Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

July 29

Where can I find linux code?

Linus Torvalds developed the Linux operating system to where I can find of that? (I heard that he has development of the Linux operating system is a heap of code to enable others to develop) Incidentally, If only a heap of code it, then how they develop into a type of operating system?

Read the article on Linux (and the relative articles). They contain the information you want. --racergr 06:44, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If with your second question you mean to ask how little snippets of code can develop into something as big as an OS, then the answer is modular programming. Make sure that that each snippet is completely separate and clear about its task, ie what are the precise input and output. Then, you can make bigger programs using those snippets, which also abide by the aforementioned rules. So modules are built out of modules etc, until you've made something very big out of lots of little things. DirkvdM 06:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Linux is NOT an operating system! If you're looking for the source code for the Linux kernel, go to kernel.org. --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 09:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, which like the first post said, is answered by some reading of our articles on linux. Either way, anyone that doesn't recognize linux is technically the kernel probably won't get any use out of it --L^ie! 11:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want to dive into code, you can browse the linux cross referencer --Ancheta Wis 22:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Difference between 2 and 2&3 in a shift operation.

I have come across this code when looking on the XXTEA reference code:

e = sum >> 2&3;

As far as I know it essentialy means:

e = sum >> 2;

So I am wondering why did the developers of XXTEA choose to use an extra AND instruction? What did I miss here? --racergr 06:49, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It's probably (sum >> 2) & 3, where there's a bitmask involved.

Indeed, because >> has higher precedence than &. This is a great example of why brackets should be used when there's any room for ambiguity; even writing e = sum>>2 &3 rather than e = sum >> 2&3 would have been better. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

System Memory on Mac OS X

When I use Activity Monitor to look at the system memory, it lists the memory used in four groups: Wired, active, inactive, free. I can guess what free means, but what do the other three groups refer to? 69.123.113.89 11:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Try a few of these links. Weregerbil 15:06, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. 69.123.113.89 15:58, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Router IP assignment

Just wondering, if you have 2 routers connected to each other to form a local network, what happens with address assignment? How is it decided which one gets to assign local IP addresses? My example is: I have a router for ADSL2, but am getting a new one to do wireless networking (but it doesn't do ADSL decoding) so I have to keep them both. So, how is it decided which of the routers assigns addresses? - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 11:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Two-part answer:

1. Address assignment isn't a necessary function of a router. Routers do routing; address assignment is done by a DHCP server. (Of course, there's nothing that says that a single box can't act as both a router and a DHCP server, and indeed many home-based "routers" do both, and more.)
2. If your router is a true router, then by definition you have two separate network segments, which it's the router's job to route packets between. If you have two routers, it sounds like you have at least three network segments. Furthermore, DHCP (or indeed any addressing scheme) must be applied to individual network segments individually; indeed one way to define a network segment is "a subset of the larger internetwork having its own unique subset of addresses and its own addressing scheme". So DHCP packets, by design, travel only on individual network segments; they are not passed between segments by routers. So assuming that your two DHCP servers are assigning addresses in two different of your network segments, all should be well.

—Steve Summit (talk) 13:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Ok thanks. So, are you saying that DHCP is what assigns the addresses? As far as I know they both do DHCP. So does that mean, to disable DHCP on one would allow the other to assign all addresses? - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 13:27, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes. Well, probably. Well, maybe. A definitive answer would require knowing the details of your "network topology": how these two routers are connected to each other and to your "outbound" Internet connection, and where and how you'll be connecting the computers that need address assignment. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

mother of computer

we know that charles babbage is the father of computer then who is the mother of computer?

Ada Lovelace -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:33, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe Grace Murray Hopper. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I usually say that Babbage and Lovelace are the grandparents and Alan Turing and Grace Hopper are the parents. Or something... --Oskar 19:50, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Would that make John Von Neumann an uncle? Or can we have more than two parents? --24.147.87.78 20:53, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

He's like the cousin you have weird feelings for that suppress because you know it can never happen --Oskar 22:37, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think of it, Grace Hopper and John von Neumann are the parents of computing, because then Alan Turing can be the uncle everyone knows is gay but loves anyway. --Oskar 22:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Cannot apt-get update in Debian

Some problem I'm having, I just installed Debian on an old computer using a 1st generation Pentium 4 (1.5 GHz) and I'm trying to apt-get update it, like some of the guides on the internet I've found said. The main problem is, having to deal with Debian defaulting to some IPv6 protocol, I keep getting this:

Could not connect to ftp.tw.debian.org:80 (1.0.0.0), connection timed out

I ever had this problem on Windows XP; I installed ALL the Networking Services tool on the old computer and then I was TOTALLY LOCKED OUT from the internet!!! Internet Explorer's diagnostic test can ping through while Firefox just shows it's timeout error. Everything keeps resolving to the 1.0.0.0 IP. Checking through ipconfig, there's some strange adapters listed: Teredo Automatic Tunneling Device if I can remember the name and another one. The IP's are some uncommon hex notation, ff28:5a9c:2abc:9256 as an example. I finally did a System Restore operation and I can access the internet like before.

I've searched the internet for this problem and there are many cases listed, but since I cannot find mine with my case, I just decided that I should just post here. I'm using an Aztech DSL600ER router, Linux OS is Debian, and I can access Wikipedia after I changed the network.dns.disableIPv6 value to FALSE. Other than that, to reiterate the topic name, I cannot apt-get update through the terminal as root user. Is there any way to resolve this 1.0.0.0 IP problem? --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 14:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not really familiar with this, but I'd look up instructions for disabling IPv6 for your distro, that sounds like the problem to me. That hex notation is an IPv6 address, which doesn't really work yet in most of the world. --L^ie! 14:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it's not a IPv6 problem, but a buggy home router (see [1] for instance). Try setting the DNS servers manually on /etc/resolv.conf; according to that bug report, simply disabling IPv6 is not enough to make it work. The best option would be to either fix the router or change to one which doesn't have the bug. --cesarb 22:09, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Another option, by the way, would be to (if the option is available on your home router) change it to be only a "bridge", and run the PPPoE (if it's ADSL) stack directly on your host. That way, you'd bypass almost all the potentially buggy software on your home router (and also gain a lot of extra control). Be sure to configure a firewall before doing it, since it usually would make your computer directly visible to the whole Internet. --cesarb 22:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Check your default route.

Thanks for your replies, but since I'm using BitTorrent on another computer connected to the same router, I just tried all the software solutions without any success. It just shows the normal IP, then reverts back to 1.0.0.0. It manages to get through but I get cannot connect to host. I just kept modding the files as the instructions asked me to so I can get out of the 1.0.0.0 situation but Debian cannot get into the root account, so I just had to do a complete reinstall. Maybe the developers at Debian.org should make the next release have IPv6 DISABLED by default. Thanks for your replies anyway. I'll keep trying to solve this annoying issue. Any help would be appreciated. --Bruin_rrss23 (talk) 09:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Having IPv6 disabled by default wouldn't help in this case; the problem is with the buggy DNS proxy on the router, which runs over IPv4. There's another thing you could try; install BIND on the machine itself (apt-get install bind9), and point its /etc/resolv.conf at 127.0.0.1 (nameserver 127.0.0.1 and remove all the other nameserver lines; note that it might be automatically recreated with the original contents via DHCP). As long as the router doesn't try to be even more annoying by doing transparent proxying of DNS requests, that should be enough to give you a clean working DNS setup. --cesarb 23:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Office 2007 Save As glitch

Hello. Sometimes when I am working on a Word document on Office 2007, I save my file. It is not a read-only before I enter it. The Save As window appears. When I try to replace my file with the same name, Office says the file is a read-only and must be saved under a different name. How can I fix this problem? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 15:23, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

ActionScript 3 question

How can I get the color of a given shape object in Flash using ActionScript 3? That is — I have a timeline with nothing on it but a single shape which shape tweens between two colors (say, red and blue) over the course of 25 frames or so. How can I, say, get the color of the shape at an arbitrary frame setting? The shape is not an object — it is just a vector shape.

My feeling is that I could somehow just grab a reference to the shape by playing with this.stage.getChildAt(0) but I don't think that does what I think it does. Any thoughts?

The reason I'm trying to do this is that I'd like to be able to assign a color to a different object based on the colors generated in this other movieclip via tweening, etc. There are a number of reasons why I can't just tween the original object itself (the main is that it is already shape tweening and that shape tweening must be independent of the color change).

Does this make any sense? --66.30.5.140 20:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

OK — I've figured out how to point to the objects in question (by using this.getChildAt(0)), and they are MorphShapes while tweening. Now I see that interactions with MorphShapes are pretty limited — but is there any way to get its fill color? --66.30.5.140 20:26, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

OK — I think, after much searching, that the answer is definitely no, so I found a different approach to my issue (not as elegant as I would have wanted, but it works) that avoids this method entirely. --24.147.86.187 00:53, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

DirectX 10

Does anybody know if there's any chance of DirectX 10 being offered for XP? Vista hasn't exactly set the world on fire so I can't help but think that keeping it as a Vista exclusive until 7's release will only hurt DirectX 10 as many developers may not feel the need to include features that the majority of customers will never see. --Kiltman67 20:14, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Seems unlikely to me, particularly given that DX10 exclusive games are still a very, very long way away given that DX10 cards are still very new Nil Einne 23:46, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft develop DX10. Microsoft want to sell Vista. Put those 2 together and it's obvious that it's unlikely to happen. Capuchin 08:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I believe there's a company that's selling a product that will allow you to run Halo 2 on XP, although I don't think that's a DX10 game anyway. It could go either way for MS, having a tight monopoly has worked pretty well in the past for them. Personally, I'm rooting for Mt. Evans --L^ie! 08:11, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

DirectX 10 simply can not work in XP, for reasons related to the new driver framework in Vista, which would be entirely self-defeating to implement in XP.The reason that Shadowrun and Halo 2 can work in Single-player in XP is that they aren't DirectX 10 games (If they were, you wouldn't be able to play them on currently available hardware). For a complete, in-depth explanation of this, browse around staring from here: [2] --Alph Tech STUART 17:08, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Picking A GPS

Hello everyone!

I am going to purchase an automotive GPS system, and I've narrowed it down to four units, all Garmin: StreetPilot c550, Nuvi 350, Nuvi 650, and Nuvi 660. I couldn't find any difference between the Nuvi 650 and the 660, except the Bluetooth compatibility and the price. How about the traffic situation? I know that some, traffic is included, just with a monthly fee. Others require costly equipment. I didn't consider any of the Magellans after hearing many horror stories, and the Tom Tom 910 was quickly thrown out. I am looking for basic functionality with some perks. I also couldn't find out which ones had which basemaps. Which one is best suited to me? Thanks!!! Location: Long Island, NY

MAP91 21:00, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

July 30

Finding where an IP is...

Can you give me some sites so I can figure out where an IP address is from? 24.2.61.202 01:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Try googling it. However, some sites tell either the location of the receipient's house or the location of the ISP's server. Don't you live in Folsom, California? If I am correct, google IP address locator and click on the first site. --Mayfare 03:09, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure that there are many sites that will give you this information, my personal favourite is http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp. --Credema 06:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

In general, you are looking for a WHOIS service, such as the site User:Credema mentioned. - Akamad 11:26, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Maxmind GeoIP. Google for it! (this keyboard is...poor...otherwise iàd type it out.)JoshHolloway 09:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Slideshow questions

Help!!I want to find a product which can do all these things for me! 1.add my own voice in slideshow? 2.trimming background music in slideshow? 3.add background music to slideshow? 4. add licensed music in slideshow? 5. add multiple music files to the slideshow? 6 create slideshow in a minute? 7 add text to slideshow? 8.add same text to all photos in the slideshow? 9 add the same transition to photos of a slideshow? 10.modify the transition time between photos in slideshow? 11 modify the show time of a photo in a slideshow? 12. revolve photos in slideshow? 13. resize photos in slideshow? 14. make slideshow on cell phone? 15 make slideshow for web? 16 burn slideshow on DVD which can play back on TV? 17 add multiple music files to the slideshow? 18 make slideshow for e-mail? 19 burn slide show on DVD/CD/SVCD/VCD.2.0 which can play back on TV 20.make slideshow for Apple™ iPod, Sony™ PSP, YouTube™, MySpace™

In the future, please keep your questions contained to one thread. Read WP:TALK page guidelines, and do not remove other people's comments. Anyway, the answer for any of this will depend on what program you're using, what type of computer you have, and any number of other things. Please see the manual or guide that came with your product for instructions on using it --L^ie! 06:50, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to sound flippant, but it really sounds like you may need to go and take some lessons on the use of slideshow software. --jjron 07:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

vista

is it really bad when u install visual styles like vista blinds on an xp computer.

Well, in the sense that it means you're using XP, yes. Really though, it will change your Window Manager's effects, but it shouldn't affect the system itself, in the same way that using Compiz doesn't change a *nix system. It depends on what you mean by really bad though. --L^ie! 07:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you're not using kol's vista skin (which was the best vista lookalike, and was aggressively fought by microsoft- you won't find it easily anymore) then yes it'll look really bad. There are dozens of terrible skins out there trying to look like vista.. things to remember 1) Crapware like windowblinds will take up as much memory as dwm.exe on vista so you might as well take the performance hit and upgrade to vista. 2) If you want to use unsigned msstyles in xp you need to patch/crack utxtheme.dll.. search neowin --froth^t 15:21, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

help

i tried burning an audio cd but my nero is programmed to burn at 52x speed.i dont think my machine can handle that speed.anyways it refused to burn.how do i change to something like 32x or 16x.am using nero 7. then i tried burning using windows media player 9 series.it was on the process of burning and when it reached 97 percent i got a message which told me to check whether my cd drive is connected properly and that it had encountered a problem.the empty cd i had is damaged.its RAW.am not sure what is means but on its properties tab it says it contains 0 free bytes and 0 used bytes.what am i doing wrong?my machine is a pentium 4,3.2ghz os is xp service pack 2 ram is 512 mb.

ps immediately the error message that i check whether my cd drive is connected properly appeared my cd drive icon disappeared.after restarting the computer it appeared again.

Sign and type better please. Nero Burning ROM should let you pick what speed to write the files. Splintercellguy 09:44, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

JPEG to PDF

Hi! I have a JPEG image which I need to have as a single-page PDF file instead. How can I achieve this without losing the JPEG compression (so as not to make the file unnecessarily large)? Thanks. —Bromskloss 08:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

By definition, PDF="unnecessarily large", so there's no getting around that. The easiest method is to create a new PDF document, add your JPG to the page, and save it. A much more complicated way would be to convert the JPG to a SVG and then convert the SVG to a PDF. -- Kainaw^(what?) 14:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You don't say, but on Unix-y systems like Linux or MacOS a simple "convert image.jpg image.pdf" will do it with minimal overhead. --TotoBaggins 14:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

$ convert image.jpg image.pdf
$ ls -l image.jpg image.pdf
... 139K  image.jpg
... 140K  image.pdf

If you have Photoshop simply open your jpeg, go to File>Save As... and choose Photoshop PDF as your output format.

It'll give you a compression option and some other options when you go to save, and you could also downsize your image first before saving as a PDF to keep the filesize down. The file sizes aren't that bad and it's pretty simple to do. I'm guessing some other photoediting programs would possibly do this too. --jjron 15:12, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

And if you are on OS X, you can open it in Preview and Save As.. to a PDF as well. Only adds a few KB to the original size, presumably because PDFs can actually have JPEG images embedded in them if I recall correctly, so you're really just adding a tiny bit of PDF coding around that. --24.147.86.187 23:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

PS3 price drop

when will there be a price drop of the PS3's current price in the UK?

Sure. --L^ie! 13:28, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

really?! which retailers are selling it the cheapest? and what future developments will be happening for the european and PAL PS3's?

Well history (and logic) suggest that the PS3 will reduce in price as its time on the market lengthens. Many consoles that are sold are sold at a loss (even at £430) and so the firms are slow to reduce the price until the economies of scale/money from games makes it viable. Now Sony have reduced the price in the US and other countries so I would expect it to reduce in the uk in the medium-term. You could look at ebay for purchases, or some of the major sites like game.co.uk or gamestation. Good luck, the console looks like - long term - it will be worth the money. ny156uk 17:43, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind the US "price drop" is really a clearance sale. They are selling the 60GB PS3 for $499, but only until the current supply lasts. Then there will only be the 80GB model for $599 (it will also come bundled with Motorstorm). So it really isn't a true price drop because the 60GB model is discontinued (at least in the states). --24.249.108.133 21:55, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

voice-activated web browser

I'm looking for a voice-activated web browser that will allow the user to fill in web forms using voice only. For example, they will see a page that says Name, Address, City, State, Zip. They say "Name John Dow, Address 123 Street, City Kansas City, State Missouri, Zip 64154, Submit." The form is filled out and submitted. I am having trouble finding such a beast. All "voice-activated" browsers I can find only allow you to use voice to navigate links, not enter data. Does anything like this exist? Cheaply? Free? -- Kainaw^(what?) 15:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Dragon NaturallySpeaking claims it is compatible with Internet Explorer. My guess is that for something like you describe you're going to have a hard time, since you're really asking for a high-quality voice transcriber that happens to be hooked up to a web browser. I'm not going to inquire as to why you need it to be voice only (Maybe Stephen Hawking is having trouble ordering things from eBay?) but I don't think it is a terribly usual request, which is probably why you aren't finding much out there. I can't imagine this being a very common requirement. --24.147.86.187 23:24, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There's a extra download for Opera that includes voice, but I've never used it, so I can't tell you how well it is. Our article does mention being able to control Opera with voice only. Might want to look into it. Furthermore, Opera has a feature where you can store information to be filled out on forms, so you can maybe use that and fill out the blank stuff with voice. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 20:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Virus that makes computer/hardware explode

I read about a virus that can make computer hardware explode. Is it real or a hoax? If it's real, how does the virus make hardware explode? I think they could change the hardware settings and make the hardware become so hot that there's a fire. --Kaypoh 15:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Possible, maybe... but implausible. It could make stuff overheat -- perhaps -- but actual explosions are extremely unlikely. Most likely a hoax. Gscshoyru 15:34, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

not unless the hardware and drivers were extremely poorly designed, and definitely not as a virus that would be able to fool much of anyone. The only way I could think of to do this that would actually do something would be to find a way to disable the mainboard's Fan slots, and then hope you overheat it, but there's no way to make it explode, and even just turning off fans would destroys the insides and the computer would shut itself off --L^ie! 15:39, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It would be unlikely to make such a virus, except maybe when you write one that activates a bomb wired to your PC... Blake Gripling 06:33, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

See our article on killer poke. --cesarb 23:17, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Algorithm for solving f(x) = x

(Not sure if this goes in Computing or Mathematics) What is the name of the algorithm for solving f(x) = x by iterating x_{n+1} = f(x_n)? Is there a criterion for when it is guaranteed to converge? 212.203.98.213 17:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I could be reading this completely wrong, but it appears that you are asking about a computer algorithm that uses a function F with a parameter x. The function F solves the problem by calling F(x_1) where x_1 is some new value of x. This is called recursion. It is a very powerful form of computing that, unfortunately, too many programmers don't feel comfortable enough to use much. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:16, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you are thinking of some variant of or some algorithm similar to Newton-Raphson? But that's for $f(x)=0$, not for $f(x)=x$. --cesarb 23:15, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

The process is finding fixed points, so I guess you could say it's a fixed point algorithm. See fixed point (mathematics) for more; your algorithm is essentially the definition.

For your second question, iirc it is guaranteed to converge if the (absolute value of the) derivative of f(x) is less than 1 at all values between your guess and the solution, correct me if I'm wrong though. 75.58.182.206 00:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

See fixed-point theorem.

Way to speed up wikipedia load times?

Is there any way to speed up the load time on wikipedia pages in firefox? I notice a lot of times it will load the main body of the page, then spend another five seconds or so loading the side bar- are there grease monkey extensions or something of that sort that could skip over the stuff that doesn't change from page to page, or that allows it to load quicker at least somehow, to allow the page to load faster? --Longing.... 18:05, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

It used to be that if you weren't logged in, Wikipedia loaded much faster. I don't know if that is still the case. -- Kainaw^(what?) 18:13, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I can't answer this question specifically, but I have found the best way to make web pages load instantaneously (in your perception, at least) is to use Firefox's "open link in new tab in background" option. While I'm reading, I just middle-click links I want to read, and then continue reading the current page. When I'm done, I kill the current tab, and the page has already loaded and rendered in the next tab. I only wait for pages to load when they're broken. --TotoBaggins 18:35, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

That doesn't work so well when you're juggling five tabs and you REALLY NEED TO SEE THAT DIFF NOW SO YOU CAN MAKE SURE IT'S OK TO UNDO and then you have to wait fifteen seconds for a page to load, and it feels like you're on 56k again. /rant --Longing.... 19:02, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

You can also tweak Firefox's settings to load pages faster (if you havn't already done so) [3] --Worm 23:01, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Free web hosts

Does anybody know any free web hosts that are reliable and free of ads? --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 21:23, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

"Reliable", "free", "no ads": choose two. Sorry. --TotoBaggins 22:04, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

There are some hosts that give free or discounted service to non-profits (within the USA probably only to 501(c)(3) corporations). One example is Dreamhost. I have worked with several Dreamhost accounts and have generally been happy with their service. I won't endorse their reliability given some problems they had over the past ~year however, FWIW, I have no plans to move my hosting elsewhere. (A glance at the main space page on them has some coverage on my concerns wrt endorsement and some good external links) HTH --Jeremyb 22:32, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

If you are willing to spend even a little money (say , $10 a month), you can get pretty good hosting services. But you'd probably need a credit card, which is what I imagine your difficulty is, judging by your user page. --24.147.86.187 04:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

110MB.com is a nice host; I'm not spamming here in this reference desk, it's that I hosted my site there for free, with 2GB of space, no forced ads and provision for server-side apps like MediaWiki. The only things that you have to pay are the optional/premium features and make sure that you abide to their rules... Blake Gripling 06:37, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I can give you 100mb of space (ish) on my dedicated server if you would like. Direct Admin control panel. Message me on my talk page. JoshHolloway 08:58, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Freehostia (www.freehostia.com) offers cost-free, ad-free hosting with Perl and PHP support. Fairly extensive services. 165.234.180.57 15:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It's all about the gigbytes, baby!

I was just thinking:

1) How much storage would you need to store every piece of information ever produced by humans? I'm talking about every spoken word, every printed letter, every film, every painting, everything. Of course, only an approximate guess can be made but are we talking in orders of exabytes or zetabytes or what?

2) Approximately how much new information are we creating annually? Is this increasing and, if so, by how much?

3) Assuming current trends in storage capacity hold true, when will we have more storage in our PCs than all the information all humans have ever produced. When will we be able to carry it all on our key chain (i.e. thumb drive)?

- Pyro19 21:49, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Note on part 1: the uncertainty principle precludes us from making perfect copies of analog artifacts like sounds and paintings and such, so you'll have to specify how decent a copy you want for this question to have meaning. --TotoBaggins 22:08, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Does the store have to be indexed? It all goes a bit quantum.... I suspect it mainly depends on your definition of 'information' --Worm 22:55, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

I have heard that is more data online than in the world's libraries already, but this is pretty difficult to prove (or disprove) so i'd take it with a pinch of salt. I would expect you are talking into the ridiculous numbers for data-storage aof all digitalizable information. Wikipedia which of itself will represent a stunningly tiny portion of the web is (according to this link - http://www.webaroo.com/webpack/wikipedia/wikipedia) about 5gb when zipped up/compressed, but that size will be increasing daily. Plus that's only the English version (and probably from some time ago). See Yottabyte for an idea of storage already in existence and IBM predictions. Obviously the world's worth of information would be even bigger. I wouldn't be so foolish as to suggest a pen-drive would never hold such an amount (after all how many people would envisage a chip smaller than a postage-stamp can hold gigabytes of information when something this size (see Early IBM disk storage for a mind-boggling understanding of the speed of development in hard-drive capacity. ny156uk 23:10, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Man, that IBM article is mind blowing. - Pyro19 00:02, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not talking about exact replicas or quantum states. If we consider a narrower question, you might get a better idea of what I'm thinking: How much information did I produce yesterday? I spoke to some people and I wrote some things, that's about all. I didn't create any videos, build anything, take any photos, etc. So at most I produced very little, maybe some KB of information.

That's the sort of thing I'm talking about but on a much larger scale, that is, for every human and from all time. - Pyro19 00:00, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There are a LOT of articles and theories about these kinds of questions, doubling every year is something I have heard thrown around more then once http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue3_10/coffman/. Vespine 02:15, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You still haven't defined how you would quantify that information. Are you considering your speech to be valuable for its language content or its audio content? Those are two different types of information (one might be stored as a text string, the other as an MP3 file, for example; the difference in bytes would be between less than a KB to hundreds of MB, depending on compression). It's the difference between the written data "C-flat" and a second-long recording of that note on a piano. That's essentially what the quantum states question is about — it takes the quantification question to the extreme (by asking what the ultimate level of quantification of the world can be; the uncertainty principle sets the lowest theoretical limits for quantification), but it's still an important question you would have to answer before you got an answer as to "how much" information you are talking about. --24.147.86.187 22:38, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Since no-one else seems to want to tackle the question directly, I'll give it a shot. So, trying to figure out how much you produced yesterday...you would have to store your speech as an actual audio file to preserve the tone etc, if you spoke for an hour and managed to compress it down to 1MB a minute, that's 60MB. Incidentally, what you wrote and stuff is probably neligible, seeing that even if you wrote 5000 words that's only 5KB *uncompressed* - consider it as something like 0.008% of the space required for the speech. So taking into account other tibits of information the space required for a rather unproductive day would be 100MB. Extrapolating this, you'd need at least 10^6 x 6x10^9 (the number of humans) = 6x10^15 bytes or say, 10 petabytes (I think) to store the average human production for one day. Over a year that's 3.6 exabytes, over a century that's 360 exabytes, over a millenium that's 3.6 zettabytes. Hopefully that all balances out on account of the human population being way smaller that it is now. As to when we'll be able to store it, well...firstly, I reckon we'll never be able to, because, if you think about it, as we find those technologies that allow us to store more information, we're producing more information, and I doubt we'll ever catch up with ourselves - ie, we'll always produce more than we can store. But, only considering the idea of a few zettabytes, right now we can store gigabytes on very small drive, if we doubled the size every year it would only take like 40 years [10^9x2^n = 10^21, if we 1 n a half-ed it, it'd take 70; but I have no idea if that's possible, it's seems rather far-out & I'm just guessing...

So anyway, it's at the very least a few zettabytes...something like 10^21 bytes. So yes your original guess was pretty much there, although, if you were to count EVERY little bit of information I see no reason why it might not run over into yottabytes (humans produce notoriously large amounts of crap, literally and figuratively...). Trimethylxanthine 22:18, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

July 31

a home printer for business cards?

Is there such a thing as a printer for my home that I can load with blank business cards, and it will print them out in duplex (double-sided)? If so, what brands or models are currently the most popular or highest-rated in the "low budget" category (maybe black and white ink jet, etc.)?--Sonjaaa 00:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Almost any printer will suffice. You can purchase pre-printed or just pre-perforated paper just for this task. are a few. However, these will not have the quality and features of a professionally-printer business card. For instance, you won't be able to get raised print on a laser- or inkjet- printed business card.

No I don't want pre-perforated paper. I find the quality poor, and there is too much work in detaching the cards. I want to load blank business-sized cards into the printer and it print on both sides.--Sonjaaa 02:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

That will likely require a custom printer. Consumer printers are unable to handle paper that small. It appears that Canon might have a solution, however: [4].

Canon says CX320 is the cheapest version whose price, and according to this source its price is 3100$... and can be found only in Japan. I couldnt find any price quote from Canon website, Google Product or eBay. It seems there is no low budget variant for card printers if you ignore pre-perforated paper. — Shinhan < talk > 12:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Might want to try printers from Fargo Electronics (I am suprised there is an entry for them). Anyway, they sell ID card printers that are Thermal Transfer I believe. Might be out of your price range though. --GTPoompt(talk) 12:13, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have had very successful results using "Pro Edge" business cards which are cut rather than perforated and have thin adhesive strips which hold the cards together in an A4 sheet for printing [5]. I have a Hewlett Packard Laserjet 2300d (the d stands for duplex) which prints the card-sheets with no problem. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 12:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah but, the problem with those is that in order to have the backing paper, the cards themselves have to be thinner than the perforated ones. Flimsy business cards, ptui. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:34, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Not so, in this case. They don't have a full backing sheet, rather something that resembles easy-peel sticky tape across the dividing lines between rows of cards. -=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 16:37, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Really! That's new to me -- I'll check 'em out, thanks. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 05:42, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

I once saw an industry-advert for a printer that did that - although it probably only printed on one side at a time (i.e. you would have to do a run of the one side, turn the cards over and do the other side). I think the quality was "okay" (not great) and the company I was with found the whole thing to be a bit too expensive and not economical to get unless you print a great deal of cards and the customer's don't mind the lower quality.

These days card printing works a bit differently, depending on the quantity ordered and the amount of colours used in the card, and the glossiness of the paper.

For example, if someone wants a textured paper and they only want two colours for example a special red and black, then you could just litho-print them on A4 papers and cut them out - they would load a generic black ink and do a run, then they would load the specific red you asked for and run that. But to set up a litho printer costs ink and time and chemicals, so there would be a minimum run of say 250 cards. On the other hand if they wanted only 50 cards, you would be forced to use a digital printer, printing 5 pages of 10cards, and then cut them out. Now if they want a large run (say 1000 or 10000) of full-colour business cards, i.e. cards with at least 3 unique colours, then it becomes cheaper to print them on a 4-colour litho printer (the 4 colours being Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black aka CMYK which will print you "any colours"). So it all comes down to economies of scale.

At the end of the day, one option to look at is to find a person with a 4-colour printer (one model is a Heidelberg), tell them you run a small printing business and you want a wholesale price, and then you collect your orders, do the graphics, put your markup and send out the order. The problem is with business cards that these printers can't be set up for only 1000 cards even, typically they need to collect about 10 orders of 1000 cards = 10 000 cards and then they do a run, meaning your clients might have to wait a few days. Then the additional process of a high-gloss coating can add an extra day. That said, the printer you find will be able to tell you all these things.

Sorry I can't tell you the name of the printer that prints straight onto pre-cut business cards, but keep looking you'll find one. Rfwoolf 04:07, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Web browser switching problems

My user page and user talk page worked great under IE 7, but I use Mozilla Firefox on my new computer and have problems. I need the pages to look great on both browsers, how can I do that? There are also a few problems with IE 6.  Tcrow777  talk  01:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like a solution towards World Peace, but I'm not gonna get that, either. Seriously, this is a gigantic question, and there is no short answer. I would probably start by reading at Quirks mode, though. --Mdwyer 02:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Is there any way that the fancy stuff would automatacally not be included when someone is not using IE 7?  Tcrow777  talk  02:41, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

For that you would want to look at Browser sniffing. --Mdwyer 02:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Those are articles detailing stuff that cannot be done on Wikipedia. I need something that works.  Tcrow777  talk  02:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah. I misread your question. I'm afraid I probably can't help you with your userpage, aside from just a recommendation to try to stick to techniques that work well with both (all?) browsers. I'm sorry I'm unable to help you more. --Mdwyer 02:59, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I will wait for someone else to answer my question. Thank you!

What I want to know is how to fix my user page to work right in browsers other then IE 7.

 Tcrow777  talk  03:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

What exactly is wrong with it? If you're using some sort of code that seems to work only on IE7, then the standard procedure would be to use something that works in IE5 instead, which should display perfectly in IE7 as well, as well as FF and all the rest. There's nothing on your UP that would require the use of recent modifications in IE7s code. I recommend you don't use templates to separate the parts of the page as you've done right now; that's probably the number one culprit for screwey layout. 58.156.47.154 04:07, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And, the system here doesn't take that well to pure HTML, because there are a handful of restrictions. Rewrite the tables in wikicode. 58.156.47.154 04:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It is in wikicode.  Tcrow777  talk  04:20, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Dude, no offence, but looking at your editor review request, you've made about 800 edits, 200 are your user pages, and the rest I can't even find a single decent mainspace edit which isn't just a minor or formatting. Wikipedia isn't facebook, maybe you should worry less about your user page and worry more about what you are actually contributing? Please feel free to commence flaming reply. Vespine 04:56, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think your right, that's why I have been looking for advice on fighting vandalism, but no one has given me any.

The problem code line appears to be in User:Tcrow777/main style:

<div style="text-align: left; width: auto; height: 100%; padding: 8px; background-color: #FFFFA4">

 Tcrow777  talk  05:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You call that wikicode? Just putting a page full of HTML into a template doesn't make it wikicode dude. 58.156.47.154 05:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Apparently, firefox is having trouble with "100%" in the "line of trouble".  Tcrow777  talk  06:06, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

All bugs appear to be fixed!  Tcrow777  talk  06:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Congrats to having a beautiful page now... :o( ... I'm always stunned by how much people care about their (or their user pages') looks rather than what they're actually doing! ... --Ibn Battuta 13:51, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You said no-one had given you any advice on vandal fighting - have a look at Wikipedia:Vandalism. That should get you started. If that doesn't help, then the Community Portal has plenty of things to do. If you have problems with any of it, then the Wikipedia:Help desk will help. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 16:53, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

GFX laptop in Asia

I live in Japan, and I've always loved the configuration of Alienware' laptops, though shipping one from the US to Japan would cost a lot of money. I've tried to go around to a few dozen "little guys" to see if they could make me a laptop of considerable power and price, but the market is just so different here in Japan when it comes to quality systems, and I usually just get laughed at, never mind the fact that I probably wouldn't trust any Japanese laptop manufacturer even if they did give me a good price.

Alienware US doesn't ship to Asia at all, but Alienware.uk does. A 700 EURO (which is more than I planned on spending) machine ends up costing more than 1200 EURO (which is way over budget) after shipping.

My house is in Canada, and if I send it there, it costs me only about 1400 CAD (1100 US?), which I can handle. But I'm still in Japan, and if I send it overseas, I have to pay shipping again, and I presume customs? would hit me again.

I've looked hard for some comparable gamer-ish computer manufacturer in Japan, but the only one I found is just an extension of the company that laughed at me in the first places when they couldn't supply a system with a reasonable price. I'm kind of at a loss here... have I missed anything? Must I give in and deal with it? 58.156.47.154 03:54, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You can't find a good laptop in Japan?? Are you serious? I find that very hard to believe. Isn't that like saying you can't find a lay in a brothel? ;) Have you been to Akihabara? Maybe it's a cultural difference that's preventing a successful transaction, I'm pretty sure you are in just about the best place on earth to find any kind of laptop, as long as you know where to ask. Do you speak fluent Japanese? If you don't, maybe you need to make friends with a tech nerd who does. Another reason not to import is that laptops are not as robust as desktops, many components on them can fail, and unlike a desktop, they are usually the opposite of "modular" meaning you can't just swap out the broken component with a generic one you bought at the market, most laptop warranties are NOT international unless you pay a premium for international warranty.. Vespine 04:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I do speak fluent Japanese, and yes I've been to Akihabara, though I try not to. There's no reason to believe that buying a laptop would be cheaper in Japan. Have you ever studied economics? Electronics are big business here, which means they charge high prices, and people will pay because a) they have the money b) they believe that there is a need to keep up with all the newest trends. I could probably find cheap memory and other components in that one section of denkidai, but laptops are a brand commodity, and demand for laptops is really high here. 58.156.47.154 05:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm still confused, you say 700 Euro is more then you wanted to spend, the cheapest laptop I can find even on the US alienware site is US$1000 which is also about 700 Euros. Unless someone can come up with a better idea, I think you have to deal with it, I'd recommend upping your budget and sourcing locally, perhaps a VAIO. Vespine 05:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a little miscalculation, sorry (trying to work with 4 currencies here -__=). 700 is right about my range, it's just the shipping that screws me over. VAIO is pretty much the last option on my list... with a 3D card there are few laptops in Japan more expensive, never mind all the bloatware. 58.156.47.154 05:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I'll pay that, fair call... I just remember getting a steal on a digital camera and a MD player back in the days, obviously laptops are a completely different kettle of fish. Sorry, don't know what else to suggest, apart from the obvious: if you take a laptop with your hand luggage you won't pay import tax, regardless of how new it is. So if find someone travelling to Hong Kong or something:) except I'd still personally not recommend importing a laptop because of the before mentioned warranty issues. Vespine 06:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Cantralized Wikipedia geographic database?

Based on the recent visibility of Wikipedia geographic coordinates on Google Earth, I have collected a set of 600+ significantly incorrect geographic references. For example, 300+ of them are communes in the Calvados department of France which were placed east of the Prime Meridian, instead of west.

I have been told on the general help desk that there is no central database for such information. That would imply that the Google Earth presentation would be wrong in other languages, even if I manually fixed the English pages.

Surely, there must be a way to introduce a centralized geographic database which could be automatically referenced by templates for each language translation, and for any other georeferences.

Equally, I would expect that the multilingual links on the left-hand side of each page should be derived from a links database, so that when a new language translation were to be created for a page, all of the pages for the existing variuous translations would get the new link, and the links would always be in the same pseudo-alphabetic order.

Can you direct me to a forum where these database questions could be explored?

Fairfax Geographer 04:18, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The central servers of the Wikimedia Foundation is in Florida, USA.  Tcrow777  talk  04:28, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Village Pump? Splintercellguy 04:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Problem with WMM / downloading YouTube videos

The first question can be summed up with this pic. M$ didn't have anything on it. MY OS is XP SP2, and it's WMM 2.0

[6] O_O.

For two, how do I do that? I downloaded Video downloader for FF, but it doesn't work. I don't knwo how to play .flv files. Can Windows Movie Maker read them?

Much appreciated. --67.66.232.120 04:36, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

• I don't know the answer to your first question (although the same thing has happened to me before - you can just move the "error report" message to a corner of the screen and ignore it). To your 2nd though - there is a program called "FLV player" that can run flv files. Also, I believe VLC player can run them as well (though you need to download ffdshow, a codec package). Maybe we have an article on FLV? ugen64 05:05, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. Although I really want to know how to get the .flv into WMM. --67.66.232.120 05:25, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Use VLC to convert to .avi or some other format supported by WMM. — Shinhan < talk > 12:16, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

There are instructions here. —Wayward ^Talk 00:40, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Overwriting of geographic coordinates

The article Lambach exhibits a rather rare problem in the double overwriting of the geographical coordinates in the upper right-hand corner of the page. Can someone describe the problem and a solution, so other articles with the same difficulty can be fixed? Fairfax Geographer 05:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem seems to be that coordinates have been entered twice - in the infobox at the top, and using Template:coor title dm. Removing one of these should fix the problem. Also, this probably belongs at WP:VP. ugen64 05:50, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Enquire about computer projects

I am a Polytechnic student studying in Computer Technology branch & I want to know the sites where I can get free computer based projects with their implementation detalis.

You'd think college students would be able to ask better questions... Anyway, what type of project are you looking for? Off the top of my head, sourceforge has a lot of programming stuff you could work on. If you want something more low level, take a look at this. You're going to have to be more specific with what you want, though. A computer project could be anything from making a power point, to distributing thousands of PCs to the third world --Longing.... 12:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It sounds more like a student who is asking for a pre-made project with already written code and paper that can be slightly altered and turned in as his/her project assignment. -- Kainaw^(what?)

I really don't understand that. Why is this kid studying computer technology unless he wants to learn how to do it? This sort of cheating is the exact opposite of learning. And then when he gets a job, he'll be quickly fired as his incompetence becomes apparent. Better to skip the polytechnic and go straight to the burger flipping. It'll be better financially. 65.91.98.102 23:03, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

You would not believe the vast number of computer science students I've taught who blatantly told me that they want a degree in computer science, they don't want to learn to program. Apparently, they see programming as something completely different from computers. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Summer of code --Russoc4 00:17, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

to convert a pdf file to word/excel file

Is there any free software to to convert a pdf file to word/excel file? thank you for your help.124.43.245.95 12:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Generally speaking PDF is a "write-once" format — it is easy to convert Word/Excel into PDF, but going the other direction is hard. Converting something to a PDF is basically like printing it; once out of its original format it doesn't quite fit back in the same way.

That being said, if you google "PDF to Word Free" you'll find some options. All basically work by extracting the text and then trying (usually poorly) to replicate some semblance of the layout. Generally speaking it is not a whole lot better than if you copied-and-pasted the text from Adobe Reader into Word or Excel yourself. --24.147.86.187 13:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If the pdf will allow you to select text, you could try highlighting the entire document (maybe less one sentence...) and pasting it into a new word document. Crude and may not be all you want, but I have done this occasionally. -- SGBailey 20:14, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Further I have noticed that even in some PDFs if you do not have a "select all" or "copy" option in the edit meny, the keyboard shortcuts CTRL-A and CTRL-C still work. If the PDF has been 'flattened' there is no way to extract the text, short of printing it and scanning it using OCR. Vespine 01:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Safari Flash Problem

Does anybody know what I must do to fix my Flash plugin in Safari? One day, I went to YouTube and no video would load. I checked some other flash sites and I had no success with them either. I was using Safari 3 BETA. First I tried re-installing the flash plug-in and nothing changed. Next I decided to uninstall Safari 3 BETA and move back down to Safari 2.0.4 (419.3). Again, flash objects would not load. I tried re-installing the flash plug-in again with no success. It is interesting to note that other users on my computer have no problem with Safari, though it is the same application. I tried resetting Safari, deleting all of my settings for it and re-installing, but I had no success.

Any suggestions or solutions?

free graphics program

Which program can you recommend for designing relatively simple graphics (out of geographical forms etc.)? I'm usually using the Gimp, but it's not really meant to design in this way, and even Microsoft Word and Microsoft Powerpoint give an easier time drawing and moving circles, rectangulars, arcs of a circle, etc. and especially keeping those objects seperate, so that you can go back later and easily change their sizes, move them, etc. (I'm not saying it's not *possible* with the Gimp... I just can't believe there shouldn't be a software out there with which it's easier, i.e. less time-consuming.)

I'd appreciate all recommendations for free programs, currently esp. for "easy to learn" software, but generally also other stuff. Thanks a lot, Ibn Battuta 13:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC) PS: Photoshop doesn't seem to be able to do it either, or does it? I'm currently using a computer that has it, but I'm not familiar with the program; but if there should be a menue or stuff I've overlooked, I'd be interested in that, too.

Inkscape is good for drawing multiple objects. It is like adobe illustrator and is free. Try it. Very useful program [7]--64.40.88.131 13:47, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Google's SketchUp might be useful, too. --Mdwyer 14:17, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

If you are really just using circles, squares, and lines - are you making flowchart type things? If so, dia is a better tool because you can link the objects and they stay connected as you drag them around. -- Kainaw^(what?) 14:19, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for all tips! As I'm more thinking in the direction of things like this image, I'll try Inkscape, but I'll keep the other two suggestions in mind for future projects... One follow-up question: To get 3-D effects (esp. on round objects) - is there a particular "trick" or is it just skill using the ordinary features (colors, gradients, ...)? Thanks, Ibn Battuta 15:48, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Adobe Illustrator has some (not terribly useful) 3D rendering features; I don't know if Inkscape has anything similar. I usually manage faux-3D with gradients, blurs etc but if you're going to be focussing on 3D you might want to check out Blender. The hollow sphere image you linked to was almost certainly rendered in 3D. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 16:09, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Anim8or is a great 3d program for beginners. Inkscape is a 2d vector program so I don't think it will do 3d easily. Using both exported images from anim8or and inkscape would be good for what you want. Although I am not sure if inkscape can remove backgrounds to make it transparent for layering so you may need a image editing program to save it with a transparent background before opening it in inkscape.--64.40.88.131 16:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Automatic Computer Power On

Hello. After my aunt fixed and returned my computer, my PC automatically turns on at 8 PM (Eastern Standard Time) everyday. If I turn off the power supply to my computer for a few days (I use my comupter once in a few days) and then turn on the power supply and the computer, AwardBIOS appears on the startup. How can I avoid all this? --Mayfare 14:30, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It's possibly a bad Wake-on-LAN joke. Far more likely, however, you have your system set to turn on, such as for updates, at a set time every day. Check your system settings and see if it has a section on power management, check there first, that is the most likely place for this. After that, check your system update settings, and see if it has a selection to automatically start the computer at a certain time to update. --Longing.... 14:34, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. However, my Automatic Updates are set at the recommended setting to download and install them everyday at 3:00 AM (Eastern Standard Time). My PC does not turn on at that time. I am unsure of what you typed after checking when the updates are set at what time every day. --Mayfare 18:12, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to request more info about what is actually happening when you say your "PC turns on" (or doesn't). If the computer is not powered on, then it certainly can't be retrieving automatic updates at 3AM, or at any time for that matter. Also, when you refer to turning on the power supply, what exactly do you mean. To us computer geeks, the power supply is a component which sits inside the computer, and is not something you would turn on separately. To help us get to the same page here, the box that all the cables connect to we can call "the computer." The screen is the monitor. Can you give more details on what is happening?

Also, you would almost always notice the BIOS screen on any PC when it is first switched on, among other things, this gives you a chance to access the BIOS configuration screens before the operating system starts up. --LarryMac | Talk 18:31, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure one of my motherboards in the past had auto turn off and on at certain times.... This is in the BIOS and I don't think a program outside of the BIOS can do anything like this. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 20:44, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Programs outside the BIOS can do it quite easily. On Linux with ACPI, for instance, you can simply use /proc/acpi/alarm. --cesarb 23:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I meant power supply as my power bar. When my power bar is on and the time is 8 PM (Eastern Standard Time), both my Intel Pentium 4 computer tower and my LCD monitor turn on. My computer was bought on about 2003 or 2004. (I do not exactly remember.) --Mayfare 02:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

This page has PDF copies of manuals for several versions of the Award BIOS, along with instructions on how to determine which version you have. But maybe the easiest thing to do is ask your aunt what she did. --LarryMac | Talk 12:22, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

And did you check my original suggestion on power management settings? --Longing.... 12:56, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I deleted all scheduled tasks. Still, my computer turns on at 8 PM (Eastern Standard Time) everyday. --Mayfare 15:11, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Flash CS3 question

In Flash CS3, I have a situation where I need to have two instances of the same MovieClip with the same instance name next to each other, which I then set to a given frame number using gotoAndStop() in Actionscript.

Even normally this does not work perfectly. Despite being basically identical instances of the same movie, they often end up out of sync. This seems to happen even when I give them different instance names (which is not as desirable for my situation but if it is necessary I'd be happy to do it).

So that's the first problem. Why do they get out of sync? Even when I compare them in the Actionscript (are they are the same frame?) and they say, happily, "no, we're not." Then I try to put them at the same frame. But it doesn't reliably work, and I can't figure out what's going on here.

The next problem is when I make the layers above those two objects a masked layer. (Basically these layers are allowing me to do color shifting for something which is also shape tweening, independent of its tweening because the shape tweener is acting as a mask). Then all sorts of hell breaks loose; the instances are often null for no reason I can discern. After a second or two they stop being null. It is as if they aren't initializing correctly? I have no clue why they should be null there.

Any thoughts/suggestions? I'm really scratching my head here since logically what I'm doing ought to work but for some reason it isn't, and there isn't really any indication why it isn't working. --24.147.86.187 15:27, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

hardware

Can you please define the term Hardware in terms of computer science?

It's a long shot I know, but try hardware. Lanfear's Bane

If you really want to get wild and crazy, you can try computer hardware. That's only for professionals though. I wouldn't try it at home. -- Kainaw^(what?) 16:46, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Hardware is real stuff you can pick up. Software is information without physical form. (Yes I know you get software on a CD, but the CD is hardware and the information on the CD is software). -- SGBailey 20:10, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

And the stuff inside your skull is wetware ;) Vespine 00:48, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

And Duke Nukem Forever is vaporware. --Oskar 23:20, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

CAN bus

On the Controller Area Network bus, the article (& Bosch) say that the MS 7 identifier bits must not all be 1. Why? What happens if they are? -- SGBailey 20:08, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

It's to provide compatibility between 2.0A and 2.0B versions of the protocol. Presumably if you choose an identifier with all 7 bits on, you'll reduce compatibility. "Implementations should be liberal in what the accept and conservative in what they transmit", and all that. --TotoBaggins 03:51, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Page Traffic

I am not sure if this is a question appropriate for this Computer Reference Desk ... if not, please redirect me to the appropriate forum to ask this. Thanks. Is there any way on Wikipedia to see how much traffic any given article gets? Sometimes, on websites, you will see a counter that says "This page was visited 723 times" or so. Are there any indications on Wikipedia that tells us how often (or infrequently) a given article is accessed (moreso to be read, than to be edited -- since we can see all edits in the History log)? Ultimately, when I create an article, I would like to know if no one has ever read it ... or a million people have read it ... or whatever the case may be. How can I do that? Thanks. (JosephASpadaro 20:40, 31 July 2007 (UTC))

Not really. While the Mediawiki software does have a page-counter functionality, we keep it disabled for performance reasons. Anyway, there are several layers of cacheing between the software and visitors, so most of the pages are served straight from cache without there being any opportunity for counting. There are (but I can't remember where) some statistics somewhere, based on an analysis of the squid proxy logs. But these only count the 1000 or so most popular; frankly if your article isn't on List of sex positions then it won't make it to that cut. So, for the great majority of articles, there's no way of knowing. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:01, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I have access to a number of servers that are linked to from a few articles. The traffic coming from Wikipedia is not particularly high, indicating that 1. those particular articles are not viewed with great regularity, and/or 2. those links on the articles are not clicked with great regularity. That doesn't at all help you, but it would give one some sort of information if you had something like that. (And how, pray tell, do you come up with a good reason to have an external link in an article you made go to your website? The easiest way is to scan some sort of historical document—a source for your article, for example—that is not elsewhere on the internet and then link to it from Wikipedia. Just make sure the copyright is kosher enough for your own safety. I get absolutely nothing out of people coming to my server from Wikipedia; it is just a way to help out and also spy on the statisitics a bit.) --24.147.86.187 22:29, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

Wait ... so we can send a man to the moon ... but we can't count hits on Wikipedia pages?!?! Oy, vay ... (JosephASpadaro 23:43, 31 July 2007 (UTC))

It takes a lot less computing power to put a shitton of rocket fuel in a giant tube and hope for the best than it does to track millions of operations every minute. Technically, we could, and smaller wikis do, but it would be incredibly costly to us --Longing.... 00:08, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

But you don't need to track every page view, just a sample. Surely that would be cheap enough.

... and it is. Check this out. I never knew it existed until just now. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a way to query a specific page. -- BenRG 01:10, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Holy cow, is half our wikipopulation < 13 years of age or what? Harry potter dominates that list! --froth^t 13:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

To the best of my knowledge, the Wikimedia Foundation has not sent anyone, man or woman, to the moon. 69.95.50.15 13:28, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Touche! (JosephASpadaro 02:35, 3 August 2007 (UTC))

They've done better- I'd like to see a bunch of 1969 nasa engineers handle this many gbps (I forget the exact number) --froth^t 13:24, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

access from alternate locations

I have several pictures I uploaded to a site that I want now to delete. My access to the site, however, appears to be blocked from my home computer but a friend says that he can still access the site from his location and that my user name and password are working. Also the librarian tells me that she can access the site from the library. Is there a service that will allow me to access the web site indirectly from the service's location (like the services that allow me to do a traceroute indirectly from the service's location) instead of directly from my home since my friend does not have time to do maintainance for me until I can find out why I'm being blocked from my home? Clem 23:55, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure I understand you correctly, but it sounds like the site may be blocking you based on your IP address. You could try one of the anonymous proxy websites to try to bypass it. If you don't know what I'm talking about, Google that term, and you'll get heaps of links. --jjron 09:36, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

August 1

backup software and external hard drives

At work I have an Iomega external hard drive on my computer and I really like it because it came with some simple software so that everytime I modify a document file, it automatically saves a copy on the external drive as a backup. Now I want an external drive for backing up at home. Do many of these external drives come with software like what I have described above? If not, what are popular methods for automatic backing up of documents (not necessarily whole system). ike9898 01:26, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

It shouldn't be unusual to get some kind of software unless you are building your own external drive, i.e. buying a drive case and putting a hard disk in it. If you don't get software, and assuming you are running windows since you have not specified, "My Briefcase" is quite simple and basically does what you describe synchronising documents between more then one location. If you don't know how to get "My Briefcase" just google the term along with your version of windows and you'll find how to enable it. Vespine 01:46, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

The short answer: most external drives don't come with any software, but there are many, many backup software packages out there which can easily use whatever type of external drive you would be buying. Windows XP even comes with its own backup software, if that is what you are using. See this article for information on how to use it. --24.147.86.187 01:54, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks guys, ike9898 02:11, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I just recently bought a new Maxtor external hard drive (one of the mini 'One Touch' units, I think it was AU$129, so probably about US$100). I wasn't specifically seeking this out, but it came with some simple to use backup software that does exactly what you're suggesting. I've used a few Maxtor external hard drives over the last few years, and never had a problem with them, but this is the first time I've got one with this software. All seems good (and no, I have absolutely no association with Maxtor). --jjron 09:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Mozilla Thunderbird Signature Question

In Mozilla Thunderbird when a signature is attached, it automatically ads a '--' above. Is there any way to disable this feature?

--Grey1618 02:50, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the answer to your question, but note that the dash-dash-space-newline marker for signatures is an email and Usenet standard that's recognized by lots of software. It's used, for example, to avoid quoting the parent message's signature in the reply. So you will annoy some people if you leave it out, unless your signature is very simple. -- BenRG 03:06, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well we're a little past worrying about Usenet standards, I think. --24.147.86.187 09:43, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest consulting the support options listed at http://www.mozilla.com/support/. --Jeremyb 10:16, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Honor your interwebs history boy or you'll find that suddenly the internet doesn't work. Protocols and exacting standards are what make things work --froth^t 15:04, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Amen! TINLC! Fnord! Etc... --Mdwyer 21:56, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Imminent death of the net predicted! -- BenRG 13:08, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

ViaVoice v.10.

I have installed viavoice v.10 so it comes up when I start my computer. How do I persuade it NOT to come up? - Pharrar 10:39, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, the best approach is to see if it has anything on this in its preferences screen (because this will keep it from trying to re-insert itself into your startup sequence). Other than that, it depends on your operating system. Assuming you are using Windows XP, look for a link to the program in your Start Menu -> Programs -> Startup folder. If you don't see one, it is probably in the registry; if you aren't comfortable editing the registry, Spybot Search & Destroy, an anti-spyware program, includes a section that easily allows you to monitor what programs are set to launch upon booting your computer, and makes it easy to disable them. --24.147.86.187 12:02, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Saving Yahoo Emails to a Folder

I run a small business and currently store all my sent and received emails in various inboxes. There is now unlimited memory so potentially I could store a huge amount of emails, but the more I store, the slower the system and it's now almost impossible to search thru them properly. Is there any way (and a very easy way as I'm a total luddite) that I can save emails to my desktop? This means I can keep my inbox and online folders pretty clear but at the same time store all the relevant information I need. (I use a standard pc and windows)

Thanks

Mooji 217.34.49.3 11:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

You need POP access to your email so that you can use a desktop client such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Outlook Express to retrieve your mail. You can either pay Yahoo for "premium" email service, which allows POP access, or you can look into YPOPs!, which purports to do the same, for free. I would also look into getting your own domain for email, but that's just an opinion. --LarryMac | Talk 13:09, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe Yahoo Premium has a free trial period, so you could sign up, grab all your mail, and then cancel it. --TotoBaggins 15:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Firewall Help

I am working with a Fortigate F60, I was browsing manual that came with the hardware and it does not seem to state anywhere on how I can use both WAN connection side by side...to increase speed?

anyone have a vague idea at least on how to set this up properly..I already modified the policies to allow access to the WAN 2 the same way access to the WAN 1, but it doesn´t increase speed, I even brought the WAN 1 down and the WAN 2 does not kick in

Anyone know about Load Balancing or Fail Over?

This firewall is capable of both I´ve read

plz help thx in advance Roger @ IntraRed 16:01, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

What's the operating system? We have windows 2000 servers which require a 3rd party virtual LAN connection manager to do this, I'm not aware of a windows tool that does this. Vespine 05:07, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Using both lines together is very difficult to do. Load balancing is simply deciding which line the connection should be on based on the loads on both lines, and the request is still transmitted on one line only. You can increase the throughput with load balancing, but increasing speed by sending requests through both lines at the same time is very difficult to do. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:44, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Using SATA II drive on SATA I bus

The SATA entry isn't very clear on this matter. But can I use a newer SATA II (300) on a SATA I (150) bus? I of course realize it would be at SATA I speed. But I didn't know there were cabling or other issues that would make SATA II drives incompatible with SATA I connections. (I also assume that SATA I drives can be uses on SATA II buses at SATA I speeds.)

SATA drives often have a jumper that will throttle the speed of SATA II speed drives to be SATA I compatible.

SATA drives are designed to be backward and forward compatible, so you shouldn't have any problem either way. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:41, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

What is the best computer in the world called?

Want to know.

Define 'best'. TOP500 lists the most powerful computers, if that's what you mean. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 20:37, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I've always liked the Amiga... --Oskar 23:15, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Most definitely the Sony UX UMPC series. Except make them not sony and run linux. --Longing.... 23:41, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

Depends which world. Readers of a certain "trilogy" of five books might say Deep Thought - and not the one made by IBM.

-=# Amos E Wolfe ^talk #=- 23:53, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

I prefer the Googleplexstarthinker. --24.249.108.133 00:14, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Any real fan would know that Earth is the most powerful computer. Really... --Longing.... 01:01, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I overheard this guy getting interviewed in a coffee shop once, and he seemed to be arguing that he felt the universe itself could be regarded as a quantum computer. Personally I felt it was another case of metaphors-gone-wild (drinkin' too much, showin' their tops), but that's just me. --24.147.86.187 16:20, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well the main part of a computer is that it actually computes something. So yes, it's technically possible the entire universe is a computer, but it's far more likely the entire universe is a simulated reality inside a computer. --L-- 16:31, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, before quantum mechanics, everyone thought that the universe was just one big hunkin' Turing machine, even if they hadn't invented the terminology. Such metaphors are very useful for understanding reality. --Oskar 08:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The NeXT machines, of course.

August 2

trying to recall...

I seem to remember reading a very old (10+ years probably) proposed change to the linux kernel code.. it was an ingenius 1 or 2 character change that would allow an attacker to easily escalate priviliges to root. I think it was inside a conditional. Anyone know what I'm talking about / have a link? --froth^t 05:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

It was in 2003. The nature of the patch was that some code like:

  if (current_process->uid == 0)

was changed to:

  if (current_process->uid = 0)

, so that rather than testing to see if the user ID was zero (i.e., root), it was actually setting it to zero, thus giving that process full privileges. Here is a thread about it.

This is a weakness of the C language, as that's a very easy thing to miss, and programmers will routinely do the same thing by accident. Some programmers adopt the practice of putting the constant first in the comparison so that the compiler will flag any assignment attempts. --TotoBaggins 15:12, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Oh 2003 really? Well I'm pretty sure that's what I was looking for, thanks. Doesn't seem so ingenious anymore to be honest. You know what, I think the actual code invoved a lot of heavily nested parentheses and bitwise operators or something so the = sign was lost in all the symbols. --froth^t 17:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it was obscured and easily missed. There was a CVS to BitKeeper gateway machine that was broken into, and the change was made there, so I think the hope was that it would only get a cursory review. --TotoBaggins 18:06, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Printing Problems

I have a Dell inkjet printer, and despite a full cartridge fails to print blue. I ran the auto nozzle cleaning process a few times, and it still won't work. How can I fix it? Thanks a lot. -- Sturgeonman 13:53, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

The cartridge may happen to be broken.. Considering the fact you'll eventually need to buy another cartridge someday, I would recommend to buy a new one and see if that fix the problem. Other than that I would need more info to help you out like. Is it a new printer ? did the problem appear just after changing the cartridge ? When did the problem appear ? --PhoenixQc 18:38, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If the cartridge is okay then probably the print head is defective. The last time I priced a print head for both my old Canon inkjet and my dad's HP the cost of the head was almost as much as a new printer. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:22, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Ghosts

Are the ghost files remaining from the copying of my hard-drive necessary, or can I delete them without repercussions? Crisco 1492 17:13, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

If you are talking about Symantec Ghost .gho files, thoses are backup of hard drives or partitions used to restore content at the point of their creation, they are not needed for your system to work. Consider em as a save point of your data. If you dont need those anymore you can delete em safely. --PhoenixQc 18:33, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. You just cleared up 50 gb of useless memory LOL. I had never run into that file type before. Crisco 1492 23:45, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

I should point out that this limits the usability of Ghost somewhat :) You should really have a backup, in case your HD konks out. --Oskar 08:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

source to jar and losing path

the icons for my program are stored in images folder in source folder. the code is in source folder. when i build out of eclipse it works, but when i build a jar the icons cant be found by the progam, probably because the paths arent saved. how do i fix this; how do i make the images included in the jar?--65.222.152.28 17:58, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Did you mean this jar? If so, go to the "Archiving subdirectories" section. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 22:05, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft Office Communicator 2007

I see an awful lot of sources claiming it will come out Q2 2007, but the official page seems ambiguous. Has it been released? And how do they claim it comes with Office 2007 Enterprise if that was released last fall? --froth^t 19:00, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

August 3

Programming

I want to learn how to program. I already got some (very basic) basics down, but I really don't know much in effect. What language should I start with? How should I learn? I don't plan on taking classes too soon (well, why would I be asking then?). --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 00:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

A lot depends on what your goals are. Some might recommend Lisp, for example as the best language to start with. I think I might lean towards Ruby as a starting language, or perhaps Java. But really, it all depends on where you'd like to go with your programming. 65.91.98.102 00:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Python (programming language) Is also a widely recommended first language and my personal favourite. It is very easy to start with IDLE (Python). Vespine 02:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Personally (and this just from my own experience teaching myself and others) I think that you should start with a language that is designed with simplicity and ease of use in mind, while still being somewhat powerful. Your programs wont be very useful perhaps, but they will be fun as hell to do (if you're in to that kind of thing). Luckily, such a language exists, and it's called BASIC! I heartily recommend downloading the qBASIC environment if you can find it (I have fond memories of drawing mandelbrot sets in tiny resolutions in a DOS environment). After that, a c-style language would be good. Java is nice, because it gives you a solid introduction to object-orientation. But you really need something simpler so you can learn all about loops, if/then/elses, sub-routines and functions. --Oskar 08:08, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I would argue that, given the clear movement towards object orientation as the programming model of choice, it makes more sense to start with an OO language for most people who want to learn programming. 65.91.98.102 18:50, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Command Prompt

Hi! The schools in my state have recently tightened controls on their network and so now the trusty command prompt has been disabled. When it is opened up in the text display area it states that 'The Command Prompt has been disabled by your administrator'. Does anyone know of how I could gain use of it? ThanksMix Lord 01:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Why do you want to use it? Unless you want to run command prompt apps or some network tasks, you can pretty much do everything else through the GUI (some tasks are far more difficult, but at least you get it done). Besides, it's blocked for a reason. Anyways, try copying cmd.exe from your home PC and try transferring it to the school PC, or simply try running it from 'Run'. (Very) low chance these will work, but trying always helps. Really, you're best off either trying to login as admin or not attempting to use it at all. --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 02:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

If it is disabled by network policy you won't be able to run it, unless you get elevated rights on your user ID. Vespine 02:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Someone seems to have also disabled the run function on the computers as well, so I guess I'll just have to give up. Thanks anyway.  :(

Mix Lord 06:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Try a shortcut to cmd.

Cool. How do you do that?

My technique is to launch command.com via Internet Explorer or Microsoft Word web bar. Splintercellguy 07:53, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Create a shortcut to somewhere you can write (like your documents, if you're permitted to save to the machine), and have the target as cmd.exe. The above suggestion has also worked for me in the past.

It wouldn't work. If the command prompt is disabled using network policies then no matter how you run it (it is apperent that the OP has access to cmd.exe in order for him to run it and see the message anyway). command.com might work, but there's not definite answer since we don't know the policies. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I have tried this on a system that barred the execution of cmd.exe in the same manner as the OP, though his system might differ. Splintercellguy 16:54, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I was referring to the shortcut method. command.com worked for me is well for some, but some others doesn't even have command.com in system32 so that's a no-no. Haven't tried using an external copy though... --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:18, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, if the command prompt is disabled using network policies. But that may not have been the case!

Does anyone know of a valid security-related reason for taking this approach? I'm no expert on Windows, but its command prompt is and has always been pretty wimpy, and I don't know of much you can do with it that you can't do via the GUI, and certainly nothing dangerous or security-impairing. (What disabling the command prompt is impairing to, of course, is productivity, because as User:Member correctly notes, some operations are terribly cumbersome via a GUI. To a power user, being without a CLI isn't merely inconvenient, it's devastating.) —Steve Summit (talk) 00:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

As long as the user doesn't have admin they can't really do anything damaging with DOS. It just soothes the savage admin's ego. --froth^t 02:51, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Bittorrent trackers

I have some material which I would like to make available using bittorrent. There are no copyright problems, and I would like to place the tracker on a server which has a high likelihood of remaining online for a while, and whose reputation is not too badly tainted. I read the article Bittorrent tracker, but it is not clear to me which of the sites listed that is best suited. I would be grateful for reccomendations. --Divulgación de ciencia 09:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I seriously doubt that there is such a thing. It would be impossible a tracker to ensure that all the content shared is be legal if they are open to the public. If you don't want to host the tracker yourself, I'm afraid that the regular open trackers are what you are stuck with. I would just go with the pirate bay tracker ( http://open.tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce ), it will certainly remain online for quite some time. Remember that you are not doing anything illegal, so don't feel guilty :) --Oskar 09:27, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. How do I go about to host my tracker myself? Is this a functionality which is included in bittorrent clients, or do I need a web-server or what? --Divulgación de ciencia 12:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

What does it matter if its "reputation is tainted?" Those are the ones that people use, and if you don't want to be seeding for the rest of your life you need other people around to seed. To get other people to download your torrent you'll have to list in on an index or search engine... the most popular ones are ones operated by a bittorrent tracker! So you might as well just let your torrent be tracked by the same site you submit it to be indexed. I'd recommend using thepiratebay and demonoid (if you have an accout there) and setting up your torrent file to use multiple trackers. That way you get maximum exposure and maximum reliability in the unlikely event that either of them goes down permanently. Also you can try making a trackerless torrent with utorrent or the original client (NOT azureus) but the bittorrent dht network isn't exactly the most efficient way of finding peers and most bittorrent searches don't accept decentralized torrents. You can track it yourself too if you want but for a single torrent file that's definitely overkill, it's provided as a free service by the big trackers (and their servers are much better than anything you could afford) --froth^t 13:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that there are tons of legitimate torrents on sites like thepiratebay, don't feel uncomfortable about using a "warez site" to distribute your legitimate wares. --froth^t 13:26, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

utorrent has a builtin tracker. Tracker can be enabled at options/preferences/advanced/bt.enable_tracker. (this must be set to true) If enabled, it has announce url of http://client_ip:port/announce, where client_ip is ip address of computer running utorrent, and port is incoming connections port (usually random assigned during startup, but can (and in this case must) be set constant). IP adress must be static (or tracker will not be available) (can use dynamic dns). utorrent computer does not requires .torrent file, it is tracking. This method is fairly unpopular, partially because of requirement of static ip and port. Using this method, there will be necessary seperate mechanism of .torrent files distribution. -Yyy 14:39, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

you may be able to get it indexed by certain trackers that allow "external" torrents. Also remember to check if your computer is reachable from the outside- forward the proper ports on your router. And like yyy said, use dyndns --froth^t 16:22, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Thank you all for your advice! --Divulgación de ciencia 20:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Pentium D and Pentium Dual Core Difference

What's the difference between pentium D and Pentium Dual-core processor???

This is an encyclopedia. You could check the article Pentium D and quickly see that the Pentium D is one type of Pentium dual-core processor. -- Kainaw^(what?) 12:32, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

802.11, wi-fi, etc. Data link layer

Is here any article, which would contain data about 802.11 data link layer? It differs from ethernet data link layer. There are multiple articles about physical layer. -Yyy 14:43, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Archos 604

According to our article on Archos, the Archos 604 and 704 video players come complete with Wifi. What exactly does a portable video player do with wifi?--172.146.223.125 14:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

According to previously mentioned article, it uses it for: web browser; access to local network, to transfer and files (media files)(or play directly from network) . -Yyy 15:05, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

iTunes video syncing problem

I just recently got a new iPod, and as I started syncing my videos, I came across some videos that were in the correct format (proof), would play in iTunes, but were not allowed to be copied to the iPod (proof). What is wrong and what can I do to fix it? —Akrabbim^talk 15:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I believe Apple has a fix for this on their website for vista users.

Their fix is for iPod hard drive corruption. The problem here is in the file I believe. Anybody else know what to do? —Akrabbim^talk 21:09, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Norton AntiVirus 2007 Addition Error

Hello. When my Full System Scan finishes, I click on the plus sign beside "Total items scanned", giving me information on how many files were scanned of each type. Today, Norton AntiVirus shows me the following:

  Total items scanned: 301823
  - Files & Directories: 298903
  - Registry Entries: 157
  - Processes & Start-up Items: 2547
  - Network & Browser Items: 206
  - Other: 5

If you do the math, the sum of the files scanned (Files & Directories, Registry Entries, Processes & Start-up Items, Network & Browser Items, and Other) is five less than what Norton AntiVirus claims. So I export the results. I open the notepad file that has my exported results, finding that the "Total items scanned" is correct. Here is what the Notepad says:

  Total items scanned: 301818
  - Files & Directories: 298903
  - Registry Entries: 157
  - Processes & Start-up Items: 2547
  - Network & Browser Items: 206
  - Other: 5

How can I fix this problem? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 16:13, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Stop using money-expensive, memory-expensive, badly-designed bloatware that can't even compute its results properly after being in active development for more than a decade. Why do you care about a 5 result discrepancy anyway? --froth^t 16:18, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I was wondering if the 5 result discrepancy would harm my computer. --Mayfare 16:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I noticed that there is actually 5 category, If you ever programmed, you'll know that difference of +1 and -1 are frequent when you write code because of indexes, maybe there was some error in the program interface that count one more item per category. The count in the text file is probably the good one as it was created using the variables and not what was displayed. --PhoenixQc 17:02, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I suspect it may be quite simple: that in the first case the program is mistakenly adding the "Other" category twice. --Tardis 21:14, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

vista start menu

Anyone know of any way to automatically go to All Programs when I hit the "start orb"? My frequently used programs and pins are all there in All Programs and I always hit it whether the program I'm looking for is frequently used / pinned or not. --froth^t 16:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Stop using money-expensive, memory-expensive, badly-designed OS that can't even work properly after being in active development for more than a decade. Why do you care about 1 more click anyway? --PhoenixQc 17:17, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

PS. I hope you like those helpful answer.

I for one like vista. It's memory expensive, money expensive and I'll even concede that it's badly designed, but it's much more functional than any other OS I've used (os x, xp, a dozen linux distros) as far as day to day work goes. For programming I wouldn't dream of working in anything but linux but for day to day operations KDE is ugly, sloppy, inconsistent, and provides an incomplete interface to the OS- far too many system-critical settings still rely upon configuration files scattered about the filesystem. Exact same for gnome, but it's paralyzed by minimalism so for even the most basic tasks it's more efficient to use the command line. OS X is just annoying in every way- you can't tell which programs are open, the graphical API is maddeningly inconsistent, there's virtually no program support compared to the staggering amount of code written for windows and linux. Windows (especially vista) is pretty and painstakingly consistent with its graphical API. It has its endless idiosyncrocies but after using it as my main OS for my whole life it's been mastered, and with my knowledge I'm more efficient with most tasks than anything but the most hardened bash jockey. Command line switches and file type handlers can perform spectacular stunts, and basically every stupid DRM or licensing restriction on vista has been cracked, so it's functionally (not legally I suppose) similar to free software. And I care about 1 more click because I have to click with no purpose an additional time every time I want to open a program, it's inefficient! --froth^t 00:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

One of my clients had a problem in Windows XP that may be what you want. She had a weird icon in her quick-launch bar. When she clicked on it, it opened up the "All Programs" dialog. I deleted it because she thought it was weird. I believe she clicked on "Start" then drug the "All Programs" entry to the quick start bar. This made a shortcut icon on the quick start bar to launch the "All Programs" window. If that works in Vista, you'll have two buttons (Start and the new icon). Clicking the new icon will take you right to the programs menu you want. Of course, I can't test it. I haven't had Windows on any of my computers since 1998. -- Kainaw^(what?) 17:44, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Nope, it doesn't work in vista. --froth^t 00:32, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

You might consider using a keyboard macro program like AutoHotkey to make various unused Win+letter combinations launch your most commonly used applications. It's much faster than opening the Start menu, even if it did go straight to All Programs. -- BenRG 21:30, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Moving to object-orientated languages from GWBASIC

Yes, I know its old, but the only computer language I am fluent in is GWBASIC. I dont know anything about object orientation, its a rather alien concept to me. So what would be the easiest way to learn it? Are there for example any toy educational languages I could play with for a while? (There is a page listing these somewhere in Wikipedia). People keep recommending Python - although this may not be entirely OO - , that would be the next language I would like to learn. However I can only snatch ten minutes every day or two to spend on learning it. Thanks 80.2.221.69 19:24, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

I learnt OO using Smalltalk - and found it very easy to pick up the concepts. --Worm 22:40, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you learn some OO concepts from a book or some online texts first? OO is not solely about programming, but how you structure your code and how you model relationships.

CDDL / GPL license question

Hi, I am developing a software under the GPL, and I wish to use a library that is licensed under the Common Development and Distribution License.

1. Can I do this?
2. Can I distribute the CDDL library with my software?

I am confused by a statement here that says "a module covered by the GPL and a module covered by the CDDL cannot legally be linked together."

Thank you very much. --131.215.159.28 20:58, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that the GPL is "viral": Anything linked to GPL'd software is required to be GPL'd. Since the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL, you can't use the CDDL library. A lot of people mindlessly apply the GPL to their software, not considering the consequences of doing so. If this is your own program, and you wish to use the CDDL library, your options are to have it in a separate executable and use inter-process communication of some sort to access the functions of that library, or release your software under a less restrictive license than the GPL. Donald Hosek 22:41, 3 August 2007 (UTC)

August 4

Passing variables to a Flash movie at runtime

Hi, for my Javascript-based (not AJAX) webapp, I need to pass parameters to a Flash movie after the movie has loaded. I tried flashVars, but the variables can not be changed, as they are read as the movie is loading, and never afterwards. I do not have access to PHP/ASP/other server side language, as this webapp is not exactly webapp(does not access the web, deployed on CD).

Thanks... --125.238.81.215 01:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

PC buy guide

Hey guys, I would like to buy a good end computer without graphics card currently..Budget is not a deal.Can anyone put me the bottomline and the configurations for that?..I would play more games, so kindly can you get me the current configuration...?.Thanks in advance

Shell?

I've heard the program Windowblinds being referred to as a shell. Is this correct? BeefJeaunt 12:37, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

The DOS DIR command

How do I force DIR to display a file's time to the seconds? Instead of:

06/11/2007  10:38         3,595,275 IMG_2193.JPG
06/11/2007  10:39         3,600,951 IMG_2194.JPG

I want:

06/11/2007  10:38:33       3,595,275 IMG_2193.JPG
06/11/2007  10:39:25       3,600,951 IMG_2194.JPG

-- Toytoy 12:47, 4 August 2007 (UTC)