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January 28

Slowness

I use Roadrunner, which bills itself as the 'fastest ISP for the lowest price'. However I find that whenever I am just starting up the computer, the Internet is very slow in loading anything. After about an hour, it gets fast. Why is this? If it helps, I run my modem through a router to get to my computer so I can connect multiple computers, but I find this happens even when I have the modem directly connected to the computer. 24.92.70.160 (talk) 02:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It could be a few things, many ISP's bill themselves as the "fastest for the lowest price" but there is no way to prove this. This could have nothing to do with your internet, rather your computer itself, or even your modem. It could also have something to do with your web browser -- do you use IE or FireFox. Or Safari, or Opera. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 02:30, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried quantitatively testing your Internet speed to see whether it really does get faster after one hour? If not, try this speed test: http://www.speedtest.net/index.php?nojs=1

Also, are you sure that no other applications are using the Internet during that first hour? Close all other Internet applications, don't let Windows or Java update anything, and retest. If the Internet is still slow, you can try Wireshark (http://www.wireshark.org/) to see what traffic is going through your computer. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 03:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I suspect observer bias, and recommend the quantitative methods suggested above. If you can establish that an actual change of speed does occur, two probable reasons exist.

1. First, your network connection may be cached (or even pre-fetched) at various stages of the connection between you and the network service provider - including your browser, your operating system, your cable modem, or any of the routers or servers in the network path. If you're loading the same page, as opposed to loading new and completely random pages that, do you notice a speed difference? (To test this feature particularly, you need to avoid prefetch logic in any cache scheme - so you need to navigate to a page that isn't linked in any way from any pages you've already loaded).
2. The next possibility is that during your hour of "boot up", traffic patterns are statistically changing. At some level, your network connection is shared. So, maybe you sign on at 4 PM, when more people are logged in at work and using the shared network connection heavily; and by 5PM your shared network connection is less utilized. Compounded by the fact that your network service provider may use traffic shaping and network provisioning to vary the actual, deliverable performance, based on measured or estimated network demand, this can get pretty hairy to measure. So to quantify your speed properly, you'll really need to measure a variety of network-speed-vs.-time-of-day profiles; and you should probably average them over a month or two.

Finally, I'll just point out the difference between latency and throughput - two different metrics of "speed" that you should always keep in mind when you're quantitatively measuring network performance. By properly training internet-users in the conceptual basics of network performance, we can end the infamous "my network is slow" complaint and replace it with an actual, diagnosable, (and possibly fixable) report of true network performance. Nimur (talk) 18:29, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Hard disk failure

Five years ago, there was a power outage, and a very low-quality desktop computer I had mysteriously stopped working. If I can trust the memory of my former 9-year-old self, the computer simply didn't react when I pressed the power button. The BIOS screen didn't appear, no LEDs turned on, and the monitor never received any signal. Because there were quite a few precious childhood photos on there, I disassembled the computer and attached its hard disk (it was a PATA disk, if that matters) to a working desktop as master, hoping it would boot. No such luck.

A few weeks ago, I bought a IDE-to-USB adapter and tried to access the hard disk. It didn't even spin up or react in any way, so obviously that plan failed. I have two questions: (1) why would a power outage cause such serious problems? (2) Anything else I could do to recover my data? --99.237.234.245 (talk) 02:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If it won't spin up on it's own, you're going to need the help of a Data Recovery Service. They can retrieve data from disks that aren't functioning.

A google search turns up lots of them. It wouldn't hurt to contact them and get some quotes. APL (talk) 03:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Before you spend a lot of money, I assume that you received an independent power supply with your adapter. Is this working properly and firmly connected to your hard drive motor? It seems unlikely that the power outage destroyed the motor of your hard drive, though I suppose anything is possible if there was a large power surge at the same time. Dbfirs 09:39, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes make sure you plugged in both the IDE and power connectors into the hard drive 82.44.55.25 (talk) 10:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes, drives get stuck if they haven't been used for a while (several years). If you're sure you don't want to go for a professional data recovery service, you could try the following procedure - which may make things worse, may decrease the chance that a professional data recovery service will still be able to pull data off the drive, should you later change your mind, and may increase the price such a service will charge you.

Hook the drive up to your USB adapter or a long IDE cable, and an appropriate power supply. As soon as you connect power to the drive, turn it - more or less gently- around the disk axis.

I've seen disks spring to life after that procedure, though it usually meant they didn't live very long - so start backing up the data as soon as possible. -- 78.43.71.225 (talk) 16:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I too have briefly revived a disk with this procedure, but I can't say I'd recommend it for an archive of irreplaceable photographs or for a drive that stopped suddenly and mysteriously.

The sort of "Sticky drive" this fixes tends to be more of a gradual failure where first the drive starts making horrible noises, then it occasionally doesn't start, then it doesn't start more often than not, etc. APL (talk) 17:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

What is the model of the drive? Early models suffered from stiction and could be temporarily fixed by applying percussive maintenance. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 16:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I've heard of data recovery companies, but before mailing my disk in for a quote, can anybody give me an approximate price range? I've read that recovery off of a physically damaged disk costs >$1000. I'm 13 years old, and even if I had that kind of money, I wouldn't spend it on something that only has sentimental value.

The disk in question is a Quantum Fireball (Plus LM), 3.5 series. I've tried 78.43.71.225's suggestion, as well as gentle "percussive maintenance", but neither of them had any effect. I'm also sure that the power adapter is plugged in. The adapter is also a SATA-to-USB adapter, and it works perfectly on my SATA disk, so that's not an issue. Unfortunately, I don't have a working PATA disk to test it on. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 17:49, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

If it is SATA, then it won't suffer from stiction. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 11:49, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

One office friend did spend US$1000 for one of those places to recover the data from a hard disk. (The service did get all the data in his case.) You could always wait 15 years until you're loaded with cash and try then. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, disk recovery can be expensive but prices do vary depending on what service you want. Google for "disk recovery" or similar keywords, and get a few quotes - you don't have to follow up any of the quotes. Astronaut (talk) 11:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Question: Does the drive show up, throwing errors, or does it not show up at all? If the latter: With older hard drives, it is sometimes possible to salvage the electronics from a drive of the same make and model, so in case the logic board got damaged, yet the mechanical parts are still ok, you might be able to recover the data yourself by buying the same model on ebay and swapping the board.

If it does show up, then you probably managed to fry the drive motor, and swapping the board won't help.

I've read reports of people building their own makeshift cleanroom in the bathroom for "open-disk surgery", but that's a rather risky approach (and would still require you to find a donor disk first). -- 78.43.71.225 (talk) 21:27, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't show up at all. The computer doesn't even recognize it as a USB device. I'll try buying a new control board, although I don't know how easy that is considering the age of this disk. --99.237.234.245 (talk) 05:13, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Before you go too far, you might try it with some other, known-good, disk drive if you have one. There may be a problem with your USB to ATA converter. APL (talk) 02:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

wlan printer

For connecting a wlan printer, I connected both the printer and the computer to a wlan_xy. However, is there a way of connecting the printer directly to the computer (which is connected to a wlan)? Quest09 (talk) 10:51, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Does the printer have a USB port? Many networked printers do, and if it does, you can connect it by a USB cable to your computer and use it just like a non-networked printer. Or are you trying to do something more complicated? --Colapeninsula (talk) 14:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

yes, I know I can connect to it with a cable. The problem is that I use the wlan of my neighbor, and if he disconnects it, I wouldn't have the printer connected to the computer via wlan. It seems that they suppose that you have to have an access point for a wlan connection. Quest09 (talk) 17:19, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that is the way the printer and the computer work: you need a wireless access point to establish a wireless network. The USB cable is your best solution if your neighbor switches off his router. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Wireless access point is not mandatory, there is ad hoc mode. All wireless cards, i have encountered support it (though, some specific devices might not). In ad hoc mode, there is no need for access point, because devices connects to each other directly. Maximum achievable data rate might be lower than in infrastructure network (because of less efficient protocol), there also in no WPA available, only WEP. Setting it up also might be more complicated. Printer probably will be able to connect to existing network. So, you will need to make ad hoc network on your computer and connect printer to it. There probably also will be necessary a DHCP server (if that thing will not work with zeroconf). -Yyy (talk) 08:02, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Calendar of worldwide events/days/festivals/occasions etc.

Hello all, I think this query just about falls under the remit of the Computing Ref. Desk. I've spent the last few days looking for an online calendar that charts a range of events including:

• Inter/National days of celebration (Independence days etc.)
• Inter/National and regional events/festivals etc
• Awareness weeks ("Green Week", "Mental Health week" etc.)

And any other notable events on an International, National and regional level.

I've found some reasonably useful resources such as the Earth Calendar, 2011 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Annual_events, but nothing that really works as a suitable "catch-all".

Does anyone on here know of a resource that might fit the bill? Thanks, 161.76.127.89 (talk) 11:43, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not free, but it appears that this is what you are looking for: MultiCultural Calendar --Zerozal (talk) 14:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi Zerozal, thanks for the link, it oculd be quite useful. 161.76.127.89 (talk) 15:21, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Go to Google and login (assuming you have made your free Google account). Select "Calendars" under the more option. In Calendars, you will see your calendar on the left and a settings option. Click on settings. On the settings page is the option to "View interesting calendars". Click on that. You will see a list of holiday calendars for pretty much every country and religion. -- kainaw™ 19:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Storage capacity of 480i SD video on Blu-Ray

Considering the maximum 10Mb/sec of a SD DVD, how much 480i video could a single layer 25GB Blu-Ray disc contain? Google calculator and Wolfram Alpha gave me about 5 ½ hours (25GB ÷ 10Mb/sec), but that seems a little low. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 15:41, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My math agrees. You probably already know this, but our article section DVD-Video#Data rate says professionally encoded DVDs run about half that maximum data rate, so you'd double your runtime in that case. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Since the question seemed to concern 480i video rather then specifically MPEG2 encodec 480i video, you could also consider using H.264 and an even lower average data rate achieving roughly the same visual quality. Nil Einne (talk) 19:27, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Unprintable symbol in firefox (iceweasel)

When I am looking at math formulas using iceweasel ( Debian version of firefox) I get the following problem.

U preserves the inner product 〈 , 〉 on the Hilbert space, i.e. for all vectors x and y in the Hilbert space,

I assume that the symbols after "U preserves the inner product" are also unreadable for you. I have the browser set to UTF-8 and Ariel type face. I have had the same problem using other type faces. What is the problem and how do I fix it.

Gary Roach —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.235.83 (talk) 19:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(They show up fine for me in Firefox on a Mac, assuming they are supposed to be somewhat stretched less-than and greater-than signs.) --Mr.98 (talk) 20:04, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

It is possible that the questioner thinks that there should be something inside the angle-brackets like <x,y>. Since those brackets were first added, nothing has been inside them. -- kainaw™ 20:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Except a comma. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:28, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Any particular website? ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I should have put in a description. What shows on my browser are two square boxes with numbers (I think) 3008 , 3004. These seem to correspond to #160 in the html code. I am talking about wikpedia files here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.235.83 (talk) 00:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

3008 is the left angle bracket 〈, 3009 the right 〉. 160 is equivalent to a particular space character. If you can refer us to the particular files, more can be confirmed. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes a search for Unitary Operator will get you to the page in question. Specifically, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_operator

Gary R. (I guess I should log in but seldom have anything to contribute. Also retired and flat broke. Great economy) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.229.235.83 (talk) 00:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think you're missing any characters, the editors of that article have just decided to refer to certain syntax without any values inside. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

What you're seeing is almost certainly a browser bug -- it doesn't know how to render those symbol codes. How old is your version of iceweasel? Looie496 (talk) 18:17, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Phones as modems

Hi, I've always "known" and have been told by everyone that using a Phone as a modem for my computer extensively, shortens the lifespan of the phone, but I cant find anything to back this up, does anyone have any documentation to support this? Joneleth (talk) 20:13, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

In what way are you using a phone as a modem? When I first began using modems (shortly after the fire was invented), a modem required you to place the handset on the modem. Shortly afterward, the modem became a self-contained unit. You plugged in a phone line. So, you didn't use a phone anymore - just a modem. Regardless, usage of the phone in the very old modems is no different than speaking on a phone. If anything, it is better for the phone as risk of being dropped decreases when the phone is just sitting on top of a modem. -- kainaw™ 20:18, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean tethering a mobile wireless digital telephone to a personal computer? I think that shortens the battery life because the radio transmitter is on for a long period of time. It should not damage the phone in any way. Nimur (talk) 21:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

He could have been talking about whistling modem tones into a phone. (What, no article? Shocking.) 67.162.90.113 (talk) 22:57, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

(The article you want is Phreaking.) --Mr.98 (talk) 00:20, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know; I used to be able to whistle 300 baud originate and answer tones, and it would be a stretch to call that phreaking. Phreaking has the connotation of manipulating the phone company's system, rather than just fooling the modem on the other end of the line into not giving up and dropping the connection for a few seconds, for want of a carrier signal. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:35, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Im taking about Tethering with Cell phones yes, and i know why they are suppose to do it but i need some kind of documentation for it! Joneleth (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Integrated circuits do eventually fail after many years of use, but they usually get replaced long before that point. Batteries have to be replaced after a relatively small number of charge-discharge cycles, of course. Overuse may shorten the lifespan of your limited-data service plan. Other than that, I don't know of any negative effects. -- BenRG (talk) 04:10, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

January 29

Legacy pan-European variable-width character encodings

Why aren't there any legacy pan-European variable-width character encodings? --84.62.200.57 (talk) 21:01, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You can easily understand this by looking at the article ISO/IEC 8859 and its subarticles for the various encodings. The encodings had to be compatible with ASCII, i.e. they could only use the upper 128 code points. Moreover, some of these code points were reserved for special purposes. Therefore separate standards for the different regions were created. Hans Adler 00:30, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The question was about a variable-width encoding. I don't know the answer, but it's probably because a variable-width encoding would have been more of a hassle than several single-byte encodings. Among other things, terminal windows traditionally worked on a one-byte-per-character-cell principle, meaning that double-byte characters are twice as wide as single-byte characters. That's fine for Japanese kanji but not for accented Latin letters. -- BenRG (talk) 04:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, I missed the "variable-width" bit, but I think historically it just doesn't make much sense in Europe. There wasn't much of an internet to speak of, and each European language itself could be represented with an ISO 8859 code that had much better compatibility with ASCII than any variable-width code could have had. As soon as the problem became more pressing, Unicode was under development anyway. Once you start moving everything to a variable width (or fixed multi-byte) encoding in order to get all European languages on board at the same time, it was logical to include the rest of the world or at least be sufficiently extensible so that it could be included. Hans Adler 17:31, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Are there any legacy pan-European character encodings? --84.62.200.57 (talk) 14:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If you include single-byte encodings, the Cork encoding might qualify, and there are probably others. There are no variable-width encodings to my knowledge. One of the CJK encodings may qualify, but JIS X 0208 doesn't even contain Latin-1. -- BenRG (talk) 23:28, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Google

Does google keep copies of its web cache, donate them to internet archivers or something? Or does google just overwrite / delete it when crawling the web. It would be a shame to think that possibly the most complete copy of the internet is not being preserved 82.44.55.25 (talk) 22:37, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Would Google have enough space to keep multiple copies of the internet? — Fly by Night (talk) 03:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that they would, yes. I don't know, but my guess is that they never delete old pages and that they do cooperate with organizations like the Internet Archive, because both of those strike me as typical Google behavior. -- BenRG (talk) 04:36, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there any official word from google about what it does with its cache? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:39, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The Internet Archive does store old versions of the things it archives. I don't think there'd be any benefit to Google giving them its cached copies, though; they can just retrieve that pages themselves, at their own pace. Paul (Stansifer) 22:16, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I am aware of the Internet Archive, but it is very much less complete than google cache in terms of coverage, at least in my experience. I assume the benefit to the Internet Archive would be the enormous amount saved bandwidth in the terabytes range, and the benefit to google would be the same as their usenet archive; being able to say "we helped build this awesome archive". 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The data still has to make it to the Internet Archive somehow. Mailing hard drives back and forth might be cheaper than buying bandwidth (I know that it can be faster), but I don't think that it's worth all that much, given that (1) Google and the Internet Archive have different goals and thus different storage formats and update frequencies, (2) Google doesn't save images, but the Internet Archive does, and (3) the Internet Archive needs an immense amount of bandwidth anyways, since they host large video and audio files. Paul (Stansifer) 23:23, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This speculation is interesting but is there any official word from google about what they do with their cache data? I tried searching their faq pages but couldn't come up with anything relevant myself. Maybe someone with better search skills can find something 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:57, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

They won't say anything about it if they don't keep it. It's called a "cache" after all, and caches are by their nature temporary. Paul (Stansifer) 01:23, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Why wouldn't they say anything about it? They document even the most mundane and obvious features of their search page with in-depth guides. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 12:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

It's not a feature to throw away data, and this data has little value, since other people could have acquired it, if they were so inclined. There are lots of things that Google doesn't do; listing them all would take forever. Paul (Stansifer) 14:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Google Cache is a feature of Google. I cannot be the first person to wonder if google keeps versions of cached pages or just overwrites them with each new crawl. Maybe it seems obvious to you but it doesn't to me. In the age of wiki-like revision histories and virtually unlimited hard drive space, it would so easy for them to do it. And I strongly disagree with you that "the data has little value"; if people had that attitude over books centuries ago years and years of written history would have been lost forever instead of being preserved in libraries and archives. I thank you for your ideas and input to my question, but I really would rather have an official page from google than speculation. 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are the services that Google makes available to the general public: Google Products. If you are a Google employee, a developer with a special agreement with Google, or if you work at a research or development organization affiliated with Google, numerous additional products and services are available for you. It is almost assured that Google has some extra caching, beyond that which it reveals through its public Search interface; but those extra services are probably both non-public and require technical skills to operate. Nimur (talk) 21:14, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Internet Explorer active even though I have not used it

Ccleaner cleans my computer when I switch it on at least once a day. Sometimes, when I tell Ccleaner to clean my computer after using it for a while, it says it has cleaned Internet Explorer internet files and cookies. But I use Firefox. Internet Explorer is still on my computer, but I never use it. Why is Internet Eplorer active even though I havn't used it? Thanks 92.28.244.55 (talk) 22:39, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Many other programs use the Internet Explorer engine to render webpages, so using them will cause internet files and cookies to show up as if you had used Internet Explorer. Examples of this that I know of are FeedReader and Maxthon, there are many more. This is one possible reason why Ccleaner reports Internet Explorer usage even though you haven't directly used it 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Windows' Help system also uses IE. Hit <F1> in Windows or any other microsoft application and IE goes to work, though in disguise. Roger (talk) 13:52, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

What companies (aside form Google) keep the exact number of their servers a secret?

So I was watching Modern Marvels on the History Channel on their episode about 90's tech. On the part about Google, they mentioned that they keep the number of their servers a secret. While I had already known about that for some time, seeing it made me think "What other companies do it?" Is it a common strategy or does only Google keep the number of their servers a secret? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 23:22, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I know plenty of companies that don't even know the number of servers they are running. Does that count? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:36, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I was thinking along similar lines myself. Large companies are constantly (read "daily") updating their servers, replacing them, noticing that they have died, combining small ones into bigger ones, geographically spreading them, reassigning the tasks each performs.... A question I would ask is, what do you mean by a server? HiLo48 (talk) 23:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

• Stephan Schulz, that does not count. I was thinking of companies which actually explicitly say that the exact number of their servers is a secret, much like how China (and possibly Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba and other communist countries) explicitly mention that they keep the number of their executions a secret. As for HiLo48, our article defines a server as "a computer program running as a service, to serve the needs or requests of other programs (referred to in this context as "clients") which may or may not be running on the same computer, a physical computer dedicated to running one or more such services, to serve the needs of programs running on other computers on the same network, a software/hardware system (i.e. a software service running on a dedicated computer) such as a database server, file server, mail server, or print server.". Does that answer your question? Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 23:55, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Er... you kind of lost me with the whole Communist-country thing. Regardless, I think it's normal for corporations to keep quiet about things they're not legally required to disclose. I don't know how many have explicitly said their number of servers is a secret, but I presume it's roughly the same as the number that have been asked. -- BenRG (talk) 03:43, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Not HiLo48 but I doubt it. Are you including servers used only for internal usage? If someone shares files on their desktop computer is that a server? Are you including specialised NAS, routers and firewalls? If not are you including computers dedicated to running m0n0wall, pfSense and stuff? If someone is running multiple VMs each functioning as a server however you define it does that count as one server or multiple? If you are say Microsoft developing server software and OSes and you have some computers used for testing which of course are functioning as servers and accessed over the network for testing purposes do those count as servers? If a company has fairly lax policies about what you can do with their computers and someone runs a game server temporarily for their office LAN party is that a server? Is a computer running a P2P client a server? If not what if the company uses P2P to aide in distribution of their content and run specialised computers for it are these servers and if yes when does the switch over happen? These are just a small number of the questions you haven't answered if you want to define a server sufficiently to work out numbers. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with BenRG. At any company, the default position is to keep everything secret which is internal to the company, unless there's a specific strategy underway to gain some sort of benefit by blabbing about the internal mechanisms of the company. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

January 30

Wikipedia cybersquatting by yeah.com

Anyone else hate it when you type in a Wikipedia URL and it takes you to yeah.com. It's an illegal website with malware on it. You could try typing in the Wikipedia URL a DOZEN times and it will take you there. I've checked time and time again, even if you spell the URL right, it will still take you there sometimes. Anyone else experience this? I looked online and many others have experienced this problem.--68.186.160.22 (talk) 01:09, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

If you spell the URL correctly, and still go to the site, then either (A) you really didn't spell the name correctly, (B) your computer is compromised with malware, or (C) the DNS server which you are using is compromised. The far most likely option is (A). Pay attention to what LordRM said at the end of the conversation you linked to, and when it happens, check carefully what it says in the address bar after the page loads. I can almost assure you that the address won't be for a valid Wikipedia site (remember that even one character off is a different site). -- 174.21.236.191 (talk) 01:17, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I haven't had this problem at all when I've visited Wikipedia. Did you try the suggestions in the thread you linked too? If you did and it didn't work, My recommendation would be to check your computer for any sort of add-on illigally on your computer, as well as malware. I just had to clear 132 viruses off of my friends computer. One of the things they were doing were to take over and direct his browser to advertising.
Of course, if you still run into this problem, you always could access Wikipedia by visiting "http://enwp.org." It redirects to Wikipedia. ~ Matthewrbowker ^{Say hi!} 01:28, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

This could solve your problem if you are using IE. General Rommel (talk) 10:26, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow. I don't even know if thats "slimy but clever", or "clever but slimy"... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:31, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I know what the problem is. You are typing en.wikipedia.org and then instead of hitting the Enter key alone, you're hitting Shift-Enter. A browser standard is to interpret shift-Enter as meaning "please add .net to the end of the URL that I am typing and go there", so your browser thinks you want to go to en.wikipedia.org.net and the org.net URL points to yeah.com. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

How to enable the speakers

How to enable the speakers on the laptop when using Window vista Home edition? Right now I am using the HDMI volume mixer, not the regular one. Please help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.92.153.39 (talk) 18:42, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

You should probably seek real-time help: http://webchat.freenode.net/?nick=hdmiOhMy&channels=##windows ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:05, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Depends on your laptop's configuration. On my Dell, I can choose which output device the audio is sent to - the built-in audio card (and connected speakers or headphones), or the HDMI port. IIRC, the control for this is in the audio/sounds section of 'control panel'. Astronaut (talk) 17:35, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Blender 3D Particle System

If I make a sphere in Blender 3D with a given material, and then want the sphere´s particle system to have another. How can I do that if I put the sphere´s particle system to "Render Emitter"? 83.183.172.203 (talk) 19:18, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The Blender 3D Wikibook has a whole chapter on Particle Systems, including this section called Changing the material of the particles. Does it help? Nimur (talk) 21:09, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Windows command shell stops responding, sort of

Hi, sometimes in the Windows command shell (cmd.exe), when I've been using the same instance for a while, the shell will stop interfacing with the file system, or so it seems. For example, typing the name of a .bat file does nothing - only returns two linefeeds and returns to the prompt - even though I could run the bat file just before. This may happen more often when I've run Windows applications (like write.exe) from the shell. Sometimes the dir command will not list all files either (after the shell has been used some time). I've seen this on several different computers, using both XP and Vista, and I think I've malware checked at least most of them. Is this a known issue? Any work-arounds? Thanks a lot! Jørgen (talk) 19:21, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

I've never heard of, or seen, this problem. For your batch file problem, try typing "echo" from the command line and then running the batch file, to see what the batch file is actually feeding the shell to run. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:26, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, I could look at that, but as I said the batch file is fine (it usually runs but after the shell has been active for a while it does nothing - not even the "echos" in the batch file). In any case, thanks, I'll do some more malware scanning and then probably live with it - not too much of an active nuisance. Jørgen (talk) 09:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

burning dvd

I have burnt a movie clip on to a disc. It plays the video and sound OK If I look at the properties of the disc, it shows;-

DVD-RW (E)............(disc drive) CDROM

Why does it show as a DVD and CDROM? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.171.184.228 (talk) 22:29, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Wild stab in the dark - have you created a Video CD instead of a DVD? Exxolon (talk) 01:08, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Could also have burnt an ordinary data CD, or data CD filesystem onto a DVD. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

January 31

Blu-ray discs

I don't have a Blu-ray player and therefore haven't held very many of the discs in my hands. A guy I work with just came into the office asking about a Blu-ray disc that his wife got. He says that it will not play in his Blu-ray player and went on to say that there is a lip around the bottom outer edge of the disc that he could feel with his fingers. This isn't a common thing, right? It seems to me that it might be a manufacturing defect. I've done some searching and can't find mention of this lip anywhere. Any ideas? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 01:15, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

This happens on occasion with DVDs, too in the manufacturing process. It shouldn't affect playback, though, unless the lip is unusually large. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WikiProject Japan! 01:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Blu-Ray discs are notorious for not playing because the firmware on the player needs to be upgraded. Completely ridiculous, but I've got completely legit BD movies that I can't watch because the industry prefers to cram in more goofy shit onto their discs than letting people watch movies they paid for. Does the disc not work at all or does it only show the menu? Alice in Wonderland and Toy Story 3 fell into the latter category for me. You're supposed to be able to update the firmware by downloading a file (or having the player connect over the WiFi), though I've never gotten that to work properly. Matt Deres (talk) 17:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe the issue was that it wouldn't play at all. Dismas|^(talk) 06:05, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

"AES 256

My friend sent me the follow which is apparently encrypted in "AES 256" with the password "1234". Can someone decrypt it for me, or give me an online page to do so? I cannot install anything on this computer

{{3f6acb316a45332820693fdd0ea491f57c22a02a65bd17692d1aa210d67e3b424294967294}}

Sure. AES is the standard encryption used by the U.S. government and many other organizations. So, it should be easily cracked with some online little script. Right? Of course not. Ask your "friend" for the key. If he doesn't want to give it to you, you can't have it. -- kainaw™ 13:18, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Err, the OP says they have the key. They just want to know what it decrypts to. Way to be snarky for no reason. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

If he really wants to know, it decrypts to:

����c�b��
�:u��1w�(<�*�O��S

Now, he can ask his "friend" what that means, or ask for the real key, or ask what odd flavor of AES is being used. -- kainaw™ 13:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course he really wants to know! That's what the entire question was about. Just because there is some confusion inherent to this doesn't mean that he's trying to do what you've assumed he is trying to do. Don't bite the posters for no reason. There's no need to put "friend" in quotation marks. You're assuming some weird faith here, and frankly I just don't see why. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The supplied hex string consists of 74 hex digits, which corresponds to 296 bits. In its most basic mode of operation (electronic codebook), the cipher returns a ciphertext whose length is a multiple of the block size (128). Most online utilities only support electronic codebook (ECB) encryption/decryption. Also, an AES-256 key should be 256 bits long, the supplied key is not, which means it must have been subject to padding. It'd be easier if you asked your friend what mode of operation and what padding scheme (for the key) was used. decltype (talk) 14:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

AES doesn't encrypt files using passwords. It encrypts 128-bit blocks using a key of 128, 192, or 256 bits. There are ways of encrypting files that make use of AES (together with a cryptographic hash function), but there is no standard way of doing it. Your friend will have to tell you what encryption product he/she used. In a properly designed encryption product, the 128-bit blocks are not pieces of the user's file and the key is not the user's passphrase padded out to the required length. There are encryption programs that do it that way, but they are written by people who have no idea what they're doing, are insecure, and should not be used for any purpose. -- BenRG (talk) 20:02, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Advanced bluetooth / windows functions

Is it possible to go above and beyond the default drivers that a bluetooth USB dongle comes with so that I can, for example, intercept when I press a button on my headset and have it change a song instead of changing the volume? Is there a driver or program that is compatible with a wide range of dongles that can configure advanced features like this? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 17:22, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but it is technically challenging. If you are already a programmer, you may find this guide to BlueZ programming useful. You will not have to write low-level driver code, but you will need to interact with it. If you are not already a programmer, your options are significantly more limited. I am not aware of any "applications" that let you remap BlueTooth events; but you can read through this list of alternative software. If you are working on Windows, here is a Broadcom Bluetooth Developer Kit; of course, if your device does not use a Broadcom radio, you may need to find a similar kit from your device's manufacturer. Here is a Microsoft Windows Bluetooth SDK, from MSDN, intended for higher-level application software; it should be compatible with all standard Bluetooth devices (but has less access to low-level events). Nimur (talk) 20:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Dual Boot Windows 7?

Hello,
One of the other editors was telling me you could dual boot a pc. I have several questions:

1. Is it safe?
2. Can you run Mac OS doing this (my current pc is a dell windows 7 laptop)?
3. Is it easy to do?
   

Any replies would be appreciated
Thanks,
Thomas888b(Say Hi) 19:57, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Dual boot itself doesn't make your computer more or less safe as you only run one operating system at any given time. The only security thing I can think of is that the OS you use least may not receive all the latest updates and patches as quickly as the other one, and therefore it could be less safe during the first minutes after it boots up. (before it has been updated with the latest patches).
2. Yes, you could run Mac OS and Win 7 on the same computer.
3. It depends on how good your computer skills are, but there are a number of guides online. For instance, this.

// 83.253.250.186 (talk) 20:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Little more on #1: if your Windows is already installed, and you want to dual boot without reinstalling Windows, and you don't have any unpartitioned/empty drive space, you will need to resize your Windows partition/s first, which is usually safe, but can potentially break things. It's apparently a good idea to defrag your filesystems beforehand, and of course making regular backups is quite smart. #2: Entirely possible (given certain hardware requirements), but you should know that running Mac OS on non-Apple hardware violates Apple's EULA (see Hackintosh). #3: it should be easy, but possibly tedious. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:39, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

• I have a computer running Windows Vista and would like to install Windows XP, but I want to keep Windows Vista intact as well. It has two hard-drive partitions. If I do a duel boot, doesn't that mean a boot menu will come up at boot asking me if I want to run XP or Vista? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 00:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

This should probably be in its own topic since it is a separate (if related) question. You can have a dual-boot of XP and Vista, yes, but only if you have XP installed before installing Vista. It doesn't work the other way around. -Amordea (talk) 02:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's not actually correct. Ideally you'd install XP first because Vista knows how to handle it and thus sets up the dual boot menu for you automatically, but you can do it round the other way too. The only problem is that XP's installer will overwrite the boot loader (stopping Vista from loading) so you'll need to boot from the Vista DVD again and select "Repair" to replace the bootloader with the Vista one.  ZX81  ^talk 02:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ah, that's good to know. -Amordea (talk) 02:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that's all I needed to know! PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 04:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Power issues

Two questions concerning a recent power cord problem that I've developed on my laptop.

• The background: Since moving to a new house with new plugs several months ago, I've been going through power cords like a mad man (averaging about one every 1.5 months). At first I'd figured it was the awkward positioning, but then I figured out it was probably the power source itself. It seems the problem was fixed just by using a power strip (which evidently cleaned the energy up). Still, the power quality on my computer has been faltering in recent days, since my current cord was damaged before I figured out to use a power strip.
• The questions:
  • I plugged in a completely new cord that I know is working into my computer (I know it's working because it works on another computer of the same make in the house). The power is still flickering, which makes me think it's internal to my computer. Is that sort of problem likely to be the battery, or the motherboard itself? The batter is replaceable; the motherboard is not.
  • A few minutes ago my computer got nasty and just shut off on me. Upon reboot, it's told me there's not as much RAM as before (uh-oh). I plugged in new RAM (only an additional .5GB instead of 2 GB... hmph... good thing I can run Ubuntu on 1GB of RAM), and the new RAM is working. Is it safe to surmise that the power issue is what caused the RAM to go crazy? The RAM compartment had been exposed on my laptop, so it's quite possible that something leaked in (like water) which may have disrupted the RAM on its own. Nevertheless, I don't want to risk the other components of my computer if my power cord is causing shorts to wipe out the capability of its parts.

Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Can you explain why you think it is a power problem? I have never seen a power cord fail, personally. Power cords are just a thick wire with some insulation around it; there is not a lot of fragile or finicky stuff inside them that can fail. I think it is more likely that you have a power supply problem, and when you switched power cords and didn't see any problems, it was just coincidence. Or by "power cord" do you mean "power cord plus power adapter"? Power adapters can indeed fail, but, again, this is pretty rare in my experience. Again, what do you mean by "the power is still flickering"? Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:45, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

OK: I have had several power adapter/cords die on my watch in the past several months. It's obvious because... you plug them in, and they don't work, but another cord does work.

As for the flickering, when it's plugged in, the screen flickers between bright and non-bright mode, as the power is constantly disconnecting and reconnecting. Magog the Ogre (talk) 03:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

You talk about "power cord", is this the part that attaches from your wall socket into the adapter for your laptop? Or is it the part that comes out of the adapter and into your laptop itself? Which part have you "replaced" so many times already? Given what I could extract from your problem description I can with 99% certainty say your your problem is one of the following:

1. The power quality at your new house is poor (high total harmonic distortion) and/or you are not getting a decent voltage at your mains point, leading to your adapter (which is likely a switch mode power supply) intermittently cutting out the supply to your laptop
2. Your power adapter has an internal fault that may be intermittent
3. The cord from your power adapter to your laptop has an internal fault that may be intermittent; pay particular attention to the point where the cord exits the adapter body as it commonly experiences bending and stresses
4. The plug on the end of your power cord is not making clean contact with the socket in your laptop. The contact pin could be worn.
5. The socket in your laptop has started working itself loose from the motherboard creating a dry joint type of problem

I'd be very surprised if it's not one of the above. I'm 100% confident the problem is not the "power cord" from your wall socket to your adapter. Zunaid 08:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Or 6, it could be a faulty power socket. Get an electrical engineer to look at it. Maybe it's time to rewire the house.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 10:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. Let me eliminate some of those possibilities:

• I've used more than one wall socket.
• I've used more than one cord; I've used another cord that the other laptop in my home has no problems with, but my laptop is having problems with.

And an update: I finally got my computer to sit in just the right position on my lap so that it charged for about 30 minutes straight (it took a while). When I did remove the cord, both the metal on the cord and on the back of the laptop were extraordinarily hot to the touch. I'm not sure if this is a new development or not. Also, don't forget it's the second question I asked above. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:10, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Then it is #4. Most likely the pin inside your laptop's socket is not making a good connection with the plug on the end of your adapter. If you wiggle it in the socket can you hear electrical arcing? In that case expect it to burn off sooner or later, one of these days the pin will simply come out still stuck inside your power supply's plug. Exact same thing happened to my work laptop (hence I now have a new one! :P). Root cause is simple wear and tear from plugging and unplugging over the years, also, any pressure that has been put on the point by accidentally or deliberately leaning the laptop over onto the power plug and/or using it on a non-flat surface. Zunaid 21:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Windows XP install media

Hi, I have a computer that I need to re-install Windows XP on but I don't have the original media. I have the license and product key..I'm not trying to pirate anything...I just need the CD. Is there anywhere I can download something like that? 69.180.160.77 (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I don't believe so. Unfortunately, I believe that every Windows XP Disk has a unique license key, and only that key will work, so you would need the original disk (or at least the early releases). Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 23:30, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That's incorrect. All XP CDs of a given type are pressed from a master with identical pits. Microsoft can't tell what physical disc you used for installation and, believe me, they don't care. They just want their licensing fee. This is equally true of more recent products with their increasingly draconian activation schemes. The discs are still all alike. -- BenRG (talk) 08:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

One of the big criticisms I have against Microsoft is this issue, trying to re-install XP when you lose the disc (thankfully this is less of a problem with Vista and 7). The short answer is, yes, you can download a legit XP CD via a torrent site (for example).

But in order to do this, you need to know a few things, because there are at least 30 different versions of XP out there. First, is this a retail, OEM, or volume license? Second, is the version Home, Professional, or Media Center Edition? (there are other versions too, but these are rarer) But you need to determine these two things before you can figure out which CD you need to download.

If you're not sure, check a few things first. First, is your computer from a major manufacturer like Dell or HP? If so, check and make sure you don't have a recovery partition on the hard drive (this is a common scenario where the installation image is saved on the hard drive since they don't have to ship you a CD then and it's arguably harder to "lose" a disk image). If you do have a recovery partition, hooray, you're saved! If you do not have a recovery partition or have deleted this partition, but do have a Dell or HP, then you need an OEM copy of XP. The good news is, you won't have to enter the product key when you reinstall with an OEM copy of Windows, but you do have to pick the OEM copy specific to the distributor of your PC.

If you purchased your copy of Windows from a store, then you have a retail copy of Windows and you need to download a retail version.

If you got your computer from a small computer business or wholesaler, then you may have a volume license (I used to not think there was a difference between volume license and retail, until I tried to enter a volume license into a retail copy of Windows XP and it refused my product key and only by chance did I find a volume license copy which worked with my code).

So for instance, if you have a Dell which has a Windows XP Home sticker on it, you need to download a Dell OEM copy of Windows XP Home.

Be careful what you download...XP CD's are a common vector for malicious software distributors (as I found out once myself when trying to compile my technician's toolkit to include the vast array of Windows XP versions...luckily I run tests on my CD's before installing them on customer PC's!). -Amordea (talk) 23:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

You install software that you downloaded via torrents on your customers' machines? Please tell me who you work for so I can be sure never to be a customer of yours. Seriously, this is very irresponsible. Your "testing" of the downloads cannot be comprehensive — you are placing all your faith in your malware detection programs — and is not proof against threats that your malware program doesn't yet know about. Comet Tuttle (talk) 00:04, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

That's fair criticism. I agree it's not ideal. I would not do so if I felt I had much choice in the matter and I always acquire the legitimate CD whenever possible. But paying hundreds of dollars to acquire each and every distribution of Windows XP (there really are very many, 30 probably isn't an exaggeration and they are not interoperable) is pretty ridiculous though. To be fair, I almost never need to use them...recovery partitions are common. But what choice does one have when no CD or recovery partition is available?

While this is not quite a forum for argument, I do not agree that it's as dangerous as you suggest. There are plenty of legitimate torrents out there if you know where and how to look for them. And I do not think there is nearly the opportunity for zero-day viruses as you are making it sound. -Amordea (talk) 00:31, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Where is a legit torrent I can download it from? Again, I'm not trying to pirate anything...I own a license for this. The original CD was one of those shiny gold ones you get when you buy retail. Not one that's branded...69.180.160.77 (talk) 01:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Sure, I am not talking piracy either. I wouldn't condone that.

Torrenting is the only way I know of downloading a legit copy unfortunately since Microsoft does not offer the CD for download. But like I said, you will need to know your version. You say it's retail. Is it Home or Professional? (I don't recall if MCE was ever non-OEM or not.) -Amordea (talk) 01:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's XP Pro. Thanks...69.180.160.77 (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The demand for legit retail XP Pro CD's seems rather low unfortunately (it is pretty late in the game for Windows XP). In my search, I am not sure there is a copy I saw that I could say with a good degree of reliability isn't tainted. I don't suppose there is a chance you can find a friend who has a copy and ask to borrow their CD? If not, you might be better off calling Microsoft on this one and seeing if they will help you being as you do have a legitimate product key. Sorry I couldn't be of more help there. -Amordea (talk) 01:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I can't comprehend the fear and uncertainty about malware I'm seeing in this thread. If you don't know the provenance of an ISO image then check its SHA-1 hash, for heaven's sake. Microsoft doesn't seem to have a publicly accessible list of hashes of its non-public downloads, but I would tend to trust this thread and this page, for example. SHA-1 hashes can't be forged. If your hash matches theirs, then you have the same file. -- BenRG (talk) 08:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree. In fact in the past I was able to get the hashes from Microsoft themselves somewhere on the technet site (the download page but I couldn't download myself), I had to sign in but don't have and have never had any subscription. I would note despite Amordea's claim above, I'm actually quite sure it won't be very hard if you know where to look to find legitimate (same as the ones from MSDN/Technet) SP3 integrated Windows XP retail ISOs although for obvious reasons I won't discuss where. I don't see any reason to get a version without SP3 integrated. I would also note that even if you still don't trust the hashes, their existance in old forum posts and the like does prove the same ISO has been available for however long and while it's possible someone included malware however many years ago in Windows XP that still hasn't been activated and still isn't detectable by malware detection software, this also seems unlikely. Nil Einne (talk) 10:30, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

From a simple search ('download windows 7 from technet') I was able to find what I was referring to above that provides hashes from Microsoft [1] and it seems you don't even have to signin anymore (or may be I'm remembering wrong). Click on Windows XP, look for 'Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 3 (x86) - CD (English)' (without VL!), click on view and you can get the SHA-1 hash. And to be frank, if you anyone still claims you can't be sure because maybe the ISO was modified but gives the same hash you probably don't belong on the RDC. So yes, please stop with the FUD about it being impossible to be very confident you aren't getting something that isn't malware infected when Microsoft themselves provide hashes you can use to verify anything you download is the same as what Microsoft provide. In fact I would trust something like this you've verified yourself far more then I would any non-official media that e.g. you get a friend to burn for you even if it allegedly comes from the original media. Nil Einne (talk) 10:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If you found a copy, you could have posted the link. It's easy to be a critic, but not especially useful when there is no help. I would have absolutely been forthcoming with a link to a torrent if I saw one I found trustworthy, but I didn't (which doesn't mean they are bad, just that I cannot reliably claim they are not and therefore do not feel good about linking them). None of the copies I found match the above SHA-1, either (I didn't say there isn't one out there, I'm sure there is somewhere...but I didn't find it after a timely search). That doesn't mean they are bad CD's either. If you slipstream a service pack in with nLite or in some other fashion you are not going to get the same SHA-1 as if you got a standard retail copy from Microsoft. If you want to be helpful to the OP, point him to where he can download a copy. -Amordea (talk) 11:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Well I never said I found a link. I didn't bother to look properly as I was resonably confident you could find one. I don't see how you can claim my post was not helpful as I amply demonstrated my main point, which was to clear any remaining doubt from earlier posters claims that it is impossible to be sure you aren't going to get malware when I provided a link to Microsoft's official hashes.

To clear any remaining doubt of the supposed unavailability of the file, it was a little harder then I expect but I found a ED2K URI which I strongly suspect is for the right file within a few minutes (primarily took so long because I didn't target it at first which was perhaps a mistake since ED2K tends to nearly always be the best place from my experience to get older unpopular stuff particularly specific versions which aren't necessarily the most common ones to be used/downloaded which is the case here since the VL one is probably what most people use and many people don't seem to care about getting official MS versions particular with XP where many people need slipstream IDE drivers. ). And adding it to eMule quickly shows the file appears to be available complete from at least one source (I suspect more will show up if left long enough) which suggests from my experience, it may be slow but should arrive eventually.

If you really want torrents, it took me a little longer then expected but within say 10 minutes (difficult to estimate because I did the eMule stuff and wrote this in between), I found two torrents from a mainstream torrent site, one without any apparent seeds currently, one with 1 seed (and 2 peers). And it took so long partially because I screwed up my searching. While no hash is provided, from the filename I strongly suspect these two will give the right file (no I'm not going to download the files to prove it).

Oh and I would mention in both cases I used Google to start off with so it's not like I'm using some super secret search engine that no one knows about (although obviously existing knowledge helped). You could probably find more if you searched harder and from other places e.g. usenet or rapidshare etc I didn't bother to look that hard.

Also we have discussed before why it is not a good idea to provide direct links to torrents which provide content distributed without the copyright holders permission on wikipedia. And from my POV the same applies to ED2K URIs/hashes. Not everyone agrees but I have made my views clear so there is no way I'm going to provide a link and would strongly discourage others from doing so as well. There are places where this would be acceptable, wikipedia isn't one of them. In fact even this post goes a little further then I would like, but I see no choice if people are going to spread FUD on both sides (claiming you can't be highly confident what you got doesn't have malware and claiming that even though you can, you can't actually find it) about the impossibility of getting malware free versions of a lot of MS content. If you wish to continue to make the claim it can't be found all I can do is echo CT's sentiments albeit from a different direction.

Edit: Actually while checking something above I found a third torrent with 4 seeders and ~12 peers which I'd came across earlier but didn't look at properly because the name sounded dodgy but when I did look at it turns out it was just the uploader's name. This one even gives a hash albeit MD5 but from some forum posts, this appears to be correlated with the SHA-1 Microsoft provides so it's even more likely to be the right thing. Again the torrent is from a mainstream torrent site and I started from Google. (It doesn't of course matter that much what the site is ultimately whether the file you download is what you want is all that matters and in case this isn't clear since we have a hash from Microsoft the final arbitrator will be hashing the file when it's complete. I only mention the mainstream bit to emphasise it's not like I have to look at very obscure sites.) You probably do want to look careful at the info before downloading to avoid wasting time and bandwidth I initially thought I had something because it mentioned the hash but looking carefully while whoever made the file claimed the source was the original MSDN file it had slipstreamed drivers. And my eMule reached 9 complete sources for the file before I cancelled it.

Nil Einne (talk) 17:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

From what the original poster wrote, it suggests to me that they're trying to reinstall Windows XP which came with their device thus making it the OEM version. Microsoft have never offered OEM versions for download (I've got access to MSDN, Technet Plus and Eopen) and they only offer the retail or volume licence versions and an OEM key won't work with a retail disc unless you do some tampering to it. So because Microsoft don't offer OEM versions for download, they also won't have released official hashes for those discs either... Also since you'd be downloading something that Microsoft haven't themselves made available for download regardless of whether you have a right to use it, I'm sure there could be legal implications (especially as torrents are generally easy to see who's downloading it), but that's up to you to decide if it's worth it. Sorry to sound really boring, but I feel I really should repeat my original reply, just contact the computer manufacturer and ask them for replacement media. They'll be able to supply with you with official/legal copies of the disc at what should be a very low cost and you'll be able to reuse in the future if needed again.  ZX81  ^talk 19:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The only difference between the retail, OEM and volume license discs is a product code in the text file setupp.ini. You can change a (SHA-1 verified) retail/VL disc to an OEM disc by editing that file, as described here for example. I suppose this might be described as tampering, but I have trouble getting too worked up about it. That's not to say that getting a replacement disc from the OEM is a bad idea. -- BenRG (talk) 08:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Just contact the people you got the computer from and ask for replacement media. They'll make a small admin fee, but they will supply it (or if they're no longer in business you can purchase OEM media straight from Microsoft again for a small fee). Much safer than downloading things from 3rd party places which may/may not be riddled with viruses/spyware.  ZX81  ^talk 23:59, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

February 1

DMS -doc managing system- for Ubuntu?

Which one is really free? Knowledgetree is nice, but not free enough. Ps: I don't need a content managing system. 212.169.190.130 (talk) 01:03, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Gmail very slow in IE8

Yesterday I was helping out a friend whose Gmail took ages to load, and then a long time to do simple things like opening the screen to compose a new email. It was in Internet Explorer Version 8. Other sites in IE worked fine. My workaround was to install Google Chrome, where Gmail worked fine. This friend is a 60-something year old lady who is paranoid about computers, and a challenge to teach new skills to. Any ideas? HiLo48 (talk) 01:18, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

If she's paranoid and a computer nood, tell her that Microsoft is monitoring her gmail, that's why it takes so long to download. That will make her want to use Chrome.212.169.190.130 (talk) 02:21, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Try Mozilla Firefox. Tofutwitch11 ^(TALK) 02:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Why would anyone paranoid be using any Google products? 74.14.108.195 (talk) 07:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Gmail's HTML view may be faster. Also Chrome Frame will probably be fast, but won't require switching to a whole new browser. Paul (Stansifer) 05:42, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's probably worth downloading the Malwarebytes scanner and checking whether she has some sort of IE specific malware. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas folks. Much appreciated. I could try Firefox, but Chrome's working fine, so I probably won't bother unless I have a lot of time to play on that PC. Gmail's HTML view did work faster, but it removed a couple of features this user had come to depend on. Teaching her new tricks is a challenge. When I left her she was happily clicking on the Chrome icon for her Gmail (which I had made the home page) without even knowing she was using a different browser, while happily still using IE for everything else. I would still love to know what the real problem is, so Tuttle, I'll give Malwarebytes a go, again if I can get my hands on the PC for long enough. HiLo48 (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Real URL of a PDF file

Hey, I am trying to get the real URL of a PDF

http://www.airbus.com/presscentre/corporate-information/key-documents/?eID=dam_frontend_push&docID=14849 is a redirect to the actual location, but I'm not sure how to view the actual URL of the file WhisperToMe (talk) 06:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

That URL is the actual location, it's not redirecting for me at all. Perhaps there's some confusion because the URL isn't providing a filename, so the downloaded file (for me) gets the name 'key-documents' ? Unilynx (talk) 08:01, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

As you say, there is no real URL, but the server's response includes the header Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="Airbus_Price_List_2011.pdf". Modern browsers should recognize this header and save the file as Airbus_Price_List_2011.pdf. -- BenRG (talk) 08:24, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Many websites use a content management system that stores the document in a database and builds the PDF on-the-fly when you select the download. This saves the administrator from manually creating a PDF on every update or correction. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 17:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

ISO 8691 or 8601 for date formatting?

It seems ISO 8691 and ISO 8601 are used interchangeably in some places (for instance 1, 2, 3) but I can't seem to find anything official regarding ISO 8691. Is that merely a common typo (9 is close to 0 in the keyboard)? If so, and if there isn't an ISO 8691, should we redirect the incorrect title to the correct one? --Waldir ^talk 12:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

ISO 8691 is about Petroleum products -- Low levels of vanadium in liquid fuels -- Determination by flameless atomic absorption spectrometry after ashing. See also google. 8601 is indeed date formats. So we should eradicate any 8691s on our estate which do not reek of gas. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:20, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I added a redirect and updated ISO 8601 with a hatnote for those actually looking for ISO 8691. Cheers, Waldir ^talk 15:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The redirect has been speedily-deleted (at my request). While I understand the logic of "plausible typo", I don't think it should apply to numbers - otherwise we'd end up with redirects from ISO 7601, ISO 9601, ISO 8501, ISO 8701 (and corresponding hatnotes) etc. (And then repeat for every other ISO number article.) Mitch Ames (talk) 01:52, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

But are those common? You see, I created the redirect because I got confused after seeing that in several places referring to dates (as linked above) and getting no definitive explanation. I had to assume it was a typo. Anyway, I do see your point, and I think that creating a stub for ISO 8691 might be a good compromise solution for this situation. But please don't speedy-delete it as well :) --Waldir ^talk 11:55, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

A stub for ISO 8691 would be fine (but it should not refer to 8601). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Too much files in a folder?

Is it a good idea to make sub-folders within a folder, so that you don't have too much files in it? I mean, regarding the access of said files and considering that you have 1,000 or more files. (I know that there's a maximum numbers of files that can be saved in the same folder, but that's a different thing). Quest09 (talk) 17:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Good idea for what? For your own use? For the file system? The answer is really going to depend on what you mean by a "good idea." In some contexts, having everything in one big folder might be easiest/smartest (for example, I have folders that are full of sequentially numbered PDFs — it's easier for me to just find the files I want when they're all together, rather than separating them out into small folders). In some contexts, it isn't. There's no universally right answer, here, and I don't know why one would assume there should be. --Mr.98 (talk) 18:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

But, would it improve the speed of access? Or it doesn't matter? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 18:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Personally I don't like to have more than 20,000 files in a folder because Windows Explorer usually crashes trying to open it. Using 7zip as a file manager has been a good work around for this problem in my experience. Basically, the more files you have in a folder the more system resources will be needed to open and process them. You'll have to find out what works for you by trial and error, since there are too many factors involved such as type of files, whether you have previews enabled, your RAM, hard drive / usb speed, etc etc for people to give a definitive answer. Worth noting; I've seen some programs (usually badly written ones) which have trouble with long path names (having folders inside folders inside folder etc) but that shouldn't be a problem for most programs. 82.43.92.41 (talk) 18:44, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

On most operating systems, or maybe all of them, yes, there are performance advantages to having fewer files in a particular directory. But, as Mr.98 noted, this may conflict with your preferred way of working with the files, and the act of needing to dig through the folders may take you longer than the performance advantage. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:19, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

NTFS uses efficient data structures so that finding files in huge directories is fast, as do the primary file systems of other modern OSes. FAT (all variants) doesn't. Even if you're not using FAT, badly written applications may choke on huge directories if they use inefficient data structures or algorithms. But, in principle, huge directories are not a problem, as long as you avoid the cases where they are. -- BenRG (talk) 08:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Sound cards

Is there any advantage to having more than one sound card? Can you get better acoustics or something, similar to the way more video cards give you better graphics? Or is it the same whether you have one or five? --T H F S W (T · C · E) 18:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Professional-grade software can output arbitrarily many separate audio channels. For that purpose, you might need multiple hardware output jacks (though nowadays it's more common to connect over a USB or other connection to a professional audio mixer (like this regrettably discontinued Fender 8500) with multiple hardware line outs. If your software, video, music, or other audio-source doesn't have multi-channel audio, then any extra outputs will be either identical or synthetically generated via interpolation between existing channels. Most home-users have a maximum of 5 or 7 speakers, so there's no need to have more audio channels than that. Professional acoustic engineers, such as those who operate concert-halls, or IMAX theaters, may have need for additional audio channels. At this point, though, such sophisticated audio setups communicate from source-to-speaker using software, IP sockets, and in-speaker controllers, not analog line-outs. Nimur (talk) 18:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Ripping Video DVDs

I want to be able to copy some of my films on DVD to my hard drive in .AVI format. Can anyone recommend some software that will both rip the DVD and save it as a .AVI file please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gurumaister (talk • contribs) 18:40, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

HandBrake is an easy-to-use front-end software that can perform the transcoding, but as a standalone program it cannot read the data from digital-rights-management protected DVDs. (So it would work for ripping most home-made DVDs). To rip commercial DVDs with content protection systems, you will need an implemenetation of DeCSS, or another decryption program, as well as a transcoder like HandBrake or FFMPEG. In some regions, DeCSS and other DRM-circumvention software is not permitted by local laws. Nimur (talk) 18:43, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

You can use VLC media player for the ripping, then HandBrake would be a decent choice for the conversion. AVI is just a container format, and not a particularly wonderful one; I'd definitely also recommend h.264 (MPEG-4) for the actual video. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:25, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks to you both - that was clear, concise and exactly what I needed. Gurumaister (talk) 15:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Singular table names in Rails-generated tables.

How can I get Ruby on Rails to default to non-plural table names, as well as using "id" as the name of a table's primary key? Rails can be "opinionated" all it wants, it's still wrong. 173.11.0.145 (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you using this Rails Table Generator to generate database tables, or some other method? Nimur (talk) 23:23, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Windows Vista microphone not monitored

How can I get Windows Vista to throughput a microphone to the speakers/headphone allowing it to be monitored whilst recording? There is no "mute" option in the mixer whatsoever and the mic does not throughput by default (no mic does -- I've tried a USB compressor mic, the built-in mic on the laptop, a standard 1/8in jack mic, and a line-in all to no avail) 173.11.0.145 (talk) 19:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Firefox: clearing EVERYTHING

I would like to completely, as much as possible, remove all traces of my web surfing history once I am done. When I am in Firefox, I always go to tools → clear recent history → put "everything" in the menu, and then click "clear now". In the screen it has a list of the things I am clearing, which includes "browsing and download history", "form and search history", cookies, cache", "active logins" and "site preferences", yet when I go to Wikipedia, for example, and attempt to login, it autofills in my username. It's obviously remembering things, and the clearing I am doing is not clearing everything. Can anyone instruct me on a complete clearance? Thanks.--108.14.201.140 (talk) 20:36, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps make sure in prefs you have Privacy: Firefox will: Use custom settings for history: [ ] Remember search and form history, and Security: [ ] Remember passwords for sites. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:57, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It's usually helpful with security questions to say what types of attackers you are trying to resist. You can't remove all traces of your surfing history whatever you do, because all surfing creates records at your ISP, at the sites you surf to including places that serve any transcluded web beacons, and possibly other places. Even just on your PC, the "clear" button makes the history stop showing up in the "view history" screen, but if you're concerned about someone examining the hard disk with file recovery tools, all you can do is overwrite the hard drive with zeros or random data, then reinstall all the software. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Go to Tools -> Options. The security tab has options for saving of usernames/passwords in forms, the privacy tab allows you to disable the saving of history and to delete your cookies. - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 19:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

What happens when the arrow keys don't work?

I was curious about how I might find the details of what would cause arrow keys on the keyboard not to work. This used to happen a lot more often at libraries with older brosers. What happens most often is that I will get a pop-up ad and click on the red x in the upper right corner to make it go away, and the arrow key won't work after that. Most of the tme, I only have to use the mouse with the arrows on the screen once to bring the arrow keys back, but rarely the arrow keys are completely disabled until I go to a new page.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:15, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

This usually means that your browser has lost keyboard focus. You can probably restore focus by using ALT+TAB, or clicking the application window using the mouse. Unilynx (talk) 00:57, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Facebook's Suspected Sockpuppet fan pages

Anyone know why Facebook has fan pages for vandals now? Is it an individual or Facebook themselves posting these? Examples: Keegscee, LBHS Cheerleader, and Pickbothmanlol. Just curious. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 22:37, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

It appears that Facebook has an internal interface that is capable of viewing any Wikipedia article, including user-pages, meta-pages, and so on - in essence, Facebook is now hosting a Wikipedia mirror. I am not sure how Facebook translates a generic Wikipedia URL into an internal URL, but it appears to be a lookup-table using the numeric tag at the end of the URLs you linked.

I am also not sure that Facebook's interface to navigate Wikipedia articles is entirely compliant with the licensing of our content, per Wikipedia:Mirrors and forks policy. They do seem to be showing the necessary license text, though.

www.facebook.com has already been noted on our comprehensive list of known mirrors; it has been listed since at least July 2010. Nimur (talk) 23:17, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

What intrigues me is the fact that they have pages for "Suspected sockpuppets of vandal X" yet no pages for great administrators like User:Beeblebrox, User:LessHeard vanU, and User:Zedla. Almost like they're glorifying them. PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 23:32, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I think you are mistaken. Any page on Wikipedia can be accessed via Facebook's interface. It appears to be a complete, dynamically-generated mirror of the official http://wikipedia.org through a Facebook interface. Nimur (talk) 23:41, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

February 2

How to download winxip

How to download winzip for Window Vista Home Edition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.18.60 (talk) 04:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Go to:
http://www.winzip.com/win/en/downwz.htm
Click on: "Download WinZip Now"
(I presume you meant WinZip and not WinXip)
 :-)
--Seren-dipper (talk) 05:00, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

my question is can we protect our wired modem with password

i am having wired modem.it can be directly connected using ethernet cable.is there any security mechanism to allow connection only by password so anonymous users don't get beniefit — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hariharansrc (talk • contribs) 05:16, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

There probably is a way to add password protection, but how to do it will depend on the exact type of "modem". Which modem do you have? --178.232.209.116 (talk) 05:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

If it's really with an Ethernet cable, what you have is an Ethernet connector and not a modem. But, yes, you can use software like Windows Firewall to block incoming connection attempts. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:20, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Resources for learning everything about Java EXCEPT writing Java code.

I am looking for free or complimentary (gratis) resources to help me learn "everything" about Java, and Java application development, EXCEPT the programming skill itself.

The goal is to become able to fluently READ and fully understand Java source code, BUT NOT to WRITE it (I will never actually write any myself so I do not want to spend any time on learning to write it either).
Another goal is to become aware of all the tools and processes that good (Java) programmers use (and to understand the reason why!).

The resource(s) I am looking for should be aimed at learners with "average" intellectual capabilities (IQ 107 to 114) and with average computer literacy, yet it should presume NO prior programming experience in ANY programming language. Neither should it depend on access to any applications or software packages that requires the learner to pay money.

I will use this to, among other things, help me and other users to communicate effectively with, and partake creatively in discussions among, the professional programmers that I intend to hire.

(It is in no way a demand, and of course I do not yet actually know the subject I am talking about here (i.e.Java and programming), but: I can imagine that aquiring the above mentioned desired capability could be accomplished by something resembling a concise "glossary", covering:

1. Java syntaks
2. Java and general software development termiology
3. Brief descriptions of the functionality in various Java libraries (primarily the free, but also with mention of the most widely used proprietary ones).
4. Some details about:
   • Version control management.
   • Coordination, and interoperability, of various user language editions.
   • Source code documentation.
   • End user documentation.

BUT instead of plain alphabetical presentation of those "glossary entries", they should be presented in such an order and such a way that none of the description ever employs a term or concept that is not already defined beforehand (and maybe the entries should even include some tiny (keyword) repetitions, or quick HTML-links and page/paragraph number references, to essential concepts that have already been described).

Could you please help me by pointing me towards some such (free or gratis) learning material? --178.232.209.116 (talk) 05:24, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

"The goal is to become able to fluently READ and fully understand Java source code, BUT NOT to WRITE it" If you can fluently read something, you can write it. Fluency requires the ability to understand how to communicate in a language (real or artificial), and if you understand communication, 'reading' and 'writing' are two facets of the same process. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:40, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@AndyTheGrump: Learning to read will surely result in some ability to write, but I think of this kind of like passive versus active vocabulary of human languages. (Passive vocabulary are all the words and phrases that you would be able to understand, but that you would not be able to come up with yourself). And I am convinced that there is some time to be saved here, as the hired programmers will provide plentiful "words and phrases". To draw the allegory a bit further: One could surely be able to come up with some interesting plot ideas to help a crime novel writer on the way, even though one have no ability to produce anything publishable by oneself. :-) --(OA)178.232.209.116 (talk) 09:41, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I would certainly disagree that writing and reading knowledge are the same. I can read many more programming language than I can write — I can see what they are doing, see how they function, but not have enough knowledge to generate syntax from scratch. I in fact have a similar familiarity with a number of "real" human languages as well, and this ability is reflected in college courses with names like "German for reading," which is all about "decoding" language, not "generating" it. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't know of any such materials. But I have a master in computer science so all I have learnt about these things have started from the point of beeing able to write the programs. One of the advantages of learning computer programing is your ability to experiment, it's hard to destroy something severly enough that a reboot doesn't fix the problem. Even harder to destroy something enough that reinstalling doesn't fix it. So you have the luxury of trying out things to see what happens, this of course implies beeing able to write programs. OTOH there are advantages of your approach, not that you save on time by avoiding to learn to write jave, since that is not a saving. But you can remove java from the above request and substitute application development instead. The programmer needs to know that he works in java, the person buying the program don't. Taemyr (talk) 11:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@Taemyr: We don't just want to buy the program, we want to both be an "intimate" part of the development team AND see and understand, first hand, how the application is working and how it is developing. (Hence, knowing that which I suspect could be called "basic java syntax" could help satisfy my curiosity). But, for now, if we do substitute: "application development" for: "Java", as you prpopsed, a good reply (suggested learning resources) to this "new" request would be very valuable too! -- (OP) 89.8.92.153 (talk) 12:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Go to the library, check out Deitel's Java: How to Program. It's aimed at learning the language, but if you don't actually do any of the exercises, you'll just be getting a pretty great overview of the language, how it works, what's specific to it and what's not, etc. I was intending to learn the language but didn't quite have the time, but found that just reading the book gave me a pretty good clue of how things worked. (Which is NOT the same thing as knowing the language enough to program it.) As for free, I don't know, but these are what libraries are for, and this is an extremely common book. Having read it, I can read Java without too much difficulty, but this is no doubt because I have previous programming experience and can just "translate" it more or less in my head. But --Mr.98 (talk) 12:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@Mr.98: When you said that the book gives: "great overview of the language, how it works, what's specific to it and what's not" I get the distinct impression that this book presumes at least some cursory prior experience with other programming languages. I need learning material that is intended for learners with ABSOLUTELY NO knowledge of programming except that: "'programming is the thing one has to do to tell a computer to do what you want it to do"  ;-) -- (OP) 89.8.92.153 (talk) 12:51, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The book in question assumes absolutely no prior knowledge of languages. In fact, it barely assumes prior knowledge of computers! It is very basic, but it will do things like say, "Java works this way; some other languages work this other way." The book is intended for college undergraduates taking their first computer science courses, and doesn't presume any prior information. It's only downside in my mind is that it is a quite large book, on account of its not presuming much! --Mr.98 (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

What's your motivation for this? It's often (unfortunately) harder to read code than to write code. It's also hard to find code to read that's between 5-line example code and a whole software project, and the latter can't be read like a book; even contributors to the project may have only read a small portion of it. Even a small application is too big to read through. Paul (Stansifer) 14:36, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I hope you realise your ability to fully understand the java code written by your employees is going to be limited by their talents and how professional they are in their work. For example: if their code works but is heavily obfuscated, you will get next to nothing from reading it. If their code is poorly written and full of bugs, how will you be able to tell if you have no experience of making such things work. Astronaut (talk) 15:39, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

There is no substitute for the official Java SE Documentation. If you are new to Java, there are specific tutorials and training materials specifically designed for you. (Or, if you are an expert programmer in another language, a different set of tutorials exists). The official documentation is well written, and includes tutorials and a "New to Java" training course. All of the material is licensed but is made available at no charge. Nimur (talk) 17:25, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Actually, there is no substitute for writing programs in the language you are trying to learn. Writing code is how you learn to code (meaning both the writing and reading of code). You claim you want to be "intimate" with the development process — if you want to learn Java, you have to write Java code. Reading the books is simply grossly insufficient. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:18, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

It's quite difficult even for skilled programmers to understand big programs purely by reading them. Browsing tools like Eclipse (IDE) can help with Java, but you often really have to run the code under a debugger to observe the control flow. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Does a registered agent of an IRC network serve as the HQ?

http://www.dal.net/?page=DMCA says that DALnet's registered agent is in San Diego

Would it be fair to say that DALnet has its headquarters in San Diego, like one would say that Microsoft is based in Redmond, Washington or that Mastercard is based in Harrison, New York? WhisperToMe (talk) 06:08, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

No. That appears to be the address of a UPS store, probably offering a mail forwarding service.[2]

The HQ might be taken as the registered office, if DALnet is registered as a corporation, or as the location where it performs most of its business (e.g. where its management meets, if they meet in a physical place, or where its servers are, if they are directly owned by DALnet and not rented and remotely administered). Headquarters has more information. --Colapeninsula (talk) 10:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

IRC networks are usually decentralized and don't have a "command structure" or "headquarters." Several server owner-operators usually work collaboratively to provide the network service, but aren't bound by any organizational requirements. DALnet in particular lists each server and the humans who own it. Nimur (talk) 17:27, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The copyright on the website is held to "DALnet IRC Network" - But I'm not sure how it is organized or how it holds the copyright. If the IRC network is able to hold a copyright, does it mean it would have to be registered as a corporation? WhisperToMe (talk) 17:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

How to identify who accesses a certain file on a shared drive?

Hi!

We have an inner network in our workplace. There is a shared drive that you can write to from any computer in the building. There is a DOC file on this drive that various people edit with OpenOffice when they have to. The problem is that once USER1 opens it USER2 can only open it in read-only mode. Sometimes people open the DOC, forget about it and leave it there. Then if sombody want to edit it the only thing we can do is call every room and ask to check if they have it open on their computer.

Is there a way to know what IP accesses a certain file without admin privileges? I'm sure the network administrators could do it but I don't want to call them every time this problem occurs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.70.54.59 (talk) 10:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Command prompt

Is it possible to make a .bat script only perform an action at a certain time? I've been experimenting but can't seem to find a way. This is what I've tried so far

@ECHO OFF
:start
IF %time%==12:00:00.00 echo Hello
cls
goto start

I don't want to use Windows task scheduler, I wan to do this from the .bat itself. Thanks :) 82.43.92.41 (talk) 11:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Your code will only work if that line (%time%) is executed with the 10 milliseconds from 12:00:00.00 to 12:00:00.01 - and the system clock may not be accurate enough to ever return exactly that time anyway. Try (for example) IF %time:~0,8%==12:00:00 to limit the resolution to one second. help set explains how to get substrings (ie first 8 characters). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:09, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

You may want to use the at command. Polling something in a tight loop is not ideal. Paul (Stansifer) 14:22, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

You could also try

set done=no
:start
choice /c:y /d:y /t:60
if %time~0,2%==12 goto action1
if %time~0,2%==10 goto reset
goto start
:reset
set done=no
goto start
:action1
if %done%==no goto action2
goto start
:action2
echo Action goes here
set done=yes
goto start

My batch file programming skills are a little rusty but the idea is that you check for the full hour, set a variable to make sure the program is only run once that hour, reset that variable at some other time (here: 10). Choice is a hack for a wait command, I don't know of any other pre-installed wait command under Windows but they might exist. Jørgen (talk) 15:12, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Strokebased to Outline conversion (svg to ttf)

If I were to design a font for a script like neo-assyrian cuneiform, I would write a program that outputs SVG files from a simple homemade description language where to place one of the five types of wedges in an x-y grid that defines that particular cuneiform sign. Then I want to convert all these single-sign SVG strokebased files to a unicode truetype font file so I could use it in a word processor or in a web document. The problem is, truetype is outline-based. One simple but ugly solution would to convert the SVG-files to large bitmaps and then use a bitmap-to-vector tracing program like potrace to get the outline into Fontforge, but in the process I would loose the "sharpness" of the stroke based SVG files. Is there a program that can convert a SVG stroke based (which contains overlapping segments) into a outline-based format like TTF, without going through a bitmap-rendering step? If not, where can I find info about writing this kind of program myself? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.11.220.249 (talk) 13:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I apologize for not knowing much about making fonts, but in Inkscape, you can select a stroke-based image and go to Path > Stroke to Path, and it will convert it to a totally path-based (outline-based) image without any change in appearance. I'm not sure if that helps at all, but I just wanted to put that out there, in case it was something that you had overlooked. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:14, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

FontForge will automagically convert to outline upon import, IIRC. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:34, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

A use case diagram to represent an ATM system

Give me a sample of a use case diagram that can represent an ATM system,please in details. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.204.255.175 (talk) 17:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia Reference Desk. Your question appears to be a homework question. I apologize if this is a misinterpretation, but it is our policy here not to do people's homework for them, but to merely aid them in doing it themselves. Letting someone else do your homework does not help you learn nearly as much as doing it yourself. Please attempt to solve the problem or answer the question yourself first. If you need help with a specific part of your homework, feel free to tell us where you are stuck and ask for help. If you need help grasping the concept of a problem, by all means let us know. See further our articles on ATM, use case, and business process modeling. Nimur (talk) 18:02, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Gah! AutoCAD!

Don't you love when something works on one computer... then you go home and do it on your own computer and it behaves totally different? I'm having one of those days.

I've been taught that in autocad (2010, I have 2009, but don't see how this would make the command function wrong), you can use a command (say, ellipse), then type "from", select a point and type in the X and Y values to have it offset that distance from the point you selected.

Well, on my home computer, "from" might as well not ask me to specify a point; it uses the 0,0 origin as the from point no matter where I select, and the X and Y values send me off course to the wrong point.

What'd I do to deserve this? - ʄɭoʏɗiaɲ ^τ _¢ 18:23, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Invested time in closed source commercial software. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:35, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

ELLIPSE is a documented command, but FROM is not. (The ELLIPSE command should automatically display a prompt for "starting location" and you can use the mouse or type an input coordinate). Perhaps when you typed "FROM", you were using a plugin, or a feature that isn't supported anymore? Nimur (talk) 19:38, 2 February 2011 (UTC)