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[edit] October 3

[edit] Per row / per column table border properties and CSS.

Resolved.

I am editing an article on my MediaWiki server and I have been unsuccessfuly trying for days now to have my table show the way I want. I would be grateful for some advice.

With the following table definition:

{| class="BridgeExampleTable" width="100%" 
! width=7% align="center" | E 
! width=7% align="center" | S
! width=7% align="center" | O 
! width=7% align="center" | N
! width=72% align="left" | Description
|- 
| align="center" | 1SA
| align="center" | P
| align="center" | 2{{C}} 
| align="center" | P 
| align="left" rowspan=2 | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que {{P}}.
|- 
| align="center" | 2{{P}}
| align="center" | P
| align="center" | P
| align="center" | 2SA 
|- 
| align="center" | 1SA
| align="center" | P
| align="center" | P 
| align="center" | 2SA 
| align="left" | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées.
|}

and the following css (in MediaWiki:Common.css):

table.BridgeExampleTable {
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: thin;
  border-color: black;
  border-collapse: collapse;
}

table.BridgeExampleTable th {
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: thin;
  border-collapse: collapse;
  padding-left: 5px;
  padding-right: 5px;
  background-color:#E6E6E6;
}
table.BridgeExampleTable td {
  padding-left: 5px;
  padding-right: 5px;
  background-color:#F6F6F6;
}

I get the following look (sorry, I just created an account here, I cannot upload images):

 +-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------+
 |   E   |   S   |   O   |   N    | Description:                                |
 |-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P                                                  |
 |                                   5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠.|
 |   2♠      P       P      2SA                                                 |
 |   1SA     P       P      2SA      5-5, couleurs non-déterminées              |
 +------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

I would like the borders to be like this:

 +-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------+
 |   E   |   S   |   O   |   N    | Description:                                |
 |-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P    |                                             |
 |                                | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠. |
 |   2♠      P       P       2SA  |                                             |
 |--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P      P       2SA   | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées               |
 +--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+

• Is there a way to specify borders on the Description column in the style sheet?
• How can I force a border on the bottom of the rows, respecting the fact that the Description column can span several rows while the E, S, O, N columns always span one row? Jacerator (talk) 02:44, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Those BridgeExampleTable classes do not exist, and you can't define classes in a page. Are you copying this from another wiki? Anyway, you will have to specify the CSS for each cell:

---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 04:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If all your table.BridgeExampleTable have the same amount of rows and columns (or –at least– you want make special formatting at the same position) you can use css rules like these:

table.BridgeExampleTable tr:first-child {
<!-- code for 1-st row format -->
}
 
table.BridgeExampleTable tr:first-child + tr {
<!-- code for 2-nd row format -->
}
 
table.BridgeExampleTable tr:first-child + tr + tr {
<!-- code for 3-rd row format -->
}
 
<!-- and so on for 4-th, 5-th, ... -->
 
table.BridgeExampleTable tr td:first-child {
<!-- code for cells in 1-st column format -->
}
 
table.BridgeExampleTable tr td:first-child + td {
<!-- code for cells in 2-nd column format -->
}
 
<!-- and so on for 3-rd, 4-th, ... -->

-- Codicorumus  « msg 12:45, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Brilliant! I am halfway there now... My Description column now gets a border like I wanted it to. The situation with the rows is a bit more complicated though. My tables can have an arbitrary number of rows, where my E,S,O,N columns always have rowspan=1 and the description column can have any rowspan, normally 1, 2 or 3. I would like to put a horizontal line in E,S,O,N to match the horizontal line in the description column:

Now I have for instance:

 +-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------+
 |   E   |   S   |   O   |   N    | Description:                                |
 |-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P    |                                             |
 |                                | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠. |
 |   2♠      P       P       2SA  |                                             |
 |                                +---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P      P       2SA   | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées               |
 |                                +---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P    |                                             |
 |                                | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠. |
 |   2♠      P       P       2SA  |                                             |
 |                                +---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P      P       2SA   | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées               |
 +--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+

And would like to get:

 +-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------+
 |   E   |   S   |   O   |   N    | Description:                                |
 |-------+-------+-------+--------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P    |                                             |
 |                                | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠. |
 |   2♠      P       P       2SA  |                                             |
 |--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P      P       2SA   | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées               |
 |--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P       2♥      P    |                                             |
 |                                | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées autres que ♠. |
 |   2♠      P       P       2SA  |                                             |
 |--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------|
 |   1SA     P      P       2SA   | 5-5, couleurs non-déterminées               |
 +--------------------------------+---------------------------------------------+

By the way, the BridgeExampleTable class is defined on my MediaWiki server. Jacek (talk) 15:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If the horizontal borders that span all the row are in fixed positions (even if tables don't have the same number of rows), You can use the code I wrote before, otherwise You must put the format in the wiki table (or with style="..." or with class="..." in the line beginning with the wikicode |-, wich can hold the formatting code for the HTML <tr> element). You can get rid even of all those align="center" (putting the code in per column css rules) and of rowspan=2 (setting it in a per row & column position css rule or via new classes – something like rowspanning-1, rowspanning-2, rowspanning-3). -- Codicorumus  « msg 16:59, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Following your advice, I moved all the alignment rules to the .css. Then, realizing that I can tell a row which needs a horizontal border on top by the fact that it has a value in the description column, I made the following template, which did the trick:

<noinclude>BETR stands for Bridge Example Table Row</noinclude>
|- {{#if: {{{D|}}} | style="border-top-style:solid; border-top-width:thin" }}
| {{{E}}}
| {{{S}}}
| {{{O}}} 
| {{{N}}} {{#if: {{{D|}}} | <nowiki />
{{!}} rowspan={{{rspn|1}}} {{!}}{{{D}}} }}

Thank you very much for your help! Jacek (talk) 21:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

It was an interesting issue, thanks to you too. -- Codicorumus  « msg 11:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Usage - Representational Map for most popular/most frequently accessed pages

Hello there,

Help!

I'm quite lost, and am not even sure if this is the right place to ask this question. The rationale for asking this question here might be apparent in a moment though:

About a year ago, something appeared either in New Scientist or the general-science mag Discover regarding a very neat map which showed icons for Wikipedia for subject matter that was frequently accessed. What made this conceptual map interesting is that the icons were represented in varying sizes, on a combined map all at once, according to the frequency of 'hits'. It was a colorful and interesting thing and apparently linked to a new concept in usage estimations/reporting/collecting.

Would anyone possibly know what this was, where it could be, and if anything new has been done with that sort of thing lately? I apologize for my garbled question; I'm not quite sure what this map-thing is *called*, other than how I've described it.

My sincere thanks, Ariel —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.233.167.15 (talk) 04:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Such a map seems unlikely; the Wikimedia Foundation has a policy of not officially tracking read-only page accesses. I recall somewhere the justification was because, unlike a commercial site that tries to market stuff to its users, "they don't care who reads the pages." (I'm unable to find a link to attribute this to anywhere, but I think it was a speech by Jimmy Wales). IP-based read-access logs are stored temporarily for technical and network-traffic monitoring purposes but are deleted "after a set period." Nimur (talk) 22:36, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm? I'm not really sure if I understand your or the IP but the WMF definitely allows info on page accesses to be collected e.g. [1] "Wikipedia:Reference_Desk/Computing has been viewed 14100 times in 200908". There is also a bunch of other statistics collected see Wikipedia:Statistics for more info. There's no user tracking, for example we don't know if someone visiting Penis is likely to later visited Lame or Child. I believe there's also no current collation stats on other user details, e.g. are people using Safari more likely to visit penis then people using IE nor on geolocation details, e.g. are IPs from the US more likely to visit penis then IPs from Ireland. And definitely it's not possible for an external party to view logs revealing what individual IPs visit. Nil Einne (talk) 01:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Graphics card / Display problem

I have a two-year old Jetway motherboard with an AMD690G chipset (integrated graphics), and AMD Athlon 4000+ at 2100 Mhz and a LCD monitor. Recently, the graphics system has been giving problems, and searching Google leads me to believe that the probem is with the graphics chip in the moterboard. My budget is equivalent to USD 100 to USD 150.

1. Will buying a graphics card (I am looking at the GeForce GTX 260 series currently) solve the problem?
2. The alternative is to change the motherboard itself. If I change the motherboard to something with integrated graphics, in this price range, is there some model that supports my outdated processor, without itself being outdated?

I am trying to maximize value-for-money, and which of the above options is better in that regard?

--Masatran (talk) 04:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

GTX260 is an overkill for your setup. If you are absolutely sure it only affects the integrated graphics of your motherboard, get a ATI 4670/4770 - good performance, lower price and low power draw since you probably don't have a beefy PSU. --11:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the GTX260 is overkill - if you were perfectly happy with your motherboard graphics - then you'll be more than happy with a much cheaper graphics board than that! I would certainly advise going with a cheaper option because there is a chance (not a huge chance - but a chance) that your problem wasn't the graphics chip after all so you should hold some cash in reserve in case you're going to have to replace comething else. And it's quite likely that you'll need a bigger power supply if you buy a top-of-the-line graphics board. What size is the power supply in your machine right now? SteveBaker (talk) 15:24, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I bought my computer piece-by-piece and got it assembled, the SMPS came with the cabinet, and the cabinet was a standard-size, mid-price one (as of 2007). I'll open it up and look up the power rating soon.

I'm planning to buy a 1920x1200 or such monitor soon, so a graphics card will improve the DVD-watching experience, right?

Most of the GeForce stuff on Amazon appears to be sold by EVGA, doesn't NVidia sell these things itself? What about ATI in this regard? The 4770 appears to be availabe on Amazon from Sapphire, etc. but not from ATI.

I heard sometime back that NVidia graphics works better with Intel processors, and ATI with AMD, is this actually true?

I use Linux (64-bit), is ATI or NVidia better supported on this? I prefer free drivers but I don't insist on it.

Any idea how to determine without doubt whether the problem is with the motherboard or the monitor? I don't have any other monitors but my monitor works fine when connected to the output from a laptop. The problem is that the monitor flickers every five seconds or so, with the display showing up only for a fraction of a second in this five seconds. It is a Viewsonic X series LCD. Since the problem starts with the BIOS output, it cannot be a software issue.

--Masatran (talk) 16:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

No it doesn't matter whether you have an Intel or AMD processor unless you are considering something like SLI/Crossfire. ATI do sell graphics cards themselves. However these will often be more expensive with little advantage. Note that the graphics cards ATI sells will be made by an OEM usually Sapphire the only difference is that you can get official support from ATI. Also, while I don't live in the US, I don't believe Amazon is generally a good place to shop for computer components for. I suggest you look at something like Newegg. Also it is probably somewhat unlikely you will see much difference between your current graphics card and a new one if all you are doing is watching DVDs. The Windows drivers do provide some post processing options like vector adaptive deinterlacing which are useful in some circumstances for SD content but not so much for most DVDs and you achieve a similar result in software. Also I'm somewhat doubtful you'd see much of a difference in what I presume is a smallish monitor anyway (21 inch?). Technically the shader or GPGPU power could be used for some fancy upscaling but my own experience and reading with this is most of the current options aren't that great and are Windows and proprietary. There is some work on this in the open source community but a lot of it is on CPU not GPU. And again, I should repeat I'm not sure how much you will notice the difference. In fact I don't think I would recommend upgrading except that you say you are certain your current graphics cards is causing problems. Finally while I don't use Linux, I don't believe either ATI or NVIDIA cards have good open source drivers. If all you are doing is general stuff and watching DVDs then they are probably sufficient however although you may want to use the proprietary drivers anyway. Nil Einne (talk) 01:15, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

On Linux - you're better off with nVidia hardware - the device drivers are much better than ATI - although they are closed source. I don't believe any claims of one CPU manufacturer being better with nVidia and the other with ATI - that's bogus. I use nVidia with 64bit Linux and have Intel CPU in one machine and AMD in the other - and I can't tell which is which. SteveBaker (talk) 03:23, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Google Groups: Split thread

Ah, it's been a while since I've need the expedient and authoritative help of the Computing Reference Desk.

I've recently set up a private Google group for a small (not WP-related) organisation of which I am a member. All's been going well, but recently someone replied to one post, trying to start a new thread. All members get sent posts by email, and since the subject was changed, it worked fine from an email-inbox POV, but Google's online interface has understandably interpreted it as a discussion title change, and kept it all in the same thread, so it now goes "Topic 1 - Topic 1 - Topic 2 - Topic 2 - Topic 2" on the same webpage.

Try as I might, I can't seem to split the discussion for archive purpose (I have owner privileges), but perhaps that's because I'm looking at it from the wrong angle. Any help appreciated, - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 10:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and if the option to move posts between threads is available somewhere, that also would suffice. - Jarry1250 ^{[ In the UK? Sign the petition! ]} 10:49, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think it's possible. They don't suggest that it might be possible on the help pages, either. My best suggestion is that you could create a new discussion/thread with the "Topic 2" as the title. Hopefully people could then reply to that message. But I don't think it's possible to move messages between threads once they've been posted. If you really don't want them in "Topic 1", you could delete them and quote them all in a new topic, but that's the best I can suggest. Indeterminate (talk) 11:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Combining greasemonkey scripts

I have several greasemonkey scripts which all do basically the same thing but run on different sites. Is there a way that I can combine them into one script while still retaining the individual site functions (for example, only one part of the script will work on website x, while the other part won't unless it's on website y). I want to do this so that I don't have 20 different things listed in my greasemonkey window, and so I can back it up easier. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 11:57, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You must check the value of document.location, so the script could vary its behavior based on the site you are viewing. -- Codicorumus  « msg 13:29, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Just have multiple @include directives so it will run on all the sites you want, and in the script look at your location as Cod suggested. --Sean 14:56, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I thought of that, but each script does something different. Just including every site like that would create a horrible mess —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 15:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Um, I thought the root of the problem was that the scripts all do the same thing? --Sean 21:07, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

They do basically, they all modify the page title, but for each site they have a different word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 21:32, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You can do that via an associative array (google search) indexed on domains and then setting document.title = titleOf[document.location.host]; -- Codicorumus  « msg 11:20, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Search engines

Is there a way of excluding specified domains from a search engine's results list? When I say "is there a way", I really mean is there a way that won't cost me any money. SpinningSpark 12:03, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean, for your own searches? You can do that with Google by putting "-site:url" in your search (e.g. CNN -site:cnn.com).

Do you mean, for others? Only if it is a domain you control. You can put a Meta Robots tag on the page that tells search engines not to put your domain in it.

You can't make Google not carry someone else's domain, of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:46, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. It's the "-site:foo" thing I want, but I want to make a list, for instance in a text file, so I don't have to type it in the search box every time. It will be a very long list, basically I want to exclude Wikipedia, mirrors, forks, search compilations, etc. SpinningSpark 00:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the easiest way to do this would be to create a custom search engine for Firefox's search bar. It's pretty easy, here's two different ways: 1 2. Just do your google search without any arguments except the "-site:foo" ones, and then use that to make a search engine. Indeterminate (talk) 02:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That's great, it took a few attempts but I've got it working - even with its own icon. Do you know where I can find a list of all the valid input parameter names? The example on the linked page shows two but I would guess there are more. SpinningSpark 12:26, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Overheated laptops

I have a Windows Vista XS laptop. When it gets overheated it shuts down. How often should I turn it off to prevent its overheating?--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 12:50, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

You should not have to turn it off. Either your fan(s) died or you need to take your laptop apart and clean it. You can download and run SpeedFan http://www.techspot.com/downloads/547-speedfan.html to monitor your laptop's temperature. If your laptop happens to be a Toshiba, for directions about how to take it apart see http://www.irisvista.com]. Jacek (talk) 15:16, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously, you shouldn't have to. Something is wrong. Generally, you need to be sure that the various ventilation slots are not blocked - and try not to operate it on a soft surface - the little gap underneath the laptop formed by the little rubber feet holding it up is important to ventilation. If all else fails - you can get a stand to place the laptop on that has small fans in it to keep the thing cool. SteveBaker (talk) 15:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. It only started to overheat recently, and at steadily increasing time intervals. I keep it on a wooden desk, but I'll check out the shops to see if I can locate the stand with the small fans. Thanks again for your advice.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 15:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The cooling vanes in the cpu heatsink in laptops can get clogged up with fluff. A blast through the fan of a can of compressed air might clear it or otherwise you're probably stuck with opening up the case. Dmcq (talk) 18:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree - if you're sitting the machine on a hard surface and given that the problem has been getting worse gradually - then probably one or more of the ventilation slots (or something like a heatsink behind that slot) is getting gradually bunged up with fluff. Most electronics stores will sell you an aerosol can of "compressed air" - they come with a thin tube you clip into the nozzle that lets you get right in to where the problem is and blast the fluff out of the way. You should try that before you resort to buying a cooling stand - if the vents are blocked, a cooling stand might not help much. FYI, these cooling stands should cost you about $25 and are generally powered via a USB port on the laptop itself. But running a laptop "hot" isn't good for it - so you really should take action. SteveBaker (talk) 00:49, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Before I open the case I'll try the can of compressed air. Thank you for all the advice; it's been a big help as I was getting worried.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 07:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Large backup storage

I would like to backup a total of 8Tb of data from various networked machines, and then another 200Gb per month. Obviously this won't come cheap, but cheap would be good. Fit-in-a-bag portability would also be good. What type of hardware setup would the panel recommend? Sr Paul (talk) 13:14, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

What sort of quality do you want? Domestic type - just copy it to removable 1TB removable drives, or commercial - where money could be lost if you get it wrong, or enterprise, where you would expect it to be guaranteed to work, even if a major component was destroyed? Make sure you have enough network capacity to connect you backup making machine! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 20:23, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

For home use, you can build a computer with drives that you share over the network. This is the most conveinent "cheap" option. There are also various NAS devices that are at an individual's budget if you choose to go that route. I have heard good things about the rather pricey Drobo device if you are looking for something with a minimum of setup. You can also buy external hard drives to back up to, but you'll be seeing a maximum capacity of about 2TB per drive in this case with the exception of multi-drive external cases. I wouldn't reccomend anything bigger than a 2TB backup drive since the larger ones tend to either be very expensive or are a "JBOD" type array. Whatever backup method you choose, the drives alone will run around $100/TB right now depending on the speed, brand and any deals you find. Enterprise and Commercial backup are a different beast though and will cost considerably more. Caltsar (talk) 16:32, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] i have a question on telecommunication

what is an IP based backhaul in telecommunication? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Felixcater (talk • contribs) 13:17, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Backhaul is the name for the transmission carrying data (and voice) from local exchanges and wireless cell sites to the core network. IP means it uses Internet Protocol as the addressing and packetising mechanism. --Phil Holmes (talk) 15:51, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] How to add an image to an existing pdf

Hi all,

I have a contract that was sent to me as a pdf, which I'm supposed to print, sign, scan, and email.

I already have a scan of my signature, saved as several file types. If I could just add that image in the right place, I could save three of those steps and a trip to kinkos. Does anyone know how I could add an image to an existing pdf?

I'm on a Mac OS X, have Word and Open Office, if either of those two things help.

Thanks! &mdash Sam 76.24.222.22 (talk) 16:18, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Inkscape should do it nicely. -- 87.115.106.169 (talk) 16:47, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Just because you can do this, doesn't mean you should. If you can add such an image to this document, somebody else can remove and save it -- are you sure you want a digital copy of your signature floating around the Internet?

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:20, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

The OP is required to scan and email the signed document - it's just as easy to extract the signature from that as it is from a digital one overlaid onto the PDF with (for example) Inkscape - and for sure email isn't a secure transmission medium. Besides, signatures are trivially easy to fake in the digital age - I wouldn't worry about it. SteveBaker (talk) 00:33, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Agreed... if you're sending a signature at all (whether printed or not!) it is trivially easy to make a copy of it. This is why it takes more than a signature to open up a bank account, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:36, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I just want to confirm that Inkscape does this quite easily and readily. I was initially suspicious, but it's ability to import a single PDF page, import a signature image, put the two together, and export the whole thing as a new PDF page, is pretty seamless and pretty straightforward. Hurray. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:35, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you everyone. Inkscape worked great. — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] No sound after installation of new graphics card

When I installed my new graphics card, I lost all capabilities of playing sound in Windows. Apparently, now Windows only regocnizes the Digital Output Device, not the Analogue Output Device that I am supposed to use. Preveously, I had a red speaker in the system tray, for the Asus Realtek Driver application, but now it is gone. I have a HP computer m7796. The sound worked well with my old nVidia GeForce 8500 GT, but not with my new ATI Radeon HD4870. --81.227.64.69 (talk) 16:55, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Downloading copyrighted content law

Whenever downloading is discussed on the news its described as illegal downloading, presumably because it relates to copyrighted content, but I want to know what specific laws are being broken by the downloader. Is there specific legislation (in UK especially) prohibiting downloading certain content? as I would have thought the only breach of copyright law would be by the uploader making copyrighted content available. I'm thinking of it as similar to someone exhibiting copies of an artists work without permission or payment - the people who go to see it wouldn't be breaking the law only the person exhibiting. Just for the record I'm not looking for legal advice in relation to any actual court case or planned act, I just want to find out what the laws are on this, specifically in the UK if possible. Thanks AllanHainey (talk) 17:33, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Copyright law, generally, applies to making a copy, not "making available" -- that's why libraries aren't copyright violators, because no copy is made when you borrow a book from a library. When you download a file from a server, both the server and your computer are involved in making a copy. --FOo (talk) 19:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

That's right. The visitors to the exhibit in your example are not making an unauthorized copy, which is the illegal act. As far as types of content, I'm more familiar with US law, sorry; as far as I know, here, there isn't any law specifically outlawing the downloading of particular types of content — the law being broken is a generic violation of copyright law, specifically, "making a copy". Tempshill (talk) 05:24, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Note, of course, that just because it is "unauthorized" does not make it "illegal." Fair use, for example, covers a lot of "unauthorized" reproduction, making it actually "legal". (And yes, this comes into play quite a lot in trying to sort out what the "illegal" types of downloading of copyrighted content are versus the "legal" types). --98.217.71.237 (talk) 13:29, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That's not correct. Copyright covers many kinds of uses of a work, including public exhibition, performance (of a play, for example), and "to distribute copies or phonorecords of the copyrighted work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending" (quoted from the US copyright code—which, before you ask, is not copyrighted). Libraries are legal only because they are specifically exempted (§ 108 of the US code). It's not clear whether downloading a file from a server ought to count as reproduction (for legal purposes). The problem is that people have limited control over what their computers download. You shouldn't be liable for infringement if you view a website that happens to use a copyrighted image without permission (and that's probably the majority of all noncommercial websites). In the case of P2P software I imagine it's made easier by the fact that everyone who downloads also uploads, so everyone is clearly engaged in distribution. -- BenRG (talk) 13:52, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

It's also the case that with P2P software, you are using specialized programs devoted to distributing files, not just incidental web browsing. But I agree that legally the concepts are not terribly clear here, as they apply to what's actually happening with the data, and I'm not sure the courts have fully worked this out, yet. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I avoid using terms like illegal or legal for what may be simply civil law issues but if you knowingly read/view content you know to be hosted in violation of copyright I suspect you could be sued by the copyright holder (although I think this is very unlikely in practice) in numerous jurisdictions. For example reading Harry Potter book 7 or viewing some movie or TV shown on Youtube. Nil Einne (talk) 01:44, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

BenRG's wrong with the library example. § 108 sets out some specific exemptions for reproductions by libraries, and does not speak directly to distribution. Libraries might be in violation of a distribution right, but § 109 is the exemption (and it's not limited to libraries). This is generally known as the first sale doctrine. There are some exceptions for computer software and musical copyrights ("phonorecords"), but basically the initially purchased authorized copy falls under § 109. It's notable that first sale predates the 1976 Act.

In the US one of the protected acts (they're contained in § 106 [also in 106A and 1201, plus some others]). Those acts are listed in Copyright law in the United States, but they are quickly, 1) reproduction; 2) derivative work creation; 3) public distribution; 4) public performance; 5) public display (very similar to performance).

To the original point, the problem with computer aided handling of data is that nearly every action a computer does on the data is a copy (a reproduction). That puts it all firmly within the scope of the statute, and that partially represents the dramatic expansion of copyright law from what was envisioned in 1976. Shadowjams (talk) 03:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Vista SP1 64 bit on Asus P5Q-EM G45

Hello there, is it possible to run Vista SP1 64 bit on Asus P5Q-EM G45?? I heard that this board conflicts with Vista.--119.30.36.41 (talk) 18:19, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] no video signal

I've been having intermittent trouble with the video connection made by an HP Pavilion s3000 running NVIDIA display driver GeForce 6150 LE on Vista (Service Pack 2).

Two different monitors can't see the video output signal. I've tried two different cables and have just updated to the latest version of the driver software. Afterward I was unable to restart, though I tried several times. I left it for half an hour and succeeding in rebooting.

What could be causing the communication failure? What can I do about it? Thanks! --Halcatalyst (talk) 20:08, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

I had a similar issue messing around with video drivers on an HP. Just before I hung up on HP Tech Support, I was asked "Is the computer turned on." Problem was fixed with a Dell box. 72.58.145.169 (talk) 22:12, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

• HP e-mail tech support had a few suggestions and then gave up. A friend who has a PC/networking repair business thought it might be the video card and that replacing it might take care of the problem. --Halcatalyst (talk) 20:28, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Genealogy mapping software

Hey there. Does anyone know of any (preferably free) software that will allow me to create a simple family tree? All I need is something graphical, like a pedigree. The only things I really need to be shown in each box of the tree is a name and a birthdate. I've tried PAF but it isn't what I'm looking for.

Ideally, the software will generate a family tree that will display not only my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, etc, but also my grandparent's children, my cousins, their cousins, etc, in one view. Everything I've found so far only list one person as the "base" and displays their parents, but not mine. I'm looking for something that will display everyone in one giant tree. Am I making sense?

So anyone have anything in mind? Thank you all so much! 141.153.215.27 (talk) 21:31, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

GraphViz? --194.197.235.240 (talk) 06:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 4

[edit] remote control codes plethora

is there any reason, technical, usability, or business, that every manufacturer has to choose a different set of remote codes for their device? (thinking home entertainment stuff here). can it possibly be that they want the diddly money that comes in from forcing you to buy another of their remotes when you lose the original, because you don't feel like programming a universal? or is it just that the industry is too diddly to assume standards? i note that some vcrs have the capability to designate identical units as vcr1, vcr2, etc. and the remotes have the ability to address each independently, so it can't be just some halfbaked claim that it's so you can run your sony tv separate from your sanyo. grr, i'm steamed. Gzuckier (talk) 03:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This is a cool question. Implied in several of our articles is that there are two basic standards: one based on the RC-5 standard (and a descendant, I think) from Philips, and one from NEC that Japanese companies have basically adopted. The best Wikipedia article on this I've found in the last few minutes of searching is the "Protocol limitations" section of our article Consumer IR (whereas Remote control, Universal remote, and RC-5 are silent on this). That particular paragraph is an uncited heap of OR, but it is very valuable (so don't anybody go and fact-tag it); it notes that there may be "semantic differences between different similar operations" — one VCR may have separate stop and eject functions and another may have a combined stop/eject only, for example. Or separate play and pause versus play/pause — what will the user's expectation be vs. what happens? Possibly another reason is the fear that if you had two VCRs in the same room you'd be inadvertently controlling them both simultaneously, without the user having taken this into consideration when he sat and programmed his universal remote. Or if you had one DVD recorder and one Blu-Ray recorder in the same room. I think another reason is probably that once a big electronics company has created and debugged a working remote control standard, they will be loath to spend a lot of money to write and debug an implementation of some universal standard. It's a good idea, though, I think. Tempshill (talk) 05:42, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

From a business perspective, I'd say that the benefits of coming up with such a universal standard are less than the costs of doing so. However, if some group of companies were to offer a truly universal standard, then this might change. I picture each electronic device being given it's own code, much like an I/P address. Then, every signal would contain this first, followed by the universal commands. If such a system were available, then companies not supporting it might find considerable market pressure to get with the program. StuRat (talk) 02:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Do Hard Resets Harm my Computer?

Hello. Sometimes while playing a full-screen video game like Grand Theft Auto IV or Far Cry 2, my computer completely stops responding. I can't open the Task Manager and my caps-lock and number-lock keys do not turn the lights on the keyboard on or off. So, I press the reset button on my computer's case. I understand that this may cause file fragmentation, but will it physically harm any of the parts inside my computer? I just replaced the motherboard and the video card. The video card is an ASUS EAH4670. The CPU is almost new. It's an AMD Athlon X2 Black 7750. I have 4 GB of memory. So, I know my hardware can handle the games. I'm using Windows XP Professional, SP3, with dual monitors. I'd also like to know why it's locking up. I checked the event log and I couldn't find anything suspicious. I haven't had a chance to test them out on my new hardware, but before the upgrade, VMWare VMs would also make it lock up occasionally. Does anyone have any suggestions?--Drknkn (talk) 11:34, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not fully up to speed on this (if anyone knows better, feel free to mock me if I'm wrong), but I think older hard drives could suffer head crashes when powered off unexpectedly. Probably not an issue these days. Might cause errors in Windows, but no worse than your lockup issue anyway.

Speaking of which, I recently had the same issue with my PC. I'd upgraded the graphics cards from a GeForce 8600GTS to a 9800GT, but I didn't upgrade the run-of-the-mill 375W Dell PSU (mainly because Dell use nonstandard wiring in their PCs, and getting a PSU to fit is a pain in the arse). After I started locking up, I imported a Dell-wired 500W PSU from the US and reformatted/reinstalled Windows. It seemed to work; I can't get it to lock up now even if I try. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 17:07, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

ok. Thanks. I think you may be right. My PSU is a 430 W Thermaltake unit from 2006. It doesn't happen right away -- after maybe a half an hour or so of playtime.--Drknkn (talk) 01:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You really should avoid hard resets. If your computer is in the middle of writing a file and the power shuts down, the file may be corrupted forever. The whole hard disk could be badly affected if the PC were writing to the FAT table (or whatever is the equivalent on your OS) when the power shuts down. About the crashes, the PSU probably has nothing to do with this. Have you upgraded to the latest video driver for your graphics card? Tempshill (talk) 04:50, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

System freezing with an underpowered video card is not unusual. At this point, the computer has already had the effect of a hard reset from the point of view of open files and such. It is not possible to do anything except a hard shutdown. I have never been able to fix this problem with new video drivers. I've only been able to fix it with more powerful power supplies (or cheaper video cards if the user never every plays games). -- kainaw™ 05:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, as I said; I'm wasn't sure what exactly a hard reset or power loss could do if the machine was busy at the time. Now I know. Lockups during periods of high load with no improvement from driver updates sounds familiar too. Before you start looking at new PSUs, try entering all your hardware into this, then add ~100W, just to be on the safe side. That's the PSU you'll need. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 12:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hi. The page gives recommends 300 watts. Adding 100, we get 400 watts. So, I'm within the limit with my 430 watt PSU? I also forgot to mention that I have 4 USB devices, three SATA HDDs, and a floppy drive.

A few months ago, I bought a new CPU, mobo, and memory. But I kept the 430 W PSU. Then, three weeks ago, I came home, and my computer's case smelled like it was burning. So, I rebooted the computer. But after that, it wouldn't POST half of the time and the NIC stopped working. So, I replaced the mobo and added the video card. Now, it works great except for the lockups. I read yesterday that a bad PSU can fry your mobo. Does it do that with a power surge, or just under-powering the fans? I wonder if the PSU fried the south bridge on my old mobo? I checked in my BIOS and it says that the mobo is 87.5°F (31°C). The CPU is 113°F (45°C). Thanks again everyone for helping me with this.--Drknkn (talk) 14:42, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Hang on, burning? That's a different kettle of fish... (does anyone know what that saying actually means?)

Erm, maybe your PSU was overheating, and was slightly damaged? It would fit with symptoms comparable to power shortage even though you're well within the stated limit. I'm not sure now... CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 13:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] A wiki-style publicly-edited database or spreadsheet?

I would like to know if a wiki-type database or spreadsheet exists, where:

(a) Anyone can add/modify (and of course, view) (b) Once inputed, the information can be sorted/filtered according to whatever categories are of interest

I'm a musicology student. Using itunes, I've taken the time to input song name, album name, artists involved, year of recording, instruments played, country of origin, languages sung/spoken, instrument tunings, and repertoire information for thousands of recording of West African music. Now, if I want to find a version of the piece "Lamban" for solo balafon from Mali, or all the recordings by someone from the Coulibaly family made before 1973, or all the kora pieces played in the hardino tuning, I can.

Well, if an online version of such a database could be made (so that the information can be shared with anyone on the web and so that others could add to it), it would be a much more powerful research tool. But the key is sort/filterability (much as with MSExcel or iTunes.) Does anyone know if such an application exist? I've poked around on Google, but might not be using the right search terms.

Thanks very much for your time.99.254.137.242 (talk) 12:12, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

From someone else who meticulously regulates their iTunes library (of course it's not nearly as detailed as yours, probably because it's more mild OCD than actual musicology), that sounds kind of neat. What first popped into my head was Google Docs, which does spreadsheets and other document types, and is free. I haven't used it personally, but I'm pretty sure you can set up viewing and editing permissions and all that. You will have to take a look at it yourself to make sure it has all the functionality you need for your project. Also, check out the article Online spreadsheet, which has other alternatives (both commercial and free) which may have different features or something. —Akrabbim^talk 12:47, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Great! Thanks for the suggestions, Akrabbim.99.254.137.242 (talk) 20:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Also try http://docs.wikia.com/wiki/Docs_Wiki That is free and requires no registration. -- penubag  (talk) 02:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Gmail Notifier preferences

How can I access it so it'll know what account to check?? I installed the program but cannot find the prefs panel. The links to viewing my inbox works but it doesn't know of any new messages because I've never told it my account info. Please help. I'm running WinXP. Thanks. 66.65.140.116 (talk) 12:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

If you haven't logged in to your account through it yet, right click on it and select "Check Mail Now", and a dialog box should pop up with space for your username and password. It might not pop up over your other windows, so you might have to minimize everything else to find it at the bottom. —Akrabbim^talk 12:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

When I do that, nothing happens, and I have minimized all windows. 66.65.140.116 (talk) 12:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Is there any easy way to search all of the the Wikipedia Reference Desk archives?

Rather than having to do it month-by month for each subject area? All these answers have a lot of valuable info in them that it would be a pity to lose. 89.242.93.56 (talk) 13:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a search bar at the top of the page that searches them... --Mr.98 (talk) 15:19, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

it's called google —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 16:09, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Google "site:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives" followed by what you want to search for will do it —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 17:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Font installation problem (Windows XP)

I'm trying to install the font Boton. I have the following .ttf files (they're none of them corrupted, I've opened them all in Font Viewer or whatever):

• Boton Bold
• Boton Bold Italic
• Boton Italic
• Boton Light
• Boton Light Italic
• Boton Medium
• Boton Medium Italic
• Boton Regular

When I copy-and-paste these files into the Fonts folder of Control Panel, they all install fine. But only Boton Regular shows up in any program (Word, Inkscape, OpenOffice etc.) – any advice? Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►constablewick─╢ 16:51, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

What happens when you press bold on those programs? Don't you get Boton Bold? Platonides (talk) 16:59, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

No. The only font that shows up in the list is "Boton". What actually comes out is (I think) "Boton Light". Bold does work; Italic only brings up "Boton Bold Italic" - they're all out of kilter. What normally happens is, the Light and Medium show up in their own right, as separate fonts. ╟─TreasuryTag►secretariat─╢ 17:05, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

My understanding is that many applications have very poor font support in this regard. The ones you've listed don't surprise me—Word has horrible font support, and while one would hope to expect a bit more from Inkscape and OpenOffice, my general experience is that the open source people don't treat it very seriously either (viz, the font formatting panel in Inkscape, which lacks even many basic features one might expect out of a graphic design program). Programs like InDesign and Photoshop know how to deal with font families correctly. Most don't. I'm not sure if there is an easy fix. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:55, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You want to make sure you installed them as microsoft instructs and maybe try to remove and reinstall. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Memory snapshot

Hello! Is there any way or program I can download that lets me select a process running in my computer's RAM and view the hex dump for that instant of the memory being used? I'm running Vista (64bit), so I doubt there's some native program that'll let me do it. Thanks!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 18:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

See http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/DevTools/Debugging/default.mspx --194.197.235.240 (talk) 19:10, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

HxD can open (and even edit) process memory, but it's a 32-bit program. Still may be useful. --grawity 19:38, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Memory voltage

My ram's (transcend ddr2 800 mhz) voltage is 1.8v. But in BIOS the voltage set to 1.9v which is fixed.

Is it ok to run 1.8v memory in 1.9v? Will it cause any problem?

I am using xfx 750i SLI mobo.--119.30.36.51 (talk) 19:04, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes probably. This link [2] says supply is 1.8+/-0.1 V. So 1.9 is too high —Preceding unsigned comment added by SpiceJar (talk • contribs) 22:41, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm 1.9V is within a 1.8 +/- 0.1V range. The real issue is that it's unlikely the motherboard keeps the voltage 1.9V or lower. Having said that, even if it's marginally outside the spec range I don't think it's likely to cause problems except the RAM will be a little hotter and you've also likely technically voided your warranty. Nil Einne (talk) 01:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] autorun actions based on system config?

Scenario: At work my laptop is docked and connected to the corporate LAN (and dual screens). I would therefore like the Novell login dialog and Novell groupwise to autorun at startup. When I get home I use a 3G card for internet access (and no dual screens, only the laptop screen) so I'd like for these two apps not to startup. In addition I'd like the system to auto-detect my monitors and correct the aspect ratios and en/disable dual monitor support. Is there any software for Windows XP that can automate this? It should basically sit in the background monitoring the system configuration and autorun things based on what's plugged in. Zunaid 21:11, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Facebook login

I use MSIE v7 on XP. I recently cleared my cache and cookies etc. Now every time I try to login to Facebook, MSIE decides it has to terminate and brings up the "I give up" message pane. Any suggestions as to what to do about this? AFAIK, all other websites are working fine. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you tried it with a different browser? That would tell you if it's MSIE that's giving you the problem or if it is something else. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

No. I uninstalled chrome when I realised that I never used it. I'll ponder reiinstalling it. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

For whatever reason, Chrome when installed wouldn't connect. I've re-uninstalled it and will try again later. -- SGBailey (talk) 07:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Try using Internet Explorer with add-ons disabled: Click Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Internet Explorer (No Add-ons). If you can log into Facebook with add-ons disabled, then there might be an add-on causing the problem. To test further, you could disable individual add-ons: Open Internet Explorer normally, then go to Tools, Manage Add-ons, Enable or Disable Add-ons. --Bavi H (talk) 22:50, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Does exactly the same thing. -- SGBailey (talk) 07:19, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Try uninstalling Internet Explorer (shock! The heresy!) and reinstalling? I don't think it appears in the 'Add/Remove Programs' control panel - this link may help though it's about IE8. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:58, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

In the end I used Ghost to restore an old copy of drive C. All then worked, so I'm happy again. No idea what got corrupted though. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:36, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 5

[edit] Windows power options "Turn off monitor"

Does it actually save any more power than just turning off your monitor? Does it just send you monitor into standby mode (which still uses power) or will it put the graphics card into powersaving mode or anything like that? 24.6.46.106 (talk) 01:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It puts most monitors into sleep mode. This is not necessarily a power saver. Some monitors have been shown to use more electricity when sleeping (or even turned off) than when turned on. Now, the power-hungry sleeping monitor feature is primarily limited to LCD televisions. However, older LCD monitors are still out there. As for the CRT monitors, which this feature was initially used for, there is a very clear reduction in power consumption when sleeping. As for how it sleeps... the video card can force it by stopping the video signal. With no signal, the monitor has nothing to display. Often, monitors have a green power light when there is video and an amber sleep light when there is no signal. -- kainaw™ 02:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It's a safe bet that any device that doesn't have a fairly chunky, mechanically latching, on-off switch is consuming at least some power when supposedly turned off. In theory, this could be a fairly small amount - most micro-controllers have a standby mode that consumes very little energy and so long as they are the only thing that's powered up while "sleeping" - you need not be very concerned. Waking up the micro-controller with a lightweight switch or a software command is easy enough - and once the micro-controller is up and running, it can turn on the power to everything else in the monitor. But in practice, manufacturers are lazy - and the proper standby-mode circuitry adds a little to the cost - so sometimes the "standby" mode saves hardly any power at all. SteveBaker (talk) 03:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I knew I had a note on this somewhere and finally found it... To be energy star compliant a monitor (or television) may only consume up to 1 watt while in standby/sleep mode. I also have a better memory of the monitors that uses more power in standby mode than live mode. They had manufacturer labels stating that they were HP monitors. I called HP to ask about them and I was told that the model number on the labels was not an HP model number. They were most likely counterfeit monitors - yes, there is a market for counterfeit monitors. -- kainaw™ 04:12, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I've used a power monitor (A Maplin one) with my 24" monitor in sleep mode, and couldn't measure any consumption. It's clearly pretty small. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that Energy Star rated monitors will use very little energy while in sleep mode. My CRT monitors all seem to be of that type. I do have an LCD monitor which leaves the back-light on while in sleep mode, however. You can tell because the screen doesn't go totally black, but only gray. Another way to tell how much energy a monitor is using in sleep mode is by how much heat it produces, as that's where the energy all goes. If, after several hours in sleep mode, it's still hot on top (because heat rises), then it's wasting lots of energy. StuRat (talk) 13:56, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

My LCDs don't produce much heat at all. I used to leave my lunch on top of my CRT monitor. My sandwich would be toasty warm by lunch. Now, I am stuck eating cold sandwiches. -- kainaw™ 14:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

This is one of many reasons why we should keep a few CRTs around - the other that comes to mind is the presence of true black color (most LCDs cannot turn the backlight off behind black pixels, leaving a disappointingly bright gray - especially if viewed from a dark room). Nimur (talk) 14:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Mine is dark purple - still not black, but not gray. -- kainaw™ 17:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. When Windows is sending an "off" signal to your monitor when it's already off, does that affect the power consumption of your computer? Or would that depend on your graphics hardware/drivers/stuff like that?24.6.46.106 (talk) 02:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Few graphics cards have a low-power state (unfortunately) - so probably not much. Nimur (talk) 18:14, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Windows Movie Maker (2)

Is there a patch to fix Windows Movie Maker's (the Windows XP version) constant freezing? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 02:00, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

movie maker sucks ass, that's why microsoft dumped it after vista. get some real video editing software on your computer, like virtualdub —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 17:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Bittorrent limiting bandwidth

I'm using uTorrent and as I've got a restricted bandwidth on my connection I'm wondering if it's possible to restrict how much I download per day by the byte? The scheduler can be used to change the bandwidth rate, but I need to be able to set the actual amount downloaded, as it doesn't really matter how fast I'm downloading! Is this possible? Thanks! 210.254.117.186 (talk) 06:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The feature list of µTorrent includes "Quick-resumes interrupted transfers". Thus you can safely interrupt the transfer manually when the daily quota is loaded. I have BitTorrent which has a Pause button, but one can interrupt the download in other ways. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 13:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I think the OP is asking for a feature that will pause automatically when a certain limit has been hit. I don't think it's possible with uTorrent. Here is a forum post on the same subject from a little while back... which is not too promising. I imagine there would be personal firewalls with download caps of some sort, but I don't know of any and quick Googling doesn't come up with much. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:59, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] P2P internet

I remember, some time ago, that I read something about an internetlike net composed only of peers (without Internet service provides or at least less ISPs). Each peer would route traffic through its machine and receive information through other peers. Of course, if we were using a WLAN connection to connect with each other, it would only work with computers relatively near - like those in the same city. Therefore, you would still need some servers which are not users to reach other computers all over the world. Does this project exist in any usable way? Is it possible to have a P2P "Internet" without commercial ISPs? Or at least with less commercial ISPs? --Quest09 (talk) 09:29, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

A Virtual private network might serve your purposes. It is a network that uses the public Internet but it is "all yours" in the sense that only a select few computers can use it, and no one else can read your traffic, not even an ISP. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 18:16, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] mac os lite

you know hows there's lite stripped down versions of windows which remove stuff like IE and drivers, and can install in much less space than normal windows os, is there a mac equivalent? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.133 (talk) 11:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Supposedly the operating system which runs on the iPod and iPhone is a stripped-down version based on the original codebase for the full Mac OS X. Even if you had access to its code, though, you could not run it on your Mac or PC because it is designed for the specific hardware in those products. Nimur (talk) 14:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

If you are referring to the various custom versions of windows that you find on file sharing networks and bittorrent, then I do not know of a version of OS X that is like this (though admittedly, I don't look on these sites much at all). You could do the same thing with OS X if you wished to, but to strip down OS X into the components you need it's best to be familiar with UNIX-like operating systems and editing XML files. Caltsar (talk) 16:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

List of remastering software lists a large number of products for Windows and Linux but none for OS X. That may mean that none exist. -- BenRG (talk) 18:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

That being said, you can find instructions here and there to reduce a lot of file space. For example, on a new installation of OS X there are usually a million default printer drivers installed which can take up some many hundreds of megabytes. Usually you don't need all these, assuming that 1. you aren't adding new printers that regularly, and 2. if you do need a printer driver, it's easy to find them online on the company's website. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Blender 3D

The second time I open Blender 3D the program breaks, i´ve reinstalled Windows Vista, but the problem still appear...Can anyone help me? --81.227.64.69 (talk) 15:13, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Have you re-installed Blender 3D along your new Vista installation? Does it freezes or crashes? If it freezes, maybe you are low on RAM. Also try installing Ubuntu on your computer, it could work. --Quest09 (talk) 16:14, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

WTF... "You're having trouble with one program, consider switching to a totally different OS.."!? Please keep your Linux evangelism to the places where it is warranted! (The RAM suggestion is not much more informed, but at least it isn't glibly infuriating.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

First step with such things is to uninstall the offending program completely, reboot, and reinstall it. If it still is a problem, try asking on one of the Blender forums, but make sure you give a detailed explanation of what you do to make it happen, what the exact error message is, etc. Because "the program breaks" is not very descriptive and it's hard to have any clue what's going on, remotely. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

When you say "the second time I open blender" - do you mean that you're trying to run two copies of blender at the same time? SteveBaker (talk) 01:51, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Also what do you mean by "the program breaks"? Does it exit without any error, or pops up with an error, or has a corrupted GUI or something else? --18:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

When I reinstall the system from scratch Blender works, but only until I set the computer on "Sleep" and then when I start the system again Blender doesn´t work. Windows says "The program has stoped working". This problem first appeared when I put my new GPU Radeon HD4870 in my HP M7796. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.227.64.69 (talk) 16:59, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Tuga Turtle

I'm trying to execute an L-system in Tuga Turtle, and am having some trouble with it.

In TI-89 BASIC, the code I am trying to execute is equivalent to

:Define w()=Prgm
:  x+i*cos(theta)-->f
:  y+i*sin(theta)-->g
:  Line x,y,f,g
:  f-->x
:  g-->y
:EndPrgm
:Define a(n)=Prgm
:  If n=0 Then
:    w()
:    Return
:  EndIf
:  a(n-1)
:  theta+2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta-2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta-2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:  theta+2*Pi/3-->theta
:  a(n-1)
:EndPrgm
:0-->theta:0-->x:0-->y:2^(-n)-->i
:0-->xmin:1-->xmax
:0-->ymin:.866-->ymax
:ClrDraw
:a(n)

My version of the code for Tuga Turtle is

Def r
  turn 60
end
Def l
  turn -60
end
Def a(n)
  if n==0
    walk 10
    return
  end
  a(n-1); l; a(n-1); r; a(n-1); r; a(n-1); l; a(n-1)
end

a(n)

This runs into syntax errors. Can anybody help? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs) 19:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

With all due respect, Tuga Turtle might not be the best choice of programming environment. You're porting from an esoteric language into an obscure language implementation that was apparently designed for "personal use"; I think that you're going to have nothing but frustration if you really want to use that environment for any serious programming. Nimur (talk) 20:06, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

the final a(n) needs to be a(60) , a(100) etc - your error is that n is undefined - I haven't checked against the TIbasic program - but try with a(60) and see if that does what you want.83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:03, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Google Voice: Computer-to-computer?

Hi all,

I recently got Google Voice and am a little confused. Isn't it support to support computer-to-computer calling? As far as I can see, I can only call phones with it. Isn't GV supposed to be a "Skype killer?"

Am I missing a feature? Thanks — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:20, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Google Voice says "The service provisions a U.S. phone number, chosen by the user from available numbers in selected area codes, free of charge to each user account." Which sounds like it is explicitly about phones. I think you want Google Talk if you want computer-to-computer. The "Skype killer" aspect refers to the ability of Skype to use regular phone lines (which is more impressive than computer-to-computer, which has been a standard part of IM programs for ages). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes it's more impressive, but it would be even more impressive if it were all seamlessly tied together in one application. I'm guessing that they'll get to it eventually. Thanks, — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 15:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Toshiba display drive

Hey guys. For some reason the display drive on my Toshiba went bezzerks, reducing the screen to a fraction of what it's supposed to be (if you know what I mean). The Model is PS271U-6K9J0K. However, this notebook OS is Win98 (obsolete, I know). I did quite a bit of searching, but I cannot find the display driver download on the Toshiba website. There are drivers there, but I cannot find my model and OS. Is there anywhere else I can go to find this driver, or did I not look hard enough at Toshiba? Thanks. --LastLived (talk) 23:30, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

You might have to do a system restore. Or better yet, get Windows Vista or get Windows 7 when it is released.  Btilm  01:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

There is probably a good reason the laptop is on WIn98. Vista etc are not going to run on a machine with 64Mb at most 128Mb RAM.

Look on another national Toshiba site; some model numbers were not the same country to country, although the machines appeared identical. Look under the name Toshiba Satellite 2715XDVD. Also you cannot rule out physical fault in the screen. A new driver will only help if the Properties tab tells you the driver is not working correctly.

If it is a physical fault, you may be able to get a second hand replacement screen; it's fiddly but not hard to replace one. - KoolerStill (talk) 20:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I found the problem with looking up the display driver. Turns out at Toshiba that I was looking up the Model serial PS271U-6K9J0K, not Satellite 2715XDVD. Well, turns out that it was under the Satellite 2715XDVD that I found the display driver for Windows 98. As you know, I really need an upgrade. But as for now, thanks for your help!--LastLived (talk) 03:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 6

[edit] Power adapter for external hard drive

I have a Maxtor One Touch II external hard drive I would like to use, but I lost the power adapter some time ago. The drive says "+12V 3A", and the product description on Maxtor's website says that AC input voltage is 100-240 VAC and that input frequency is 47-63 Hz AC. Would buying any power adapter with "+12V 3A" in the description do, or do I need to be more particular than that? If so, can I be pointed to a place or website that has the one I need? Thanks, 69.143.24.5 (talk) 00:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Any 12V 3A power supply will do - provided that

• it has the right plug and is wired correctly
• that it supplies the correct type of current ie either DC or AC whichever you need.

Google "12V 3A power supply" , look for somewhere reputable in your country. eg maplins, radioshack etc , you need to find out about the plug etc first83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Most external hard drives use 12v DC, and have centre positive power socket, but you must check the specification of yours. Try the company's website. You might invalidate the manufacturer's warranty if you use any adaptor other than their own. Dbfirs 09:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Preferences

How can I make the background of templates black to match the black background? (I am using the black background with green text Gadget) --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Or how can I make just the editing page black and green? --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PuTTY to copy files (presumably ssh)

I'm supposed to be copying files between my laptop and my school server via ssh. I've got a windows computer, so I've downloaded PuTTY to be able to ssh. I can open up my account on in a shell, and move, edit files within my account. But I can't figure how to actually move files between my computer and my account. I know the format: "scp myName@remoteSever:file.txt file.txt" to copy a file from my account at school to my computer. But I don't know where I'm supposed to put that. Am I supposed to be opening up PuTTY in localhost (and if so I'd have to run my own ssh server, right?). Do I need to use a different format and use Windows Command Prompt?

Thanks for any help, 137.165.243.1 (talk) 02:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It'd be probably faster if you run sftp instead of ssh (both are included in the PuTTY distribution), as otherwise you would need to do exactly what you described. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

If you didn't actually grab the PuTTY PSFTP program, it can be downloaded from the official PuTTY distribution site. Nimur (talk) 03:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes you need to use an SFTP or SCP program. PSFTP and PSCP are text interface programs included with PuTTY. You can also use a graphical SFTP/SCP program like WinSCP. --Spoon! (talk) 05:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Transclusion

Is it possible to transclude an off-wiki site such as google? --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I do not know if it is supported in modern standards (e.g. XHTML and HTML5), but the IFRAME element might work. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Our help page - Help:Transclusion - explains how Wikipedia defines transclusion. Within this context, it is not possible to include off-site content (for a variety of policy reasons, not due to technical limitations). I believe you can set up your own MediaWiki server to allow wiki-formatted iframes, or something more complicated, to transclude across different sites. Nimur (talk) 15:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be a help to transclude google above the editing space while editing an article. That is what I want to do. --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Then I think that wouldbe best in JavaScript. Thanks, gENIUS101 22:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Crashing Computer

Ever since I moved my computer its been crashing intermittently when I used the internet. As far as I can tell its not from a virus because I've performed every virus scan imaginable several times (this problem has been around for a while; I just got used to it). I had to reset my computer by turning it off holding its power button. I was reading someone's question about hard-resetting their laptop and their problem was caused by an underpowered graphics card. I was wondering if my problem could be caused by an underpowered wireless card. It's some Belkin pre-N card connected to a Sony computer. I could provide the exact details if needed. The problem only happened when I moved my computer to a room with a really crappy wiring set-up. Also, I've opened my computer a few times to install a hard-drive from a crashed computer- could that have caused my problem? Thanks for any help -- 66.133.196.152 (talk) 04:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm going to say no to the wireless card idea. Those people were talking about a high-end graphics card for a desktop; the card was allegedly drawing a lot of power and the combined load drew more than the power supply could reliably provide. Wireless network cards draw a small amount of power by comparison. Tempshill (talk) 06:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it's not likely to be the wireless card, though you can check by connecting to your router without going on the internet, and also by connecting to the internet without using wireless (network cables are cheap). Are you sure that you didn't loosen something when you opened your computer, then moved it? What web browser are you using? Does it crash using a different browser? Dbfirs 09:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll double check my computer. But its crashed using Firefox, IE, and Chrome. Also when something is using the internet (Starcraft Battle.net, using iTunes to download podcasts). If I loosened something what should I check? I can't imagine what the internet would be causing. --66.133.196.152 (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Spam

I heard that simply by opening a spam email, you automatically send a message back to the spammers letting them know that this is a valid email address. Is this true or would you need to click on a link or similar to let them know you are an active account?Popcorn II (talk) 08:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It depends. As a general rule, opening a mail does not inform the sender that it has been opened. However, they might ask for a Read Receipt which would inform the sender, or if you are allowing your mail client to display HTML, they could put an image in the mail that comes from their server - your opening the mail would then request the image from the server and let them know you've opened it. To be safe, try never to open spam. If you can't do this, ensure your client does not send Read Receipts unless you authorise them. And don't display HTML if you can avoid it. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Phil buried the lead. His reply should have been: Yes, it is often true, if, as Phil says, the spammer sends you an HTML e-mail that includes an image link to their server. That's why Microsoft Outlook 2007 and GMail default to not showing any images in e-mails you receive, until you tell the e-mail service (or program) to go ahead and display the pictures. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] PhotoSketch: real or hoax?

Can anyone tell if this is a real application/plug-in, or fake? Many tech blogs have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, and it's a trending topic on Twitter, but I find no actual cases of people using it themselves, just the video. This site I linked to apparently has binaries, but I doubt it, because I can't download them or the user study. -- Zanimum (talk) 13:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The site seems to be swamped by heavy traffic. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it was real. (However, it's probably a lot more limited than you imagine.)

What I get from the second hand descriptions and a lot of guessing, is that it uses a massive collection of source images, and puts them together. The neat thing here is that it's guided by a sketch.

For vaguely similar work see Texture Synthesis by Non-parametric Sampling(1999) and Visio-lization: Generating Novel Facial Images(2009). Techniques like this can yield impressive results. APL (talk) 14:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Incidentally, the reason I thought of that paper on Generating Novel Facial Images is because part of it is interactive. The researcher showed in his SIGGRAPH presentation that you could take a paint tool, draw on facial hair, or some glasses, and run it through the algorithm again and get the same face, but with glasses or facial hair. APL (talk) 14:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

OK, I'm going to say "Real". They appear on the list of research papers to be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. SIGGRAPH is a serious research conference on computer graphics and they won't allow a paper to be presented without review.

Unless some serious scientific fraud it being perpetrated (unlikely) I would say that this is completely legit.

I don't promise that it's as cool as you're imagining, though. APL (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

I managed to grab the executable, but it'll be a project making this work. For one thing I can't seem to find OpenCV 1.1 libraries. For another, it looks like you need to set up your image databases manually. APL (talk) 15:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Darn, I was sort of hoping this all was fake. Thanks for the research and input, everyone! -- Zanimum (talk) 17:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] blue screen during installation of XP.

Resolved.

Hi. I am trying to reinstall Xp on my computer, but it crashes at the time the installer starts windows. What could be wrong, and how can I fix it? Taemyr (talk) 14:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC) Additional information, the computer starts normally when I am not trying to do a full install. And the blue screen has been a problem from two install CD's. So presumably it's not the CD that is the problem. Taemyr (talk) 14:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

In your case, I'll try to install Ubuntu instead. It is an amazing OS, it is for free, it is user-friendly. You can download it from: [3].--Quest09 (talk) 17:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

That works, sort of. Ie. I have tried installing Ubuntu, and I can do so. However the computer is to be used to teach someone to use Windows, so as a solution it falls a bit short. :( Also, I still get the blue screen after ubuntu have been installed and I try to install XP. Taemyr (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

It would be very helpful if you provided more details on the BSODS - are they the same when you tried 2 different CDs? What is the message? What version is your XP install CD? --17:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I am too tired. XP professional. The error message I get is ***STOP: 0x0000007B(0xF78D2524,0xC0000034,0x0,0x0). Which seems to mean that the necesarry driver for the hard disk. I don't have the make of the hard disk atm. this seems to indicate that I will need OEM drivers for the hard disk, and install those from floppy. unfortunately there is no floppy drive on the PC. Taemyr (talk) 18:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

If your computer has a newer type of Hard Drive controller, such as SATA, Windows XP might not be able to install into it (I had a computer where this was the case, although it did not bluescreen. It just did not detect the drive). Usually, the drivers for these controllers can be loaded from a floppy disk during install. But since your computer does not have a floppy drive, you will have to insert them (Slipstream (computing)) into a custom Windows install disk and install from that. Programs such as Nlite that will help you slipstream the drivers. Here is one of many guides that will show you how to use nLite: [4]. You should verify that you actually have a SATA drive and controller and it is actually the problem before going through the procedure. Also, in the settings of some BIOS's, you can set the hard drive controller to operate in PATA or IDE mode. Windows XP should be able to recognize and install to a SATA drive appearing as a PATA drive. If it works, you will not have to go through the whole slipstreaming procedure. WikiY ^Talk 07:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thx. I was fearing having to mess about with the install disc. Modifiying the bios works though, as one of the pupils figured out. Seems the factory setting of this bios was to have the SATA drive emulate a RAID setup. Switching that to IDE took care of the problem. Taemyr (talk) 13:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Flip flops

WHAT IS TOGGLING ACTION TAKES PLACE IN FLIP FLOP —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amol.sinare (talk • contribs) 17:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you referring to Flip-flop (electronics)? That article goes into a lot of detail. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] If someone has a problem and I recommend Ubuntu: is that trolling?

Moved to talk. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Stripping HTML tags from a CSV File

Hi All,

I was wondering what would be the best way to go about this. Note though that some fields on the CSV include a crlf in the fields with HTML formatting (\r\n, found out when I opened in notepad++, just in case it matters) , plus the fields are enclosed in double quotes.

My machine is XP, though I do have an Ubuntu machine if necessary (I was thinking maybe a shell script would be sufficient).

Thanks in advance - PrinzPH (talk) 19:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

In my opinion, the easiest way to remove HTML from any file of any kind is to use lynx. Just run "lynx --dump filename". It will dump the file with all tags removed. However, it does parse the HTML. So, if the tags denote a table or something similar, it will output in a table format. If you want to use sed, you can use "sed -n '/^$/!{s/<[^>]*>//g;p;}' filename". Are you saying that the crlf is inside the tags themselves? If so, sed, by default, will only parse a file line by line, not as one big blob of text. -- kainaw™ 19:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt reply. What I meant by the clrf is that the CSV was made using MS EXCEL, and the field containing the html-formatted text seems to have been written on an external application, then pasted into the cells. MS Excel can naturally read this CSV File correctly, however when I open it using say plain Notepad this is what I get (supposed to be one row)

field 1,"field 2, with comma","<table>
<tr>
<td>cell1</td><td>cell2</td>
</tr>
</table>",field4,field5

Hence the reason for my concern that other programs might not read it correctly. PrinzPH (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

The sed example should handle that fine. The crlf is not inside the HTML tag. I'm positive that there is a port of sed for Windows so you can use it from the DOS prompt instead of Ubuntu. -- kainaw™ 21:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Cygwin might be the easiest way to get sed. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Resolved.

That sed line was just plain OWNAGE!!! Before I got to try this, I used this php script:

<?php
$srcFile = "TBProducts.csv";
$fh = fopen($srcFile,'r');
$txt = fread($fh,filesize($srcFile));
fclose($fh);
echo strip_tags($txt);
?>

Which worked fine, but the sed command was waaay shorter for the same output! Thanks all!!!

 PrinzPH (talk) 20:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 7

[edit] Search terms highlighted on incoming link from Google

Hi all,

When I use Google to search for "Twisted", and then click on the first link (NOT the "cached" link, but the link itself), twistedmatrix.com comes up with the word "Twisted" highlighted everywhere. When I just type twistedmatrix.com into my browser (FF 3.5.3 on OS X 10.5), it doesn't.

Is it the website that is doing this, or is it Google? Does Google's incoming link supply the search terms so that the site knows what the user searched for automatically, or is that a part of Google Analytics or something? And, a secondary question, why the h*ll would a website programmer put that in when probably the most common way to reach a site is to type in the name in Google? Do they actually want their carefully-designed UI to have the most common search term highlighted everywhere?

Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 14:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Here is the how. I have no idea of the why. --Sean 15:24, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

The website is doing it, not Google. Google's incoming link supplies a referrer link (the link that was clicked to get there), like most sites do. The site itself is then parsing that for the search terms, and highlighting them. I find it pretty annoying, personally, totally unhelpful in 99% of all situations, really ugly, and a bad design pattern anyway (especially since it is becoming common for browsers to allow you to highlight on the fly as part of searching, anyway). It's a trick you use when trying to impress people with your 1337 Javascript and PHP but is not actually a good idea (especially if there's no way to turn it off!). File under "stupid programmer tricks." --Mr.98 (talk) 16:18, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Just a clarification: providing the referrer link is done by the browser, not by the referring site. --Sean 16:54, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, that's correct. My bad! --Mr.98 (talk) 00:40, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your answers. — Sam 63.138.152.238 (talk) 18:48, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Embedding Videos In Word 2007

How is it possible, if at all, to embed a video into a Word 2007 document. What I wish to do is embed a video from a video site such as YouTube and have it playable without leaving the document (not auto-play, though - the video must be clicked in order to play it). Also, is then then exportable 'as-is' to PDF? --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 15:15, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

You should be able to embed a video, yes. I don't know Word 2007 but in previous versions it was Insert > Movie. Word and Powerpoint are sort of picky about what formats they will accept... on a PC that's usually WMV, on a Mac it's MOV. (It's tricky because it depends on the particular codecs installed on the system, which makes it hard to be portable. What works on your system will often not work on even a very similar system. I do a lot of work with videos in Powerpoint and it is a major pain.) I think it defaults to needing to be clicked to play. But NO, not exportable to PDF—I think it just comes out as the first frame, as if you were printing it.

I should point out, I guess, that there is almost no situation where distributing a movie in a Word document is a good idea—you're better off just distributing the video by itself, or a link to the video (which you CAN embed in Word and as a PDF). Or, if you are worried about formats, etc., putting it on a website in Flash Video format (with a little player), and distributing the link (though this has its own downsides—need to know how to use Flash, need bandwidth, need to highly compress the video). Word is a pretty clunky container for movies. You CAN embed videos in PDFs (Google it), but it's not the simplest operation in the world, and STILL not an ideal way of distributing a video. Just saying, is all! --Mr.98 (talk) 16:12, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Just to clarify, what I want to do is exactly what you have described: place a link on the Word 2007 document, which then shows the video as the first frame, but after clicking on the video it will start - but the actual video itself is not part of the document. Lots of websites manage to do this, and I am wondering if it is possible to do this in Word 2007, then the same in a PDF? You have told me that, yes, it is possible. Now, how do I do that? TIA! --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 21:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but it's going to be a kludgey approach, I fear. If you can, try to keep it web-like—the web is much better at dealing with movies than Word. And I don't think that you're going to be able to export video from Word to PDF. Putting video in PDF entails other sorts of work (again, Google "embed video PDF" for instructions). --Mr.98 (talk) 00:39, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, you are a tease! :) Joking aside, can anyone tell me how to do this, now, rather than just telling me it is possible (which is not my question, if read properly). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 07:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Laptop, USB GPS, and an iPhone 2G

Okay, so check it out, i got a laptop, iphone 2G (the one wihput a builtin gps) and a usb gps thing. My laptop is running ubuntu 9.04. (the iphone has been jailbroken). I can connect my iphone to my laptop thru wifi. Is there a way i can have my iphone grab the info from the gps connected to my laptop thru wifi? Thxbai. 64.172.159.131 (talk) 17:16, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I may have found something that might work. I dont know if it would work in realtime. You would have to have an active internet connection for this to work. Get 2 Loopt accounts (free). Log in to one on your iphone and the other your laptop. Allow your laptop to share it's location. Use the iphone to get said location. I hope this helped. – Elliott(Talk|Cont)  19:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

that wont work. i would not have a internet connection. but could i mka a fake lootp server on my laptop? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.172.159.131 (talk) 19:32, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Offline private Mediawiki

Hello there -

Is there any way to make an offline MediaWiki? My father is rather taken by the idea of documenting family history with a media-wiki style wiki, but would much rather that it be offline rather than on a website, and then distributed via USB. Is this feasible? If so, how does one go about it?

Elke —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.202.142.42 (talk) 17:21, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

You can do it, but it's not what the MediaWiki developers had in mind, so the share-via-USB-key thing will be cumbersome. MediaWiki needs a web server (usually Apache) that runs PHP scripts, which is what MediaWiki was written in, and will also want to have a MySQL database. Installations of this sort are complicated and if you're distributing this USB key to "normals", you won't want to instruct family members on how to do an Apache and MySQL installation. The solution I think of is that you would set up your USB key as an Ubuntu boot device, and set it up with all the MediaWiki components; then make copies of the USB key and instruct the family members how to boot up their computer using the USB key. This has large and obvious disadvantages.

A much easier way for the family members to get to the information would be to set up your MediaWiki server with any web hosting service, and put it all in a password-protected directory so nobody else can get in without the username and password. Have you considered this alternative? Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:41, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

http://www.tiddlywiki.com/ seems interesting. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:09, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

MoWeS is a portable web server designed to run from usb stick, and it offers MediaWiki as one of it's additional software download options. The whole thing should be very self contained, and it's portable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by .avril-avril (talk • contribs) 18:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I second MoWeS. I use it myself, and love it. Thanks, gENIUS101 22:22, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

(EC) An important question arises - do you plan to edit the content collaboratively? Or would the USB distribution be strictly read-only? That would be much easier - you could run a private MediaWiki (and handle the technical details); and then distribute either PDFs or static HTML (or some other method of dumping the wiki to read-only, non-wiki format). Nimur (talk) 18:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

My Brother once installed it on our Linux computer and made me a sysop. It will start by going to http://127.0.0.1/ --64.15.147.70 (talk) 19:45, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] weakly equivalent

Left recursion says: "A formal grammar that contains left recursion cannot be parsed by a naive recursive descent parser unless it is converted to a weakly equivalent right-recursive form..." How is the equivalence 'weakly equivalent'? RJFJR (talk) 17:34, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's referring to the fact that they accept the same language but give you different parse trees. -- BenRG (talk) 17:56, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

That's correct. The weak equivalence article has this blurb: In formal languages, weak equivalence of two grammars means they generate the same class of strings. If the derivation trees of the languages are also the same, the two grammars are called strongly equivalent. --Sean 20:00, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Excel question

Hello everyone, I was wondering if you could help me with an Excel question I have. In my spreadsheet I have a list of coordinates of the globe (for example, 18.26°N and 108.55°W). I want to average two coordinates "109.14°W" and "108.55°W", where the numbers after the decimal are in minutes. When I try to average the two, I get "108.85°W", which is wrong; as you know, the minutes go from 1-60, not 1-99. How do i get Excel to only use 1-60 instead of 1-99? I am using Excel 2003. Thanks. -- 149.169.78.248 (talk) 19:08, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

This page on a software consulting site seems to describe what you want to do in a fair amount of detail. Caltsar (talk) 19:37, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you sure that your coordinates are in degrees & minutes? The normal format is either decimal degrees nnn.dd or degrees, minmutes, (seconds) ddd:mmm:sss. -- SGBailey (talk) 20:29, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Degrees/Minutes is usually written as 18°26'N (18°26'03" if you also have seconds). 18.26° would be understood as decimal degrees. Also: averaging the coordinates will not give you the coordinates of the midpoint (if that's what you are after). As long as these are in mid-latitudes and the points are fairly close to each other averaging may give a reasonable approximation of the mid-point, for points far away it is way out.195.128.251.165 (talk) 21:43, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Security Tool" is it bogus or is it part of the antivirus software

that comes with Lenovo laptops? I saw some things on Google about security tool spyware, are they right that it is spyware? Security Tool says we need to click on some stuff to get rid of viruses. Can you give me information or direct me to a reliable site? Thanks again. Rich (talk) 22:30, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't specifically know what "Security Tool" is or does, but I can categorically state that I would not use it. Does that mean that you shouldn't use it? No... I just would make sure I know exactly what it is first. I recommend AVG free for a virus scanner; it has worked well for me. Falconus^{p t c} 04:11, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Does it open up a window when you run it? The Help>About menu should give the details of which company it comes from. Jay (talk) 10:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it's antivirus software (and it's certainly not spyware). Here's a list of T400 bundled software. Are you talking about "ThinkVantage Client Security Solution"? If so, it's support software for the Trusted Platform Module. You can almost certainly ignore it (and uninstall it) if you're not using the laptop in a corporate environment. -- BenRG (talk) 10:10, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Old dot-com bubble company

I recall back in the late 90's that there was some company, WebCo or something (yes, as vague as it seems) where you could actually buy groceries online. They would have trucks everywhere. My dad used it occasionally around 1999, and I think in 2002 or 2003 it just disappeared. 99.20.133.159 (talk) 22:44, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Webvan. Here in the UK, Tesco offers pretty much the same service; unlike Webvan, they're making money. -- 87.113.39.157 (talk) 23:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Amazon Fresh in certain parts of Seattle, too. Tempshill (talk) 04:42, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Peapod was bought out by a grocery store company in 2001 and cancelled a bunch of contracts in a few cities. Livewireo (talk) 13:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 8

[edit] Question by IP user

a. How should we change the global alignment algorithm to compute the hamming distance between two strings?

b. How should we change the global alignment algorithm to compute the longest common subsequence of two strings?

c. How should we change the global alignment algorithm to compute the best approximate match between a given pattern and a text? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.188.120 (talk) 00:11, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misevaluation, but it is our policy here to not do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn how to solve such problems. Please attempt to solve the problem yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know.

[edit] Facebook wall post

In facebook when a link is posted to my wall to (for example) a photo album from one of my friends, even people that don't know that person are able to view the album (and if I am tagged they will have access to the whole album even if it is set on "friends only"). It's not exactly a security hole, but I don't want to promote this "exploit", so I regularly delete such links on my wall.

But... when I make comments on peoples albums and posts, it always leaves a link, and deleting every single one of those is a real pain. Besides, I don't really want everybody to know where every single comment I make is.

Is there a way to stop posting these "own comment" links on the wall? Thanks! 210.254.117.186 (talk) 02:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Look at your privacy settings. I have made it nearly impossible for people to find me on FB, and when I comment on a friend's post, all their friends see is black text bearing my name - no link unless you are already my friend. As for tagging photos, I don't know if that's in the security settings or if you have to manually undo that. Falconus^{p t c} 04:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm aware that you can make it really hard to do anything, but I really only have problems with this specific issue: I don't want to be completely detached. 124.154.253.31 (talk) 02:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Under "Privacy Settings" select "News Feed and Wall" and from there you can untick the options you don't want it to show, specifically comment on a photo in your case. Regarding what you said about the exploit for viewing someones whole album, that's not actually a bug. The default permissions when creating an album are "Everyone" (it's on the main page when creating the album) and the person can choose to change it to "Only friends" or whatever, but by default literally anyone who can access any picture in the album can access the whole album - It's up to the user themselves to restrict the album if they want to. ZX81 ^talk 02:54, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Restoring default settings of Windows XP so programs can be viewed

I accidentally changed my computer to make all programs hidden or something. I've got an HP running Windows XP. When I go to Start at the lower left, only AOL shows up, not MS Word or the other programs thta I had recently accessed. There are almost no programs appearing under "All Programs" where once there were a few dozen. The folder marked "Startup" is empty.

I'm pretty sure they're just invisible. How do I restore them?

Signing off for tonight, I figure there will be an answer by morning. I have another query below, that's unrelated.4.68.248.130 (talk) 02:55, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Um... What exactly did you do? Falconus^{p t c} 04:07, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you deleted the Windows/Start Menu folder. Check the Recycle Bin. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 10:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not in the Recycle Bin Also, sorry, but this crazy computer changed IPs on me. Weird.209.244.187.155 (talk) 12:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I clicked on "hidden," then clicked aply, thinking it wouldn't hide things, I guess, i don't know. Then I unclicked "hidden," so the box was blank again, and pressed "apply" again. But, nothing happened.209.244.187.155 (talk) 12:04, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Fixed and Gadet850, you kind of gave me a hint, anyway.

I searched for the Start Menu folder int he Search function under the start menu, saying to look for hidden folders. It was pale (i.e.: not full color) showing it was hidden. So, I right clucked to get its properties, then unchecked the hidden box and told it to aply that to all subfolders, too. I did that in a couple other places, as well.

Thanks to all who tried to help.209.244.187.155 (talk) 12:33, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Settings" on AOL not viewable

Why would "Settings" on AOL not be viewable when i'm online? I can't access it to clear my browser window, which is really annoying me, though I can clear my footprints. Thanks.4.68.248.130 (talk) 02:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] speed of ARM Cortex

I see Ti has announced a 2 ghz, dual core ARM Cortex processor. How fast is that in x86 or SPEC-like terms? I'm having trouble finding any general purchase benchmark results. Thanks. 67.119.3.190 (talk) 07:57, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

There hasn't been much competition that way so far as most ARM users have been more concerned about power consumption and cost and have a central application they can benchmark to see if it goes fast enough They might have narrow memory or a slow ROM. They might be using floating point or multimedia instructions. They might buy in specially crafted code for important bits or hand code a central loop. Interrupt latency may be an important consideration. It all depends and it isn't as easy as just comparing one PC to another -and you know how they can vary depending on if you're a gamer or a commercial enterprise wanting a database server. ARM do support the EEMBC coremark though and according to that it competes very successfully in performance/MIP performance/Mhz per core terms with the latest x86 processors. Dmcq (talk) 09:24, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Motion Flight Simulator Synchronization

Hello. I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction. I've hit a wall and am unsure what to do.

I am in the process of building a motion simulator (2DOF). I am currently running Flight Simulator X as the simulation software. The base is fully hydraulic and the cockpit sits on top of a bidirectional plate. The hydraulics are linked to the yoke so pull/push will move the cockpit up/down and twisting the yoke provides movement side to side.

Potentiometers are installed on each axis and hooked up to a Leo Bodnar Interface board which is recognized in FSX as a controller.

My issue is that the cockpit movement is NOT synchronous with the visual display, especially on the ailerons axis. There is a significant delay between me moving the yoke (cockpit) and it's visual representation on screen.

Note this simulator is entirely active. There is no feedback from the simulator back into the cockpit to control motion. The pilot dictates every move. I've been through the aircraft config and .AIR file a countless times. Some settings help but it is not exact.

So my question is, is there a way to sync my control movement with what displays on screen? I appreciate any help! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.83.86.98 (talk) 13:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

This project sounds sufficiently complex that it is unlikely your description is complete enough for us to answer it. Certain prominent Reference Desk contributors have worked on commercial flight simulators - but I expect they will tell you the same thing. Can you narrow down the trouble? Really, this sounds like it needs a lot of engineering expertise and time - I don't think you'll get a useful answer from a bunch of reference desk responses. At the core of the issue is that the simulator response-time is not equal to the physical response time of the hydraulics - so you can reprogram the software simulator to match your custom hardware; or you can modify your custom hardware to match the simulation. Nimur (talk) 18:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't know why you don't want the software to control the platform. Microsoft's Flight Simulator can be used to control things like this I believe, at least that's how I understand how a system like yours I know about is controlled. I couldn't find the links to that system, they seem to have disappeared, but here are a couple of others to enthusiasts I found while looking [5] and [6]. There are a number of home brew systems around ranging from the simple to the downright amazing so you should be able to find others to talk to about your system. Dmcq (talk) 22:38, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry didn't understand, you do have it connected up properly. I guess what you mean by "Note this simulator is entirely active. There is no feedback from the simulator back into the cockpit to control motion." is that flight simulator just says where the platform should be but doesn't adjust the motion of the plane to cope with any delay problems in the hydraulics. Dmcq (talk) 22:48, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Unable to delete a folder in C:/Programe Files

Resolved.

I am using Vista (for my sins) and I am trying to delete a folder that is in Program Files. I have given myself full permissions but it still wont let me delete the folder any ideas. BigDunc 18:25, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

What's the error message? My bet is that a program is using it, still. Usually you can fix this by rebooting. At worst, reboot in safe mode. But make sure it's something you really don't need, if something is trying to still use it! --Mr.98 (talk) 18:28, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

The error is you need permissions to perform this action, I am the administrator and as I said I have changed the permissions but still no joy. Also it is not being used and I have rebooted before I posted just in case. BigDunc 18:32, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Note that, in Windows, the directory separator character is "\", not "/". But unless you use a command-line utility, this should not matter. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:09, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have solved the problem, I found a piece of software here that does it for you. BigDunc 19:22, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Beginner C++ graphics examples

I'm looking for examples of what others have done for including graphics in beginner C++ courses. The problem is that often the students have either Windows or Mac machines. The servers at the university/school run some form of *nix. So, cross-platform graphics that are monstrously simple for the students becomes a problem. I've even considered having a separate, highly complex, graphics engine class that the students do nothing more than instantiate and start up with their classes providing the logic for whatever is running again, cross-platform simple graphics is an issue. -- kainaw™ 20:00, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

2D OpenGL is easy. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Not the type of advice you're looking for, but the easiest solution is to standardize on a single platform. Since Unix machines are what all students are guaranteed to have access to, that seems like the normal decision. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:20, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean graphics like drawing on the screen, or like GUI toolkits? --Sean 20:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

SDLucid and SDLmm are both basic C++ wrappers over Simple Directmedia Layer, and should work without issue on all the platforms you discuss. I'm not aware of what people have used these, or SDL in general, in introductory programming courses (it's rather hard to google for that, it turns out); perhaps if you contact the maintainers of those two wrappers (or the SDL mailing list) someone may know of what use has been made of them in education. It'd be tempting to have them code a simple game (space invaders has lots of objects flying around, which makes an OO implementation seem like a sensible path), but you have the problem (and I think you'll have this with whatever toolkit you use) that you're shifting from the strightforward in-dostuff-out program structure to an event-driven paradigm, which might be a big cognitive jump for a brand new programmer. Alternatively you could skip the interactivity, and replace the screen/file output stuff they've been doing with an image or pdf generator library like libharu or GD. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:36, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I have worked on a modified version of Turbo c++ graphics.h header file and created my own original version of "Paint" with most of the features + mouse interaction as well.

If you would like to see that,i've uploaded it to fileden.com as a RAR archive which includes the code and the executable for the program.

http://www.fileden.com/files/2009/7/1/2495952/paint.rar

As a student i realised this was the easiest graphics to understand and the easiest to use ,to produce some stunning results like my paint if you're creative enough.

Hope it helps.If you want the modified graphics.h header file for the mouse interaction functions ,don't hesitate to ask.

Oh PS: I'm a college freshmen and made this code in high school on my own with the internet as reference for learning the turbo c++ graphics commands,and i'm sure others would understand it as well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.237.33 (talk) 21:27, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

"Neon Helium Productions" has some nice beginner level OpenGL tutorials. APL (talk) 22:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions. Due to limitations of the systems at the University (no X on the programming machines), I cannot use OpenGL - which I would prefer to use. I've been googling and googling. I found some simple examples in which the instructor wrote most of the graphics in curses and the students just added the logic. I believe that curses will run both on Windows and Linux/BSD without a problem. I'm going to experiment tomorrow. -- kainaw™ 22:51, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Issues with new HP printer

I work in a small office, and our (really) old HP InkJet finally died. We've purchased a new A800-something, are having trouble with it, and HP tech support has been worthless so far. Perhaps some among you have seen this problem and can offer a solution.

CONFIGURATION: We have two WinXP boxes -- "PC1" and "PC2", say -- and two printers. The Laser (B&W) printer is connected to PC2 via USB, and the new color printer is connected to PC1 in the same way. Each of us can print on either printer, as each is shared through the usual Windows mechanism.

There is a building-wide "intranet", that each (of about 30) PCs plug into. Our two PCs are not directly wired to each other, nor do we have a router of our own. In other words, we have a perfectly standard small-office configuration.

THE PROBLEM: Documents printed from PC2 to the A800 print their CONTENT correctly, but do not always print in the proper CONFIGURATION. Examples, sometimes the document will print duplexed (even when told not to), or tumbled (flipped up rather than L-to-R), or 2-up on a page. Each individual page's CONTENT is correct -- proving there is no connectivity problem -- but the configuration or metadata or properties or whateveryoucallit doesn't make it or is ignored.

THE ISSUE: HP support insists that the ONLY way to share two printers is to purchase a router, and install a Lan-on-a-lan (as I understand it). I can't believe this is really the case, but I suppose anything's possible -- perhaps Windows Printer Sharing caused HP more problems than it was worth or something.

N.B. A previous poster's claim that "all of his HP problems were solved by buying a Dell box" is not an option for us, so please don't suggest that.

Thanks in advance, --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 21:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

One idea: MS Office programs (pretty much uniquely) store some printer settings (the printer's own page prefs) inside the document, and those changes apply when someone else prints the document. This has weird effects like person1 likes to print on colour, person2 in black, but if person1 edits the document, sets it to colour, prints it, saves it, then hands the document to person2 (on say a network or a usb stick), and person2 prints it, it'll come out in colour. Perhaps in your case, the problem is that person1 normally prints on one printer, person2 on the other, and the document is ending up with the settings for one printer embedded in it (which is ignored by the other printer). While this is sometimes helpful behaviour on Office's part (it allows you to do stuff like page1-on-letterhead, subsequent pages on regular paper, and the document itself remembers this printer-specific setting) it can do weird things when the printers aren't the same (and I don't know how to turn this feature off). As some printer properties are copied into the document, and some aren't, this can seem like a perplexing issue. Second idea: when you install a windows-networked printer, it offers to get the driver from the host machine for you; if you did this, try instead downloading and installing the driver manually (rather than getting it from the printer host); and in general make sure everyone is running the latest (and ideally the same) version of the printer driver. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

To see whether Office is the culprit, install CutePDF Writer, which is a free PDF creator that acts like a printer; and also install Acrobat Reader. Using PC2, first print to the CutePDF "printer"; it will ask you what filename to save the PDF file as; save it accordingly; then open and print that PDF file with Acrobat Reader. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:59, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Thought I'd mentioned everything that could possibly be of interest, but I was mistaken! In this case, we are printing PDF files from within Acrobat Reader.

It's probably also worth mentioning that I always check/reset printer settings via the Properties dialog -- it's just that sometimes those settings are ignored.

Any other suggestions? I'm willing to try just about anything that has an outside chance of working. (Terminating and restarting Acrobat is such a solution; I'd like to avoid that as the "production workaround" if possible.) --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:30, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] ATI GRAPHICS DRIVER FOR UBUNTU 9.04 - HD 4570

I can't seem to get my ATI 4570 set up on ubuntu 9.04. Any/all help is appreciated. P.S. does anyone have invites to Google Wave? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.211.237.33 (talk) 21:19, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you using the driver that X.org installs, or the fglrx proprietary driver? If using the former, try the latter (you should be getting an offer to install the proprietary driver, if ubuntu has detected it properly. Unfortunately, as the fglrx article notes, even ATI's own driver has been very poor (orders of magnitude slower than the Windows equivalent for the same card); I don't know the current status (the fglrx article's references are mostly rather old). I confess that the last time I tried to use Ubuntu on a Radeon machine I gave up and bought the cheapest nVidia card the shop had; nVidia's Linux driver is very good indeed. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:31, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BinaryDriverHowto/ATI is relevant reading. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 21:43, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Using Foxit Reader in Google Chrome

Hi. I was wondering if it is possible to open Foxit Reader in Google Chrome when opening PDF files on the web. Right now, PDF files are opening in Adobe Reader by default in Chrome but I can't find any setting in Google Chrome to open PDF files using Foxit Reader rather than Adobe Reader. I want to do that because I hate using Adobe Reader which is very slow and has become very user-unfriendly. This may sound funny but I read somewhere on the web that Larry Page had the same problem, lol. 41.136.73.187 (talk) 21:26, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Sort files into Folders based on creation date

Resolved.

Hi All,

This is on a CentOS system running Asterisk. We seem to have accumulated so many recordings that I am having trouble compacting and moving them all (ie 'mv * someDir' and even 'mv *part-of-file-name(extension)* someDir' fails with too many arguments).

I was thinking the way to go would be to loop through the files based on creation date (in the filename, but maybe better if uses the filesystem's records or something), but don't know where to start. I think know what I want to do but dunno how to write it in shell script (and there's prolly more elegant algorithms out there):

(file format is usually xxxx-(date in yyyymmdd)-xxxx-xxxx.wav)

1.) get a list of files in the folder
2.) get the date of the oldest, in yyyymmdd format set that as '$date'
--- loop ---
3.) create the folder '$date' if does not exist (I think is supposed to be like if [-d yyyymmdd] ?)
4.) issue mv *-$date-* to $date/; get next date
--- /loop ---
5.) done

Thanks in advance for any help! PrinzPH (talk) 22:46, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Test it first, but this should do it:

ls | perl -MDate::Format -lne '$d=time2str "%Y%m%d", (stat)[9]; mkdir $d; rename $_, "$d/$_"'

--Sean 00:46, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Worked perfectly Sean! Thanks! PrinzPH (talk) 01:42, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Automatic web page/html generator

I want to create an FAQ web page in which normally only the questions are visible, but when you click on a question, it expands and shows the answer with it. Clicking on a new question expands the answer for the new question and collapses the previous one. Is there any online html generator that can do it for me? Thanks. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 23:13, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

What are you editing the page with? It's not hard to do with Javascript/CSS, but if you're not editing the page by hand (e.g. in Notepad), then us posting a bunch of code is not going to be super helpful. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:36, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I found the code online. Now the only hitch is actual coding. Can you suggest a good free html editor? ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 01:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Aptana is awesome! It doesn't have any wysiwyg (it does allow previews though), but the other features more than make up for it (has full javascript support, built in php testing deamon, as well as support for various js libraries like mootools, prototype -- havent used those features yet but i plan to). HTH PrinzPH (talk) 01:47, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] WHOIS queries on an IP

What does "allocated PA" mean in the context of a WHOIS query? Is that the same as "direct allocation" or is it something different? SpinningSpark 23:15, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Direct X 10 for XP

I have just installed unofficial version direct x 10 in XP 32 bit OS. Both "dxdiag" (from "RUN" option) and PC Wizard is showing Direct X version is 10.0. But whenever I open Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager, it shows Direct X 9.0. Is there any problem?

Why this is happening?

I am using XFX 750i SLI Mobo and XFX Geforce 9800 GT 512 MB. Thanks--119.30.36.33 (talk) 23:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd guess the app is showing what version of DirectX it was compiled against. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 00:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Adding to the above, the sound card drivers probably don't know how to use DirectX 10 (since as you know it's not officially supported in XP). Likewise I would think the same thing would probably happen with the display drivers as the XP drivers likely don't support DirectX 10. So although you've got it "installed", if the hardware drivers don't support it then it's really not doing much. ZX81 ^talk 02:59, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

• Is reinstalling Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager will solve that issue? I have some images of Direct X 10 where the uploader of this software was successful to install and use it in Realtek HD Sound Effect Manager, His mobo is Asus.--119.30.36.53 (talk) 08:26, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] October 9

[edit] Weird

I have my cell phone right next to my wireless optical mouse and whenever I receive a phone call or text message, the mouse doesn't work for like a few seconds before the phone call. I wonder what's causing this. -- penubag  (talk) 01:15, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

I think you've answered your own question? :) It sounds literally like the wireless data transmission to your phone is interfering with the wireless mouse and really the only options are to get a Bluetooth mouse (I'd be very surprised if that didn't work!) or switch to a cellphone provider that uses a different frequency to what you have now (althought that may not help). You could try it a different phone and see if that fixes it, but that seems unlikely. ZX81 ^talk 03:03, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

It's not really a problem :) I just thought it was interesting. Why does the interference last several seconds before I receive the call/text? Is the interference just hanging in the air...but that doesn't make since. -- penubag  (talk) 08:51, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

The cell tower begins talking to your phone, establishing a firm connection, a couple of seconds before your phone rings. If you keep your phone beside an FM radio you'll hear a pattern of thumps before the call or text message nominally arrives, and occasionally when the phone checks in with the cell tower for routine reasons. -- 87.113.39.157 (talk) 09:41, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

So THAT's what those noises are! Thanks for the answer ZX81 (again) and anon. -- penubag  (talk) 09:55, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple iTunes accounts on one computer?

In my household we have now 2 iPods and only one computer. Can we have 2 iTunes accounts on one computer? Is this possible?Dieselsmamma (talk) 01:44, 9 October 2009 (UTC)

Although I haven't tried this personally, if you are using separate user profiles then I don't see any reason why not. iTunes stores it's database and settings in your "My Music" directory and the location of that on the disk changes per user profile. ZX81 ^talk 03:05, 9 October 2009 (UTC)