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December 31

Python error message

I'm writing a bit in python using the NumPy module arrays. Every time I try to take the transpose of an array I get the message built-in method transpose of numpy.ndarray object at 0x012B2CB0, but no transpose. The number at the end (I take to be the memory pointer) changes. I'm running Python 2.5. Any thoughts as to what is going on or how to fix it? Thanks, --TeaDrinker (talk) 03:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, silly mistake. I figured it out (I forgot the parens at the end of the x.transpose()). D'oh! --TeaDrinker (talk) 03:09, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wii: 16:9 progressive w/component, what's the resolution?

When I set my Wii to an aspect ratio of 16:9, and progressive scan, what's the output resolution? I have a TV whose native resolution is 1920x1080, so it's hard to tell what the output resolution is, and I've looked at a number of places but can't seem to decide on a definitive answer. So what does the Wii output when I set it to 16:9 and progressive? --Silvaran (talk) 04:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Since the Wii isn't HD-capable, it outputs at SDTV resolution of 480p or 576i (no 576p T.T, but if your TV has a good deinterlacer the higher resolution of 576i will look better than 480p). It does its widescreen through anamorphic widescreen so the effective horizontal resolution is reduced somewhat. --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My computer screen goes dark

I was using GOB Player for watching movies. while playing dvd from HDD, I changed the themes of the windows from windows XP to Windows classic. Suddenly my computer screen went black with all text disappeared but the icons alone remained visible. I tried booting with my most recent settings worked option and tried safe mode, but nothing seems to be solving my issue. Suince I can't see text, I can't change the themes or display properties at all. Also I can't go to system restore too....Everything except the icons remain complete dark. This happens only after the user settings are loaded. The welcome screen is fine. I tried logging on to different user, but no change. Please help me. I use windows XP SP2.My pc is dual core 3GHz,1 GB ram,256MB video card,160GB HDD. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.61.222 (talk) 08:56, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's an interesting problem. There are a variety of things I'd suggest but most of them require that you can see text on the screen. I'm especially surprised about safe mode not working though -- Did I understand correctly, that you tried safe mode, and it still showed you a black screen with no text? Equazcion •✗/C • 16:16, 31 Dec 2007 (UTC)

Designation at the top of the product

I have seen in many products where there is a designation or a symbol "R". This is shown at the top right corner of the name of the product/manufacturer name. For example if you take intel CPU, then it has something like this "INTEL R DUAL CORE 3.0GHz CPU R". See this link.[1]. There is a term R at the top of the name. What does this mean?. Real? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.164.61.222 (talk) 09:05, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

That's the registered trademark symbol, normally an R in a circle, but sometimes reduced to an R in parentheses, or even a plain R, when handled as ASCII. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:15, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Bah, you beat me to it. Nice! --Ouro (blah blah) 09:16, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah: ® - you also see ™. It's a similar deal to a copyright symbol. SteveBaker (talk) 16:08, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Programming

I have already taken a basic C++ (to pointers and inheritence), and a data structure course. But, I am interested in expanding my knowledge in programming, which includes creating softwares with nice interfaces, sophisticated web pages... I tried to search on the net for a start, but I got lost between CGI, GUI, PHP, SQL... Could someone direct me and advise me were I should start? Thank you. 212.98.136.42 (talk) 16:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

For programs that run normally on your computer with an nice interface, what you need is to pick a GUI toolkit. The good ones generally have two parts:

A C/C++ library that you link to your application that allows it to interact with the interface
An interactive tool to allow you do design the interface interactively - dragging and dropping buttons, sliders, menus, etc.

The usual way this works is that the interactive tool writes out some C/C++ source code that maps each 'widget' (button, slider, whatever) into a class or struct that represents that widget. Then you compile that code with your code and the library to make a working application.

One tool I'm rather fond of is 'FLTK' because it generates GUI applications that work under Windows, Linux and MacOS from a single source. With FLTK, you can (for example) create a window, place and label some buttons, sliders, etc - set their colours, the style of text (font, boldface, etc), set keyboard shortcuts - and (critically) provide the name of a "callback" function that is to be called every time the button is clicked or the slider is moved (or whatever). You write those callback functions yourself - and a 'main' that calls the FLTK library initialisation function. When you run the program, the window is opened for you - and whenever something happens with the user clicking on something - your functions are called.

There are a bazillion other GUI toolkits - some are portable - some are specific to one system - some are horrifically complex - others are too limiting. I like FLTK for it's simplicity and easy learning curve (and because it's portable). I'd recommend it as a starting point.

For web-based development, you pretty much need to abandon C++ and switch to PHP or JavaScript (or perhaps, Java itself). These two programming languages are an awful lot like C++ and you'll find them very easy to learn since you already know C++ (it took me about 3 hours to pick up enough PHP to the point where I could write the stuff I needed - JavaScript was even easier). You'll need a good book. PHP is the language that runs on the web server that writes out HTML code for the browser to display. JavaScript runs on the client computer, inside the browser, and is called (much like the FLTK library calls your C++ code) when widgets on the web page are clicked. With JavaScript, you design your GUI using HTML forms and tell each widget which JavaScript function to call when the widget is activated. For most web applications, you need both PHP and JavaScript to get the job done so plan on learning both eventually. If you don't know HTML (and possibly CSS), you'll need to learn those too.

CGI is the name for a regular binary program that's run on your web server as a result of someone clicking on a widget in one of your HTML web pages. CGI is an alternative to PHP and you can write CGI programs in C++. So, in theory, you can substitute C++ for PHP on the server side (I've done that - and I didn't enjoy it) - it's much easier to pick up the PHP language than it is to fight with getting 'CGI' programs running nicely in C++.

SQL is a database interface - forget all about it until you've mastered absolutely everything else!

So, my personal advice (and I'm sure others will differ) is: If you want to start with the desktop GUI stuff, download FLTK (it's free and there are online tutorials and sample programs to get you going) - when you've mastered it, you'll know what questions to ask in looking for something more sophisticated. If you want to start with Web-based stuff, you'll need to install PHP on your web server (do you even have your own web server?) - but JavaScript is already there in whatever browser you are using. Buy a couple of books (I used "Sams Teach Yourself PHP in 24 Hours (3rd Edition)" and "JavaScript: The Definitive Guide" - both on Amazon.com - but there are a million others out there).

SteveBaker (talk) 18:46, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

My first piece of advice would be to get away from C++. It's just too much for a beginning programmer. You'll shed a lot fewer tears if you start out with Java or Perl or Python, which have excellent base libraries, are easy to use, are fast enough for anything you're going to be doing as a beginner, and have great documentation and tuturorials available. You can come back to C++ when you're a professional and need your program to be fast as all hell or you have so many people on your team that you need the bondage and discipline to keep them in line. --Sean 23:34, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Normally, I'd agree with you - but we have here someone who already knows C++ - so I don't think the usual advice applies. SteveBaker (talk) 00:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bug reporting

I found a bug in the universe. I believe it affects all users. Where do I report it so that the current code maintainer(s) can fix it? 192.30.202.18 (talk) 17:48, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried turning the universe off and on again? 81.77.136.231 (talk) 17:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Please do not attempt to reinstall the Universe without first making a backup. K'Thnks. SteveBaker (talk) 18:18, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Your bug is known to be fixed in the next planned major release of the Universe, but the date when it goes golden master has not yet been pinned down.

Atlant (talk) 18:29, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe there's some temporary workaround we could use until then? --Ouro (blah blah) 19:42, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Just be bold and fix it yourself. --67.180.134.53 (talk) 19:50, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming you have a reliable source for your change, click here to edit the article.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 14:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Unless of course you mean one of these, because the edit link I provided is for the article "The Universe" or "Universe".. if your article is about another universe related subject, then just locate the article in question and press the "edit" button.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 14:34, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a bug, it's a feature. Anyway, make sure you have followed the manufacturer's instructions to the letter. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:41, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Embed code

what is meant by embed code and embed video?82.148.96.68 (talk) 18:36, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Embed video could mean that you are embedding (that is, attaching, or including, or inserting) a videoclip in another document (or the link to the video if we're talking about an online application). As for embedded code - I suppose it's code (of a programme or script) embedded (inserted) in another document, likewise. If you could provide any details as to where you got the terms from and could be more specific about what you're asking, then we (or SteveBaker) will probably be able to answer more elaborately. Cheers, Ouro (blah blah) 19:52, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Video sites like YouTube provide code you can copy to include their videos in other webpages you create or can post HTML code on. Various sites may call this option embed code, embed video, or something similar. --Bavi H (talk) 07:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Robot voice has taken over my Mac!?

Earlier today i nearly dropped my keyboard, which led me to accidently press a number of keys. The result is that everything i click on now has a black box around it. Furthermore there is now a robotic voice reading out stuff, like the web address i go to and other stuff. Any idea how i make the robot shut up? it is freaking me out. Willy turner (talk) 19:40, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Go to System Preferences > Universal Access, and you should be able to disable these settings. --67.180.134.53 (talk) 19:49, 31 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, and happy new year! Willy turner (talk) 00:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 1

Derivative of a GPLd work

(Not exactly a legal advice question, just interested) I was searching for implementations of AES in JavaScript, and found this page: [2] Its author has ported AES implementation from GnuPG, and put a notice: "Copyright 2005 Herbert Hanewinkel. Permission to use, modify, sell or distribute this software with or without fee is allowed, provided that etc, etc, etc." So my question is: shouldn't it be releas‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉ed under the same GPL instead? (neither the page nor the code mentions GPL, so I suppose it isn't) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 00:05, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GPG's AES implementation was itself based on a public domain implementation (see here), so it depends on whether a court considers the javascript version a derived work of the GPG version or the PD version. --Sean 01:11, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MIDI and my PC

I have a Yamaha electric piano - a large-ish keyboard capable of producing a nice piano sound and many other instrument sounds as well, including drums. Unfortunately, I am not a musician, I cannot sight read music and I lack the patience to start piano lessons. To date I have relied on "decoding" the music bar by bar, and after many repeats I manage to remember enough to play a minute or two of a recognisable tune. The piano has a round DIN style socket on the back that I believe is a MIDI port. I also have a PC with a sound card with something described as a MIDI-port that looks like an old 9-pin serial port. My question... Is it possible to connect the piano to the PC so that I can either:

Record my rather poor efforts on the piano to build up several tracks which can be mixed together (ie. record the different instrument sounds separately, like a studio mixer).

Have the PC play a composition using the different instruments "in" the piano (ie. some musical composition software which drives the piano, either playing through the piano's built-in speakers or allowing it to be recorded on the PC).

Astronaut (talk) 02:33, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and Yes. You can look at music notation software for starters - many have a "recording" functionality; you can connect the piano to your computer either through the MIDI port or directly through a Line-In audio connector, depending on how you intend to record the sound (as notated music or as raw audio). As far as using the computer to control the device, I am not certain of the details but it is usually possible. Nimur (talk) 03:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like you have a sound card with a combination MIDI/joystick port. (It's actually 15 pins.)

To connect the PC to your piano, you can get an adapter cable that connects to the MIDI/joystick port on one end, and has MIDI in, MIDI out, and dedicated joystick connectors on the other ends. (Here's an example.) If you have proper sound card drivers installed, the MIDI port on the sound card will appear in any MIDI programs you use. The sound card's MIDI port will also appear in the Windows Control Panel. (Games or MIDI players that don't let you choose a MIDI device will use the default device set in the Control Panel.)
To record from your piano and build up several tracks, you need a MIDI sequencer.
To play a composition from the computer and have the sound coming out of your piano, you can use a MIDI sequencer or any other program that can play MIDI files (including Windows Media Player). If the player doesn't let you select a MIDI port, you would have to use the Control Panel to set the default MIDI port so that it sends it to your piano instead of some "internal" MIDI instrument. --Bavi H (talk) 07:17, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How

How i get embed code of youtube video or google video?So i link in my windows live space blog for play in my space.82.148.96.68 (talk) 02:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to show the YouTube video within your Windows Live Space, then use the embed code on the right panel. It will look something like this:

<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/lTxsIJBVCD0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/lTxsIJBVCD0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>

I'm not sure how Windows Live Spaces works so you'll have to work that part out, or wait for someone else.

If you simply wish to give a link to the video, then copy and paste the URL of the video and then onto your Space. x42bn6 Talk Mess 02:43, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

On Google pages, I have to go to edit html. Maybe it is the same for Live? Kushal^t 21:32, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Autocomplete in Internet Explorer 7.0

I used to have a password stored for a website login using Autocomplete. However, I erased the username and have since lost the automatic password entry. How do I set the autocomplete for the password entry? --Blue387 (talk) 06:19, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using IE's built in Autocomplete, or a toolbar's autocomplete i.e Google Toolbar? Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 19:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Explorer. --Blue387 (talk) 02:26, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's easy. Just enter your user name and password and click on the submit button. You'll get a window asking you if you want the computer to remember your password. Click "yes". Next time you go to the login page, you'll have your user name and password already entered. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 23:54, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SMS in UK

What site can I visit in UK to type in a message which goes to someone's mobile telephone? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 12:18, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gizmo SMS, but it only allows 80 characters (I guess another 80 are for Gizmo SMS ad). --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 12:31, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

TG SMS, I use TGsms.com and it works well, but you have to pay for it.

career counselling

I want to know that if there is any FREEcourse or degee in java from a recognized university/institution which could be completed totaly online to help in my future career —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hemant kumar bhardwaj (talk • contribs) 15:51, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know it does not directly help, but please look out for the Diploma mills. Kushal^t 21:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The key here is that you ask if it can help in your future career, which I assume is computer programming. Speaking as a person who has been a programmer for 30 years come next September and has been interviewing and hiring programmers for the last 10 years, anything that is free and online will be of no more help than just getting a book and learning to program. I (unfortunately) have to attend a lot of meetings with other IT management people and I've found that the consensus is that interviewees are broken into four categories. There are the unqualified people that we are amazed considered applying for the job. There are the genius freaks who leaned to program when they were in the womb and have never had a need for classes or degrees. There are the alphabet-soup certificate people who have every imaginable certificate and no knowledge of anything they are certified to know. Finally, there are those who set a goal to spend four or five years in college, taking many hours of boring classes, blowing tons of money on overpriced books that they can't sell for a nickel now, and finally got a little diploma with B.S. on it. Except for rare situations, having a real diploma from an accredited university will be the best way to help you in your future career. It says a lot more than "I can program." It says that you spent many years and a lot of money on a long-term goal and you eventually completed it. -- kainaw ™ 03:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What about the genius freaks who are forced to spend heaping piles of gold coins on a B.S. so that they can get a career, but never learned anything from it, and didn't do too well because they had to work through school? :[ --⁪ffroth 17:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I worked through middle school, high school, undergrad, and grad school. I rarely learned anything in any class I've ever taken. As I pointed out, the degree has nothing do with knowledge. It is purely about setting a long-term goal and completing it. If, as a genius programmer, you can show some other viable long-term goal, that would be beneficial. For example, if you wrote a popular program that took 4 years to develop, test, and bring to market - you'd have demonstrated the ability to meet long-term goals. Most (by which I mean all except one) of the genius programmers I've known find it easy to start projects but rarely finish anything that takes longer than a few days. -- kainaw ™ 17:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's why you don't eat or sleep for a few days :D Also, does logging thousands of hours in an MMO count as a long term goal? --⁪ffroth 16:22, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, holy crap worked through middle school? Commence quoting: A job? You're in elementary school! .. It's OK we won't get caught.. and Who's your dad, hitler? --f f r o t h 04:06, 7 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The PEVE unit of the dept of Computer Science at University of Manchester runs a great distance learning course in Java. It's not free though. Easiest way is to buy a very good book. Ade1982 (talk) 20:53, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Feasibility of customisable email reciept notification (e.g. in Thunderbird)

I often check every time I receive a new email, as indicated by a new email symbol in my Windows tasktray. Often, the email received isn't very important and wasn't worth being bothered about - I'd like to be able to right click on an email, and in just the same way that I can add it to a mail filter, I'd like to change it to a "notification filter". Conceivably, any given email address/domain could be assigned to unimportant = no notification, standard importance = normal notification (normal symbol in task tray), high importance (red-shaded symbol in task tray). Of course, when there are unread email of varying degrees of importance at the same time, the email of highest importance would determine the notification received. One could also choose to have a sound played for high priority email and not for regular email etc. Is this a feasible suggestion? --Seans Potato Business 20:57, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am sure it is feasible. Would you like to take a shot by adding it to feature request for the next build of Mozilla Thunderbird too? Kushal^t 21:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My preferred client -- Claws Mail -- is readily customized in this way. --Sean 22:47, 1 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does it do it for Windows or only Linux? At this thread they say it's not possible for Windows. --Seans Potato Business 01:15, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I only use Linux, so I dunno. Sorry. --Sean 12:46, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is partially possible in Eudora for Windows. One of the actions of a filter you can set it so assign sounds so you just turn off general sounds and set up sounds per filter. If it's the same filter it only seems to play the sound once even with multiple emails but with multie filters and different sound I think it will play each in turn. You can also turn off notify users in general and there is a notify users option in filters it appears. Finally there is also a notify application although I'm not sure what this does. In conclusion, you can probably set up a binary notification option but more then that probably wouldn't work well Nil Einne (talk) 11:56, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 2

special characters

hey, does anyone know how to insert unicode chaaracters on a laptop (nonextended keyboard) without having to poen character map or copy and pasting them everytime? are there any alternate ways? thanks a bunch!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.132.92 (talk) 23:30, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many laptops have a faux numeric keypad on the letter keys to the right, look for numbers in the corner of the keys. If this is the case, you can usually activate this numeric keypad by pressing Fn or Num Lock. If your keyboard does have such a function, hold down the Alt key, press the Fn key and then type the numbers using the pseudo-keypad. -Canley (talk) 23:44, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hey it works!!! Thanks so much!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.132.92 (talk) 02:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia server load

The Wikipedia database is temporarily in read-only mode for the following reason: The database has been automatically locked while the slave database servers catch up to the master

This is probably due to routine maintenance; if so, you will be able to edit again within a few minutes. We apologize for any inconvenience this might have caused. You can continue to browse Wikipedia articles while the database is locked. For further information, you can visit the #wikipedia channel on the freenode IRC network.

Would more expenditure on server machinery stop this from happening? ----Seans Potato Business 01:12, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, though this lock is only very temporary. It exists to ensure consistancy across the wikipedia databases. If you had better servers (as opposed to more) it might decrease the amount of times this happens. 202.10.86.59 (talk) 02:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This isn't something "you" can allieve, this is a wikipedia-specific message and that server syncing is very specific to wikipedia's massive server setup of mediawiki. If you want to run multiple database servers and connect to them all directly from mediawiki, then you'll have to solve a similar problem. --⁪ffroth 17:10, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That is the problem, but it still stands to reason though that more/better equipment would probably prevent those lags from occurring. Although the more efficient solution would be to just write new software from the ground up. MediaWiki wasn't meant to be used this way, and proprietary software could probably eliminate these lags even on the current equipment. Equazcion •✗/C • 17:38, 2 Jan 2008 (UTC)

It's hard to imagine a project centered around openness using something proprietary for its fundamental software component. --Sean 18:47, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just because it's proprietary doesn't mean it can't still be open-source. Equazcion •✗/C • 19:01, 2 Jan 2008 (UTC)

But it can't be "Open Source" in caps. *rolls eyes* Anyway we need better db servers, not more. If we had more, we'd have to sync more often. --⁪ffroth 16:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know I am getting out of track but I don't see what you are hitting at, equazcion. Kushal^t 12:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In a very real sense MediaWiki is designed to be used in exactly this way, since running Wikipedia has always been and still remains the number one target application for it. Whether it has been well designed for it is, of course, a different question. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:33, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Huh? MediaWiki was written for Wikipedia? Are you sure 'bout that? Equazcion •✗/C • 13:00, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

If only there were an article somewhere would one could read the history of MediaWiki.... --LarryMac | Talk 15:44, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Now just where would we find such an article? Oh, I know! There is a place, one which hasn't been mentioned in this discussion yet, and I'm not sure everyone here is aware of. It's called "Wikipedia".

Seriously though, isn't it obvious? Before Wikipedia, hardly anyone had an idea what a "wiki" is. In fact, to this very day some people think that "wiki" is short for Wikipedia. It's unlikely that someone would have put a lot of effort into designing something as complex as MediaWiki and just hoping a use for it will be found eventually. Even the name "MediaWiki" is an obvious play on the Wikimedia's foundation name. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:10, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't know that. No need for sarcasm. Equazcion •✗/C • 18:30, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

My first paragraph was just a joke, no offense was intended. I usually specifically designate any sarcastic remarks as such, but this was so obvious that I didn't feel the need.

It is, however, important to keep in mind the point raised by Larry - we are all here working within what is probably the largest encyclopedia in the world, in which one can easily find answers to technical questions such as "why was MediaWiki created?". Following Ilmari's link to MediaWiki would be a much faster way to verify his claim than asking about it, and in fact this is probably what he had in mind when he added those brackets. Just something to note to make your life easier in the future.

No offense was intended in my second paragraph, either. I was just a little surprised by your surprise, for even if the historical fact was unknown to you, it looks to me like something that should "make sense" - especially since it is probable that you have seen Wikipedia use Mediawiki much before you've seen anyone else use it. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Windows XP CHK DSK?

Upon my last start up, (after previously defragging my Hard Drive, using a third-party piece of software, and making some registry edits via the automated cleaning program CCleaner), Windows XP, right before the welcome screen popped up, started CHK DSK. I assume this is "Check Disk", but I don't know hwy this happened. It has never occured before. CHK DSK claimed my C: Volume was "dirty". Can someone shed some light on this?

Thanks in advance,

Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 15:06, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're right that it is "check disk". In Windows XP, a check disk can be requested by a program (including Windows itself), in which case the next time you reboot, the check disk scan will run. This can happen if:

...a program thinks your hard drive may have damaged sectors (areas),
...a program needs to check for errors before performing a major disk operation, such as a change to partitions
A maintenance program can also request a check disk as a preventative measure, to keep your hard drive healthy
Windows can initiate a check disk if it detects hard drive issues.

In this case, I'd say your defrag program probably requested the check disk. Some programs allow you to manually initiate a check disk on the next reboot (a feature in Diskeeper), so you may have inadvertently checked this option while playing with settings. The defrag program could have also detected problems and made the request automatically, as any "bad sector" problems would need to be cleared up before a defrag can occur. In the end, it's usually nothing to worry about. Even if there are bad sectors on your hard drive, check disk can usually "fix" them quite easily. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:23, 2 Jan 2008 (UTC)

If chkdsk says that the volume is dirty, it means that the dirty bit is set. NTFS doesn't have a real dirty bit, but it has a bit called the "dirty bit" that can be set to force chkdsk to run. So, if you're using FAT, chkdsk is probably running because Windows didn't shut down cleanly. If you're using NTFS, what Equazcion said. -- BenRG (talk) 23:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Software please!

This isn't the most technical question, but what is good software to convert youtube videos into audio files? I'm running Mac OSX, so one for that system would be appreciated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.84.12.248 (talk) 23:48, 2 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've used iSquint quite successfully to convert FLV videos to Quicktime ones, but that's not quite the same thing. If you have Quicktime Pro, that would work very well for this and many other conversion issues. You could probably get VLC to do it, though I've had very spotty results with its OS X port (crashes quite often with FLVs). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Second the VLC recommendation (to wit, I've (a) used it successfully, but (b) had a few problems with it, too). —Steve Summit (talk) 02:37, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I once used Audacity to do that, by hitting the record button and then playing the video file. It's worth going through the preferences first to make sure it'll record it in the right way and set up the MP3 encoder. It worked very well, though if you have to do lots of files, using Audacity's going to be inconvenient because you have to wait for the video to play. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 13:17, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 3

php mysql not talking to each other

i've just been setting up a php/mysql/apache combo and been having some trouble getting php and mysql to talk, when i try to run a php page with mysql access i just get a blank page lodad up (ie creating a user login in page when clicking submit instead of displaying the confirmation page its just blank)at first i thought i had bad code but then i used this basic test code and that gave the saem result (blank page):

<? $mysqli = new mysqli("localhost", "user", "password", "database");

if(mysqli_connect_errno()) { printf("Connect fauiled: %s\n", mysqli_connect_error()); exit(); }else{ printf("host information: %s\n", mysqli_get_host_info($mysqli)); } ?>

(of course changing user/password/database to the relavent details)

i decommented the mysql extension in php.ini, was there anything else i need to do?--Colsmeghead (talk) 00:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, changing your error reporting level will let you know what is going on (e.g. it will give an error message and not just a blank screen). Try adding error_reporting(E_ALL); at the top and see what it tells you. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are two mysql libraries for mySQL: mysql and mysqli you need to make sure that you've also uncommented the mysqli compilation option (you don't necessarily need the mysql option, although older code may be written to use it). Donald Hosek (talk) 00:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also check your apache error logs, anything that goes wrong in PHP will be there is well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd second changing the error reporting level. I think PHP is bottling out with a fatal function not defined error before it can reach the printf. It's likely that the mysqli extension isn't even loaded, if calling any function fails. First try:

<?php print_r(get_loaded_extensions()); ?>

to check that it's loaded. • Anakin ^{(contribs • complaints)} 13:23, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hmm i added extension=php_mysqli.dll (it wasnt present as a comment),loaded_extensions only displays mysql/mysqli if i dont include error_reporting in php.ini, when i do include error_reporting i get parse errors from apache about the line with error_reporting on, and the page to load the mysqli info, displays this: Fatal error: Class 'mysqli' not found in G:\Server\Apache Group\Apache2\htdocs\test.php on line 2 could this be maybe as i have error_reporting = E_ALL already in php.ini?--Colsmeghead (talk) 14:40, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is the infamous step in getting a WAMP set up (not as difficult in linux). Basically all I can tell you is just to "finagle it".. every time I try to set one up there's a totally different problem.. try putting the mysql bin directory in the PATH, try putting libmysql.dll in a directory that's in the PATH, copy mysqli.dll to every concievable place on your hard drive.. a brute force attack of fixes usually does the trick :) Also make sure that you installed mysql properly- the installer is tricksy and you can't just select what sounds good.. you actually have to know what you're doing --⁪ffroth 16:15, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

well thanks for your help this could take awhile--Colsmeghead (talk) 13:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have trouble with a Web site. Please help.

I have trouble with picking a password with this site, http://forums.zonealarm.org/zonelabs/ . I wantr to register so I can get tech support from them. It too hard to make a password and to register. I enter my desired username and clicked "Register". I not sure my desired username is taken because the username is never use before and I clicked "Register" will take that name away from me. What should I do? Note: Asked by this asker at Yahoo! Answers here(deleted) however, no answers yet.

So are you the OP of the question? Do you want to know that if you have actually registered with your desired username? A simple log in using your desired username and password would suffice in checking that, and if it doesn't work you can always create another account, with a more obscure (or more trailing numbers) username. PS: I've removed the ref tags and put it as an ordinary link instead as I don't think it's the appropriate way to use ref tags. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad Sectors

Question inspired question: When the filesystem (well anything remotely good anyway) detects a bad sector on the hard drive it masks it and use somewhere else instead. I've never had so much bad sectors that it's noticeable so I'm wondering does this reduce the effective size of the partition? Or does it use some other factory-set reserved sectors? If it's the latter how much reserves are there, and is there any way you can use it in normal situations? --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:54, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not 100% on this, but my best educated guess is that the size of the partition would be reduced after the marking of bad sectors. It may only be a noticeable reduction if there is extensive damage though. Each sector usually only represents 512k of data, so if you have say 10 bad sectors, are you really gonna notice the 5 meg loss on your 100 or so gb hard drive? Equazcion •✗/C • 06:02, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

The usual definition of disk sector is 512 bytes, not 512 kilobytes. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 10:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's correct, ma' bad. Equazcion •✗/C • 10:26, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

In times of yore, when men were brave and drives were dumb, the drive just reported everything that happened to the OS. So when the OS detected a bad sector it just marked it as bad and worked around it (making the sector unusable, and thus the partition effectively smaller). These days drive controllers are very smart, and take care of things themselves. They do indeed keep a bunch of spare sectors free, in a list they don't advertise. When they detect a sector going bad they remap that sector invisibly, using one of the spare blocks. The most noticable effect of this is that, because the heads have to perform a seek when accessing the remapped sector, the disk gets slower (a formerly linear sequence of LBAs now has a seek and a return seek in it). Manufacturers don't advertise how big this set is, but it's probably about 1% of the surface. For any shop that's remotely mission-critical the policy is generally "if you see one error" (as reported by the SCSI diagnostics or SMART) chuck the drive ASAP". I know of no way to access those blocks normally; there aren't enough to make a difference for you, and using them obviates their purpose. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:03, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's interesting info, Finlay, I didn't know this. Thanks :) Equazcion •✗/C • 12:17, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

In the even older days back when 10 meg HD was huge and expensive, bad sectors were directly reported to the user. No efforts were made to hide them at all. In those days, HD are expected to have bad sectors. All HD came with a sheet of paper from manufacturer which lists bad sectors found on the HD. Usually after formatting, some of those bad sectors is reported as good, you then had to manually mark those as bad. NYCDA (talk) 17:55, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ahhh... memories of using DEBUG (DOS Command). --— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 22:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad_sector indicates that in modern hardware, "A modern hard drive comes with many spare sectors. When a sector is found to be bad by the firmware of a disk controller, the disk controller remaps the logical sector to a different physical sector. In the normal operation of a hard drive, the detection and remapping of bad sectors should take place in a manner transparent to the rest of the system. When the operating system begins to detect bad sectors, in most cases, it means that the surface of the hard disk is failing and the drive has run out of spare sectors with which to remap the failed sector." —Random832 16:06, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Website down

My websites went down. Host says "All websites were down because of a malicious attack on the nameservers that perform the look up on the domain names whenever anybody visits the website or sends an email." How is this possible? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 12:07, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They're talking about DNS servers. In short, all websites actually have numbers assigned to them, called IP addresses, rather than names. For example, in order to be able to type Wikipedia.com and see the Wikipedia website, your computer first has to look up which number corresponds to en.wikipedia.org (that number is right now 66.230.200.100). It looks this up on a DNS server, which is short for "Domain Name Server". If that server is attacked, it means that people's computers can't look up the names of your websites to find its corresponding number, so people generally wouldn't be able to access your website.

They could do it if they typed in that number directly instead of the name (try typing 66.230.200.100 into your browser to see Wikipedia) -- but most people aren't going to know how to do that or know what the number is, and that method wouldn't work for email. (If you want to try Equazcion •✗/C • 12:22, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

In many cases (including Wikipedia) typing the IP address won't work. Servers can be configured to support multiple sites on a single IP address, using the domain name (e.g. en.wikipedia.org) as passed in by one of the HTTP headers to determine which one is required. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

To make an analogy, imagine if nobody remembers any phone numbers whatsoever. People pick up the phone and say who they want to speak to, and then the operators connect you to a number. Now imagine if someone was ambushing the telephone operators. Even if there's nothing wrong with the telephones or the people you want to call, your calls might not go through... --Kjoonlee 03:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Backup software

I just stumbled on Cobian, an open source program which seems to fit all my requirements - ie. to do lots of scheduled file copying between drives across a Windows network. Has anyone used it and able to comment on reliability/stability or is there a similarly featured alternative? —Moondyne 12:34, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't use it, primarily because it's written in Delphi which is Windows-only, and there's a lot less open source Delphi developers than say, C developers. Since the original developer is not willing to continue developing it, the future of that software looks quite bleak. I really like rdiff-backup, which is based on the proven rsync utility, and it stores incrementally so it doesn't take up as much space. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Shipping hardware internationally

Hi. Does anyone know what limitations exists on shipping computer hardware internationally, and more importantly, why they exist and can we hope for them to be removed in the forseeable future? Thanks. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:11, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are restrictions on international transport of machinery that may be used for encryption/decryption. Computers normally fall outside of those restrictions - but there have been cases in the past of enforcement of such laws on the transport of computers. What you are really discussing is tariffs on computer hardware. A tariff is a tax on the import or export of an item with the sole purpose of increasing the cost of the item either inside or outside of the country. You tariff exports when you don't want them exported. You tariff imports when you don't want them imported. Tariffs are not going away anytime soon. They are used to protect the national economy from the international market. For example, assume you run a country. You have a good relationship with Japan and import video cards from them. The retail cost is $100 per card. You don't tariff the cards because you like them. Then, China comes up new cards that are the same quality, but only cost $20 per card. If you allow China to import to your country, Japan will lose the market and blame you (not China) for the problem. So, to even the market, you tariff each Chinese card with an extra $60, making the retail cost $80 when it hits the shelves. You explain to Japan that they have to cut their cost by $20 a card to compete. Everyone is happy and you are making a lot of money in tariffs. Woohoo! -- kainaw ™ 17:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe. The problem I have is that retailers such as Amazon, Newegg or any others won't ship orders to my country. When asked, Amazon had this to say:

At this time, due to warranty restrictions and import/export laws, we can ship only books, music, videos, and DVDs to most destinations outside the U.S. We can also ship some software, electronics accessories, kitchen and housewares, and hand tools to addresses in France, Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

If the problem is tariffs, I don't understand why I shouldn't be able to order an item and pay the tariff to whoever is collecting it. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:02, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PS. <sarcasm> Yep, My country is happy, Japan is happy, everyone is happy except for actual people, who have to pay for a card four times its worth. Capitalism at its finest. </sarcasm> -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:08, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Simple workaround: if you've got friends over there, ask them to purchase it for you and airmail it to you, reimburse them for their money and you've got your hardware. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:09, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's a big if. Anyway, are you sure that there aren't any laws, regulations, restrictions, or any such nonsense preventing those friends from airmailing this kind of items? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:13, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Foreign shipping involves declaring what you're shipping, so if your friends are honest about what's getting shipped, then your country will see what you got and charge you the tariff. If everyone's honest then no one would be breaking any law -- you'd just have to pay that tariff upon receipt. At least, to my knowledge. Equazcion •✗/C • 18:17, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

I believe the reason is that there is no reliable system in place to make sure the tariffs get paid. The only way you can do it is if you have someone purchase the item and bring it to you -- then you can declare the item and pay the tariff. But if you buy from the store directly, the only system in place is one that charges local taxes. A system for charging foreign tariffs (and then making sure those payments actually reach the country where the item was shipped) would be too complicated to implement, and too risky, as they would have to keep track of foreign laws and tariff amounts, etc -- so stores just don't do it. Equazcion •✗/C • 18:11, 3 Jan 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess it'd work if everyone's honest and declares what they're shipping and all. Simpler than buying from the store directly, if they won't mail it then they won't - the e-mails you'd send them would be probably answered like this over and over again. BTW - I've sent a lot of stuff back and forth between Poland and continental Europe and never had to declare what I was shipping. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:21, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is also possible that Amazon is not telling the truth about import/export laws. I ship items internationally. There are some countries that I will not, under any circumstances, ship to because there is about a 99% chance that I will not get paid. It isn't just that the purchaser is dishonest. It could be that their country reverts the payments for whatever reason. It could be that their postal system confiscates anything that the postal workers decide that they want to have. It may be that there is an ongoing military conflict that causes all contracts (including payment and delivery contracts) to be easily voidable. Whatever the reason, there are some countries that practically guarantee that I won't get my money, so I won't ship there. -- kainaw ™ 18:32, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Say, don't places like this ask for money upfront? That they first deduct it from your credit card, account or what not, or let you make the transfer, and ship it only when the money had reached their account? That's how we usually do it over here. And, with friends, there is no such risk - if they are true friends that is :) --Ouro (blah blah) 18:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if that's the problem. I've been happily shopping at Amazon for books, dvds etc. for many years, and they have never had any problems receiving my money (at least, they didn't say anything about it). I don't understand why computer hardware should be any different in that respect. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 18:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm stumped here. Mayhaps they're expecting you to buy locally so that the manufacturer or whoever gets their money properly? Use their distribution network, not think up your own ways. It's logical. I'm in the process now of procuring a DSLR from Japan at 2/3 the price I'd have to pay in Poland. --Ouro (blah blah) 18:53, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really know the answer, but if I'm allowed to speculate, I'd say the merchants probably feel that they are not equipped to deal with regulations that restrict the export of military and dual-use technologies. They may feel that they don't have the expertise to reliably tell whether a particular electronics product is subject to export control, and to get an export license if one is required, and they don't want to risk criminal consequences. --71.162.249.245 (talk) 03:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In UK, you have to use O2 in order to use/buy/rent an Apple iPhone. But there is no reason not to buy one in USA, have it shipped to UK, put your Vodaphone sim card in it and ignore O2's restrictions which are merely a contractual deal between them and the phone manufacturers. What country do you want what shipped to? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) 17:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Computer hardware, to Israel. But never mind, I figured by now the whole thing is a big mess and not worth the trouble. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 17:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Get rid of SELinux notifications?

The SELinux firewall on my Fedora 8 Linux system recently decided to give me about one notification every second about something called an "AVC denial". How can I get rid of this without disabling the firewall? JIP | Talk 19:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SELinux is not the firewall. It is a separate security tool. You could see the SELinux FAQ for setting it to allow whatever it is denying. Or, you could disable it. Usually, you go to /etc/selinux/config and set it to permissive instead of enforcing and reboot. -- kainaw ™ 01:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Writing my own Linux filesystem?

How would I go about writing my own Linux filesystem? Is there, for example, some API I need to implement? JIP | Talk 19:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest thing to do is to implement one in userspace using FUSE; its API is quite simple. If you absolutely must have speed, and are willing to suffer the comparative difficulties of debugging kernelspace code, the Linux Virtual file system, which is documented here. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 19:49, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can ordinary consumer wirleless routers be used to bridge two wired LANs?

Can ordinary, consumer wireless routers be used to bridge two wired LANs? Say you have a small office in which a wireless router provides wired and wireless internet access to several computers. Can a second wireless router be used to provide wired access to computers in another room without running cables? If that's possible, how should the routers be configured? --71.162.249.245 (talk) 20:12, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This was asked awhile ago. Basically it comes down to no. It's technically possible with certain routers, but it's extraordinarily difficult to set up and networking is ridiculously complex even if you do get it set up. --⁪ffroth 21:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can't see how it would be complex- it's just bridging, which is about the simplest thing you can do with a network. But, yeah, I doubt whether typical consumer gear would allow this. There certainly are devices which do, though. One of our networking guys has a setup much like this for his home internet connection- his radio is bridging to an access point on a tower a couple miles away. There are specialized directional radios like this available for this purpose. Friday (talk) 22:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because exactly like you said- consumer gear can't handle it. How are you going to reach a computer in the "outside" (still inside the internet gateway) network? --f f r o t h 01:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Conceptually it's not that hard. You can have two subnets with different network IDs. At the media access layer level, the second router will be acting as a wireless client of the first router (which interfaces with the ISP on one side). At the IP layer level, the second router will be the gateway between the two subnets. You can add a static route to each of the two routers so that they know about the other subnet. The first router will be the default gateway for the second router for access to the outside world. I asked the original question because I wasn't sure whether consumer wireless routers are designed to support this configuration. --71.162.249.245 (talk) 03:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you are fortunate enough to have a WRT54G series router, for which Linksys released firmware source code to satisfy the GNU GPL license, I believe that there is an alternative firmware which makes setting up a network bridge rather simple. You could download a copy of the Alchemy/Sveasoft firmware or the DD-WRT firmware (see http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/Wireless_Bridge). Note that despite Sveasoft's claims, other sites distribute the Sveasoft binaries and source code legally, due to the terms of the GNU GPL license. I cannot personally recommend either method, as I have not implemented a network bridge. I also note that flashing your router with any alternative firmware is unsupported and may result in "bricking" your device. Best of luck, --Iamunknown 07:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It certainly is possible, as one of my friends is doing exactly that, except it's a nested NAT instead of bridging (IIRC), with the WRT54G. If not, just buy one of those ethernet/WiFi adapters and plug it into your switch and you should be all set. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This worked for me, I think I was told it couldn't be done practically either, but managed to figure it out BTW I am using 2 WRT54G's I had laying around.(I was the one that had asked this question about 2 weeks prior.) -Dureo (talk) 15:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wii

Is it possible to connect two Wii consoles to have more than four players? -Wiki131wiki (talk) 22:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't believe so. It's theoretically possible to do it with a Wifi lan, but the game would have to support it. I don't know of any games that would allow 8 players on two Wiis. Sorry. APL (talk) 23:52, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

gnuplot 4.2 step function plotting

Hi, does anyone know how to plot a step function in gnuplot without vertical segments to the steps? i.e. then it would be a true function?

This is possible with the "with steps" parameter:

with vertical segments: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2411/2163493345_758a965361_o.png

This is what I want:

without vertical segments (used the gimp to remove them): http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2085/2163493343_d2e548d6ed_o.png

Thank you for your help. --Rajah (talk) 22:35, 3 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not directly, but you can get the same effect by massaging the data a little and using "xerrorbars". If your data looks like:

Xn    Yn
Xn+1  Yn+1
Xn+2  Yn+2

just change it to:

Xn    Yn    Xn    Xn+1
Xn+1  Yn+1  Xn+1  Xn+2
Xn+2  Yn+2  Xn+2  Xn+2

For example:

1      2
3      5
5      6.1
6.5    7.4
10.0   11.0

becomes:

1    2     1    3
3    5     3    5
5    6.1   5    6.5
6.5  7.4   6.5  10
10   11.0  10   10

and use the following gnuplot commands:

unset bars                                    
plot [0:12][0:13] "steps.dat" with xerrorbars

That will give you the graph you specified. --Sean 16:15, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I'll try that. --Rajah (talk) 16:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, great! FYI, the following bit of Perl golf will do the above-specified data processing:

perl -e 'print reverse map{split;$l=$_[0]if!$f++;$s=$l;$l=$_[0];"@_ $_[0] $s\n"}reverse<>' steps.dat

:) --Sean 16:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 4

Free Internet

Why do I have to pay for the Internet? If its just a network of networks why cant I just connect my computer to the network free of charge?--69.242.213.186 (talk) 00:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Capitalism --f f r o t h 01:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Also, because other networks charge for access and they're not going to just let you jack in for free. They negotiate massive contracts with other networks. --f f r o t h 02:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How'd those networks get there? Where'd all that fiber optic cable come from? How's it get into your house? Who maintains it? Who invests in more servers and more cables and more networks and new technologies? Who pays those guys? Who pays the guys who pay those guys? And if you didn't pay for it, who'd you have to complain to if it didn't work? Would they care? Who would pay them to care?

That being said, the telecom industry in the US is severely f**cked thanks to really bad under-regulation and near monopolies, so it's not as if things are really in an optimal state at the moment. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 02:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why cant I just connect to those networks with my own wires n cables and maintain them myself? What about the free networks? Doesnt wikimedia have a network of computers at its headquarters? Wouldnt they let me connect for free? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.242.213.186 (talk) 04:05, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Large websites also have ISPs that they have to pay.. wikimedia's going to see a charge on their bill for your usage if they let you tunnel through their servers, so they don't. Really really large websites like google (google's probably the only one) actually throw dumptrucks full of gold bullion at the big backbone networks directly instead of going through an ISP, so they're a little more flexible, but their sweet deal wouldn't last long if they were caught cheating the system.. they'd be charged just like the other ISPs. If you want to get in on the internet trunk action, it's not going to be easy:

“

Backbone networks are usually commercial, educational, or government owned, such as military networks. Some large companies that provide backbone connectivity include UUnet (now a division of Verizon), British Telecom, AT&T, Sprint Nextel, France Télécom, Reliance Communications, VSNL, BSNL, Teleglobe (now a division of VSNL International), Flag Telecom (now a division of Reliance Communications), TeliaSonera, Qwest, Level 3 Communications, AOL, SAVVIS and XO Communications.

”

Basically how it works is that exchange points like MAE-East and the biggest one AMS-IX connect internet backbone networks like military and academic networks. Members of the exchange pay for upkeep of the exchange (but I don't think they actually pay the networks they connect through) and charge ISPs for access through their seat. The ISPs' situation is that they interconnect at multiple points with neighbor networks, as well as to the closest exchange or regional ISP. They allow other ISPs to send data across their network (via mind-boggling routing algorithms that robots must have been designing for decades :D).. so you can connect from one ISP to another to another, or go through an exchange or even a backbone network, whichever the algorithm determines is the best. The way I see it, it's a giant network of mooching- everyone mooches off of everyone else, and governments and research universities foot the bill. But mostly governments. Anyway, there's nowhere you can just plug in a cable and get free internet- especially crucial is the last mile.. are you really going to run fiber out from wherever you find a convenient plug all the way out to your house? You willing to stand outside digging miles of illegal fiber (since you're not a monopoly telecom with a stranglehold on the industry, you WON'T get a permit, and of course you can't tell anyone why you're actually digging it) to your house? The local telecom did. For every house in the entire area. That's why you have to go through a large carrier- though the only reason it works that way is because of terrible industry regulation, stupid Americans putting up with it, and government corruption (according to the local newspaper of record, my local government gets free basic cable for renewing Comcast's monopoly contract). See europe for how it could have turned out. --f f r o t h 04:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So if I were a big filthy rich monopoly, I could get a seat(?) at one of these exhange points, which are basicly intersects for backbone networks(?), for a hefty fee? Google bypasses this by throwing money at the backbone networks? How can a network reach backbone network status?69.242.213.186 (talk) 04:58, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's really a status.. but if your network is, well, networked enough -connected to enough places- then a lot of internet traffic will end up going through it --f f r o t h 08:22, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

<-- Because somebody had to buy one of these for you to plug into. Why would they then let a stranger use it for free? --Sean 17:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mesh networking may (some day) be your answer. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are of course free ISPs, but they generally make up for it with a ton of advertising, and they're usually quite slow.--69.118.143.107 (talk) 21:18, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excel update problem.

I recently manually downloaded SP3 for Microsoft Office 2000 SR-1. I tried running it and found that I needed the CD that I don't have anymore (dog ate it, then it was dropped and it snapped) So I deleted the file, and didn't try to run it again. Now, whenever I try to load excel, it tries to start again. This also happens when I try to edit excel charts in word files. I have to cancel two installation processes every time. What is going on, and how do I stop it? Thanks --Omnipotence407 (talk) 02:24, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

wget when server doesn't allow cwd into the directory

I want to use wgt and a little script to download a large number of files off a ftp server. I have the list of all files but I can't get wget or curl to download it since the server doesn't allow CWD into the directory that the files are in, even though Firefox manages to download it without problem. Is there any wget switches or something that will make it directly GET or RETR the file without CWD into the directory first? --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:04, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you're trying to do a recursive wget (web spider-style), you'll have to pretend that you're a normal browser. Specifying "wget --user-agent Mozilla" is usually adequate. If you have the list of files you want -- that is, a text file formatted like:

ftp://foo.com/path/to/file1
ftp://foo.com/path/to/file1
...

-- then you can just give that to wget directly with "wget --input-file url-list.txt". --Sean 16:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not doing recursive wget, but downloading a list of files from a text document. The problem is the FTP server doesn't allow CWD into the directory, here's the output of wget:

$ wget --input-file addresses.txt --user-agent Mozilla
--13:33:17--  ftp://www.simviation.com/47terrain/AF01N03E008.zip
           => `AF01N03E008.zip'
Resolving www.simviation.com... 205.252.250.27
Connecting to www.simviation.com|205.252.250.27|:21... connected.
Logging in as anonymous ... Logged in!
==> SYST ... done.    ==> PWD ... done.
==> TYPE I ... done.  ==> CWD /47terrain ... 
No such directory `47terrain'.

Yet Firefox downloads it with no problem. IIRC there is nothing like user-agent for FTP, but even if I include --user-agent Mozilla, it's still exactly the same. I'm guessing Firefox is doing GET /47terrain/AF01N03E008.zip, skipping the CWD /47terrain/ step, so I'm wondering if there's some way of forcing wget to do the same is well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Since Firefox can download from the server without any problem, why not just use Firefox and automate the process? You can create a simple HTML file that contains a list of hyperlinks to the target files. You can open the file in Firefox and use some kind of batch download extension to automatically download all the linked-to files. Down Them All seems to be a Firefox extension usable for the purpose. --71.162.249.245 (talk) 05:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might also consider creating a script for the command line ftp program. In Windows XP, you can create a script.txt file like this

open www.simviation.com
user anonymous anonymous
get /47terrain/AF01N03E008.zip
quit

then enter the command ftp -n -s:script.txt to run the script. In Linux, you may be able to do the same thing by entering ftp -n < script.txt . --Bavi H (talk) 06:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Finding Words

I've got a 25x25 field of letters that contains "hidden" words. Could I somehow make my computer to do the searching for me? The words can go to any directions and they should be in Finnish, my native language, but I wanted to reach the searching to as many languages as possible, because there can be some random xcrycz words I'll manage to translate. This is a competition, the best three will win 200e, probably less than 100,000 will ever get a chance to hear about this , I'd be ready to spend some more time doing this (there are 3 months left) and I was once taught a bit of C, so learning / doing something myself is not an obstacle. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 12:32, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The answer should be yes, although I can not give an efficient algorithm of the top of my head. You'll need access to a reasonably formated dictionary. You might then want to start reading up on tries, Text retrieval and Index (search engine). Getting a textbook on these topics will be an advantage. Taemyr (talk) 12:44, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Check this out. It's a "Programmer of the Month" contest sort of similar to what you describe. (more complicated, though.) APL (talk) 14:02, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I was bored at work, so I implemented this. You make the __DATA__ bit at the end of the script be your letter grid, and pipe in your dictionaries like this:

cat /usr/share/dict/words my.finnish.dictionary.txt | perl find_words.pl

It's poorly tested, so don't sue. Here's the script: User:TotoBaggins/find words.pl; enjoy! --Sean 23:11, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I actually wrote some code for this a few weeks ago , which I'll shove here. It goes through finding every possible grouping of letters, and checks it it's in the dictionary (not very efficient, but works well enough). It's written in Python and uses Aspell. --h2g2bob (talk) 03:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! 212.149.216.233 (talk) 10:22, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SAP HR (furnctional) or Oracle HRMS

HI, I am planning for some time to do a course in HR MIS. Please suggest which one is better SAP HR or Oracle HRMS. Best regards 61.17.77.207 (talk) 12:49, 4 January 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.17.77.207 (talk) 12:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tracing

What are all the possibilities of tracing a computer that is connected to the internet? No need to list IP Addresses, as with dial-up the IP Address changes every time you connect, so that is impossible for a long-time trace. (Note: the inspiration for this question comes from a MMO I used to play by the name of Furcadia. They had a ban-system for the game, and I'm curious as to how they did it.) EWHS (talk) 14:26, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Furcadia eh. I think you're looking for that internet -> --f f r o t h 19:55, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Easy, they identify some other unique value and base the ban on that. If they control the software (furcadia) they have many ways to do this, from hidden registry keys in your OS, specific values like hard drive serial number, ethernet MAC address, etc. There are many ways to 'track' software when it connects, just use your imagination. --Jmeden2000 (talk) 21:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Computer rejecting iTunes

I recently downloaded iTunes 7 at my school (to put the high-speed network connection to good use), placed the install file on my flash-drive, and went home and moved the install file to my computer. Upon trying to update the iTunes, my old iTunes was bugged, and my computer won't run the new iTunes. I tried deleting everything having to do with iTunes and re-installing, but that didn't work either. Is it because I downloaded it at one site, and moved it to the next? What should I do?

And, if possible, is there a way to retrieve my old library? (I have the songs on my iPod still, if that's any help)

EWHS (talk) 14:29, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It might have been better to use Check for Updates function in the File menu to update to iTunes 7. Depending on what you deleted, your music should be fine if it wasn't in the iTunes folder. In Windows it's usually in the My Music folder and when you get iTunes working you can just drag the music into iTunes to regenerate the library. As to why iTunes 7 doesn't run, make sure your computer meets the system requirements at http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/. Other than that, can you give a bit more detail about what happens: how is your old iTunes "bugged", and is there any error message when you run iTunes 7? --Canley (talk) 01:11, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Drawings

Are there any good websites which showcase MS Paint drawings? xxx User:Hyper Girl 16:35, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I found a few individual sites with this Google search query: "MS Paint" artwork. (None of the first ten showcase multiple artists.) It is my impression that a lot of pixel art is drawn using MS Paint, and there are many more pixel art sites (see, for example, this Google search query). --Iamunknown 18:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to have your mind totally blown, watch this video of a dude that paints the Mona Lisa in MS Paint. Jesus Christ, I hope that he atleast used a graphics tablet! 83.250.203.75 (talk) 08:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

FREE bandwidth logging software for windows

Is there anything else like Rokario free bandwdith monitor, which doesn't work for me. (There are like a gazillion TRIAL ones that expire - any other freeware?)

I have a 5 gigabyte cap and after that I pay THRU THE NOSE so it's important for me to log and curtail my bandwidth usage (on Windows).

Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.5 (talk) 16:51, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

NEVERMIND -- found it, WatchWAN is great! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.51.122.5 (talk) 17:03, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably figure out how to do it through the gateway right after the modem, instead of on a client machine --f f r o t h 20:50, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IPv6

I recently read something about the internet finally being fully IPv6 compliant. How do I make my Mac (10.5) utilize this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.173.171.184 (talk) 18:16, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uhhh, no. IP6 is not widely deployed on the internet as a whole. Macs for some reason come with IP6 turned on I believe, but I recommend turning it off- it certainly won't accomplish anything useful for you. Friday (talk) 19:33, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you want to use IPv6? Other than being new, it won't give end home users any added benefits, right? --24.249.108.133 (talk) 20:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(ec)

Many, if not most modern OSes support IPv6. I know Linux does; it doesn't surprise me to hear that MacOS does; I wouldn't even be surprised to hear that MS Windows does.

The problem is that few if any ISPs, subnetworks, and content providers are supporting IPv6 addresses yet. When you do a DNS lookup on a hostname in order to talk to it, 99.9% of the time you're going to get only an IPv4 address, and therefore use IPv4 to talk to it. Even if a DNS lookup returned an IPv6 address to you, odds are that your ISP and/or at least one of the networks between you and that host would be unable to route IPv6 packets. (It might be that their routers don't support IPv6 yet, or it might just be that they haven't configured it yet.)

(There are well-defined methods for tunneling IPv6 packets through IPv4 subnets, but of course those need to be deployed and configured, too.)

A little while back I heard that some IPv6 supporters were planning to set up an experiment involving some enticing free content hosted at an IPv6-only site, to see how many people could access it, and how much finagling with their OS and/or their ISP and/or upstream networks might be required. (Zero guesses what they picked for the enticing free content.) Anybody else remember that, or hear how it came out? —Steve Summit (talk) 20:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What you probably read was that some of the root DNS servers were going to be simulcasting information on the IPv6 side of the Internet. This means that for people using that network, there is a root nameserver to use without the need to jump over to the IPv4 side, making it a functionally complete network. What does this mean to us normal folks still on the IPv4 side? About jack and squat, plus 0. More info here. --Jmeden2000 (talk) 21:01, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, that definitely wasn't it. (Guess again. :-) ) —Steve Summit (talk) 05:59, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[P.S. for those viewing at home: the experiment I was thinking of is described here. Evidently they're just about ready to move forward. —Steve Summit (talk) 06:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)][reply]

Yawn, ipv6. A terrible idea, implemented even more terribly --f f r o t h 20:42, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MS Excel formula help (SOLVED)

Hi folks, I need some advice with Microsoft Excel. I've got a table with various entries in which will be added to all the time, each entry will have a category assigned to it as well as a cost. What I want to do and can't for the life of me figure out how is add up the total cost for each category. I know I could sort the table by category and manually sum it but I want the entries in chronological order, not category order. I'm sure there must be a formula that will do this easily.

I have attached a screenshot containing an example of what I am trying to do, basically if you look at the example I want another table next to the main one with a list of all the categories and next to it, a cell containing the total cost of all the cells in the main table that have that category next to them.GaryReggae (talk) 20:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers! File:Excelscreenshot.jpg

If I understand you correctly, you need to use the SUMIF function. For example =SUMIF(B1:B20,"Red",C1:C20) gives the total of values in column C that have "Red" in the same row in column B. (Adjust the cell references to suit your exact needs.) AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:07, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ah thanks, that's it, I looked at SUMIF but couldn't quite understand how to use it as the help is a bit vague. Your example has solved the problem! GaryReggae (talk) 20:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HDMI sparklies

I have just recently connected a playstation 3 console to a westinghouse LVM-42w2 television using an HDMI cable from a "no-name" brand. When I set the output on the PS3 to 1080p, I found that there were some blue and white "sparkly" artifacts displayed on the screen. My initial assumption was that this was a bad cable, but when I changed the PS3 output to 1080i, the artifacts disappeared. From my understanding, artifacts caused by a bad wire or pin in the cable should persist in both modes. I am curious to know if this is likely to be a bad cable, or if there might be something else going on. Some particulars that might help with an answer are that the cable was just delivered from an unheated delivery truck, and installed while still cold to the touch. The television is reportedly capable of displaying 1080P, and the output picture, apart from the artifacts, is completely normal (no distortion, no color change). The sparklies appear both from blu-ray playback and during game play. Thanks for any insight. Also, if in your opinion this is a bad cable, was it a mistake for me to unpack and install it while still cold? Tuckerekcut (talk) 23:17, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can your TV handle progressive-scan input? --f f r o t h 20:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, it can handle a maximum resolution of 1080p. Tuckerekcut (talk) 16:59, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Help in Turing 4.1.1

Hello. On Turing 4.1.1, whenever I try to get help by pressing F10 or by clicking Turing Reference under the Help menu, the Turing Documentation window appears but the right section seems empty. How can I get it to work properly? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 23:23, 4 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 5

help

how do i change the explorer icon to a picture of my choice.the icon that revovles when u are surfing. 2.how do i change the boot screen on my win xp?i dont want the xp default picture. 3.are torrents legal,downloading free songs free movies and all.coz one gets a dvd for free without using any cash. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.22.166.182 (talk) 08:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use Firefox or at least IE7, IE6 is insecure, obsolete, and horrible for web developers (OK less horrible than previous versions, but still bad).
Use something like BootSkin.
No, they're copyright infringement. I would be intrigued to know where you would get a legit copy of DVD's for free. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Torrents and PtP is in at itself not illegal. However downloading copyrighted media when a lisence is lacking is illegal. Note however that I am not a lawyer. See the legal disclaimer. Taemyr (talk) 12:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the jurisdiction and current whims of the courts as to whether the software itself is illegal for enabling mass infringment. See MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 17:15, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Bad answer.. BitTorrent is definitely not in that category. Linux isos + http://www.bittorrent.com/nowplaying + wow patches + BitTorrent DNA.. --f f r o t h 20:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even DVD movie torrents aren't necessarily illegal: this one, for example, is perfectly free and legal to download and share. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 13:40, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Linking directly to the torrent is not all that helpfull, since the only way to see what it is would be to download the entire thing. Taemyr (talk) 14:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As to Antilived's question, I got two DVD's for free just a couple of weeks ago. They were wrapped in colorful paper under a tree in the living room, with my name on them. :-) (And of course, not all DVD's are commercially made for profit -- some are designed to be given away, and homemade ones are almost always given away.) —Steve Summit (talk) 13:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Disaster

Yestdary i installed Linux and when it was done it overwrited my vista MBR24.237.223.131 (talk) 09:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You may want to try installing a boot loader onto your computer. what it does is offers a menu so you can boot into either system. When you installed it, did you pay attention to how much space on your drive was to be used on your drive? -w^L^{<speak·check>} 10:25, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Which Linux distribution did you try? Usually it will create a boot menu allowing to select which operating system to boot into. --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:46, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The master boot record is only 512 bytes long, and easily replaced, so this shouldn't be a disaster at all. --Sean 13:00, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The "startup repair" option off the vista dvd will restore it easily --f f r o t h 20:39, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

MP3 player help

I have a Sandisk Sansa c250. One day I was playing with Rockbox when accidentally I ended up moving everything on the disk to trash (in the computer). I tried recovery mode and all but all I get is the backlight to the navigation buttons (which also means the battery is not faulty?). There is no display at all.

Did I brick my mp3 player? Can this be reverted to the initial mode? Please help. (I need to do a lot of catching up to do on iTunesU.) :-( Kushal^t 13:38, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does the USB link work while in the black-screen recovery mode? --f f r o t h 20:37, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It does not show up at all in Mac OS X. It does show up in Windows XP but Windows cannot install drivers for it. Kushal^t 23:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Does the Sansa only have the 2 GB of memory and if I delete every file and folder on the Sansa, is there any way to make the computer recognize the hardware again? Kushal^t 19:51, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Connecting a computer, a Playstation 3 and a television set

I'm trying to assist my son in connecting an old PC (Windows 2000), a modern television set, and a Sony Playstation 3. He has connected the video signal from the PC to the television via a VGA cable, and the video signal from the PS3 to the television set via a HDMI cable. This works excellently, and he can switch between the video inputs using the remote control of the television. However, two problems remain:

He wants to buy a wireless mouse and keyboard for the PC, which he also intends to use for controlling the PS3.
He wants to send the audio from all three devices to a set of loudspeakers, which up until now has been connected to the audio output of the PC.

I'd be grateful for advice about an optimal setup, where one could achive this, with as easy switching between the devices as possible, without spending a fortune. I'm also a bit confused about the keyboard and mouse setup. Since the PC and the PS3 are not aware of each other, how does one avoid that both devices respond to the signals from the keyboard and mouse? --NorwegianBlue^talk 20:18, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

For the audio, connect all the audio devices to audio inputs on the TV. Then connect the loudspeakers to the TV's audio-out. This way, whichever device you're switched to on the TV will output its audio through the loudspeakers. For keyboard/mouse, I'm afraid you're out of luck -- you'll either need two separate sets, or you'll need to switch a single set between the PC and Playstation depending on which you want to use. There's no way, as far as I know, for them to "share". Equazcion •✗/C • 23:19, 5 Jan 2008 (UTC)

For the keyboard/mouse, you can use a KVM. I use an Avocent model. It allows me to change the computer from the keyboard itself. Technically, you are asking for a KM, not a KVM. But, you may want to consider running both the computer and PS3 into the KVM and running the KVM to the TV. Then, when you switch, you switch keyboard, video, and mouse all at once. You don't have to switch video with the TV remote and KM with the KVM. -- kainaw ™ 02:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I thought of that after posting my answer, but that would add a lot of extra wiring and complication. You'd need to get 2 more wires for the keyboard and another 2 for the mouse, along with the KVM box itself, and every time you wanted to switch you'd need to go over to the KVM and switch it -- it wouldn't be automatic. It's not worth the money, the hassle, or the added wire entanglement, if you ask me. Equazcion •✗/C • 02:54, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)

My KVM came with 4 connections for 4 computers. It plugged in a wireless keyboard and mouse. To switch, I press "Print Screen" and then 1, 2, 3, or 4 to switch computers. There is no mess of extra wires and no hassle of going over to the KVM to switch things. -- kainaw ™ 03:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Equazcion, and Kainaw. Connecting the audio from the PC to the TV was the way to go (something we would have found out if we had RTFM a bit more carefully...); it worked beautifully. Regarding the audio from the PS3, this turned out not to be a problem. I wasn't aware when posting that the HDMI cable took care of that. I did suspect that such a thing as a KVM switch had to exist, however I had no idea of what it was called. We'll check it out. Thanks again! --NorwegianBlue^talk 16:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

More in memory > More electricity usage?

If I have more stuff open on my PC that I'm not using, does that equate to electricity wastage or is it written to the HD (WinXP) after a certain time and therefore not a problem? Are there certain application which wont write their stuff to the HD despite not being used for however-long and therefore will waste electricity when not in use? --Seans Potato Business _More_electricity_usage?" class="ext-discussiontools-init-timestamplink">23:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if having stuff in memory equates to more electricity usage but I am pretty sure that the cooling fans use much more electricity than the memory. and the fans never turn off when the computer is on, do they?

on another note, I know that at least the operating system likes to keep some of its stuff in volatile memory. Kushal^t _More_electricity_usage?" class="ext-discussiontools-init-timestamplink">23:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC) [reply]

If you have autosave enabled, programs like Office 2003 will save the changes to a new location in the hard disk, but the main point is it saves it in the Hard disk itself. Kushal^t _More_electricity_usage?" class="ext-discussiontools-init-timestamplink">23:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The number of programs you leave open will have almost no bearing on electricity usage. Equazcion •✗/C • 23:52, 5 Jan 2008 (UTC)

DRAM will use the same amount of electricity refreshing its cells whether it's being used or not. Whether a memory cell is being used or not only means whether the data in the cell is useful or not, but it still take electricity to refresh the capacitors regardless. --antilived^{T | C | G} 02:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, guys --Seans Potato Business 13:00, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

January 6

Japanese Input in Internet Explorer 6 screwed up

Hi, I was just trying to fix our renter's computer, they are Japanese, and they use Windows IME to input Japanese text into the computer. It works well in Office and most other applications, but when entering text into forms in such places as Wikipedia and Hotmail, the text is inputted wrong. For instance, when they try to type "na" in Hiragana, it shows up as "nn(hiragana character)a". Outlook works perfectly, it's only in Internet Explorer. Can anyone help with this?

76.224.121.58 (talk) 01:36, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ordered files

Let's say I have 10 numbered files, e.g., 01, 02, ... in Microsoft Windows.

I can select them all and drop them in a program that handles these files (e.g., word processor, media player ...). Chances are, when I drag and drop the numbered files into a program, the program may not properly open each file in order. For example, I have a merger program that allows me to combine text files into a large text file (e.g., Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 ...). However, inability to properly order files makes the program much less useful.

I think Windows shall be the culprit. How do I solve this problem? -- Toytoy (talk) 01:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The GUI is the culprit. How does it know that the order of the files is important? You need to work from the command prompt where you can explicitly give an order to the files. I'd suggest writing a batch file to handle it. Then you can drag-drop the files into the batch file and it will order them and send them to the merging program. -- kainaw ™ 02:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think it first passes in the file the mouse was actually pressed down on, then does the rest in order by however you have them sorted in the explorer view (at least for Vista). Some programs like winamp will correct for this, but most won't. --f f r o t h 04:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WEB SCANNER /ANTI- VIRUS SOFTWARES

I am having net connection with 1GB limit. MY ANTI-VIRUS WEB SCANNER IS USING around 75% of it. I want to know how to control the web uses by the anti virus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.192.1.200 (talk) 03:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You could get another anti-virus software, for a start. Something is not working right with it if it is downloading over 700 MB of bandwidth a month. What software are you using? --Fastfission (talk) 04:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

uml(unified modeling language)

please help me on topic:

"generating test cases using use cases and tracing requirements." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tanyakapoor (talk • contribs) 11:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might want to take a look at Model-based testing. Taemyr (talk) 21:04, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Random alterations

Can alterations to wikipages (and other pages on the web) occur by virtue of machine error or quarks or something hitting the hardware? - CarbonLifeForm (talk) —Preceding question was added at 12:29, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know. Error detection and correction should take care of most of it, as far as I can say. Kushal^t 12:47, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

CD, recordable status ?

Using multiple CD-RW, they all seem to have become "format failed".

I was informed, by a friend; it's because of the SCRATCHES, on the bottom.

Nothing 'deadly', just nics from normal use. Is thissufficient to make them only good as 'coasters'? Abi12 (talk) 15:14, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It might be. You can trying using the "erase" feature that most CD burning software has. That might fix the formatting of the CD. Equazcion •✗/C • 15:25, 6 Jan 2008 (UTC)

Also try doing a flash upgrade on your hardware, that solved my problem. I was getting a format failure with most of my disks before doing that. Be careful though, use only the software that is written for your exact model. Sandman30s (talk) 19:39, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Compressed SVG readable and displayable by browser?

Can a compressed SVG be read and displayed by most browsers? If not, what browsers can do this? If none, why? Could the time taken to decompress out-weigh the downloading time saved? --Seans Potato Business 19:21, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I remember correctly, Mozilla Firefox 1.5.x.x did not display the compressed SVG. I used Inkscape ~~does that~~ for that, however. Kushal^t 19:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

But Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari can all do it now? What about the issue of de-compression time versus download time? ----Seans Potato Business 20:13, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think any browsers support compressed SVGs. Some browsers (and by that I mean IE) don't support the SVG format at all, and the ones that do offer limited support (although they should be able to display most SVGs correctly). For more info, you can refer to the article on SVGs, particularly the section on SVG browser support. 208.181.90.67 (talk) 23:01, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

put star chart on mac desktop

Is there a free program for mac that puts a live star chart on to an animated desktop?81.150.247.152 (talk) 20:25, 6 January 2008 (UTC) It's tiger, running on an intel.81.150.247.152 (talk) 21:20, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Windows XP moving shortcut icons

I am using Windows XP on a computer with two graphics cards and two monitors, and the Windows desktop extended onto the second monitor which is directly above the first (main) monitor with the start button, taskbar etc. I like to keep some icons on the second (higher) monitor so I move them there. Now comes the problem:

The system has two "user accounts" of which mine is one (I am an Administrator if that makes any difference). When I log out and log in again all the icons from screen no. 2 have been moved back to screen no. 1. The Windows login screen only uses one screen (the lower "main" monitor).

Any ideas how I can make my icons stay put?

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 20:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding RAM to Laptops?

Is there a diagram anywhere that shows how to insert additional RAM to Laptops? --Obsolete.fax (talk) 21:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It depends on the laptop model. Even different models by the same company can be different. And see my note below about RAM compatibility—you want to be 100% sure you are putting the right kind of RAM in, or else all hell can break loose. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:16, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, the manual should cover this. Typically you might remove the battery and/or some other covering, and there will be some number of slots underneath. Friday (talk) 21:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Adding RAM from 2001 PC

I removed the 256 RAM from my 2001 old PC, to put in my 2006 PC. The RAM doesn't fit in the slots. The length is same though? Does anyone know why this is? --Obsolete.fax (talk) 21:15, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Different motherboards use different types of RAM. You can't just swap them from machine to machine if they aren't exactly the same type of RAM. The Memory Advisor Tool at Crucial.com is very good for figuring out what types of RAM are compatible with different systems. Needless to say, if the RAM doesn't fit into the slot, it isn't compatible. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:18, 6 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]