Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Reference Desk

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August 4

media players and burners

ok, i have 2 questions, first is there a media burner that could burn different kinds of formats such as .mkv|.rmbv|.avi etc.? Cause i'm doing this project where i have to combine this 2 video, one is avi and the other is .mkv, and windvd creator 2 doesn't accept the .mkv one, any solutions for this?

Also, is there a media player that could play both files, so that you could group them into playlists... the only trouble for me is the .mkv ones or the matroska ones... thx in advance...

If memory serves, both .avi and .mkv are container formats, not video formats, so it should be relatively easy to convert one to another. It is said that virtualdubmod can perform this for you. Here is a random posting that seems to contain instructions in a sense of the word. But with a little toying around it shouldn't be hard... digfarenough (talk) 04:22, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

For playback, try Media Player Classic or VLC media player. They both have playlist and MKV support. - mako 08:00, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

xms

what is xms for mobile?

I think several providers use this abbreviation, usually to mean an extention or enhancement for the SMS system. An example is Xecure Message Service, an encrypted version of SMS. --Canley 06:27, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks canley.. are there any user reviews for this system?

music file !!!

music file !!! hi, i have a music file that is a "CLASS.File". i've got no clue what software to open it with. what programme can download of the net that is not a shareware or a trial. thanks - DAVE

did you try mplayer?Jon513 08:47, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, it's been said that mplayer can play everything, and from my experience, it has. More details about the file in question would be helpful; if it is truly a *.class file, then what you have is compiled Java bytecode, not a music file. -- Daverocks (talk) 10:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, you might not want to run it unless you are sure it is a music file. You didn't, per chance, download it from a Peer-to-peer service did you? There are many viruses on those places which people try to make look like music files, often by using lesser-known scripting extensions (like .vbs). --Fastfission 15:31, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

I was thinking that it a another type of media file that has accidently been renamed to .class If that is the case mplayer can still play it since it looks that the file header not the file extension. Jon513 15:41, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Open it in a hex editor. If the first five bytes are CA FE BA BE 00, you have a Java bytecode file. Congratulations, Dave. You're screwed. [1] --Optichan 17:12, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

SLA base pricing

Hello - I'm reviewing proposals for sourcing IT Infrastructure Services (Distributed Services, Help Desk, etc.). All potential providers used the cost model my company requested, but one stated that theirs is SLA based pricing. Can someone provide me with some background on this methodology and let me know what the trigger ponts are for negotiating? Thank you.

SLA = Service Level Agreement. SLA Pricing includes the equipment and people in an attempt to be all-encompassing. It can be good, letting you know how much support will be. It can be bad - telling you to go with the Windows server because the cost of service on a Redhat server will be a million times more. Youth in Asia 14:59, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

C# question

I'm writing a simple console application in c# which needs to handle very large numbers where every digit is signifigant. Does anyone know of a good arbitrary-precision class for c#. Efficiency is not an issue as I have lots of computing resources, but a very high (or none at all) overflow is critical. Thanks, 48v 17:53, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Try looking at the BigInteger and BigDecimal classes. --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:56, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. The second part of the question is this: Is it possible to index a List (System.generics) or an array with something larger than the 32-bit integer? 48v 18:06, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

It sure sounds like the data you're proposing to store is intrinsically sparse, so you probably want to use C#'s implementation of an associative array (a hashtable). You certainly don't want to be declaring a regular array with four billion members, never mind a bigger one yet. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:51, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. In fact, the 32 Bit integer in C# overflows around 2 billion, and yes, I'd like to have a list 5 or 10 billion elements long. Thus the difficulty. I can use an array if necessary, although using a list saves some complexity and code if it is possible to use a different indexer there. I do have non-default values for every entry; the data is not sparse, just a very large set. Thanks for the pointer to the associative array, I'm not clear on if that is still restricted to a 32 bit integer, but I will persue it further if a way to continue using the list or array functions does nto turn up soon. 48v 08:35, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

If your dataset truly is that size (wow), then any kind of in-memory storage is going to explode - even 2 billion entries (assuming a fairly conservative 16 bytes per object, including all the inevitable overhead placed on it by the allocator) would take 32 gigabytes of RAM/swap. Even in the event that the OS does let you allocate all that, performance is going to be soul destroyingly bad. It's much better, surely, to use a smart storage manager, and if you just want "giant array" then you'll do no better than Berkeley DB, for which there is a dotNET wrapper. It handles vast tables (up to 256 TB, they claim) and is very fast. I can't speak for the programming paradigm they use for it on C#, but in python it's just the same as the associative array syntax - so once one has declared it, one can treat it as if its in memory, and the BDB engine takes care of swapping and caching (and in a much smarter way than the windows pager would do). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 09:39, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll try that. I didn't realise that the memory was quite that extreem. (apparently it isn't linear because of how it's alloted/wrapped?) Thanks for the help and patience! 48v 15:51, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Info from IP

How do you find a telephone number, street adress, or email adress from an IP. I can't find a whois that can tell me. Thanks *Max* 18:57, 4 August 2006 (UTC).

In general, you can't. IP addresses are often shared by many users. You can, however, find out who owns the block of IPs that the given IP is a part of, then attempt to contact the owner of that block (probably you can find something online to tell you, usually I just do a traceroute on the IP and see which network it ends up in). On a related note, for a registered domain name, that information for the person who owns the domain is usually available (e.g. through whois). Maybe someone else can provide better information... digfarenough (talk) 19:32, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Fortunately for privacy, 99.9% of the stuff you see in movies is utter crap. --mboverload@ 06:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Does this help? --Yanwen 18:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

You can't. --Proficient 04:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Converter WMA..............

Hi, can you tell me any free software which can convert formats into WMA formats ???

Thank you --Sangeeth 21:36, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

You would be way better out redownloading the file. Converting from one format to another makes already crappy music files sound even worse. --mboverload@ 06:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Google for "WMA converter". Done. By the way, transcoding lossy files is evil.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 15:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Windows media encoder is freeely downloadable from the microsoft web site. If you are going to transcode, it's a fairly good tool (assuming you're running windows.) 48v 15:45, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Robots

I recently have become very intrested in robotics. My question is how I can get a robot to make decisions from video such as retrieving objects? I have heard of this done before in competitions where the robot retrieved cans and brought them back to a designated location.

It'll take quite a bit of work if you're starting from scratch. Let's try to make it as easy as possible. You don't want to actually use a hand or something like that to pick up objects, you're much better off with a magnet (an electromagnet if you want it to be able to drop things later). The arm the magnet is on should have very little freedom of movement, probably one degree of freedom is best (say, rotating in a vertical plane from straight ahead to angled down, touching the ground). Presumably this is a wheeled robot, because walking is pretty tough, so the robot will need to be able to move forward and backward and to rotate left or right. Finally, the vision. The simplest method is to have the target objects uniquely colored (e.g. cans painted red on a black floor). If you want to just preprogram things, you'd have the robot check its vision for a group of red pixels, rotating left or right to move the group into the center of its vision, then approaching until the magnet can pick up the object. If no group of red pixels are found, it should rotate in one direction until a group is seen (this assumes there are no barriers between the goal and the robot). The problem of deciding when the object is near enough to be picked up will be left to you. If you'd prefer the robot learns to do these things on its own, I'd suggest using an RL algorithm like Q-learning. The actions would be as above, and as for the states I'd suggest preprocessing the vision by dividing the visual field into vertical stripes and having the state be the number of red pixels in each stripe. There may be much simpler ways (I have a tendency to overcomplicate things), but, in general, robotics is a pretty complex thing, and vision even more so. Read lots, play around, and good luck! digfarenough (talk) 23:48, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

See computer vision. --cesarb 00:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Awesome this helped alot Thanks.

Another method to control the motion of a robot is to have it follow a colored line on the ground. I've seen this used in automative assembly lines. StuRat 07:57, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

August 5

Firewall

I just got my first wireless-enabled laptop and I'm concerned about security. I've always used a hardware firewall at home but I'm going to college in a few weeks and though I'm fairly confident that the campus is pretty secure from the outside, I'm concerned about intra-network security.

I refuse to pollute my memory and complicate life by using a software firewall.

Firstly, is there any particular danger in wireless networking without a firewall? Can an ad-hoc network be established to me without my knowledge (as a type of attack, not as a feature).

And secondly, is a firewall really necessary? Although I'm very "good with computers" - I'm a computer science major - I have very little experience with network security. What will a firewall do for me, technically I mean. An attacker can send as much information as he wants over any port he wants, nothing's listening to him to my knowledge.. is a firewall necessary?

Finally, what specifically does the windows firewall do?

Thanks

--Froth 05:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

A router/firewall is the only kind of protection you really need (router is better). You can not control the spread of "worms", which are beyond your control of preventing (to a certain degree). Sygate Personal Firewall is a free, no-crap, lean firewall. --mboverload@ 06:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Answering your second question: while it's true that it doesn't make any difference for a closed port, it can make a lot of difference for a port that's open but you do not want anyone else to use. A common example would be the Windows RPC ports (which AFAIK are impossible to close, and were attacked for instance by the Blaster worm). A firewall can also block outgoing connections, if configured to do so; for instance, if a worm on your computer tries to connect to a SMTP server, and the firewall is configured to block these kinds of connections, the connection attempt will be blocked. --cesarb 14:23, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, yes there a danger in wireless networking without a firewall. Setting aside ad-hoc networks if you connect to an access point and acquire an IP your machine is now visable to everyone else on that access point, just as if it would be visit to everyone on a wired lan should you plug a cable in. This could mean that any folders you share, or services you run on your local machine that listen for connections on the local lan are now vunerable. Some services do this by default under Windows and a software firewall rejecting connections will stop this. I've not heard of ad-hoc networks being created as an attack, however it was demonstrated this week at Black Hat USA that drivers themselves can have vunerabilities.

Secondly what use is a firewall? Well can you be sure nothing is listening on any ports? Under Windows for example local networking listens. Media Player can listen. The games you play can listen. Instant messengers. Software firewalls tend to prompt you when software attempts to listen, and blocks incoming traffic to services you haven't cleared. The Windows firewall, after XP SP2 provides inbound packet protection and some output program protection.

If you are connecting to the campus LAN/WLAN you cannot be sure of any other machines inside the lan, (and I know as I student I hacked the university mainframe, I cannot believe that nowadays students don't try to hack each other over shared lans, heck when Ping of death arrived a few of us where I worked had great fun crashing each other) so you need all the help you can get. Use a firewall. --Blowdart 15:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/08/hijacking_a_macbook_in_60_seco.html (note this isn't just about macs)

Remote Desktop Connection

I have two computers at home. How can I know the computer's IP address to be able to access the other computer?--203.124.2.6 06:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

http://www.no-ip.com/ + UltraVNC = Awesome --mboverload@ 07:03, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are on a home network, you can likely use the computer's names to connect. try that first. If not (assuming you are running XP or a similar version of windows) open the command line (programs>accessories>command prompt) and type "ipconfig /all". Among other things, it will give you the IP of the computer you run it on. Note that this is not the IP which you could connect with from a computer that is not on your local area network. If that still does not do the job (or you are in fact, not on a local area network) let us know what happened and we'll try to solve that. 48v 16:16, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Memory Upgrade

I would lke to upgrade the memory in my laptop. I know the specification is SODIMM 200 pin PC2100 256 mhz. CL2.5 unbuffered. current memory is 256MB. I would like to upgrade the memory to either 512MB or 1GB. Does the new chip have to have exactly the same specifications as the old one with the obvious exception of size or can I put any larger capacity chip in as long as it is 200 pins?

Will you be replacing the 256MB or just augmenting it with a second DIMM? If you'll be using both at the same time, you'll want the new one to be at least the same speed as the old one, or you'll slow it down. In either case, you're safe using memory that's slower than your current RAM, but you may want to check with the manufacturer of the laptop to see what the upper limits are to prevent overspending or, worse, buying memory that won't work. (Though, if I recall correctly, RAM that's too fast for your computer is usually nice about slowing down if your computer can't handle it). Second opinions anyone? digfarenough (talk) 17:19, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I once accidentally ordered a SODIMM for a desktop. That was fun. The important thing is that your new RAM chips are 200 pin. I can't remember exactly, but I think there might be a physical difference between PC2100, PC2700 and PC3200, but I can't remember off the top of my head. Just to be on the safe side, try to get PC2100. The maximum amount of RAM depends on your motherboard, but i've got a 4-5 year old PC that can take up to 2Gb, so I wouldn't worry about that. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 20:17, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

There are genuine businesses with a web presence who have a commercial interest in helping you buy the memory you need. Try Crucial for a simple guide, and dealram for a good price. --KSmrq^T 23:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Computer Problem

Have a Dell computer with Windows XP Home edition Verion DSL with AOL membership Keep getting a dialogue box which asks if I wish to Debug gives a numerical line and list error as Ovject expected If I give answer yes the box disappears Later it reappears again same question different line

This is usually thrown by Internet explorer, but occasionally in other places. It generally means that a website or program you are running or viewing has been written in an error. There is not a whole lot you can do. In the options of internet explorer (and maybe on the dialogue itself) there is an option to not ask to debug. I don't know if there is an equivalent for regular programs. Furthermore, try contacting the webmaster/software author and ask them to fix it. By default, those dialogues should not come up (there is a more generic dialogue) did you by any chance install microsoft visual studio or a similar program? That may be why they got turned on. 48v 16:08, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I think 48v is talking about two different things. From the sound of it, the dialog box you're getting is a javascript error on a website which, as 48v correctly explained, is a problem with how the website is written. You may want to check that your browser is the newest version. I think the error 48v mentions at the very end of that answer is the dialog box that pops up when a program crashes, when you've installed some microsoft developer software. I recall that actually being a separate program that runs in the background, and if that really is the case, you can just disable that from starting up by using msconfig (but be careful with that program, as you can mess things up a bit if you aren't paying attention). Much more likely is that it is a javascript error. digfarenough (talk) 17:24, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I was trying to address both. Thanks for clearing that up. 48v 17:54, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

As far as I know, "Object expected" is a (cryptic) error message on Internet Explorer warning about broken JavaScript on a page. The usual setting is to hide the errors; however, if you install some sort of development environment (I can't recall which), the setting changes to stopping and asking whether you want to open the script in a debugger. The message is a symptom of an error in a web page you have open; it's not (at least usually) Internet Explorer's fault. Unless you are a web developer, it's better to just change the setting back to hide the errors; while I do not have access to any computer with Windows installed, I found how to disable it at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/community/columns/ietopten.mspx (it's the last one in the list, "A runtime error has occurred. Do you wish to debug?"). --cesarb 20:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Processor

what is Intel dual core processor?. give me full details? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Python karthik (talk • contribs) 16:26, 2006 August 5

Dual core simply means that there are two CPU's in the same physical 'chip.' They sometimes have their own memory, but share some resources like disks. Intel only means that the chips are Intel brand. 48v 16:31, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

See Multi-core (computing) 48v 16:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

We expect you to try google.com or wikipedia.org before you ask here. --mboverload@ 22:18, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

We also expect respondents to be civil. --LarryMac 00:56, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Yep, that too. --mboverload@ 01:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

To suggest that a questioner first search the web or Wikipedia is not uncivil; in fact, it's an excellent suggestion that will often give more accurate and more complete information than posting here, and will also be faster. Furthermore, anyone capable of understanding "full details" of a dual core processor should already know enough to do these searches. This suggests that posting here is an act of laziness, which is a kind of incivility. Such an act reflects badly on the poster, as does not following the directions at the top of the page to sign your question. This being Python karthik's first post, we may attribute these transgressions to inexperience; but the sooner these lessons are learned the better, and that means someone speaking up. (It may be awkward for someone to point out that my crotch zipper is open, but it's much more awkward to leave the problem uncorrected!) In this specific case, I tried both kinds of searches (for 'Intel dual core processor'), and both produced good answers. And lest it seem this is merely my personal opinion, please read the top of the page about How to ask a question, where the first guideline stated is Search first. --KSmrq^T 01:52, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

There are two cores. Check out intel core 2. --Proficient 04:26, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

How did word-processor summarise text?

I remember some years ago there used to be a word-processor that would automatically summarise text for you. It might have been Word. I've never actually seen it or used it myself.

How did this actually work please? Since the computer could not have understood the meaning of the text, there must have been some trick involved. What was it? I have not been able to find anything on the web about this, although I remember reading in newspapers the amusing summaries it could be made to do of well-known books and so on. Thanks. --62.253.52.156 17:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The "AutoSummarize" feature in Microsoft Word does a pretty bad job, usually. I don't know how it specifically works, but there are ways that you can do pretty rough textual analysis if you make a few assumptions about what kind of document it is. It is similar to how I was taught how to read history monographs very quickly—the genre has a fairly reliable form: read the introduction, read the first paragraph of every chapter, read the first sentence of every other paragraph in the chapter, read the last paragraph of the chapter, read the conclusion. In most monographs this will give you an understanding of the argument and the conclusions, and you will skip all of the detailed listing of evidence. I imagine that any summarize function will work on similar structural premises—assuming that in a work of a given format, certain types of information will be in certain spots. It usually works by grabbing sentences from different parts of the document. --Fastfission 17:37, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Just for fun I decided to run AutoSummarize on Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species using the 6th edition text at Project Gutenberg. The dialog box says that "Word has examined the document and picked the sentences most relevant to the main theme." My guess is that means that it looks for sentences which contain words which are used over and over again or something like that. It allows me to "Highlight key points" in the document, to "Insert an executive summary or abstract at the top of the document", to "Create a new document and put the summary there", and "Hide everything but the summary without leaving the original document." I can specify the length of the summary in terms of the length of the original (default is 25%, which in this case is 49,000 words — a bit long). I changed it to "100 words or less", and the final summary for Origin is:

Species. species.

other species. SPECIES.

called species. species?

DOUBTFUL SPECIES.

to species. species. forms. species. Species very
species. SPECIES.

species. incipient species. extinct species. the species. species. distinct species. species. Whether species
each species. species. species.

the species. twining species.

same species. forms. forms. species. species. form. species. between distinct species. species. aboriginally distinct species. species. species. same species. widely distinct species. forms.

species. forms." extinct species. species. species. species. New species
incipient species. of species. species. species. species. species. forms. aquatic species. Some species,
form. species. classifying species. form." forms. species. species. species.

forms.

So yeah, uh, I guess Word has determined that The Origin of Species has something to do with "species," a word which, after reading that, has lost its meaning for me and looks spelled wrong. I have to say, I'm actually not too impressed by the algorithm... one could imagine ways to have it check itself for heavy redundancy and to make sure that it is forming complete sentences, which this one clearly does not care about (species. species. species. species. forms.). --Fastfission 17:50, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

lolirl --Froth 22:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

LOL. --Proficient 04:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Developers, Developers, Developers, .... uhmmm I mean Species, Species, Species, Species :D Shinhan 15:40, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Evolve! Lite

Back many years ago, I played a shareware game called Evolve! Lite, and it was a huge amount of fun. However, I could not ever get a copy of the full version. By now, the company that made it (FunTek) has gone out of business, and I would still like a copy of the full version. Does anyone know where I can buy or download it? --Zemyla^t 19:36, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

The article on abandonware might help you. You can also try searching for it at online auction sites. --cesarb 20:38, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Neither one worked. Not even a Google search could find anything. I'm concerned it's gone forever. Which would be a shame, since it was fun. --Zemyla^t 20:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Searching on Yahoo! gave [2], which looks like it has potential. Ebay is worth a shot, too, I guess. Nothing could have disappeared that quickly, though, it's just a matter of how much you're willing to put into digging it out of whatever hole the last few copies fell into. There have got to be ways to track it down if you really want to. Black Carrot 06:41, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know. If it has very limited circulation in the days before things were very redundantly archives (read: early 1990s, when the internet was young, connections were slow, and hard drive space not so cheap), it could be pretty hard to find, especially if it would have difficulty running on newer machines (i.e. if it used for/next loops for its timer structures, was DOS only, and so forth), which would make its likelihood of being migrated to newer machines more rare, and the chances of finding it pretty slim. The only referneces of it I can find on the web are of the sort you posted above: one or two text file links advertising it, which makes it sound like it harkens from the days of BBSes, a scary prospect for someone trying to find it today. --Fastfission 19:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Pray that it shows up on clasp --Froth 22:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

August 6

Photoshop and Video Ram

For a long time I've thought that modern graphics cards could adequately support any 2d intensive tasks that I could throw at it. But lately I've been hearing from my peers in the design community that Adobe Photoshop needs a healthy amount of Vram. At first I thought this was just the same age old misconception that has been thrown around for years until a friend of mine swapped out his Radeon 9600 with a Geforce 6800 and reported that he could paint more smoothly with the brush tool. I'm certain that he's using Photoshop version 9 (CS2) and he essentially went from 128 megabytes of Vram to 256.

However, I'm not entirely convinced that lack of Vram was the problem. I've been speculating that it could have been due to bad drivers on ATI's part. Or perhaps, they are so focused on 3d they have neglected the 2d issues.
Can anyone confirm or deny this?
The main reason I'm asking this question is because I'd like to upgrade my computer soon. Preferably I want something that will run Photoshop flawlessly and a little bit of Maya on the side, even if that means using a workstation class card.

I fail to see how your video card has any effect on Photoshop, which is a CPU-heavy program.--mboverload@ 01:12, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot to include this: [3] it pertains to redraw problems when editing, which is the same thing my friend had. Scroll down to solution number nine.

I seem to be mistaken. --mboverload@ 02:06, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

That's what I thought too, but I also thought "that can't be right." It doesn't make sense that photoshop's own tech docs prior to CS2 denied the importance of Vram and that 128mb - 256mb would make that much of a difference on such an easy task (or so I believe). BTW, I'm using photoshop for illustration, so I'm basically just using the brush engine. Brush lag on an 8k x 8k image is the only real concern.

c++ error 4430

The following lines:

struct SAutoListNode
{
	CRentedAuto Auto;
	int type;
	SAutoListNode *link;	
};
typedef SAutoListNode* NodePtr;
typedef SAutoListNode Node;
NodePtr head;
head = new Node;
head->link = NULL;

are giving me these errors:

error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
error C2040: 'head' : 'int' differs in levels of indirection from 'NodePtr'
error C2440: 'initializing' : cannot convert from 'Node *' to 'int'  There is no context in which this conversion is possible

error C2143: syntax error : missing ';' before '->'
error C4430: missing type specifier - int assumed. Note: C++ does not support default-int
error C2040: 'head' : 'int' differs in levels of indirection from 'NodePtr'

Please help.

You don't say what compiler you are using. It's obviously Microsoft Visual C++, but which version isn't clear. This compiles for me with some minor changes using Visual C++ 2003. The changes are to put the code into a procedure, and to define CRentedAuto. Here is the code with the minor changes:

class CRentedAuto {};
struct SAutoListNode 
{ 
	CRentedAuto Auto; 
	int type; 
	SAutoListNode *link; 
}; 
typedef SAutoListNode* NodePtr; 
typedef SAutoListNode Node; 


void test() {
	NodePtr head; 
	head = new Node; 
	head->link = NULL;
}

Thank you for formatting it and thanks for the help, the problem went away after i put the last 2 line in my main, but it won't get back the last 3 hours of my life:(

I took the liberty of formatting your question for readability.-gadfium 05:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Timed shutdowns on Windows XP.

I need my Windows XP to shut down -- regardless of unsaved documents, other users logged on, etc -- every day at 7:00 AM, and I need to know it'll work. I've tried telling Task Scheduler to run c:\windows\system32\shutdown.exe -f -s every day at 7AM -- and that didn't work. I've tried telling it to run a batch file containing the same command -- that didn't work either. I really need to get this working, so what can I do?

Make sure that your selecting the right user account (probably yours) in Scheduled Tasks Wizard while adding the shutdown task, if there are multple accounts on that PC. FOZ

I did run it as myself -- I am an administrator on the machine, so it shouldn't be a problem, right?

Does your Windows have Service Pack 2[4]? Check out the size of shutdown.exe; 17,920 bytes = bad, needs a newer one. Weregerbil 14:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I forgot to mention how it didn't work; it ran, and Windows was shut down, but it remains on the "It is now safe to shut down your computer" screen, without actually powering-off the machine.

Does it work is if you execute it manually? This site says that "Of course, there is the shutdown.exe utility from the Windows NT Resource Kit, but shutdown.exe can only either shutdown the target machine into the state where you see the "It is now safe to turn off your computer"-dialog." Hmm, you sure this is possible? The previous link and this one both offer free programs that will shutdown your computer without using window's shutdown.exe. Can you use these? BrokenSegue 05:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

visual basic

(moved from science desk)

can any one help me regarding the code that coul change my computers desktop...ive 2 use any extra components plz help ...

This code should change the wallpaper, but you have to refresh the desktop by pressing F5 or right clicking and then pressing "Refresh":

Private Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32" Alias "SystemParametersInfoA" (ByVal uAction As Long, ByVal uParam As Long, ByVal lpvParam As String, ByVal fuWinIni As Long) As Long
Sub ChangeWallpaper(BMPfilename As String, UpdateRegistry As Boolean)

If UpdateRegistry Then
SystemParametersInfo 20, 0, BMPfilename, 1
Else
SystemParametersInfo 20, 0, BMPfilename, 0
End If

End Sub

Private Sub Command1_Click()
Call ChangeWallpaper("INSERT FILE PATH OF BMP FILE HERE", True)
End Sub

—Mets501 (talk) 11:54, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If you want an immediate change then you need to get down to the Windows API level, specifically SystemParametersInfo.

Private Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32" Alias "SystemParametersInfoA" _
  (ByVal uAction As Long, ByVal uParam As Long, ByVal lpvParam As String, ByVal fuWinIni As Long) As Long

Sub ChangeWallpaper(BMPfilename As String, Permanent As Boolean)
  If Permanent Then
    SystemParametersInfo 20, 0, BMPfilename, 1
  Else
    SystemParametersInfo 20, 0, BMPfilename, 0
  End If
End Sub

Please note I don't have VB6 installed any more, so this is off the top of my head and using MSDN as the reference for the SystemParametersInfo API. --Blowdart 14:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

thanks for the code 2 change wallpaper... actually i was in a thought 2 get something that could change a series of pics into a gif image and then we can set the transition time ...thus we wont b required 2 refresh etc.

Servers

Hi, I was wondering something today. If you have your own web server, would that allow you to use the internet without using the phone line?

You don't need a server to access the Internet without the phone line. You must use cable or satellite internet to not use the phone line. DSL uses the phone line but does not stop you from using the phone at the same time. —Mets501 (talk) 13:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

No, a web server serves a single web site (or part of one). To connect to other web sites you would still need a phone line (or broadband, cable, mobile, wireless, satellite etc.). EdC 15:44, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If you had your own web server you could connect to it without using the phone line, but nobody else could (and you couldn't connect to any other sites). The internet is a big, complicated form of connections between users and web servers (which are just other computers, usually specialized but essentially the same thing as a desktop machine). So you will always need connectivity of some sort if you are going to connect to any other computer than your own. You can, however, run a local web server, which sometimes has its uses (i.e. I sometimes use one to test server-side scripts without having to upload them elsewhere). --Fastfission 17:26, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Hacker bank account

What can a hacker do with my bank account number,if he gets it by some means? --Sanjeev usa2005 14:36, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

He can do all kinds of things. He can add all the digits. He can spray paint it on the side of a grocery store. He can use it as a sig on his favorite message board... Do you mean, "Can a hacker steal money from my checking account with just my account number?" Technically, yes. It is possible to request funds from a bank with just a routing and account number. But, you are not responsible for that. It is also possible to create checks using a routing/account number. You are not responsible for that either. Bank systems work hard on eliminating such theft, but it still happens all the time. Just talk to your bank about what you are responsible for and, if you don't like it, switch banks. There are tons of banks. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have good reason to suspect someone to begin abusing your account though you should contact your bank and have them change the number. Even though you will get the funds back it is a major hassle dealing with fraud. I had someone make fake checks with my account and routing numbers on them and use them to totally drain my bank account once (the bank was clearly in error here—they didn't have my name on them at all, they were idiotic to not check to see if the name on the account matched the ones on the checks before draining the account and then charging me fees for check bouncing off of fake checks) and it took weeks to get everything back to the way it used to be (they had to investigate it, of course, to make sure I wasn't the one trying to pull a fast one on them). It is much easier to have them change the number and issue you a new card and checks, and involves a lot less paperwork. --Fastfission 17:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

software for video...

Hi, can you tell me a free software to convert videofiles into 3Gp formats or GSM files so i can put video into my phone.

Thanx in advance

Try the software that came with your phone. If you didn't get any, try google. By the way, why won't your phone accept normal MPEG files? Also, please sign your posts by typing --~~~~.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 21:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I have a question concerning video software, too. I am looking for something that can edit video (.mov, .avi, .wmv, .mp4, all the common ones) and can be used to create DVDs with menus and everything. If anyone can recommend some freeware for beginners such as myself (or perhaps a bit more advanced than beginner, as I'm a fast learner) I would appreciate it. By the way, I am using a Windows XP. Thanks--71.117.40.211 03:23, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Editing video the same way photoshop edits images is very advanced stuff. That sort of thing needs professional grade software. If you just want to put some clips together, maybe a fade effect here and there, then you might try Windows Movie Maker (came with your WinXP install). I'm sure there's more, google.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 20:06, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Windows Movie Maker worked just fine for what I needed to do. Thanks, Frenchman133! I tried Camtasia Studio (which is pretty good, by the way), but I didn't want to have to buy it. --71.98.6.7 16:56, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Unicode

In the charts published by Unicode (the consortium), they have examples of each character. Why don't they simply stick together each of these character examples and make the first ever (as far as I know) full-unicode font? It doesn't seem like it would be very hard for them to do, and although very few people would have a real use for it it would probably be quite popular. So why don't they? As a related question, is there anything stopping someone else from doing the same? —Daniel (‽) 17:40, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Creating a decent font isn't that easy. One has to create the graphical data to construct the font, such as the line data, the splines, and so on. The question remains whether Unicode actually has this data and how consistent typographically it is. One could create a gigantic bitmap font, but hardly anyone uses bitmap fonts because they only look good at one resolution only. Dysprosia 22:29, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

The answer can be found on the Unicode site: "The fonts used in these charts were provided to the Unicode Consortium by a number of different font designers who own the rights to the fonts. [...] The fonts and font data used in production of the Unicode Standard may not be extracted, or used in any other way in any product or publication, without permission or license granted by the typeface owner(s)."

In other words, it's a licensing issue: the character examples came from existing fonts provided by a wide variety of copyright holders, and the Unicode consortium simply does not have any right to modify or redistribute many (if any) of the constituent typefaces. The exact same reason prevents anyone else from doing the same -- even if not illegal (which would depend on your specific jurisdiction and on the method you use to derive your character outlines), it would certainly be immoral to duplicate the hard work of so many other people having neither acquired permission nor offered compensation.

The ethical approach is that taken by Code2000, which attempts to implement original examples of each character. Sadly, since the designer was unfamiliar with the proper forms of most of the characters he was attempting to draw, the results are generally poor, but it is very useful as a fallback font for characters not available in other typefaces one owns. — Haeleth Talk 16:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot. However, these answers beg the question of why Unicode allows itself to use copyrighted examples. It would make a lot more sense if they got free use typefaces, from which somebody could easily produce a full Unicode font. —Daniel (‽) 18:17, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Which world are you living in? Consider how many code points (characters) Unicode defines. We're not talking about a–z and A–Z, but things in Cyrillic, and Greek, and Chinese, and Japanese, and Korean, and Persian, and Tibetan, and Egyptian hieroglyphics, and so on. And then there are symbols for music, and mathematics, and phonetics, and again on and on. That's an enormous amount of design work, and the Unicode samples are meant only to give a representative example. Think of all the different typefaces sold for the Latin alphabet (with some accents, numerals, and punctuation). Some people may not care if their text looks like a cut-and-paste ransom note, but a serious design is a lot of work. However, copyright law can be very strange, and typefaces are routinely copied and given new names and sold separately. So if you want to do the work of digitizing all those examples, harmonizing the shapes, choosing the kerning, and assembling the most massive font file in the history of the world, go right ahead. But don't fault the Unicode consortium for not doing this themselves; it's hard enough just defining such a massive standard. --KSmrq^T 04:57, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, OK. I know that there are millions of characters. I know that it would be a gargantuan opus. I was just wondering why Unicode could not use free fonts, and assemble them together. Regarding the possible 'ransom-note' effect, I think that it is hard to tell whether something written in Chinese is a similar style to something written in English anyway. You would only need consistency between the character sets. —Daniel (‽) 10:17, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

August 7

High-speed internet, DSL, and broadband

Could someone who is computer-savvy explain what the differences, if any, between the three terms are?--The Count of Monte Cristo ^Parley 03:37, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

High-speed internet - Broadband - xDSL --mboverload@ 03:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

High speed internet = Broadband. Both cable and DSL are "broadband" (high speed). DSL is a TYPE of broadband, much like cable. --Abnerian 04:30, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

"High speed internet" is just the informal term for broadband. Broadband generally refers to an always-on connection of 256Kbit/sec or greater. DSL and cable are two types of broadband, DSL being the most common. See broadband, ADSL.

Missing memory

Hello,

Recently, I've seen several computers with a certain amount of physical memory, yet, when the physical memory is examined in the operating system statistics, it shows up as slightly less.

Missing Memory

Index	Physical amount	Reported amount (by Microsoft Windows)	Missing amount
1	512 MiB	448 MiB	64 MiB
2	1 GiB (1024 MiB)	960 MiB	64 MiB

The reported amount is retrieved through the "System Properties" Control Panel applet, the "DirectX Diagnostics Tool," and the Performance tab on "Windows Task Manager" (under the heading Physical Memory, Total).

Both machines examined were produced by HP/Compaq (after HP acquisition).

Now, I've heard lots of reports of the missing memory to be due to memory reserved by the graphics adapter. I must say, though, I find this theory highly unlikely in the case of the latter machine, as it has 256 MiB on the graphics adapter. (With the first machine, this theory makes sense, as it is 64 MiB on the graphics adapter.) It would be ridiculous to implement a fourth of the video memory in system memory, while leaving three-fourths as unshared video memory; it would be easier as all-or-nothing.

The second machine is new (just purchased), and has never been used; malicious third-party software is out of the question.

No, I'm not looking at "free memory," I'm looking at "Total Physical Memory."

Any thoughts?

Jdstroy 05:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Is the graphics adapter integrated into the motherboard or a separate graphics card. If the latter, then that's out of the question. However if it's integrated then it explains the first case. I'm not sure about the 256 MiB being used as such. But it is important to clarify the above for your own sake. Harryboyles 07:11, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Both are integrated. I'm most interested in the second case. Jdstroy 06:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

See direct memory access. Certain devices are granted, as the name implies, direct access to memory. So, you can't use it as regular memory. Other devices that commonly get DMA: parallel port, USB port, and high-speed drives. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:09, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

That doesn't result in system memory being removed from the pool. It just reserves a section for direct access. Most likely, it would show up as part of "(8)System". Jdstroy 06:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Does the reported total physical memory amount include the space reserved for the operating system on Windows? On Linux it doesn't. It is also possible that the machine has two graphics adapters (one onboard and one on PCI/AGP), but the onboard one hasn't been properly disabled. --cesarb 15:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, the total reported memory does include the space reserved for Microsoft Windows. On my home computer, Windows reports 512 MiB, which is what I have installed. There is only one onboard graphics adapter, currently. Jdstroy 06:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd also like to note that something similar happens on another friend's Gateway laptop. 32 MB of system memory is missing, but the graphics adapter has 64 MB of video RAM.

Jdstroy 06:21, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

AGP aperture, perhaps? - mako 08:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Mako: No, I haven't thought of that... I shall see when I get access to those computers again. Jdstroy 21:47, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

more about my computer

hello I am the lady that asked the question about the "GIFS and JPGS" thank you all for your help.I have some more questions. When I look at info about my computer,it says I have an AMD ATHLON processor and 384mb of ram.Is this processor as good as a Pentium III ? Also on my hard drive my total space is 19.1gb. I have 13.7gb of free space I have tried and tried to get this one figured out in computer language but just CAN'T get it so let me ask this way.Put my GB in terms of DOLLARS. I started with $19.10.ok think of how much that is in PENNIES.When I install something how can I figure out how much space it will use? I know $1.00 would 100 pennies but are the kb or whatever, pennies, dollars or what? Am I totally confusing you guys ? I am set to start taking a computer course next week but people have tried to explain this giga byte thing to me before and like I said I just don't get it thanks so much signed totally comp.illiterate —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.244.177.22 (talk • contribs) 10:02, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Do sign your posts, please. And if you get an account, even, you won't have to identify yourself via previous questions! Anyway, there are many varieties and grades of Athlon processors; if your computer is less than about 5 years old, it's probably at least as good as at least some Pentium IIIs. As far as storage goes, all you need to know is that GB=1000MB; MB=1000kB; kB=1000B (bytes). It ends up with "kilo"="thousand", "mega"="million", and "giga"="billion" (in the short scale); see SI prefix. Except that sometimes some or all of the factors are 1024 instead of 1000 — different, but not too different. So if you have 13.7GB, that's 13700MB, or 13700000kB, or 13700000000 bytes. Hope that helps. --Tardis 17:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

In the instructions of installing a program, it will have the requirements for your system. For example it will say you need Windows 98, Me, 2000, or XP or Mac OSX or later. It will also list how much free hard disk space you need, thus how much room it will take up. schyler 17:27, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The processors from AMD, like the Athlon, are highly competitive with those from Intel. Consumers get the benefit, as each new effort from one company tries to best the other. Relax and enjoy.

Chances are you live in the United States if you are not familiar with the G and K prefixes, because they are standard fare for all kinds of units in most of the world, as part of the metric system. For example, a kilometer is one thousand meters, and a speed limit will usually be posted in those terms, as in 100 km/h (roughly 60 miles per hour). For now you can probably get by with learning three prefixes: "K", "M", and "G". Each is 1000 times more than the one before, except that in the computer world the factor may be 1024 (which is a power of 2 instead of a power of 10). So one byte is enough to store a single letter of the alphabet, one kilobyte will store 1000 bytes, one megabyte will store 1000 kilobytes, and one gigabyte will store 1000 megabytes. A similar logic applies to speeds. If the clock rate of your CPU is two hertz, you're using an abacus! A two kilohertz clock rate is from the early days of the electronic computer, two megahertz is from the dawn of the personal computer, and two gigahertz is respectable today. (Too bad the mileage of automobiles hasn't improved as much.) It might help to invent a silly mnemonic for yourself to jog your memory, like "Kiss More Geeks".

And do sign up for an account; it's easy, free, and anonymous (if you like). That way, when you sign your posts (per instructions at top of page), we'll see your user name, not your IP address. --KSmrq^T 19:44, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone know of a way to turn off or erase that little box of recent searches? It's become really annoying in the past few days. It's the little pop-up box that appears whenever you type in the search, and it displays all your recent searches. Thanks.-Dark Kubrick 16:47, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Are you talking about the Wikipedia site or Google, or some other site, or all sites? What browser, what operating system? --LarryMac 16:52, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

It comes up on every site. I use Mozilla Firefox, but it's also on Internet Explorer. It appears in the search boxes of all sites.-Dark Kubrick 20:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I use Firefox in Swedish so I'm not sure what the English names for everything is, but you can clear those from the config-window. Choose "Privacy", "Form data" and the "Clear form data"-button. I have no idea if that's what they're called (as I said, mine is in Swedish), but it's in the config dialog. You'll find it. Oskar 19:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer, but, uh, where the hell is the config-window?-Dark Kubrick 20:21, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I googled and found a good screenshot. It's here: [5]. Tools->Options, then select the "Privacy" button, and in one of the tabs you should find a button that clears the form data for you. Oskar 21:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much. -Dark Kubrick 00:59, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I have had same problem but solution did not working. Please help because box is say "how to masturbate" and "masturbation tips". I was not the one who is typing. Thank you. Mahir.

internet security

hi, am sourabh.i am facing some problems with internet.

1.i use 'firefox' web browser,my os is 'xp'.i have a file sharing 'limewire' .though my popup bloker is enable i am getting a lots of popup,ican't not prevent them.my antivirus shows no virus at all(antivir xp). 2.another problem i am facing is ---suddenly(repteadly in a certain duratiion) my current http// adress is changing automatically.my spyware preventing program also running successfuly.is my computer affected with virus/spyware/adware/trojan/ or others bugs? 3.i have two files in my hard drives which are 'can't delete files',how can i delete those files?names of the files r 'kybrdfg_8 (*)(*)(*)(*)......' plese solve my problems.......--203.145.188.130 19:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)sourabh

Spellcheck should fix some of your problems. For the rest, reformat your hard drive and install Linux.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 20:10, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Formatting and reloading are not always the most convenient solution, Frenchman113. To the poster: You'll want to use multiple malware progrms, for instance, run both Ad-aware and Spybot: Search and Destroy (and make sure they are fully up-to-date). If those fail, try the program called HijackThis and post the log file to an appropriate forum (not here, most likely) where someone may be able to find out exactly what the problem is. It may take a fair amount of work, depending on exactly how bad the infection is. digfarenough (talk) 22:03, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Changing the windows desktop image

I want to make a small program that once every day changes the windows desktop to one of these bad boys, so my question is this: what do you do to change the desktop image from inside software? A registry change or what? Oskar 19:53, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Right-click on the desktop. Select properties. Change the image file. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I just realized you may be asking how to write a program to change the image... Two options: registry entry (as you guessed) or have a file called something like "MyImageFile.jpg" and change the contents of that file from your program. If the user selects that file as the background image, it will be different every time they reboot. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:16, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, a good tip, the second one. Oskar 20:18, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Connections across the internet

Generally my question is about connecting two computers, both behind routers, together across the internet without using port forwarding.

I have managed to produce a program using Winsock in a client/server setup to create a connection across the internet with just the client behind a router.

I understand that some programs that require internet connections have a central server which accepts connections from several clients and links ones that wish to be linked, eliminating the problem of routers. How do these servers work and are there any resources you would suggest me looking at?

How does a peer to peer network get around the router problem if there is no central server?

I know a little about protocols so if it is relevant i may understand it.

NB This is my first wikipedia question so i apologise if i've missed things off.

--PeteL 20:08, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The main issue you are dealing with is the ability of a computer to accept a connection. Almost all home computer network use involves requesting a connection, not accepting one. A firewall/router blocks the computer's ability to accept a connection - so you have to explicitly forward or open a port for the computer to listen on. Having a 3rd server avoids this. The server accepts a connection from each home computer (they are requesting connections). Then, the server forwards traffic back and forth between the home computers. There is no magic trick to get around the firewall/router and force a computer to accept a connection. The computer/router must be configured to accept a connection. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:14, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, it gets way more complicated than that. This method is sub-optimal, because you need to relay every packet through a third party. It would be much better to get a connection between the computers directly. And you can!

First off, you have to realise how NAT-routers work. Since they serve many different computers, it has to know what computer to send an incoming packet to. It does that using mappings. If you have open a port (ie used port forwarding), you have created such a mapping. Say you have mapped port X to computer Y, then any time a packet that has a destination port of X gets routed to Y. The smart thing with NAT-routers is that they not only have these static mappings but they can also create dynamic mappings on the fly. Say computer A wishes to surf to www.google.com. It has source port B. The router sees that the out-bound request has source port B and realises that any traffic that comes into the router with destination port B should go to computer A. Therefore, it creates a dynamic mapping between port B and computer A, and Googles return packets make it through.

Now, follow these steps to see how clever NAT-traversal works. Computer A is behind router RA. Computer B is behind router RB. Somewhere on the internet is M, a third-party server that serves as a mediator. A and B wants to talk to eachother.

1. A sends outbound packets to M. It specifies port PA as it's home port. RA makes a mapping between PA and A (so any incoming traffic on PA will be routed to A).
2. B sends outbound packets to M. It specifies port PB as it's home port. RB makes a mapping between PB and B (so any incoming traffic on PB will be routed to B).
3. M now has recieved traffic from both A and B, and it knows what ports they use. M realises that RA must have made a dynamic mapping between A and PA. It sends PA (A's port number) and the IP address of A (actually RA, but that's just semantics) to B, and it sends PB and B's IP address to A.
4. A and B now starts to send packets to eachother on the ports they got from M. If everything has worked, RA now has now mapped PA to A, and any packets that comes into that port should get through to A. Same for B. So now B is able to make a connection to A, and vice versa.
5. Volia! NAT traversed, without having to use up all the bandwidth of poor M!

Get it? I'm not the best at explaining, but this is basically how it works. You take advantage of a mapping that wasn't really intended for you, but that exists anyway.

Oskar 20:38, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Are you asking because you are a geek and are interested in how these things work? If so, check out this episode of Security Now. It's a podcast where many issues regarding computer security is discussed, among them (in this episode) NAT traversal. They explain how it works pretty well. If you just want to connect two computers to eachother, I suggest using Hamachi which will connect any number of computers in a VPN. It's dead-easy to use, it will traverse ANY router, and is completly secure (everything that gets transferred is seriously encrypted). It's also free, lightweight and among the coolest pieces of software ever invented.

Oskar 20:15, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Thats just what i was after, great explanation! It's how i interpreted the page on file sharing, but when i tried searching for it, nothing conclusive came back so i assumed my interpretation was wrong.

I've got Hamachi and think its fantastic. I've not had any reason to come across VPN's before, the main reason i asked this question was to attempt to build a program that would allow me to build a file sharing program that i could distribute between friends but now i think Hamachi will do it perfectly. Although i'd still like to know how to do this just if they chose not to get it. I see it will be very useful for linking computers for online games.

How does my central server operate? I have some cheap web hosting at the moment but i doubt that will be enough? I expect there are many different ways of doing it, but does one way involve java applications?

--PeteL 22:04, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

If you wish to implement a NAT-traverser like I described, you are going to have to do alot of coding. It's also a relatively new technology, so I don't think there are any free code available. This type of program certainly be implemented in Java (they have a great network-library) if you'd wish to code it. Note though that you'd have to code the filesharing part of the program too (which is also alot of code) since this method will only give you an open channel which off the top of my head I can't imagine how you would be able to "give" to another program. However, it is possible, and if your webhost allows you to run a java server on it, you could put it there. You could also run the mediating server on your own computer (make sure to forward those ports! ;) if you have it on alot.

However, if you only wish to share files (or play games) with a couple of your friends, Hamachi is definitly the answer. Activate Windows Filesharing (you should probably have it in read-only, otherwise your friends can either delete your files or fill your hard-drive with crap ;) and log on to Hamachi, and you will be able to see your friends files and share your own (through the native Windows filesharing system, since it'll think you are on the same LAN as your friends). Another good tip: If you use iTunes, activate sharing of your music (and get your friends to do it too), and you will be able to play songs from your friends libraries in iTunes (see [6] for details). Feel free to ask if you want any more info Oskar 22:48, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Administrating

Hi! What was the name of that web page, that allowed you to experience how it is like to be an Administrator?--Captain ginyu 22:33, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Admin of what? Wikipedia? --Yanwen 01:32, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

It allowed you to experience web page administrating, like having the different user interface, I don't think it was any page specific.--Captain ginyu 07:31, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

There are hundreds of content management systems. You may not realize the impossibleness of your question. --mboverload@ 10:02, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

No, no, you didn't understand my question. You go to that page, and, should I say, play the role of Administrator, that is set so you could experience the Administrator user interface and similar things. It is not like a real page, where you have to become an administrator after you prove yourself etc., that page is just set for your fun, so anyone can see how it is to be an Administrator. Get it now?--Captain ginyu 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Again, there are countless web page administration tools. cPanel, DirectAdmin, Plesk, Cube Panel, etc. See more at Control panel (Web hosting). The point being that no single page can simulate web administration, because there are many tools available. --LarryMac 15:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

so what? There are generic similarities between all those tools.

I wonder if you are talkng about Content Management Systems demonstrations. Those allow you to use the CMS with admin permissions. Try a Google search for CMS demo. Phelan 07:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you mean a WP Administrator? Like a SIM Admin Sandbox or something? Don't think they have that here. Maybe if you're good friends with an admin you could sign in as them for a few minutes to look around. Oops, probably shouldn't suggest that, kind of like saying 'BOMB' on an airplane, lol. I shouldn't tell people to shove beans up their noses. I'll shut up and go to bed now.--Anchoress 17:05, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Linux CD tray not opening or shutting

I have a dual boot machine with a CD burner in it. In Windows, it works fine. Press the button and it opens/shuts as expected. In Linux, it will not respond to either opening or shutting. It doesn't matter if the CD is mounted or not. Sometimes, for no apparent reason, it opens halfway and then gets stuck in a cycle of opening and closing. Pressing the eject button causes the light to blink a few times, but nothing else happens. Right now, I have to eject by sticking a paperclip in the manual eject hole. I have to put a CD in by forcing the tray shut. I can't find a google search string that turns up reasonable results. Anyone have any hints? --Kainaw ^(talk) 23:00, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

You seem to already know that some versions of UNIX require you to unmount the CD, using root account permissions, before you can eject the disk. So, if that isn't the problem, I suspect the CD driver in Linux isn't the correct one for the CD drive. Try removing the old driver and installing a new one (download it, if possible). StuRat 22:50, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

He's probably using the kernel IDE/USB/SCSI(/IDE-SCSI) CD-ROM driver. (Assuming IDE-SCSI isn't dead yet.) --Kjoonlee 09:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried "eject /dev/cdrom" or "eject -t /dev/cdrom" to eject/close the tray? --Kjoonlee 09:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. I ran "eject -v /dev/cdrom" and it said /dev/cdrom wasn't mounted - even though I was playing music from it. Then, I ran "eject -v /dev/hdd" and it killed the music and ejected. So, I think the problem has something to do with the system using /dev/hdd and the OS using /dev/cdrom. --Kainaw ^(talk) 12:58, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't need to mount a CD-ROM drive to play audio CDs. What does "ls -al /dev/cdrom" tell you? You might want to run "ln -sf /dev/hdd /dev/cdrom" if it points to the wrong device. --Kjoonlee 00:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If it's a CD burner, it's possible that the symlink is /dev/cdrw instead of /dev/cdrom. --cesarb 20:50, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

August 8

Photo Album software

Hi, Can anyone recomend good (free?) software for organising digital photos into an album? (I can only find expensive pro stuff on the web). I would like to add metadata such as a title, dates, location, photographer etc to each image and be able to burn to DVD with automatic generation of a hierarchical menu --> submenu structure(or ToC) using specific metadata fields. Searching on metadata would also be useful. Thanks! --138.194.132.196 02:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)RGW

Most metadata is already included in the file. Picasa + Nero would do the things you ask. To edit all of the photos at once to include the location and photographer just select them, right click, properties, summary --mboverload@ 04:57, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

make a program portable

I've made a program on my computer with the VC++ comiler but when i run it on other computers it comes up with a dll not found error. How do i make it so that i can run the program on any computer without installing the compiler on every one of them? thank you.

http://www.sandboxie.com/ and then just copy and paste the file structure. If you can do VC++, I'm positive you can figure it out =D --mboverload@ 04:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you but the point is that the target audience doesn't need to install anything else, so is there an option or compiler that can create a universal windows program?

Java

"universal windows program" - is a bit of an oxymoran. Universal means "all operating systems", windows is a small subset of them. Jon513 09:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Don't be silly. Universal means nothing of the sort.

Do you also believe Universal Studios is an "oxymoran" (sic) because they only make a small subset of movies? And is Apple's term "Universal binary" an oxymoron because they don't run on Linux? And is the term "multiverse" an oxymoron because a universe, by definition, is supposed to contain everything and hence there can be only one? — Haeleth Talk 16:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It would be good if people choosing to respond on this Ref Desk would leave their OS agendas at the door. People are looking for meaningful assistance, not zealotry. They can go to Slashdot for that. --LarryMac 18:40, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Static linking is what you're looking for, it means the program is self contained. However not all DLLs are statically linkable and of course your executable size can get out of hand, and you lose the advantages of sharing DLLs. Without knowing which version of VC++ I can't point you to the dialogs or part of the make/project file that you need to tweak though. --Blowdart 11:07, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Just include the DLL in the installer or stop using it. --mboverload@ 10:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Almost certainly he's using VC++ 2005, and the DLL in question is MSVCR80.DLL; for some reason Microsoft decided to stop people being able to link against the standard Windows MSVCRT.DLL that every end-user already has, and insisted everyone use this new DLL that nobody has instead. The solution is to include the DLL in the installer, since this library cannot be linked statically AFAIK.

This is all very irritating, of course. You lose out in every way, since (a) you don't get to share the DLL with any other programs, (b) you lose out on modular system updates, and (c) final distributable size is bigger because no smart linking can be done to leave out parts of the runtime that your program doesn't use. But presumably they had some reason for introducing this strange misfeature. — Haeleth Talk 16:25, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Alright you guys I am using 2005, and MSVCP80D.dll is the one that comes up as missing. So what EXACTLY do i do to make my program self-contained? PLEASE you guys i need this tonight and do not know what to do! WHAT do i need to do to make this work?! If I do need an installer then how do I make one?

To simplify, you need to supply MSVCP80D.dll along with your program, and the dll needs to be copied to the same directory as it is in on your development machine, probably C:\windows\system32. This is a simplification because people run different versions of Windows (but you may not be concerned about supporting Windows 98 and its family), different language versions of Windows may differ, and some few people may have Windows on a drive other than c: or in a directory other than \windows.

Since you have to have this tonight, forget learning how to produce a professional installation program. It's not trivial. I suggest you go for the most common configuration only and produce a batch file called install.bat which copies the dll to the appropriate directory, creates a directory called something like "c:\program files\myprog" and copies your exe there, and appends that directory to the path (if your program is ever likely to be executed from the command line) with "path=%path%;"c:\program files\myprog". You might also want to add your program to the start menu and/or put an icon on the desktop, but I think these things might be difficult to do from a batch file.-gadfium 04:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

MSVCP80D.dll? Doesn't the D mean "debug?" I think you should be doing a release build, instead of a debug build. --Kjoonlee 09:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Problem solved, i made an install with Easy install maker that copied the dlls where they neeeded to go and it works fine, thtanks for the help guys.

Latex: Putting pictures into headers

I am currently writing a document in Latex. I would like to put a file into the header on each page. I have converted the file to a .eps file and am using the fancyheader package, but I cannot workout how to get the picture in. After searching the net I am not sure if it can be done. Does anyone have any ideas? --Me22ac 07:34, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I think if you've got \usepackage{fancyhdr} then all you need to do is iclude the line

\pagestyle{fancy}

in the preamble and then something along the lines of

\rhead{\includegraphics{../Path/To/Graphics/MyHeader.eps}}

(also in the preamble) which will put the file MyHeader.eps in the top right hand corner of every page. I think the other commands are \lhead{} and \chead{} for the left and center headers respectively although I'm by no means an expert on fancyhdr, I'd never done this before but it sounded like a nice idea so I had a play.

One last tip is that you can do

\rhead{\scalebox{0.5}{\includegraphics{../Path/To/Graphics/MyHeader.eps}}}

which will scale the image to half it's size (or whatever you replace 0.5 by) if it's too big and you don't want to mess about editing it to exactly the right size. You could also scale an image up this way but I doubt you'll need to. --Bdgoddard 22:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Largest (dot-com) corporations outside U.S. or in Singapore

1. What are the largest dot-com corporations outside the U.S.?
2. What are the largest corporations in Singapore?
3. What are the largest corporations in Singapore in the computing/IT industries, particularly dot-coms?

Here, size is defined both by revenue and how famous the corporation is.

--J.L.W.S. The Special One 07:45, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

slapt-get

I just built a machine with Slackware 10.2 and am in the process of virtualizing it (with my VMWare 30 Day eval license). I have not been able to find friendly, functional documentation on how to get slapt-get and then use it to install VMWare.

-- Brie Aleida

Thanks anyway, everyone. In case anyone else had the same question, it's quite a jackass one, I've found. Or at least, the solution is simple. use pkgtool (from the command line) or KPackage from the System menu.

--Brie Aleida

CD/DVD drive problems

I have a _NEC 3520AW CD/DVD burner. My problem is that although it's rated 48X CD/6X DVD, when I use it to read CDs, my read speed never tops 10x, and on DVDs it stays at 1.3x. Write speed is the same. What could the problem be?--Frenchman113 on wheels! 14:41, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

What program are you using to write? How are you determining the read speed?

With decent error checking (in EAC or cdparanoia, for example), it's normal for the speed to be lower than the maximum speed. --Kjoonlee 08:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm using DVD decrypter, CD burner XP Pro, Alcohol 120% and a couple others. Normally, I calculate read/write speed with the reported speed from the programs. --Frenchman113 on wheels! 13:37, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I have all error-checking off, and I don't notice an improvement. Any other suggestions?--Frenchman113 on wheels! 22:02, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd suggest you keeep error-checking on. ^^; How fast is EAC in burst mode, on non-scratched CDs? --Kjoonlee 23:45, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I've tested my 20x10x40x CD burner, and my read speed never tops 11x either, using EAC's burst mode. --Kjoonlee 03:13, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm still tempted to say this is a drive malfunction. I don't think I even had error checking on in the first place.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 19:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I know this is filed under "solved" already, but I just used the disc drive that came with my PC (no dvd or write capabilities) and got a 20x read speed (still below par, but the disc was 24x). However, with the drive I installed (the NEC), I got a 10x read speed. Perhaps I installed it wrong? What do you think?--Frenchman113 on wheels! 20:32, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

YAY! I found out the problme was that I didn't have an ASPI layer.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 00:39, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Image editing

I want to replace one specific colour in an image but I don't want to do it manually. Is there a way I can do this on an image editing program? --Thorpe | talk 22:11, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Gimp allows you to select by color and then fill in only the selected areas. Also, if this a GIF (which has an indexed pallete), you only need to change the color at that index. Since Gimp can do it, I'm sure the infinitely more expensive Photoshop can do it too. --Kainaw ^(talk) 22:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

The problem is, with photographs and some other images, there may be very few pixels in the image which are exactly the same color. So, what you would need is the ability to specify ranges for R, G, and B values that would be replaced by a new color. I'm not sure if any software currently does this, but I imagine redeye reduction uses a similar approach. StuRat 22:43, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

GIMP has a "Threshold" setting in its "Select By Color" tool's options. You can try increasing it or you could do multiple additive selects, by Shift-Clicking. --Kjoonlee 05:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

PaintDotNet (however that it spelt, it's also free) would work as well as Gimp, if you are on Windows. But if you don't have .NET 2.0 it's a much bigger download that The Gimp. You are looking for a "Color Replacer" tool, and when you use it, you usually select a color in the image using a dropper tool, then select the new color as background color, then adjust the tolerance or threshold of the replacement tool until you get what you want. --Seejyb 01:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

August 9

Internet connection failure after a BSOD.

I'm running Windows XP and connected to the net by DSL. Some nights, I'll get a blue screen of death (error: Driver IRQL is not less or equal) and reboot. When I try to connect to the internet, I get a variety of errors; Username and/or password invalid on this domain and The remote computer did not respond in a timely manner. Often I'll get one of these errors, then the other, then the first again, then the other -- ad nauseum, for two to five hours. I'm assuming this is something on my end, as my ISP-mates at Whirlpool -- an Australian ISP discussion forum -- didn't experience this. Is this something I can fix? I only have unlimited downloads between 10PM and 7AM, so the internet being down between these hours is a huge pain.

Well, I'd try resetting your modem and router. That may or may not fix something. Also, you can try using system restore to set your machine back to a working state. (btw, usually WinXP is stable enough not to go to BSOD mode. You probably f-ed your system somehow).--Frenchman113 on wheels! 13:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't use a router, and my modem is a very basic USB modem with no switches, buttons or browser-accessible settings. Is it possile to reset it?

Can u find out what drivers caused the error?It is given at the bottom of the blue screen. Mostly they are video driver errors or software incompatabilities, but if u experience this during torrent downloads, u can suspect the client. uTorrent client is particularly known to have some issues with some hardware setups. Some client which worked very well once may suddenly start developing problems,too. The problems can be any of these-(it can be a good starting point)

1.change in tcpip parameters due to system restoring/similar actions
2.network interface driver corruption/out of date
  -uninstall and reinstall latest nic drivers
3.ide driver conflicts(running in reduced dma modes)
  -check 80 conductor cables,
  -master/slave settings,
  -uninstall and reinstall ide controllers and set to "dma if available"
4.pci bus driver corruption
  -reinstall
5.graphics driver problems
  -reinstall latest drivers
6.max number of connections- problem
  -there is a MaxNumConnections dword in registry(not that helpful)(google search) 
7.download/upload speed limit-issues
  -limits too low can cause probs
8.dhcp server issues(if running software proxies)
  -set static IP for ur LAN connection

installing linux in my 915 gav intel mother board

hi i want to know the correct version of linux that i can install in my original intel 915gav mother board..

please give your valid suggestions....

There's no wrong version of Linux... --the linux chica.

Just find the Linux distro you want. Judging by your question, I don't think you're ready for Linux quite yet. That's honest advice. You should read up a bit more about Linux, its history, how it works, and the various distrobutions. If you insist, Ubuntu is the favorite distro at the moment. --mboverload@ 13:11, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ubuntu is a great migration OS. As is Xandros OCE. Also, once you are ready for more Linux-y distros, Slackware is great. Very stable. Very reliable. And can be configured to look like W***ows. --the linux chica.

AMD processor

Hi, i would like to know what is the difference between AMD Sempron 3000 and the AMD Ahtlon64 3000. Is there an advantage by on over the other? thanks, Jon

See our articles Sempron and Athlon64. The question is meaningless without more details.-gadfium 09:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Sempron 3000 have less cache and a lower clock than its athlon brother also depending on the model the 3000 sempron might be a 32 bit CPU where the atlon is a 64 bit CPU and the question is not meaningless with out more details you just cant give fully detals about it

LCD monitors

I'm looking to buy a new LCD monitor, and I would like to know what is the respnose time that I need to see clearly movies, games(even though I don't play that much). Is 8ms enough, or should I look for one with 4ms?

It depends on how they measure the response time. 8ms is fine, but I'm a gaming asshole so I'd go for 4ms, since ~13ms is your human response time to something on the screen. --mboverload@ 13:12, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

As for movies, I don't think the speed matters at all. Even if you had one with a 100ms response time, you would still see the movie the same as with a 1ms response time, just 99ms later. StuRat 16:40, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you are slightly missing the point of the term 'response time' when it comes to LCDs. The time is measured as the period that a subpixel is in flux between its starting intensity and the target intensity, meaning that it will be a 'blur' for that long since its not quite where it was and not quite where it should be. This means that, for example in 60fps video, a new frame needs to be drawn every 16.6ms (1000ms/60fps) and if the monitor has for example 8ms response time it will get the pixels changed in 8ms, leaving 8.6ms of solid pixel time before the drawing starts again. A time of over 16ms is obviously unusable since a fast moving scene (in a video game or other fast multimedia) will be a constant blur, and times that fall below that will incrementally be better on your eyes since you will see a more steady image. Back to the subquestion: Movies. Movies are shot at 24FPS, and are sometimes pulled down to 30fps or 60fps depending on the electronic media they are transferred to. If you are watching the pure cinematic version at 24fps you will need to draw a frame every 41ms, and a pulled down version at 30fps will still only need one frame every 33ms, leaving plenty of time for a stable image. I hope this has been as enlightening. --66.195.232.121 14:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Anything under 12ms is fine. Anything under 8ms is probably overkill. In fact, I'm an avid gamer and my LCD monitor is a relatively high 16ms: I really haven't noticed it at all. Sum0 20:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Windows XP Taskbar Problems

I have Windows XP SP2, and my computer was fine yesterday, but now none of the buttons on the taskbar work. The start button doesn't work, none of the quick launch buttons work. And I had it on autohide so now it's hidden and I can't bring it back up again by hovering over the bottom of the screen like I usually do. Please help.--Anakata 10:39, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Explorer.exe handles the taskbar, AFAIK.

1. If you can launch the task manager (by first pressing Alt-Ctrl-Del), bring it up
2. check if explorer.exe is running
   • If it isn't, choose Files → New task → navigate to C:\Windows\explorer.exe (or wherever it is) and run it.
   • If it is running, kill it, and run it anew. --Kjoonlee 11:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you so much! It's working now.--Anakata 14:08, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

uTorrent failings

Here's a link to my uTorrent screen -- http://img65.imageshack.us/img65/9718/untitledez4.png . As you can see, it's only going at 60-80kb/s even though I have a max of 150kb/s, and several of the downloads have heaps of seeds. Is the problem on my end?

The problem here is that your upload cap is too low. Increasing your upload limit to 80% of your max is recommended (but don't set max connections to 999... that'll ddos your connection). Further, it's not entirely unusualy to get lower than max speeds with BT, especially on torrents with fewer seeds/peers (sheer numbers count too). Judging from your screen, your ports seem to be open, so port forwarding isn't going to help. But, you're just downloading too many torrents at once. for 17kbps up, you should limit to 2 active torrents. Queueing should reduce overall download time. Lastly, if you're downloading during peak traffic hours, your ISP may not have enough bandwidth due to overselling (possibly also downthrottling your bt, but that doesn't seem likely in this situation.)

Multi-Monitor MPG Player

I have a 2 monitor PC (running XP), with the second monitor connected to a projector for doing presentations. I'm looking for a good program to play MPG files, with these features:

- Ability to play full-screen on the second monitor
- Black screen with no logo or splash screen when stopped or between MPG files

Any recommendations? The best I can do now is Windows Media Player, size the window "really big" - bigger than the screen resolution of the second screen, and drag it over so you can't see the controls. -Mr.Logic 13:29, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I would recommend VLC Media Player, though I've never used a dual-monitor setup.

What video card are you using? If it is capable of dual monitor output, I'm sure there should be some settings on the video card's Control Panel to manage this, or even the Display Control Panel. --Canley 14:47, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, "VLC Media Player" looks like it will do the job. It doesn't have dual-monitor support, but I think I can force it over using "UltraMon".

In this case, the specific card doesn't matter. The vast majority of apps that display full-screen force to the primary monitor, and aren't dual-monitor friendly.

If anyone else has suggestings, I'd welcome them as well...

-Mr.Logic 16:42, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Update: the process ain't friendly, but I foudn exactly the settings I need in VLC.

http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=14279&highlight=dual+monitor

-Mr.Logic 16:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Customising Windows Explorer in NT4.0

I'm running NT4.0 on my home computer (don't ask, suffice to say I'm very happy with it). Is there a way of customising WE so that it doesn't open to an expanded view of the system folder? Thanks in advance.--Anchoress 14:04, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

You can select what folder is displayed using a shortcut such as "%SystemRoot%\explorer.exe /n,/e,D:\Data" -- SGBailey 07:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey thank you very much!--Anchoress 13:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Sony Vegas Problem!!! HELP!

Ok. Here's the deal.

I'm rendering my video as .wmv 3mbps...

But it stops at 89%. Everytime. It doesn't come up with any errors or anything-- It just freezes at 89%. I thought maybe its just taking its time, so I left it running overnight. Woke up-- still 89%. It doesn't wanna go past frame 4939! It doesn't have an error or anything either... it just doesn't go any further.

Anyone experienced this before? Anyone suggest something?

THANKS!

gelo 14:48, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

WTF is "Sony Vegas"? Have you compared your input file to a valid hash sum? --Frenchman113 on wheels! 16:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

If only there were some kind of online resource, where one could look up terms one didn't recognize. --LarryMac 18:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Using wireless router as wireless card

I have a desktop. I don't want to buy a wireless card for it. I need a hub/router for the extended future. Is there a way to connect my desktop via ethernet to a wireless router and then connect to another wireless router in the building? (essentially using the router as a wireless card)

This is possible. Look through your router's manual and configure it to only connect to other access points.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 16:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Give them static IP addresses (in the range 192.168.x.x) and disable DHCP. Then, if you want to refer to them by name, you'll need to add entries to the \windows\system32\etc\hosts (going from memory on that path) for each computer. However, using just IP should be fine. --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

For reference, the correct to the path of the hosts file is C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 19:32, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

bad hub??

Hooked up three XP PC's on an old hub of mine that has worked well in the past. They all got limited or no connectivity, I couldn't access their shared files (i.e. \\comp_name) didn't work, but oddly enough we could still play networked games.

When I did an ipconfig /renew I got some message about DHCP or soemthing? I'd like file sharing to work....any idea?

All you systems are looking for DHCP addresses, but there isn't a DHCP server on the network - so they're all left with autoconfig addresses, which is what that "limited or no connnectivity" means. The easiest thing to do is to manually set their IP addresses (to 192.168.0.1, 192.168.0.2, etc.) and set the subnet mask to 255.255.255.0. Then they'll all see one another. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:36, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

• I think NetBEUI and TCP/IP are independent of each other. Assigning IP addresses will have no effect on file sharing.
  1. You need to have NetBEUI, Microsoft network client, and Microsoft network file and printer sharing installed in the Properties of your local area link. Your mileage may vary; tested with computers running Korean Windows.
  2. You need to be running appropriate services, such as "Server." --Kjoonlee 23:38, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Boot floppy for Windows XP won't recognize an NTFS volume

Is it possible to make one that can access NTFS partitions on the hard disk ? StuRat 16:24, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

You can get read-only access with the NTFSDOS device driver described at [7]. If you want write access (and are brave) then new versions of Knoppix come with Captive NTFS, which (after some work) would allow you write access (having booted from the Knoppix CD). But Captive NTFS sounds a tad scary to me, so don't use it on anything vital, lest it get chernobylised. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:45, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Can you tell me why this is so difficult (I would have expected it to work automatically) ? StuRat 23:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Task Manager (Windows XP SP1)

I have windows xp sp1 and I cant access the task manager by pressing ctrl+alt+del. A message says that it has been disabled by the administrator but I have not done that. I was wondering if you could help.

Thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.163.35.173 (talk • contribs) .

A lot of viruses disable the task manager and the registry editor. Run a full system scan with a fully up-to-date virus scanner. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 17:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, but I have already done a few virus scans using Kapersky (which comes with System Mechanics 6) and the problem persists. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.163.35.173 (talk • contribs) .

It might be not detecting the virus. Stealth viruses are tricky blighters. See if you can access the registry editor; go to Start -> Run -> 'REGEDIT'. If the registry editor doesn't start, and of course, you are logged in as the administrator, then you probably have picked up a stealth virus. Have you ever been able to use the task manager on this PC? And why have you not upgraded to Service Pack 2? CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 20:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks again! I will try that, when you say administrator, do you mean any user with administrator rights or the 'OWNER' user. The task manager has been working up until a few months ago. i have not upgraded to service pack 2 yet because i still have to update some of my drivers from the HP website. 82.163.35.173 21:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Any user should be able to access the registry editor and task manager unless the 'owner' user (the administrator) restricts their access. The administrator should have unrestricted access to regedit/taskman at all times. I recommend that you upgrade to Service Pack 2 as soon as possible, although it is not a panacea, and occasionally causes problems itself, it may close up some of the vulnerabilities in Windows. I'm trying to find a guide to reenable regedit/taskman if a virus has disabled them, because I've been lucky and never needed it myself. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 02:52, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

(New) Ha all, I have a question related to the topic, I think my hp laptop (windows xp sp2) is defected by some virus, although I have formatted it, I still get some unusual errors, such as cant save the webpage, sudden logg offs........I have tried running registry editor suggested by CaptainVindaloo after logging in as administrator,I got an error message saying that It is disabled by administrator,and after that the laptop shut dowm, just wondering does that mean my laptop has a stealth virus, if yes, what should I do, please advise me. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.194.62.22 (talk • contribs) .

You probably have picked up a stealth virus somewhere. Not having physical access to your computer, the only thing I can recommend is using a virus scanner. Make sure it is fully up-to-date, and your copy of Windows is fully updated. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 16:47, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I can access the Registry Editor but I cant access the Task Manager, does anybody know what to do? Its me again (the first person) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.163.36.124 (talk • contribs) .

If you can access regedit, then reenabling task manager should be fairly easy. Open regedit again, you will see that it is arranged in a 'tree' like structure, similar to windows explorer. The important thing to remember is: DO NOT mess about with anything in here, as insignificant as it may seem. Navigate through:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER -> Software -> Microsoft -> Windows -> CurrentVersion -> Policies -> System

There should be a value in here called DisableTaskMgr = 1. Right-click this value, select 'Modify' and change the '1' to '0'. Exit regedit and reboot your PC. Task manager should now work. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 16:41, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

hi CaptainVindaloo,[the laptop person], I hav already scanned my laptop using Norton anti-virus software, but still it is not getting any better. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.194.62.22 (talk • contribs) .

You may have to take it to a computer repairer to fix it, unfortunately. You could also try a different antivirus program; for some reason, certain programs do not detect all viruses. You may be able to identify which, if any, virus is present by: Start -> Run -> MSCONFIG. Click the 'Startup' tab and enter the process names into Google. There are a few sites out there that list processes, including malicious ones. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 19:51, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks CaptainVindaloo for your help.

Fair shuffling algorithm in O(n)?

I thought about this over and over on a fishing trip to Lapland, but couldn't find a good answer. Is there a fair shuffling algorithm in O(n) time? "Fair" means that each of the n! possible combinations is equally likely. The best I came up with was an algorithm that swaps each element with a randomly-selected element, but I'm not sure if it's fair. JIP | Talk 17:35, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't see this working. To give every outcome an equal opportunity, you cannot have the opportunity of any single outcome occure more than once. In other words, if your algorithm has 200 paths to completion (based on the randomizer) and one result occurs once and another occurs three times, it is not fair as you specified. The only true fair algorithm would be to build a permutation list (an array of every possible outcome) and then randomly grab one of those. I don't know of a permutation algorithm that is O(n). --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:41, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Swaps each element with a randomly-selected element would be the Knuth shuffle which is indeed fair and O(n). Weregerbil 17:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the article, my feeling that "swap each element with a randomly selected element" will produce a biased set is correct. You must swap each element with a random element taken from the set that has not been passed through yet - including the element to be swapped. Otherwise, it will be biased because you can produce the same permutation twice. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:21, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Um, of course the "randomly selected element" means a truly randomly selected element, including the element to be swapped. If swapping an element with itself is no problem, is the algorithm I described fair? JIP | Talk 18:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

According to the Knuth shuffle page, it isn't. the random element must be in the part of the group that hasn't been parsed yet, including the current element. For example, if you have elements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and you are on 3, you can only swap with 4 or 5, not 1, 2, or 3. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:03, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, you can swap 3 with itself. It's easy to see that this (swapping 3 with 3, 4 or 5) is necessary for the shuffle to be fair; this gives you n! possible paths, corresponding exactly to the n! possible shuffles. (Isn't that beautiful?) If cards could not be swapped with themselves, not only would your computer crash on the last card, but you'd only have (n-1)! possible paths, so only covering 1 in n of the possible shuffles. However, if you were to be allowed to swap 3 with any of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, you would have n² possible code paths; since n!∤n², some shuffles will occur more often than others. EdC 21:22, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

So, the only thing I got wrong was that I can't swap an element with an element before it? JIP | Talk 06:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

See also random permutation. Dysprosia 03:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, this is trivial. Assume we have a reliable uniform (pseudo-)random number generator, as is standard. To create a uniformly distributed random permutation of n items, we may use a specialization of the subgroup algorithm of Persi Diaconis and Mehrdad Shahshahani, described in "The subgroup algorithm for generating uniform random variables". It's an elegant application of group theory.

Within the symmetric group S_n of permutations of n items (of which there are |S_n| = n!) we can select a subgroup of permutations of n−1 items. This partitions the full group into n cosets of size (n−1)!. Select one of the cosets uniformly by choosing a representative element. Now recurse to generate a permutation of n−1 items. When we have only 1 item, return the single available permutation. This gives n random permutations that compose to give a random permutation uniformly distributed over the full group.

In practice, this reduces to a standard "deal" algorithm, as in Knuth (ISBN 978-0-201-89684-8). Here the randomly dealt cards collect at the end of the deck.

for k := n-1 downto 0

deck[k] :=: deck[random(0,k)]

One nice thing about this perspective is that it works for other groups just as well, including continuous groups like rotations in n dimensions. --KSmrq^T 04:31, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Services on WinXP

Just wondering which services I might be able to kill/disable without ever noticing a loss of functionality. I don't use my PC for any web servers or anything like that, or as an access point. But, I don't want to lose any performance. So, I'd like it if you could tell me which ones I don't need and can safely kill/disable.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 21:50, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Format your harddrive and install linux. :) digfarenough (talk) 22:52, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Ha Ha.. Penguins. Open Control Panel (in classic view)>Adminsitrative Tools>Services and go from there. Pacific Coast Highway ^{(blah • I'm a hot toe picker)} 00:34, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

There should probably be a guideline on the page that if a respondent can't figure out the answer, the questioner should not suggest the user install Linux. Dysprosia 03:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree... maybe you missed the joke I was making to that effect :) But you're right, to answer the question, the essential services depend in part on what aspects of the operating system you're using. You may find a guide like this one to be helpful in deciding which you'll need and which you won't. digfarenough (talk) 04:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

August 10

static ip, no connectivity?

When I plug into my router I get limited or no connectivity and a strange IP/subnet is assigned. I went in and manually added a IP/subnet for my PC so now I can ping my router, but I can't get internet from it. Any ideas?

Have you manually set the DNS server as well? Try setting it to the same IP as the gateway you set. digfarenough (talk) 04:22, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

user data

I found a file on my computer in the AllUsers folder entitled 'ntuser.dat'. When I opened it I found the data for the location on my computer and 'en.wikipedia.org' appears to be the user. Where can I get info on what this file is for, and how and why it was created on my computer on 7-3-2006. (I have used Wiki considerably longer). It is distinct from a cookie.

I also forgot to log into Wiki when I first tried to post this request to this page and found that by IP address had been blocked. Amerindianarts 07:10, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Search before asking. Thanks [8]

ntuser.dat is a registry hive file that loads as HKEY_CURRENT_USER when a user logs on. The HKEY_CURRENT_USER (ntuser.dat) contains the user profile for the user who is currently logged on to the computer. The user profile includes environment variables, personal program groups, desktop settings, network connections, printers, and application preferences.

You can edit HKEY_CURRENT_USER of other users by loading this hive under HKEY_USERS (you must log on as administrator to edit this hive).

It’s one of your Registry files. Unlike the other Registry files, this one is stored in your personal Documents and Settings folder and contains the entire contents of the HKEY_LOCAL_USER branch of the Registry. You can’t delete it because it’s in use and protected, and you wouldn’t want to because otherwise you’ll mess up your whole computer! It will grow as you install more software that creates keys and sub keys in this branch of the Registry, and so is perfectly normal. To summarise: leave NTUSER.DAT alone.

--mboverload@ 08:28, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't mean the .dat, but the text file 'ntuser.dat' which references Wikipedia as a user. It doesn't grow like the .dat you refer to and was only created last month. The .dat you mean was created when the computer was loaded. The one I refer to is recent.Amerindianarts 09:11, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Thin clients

Network computers and thin clients have become buzz words now-a-days. A high bandwidth connection is required between the thin client and the server (where hard disk and programs are stored). I just want to know what is the bandwidth required between the thin client and the server computer. Is it 1 Mbps or 2Mbps or 100 Mbps?

Completely depends on what you're planning on doing and your intended setup. --mboverload@ 08:26, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

It also depends on how "thin" the client is. Some smart clients support caching, while others are much like dumbterminals, with little or no capacity for processing. Jdstroy 04:42, 13 August 2006 (UTC) (See RDP, VNC, or the like.)

Moving the contents of one wiki into another

Hi, Im having trouble trying to merge an old wiki into my current wiki. The information in the older wiki is just too much to write out again so i'd prefer to investigate other options first. I'm using version 1.7.1 mediawiki and MySQL 4.1 with MySQL Administrator.

I have a backup of the old database i want to include in my new wiki, but i don't want to overwrite any of the current wiki database contents.

Can anyone help?

Cheers

How would one connection be shared evenly between two PCs?

If I were to move in with someone, and we each had our own PC, how would we share an internet connection? I mean, we can't each have our own DSL connection, so we'd have to share a service. What would plug into the phone line, so each PC can plug into that device? Is there any way to make sure the two PCs share an equal amount of bandwidth (as in, they get 50% each) when they're both active, but when one's turned off, the other gets 100% of the bandwidth?

There are many routers/hubs/shared access points (whatever the marketing departments want to call them these days). I use Linksys. You plug your DSL modem into the router (that's the name I'm going to use). My router has 4 network jacks in it. So, I can plug up to four computers directly into it with a standard cat5 network cable. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:18, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

The one time I had a DSL line (earlier this year) the phone company provided a combined DSL modem/wireless router. One could access it without wires, or plug up to 4 ethernet cables in the back. --Gerry Ashton 16:43, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

for the 50/50 thing, you'll need to flash your router with some freeware like dd-wrt or Alchemy. I don't think the standard linksys firmware provides features like bandwidth limits.

ANSI Standard text

copied from the Science section The German user http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Nightflyer searches for the German article on ANSI/EIA/TIA-232-F-1997 the text of the standard (free of cost). Thanks --Historiograf 02:19, 10 August 2006 (UTC) http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bibliotheksrecherche

ISO and ANSI standards are copyright, and generally not available without cost. This is how the standards bodies cover their running costs. Sometimes the final draft can be found, but this often changes in the standard. It's worth checking with different standards bodies, as the same standard may have quite different charges. Notinasnaid 09:06, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Comment. Please try to avoid Copyright Paranoia. You can legally use standards without paying as library patron or in another way. Fair use allows to mail privately the text to another person. There are many libraries or institutions which have the text and could help. --Historiograf 14:38, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

Quake, Quake II

Where can I download Quake and/or Quake II for single and multiplayer? I have an old version of Quake that runs on an old, old Win 95 PC but it won't work on my newer XP system. Any ideas?

If there was an online resource that let you read about things like Quake, I'm sure there would be information about GLQuake and WinQuake. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:41, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

aha! Success, it works!

but How about Quake II? I checked Quake II and there's some stuff about hwo the game was released in open source...is there a version I can download without having to compile the game myself? I don't understand all this open source stuff.

It's highly unlikely there's a (legal) version you can just download and run. I'm pretty sure Quake II was never released as shareware.

Quake II was released for download from Id. The catch is that it came only with demo data files. You have to buy Quake II (what is it, $5 off EBay now?) to get the real game data files. That is the model for all of the Quake games - engine is free, data files cost money. --Kainaw ^(talk) 11:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

list of IP's on network

How do I get a list of all the IP addresses on my network? Is there a simple DOS command to do this?

If you want to know all the potential IP addresses on your network, just check the network address and netmask. If you want to know all the active IP addresses, it's harder; the best way is to use a portscanner like nmap on the "ping scan" mode (which only checks which hosts are up, but does not do an actual port scan), but even then some hosts can hide from the scan. Also note that you should only run a portscanner if your network administrator allows it; running one without being explicitly allowed to can anger your network administrator. You do not want to anger your network administrator. It can also crash some devices on your network (but the "ping scan" mode is usually safe). --cesarb 20:36, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

net view will give you a list of all the ip addresses connected to the network.

Archiving data

Which is a better choice price-wise and chance-of-not-being-able-to-retrieve-data-in-a-decade-wise:

1. burning DVD's to back things up 2. External hard-drives

Burnable DVD's and CD's do not have longevity to make them a good option for archiving. In my opinion, if you get high-quality DVDs, you will get at least 10 years out of them, if not more. Note that the pressed copies you buy with movies on them are not the same material as the burnable ones. So, don't use their longevity as a comparison. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:37, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

What's wrong with a tape drive?

Print-through for one thing. Although the article addresses it as a problem with audio-recordings, the same thing can happen with computer tapes, which usually are recorded with analog devices, unless one gets into higher end, more expensive options. --LarryMac 14:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

amazon s3

Is amazon s3 a webhosting service or a storage system? Can I use that for web hosting needs? (There was no customer service in their website and thats why I am asking here)

I don't think it's a webhosting service. It seems like the file can only be acessed by the uploader or someone the uploader as authorized. Wizrdwarts (T|C|E) 01:14, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

FTP behind two routers

Do I need to do some port forwarding with my routers to be able to download files via FTP?

You'll need to use passive mode on the client and consult the server configuration and/or documentation to find out what ports it uses for this. These ports will then need to be redirected. --Pidgeot (t) (c) (e) 23:51, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

August 11

P2P

I am considering alternatives to my current P2P network, and I am curious as to what you, my fellow Wikipedians, would recommend. I will not disclose my current P2P network, as I don't want that to influence your answers. Just tell me which one you would get, and why. I have already had a look-see at this. Also, freeware please :D. Any responses are appreciated. If it matters, I am using a Windows XP. 71.98.15.40 00:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

BitTorrent Jon513 00:52, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Netsend

What is it? Is it like some kind of messeging command to messege other people on the same network? Wizrdwarts (T|C|E) 00:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, that's pretty exactly what it is. See Microsoft's website for more information. --Canley 02:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Your answer was in the title of the second result on google and the 4th result is the link to microsoft --mboverload@ 02:49, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

HTML vs. XHTML

If I had no prior knowledge of either, and I wanted to learn how to code, which one should I learn? Which one is generally perceived as easier to learn? Should I learn both? Thanks for the advice. --71.98.15.40 04:10, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

XHTML is backwards compatible with HTML. I don't think either is really "easier" they just use slightly different rules. Anyway, I'd go for HTML but only because I don't want to close tags all the time. --mboverload@ 04:19, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

All right. Thanks for the advice! Wish me luck. --71.98.15.40 04:42, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

HTML is dead. However, its ghost lingers, so even though you really must learn XHTML 1.1 you need to consult the HTML 4.01 reference to do so. The differences are not great, but they are vital. Three aspects of XHTML of special interest are

1. You must observe XML rules. In particular,
   • the case of tags and attributes matters

     ► all the HTML tags must be lower case

     ► all attribute names must be lower case

   • nesting must be correct

     ► an opening tag like <p> (for paragraph) demands a closing </p> tag

     ► an "empty" tag like <hr> (for horizontal rule) must be written <hr />

2. Deprecated tags and attributes of HTML 4.01 have been dropped.
3. Appearance should be described using CSS styling rules, with markup tags used solely to structure the content.

It's easier to learn good habits to begin with than to unlearn bad habits. Going forward, you must close tags, so get used to it already.

Once you're comfortable with the basic syntax of XML, you can learn to use and appreciate combined markup like the W3C profile of 2002 combining XHTML, MathML, and SVG. --KSmrq^T 06:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If I were in your position I'd learn XHTML. XHTML will soon completely replace HTML and it's not really much more difficult - you just have to do everything that's considered 'good practice' in HTML.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I really appreciate it. 71.98.16.96 17:36, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Though despite being officially deprecated, it is not as if browsers are going to stop supporting HTML anytime soon, though over time more and more will support XHTML. I mean, most of the internet is currently "deprecated" according to W3C. --Fastfission 13:53, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Garageband for Windows

Is there a version of garageband available for Windows? If this exists(which I doubt) where could I download or buy it? If it does not exist are there any similar music makers for windows? Thank you.

What do you get when you put up to 2GHz of pure Intel Core Duo power, an iSight camera, Front Row, iLife ’06, and a 13-inch glossy widescreen display into a sleek case? More than you thought possible for less than you thought possible. Meet MacBook, starting at $1099. =D --mboverload@ 05:01, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a place for you to advertise. Besides, Macs are horribly overpriced.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 20:37, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't advertising, and you can't say something is over priced when it's the only thing that will run garageband. --mboverload@ 01:22, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I appreciate your time and thought but I am looking for something for windows that I can use in the more near future.

Is there no better answer to my question?

My personal suggestion is [9]but if you look around their website they also have free software. Funnyfarmofdoom 06:56, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thank you

The closest equivalent to Garageband I can think of would be EJay. Sum0 20:01, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

strange svchost.exe...

Hi,

Recently my computer slowed down. When I use Task Manager to check what is causing it, it turns out that svchost.exe with SYSTEM as the user of it, is using 100% of CPU! I killed it with End Process, and the services that associate with it(e.g. sound) are gone. I restarted the computer, and svchost.exe is again using 100% of CPU. I waited patiently. 5 minutes later it cooled down and I can use the computer normally.

I used ZoneAlarm to block off its internet access, and it turns out that it is connecting to quite a lot of random IP addresses, and when I WhoIs some of the addresses, companies from Canada, US, and China turned out to own those IP addresses.

Could this be a virus like Welchia? And is svchost.exe connecting to those IP addresses normal?

Thanks in advance!

--inky 07:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

svchost itself is a basic part of windows - it's just a simple wrapper program that allows other programs to run as windows services. So svchost itself won't make network connections, least of all to china. But anything (with admin priviliges) can install themselves as windows services using svchost. This does sound like a bad program may have installed itself as a service - try using a spyware removal progam. Middenface 08:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

My first reaction would be just to blame microsoft (accounts for the cpu usage) but connecting to lots of ip addresses sounds like you've got a virus.

Thanks... I'll use Windows Defender. --inky 09:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

The Welchia worm runs as or under svchost.exe. Thankfully, it is benign and if you have a fully updated copy of Windows, you shouldn't have it. My copy of svchost makes all sorts of connections; WHOISing the IP addresses shows that they belong to my ISP, or my Router, or other things it should be connecting to. Don't worry too much about Welchia, although it may be another virus disguised as svchost. With those kinds of connections, it sounds like a spambot or adware. Windows Defender is a good choice, i've found it rather effective. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 14:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

On Windows XP, you can find out what's running via svchost.exe by taking the following steps -

1 - Click Start on the Windows taskbar, and then click Run.

2 - In the Open box, type CMD, and then press ENTER.

3 - Type Tasklist /SVC, and then press ENTER.

That is from Microsoft, by way of this page. There are steps given there for Windows 2000 as well. This PC World article recommends using the freeware program Process Explorer. --LarryMac 14:27, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Note that the Microsoft web page mentioned by LarryMac says it is for XP Pro. I found that it only works if you are logged in with an account that has administrator privileges. --Gerry Ashton 21:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I get several copies of svchost running on my Windows 2000 system, frequently. The computer churns like mad, then after a while, they all go away and I can actually get in and do some work, but in the meantime, the system crawls. Any ideas? User:Zoe|(talk) 02:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Some virus scanners do scans inside svchost, but most likely your seeing runs of the windows indexing service. Middenface 02:10, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia sidebar redesign problems

We are redesigning the sidebar that appears on every page of Wikipedia. However, we've run into some implementation problems. The biggest one is that we can't put a new menu below the search box. But putting it above the search box forces the search box further down the page than is desirable. We need capable (php) programmers to figure out a way. Please join us at Wikipedia talk:Village pump (proposals)/Sidebar redesign. --Nexus Seven 11:40, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Screenshot Video Software

Is there any free screenshot video softwar that is free for download?--203.124.2.16 14:02, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

See screenshot, in particular the "Hardware overlays" section. Google is also your friend, search for something like video screenshot. Weregerbil 15:41, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If you're looking for what I think you're looking for (Your diction's a little shaky, to me.), and using Wi***ws, WME (Windows Media Encoder) is great. --Brie Aleida

Ah, now I see the ambiguity. Do you want to take a screenshot of a video, or make a video of what you do on your screen? Or something else? I'm now starting to guess "make a video". Weregerbil 18:55, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

If that's the goal, there's something called Wish that's free and really good for that, but it's impossible to google for. Darn. grendel|khan 01:05, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Broadband Servers

I could do with some help if anybody could help me I've only just started looking into braodband and I was wondering are there buildings out there with servers housed in them where the internet, for broadband users,is distributed like a network? If anybody has any ideas about Broadband and any information relating to the networks used etc could you please email me with any information and/or links to websites where such information can be accessed.

Gratefully yours

Aaron Hardman

(email address is removed for your protection, please read the instructions at the top of the page)

I/O

What is the significance of on-off switches (such as those on computers) being labeled "I" for one option and "O" for another? In the disambig for I/O, the only computer-related topic was "input-output," so I don't think this is it. JianLi 16:12, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It is more likely one and zero - numbers, not letters. In electronic logic and computing, 1 tends to mean On and 0 tends to mean Off. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I just remembered a conversation a long time ago where a person thought it was strange that the letters I and O were used. The reasoning is that in German, on and off begin with I and O. It was pointed out that the common words for On and Off in German computer-speak do not begin with I and O. I don't know German, so I don't remember what they were. However, it was later suggested that + and - be used. But, you'd end up with Chinese wondering why the number 10 means On and the number 1 means off. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:47, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that makes sense. And the part about the + and - in Chinese is interesting :) JianLi 01:18, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

German for On is Ein and German for Off is Aus. JIP | Talk 10:51, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I can't recall where I read it, but I believe they are meant to be a vertical line and a circle, not 1 and 0 nor I and O. I think it was in some standards publication in the UK. -- SGBailey 22:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

ftp browsers

Why can my firefox log on to ftp://ftp.wayne.edu/pub/gnu/ anonymously but my ie gets a login screen and I can't get on?

Because IE FTP Handling is far from great? Benbread 22:50, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

It works for me using IE 6.0. --Gerry Ashton 22:59, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Try using the login "anonymous" and any random junk as the password (which is what Firefox is doing behind the scenes; IIRC it uses "mozilla@" as the password, because some servers require a specific password format). --cesarb 23:24, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Fickle Network

I've got a network set up like this:

                                            192.168.1.51    
   192.168.1.1                              192.168.2.2
DSL---ROUTER  ))))))))))))))  ((((((((((((((  CLIENT----PC3 192.168.2.10
      |     |   
      |     |
    PC2     ---PC1
192.168.1.53   192.168.1.52

CLIENT = a linksys WRT54G running with dd-wrt micro in client mode

ROUTER = linksys WRT54G running standard linksys firmware

--- = Ethernet connection

))(( = Wirless connection

Here are the observations:

-all subnets are 255.255.255.0

-PC3 can ping PC1 and PC2, it can open their shared folders

-PC3 can access the internet

-PC1 and PC2 can ping each other and open each other's shared folders

-PC1 and PC2 cannot ping or open PC3's shared folders.

-the command "net view" on PC3 shows only PC3.

My question:

How do I get PC1 and PC2 to access PC3's shared folders and ping PC3?

Thanks.

Let me get this right... You have one router with 2 PCs and a router plugged into it. The 3rd PC is plugged into the extra router. Right? You realize that the router has a firewall in it. You have to explicitly forward the ports on the router to PC3 to see through it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:35, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

so you're saying if I forward every single port from 192.168.1.1 to 192.168.1.51 PC1+PC2 should be able to see PC3..?

hmm...didn't seem to work..

Close, but not correct. You are thinking about it wrong. The routers are also firewalls. To talk to a computer that is plugged into a firewall, you have to punch a hole through the firewall. So, you punched holes through one router, but the computer is plugged into the other one. How is that supposed to work? You also have another problem - the routers will want to have the same IP address. Are you sure that they are not both trying to use 192.169.1.1? --Kainaw ^(talk) 03:06, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I just don't get how I can use the internet but I can't contact the router that's giving me the internet...(even though I listed it specifically as the DNS server)

And no, the second router I specifically set to 192.168.1.2 so as not to interfere.

These networks are so damn fickle!! Wjlkgnsfb 06:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Lets just assume you ONLY want to get through to port 10 (you don't want for forward EVERY port). You need to forward 192.168.1.1:10 to 192.168.1.2:10. Why? the second rounter is behind the first router's firewall. That is just half the battle. Now, you need to forward 192.168.1.2:10 to PC3:10 (whatever the IP of PC3 is). Why? PC3 is behind the second router's firewall. The will allow someone to go through the main firewall, through the second one, and to the PC. But, you have to remember that you cannot forward a port to more than one IP. So, you cannot forward 192.168.1.1:10 to both the second router and PC1 and PC2 all at the same time. The networks aren't fickle - they are just firewalls. --Kainaw ^(talk) 13:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Kainaw provided a great explanation, but incase that doesn't work either, try making PC3 the second routers (CLIENT, was it?) DMZ (this is a configuration that basically says "Forward everything to me, unless a rule specifically says not to"). See DMZ host. Since there's only one computer on it, this shouldn't be a problem and since it doesn't connect to the internet directly, there is no loss in security. I haven't experimented with this alot (don't have two routers), so I could be wrong, but if you do this, then the router will basically act as if it is PC3 (so that if you wanted to make a connection to it you would use the routers address instead of the computers and it would work just like if you made a connection to the computer itself). This should make windows file sharing, and everything else, work just fine. Oskar 22:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

making ascii diagrams

How do I get my network diagram (see above question) to show up just like it shows up in the edit mode?

Put a space at the beginning of each line. --LarryMac 19:07, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Or, put <pre> in front of it and </pre> after it. --Kainaw ^(talk) 19:33, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Bittorrent Performance

When I use bittorrent I find I get the greatest download speeds (200-500kbps) when I have 5+ torrents going at a time and my max_upload set to below 20kbps (I set it to 10kbps usually). This contradicts what I've read here on wikipedia which says something like downloading is proportional to uploading. My connection (comcast cable) allows about 50kbps up if I don't throttle but then my download seems to hover around 100kbps. Am I a fluke? Is there metadata consuming bandwidth that isn't reported? I use Azureus and BitComet and it happens with both. - Peregrinefisher 03:17, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I've noticed this as well. My guess would be that there's a significant amount of bandwidth used keeping track of the other peers -- just a guess. I have an upload speed of 24kB/sec, and if I cap my upload to 10kB/sec I get significantly faster speeds than if I use 18 or 20. Taiq 12:56, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I used to see this effect when I had a cable modem; I don't see it on ADSL. My guess was that there were collisions in incoming vs outgoing packets and that reduced bandwidth. At some point there is a sweet spot: enough upload to keep peers happy, not too much to get excessive collisions. Weregerbil 13:15, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

This happens because the uplink is used not only for the upload packets, but also for the acknowledge packets from the TCP connections being used for downloading. If you use too much of your bandwidth for uploading, some of the ACK packets are lost or delayed, leading to spurious transmissions from the other side (which wastes bandwidth), and most importantly leading the congestion avoidance algorithms to think there's congestion on your link (and thus reduce the transmission speed, hoping to clear the congestion). One solution is to reduce the upload bandwidth to a point where the router queues are mostly empty; another solution is to prioritize ACK packets over data packets (however, this can be done only in the router immediately before the bottleneck, using something like wondershaper; if you don't control that router, you can artificially introduce a bottleneck on a machine you control and do the prioritizing there). --cesarb 23:19, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

August 12

FAT32 partitions in windows

I have one 200gb hard drive divided into two (equal) partitions. The whole lot is NTFS but I need a FAT32 partition so that both Linux and Windows can use the drive. The standard windows formatting tool doesn't give the option for FAT32 in the dropdown list, only NTFS. I assume that this is because the drive is too large for that (although I'm not sure). So anyway, my question is: Is it possible to turn drive D into a collection of Fat32 partitions (3 or 4) without erasing Drive C? (as I don't have 100gb of external storage at my fingertips :D) Thanks in advance. --Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 05:28, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

After some googling, I found this, so you may disregard the above. Michael Billington (talk • contribs) 05:47, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Windows artificially limits the size of FAT32 it formats to 32 GB (see File Allocation Table), but has no problems using larger partitions. You can format under Linux, for example, to get the result you wanted without any resizing. —da Pete (ばか) 10:21, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

You know, rather than formatting that partition to FAT32, a possibility is to format it to ext2/ext3 and installing a program such as this to gain the ability to read and write those formats in Windows XP. Just a thought, it's what I decided to do when I had a dual-boot XP Media Center Edition and Ubuntu. --Cduffner 06:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

PC system requirements.

I'd like to play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on my PC. I meet all the system requirements except for video card -- it requires a 64MB (minimum) or 128MB (recommended) VRAM card. Mine is 32MB -- a GeForce 4 MX420. How would this affect my enjoyment of the game?

The video card is responsible for the rendering of the graphics and plays a vital part in gaming. With only 32MB, the game will slow down and stutter badly, even on minimal settings. Having played Vice City, I know the importance of a smooth playing experience. When on the run, one stutter can mean the difference between escaping or being busted. Upgrade that video card before anything else. Harryboyles 07:07, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

San Andreas isn't one of the most highly-demanding games in terms of graphics, but your card will definitely be at the lower end of playable. I think you might just be able to get away with it if you don't mind turning everything down and suffering with succotash stuttering. But I'd agree with Harryboyles: upgrading your graphics card will make a world of difference, and a card that's perfect for San Andreas won't cost much these days. Sum0 19:58, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Upgrade. --Proficient 16:26, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Strange problem with Java servlets

I am running a Java servlet in a Tomcat servlet container. The servlet creates a new thread in its init method with new Thread(runnable) and adds it into a statically defined list. Then I have added code to print out every Thread object in that list. I have reloaded the servlet several times without stopping the servlet container. However, the number of Thread objects in the list is always 1. Shouldn't it increase by 1 every time? new Thread always creates a new object, doesn't it? And as long as I don't stop the servlet container, and therefore the virtual machine, the statically defined list should remain there. What is happening here? Could it be that the servlet container uses some fancy custom classloader to load the servlet class, causing the statically defined list to be recreated every time? JIP | Talk 09:58, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

If you have the "static Thread list[];" in the servlet class then that list gets set to null each time you reload the servlet. To prevent that, put the list in another class and have the system class loader load that class (== put it into a library jar). Usually it is best not to have fields in servlets (ei edes staattisia kenttiä); put "business code" in other classes for better reusability, testability, maintainability, ... I recommend http://forum.java.sun.com/ for Java questions; you'll probably find more people with knowledge in Java there. Weregerbil 13:04, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, servlet containers use fancy classloaders. Several of them. See [10] for an explanation on how it's done on Tomcat 5.0, for instance. --cesarb 23:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think, however, that the classloaders help - as that article notes "Classes which are part of the JRE base classes cannot be overriden." I think that's either (or both?) a function of some special code in java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass() and JAR sealing of the core packages. But the fact remains that servlets which do instanciate threads infact get ones from the servlet container's threadpool (and not straight from the OS), as JIP observes. It's been a long time since I read that part of the code, but I don't remember a plugin interface (like awt's Toolkit or net's socketfactory) in the implementation of java.lang.Thread. They're doing something clever, but I don't think we've quite gotten to the bottom of how yet. I'll read the code tomorrow, if I have time. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:29, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Old Games Running Slowly On New Computer

I've been running an old (Resident Evil 2) game on my relatively new computer (3200 AMD 64-bit, 128Mb 6600GT Graphics) yet when I am moving through water or fog, the game slows down ridiculously. Also, when I'm moving from one room to another, the loading times are so slow. I think it takes up all my CPU cycles as well. How could it be that a game designed for a much inferior machine would run so slowly on a better machine? --130.161.135.32 11:37, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi.. what is your ram ??? if you got low ram that might be the reason why the game is slow.

nah, even with something low like 256 mb RAM it wouldn't matter with a dedicated 128 mb graphics card.Wjlkgnsfb 15:54, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure RE2 much cares about a 128 MB graphics card, have you seen the system requirements? 32 MB RAM recommended, 166 Mhz Pentium, 2x CD-ROM, etc. Here are some suggestions about running RE2 on a modern computer, including using the 1.04 patch and running it in Windows95 compatibility mode. digfarenough (talk) 17:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a safe assumption that a 3200 processor and 128 Mb graphics card are going to be paired up with more than 32 Mb RAM! I've got 2 Gb of RAM. Thanks for the link :) --130.161.182.112 12:10, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Nowadays people switch to higher quality RAM and 256 MB GPU for better gaming experiences. Perhaps setting the priority higher will allow you to achive optimal results. --Proficient 16:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Randomize seed, time

In the original BASIC there was a Randomize Timer command, what's the command to randomize the seed in visual basic?

It appears to be simply Randomize; I assume that it randomizes based on the current value of the internal clock, as "Randomize Timer" did in the past. grendel|khan 00:52, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

hmm, yeah, guess it's just "Randomize". Odd that it doesn't turn blue in the VB editor.. Wjlkgnsfb 06:21, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Installing Windows

Trying to reinstall Windows and I got an invalid product key error. I haven't installed this copy of windows on any other computer...why would this happen?

Now my laptop's out of commission! Wjlkgnsfb 22:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Microsoft's website says that this can happen if your copy of Windows XP SP2 isn't genuine. If it's Windows 98 or 95, this page says that this error happens if the installation CD is damaged or if you're running anti-virus software. The pages I've linked to have instructions on dealing with this error, although if it was XP, their instructions are more or less "ask the reseller if the copy of Windows is genuine, or just buy a new copy" -- not much help. If it was 98 or 95, though, they've got some more useful instructions. Hope this helps! --Cadaeib (talk) 00:36, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

yes, that does help! THanks a lot. Wjlkgnsfb 06:19, 13 August 2006 (UTC) 06:18, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Many times there are key generators and such on the internet, not that I am recommending this. But you can call Microsoft and explain. They will give you a new key, likely. --Proficient 16:29, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

DHCP failure.

I'm using a Linksys BEFW11S4 wireless router, and DHCP is failing, despite the router's insistence that it's running a DHCP server. Here's what I get when I do a sudo dhclient eth2.

DHCPREQUEST on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPNAK from 192.168.1.1
DHCPDISCOVER on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 8
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPNAK from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPNAK from 192.168.1.1
DHCPDISCOVER on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67 interval 7
DHCPOFFER from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPNAK from 192.168.1.1
DHCPREQUEST on eth2 to 255.255.255.255 port 67
DHCPNAK from 192.168.1.1

And it repeats the pattern until I CTRL-C it.

Everything works fine if I assign myself an IP address, but this is, of course, not an optimal solution. Is there something obvious that I'm forgetting? I've tried to get an IP from several clients, but all of them exhibit the same issue of waiting for a DHCP lease and not getting one. (The Windows and Mac OSX hosts just kind of sit there, but I assume they're doing this. I can try to sniff packets with ethereal if it's really in doubt.) Reloading the router's default settings made no change; there's been no configuration change since the router was installed a year or more ago. grendel|khan 00:45, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

this is similar to what's happening to me on my fickle network (see above question). I have to assign static IP's or else I just get the shitty limited or no connectivity and a weird IP/subnet.

But, I assume your rotuer is 192.168.1.1?? So why is your router try to access what appears to be a subnet, 255.255.255.255 Wjlkgnsfb 06:27, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Since a client has no IP address to speak of when it tries to get an IP address from a DHCP server, it has to broadcast over the network, that is, 255.255.255.255. DHCP communication is done this way until a client obtains an IP address. Splintercellguy 07:09, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

PCI 2.2/2.3

I've been looking at the Linksys WMP54G which I believe to be either PCI 2.2 or 2.3. Can this be used with a conventional 32 bit PCI slot as shown here? --Kiltman67 02:54, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

The datasheet says it's a 32-bit card. So, as long as both the slot and the card support the same voltage (either 3.3V or 5V), it'll work (IIRC having two notches means it's a "universal" card which works on both voltages, but I'm not sure). AFAIK, most PCs use 3.3V for the slots. And do not worry about the bus frequency (33MHz or 66MHz); it's autodetected, and the whole bus is slowed down to 33MHz if needed. --cesarb 03:59, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I wasn't sure what to make of the two notches. The PCI slots in my PC only have one line for the notch to go over and I'm not sure if you need to have exactly the same number of notches and lines. --Kiltman67 04:37, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

You don't. It was designed so that, as long as it fits, it's supposed to work. If the card has two notches and the slot has only one, it'll fit. Which of the two notches your motherboard's slot has IIRC determines which voltage it uses. --cesarb 15:51, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Prince symbol in Unicode?

Has there been any proposal to include File:Princesymbol.png in Unicode? NeonMerlin 05:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Such a proposal would not be accepted. "Note, however, that the Unicode Standard does not encode idiosyncratic, personal, novel, or private-use characters, nor does it encode logos or graphics." [11] --cesarb 16:17, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

X on Java

Hello,

I'm looking for an X server that runs on Java, licensed under BSD-like terms (such as Apache License 2.0). I've already seen WeirdX and WiredX, but neither is licensed under BSD-like terms. Any help? Kudos to all.

Jdstroy 06:23, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Mosaic browser

Does UIUC get money for each copy of internet explorer and netscape that is sold? (click on help-> about on IE, apparently spyglass is somehow related to UIUC) -Wjlkgnsfb 06:48, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Considering that IE and Netscape are both completely free, no. --mboverload@ 11:03, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

??? It isn't free to make them...there's a certain cost Microsoft has to distribute each version of IE for free. Wjlkgnsfb 18:04, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

What cost? --mboverload@ 23:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a tangled history, with the original NCSA browser called Mosaic, and Spyglass producing a commercial browser also called Mosaic, but our article indicates that "Spyglass licensed the technology and trademarks from NCSA for producing their own web browser but never used any of the NCSA Mosaic source code. Spyglass Mosaic was later licensed by Microsoft, and it was modified and renamed Internet Explorer. " Also, the original Netscape browser is said not to have shared any code with the NCSA program.

Your original question asked if UIUC received money for each copy of IE or Netscape that is sold. Since neither one is sold as a standalone product, then I'd say mboverload's answer must stand -- "no." --LarryMac 18:22, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Computer technological advance slowing down

Why is it that it seems that computers, especially microprocessors, are stuck in their speed race? Eight years ago it was so much faster... Have they reached some kind of technological limit or what? Thanks.

I think that there is a move, with microprocessors especially, from just faster processors, to more processors (dual-core). You have to take into account the physical energy required for faster processors. Some of this is lost as heat, and too much heat can damage the processor. Harryboyles 10:15, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

We have long known that new technology would be required to perpetuate Moore's Law. A number of physics limits are looming. For example, increases in switching speeds can mean increases in power consumption and in heat dissipation requirements. The physical size of atoms and molecules eventually intrudes. Components packed too closely are more vulnerable to various problems. Deposition masks using visible light cannot have details smaller than the wavelengths allow, so we must adopt alternatives. And when we can get no further doing "more of the same", we have to spend the time (and money) to research and develop and build facilities and assure quality and yields for the replacement technology.

It's interesting to compare recent progress in general-purpose CPUs with the GPUs used for graphics cards. Development of the latter has been considerably faster. --KSmrq^T 11:49, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Heat is becoming a major factor. Also, CPUs are now becoming more efficient. It's not only speed that matters. You can't measure a processor's power on the Gigahertz rate only. You must also look at the level 2 caches and such. There are many other factors. Take a look at how much hard drive disk space has come down in price, and look at RAM. RAM has increased very little in the years. --Proficient 16:31, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Broken digital camera.

I have a Pentax Optio S digital camera. After lending it to someone, I find that (a) the camera will not turn on; even with a fully-charged battery. When I attempt to turn it on, the power light lights up for 3-5 seconds and then turns off. (b) the lens is twisted slightly; the text on the zoom lens reading "Pentax Optio S" is now tilted to the left, as if the circular parts have been rotated. Does anyone have any idea what could be wrong?

If something's been twisted, it might be failing an internal diagnostic. Trying to make its moving parts move might cause further damage. I'm just guessing here, but I think I can be fairly certain that this can't be fixed by you, and that you'll need to take it to a camera shop and/or see about sending it to Pentax to get it repaired, if you think it's worth it. Whoever it is that you've lent it to should probably help you out, there. grendel|khan 13:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Certainly the person who lent it to you will help you pay for damages arising. --Proficient 16:32, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

mIRC help.

I can connect to various networks and join channels just fine. But on efnet, trying to /join #help results in the error: #help Nick/channel is temporarily unavailable. I'd normally ask for help in #Help...

Maybe their #help channel is down? It seems pretty obvious to me. Does joining #help on other servers work? Wizrdwarts (T|C|E) 20:25, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

That's odd...

My current IP 71.247.125.144 (talk · contribs) (changes every few weeks), shows me making a change to wikipedia on 18 May 2006, I didn't even have Verizon in May, how is that possible?--71.247.125.144 15:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

More than likely the last person to have that IP (or person before them etc.) made a change. --Kiltman67 15:35, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Multiple people can have the same IP at times differing in history. --Proficient 16:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

That is why you want to create an account. It is easy and free. --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:57, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Having an account doesn't help. You still get blocked, even though your account has never been used for vandalism, just because the I/P you currently have was once used by a vandal. This happens to me all the time. StuRat 01:32, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

That's if the IP address is blocked. However, now it is possible for admins to block only the IP address, not any registerd users using the IP address. It depends on the individual IP address and the blocking admin. I'd agree with Kainaw. Creating an account is easy and there are many benefits, especially if you are going to become a regular editor. There's a higher percentage chance of being able to edit with a user account, as other users have a better chance of solving the problem. Harryboyles 14:00, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Windows File Handles

Something I've never been able to find out about but has bothered me for quite some time is how to look up, given a file, what processes own mutex locks on that file. As near as I can make out, Windows (or at least Windows XP) calls mutex locks file handles, hence the name of this post.

The reason I care is that I extremely fed up with trying to delete or modify a file only to discover that I don't have write access to it, even when root (administrator). When I try to delete or modify, I simply get a message that access is denied; I'm not even told whether it's an ownership issue or a locking issue, but as I'm administrator, I assume it must be locking. I realise rebooting into safe mode would almost certainly let me get around the issue, but I'd rather find some sort of more elegant solution - at least one which doesn't require a reboot.

I figure if I can find out what process owns the extant handle, I can kill the process, which should dissolve the handle, letting me delete or modify to my heart's content.

Anyone have any thoughts?

-- Rick Weinberger

According to our File locking article, you can "force close" the file locks using Process Explorer. I can't say I've tried it myself. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:07, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

I downloaded it, and it can indeed force close file locks, and you can look up locks by file name. This is exactly what I was hoping for, thank you. I'm sorry it didn't occur to me to check the file locking article myself; I only looked up windows file handles (and was unsuccessful). Thanks for the help. -- Rick Weinberger

Audio storage streaming thingamajig

Here's a rather un-emphazi'd question, but i'll try my best to explain. My uncle has a music device that stores music (I think about 250GBs worth) which you can plug into your home cinema system, stream to the web etc. Only problem is i've had very little luck finding one, probably because i have the name completely wrong. What's the name of one of these, and do you know any good ones? Thanks Benbread 16:16, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

    250 GB seems like a lot.  Are you sure about that number?

The Roku Soundbridge has some of those features, but it relies on your PC for actual storage. --LarryMac 19:06, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

And this review of the Sonos Digital Music System mentions, near the end, the idea of hooking it up to a Network Storage device such as the 250GB Buffalo Link Station. No streaming TO the web though. --LarryMac 19:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Bittorrent Video Problems

Say someone has successfully downloaded several movies through Bittorrent. Say this someone opened them through Winamp and the audio is flawless. However, this persons problem is that there is no video. What might this person(who is not me) be doing wrong? Thanks.

Well, that someone should stop using winamp immediatly and start using vlc media player. You never, ever, have to worry about file formats and codecs again! Incase that doesn't work (which is VERY unlikely), in vlc press View->Stream and Media Info... to get the media info and google the codecs and see what you can find. Tell us how it goes for that special someone. Also, as an aside, VLC is by far the best media player out there, not only does it play everything natively, it's also the player with by far the most options and things. You can, for instance, manually delay the audio by a given amount so that videos with audio and video out of synch can be fixed! It's really quite extraordinary. Oskar 06:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Concur.

Photoshop

I have a hypothetical question for everyone. Let's say that I hypothetically downloaded Photoshop from BitTorrent. Now, let's also hypothetically say that I unzipped it and now am trying to activate it. Let's say that I hypothetically don't really know how to use the keygen. Could anyone offer me some hypothetical solutions? (the keygen is hypothetically done by PARADOX, if it matters.) Thanks for your help on this hypothetical question I have been speculating. --71.98.25.194 05:11, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, at a complete, unfounded guess, (hypothetically) you'd want to choose to activate photoshop by phone, you'll then be given a serial number. (Hypothetically) put this into the keygen and you might be given an activation code.

Now that doesn't sound like a very good (hypothetical) answer, i wouldn't activate by phone unless you're currently not on name terms with some very important biological features (eh..?). Does this (hypothetical) copy of photoshop contain any information on performing such an act? (hypothetically of course...) Benbread 10:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Hypothetically you should figure it out yourself. It's hypothetically the least you could do since you downloaded it for free instead of working almost a whole week's pay to buy it. =D But that's just me. The activate by phone is the key. --mboverload@ 10:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Jeez, couldn't he have just said that his friend Joey Joe Joe Junior Shabadoo had a problem with his pirated edition of Photoshop? Hypothetically? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:59, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

What if (hypothetically) some guys (hypothetically) have bad attitudes and (hypothetically) put spyware infected copies of Photoshop on BitTorrent so wannabe pirates can (hypothetically) download and try to (hypothetically) install the software? In the end you (hypothetically) get an infected computer and a message that says Gimp is free. --Kainaw ^(talk) 15:24, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure if such a hypothetical situation is likely to happen, as users downloading said hypothetical copy would be unlikely to continue seeding the file after they're told to use GIMP. Though in such a hypothetical world, who knows. Benbread 19:25, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

DVD Decrypter

I am in the process of backing up a DVD that I own using DVD Shrink 3.2 and DVD Decrypter. I already created my ISO file in DVD Shrink, however when I go to burn this to a DVD-RW, it gives me this error message:

"Failed to Write Sectors 0 - 31 - Cannot Format Medium - Unsupported Medium Write Speed"

I attempt to write the DVD at 2x, the speed that the program itself claims is the maximum speed possible. My drive is the TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H552D. I should add that when I retry burning without first ejecting and then re-inserting the disc, I also receive this error message:

"Failed to Reserve Track! - No More Track Reservations Allowed"

If this helps, here is the information DVD Decoder displays for my drive/disc.

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H552D GA01 (ATA) Current Profile: DVD-RW

Disc Information: Status: Empty Erasable: Yes Free Sectors: 2,285,849 Free Space: 4,681,418,752 bytes Free Time: 507:59:74 (MM:SS:FF) Supported Write Speeds: 2x

Pre-recorded Information: Manufacturer ID: MCC 00RW11N9

Physical Format Information (Last Recorded): Book Type: DVD-RW Part Version: 2 Disc Size: 120mm Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified Number of Layers: 1 Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP) Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit Track Density: 0.74 um/track First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608 Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 0 Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0

Thank you in advance for any help or advice you can give me.

--Cduffner 05:56, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Try:

• write slower
• change to a different brand of media
• write the ISO with a different program (e.g. CDburnerXP)

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:21, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Enabling Japanese input in KDE

My PowerBook has gone up to the big computer lab in the sky, and all attempts within my budget to bring it back to life have failed thus far. In the interim, I'm using a PC I built myself which is running FreeBSD (PC-BSD, actually), and I'm using KDE as my desktop environment.

I'd like to know how to input Japanese text on this puppy using my standard English keyboard. (That is, I'd like to type in romaji and have kana and kanji options appear on the screen, just as it works in Mac OS X — but if I have to use a Japanese key-mapping, I suppose I'll survive). I bleeping Googled it, but a lot of the info I'm finding seems antiquated and/or conflicting and/or just plain complicated. Keeping in mind that my l33t UNIX 5k1llz doesn't extend much farther than building ports, could anyone outline the steps involved in getting Japanese input working on this thing? (If it matters, keep in mind I'm using FreeBSD, not Linux.) Garrett Albright 09:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Torrent help

Hi.... can anyone help me with this problem i have Azureus and i have been using it for a long time now i have encountered a problem. When i start Azureus i get a error saying Azureus did not close tidily hence a error has Occurred so i reinstalled the software and the problem still Occurred and the software crashes, can any one help. Thanks in advance

Widescreen monitors

I'm upgrading my computer (building it from components for the first time, so prepare for further questions when it actually arrives and I get my screwdrivers out), and I've ordered a flat 22" widescreen monitor. How do resolutions work with these? Does everything work as normal, only stretched out, or does everything need to be set to display at special resolutions to look right? My greatest fear is ending up with ugly black strips at either side of the screen if I have to use a normal resolution. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 14:57, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Widescreen monitors just use resolutions with a different ratio than the usual 4:3 used by "normal" monitors. Things shouldn't be stretched (unless you force a weird resolution, maybe) and there should be no black bars (unless there's an option to use them), you should just have a bit more screen real estate on the sides. digfarenough (talk) 16:01, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

This is entirely true for an OS's desktop and programs that run in it (they're not silly enough to hardwire their software for any given resoltion or ratio) and I think for modern games too. But older games do hardwire a specific resolution, and in those cases I think you'll get black bars. I'd be interested to know how Quake and (more likely) GLQuake fare on a widescreen monitor. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:15, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, that's reassuring. Come to think of it, most monitors allow you to stretch the horizontal width anyway. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 17:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

who owns 220.227.238.169 :80

Every week or every 10 days or so, my computer receives data from the IP address 220.227.238.169 . Can you say who owns that IP address? Is it Microsoft or someone else? Is it legal for someone other than microsoft to install programs which download data continuously every while like this? What can I do to stop this? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.226.71.11 (talk • contribs) .

According to this page, "220.227.238.169 resolved to deploy.akamaitechnologies.com". Akamai is an internet caching service (among other things). More information can be found from the links in our article. I'll leave the other questions to somebody with more information. --LarryMac 17:47, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

(EDIT CONFLICT) WHOIS information shows that IP is registered to Akamai Technologies, the server physically in Mumbai (the :80 is just a port number). If you do not have any business with Akamai, then that connection may be suspicious. However, your IP address, the very similar 220.226.71.11, shows similar information. I would conjecture that the connection is related somehow to your internet connection. I'd email your ISP's helpdesk, if you are concerned. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 17:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I like the description on the questioner's IP whois: "RELIANCE-Wireless-Dialup-PDSN-Users-Internet-Connectivity-DHCP-Pools-for-South-and-East-Region-for-4-million-customers" --Kainaw ^(talk) 18:52, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

cutting a song

Hi guys, is there any way I can cut a song to have only the chorus? so that it lasts for like... 20 seconds max.? I don't have any profesional software though, so is there any simple way?. thank you.--Cosmic girl 17:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

You could always convert the song to a wav file and edit it using Sound Recorder, presuming you're using Windows. Then convert it back to MP3. --Kiltman67 18:42, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Can computer monitors display television signals?

Is there any hardware setup that would allow a computer monitor to display a television signal from a standard indoor aerial? As my monitor is going to be so much bigger than my current television, and I'll be living in one room, it would be nice to watch TV on it. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 17:49, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

There are several TV tuner cards available for PCs, as well as standalone boxes that will convert a TV signal to one that is displayable on a monitor. Try this Google search, for example. (Also, please use the "Ask A Question" link at the top of the page to add a question). --LarryMac 18:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. What was wrong with the way I did it? Edit conflicts? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 18:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Nothing major, but on my watchlist page, it showed that there had been an update to the previous section. You did provide an edit summary though, so that made it slightly less confusing. And hey, at least you didn't edit the whole page :-) --LarryMac 19:02, 14 August 2006 (UTC)