Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 July 5

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July 5

Which phone is a better buy?

Which phone should I get, the LG kg225 or the LG U310? Is the U310 a decent mp3 phone? Can I put files from my computer onto it and use them as ringtones? Do I need a need a cable to transfer music or can I do it via wireless connection? --203.51.134.89 08:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Building a simple computer

I recently read this article (the June 29th entry), and I'm interested in building something similar. I have no knowledge of binary logic or anything of the like, so I was hoping someone could point me in the direction of what I need to read about in order to understand how to make something like this. Thanks in advance. Imaninjapirate^{talk to me} 15:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You will want to know binary logic as well as electronics. What you will be doing is replacing the logical circuits with other devices. I have done similar work with marbles and water. Marbles were difficult - depended on gravity and kept getting clogged. Plumbing was much easier. It is very simple to make a plumbing "circuitry". The only one that took some time was the creation of a water capacitor. Then, I was able to make anything I wanted. Add a small fish-tank pump and I could demonstrate to the students how all the logical circuitry worked. -- Kainaw^(what?) 15:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As Kainaw notes, conventional computers are digital binary computers based on logic gates - if you can implement devices that do the same as AND gates, OR gates, etc., and elements like flip flops then you can combine them (in just the same manner as they are combined in electronic circuits) to make simple machines that can add numbers together. Getting enough of these together to do more complex calcuations requires a seriously large space (something akin to a difference engine) and getting a proper computer (which has input, output, and stored-program control) is likely to turn out to be gigantic (like an analytical engine). Category:Early computers has some early electro-mechanical computers (some of which used the stepper mechanisms found in telephone exchanges). It's much more achievable to build an application-specific device (stuff like adding machines or things for generating log tables), but of course your thing can only do one job. You could eschew digital (discrete state) operation altogether, and go down the analog route, making something like the MONIAC Computer. The real problem you'll find with all computing and calculating devices that aren't built from integrated circuitry is robustness and reliability - it's one thing to build a computer from bits of wood and ball bearings, but getting it to work reliably (without getting stuck or having something snap or work loose) over the thousands of repetitions that are needed to do constructive work. You'll find lots of weird mechanical computers in science museums around the world (the one in Boston has a tinkertoy one, London's science museum has a finely crafted brass difference engine) but they almost never run them, for fear they'll fall apart or get gummed up. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Excel goal seek

I find I am using "Goal seek" quite a bit (on Win XP with Excel 2002). I would like to put it on a toolbar so I can just click a button rather than playing with the drop down menus. When I select Customize, it appears that the function "Goal seek" is not available in the list of commands. Am I just not seeing it or is it missing? If it is missing, how can I go about creating a button to do this? Thanks. -- SGBailey 16:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You can create a Macro that executes the Goal Seek routine. Create a Macro that simply contains the code :

CommandBars("Tools").Controls(9).Execute

then assign that Macro to a Custom button.

(this works on my Excel, but possibly yours has a different ID for the Goal seek menu entry - if so you'll need to change the (9) to that id) --Worm 00:40, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Improving PC performance

I would like to improve the performance of my PC. It is a Pentium 4 with 2.4 GHz and 480 MB of RAM, running on Windows XP. I usually have three major programs running -- AIM, Firefox, and Ruckus. With these three programs, my computer tends to run slowly. I was wondering what methods I could use to reduce the lag. I recall a conversation with a friend saying that 32 MB of RAM is devoted to some kind of video capacity (which is why it's 480, not 512) and that there was a way to free this up. Also, I don't have any major non-essential programs that run on startup. I've scrubbed occasionally with Spybot/Ad-Aware/CCleaner. Are there any suggestions to get my computer running smoother, until I can get a new computer down the road? If you need any further detail, let me know. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:35, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Fire up task manager. (ctrl-alt-delete). Don't shut anything down, but keep it open while you work as you usually do and check out the readings, in 3 areas: percentage of CPU time, memory usage, and networking. I find I can manage all three by setting it so that it gives the icon over in the right hand end of the status bar which shows a live display of % of cpu usage, while simultaneously keeping the networking window of the task manager open so that I can see what the network traffic is like, and down in the right hand corner what the memory usage is. if the memory usage is significantly more than your 480 meg much of the time, then you will benefit from more memory. If you spend a lot of time sitting waiting for something to come in on the network, then that's your bottleneck. And if you find yourself tied up while the cpu is buzzing along at 100%, then of course something in there is tying you up. Gzuckier 18:55, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I'm at work now; I'll do this when I get home and see if I can't return with follow-up questions. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 18:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

1- if your computer is slowing down from three programs, it's almost certainly firefox being a memory hog (I love firefox, but it does that all the time). 2- I don't know what the heck Ruckus is, but if your PC is running slow after replacing firefox with something else, you might just need to use a lighter OS, although my PC mostly ran fine with the exact same setup (although I had a video card, which you don't, that shouldn't be a problem), you could try something like a Mini Linux distro on it. --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 19:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Forget memory hogging apps- 480Mb is way too low to run Windows and do anything useful with it. Add another gig and see what that gets you. Friday (talk) 19:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Vista, maybe. XP should run fine with 128MB, let alone 480 --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 20:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, according to Windows XP, the minimum "recommended" is 128 Mb. And Microsoft is notoriously optimistic in their recommendations. I suppose it depends. If, somehow, his investigation reveals that he's not running low on memory, more may not help. Friday (talk) 20:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Along the lines of checking for resource-hog processes, Process Explorer is a great tool and does many things the task manager doesn't. For example, you can see a history of each processes CPU usage, investigate private vs shared memory load, etc. It's a must-have for diagnostics like this --Jmeden2000 20:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I have never used Ruckus Network, but it seems to be an advertisement-supported peer-to-peer application. That may be sucking up a lot of ram, network, and even processor power. Nimur 21:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Looks like I need more RAM -- it's constantly at 440-450, and I'm not even using Ruckus at the moment. Anyone got any suggested sites to guide me in adding RAM? I haven't gone through the process before. —Erik (talk • contrib) - 10:55, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Well depends on how much you paid for your Pentium 4 2.4Ghz machine (it could be the once top-of-the-line RDRAM version or the more common later DDR RAM version) you can either acquire another stick of 512MB RDRAM with lots of hassle and money or 512MB DDR400 RAM quite easily, respectively. Also, consider using lighter alternatives of Windows XP, such as Xubuntu. Ruckus may not run but for AIM and Firefox it is perfectly adequate. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:38, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Windows Media Player

Hello. I have Windows Media Player Version 11.0.5721.5145. I've set the ripping option to never rip an audio CD when I insert one. Yet, although the ripping option still displays "never" under Rip--> when CD is insterted, the program continues to begin the ripping process. Has anyone else had this problem? Is there a patch of which I am not aware? I use Windows Media Player all the time to play my audio CDs, and it's really a nuisense that the rip feature keeps activating. Does anyone know of a way to fix this so I may still use Windows Media Player to play my CDs and only rip them when I give the command? Thanks!--El aprendelenguas 21:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

(I am not sure if this is the problem) May be when Windows prompted for the autoplay option, you (perhaps by mistake) chose "Rip with WMP". and somehow checked the box which saves the action for future autoplays. To fix that download TweakUI from MS and reset custom autoplay options or disable (but that would prevent WMP from autoplaying CDs as well). --soum ^talk 10:46, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Autoplay settings for individual drives can be configured from their properties as well. Btw, disabling autoplay can be a good idea. Many viruses that propagate through removable media get installed because they get auto-runned (provided you are running without an AV). --soum ^talk 10:48, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

One for the academics (endnote question)

Why does the newer versions of endnote such as Endnote X - create a seperate folder of files besides the library - what's it for? do I need to sent people that with the library? --Fredrick day 22:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm using an older version so I cannot directly tell you but you might want to try creating a copy of one of your existing libraries to check what happens if you don't include the extra directory.