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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You could probably do it using Greasemonkey, if you can do it with JS.

If you can do it with remotely loaded JS on sites you have control over, and you're after having it on Wikipedia, then you might be able to do it using MediaWiki's user JS support as well - see meta:Help:User_style#JavaScript or Wikipedia:WikiProject User scripts for some starting points to how that works. - IMSoP (talk) 21:13, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's my CSS:

body {
	background-color: black;
}

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

And here's my HTML:

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

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

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

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

Did you try explicitly doing

#content { background-color: transparent; }

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

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

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

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

By the way, anyone read this? Kushal 22:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

good article. the thing is, as observed before, most folks don't buy a computer for the hardware, that's just to run the OS; and they don't buy it for the OS, that's just to run the apps; and nowadays they don't buy it for the browser app, that's just to see the webpage. so, if somebody's crappy buggy myspace page breaks the perfectly functional browser in the perfectly functional OS on the perfectly functional hardware, they'll still take it back. Gzuckier (talk) 19:31, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

Back in the windows computer, all I get is a question mark like "?" Kushal 22:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Of course, when most companies do have a data spill, they just cover it up and deny, unless they are publicly exposed. They're not stupid.Gzuckier (talk) 19:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

BitComet is banned on any good tracker because it sucks bandwidth, lies about ratios, and maximizes its own download speeds at the expense of the rest of the swarm :D\=< (talk) 03:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I remember a certain tracker (that used to be named EasyTree) saying they would ban clients for which such hacks were known to exist. I haven't followed this controversy, but would be surprised this has not happened yet. (And, since it came up, BitComet, BitLord, and whatever uses that code base, should be hacked to erase user client drives. Hopefully someone will get on that right away.) / edg ☺ ☭ 03:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What if you customized BitComet so that it says it is utorrent but it is actually BitComet? I mean, in the same way that Firefox and Opera used to say that they are IE. Is that possible? Kushal 00:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Yes. Windows live is on a new computer - no prompt..87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You need to locate the specific files on the old computer (if after reading this, you still don't know how AND are unable to Google how, please leave a note here).

If you backed up your emails regularly, I think you can just use the latest back up file you have.

then copy them to the new computer. point Windows live mail or Mozilla Thunderbird to the file by selecting 'import' (may be labeled differently).

or you can go to this website Background sound says, "Say thank you to Google, Kushal!" :P and give that a try.

and by the way, it is a good habit to back up your emails. Maybe you would yearn for the good old days of spam and bac'n one day when the world gets rid of the spam problem. (just kidding) Kushal 22:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

best method, if you can wait a few months; go to the nearest law school and post a notice before graduation. lots of law students are graduating to fancy well paying jobs and aren't interested in moving their old stuff. friends of mine have retrieved things like brand new HP inkjets in the sealed box, never opened, from the trash outside the law school after graduation, so there's a good chance somebody wouldn't mind selling their equipment to you rather than shlep it across country.Gzuckier (talk) 19:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

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

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

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

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

Imagine I have the following HTML:

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

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

• Item 1 • Item 2 • Item 3 • Item 4 •

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

Put this style on the ul:

white-space: nowrap;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You want substr(). Try

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If the internet can get directly to your computer on the windows messenger port, then you have much bigger problems.. buy a router :D\=< (talk) 21:04, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

After fixing this problem about 18 times for family/friends using elderly machines still on dial-up, it's kind of a Pavlovian response for me! --Kateshortforbob 00:07, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The messenger service is disabled by default on XP SP2. If he's still operating pre-SP2 XP, *and* he doesn't have a router/firewall so messages can get through, he does have pretty serious problems. I'd kind of doubt that's it nowadays though, because of SP2. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hold on, I understand that we need to ask the OP if he has SP2. However, the way I see it, the message could just be a banner ad on myspace or something. Kushal 22:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that sounds like a more likely explanation. It's also possible that he is infected with spyware; a common tactic for spyware is to redirect users to or a pop up a windows saying something along the lines of: "Your computer is infected; pay us $49.99 for SuperAntiSpywarePlusPlus and we'll get rid of it, guaranteed!". I have actually spoken to someone who bought into one of these scams. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I do accept that having SP2 will help a lot. Kushal 13:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

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

I had the same problem with my cellphone charger. Moisture and dust are not good for cable connectors. I think I took my cellphone too many times into the bathroom. I cleaned the metal connectors with a toothpick (!) and hey presto it seems to work fine now. Sandman30s (talk) 12:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have an S3 IS too, though I've never had an issue like this. They are just standard 'mini-USB' cables, and nothing too proprietary, so they're easy to replace if need be, or if you've got any from other devices laying around. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

Great idea, but I've never seen one. You might want to ask at the Miscellaneous desk for greater exposure. :D\=< (talk) 21:05, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can Sketchcast[2] or another thing I can't think of that lets you simultaneously have two people draw online for free. Mac Davis (talk) 00:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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

I've been setting up this little menu:

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

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

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

Here's the CSS:

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.selected {
        color: white;
}

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

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

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

(after e.c.)Adding

#menus .selected a
{
	color: black;
}

worked when I tried your code. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 21:14, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

God, that's sooo simple and yet it works. Sigh. Thank you both! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:35, 22 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a small side note, I sometimes find setting the color of a elements to color: inherit is handy for this sort of thing. Also, if you're not already using it, Firebug is really good at sorting out CSS problems. Just my 2 cents. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:40, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well that would make it always black.. and you know you're setting both all links and everything with the class "selected" to be black.. I think you're trying to do a.selected :D\=< (talk) 03:16, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Uh... no I'm not. It's a contextual selector so I'm targeting the last child of a hierarchy, not those elements individually, and the class is on li, not a. I'm talking about the original code, not yours, by the way. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 12:11, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What kind of keyboards do world record typists use ( I think I read dvorak ) and how do chorded keyboards compare in speed? What speed can the top 5% fastest typists hope to achieve in each of the three?

Secondly, is there an international dvorak keyboard, for e.g. french accents or a german version thank you!!!!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.122.61.150 (talk • contribs)

Further information: Keyboard (computing)

This study, which I presume only tested QWERTY typing, rates the top 5% as capable of 70wpm. I found this using Google Scholar; perhaps further down they includes a study directly comparing QWERTY with another keyboard.

"Barbara Blackburn, the world's fastest typist" (as linked from the Dvorak article) is a Dvorak user; that link (to what appears to be a Dvorak advocacy site) sources the 1985 Guinness Book of World Records, so later keyboard schemes (like the Colemak) weren't in the running when that record was set.

The Dvorak article also mentions non-english configurations, including French and German. It also says these keyboards leave the Roman characters in the same position as the English, which may be not optimized for other languages. (A note from a Norwegian user complains that version has issues.) No standard "international" version is mentioned.

Colemak's pool of users is very small, perhaps only a couple thousand, but speeds are said to be similar to Dvorak or QWERTY. A thread on Colemak forum laments the lack of studies.

According to the article Words per minute, Stephen Hawking peaked at 15wpm. I have tested at 65wpm; however, it took me several seconds to type QWERTY each time above, and again just now. Weird.

The variety of schemes for chorded keyboards, and their uncommonness, makes it hard to find comparative speed studies. Steno typists routinely exceed 200wpm, albeit in an abbreviated, not generally intelligible style that omits much detail. Chorded keyboards (especially if one-handed) are usually much slower because requiring multiple fingers for each character makes it difficult to type short strings of characters in quick combination, a common muscle memory optimization learned in regular (non-chordal) typing; however, many chording schemes support programmable macros for frequently-typed words, which speeds things up a bit. (Macros are also possible on non-chording keyboards.) Few comparative studies seem to exist for chording keyboards; "wearable" computer guru Thad Starner publishes some anecdotal-looking figures here. I have not heard of chording keyboards designed to be faster than QWERTY or Dvorak typing. / edg ☺ ☭ 01:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

thank you!!! Very useful answers :) I wonder how much of stenographers' speed isn't JUST the abbreviations. For example, have any of them who are typists too just tried typing on QWERTY using their abbreviated style?

I made a few changes to the above before I realized it had been replied to. My guess on steno methods in touch typing: theoretically there should be an improvement, but I wouldn't count on steno skills being routinely leveraged to enhance touch typing speed. Typing fluently relies heavily on muscle memory, and I doubt steno methods translate automatically to touch; the mind knows the abbreviations, but the tendons are ignorant.

It was fun reading up on this stuff. Now I want to learn Colemak. / edg ☺ ☭ 05:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I tried until it gave me a headache o_o :D\=< (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe Dvorak keyboard was developed just to overcome the hammer jamming problem on mechanical typewriters. Since mechanical typewriters are not used any more, Dworak keyboard is no better than QWERTY keyboard. And Dworak keyboard was improvement only with some languages. With some other languages, it might have been worse. -- PauliKL (talk) 01:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No, the opposite is true. QWERTY was developed because of typwriters jamming. Dvorak then came about because of the inefficiency of the QWERTY keyboard. --Voyaging ^(talk) 01:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, I used to be a semi-nerd on this stuff back when "word processor" meant IBM Selectric and 1) all the serious contenders for typing speed used Dvorak because 2) Dvorak is designed so as much as possible can be typed without ever moving your fingers from the home keys. (added two seconds later: would this mean that Dvorak would not be optimal for other languages then, with different letter frequencies?) Gzuckier (talk) 19:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. What is the difference between the Wikipedia (English) and Wikipedia (en) search providers in Internet Explorer 7? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 00:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They are probably just made by different people. Mac Davis (talk) 00:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm looking for a free audio output pitch shifter for Windows or Mac OS X which can shift the pitch of the output audio just like the one used by Realtek. Funny Voice doesn't work so well because if I select Stereo Mix, the speaker output becomes the input and a feedback occurs. The other software that turned up are shareware. Do you know any free program that can do the above? --KLLvr283 (talk) 06:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When producing tracks with a lot of digital sythesizers, and trying for a strong bass kick, I often notice a quiet high-pitched whine that accompanies the low-frequency waves, and I've begun noticing the whine present in proper commercial tracks as well (here is an old track from the orb and you can hear the high-pitched whine really clearly). It seems to be most noticeable on warmer, deeper, more pure sounding kicks, as opposed to rough or fat ones. What is this whine? Do all synthesizers produce this wine? Can it be avoided?? And why is it so prominent even in commercial music... do people not really not notice it? Thanks.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  08:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't really notice it (on the computer speakers..)

First of all you say it accompinanies the base - you mean the beat (thud,thud) all the way through or some particular low frequency bit eg 1.58s in etc

Secondly yes - I'm familiar with this song and seem to remember that when player on a better system it contained a lot of whine - almost like interference noise like when you de tune very slightly a FM radio in addition to all the birdy clicks and whistles.

Q. Is it possible that the noise (whine) is simply electronic noise , and unintentional, - note it would only be audible on low frequency notes because it would be drowned out when synthesising high frequency notes?87.102.16.238 (talk) 10:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You might not be able to tell with little computer speakers that don't pick up quiet frequencies, but I can hear it alright on my laptop. I know what I'm looking for though, and that might be a factor. It accompanies the "thudding" yes, the kick. It doesn't seem to be anything to do with the deepness of the note, rather the amount of punch of the note, hence it doesn't come up anywhere else. It very well could be some kind of "electronic noise", and that's what I assume it is. It's nothing to do with the song really; as long as you can hear the kick clearly (this gave me an idea: NIN - closer has a really clear kick, and I can hear the whiney thing even clearer on that track). I'm starting to wonder if it's some kind of feedback from the speaker coils; I don't have any large speakers to test it on, but I get the same effect when listening on my laptop, with my cheap earbuds, and with my sony monitor headphones that I use for recording. It would make sense because the thud of the kick might cause some excess vibration in the speakers, but what doesn't make sense is that it doesn't seem to matter what volume level you use, and I can actually hear the whine more on my cheap buds, although it's just as obvious with my high quality headphones. One last note is that I can still hear the sound when creating kicks with high quality instruments like Sylenth, so I don't think it has anything to do with audio encoding. Hmm...  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  11:17, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

ok I don't think I can hear it on that - second thud is more buzzy eg (thud, bzthud, repeat) - Maybe I'm too old to hear it (is it very high pitched). I recognise the sort of thing you're talking about - but can't hear it right now.)87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you can find a similar sound here http://www.synthmania.com/Famous%20Sounds.htm 87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well the closest would obviously be the 808 drum kick, but the sample on that site doesn't produce the whine for some reason; I don't think it's quite as sharp enough. Funny thing is, on Youtube again there's a video of a guy with his TR-808 and it's really noticeable on the kicks (link) but now it's starting to sound like it's the compression on Youtube that is causing it, but that wouldn't explain why I can get it on my computer from the instruments directly. It's pretty high, and I thought to myself if it would become invisible with age but I don't think it's quite that high (it's kind of hard to tell), and I'm 25 anyways so there shouldn't be that much of a difference. No big deal I guess, just when I'm trying to get really low sine-wave style bass lines (think of old jungle/dnb) it can take up nearly as much audible space as the bass itself and it bugs me. I'll have to try it out on some full-size speakers to see if it doesn't just disappear.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  12:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My hearing may have gone, all I can hear is a 'breathy' sound following the 'hits'. Wait for someone a bit younger and less deaf to answer..87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:21, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i cant check on this yet until I get home, but is it possible it's just your PC? Something to do with the D to A hardware? Gzuckier (talk) 19:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You know what... I knew I had a crappy sound card but for some reason I never thought that it might be the cause of the weird sounds. I've just installed new drivers (Realtek, btw), and the whining is gone! It was so easy... thanks a lot! Sorry for making everyone strain their ears and stuff : (!!!  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  06:10, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm doing a problem in C http://projecteuler.net/index.php?section=problems&id=56 Do I have a problem with this line:

seperate_and_add_digits( Digit[][100],100,100);

I'm getting a syntax error:']'

seperate_and_add_digits is a function with prototype:

seperate_and_add_digits(long double digits[][100],int rows,int columns);

What do you think you're doing with that syntax? You can never have an empty pair of brackets in regular statement like that. In the prototype, they're declaring a pointer. (C function parameters are never actually arrays. The digits parameter is a pointer to an array of 100 long doubles.) Making up syntax that doesn't exist is a sign that you've probably got major conceptual problems that can't be solved by looking at a couple of lines in isolation. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wanted to initiate a function that takes a two dimensional array, rows and columns as parameters88.203.106.28 (talk) 10:04, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You can't initialize a variable while calling a function - put the two on separate lines:

long double Digit[][100];
seperate_and_add_digits(Digit, 100, 100);

It's generally a good idea to use a #define to declare the size of an array - this makes it much, much easier if you want to change the size of the array. I generally avoid data[] too, preferring to explicitly say the size of the array (eg data[100]):

#DEFINE SIZE_WHATEVER 100
void foo( long double data[SIZE_WHATEVER][SIZE_WHATEVER] ) { /* ... */ }
void main() {
   long double data[SIZE_WHATEVER][SIZE_WHATEVER];
   foo( data );
}

--h2g2bob (talk) 13:49, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know I can use WHOIS to find out the registrant of a domain name, but is there a way of then finding out all other domain names registered by that individual? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 10:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like Reverse telephone directory. I don't know if it is possible. I hope someone comes to answer this question. Kushal 01:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Can someone recommend a great site for the latest computer tech news. I don't want somewhere that mostly covers the latest intel/amd cpus and ati/nvidia graphics cards - more something that covers all 'computer tech' - processors (of all types), manufacturing processes and research, maybe other science related stuff. No 'linux'/'windows'/'apple' biased sites please. Not slashdot.. something sensible.

Any ideas?87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:38, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

slashdot :D:D or Ars Technica :D\=< (talk) 13:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Most news sites have a tech section: Guardian Times BBC. --h2g2bob (talk) 13:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I Don't rely on BBC/Guardian/Times etc - find they get stuff just wrong too often.

Arstechnica is ok, I suppose, anything like that - but better, more complicated, and more exciting?87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:02, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ars is the professional journalism face of tech news. If you're willing to sacrifice professionalism and accuracy for something that moves faster, just read slashdot.. :D\=< (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion is part of the appeal of Slashdot too; 100 comments for a story is on the lower end, though it's just about unheard of for other news sites. How much of the appeal it is depends on how much you enjoy trolling, wild guesses and speculation from people who don't read the article, and half the comments being about how Slashdot and its users/editors/moderation system are broken. :D -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 19:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We should have a moderation system here. If only those slashdotters could stay vaguely on topic, and too many shills there as well...

What about process and microarchitectural improvements, lithography, and more general electronic news (eg high frequency amplifiers etc) as well ... etc ... I find 'ars' to be quite PC centric - something a bit more 'physickey' any one know a good one.87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wired (magazine) had an article called Mother Earth Motherboard, which was very good. Kushal 03:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in the wrong country for that - though I'll read it if it's online? (link?)87.102.16.238 (talk) 11:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Scrub that - found it - please no more jetsetting cyber tourists please.87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yes! it is available online. I read it online. The full 56 pages of information and excitement is in this printable html copy here.

Another venue would be New York Times at [3] Cheers,

Kushal 12:59, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

Hello! I'm doing problem 16 from Project Euler, and I wanted to know if it was possible to store the precise value of ${\displaystyle 2^{1000}}$ in any of Visual Basic 2005 data types. I wrote a program for that question that divides ${\displaystyle 2^{1000}}$ (stored as double) by ${\displaystyle 10^{302}}$ (because there seem to be 302 digits in that number) truncates the integer value, and then subtracts the result*${\displaystyle 10^{302}}$ from ${\displaystyle 2^{1000}}$. I made it a loop so that the power of 10 decreases each time the loop is run. Anyway, I keep getting the wrong result for the sum of the digits of ${\displaystyle 2^{1000}}$ (to be exact, 1353). I read on the internet that double does not store the precise value, and I realized that was the reason I keep getting the wrong answer. Any suggestions on this?  ARTYOM  12:56, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

2^1000 is going to need 1000bits to store it to integer accuracy, a double is probably only 64 bits...

Two options here - write your own arithmatic programs (use strings or something to store the data)

Or - get a language that supports any length integer (or very long integers) - python can do this, most likely many others, Someone else can advise you better on this subject.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Visual Basic doesn't seem to have what you want see http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/47zceaw7(VS.80).aspx maybe you can make a user defined data type or use string as a binary representation.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ask if you want advise on how to use a string to store a binary number.87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, that would be helpful. Please explain if you have time!  ARTYOM  15:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I once wrote VB4 functions to do calculations on arbitrarily long numbers represented as strings. They were written a bit naively but they get the job done. They should work on VB8 as well, and I can copy the code if you want.

Alternatively, if all you want is this particular problem, you can implement it rather easily. It's simple to add two integers represented as strings. So you can start with 1 and add the number to itself 1000 times. Then you just go over the string and add the digits. The result should be 1366. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 14:35, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I tried to store the number as a string, but VB converts it to string in scientific notation. So far I couldn't make the string display the number itself rather than the *helpless* 1.07150860718626E+301. The answer you gave is correct, though, I would appreciate it if you could explain how you figured it :)  ARTYOM  15:48, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well if you're just going to use a string, then you can just do the math out long, the same way you would on paper. That way you'd have many intermediate results and it won't give you scientific notation. It's probably the slowest possible solution, and it might take a few seconds to calculate 2^1000, but it will work and it's easy to program.  freshofftheufoΓΛĿЌ  16:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

[ec] I used Mathematica. We didn't mean that you let VB calculate the power in floating point and then convert it to a string, but rather that you do the entire calculation from the ground up using strings. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 16:12, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

HINT first you would need to write a function that adds two strings eg function_addstring(a$,b$) result=c$ (or whatever the equivalent VB syntax) is

So if a$="123" and b$="901" you will be adding 1+3, 2+0, and 9+1

Don't forget to included any carries eg 9+1=0 carry 1

It might help if you use fixed length strings (for simplicity) eg 2^1000 ~ 1000^100 ~ 10^300 so more than 300 digits should do. Therefor use "0000" + about 300 zeros +"002" for two.

Once you've got an 'add function' you can construct a multiply function from the add functions.

eg "1234" x "78" = 0 + "1234" (eight times) + "12340" (seven times)

Remember that multiply times 10 means shift the string one step left and add a zero "0" at the right hand side.

Then starting with 2 just multply by 2 ninehundred and ninety nine times. and sum the digits87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Did that make sense?87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:37, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(To go the whole hog you'd represent binary numbers using an array of booleans eg using true =1 false =0 so that eg an array of ten booleans would mean "0000000010" (binary) - of course you'd need an array of size 1000+ DONT go down this route here it's not neccessary and complicates the decimal sum at the end)87.102.16.238 (talk) 16:43, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! I made it finally! I'll paste the code of the string here; it's unoptimized, though :)

Dim i, j, m As Short, two1000, endstr As String, p As Byte, sum As Integer
two1000 = "000...01" '302 characters
For i = 1 To 1000
    For j = 1 To 302
        m = CInt(two1000.Substring(302 - j, 1))
        endstr = two1000.Substring(303 - j, j - 1)
        If m < 5 Then
            two1000 = two1000.Substring(0, 302 - j) + CStr(m * 2 + p).Substring(0, 1) + endstr
            p = 0
        Else
            two1000 = two1000.Substring(0, 302 - j) + CStr(m * 2 + p).Substring(1, 1) + endstr
            p = 1
        End If
    Next j
Next i

Then summing the digits of the string is easy. Thank you all very much who helped me implement this!  ARTYOM  16:36, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more thing, for anybody else who's interested in something like this: There may be libraries of code already written, to do arithmetic on large numbers. I know there are ones available for C and Perl and built in to Java. I don't know for a fact that there's one out there for VB, but there probably is. The downsides are that it'll be slower than using "machine precision" numbers, and it might be somewhat awkward to write (for instance, using the "GMP" library in C I would do "mpz_add(a,b,c)" instead of "a=b+c"). But it'll do the job. -- Why Not A Duck 00:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does one program a network traffic limiter like Netlimiter in Visual C++ (you can limit the bandwidth for each program as well as your whole computer)? I have no idea about how I would do that. --Taraborn (talk) 13:47, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

See Visual C++. This article might be able to help you. Nothing444 19:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You'd replace the networking device driver with something that chainloads the original and throttles traffic while it's at it. :D\=< (talk) 04:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have two computers, one with an internet connection. I wish to share that connection with the second computer through a network cable. The computer with the internet is windows NT 2000 and the other XP. How can I do this? I have tried to simply connect them via a network cable but both give the error "a network cable is unplugged". I can confirm that both computers network cards work with other devices such as routers etc. Thank you for any help you can provide. Sincerely, John.

I believe you'll have to bridge the connection. However you go about doing that, I don't know. Useight (talk) 15:26, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly, to directly connect the 2 computers you'll need a crossover cable rather than the standard one you'd use to patch into a switch or router. As the name suggests, this is simply a matter of swapping some of the wires over en route, so adapters are readily available to stick on the end of "normal" Ethernet cables.

Secondly, you'll need to set the computers up to talk to each other, and specifically to share the Internet connection hosted by the Windows 2000 box. I've never used it, but I think what you need is Windows Internet Connection Sharing - the external links at the bottom of that article look promising...

Good luck! - IMSoP (talk) 15:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just FYI: Many modern Ethernet interfaces can be interconnected without needing a specific "crossover" cable. That is, they figure out that they're talking to another end interface and not a bridge and negotiate the required "crossover" action automatically.

Atlant (talk) 20:34, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you learn something every day! :) - IMSoP (talk) 21:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

With a router you can plug one into one port using ethernet and the other into another (also using ethernet). George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 22:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

i can confirm this; last time i had to upgrade, i just unplugged the ethernet cable from the cable modem and plugged it into the new computer, then shared folders on the old computer and pulled them over from the new computer. And that was a pretty old couple of Dells. Gzuckier (talk) 19:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In my torrent client (bitcomet) i saw in the peers list some of the client types Bitcomet 0.93*DHEv2*,utorrent*DHE*. what exactly is this DHE? Does it help in increasing download speed? if so where can i get it?what exactly is the difference between bitcomet 0.93 & bitcomet 0.93*DHEv2*?

A quick look at the diambiguation page for DHE, and then at BitTorrent suggests this may refer to support for (or switching on the option of?) BitTorrent protocol encryption - DHE being an acronym for Diffie-Hellman key exchange, the first stage of many network encryption protocols.

But I could be completely wrong, of course. - IMSoP (talk) 15:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I believe it stands for Data Header Encryption.. utorrent doesn't support DHEv2 but Bitcomet does. It's just one of many many client-specific protocol tack-ons like DHT (and Azureus's separate DHT network), PEX, UDP trackers, and secure announces :D\=< (talk) 16:29, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

hi,

as simply as you can tell me; if i downloaded a '.rar' torrent (music) how do i change it to normal .mp3 format, (using windows XP)......thanks--81.76.2.87 (talk) 20:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

A RAR file is a type of compressed archive, like a ZIP file (that is, files are stored within it and compressed to save space). You have to extract the files from it first. There are many programs to do this; I'm partial to 7-Zip on Windows. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 20:54, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

And if you didn't know that chances are that you didn't actually download the rar, you just downloaded the .torrent.. you need a bittorrent client and peers to actually download the archive :D\=< (talk) 20:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have seen many places and things, including a TV Guide insert (years ago), the Samsung SIR-T151, and tek.advancedmn.com, show this logo or variants thereof. (It shows a white H on a blue circle, next to DTV with a checkmark-styled "V" in black.)

I was thinking it was made or owned by ATSC or some US company/ies; fontblog.de says it's from "RCA" (which would imply Thomson, or maybe even Audiovox). Can anyone confirm that (or otherwise) for sure? --an odd name 23:00, 23 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I am interested in learning some computer programming, but I'm not sure where to start. I can currently only write XHTML (not a programming language, I know). I'm thinking maybe I should start with easier, more web based markup languages such as JavaScript and CSS and move on to maybe BASIC or C? Well, any help would be appreciated, because I'm lost; I really have no idea what I'm doing! :P --Voyaging ^(talk) 01:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Start with something easy like php and powerful not like javascript. Actually Ruby is probably a great place to start.. it's a terrifyingly powerful and flexible scripting language with a rather large following. Try the interactive tutorials.. the application is slick so check it out even if you don't care to try Ruby :D\=< (talk) 02:13, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There are enough programming languages out there to spend a lifetime learning. First ask yourself the question: what do I actually want to do? That said, I think something like Python is nice, on a readability level.--Fangz (talk) 02:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you learn python you'll never return to the land of the sane :D\=< (talk) 04:43, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as what I want to do, I simply want to attain knowledge. I just want to have the knowledge of knowing different programming languages. I'm not sure of specifics because of my limited knowledge of the subject, but I'd like to be able to code a variety of programs, so nothing that is limited to a certain type of program would be ideal. In addition, something that could maybe build a foundation for learning other languages, or maybe lead up to learning them would be optimal. Thanks for the help so far! --Voyaging ^(talk) 05:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

IMO, you won't learn anything worth while unless you actually try to do it. So you need to set yourself a project (eg be the first person to produce a KenKen solver). Probably the easiest to learn, but of least use commercially, is non-visual Basic. Did you know that Excel includes a Basic as a macro language? I wrote my (yet another) sudoku solver in Excel VB. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Aren't you talking about VBA?

I think Java is a good language to learn. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:39, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

VB and Java are both terrible languages to learn for a beginner. You think you're learning a low level language and then miss out entirely on pointers, which makes for absolute fail. Learn an easy, powerful, and slow scripting language first then go for hardcore C so you learn the full spectrum, then you can learn the wussie languages like VB and Java :) :D\=< (talk) 18:58, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why would anyone learning VB or Java think he's learning a low level language? -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 23:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm of the opinion that if you learn any of the C-like languages (C, C++, C#, Java, Perl, PHP, Python, etc.), you can then very rapidly pick up any of the others. Me, I think Perl is a nice language for a beginner; C (or any of the other compiled languages) has a high "minimum required activation energy" for a rank beginner.

I'm also of the opinion that Visual Basic will destroy your mind, polluting it with many ridiculous ideas that will block you from leaning about how programming really works. (NB: I don't have any problems with people learning non-Visual BASIC, though. But BASIC is a language that's quite different from any of the C-like languages that dominate the business nowadays; it owes its basic forms to much older languages and now less-used like Fortran.)

Atlant (talk) 14:12, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

We learnt Cobol and Pascal as starter languages, then moved onto C and C++. If you are learning purely for interest I would say you want to learn one that is logically structured rather than powerful. You want one that is easy to read rather than flexible. I recall having to spend about 30 minutes talking to an old non-IT based manager explaining how coding is like hand-writing - everyone does it slightly differently. There are 100s of ways to achieve the same goals in most languages, so your best bet is not to try get into understanding the syntax/language in depth but to get a basic understanding of programming as a structure. Things vary from language to language but a good basis in one of the early-years languages (I believe) would bode well for you ever having to learn a more advanced/current language. I still do a bit of programming in FOCUS, which is actually a remarkably easy language to understand (at least at the depth of detail I use it). ny156uk (talk) 14:20, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're mad to suggest Perl Atlant :) It's extremely difficult to read example code until you're familiar with it and was written by a notorious obfuscater! I'd agree with Ruby for someone who has a professed interest in web technologies. Voyaging, you probably want to get up and running pretty quickly right? What kind of thing do you want to do? A game, a web-app, or do you want to start on the road to becoming a full-time programmer? BananaFiend (talk) 10:15, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, you can write shite in any language and you're correct: much of everything that's distributed on the web as "sample code" is shite. But when I write Perl, I try to write it with the same diligence I use when writing C so I'm careful to use appropriate, self-documenting names, lots of comments, and the like. I write it as though I'll have to maintain it for years (which actually is the case ;-) ). So I think you'd find that you can pick up my Perl code, read it, and learn from it. One proof point of this is that my wife, who's a web developer but not a programmer, has been able to pick up, use, and modify Perl that I've written for her web sites.

And because Perl isn't typed and usually has a pretty good idea of what you actually mean to do, I find it's easy for beginners to use. Show them how to write and run "Hello, World!" and they're pretty much off and running.

Atlant (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you are planning on doing things with the web in the future (and really, who ain't?), PHP is a great place to start—it's relatively powerful and you can get very satisfying results quickly, in part because you use HTML to build up your interfaces (you aren't stuck with just a console, like most of the other languages given, or building up an interface in a clunky IDE, as with VB and VB.NET). And in my opinion, when we're in the realm of self-teaching, quick, satisfying results are important, lest one find it too much trouble! (I tried to teach myself C++ years ago. After hours of playing with it I could make a console program that could do some basic math. I was not impressed with the result. Never went back.) But as has been said, it doesn't matter so much which one you start with—what matters more is that you have a driving project. Trying to learn a programming language without setting out a goal is like trying to learn a spoken language by using just a dictionary. If you have a goal in mind and are having fun with it the learning will be quite easy and enjoyable. PHP has the added benefit of being widely used on the web so there are LOTS of sites of sample code, examples, other people's implementations, etc., to benefit from. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:22, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Python or Ruby. The interactive interpreters are great for beginners experimenting. The way most of us learnt programming went something like Statements --> Routines --> Classes and I still think this is the best way. Python and Ruby will let you write a program that does something without defining a class, but will continue to support you as you write something more structured. Good luck.

I learnt C as my first (programming) language and never felt it was hard or something.. Going Visual might be harder, but that's why world is full of guides and documentation. Though I must admit I'm just a * person-with-no-life, so I haven't bothered to find out what kind of heaven there is behind those Pythons and Perls. If you are planning to learn "just to learn", not to get something done right now, then I would recommend C/C++. --82.141.93.96 (talk) 15:10, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so much for all the help! After reading all your responses, I think I'm going to start with C, then move on to some other languages. From what I've read, many of the current popular languages are based off of C (Perl, PHP, C++) so I think that'd be a good starting place. Now my next question. What resources would you recommend to me for learning the language? Thanks again! --Voyaging ^(talk) 15:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

They're loosely based on C (if in Perl's case you consider the Kuiper belt to be merely "loose" around the Sun's waist) but C's a tough nut to crack.. if you have windows I strongly advise you to download Visual C++ 2008 (NOT c#) and use that IDE, it's much more beginner friendly than console compilers like ming or gcc. Or just learn php and ruby and use notepad and your web browser. Seriously you're going to be very disappointed with your progress in C, scripting languages are far more powerful and you can do some actually useful things even while learning :D\=< (talk) 19:03, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

K&R is a good one. Would definitely recommend something printed anyway. Google is indispensible but it really helps to be following a printed course as well.

You also need a project. How about: Write a program to decipher text that has been encoded by a Caesar cipher. The program should use frequency analysis to decode the text (ie without any clues from the user).

but, note that C is a very "special" kind of language, not for everybody or everything.. if i had had to get through C first, i'd never have gotten past it. like learning assembler in the old days. Depends what you want to program. Heck, you might find programming in SQL to be your path to greatness. Gzuckier (talk) 19:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You want to see the weirdish wikibooks:C Programming/Using a Compiler to get quickly started. That Crimson Editor isn't necessary, I have survived for a long time with just MS Notepad. Otherways Wikibooks isn't (probably) the optimal thing to read. As a general tip I would say you should just dig around and try many guides/tutorials to find the one that suits you best. --212.149.216.233 (talk) 19:18, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'd recommend focusing on learning programming rather than on learning a particular language. Once you know how to program, learning a new language won't be that hard. But just learning a language doesn't automatically mean learning how to program. Learning the language means jumping through the hoops the language puts in your way. Learning to program means being able to see the relationship between the program code and what it does (a relationship that works both ways -- "why is this code doing what it's doing" and "what code would do what I want"). As for choice of language to start with -- I'd say, find a teacher, or text, or whatever, that you're comfortable learning from, and use whatever language they use. (Even if it's a "useless" language -- because (a) it's about learning to program, not just about learning that one language; and (b) you might be surprised what turns out to be "useful;" one obscure language, that I considered even leaving out of my resume, is used extensively where I work now) If you were learning from me, I'd choose C, because that's what I'm most comfortable with. Also, it's a good idea to learn more than one language. Not only because you'd then have one more tool available to you, but because you learn different things from each one. (Many years ago, I "sort of" knew C. Then I tried to learn x86 assembly language. I mostly failed... but at the end I understood "C" a lot better.) -- Why Not A Duck 23:41, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is one of those questions that cannot be answered credibly or reliably over a largely anonymous forum like this. Why Not A Duck states the point quite clearly, so there's not much to add except this.

Most programming languages exist because someone thought they could "fix" an annoying aspect of another language they were already using. From this, you can learn a few things:

• 1) there is no such thing as a "perfect" programming language to learn;
• 2) a good sign of "knowing" a programming language is when you understand its limitations relative to other languages, and relative to what it was supposed to "fix";
• 3) many people either do not realize or disagree with points 1 & 2 above;
• 4) because of 3), many people stop learning new languages, and become "entrenched";
• 5) because of 4), this question cannot be answered credibly over an anonymous forum like this;
• 6) because of 5) you can ignore this post and this thread. NoClutter (talk) 13:12, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't waste your time with intermediate steps, if your target language is say C++, begin with C++. That's the best advice I can give from my personal experience. --Taraborn (talk) 16:55, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm on an HP Compaq tc4400 laptop computer (well, tablet pc). All of a sudden when I try to play a video from the internet or a song from iTunes, I hear the video/song for 4 seconds and then silence from then on. Can someone tell me what's causing this problem, and what I can do to fix it? Thanks in advance. ~EdGl 02:07, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Just to make things clear, is it the Windows XP tablet edition Windows XP Tablet PC Edition? Kushal 11:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC) Kushal 12:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, forgot to mention it's using windows vista, I believe enterprise edition. ~EdGl 13:08, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yay, it seems to be working now! Weird, as I didn't do anyting, not even restart. Well, sorry for taking up RD space.. carry on.. ~EdGl 13:37, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Don't worry about it. I wonder what went wrong in the first place. Glad it is working. Kushal 19:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if it happens in general as well, but I notice that often, the download speed curve of a bittorrent transfer shows a strong periodic pattern. The download rate goes down, and then comes back up, and then goes down again, with a period of about 30 seconds.

Is there any explanation for this behaviour? Or is it just me?--Fangz (talk) 02:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

What client do you use? I use Azureus, and I see that a lot. I'd would guess it's a swarm behavior—one client disconnects from me (down), a new one connects optimistically uploading (up), then decides I don't deserve that rate (down again)—but I notice my upload rate often changes in the same way, matching my download rate for the entire cycle. Can't imagine one most likely cause. Might be just the way the client calculates rates. / edg ☺ ☭ 03:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This happens when the following two conditions are met:

1. the torrent has only one seeder
2. the seeder uses superseeding

See Super-seeding for a basic explanation. Morana (talk) 08:27, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can definitely confirm that this is happening when there is more than one seed.--84.71.41.235 (talk) 14:50, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're probably not making enough connections.. I typically connect to 50 or so peers per torrent, and don't get most of my pieces from any one peer in particular so except for fascinating swarm-wide fluctuations due to weird seeder behavior or something which is always possible I guess, I have mostly stable down speeds. Make more connections and make sure something upstream isn't load balancing you :D\=< (talk) 18:55, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know Javascript but would like to do something very simple.

I want to present a block of text with some words in red, and when you click a red word you can change it with a dialog that pops up. At the end you submit the whole thing via post.

Is this possible? could I get some help writing it? Thank you.79.122.35.198 (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's a very simple implementation of such a thing:

<html>
<head>
<script language="javascript">
function get_word(id) {
	var existing = document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML;
	var newword = prompt('Replace "'+existing+'" with:');
	if(newword.length>0) {
		document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML = newword;
		var nextword = document.getElementById("word"+(id+1));
		if(nextword != null) get_word(id+1);
	}
}

function submit_text() {
	document.submit_form.submit_data.value = ReplaceTags(document.getElementById("text_to_submit").innerHTML);
	document.submit_form.submit();
}

var regExp = /<\/?[^>]+>/gi;
function ReplaceTags(xStr){
	xStr = xStr.replace(regExp,"");
	return xStr;
}
     
</script>
<style> 
<!--
.word { 
	color: red;
}
a.button {
	border: 1px solid gray;
	padding: 5px;
	text-decoration: none;
	color: black;
	background-color: silver;
}
a.button:hover {
	background-color: gray;
	color: white;
}

--/>
</style>
</head>
<body>
<form method="POST" name="submit_form">
<input type="hidden" name="submit_data" value="">
<p id="text_to_submit">
This is my <a href="#"  id="word0" class="word">sample text</a>. You can <a href="#"  id="word1" class="word">replace words</a> by clicking on them. It is <a href="#"  id="word2" class="word">wonderful</a>.
</p>
<a href="#"  class="button">SUBMIT</a>
</form>
</body>
</html>

The javascript handles the changing of the words and the submission of the final data. The CSS stylesheet handles the red links (and making the last A HREF look like a box. You don't need to do it that way, but I find them easier to deal with than actual submit buttons, which are hard to style). The HTML sets up the whole form. It should be pretty straightforward how it works but feel free to ask if you want it spelled out more clearly.

This doesn't filter out the A HREF tags when you submit it. You can do that in Javascript though personally I'd do it on the server-side, and how you are going to want to do that depends on what you are specifically using the result data for. But otherwise it should work in a way like you want it to. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:16, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want your form to actually do something when you post it, you'll need to do something on the server side also. So far this is all on the client. Friday (talk) 14:17, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That's right. My little example above presupposes you'll have a destination script read to make sense of that data. That will need to be written in another language (like PHP, for example). (As you can see, even a simple web interface requires a lot of different languages and technologies dancing in sync -- in your little example we've got a markup language, a scripting language, and a stylesheet, and we'll still need a server-side script to top it off!) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 14:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you SOOOOOOOO much!!!!! It's wonderful, and much more than I could have done :)

One thing though... It works in Opera, which is what I use, but NEITHER firefox NOR internet explorer? How come?

Additionally, how could I change the javascript so that I don't land on a new page (in this case "false") every time I change a word, having to click back? I'd like the current page to be rewritten each time a change is made, and finally, the submit should submit the raw data, without special regard to where markup had been (though I could filter that out server side like you mentioned)... Thank you again!!! 79.122.35.198 (talk) 14:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, I had done it slightly wrong (worked fine in Safari, didn't test it in anything else!). Now it should work fine no matter what (at least, it does in Firefox). The false bit was an artifact of that. I've updated the code above. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:45, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Update: I added a little function (borrowed from here) that strips out the HTML tags before submitting the text. Enjoy. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 15:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, thanks man!!! Works like a charm now -- in all browsers :)... 1 quick question though... is there a way to save time by having the next one automatically selected (with the default text being whatever it is currently set to) until the first time I press escape (or cancel) instead of ok (or changing the text)? Thank you!!!  :)

Not sure I understand how that one would work with the current implementation. Maybe you could spell out a little more how it might work? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, if I understand your code correctly (and it's hit and miss, because as I mentioned I don't know javascript :) ) then each word in your markup has a number, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 so if you've just clicked on 2, then you will proceed to 3 and 4 and 5 unless you stop the process by cancelling the dialog box at some point. If you just press enter you go on to the next one. In order for this to work maybe instead of "undefined" being the default texts it could be the actual text to replace? so it looks like " if(newword.length>0) document.getElementById("word"+id).innerHTML = newword;" could be changecd to have another effect: calling the same function on "word"+id+1 ... though I could get it wrong. Looking at your code, I also don't understand why there is a hidden input field that is blank. What's the purpose of that?

p.s. Thank you again!!! :)

Oh, OK, yes, that's easy enough. I've updated it above -- it will now by default go to the next word (unless there is no next word) and prompt you to replace that as well, unless you hit cancel.

The hidden input field is what passes on the results to the server -- the value gets filled in from the paragraph with the id "text_to_submit" with the function "submit_text" before it is submitted. To submit FORM data it has to be in an INPUT field; the easiest way to do that in this case is to use a hidden INPUT field. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 21:54, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow, Perfect! Thanks so much :) I can do the rest server-side...but actually, one of my "words" is a date, and I could make a little calendar server side, but is there any way to have the dialog that comes up for that one have a calendar, in html, or is that too complicated? Thank you either way!! You've been very helpful :) :)

It would be much more complicated to have a little HTML dialog box pop up—my implementation just uses Javascript's built-in "prompt" command. It's not impossible to do the sort of thing you are asking (you'd hide the box on an invisible DIV or something like that; airlines use this sort of thing all the time in letting you select which days your flight will be) but it'd take a lot more coding than is used above. (You'd have to write a custom "prompt" command, basically.) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, well thank you then! :) It'll have to stay what it is, which is really very very good and I'd like to thak you again for all your help :)

In ENUM (.e164.arpa) DNS entries, which should be incremented - order or preference? For example, if I have one record:

IN NAPTR  100 10 "u" "E2U+email:mailto" "!^.*$!mailto:[removed]!" .

with order=100 / priority=10, and want to add record for my website (E2U+web:http), which one should I change? The website where I manage my .e164.arpa entry auto-suggests [order=100 priority=11] for new entry. Should I use that or [order=101 priority=10]? --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, there are four main ENUM domains: e164.arpa, e164.org, e164.info and enum.org. Which one is best to use? (I have an .e164.arpa) --grawity ^{talk / PGP} 14:25, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Here's the deal: I would like to be able to text a person through the text function in AIM 6. Both I and this person have an AIM account; I currently live in Italy and he lives in England. I added his phone number where it says so {add phone number}, using +44 before his number and I tried to send the text.

Two messages from AIM appeared. The first one: </insert phone number here> is currently offline.Your buddy may be able to receive offline IMs the next time they sign on. Do you still want to send this IM?

When I pressed yes, the second one: </insert phone number here> is unable to receive offline IMs.

I tried when he was offline, and then when he was online too, with the same messages appearing. I asked him to check, and it says he can accept offline IMs from buddies on his list.

Help, please?

By the way, it seems that when this person from England tries to call my mobile, even if he adds the 0039 to my number, it still says I'm unavailable. But he managed to send me a text to that same number, adding +39.

Again, help, please?

My guess would be that the SMS service in AIM uses a gateway rented from a particular network in each country to deliver the messages, and that the combination of this gateway and the international delivery is not covered by their agreement (I don't know about Italy, but in the UK SMS is big business, so I'm sure there's money involved somewhere here...)

Not sure what the deal is with being able to text but not call, although you imply that he used different numbers (0039... vs +39...); as far as I know, the +39... form is the correct one for both calls and texts from a mobile, although I would expect the 0039... to work just as well. - IMSoP (talk) 19:33, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Gurbinder Singh

The details depend on the implementation, but the general idea is that each process gets a certain amount of memory (it can ask for more if necessary), which it usually divides up into two pieces: a "stack" which it will use to remember things that are only needed for the current computation, and a "heap" which it will use to remember things that need a longer lifetime, or that need to change ownership, etc. The stack is generally nicer to use, since it's very fast to allocate and deallocate and the programmer doesn't have to remember to free things from it, but it can't be used in cases where the memory must outlive the current routine. Programs that can do more than one thing at a time will typically have more than one stack. Using stack memory is "automatic" in that just the right amount gets allocated when you call a function, and magically freed when that function returns. Using heap memory is done manually with malloc() and free(). As you might expect, it's a lot easier to get stack memory management right than it is to get heap memory management right. --Sean 19:49, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's quite a bit of information on the malloc page, and at wikibooks:C Programming/Memory management. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:26, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

what are sensor networks? <spam removed>

Don't advertise on wikipedia. And if you're really concerned, just wear a tinfoil hat :D\=< (talk) 20:05, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try looking at sensor network. Your spam link removed. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:09, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

is it possible to use open office and the sofware Dragon Naturally Speaking (speach recogniton) and if yes, what have I to do.

Thanks to Google -- [4] -- I got link to OpenOffice.org forum and Ubuntu forums.

Could you tell us which operating system you use and what version of NaturallySpeaking you have? Kushal 17:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How do I get a picture out of this seemingly random mess of letters:

<a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/12/31/funny-pictures-here-in-england-we-speak-the-queens-english/"><img src="http://icanhascheezburger.wordpress.com/files/2007/12/funny-pictures-british-cat.jpg" alt="funny pictures" /></a>
see more <a href="http://icanhascheezburger.com">crazy cat pics</a>

the place I want to put it uses [IMG] codes, but nothing I've tried with them and this has worked so far.

The actual image location is written between the quotes of <img src="[location]">, but here I guess you'll have to put

[img]http://icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/funny-pictures-british-cat.jpg[/img]

because the actual image file redirects there.  ARTYOM  20:44, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The image isn't redirecting anywhere for me what :D\=< (talk) 22:06, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to get the image URL the easiest thing to do is the right click on the image and click "open image in new window" or "open image in new tab." 216.120.217.233 (talk) 23:35, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Or Copy image location :D\=< (talk) 00:11, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In the excellent discussion above about programming languages for beginners, editors make several references to the relative power of different programming languages. What does this mean? I have basic familiarity with several languages, but this power concept is alien to me. --Allen (talk) 23:42, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scripting languages are powerful in the sense that you can do a lot with little code. The characteristic of higher-level languages is that you have to write less code to perform the same task. There are advantages to different languages for different tasks, but there are also clear comparisons. Ruby is higher level than C, and both are much higher level than assembly, which takes half a dozen lines just to perform arithmetic on something in memory. However, with assembly code you exercise a far finer level of control over your program. Asm can be some of the most optimized code you'll ever see. There are a few different aspects of "power".. some languages are extremely concise but ridiculously difficult to code in.. Ruby is object-oriented overkill and is terrrrrrifyingly powerful, especially with strings and arrays/dictionaries.. symbols are nice too :D\=< (talk) 00:00, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's also power in the sense of access to lower level facilities - directly messing about arbitrarily with your computer's memory for example, rather than delegating this to a virtual machine or an interpreter. In this sense C is more powerful than Python, say. --90.208.22.136 (talk) 14:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting. Thanks for the responses. So it sounds like "powerful" can be synonymous with either "high-level" or "low-level", depending on the context. No wonder I was confused. --Allen (talk) 14:15, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to edit this .psd image with the horizontal type tool in RGB color mode (8 bits/channel) and I can't seem to make the text show up. Every time I type something, no matter the color or the character font I use, the text doesn't show up; only the name of the layer changes. In example: I type "hello", and the name of the layer changes to "hello", but the image remains seemingly unmodified. I have tried almost everything, it's driving me crazy. Here's a screenshot of what I'm trying to do. As you can probably tell, I'm pretty much a newbie in Photoshop. Could anyone of you guys help me on this one please? Any ideas or tips? —Coat of Arms (talk) 23:57, 24 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide a screenshot with Layers info visible? --antilived^{T | C | G} 01:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, here it is. The characteristics of the first layer are here, if you also would like to see them. —Coat of Arms (talk) 02:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You don't have a text layer, only the white base layer and your picture over that. I think you have to be using the text tool and click and drag a box on the canvas before you can start typing, or else your typing will just rename the current layer (the picture) :D\=< (talk) 03:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I had that problem once. It drove me crazy. The solution, however, turned out to be simple: try to make the text canvas bigger (by dragging the little squares on its edges), because Photoshop doesn't show the text if the letters are too big to fit in the canvas. Hope that helps!  ARTYOM  10:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I run Ubuntu with Totem Firefox plugin and is perfectly capable playing ogg's by itself. But the every time I lose my WP cookie it defaults back to the Java player again, causing Firefox to freeze for around 20 seconds to load Java before I can select the "Ogg Plugin" option. Is there somewhere I can change the default so it always defaults to ogg plugin? --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:09, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How about "Edit" => "Preferences" => "Content" => "File types" => "Manage" and then find OGG and set it up to use Totem? --Sean 14:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

This is much better in firefox 3, use beta 4. :D\=< (talk) 16:23, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No I can play ogg's fine in Firefox, it's just that Mediawiki keeps defaulting to Cortado (software) instead of sending me the ogg directly, making Firefox frozen for 20 seconds to load Java. I might go to Firefox 3 once more plugins support it, but in the mean time I'll stick with Firefox 2. --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I recently ran a virus checker (bitdefender total security 08) which detected 3 viruses in a folder labeled "System Volume Information". The anti virus stated that it could not quarantine or delete these viruses because they're password protected. This i thought strange, as i am the only user and administrator on my computer. However, i simply decided to find these files manually and delete them that way. So i ran a search of my C: drive (the same destination as the bitdefender scan) and the search returned no results. I checked the box "search hidden files" and all search options, but still no folder "System Volume Information". Temporary internet files and cookies have been deleted, so it does not exist in those folders, and i have no idea how to rid my computer of these 3 ad ware and spy ware viruses. Any ideas? Running windows xp, on an intel system, if that helps.

According to this page, the System Volume Information folder is part of the System Restore feature. That page also gives instructions on how to view the folder. If the virus checker is finding suspicious files there, they are likely within the restore points. They could also be false positives. If you are sure you won't need to use any of your restore points, you should be able clear them by using the Disk Cleanup utility (Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup), on the More Options tab is a button to clear all but the most recent System Restore point. --LarryMac | Talk 13:52, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any way to segregate out certain cookies in a separate folder such that when I go to "delete cookies" in internet explorer it would delete everything but the few sites I want to keep? Manually removing all cookies from the folder, but for the seven or so I want to keep, is not worth the effort. My cookies folder is in C:\Documents and Settings\name I gave my computer\Cookies Can I simply create a folder in Documents and settings, or inside the existing Cookies folder itself, call it "Cookies 2" and drag the cookies into that new file? Would that insulate it from deletion through the "delete cookies" application. Would they operate in a new location? And also, I imagine that sites update cookies periodically as things change. Would I be creating a problem by moving a cookie to a new location, for the website to find it in order to update? Groping in the dark here. Dispel my ignorance.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 11:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Probably your second-best bet is to write your own program or script to selectively delete those cookies you feel you don't want anymore, and leave everything else constant. Your first-best bet is to just search the internet for "cookie management" and "<insert-name-of-your-web-browser-here>" and see if there are any plugins or extensions that allow fine-grained cookie-management. Depending on which browser you use, you should have no trouble finding something for free that does close to what you want.

Any ad-hoc fiddling/tweaking by-hand such as you describe here will probably just be more headache than it's worth to you, quite frankly. NoClutter (talk) 13:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Mark them read-only? :D\=< (talk) 13:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Any unbiased reviews/suggestions on which way to turn? The organization is not sure they want to use Wiki as a tool, but they definitely are wanting to give it a try, but do not wish to deploy their own webserver to host during this 'proof of concept' phase.

Any suggestions or real world experiences with this scenario? NoClutter (talk) 12:48, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Deploy your own web server and put it in your internal network, behind a firewall. Otherwise the world will be able to see your wiki. :D\=< (talk) 13:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If you want it to be publicly available, Wikia is one of the players in the market, you would want to look. Please also see Comparison of wiki farms for more options. I believe there is no substantial monetary investment needed to use Wikia, although there are some advertisements there.

You should also let everyone know not to post any confidential information during the test. Wish you all the best. Kushal 17:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I've been using a Netgear wireless router for two years now and it has been working basically fine. This week though my signal will flicker—it'll go out completely (my Macbook says it is not connected to wireless) and then come back again (suddenly I'm connected), back and forth with great rapidity at times. My wife's experienced the same thing with her iBook.

I tried unplugging the router last night and then turning it back on, but it did the same thing again today. It's almost certainly the router's problem, as when the cable internet itself goes out (as has happened a few times) the router signal is never affected.

Any thoughts as to what might be causing this? There are only two people using the router (hardware restricted—e.g. I have to approve the MAC addresses for a machine to even connect to it) so it's not being overloaded or anything, and it has a pretty unique ID. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 13:58, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Have your neighbours set up anything that could be interfering? If so, or even if not it's worth a try, try changing the channel that the router uses. --90.208.22.136 (talk) 14:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I almost don't want to post this, because the reasoning behind it seems suspect, but I once was told that refreshing the firmware will fix problems like this -- as if the little bits themselves have become weak and need a jolt of energy. On the other hand, I had an old Linksys router that acted similarly when the power supply was beginning to fail. --LarryMac | Talk 14:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How can i change an mp3 file to an ogg file?the juggreserection ^IstKrieg! 14:50, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

By transcoding. (Decompressing and recompressing.) Don't do it. http://www.vorbis.com/faq/#transcode --Kjoonlee 15:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, if you really want to do it (e.g. if you are trying to upload a sound sample to Wikipedia and you only have access to the original as an MP3), I am reasonably sure you can do it with VLC Media Player's "Streaming/Export Wizard". --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 16:17, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

..which specifically recommends against using it for transcoding because it's terrible. mencoder. :D\=< (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

There's a free program called Audacity that allows you to record sounds and export them as mp3, ogg, or wav. You could try that. Useight (talk) 16:22, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Audacity is fine for single files, but overkill for groups of files. I suggest:

• dBpoweramp Windows – I haven't used this in a few years, but in 2004 it converted everything into everything.
• mp32ogg Linux – found in most distributions

Sorry I don't know a good Mac solution. I've had good luck with transcoding; just don't expect audiophile quality. MP3 and Vorbis are lossy codecs that make different choices in what information to omit, and don't manage each other's artifacts, so transcoding degrades the file a 2nd time. Ogg advocates hate transcoding because it makes unusually poor sounding .ogg's, through no fault of the codec. / edg ☺ ☭ 18:02, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you want to convert them? You can't "add quality" to an already compressed source. MP3 are ubiquitous anyway. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:51, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Like Microsoft software, MP3 is dominant, but not universal.

1. Freely-available Linux distributions (such as Ubuntu) typically include vorbis support, but omit MP3 because of licensing issues. I've never known anyone who hesitated to add (usually in a separate download and install) MP3 and other non-free media support almost immediately, but MP3's do not play "out of the box".
2. Vorbis is preferred over MP3 for audio files on Wikipedia. MP3 may actually be banned.

I would only transcode if I wanted to use hardware without MP3 support (some of my computers) or wanted to take advantage of Vorbis tags. / edg ☺ ☭ 18:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

im gonna try some of these, thank you. o and yes, it was to upload a file to wikipedia. again, thanks.the juggreserection ^IstKrieg! 14:17, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent. Thanks for contributing. / edg ☺ ☭ 15:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

...can I put the sim in a cracked iphone and it'll work? what should the network pin code be?

As far as I know, there's no such thing as a network PIN code. If the phone asks for a PIN code, it is the SIM card's PIN code. You receive all the SIM card codes (PIN, PIN2, PUK, PUK2) along with it when you register at a service provider's office.

Alternatively, the phone may be asking for a Network code, which is, as far as I know, the code that the SIM card owner can set to prevent automatic connection to a network. Default value should be 0000.

If you don't know the PIN code, make sure you don't try to randomly guess it because the SIM card will be locked forever.  ARTYOM  20:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks. I really was confusing it with the network code, which however is 8 digits in my case and all 0's aren't accepted, but... The problem was that I don't actually have an iPhone! I was using this phone that has wap and I thought it could work over gprs but I guess they're really different technologies... (wap and gprs)... so, i'll just wait till I have an iphone. btw how much should I pay for an unlocked 8 gb one here in Hungary? I saw one for like 160000 huf which is $957.12- which is really too much I think. so how much should I pay?

Well, I can't, of course, advise you on the price, but the price for an 8GB model on the Apple store is $399.  ARTYOM  21:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

what does quantisize mean? (i ask here, not on the science desk, because it appears[5] to be something different than just a typo of quantize, and it appears to be used in a digitized sound/graphic context). Gzuckier (talk) 18:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is a typo of quantize - see quantization (music) and quantization (image processing) — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 19:37, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

PROBLEM: When I click (or type) a link in a browser, there is a long delay while the browser says it is resolving the hostname.

DETAILS: The delay is typically around 10 seconds, sometimes ranging up to 30 seconds.

SYSTEM: 2.13GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 6400, 2GB RAM, various hard drives totaling approx 2TB, Windows XP SP2, fully patched and updated. System runs well in every way except this one. Connected via a wireless/wired router to a Motorola cable modem.

DATAPOINTS:

This is not a browser-specific problem, since FF2, FF3, IE7, and IE8 all behave the same way.

This is not a network transfer problem, since once the transfers start (after "Site found" messages) the transfers are generally fast, taking far less time than the name resolution.

This is not a problem with my network, because all the other machine connected to the same switch have no problem

I found where someone was having an identical problem to this - however they were running a Linux distro. The general solution was to disable IPv6. I did this via the Windows command line, to no effect

QUESTIONS:

What's going on here?

Is there a solution other than 'Reimage/reinstall'?

Thanks. -- Sapph42 (talk) 21:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

When you type in an addresses, your browser has to first figure out where the other computer you are connecting to physically is—that is, what its IP address is. This is done by a DNS server, which stores information about which IP addresses connect to which websites. It sounds to me like this might be where your problem lies.

You might try seeing if you can switch what DNS server your connection automatically uses. Usually this is one of the options in your internet connection settings. You might also try contacting your ISP if you think this is the problem. One way to check would be to look up the IP address of a site manually and then try connecting through its normal .com address and the IP address. If it immediately connects using the IP address, it is probably some sort of DNS problem. (For example, a WHOIS database reveals that cnn.com is 64.236.16.20).

I doubt re-installing would help, unless by doing so you inadvertently put in a different DNS server (or were assigned a different one), if this is the problem. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 22:03, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not for snippyness, but for clarity: I'm a network engineer by trade, so core descriptions (like what DNS does) are unnecessary. A problem with my DNS servers is actually the first thing I thought, and found several pages lambasting Comcast's DNS (of course I found several lambasting Verizon, Roadrunner, SBC, etc . . .), so I signed up for OpenDNS and configured my router appropriately. No change.

Additionally, the PCs on my network get their DNS information via DHCP, so if it was just that, the problem would presumably be affecting other PCs as well.

It IS some sort of DNS issue, however. Direct IP addressing eliminates the problem. However since it is not purely the DNS server, I conjecture that it must be something my machine is doing in conjunction with DNS. This is why I suspect a reimage would solve the problem. -- Sapph42 (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflicted*2): if you pop open the command prompt (win -> r -> "cmd" -> enter), and type in nslookup example.com, does it still take awhile to do the lookup? If you surf by IP address directly, ie. [6], does it go faster? If you type ipconfig into the command prompt, do the values it returns for the DNS servers match up with the other computers? Running any security software / software firewalls? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:06, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No software firewalls, no security software that touches the network stack. DNS settings match other PCs on the network. As noted above, IP address surfing is instantaneous. nslookup is fast. --Sapph42 (talk) 22:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are you doing nslookup to hostnames that you won't have already cached? If that's going fast but lookups via the browser are not then the issue flummoxes me. The two commands I'd usually toss in to fix random tcpip stack issues in XP SP2 are netsh int ip reset logfile and netsh winsock reset, but I have no idea what good that would do in this situation. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:26, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Prepare to be flummoxed further. The browser experiences this slow down even on domains that should logically be cached. Example: I enter http://en.wikipedia.org in the address bar. After about 25 seconds, I arrive at the proper page. I click the link for the reference desk, and the delay is another 20 seconds or so. I click the link for the computing section, and this time the delay is nearly 30 seconds. The commands had no effect. -- Sapph42 (talk) 01:03, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tried packet sniffing using things like Wireshark? --antilived^{T | C | G} 04:22, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, that's bizzare. Though honestly, in the time you'll spend figuring out what the devil is going on, you could probably have it reimaged or the OS reinstalled and working (hopefully) normally. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:40, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Is it possible that, for whatever reason, either your router or your PC is configured/provisioned with "bad" DNS server addresses? The scenario I have in mind is that the primary DNS address points to an overloaded, down, or non-existent DNS server, and every DNS lookup has to fall back on the secondary DNS server — after a timeout. Another possibility to consider is that your router or your PC has been subverted to route DNS queries to a rogue DNS server. --71.162.242.38 (talk) 14:05, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Try configuring IPv4 on your computer to use OpenDNS. 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.200 (if you don't know how to do this comment back). If it's still not working try overwriting your TCP/IP stack- there are tools to do this for XP, don't know about vista. Or see if your %windir%\system32\drivers\etc\HOSTS is massive :D\=< (talk) 15:44, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hello friends!, My OS is windows XP PRO SP2.I have once encrypted some of my folders in a drive by right clicking and selecting properties and then selecting "advanced". There I encryted all my sub-folders under my root folder in Drive D. Later I re-formatted OS drive and installed WIndows XP PRO SP2 again(same disc).Now when I try to open the encrypted files(Appearing in green text)it shows error in opening. Later while I was around,I got to know that some certificates are needed for opening which was created at the time of my preious OS. Now with new installation,that certificate has changed...and hence its not opening. I wa able to view that certificate number...But no help it does give.Please friends!, let me know if there is any means of data recovery!....If try to decrypt by right clicking and so,nothing happens and the file still remains encrypted...Please help..Thanks in advance

From this it seems like you only need the password of the user account to decrypt it, have you tried setting the same password for your user as before? Otherwise Google Search turns up a lot of paywares that can allegedly recover them, maybe some more googling will give you a freeware alternative? --antilived^{T | C | G} 09:11, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand your situation correctly, your files are probably unrecoverable. The file encryption key is derived from (among other things) a random key stored with the user account. When you reinstalled Windows you overwrote the old account information, including the key. There's a chance (fairly small, I think) that the old key was not physically overwritten and might be recovered from the unused areas of your OS drive. An ordinary undelete utility won't work for this, including those that claim to be able to recover encrypted files (they're talking about the case where the encrypted file was deleted, not the user account). Since this must be a fairly common user error, I wouldn't be surprised if there is software that will help with this, but I don't know of any, and, again, I think success is unlikely. -- BenRG (talk) 15:46, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The ciruit & programme to control the motion of stepper motor through parallel port?

My elderly neighbour has a Toshiba Tecra 8000 running windows 98. All is stable - she's been running it for years.

However, she's upgrading from dial up to broadband next week and I suspect that an upgrade to windows 2000 will be required.

I've read that during the upgrade, I'll be asked if I want to change to NTFS (from FAT32?) and that I should select 'yes'. Will this format the hard drive (ie - losing all her emails/stored files?)

thanks 83.104.131.135 (talk) 16:51, 26 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]