=7029 width=30)
              ->  Nested Loop Left Join  (cost=0.00..70429.63 rows=7029 width=30)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28)
                    ->  Index Scan using b_index on b  (cost=0.00..6.00 rows=1 width=58)
        ->  Index Scan using c_index on c  (cost=0.00..4705.79 rows=30815 width=30)

So the estimate is considerably higher. But see what happens when I use EXPLAIN ANALYZE:

Aggregate  (cost=44360.44..44360.44 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=5050.772..5050.775 rows=1 loops=1)
  ->  Hash Left Join  (cost=42395.22..44342.86 rows=7029 width=0) (actual time=4072.397..5021.447 rows=7960 loops=1)
        ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=40677.03..41127.79 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=3785.948..4493.221 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Sort  (cost=28626.47..28644.05 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=503.664..533.751 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=0.298..148.873 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Sort  (cost=12050.56..12228.48 rows=71169 width=58) (actual time=3212.388..3488.106 rows=77850 loops=1)
                    ->  Seq Scan on b  (cost=0.00..4465.69 rows=71169 width=58) (actual time=0.066..474.231 rows=71169 loops=1)
        ->  Hash  (cost=1430.15..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=285.829..285.829 rows=0 loops=1)
              ->  Seq Scan on c  (cost=0.00..1430.15 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=0.035..154.118 rows=30815 loops=1)
Total runtime: 5053.691 ms

With enable_seqscan disabled:

Aggregate  (cost=75750.29..75750.29 rows=1 width=0) (actual time=1613.781..1613.784 rows=1 loops=1)
  ->  Merge Left Join  (cost=70878.75..75732.72 rows=7029 width=0) (actual time=1068.327..1584.194 rows=7960 loops=1)
        ->  Sort  (cost=70878.75..70896.32 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=1059.543..1090.613 rows=7960 loops=1)
              ->  Nested Loop Left Join  (cost=0.00..70429.63 rows=7029 width=30) (actual time=0.575..676.770 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using main_index on a  (cost=0.00..28177.35 rows=7029 width=28) (actual time=0.383..127.476 rows=7960 loops=1)
                    ->  Index Scan using b_index on b  (cost=0.00..6.00 rows=1 width=58) (actual time=0.046..0.050 rows=1 loops=7960)
        ->  Index Scan using c_index on c  (cost=0.00..4705.79 rows=30815 width=30) (actual time=0.198..183.827 rows=37904 loops=1)
Total runtime: 1614.366 ms

What gives? Why isn't it using my indexes unless I force it? Why is the estimator so wrong, even after I ran a VACUUM ANALYZE? I'm using PostgreSQL 7.4.8. grendel|khan 17:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I wish I knew. I've experienced similar apathy by the optimizers in Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle. —EncMstr 17:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I seem to recall having run into this or a similar problem before and it being explained within the postgres docs as something that they don't intend to fix because it would require sacrificing some code purity. I'll see if I can dig up the specifics. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T19:10Z

[edit] MySpace Detector

I was wondering if it is really possible to know who was looking at your profile on MySpace. I have heard conflicting answers....

I know nothing about myspace, but if it allows you to embed images from external sites you can do some trickery with scripts on a server you control to get viewers' IP addresses. Another possibility would be some Javascript tomfoolery, but I suspect that the myspace people (justifiably) disallow any browser scripting. I think I have seen flash videos posted on myspace pages, too. With some ActionScript I think you could possibly write a flash program that reports an IP address to a location of your choosing. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T19:08Z

I could (very well, I don't use it) be wrong, but I didn't think MySpace did block JavaScript (or at least, don't completely...) _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Would that work even if somebody was looking at the google cache of the page? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 19:11, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Potentially, it would depend on the implementation. If you added JavaScript to load an external image, passing parameters, then providing you added something (eg the time) which would make this URL different, to the last time it was accessed, then even though most of the page is coming from the browser's cache, the browser would consider that image to be a different one to the one it had in cache, and still go out to the web to retrieve it... _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm only gonna give you more conflicting answers, I'm afraid. MySpace could (and probably do) log the IP address of people viewing your profile, and if that person was logged in they could log their identity. Whilst they could choose to make this information available to you, I don't believe they do, and it would be unlikely due to privacy concerns. Now, there is one workaround that I read about a while back (whether it still works I don't know). That worked something like this... basically if a user is logged in, they are given a unique cookie identifying them to MySpace. To prevent cross-site scripting, the visitor's browser will only give access to this cookie to the site which set it. However, it would potentially be possible to add JavaScript to your MySpace profile, which could access this cookie (the browser would allow it, since your profile is on the domain that set the cookie). This JavaScript could pass these details to a third party, to be logged in some way (I believe in this example it loaded an image from an external web server, passing the details as parameters to be logged). You could then access that 3rd party site, and check who'd visited your profile. Of course, you'd either need to be pretty net-savvy to set that up, or find someone offering such a service. Whether that trick any longer works I don't know (if MySpace are sensible they'll only store some kind of ID in their visitor's cookies, which means at best you'd get a seemingly random string of characters, which you can't easily associated with a person...). _└^UkPaolo/_talk^┐ 19:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't know about what MySpace does and does not allow on individual pages since I don't really care about that site, but you probably could set up a web beacon to get IP numbers and a count of how many page views your are getting. As for using Javascript to get usernames, I wouldn't do it if I valued my account - MySpace might think you're a cracker or a phisher and ban you, since they've had problems with those people in the past. (Lots of people had their accounts cracked, and couldn't do whatever people do on MySpace) There is also this thing: Month of Myspace Bugs, which promises a new MySpace bug every day of April. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 00:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Endnotes in OpenOffice.org Writer

Is there any way to insert 2 references pointing to a single number (in the footnotes/endnotes). Like this:

Someone said "hello world."^[1] ... Later on, Someone also said "goodbye".^[1]

1. Someone, Some Book or Other, 2007

Something like that? --h2g2bob 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Create the first footnote as usual (Insert > Footnote). Then point to the second occurrence and then use Insert > Cross-Reference > Select the appropriate footnote from the second list. You will probably have to superscript the number/letter yourself, though. x42bn6 Talk 22:24, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

That works a treat - thanks very much :D --h2g2bob 00:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FOS Distributed Database Engine

Is there a free-open-source database engine that will handle distributed data? For example, I want to have a few hundred databases, all with the same table structure, but each containing different data. Then, from my computer, I want to do something like select avg(sbp), avg(dbp) from patients where dob>'1980-01-01' and lastvisit>'2006-01-01'; I want this to query ALL of the databases as though they were all just one database. The catch - we have no money. So, I'm looking at hacking Postgres or MySQL if I can't find something already created. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Does this describe your situation? —EncMstr 19:51, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks. I'm experimenting with it now and it looks great - especially since I don't have to write it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] email

How can one determine if a received email message was sent from the USA or from outside the USA?

In general, you can't. For example, when I use an Austrian cybercafe to send from my gmail account (which is sort of associated with my Oregon, USA address), how would anyone know? Google might, but they aren't going to share the information. I don't suppose you can email them and ask them where they are? —EncMstr 20:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

When you receive an email about the only thing left which describes its history is the email headers, unfortunately the very nature of email means email headers are notoriously easy to modify, this would make it just about impossible for anyone to track. If however it has not been modified, there are ways to view the email header and try to ascertain from that the original sending domain and from that possibly the country, but it is by no means a fool proof method. Vespine 04:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That's kinda fudging the definition of "sending" the email as I would believe it is the web interface for GMail that initiates the SMTP connection to whatever servers it has, and I assume those servers are in the US. I mean, I could use VNC through some ssh tunnel in Russia to some Chinese computer and then telnet from that Chinese computer back over to some server in Oregon to send an email to the next room. The "data" of the email body, subject, recipients certainly is going all over the place, but the actual "email" is sent possibly even locally to a user on the same machine that I telneted to without even touching a SMTP server, (just an example, I don't live in Oregon).

I really don't know enough about the SMTP protocol to say this is always the case, but often you can see the originating (SMTP server) mailer through the email headers, and use that as a judge. Root⁴(one) 03:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sticky "" - keys on keyboard

On my standard USA keyboard (using Windows XP) I have problems with ' or " keys. For some reason when the key is pressed once nothing is typed. When any following key is pressed then ' or " sign appears on the screen along with the sign pressed (two come together). Reinstalling keyboard driver does not help. How do I make it type ' or " after one key pressing? - Fo63 20:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Is Windows configured to use a USA keyboard? I know when I moved to Holland I was confronted by this weird behaviour that you describe (pressing the " (shift+2) key followed by SPACE gets me a " without a space). I don't understand what the benefit is to it. I'm not sure how to change it once Windows is installed, but there must be a way. Try checking 'Regional and language options' in the control panel and make sure there's nothing European in there. --Seans Potato Business 22:15, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps it is/was a way to generate umlauts (e.g., ü). See compose key.

Atlant 22:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the normal behaviour for USA keyboards with a layout for languages where accented characters are common (for instance, on the common Brazilian layout for USA keyboards, typing 'a gives you á, and "u gives you ü; the ABNT2 keyboard has separate keys for the accents and the quotes). See dead key for more information. --cesarb 00:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Future of open-source projects

I'm just wondering about these open-source software projects such as openSUSE and Ubuntu etc. Since for-profit companies are involved, couldn't they be reaping all this work from volunteers and then when/if Linux use hits a certain percentage and it becomes economically viable, couldn't they just start charging for the lot with no free downloads? Since OpenOffice is released under the LGPL, I'm guessing this means Sun can't do that? But what about Novell? --Seans Potato Business 22:10, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

They could start charging, but there is no way they could prevent anyone else from distributing them for free - their open source licenses will almost certainly insist that the same license remains with the work and any derivatives. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 22:17, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

A number of Linux distros are provided on a charged basis. Both Red Hat and SUSE have charged for Enterprise versions, though your payment is mostly towards the additional technical support that these products have. The main guarrenty that Linux as an entity will remain free (if not the indivdual flavours of the OS) is that the original source code was released under the GNU licence and all derivate works HAVE to also comply with this license to remain legal. Even if every single Linux provider decided to become exclusively fee based it would be very possible for a third party to create another free Linux distro very quickly. Elaverick 22:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mp3 player (moved from WP:RD/M)

I have an RCA Lyra mp3 player, not sure of the the model but its a 2GB flash player with MP3, WMA and FM radio capability. Heres the problem: when i plug it in to my XP-based computer, it pops up in My Computer as an Audio Device, not a usb mass storage device. it doesnt have a drive letter and its folders dont behave normally (with regards to drag and drop, copy and paste, and the menu u get when u right click). how can i stop the computer from recognizing it as an mp3 player and just treating it like a usb thumb drive? i've done it with other mp3 players before.. why is it not working now? im hoping i wont have to install anything. RCA's stupid useless website doesnt help and a quick google doesnt bring up anything useful. Can you.. or can you tell me who can? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.53.180.84 (talk) 22:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC).

Are you sure the device does, in fact, report itself as a USB MSC (mass-storage class)? If the device itself doesn't support being accessed as a mass storage device, there's little to nothing you can do. From your description, it sounds like this MP3 player is a MTP device. -- mattb @ 2007-03-28T22:42Z

[edit] The consumer review website

I was about to contribute a review about a pair of bluetooth headphones I've been wearing to a consumer review website. I did a search on google, not realising just how many consumer review sites there were. Is there a "the" consumer review site? The idea doesn't work as well if people's contributions are split across several sites (I guess it keeps them from charging money for access) (imagine competing Wikipedias) --Seans Potato Business 23:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The industry is to big for a "The" monopoly but CNET is one of the largest sites for reviews and consumer reviews for just about everything tech or gadgets related. http://cnet.com —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.53.180.34 (talk) 01:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Slashdot is good for it. And free. And hilarious. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:25, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] March 29

[edit] How does a keyboard work?

I was wondering if someone could tell me how computers are able to take the words entered on a keyboard and translate them into digital information? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.31.231.229 (talk) 00:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

There are a few articles you may want to look at: Computer keyboard#How it works, Keyboard technology. --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 00:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bittorent Trackers

Are Bittorent tracker computers that run special server software, computers seeding the torrent with a normal client, or something else? Please explain!--Ryan 01:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

A tracker is a server that coordinates the torrent - it is special software, but it is open-source. There is an article here: BitTorrent tracker --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 01:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The BitTorrent specification (if you can call it that) is open, and there are open implementations of the BT tracker and client. There are also closed implementations. -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T01:36Z

[edit] data recovery

I am writing a paper on how the FBI recovers evidence from hard drives even after the files have been deleted/erased. 72.40.60.1 02:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)jc

Sorry all, can anyone please lead me in the right direction on this topic72.40.60.1 02:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)jc

See data recovery, although it's emphasis is on data accidentally lost. Also see undelete. StuRat 02:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Computer forensics is good, although much of the content needs to be interwikied. Splintercellguy 03:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It may be interesting to note that if someone erases something from a hard drive with a secure erase procedure, the data is not recoverable (at least not from that media). -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T04:03Z

Like # dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hda? (from dd (Unix) --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That may not be enough, given the right tools. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.25.65 (talk) 09:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

Data remanence is a great article that descusses how to get rid of data properly. Capuchin 11:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

/dev/urandom only gets about 6MB/s, so you better ask the Feds to give you a few hours notice. :) --TotoBaggins 18:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Don't quote me on this, but I'm sure I read somewhere (probably a webpage for a 'deletion' program that securely removes your data) that writing over data once doesn't always mean the data isn't recoverable - and they said in fact that when formatting your drive for this purpose you'd in fact have to do it 'several times'. What was great about this program is that it would overwrite the data several times with gobbledy-gook and then erase it. Rfwoolf 12:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This is paranoia. A single overwrite of all data on the hard drive with ones or zeros or gibberish renders the original data unreadable (assuming of course that the data is actually, physically overwritten). You may be thinking of the infamous Gutmann paper which has been wholly misinterpreted by many an internet fellow. If data on a hard disk has been overwritten, the best you can hope to do is get a probability that a given bit was different before, and this only by statistical analysis and an MFM. Given that analysis of an entire disk platter with an MFM would take about a year of continuous scanning and generate a metric crapton of data, this isn't exactly a feasible recovery method. Secure agencies use much more stringent methods (multiple overwrites), but this is just extra paranoia (the NSA also physically destroys hard drives in a big hard drive shredder). -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T12:42Z

It isn't exactly pure paranoia. Because disk read/write heads have a certain width and because they are only positioned to a certain accuracy, it is possible that a single over-write will be slightly mis-positioned compared to an earlier write, leaving behind a thin "stripe" of the original data. It won't have any effect on the normal read operations of the disk because the new data will certainly overwhelm any remnant "stripe" of old data, but if you are willing to use other methods to read the disk, the "stripe" may, in fact, be readable. Multiple write operations are assumed to have enough distributed positioning error that they will obliterate any remaining "stripes" of good data.

Another term for this whole process is "Data Security Erase".

Atlant 13:52, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's not pure paranoia. I acknowledged that it is theoretically possible to recover some "truly" overwritten data from hard disks (I just noticed we've been ignoring other media here) with SPM techniques. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that it's "practically paranoia", since it is not (yet) practically possible to recover significant amounts of data using these methods. The best kind of paranoia has a dash of hard science mixed in for flavor. :) -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T17:22Z

Is this the Peter Gutmann paper? It details several techniques which easily (that is, less than $1500 and a day) recover data from several previous write cycles. —EncMstr 17:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It is. $1500 can get you an MFM setup, not the ability to recover overwritten data. See [2]. -- mattb @ 2007-03-29T18:00Z

[edit] Is there a way to rip Zoomify images?

I'm looking at this piece of artwork here. It's PD (author died over 70 years ago, published c. 1890), but there's no link to download the full image. Is there anything I can do to get the whole thing short of screenshotting each piece and stitching them together with hugin? (Which I can do... it's just a bit labor-intensive.) grendel|khan 03:02, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Do they sell any cds of artwork? I'd try the legal commercial route first. In short, yeah, I suspect with the proper tools that it wouldn't be too hard to grab the incoming images as they are being downloaded to the flash player unless there's some sort of encryption/data format obfuscation involved. But Jeez, lets support our public art museums, why don't we? These pieces of art have to be kept up, atmospheres have to be conditioned, etc. Root⁴(one) 04:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd just be uploading the image off the CD to Commons, instead of doing it this way. What did you think I was going through this effort for? grendel|khan 05:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

And there are other ways for museums to make money other than spurious and false copyright claims. Might as well consider advocating that the rob banks, since after all art has to be kept up, atmospheres have to be conditioned, etc... spurious copyright claims on public domain artwork do not really aid museums in the long or short terms and they certainly don't aid culture as a whole. --24.147.86.187 14:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I wouldn't be so quick to assume that because you think the "copyright" of the image has expired automatically gives you the right to download and print off a copy that someone went to the trouble of meticulously scanning and presenting online. The museum may not technically own the rights to the original work, but they probably OWN the original work and they certainly OWN the presentation you are viewing. Vespine 05:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Why the scare quotes around 'copyright'? I don't "think" the copyright on the image has expired; it has. It's not an opinion and it's not a gray area. Why does it matter for my purposes that the museum owns the original work? How is this different from pulling a plain JPEG off their site? Are you aware that Zoomify is a simple Flash app that lets the user view an impractically large image, and that the presentation to which you refer is a drag and drop affair to set up? I'm not saying they didn't take the effort to scan or photograph the work in the first place, but I am saying that pulling an image from that site is no different from downloading a plain JPEG or, say, scanning photos of public domain paintings from a book. grendel|khan 05:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, haven't seen the scare quotes article before but I'll pay it, bad habit... Anyway, I still wouldn't be so sure that "no different to downloading a plain JPEG" means it's legitimate way of obtaining it either. If it was that simple, what's the point of the "Copyright © 2006 Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco" at the bottom then? Vespine 05:42, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The copyright notice is partly because they own the copyright to their site design etc., partly because some of the works in the ImageBase might be photos of sculptures and such (which are copyrightable) and part copyfraud. (Here, for instance, a Canadian library claims that an 1854 treaty is copyright "Government of the United States of America", managing to be wrong in two ways at once.) Now, museums in Britain, for instance, can copyright their reproductions of public domain works (and by prohibiting photography in the museum, effectively remove the work from the public domain!), but in the United States, museums can't do that. To be intimidated by yet another scattershot claim of copyright constitutes an unacceptable chilling effect, saying that we ourselves need to scan any art we use. It's definitely not our policy at the present time; consider this enormous set of images which rely on the noncopyrightable nature of copies of two-dimensional works. grendel|khan 06:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

For the record it is not at all clear that they are copyrighted in the UK; it's just that they haven't had a direct ruling on it yet on the level of Bridgeman Art Library v. Corel Corp. (to my knowledge, anyway). However museums in both the UK and the US have all the right in the world to prohibit photography — it is their private space and private property — the question of the intellectual property is totally separate, of course. --24.147.86.187 14:22, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Another example: Privat-Livemont-Absinthe Robette-1896.jpg. The site it came off of states at the bottom, "No pictures or text may be reproduced or used in any form without written permission of the site owner." On the other hand, I can't nick images from ARTstor here, because I have to agree to a license to get to anything, and part of what I'm agreeing to is not to reproduce the images. I didn't sign/agree to anything to access either the poster I pulled from the Zoomify viewer or that Absinthe Robette poster. If using the latter is kosher, so is the former. grendel|khan 11:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, see a more thorough explanation of copyfraud (this is the article that the above-linked abstract goes to), and see a discussion on Commons about similar claims made by the New York Public Library. grendel|khan 11:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

As for Zoomify — it uses a Flash player to accomplish said zoomification. Look in the source of the page for the word "zoomifyImagePath", and it will have a path after it. Add ".jpg" to the path and you have your high-res image. For this one, it is http://www.thinker.org/media/images/3/332820130166/images/3328201301660070.jpg. Enjoy. --24.147.86.187 14:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent answer. StuRat 17:37, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Ha. And this after I'd already gone through two hours of stitching together essentially uniform background grain. I should be lazier. At least it's good practice for stitching together other sorts of images. I cropped it losslessly; it's now uploaded at Privat-Livemont-Ameublement-1890.jpg. grendel|khan 18:13, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] composing music

Please do not double post questions, section moved from Entertainment desk.

can you tell me some good user-friendly and intuitive programs to make my own electronic music... orrr if i want to compose midi... or if i want to sample stuff and then compose a midi-like track that uses the sampled new instrument... or if i record myself singing then record myself playing flute or harp how to put them one on top of another or slow one down or synchronize etc.?--Sonjaaa 04:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Look no further then Ableton Live, it does all that and more. I believe there is a free trial you can use to see how you like it.Vespine 04:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

My favorite is Sibelius, for scorewriting, but I know a lot of people that like Finale 2007 too, which is kind of the standard. [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 05:12, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm...Sibelius is the one of the best, and easy to use, but it's more than $400 last time I checked. Don't be fooled into buying the cheap ones like I did, though (MusicWrite is especially horrific). bibliomaniac 1 5 05:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Really? I swear it was $100 when I last checked! Perhaps I was looking at the academic version? In any case, for scorewriters or recording, or editing audio, if you are going to do anything professional and don't have any money, the best bet is to download it :D [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 07:41, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

GarageBand. Cernen Xanthine Katrena 11:27, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] question

I was wondering if there is anyway to disable the math-co proccesor on a computer so that if i tried to divide 0 by 0 on a custom made dev C++ program i could cook something on my cpu. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 76.11.5.113 (talk • contribs) 06:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

0/0 will always return an error; you can't get around it, you can't cook something with just an illegal op. If you want, run a tight loop instead (while(1);). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 149.135.25.65 (talk) 09:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

A somewhat related article would be Halt and Catch Fire. --cesarb 09:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Back in the days of core memory, it was rumored that tight loops (for example, a "Branch self" instruction) could toast the affected few cores, but I never saw it happen myself and I ran quite a few branch-self programs over the years. They never even seemed to heat to the point of causing data errors.

And for divide by zero, the division algorithms aren't written to simply do subtraction over and over again; they're much more clever than that so they'll catch your error.

Atlant 13:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] mediawiki

on a new install of mediawiki, what is the admin's password? 195.194.74.154 11:31, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe the admin's password (or ROOT user) is set during the installation when you create a database for your wiki.
You can find more information here: Help:Installation
You can also try "sysop"
Rfwoolf 11:56, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Mediawiki does not have a "root". I believe you are referring to the root user for the database (either MySQL or PostgreSQL). By default, no root password is set during installation. For example, you connect to MySQL using mysql -u root mydatabase. For security reasons, the standard MySQL and PostgreSQL installers now ask you in big bold letters to please set root's password after installation. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How to do a particular image manipulation

In the image shown here, notice that the wherever there isn't "something", there is a gray background. The darkness of this backgroung varies in the "y" direction. What I would like to do is take a samples of this varying background at any given y and subtract that value all the way across the image at that y. Did I explain that clearly? Notice down the right hand side there is a wide blank space just for this purpose of sampling the background.

Any idea how I can do this? I have GIMP but am not particularly skilled with it and I am not a programmer. The original images I want to process are relatively large tiffs, if that matters. Thanks!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ike9898 (talk • contribs) 16:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

It sounds to me like you want to (in Gimp) go to Layers→Colors→Brightness-Contrast. Increase both brightness and contrast. The lightest gray will become white and the darkest gray will become black. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You could probably get a reasonably good result in the Gimp by applying a mask that was created with a vertical gradient. I thought it was a fun problem, so I wrote some code that does it with Perl. It's not fast, but it does seem to do what you want. You run it with:

 perl -w normalize.pl REFERENCE-COLUMN SOURCE-IMAGE

You can figure out the reference column (x-pixel) on which to normalize using the Gimp's measuring tool. The tool puts the resulting image (with a red line showing the reference column) in out-SOURCE-IMAGE. Here's an example output. Enjoy! --TotoBaggins 19:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use Image::Magick;
use strict;

use constant MAX_COLOR => 0xFFFF;

my $err;

my $fname = shift() or die 'usage';
my $reference_column = shift() or die 'usage';

my $src = Image::Magick->new();
$err = $src->Read($fname);
die $err if $err;

my $height = $src->Get('height');
my $width = $src->Get('width');

my $dest = Image::Magick->new();
$err = $dest->Set(size => "${width}x$height");
$err = $dest->ReadImage('xc:white');
die $err if $err;

$" = ',';
my @colors = qw(R G B);
foreach my $y (0 .. $height)
{
    my @ref_pixel = split ',', $src->Get("pixel[$reference_column,$y]");
    foreach my $x (0 .. $width)
    {
        my @pixel = split ',', $src->Get("pixel[$x,$y]");
        foreach my $color (0 .. 2)
        {
            $pixel[$color] += (MAX_COLOR - $ref_pixel[$color]);
            $pixel[$color] = MAX_COLOR if $pixel[$color] > MAX_COLOR;
        }  
        $err = $dest->Set("pixel[$x,$y]" => "@pixel");
        die $err if $err;
    }
}
my $box_right  = $reference_column + 1;
$dest->Draw(stroke      => 'red',
            strokewidth => 1,
            primitive   => 'line',
            points      => "$box_right,0 $box_right,$height");


$err = $dest->Write("out-$fname");
die $err if $err;

Well don't know if this can help fix it but what if you were to select the region and right clinck and then go into 'layer/colours/invert' and that might help.

Mix Lord 00:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I know of something that can help. ImageJ. It allows you to do some math operations (like subtraction of some constant) over entire images (including 16bit gray level Tiffs). Real simple too. Root⁴(one)

I love you guys! I haven't quite figured out how to use your suggestions yet, but at least I am on my way now. ike9898 15:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Strange issue with Quicktime

Hello!

I have a Quicktime .mov (3,4GB, DV at PAL resolution) created with iMovie on a G4 mac. Now I have the problem: On my WinXP SP1 the movie won't play with any version of Quicktime,even not the newest. On my Debian, VLC, ffmpeg,mencoder and MPlayer can't view it. Only Noatun/Kaffeine can.
So: How can I convert this movie (as losslessly as possible) to a "normal" format like mp4?

Regards,84.56.25.16 17:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Would PSP Video 9 do it? You should be able to choose the quality and everything there and it converts to MP4.

Mix Lord 00:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Try Zamzar (www.zamzar.com). It's free! DebateKid 19:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

My favourite converter AND viewer is VNC. It's open source and waaaay cross-platform--71.195.124.101 20:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chatbot Website Creation

I have a chatbot and need to know how to create a website that takes in your input and sends an output, I looked up html and basically ended up with this through editing source code of websites like Google:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
  <title>Chatbot</title>
</head>
<body>
<form action="test.txt" method="get"> You say: <input name="input"
 type="text"> <input name="id" value=""
 type="hidden"> <input value="Say!" type="submit"> </form>
</body>
</html>

I think it sends the information to the server but I'm not sure. Even if it does send information to the server how do I use it. (my chatbot's written in C# if that helps) What now? Thanks for all the help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.109.79.136 (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC).

The form's "action" attribute needs to be set to the actual page or program that will receive the input, and of course that page or program must be on the server. Take a look at this lesson and see if that helps. --LarryMac 00:34, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Document management system for a private person

I have always more and more documents (scanned, in pdf, in html, pics). I would like to better keep track of them and the a directory with folder is somehow too little. I would like to be able to comment them (without changing them), keep notes of what relates to what, etc.

Is there some simple DMS out there for this kind of thing?

Mr.K. (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

PS: I am actually using a free, open-source tool. Mr.K. (talk) 21:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] March 30

[edit] BSoD

My computer is display the blue screen of death whenever I try to start it up.

Is it possible to recover any of the data?

yes, probably the easiest way would be if you had a second computer or knew someone that did, you take your disk and plug it into the other computer, then hopefully the other computer will be able to read your disk just like another drive, you should be able to copy files back onto the other computer. This is unless there is a physical problem with your disk which is causing the problems, but it is more likely your problems are other hardware or operating system related. Vespine 01:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The specific BSoD error code would help too. Yes, move the disk. Splintercellguy 03:09, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You can try booting with a Linux LiveCD and access all your files. --Spoon! 05:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well the most secure thing to do is take out the drive and add it to another machine (as a secondary drive) and then you can easily see what is readible and copy off whatever you need.
But failing that, if the hard drive is experiencing hard drive failure - then perhaps you shouldn't play with it too much until you can get it to another machine to extract the data - I mean don't boot it up a zillion times trying to get it to work - but that said, in some cases you can try booting it up a few times and maybe once or twice you'll get lucky and make it into Windows, at which point you can try burn a CD or copy files from one drive to another. If the cause is NOT hard drive failure, and it's just that your Windows System files have been corrupted, then you can look at try to repair your verion of Windows, which depends on what version you'r running.
I thought I'd add that you don't need a second COMPUTER to extract the data - (if it's the hard drive's fault) - all you'd need is another hard drive on the computer and run an operating system on that (tecnically even MS DOS!) - this might involve setting one drive as the primary and the other as a secondary (this is possible through setting the various jumper pins or via the BIOS - caution is advised!) or via the BIOS you can try tell our PC to boot from the one drive.
Anyways, I hope that gives you some options. Good luck Rfwoolf 12:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

this is a long shot, but if you're getting "unmountable boot volume" before windows loads, i recommend you put in your Windows CD (if it's 2000 or XP) and go to the recovery mode, once there, you want to choose to go into the console. you should end up at a prompt like "C:\" or similar where you can type a command. once there, just type "chkdsk" and press enter, wait forever for it to finish, then send "exit". i've done this a few times, including about a month ago. if this IS the problem, and you fix it with these steps, what you have to wonder now is what is causing the problem.. it may be a virus, or may just have resulted from your computer being improperly shut down while the hard drive was active. good luck --64.0.112.75 22:14, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Whoa, dude can you hack into somebody's myspace account?

So. I'm a software pirater but I'm not a hacker. I know more about computers then most people, and the question I get most asked at high schools are "whoa, dude, can you hack into somebody's myspace account?" I say no, and they're disappointed. So, I was wondering, how is it done? Not like I could ruin my reputation by getting too close to the website, but, it must be easy? [Mαc Δαvιs] (How's my driving?) ❖ 04:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I would think a bit of cross-site scripting, social engineering, actual server compromise, or a little bit of all of the above. Splintercellguy 04:54, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Simple. Guess their password. Most people use lame passwords, like the name of their pet or spouse—or their birthday. I don't know whether Myspace requires use of a secure password, but I wouldn't guess they would. More security-conscious sites require passwords being chosen (by the owner) to contain a minimum number of characters and include nonalphabetic characters, perhaps several. More aggressive techniques include password interception, spying, breaking and entering, etc. —EncMstr 04:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, thanks to a phishing attack last year,[3] many real myspace passwords were collected and circulated over the internet. While these accounts have now had their passwords changed, it provides an interesting analysis on what passwords are used.[4] The most common is "password1" with 0.22%. In general, the most common password used is "password", but MySpace has for some time required new users to select a password with both numbers and letters.

The phishing method used to gain the passwords involved creating a MySpace profile page which looked exactly like the MySpace login page, but instead of the username and password being sent to myspace, the page sent them to the attacker's website.

A hacker could also attempt to use XSS on a myspace profile, possibly for cookie stealing. Alternatively, if your computer has been compromised, the password could be obtained through a keylogger. --h2g2bob 17:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, lets see. These are the ways I can think of off the top of my head, with links to some related articles:

Guessing the password. See dictionary attack
Trying to fool the "Forgot your password?" feature on myspace (I have no idea how it works, so it might not be possible).
Sniffing the target users traffic (wouldn't work if myspace uses SSL). See packet sniffing.
Phishing
A man in the middle attack. Set yourself up as a proxy between the target user and myspace and analyze the traffic going between them. Depending on how careful a user is about clicking "This certificate doesn't match this site!" dialog boxes, this could beat SSL.
Installing a Keylogger
Insidious use of Cross site scripting, for stealing the myspace cookie.
Physically accessing someones computer. You could then steal the myspace cookie from their harddrive (assuming myspace set to log in automatically) or logging in using the victims stored password and then changing it. Or something.
...what else...what else... can't think of anything right now, but I'm probably missing tons of ways a clever hacker could do it.

BTW, I'm assuming this is a purely an exercise in intellectual curiosity, and you don't have an nefarious motives :). Probably the easiest way would be to send your friend an email saying "Check out this really neat game!", which included Tetris (or something) plus a keylogger and packet-sniffer that installed itself quietly on your friends computer (I just checked, myspace does not use SSL, so a packet sniffer would be easiest). --Oskar 14:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Ohh, and oh yeah, you could try to get access to the Myspace databases too, but that would be insanely hard. --Oskar 14:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

To expand on some of Oskar's points. MySpace does use SSL, so packet sniffing won't work. Phishing has worked before and it'll work again. There are periodically studies on how users will give away passwords for chocolate and other freebies. The SSL MitM attack method is described in more detail here. --h2g2bob 21:15, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image layout software with easy soft shadows etc.?

I've been using Photoshop to layout and make some pages where I have lots of photos and put them together as a stacked effect. However, the laziness of me prompted me to ask here, what else are there that can easily add softshadows etc., that are easily done with layer styles in Photoshop and runs under Linux? I know Xara Xtreme can do it but it's not really cross-platform and GIMP is seriously too slow, taking ages to do anything in an A3 300dpi file. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:06, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

You've asked for only things that run under Linux - so the leaves out CorelDraw s'far's I know - but Adobe (the folks that make Photoshop) have CS2 - which might be your solution if it runs on Linux. Basically, CS2is like Corel Draw, which (at a stretch) is a kind of hybrid between raster/bitmap editing and vector editing. In other words if Photoshop is good for all your images/rasters/bitmaps things, and Freehand is good at your vectors/shapes/mathematically-calculated, then CS2and CorelDraw offer a bit of a hybrid. What would be great about CS2 though is that it would be fully compatible with your Photoshop (and CorelDraw is kinda, too). Rfwoolf 12:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes that's exactly what I've been using, in Windows. Wine support for Photoshop 7 is sketchy the last time I tried it and now I'm using VMWare to virtualise Windows just to run Photoshop. But it's slow for big files and I want to find a Linux-native alternative. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] about SIM

Hi, this is a student working on a project related to mobile technology. I want to know the process in a mobile from user dialing a number; start conversation till he ends the call.From where to where and how the data flows in this process. What is the job of SIM in a mobile phone and what it stores.......

And can we access server that stores the call charges of the particular SIM(for STD,LOCAL etc.;) My project is to impose restrictions on the usage of the cell to a particular amount fixed by the owner of the cell(in cases where it is used by some other person). So; for this can we access the server...

Can any one help me..... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Boddeti (talk • contribs) 07:13, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

For SIM cards, did you see Subscriber Identity Module? --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 07:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

And don't forget about gender neutrality!!Mix Lord 23:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Downloading mail from Yahoo to Outlook Express

Could anyone tell me the method required to down load mail from my account at yahoo to my inbox in Outlook Express.

Many thanks.

John F.D'Souza

(email redacted) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.130.9.1 (talk) 10:49, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

Hello, Mr. D'Souza; I have removed your email from this entry so that it doesn't get harvested by spammers. There are two ways that I know of to access your Yahoo! mail via Outlook Express. The first is to pay extra to Yahoo! for a "Yahoo! Plus" account. The other is to use a third-party program, such as YPOPs!. There is a walkthrough on setting that up at about.com. --LarryMac 13:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

More here at Yahoo! help. --h2g2bob 02:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Installing PyXML-0.8.4 on Intel Mac

Hello,

I am trying to install PyXML-0.8.4 on my Intel Mac so I can use some of the more powerful features in Inkscape.

I've downloaded the package, but when I run "Python setup.py install" I get this error message: "error: could not delete '/sw/lib/python2.5/site-packages/_xmlplus/parsers/pyexpat.so': Permission denied"

Any suggestion on what I can do to fix this?

Thank you,

-Grey —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Grey1618 (talk • contribs) 11:01, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

sudo? --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:33, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. Can't believe I forgot Sudo. Mac has spoiled me since my linux days. Well that worked fine, but Inkscape still keeps giving me the error message: "The inkex.py module requires PyXML. Please download the latest version from <http://pyxml.sourceforge.net/>."> Any ideas? --Grey1618 14:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe this will help you? --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:53, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Sadly, I've followed those instructions to no avail. --Grey1618 06:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Laptop Vs desktop

I use the PC only to read news using bloglines and google reader. At present, I am using a HP PC with a 15 inch LCD screen. A friend said that laptop would be more convienient for reading than a desktop. He said desktops are good only for watching movies and playing games. He suggets a Dell 14 inch wide screen laptop. Should I buy a laptop? Will it be easier for me to read through a 14" widescreen laptop instead of a 15" LCD desktop? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 59.92.121.159 (talk) 12:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

There's almost no reason for normal people to buy a desktop computer any more. Even if you work at a desk, you can always "dock" your laptop and use a full-sized keyboard, mouse, and display with the laptop. The only good arguments I can still see for desktops are massive/multiple massive displays and lower entry cost. (I don't consider gamers "need for speed"/"frame rate envy" a good argument.)

Meanwhile, laptops have the distinct advantage that wherever you go, there you are: you have your usual system, your usual settings, your usual apps, and (most if not all) of your usual files.

Atlant 16:19, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Easier or more convienient? If by easier you mean less strain on your eyes when reading for long periods of time, I don't know. But if your friend did say, and mean, more convienient then they are probably right. A laptop would take up less space and be more portable than a desktop model. Plus if you have a wireless internet connection then there would be the convienience of being able to use the laptop wherever you wanted to within your home (assuming this is for home use). If you're okay with your desktop PC, then by all means continue using it. It's mostly personal preference. Also, you already have the desktop. If you got a laptop to replace something that already works and you're happy with, then that's just a large expense without much of a benefit for you. Dismas|^(talk) 16:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the "beauty" of a laptop LCD screen is dependent on the generation of technology and the quality of the OEM display that is purchased. We're a solidly-Mac household, but we recently were commissioned by the relatives to buy a PC-architecture laptop for them, and the Sony Vaio that we ended up with has a gorgeous screen. I'd imagine it's the same OEM unit that Apple is currently fitting to the MacBooks.

Atlant 11:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Whether it is easy to read depends entirely on the screens/monitors being used — some laptop screens are atrocious, some are wonderful, ditto with computer monitors. The best laptop screens I've seen so far as the new MacBook ones — very crisp and clean and bright. But these are personal preferences.

As for laptop vs. desktop, for me the main differences are (other than portability, obvious) that a laptop is much more likely to have hardware failures than a desktop if you are carting it around everywhere (it is hard to be gentle with something you are schlepping around constantly), and it is harder to upgrade a laptop (RAM is easy, but you're stuck with the same monitor you buy with it, and getting inside a laptop is a lot harder than getting inside a desktop, so even routine things like replacing a hard drive are tough). --140.247.249.200 19:23, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

A laptop is many times more likely to be lost or stolen than a desktop. For comparable performance and features, a laptop will cost quite a bit more than its desktop counterpart, approaching a factor of two. —EncMstr 19:45, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with this last comment, I would only add, that most upgrades to a laptop are custom, whereas, desktop components are gneric/standardized. Artoftransformation 03:48, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree laptops have their place but I wouldn't completely rule out desktops, further I'd add that laptops are more prone to failure and are more difficult to repair, short of just replacing the whole thing. Vespine 22:59, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

If you don't smash the LCD, or drop the laptop on the floor, or spill your lunch or beverage into it, I see no evidence that laptops are notably less reliable than desktops or mini-towers. But it is, of course, up to each person to determine if they are a klutz.

Atlant 11:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Java question related with keyword

java programming language keyword total 52 .. what is the use of goto and const keyword in java. now it's not use but why not drop these keyword... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.17.76.81 (talk) 13:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC).

They are reserved keywords though, as you say, they are unused. I can only speculate as to their inclusion; perhaps they exist in case someone at Sun becomes completely evil and decides that Java should support the goto construct. Someone else might have a better explanation. -- mattb @ 2007-03-30T13:57Z

I think that even though they are unused, they are constantly supported so that older programs can still be compiled? Not sure if goto is depreciated (const is via static final), but as far as I know, Java will always support depreciated stuff. x42bn6 Talk 15:11, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Java has never supported the goto construct as far as I'm aware. -- mattb @ 2007-03-30T15:47Z

According to the Java Language Specification, "The keywords const and goto are reserved, even though they are not currently used. This may allow a Java compiler to produce better error messages if these C++ keywords incorrectly appear." That's pretty much directly from the guy who created the language, so I think it is the best explanation to be found. --LarryMac 16:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia sound files

When I click on an .ogg sound file from an article, it brings up Windows Media Player. There I can listen to it multiple times and save it to the WMP libray to listen to it in the future. Is there any way to open the files to iTunes instead and possibly add it to my iPod? Thanks!! Reywas92^Talk 17:18, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

iTunes doesn't support Ogg by default, but there are a number of plugins available. [5] ~ Amalas rawr ^{=^_^=} 17:30, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Grim Fandango installation

Hi, is anyone familiar with the game Grim Fandango and the installation of it? Whenever I click "Install", it gets the hourglass mouse, but then the menu completely disappears and nothing happens. I tried opening My Computer, right-clicking on the icon and clicking Explore. Then I looked through the INSTALL folder, but clicking on various promising-looking things in here didn't do anything. So then I looked through the GRIMDATA folder. There's a file called GRIMFANDANGO. I clicked on that and a screen with a picture came up, with a loading sign in the bottom right. Then the screen went black and I opened Task Manager. I could see that this message had appeared:

res.c (2075): (int)fh > 0&& (int)fh <= MAX_OPEN_FILES

I don't know what this means and Google searches turn up nothing. I had to click OK. When I do this it says that the program encountered an error and needed to close. Does anyone know of any solution to this problem or what the error message means? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Bioarchie1234 20:16, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Reading the little line, it appears that either the app could not open the file it was looking for, or it ran out of file handles (unlikely). Splintercellguy 20:50, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

i have to assume you're using windows XP? the game wasn't designed to be run on XP, and so you have to do some manipulation and trickery to get XP to run it properly. i did a bit of searching, and found some people who had gotten it to work. there's no clear cut instructions, but if you're fairly computer literate, there's some good forums that look like they'll help you figure it out in a quick and easy google search. http://www.google.com/search?q=%22grim+fandango%22+xp --64.0.112.75 22:21, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah there's also a patch that they released for faster computers which you might want to download. I do believe I saw an installer / loader out there that might be just what you're looking for - perhaps googl those terms "Grim Fandango" + "Loader"
or "Grim Fadango" + "Instaler"
or "Grim Fandang" + "patch"
Rfwoolf 11:18, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] March 31

[edit] Sharing /home between two linux installations

Someone on the Ubuntu forum said that it is inadvisable to share the /home partition between two different Linux installs because this directory is used for program settings and can cause conflicts if programs on both installs are editing the same files. Is this the case? Will I really need to split my /home partition in two peices to have two installs on the same machine? --Seans Potato Business 01:58, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Some applications do nasty things, and install libraries in the user directories. If your /home only has documents and no binaries or settings, you should be fine, but everyonce and a while, you might run into a hidden file or other weirdness. I think that Mozilla is an example of one of these applications, but I dont see any specific problems, since the plugins are mostly non-speficic, but I ran into a problem, with a flash install and a ubuntu/fedora mix. Flash installed and ran perfectly under fedora, but would not work under ubuntu. Deleting the application, and installing it under ubuntu, and then getting flash to work under that, then switching back to fedora fixed it, but it was a real head scratcher. It was all a hack to get real audio to work, from a radio station that had their real media front end driven by flash. Worse thing is an application has a user component that might crash upon booting, but you should keep your linux installs handy. ( Hint: I use gentoo/old redhat/ and didnt get the same problem ). Artoftransformation 03:40, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

For just file storage, it won't be a problem, but sharing config files for the same user might be tricky. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.152.116 (talk) 05:47, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

You can always have different home directories(per distro) within the same /home partition. You could even have your rc scripts rename dotfiles/whatever as needed. I personally would share the home partition and only put out fires when/if problems happen. Most of the time you will be running similar programs in different distros, so they should usually handle user config files written under a different distro without problem. Obviously YMMV so look in your home directories and find out what's important. -- Diletante 16:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] object oeriented programming

what is object oriented programming in C++ ?203.145.188.131 02:01, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Confusing. :-) StuRat 20:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The articles on Object-oriented programming and C++ explain it. -- Diletante 02:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Torpark

Just to clarify, if I use Torpark, I know outside people can't see what I'm accessing, but can my systems administrator who controls my router? 82.34.242.138 02:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Your admin would be able see the encypted traffic to the tor onion routers address, but he could not be able to tell what specific addresses you were accessing through those routers. So, no. —Mitaphane _?|! 02:45, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

If you need encryption, use SSH. Splintercellguy 23:07, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Or just use Torpark, which he is doing. Why would you use both? --Oskar 13:42, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Which is faster? Internal PATA or External Firewire 800?

I'm considering upgrading my Mac's hard drives. I was curious which hard drives are faster (all things being equal): Internal P-ATA or external Firewire 800? FW800 seems like it would have the overhead of the FW800 bridge, while P-ATA is well, parallel. --72.202.150.92 02:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't really matter as ordinary harddrives cannot saturate either of them. If you need to move it around, get a firewire one, otherwise get a PATA one. --antilived^{T | C | G} 03:52, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Free Vector Graphics Editors

Does anybody know of any good quality free Vector Graphics editors (ones which have good tutorials would be a bonus). Ideally something of the quality of GIMP or Blender, but for vector graphics. --Kiltman67 04:33, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Inkscape. Easy to use, produces SVGs (the standard open vector format; Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites support them natively, as do Firefox and other browsers to an extent), and so forth. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:42, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Xara Xtreme is another one, though I haven't used it. I'm an Inkscape fan myself. We also have an article on comparison of vector graphics editors. --24.147.86.187 00:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trialware

How can you have the trialware forever without registering or ordering it?Dudforreal 08:17, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well you can't really. That's how developers make their money. In some cases the developers are kind enough to provide more than just a DEMO verion of their applications, or a limited/restricted version of their programs- instead they give you the full program in trial mode, that just stops working after a few days. Then if you decide you still need it, you buy it.

That said, there are illegal ways of overcoming the trial limitations - by reverse engineering the software, or findin an illegal registration key/serial number, or a 'cracked' copy off the net. But I must strongly advise you, if you can afford to buy the actual software legally, please do so. And even if you can't afford to, then look for a free alterntive. Rfwoolf 11:15, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clock on computer

How can you change the time on the computer to anything you want?––Dudforreal 08:29, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's assume you're using Windows... right-click on the clock display and select adjust date/time. --Multivitamin 09:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You can also edit the time in your system BIOS - with some discretion, you have to be careful about everything you do when editing the System BIOS - when your computer is booting up, there will usually be something saying "Press F2 to edit the Sytem BIOS" - on some sytems it may be pressing the DEL key. Then carefully and gingerly edit your time and date settings, before selecting "SAVE AND EXIT" - but be careful about fiddling with other settings, it could cause your computer to stop operating - if you've fiddled with something and you're unsure, simply power your computer off - or hit the reset button - or Ctrl + Alt + Delete - or select "Exit WITHOUT Saving". Rfwoolf 11:11, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Of course, if your trialware is smart enough to keep track of "runtime hours", even this trick won't allow you to keep illegally running the trial forever.

Atlant 11:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Downloading automatically nested files

Hi. I can see the files in the folder of an Apache server. Those files are pdf files, and they are quite a lot, I would get pretty tired if I downloaded all one by one, right clicking and so in each one. Do you know any way to do this automatically? Something like, OK, download everything in this folder and its sub folders. Thanks in advance. --Taraborn 09:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Just trying to help here, have you heard of an FTP application like FileZilla (freeware), where you can select all the files you want and right-click and say "Download" and it wll one by one download them for you. Rfwoolf 11:30, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You can use a program called HTTrack web site copier. You give it your URL of the directory, and ask it to gather onelevel of files. It will then download the complete list. On Linix or unix systems or possibly windows there is wget also. GB 11:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Or indeed Down Them All, which is free software (GPL'd). If all these files are on seperate pages, you'd need a web crawler. --h2g2bob 02:39, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I always used wget as I see another mentioned (there are windows versions). You just set it to recurse, not to recurse up the directory (or off website) the retry count, and the recursion level and you're pretty well set. Wget has lots of useful parameters (taking files as input lists, etc). Root⁴(one) 15:31, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I usually use wget too, if you need more control, like deleting local files that are not on the server lftp comes in handy. -- Diletante 16:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XP Home and XP Pro

If I had a computer with legal XP home installed and working and tried to install a bootlegg version of XP Pro over it, what would happen? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.110.49.118 (talk) 17:16, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

It would work fine, but probably fail Windows Genuine Advantage. Splintercellguy 18:49, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

So that means I wouldnt get the free updates etc? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.110.49.118 (talk • contribs).

I remember reading that Microsoft allows critical security updates (bug fixes) to install in illegal installations, but you won't be able to upgrade software like Media Player. -- ReyBrujo 19:23, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

OK Many thanks to all respondents for that info. Now the final (killer) question: Is it worth doing???

If you have to ask, probably not. Not trying to be condescending, but Pro really doesn't add much for the average user. "The most common editions of the operating system are Windows XP Home Edition, which is targeted at home users, and Windows XP Professional, which has additional features such as support for Windows Server domains and dual processors, and is targeted at power users and business clients." In other words, if you currently have no reason yourself to want XP Pro, then no, it's not worth it. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 19:43, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

My two cents are that it's a lot of hastle to do and basically voids your XP Home, which you've presumably paid for (or which came with the PC). There's no real need to, and most things which Pro can do can also be done through third party software [other than the component stuff]. For instance, remote desktop - so so so many different programs for that. JoshHolloway 19:50, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Well thank you all so much for that advice. I got the answer I was (sort of) hoping for. Arent the reference desks volunteers helpful and knowledgable!!

[edit] How to get a UK ip address in the States

I would like to be able to be able to stream tv shows from UK websites, Channel 4, for example. However, I need to have a UK ip address to be able to do so. Being that I am in the US, this is a problem.

Is there anyway I can obtain a UK ip address, through tunelling, proxies, vpn, or something else? If you can help, it would be much appreciated.

what about finding a proxy located somewhere like london and use that? It might be slow though...Coolotter88 21:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Just search for an open proxy in the UK. --h2g2bob 02:32, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Similarly you can use tor, specify UK exit nodes in the config and if you don't care about strong anonmity you can set the number of hops down to 1 and it should work like any other proxy. (note: i have never done this) -- Diletante 16:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] html/css: wordwrapping so lines are equal length

So, I have have a table cell (or any other rectangular container of text). I write a long stream of text-- one that's too wide to fit on one line. The browser will word-wrap and create two lines: the top one will be as wide as possible, the bottom line will contain the remainder of the text. For most purposes, this is fine, but in some cases, it's ugly having one huge line above one tiny one.

Suppose I instead wanted the text to wrap in such a way that the top and bottom lines were roughtly of equal width. Just inserting line breaks on my own isn't possible, of course, because I don't know how wide the browser will be. Is there anyway to do this? --Wouldbewebmaster 21:31, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose you could set the property text-align:justify for each TD. However this only works for every line, except the last one. So if your table cells were only two lines of text, it would still be off. —Mitaphane _?|! 23:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Trying To Run Program - should be simple

I compiled my "hello world" program, and tried to run it:

sean@linux-vqrj:~/Desktop> gcc hello.c
sean@linux-vqrj:~/Desktop> a.out
bash: a.out: command not found

Why wont it run? I'm using openSUSE 10.2 --Seans Potato Business 23:08, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Without specifying an output executable, won't GCC default to hello.out? I think that's the problem. —Mitaphane _?|! 23:36, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it defaults to a.out. However, you haven't set your path, therefore everytime you want to run a program that is in the current directory, you will have to type ./ before it. Thus, to run your program, try ./a.out -- ReyBrujo 23:41, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it'll either be ./a.out, or it will need chmod a+x a.out to set it to execute permissions (which it should be from gcc, so it's probably the first one). --h2g2bob 02:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Correct, it should be ./a.out in bash. You're probably used to CSH or something where you just type a.out. I was confused when I first switched to bash too. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

It's not a shell thing. It's a path thing. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 58.163.152.116 (talk) 05:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

./a.out You shouldn't have to set permissions, gcc does that for you right? Well, it does for me.--71.195.124.101 04:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

And if it didn't set executable permissions, you wouldn't be able to run it anyway. So that is obviously not the issue. --Spoon! 09:50, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

IIRC the reason that the current directory is generally not placed in the path just because if you change directories to a directory with a trojan ls or dir command, and then attempt to execute ls, you'd possibly be executing that ls instead of ls proper. A smart guy would write his trojanized ls so that ls wouldn't even be visible to itself (at least for most uses of ls). It might even do its thing and delete itself. Therefore, its possible you'd never even know your computer was briefly hijacked! You possibly can get away with adding the current directory to the path if you reorder the path (maybe prepending "." to the path instead of of appending it, I don't recall which), but still, it is just easer, probably more secure, and more conventional to just remember to type ./foo Root⁴(one) 22:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April 1

[edit] Clear browser cache from JavaScript

For the Wikipedia in-browser editor wikEd I am looking for a an automatic updating mechanism. Since MediaWiki user scrips are updated by flushing the browser cache, my question is: Is it possible to clear the browser's cache from within a JavaScript (this is different from clearing the Wikipedia server page cache). Cacycle 03:18, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I highly doubt it, since it would be a potential security risk. Even if it wasn't, people would probably not appreciate if any web page could clear their browser cache at will. One solution could be writing a browser extension to do it. --Nitku 12:25, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

(Re-)loading a script while bypassing the browser's cache would do the same - this does not look like a security risk. Cacycle 13:30, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Looking for a GIF animator

A lot of times I try to make stop motion videos with my digital camera. I was wondering if anyone knows of an GIF animator I could use that will automatically process each JPEG, instead of most programs I find where I have to select them one by one. Thanks in advance.

QWERTY | Dvorak 05:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

mplayer/MEncoder accepts lists of images as input. -- Diletante 16:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Multicolor Fill Effects Gone in Powerpoint 2007

I'm using Powerpoint 2007 for the first time, and unless it's just me, I can't seem to find how to use more than one color for a slide background. The fill box only seems to accept one color. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 17:36, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm using PowerPoint 2000. I would right-click on the slide. Click Background. A window should appear. Click on the arrow below the "background-fill box". Click "Fill Effects." In the "Colors" section, check the circle that says "Two Colors". Then, select the shading style you wish. Once you've selected the shading style you want, click OK. You should be back to your original Background window. Click the "Apply" or "Apply to All" button. Now, you should have a multicolor fill effect slide. I hope this helps. Mayfare 19:16, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Office 2007 though is highly different (apparently) from earlier versions (at least according to the press). I'm not sure that will apply. (The 2007 "improvements" sound awful to me.) --24.147.86.187 23:23, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I know how to do it in previous versions. I think in 2007 it was replaced by "gradients". I thought the previous way was easier but the rest of Powerpoint is actually good compared to older versions (no new custom animations though). --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@ 00:05, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] HP Deskjet 3420 Printer

Whenever I print an image, the printer is unusually slow. Eventually, it stops printing. My printer connections are correctly and securely connected. This hasn't been the first time it happened. It's been a week. Thanks very much for responding. Mayfare 19:09, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Is your computer fairly old? If you are running on a older computer, or are using a older connection (serial, USB 1.0, etc.) you may not have proper data flow. Scepia 23:33, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your advice. However, a couple of years ago, I had the same printer and the same "old" computer; it printed images fine. Mayfare 02:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You might need to check the drivers. Splintercellguy 04:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Task manager

Is there a way to configure the Windows XP task manager not to run certain programs? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.100.167.232 (talk) 19:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC).

Can you clarify? Are you talking about disabling programs from automatically starting on when Windows is booted, or are you talking about preventing a program from ever running (even if a user gives the command to run it)? If it is the later, you can use msconfig to disable autostart programs and window services. —Mitaphane _?|! 19:49, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm talking about application programs whether the attempt to run them is manual or automatic at startup or later on - similar to the way you can block access to any web site by placing its URL in the restricted site list. Nebraska bob 20:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You can change the programs which run when windows starts up with MSConfig. Go to Start -> run -> msconfig -> Click the "Startup" tab at the top -> Untick everything you don't want to run. You can also change services that run in the Services tab. Do not change anything in SYSTEM.INI, BOOT.INI or WIN.INI unless you know what you're doing. JoshHolloway 12:02, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ATA-48 / Solaris 10 / Sun Blade 100

Do I need hardware support for (P)ATA-48 (> 137 GB) hard drives. And more specifically can I install such drives in my Sun Blade 100 running Solaris 10? —Ruud 22:45, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

You need software support, both in the firmware and on the operating system. --cesarb 00:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] life's little frustrations

Who thought it was a good idea for commands like more, emacs, and less to clear the screen when they exit, so that you can't make any use of anything you might just have been looking at (such as a man page)? What do other people do about this insane annoyance? (I do know how to fix it -- create a custom termcap entry without the "reset terminal" sequence in the "exit visual mode" string -- but it's a nuisance and somewhat problematic.) —Steve Summit (talk) 23:10, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

The first part of your question (who thought it was a good idea) is too hard for me. If you're using xterm, there is another way to get rid of the effect without editing termcap and terminfo by hand. Add "XTerm*titeInhibit: true" to your .Xresources or .Xdefaults to make it do the termcap/terminfo mangling automatically. If you use a different terminal emulator and it doesn't have an equivalent option, you can at least get less to behave properly by putting LESS=-X in your environment. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 06:58, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Curious. On Solaris, more/less doesn't clear the screen upon either a "q" exit or upon its exit after displaying the entire file. (And no, I have no alias covering either command.) Nor does vi (and I don't recall what emacs does).

Atlant 11:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes that behavior is very annoying. Since these days I am always in X I usually just open a new terminal window. Would there be other, unwanted side-effects with the termcap solution? -- Diletante 14:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I open a new terminal window if I'm in X, or just switch sessions if I'm in the terminal (alt and they f-keys I believe)

Koriar 17:30, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

And a different behaviour again from an old version of Linux - more does not clear the screen at the end, and less does.

There is an option -d, to make less dumb, so it does not clear the screen. Do less -d filename. Or you can do

LESS="-d";export LESS

to set the default option to dumb for use in less or man outputs. Then you do not have to add in -d on each use of less. GB 00:48, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proxies

Is there any program or setup that will prevent proxy servers from being used on forum sites? I know there's hundreds of thousands of them, but I would imagine that there's a way to block a lot of them. --69.144.234.146 00:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You could find a list of open proxies (there is one on Wikipedia - which does not allow open proxy editing - see Category:Open proxies blocked on Wikipedia - but a little bit of Googling shouldn't be too hard) but open proxies are being created all the time, and you do have to remember that for large forums, you risk a lot of collateral damage. When I run my forum, I just block the problematic ones when they appear. As for blocking them, vBulletin I know for sure offers IP blocking. If you own a server, you can block the IPs at the server-level via iptables or a firewall. x42bn6 Talk 02:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] April 2

[edit] RAM

I know a guy with a laptop who claims he can use hard drive space as RAM, so he can get like 10GB of RAM. Does anyone know if this is possible? I don't believe him Mix Lord 00:40, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

See virtual memory. --cesarb 00:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Any machine can do that, though physical memory is always better. Splintercellguy 03:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Once upon a time, a quintessentially moronic newbie remark was, "Virtual memory? Coool! Now I can make me a really big RAM disk!" —Steve Summit (talk) 04:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

What steve is trying to say in a satirical way is that while you can make a large virtual memory for your computer, hard disks are limited in their speed compared to RAM. RAM has no moving parts, but hard drives require motion, and are therefore limited to the speed at which these parts can move. See the virtual memory article, and hard drive.--Russoc4 15:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

A DVD, CD, or even diskette can also be used as a "RAM disk", to provide extended memory. Of course, as with hard disks, this makes things run much slower. StuRat 20:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Okay thanksMix Lord 00:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Allowing DVD player, Video game system, and cable box to run on same TV.

Anyone know how to? Currently the guys that put the cable box in, I didn't have a cable box before, made it so the DVD player would run on Video1, same as before. They set the cable box to component 1, so therefore right now, I can't record TV. Now, I believe that if I plugged out the video game system out of the DVD player (yellow white red jacks), I could allow my DVD/VHS recorder to record the TV, currently I can only play DVD's/VHS's. But then of course I couldn't run the video game system. Can anyone think of a solution? (This is the most accurate topic area I could find, thought it would be better than Miscellaneous.) 71.175.79.130 02:21, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Does your TV have a TV-out or something like that? If you connect that to your VHS then it can record whatever that's on your TV. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

OK I figured it out, but do you know if plugging in your cable box composite cables into your DVD player, then plugging av cables into your television distorts the HD picture? Also, before doing this my HD was coming in full screen, but now comes in wide screen. I mean I compared the HD and standard and the HD seems better, but do you know if it distorts it at all? 71.175.79.130 17:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

That is bad as you basically wasted your component connection, which means you now cannot get HD signals into your TV. I haven't tinker with the VHS/DVD combo players too much but I doubt any of them can relay component video without lost (assuming that you use component both from yoru cable box to your VHS/DVD and from there to your TV). --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cable Question

i am trying to get high speed cable internet in my home however i have two cables to the outside of my house. on the outside layer of one cable it says CATV on the other it says digital satellite which was iniatialy connected to a DISH network dish but was disconnected which one of the cables would work?--logger 03:37, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Unless things are drastically different where you are as compared to every place that I've lived, you would not have to hook up your own cable internet. Your cable company or your ISP would normally do the outside work for you and then you would hook up the modem, router, etc. yourself from a cable jack inside your house. Or am I misunderstanding what you're doing? Dismas|^(talk) 03:41, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

i am trying to use comcast to do the intenet they appear to have service in my area because i see CATV cables in my house. what i want to know is if the CATV cable would work without the need of a professional.--logger 03:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you've already signed up for their services and it's all setup, all you have to do is hook the cable modem to the jack. Splintercellguy 04:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

should be getting the stuff this week has not yet shipped but should ship soon.--logger 04:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Cable modems require a high-quality (broadband) coaxial cable line; when we had one installed, the Cable Guy pulled in a new line that extended from the pole to their splitter in our basement and thence on to the cable modem itself (that we provided). They also put in a trap, downstream of which we connected the rest of the house's older CATV wiring. They advised us that putting any clunky old (e.g., RG-59) cable in the way of the modem would probably cause it to not work so well.

Atlant 14:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

When ours was run, they also had to turn up the signal at the main line. It was too weak and we weren't getting synced on the cable modem. I helped it out further by removing the splitters in the crawlspace that were being used as end-to-end connectors and replacing it all with one long cable. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] what is

that little image in the left hand side of the web address bar called? (on wikipedia it's a 'W')--Honeymane_{Heghlu meH QaQ jajvam} 04:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I call it a favicon. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:49, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

That's because it is a favicon. --Russoc4 15:19, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Aha! Good to know. :-) —Steve Summit (talk) 16:00, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] XP and available RAM

What is the miniumum actual ram (not recommended values etc) I would need to run XP home on my old computer? O yes, and why?--SlipperyHippo 15:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft says 64 Mb. But even at 128 Mb, Windows XP is painfully slow, taking several minutes to start up and shut down with a few programs installed. x42bn6 Talk 15:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

OK Ive got 192M and I cant even get XP to install so it shouldnt be a memory problem? I should say that I have MagnaRAM running. Is this likely to cause a problem?--SlipperyHippo 20:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

XP should certainly install with 192M. Are you trying to upgrade? Why not just format and install from the cd? A clean install is always better IMO. If you want to keep your data, I would still suggest backing up your important files, then doing a clean install. Sandman30s 21:32, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

256M to get it running smoothly and 512M (minimum) if you want to play games that load large levels at a time such as first person shooters, or work with large pictures or videos. Of course it always depends what you want to do with your old computer. The moment you notice a lot of page swapping going on, it's a sign you need more RAM. RAM is cheap so why not just get 512M, you won't regret it. Modern PC's come standard with 1G; and 2G is not uncommon. Sandman30s 21:24, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hardware for reading PDF files

Hi. I read LOTS of electronic books and it's an annoyance having to sit in front of the computer to just read them. Printing them isn't a possibility, due to logistic problems. I was thinking in something like a PDA, but it apparently has much more features than I would need. What do you think? Do you know any hardware that would fit my needs? Thanks in advance. --Taraborn 16:34, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't an electronic book suffice? --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:54, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds fine... but is that hardware commonly available and allows information to be uploaded to it from the main computer? Thank you very much for your response. --Taraborn 09:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes. The electronic book article even includes a list of available products, such as the Sony Reader which comes with software to move files from your computer to the book. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SQL query

Using mySQL, I am trying to find a way to select both a random number and that random number multiplied by a column in my table. I have got as far as

SELECT RAND(),RAND();

which outputs

+------------------+--------------------+
| RAND()           | RAND()             |
+------------------+--------------------+
| 0.74826139095077 | 0.0067676957759705 | 
+------------------+--------------------+

which obviously isn't what I want. A different query,

SELECT RAND() as number,number;

would, I hope, select the same random number twice. However, it only gives

ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'number' in 'field list'

Does anyone know how to do what I'm trying to do here?

Many thanks, Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 21:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Did you try

   SELECT RAND() as mynumber, mytable.foo_number as tableval, (mynumber * tableval) as myresult

by chance? dr.ef.tymac 21:50, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Same error, I'm afraid... Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 21:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

You can use a subquery.

select rand1.number,rand1.number from (select rand() as number ) as rand1;

look at the docs on the mysql website because i might be doing something silly for all i know. -- Diletante 22:09, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Super, that's exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks! Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 10:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ask.com Service

Does Ask.com offer a paid service? 68.193.147.179 22:25, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Research Services

What are some paid research services? 68.193.147.179 22:26, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Your question is too broad or general, please clarify by explaining what sort of information you are looking for
For example, certain companies may do market research, where they may interview their customers. There are telephone research companies that will telephone people and ask to do a survey. There's medical research. There's research for film where you need to come up with examples of ideas for things. There's research as in fact-finding, like Google Answers, where you might have to research certain facts of information from a series of data. Your question is far too non-specific. Rfwoolf 12:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TiVo on iO cable

Can you run TiVo on iO cable? 68.193.147.179 22:28, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

They have their own DVR recievers. It's just like TiVo. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 03:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Text messaging

I know that it is possible to:

Send a text message from a phone number to another phone number.
Send a text message from a phone number to an e-mail address.

But how do I send a text message from an e-mail address to a phone number? Is it even possible? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 155.43.52.21 (talk) 22:47, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

It is possible if the telephone service attaches an email address to the telephone's text messaging service. Most do not do this because nobody wants to pay for spam-text constantly clogging up their phones. --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:08, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, first of all any phone that is web-enabled can send and receive email - but it does this quite literally through the internet, just as you would ordinarily send and receive an email on a PC - it simply connets to the internet to their email service, provides their account details (such as email address, username and password) and uses the relevant email protocol to connect and download the email.
But I think you are asking if it's possible to send an email to a phone and have it arrive as an SMS. It is certainly possible - but depends on your service provider. Some service providers will allow you to create an account like 0825557779@vodacom.co.za - and when an email gets sent to that address it would send an SMS to that number with the text of the email. But certainly not all service providers provide this service - in fact these days it would be pretty uncommon for them to do that because they want to encourage people to buy web-enabled phones and to subscribe to WAP and other cell-phone internet services.
Oh and one more possibility... SOME service providers will allow you to send a free SMS to one of their subscribers - and you'd do that through their website - but like I say, only if they offer this feature. Generally if they do offer that feature it's just a service that they offer to their existing subscribers, to be able to send a free SMS to another one of their subscribers.
Hope that all helps. Just by the way 'SMS' stands for Short Message Service - which is the standard TEXT message that people use to message eachother on phones - but certain western countries have corrupted this term by using the word "TEXT" instead, as in "Just text your mate" - which is fine, but the actual service was originally called SMS. Rfwoolf 12:01, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pandemonium 1 does not work

I just got the game Pandemonium. I tried to run it but it does not work. I searched online and I read something about using a Glide wrapper. So I downloaded dgVoodoo and I placed the DLL files in the Pandemonium directory. However, the game still does not work. Whenever I run it, it gets to the title screen but it quits a second later. Please help. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Metroman (talk • contribs) 23:44, 2 April 2007 (UTC).

[edit] April 3

[edit] Geforce 8800, Soundcards.

Does anyone know if the Geforce 8800 needs two PCI-e cables (from the PSU), or just one? Secondly, do sound cards need a connector from the PSU, or is the power supplied by the motherboard enough? (The card in question, if it matters, is Chaintech AV710.) Froglars the frog 03:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

In general, no, the motherboard powers the soundcard. The only extra cabling is the one going from CD/DVD-ROM drives to the sound card, which is for... I forgot. Either direct analog or digital connection. And for the GeForce 8800, do you mean the SLI cable? If so, see the last question of the nVidia faq. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 04:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the OP means the extra power cables from the PSU that goes into PCI-e graphics cards, which I think the 8800GT needs 1, and the GTX needs 2. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] backing up files

does anybody know of a simple, free program that will synchronize my computer files with a backup file in an external hard drive? thanks. i've tried just copying and pasting, but this requires all the files to be rewritten. --Gujarat10 06:05, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

What is your operating system? I use rdiff-backup to backup my computer. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:44, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you have Windows Vista, it comes with an automatic backup called "Backup and Restore Center". --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:06, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google summaries

When you search for, say, "douglas adams" on google, you will get Wikipedia entry listed quite above. What is interesting is the information below it:

Douglas Adams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Provides information about the "Hitchhiker" author and his work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams - 162k - Cached - Similar pages - Filter

But there is no such sentence in the whole web page! (I am talking about the HTML source). So from where does this sentence comes from? Is some one at google writing this up? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Scheibenzahl (talk • contribs) 09:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

Google Directory/dmoz I think. Search for Douglas Adams Wikipedia on either of them (they use the same index) and you'll get the same snippet. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 12:32, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] to send as a mail

how to send this page as an email —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.8.139.98 (talk) 10:24, 3 April 2007 (UTC).

There are two options (that I can think of). Email the the URL, or save the page on your hard disk and email the file (but images won't show up). - Akamad 11:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to email THIS COPY of the page, click "Permanent link" in the "toolbox" on the left. An example of this can be found here. JoshHolloway 12:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Vista compatibility.

I'm building a new PC and I'm debating whether or not to use Windows Vista. Will game performance be lesser on Vista, due to the higher requirements, Aero, superfetch, etc? How much XP software is incompatible with Vista? Some of the essential apps I run are foobar2000, Nero, DVD Shrink, uTorrent, Knights of the Old Republic 1 + 2, Firefox, VLC Media Player, The Sims 2, Fallout 1 + 2, Call of Cthulhu, Desperate Housewives game, Last.fm, Half-life 2/Counter-strike Source, Battlefield 1942, and ePSXe -- do any of these have issues on Vista? I know I could have googled for some of this information, but a lot of what I found was untrustworthy (things like "works" and "fails" without giving any details, out of date, etc). I'd appreciate any response. Cheers. Pesapluvo 13:49, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Most programs run in Vista, and there's also a capability mode like in Windows XP, so you can run the program as if it was running in XP. --TeckWiz ^ParlateContribs_@(Lets go Yankees!) 14:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

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