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March 16

Project euler

I am trying to do problem 56. I want to find the maximum sum, so I wrote this python program:

def ndig(n):
   count = 0.0
   while n >= 1.0:
       count = count + 1
       n = n / 10.0
   return count
def sumdig(n):
   c = 0.0
   d = ndig(n)
   count = 0.0
   sum = 0.0
   while n > 1.0:
       count = count + 1
       c = n / (10 ** (d - count))
       sum = sum + ((c - (c % 1.0)))
       n = n - ((10 ** (d - count))) * (c - (c % 1.0))
   return sum
for b in range(0,100):
   count = 0.0
   while count < 99.0:
       count = count + 1.0
       if sumdig(b ** count) > 900.0:
           print b, count, sumdig(b ** count)

I get 980 as the maximum with 95 ^ 96, but apparently this isn't the right answer. What am I doing wrong? 70.162.25.53 (talk) 00:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, why is is that when I quit the python window it doesn't actually quit the program? I have to use the task manager to close it. 70.162.25.53 (talk) 00:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I get 972 for 99**95 using the code below. "while n > 1.0" in sumdig should be "while n >= 1.0", other than that your code looks ok --h2g2bob (talk) 02:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

sumdig.py

def sumdig(n):
        result = 0
        while n > 0:
                if n % 1.:
                        # print an error
                        raise ValueError("n should not have decimal places", n)
                result = result + (n % 10)
                n = n // 10 # Floor division, same as n = (n - (n % 10)) / 10. This should be default as n is an int. (fixed comment 2008-03-16 --h2g2bob)
        return result

def test():
        # Check the results of sumdig with some known values
        for n, value in (
                        (0, 0),
                        (1, 1),
                        (2, 2),
                        (9, 9),
                        (10, 1),
                        (11, 2),
                        (19, 10),
                        (99, 18),
                        (100, 1),
                        (104, 5),
                        (63074969477556142, 85),
                        (4413285447574164570267452197042402, 136),
                ):
                if sumdig(n) == value:
                        print 'ok'
                else:
                        print 'ERROR', n, sumdig(n), value

def main():
        for base in xrange(100): # 0..99
                for expo in xrange(100): # 0..99
                        n = ( base ** expo )
                        value = sumdig(n)
                        if value > 900.:
                                print base, expo, value

if __name__=='__main__': # True (except if you import this file into another project)
        test()
        main()

Hold it. Are you seriously trying to brute-force add up the digits of every number up to 100¹⁰⁰? Do you realize that if adding up all the digits for a given number takes only one processor cycle (yeah right), you're going to be waiting a long time for that program to finish. :D\=< (talk) 04:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

No, just brute forcing through $a^{b}$ where 0<a<100 and 0<b<100, so only less than 10000 numbers need to be brute-forced.

Running the original programme I get a maximum of 952 for 94**98, and 95**96 is only 931, which is different from what you've got. The outputs of h2g2bob's version though, is consistent on my machine. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh. It blows my mind how you can just twiddle 194-digit numbers. :D\=< (talk) 04:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Python has an extension to integer variable type called 'long' which can handle any length integers - maybe thats why it's called python ... long ? (immensly funny computer joke)87.102.75.250 (talk) 12:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

In case somebody isn't yet sure about the result, I also got 99^95 "=" 972 with C and GMP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.149.216.233 (talk) 15:40, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

caps lock key

what was the original purpose of the Caps Lock key -- ie, why was it necessary to include such a key on a computer keyboard? what case-sensitive task required caps such that holding down the "shift" key would be too difficult? 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

For some reason our caps lock article doesn't say, but if you go back a few days-- there it is o_O :D\=< (talk) 04:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Reverted. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:31, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oddly there's no discussion of its real origins, which is in typewriters. If you don't think typing in all caps comes up all that much, you clearly are used to have more than one font and text styling (bold, italic) at your easy disposal. Typewritten correspondence often used all-caps for things like titles. (At least, that's what I find doing research with type-written documents). Holding down shift works fine for small amounts of text but if you are typing things in all capital letters on a routine basis, caps-lock can come in handy. With computers though it is a lot less pressing, though it does serve to identify the computer illiterate pretty easily, and makes it so that tech support will always have a good number of very easy questions to answer.

It should also probably be noted that a caps-lock key on an old typewriter did not function like a caps-lock key on a modern keyboard. For one thing, it would be physically depressed the entire time -- no needing to pay attention to little LEDs to see if it was on or not -- and if you pushed shift again it would un-lock it. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 05:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And, of course, on a mechanical typewriter, it didn't function as a "caps lock" key, it functioned as a "shift lock" key. That is, it mechanically locked the shift levers depressed and so had the effect of not only capitalizing the letters but also of changing all the numbers to symbols and so on. It was only with the advent of computer logic that it became possible to implement a true "caps lock" key that only affected the alphabetic characters. Even on some of the earliest computer keyboards, it was still a "shift lock" key!

Atlant (talk) 16:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I have seen (exceedingly old) computers that had both shift lock and caps lock. Sam Korn ^(smoddy) 14:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

When PLATO users asked why there was no shift lock, Group 's' explained that it would inevitably affect spaces too; shift-space on PLATO was a backspace. —Tamfang (talk) 20:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

CPU temp?

i downloaded the app CoreTemp to monitor my CPU temperature. i have a dual core AMD64 Athlon X2 and they're both hovering around 50 degrees right now at about 4% usage. i'm told this is VERY bad. i use a laptop and i always try to keep the fan vents open... is there anything else i can do to cool down my poor computer? 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:20, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Sigh.. fahrenheit or celsius? 50 degrees F is perfectly fine (maybe a little godly), celsius.. you're in trouble. Did you just close a game? Why do you have 4% cpu usage? :D\=< (talk) 04:26, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

sorry, celsius. i have no idea why i have 4% usage; that's just what the task manager says. i don't play games; all i have running is Pidgin, Opera, AVG and Notepad. 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:29, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Well chances are that 4% is just task manager itself. If it's a laptop there's not a whole lot you can do to improve airflow.. try blowing out the vents with a can of compressed air to dust it out. As a last resort, buy some Arctic Silver and reseat your heatsink on your processor (a major job for a laptop) :D\=< (talk) 04:32, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Mine (Sempron 3100+) hovers around either 60 or 50 degrees C depending on which sensor I choose (Core0 Temp or CPU temp) under 100% load and had been running fine for more than 3 years now, so it's not that bad. You might want to look at the temperature when on high loads though, and turn on Cool'n'Quiet in your BIOS and OS. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:35, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

But while idling? 100% load is one thing but 50C while idling is ridiculous. BTW mine dies within 5 minutes under 100% cpu load even with the below-mentioned cooling pad :( stupid heat :D\=< (talk) 04:38, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

i looked at the page linked and AMD's website and i couldn't for the life of me figure out how to turn this feature on. the PDF instructions provided seem to be quite outdated as they refer to tons of things on the site that don't exist. you would think that instead of providing a PDF file they would just link directly to the page it's on! i did a search but didn't find anything useful. can anyone point me in the right direction? 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

BTW, i'm on Vista Home Basic 99.245.92.47 (talk) 04:49, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh and I had crazy heating problems with my thinkpad so I got one of these. Dropped the cpu temp 10-15 celsius, YMMV since the steel bottom of T60s is a giant heatsink :D\=< (talk) 04:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully a can of compressed air will help, there's not really many other simple solutions (for a laptop). Useight (talk) 06:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It may be original research, but according to iStat Pro, CPU A in my macbook (OS X 10.4, 1.83 Intel Core Duo) is at about 59 degree centigrade, running at about 30%. (I can see Froth jumping into it so I will say it beforehand that Macbooks are not the best when it comes to heat management. :D) Kushal 15:42, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Over the history of my MacBook, the temperature has gone up. Right now it's probably is averaging 70 C at 50%, and goes past 80 with more load. But Intel processors are also known to handle heat much better than AMD. Mac Davis (talk) 04:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Har har. Pentium 4. :D\=< (talk) 05:30, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Able to confirm colorblindness compatibility?

Resolved

I want to ensure that a color scheme I am using will be easy to use for people with different colorblindnesses. Is there a program or website that either OKs certain color schemes, or perhaps adjusts hexadecimal color codes to show how they would look to people different color deficiencies? HYENASTE 07:36, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

http://colorfilter.wickline.org/ — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 11:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Matt that's precisely what I wanted. HYENASTE 21:23, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Commanding the Storm botnet

How would the creators of the Storm botnet give it instructions? If it spends a lot of its time evading traces, then how do they know where or how to send instructions to it to do various things? Or am I misunderstanding something really obvious? Dismas|^(talk) 07:59, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

A simple way: every n minutes, a bot downloads a file from WWW and parses it.

Another way: every bot connects to an IRC server (DALnet, EFnet, owner's server), joins a secret channel and waits for text. If the owner sends a command to the channel, every bot executes it.

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 13:18, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Also, remember that Storm heavily relies on encryption. You can bet that the bot-herders encrypts every command with the bot's public key and signs every command with their own private key. That way, the communications can't be snooped, and they can't be faked. This probably makes it tons easier to control the entire bot-net without detection (or hijacking). --Oskar 16:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

spellcheck.py of Pywikipedia

Do you know how to get this working? I already have all the python scripts, and has used them many times in the Tagalog wiki but I can't seem to use this script even here in this wiki. I am trying to use it here at User:Felipe Aira/sandbox. But it's not working. Can you give me an example syntax for it and exactly how to make it work? Thank you. -- Felipe Aira 04:58, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Going through an url-list

I have a list of newline separated addresses (28,490 addresses to be exact) I want to go through, not to view. I had to do that as logged in, so there should be some sort of cookie management involved. I have Windows XP, Knoppix and Cygwin/MingW on XP for C programming, but I have only once done similar before and it was a pain, and apparently I have in my unlimited wisdom deleted the source . Command line would be preferred. What to do? (as an extra problem: I have tried to compile msdn winsock client example with line "gcc -o test test.c -mno-cygwin -lws2_32 -lmswsock -ladvapi32" but only got undefined reference to _getaddrinfo and _freeaddrinfo) --212.149.216.233 (talk) 13:04, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

try wget. If I understand correctly, you need to load every URL from a list.

Use wget with these parameters:

• -i file - use URLs from file
• --spider - do not save the document (only visit it)
• --load-cookies=file - load cookies from file (Mozilla format, so you can just use the one from your Firefox profile)
• --save-cookies=file - save cookies to file

Here's a wget for Windows.

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 13:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

It looks too easy, I just got to get Firefox first. Currently using Opera. (Hail Norwegians!) Thank you! --212.149.216.233 (talk) 14:37, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

by the way, you can do wget -b and just check wget-log once in a while.

wget --help (duh) for help. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 19:17, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

no net at home - is there a cheap self-powered palm-sized thing I can take on walks to download from WiFi connections

I don't have Internet at home unfortunately (long story) but is there something I could walk around with all day, and when I get home, read what I've downloaded, ie something that will run a custom Python script and has a wifi connection and can be on all day. It can be headless (no screen) the battery and small size and above all LOW COST is what interests mme.

Anyone know of anything that fits the bill? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.1.135 (talk) 14:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

First off: cool idea :). Do you have a laptop? It's easily doable with a laptop, just set it to be as promiscuous as possible when it comes to connecting to wireless-networks, and then have a list of urls to download. I suppose you could do it with pretty much any PDA or smart-phone, but it's not as easy.

That said, I don't think that this is such a great idea. When you're some distance from a network (as you would be when you're walking the street) and the signal is weak, it takes a while to connect, and by then you'd probably have walked to far already. It's not very efficient. Do this instead: find a nice library or coffee-shop with free wi-fi, get a cup of joe, and start surfin! Save all the stuff you need (podcasts and Google Reader with Google Gears integration comes to mind as useful, as does POP email). Again, this is assuming you have a laptop. If you don't have a laptop, use a computer at a computer-place (internet cafe or such), plug in a usb-drive (an iPod, for instance), and save stuff to it. I did that for a while when my internet went down. --Oskar 17:14, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe something like the Sony mylo would do the trick, but I don't think it's all that cheap (considering its feature set), laptops are getting close to that price point. Also there's not really ubiquitous WiFi anywhere yet, as far as I know, so you'd have to find a hot-spot and hang out there while your downloading is going on. --LarryMac | Talk 14:18, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Two words:

ScrapBook Firefox

Regards,

Kushal 15:44, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

1) how does a software only solution address the question? 2) why don't you EVER indent? --LarryMac | Talk 15:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

FIREFOCK? :D\=< (talk) 03:40, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, LarryMac. I try to avoid indenting as far as practicable.

He could take his computer with him when he is on a walk and then have Scrapebook download whole websites, well the public parts of the website. If he could stay on one WiFi network for long enough, he could get a small website copied in just a few hours. I would suggest playing around with Scrapbook on Mozilla Firefox. Kushal 05:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: Froth, what was that supposed to mean? :( Kushal 05:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Just being obnoxious at larrymac's annoying enumerated line of questioning :D :D\=< (talk) 05:25, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Nforce 700 compared to Nforce 600

Hello

I am almost ready to buy and build my new computer but I saw a problem with the motherboard I was looking at. The Nforce 680i motherboard supports SLI but does not support PCI-E 2.0, where as the £40 more expensive 780i supports both. I have decided upon buying this graphics card:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/135258/show_product_overview

What I was wondering was will there be a performance hit if I use it on this motherboard:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/132813/show_product_specifications?spectype=extended

An Nforce 680i

Compared to if I use it on this motherboard:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139340

An Nforce 780i (with slightly dubious specs compared). I noticed in the system specifications that it didn't explicitly say PCI-E 2.0, but after reading the wiki page I assumed this was given on the chipset.

Thanks 78.145.34.125 (talk) 19:27, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

PCI-E 1.1 and 2.0 are compatible. The difference is that if both the board and the card support 2.0 you get twice the transfer rate. However, the common opinion (at least the one I've heard) is that today's cards barely make full use of 1.1's bandwidth, and the extra bandwidth of 2.0 is completely redundant.

You speak about SLI, and then say "graphics card" singular. Do you intend to leave the option of buying another one open? In either case (this board supports both slots at x16 so having two cards shouldn't matter) I don't believe you'll see any difference between 1.1 and 2.0 (I'd be singing a different tune if you were to buy, say, two GeForce 9800 GX2 cards). If that's your only concern, go with the 680i. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

text browser

Is there any way to browse a website using only source code? I know you can just check the source of each individual page, but if there is an intentionally destructing object embedded into a page, how would you go about checking the source if it crashes right away? Let me know if this is possible, or done before. Thank you Hpfreak26 (talk) 21:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Open the html file in notepad perhaps?87.102.124.155 (talk) 22:05, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Trouble is, you need to get the file first. You need a program that knows how to talk to webservers but one which doesn't immediately try to interpret the html. wget any good for you? --90.203.189.150 (talk) 22:08, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Notepad actually can get the file, in XP at least. Just go file, open and type the url into the file name box. Think outside the box 10:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There are many alternatives. I suggest using Firefox with Adblock and NoScript. The combination of the two block all the nasty flash, applet, and javascript junk. You can allow things one by one and figure out what exactly is causing the crash. Alternatively, you can go text-only and use something like Lynx to surf the web. Since it doesn't have pictures or videos, there isn't much to crash. I need to have Adblock and NoScript because I run Linux and the flash plugin for Linux is, at best, a system crash waiting to happen. Often, I hit a page and Firefox just goes away without warning. Then, I realize that something wasn't blocked, so I block it and try again. -- kainaw™ 22:10, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

AHA! Lynx looks perfect. I do have firefox with Adblock, but there is still the occasional rick-roll that gets through to me. I'll check out NoScript as well. Thanks a bunch for the speedy assistance. Hpfreak26 (talk) 22:13, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Rickrolls aren't exactly malicious, and examining the page HTML before loading it is cheating. :D\=< (talk) 23:03, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There's actually a lynx mode that disables the actual rendering and just displays the HTML source. It's kind of complicated to set up- see this tutorial :D\=< (talk) 23:06, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, you got me. --90.203.189.180 (talk) 00:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It's almost painful, people are so easy. :D\=< (talk) 05:29, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh wow. I saw your comment but didn't really care that much about the source code. I guess apathy is the best protection... Hpfreak26 (talk) 23:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

March 17

google video ripper

i'm looking for a website or program that will rip video from Google video. The only catch is that this video is about 2 hours long! I need a converter that could handle that. It could be for any OS. --Randoman412 (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

[1] Mac Davis (talk) 04:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thats fine, but that site says "No Video Found". Why? --Randoman412 (talk) 19:22, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Does KeepVid.com work for you?--droptone (talk) 19:26, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

endless buffer

youtube isn't working on my user(pls. note i said user, and not the computer or other users.)because it dosn't seem to stop buffering but it did work before. i did try clearing the cache —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.95.132.73 (talk) 03:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

E-mail and the law

Moved from Humanities

It's a felony in the US to tamper with mail sent through the US Post Office, to open mail not addressed to you, to destroy mail, etc.

Is e-mail protected by any such legislation? I would assume not, other than standard data-loss/hacking types of things, but I'm curious. Say someone accidentally sends e-mail to me because I have a similar e-mail address as someone else. Am I required legally to respect their confidentiality or privacy? Do I have to report it to them? Do I have to delete it? Does it count as "unlawful access to stored communications" if it was sent to me accidentally? (Seems unlikely to me on that last one, since the law says you have to be doing things "intentionally".) What if I reprinted them elsewhere? (Do I have anything to worry about except, at most, copyright infringement?) Etc.

(No, this isn't a plea for legal advice. It's just a query about the law. There's a difference. I'm not doing this myself, I'm not taking any of your responses as being advice from a lawyer, etc.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:12, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Law offices like to copypaste warnings all over their emails claiming that they're copyrighted and that it's illegal to read the contents if you're not the person they're actually trying to contact. But you can't really legislate it- if you got an email intended for someone else, just be annoyed at the spam and send back a furious flame about lern-ing to type, or purse your lips and delete that crap, or if it's interesting forward it to all of your friends. This is the internet, it's not exactly serious business. :D\=< (talk) 05:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Like at my work, there's a guy much higher up the "ladder" than me with the same name. I get e-mails intended for him on a regular basis, usually his travel itinerary or something. I just forward them to him and e-mail the sender informing them of the correct e-mail address. However, if it's just a random mistake, and you don't know who to forward it to, I'd just probably read it and delete it. But don't open any attachments! Useight (talk) 05:45, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

(Why was this moved from Humanities? This isn't really about computers per se, it's about law. Whatever.)

The back story is I know someone who has been on a regular basis now getting e-mail meant for someone else purely by accident (very similar e-mail addresses, automatically assigned by name), and I'm trying to find out whether she has any legal obligations in regards to this. It's not that she's annoyed -- the e-mails are actually quite interesting and shed a lot of light into an organization that is usually quite secretive... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Don't screw around with the government or the military or some black ops corporation like Lockheed Martin.. these entities have wide powers and aren't afraid to ignore the law.. if you're getting emails intended for them, close the email account and never go back. If it's just some stupid retail chain or something you're fine. :D\=< (talk) 18:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You could write to the person whose email you are accidentally getting and ask for their advice. This might lead to a good outcome! Otherwise you are entering the circle of confidentiality of somebody who you don't necessarily want to be that close to. You might be acquiring legal obligations for protecting the accidentally-disclosed information. If you *do* warn them of the situation, you are much safer. Then if you get no response, you can correctly testify that they didn't care. Use certified paper mail and keep the receipt if you think they are a bigshot who won't otherwise pay attention. (Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer).. EdJohnston (talk) 20:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

The information is not legally classified or anything if that is what you are wondering. It has nothing to do with the government or the military or security of any form; it doesn't even have to do with big money (it has to do with things like university admissions processes). In this case (and again, it's not me, per se), I think contacting the mistaken person wouldn't really work out for the best. I imagine that if one wanted to make it into a book the only things that would apply would again be copyright information and potentially privacy related things, but I think it wouldn't be too hard to get around those (by obscuring names, for example, and making sure any use of copyrighted material was within fair use requirements). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 21:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

There is no inherant right to privacy with regards to e-mail; unless encrypted, e-mails can be intercepted en route if they are sent on public (internet) lines. Using e-mail to defraud or anything illegal will get you. Using it to spy on coworkers may be bad form, but generally won't get you arrested. However, if the e-mail she is reading is intended for someone in her office and she knowingly prevents that person from getting the e-mail or reads it with intent to spy, depending on the company's rules about such, she could get fired. I've forgotten to log in.... --204.65.60.15 (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I thought. Thanks! It's not a situation in which anybody would have the authority to fire her. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:36, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If she's getting internal emails then she could of course be fired for reading them and not reporting it. I can't imagine anyone would care if it has nothing to do with her work, unless she's getting something illegal through her work email. She shouldn't use her work email for things unrelated to work :D\=< (talk) 01:31, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I quote the OP

It's a felony in the US to tamper with mail sent through the US Post Office, to open mail not addressed to you, to destroy mail, etc.

It specifically covers mail from USPS. If I write a letter to Froth and address the envelope as such, hand it over to LarryMac, who hands it over to Captain Ref Desk, who hands it over to the University Postal Service at Froth's university, it is just common sense that I cannot expect absolute privacy, unless Larry Mac, Captain Ref Desk, and the student worker at the University Postal Service are willing to take Scout's Honor :). In the same way, e-mail hops from place to place and does not travel direct via me to you. This is distinctly different from USPS mail where you can expect the mail to go from the sender to the receiver with only USPS as the intermediate agent. Kushal 16:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC) Has anyone read Breach of confidence? Kushal 06:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

softwear

      What you mean by softwear  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.88.239.94 (talk) 08:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC) 

See cotton and software. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 09:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Hardware is the electronics of your computer. Software are the programs than run on it. Software is flexible; hardware, less so. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:56, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It's actually pretty complicated but for layman's use, anything that's a physical card or chip is hardware, instructions stored on a CD or downloaded over the internet is software. :D\=< (talk) 02:29, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Weird question

Here's a weird question: What happened in January 2006? [2] Closer inspection also finds the Czech Republic to hold most of the responsibility. Mac Davis (talk) 09:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Without knowing the scale of the vertical axis it's hard to know what order of magnitude of increase we're talking about, whether it is a significant statistical fluctuation or not, whether it is a big trend or some extremely avid Googler in Prague. It's also a little suspicious how close they correlate—that there might be some overlap is reasonable but the fact that these two terms without a whole lot of necessary overlap are correlating could just mean that their trends are piggy-backing on other more generalized trends (like an increase in popularity of Google in Czech Republic in general, etc.). But again, without knowing the scale, the graph is pretty meaningless—it could be something, it could be nothing, it's impossible to distinguish between the two options. Or, pretty AND meaningless. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Mac MSN 6.0.3

I'm having trouble and close to tears.

I use Mac MSN 6.0.3 on my macbook pro, OSX 10.4.11 I accidently moved the folder 'Microsoft user data' which freaked msn out, and I lost my smilies. Now, when I try to add smilies, it says I can only have 59 favorites, and must 'uncheck' one first.

Fine, but i have NO other smilies. It wont even let me select their standard ones, saying i must unselect some first!? I can get 20 out of 59, and it wont allow me any more. Why!?

I've deleted all Microsoft folders which might be interfering.

Please, restore my faith in Microsoft. Is there a .txt file somewhere that is causing trouble? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.91.153 (talk) 12:35, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You really shouldn't have faith in Microsoft to begin with—they haven't earned it.

Your best bet is to uninstall and reinstall the software again. You've corrupted something in how it keeps track of things and now it is has probably overwritten its preferences with new information so you can't just roll is back. Keep your other smilies in a different folder and then re-enter them in again. And in the future try to avoid moving folders with names like that. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

PROBLEM SOLVED: there were about 4 files in random places which contained plists for msn. I had to hunt them all down, delete them and re-instal the software again. Kinda annoying that software cannot handle one folder being moved -_-; 86.139.91.153 (talk) 18:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, well, that's Microsoft for you. If it has random plists all over then it is not really following the OS X filesystem standards guidelines either. But again, that's Microsoft. I didn't realize you had already tried to uninstall and reinstall—often hiding plists are what makes a problem last even after you've done that. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with Adium in the first place? Kushal 15:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

PowerMac G4 broken

Hi all,

my arts teacher accidentally put in a USB stick into the USB port of his PowerMac G4, but he forgot some kids damaged it, and so he shortcutted the two inner wires of the USB connector. Now the mac won't boot or give any life signs...any idea how to fix this?

84.56.63.3 (talk) 16:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, he should first try resetting the PMU and zapping the PRAM and see if that helps, though it probably won't. It's hard to know with just that description what is wrong. You probably need someone to take it apart and look at it who knows what they are doing. I've never heard of that sort of problem before, personally. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 17:02, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Also remove the short if still present.87.102.13.144 (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

• The beauty of the G4 macs is the ability to open them up. If you are confident, open it up and remove the hard drive and put it in another G4. then you can check for software problems. Once you have eliminated the threat of any software issues, back up all your data from the hard disk. Then you can put the drive back ( safe in the knowledge your data is backed-up ) and then try to find a solution. 86.139.91.153 (talk) 18:51, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thank you all for your answers, hopefully he can solve this issue. Thanks! 84.56.63.3 (talk) 21:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Computer Programming

Totals are normally initialized to ______ before a program is run. Jebake0264 (talk) 16:37, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

We don't really answer homework questions. Check your course materials. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 17:03, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

What does totals mean? What does initialized mean? If you were going to etch tally marks on your prison wall for each year you spent there, how many should be there on the day you arrive? There's only one thing separating you from the animals and the dirt, Jebake0264; use it! --Sean 17:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I think that last comment might seem offensive to some (inasmuch as it implies the OP hasn't used it so far). Not to mention that the idea that anything separates us from animals is debatable at best. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:42, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, humans are the only animal that can imply that a fellow animal who posts a homework question complete with a blank for the answer isn't thinking for itself.  :) --Sean 19:46, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

And we wear shoes - what other animal does that, except horses?87.102.13.144 (talk) 20:08, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Aha, then "Totals are nomally initialized to shoes before a program is run". Excellent. --LarryMac | Talk 20:09, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

It's pretty unpleasant to run without shoes, after all. Like most problems, this is really just about thinking it through. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I once ran without any shoes, and nothing happened! Of course, I was indoors ... but that's another story. =P Kushal 16:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

A clue is that totals are created through addition, so you should use the appropriate Identity element

I guess, then, that empty sum is also relevant, although the empty product and empty intersection are more interesting. I didn't know that you could initialize anything before a program even runs — there's static memory allocation, but I wouldn't call that initialization... --Tardis (talk) 09:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

80 GB PS3 in US

Is it just me or has the 80 GB PS3 stopped being sold in the US? I've searched multiple websites trying to find one to purchase but everyone only seems to be selling the 40 GB version. Our article on the PS3 still says they are being produced but I understand that may not be up to date. Can anyone find one new anywhere? Z28boy (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665225458&storeId=10151 (out of stock)

as far as I know sony hasn't officially 'killed' this model - it just happens to be very rare.

But if you wait to june 12th you can get this: http://gizmodo.com/361057/80gb-playstation-3-not-exactly-discontinued-just-bundled-with-metal-gear-solid-4

87.102.13.144 (talk) 17:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Partitioning USB drive

I have a USB flash drive. Is it possible to create partitions in it? PC: Windows XP Pro (SP2) drive: Apacer, 1 GB, no software --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 18:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes it is, but I don't know any good programs for XP. Probably it won't be too hard to find, just depends on what kind of partitions you want. At least you can always use format on command line: Run... cmd /k format /? for instructions. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 19:50, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix: I quickly checked, and it seems you can't create multiple partitions with format. See instead [3] or anything similar. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 19:57, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Fix of fix: In case you didn't know, you can use hard disk partitioners or whatever on USB too (afaik).> --212.149.216.233 (talk) 19:59, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

From the Windows command line, you can use fdisk, or from Control Panel/Admin Tools/Computer management you can get to Disk Management. However, always remember that the partitioning tools built into Windows are destructive, i.e. any data already on the drive will be lost. A LiveCD with GParted should do the job non-destructively. --LarryMac | Talk 20:06, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Oops, no fdisk in XP. --LarryMac | Talk 20:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't delete existing partition from Disk Management, so I can't create new. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 20:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess Windows won't allow you to partition a device that it identifies as removable. You can view how Windows identifies it in My computer, if you arrange icons by type and set the option "show icons in groups" on. Most flash drives appear under "Devices with removable storage", but I have used a flash drive before that was appearing under "hard disk drives". I don't know how Windows decides what is a removable storage device and what is a hard disk drive, though. If you are using a "hard disk drive", Computer management utility in Control panel works good - I had partitioned my external hard drive with it, and it's all fine.  ARTYOM  00:17, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yep, it shows as removable drive. (It is.) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 08:14, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Come on, no one knows about diskmgmt.msc? (hint: type that in Run) --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:21, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean the utility that a) one can get to via control panel, as mentioned above; and b) has already been noted as not up to the task? --LarryMac | Talk 13:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

java program to compute Euler's constant using it's tailor series expansion By chips

82.206.143.13 (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

You should check out Java, Euler's constant and Taylor Series and let us know if you have any more specific questions. --Sean 19:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Getting EarthSiege 2 to run under Windows XP

Hello all (again^^),

I recently dug out my CD of EarthSiege 2 and installed the game on my WinXP SP2 Home laptop (GF 8600M GT GPU). I can manage to start the main game screen, but as soon as I start a mission, DBSIM.EXE crashes. Can someone please give me a hint how to resolve this issue and maybe give me a copy of his dbsim.exe (I think it could be that the copy failed due to read errors)?

Thanks,84.56.63.3 (talk) 21:12, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

This may be of help. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 21:16, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Yea, I know that one, but it didnt help :( 84.56.63.3 (talk) 21:48, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Try right-clicking on the exe, go into properties, and run the program in compatibility mode for the operating system you know it worked on before. Also sometimes it helps to install the recommended directx version for an old game, as new directx releases don't always include all the old components. Sandman30s (talk) 14:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

earphones

Excuse me, but the earphones I use for my computer seem to have gone kooky. One of the earphones won't sound out anymore, but it just was working a few minutes ago. Can someone please point me to the right direction? Will the problem fix itself? I'm not very technical, so please explain it to me not very complex. Thank you.v--142.132.130.113 (talk) 21:24, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Before you assume the earphones are bad, make sure they're plugged in firmly. Maybe try them with some other device also. Friday (talk) 21:28, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Very good advice. Check whether the earphones work in another device and whether the computer works with a different set of earphones, then you will know where the problem is. I think the most likely cause is a loose connection in the cables for the earphone. You could try wiggling the wires where they go into the plug and where they join the headphones, and this might make it work again, though of course this won't be reliable. If this is the cause you could get someone to solder the connection, if it is at the plug end then you may well have a moulded plug that cannot be repaired and will need to be replaced. This is probably only worth doing commercially if they are expensive headphones, but if you know someone into electronics then they would probably do it for free, or the cost of a phone jack if needed. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:40, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Agreeing with Chris. Headphone cables often start cutting out from being kinked too much. Some brands sell replacement cables online. My Sennheisers are on their 4th cord, and I have a 5th in the drawer for when this one goes bad. Not cheap, but cheaper than replacing expensive headphones. / edg ☺ ☭ 23:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Spreadsheet hell

Googling around doesn't really solve this for me, so I turn to my fellow Wikipedians. I have a spreadsheet in the following format:

label1 valueA
label2 valueB
label3 valueC
label4 valueD
label1 valueE
label2 valueF
label3 valueG
label4 valueH
label1 valueI

...etc, with about 200 respondents, identified by label1. I want to have it in this format:

label1 label2 label3 label4
valueA valueB valueC valueD
valueE valueF valueG valueH
valueI  ...    ...     ...

I've got SPSS, OoO Calc and MS Excel, but I haven't been able to do this in an automated fashion in any of them. Specifically, using "transpose" in Excel will require me to type 200 transpose formulas, as it doesn't want to automatically adjust them. Any suggestions? User:Krator (t c) 21:49, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Just to clarify, the formulas that are not transposing correctly refer to data oustide of the area you are trying to reformat? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Oliana (talk • contribs) 22:15, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what you're asking, but maybe the following clarifies it. I tried to use the {=TRANSPOSE(stuff:stuff)} function, which did not work out, because it would mean I have to type 200 of such functions, which is just about as bad as doing the job by hand. User:Krator (t c) 22:47, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I guess 200 is the number of values per label. Anyway, suppose you have 4 labels and 3 values each. Suppose they are start in cell A1. In Calc, go to cell D1 and type:

=INDEX($A$1:$B$12 ; (COLUMN(D1)-COLUMN($D$1)) + 1 ; 1)

Then drag the cell all the way to the right. Then go to cell D2 and type:

=INDEX($A$1:$B$12 ; 4*(ROW(D2)-ROW($D$2)) + (COLUMN(D2)-COLUMN($D$2)) + 1 ; 2)

And drag this cell all the way to the right and to the bottom. Of course, the 12 is the total number of values, and the 4 is the number of labels. The same works in Excel, but I think you need commas instead of semicolons. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 07:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What you're doing is in effect talking column 2 and re-folding it, and putting 1 set of labels at the top of the new table. You can do it quite easily using a word processor.

1. Copy 1 set of labels (i.e. label1, label2, label3, label4) into a blank text (i.e. word processor) document. (The copied cells will be a table in the destination document.)

2. Copy column 2 from the spreadsheet to the text document.

3. From the word processor, convert the table (or tables, depending on whether the word processor joins the two pasted tables together) into text. You will have the data you wanted as a series of lines, 1 item per line.

4. Select all the entries, then use the "convert text to table" function of the word processor to make a table from the selected text. Make sure that you specify a table width of 4.

--72.78.237.190 (talk) 00:10, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Website design help - Donating to Wikipedia

Moved from Wikipedia:Help_desk

I am writing to you to ask for your help. I am an experienced website designer, and I have recently created a very popular gaming website which allows users to play games online for free. I noticed you have a donations webpage on your site (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate) and I was wondering if you could tell me how to go about integrating something like this into my site.

Many thanks

W. Maguire (<email removed>) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.160.55.23 (talk) 19:56, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

We cannot offer help with that here. This page is for asking how to use Wikipedia. The reference desk might be able to help. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 20:02, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Go to the computing desk by clicking here[4] and click on the + sign in the top most bar to start a new section and place your question there. Julia Rossi (talk) 00:27, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

---

You can easily set up a PayPal account and use their donation buttons. If you want to write something yourself you're going to have to figure out how credit card processing works, it's ugly. If you want to set something up yourself you're going to have to figure out how your tax laws work and probably work with your bank. Just use paypal. :D\=< (talk) 02:07, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

RSS

Does anyone know of a non-interactive command-line RSS reader? Thanks --90.203.189.180 (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well you can get the raw XML files with wget. :D\=< (talk) 02:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

March 18

.odt viewer for Windows

Hi, I got this email that has an attachment that's .odt file from a mac. Unfortunately, I have Windows. Can someone point me to a place I can download an .odt reader or something? It's kinda important. PPLEASE? Thanks... --Jeevies (talk) 04:28, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Pick from OpenDocument software --Spoon! (talk) 05:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

OpenDocument is an ISO standard, it's not some weird 'mac thing'. OpenOffice.org is probably the most used ODF app, and there are plugins to allow Microsoft Office to read OpenDocument as well [5]. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:11, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

AbiWord is also an option. Kushal 12:59, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

problems with filenames using ext2 in windows

I have a USB removable hard disk that I is formatted for linux (ext3) and I'm using Ext2Fsd (I think) to read/write to it in vista (which I think makes it act as if it's ext2) and everything works perfectly fine.

Everything except for a couple of file names that contain colons, which I guess is a character that vista doesn't like (I seem to remember testing the colons in linux, and there were no problems). The files display and the information (file sizes etc.) are all correct, but I can't move, copy, or access the files. I don't have a linux system on me right now (I bought a new computer and I'm sticking with vista for a short while at least), but I really want to open these files. Is there anything I can do to force vista to let me access them? I can't rename the files or anything either.

Thanks in advance!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  07:34, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Windows kernel doesn't allow these characters in file names:

/ \ ? * : < > | "

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 08:10, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know that now, but that wasn't really what I was asking. Is there anything I can do to get around that? vista knows it's there, it knows how big the file is and what kind of file it is. Is there any way I can rename it, or link to it, or something?  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:13, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Two ways:

a) from Linux, hardlink the file to a "valid" filename

b) hex-edit the file system ([6])

--grawity ^{talk / PGP} 09:51, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Just curious... why would you use a colon in a file name anyway? Just because you can use a colon doesn't make it a good idea. For compatibility reasons, like you have found out, it is probably best to stick to only using numbers, letters and underscores in file names. Astronaut (talk) 16:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Maildir mailbox format uses colons as separators. 78.56.68.25 (talk) 19:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I used to be an underscore fan; now I love hyphens :D\=< (talk) 21:48, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

functions of the major internal components of a computer

functions of the major internal components of a computer —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.202.199.1 (talk) 11:45, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

We won't do your homework. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

The basic answers can be found at computer, if you have more specific questions, then ask again.87.102.47.176 (talk) 18:31, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

How to activate Acrobat 7

Hello, I've got a serial number (perfectly legit) for Acrobat 7 Professional. However when I download the software from Adobe, it appears to be a trial-only version with no way of activating it. Anyone come across this? Does anyone know where I can get a copy of a version which will accept a serial number? I don't want to resort to torrenting the damn thing seeing as it's on the level. Thanks 195.60.20.81 (talk) 13:26, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Often when you click the Help Menu there is an option to "register" your software. Click that and it should bring up a screen to enter your serial number. Think outside the box 14:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

In any case, you can be sure that once the trial runs out, it'll give you that option. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:49, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

If it's on the level and legit, why not ask Adobe tech support for assistance? They would probably verify the serial number is in fact legit, and send you a link to download it from. Astronaut (talk) 16:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I too would expect an 'activate' option in the help menu but with this trial, nothing. I will get in touch with Adobe. 195.60.20.81 (talk) 09:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Vista "freeze"

Hi, I have a new laptop with Windows Vista. I plug in my Compaq iPaq PDA. Then I click "Connect without setting up device" in the Windows Mobile Device Center. Then, every time, the WMDC freezes up for about a minute. I can still do other things on the computer, but I have to wait for the WMDC (or Windows Explorer - sometimes I can click into Explorer and double-click on the PDA icon before it freezes) to unfreeze before I can use the device. Is this something that I can fix, or do I have to wait for SP1, or is it related to my using "Connect without setting up device"? This behavior didn't occur with Windows 98 and Activesync. I have the latest patches applied (but not SP1 'cuz it's still in beta and I'm not a tester). Thank you. 4.242.108.89 (talk) 15:39, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, about the beta thing, and you not being a tester; unless it says that the beta may have kinks that destroy your hard drive, I would take it. Example, Mozilla Firefox 3 pre-beta 5: use that, then compare to Firefox 2. Big difference. flaminglawyer^c 16:59, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I am using Firefox 3 beta 4 to write this, actually. I agree, it is great. (I didn't know that pre-beta 5 was usable yet.) Maybe I'll try the beta of SP1. Thanks for the response. If anyone has any other suggestions, please write. I tried it now with the other option (set up device to sync) and it still has the same problem. It seems to be taking all that time to install a device driver (!). I noticed that Vista takes a long time to install drivers, so I either need to speed that up some way (if it's even possible) or get it to keep the driver loaded all the time somehow. WMDC doesn't remember my password, either, so it's kind of "special" in a way. 4.242.147.174 (talk) 17:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I see that Microsoft appears to have just released SP1 out of beta. Interesting. I guess I'll try it now and see if it works. 4.242.147.174 (talk) 18:02, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Bad idea, wait a few weeks :D\=< (talk) 22:08, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Too late. Actually, I didn't see your message until I had SP1 50% downloaded, so I proceeded on to download it. Why did you suggest to wait a few weeks? Anyway, I'm using SP1 now. It seems to work OK, only one glitch so far - the audio didn't work until I reinstalled the driver. But the PDA behavior is exactly the same! So this is still an open issue. Maybe I'll pester some Microsoft support forums about this. Unless someone here has another idea... 4.242.147.153 (talk) 05:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

See my note a few questions down about being an early adopter. Can be precarious. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for the warning. I think I found the answer to my question: according to the Windows Mobile Device Center article here on WP, PocketPC 2002 device (mine) support is "effectively phased out". No wonder it doesn't work quite right. Bummer. At least it works partially. 4.242.147.209 (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

website, anyone?

Can someone send me a link to a page with instructions on creating a website? Preferably not something like this, but something that would require a fancy server or something. Thanks. flaminglawyer^c 16:56, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Could you be more specific - do you want to learn how to write the code, or find something that automates its contruction.

Also can you be more specific about the server side of things - do you want to know about website hosting perhaps.87.102.47.176 (talk) 18:33, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Instructions:

1. Figure out what website is supposed to do
2. Implement using a series of client-side and server-side tagging, coding, and so forth, as needed
3. Put website onto server space (acquired previously)
4. ...
5. Profit

But really. Your question is a little indistinct. If you want to know about websites in general, and how they are created, you might try perusing the "Computing" section of your local book store, there are bound to be dozens of volumes. To create one from scratch requires first knowing what, specifically, the site is meant to do, and then learning a number of component skills/technologies to bring it into existence. It isn't ALL that hard—in the sense that lots of people can do it, and you need not be a computer engineer to do it well—but it's not the sort of thing that has simple instructions. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 22:09, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Slashdot username please. Or has it leaked? :D\=< (talk) 04:05, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If you mean the "... profit" line, that comes from, I believe, South Park. I don't have the slightest idea where I first heard it, probably on the Something Awful forum boards ca. 2002-2003. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah it came from south park, but slashdot made it popular. Never mind :D\=< (talk) 17:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

--Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Uhhh I'm not.. lying.. :D\=< (talk) 03:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone tell me if there is something better than GagaLive for an embedded, minimal Flash chat client? Without ads, cost free and supporting IRC.

(moved from Wikipedia:Reference desk/Miscellaneous)

Can anyone tell me if there is something better than GagaLive for an embedded, minimal Flash chat client? Without ads, cost free and supporting IRC. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.225.48.193 (talk) 14:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What about java applets? Neal (talk) 14:50, 18 March 2008 (UTC).

Theoretically you could do the whole thing with Javascript and AJAX (and some sort of server-side backend, like PHP). I'm sure someone has implemented this... --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:54, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

What does this exe do?

Hello all, it's me again...

what exactly does the file here do? I guess it moves some files around, yet I am not geekish enough to speak assembler. Can someone please tell me the basic structure of the program or how I could find out how to correctly invoke it?

Thanks! 84.56.22.36 (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

PS: I already know that this file selects and install the localizations for EarthSiege, yet the interesting thing is how it achieves this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.56.22.36 (talk) 22:15, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It was written in C++, built with a Borland compiler, and dynamically linked with the Microsoft Foundation Classes. To figure out how to correctly invoke it, you'll probably need to learn a bit about assembly language, Windows and C standard library functions, and play around with the code in a debugger. For starters, it looks like you need to pass at least four arguments on the command line.—eric 00:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, thanks for that...as it was linked with debug info: Can I decompile it? 88.64.71.72 (talk) 13:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If it is in assembly language, it is already decompiled. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:18, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What. Decompilation aims to convert object code to a higher level language. Disassembly only takes it up to the ASM level :D\=< (talk) 15:03, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I got confused in my terminology, didn't realize there was a separate term for disassembler. Ma bad. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:17, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Digital photo frame

Anyone ever used a digital photo frame as an ebook reader or a device to display several frequently used data sheets, cheat sheets? -- Toytoy (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Not me. If I were you, I would look for one that supports PNG images, though. Kushal 15:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Slow PC (unusually slow video)

Hi there,

My PC has been running very slow for ages and I've been trying to figure out the problem to no avail, even reinstalling Windows has not fixed it. I have downloaded and ran some perfornace testing software and also tried an online testing facility which both suggested the problem is with 2D graphics. Certainly it often seems that the PC is unable to keep up with what I am trying to do, ie if I minimise a window, it flashes a couple of times and takes a few seconds for the desktop icons to appear. I also use the BBC IPlayer and Channel 4 On Demand online TV services which let you dowload TV programmes and play them, when I try and watch these, the video stops and starts and freezes all the time while the audio is fine.

Can anyone please suggest how to fix this? My graphics card is an NVidia FX5500 which is getting a bit old but not too old unless I want to play the latest games (which I am not trying to do) and used to work fine. You can see the full spec and performance test results here:

PC Pitstop Test Results

PS: I know it mentioned a defrag which I will leave to run overnight but I'm not in the slightest bit convinced this will fix it as it has never made any difference to me before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by GaryReggae (talk • contribs) 23:37, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems you graphics card is unable to reproduce the video. I presume you have been updating your software and as it improves, it pushes the limits of your graphics card. If the problems mostly arise or enlarge when you have multiple windows open, I'd suggest getting a better graphics card, as this one is slowing down your system. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 23:44, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure the GFX card itself is the issue as it worked fine when I got it and I'm not using any different software. Granted, some games run slow but that's not the issue. It's just generally using Windows, particularly playing back videos and I'm still using the same version of XP. Looking at an online computer parts store, the graphics card I've got is still available and the most of the new ones for general use are hardly more expensive or higher spec. I don't see why I should have to upgrade to an expensive card dedicated high-end gaming just for general use.GaryReggae (talk) 11:55, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want to make sure it is the graphics card, then which to the motherboard's video memory if there is any. I see this problem on computers that either have low RAM or are overheating (much like my own). 206.252.74.48 (talk) 15:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestion, good idea. I am now running off the motherboard's on board 'Intel Extreme Graphics 2' and I have installed the latest drivers although to be honest it doesn't make much difference, I'm still getting a lot of go-slow. I have re-ran the same diagnostic test and interestingly, the video performance is better than it was yesterday but it has now flagged up a 'major' problem with 'unusually low memory performance' (I presume the on board graphics uses general RAM rather than having its own dedicated RAM?), my memory is performing 86% slower than the best comparable system. The way the graphics problems occur, ie all is fine at first and it gets worse and worse after a few minutes would suggest memory problems to me. Any ideas for conducting further tests or other things I can try to eliminate this problem?

BTW, when you mentioned overheating, I thought I'd better check the GFX card in case the fan on it wasn't working or something, the fan outlet was partially obscured by a PCI modem (this motherboard is rediculously crowded but I have now removed this and blown a load of dust out of the fan again with no success. The fan appears to be working fine.GaryReggae (talk) 22:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

March 19

Margin text

How does one place text in the margin of a document in Word 2007 or OOo 2.3? --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 05:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

In Word 2007, go to Insert>Text Box>Simple Text Box. Type away, reposition in margin, and rotate if necessary. Mac Davis (talk) 08:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Top or bottom margins you can use headers. In Word 07 you can just double click in the top/bottom margin to open the header/footer editing view.. I forget how in previous Offices :D\=< (talk) 18:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

View>Header and Footer. Once it's inserted, you can double click to edit it. --jjron (talk) 15:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Windows Vista

I don't know much about computers, just as an FYI. So, I read today an article with the headline "Major Windows Vista Update Available Today". This is the article: http://www.switched.com/2008/03/18/major-vista-update-available-today/ [7]. So, is this something that I have to actually go out and purchase? Or is this one of those downloads that I get for free on the Microsoft web site? I assumed it was the latter. And there was nothing on the Microsoft web site that seemed in any way relevant to this. Does anyone know what this is all about? The article that I referenced above also says "If you're a Vista user and are ready to take the plunge, you can head on over to Microsoft's site to start your downloading." And when you click the link, it just brings you to an Amazon.com web page where, I guess, they are selling (and I can buy) this product. What's up? Any one know? Thanks. PS --- I already have Vista on my computer. Which I guess is (now) the "old Vista"? (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 07:27, 19 March 2008 (UTC))

You do not have to purchase service packs. They figure if you bought Vista, then you deserve to be able to get patches and servicing for free. If you activate Vista's automatic updating, it should ask you pretty soon if you want to updated Vista. Mac Davis (talk) 08:08, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

SP1 won't be rolled out via automatic update until next month. This page contains some links to the Service Pack on the Windows Download and Windows Update sites. Our Windows Vista article contains some information about what is contained in this update. --LarryMac | Talk 13:41, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Note that there is some danger is being an early-adopter of major updates. Typically Service Packs that upgrade the entire Windows OS have required a few rounds of bug patching before they worked smoothly on all configurations. Usually it is good to wait a week or two before upgrading to them, so that the really awful and really obvious bugs get squashed, which is probably why they aren't rolled out automatically for a month or so. This is the issue behind the "ready to take the plunge" rhetoric—it's not always a great idea to be first in line for a major overhaul. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:17, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Amen, Captain Red Desk. Kushal 15:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. Just so I understand. This product has been created to patch / fix bugs / improve the Vista that is already in my computer. If I want to spend money and buy it at a store, I can do so right now. If I want to get it free at the Microsoft web site (which I am entitled to a free update), then I have to wait a month or so until M.S. decides to post the free download. Is this the long and short of the matter? Thanks. Furthermore, why would M.S. make it available (for purchase) at a store ... yet wait a month for free downloads to its already established users? I mean, if "bugs" exist in the purchase product - they don't care? But - they do care about those same bugs showing up in the free download? I'm confused. Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC))

You don't have to buy a service pack - you can update to it from the website for free; this is, however, usually a bad idea until it has gone through testing and fixing (more so than when it's very new). When the linked article discusses retail versions of it, it means that if someone went to a shop and bought Vista (to upgrade XP, for example), it would already have SP1 installed. Of course, if you really do want it, just download it. But I'd advise that you simply wait until Vista wants to update itself - they do have a reason for not doing it automatically straight away. Ale_Jrb^talk 18:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are confused, so some of your questions don't apply. You can't buy SP1 by itself at a store*. What you can buy is a full Vista installation that is built with all the SP1 fixes included. You don't need that. You can get SP1 yourself right this very instant at the Microsoft website (as noted in my previous reply), but it won't be "pushed" via Automatic Update until next month. The recommendation of the good Captain, as well as many others, is to wait a few days or a week so that any major problems and/or incompatibilities (that for some reason were not uncovered during the extensive beta test period) can be uncovered by some other sucker lucky user. --LarryMac | Talk 18:09, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK. Makes sense now. Thanks for the input. LarryMac was especially helpful --- thank you. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC))

ipod

what is the basic principle of working of ipods (i.e. storage princple,coversion of digital data in sound wave etc.)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.159.240.23 (talk) 14:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked at iPod? I see some technical details in there. Friday (talk) 14:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

They're certainly not worth as much as they cost. ipods are no more than small hard hard drives with a little processor (running some proprietary interface code, which can be replaced with a free alternative) and a tiny low-res screen. Shuffles are even less- little flash drives with little enough storage to convince you it's still 2000, with a little integrated controller and an embedded mp3/mpeg4 decoder chip. I could build my own Shuffle with 10 times the Flash storage for a quarter of the price. But yeah that's basically how music players work- songs are stored in Flash memory and read either through an embedded chip or software running on a processor, then sent to the headphone jack through another integrated circuit just like the integrated sound card on a mainboard. :D\=< (talk) 15:14, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, somebody hates Apple. Well warrented, in my opinion. But they have some merits. I can't name any, but I'm sure they are there somewhere. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 15:28, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I know there is a lesson to be learned here somewhere, but I don't know what it is.[8] :)

On a side note, I'd be much happier if it was still 2000. On a not-side note, I don't know much about iPods, because I would own one over my dead body, but here is my understanding. When you hook up the thing it uses "iTunes" to transfer music over to it. "iTunes" converts all the song files names into 4-letter filenames and puts them into hidden folders named in an FXX convention (where XX is any 2 digit number, starting with 00). The iPod storage is just a regular hard drive formatted the way the operating system is. Playing the files is straight-forward, it does it just like a PC, in fact it is a small PC of sorts. As for how digital data is converted to sound, see Digital-to-analog_conversion.206.252.74.48 (talk) 17:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yah, also this is what it looks like right before that final analog conversion step :D\=< (talk) 17:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Process Sniping Program

My friend is crazy for TF2 after I bought her Orange Box, and never stops playing it. But what angers her all the time is the fact that she has to close 30 different running processes in order for the game to run smoothly. I was wondering if there was perhaps some sort of program that lets you select what processes you want to be left running and then smites all the others. Naturally, I'm talking about Windows XP here. I've already done everything I could with msconfig and the Start-up folder, but stuff just pops up naturally while using the PC. I just want to automate the process of closing processes, which is something I do once in a while as well. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 15:37, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What processes specifically are the problem, and why? Simply by being active on the system a process consumes very little resource (most of its memory gets swapped out, and if it's not actually running then it's not consuming CPU time and thus not slowing anything down. Windows (and other full-featured OSes) typically run dozens of processes for their own purposes (most of which are idle most of the time) and can run hundreds of well behaved processes if need be. If you have specific concerns about specific processes demonstrably (over)using resources, that's someting to address on a per-process (or per-application) basis; mass slaying of processes won't be productive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:20, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, this is really the question. What's popping up? Why? The answer is not to try and shut down processes that start up (which could lead to system instability by itself), but to figure out why they're popping up in the first place and disabling them. Sounds like malware to me, or at least over-active taskbar processes. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:43, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I've found that a lot of Windows processes are superfluous, and I can have a stable system with only 5 processes running. As for my friend's computer, she has an iPod, a graphics tablet, a printer, and other things that add background processes which aren't needed at the moment, as well as 20 icons in her system tray for various programs and other crap. When someone else is using the PC these icons are needed (apparently) and so I didn't remove them. The whole family shares one account for some bizarre reason as well. Mainly the reason I am asking about such a program's existance is out of curiousity, but also to address this problem more easily solved by formatting and re-installing Windows (I even donated an extra hard-drive for back-up proposes, which is yet to be used). Not to be condesending, but their computer is a lot like their home - there is junk everywhere but they are too used to it (and it is too far gone) for them to do anything about it. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 17:22, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

5 user processes, yes. But check "Show processes from all users" and remove your foot from your mouth. Anyway I don't see what the big deal is. Windows isn't doing anything and is stripped to the bone, but I have dozens of user processes running. I have the memory and the cores to run them. utorrent, winamp, Steam, ati drivers, sound card drivers, the UltraMon taskbar process, my thinkpad hard drive shock detection driver, google talk, winRAR, firefox.. these are things I do want running right now and I'm not going to kill them just to have a snappier machine that's doing nothing. :D\=< (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

A girl playing tf2? <coma> :D\=< (talk) 17:50, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You are not cracking everybody up. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I stopped reading xkcd because of that comic. This is the internet, I can say what I want and I don't have to be terrified of some guy breaking down my door. That's the point. Randall can say what he wants too I guess but I don't have to read. :D\=< (talk) 20:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

If you thought the point of the comic was that there would literally be someone breaking down your door, you missed the entire point of the comic. Which is kind of sad. The point is, to put it bluntly, you're acting like a fool (I'd use stronger language, but I know how touchy people get on here). If that's not really what you like coming across as, then you might think about amending your behavior. If you don't mind being thought of as a fool, then just keep going ahead in your boring sexist nerd-geek fashion. Lord knows you'll fit in just fine with the mediocre majority. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 17:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I think you should reread the comic. Some guy breaks down his door, forbids him from using the internet for a year, threatens him, then has his computer destroyed, just for something he said. The kid in the comic can say whatever he wants on his IRC server and seems to get along fine until some guy is offended and resorts to violence. If I want to titsorgtfo then I can, I have nothing to prove to you. Think I'm a fool or whatever if you want, it's none of your business :D\=< (talk) 02:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A.) Her computer ain't as powerful as yours.

B.) My foot is perpetually in my mouth.

C.) There's more gals playing TF2 than most people realize.

Anywho, here is a better explanation. There is only one user account on the computer in question. This computer is used by five people and perhaps a cat. Each person has their own processes that they like to always keep running, but my friend doesn't want to close them all manually. Instead, she wants to kill them all in one shot and just restart the PC when someone else wants it (thus restoring the processes). Her sister would like the same (she plays WoW). I'd rather not get into an arguement over whether this would improve performance or not, I'm just asking if there is a program that will do such a task. Just giving everyone a user account if out of the question because everyone's files are intermingled in the most chaotic system I've ever seen - it would take hours to separate it all and allocate it to the proper accounts. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)206.252.74.48 (talk) 18:58, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, there is a program that does this for WinXP, and it's very easy to use. It's reached from the main "Start button", at the very bottom where it says "Log off". Using this program takes a little bit of set up, but your friend can have her very own account that only runs the processes she wants. To quote another editor's tag, think outside your box. -SandyJax (talk) 19:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, or said in a non-sarcastic bent: if it's a question of multiple people having too many processes, create a new account used JUST for gaming. Then log out of everything else and log into that when you want the stripped down account. That's a lot safer than trying to have a program go through and kill processes at will. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

The point here, OP, is that you are asking for a program that manages your computer and the programs installed for you. Uh, that's what the Operating System is for. As several here have tried to point out, WinXP has a very powerful tool for doing what you want. Use it. As the good Captain says, if it's too hard to give everyone their own account, then simply create ONE clean account, and use it for gaming. -SandyJax (talk) 19:29, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Now that is a good idea, Captain. I always seem to unconsiously go for the most drawn-out and difficult solutions to problems. I'll tell her about this the first chance I get. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

computer power (cpu)

Clearly there will always be someone who needs more processing power, but in terms of desktops surely there must be a point at which no more is needed. Q. Are we there yet? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.183.180 (talk) 21:11, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

"What Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away", which is to say that as processing power increases, software developers will be comfortable writing more and more demanding applications. An example of this is the growth in the amount of higher-level functionality that is interpreted on the fly rather than compiled into a machine-friendly format. --Sean 21:23, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

A great example is the memory-hogging, CPU-draining Windows Vista. Useight (talk) 21:33, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

That's a terrible example, it doesn't use much more memory (except for Aero, which consumes less memory than other compositing window managers like Compiz, but is of course still a hog) and if you disable search indexing and other garbage, performance is much improved over XP. The only real criticism that can be levelled against vista is its bloat- the install is huge. A better example would be the black hole of CPU power that is Java :D\=< (talk) 22:48, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

You're always defending Vista. If I disable all those things you mention, it turns into XP. So I might as well use XP since it takes up less space. Yes, space is very important to me. One of the reasons I don't have Firefox is because it would take up more space than just having IE6. (Another reason is that I hate tabbed browsing). It's kind of weird that I be a space saver, because my PC has 1.1TB of storage, but I like it as empty as possible. Useight (talk) 23:51, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. It's not doing you any good at all if it's sitting there empty. :D\=< (talk) 01:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that you like to make sure a computer is using all of its potential. That is a very interesting philosophy. But that makes sense. Useight's situation is like buying a bunch of warehouses so you can store nothing in them but marvel at their emptiness. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 13:48, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If you're not running Windows Vista, we've been there for a few years now. --Carnildo (talk) 22:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think we'll ever truly be there (except in the sense that we don't really need any processing power at all -- we got along for centuries without computers). How much processing power (or other computing resource) you want depends on what you're going to do with it. And peoples' expectation for that changes with time. Various features of the system (graphical user interface, internet) were not considered "necessary" once upon a time (and the demands they put on a system were once pretty serious) but now they are. Who knows what will be discovered invented next? I will note that CPU power is not the most important aspect of performance for common tasks. I doubt it has been in a long, long time (pretty much since the mainframe era). Disk drive latency and network bandwidth are probably bigger deals. -- Why Not A Duck 23:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Depends on the application, obviously. You don't need much CPU power to download your next data set, and you don't need any network bandwidth or much drive latency to do processing on chunks of it. Rich AJAX applications require everything except low drive latency. Video games require raw CPU power as well as a performance drive. :D\=< (talk) 01:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There will always be a need for more computing power. Looking at the very expensive time being overbooked in supercomputing centres all over the world should give you a hint. The world doesn't need another shortsighted statement "640K should be enough for anybody" courtesy a certain Mr Bill Gates. Looking ahead, the need for miniturization in CPU's is almost as important - for example in nanotechnology you would want as powerful a CPU as you can get if nanites are injected into your bloodstream to kill mutating viruses - you would not want these nanites to zap the wrong organisms. Looking forward to space travel and eventually starships, the faster the computers in these things the better. Look at all the Star Trek technology - these would not be possible without superfast parallel CPU's. I would imagine teleporting a human would take an immense amount of CPU and memory. A lot of this technology is becoming reality because of advancements in computing. Hail to the scientists of the world! Sandman30s (talk) 07:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

My favorite shortsighted statement is Einstein's "What will that tiny country do with an electric computer?".

To be fair, the question was specifically about desktop computers. However, in today's world people use their "desktop" computers for many different things - I do mathematical computations, some volunteer it for scientific projects like Folding@Home, some do audio and video processing, some play bleeding-edge games, and so on. I doubt it will be easy to find anyone that can't benefit from more processing power.

However, I don't think this kind of "heavy" computations is where desktop computers have the greatest need to improve. My main concern is that mundane everyday operations you do with your computer don't happen instantaneously. Whether it is waiting for a program or web page to load, or even shorter waits working within a program, the seconds add up to consume a significant amount of the user's time. Sometimes more CPU can help, but the most pressing issues in this regard is the speeds of hard drives and network connections. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your replies, yes I was specifically talking about CPU's : network and storage connections are the big ones that need improvement. Just to give some context to my question - I was wondering if 'the home computer' would ever evolve into a known fixed tech spec piece of elec goods, and be sold in a way similar to CD players or TV's - it's getting there - but not quite yet.83.100.183.180 (talk) 13:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

If Apple had it their way, there would be just one configuration of computers, and everyone would use the same computer, until Apple would release a newer product. Horror of horrors, would Apple even release a newer product at all? Kushal 05:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC) My prediction is no, we are not there yet. I doubt we will ever be there. Take a look at a particular website. CAUTION: May have traces of politics. Manufactured in a facility that also makes ... Kushal 05:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Can you check that link - it didn't seem to make sense - seemed to be some generic useless webpage? Did I miss something.

Personally I think it's partly to do with having separate companies producing software and hardware - combine the businesses of both of these and stagnation would soon follow. Hurray!87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:59, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I lold at her prattling. First blatant factual error is around 2:00, see Military budget of the United States and note that it's definitely not 50% of 2.90 trillion USD. :D\=< (talk) 05:31, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Why

I think computers are awesome do you J713 (talk) 21:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, and i'm sure pretty much everyone who is answering you will say they are impressive - they must (at the least) like them enough to A) use them and B) Use them enough to become a person who helps others on a somewhat low-visited series of reference desks. Oh and they are awesome because of the amazing power they provide for computation, transfer of information, organisation, automation of repetitive actions etc. etc. 22:49, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

IMO the most awesome aspect of computing is the precision and control you have.. anything that goes wrong is a direct consequence of what you programmed it to do. Also it's amazing how complex computing problems can become, and if you can juggle them in your head, it's fun! :D\=< (talk) 22:53, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

ITT: The Hacker Manifesto. Mac Davis (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I like them for the gaming. Useight (talk) 23:46, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Aren't you ashamed replying to the hacker manifesto with lol vidya? There are better criticisms- that it's technocratic or elitist for one, that it's riddled with unneccessary threats and unrealistic ideals. But it's undeniably a powerful piece of literature that a lot of people adore. :D\=< (talk) 01:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Me too, I like.83.100.183.180 (talk) 18:15, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Mac>Linux

Hi, how can I get Linux to run on my mac? – i123Pie _bio^contribs 21:57, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

What kind of Mac is it? --Spoon! (talk) 22:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Open up Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, click on your boot drive, and add a partition. It's a good idea to back up your important data as a precaution. After you create a second partition, take a Linux install disk, shut down your computer, and turn it on holding down the option key on your keyboard, select the Linux install disk to boot from. Make sure you install Linux into the Linux partition, not the Mac OS X one. Mac Davis (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, err. Where can I find one for PowerPC? I can hardly find any in google. – i123Pie

_bio^contribs 08:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at this page[9]. What type of computer do you have? If you are running anything under Leopard, you won't be able to use Disk Utility to repartition your hard drive without erasing it. Mac Davis (talk) 11:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I already have a spare portion as I had Mac classic support. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 17:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Good! Download and burn the disk image to a CD. In disk utility, you can click on the CD, and then the restore tab, and browse for the source image, and then the destination. Burn! Mac Davis (talk) 20:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Problemo, I don't have a cd wrighter, that works. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 08:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I used my windows pc to write it onto a dvd but my mac won't detect the dvd. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 11:28, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Find a Linux distribution you would like to use, and that will work on your Mac. If you have an Intel based Mac you probably have a lot more choices than if you have a PowerPC based Mac. Whatever Linux distribution you pick, their website should probably have instructions for installing it. Read through those instructions make sure you understand them, and make sure they're something you're willing to do. (If you want your Mac to still be able to run Mac OS, the install process has to take care of this.) (Please note: None of the four Linux systems I've had was a Mac, and none of the three Macs I've had has run Linux.) -- Why Not A Duck 23:54, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

March 20

How would I get this on my iPod?

It was pointed out to me by a friend. Anyways, I managed to wrestle out the .swf, but iTunes rejects that format. What do I do? Thnx! Yamakiri ^T_C § 03-20-2008 • 10:59:22 PS I'm NOT a furry.

Search google for "swf to m4v" which returns this program: Flash to Video Encoder. That program isn't free but if you play with those search terms you may come up with something that works (like converting the flash file to mpeg or whatnot then to iPod's preferred format).--droptone (talk) 11:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

There's a program called iSquint that you can use to convert FLV files to MP4 for the iPod. It is free and wonderful. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 12:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

SUPER will convert between most file formats, including swf and iPod video. --jjron (talk) 14:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Rendering swf shows to rasterized video is re dic u lous ly sticky business and I seriously doubt SUPER can do it. I've done it once to convert this to a stupid mpeg 1 or whatever DreamScene requires.. it was 2 hours of grueling ffmpeg/mencoder chaining, and I had to try half a dozen shareware swf renderer/capturers before I found one that works. And I can't help but notice that the filename is caramelldansen.. you can get a higher quality version here. It's the speedycake remix (the original is molasses slow and cake is a cool guy) and you'll have to hack around with the web page to find a di did it for you. :D\=< (talk) 05:40, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

JPEG "fool you" screen

I'm looking for a simple Windows program that can load a JPG image to fullscreen when double-clicked, similar to a boss key.

Here's one. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 17:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Power point-losing narration

I have many slides with narration embedded in the presentation. When I went into some slides to change the narration I deleted each by highliting the small speaker on the slide and put new narration on the slide. When I go to the very next slide that follows the slide with the changed narration the narration on that slide is gone. This has happened with every slide that follows a slide that I changed narration on. I have searched everywhere for an answer. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 76.188.26.251 (talk) 13:09, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't suppose it's possible you had narrations spanning more than one slide, and when you deleted the narration from the first slide, it consequently deleted it from those following as well? --jjron (talk) 14:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia error message

I am, as of yesterday, getting a Wikipedia generated error message every time I go to my watchlist: "You seem to be using the javascript-enhanced watchlist, which is incompatible with the category watchlist script at present; please uninstall it." What changed that this is happening, is there anything I can do to stop getting the error message short of uninstalling and what happens if I keep both, i.e., one or both won't function? Something else? --Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 13:19, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You might want to ask the help desk or the village pump technical, they might have a better idea of what's specifically the problem with those scripts :D\=< (talk) 16:37, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

CSS question

I have some text that I'd like to be in a box that will resize to contain the text no matter what the user does to resize or shrink the text. Basic stuff, a table could do it in a second. But I can't seem to get the CSS to work out.

Here's the relevant CSS: #menus { width: 150px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; margin-top: 20px; margin-left: 180px; padding-left: 10px; padding-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; }

"menus" is just a div with some text in it. My problem is that if I don't set the "width" property, it'll go all the way over the right edge of the screen. If I do the set the "width" property, it'll only fit when the text is a specific size—if I use "enlarge text size" or "decrease text size" in the browser then it won't fit.

What should I do here to make it behave properly? Ideally I'd like it to act like a table cell—with the borders expanding only as needed to fit the contents, and resizing with the content automatically. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:38, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

A partial solution (not as precise as the table solution you describe) is to specify the width in ems rather than px (e.g. width: 10em;) as that varies with the text size (you'll have to experiment a bit to find a reasonable baseline, depending on the font you're using, and indeed if the browser has do to font-substitution to render the page then this will throw your calculation off a bit). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That works pretty well. Thanks! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

syscalls from assembly PARTIE DEUX

I asked this at the bottom of the last question, but it was archived away off the page. The answer to his question was that to do a syscall you have to load up values into EAX and EBX and trigger an interrupt to trap into the kernel. My question is.. if the kernel is reading those values out, part of it must be written in assembly / machine language since AFAIK it's impossible to read values off registers from C. Wouldn't that spawnkill all chance of easy portability? How does the ultimate of portables NetBSD handle this problem? Also, I thought most of the Linux kernel was written in C.. how does that assembly part of the kernel call C functions? Is there some entry point function that's specially compiled to always be in the same location in memory? :D\=< (talk) 16:36, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

1) yes, all kernels have at least a little bit of assembly language to glue things together, 2) it doesn't kill portability because it's only a small portion of the kernel, 3) I dunno, 4) Linux is indeed mostly written in C. You can call C functions from assembly as long as you use the right calling conventions, 5) I'm not sure what you mean, but you do set up interrupt vectors to tell the CPU where to trap to when the syscall implementation does the "int 80" or whatever. See [10]. FYI:

# cd /usr/src/linux
# find -name '*.[ch]' | xargs cat | wc -l
6181926
# find -name '*.[sS]' | xargs cat | wc -l
250175
# find arch/ppc/ -name '*.[sS]' | xargs cat | wc -l
13240

--Sean 16:50, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's up to a given operating system how it handles syscalls, and even within a single operating system, the method can vary from hardware architecture to hardware architecture. Typically, in modern operating systems, a syscall looks just like an ordinary subroutine call (for that architecture) except that somewhere along the way, the processor switches from "User" mode to "Kernel"/"Supervisor"/"Executive" mode. Within that more-protected "inner" mode, the executive then validates all the user's parameters to make sure they're consistent and not trying to cheat the various system protections, and it then executes the call.

Atlant (talk) 16:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

That perfectly answered my questions, thanks :D\=< (talk) 16:54, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

• part of it must be written in assembly / machine language - yes, the part of it that catches and dispatches the syscall is - see http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/lk/lk-4.html
• it's impossible to read values off registers from C - impossible in normal C (but then systems programmers never write in normal C, they're always messing with platform and environment specific stuff) - the Linux kernel could have done this with asm embedded in C (which gcc allows) or with compiler extensions that do allow C to refer to a specific register. I'm more familiar with MIPS, where most C compilers allow you to refer to special variables like __r1 which refers to CPU register 1 (MIPS registers have much saner names than Intel)
• Wouldn't that spawnkill all chance of easy portability? - indeed, the file in question is architecture specific. But then the SYSCALL mechanism itself is architecture specific. While on x86 you call INT x80, on other architectures you call BRK, or just deliberately exectute an instruction you know you're not allowed to (they're all the same - they force a CPU fault which dumps execution into a kernel-space handler).
• Also, I thought most of the Linux kernel was written in C - most of it is, but it's impossible to do absolutely everything in C. In addition to syscalls you generally have to have the first few instructions in ASM (to set the CPU up, as CPUs start with everything either undefined or downright turned off). And there's often stuff to do with handling CPU exceptions, coprocessor conditions, and manipulating the registers (and stack) of user-mode programs (both when spawning and when doing a context switch)
• How does the ultimate of portables NetBSD handle - the same way everyone else does, they have an architecture (and platform, and board) specific module which does all the non-portable stuff. Calling a kernel "portable" really just means there's very little in this, with most code in the platform-independent section
• how does that assembly part of the kernel call C functions - assembly and C can call one another easily - both compile down to object modules (ELF or whatever) with unresolved external symbols - symbols that are then resolved (in a manner almost identical to that in an application's compile) by the linker. The only real complexity is that you need to specifically worry about calling convention (how parameters are passed).
• Is there some entry point function that's specially compiled to always be in the same location in memory - depending on the architecture interrupts are handled via a hardware table (I think this is how Intel works), which is initialised by the OS (it fills it with hooks for each of the prevailing event handlers). The same is true for other non-interrupt event handlers (like memory exception etc.). The only thing that is absolutely fixed in memory is the address to which a booting CPU jumps (which for your desktop computer is a real-mode address inside the flash BIOS). In practice BIOSes enforce a fixed memory map on the (real mode) code that they load from disk (or whatever) - that's generally GRUB or LILO or OBP or whatever. If you want to know "how do I get a piece of code to be located at a specific numbered address" then you have the compiler put it in a special section and then tell the linker (and often a bespoke locator to resolve outstanding fixups) to put it at a special address. And all that is architecture specific (and board-specific, although in the case of PCs all boards work the same).

-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:07, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Make document open when I visit a page

Is it possible to make a word file I have saved on my computer open automatically every time I visit a certain webpage or open firefox (the former is preferred) and, if so, how is it done? Thanks in advance, George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 18:01, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure I quite understand your question. Do you want a local file to open (in MS Word), whenever you visit www.example.com? --LarryMac | Talk 19:43, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes please, sorry if i wasn't clear enough. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 19:47, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, well one way I can think of to do this is make a small HTML/Javascipt file that you keep locally and make a bookmark. I'll have to work out the details, but basically instead of typing in www.example.com in the address bar, you'd use the bookmark to load the local file, which would have an "window.onload" action to open the Word doc and then link to example.com. Hmmmmm. There might be better options, but I'll work on the javascript until somebody smarter comes along. --LarryMac | Talk 19:55, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Do you have control of the content of that website? x42bn6 Talk Mess 05:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I know how to do it on sites I have control over but I need someting to open when I visit the Wikipedia main page. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 11:55, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

You'd probably need a Firefox Addon because I don't believe it's possible to capture that event by default. I can't think of an addon that does this job but I'll look for one. x42bn6 Talk Mess 17:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

World of Warcrack

Do the people in the World of Warcraft adverts really play it? Vitriol (talk) 19:27, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

You mean the celebrities like Mr. T, William Shatner, and Verne Troyer?--droptone (talk) 20:00, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Yeah. Vitriol (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Are you kidding? No way :D\=< (talk) 04:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

How can we know? How can you say for certain whether someone you don't personally know plays it or not? Does WoW have a public list of players? Uh, no. It's possible, though. Certainly, if I had a product that I wanted Mr. T or Captain Kirk to help advertise, I'd give him a free toaster/plant/whateverIsell. It wouldn't cost me very much, and it may help. "Gee, not only does he do their ads, but he really does keep that stupid plant in his kitchen. I guess it really does help with warts!" -SandyJax (talk) 13:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Play suggests an ongoing action, not something they tried once. And sorry, there's no way William Shatner and Mr. T play wow. :D\=< (talk) 16:05, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

(and was the title misspelt on purpose?) -SandyJax (talk) 13:39, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Probably. :D\=< (talk) 17:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

SIMULATION IN COMPUTER GRAPHICS

I wanna know that what is simulation graphics. I have searched on internet and found that simulation means virtuality but how it is concerned with computer Graphics.117.99.6.238 (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Simulation is making something look like it's there when it's not. It's hard to explain really. A roller-coaster simulator makes it look (to you) like you're riding a roller-coaster when you're really sat in an arcade somewhere. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 20:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

(simple)Virtual reality. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 07:57, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Data type as parameter in C#

Can the functions below be replaced by a single function that takes uint or double (or any other type or class with the Parse function and < > operators) as a fourth parameter? NeonMerlin 21:56, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

static uint PromptUInteger(uint minimum, uint maximum, string prompt)
        {
            uint input;
            while (true)
            {
                Console.Out.Write(prompt);
                try {
                    input = uint.Parse(Console.In.ReadLine()); // will throw an exception if the input can't be parsed as a uint
                    if (input < minimum || input > maximum)
                        throw new Exception(); // also throw an exception if it's out of range
                    break; // if we've gotten this far, we can exit the loop
                } catch (Exception e) { // but if we did throw an exception...
                    Console.Out.WriteLine("Please enter an integer between {0} and {1}.", minimum, maximum); // report incorrect input
                }
            }
            return input;
        }
static double PromptDouble(double minimum, double maximum, string prompt)
        {
            double input;
            while (true)
            {
                Console.Out.Write(prompt);
                try
                {
                    input = double.Parse(Console.In.ReadLine()); // will throw an exception if the input can't be parsed as a double
                    if (input < minimum || input > maximum)
                        throw new Exception(); // also throw an exception if it's out of range
                    break; // if we've gotten this far, we can exit the loop
                }
                catch (Exception e)
                { // but if we did throw an exception...
                    Console.Out.WriteLine("Please enter a decimal number between {0} and {1}.", minimum, maximum); // report incorrect input
                }
            }
            return input;
        }

irritating IE6 css problem

Here's my CSS:

body {
	background-color: black;
}

#main-content {
	background: url("images/myimage.jpg") no-repeat;
	background-attachment: fixed;
}

And here's my HTML:

<body id="main-content" leftmargin="0" topmargin="0" bottommargin="0" rightmargin="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0">
	<div id="content">
	Blah blah
	</div>
</body>

Goal is to display a fixed background image as part of the BODY attribute but have it be flexible so that I can just use one stylesheet with different IDs assigned to the body tag.

In Firefox and Safari, it works fine. But in IE6, it only works fine with the div with the id of "content" is totally empty. Does not work at all when there is something in it — just displays as a black background.

Any thoughts? I know IE6 is deprecated but sadly it is still a major player on the browser market. I'd rather not do some sort of browser-specific workaround but if there is a better way to do it that IE6 will like...? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 23:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Did you try explicitly doing

#content { background-color: transparent; }

in the CSS? Also, I don't design websites for a living or anything, but I can't stand the idea of websites being redesigned around Internet Explorer. If perfectly legal CSS doesn't work on non-standards-compliant browsers, then that is their problem for using a browser that incorrectly displays webpages. It'll be no surprise to them when everything looks like crap because IE incorrectly renders pages and they're doing it to themselves. Dump the stupid users still using IE and make the internet a better place :D\=< (talk) 02:40, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I can't stand to redesign around IE either, and deeply resent Microsoft's apathy towards adhering to web standards, but unfortunately we do not always have the luxury to look lousy to 25% of all web clients. This isn't an instance where we have the ability to set the terms—in fact, the concerns of the designer are only paramount in the smallest and most insignificant sorts of sites. Unfortunately the bottom line—in this case, "will it render adequately on most machines?"—matters more than the technical considerations, though I'm eager to accomplish this with fewest hacks as possible (because a page littered with hacks and workarounds often ends up being rather unstable as well). "That is their problem" is pretty inconsistent with "the customer is always right," and depending on the purpose at hand, it's my job to mitigate their problem as much as possible (at the very least by making things fail gracefully).

But I'll give the transparent bit a try, thanks for the suggestion. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:08, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Update: Whattaja know—that little fix seems to have made it work out fine. Thanks for the suggestion! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

March 21

Sneaky phishing email

I recently received an email, supposedly from my dental insurance company, telling me that my recently processed claim was ready for review. The links were all obvious phishing sites and I would usually just ignore these sorts of things, but what worries me is that they got my insurance company correct and they timed it impeccably with me filing an actual dental claim. Now for the former, that's probably easy to find out or possibly just guess. As for the latter, it could just be entirely coincidental; however, if it weren't, what point in the chain would someone be able to find that out and get a spoof email out that quickly? Makes me really doubt these companies' security policies... -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk &#149; contribs)} 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I know what you mean. BTW, the  symbol don't work on windows. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 07:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Happened to me as well, now at my dorm, I can see the apple logo. I could not see it on Windows XP SP2. I wonder if Ubuntu can see it. Kushal 12:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Could just be an example of synchronicity, or not - maybe your dentists computer records are infected - maybe you should mention this to them.87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Private torrents (not trackers)

I'm very annoyed at how utorrent honors the "Private" flag on torrents.. if I want to use peer exchange and DHT, how dare my client tell me I can't? But I love everything else about utorrent.. is there some tool to remove that flag from .torrent files, or a patch for utorrent.exe? Preferably the latter since I assume that messing with the torrent file would mess with hashes and whatnot. :D\=< (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A summary google search shows that a certain client might be a makeshift solution. Kushal 19:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

2-way file pointer

Is there any way to create a 'FILE *' in C so that you can both read and write from that file? I need to use string data with a library that gets all its data with file pointers, all within a single process. I want to write the string data to the file and then have the library read it to process it. I understand there might be a chance of 'deadlock' with this - nonetheless, is there a way to do it?

I think you're thinking of a race condition rather than deadlock. But yes, you can open a file for reading and writing with fopen. -- BenRG (talk) 11:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Within a single-threaded process, of course you can open a file for reading and writing. Open() it in mode O_RDWR then use lseek() to move around in the file. With multiple threads, it gets more complex because you may need to use something like record locking to manage multiple writers to the file.

Atlant (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way to then elide the 'physical' file associated with the file pointer and just use the pointer as a kind of two-way pipe? I understand that that might be OS-dependent, but something like the inverse of mmap? That is, uses fwrite and fread automatically use memory instead of disk. Hmm, the more I write the more unlikely it seems, but I ask anyway.

Couldn't you just use a named pipe? You can fopen it twice - once for write for your own code to write to, and again for read (that's the FILE* you pass to the library functions). Make sure the writing code calls fflush on the handle (otherwisen data you write won't necessarily end up at the reader). -- Solidview (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Barring that, it's time to get heavy. fopen, fread, fwrite etc. are all library calls that are imported from the C rtl. If you define them in your own code then code present at link time will resolve to your versions not the library versions (if the library is a DLL/SO then you'll need to create your own DLL/SO that defines these functions and make sure its in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH before the libc.so). With that done you can get fread, fwrite etc. to do anything you want. -- Solidview (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

...and if the rest of your code needs to use the real fread etc. functions, then you can get pointers to them with dlopen/dlsym and call them yourself. -- Solidview (talk) (user:Finlay McWalter, on an untrusted computer) 16:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

migrate e-mail

Anyone know about migrating an e-mail account from outlook express (XP) to 'windows mail' (Vista) - typed in the account name on vista and pressed 'add' but something seems amiss - no email - doesn't seem to be taking any notice? any clues?87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If its POP, you need to have Mail point to the required file in which Outlook Express saves emails. Windows Mail is the article we have about Windows Mail. It seems it is not developed anymore as it "has been succeeded by Windows Live Mail".

If it were an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) email account, you would not have to do that.

If you are interested in free software, Mozilla (the makers of Mozilla Firefox) also make a an email client called Mozilla Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird can import emails from Outlook XP too.

Cheers, Kushal 17:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ho! free software only gets tiny adverts. Buy me I'm free! Thanks.87.102.16.238 (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

CorrectionI meant 'windows live mail' when I wrote 'windows mail'. What's the migration proceedure here?87.102.16.238 (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

OBJECTION! :D\=< (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Kippers.87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

When you are in the program "Windows Live Mail," there should be an option under file or tools or something for Import/Export. Give it a shot. Kushal 04:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, can you still use Outlook Express to see all your previous emails? is outlook express on the same computer as windows live mail? I think it is funny why windows live mail would not prompt you to import your previous emails and settings at first startup. Kushal 19:26, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

cheap Vista laptop

Hello i want to buy a laptop for personal use ,as windows vista compatible under $700.Please dont tell me to seach. thanx

So you want us to search for you? This is one editor who won't bother with that .... --LarryMac | Talk 16:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

They could be asking for reccomendations? I got a good Dell one with Home Premium for 1000€ in August. I'd say by now the US equivalent would be below 700$. So you could try there. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 16:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want a Vista "capable" machine, make sure you do not install Windows Vista on it. Just my USD 0.02 Kushal 17:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Very good advice. :D\=< (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully, I can be more helpful than some. I would recommend checking BestBuy.com or OfficeDepot.com. They usually have computers good enough to run Vista. crassic!^[talk] 23:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I forgot Newegg.com, as well. crassic!^[talk] 01:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You want a laptop with 1 gigabyte of RAM, and a processor speed over 1.8 GHz. That should last you a while, and is pretty general purpose. What do you have in mind on what you want to use the laptop for? Take your pick of screen size. I've purchased several laptops at Tiger Direct and government warehouses. Mac Davis (talk) 00:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

SVG colour matrix

Does anyone know where I can get an simple-ish explanation of how to use the "colour matrix" filter on SVGs (or even just give one here)? (Specifically the mode called "matrix"). If anyone could point me to one speifically for the Inkscape use of it that would be ideal (though I suspect all programs lay it out in the same way). Thanks in advance. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 16:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Does this help? It has some examples. Personally I don't think this is the sort of thing one should try to do by hand; Inkscape will do this sort of this automatically when rendering gradients and things like that, I imagine. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 18:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Excel formula problem

I often use a lot of formulas in excel workbooks.These formulas use references to formulas on other workbooks.The problem is when i copy my workbooks to other computers or other locations the formulas still refer to the same locations.Is not there any way so that the formulas refer to the same relative location in relation to the original workbook? Thank You

Could you give us an example of one of the formula? And could you specify what version of Excel you are using, and on what Operating System (Windows or Mac)? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. You could always take the other books with you, that should work. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 20:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

They've got to be in the exact same filepath though.. maybe keep all your workbooks in C:\excel so you can easily recreate the path on your destination machines. I suspect they've made the behavior smarter in newer versions of Excel; you should upgrade :D\=< (talk) 05:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One more goofy CSS question

Imagine I have the following HTML:

<ul>
	<li>Item 1</li>
	<li>Item 2</li>
	<li>Item 3</li>
	<li>Item 4</li>
</ul>

Is there a way, using CSS, that could make the output render like so:

• Item 1 • Item 2 • Item 3 • Item 4 •

The only way I can think of takes advantage of the :before and :after pseudoclasses which, from what I can tell, aren't understood by IE at all. Which in this case would be a negative. Any other ideas? I doubt it can be done but thought I'd ask anyway. I'm not opposed to altering the HTML a bit to make it work, though my current method involves inserting a lot of bullets manually, and that looks really bad when the page is rendered without stylesheets. Thanks! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Put this style on the ul:

white-space: nowrap;

..seems like you've been working on quite a project; link us when you're done! :D\=< (talk) 22:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that'll work, since the break between list items isn't caused by wrapping. You'll need apply display: inline to the list items and the bullet will need to be a background-image, since changing display on list items gets rid of their marker. You'll also need to set the padding-left on the list items so they don't collide with your image. I think the only way to get your end-of-line bullet to show reliably in all browsers is to add an empty list item at the end (<li></li>). The upside is it'll get rid of your double bullets when rendered without stylesheets; the downside is you get a semantically useless bullet point hanging around at the end of your list. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems you need a combination of the two.. white-space: nowrap; on the list tag, display:inline; on the <li>s. You can also display:table-cell; on the <li>s and display:table; on the <ul> to make it an inline level element instead of block-level so you can position it more easily if your containers are screwy :D\=< (talk) 02:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will give those a shot! (I'm actually working on about three projects right now, which is why I've been asking so many apparently unrelated questions!) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Start up

How can I change my computer to not load the Welcome Center dialog box everytime I start up my computer that just slows down when I start and messes things up sometimes?

:Not entirely sure how to remove the Welcome screen, but I know how you can speed up your start up.

1. Start menu -> "Run" -> type msconfig

2. Click the "Startup" tab. Underneath, you will find any process or program that loads during your startup.

3. Disable any startup items you deem unnecessary at startup.

4. Restart your computer.

Hope this helps some. crassic!^[talk] 22:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure there is a tick box (in the bottom left corner?) of the Welcome Centre window that says "Open Welcome Centre every time Windows starts" or something similar. If you have this, try unchecking it.

...Or, go to Control Panel >Welcome Centre and untick the "Run at startup" (ah - that's what it says) in the bottom left corner. --Kateshortforbob 00:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wow. I was thinking of a completely wrong thing. Scratch that! crassic!^[talk] 01:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

March 22

Printing only the first 1000 characters/bytes in PHP

Hello! I'm trying to build a website, wherein a MySQL query would return me a really large text field. I need to print only the first few lines of this text. Is there some function in PHP that will select only the first 1000 characters or bytes from the text and display them? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!--Seraphiel (talk) 06:00, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You want substr(). Try

substr($the_string, 0, 1000); //that's characters 0 to 999, the first 1000 characters

:D\=< (talk) 06:03, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Splendid! Exactly what I needed. Thank you!--Seraphiel (talk) 06:12, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

about hacking

i am using internet since last month,from last two days a messsage splash on my screen that your computer has been hacked and aal your vital information are sent though emails to other,it ask me to download that particular spyware tuo remove that virus hat can i do?

DO NOT DOWNLOAD IT! It's just an advertisement to trick you into downloading a spyware program. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 09:51, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If the OP is very distracted by the splash messages, maybe (s)he should get Adblock? What do you think, Grawity? Kushal 12:49, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

And Firefox. --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:30, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

No website is ever going to tell you, without you asking it to, whether you have a virus. (There are some online virus scanners, but that's the exception. They cannot run without you explicitly authorizing them to.) Pop-up ads of all sorts should be ignored, especially if they are of the "you have a virus/you are a winner/click here for a free gizmo" variety. Most up-to-date browsers have pop-up ads disabled by default for this reason. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I believe Captain meant "enabled" when he said "disabled". Kushal 19:18, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I meant "disabled", as in, "most modern browsers block pop-ups by default." At least, I don't remember having to explicitly block them, but that might be my bad memory. Anyway, point being, on most up-to-date browsers you can block them very easily. :-) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

If the messages appearing are in the form of a grey box with an "OK" button, you can switch them off entirely by following the instructions on this page--Kateshortforbob 17:23, 22 March 2008 (UTC).

Problems with connecting digital camera USB cable

I have problems connecting a USB cable to my Canon PowerShot S3 IS digital camera. I have the standard-sized USB plug end of the cable plugged in to my computer's USB port and the mini-sized USB plug end hanging free, ready to be plugged into the camera. When I plug the cable into the camera, the camera notices it by powering up. However, the computer does not recognise the camera. I have to twist the mini-sized plug toward the back of the camera to make the computer recognise it. If I let go of the plug, so that it moves back to its natural position, the computer stops recognising the camera. This is very annoying, as it usually means I have to keep twisting the plug with one hand when I transfer pictures from the camera. What is causing this, and how can I fix it? JIP | Talk 15:28, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Loose connector on camera (fixable via Canon Service) or faulty USB cable (fixable by purchasing a new one). I think. --Ouro (blah blah) 17:06, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

working physics problems using an artboard?

I want to collaborate with someone on some physics review problems, but scanning and emailing diagrams back and forth would be unweildy and time consuming. I know about oekaki and pictochat boards which let two people simulatanteously update the same picture in realtime which would be ideal; however I do not know where to go to find one of these oekaki or pictochat boards. The ideal board would have basic graphical functions like a straight line tool, the picture can be printed, and have an invite only section or something so that I can let in only the people who want to work on the physics problems. Does anyone have any idea where I can find an artboard like I described? Thanks in advance. 64.134.81.84 (talk) 16:09, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh lord, he's got another CSS question

OK. Last one for awhile. I promise. I've tried to figure this one out but it's not coming to me.

I've been setting up this little menu:

	<div id="menus">
		<ul>
		<li id="opt.0" class="unselected"><a href="about.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(0);">About</a></li>
		<li id="opt.1" class="unselected"><a href="research.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(1);">Research</a></li>
		<li id="opt.2" class="unselected"><a href="teaching.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(2);">Teaching</a></li>
		<li id="opt.3" class="unselected"><a href="contact.html" target="content" onclick="javascript:select(3);">Contact</a></li>
		</ul>
	</div>

Never mind that it uses frames at the moment (this is temporary, maybe. We'll see how it works out. I don't like 'em, but it might make life a lot easier in this case). The Javascript is just a simple little function — entirely aesthetic, just for kicks and giggles — that changes the class of the selected li from "unselected" to "selected" when you click on it.

The problem is, I can't seem to change the color of the link inside the list. I can change its background color no problem. But not the link color itself. WHY NOT?

Here's the CSS:

#menus a:hover, #menus li:hover, .selected {
	color: black;
	background-color: gold;
}

But the link color never changes to black. It stays its original color, white. I've tried using .selected a, .selected a:link, selected a.visited, .selected a:active, EVERYTHING I can think of, but it stubbornly stays white. I can change all sorts of other things (I can give .selected a a different background color, for example), but I can't change the text/link color. Note that it turns black when it is being hovered over, but it won't STAY black when it is "selected". The second that mouse isn't hovering over it anymore, it becomes white again. Even though the background color stays set as gold like it is supposed to.

I'm doing something wrong... but what is it? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:58, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't need to use :link :visited or :active since the color would apply regardless of these conditions. I'd use the DOM inspector and the tools in the Web Developer addon to see what your javascript is actually doing and what styles are being applied :D\=< (talk) 20:38, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I got it to work fine.. you can always work off my code if you can't figure out what's wrong with yours.

a {
	color: blue;
}
a.unselected { 
	color: black;
}

a.selected {
        color: white;
}

function selectLink(theid) {
	document.getElementById(theid).className = "selected";
}

<div id="menus">
                <ul>
                <li><a id="opt0" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt0')">About</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt1" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt1')">Research</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt2" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt2')">Teaching</a></li>
                <li><a id="opt3" class="unselected" href="#" onclick="selectLink('opt3')">Contact</a></li>
                </ul>
</div>

Some problems that I had getting mine to work that you might want to watch out for... in your select() function are you concatenating "opt" to the argument you passed in? Notice that you're calling selectLink with just a number, and nothing has that ID. Remember to use single quotes like I did if you want to just pass in the full ID in string form. I moved the id and class over to the link tag but you shouldn't have to, it should be fine in the li tag. Also you probably want something in the selectLink function to deselect the other items when one is selected. Also if users are going to be able to navigate between About Research Teaching and Contact through in-text links in the other frame, it would probably be better to have the subpages report to the other frame (perhaps through the parent frameset; javascript and frames and security make a messy situation) that they've been opened instead of switching the styles on the actual click of the nav, since they might not have clicked the nav to get the that page. :D\=< (talk) 21:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)