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October 4

Where's that picture of the Mac-laptop-filled auditorium-style classroom?

I remember this picture having a student with a non-Mac laptop, and that being the highlight of many modifications. Where can I find this picture? --156.34.83.223 (talk) 01:19, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

HERE IS ALINK TO THE PICTURE http://losingcontext.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/look-at-them-apples.jpg

Ancient Computer...Ancient Games?

About a year and a half ago, my computer died, and my old man gave me his ancient Windows 98 to replace it. I was wondering if you guys could reccomend some good games for it (specifically First person shooters) that would work with a-get this-8mb VRAM vid card. I already have a few good games that I had on my old comp: Fallout and FO2, Red alert 2, roller coaster tycoon, GTA2, Counter Strike, stuff like that. All input will be greatly appreciated. Thanks! P.S. I'm going into the military soon, so buying a new computer really isn't an option. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 03:45, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

If you liked Red Alert 2, you can legally download Red Alert for free from http://www.ea.com/redalert/news-detail.jsp?id=62. As for first person shooters, there's Hidden & Dangerous, which has also been released as freeware, just google it to find a download link. --Silver Edge (talk) 04:12, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Get a web browser (which you obviously have) and flash. There are plenty of flash games online. I like to see what's new at http://www.funny-games.biz (I think they even have a first-person shooter or two). -- kainaw™ 04:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Doom is a classic that should work if you have Windows 95 port, or the original floppy. The Star Wars: X-Wing series, while not strictly a FPS, is a fine series of games. You may also want to consider Delta Force, The House of the Dead 2, Battlezone (not strictly an FPS), Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Star Wars: Dark Forces, Star Wars Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, Quake II, and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (not an FPS, but pretty darn fun). bibliomaniac15 04:36, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

All your computers are belong to us. Windows 98 is liable to be turned into a spambot if you start accessing the internet, especially for downloading freebies. Dmcq (talk) 11:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Please don't spread this sort of nonsense around. Windows 98 is less vulnerable to being turned into a zombie than Windows XP because 1) unlike XP, it doesn't listen for network connections from other computers, and 2) it's too old for most of the current attack techniques to work. --Carnildo (talk) 20:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

In a fit of nostalgia I recently installed "SimAnt" and "Outpost II" on my computer. Outpost II is about as I remember it. (Fun but with some interface weirdness.) but SimAnt was surprisingly easy. I don't recall it being so easy. APL (talk) 16:25, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Day of the Tentacle is, simply, perfect. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:06, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• If your feeling adventurous you could throw Linux on it and actually run some semi-new games on it.:) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 01:45, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Starsiege: Tribes is an old online FPS, still has a decent number of players, and is also available for free now. [1] has a copy with scripts, the anti-cheat software, and other goodies tossed in. 24.76.161.28 (talk) 07:14, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If you could get your hands on Freedom Fighters (video game), I'd suggest that. Minimum requirements look good. Someone, please correct me if it does not run on Win98SE. Kushal (talk) 08:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Freedom Fighters requires 32mb VRAM, I have 8mb vram. --136.247.76.166 (talk) 01:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

i had a d845 glly mobo w integrat3d graphics 8 mb vram, 128 mb ram

worked for me!12.169.180.158 (talk) 01:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't forget the original Half-Life series and related mods. bibliomaniac15 01:31, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Youtube access

I've noticed that I have problems accessing the regular YouTube URL, youtube.com, but are able to access the site again when I try using some other version of Youtube such as ca.youtube.com, the Canadian version. On websites linking to a Youtube video, I am unable to view it, which I speculated could be due to Flash issues. But if it were Flash-related, why am I able to access Canadian youtube? Why do I have problems accessing Youtube? Could it be my server or access to one? --Blue387 (talk) 07:49, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I've been having the same problem. But Youtube.com takes me to Youtube.co.uk (and I'm in the states). Weird, eh? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 00:25, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

GoogleTalk Error - The Handle is Invalid

Hi

Over the last few days in my office, certain people are obtaining errors saying that the "The handle is invalid" when they try to run GoogleTalk. It initially started with one or two people and its starting to spread...

Everyone has admin permissions, but we are using Symantic Endpoint, which is the only thing that is common among us all, with permissions set centrally.

Is it possible that Symantic is blocking it, or is it more likely that it is a virus? If Symantic is blocking it, how are we to find out? Its not possible to uninstall Endpoint without a password, which we do not have.

An extensive search on google revealed that onlthe error was extremely uncommon, and there were hardly any answers available.

We have also tried renaming the file, but that makes no difference.

This error, however, has only happened to people who have WindowsXP. It has not manifiested itself on machines with Vista

Thanks

123.238.1.240 (talk) 16:55, 4 October 2008 (UTC)Alex

Uninstall

I tried to install a program for only 32-bit Vista in 64-bit, and obviously it didn't work. In fact, when it was installing and recognized the 64-bit environment, it began to uninstall what it had already installed and suddenly rebooted. Most of the installation still remained on my computer, and Windows Add/Remove Programs on the Control Panel doesn't help, so I tried deleting everything in the program file. Then, one time when I rebooted my computer, it tried to install itself again, and remade the program file with everything in it. How can I get rid of it for good? Do I have to change something in the system registry? How do I do that? Thanks!--El aprendelenguas (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Depends... on what your trying to uninstall. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 02:09, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it security software? If it is, you can delete its driver (which is probably causing the problems) from C:\Windows\system32\drivers and uninstall it. --wj32 ^t/c 22:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

If it's installing on a reboot, it may have placed itself in your registry. Check HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion, there are keys called "Run", "RunOnce", and "RunOnceEx". There would be a value inside these keys that points to the installer. You can also check the same path under HKEY_CURRENT_USER 76.175.71.98 (talk) 00:43, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

October 5

Searching Process Memory

I made a program in C# that uses Windows APIs (ReadProcessMemory) to search for some bytes inside any process's memory. However, when my program is searching, the target process's memory usage grows to around 3 times its original. Any ideas why? --wj32 ^t/c 02:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

hard to tell without seeing the code, but according to the msdn page on ReadProcessMemory one of the parameters supplied to the function is..."lpBuffer [out] -- A pointer to a buffer that receives the contents from the address space of the specified process." so it looks to me like the target process is giving you a copy of its address space which would almost certainly cause new objects to come into existence in the *targets* address space which would therefore explain the memory increase. at some point (one would hope) when those objects go out of scope the garbage collector will kick in and the memory usage would reduce again. cheers Mission Fleg (talk) 05:22, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

...or you might just have uncovered a bug :) as i said, hard to tell without seeing all the code thats involved. cheers Mission Fleg (talk) 07:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

ReadProcessMemory is handled by the OS, and the target process shouldn't even be aware that it's happening. My best guess is that you're measuring physical RAM usage and reading the virtual address space is causing data to be paged in from disk. This isn't a real increase, it's just a form of caching, and eventually the physical RAM usage will drop back to its former value. -- BenRG (talk) 07:46, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, calc.exe uses 4MB before I read the memory, and after I read the memory it uses around 40MB. I am measuring the working set, so you may be right, but other memory searchers don't seem to affect memory usage. --wj32 ^t/c 07:50, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually, you ARE right! My program uses the working set and that displays a big increase, while Task Manager shows very little increase. Thanks! --wj32 ^t/c 07:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo Answers

How can you create a Yahoo Answers account if you don't have or want a Yahoo e-mail address? 58.165.15.180 (talk) 04:16, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe you can. To use Yahoo Answers you must have a Yahoo account or an account with one of their partners, like btinternet. Yahoo email addresses are free so what's the harm in having one? Just don't use it. Abhishek ^Talk 11:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, the wikipedia reference desk is much nicer than Yahoo Answers! Just stay here :) 83.250.202.36 (talk) 11:06, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Pretty please? Kushal (talk) 15:08, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

But you don't get the same questions every day on Wikipedia's Reference Desk. It is nice to spend each day on Yahoo Answers answering the same two questions: "If everyone can edit Wikipedia, it is full of junk. Why do people use it?" and "I was arrested for using Wikipedia. What do I do now?" -- kainaw™ 13:01, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"Kainaw strikes with sarcasm", said Captain Obvious. Kushal (talk) 07:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Changing colours

Say I have an image all in red tones. Is there an easy way to transform all tones of red into another colour, say green? Digitally, of course, and preferably not too difficult. --217.227.72.192 (talk) 13:55, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

In Photoshop or Gimp: 1. desaturate it (make it grayscale), 2. add a layer above it, 3. fill layer with the color you want it to be (say, green), 4. change the blending mode of the layer to "hue" or "overlay" or whatever looks best.

Alternatively, Photoshop (and probably Gimp) has an option called "Hue/Saturation" which has a "Colorize" mode which does the same sort of thing but in my experience is harder to control. --140.247.11.44 (talk) 15:24, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

ImageMagick, which manipulates images from the command-line, can also do this. The following will roate the hue ~120°, turning red into green, green into blue, and blue into red

convert image.png -modulate 100,100,167 newimage.png

Reep (talk) 19:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

SQL plus 8.0

hey ther! i hav just downloaded an oracle software program to practice SQL.Although when i start the program SQL plus 8, they ask username,password and hoststring.iknow the username and password but i dont know wht to do with Hoststring.Can u tell me what it is exactly??i havnt been acquainted with Oracle much...this is my first time...@_@ —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arya237 (talk • contribs) 14:57, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If you're running it off of your own computer, try "localhost". --140.247.11.44 (talk) 17:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

not working!!:( thanks for the help anyway.^^

October 6

Graphing Equations on Office

Hello. Is there a feature in Office 2007 Home and Student Edition where I can have an equation of my choice graphed onto a Cartesian plane (with a grid in the plot area) in a smooth line without listing so many x- or y- values? If so, how do I use it? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Does it really need to be within Office? gnuplot is what I often use; there is a wide variety of plotting software like it available for all platforms. If it really has to be Office, I imagine some sort of VBA solution could be constructed, but it would be much more complicated than using a program designed for the purpose. --Tardis (talk) 17:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Gnuplot is a truly great program - and I use it all the time - but it's quite hard to learn. If you do this stuff a lot, it's worth the effort though. SteveBaker (talk) 19:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

CD-R Disks

I have a few CD-R disks i'm trying to get my lectures from school on, and they say 700MB/80 minutes. Does this mean that the maximum time limit for file(s) on the disk is 80 minutes, even if the material is well under 700MB? I've tried to start burning the files, but it says I may need more than one disk. Could someone confirm that its a 80 minute limit, or can I fit 700MB on there. Thank you in advance, Matty (talk) 03:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The 700MB limit applies to data, like your lecture files. The 80 minutes limit only applies of you are burning an Audio CD for use in CD players. WikiY ^Talk 03:58, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

The lectures are audio recordings, so i'm guessing the 80 minute limit applies to them? Alright, well thats saved me alot of time trying to get it to work. Thank you! Matty (talk) 04:08, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If your audio files are in MP3 format then the 80 min limit does not apply. If the files are more then 80 min long and under 700megs then they are most likely NOT in audio-cd format yet. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 07:12, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

A lot of CD burning programs will let you create audio CDs from MP3 files without first converting them into the audio CD raw format. The important thing is whether you've told your CD burning software to make an audio CD or a CD-ROM. An audio CD will work on more standalone players than a CD-ROM. If you don't need that ability then make a CD-ROM, because you'll be able to fit a lot more MP3s on it. CD-ROM might also be called "data CD" or something like that. -- BenRG (talk) 09:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that most lectures do not need to be in CD quality audio and therefore can be compressed. Kushal (talk) 10:37, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

There are two quite distinct ways to record a CD. One is as a regular music CD that you can put into any old CD player and just play. The 80 minute limit applies to those devices. The second way is to record a DATA CD - in which case the 700Mbyte limit applies. If you are recording audio in MP3 format, the amount of space it takes is dramatically less than it takes on a music CD because the MP3 format compresses the files so they take less space. You can adjust the quality of the compression of an MP3 and with a 'medium' quality setting, you'll get maybe ten times more audio onto a single disk...so 80 hours rather than 8. That ought to be more than enough for a series of lectures! SteveBaker (talk) 19:41, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

error codes

on my iMAC, while trying to access the application folder in backup from my external hard drive I get the error code-10657 what is that? bill b —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.169.196.142 (talk) 07:36, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Google is faster for finding the answers to some questions. Dismas|^(talk) 10:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Possible data sharing problems within a homework

outline three possible problems of sharing data within a network —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fmcboy (talk • contribs) 09:22, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

1. please start your own thread. 2. please make attempts so that it does not sound like homework. :P Kushal (talk) 10:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a homework question. I'm afraid you're going to have to do it yourself. (Also, I added a title to your question, as you hadn't included one. You're welcome!) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 10:35, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Easiest route JPEG to PDF

What would be the easiest way for me to compile a bunch (over 100) of 7 Megapixel JPEG images into a PDF file? I am on an Intel MacBook, OS 10.4.11. Suggestions please? Thank you. Kushal (talk) 10:33, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Use ImageMagick: convert *.jpg foo.pdf -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 10:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Finlay. I have two more questions, 1. will it let me compile all of the images into a single file? 2. will it work on Tiger? the binary is only for Leopard. Kushal (talk) 11:42, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that command line will take any number of images and will emit a single PDF. I don't know anything about MacOS specifics, I'm afraid. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's really a pain to compile ImageMagick on Tiger, but supposedly it can be done. I was never able to get it working, though, after hours of attempts. Just a lot of dependencies...

Here's another way: I've used this "ImagesToPDFs" Applescript before with good success. It turns each image into a separate PDF. Then you can use Automator to combine the PDFs. Works fine on Tiger. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Really? How disappointing. For Kushal one's immediate problem, it should be possible to compile a rather minimalist ImageMagick with as few external dependencies as possible. The *nix configure script has a lot of --without-xyz options which disable reliance on a given external library. I guess Kushal one only needs the JPEG and Ghostscript modules. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:51, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

That is true. I would not bother taking pictures in RAW format with the camera I have (that is, if I could). I just need JPEG and PDF support. All I need to do is create a modern, standards-compliant (not strictly, just need to make sure that it works with Adobe Readers) PDF file that contains ALL the images in one PDF file. I would assume that the pages would be the same size with respect to one another, and I do NOT expect my people to print a hard copy off it. What would I need if I were to build ImageMagick myself? I just got an idea. Could I use LaTeX to compile the PDF? Could someone build it for me? I already have LaTeX but I have been greatly successful in putting off actually learning LaTeX for a long time! Any help is appreciated. Kushal (talk) 19:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I think that you will need the jpeg library and ghostscript. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Unless ImageMagick requires me to have system privileges to install it, I can try to take over someone's Windows computer (armed with my flash drive) and get this over with. On the long term, I will probably get Snow Leopard as soon as it gets out. Thanks everyone! Kushal (talk) 07:52, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It does need admin rights. :( back to square one. Kushal (talk) 03:06, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Slashes

What is the angle of a slash relative to a Vertical bar or pipe? Dismas|^(talk) 10:40, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't that depend on what font you use? I am getting confused. Kushal (talk) 11:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it is dependent on the font as well as the aspect ratio of the display. For example, if I stretch a 4:3 display into a 16:9 ratio, the angle will change. -- kainaw™ 12:59, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

If you change the aspect ration then at that point you're just distorting the font, it's no longer at its "correct" shape.

Seems like the best way to answer this would be to print out a slash and a bar in your favorite font and take a protractor to it. APL (talk) 15:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

What happened to saving paper? Aspect ratio wars aside, I would say a screen print should be just as fine. Oh, did you mean print it to the screen? Apologies, APL! Kushal (talk) 19:48, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

"/" <--- this slash, on my display, slants at 63° in my browser's textarea font, but at 70° in the default Wikipedia display font. So I guess relative to a vertical bar those would be 27° and 20° to the right, respectively--Sean 16:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, all. It wasn't until after I had posted this question that the person I was talking to about this and I realized that it most likely depends on the font. I thought that there may be some ISO or Unicode dimensions that defined a character After all, ISO standards can be rather nit picky at times. Thanks for the responses though! Dismas|^(talk) 05:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

The unicode guys do have reference renderings of the characters eg for printing on code sheets, but that's pretty arbitrary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 14:14, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Too lazy to experiment ....

http://www.w3schools.com/PHP/func_date_date.asp

• e - The timezone identifier (Examples: UTC, Atlantic/Azores)
• T - Timezone setting of the PHP machine (Examples: EST, MDT)

Well, what are the differences between e and T? How do I assign a value to e or T? How do I get a list of all allowed e and T values? Say, the T (abbreviations) for Asia/Tokyo or Europe/Paris ... -- Toytoy (talk) 15:43, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I haven't played around with it, but here's what I think this does...: "T" is going to give you the timezone setting in the PHP.ini file. "e" will give you whatever it is set currently. You can set the time zone on a per-script basis using "putenv("TZ=US/Eastern");" according to this website: [2][3] The official PHP website suggests this script: bool date_default_timezone_set ( string $timezone_identifier ). ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 22:58, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

And here is the list of supported timezones. — Shinhan < talk > 08:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

un-sudo?

Assuming I am running some bash script as root, and I need to do some actions as a regular user, is it possible to "un-sudo" inside the script? Or do I have to make another script? one for root actions and other to non-root actions? SF007 (talk) 16:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

You can call sudo again inside your script, this time to run a command as someone else; sudo lets you do stuff as any user you want: sudo -u someprole foo -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Consider that SUDO is related to SU, which are both designed to "switch user" in the process of the command, the default user just happens to be root. The article on sudo is a bit misleading in this respect. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 17:31, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Guess it's better to have 2 scripts... SF007 (talk) 23:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Virus destroying hard disk

I know, of course, that a virus/trojan can erase a hard disk, making it unreadable to the OS. But can a virus destroy a hard disk to the extent that it is not recognized by the BIOS? I ask because some friends of mine have an amazing track record of wrecking hard disks. It's unlikely to have been caused by other defective hardware, because it has happened on two separate PC's. I know that at least one of these was severely malware-infested. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:15, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it. It's possible that some hard drives could have their firmware 'reflashed' with garbage - but not many of them are like that and I'd be surprised if any virus writer would spend the effort to implement that stuff for just one or two drive types. It's more likely that your friend lets his PC get too hot - or bashes it around while it's running. It could also just be a run of bad luck. (What amazes me is just how non-nasty most virii are. How is it that nobody wrote a virus that orders 100 random books from Amazon under your name?!) I can't imagine how bad it would be to work with PC's that can get attacked like that! (I use Linux - no malware concerns whatever!) SteveBaker (talk) 19:27, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Kind of a tangent, but: Linux is not any less vulnerable to this kind of attack than Windows. As a rule of thumb, anything you can do without entering a password, a program you run can do invisibly in the background. If you can order 100 books from Amazon shipped to a third-party address on your credit card without entering your password (perhaps because you have autocomplete turned on and haven't set a master password), then any program you run can probably do it too; if you can't then a malicious program probably can't either. That's true on Linux or Windows. The email viruses that caused untold media hysteria a few years back worked by (1) claiming to be something useful or fun so that recipients would run them; (2) sending copies of themselves to everyone in the user's address book; (3) in some cases perhaps damaging the user's personal files. All of these things would have been just as possible on a Linux system. The root of the problem is the user-based security model that both UNIX and NT are built on. When I run a program I don't want it to have the privileges of my user account, I want it to have no privileges at all. It shouldn't even be able to see the file system until I give it permission. Java's security model is closer to the right idea. It has nothing to do with Java's being a virtual machine; operating systems could provide the same level of control over native code. The Java security model is better simply because it was designed more recently and so better reflects what people need in this day and age. -- BenRG (talk) 20:52, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Certainly that's true in theory - but in practice, there are simply no actual, in-the-wild attacks that run rampant through Linux machines. Malware is just a non-issue for desktop Linux users. SteveBaker (talk) 13:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Presumably that's true because of the very small userbase for Linux. If (or when) it becomes more ubiquitous this "in theory" problem will need to be addressed. --Rixxin 08:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)In theory you can permanently trash a hard disk from software using its firmware update mechanism - you do the firmware update procedure, but send it bad firmware. In practice I've never heard of a virus that does so; given that most malware is now commercial (its written for the financial gain of its author or their backers, to send spam or insert advertising or whatever) I don't see a reason why anyone would bother. Now if I were a government (many of whom now say they're building a "cyberspace command" or whatever) then that's probably exactly the kind of thing I would be coding. I doubt your friend has enemies that scary; if he does he has problems worse than computer woes. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:29, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It would be really infeasible though because the firmware update mechanism is probably specific to each model of drive, or at least each brand. So the virus would have to know ahead of time what kind of drive he had; or it would have to have code for every different mechanism. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 19:46, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It might be possible with a zombie that they can have spyware to spit back the hardware configuration and then request a new firmware that would, then, trash the hard disk. However, I would not know what the motive behind such an attack could be. If the computer was a zombie already, it would make little sense to destroy the hard disk itself ... unless the specific zombie's work was done and they were tying up the loose ends. Kushal (talk) 20:24, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Not infeasible at all, unfortunately. It's mostly a standard(ish) mechanism (for example, ATA defines a DOWNLOAD MICROCODE instruction), and the major vendors can (and do) define custom SCSI or ATA commands for firmware update. Mostly you just issue the requisite command, bung a block or two of data at the drive, and (generally if it checksums) you're done. The code to update a given drive is probably 1 or 2 K compiled. The fact that vendors often don't document the firmware update procedure is little defense - they all offer (usually windows) programs that let you reflash a drive, and monitoring or disassembling these isn't very hard. And you don't need hundreds of loaders for different drives - there are very few hard-disk makers any more, and each only really makes a couple of technically distinct products at a time (they use the same platform for several years, and over a range of platter counts and sizes). And, because it's simpler and there's no reason not to, subsequent generations from the same manufacturer use the same mechanism. Writing a general piece of code that could detect and kill most of the drives it'd encounter in the wild would be 50 or 100k compiled. Those that survive would mostly be OEM ones with nonstandard vendor strings (it's a Seagate but it claims to be a Sun or a Dell or whatever). Because the evil attack program doesn't have to download valid firmware (but instead just junk that checksums okay) it doesn't need a massive library of firmware to send. And there's really little limit on how big viruses can be now - they're not hiding in the boot sector on a floppy any more. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:21, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Finlay, now you are really scaring me. We know that most people who write malicious code no longer do it as a 'proof of concept'. Most often, these are 'businesspersons' who are into making money. The motive behind such a scenario is what is problematic to me. There are at least hundreds of thousands of zombies^{[citation needed,I know but I think I saw this on some tv show]} around the world, connected to the Internet. Finlay, do you think that the data is recoverable from the hard disk after it has been 'destroyed'? Would be prohibitively expensive, if at all possible? Kushal (talk) 07:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Firmware updates sometimes fail for innocuous reasons, and there are ways of reflashing the firmware and fixing the drive (though I think you need special equipment). There are various ways this attack could be prevented, such as cryptographically authenticating the flashed firmware or putting a physical switch on the drive that has to be flipped before flashing. I don't know whether those measures are in place right now. If software that attacked drives this way did surface, it would probably affect a large number of drives and create a huge PR problem, and the manufacturers might end up offering free repair as a kind of product recall. -- BenRG (talk) 11:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Sure, you can definitely put it on a jig, connect to pads on the board with pogo pins, and reflash (that's essentially how it's done in the factory); that's probably not cost effective unless the data on the drive is pretty valuable. Back in the day I did a lot of this situ firmware update coding, and then we were paranoid about there being no way to permanently hork a device by botching the update. These days all kinds of things seem to be very lax, their manuals declaiming "if you power me off during update, I need to go back to the factory". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:57, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Once malware is inside your machine - there is really nothing it can't do if the coder is sufficiently motivated to do it. Trashing your hard drive is annoying and would maybe cost you a couple of hundred bucks to fix - but if it can rewrite the firmware on the drive - then it can put malware inside the drive WITHOUT trashing it. Such a virus would be almost impossible to track down and eradicate and since it could change any block of data coming from or going to your drive, it would be a snap for it to produce all sorts of interesting effects by sending slightly different code for your operating system when it detects the boot loader grabbing it. SteveBaker (talk) 13:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Worse, there's firmware in all kinds of places - in the modem, the ethernet card, the bios, SCSI card, the WLAN adapter (and if you're a server, in odd places like the power supply). I've never heard of any of these requiring the firmware to be signed (I doubt most of these devices are up to doing the crypto involved). The recent example of something (not entirely sure what, still) inadvertently trashing the firmware on Intel network cards on Linux should serve as a salutary example. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thank you everyone for your responses! To sum it up, a virus could use a firmware update mechanism that is reasonably standard, and replace the firmware with garbage (or worse), thereby making the disk unrecognizable to the BIOS. However, such a virus has not yet been observed in the wild, and is unlikely to be be the cause of my friends' problems. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:23, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Goodtimes virus will re-write your hard drive. Not only that, but it will scramble any disks that are even close to your computer!

Seriously though, the CIH (computer virus) is one prime example of the firmware changing type, flashes the BIOS with garbage once triggered, before built-in BIOS recovery is common (this was last millennium). --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

IM spam

I have Adium on my Intel Mac 10.4.11. It keeps me connected on to various accounts. Lately, I have been getting a lot of IM spam. I never click on any of them but the flurry continues. Here is a basic example of the spam:

Hey [deleted]%20[deleted] I would like to chat with you but I this is my friends msn. You you can send me a msn chat request here [some hotmail address] Hope we can chat

or

8:48:39 AM alyssaedtxjon@live.com: My cam still is not working. Message me on http://[somename].blogspot.com so I can send you a cam invite. Hope to chat soon :P

Is there anything I can do about it? Kushal (talk) 20:18, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

Switch handles maybe. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:05, 6 October 2008 (UTC)

It's probably because you've had your screenname out on the internet in too many places for people to see. Mac Davis (talk) 03:37, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Live Messenger has an option to disallow IMs from people who are not on your contact list. You'd need to enable that through the official client though, I don't see any way to do it through Adium. I think it's server-side so it should work when you get back into Adium, but I'm not sure. The other protocols likely have similar mechanisms, though that's the only one I've had spam problems with. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't have admin access to a windows computer to install Windows live. As a temporary solution, I have disabled the hotmail account on my adium. I don't think I want to install the piece of carp called Messenger for Mac just to get rid of the spam. Kushal (talk) 22:47, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

October 7

Connecting to my port 8080

Hi all -- I'm supposed to have another computer connect to my port 8080 (my computer is apparently acting like a server). How do they do this? I know my IP address. Is it [ip-address]:8080? Is the colon right? Something else?

Thanks! Sam —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.137.215.22 (talk) 05:28, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

HTTP proxies use this port the most often. If that's the case, they'd set up their browser to use the port to surf the web. In Internet Explorer, you go to Tools --> Internet Options --> Connections --> LAN Settings. Then, you check the box for proxies and enter in the IP address and port number. Don't include the colon. If they're not running Windows or want to do something else, then tell us their OS and your goal we'll be able to help you more.--Tree 'uns 5 (talk) 08:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't think this has to do with proxies - I just think you want to allow a computer to talk some protocol to your port 8080. You're right, the url will be with the colon as you say, eg http://[ip-address]:8080/path/document in the case that you have an http server running. If they can't connect to you, then you should check the firewall / NAT settings between you and the client (maybe there's a router sitting there messing things up). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 14:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Common problem: If your IP Address is something like 192.168.1.100 and the other person is not connected to the same router, you will need to get your real IP address and set up port forwarding at the router. -- kainaw™ 15:04, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Locking

Is there a program or something that displays the classified screen that is used on military computers when people enter the room that cannot see the screen. I would like to use something like that when I lock my computer in Windows. --omnipotence407 (talk) 12:29, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the screen looks like but i'm sure you could find (or if you have/can find a copy of the image) create a screen-saver that mimics this. You can then set it to requiring a password to unlock from screensaver and have a short-cut to setting off the screensaver/hot-spot to put your mouse in to activate the screensaver. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 12:46, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Attack of the Undead boot.ini file!

I recently purchased a used hard drive. I low-level formatted it using appropriate software from the manufacturer and installed Windows XP Home Edition on it. For some reason, the boot.ini file contains entries for not only my XP installation, but also for a XP Pro installation and a Mac OS X installation. Even after deleting the file and reformatting the hard drive the entries persist! What do I do? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I would recommend removing the current disk partitions entirely and recreating new ones in their place (even if it's just one big partition). That should get rid of anything and everything lingering on the disk. You can do this by clicking on Start, right-clicking on My Computer and then selecting "Manage" from the menu that opens. Then select Disk Management. From there, you should be able to remove all partitions on that disk, which should just wipe out absolutely everything on the hard drive. Of course, that means you'll also have to re-install Windows all over again. (One second thought, actually, I guess you could simply skip that step and start by re-install Windows XP; it can perform the same service in the beginning of the installation, if I recall correctly.) Obviously, if you're going to do anything like this, you really need to back up everything you want to save on that computer, 'cause once you do this... baby, it's gone. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:35, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I can't even boot into Windows because of this problem. The OS looks at the boot.ini file and can't find the XP Pro or Mac OS X installation and refuses to boot due to "a hardware configuration problem." And i've tried re-installing already, and the entries keep coming back. PS sorry about my terse reply, this problem has annoyed me for a while now and i am sick of it. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:06, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you couldn't even boot into Windows. All right, in that case: just put in the Windows XP install cd. It should, at the very beginning, offer you the chance to repartition the hard drive. Again, just remove all partitions from it and create a brand new one. I believe that should solve the problem. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 16:11, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, to be more specific, just in case this isn't clear: boot from the Windows XP install cd, of course. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:33, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Those entries probably aren't coming from your Windows boot.ini. They are probably because the previous owner installed a bootloader like GRUB (and Hackintosh as well by the looks of it). Try resetting the disklabel of the entire disk using GParted. That will get rid of everything. --wj32 ^t/c 22:45, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Surely getting rid of all of the partitions will do the same, though? Or is there some reason that wouldn't work? (I'm asking for future reference rather than just to disagree. =)) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:10, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

It's probably in the comptuter's Master boot record, which is not part of any partition. APL (talk) 12:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't the Recovery Console have a fixmbr option? Will that work? 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:03, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that should work if the problem is with the MBR. --wj32 ^t/c 03:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes! No more problems! (I had to manually delete the invalid entries in safe mode though...) Thanks everyone! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 13:05, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Office 2007 instalation issues

I recently bought Ultimate 2007 to upgrade from the student version, but everytime I try to install it I get an error saying that it won't work. I also cannot unistal or repair the old version using control panel. I bought a new HDD and copied my old C drive onto that (using xxclone), could that have missed anything during the copying process? Jackacon (talk) 13:51, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It probably missed the registry entries outlining where the installed Office version is and where its uninstaller is. Try manually deleting the old version and re-installing it from the disk. Hope this helps :) 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 16:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

When you say manually deleting the old version, do you mean deleting it off of C:\ and removing the registry entries for office? Jackacon (talk) 16:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It's now sorted! If anyone else does have the same problem, microsoft have made a very good guide here, just make sure you follow it exactly as it says. Jackacon (talk) 19:02, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

From Live CD to real life

I am planning to buy a new laptop, but I want one that will run Ubuntu without too much trouble. If I test my new laptop with the Live CD and it works, is it sure that the installation will work? Mr.K. (talk) 16:25, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I think so. Unless you're getting one with exotic stuff (e.g shock detector, fingerprint reader) then the wireless lan is probably the most likely thing to not work (and those problems becoming pretty rare). Make sure to test everything (audio, cd/dvd write, bluetooth, memory-card reader). I can't speak to specific models (things change so), but I've had good linux experiences with Acers. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

(this was after edit conflict) AFAIK, yes. However, have you considered buying a computer that comes preconfigured with Ubuntu? http://dell.com/open leads to this page. If you are into Lenovo ThinkPads, there is a wiki dedicated in helping you at http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/ThinkWiki . Just a thought. Kushal (talk) 17:03, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Saving iPhone SMS messages?

Is there a way to download/browse/archive iPhone SMS messages to my computer? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:31, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Only thing that I know of at this point is a piece of software (Mac OS X only) called Syphone. It is in beta, and the site gives no clue as to whether it is compatible with the iPhone 3G. Provided you do have a Mac, I have no clue if this will work with your phone, and I don't use, nor guarantee it; I only remember stumbling upon this solution as I purchased another piece of software from this vendor. --Renwique (talk) 22:24, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. Sadly, the last beta was a year ago. And it does not work with iPhone OS 2.1. --71.158.222.207 (talk) 03:53, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, didn't think so. Worth a shot, though. --Renwique (talk) 20:59, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

High-gloss laptop screen

Is there a name for high-gloss laptop screens? What are the advantages of these screens? Mr.K. (talk) 17:27, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Er...LCD? bibliomaniac15 02:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

'Glossy'? It varies by manufacturer. Usually their pictures are more saturated (which may be a problem or a benefit, depending on the usage/user), they may show less of a 'screendoor effect', and that's about it. They give have massive amounts of glare, though, and are often just used to cover up an otherwise subpar panel. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

When is a saturated screen a problem? I use the laptop for programming, writing and sometimes watching a film. It looks like all the cheap Acer laptops have a glossy screen nowadays... 80.58.205.37 (talk) 10:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Some graphics people don't like it. The glare is the main drawback, the color is usually a positive, which seems to be why the manufacturers do it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:38, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Playing certain CDs on my stereo causes them to have a vinyl-esque crackling and pop

Last Christmas I got a brand new JVC MX-KC58 compact component system. I've noticed that plenty of my CD's (today its my copy of The Stone Roses) don't play properly on it. The first song or two will have an annoying crackling and popping effect almost exactly like that which can be heard on old beat up vinyl albums. As the album plays it progressively gets worse until the album is deemed not readable by the system and it just stops playing. The CDs themselves are in perfect condition, I purchased them myself and they are not CD-Rs. The only way to get around this problem is to play them in my 10+ year old PC with a generic brand CD-ROM drive my friend gave me for free, which instantly plays all of them perfectly. This ancient drive which was given to me by someone who was about to throw it away plays albums better than a brand new $170 compact component system. It annoys me because now the sound has to go through the crappy sound card of my PC. Sometimes if I keep trying over and over my stereo will eventually read the disc right, but this becomes absurdly frustrating. I've had enough so today I decided that my options were either to ask the wiki reference desk or pull an Office Space and drag it in to a field and smash it. I realize that this is probably too vague a question and that it is tl;dr anyway so I don't really expect any responses. NIRVANA2764 (talk) 17:44, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that there is some kind of alignment problem with the laser diode in your CD player. Any chance it's still under warranty? --LarryMac | Talk 19:32, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

e-paper

Can you get touch screen e-paper? If yes, is it multi-toutch? Thanks.92.2.212.124 (talk) 20:08, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Any specific item from any specific manufacturer in mind? I am pretty sure the technology is there for multi-touch touch screen e-paper. Electronic paper may have more for you. Kushal (talk) 22:40, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It ought to be possible to add a touch-screen layer onto an epaper display - so if it hasn't already happened - it probably will happen sooner or later. The touch screen itself doesn't depend in any way on the underlying display technology, so whatever is currently in use for LCD's ought to work OK with epaper providing it can be sandwiched with it without one damaging the other in some manner. However - there may be a deeper problem. epaper displays update VERY slowly - it's doubtful that they would be responsive enough to do the kinds of things you'd expect from a touch-based interface. epaper is really best for things that dead-tree-paper is good for - non-interactive reading materials - where a delay for an occasional page-turn is not unacceptable. SteveBaker (talk) 03:37, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Cell phone/mobile phone.

Why do Americans call mobile phones, cell phones? It makes sense to call a phone "mobile" because it is actualy mobile, but "cell phones" aren't cellular, the only thing that is cellular is the phone network. Thanks. 92.2.212.124 (talk) 20:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Further back in the past there were mobile phones that did not operate on a cellular network. The invention of the cell was a big improvement making the phones far more available. In Malaysia the phones are called hand phones. This shows that they skipped the stage of the car phone which was too big and power hungry to carry around in one hand. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:12, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

It is also hand phone or hp in singapore. 118.90.128.113 (talk) 08:39, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

The language desk may be better equiped to handle this question. Chances are the answer lies in the history of cell phone markeing in the US vs. wherever you are. Still, "cell phone" doesn't seem inappropriate: it describes how the phone operates. Mobile phone is also acceptable, but makes no distinction between cellular phones and satellite phones. --Shaggorama (talk) 21:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Server issues

I was playing around with thhis website using drupal running on wampserver 2.0. I upgraded winXP to server pack 3 and now I can't get to phpmyadmin anymore. anything localhost just turns up a typical browser error. I'm guessing I need to uninstall and reinstall the whole kit, but I don't want to lose my website. Is there any way I can at least export or save my database w/o doing it through phpmyadmin or a web browser at all? --Shaggorama (talk) 21:07, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with this particular server package, but most of those include the MySQL binaries as well. Look for mysql.exe file somewhere in the wampserver directories to get to command-line MySQL interface and use SQL commands to back up the tables. Alternately, search for the configuration file (my.cnf) and examine it to find out where the database files are kept (parameter "datadir="), then you can back your data up without interacting with the server. MaxVT (talk) 18:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Maybe Windows Firewall or some other security software is blocking it? --wj32 ^t/c 03:28, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

First cable companies

What cable company was established in 1858 to carry instantaneous communications across the ocean that eventually would be used for Internet Communications? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beccalynn30 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Cable & Wireless. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:13, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Read Transatlantic telegraph cable, Atlantic Telegraph Company and Cyrus West Field. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:20, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Also, Mother Earth Mother Board by Neal Stephenson. Kushal (talk) 22:36, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

By the way, it was not called Cable & Wireless back then. If this question is for a million dollars, please use another life line to make sure it isn't a trick question. By the way, since when can you Wikipedia while on the hot seat? :P Kushal (talk) 22:53, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a homework question, or a gameshow trivia question.

I'd like to use my life line... To wikipedia!

66.216.163.92 (talk) 22:43, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Language Bar changing languages

I own a Vista laptop that has three languages in the Language Bar--"US", "Canadian French", and "Canadian Multilingual Standard". For some reason, once in awhile I guess I'll hit a key that will make the Language Bar automatically switch from the "US" setting to one of the other two, though I have no idea what key is doing this. I don't have a key that changes the language, so I must be accidently pressing a combination of keys which makes the language change? I'm not sure.--Pointy77 (talk) 23:54, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

That'd be Alt-Shift, at least in XP. I've commonly had the same problem with XP (usually I use the Finnish keyboard layout, but on occasion I've found myself needing the US layout), and as long as I had the selection in the status bar, it kept switching layouts even on situations where I absolutely swear that I didn't hit the keyboard shortcut, and it happened often enough that I become really conscious of the keys I was hitting. I've had this happen on a number of computers, and obviously, that caused problems. I ended up having to have just the Finnish there, therefore eliminating the whole switch thing and just manually adding the US thing when I need it, because having the layout suddenly change in mid-sentence really drives me up a wall. I've heard others report this same thing as well. I don't really have a solution to it, other than removing all the languages you don't actually use from the selection. You can always add them back again later if you want. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 01:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Don't know about Vista, but in XP you can set shortcut keys for the specific languages rather than just to switch to the next language. So if you use all the languages, you could have Alt-Shift-1 for US, Alt-Shift-2 for Canadian French and Alt-Shift-3 for Canadian Multilingual. You can also turn off the shortcut for switching languages. I only use one language, so I've done this and set Alt-Shift-0 to switch to my usual language just in case it somehow gets switched to something different! All this setting is done through the regional settings - see this link for instructions on how to get to them. Goodness knows why Microsoft make the shortcut so easy to press accidentally - you're the fifth person I've told about this since January! AJHW (talk) 15:43, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

As it happens, I just got a new computer today, with Vista on it, and it has the US and FI layouts there by defaults. I typed a sentence, hit enter, and started to write another, and all of a sudden my lovely umlauts were gone, replaced by the devilish colons and semicolons. There is no way I hit alt-shift between those two sentences. Unless this is some kind of a case of confirmation bias -- which I admit is a possibility, even though I don't believe that to be the case -- the bastard thing really does switch between the keyboard layouts by itself. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 22:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I figured it out; Control-Shift changes the language. Thanks for the tips and help!--Pointy77 (talk) 21:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Add startup programs on Ubuntu

I was wondering if it was possible to add programs at startup, on Ubuntu, via the command line (terminal), I know I can do it in a graphical way, but I need to do this in the command line... any ideas? SF007 (talk) 23:38, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

I use bash. To make programs start when bash starts (regardless of flavor: Ubuntu, Debian, BSD, Fedora...), you just add the program to .bashrc in your home directory. The .bashrc file is a series of command-line instructions that run as bash starts. -- kainaw™ 01:12, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Did not worked very well for me... what I was looking for was the location of the files that store the settings when we do it in graphical mode... But thanks anyway SF007 (talk) 13:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I think you can do this by linking to the script in /etc/rc.local . But that's not what you're looking for 59.95.97.3 (talk) 14:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that does not work either... SF007 (talk) 16:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I believe the .profile file in your home directory gets executed when you login, perhaps you can use that. - Akamad (talk) 02:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

1. By startup, do you mean when logging in as your user? or do you mean during the boot process?
2. What is the nature of the program(s) you want to run? Should they open a GUI when you log in for instance?
3. If you want to do exactly the same as is done through System -> Preferences -> Sessions, then have a look inside ~/.config/autostart/. When you add a program to the session using the GUI, it will create a .desktop-file in that directory. The .desktop-files are plain text files with an easy format. You can create your own using the shell, by looking at the pre-existing .desktop-files to see what fields you'll need to set. Reep (talk) 16:02, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Nothing posted here worked...

@reep: What i wanted was exactly what you mention in "3.", but I don't have a "autostart" folder on the location you told me. (maybe it's because I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 beta...)

October 8

I have seup my own wiki, but I cannot edit any page (solved)

Hi, I'm trying to install my own wiki (here), and I have problem with editing pages. Installation was successful, but everytime I want to save changes to some page, I get following error:

Your edit has been rejected because your client mangled the punctuation characters in the edit token. The edit has been rejected to prevent corruption of the page text. This sometimes happens when you are using a buggy web-based anonymous proxy service.

I'm certainly not using any proxy service..I was searching for possible solution, but I couldn't find anything on MediaWiki pages nor Google. How could I solve this problem? Thanks for any advice! Lukipuk (talk) 02:35, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I seem to be able to edit it fine. Perhaps try a different IP address? 193.194.132.78 (talk) 07:08, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Oh i changed the wiki engine from MediaWiki to DokuWiki and it works now, but thank you :) Lukipuk (talk) 13:49, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Finding all IPs affected by a range block

Hello everybody, is there a tool or a website to find out which IPs have been affected if someone performs a range block? Thanks 211.30.12.197 (talk) 07:21, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

I don't see what the need for a tool would be. If it is a decimal system for defining the range, it is very obvious. If you block 192.168.1.25-98, it is obvious that everything from 192.168.1.25 to 192.168.1.98 will be blocked. Usually, a bit-mask is used. Something like 192.168.1.0/20 will use the 20 most significant bits of 192.168.1.0. Written in binary, that IP address is 11000000.10101000.00000001.00000000. I struck out all but the first 20 bits so you can see that any IP address that has those first 20 bits is blocked. They are sequential from 192.168.0.0 to 192.168.15.255. -- kainaw™ 13:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Java Hashset look up

Given a class (Thing) with three members (mone, mtwo, mthree) I want some kind of Java Collection<Thing> that let's me

1) put objects in it, guaranteeing uniqueness of just mone and mtwo (ie mone and mtwo can't both be the same for two elements)

2) retrieve them by just mone and mtwo, in constant time for arbitrary mone, mtwo

Is there an obvious Collection to use?

Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 08:23, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

2) The problem with Sets is that they don't really have a "retrieve" functionality. The reasoning being, if you can tell it what you want to retrieve, don't you already have it? They didn't think about having different objects be "equal" and using one to retrieve another. One solution would be to use some kind of Map<Thing,Thing> that maps each thing to itself. Retrieval time complexity depends on the data structure used.

1) For this, you would just override the equals() method so that two objects are equal if their mone and mtwo are equal. Note that if you do that you also have to override the hashCode() method or else you would violate its contract and it wouldn't work in a hashed data structure. --Spoon! (talk) 09:45, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

So I could just have a Map<ThingSignature, Thing> where a ThingSignature has members mone, mtwo and each Thing has a getSignature() method and I add Things like map.add(thisThing.getSignature(), thisThing) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 11:41, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Or I guess skip the ThingSiganture class if I can figure out a simple return type like String for getSignature that would really be unique...... Hmm... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.223.156.1 (talk) 11:42, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Tor

Are tor users allowed to edit wikipedia and create accounts? Are tor users blocked frequently by check users? I am considering to install tor that's why I wanted to ask. Thanks 59.95.116.34 (talk) 10:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Anything else I can do to stay anonymous on wikipedia? 59.95.116.34 (talk) 10:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Open proxies and Wikipedia:Advice to users using Tor to bypass the Great Firewall contain all the answers to your first question. In response to your second question, what would you be trying to hide and from whom? -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 10:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks59.95.116.34 (talk) 10:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

[4] The only way to do that is to not edit abusively. -- zzuuzz ^(talk) 11:22, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

If you do that (edit abuseivly ) they call you an ADMIN. 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:43, 10 October 2008 (UTC)--

Controllable animations...?

Hi. I am looking to make a 3D animation for a course I’m doing, using some kind of CAD/animation package. The caveat is that I’d like to be able to control the animation from a script that has a user interface. This would mean that, for example, the user could click a button to send the objects on the screen in different directions, all managed by a script.

CAD/modelling software I am familiar with include SketchUp, AutoCAD, Rivet and Blender (to an extent). Scripting languages I can use include Visual Basic, MATLAB and C.

Are there any suggestions as to how I could go about doing this? Many thanks.

LHMike (talk) 10:05, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Blender can certainly do that. There is a game engine (of sorts) that comes with blender and can be scripted in Python. It's an opensource package - so it's free. However, if you have $$$ - then Maya or 3DS Max should be able to handle your needs.

Incidentally, FYI, you should distinguish "CAD" programs from other 3D modellers - CAD packages have very specific features such as the ability to deal with the volume, mass, center of gravity, etc of an object. Most 3D modellers for animations use some kind of "surface representation" which doesn't lend itself to the kinds of things CAD users need - but is easier for things like animation and rendering where you really don't care much about volumetric information. Blender is very definitely NOT a CAD program - AutoCAD certainly is (and it sucks for animation!). SteveBaker (talk) 03:24, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thunderbird On Mac

My Thunderbird keeps telling me I have mail, when I don't. This happens every couple of minutes, and it is driving me crazy. Is it supposed to do this? How can I set it so it tells me I have mail, when I actually have mail???--ChokinBako (talk) 11:04, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you using it with an IMAP server? I've had issues with IMAP getting confused about what mail I've read (though with Mail.app, not Thunderbird). But really, I don't know, you need to give us more info about your setup. --140.247.11.23 (talk) 14:16, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you have UNREAD messages, though? Kushal (talk) 15:44, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Clarification: Do you have emails that arrived in your inbox that you never bothered to open? When I said UNREAD messages, I meant those messages. I did not mean messages that you read and then marked as unread. Kushal (talk) 20:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that it's notifying you of the arrival of a message - which is then immediately classified as spam and deleted or pushed off into another folder? I use Thunderbird - but I turn off the notification feature - so I'm not 100% sure what happens in those circumstances. SteveBaker (talk) 03:15, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

five advantages of open loop control system

May you list for us five advantages of the open loop contol system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.44.166.203 (talk) 11:24, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

May you explain for us why the article open-loop controller doesn't answer your question? -- kainaw™ 12:57, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

And may you further explain for us why you expect us to do your homework, when it's clearly stated at the top that we do not do homework here? --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 18:18, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Making ringtones

Is there any sort of free music software that I can use to cut out the choruses of mp3 files so I can use them as ringtones for my phone? --Candy-Panda (talk) 12:00, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Audacity is pretty good with that, Goldwave too

Forai (talk) 14:19, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

You may already be aware of this site, but you can crop any available ringtone on Myxertones as well as uploading your own MP3s. --Endlessdan and his problem 18:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Or Audacity if you want to do it yourself. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:22, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yup. I use Audacity, myself. The Jade Knight (talk) 07:40, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

InvisionFree or phpBB3?

Which Internet forum software is more reliable and less prone to security vulnerabilities and hacking attacks, InvisionFree or phpBB3? Thank you very much in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by XxCutexXxGirlxX (talk • contribs) 15:14, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Securitywise, Going by the wikipedia articles phpBB and InvisionFree, If security is your thing then I would say phpBB3. InvisionFree article states:

"Limitations of InvisionFree include the lack of FTP access and editing restrictions and inability to access the MySQL database directly, lack of security as the software is remotely hosted." and while the phpBB article states it's been hit a few times, phpBB3 remains rather open. (Not to mention I run my own little php forum and it hasn't seen too many problems securitywise). Hope I have helped Forai (talk) 16:28, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

That "lack of security as the software is remotely hosted" is unsourced, and sounds like someone's opinion. It seems they're saying "it's less secure because it's hosted on someone else's server, rather than your own", that seems like a horrible over-simplification. It's like saying "gmail is less secure because it's hosted by Google rather than on a PC you set up yourself". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:37, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Fast DVD copier

Hi. Is anyone aware of a (preferably free) fast DVD copier (for un-protected DVDs)? I usually use Nero, but to copy a single movie disc it takes up to an hour. My friend has Roxio and it only takes him 15 minutes, tops. Are there any decent, free DVD copiers out there? Thanks in advance. --Endlessdan and his problem 18:27, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Your friend probably has a faster DVD drive (or two). If all the copier has to do is read and write data (no recompression, no crypto) then the software does very little, and so all software should run at much the same speed on any given drive. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We have the same speed DVD-RW. The way he explained it (he gave me an extremely dumbed down explanation): Nero is slow because it takes the contents of the DVDs and dercrypts them (its already decrypted, this appears to be the unnecessary step), then takes the de-decrypted contents and places them on the DVD and then erases that copied content from its temporary memory. The Roxio program just goes DVD to DVD. I could be wayyyy off. But even copying a CD on Nero takes a long time. --Endlessdan and his problem 18:36, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Decrypting is trivial (your CPU can decrypt a CSS stream much faster than any DVD can deliver it; if the media isn't encrypted there there is nothing to decrypt - you can't decrypt the unencrypted). If your drives really are the same, and your using the same media, then most likely you have Nero set to one of its more paranoid settings. Turn off speed testing, and the simulation/trial run thing, and turn off its error-correcting/retry on error option, and make sure it's detected your drive at its full speed and is set to use that. It's not that Nero is slow (Nero, at least in its retail version, is very highly regarded) but that it defaults to some rather paranoid settings. If you just can't persuade it to work faster, try Infrarecorder, which is free. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:58, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Now things are quite different if your copying a video DVD from a commercial version (which is almost always dual layer) down to a single-layer DVD-R. That way it can't just copy data from one disk to another, but has to decode the video and then re-encode it at a lower bitrate. Even on a good CPU that re-encode can take 30 minutes, which has to be done before the newly compiled (shrunken) DVD image to the blank DVD-R. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:02, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Ah, one thing to do is to download the absolutely latest patch of Nero from Ahead's website; because Nero fitters around with features of the drive much more than other programs, it really needs to know about your exact drive. If the drive is new and your Nero isn't super-updated then it may fall back to safer speeds. I've had Nero refuse to recognise a given drive is writable at all, when even XP's dullard cd-write subsystem could write to it. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:15, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Wow, thank you. I will try to mess with the settings and check Ahead's website tonight. Thanks again. --Endlessdan and his problem 19:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Online shopping project

Hi, Can someone help to give me some intruction to do Online shopping project ? give me some outlines,etc..

likes

1. Decision Support Systems 2. Developing Business/IT Solutions 3. Enterprise and Global Management of Information Technology.

In conducting research and developing the paper, students are asked to address the following questions in their final analysis (paper): Define the topic of choice; how is the topic important in ensuring the success of the business/organization; what are some specific products (i.e. systems) relevant to the topic, used in a particular business or industry today; what aspects of the topic may change in the future (necessary to improve or enhance the services or products that it generates or maintains); what are some of these changes.

Thanks

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.98.233.164 (talk) 19:25, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

We would love to help you but we need to see what effort you have done so far. As you might know, we do not do your homework for you. We MAY help you with specific parts with which you have problem with, but for the most part, we allow you the opportunity to call your work your own. Kushal (talk) 19:47, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Do you really mean online "shopping" or did you actualy mean online "selling"? Customers shop. They don't need business or IT solutions and have no need for IT technology above a web browser. As for decision support, that is nothing more than asking your buddy if he or she agrees with your purchase. -- kainaw™ 19:48, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

RealPlayer 11 on Ubuntu 8.10?

Resolved

I recently tried to install the .deb file of RealPlayer on a beta version of Ubuntu 8.10, but it did not worked... is it a problem from my computer, or some sort of other problem? can anyone install it? Thanks. SF007 (talk) 22:55, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Can you give more details please? --wj32 ^t/c 03:33, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I open the .deb file, click install, it starts downloading the dependencies, but than just "hangs", clicking the button to see the terminal shows some "404 not found" errors on what should be the dependencies links... SF007 (talk) 14:41, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

My guess is that the package archive mirror you are using is having some problems, so all packages aren't available at the moment. Try switching to the main archive or a different mirror near you by going to System -> Administration -> Software Sources. Then try installing it again. Reep (talk) 16:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Just reloaded/updated the repositories and it just worked! thanks. SF007 (talk) 19:52, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

October 9

Shipping

If I ship my PC, do I need to do anything special to prepare it? Clarityfiend (talk) 04:14, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

A heap of bubble wrap. I shipped my PC from the Australia to the Philippines and it had dents all over it and needed a repair on arrival after the long trip. It may also be worth removing the important components (like the graphics card if it is a good one) and wrap them up separately just to be sure. Shipping companies tend to ignore ‘fragile’ stickers. 203.202.144.223 (talk) 06:43, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Only if it's a really impressive heap. I recently recieved a computer with an inch of bubble wrap around it, which wasn't enough: one corner of the case had been dented in transit. I recommend taping styrofoam blocks to the corners and edges, to imitate the way computer companies package things. --Carnildo (talk) 19:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Heh, with all the computers I had transfer I always had them in the styrofoam blocks, I just don't trust the alternative of it getting trashed by shipping. For monitors I throw a peice of cardbord infront of the LCD too for at least the illusion it does something. pretty much though it's just "Wrap it in bubble wrap or use styrofoam blocks if you can get them." Forai (talk) 22:07, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd take the hard drive out and just carry it with me on my person. No sense is risking losing all your data at once if your computer gets redirected to Dubai on accident. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:17, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

I strongly agree - take the hard-drive out and hand-carry it. Everything else in the machine can easily be repaired or replaced in the event of a disaster - but if the drive gets trashed (and it's by far the most sensitive component to being dropped or jolted) then you've got a major problem with reinstalling everything. Obviously you should back everything up onto CD's or DVD's too (even a hand-carried drive can get damaged). But even with a decent backup - the hassle of getting everything back how you like it makes looking after the hard drive very important. If possible, put it into one of those silver/grey plastic bags and then wrap the bag in bubble-wrap. As for the rest of the computer - I'd probably remove any internal cards (eg the graphics card if you have a separate one) and treat those the same way - silver/metallised plastic bag - then bubble-wrap. Don't forget to wrap your keyboard - the keys tend to suffer during shipping and can pop-out and get lost. SteveBaker (talk) 13:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In addition to the above, if you have a very large CPU heatsink consider removing it. With enough jostling they can yank the CPU right off the motherboard in a very destructive way. This is especially true if you've got some sort of super-duper giant aftermarket heatsink designed for overclocking or fanless operation. APL (talk) 17:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

New file system on Windows

Say I have a disk with a custom file-system on it - something that Windows does not support as of now. Could someone guide me on how I can go about creating a driver to make windows understand, and access this new file system?--Seraphiel (talk) 08:21, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

You need the IFS Kit. It used to cost money and it looks from that page like it still does, but I was under the impression that it's now available for free, so look around. The NTFSD mailing list, run by OSR, is a useful resource. I think there's only one book on the subject. Sorry for the quick reply but I have limited time... -- BenRG (talk) 17:04, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The other alternative is to just access the partition directly and write your own user-mode driver and GUI... --wj32 ^t/c 22:57, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, BenRG and Wj32. Those look like good starting points. I've managed to get my hands on the book, and have joined the mailing list too. I'll go through them and post back if I have further queries. Thanks again.--Seraphiel (talk) 07:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Help installing LinuxMCE

Has anyone here successfully installed a full LinuxMCE system in their home? We are thinking of doing an installation at my friend's house; his is the guinea pig for what will hopefully be many more. I've browsed the LinuxMCE Wiki but it is simply information overload. What I'd REALLY like is for someone who has already done it to give some guidance as to which components to buy, particularly when it comes to the security cameras and controllers for them. I thought I'd try the Refdesk first before hitting the LinuxMCE forums, please don't shoot me :P Zunaid 14:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

global village

We know right now that the globe is now turning to be a global village with the use of computers everywhere. At first it wasnt so. My question why is it now important to learn computing and not just the fundamentals but to go into details to learn oracle, systems administration and engineering etc. Emmanuel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.210.28.223 (talk) 14:11, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

It isn't important to know those things. That is specialization relevant only to a small number of occupational fields. Having good knowledge of computers and a basic understanding of how they work/operate is a good thing. I've never seen anyone suggest Oracle knowledge etc. is important to the general public. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 14:39, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

There are huge benefits to be had from learning some basic computer stuff - like scripting/programming and basic systems admin. Even if you wind up in a career that doesn't demand those things - it's amazing how many day-to-day office tasks can be helped out by being able to write a simple script - or by understanding how to fix simple technical matters yourself rather than having to run to the IT department (or paying a bunch of bozo's like "The Geek Squad" or the Microsoft help desk) every time you have a minor problem. Computers are here to stay - and they are getting into every corner of our lives - not being "computer literate" in the age of computers is going to be as bad as not being "literate" in the age of printing. SteveBaker (talk) 13:30, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

graphic cards

is it possible for graphic cards to display 1920x1080 pixels on a 46" sony hdtv used as a monitor? actually wut ishould be asking is are there any graphic cards out there displaying that many pixels when set on the settings tab when u right click?Jwking (talk) 16:23, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

The settings tab should display the resolutions compatible with your monitor if you have installed the appropriate drivers. As long as your graphic card has enough video memory, you should be able to use large resolutions. --wj32 ^t/c 22:53, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Actaully a few graphics cards that have a HDMI output connector on the card, have a Native resolution of 1920x1080. To get a graphic card who's programmable clip clock is fast enought to do that resolution requries a peice of software called Power~ something. I cant remember. My EVGA PCIx16 nVidia 7600 is the only card I have that can do it. I have a Toshiba Libretto U105 at work, that has the 64Mb of VRam ( shared memory ), but its pixel clock is not fast enough. ( Damn old Intel internal video chip ). Use the " Dell Ultrasharp UXGA 17" Screen" driver (.inf file ) to tell your video card, what monitor you have ) ( You can see this thread: [5] ) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, what? A Voodoo 3 3000 could do 2046x1536 at 60Hz. You don't need HDMI out either; you can get a simple adapter to go from DVI to HDMI, and some TVs take VGA as input. You can do component video out too, depending on the video card. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:37, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

And: The software you're likely thinking of is Powerstrip; that will let you get resolutions that are not displayed as an option by the driver, but it's usually not necessary for 1920x1080. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 06:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Damn! Thanks Crusty, Thats the software exactly. What is your definition of Usually? I have never seen a video card, except a nVidia 8800GT that didnt need it.

And, 1920x1080 is 1Mpixel, so you need at least 32MB to do a 24-bit still picture. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 08:58, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

My definition of 'usually' is "> 50% of the time". Unless there's something wrong with the card's detection of the TV, I haven't seen any that require using powerstrip for that resolution. 1080p is an HDTV resolution, it's pretty common. Also, your calculation looks wrong: (1920*1080 pixels) * (24 bits / pixel) * (1 megabyte / 8388608 bits) = 5.93 megabytes. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 13:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Most modern graphics cards should be able to get to that resolution - but are you sure your TV can handle it? By default the graphics card is going to produce 1080p (progressive scan) - but many (even quite high end) TV sets can only do 720p or 1080i (interlaced) which is not quite the same thing. Most of them will accept those higher resolution images - but down-sample them to the resolution they actually can manage. That looks OK with TV programs and movies - but when you do that with images from a computer, you get a picture that looks pretty terrible - and running your graphics at the actual resolution that the TV can manage without tricks will produce better results. SteveBaker (talk) 13:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

.net Framework

Is there any good reason why I would need to have .net v2 and v3 installed on my computer at the same time, or does v3 being the latest issue provide the full functionality of previous versions ? I just note that v2 and v3 are installed side by side on my machine rather than v3 having overwritten v2. The size of the latest updates is also an issue if I have to download for both versions.--196.207.47.60 (talk) 16:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Probabbly there is no good reason, but I think you need to keep both to be able to run files that require one or another. Hey, it's Microsoft software, don't try to understand it... SF007 (talk) 19:59, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

.NET Framework 3.0 is based on 2.0 and adds support for WPF, Windows Workflow Foundation, and Windows Communication Foundation. When you install 3.0, it installs 2.0, plus those features. .NET Framework 3.5 is similar (this is from the download page for 3.5):

Microsoft .NET Framework 3.5 contains many new features building incrementally upon .NET Framework 2.0 and 3.0, and includes .NET Framework 2.0 service pack 1 and .NET Framework 3.0 service pack 1.

--wj32 ^t/c 22:50, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

CR-RW problems

Hi everybody. My brother recently downloaded some files for me and burned them to a CD-R. I have a CDRW drive, but for some reason when I open the drive, it says there is nothing on the disk (0 objects). If I look at the disk properties, it says there is 250mb of data on the disk. I have never before had any problems reading any disks on my Sony CRX100E CDRW drive. Any ideas what the problem is? I have WIndows 98, if that info is at all important. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 18:13, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

IsoBuster is a good program to recover/check data on CDs/DVDs, it will let you see all the "tacks" on the CD, and the files in them... you can try it (I think a trial verion is available) SF007 (talk) 19:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Are you opening the CD with Windows Explorer or with some other program (I'm amazed at the number of users who have no idea what WE is and try to read stuff by browsing from Excel or something...)? It's been a long time since I used 98, but it may have had the option to not show certain file types (mostly internal-type files like DLLs, etc.); if the files your brother put on the CD are of the type WE doesn't think you should see, the window will be empty but the disc still show as having memory used up on it. I believe the options for that are under Tools - Options in WE. If that doesn't help, it may help us if we know what kind of files you're expecting to see. Matt Deres (talk) 20:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes I'm using windows explorer. He put a patch for one of my games and a mod for another on the disk. I'm assuming they'd appear as zip or intall shield/setup launchers, but I'm not totally sure. I'll try to get ahold of him to check. I've been able to use disks with the exact same specs, so I know for sure that it's not a case of a disk being to advanced for my drive. --136.247.76.236 (talk) 22:01, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Writing CDs and DVDs on a MacBook

Out of nowhere, my MacBook has problems writing to and recognizing blank CDs and DVDs. The drive itself seems to have no problems reading CDs or DVDs, including writable and rewritable CDs and +/- DVDs that already have data written to them.

However, if I insert a blank CD-R/RW, DVD-R/RW, or DVD+R/RW, the drive spins the disk up and down a couple of times, then ejects the disk, not recognizing it anywhere.

It seems as, all of a sudden, the drive itself does not recognize that it is a burner. Toast 8 reports (as it always did) that the drive has burning capability.

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. --Renwique (talk) 19:56, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

October 10

My "trashcan" or "recycle casket" or whatever to call it has suddenly gone missing from my desktop.. Almost as if it has been deleted. And I can say I certainly haven't deleted no trashcan!

This is a problem coz i can't find it again anywhere and im a bit clueless as to what to do. And i don't know/rememebr what it was called exactly so I havent been able to 'search' my harddisc either for it.. hopefully it is just the shortcut that has gone missing from the desktop, but i just dont know...

what might have happened? and more importantly - how to fix it and find it and/or restore it?

thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krikkert7 (talk • contribs) 00:07, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, My first guess would be that you accidently moved the recycle bin off the screen somehow and lost it. The simple way to fix it in that case is re-align the desktop by rightclicking and arrange icons by whatever. Then grab your recycle bin and re-arrange how you liked your desktop. If it's more complex then that then please reply with information. Forai (talk) 00:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I think it is actually possible to delete the icon for recycle bin on windows xp or later. Did you accidentally press delete for it? 12.169.180.158 (talk) 01:49, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

If you are using Vista, you can right-click on the desktop and choose Personalize. Then click "Change desktop icons" on the left and you can get your Recycle Bin back. --wj32 ^t/c 02:16, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Dont look for tech support here often. OK! To find your trash can, if its on the display but hidden? ( Right click on the desktop ) Arrange Icons by (Third option)Type. To UnHide it, run TweakUI Windows Power Tool. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

thanks guys big time, with your help I got it sorted out! :D

Spyware

I am a complete retard and have managed to infect my computer with spyware. What good, free scanners can I use to get rid of it? Thanks in advance. 86.143.234.77 (talk) 02:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Spybot search and destroy and AdAware are both good scanner. Just google 'em. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 02:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The steps laid out here seem to be pretty solid (open the appropriate thread for you operating system). Yes they're recommending you run several scanners, but it's a good idea to do so if you've been hit. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:14, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You are NOT a complete retard. Humans CANNOT MAKE MISTAKES! Only computers can. OK! If you computer is infected with spyware, you want to get a program called Spybot Search and Destory. [6].

Install it.

Run the Immunize function

Have it scan as the last thing you do during the day. ( it should take an hour or so )

Turn on Expert mode, and look at BHO's ( Browser HiJacker functions ) and click on each one. If one appears that you dont know what it does, type is SPID code ( looks like {EAD4891924-2120-1249 ) into google, and you can easily find if it needs to be deleted.

Just so you know, I got an email, and moused over the graphicl. Turns out it was a link to a codec downloader that loads a trojan horse.

What this means, is that anyone can be fooled, and Windows is inhearntly unsafe by design ----~~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.185.0.29 (talk) 06:41, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

how to change from alphabet to ascii code?

i want to know ,how to change from alphabets to ascii code in c++ language. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.179.31.23 (talk) 07:26, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

With single quotes, like 'a' (not "a") --194.197.235.221 (talk) 09:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Not sure what the question means. Most codes around now except EBCDIC have ASCII as a subset and nearly everything extra is extra because it isn't in ASCII, there are a few things which could be put to something similar but have different semantics. Give an example of an alphabet you would come from and what you would expect the result to be. Do you want to change to Unicode, e.g. UTF8 or UTF16 for instance instead? Dmcq (talk) 12:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Generally (since almost nobody uses EBCDIC anymore) - and presuming we're talking about a non-internationalized program, letters are "already" in ASCII codes. So if you write:

 for ( int i = '!' ; i < '~' ; i++ )  // Run 'i' over the entire set of 'printable' characters
   printf ( "'%c' is %d\n", i, i ) ;  // Print 'i' as both a character and an ASCII code

...you'll get an ASCII chart printed out that starts with:

   '!' is 33
   '"' is 34
   '#' is 35

...and eventually...

   'A' is 65
   'B' is 66
      ...
   'Z' is 90

...and so on until we get to...

   '}' is 125
   '~' is 126

SteveBaker (talk) 13:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

IBM sells five gigabucks worth of EBCDIC-based mainframes each year, so somebody must be using them. A very miserable somebody, but still. --Sean 13:50, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

I'd be quite surprised if there were any C++ programs running on them though! SteveBaker (talk) 14:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes, characters (or 'alphabets' as you call them) are stored as numbers (in ASCII codes). With printf you can choose to print the ASCII code as a character (%c) or as a number (%d) (simplistic explanation) --wj32 ^t/c 21:18, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Converting ClearSpace markup to MediaWiki

Does anyone know of a package/plugin/whatever to convert documents in the Clearspace wiki markup (urgh!) to MediaWiki? SteveBaker (talk) 14:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Scanning banknotes

Why can't banknotes be scanned? 14:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

They can — they just don't give an accurate reproduction when scanned. This makes it more difficult to forge them. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 14:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Many photocopiers and computer programs detect the EURion constellation, a pattern present on many bank notes, and refuse to operate. That article also suggests digital watermarking may be used as well. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 14:54, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Laptop Downloading Woes

I was given a troubled HP laptop computer to diagnose and repair that I can not find a solution for.

The problem it had initially was that it could connect to a network via cable or wireless and would show up with IP information, connected to IM programs, etc. but would not connect to the internet through a web browser. This turned out to be a problem with the a Norton program that apparently comes pre-loaded on HP systems.

So, now the laptop is connecting to browsers and everything seemed fine. Come to find out that I can not download anything from the internet to the hard-drive, such as a simple installer program. Any files will begin downloading like normal (ask where I would like to save, pop up the download window, etc.) but then just immediately complete and do not show up with any resulting download. The very first time I had this issue, I believe it actually downloaded for some time, completed, and left me with a fragmented file that could not be opened.

The laptop -will- download updates via Windows Updater, but I believe it will not allow me to download files from other programs, such as Zune Marketplace.

I have tried hooking this laptop to different networks (work network and home network), using different web browsers (FireFox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome), clearing the TCP/IP Stack via the command line, logging in as a Guest user on the computer, booting up in Safe Mode + Network, and have not been able to identify any firewall, anti-virus/spyware programs, or generic Windows settings that could possibly cause this issue.

The computer is using 32-bit Windows Vista Home Premium.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

209.253.35.194 (talk) 17:05, 10 October 2008 (UTC)Impen

As a temporary solution, try getting a download manager and resuming every time the download breaks. This might be an issue with your ISP, or with Norton security software. Have you tried disabling Norton antivirus/firewall? Also, by "not show up with any resulting download" do you mean the download doesn't show up in the download manager, or isn't present as a file on the filesystem? If it exists, how big is it? --wj32 ^t/c 21:23, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that the download is not breaking - it is completing extremely quick. There is no download to resume, because the system thinks it has finished.

I know it is not a problem with an ISP, because I have tried it at two different locations with separate networks (home and work) and it is not a problem with Norton. I uninstalled any/all Norton related software I could find on the computer with the aid of the program they make you download to uninstall their software.

By "not show up with any resulting download," I mean it does not create any new file on the system. The option for "Open" and "Open Containing Folder" options are not available in the browser. It appears the downloaded file does not exist at all.

Also, I have tried this on a wired and wireless network.

Thank you for the input, wj32. =)

Ubuntu download as VMware virtual machine, VMware tools preinstalled

Where can I download Ubuntu as a VMware virtual machine with VMware tools preinstalled, aside from the VMware website? I have an Intel Mac 10.5. The VMware website keeps 7zip archives of Ubuntu with VMware tools pre-installed, but the only one (of four files in the archive) which VMware Fusion can open gives me a Terminal only. (The 770MB "VMware Virtual Disk" remains untouched.) I successfully installed Ubuntu manually, and then I tried installing VMware Tools afterwards. But that doesn't work either. When it goes to configure itself, it seems to want a C-compiler, but can't find gcc even though it is installed. (Apparently, v4.2 is already installed.)

My solution is to download it, altogether, with Tools pre-installed. VMware Tools is software that runs in the virtual machine, to help it integrate better with the host system. I'm a noob, much as I make every effort I can to decipher what I can't understand!My name is anetta (talk) 17:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

In the guest, open a terminal and type sudo apt-get build-essential linux-headers-`uname -r`. Then install VMware Tools. Ubuntu comes with GCC, but without the essential headers. --wj32 ^t/c 21:27, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Why memory segmentation?

We have an introductory course in microprocessors. In 8085, the data bus of RAM chip and microprocessor both are 8-bit and hence interfacing is straightforward. For 8086 however, data bus of processor is 16-bit and that of RAM chip is 8-bit. We can't have a 1MB ram chip in which we can address two locations at the same, hence we use two chips each of 512kb for interfacing to the 8086. This is also where the concept of memory banking comes in.

However, my question is - instead of going through all this hassle, why can't we have RAM chips with data bus of 16-bits? It would make the trouble of segmentation unnecessary. (For now, let's ignore the other advantages of memory segmentation.) My professor explained that it's a "hardware limitation" of 8086, but I don't understand how - if data bus of both processor and RAM is 16-bit.

Thanks --RohanDhruva (talk) 19:06, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Doubling the size of a given bus is a lot more than just adding 8 wires; you need to double the number of parts for every part of the system that touch that bus. This uses real estate on the silicon die, which is always in short supply. Worse, particularly back in them days, chip design software was very primitive (making even trivial-seeming changes into a lot of hard work) and really Intel didn't employ all that many people. Plus I guess they thought (rightly, from an economic standpoint) that the 16/8 chip would sell perfectly well, and they could do a 16/16 chip later. I'm sure they came to regret that, from a technical standpoint, later - but by that time they had huge piles of 8086 cash, so it's hard to say they were wrong. Incidentally if they had made it 16/16 you wouldn't have needed 16 bit RAM chips - you'd just use two 8 bit ones in parallel and common their chip selects. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:22, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Additionally (in general; I don't know the specifics of the 8085->8086 transition) there are other reasons why a new chip might willfully inherit the limitations of its predecessor. These include the goal to be:

• pin-compatible, or as close to as possible, to minimise the effort designers have to put in to switch a given board from your old device to your new one
• instruction compatible, or at least very similar, so existing software works, or can be ported with less effort
• hardware compatible, so existing devices (like memory SIMMs) from the old system can be used in the new. Also remember that RAM isn't the only thing on a classic x86 system address/data bus - external devices like UARTs, mouse controllers, floppy controllers, and many more are all built to the same architecture standard; the less you change that, the more of these devices will work (or the easier it will be to make them work).

As with my first answer, the real reason is "economics". -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:13, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

Self-Replicating Program

How would one go about making a program that makes a random change to its programming based on a dictionary of commands and then replicates itself? Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Freiberg (talk • contribs) 21:48, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to tell us what environment you're thinking of programming this in (or, if you have no constraints). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:52, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

While I don't necessary care about the programming language used, I am hoping to not have it swamp my hard drive, perhaps by partitioning the hard drive. Also, I am hoping that any program that fails to replicate is deleted.--Freiberg, Let's talk!, contribs 22:20, 10 October 2008 (UTC)