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April 10

LaTeX chapters and sections

Hello! I have a \documentclass{report} with several chapters and several sections within each chapter. If I use \ref{sec:mySection}, I get chapterNumber.sectionNumber, but in some cases I just want the section number that the label corresponds to, not the chapter number with the section number. How can I get some command to return just the section number of the label? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 05:04, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Partial answer: \renewcommand{\thesection}{\arabic{section}} -- This will change the section numbering from e.g. '3.1' to 1, and return a simple number with \ref. However, there's a problem of ambiguity here. Of course, there's an inherent problem of ambiguity with what you're asking for: If you refer to "section 3" and there are three section 3s (e.g. 1.3, 2.3, 3.3), how is the reader supposed to know to what you are referring?! So, some general advice someone once gave me: "Think twice before you go mucking about changing the behavior of well-used LaTeX classes, because there is usually a good reason why they work the way they do." :) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:00, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

To do what you want (label sections as 'chapter.section', but have the ability to have \ref{section:key} return \thesection without \thechapter), I think you'll have to \renewcommand{\ref} with some self-made options that let you control the behavior. If you don't get an exact answer here within a few days, these people [1] can probably tell you how to do it. SemanticMantis (talk) 01:38, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I can't get WP using Perl's get command...

It works with other web pages, but not Wikipedia. I've posted the problem and an example script on WikiProject Perl's talk page. Please reply there. The Transhumanist 06:21, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Places in Battle Ready (Tom Clancy Novel)

I just want to ask where in Mindanao is the place called Carabao,Mindanao in Tom Clancy's Novel Battle Ready. It is mentioned in Chapter 7 and is described as a small port city that served as the capital of the autonomous region I tried looking for it in the map but I haven't come across a place named Carabao in Mindanao. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.97.192.138 (talk) 10:14, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

The carabao is a water buffalo native to that area. I believe the port city with that name to be entirely fictional. The closest I find to a location named that is the Philippine Carabao Center [2], which sells carabao milk, as part of Central Mindanao University. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I was wrong to refer to the book as a novel since it is actually a non-fiction work of Tom Clancy & Gen Tony Zinni. In relation to this, I suppose the name of the place is not fictional as the names of other places in the book such as Mogadishu,Somalia and Aceh,Indonesia can be located on the map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.97.192.138 (talk) 23:58, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Could it be one of those "names were changed to protect the innocent" things ? Perhaps giving the real name of the city would have put some of it's residents in danger ? StuRat (talk) 00:19, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

wordperfect mail merge

Resolved

i have been sent a document created in wp.mm - how do i open and read it please? Kittybrewster ☎ 16:46, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice might be able to open it. Otherwise, you'll need WordPerfect. I see that Corel offers a trial version [3], which might be enough to get the file opened so you can copy it into your favorite editor. RudolfRed (talk) 18:03, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. success with OO. Kittybrewster ☎ 18:17, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

Price of Windows 7

The difference in price between laptop A with or without Windows 7 is about $50. However, if I buy a boxed version of Windows 7, I'll end paying about 10x that. Why is the price difference so big? — Preceding unsigned comment added by MangoNr1 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I certainly see why there would be some difference, due to bulk discounts, large companies being able to negotiate better prices, etc., but 10X does seem a bit much. I wonder, if you buy a laptop without an O/S, do they first put an O/S on it to test it out, then remove it ? If so, this would certainly eat up much of the savings. StuRat (talk) 20:57, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

I think companies also get paid for installing the trial versions of antivirus and other programs that many new computers come with. If you don't have Windows preinstalled, then the company can't collect that other money either. RudolfRed (talk) 21:18, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec)It's a good question - one that comes up a lot, and that we can't definitively answer, because Microsoft keeps its OEM pricing very very close to its chest. Some of the contributory factors are:

• When you're buying that Windows 7 install set in the shop, you're buying the retail version. Microsoft also sells an OEM version (which comes in plain packaging with no manuals) which is intended for small system builders - the idea is that the small system builder provides the support, rather than Microsoft (but who calls microsoft support?) It's about half the price of retail.
• For larger builders they offer steep discounting, and for very large builders like Dell they reportedly over even steeper discounting.
• When a system builder ships a Windows system, these days they bundle a bunch of other preinstalled software, some of it trialware - security, dvd authoring, skype, sometimes games or accounting software. The system builder gets a payment for these, either a flat fee for installing, or a revenue share if the customer buys the full version.
• Many systems ship with Windows 7 Home Basic; if the customer upgrades that to Home Premium then the system builder gets a share of the revenue. I think the same is true if the customer pays to activate the Microsoft Office Ready thing (which can be a significant spend).
• There's a support cost associated with a system building selling a no-windows machine (no-os, Freedos, or Linux). Despite them being really clear that it doesn't come with windows, a nontrivial proportion of people still complain to them that it doesn't come with windows, and yell, and raise chargebacks, and demand restocking.
• When a system builder advertises a machine with Windows, they can participate in one of Microsoft's Windows ad-sharing schemes - so when an ad says "Dell Recommends Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Edition", Microsoft have paid for a proportion of that ad buy.
• Lastly, the weirdest one. A few years ago, I think as a result of a court case, it was disclosed that one large builder paid Microsoft a flat fee for Windows for each machine they shipped (presumably they'd negotiated a small flat fee) - they paid that even if Windows didn't ship on that machine. If that's true now, and generally, that means the builder makes no saving at all from shipping a "clean" machine, and because they lose all that bundling stuff above, it actually costs them more to sell you a clean machine that one with Windows.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:36, 10 April 2012 (UTC)

That last point is crazy. I believe you (given similar practices by microsoft.), but does anyone have a ref? SemanticMantis (talk) 01:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a ref at hand either, but of the legends I've heard, (1) it's almost true, and (2) it's at least 20 years old. The "almost" part was that it was Microsoft that demanded the license fee for EVERY machine shipped, whether or not it had MS-DOS (?) on it or not -- purely the "I-can-get-away-with-this-until-they-force-me-to-quit" model to make it VERY cost-ineffective for the custom assemblers of the day to offer a machine with the user's choice of OS pre-installed.

'twill take some legwork to chase down a real ref, though. Memory fades with time . . .

--71.220.29.34 (talk) 02:31, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

As I remember it, they were trying to claim that purchasers of machines with no operating system must be planning to install a pirated version of Windows. Which, to be fair, may have been the case some significant fraction of the time, but hardly seems like justification to make Linux users pay tribute to Redmond. I welcome factual corrections as my memory may not be perfect and I can't be sure I got the straight story even initially. --Trovatore (talk) 03:16, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I would expect such a practice, if allowed to continue, would have resulted in different manufactures of Windows computers and non-Windows computers. This is similar to how, in the US, credit card companies managed to force gas stations to charge the same price, cash or credit, despite the increased costs to the station for using credit cards. This resulted in some cash-only gas stations, until all stations were eventually allowed to charge cash customers less. StuRat (talk) 04:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

It was the 'CPU License', more - [4], [5], [6] and [7]. Nanonic (talk) 07:04, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

April 11

Constructing a small embedded PC

Once I learned how the bootloaders in smartphones and other devices work (no BIOS, larger than 512-bit limit on traditional PCs, signature checks) I wanted to play around with this on an x86 platform. I determined that I would need a system that does not use a BIOS and looked around online x86 tablets running Android or MeeGo (if it was capable of running Windows then that meant it used a BIOS). I could only find tablets that used Intel processors normally used in PCs telling me they probably used a BIOS. Apple TV and Google TV came to mind, but I found that most x86 TV boxes were locked down. Now, I looked at embedded boards and devices. Toradex's Xiilun PC appeared to be what I was looking for: the Intel Atom E6xx processor comes with non-BIOS options, the casing looked nice, and it didn't have ugly looking VGA outputs. They never mass produced it because of thermal issues. So, how would I go about making a small embedded PC? I do not mean designing it from scratch like OEMs do; just the assembly of a few OTS components. --Melab±1 ☎ 01:28, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

In January of last year, I replied to a similar question; pick your computer carefully. You may find the links in my earlier post helpful. I highly recommend the DE-2 FPGA dev-board, which I've mentioned in the past; it will allow you to configure your hardware and simulate a CPU and its peripherals, though it requires a little more technical expertise than some microcontroller boards. You may find the Raspberry Pi a fun board and a cheaper alternative; I have no experience with it, but it's been very popular with hobbyists and students. Microchip.com sells cheap and simple PIC controllers; I have some Zigbee Raven boards you can buy from atmel.com that were a lot of fun until they broke; and I have a few Renesas M16C cards that were solid workhorses and great utility controllers. I would trust my life to my M16C controller - which is more than I would commit to for almost any other computer system I've ever worked with. You need to decide what you want your computer to do, and then spec it out accordingly. A good real-time system controller will make for a terrible web-browsing experience. Nimur (talk) 02:23, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

If you specifically want x86 (why???) soekris.com has some nice boards. They probably use bios's that you can bypass or replace with your own. If you just want an ultra cheap 16 bit embedded board, google "ti launchpad". These wouldn't qualify as PC's in any sense (they're just tiny microcontrollers), so it would help if you said what you were trying to do. The Soekris boards are more like PC's. For ARM there is also the beagleboard (beagleboard.org), which is more powerful than the raspberry pi and you can actually buy them today, but they do cost more. 67.117.147.20 (talk) 06:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I may be mistaken but doesn't EFI (and lack of BIOS) depend much more on the motherboard then the CPU? Nil Einne (talk) 11:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

C# performance lint

Are there any good programs for C# that can detect fairly basic performance mistakes, such as using long.Parse() in a try-catch construct when long.TryParse() would work better? NeonMerlin 20:52, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

The key terms you're looking for are 'static analysis' (take the source code, identify performance or style problems) and 'profiling' (actually run code, measuring where time is spent). See this StackOverflow thread. Profiling is supported by Visual Studio itself, although there are third-party tools available. 77.97.198.48 (talk) 23:39, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Right, but the example I gave is (at least in its statically detectable form) specific to the .NET Framework, and I don't think any of the static tools on the list are aware of .NET usage issues. Detecting it in profiling would require that the profiler be able to track exceptions specifically. NeonMerlin 01:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you actually look at the list? cf FxCop overview 77.97.198.48 (talk) 13:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

These programs usually get named some version of "lint" after the original lint (software) for C. If you google "c# lint" it finds some likely candidates for what you are looking for. If you're trying to performance tune a program though, dynamic profiling will probably more useful than linting. 67.117.147.20 (talk) 06:44, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Why did a new window not open?

I can't remember whether I have asked this, and using Google seems to be of no help.

When I first turn on my computer, and click on the Internet Explorer logo, I am sent to what used to be the sign-in page for the email address given to me by my Internet service provider. I have to click there, and I am sent to the telephone company's home page. If I am already signed in there is a list of emails in my inbox, and clicking on any of those is supposed top open a new window in which the inbox appears.

If that window is already open and I have gone to another site (where I might be editing a Wikipedia page or composing an email), clicking on an email on that telephone company home page causes the inbox to appear in that other window, which wrecks what I was doing. Although once, a new window did open.

I don't know the terminology for what I'm asking. Why does the inbox come up in the window that is already there, though not the window where I clicked to produce it, rather than creating a new window?— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:42, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

I apologise, but this bear of very little brain is struggling to understand your description. Maybe you could clarify, in order that I or someone else could help? Here's what I think is going on: You fire up your computer and open Internet Explorer in a single window (window A). You click on a link, and it takes you to a page where you can sign into your emails, or bypasses that straight to your inbox if you're already logged in. When you are logged in and click to open an email, it opens a new window (window B) to show that email. The problem comes if you already have something else going on in window B, because then when you click the email link in window A you are forcefully navigated away from whatever you were doing in window B.

Am I describing that right? If so, the numbered steps at this page may be worth a try. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I didn't know how to describe it in a way that you would understand, but you finally figured it out. The weird thing is sometimes clicking the mail link gives me a window C. The problem is that in window B, the email or whatever gets lost and I have to start over. I have to remember never to click on that link in window A. I have enountered this in other situations too. Tabs make it more complicated; at a library with Firefox sometimes clicking in window A will open a tab B-2 in window B, not a tab A-2 in window A. Tabs complicate things too much for me which is why I try to avoid them.— Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:49, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

April 12

Windows Vista Defragment

I HATE Windows Vista. (Have I made that clear?)

Been dabbling with PCs since 1989, so I know a bit about performance enhancement. A friend asked me to look at her Vista machine, which was running very slowly.

I've already made her smile some more by turning off a mass of unnecessary startup processes. It's made a big difference.

I cleaned up the hard disk drive too, and thought I'd defragment the disk. (It wasn't set up to run automatically.) And I have never encountered a less informative dialog from Windows! (Well, maybe I have, but this is top of my mind right now.)

All I've had now, for over 24 hours, is the little spinny thing on the screen, and a helpful(?) message telling me "This may take from a few minutes to a few hours". No idea how far it's progressed. No graphical indication. No nothing. I have a "Cancel" button, which will be the next thing I'll press.

Is there a better way? HiLo48 (talk) 07:08, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't think so. Has the computer frozen, or the application? Mrlittleirish 08:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

If you stop it and start it again. You might lose minutes at most. Kittybrewster ☎ 09:07, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Not tried this on Vista but on old Windows 95-era systems if there was something running while you did the defrag it would keep restarting and never get to the end. Have you tried looking for any logs, maybe in the system event logs? --Colapeninsula (talk) 13:42, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

comparison of defragmentation software ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

No, the computer hadn't frozen. It happily stopped defragmenting (if that's what it was really doing) when I clicked the Cancel button. And no, nothing else running. I'll have a look at the logs next time I'm at that computer. My big complaint here is really about the totally uninformative interface. I simply cannot tell what it's really doing. At least in Win 95 (and all other Windows versions I'm aware of) you got a picture of what it was doing. HiLo48 (talk) 21:11, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You might want to use a free (of charge) defragger. The Vista defragger IS craptacular, and there are even some quite reliable sources who criticized it for its uselessness, slowness, and inadjustability (wow, "Vista" and "stability" in the same paragraph).

I used MyDefrag with good results -- to a degree where friends think I upgraded their hardware, when all I've done was merely to run the "Data Disk Weekly" script on all their partitions. It is free of charge and comes with that script, and it has its own article here on en.wp.

Many newer defraggers aren't exactly informative, probably to hide what a crappy job they do at ordering the files. But the Vista thing really jumps the shark... 217.251.167.192 (talk) 16:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

P.S. It is safe to cancel a defrag job, at least with all XP-compliant defraggers I know.

Cool. I'll check out MyDefrag. Thanks. HiLo48 (talk) 03:01, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Yep. MyDefrag worked a treat. Showed that the Vista defrag had achieved nothing. Much tidier HDD now. I'll await the user's response when she next fires it up. HiLo48 (talk) 11:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

windows explorer

i am looking for a file on my computer. Type whatsit.htm in search box. It finds it but also finds a lot of other files . Why? Kittybrewster ☎ 09:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Hi, it will look for similar files with the simlar name, type or location to extend your search results. Mrlittleirish 09:17, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

"whatsit.htm" (in quotes) might make a difference, I forget. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:49, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Alas, I long for the old XP search function. It seems Microsoft would have us learn "Advanced Query Syntax" [8], but the part that you need is the "filename:" or "file:" attribute qualifier. In your case, try searching for "file:whatsit.htm" (without quotes). -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 03:19, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

8b/10b encoding

I am trying to understand 8b/10b encoding.The very first line D.00 is encoded as 100111 or 011000. D.00 00000 100111 011000 How is this achieved.Something is missing in my thoughts.I would like to know how 00000 is encoded to 100111 and 011000. Many Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hansmah (talk • contribs) 14:09, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

In 8b/10b encoding you pick one or the other encoding depending if there is an excess or a deficiency of 1 bits previously. If there is too few, then the code with more 1 bits is picked to restore the average number of 1's and 0's. For 00000 the disparity will change sign +/- 1. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:22, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

2bone link checker

Resolved

when i check kittybrewster.com/table_03.htm using http://www.2bone.com/links/linkchecker.shtml part 2a, 2b, 2c and 2d get overlooked. Why please? Kittybrewster ☎ 14:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The ones you listed all have target="_blank" before the href attribute. Perhaps the link-checker only sees the links when href is the first attribute? 98.103.60.35 (talk) 16:40, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

thank you. Kittybrewster ☎ 20:07, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Risks of using Stiki

Does Stiki crash your computer. I am too nervous to run it in case it crashes my computer.--Deathlaser (talk) 14:55, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

It has never crashed my computer. It runs through a Java virtual machine so I would have thought that crashing would be pretty unlikely.

That said, how much experience do you have of Wikipedia? I wouldn't recommend using STiki if you haven't already been around the block a few times.

Yaris678 (talk) 15:28, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Ancient 3d engine

i'm not a programmer but would like to run an ancient tiny "game" engine on this crappy netbook, the requiremen is that I can create my own level map and put bitmaps on the wall. it should be wolfstein 3d era (I.e. Like a few Megan, dos mode, no installation, and a few kb "level editor". This is for a proof of concept and I wan to spend no more time on this than finding and running the binary and level editor. Any old-timers know of abandonware that fits the bill? (sorry, I don't program and can't compile. It has to be tiny, all CPU and 640x480 or 320x240 is fine). Thanks. 84.1.177.43 (talk) 18:05, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Firefox: quit with warning

about:config shows browser.showQuitWarning and browser.warnOnQuit both True; yet, every time my finger slips and I hit Q rather than W, Firefox quits immediately. How can I bring back the confirmation dialog? (It's FF 11.0 on MacOS 10.6, but this quirk has bugged me for a year or two.) —Tamfang (talk) 18:38, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Some info: http://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/869468#answer-240137 --Sean 15:48, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Hide a font

On Windows 7, how can I make a font that is installed on my computer not show up in Microsoft Word? That is, without uninstalling the font. Interchangeable 19:06, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

http://www.zhacks.com/disable-fonts-without-deleting-it-from-windows-7/ - Cucumber Mike (talk) 19:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

The fonts in question are required in another program, so that would not work. I just want them to be invisible to Microsoft Word. Interchangeable 22:26, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Squint. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:46, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't get it and I want a serious answer. Interchangeable 03:10, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Unfortunately, if you want the fonts available to all programs except Word, you're out of luck. The fonts are either available to everything, or unavailable to everything. However, if your reason for disabling some fonts is so that you don't need to scroll through endless Comic Sans variants to get to the two or three fonts you actually use, I suggest using 'styles'. You can define any number of your own styles, including the font to use, paragraph formatting and much besides. Here's a guide to the basics, there are many more advanced guides out there once you have the basics. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 18:42, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Pastebin

I want to make my own version of pastebin.com. An exact copy of what it does (but without all the mobile applications and the like). I don't know how to code, and I don't have enough money for a website developer. They make their API publicle available, if that helps. How do I do it? Is there code already available? Thanks. 134.83.207.178 (talk) 20:37, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

You're going to have a very hard time trying to create a website if you do not know how to program. I suggest you try learning PHP, which is often used for website-related work. →Στc. 21:04, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Need to convert raw avi to MJPEG or with similar intraframe compression only codec

It absolutely cannot have any interframe compression-- I'm tracking fruitflies using Ctrax. ImageJ has issues dealing with files that are over 2 GB and will only load the first few thousand frames. Is there another free utility that compresses avi to Motion JPEG? 137.54.33.69 (talk) 22:47, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

AVI is just a container format, is it a series of BMPs? In any case [[ffmpeg] can do the later, and should be able to do the former - set the GOP (group of pictures) to 1 to force I-frame only. However, it is a command-line tool, and can be a bit awkward to get used to. CS Miller (talk) 23:02, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Why bother when you can just use an image viewer that displays it just as it would if it were video? ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:45, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

April 13

Extraction of Files from .zip Archive on CLI in SLED11SP2

Hello!

  I need to extract files from a .zip archive on a computer running SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 Service Pack 2. I would like to do this from the CLI (so that I can do this in shell scripts in future), and need to know what is the command and syntax to use.

  Thank you to all RefDeskers! Vickreman.Chettiar 09:51, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

unzip path/to/archive.zip or unzip path/to/archive.zip -d path/to/dir/to/unzip/to (dir can be non-existant). If you don't have the unzip package (fairly unlikely), you'll need to install it first. ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

site icons in browser tabs

What I mean is the small square icons that appear at the left side of tabs in a browser. For example, Wikipedia has its stylized "W." If a site offers no icon, a dotted square is displayed. How could I use this feature on my web site? --Halcatalyst (talk) 00:45, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It looks like you need a file named "favicon.ico" on your web server root. See Favicon RudolfRed (talk) 01:11, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, see Favicon, anyways. ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:56, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Simple Java animation

In Java, I have a button. After I press the button, I want the button to turn red for 1 second, then turn green. I tried changing the color's button to red, waiting for 1 second (Thread.sleep), calling repaint(), changing it back to green, and calling repeat() again inside the button's mouse event listener. However, what happens is that the button does nothing for 1 second, and then turns green; for some reason, the button is never red.

How do I fix this? This should be the most basic aspect of doing an animation in Java, yet I can't find the information anywhere. --140.180.3.182 (talk) 06:52, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Don't call thread.sleep() in an event handler, because you're blocking the event loop. If you're using Swing, use a Swing Timer to schedule a repaint. If you're just using AWT, create your own thread that sleeps, calls repaint, sleeps, etc. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 08:15, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Windows 7

Will an emachines 3038 run windows 7?--92.29.200.88 (talk) 09:32, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Just googled it, unable to find anything. you can check the minimum requirements of Windows 7 on the article here. Mrlittleirish 09:58, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably, but if you'd like to know what Microsoft has to say about it, use their Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor. ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

map tag

I'm wondering how can you use map tag with the usemap attribute. You need to know the coordinates of the image. so my problem is exactly that how do people can do the shapes already knowing all the coordinates? is there a program for that??? thanks. 12:54, 13 April 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk)

Most graphics editors (Photoshop, GIMP, etc.) will give you x and y coordinates you can use for simple rectangular areas, though just using CSS is by far superior for simple rectangular areas. For complex shapes there are lots of applications for helping you get the coords. The best application by far was Adobe ImageReady, which was removed from the Adobe Creative Suite after CS2 (and isn't free). There are plenty of free ones, though: http://www.google.com/search?q=image%20map%20editor ¦ Reisio (talk) 13:00, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Awesome! though I was wondering if there is one that supports png, and if also allowed circular and pol coordinates.. but I think I can handle it... Thanks. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 15:05, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

They should all support PNG at this point, and ImageReady should as well, but all you really need from them is the HTML with the coords (and the HTML they spit out is usually awful, so really just the part with the coordinates), you don't actually have to use any image they spit out, you can just use your original image (or a variety of it in any format you like) as long as it's the same dimensions and alignment. All you should need them for is complex polygons — rectangles and circles should be a simple matter of knowing what x/y coordinates you want them at (and then preferably using CSS instead of an image map). ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

RSS reader that syncs between computer and iOS without Google Reader

Is there such thing? As in a cross-platform RSS reader that deletes stories that I deleted from my feed on my iPad as well when I do so on my computer? I know it's possible from Google Reader, but I don't use this interface for reading on my desktop, as I prefer specialised programs. Even so, I don't think Google Reader syncs the actual messages in feed inboxes. However, it's already possible for e-mail. 96.21.250.92 (talk) 15:40, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

If I understand you correctly, that feature is built in to Safari. Use the Reading List. "Whenever you come across something interesting on the web, save it to Reading List. iCloud keeps your Reading List up to date on all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch." On your Mac, use the RSS Unread Indicator - "Choose “Highlight unread articles” in Safari RSS preferences, and Safari will distinguish between read and unread articles, highlighting items you haven’t read." Does that help? Nimur (talk) 18:29, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

NetNewsWire and Reeder both sync with Google Reader and both work on iOS and OS X. I don't remember any desktop RSS readers for Windows that sync with Google Reader off the top of head, but I know they exist. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 15:34, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

unicode and alt code

How can I type in unicode directly from a keyboard? And, is there any list of alt code that I can check easily? Thanks for answering!Naiveandsilly (talk) 15:57, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Unicode input -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:07, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

How about the second question about list of alt code? Thanks! ––Naiveandsilly (talk) 06:20, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

http://alt-codes.org/list/ - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:38, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Without knowing what kind of characters you are looking for, a fairly complete list can also be found here Plane (Unicode). Since you intend to use the alt-codes on a keyboard you would however have to transform these hex numbers into decimal numbers first. -Laniala (talk) 13:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for helping. It seemsthis isn't a comprehensive one.--Naiveandsilly (talk) 07:27, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

iPad/iPhone

Can I use either charger for either of the above please?--85.211.216.235 (talk) 19:21, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Almost, but not quite. If you have an iPad charger, you're fine with both. However, an iPhone charger will only charge the iPad slowly if at all (Trickle charging may be a relevant article). Sources: http://terrywhite.com/techblog/charging-your-ipad-what-you-should-know/ https://discussions.apple.com/thread/2580579?start=0&tstart=0 - Cucumber Mike (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:53, 13 April 2012 (UTC).

Thanks for this and the link.--85.211.216.235 (talk) 06:18, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

greasemonkey javascript

Resolved

In greasemonkey javascript, I want to automatically open all links on a page which contain &number= into new tabs. I know almost nothing about javascript. So far I have found the following code with google;

GM_openInTab("http://www.google.com/");

This opens http://www.google.com/ in a new tab. Now I just need to find a way to parse a page for links and feed them into GM_openInTab. I have no idea how to do this. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you! 82.45.62.107 (talk) 20:55, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

It seems like doing this might open so many tabs it takes down your browser and maybe computer, so I'd add a limit to the number it opens. StuRat (talk) 05:16, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The page has at most 50 links which match &number= so it shouldn't be a problem. I've opened 200 tabs before and been okay 82.45.62.107 (talk) 10:26, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It makes matters much easier if you can post a link to the page(s) in question. 87.115.132.208 (talk) 10:46, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

The links are like this in the html

Extended content

<a href="?mode=page&number=1"> 1 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=a"> a </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&number=2"> 2 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=b"> b </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&number=3"> 3 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=c"> c </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&number=4"> 4 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=d"> d </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&number=5"> 5 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=e"> e </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&number=6"> 6 </a><br> <a href="?mode=page&letter=f"> f </a><br>

I only want to open the &number= ones into new tabs. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 12:02, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Try this:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           opennumberlinks
// @namespace      http://foohost
// @description    Open all links on the page (in new tabs) where the link contains "&number="
// @include        http://foohost/index.html
// ==/UserScript==
var elems = document.getElementsByTagName("a");
for (var e in elems) {
    var s = elems[e].href;
    if (s.indexOf("&number=") !== -1) {
        GM_openInTab(s);
    }
}

You'll need to change the @namespace and @include lines as necessary. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:28, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you! I tested it and it doesn't seem to work though, the error console in Firefox says "Error: s has no properties". I'm not sure what this means 82.45.62.107 (talk) 18:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

It works okay in the example you gave. If you can't link to the real thing, I'm afraid you'll either have to teach yourself Javascript, or hire someone who already can. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand. Thank you for the help anyway. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 20:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I just worked out what the problem was; I am using an old version of Greasemonkey and GM_openInTab wasn't introduced until a later version. It works perfectly on the current versions. Thank you very much for your help! 82.45.62.107 (talk) 20:36, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

April 14

Calendar for a Facebook Group?

Is there a calendar app in Facebook for members of a group to share, so they can all see upcoming events relevant to the group all in one place? HiLo48 (talk) 05:34, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Group members can create events... Would that suit your purposes? Dismas|^(talk) 05:48, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm thinking more of something that actually looks like a calendar or diary, where a group member could look to see what's scheduled on a particular date. HiLo48 (talk) 06:06, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

What about Google Calendar instead? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 15:51, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, thanks for that suggestion. I use Google Calendar personally, and find it very good, but I don't know how I'd go getting the group to use it. It's a group of teenagers, and it's hard enough getting them to communicate effectively on Facebook, the tool one would think would be their favourite. HiLo48 (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Free software for adding accompaniment to music

Are there free software applications for adding accompaniment to (written) music? What I'm looking for is a program that, when given a simple (monophonic) melody, would "dress it up" with accompaniment and output printed scores. The added accompaniment doesn't need to be great artistically—I'd be happy with something that an average non-music-enthusiast would consider "decent". Are such programs available? --173.49.16.167 (talk) 15:58, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Here's some C code that may do the job. [[9]]--78.148.136.55 (talk) 19:51, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Keeping track of changes

New to web programming, so probably a silly question. I've got this site of 100 files written (not by me) in PHP/HTML/MySQL/javascript/css (so fairly standard I guess). I am doing some changes to it, adding/removing features and such. It would be good if there was a tool or program that would keep track of my edits and would allow me to associate several edits (potentially in different files and different "languages") with a "purpose", e.g. "feature A added" corresponds to the following modifications; "feature B removed" corresponds to the following modifications, etc. Presently I am trying to keep track of changes using diff and adding comments in the code. Does such a tool/program exist and if yes, what is it called? It should run on linux and be ideally free. bamse (talk) 17:04, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

You want a text editor with a built-in version control system or simply the capacity to otherwise utilize a separate version control system. They tend to be called integrated development environments the more features they include. Solutions abound. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, what you want is version control. Subversion is a popular open-source standard. You make changes in your 39 files, and then "check them in" to the server with a comment letting yourself and the other coders on your product (if any) know the purpose of the changes. Another large benefit is that it's easy to rewind to the previous checkin if necessary. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:06, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I will look into it. (That link should go to Apache Subversion, I guess!?) bamse (talk) 21:22, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Note that you can also do this without special software. Just copy all the source code into a new folder, and make your modifications in that folder, and name the folder accordingly. This will take up more space, but these day disk drive space is so cheap that it's not much of an issue.

As far as modifications within each folder, where you change each source file multiple times, you can copy each file, within the folder, and give a version number to each. So, FUBAR.cpp.3.2.1, for example. (You need to strip the version number off the current one, though, so the compiler will find it.) You should also put comments in each source code file describing each modification. StuRat (talk) 22:08, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, but that seems like what I had been doing so far, i.e. a lot of manual work to keep track of changes. I have looked into subversion and it seems to do what I want. bamse (talk) 06:30, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

OK, but beware of any version control system which takes control away from you. That is, if the company goes out of business and/or you can't get an upgrade to work with a new version of the O/S, compiler, etc., will you be able to access all the old versions still ? StuRat (talk) 17:22, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

You might also consider Git. --Phil Holmes (talk) 10:56, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Above are listed several version control systems. In addition, you may also want a bug tracker - a related software tool to help manage the entire cycle of software engineering changes, from diagnosing a problem, tracking its root-cause, and associating it with code or configuration changes. Some bug-trackers are tightly integrated with version-control systems, while others are totally separate software; it's somewhat of a stylistic preference regarding your workflow. Nimur (talk) 16:09, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for all those replies. One more question, can any of those tools also track changes in a MySQL database, say if I add/drop columns or tables as part of the development process? bamse (talk) 21:17, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

When I program databases, I always create a script that can autogenerate all the tables for a brand-new fresh copy of the database. I check that script into my source code repository. The hope is that if I had to start from scratch, I could quickly create the database structure from a clean install; and then import the rows (data) from backup; and then start running my server logic, and nobody would know I just purged the database, aside from the downtime. Changes to the database structure can be tracked using this "initialization" script, using SVN, just like any other source file. MySQL supports scripting, as does PostGRE, IBM DB2, and so on.

If for some reason this is not an option, you can track changes manually in a bug tracker. Or, if you really want to be an Enterprise Class Computing Consultant, consider the IBM Tivoli Configuration Manager and Tivoli Change and Configuration Management Database. Nothing says "massive infrastructure" like putting your database configuration into another database, except using a commercial database to manage changes to your configuration database. You can't get any more massively redundant, unless you also shell out for a Tivoli Composite Application Manager to manage changes to the Change And Configuration Management Database. Unfortunately, these tools are not free, and I am not aware of free software equivalents. But let's face reality: if your database is running on a water-cooled z196 with three thousand gigabytes of RAM, you ain't gonna be running "free software." Nimur (talk) 14:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I think I will go with the free solution... In fact there already seems to be scripts among the code for generating the database. I was just too lazy to update them. But perhaps I can export the database and start from there. bamse (talk) 19:32, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Patterns

What are those square 'digital' patterns found on magazines and some posters saying 'scan me for more info'. How do they work and how do i reads them--78.150.233.18 (talk) 18:14, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Probably QR codes, or one of the similar 2d barcodes linked from that article. Ones used in print or billboard advertising usually encode URLs. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:27, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

Just to save having to look, they are designed to be read by pointing the camera of a smartphone at them. Looie496 (talk) 00:33, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

iPhone call forwarding question

If I set iPhone A to forward calls to the number of iPhone B, and set iPhone B to forward calls to the number of iPhone A, and then call A from a third phone, will either ring? Will either's messaging service pick up, or will they go back and forth in a sort of infinite loop? 69.243.220.115 (talk) 23:47, 14 April 2012 (UTC)

April 15

"Most wanted articles" for Crimean Tatar Wikipedia

Hi, does anyone know a simple way to create a Wikipedia:Most wanted articles-type list of most linked-to articles for another language version, specifically the Crimean Tatar Wikipedia? Here's the database dump, but I have no idea how to go from there. Lesgles (talk) 03:48, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

Excel help

I want to sum a range of numbers, but I want the input to be controlled by another cell. I mean instead of say SUM(A1:A3) I want SUM(x, y), where x and y are cell positions that will have the details of the cells to be summed. 159.92.119.242 (talk) 18:45, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

You can use =SUM(INDIRECT( X &":"& Y )), then in cells X and Y, put text that mentions the start and end cells you want. The & operator concatenates text. The INDIRECT function takes a piece of text and returns the cell reference mentioned in the text. --Bavi H (talk) 19:16, 15 April 2012 (UTC)

April 16

Name of principle: "every lineal work can be copied"

Principle says that works line audio, films and ebooks can always be copied somehow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by XPPaul (talk • contribs) 00:48, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

You might be looking for the Analog hole. RudolfRed (talk) 01:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

We also have an article on serialization and serializability, which have several related meanings in computer science and software engineering. For example, in Java an object must implement the Serializable interface to satisfy your requirement; some objects intentionally are not serializable, which means that no valid Java program can manipulate that object as a stream of bytes. (So, to construct an algorithm, analog-hole or otherwise, that is capable of copying such an object, you would need to use something other than a Java program). Compare to a serializable object (or document), for which a simple trivial function can directly copy the byte representation; this is defined to be an exact copy for an object implementing the interface.

Databases use serialization to manage concurrency; this is particularly important if the data is being modified by many processes. So, to generalize the principle, you must account for transactions on changing serializeable data, as well as on constant objects. Nimur (talk) 14:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

iFrame

I'm creating a single HTML document ("ComboBKMK.html") with multiple iFrames, containing multiple separate HTML documents with links within. However, when I click a link in any iFrame, it opens in that specific iFrame instead of "in" ComboBKMK.html like any other non-iFrame'd link would. Is there any way to get it to use the ComboBKMK.html instead when clicking the links? -- Tohler (talk) 00:54, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Figured it out; what needs to be done is add (target="_parent") to each individual link. In my case a simple find and replace of (">) to (" target="_parent">) worked. -- Tohler (talk) 07:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What is this cable I see before me?

I have here a couple of cables with a USB Mini B connector on one end, perhaps a meter of wire, and two male 3.5mm TRS connectors on the other end. The TRS connector housing is colored pastel pink and green and labeled "MIC" and "SPK", respectively. What makes this truly bizarre is I have two of them and don't recall any application for them. Any idea what they're for? -- ke4roh (talk) 01:00, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

My guess would be a headset (audio) which accepts a USB mini B connector. The other ends would plug into the computer. StuRat (talk) 01:02, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Just a simple plug-and-play 3.5mm adaptor. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 22:10, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

We know what it is, just need to know what it might have been used for. StuRat (talk) 23:11, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Strange crash in 3D Studio Max

Hmm, haven't done much tomfoolery with my system, but all of a sudden I end up getting crashes on Max upon starting it up. Even if I uninstall Max 2011, clean up registry entries, and downgrade to 2010, the error still shows up. The crash dump seems to have some references to the .NET Common Language Runtime, assemblies and other such stuff. As much as I would like to reinstall Windows I'm afraid I'm not that arsed enough due to the amount of work I had to do just to reconfigure things. Can anyone help me figure this thing out? Blake Gripling (talk) 06:56, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried starting from scratch? Can you give us an idea as to what you are trying to do? Mrlittleirish 14:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I suspect that the bug isn't in 3D Studio Max, but only manifested there first. Perhaps it was the first chunk of code to try to access the .NET routine which is now bad. How did it go bad ? Perhaps a single bit error on the disk on which it is stored ? Unfortunately, if this is the case, you may need to do a disk scan first, which will cordon off the bad sector(s), then reload the O/S. However, once sector's start going bad on a disk, the problem tends to spread. So, if bad sectors are found, you might want to get a new disk for the O/S. The old disk could still be used, but for less critical things, like storing music, pics, or movies. A single bit error may not even be noticed there. StuRat (talk) 15:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

How to create an Alternative DNS root

I'm having difficulty finding a guide or in fact any substantial information on the subject. I know that people have done it, and I also know it can't be *that* terribly hard or expensive to do. Could anyone give me some pointers?--Newbiepedian (Hailing Frequencies) 12:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

It can be done with free software. Simply set up a BIND server, and do not configure it to resolve to any commercial internet service provider or other root DNS server... consult, e.g., the BIND Administrator Reference Manual for information on setting up the server in various roles, including as a root server. Direct your clients to use your server as their DNS server: configure any clients, including individual host PCs, routers, gateways, and DHCP servers, to point at your nameserver, as appropriate for your network configuration. Nimur (talk) 14:05, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Javascript in body

Is there any limitation or thing to consider when using the <script> tag to use javascript within the <body></body> tags of a html page? Can it be nested into form or table tags? Are there things that may not allow it to work correctly? Cambalachero (talk) 14:21, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Like many JavaScript questions, the answer will depend on who you want to run the JavaScript. See Mozilla's "About JavaScript" for an introduction. Most modern web browsers will parse javascript code anywhere, including inline within HTML elements. Microsoft provides great documentation for JavaScript in Internet Explorer. Apple provides a developer reference for Safari, e.g., here, and elsewhere on the developer page; WebKit, JavaScript, and the DOM applies to many other browsers and environments that also use WebKit. There are lots of idiosyncrasies in various JavaScript implementations, and browser applications: there are many other ways that users can load an HTML page. For example, I often view pages in Lynx (browser), so I can read the scripts without executing them. So, it doesn't matter where the script is; I won't always run it. I may also load your HTML page within an iOS app as a WebKit view; or on my Mac in DashBoard, or any number of other places. If you expect that your HTML should appear properly, you need your script to behave well in all of these environments. Nimur (talk) 14:38, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

IE8 Print Preview

Hello. Is it possible to tweak Internet Explorer 8 so, when I select a body of text and ask for a print preview, it automatically shows "as selected on screen"? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 14:31, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you can set it as default, however when you select text, go to print preview, you are able to preview the selected body at the top of the window. Click the dropdown that says 'As displayed on screen', to 'As selected on screen'. Hope this helps you. Mrlittleirish 15:44, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Setting up php in Nnginx in windows 7

I'm currently receiving a "No input file specified error". I really have no clue how does excatcly work. Though I will provide details

My current php configuration in nginx,conf is this

location ~ \.php$ {
            root           html;
            fastcgi_pass   127.0.0.1:9000;
            fastcgi_index  index.php;
            fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  /scripts$fastcgi_script_name;
            include        fastcgi_params;
        }

I got the nginx folder like this

*Nginx
--nginx.exe
-*html
---index.htm
---Example.php
-*conf
---nginx.conf
---fastcgi.conf
---start-nginx.bat (The command for starting php-cgi is: start c:\nginx\php\php-cgi.exe -b 127.0.0.1:9000 -c c:\nginx\php\php.ini)
-*php
---php-cgi.exe
---php.ini
(I'm not putting all of the files of course)

I don't know why isn't working.. I'm hoping maybe you could help me. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk) 15:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

fastcgi_param  SCRIPT_FILENAME  ./html/$fastcgi_script_name;

AvrillirvA (talk) 22:17, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Virtual machine

I've got a laptop that's running Windows 7. I would like to use the Linux OS Ubuntu. Would it be possible to run two operating systems on the same machine? If so, then how could I do it? I don't want an Ubuntu pop-up window. I would like a choice during boot-up, e.g. press 1 for Windows, press 2 for Linux. — Fly by Night (talk) 18:28, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

What you are referring to is dual boot, and it's definitely do-able. There are a couple of ways to do this. The first is the standard dual boot method: Dual boot, the second (which I haven't tried) is through Wubi: Wubi. - Akamad (talk) 22:32, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Changing images in a page

I have been working in a html page that runs the "Concentration" game. There's a grid of basic images (as turned cards, showing the back), all the same ones. Click on one card, it shows another image (as if turning a card and seeing the other side), click on another, it shows its own other side. If they are different, they show the basic image again in a pair of seconds. If they are the same, they stay that way, and the player gets a point (surely you know the rules of the game).

The page uses javascript to change the images back and forth, check if the pair selected is a pair of similar cards or not, what to do in each case, etc. For some reason, it worked in internet explorer 8, but not in firefox 11: each pair of cards I click, correct or incorrect, stay visible instead of showing the "back side" image again. Then, I noticed a detail: it DOES work in firefox, just not visually. If I click on a correct pair of cards I uncovered at different times, I get a point, so the page treats them as if they were covered cards. If I right-click to see the image info, it's not the name of the image I'm seeing, but the name of the image I should be seeing (the "back side" image).

Is there some known problem in firefox with javascript and this type of image switching, or in firefox itself? Perhaps something that needs configuration? So far I have the page and the associated images saved in the hard disk, but I don't think that should make any difference.

By the way, I know that the easiest answer would be to refresh the page, but no. That works for static pages, if I do that it simply begins a new game, loading the onload function Cambalachero (talk) 21:20, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

English is too imprecise to really know what it is you're doing. If you can reduce the problem to a minimum case (which I guess need only be a couple of images and a few lines of javascript) that would make understanding what's going on easier. There's a half dozen ways to make images appear, change, move, or disappear (and you can bet some browser that has a daft problem with each one).

In general:

• I know it's elementary stuff, but remember that images are loaded asynchronously. It's often wise to preload them (with them assigned to zero-size on-screen objects) so they get loaded and cached properly.
• Make sure the size of stuff is set explicitly (as things might get sized when the image hasn't loaded, and so the engine doesn't know how big it is yet). This should get resolved once the image is loaded, but if you're doing something complicated (like storing the image sizes yourself in Javascript) that might cause confusion.
• Try experimenting with generic DIVs with the image set using the CSS background property. That way you can temporarily just use a solid colour for background, which allows you to separate the logic to set the CSS from the additional issues specific to images.

-- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:57, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Ooh, and remember that images that are not tied to an active DOM object can be flushed from the cache arbitrarily, even if they previously were displayed. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:19, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

archive time capsule

I want to archive 1GB of data in a time capsule and bury it in my garden. Which data storage method has the most chance of being recoverable after 50 years; CD-RW, hard drive, flash drive, printed paper? Please ignore all the issues about having computers that can read the data in 50 years or whatever; just assume aliens can figure it out. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.125.169 (talk) 22:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

This, or related questions, has come up here several times before. You might like to review this and this. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The first link is all about the issues surrounding having appropriate computer equipment to read the storage medium, and the second link has few answers and links to the first link. I explicitly don't want information about whether or not old computers will be available in 50 years. Just assume they will be, or that aliens can magic up an appropriately old fashioned computer to read them. Then, which data storage solution is most likely to physically survive and be physically intact enough to be readable? 83.250.125.169 (talk) 22:30, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

There's lots of existing examples of printed paper which are still perfectly readable after 50 years and longer. If you literally mean to bury the media in your garden, then you will probably need to take steps to ensure the paper does not get damaged by moisture or fungi.-gadfium 22:44, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I expect that if sealed in an opaque container, with very little humidity, and no UV light, all of those formats would survive for 50 years. Of those, I might have the most faith in the flash drive. The plastic might delaminate in the CD, and the paper might rot or the ink might fade. The moving parts on the hard disk might fail, although technically the data could still be recovered by taking it apart and scanning it with another device. StuRat (talk) 22:47, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The second link has some very good info in it. [10] discusses the issue in 1986. The Library of Congress has also apparently thought deeply about this question, so their conclusions should be of some interest to you. This study in particular. Shadowjams (talk) 23:14, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Also, the conclusion I gather from all of these studies, is that one of the best answers is redundancy. That is, put the same information in duplicate, and in different formats. And if you can, low level error correction. Redundancy. Be redundant. Shadowjams (talk) 23:18, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I second that suggestion. StuRat (talk) 23:27, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

HD cameras

How good is the 720p quality of these cameras? It says 720p but is it really? I bought one once and it turned out it was 720x480 xvid at 15 fps. That's not what I consider HD — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.250.125.169 (talk) 22:09, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

If you give us specific models, we can find the specs, but not for every camera on that page. It's probably fairly straightforward to find the max res and max frames per second, but finding out which combos are supported may require the owners manual. Also beware that some may say they support a certain res, but that might have been upscaled from a lower res, resulting in a pic that looks like the lower res. Similarly, some of the frames may have been interpolated from the frames before and after. StuRat (talk) 22:52, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

High-definition video just means anything with higer resolution then standard def. Unfortunately, even "standard def" does not have a standard definition (lol). However, I think it's pretty clear that 720x480 is NOT high definition. I think if you bought something labelled as HD with that resolution, you'd have a casae for false advertising. Of course, I'm not sure whether the term "HD" is legally protected, they might just have the letters HD on the box, but if they don't obscure the real resolution, they might just say it's a model number or something... I doubt a reputable brand would resort to that, but if it's a cheap chinese camera from ebay or something, I doubt there's a regulation they're forced or even compelled to compy with. Vespine (talk) 23:07, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Downloading pdf files.

I've attempted to download both individual articles and books in the pdf format. In each and every case I've been unable to save them or to open them with Adobe Acrobat. They'll cause Adobe Acrobat to crash each and every time. I've tried this on three separate Windows computers and on Mac OS computer. How can I fix this problem? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhonaker (talk • contribs) 22:33, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

That's not enough information to form a diagnosis. How many files have you tried to downlaod? Are they all coming from the same source? If yes, what's the site? From what you have described, that seems like the most likely source of the problem. Can you open other PDF files on those computers? Have you tried to install the latest acrobat reader? Are there any faqs or manuals on the site you are downloading the PDFs from? Vespine (talk) 22:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

All of the files that I'm having difficulty with are from Wikipedia. I'm able to download and open/print files from other sources without any problems. I do have the latest versions of Acrobat Reader on both the Windows and the Mac computers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dhonaker (talk • contribs) 23:06, 16 April 2012 (UTC)