Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 March 4

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March 4

Best Laptop

Hi, I'm looking to purchase a PC (Windows) laptop. What is the best <$4000 laptop I can buy in North America in terms of performance, reliability and durability? I will be using it for heavy graphics design, video editting and gaming. And how does this laptop compare to a top-of-the-line MacBook Pro? Thanks Jamesino 01:03, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

For everything you described besides gaming (though this could possibly be remedied by dual-booting windows), the macbook is considered excellent for. Do you have a preferred manufacturer such as Dell, HP, Lenovo, etc? Some quick narrowing down on newegg yielded this (however it is out of stock at the moment), may be a good start though. If you don't mind paying a hefty premium just for the name, Alienware may be a good choice as well. Cyraan 02:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm mainly looking for a performance oriented laptop. One that has attracted my attention is the IBM Lenovo's Thinkpad series. As well, what is the Toshiba Satellite series? I've seen it many times before but the name is curious to me, does it have some sort of satellite linkage? Thanks. Jamesino 04:38, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It's just the name of one of Toshiba's laptop product lines. Ill do some checking on Lenovo's site a little later & see what their offerings are. Cyraan 04:53, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

No, it's just a line of low-end laptops. Don't buy toshiba. I highly recommend ThinkPad though. Highly --froth^T 05:24, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems there are no Lenovo laptops that I could see that pack a high-end gaming quality GPU, you may be stuck with a Dell, or perhaps Alienware. Cyraan 19:08, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Lenovo laptops can sport ATI 128M Mobility Radeon X1400 processors or 256M FireGL processors. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.242.20 (talk) 08:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

I got my notebook from Hypersonic PC, which basically customizes and resells Clevo notebooks. There are a number of these smaller niche notebook makers, you might check out a place like this site. When I got my notebook last fall, it was one of the best available 17" notebooks that I could find, and it was in the low to mid $3000's. kmccoy (talk) 01:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Reboots from openSUSE but not from WinXP

My problem is that when I restart the computer from WinXP, upon rebooting I get stuck at the 'initializing floppy controller' stage (I know this from the diagnostic lights feature of my mobo). If I press the reset button, the computer begins to boot normally. If I restart the computer from Suse (10.2), the computer begins to boot normally. I've had this problem for a long time and reinstalling WinXP hasn't fixed it. What could be the difference between a warm reboot with WinXP vs openSUSE? They should surely leave the PC in the same state by the time it's booting up again?

• Win XP Pro / openSUSE 10.2
• MSI K8N Neo4 SLI Platinum (model MS-7100) / 64-bit Athlon 3200+
• 2x1024 Mb Corsair Value RAM PC3200
• Leadtek 128Mb 6600GT PCIe Graphics Card / Integrated 24-bit SoundBlaster Sound Card --Seans Potato Business 06:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This sounds like a BIOS problem. first try turning on the "Memory hole" setting in the BIOS. If that doesn't work, turn off the Floppy in BIOS, Reboot, then go back and turn the Floppy back on. This resets the register in the BIOS, in case it got corrupted some how. You might also have a conflict in the Device Manager, such as an IRQ conflict. Check the Device Manager for flagged errors. If none of that works, then you may need to look for a bad memory board, or bad floppy cable or a bad floppy drive, or you may need to update your BIOS version as a last resort (save all your files to CD-ROM or network drive before attempting this!) --Britcom 20:34, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Maybe Windows leaves some weird stuff in memory or something just before it reboots? I mean, it would be stupid to zero out the contents of memory just before rebooting --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 06:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Windows Live Messenger

Does Windows Live Messenger replace Windows Messenger 4.7 completely? If so, is it compatible with Microsoft Outlook? The Updater 10:12, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I think you will find it only replaces MSN Messenger but will work with outlook.--Dacium 05:13, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Firefox 2 extension check

According to the release notes of Firefox 2, it is possible not all extensions work immediately. Is there some extension or program I can use to check their availability before upgrading without checking each extension website separately? - Mgm|^(talk) 11:07, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

It will do it after the installation of Firefox 2 before first startup. Otherwise, I haven't heard of one. Although almost all plugins supports Firefox 2 now days. --antilived^{T | C | G} 07:08, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

C and C++

What's the difference between the C and C++ programming languages, and which one is best to learn? Thanks, --Fadders 12:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

See the articles C (programming language) and C++. As to which is best: the one you intend to use. Or learn both. Since C++ is mostly a superset of C, I'd start with the much simpler C, then learn the additional C++ features. Weregerbil 13:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

The biggest and most important difference is that unlike C, C++ is object.oriented. Oskar 16:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

See also the comp.lang.c FAQ list. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

As to the "Which to learn first?" question, there are two diametrically opposed schools of thought. Some point out that C++ is a much more complicated language than C, and that it's therefore easier to learn C first, as a stepping-stone to C++. Others argue that if you really want to learn OOP, you must learn C++ first, because otherwise you'll end up writing C in C++, not making full use of the OOP paradigm. —Steve Summit (talk) 02:20, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Note that C++ is a superset of C, therefore knowing C++ implies you have learned C. Personally, I began with C++, however you should begin with C if you have never programmed, or if you don't have experience with procedural languages (Turbo Pascal is usually the language most used to begin with). -- ReyBrujo 02:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

As others have indicated, the answer is "it depends". If you just want to learn how to program, it's best to learn a language that doesn't sacrifice so much clarity and simplicity for performance. Java, Perl, Python, or Haskell would all be better choices than C or C++. If you're required to learn one or the other of C or C++, then C++ would allow you some measure of the abstraction and simplicity of the languages listed above. For example, to mush two sentences together in C++ (using some sort of string class), you can usually say something like:

string joined_sentence = sentence1 + sentence2;

, while in C, you must often do something like:

char *joined_sentence = (char*)malloc(strlen(sentence1) + strlen(sentence2) + 1);
if (!joined_sentence) {
  perror("malloc");
  exit(1);
}
sprintf(joined_sentence, "%s%s", sentence1, sentence2);

You'll eventually need to learn the ugliness above for either language, but at least you can don't have to do so right out of the gate with C++. --TotoBaggins 05:06, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Using sprintf like that isn't really desirable. You can use snprintf for better security, but it isn't as portable as strncat, for example. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.49.242.20 (talk) 08:52, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

Where's the security problem? joined_sentence was just allocated to have enough space, so there can't be an overrun, so I don't see it. --TotoBaggins 02:14, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

If the length of sentence1 was so big that adding the length of sentence2 would "wrap" the int around... --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 06:26, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Ouch, yes, I see what you mean. --TotoBaggins 11:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Mac Mini vs. iMac

How much difference in performance would you notice between a Mac Mini and 20in iMac, assuming you aren't doing much photo/video editting?

Well the 20" iMac has a 2.16ghz processor (MacMini 1.83ghz), 4mb cache (2mb on MM), 1gb RAM (512mb standard on MM), 250gb hard-drive (80gb MM), 128mb ATI Radeon (64mb graphics processor on mm). Overally the 20"Mac is higher-spec at every point compared to the high-spec Mac Mini. Whether or not you need this power depends on your computer's main use. I have a 1.33ghz, 768mb ram iBook G4 and it serves me perfectly for everything I do. The iMac has the benefit of coming with a 20-inch screen which price-wise would probably be quite expensive. I personally am waiting for Apple to get round to releasing their new OS (Leopard) before I contemplate upgrading. I understand that is released in the next few months. ny156uk 18:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Phone videos

I'm trying to get Videos from my phone (a Sony Ericsson k750i) onto YouTube, however when i put them on my computer they play with no sound. I use VLC media player to play them. Can anyone help?Ken 14:51, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

• I recommend you try VLC forums. The people there have seen all the possible problems that may cause this and are therefore better equiped to help you. - Mgm|^(talk) 15:15, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I have a K800i and I can play my video files in Quicktime player. They are the format ".3pg", and you can convert them to AVI by looking at this page (half way down). Your .avi can then be uploaded to YouTube :). JoshHolloway 15:19, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Digital Storage Mediums

Hi, i'm currently in my last year of 6th form studying physics. Part of the coursework is to research a topic of your choice. Mine is digital storage mediums.

Could you list some storage mediums for me to research. I've found a few but i'm sure there are far more. Could you also tell me if any of these are the same, ie use the same type of storage, and what the proper name of the storage is.

Flash Memory, Cache Memory, RAM, ROM, CD, DVD, Hard Disk, SIM, Floppy

Thanks for any help, apologies if this sounds simple to you.

88.105.65.0 16:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)Pete

digital storage is your best place to start. Principally speaking I understand they all work on the same basis - storage of 0s and 1s. Above that level optical-drives like CD/DVD work along the same principles and you could add in Blue-Ray/HD-DVD, Mini-disc to that list. Floppys work on magnetic discs and I think Hard-drives are somewhat similar. You are best starting by looking at their respective wikipedia-articles and looking for similarities. Hope this helped a little ny156uk 18:06, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Cache memory is a specific application of random access memory (RAM) and not a memory hardware technology in and of itself.

Atlant 13:54, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Game name

Hey, this is driving me nuts. There's a little logic game I've enjoyed in various incarnations over the years but I can't for the life of me remember what it's called. I was reminded of it recently when looking at games to play with MAME; there was a Japanese arcade release of it called Prologic -- an odd game for an arcade game, but a lot of Japanese arcade games are weird, by US standards anyway. Game works like this: You're presented with a grid and some numbers, about like this:

         1  4     2
         3  2  1  4
         __________
    1 2 |x  x  x  x
      4 |x  x  x  x ...
    2 1 |x  x  x  x
    1 2 |x  x  x  x
        ...

The rest is kinda like minesweeper; the numbers represent runs of non-bombs, so in the first row, we know there's a single non-bomb and then two non-bombs, with an indeterminate number of bombs between them. The goal is to use logic to determine where all the safe spaces are.

Anyone have any idea what I'm talking about? --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the puzzle that I know as Griddler on Nonogram, but apparently on Wikipedia it's Paint by numbers. Algebraist 18:02, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly it. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 18:25, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's an online Flash version of the game I particularly liked: [1] (pick "PLAY THIS GAME!" at the linked page). StuRat 20:44, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

iMac display dimensions

What are the actual dimensions of the 17in and 20in displays found on the current range of iMacs, in mm preferable. Thanks, --Fadders 17:41, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Easiest way to find is to look at the 'technical spec' on the apple site (http://www.apple.com/imac/specs.html)...For info the 17inch is 43cm X 42.6cm and the 20-inch is 47.2cm X 49.3cm. The viewable area will be smaller. Hope this helps ny156uk 17:54, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much! --Fadders 22:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth?

Is there something like Google Earth that has updated photos? 68.193.147.179 17:45, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure about alternatives that are more up-to-date, but google-earth does update its images regularly (http://earth.google.com/faq.html). I think Yahoo do a similar map but i've never used it. ny156uk 17:49, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

For some reason Microsoft's arguably better version of the satellite style mapping tool, local.live.com, is largely unknown. It may have more up-to-date photos. Also check out their 'Bird's eye' facility, which provides a much closer view of an area, presumably taken from a low flying plane. Johnnykimble 18:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I Don't see how theres is better in anyway at all? As for more up-to-date all the ones I saw looked at were many years old. I know building that are up for about 5 years that aren't on live but are on google earth.--Dacium 05:09, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I find it better when it comes to using it as a proper map. Their road view includes more roads in my area, and it is much more detailed than Google Earth. From purely a toy perspective, Microsoft's version also offers the better application for my area, with Bird's Eye photos available. A lot depends on where you are looking at, but I do think Microsoft's version offers more in the way of detailed road mapping. Johnnykimble 14:27, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Google Earth does update its imagery. Its just that nice, cloud-free, reasonably high-resolution, orthorectified, quality-controlled imagery takes time to make. There is near-realtime satellite imagery available on the web, like Modis Rapid Response [2]. It is interesting to see what raw satellite imagery looks like compared to the nice stuff you see on Google Earth. Most obviously -- there are lots of clouds. Pfly 03:42, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

My First Edit

I hope I did this correct:

1. I looked at the orphaned Dynamic Software listing. 2. no knowledge of this company. 3. Very aware of Dynamic Software the NJ base company. 4. Added an entry for the NJ company. 5. DId I do this right or was a suppose to create a new entry? 6. Could you point me to how to add a new article or post?

thanks

Al —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Akc9000 (talk • contribs) 18:48, 4 March 2007 (UTC).

To create a new article, type the article name in the search box and hit 'go'. If they page does not exist, you will see a red link, allowing you to start the page.

Since you were writing about a different company, a separate article is warranted.

I should advise however, that the information you added (and that which already existed) is of questionable notability. You need to make clear in the article, what is special about the company that makes it worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia. Take a look at this page, for more info >> Wikipedia:Notability

Another tip that you might find useful, is that, as you may have noticed, typing a list with one line after the other in the manner that you have done, leads to the all items being included on one line. An alternative method is to use the # symbol. The code:

#I looked at the orphaned Dynamic Software listing. #no knowledge of this company. #Very aware of Dynamic Software the NJ base company.

creates the list:

1. I looked at the orphaned Dynamic Software listing.
2. no knowledge of this company.
3. Very aware of Dynamic Software the NJ base company.

If you need more help, you might consider posting at the Wikipedia:Help_desk (this is the computing reference desk, intended for questions about computing, rather than computing-articles, which is slightly different) but feel free to continue asking questions on the same topic here. --Seans Potato Business 19:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Remote install of ImageMagick to enable thumbnailing on my wiki

I only have FTP access to my web host and I'm trying to install ImageMagick on my server so I can enable thumbnailing on my wiki. I use Go Daddy as my hosting provider and I haven't seen any mention of them allowing me to use it. If anyone knows anyway to do a remote instal of ImageMagick, I would appreciate the help. Thanks. eyeRmonkey 19:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Upload, make sure your executable has execute permissions --wj32 ^{talk | contribs} 07:41, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Minimising Use Of Dialup

I want to set up my Grandmother's computer so that she can send and receive email easily from her gmail account. The problem is, it's difficult to explain things to her and she's liable to walk away from the computer, leaving it connected to the dial up internet connection and wasting her money. I would like to know if I've anyway of setting up an email client to connect, download, disconnect, connect, upload, disconnect, so as to minimise charges incurred? --Seans Potato Business 21:55, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not aware of anything but i'm sure someone more in the known will tell you for sure. Meanwhile the easiest thing to ask her to remember perhaps may be to disconnect the modem from the phoneline. Hardly ideal but if you tell her to unplug the modem each time she doesn't have to worry about remembering how to disconnect on-screen. You've probably already thought of that but I think it's the most simple policy. ny156uk 23:30, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I was advised not to do that for the potential of damaging the modem if it's active. Not sure whether it is actually risk or not. The other thing is that since the line is low down, near the ground, she'd have to stuggle to access it, which isn't suitable either, though thanks for the suggestion :) --Seans Potato Business 23:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You could set up a Scheduled task to dialup every 6 hours, then the email program to run every 6 hrs + 5 minutes and check email, then run another scheduled task to disconnect. I used to do this when I was on dialup. I can't remember the commands offhand, but you can dialup and disconnect form the command line as a scheduled task. --Worm 23:47, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

But then wont the computer need to stay on for a prolonged period of time? It would ideally only be on whilst she's using it (half an hour or less per day). Thank you too, for the suggestion --Seans Potato Business 23:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

This seems to be the ticket! [3] --Zeizmic 02:04, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I set up my mother with a Linux machine so that she could browse the web and do email and such, with no risk of viruses or inadvertently misconfiguring it (she didn't have the root password :) ), and so I could administer it remotely via ssh. I had a similar thing for her, which was basically just a script that would start up every 5 minutes, and determine (using sar) when the last network activity was, and turn off the PPP process if it had been longer than some threshold. --TotoBaggins 05:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

There were some ISP's, like Juno, which would only send email this way (you wrote the e-mail offline, then when you picked "SEND" it would jump online, send the e-mail, then jump back off). I don't know if any ISPs still work this way. Their reason was more to limit the cost for free ISPs than to avoid tying up your phone line, but it did have that side benefit, nonetheless. StuRat 20:35, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You can set up the computer such that it would hang up if the network connection is inactive for some period. – b_jonas 17:13, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

USB mini-B -> AC Power adaptor

Does anyone know of a cable/adaptor that allows a device that uses a Mini-B USB connection to charge from an AC outlet? This is so that when I travel long distances without a PC I have a way of recharging my mp3 player (an RCA Lyra H100, for reference) -- I won't have a computer in front of me all the time.

--E Liquere 22:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah definitely, BlackBerry is one device that uses them and I know you can get separate 'travel chargers', but buying a BB branded charger may not be the cheapest option. Computer markets or swap meets if you have them near your area are the best places to source this kind of stuff. Vespine 03:58, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

My cellphone charges from AC through the mini-B. However, the charger doesn't work when I put it to my mp3 player. You might want to try a generic charger on ebay maid for the Lyra over a generic other charger. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:15, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

You could easily build such a thing yourself if you wanted to do a little wire splicing and/or soldering. USB power is 5 V, maximum 500 mA. -- mattb @ 2007-03-05T06:27Z

Your cellphone charger is probably Enhanced mini USB or CEA-936-A, and is probably designed to not do anything when plugged into normal USB devices. It also probably gives you more than the USB maximum of 500mA (probably 1A or more), allowing you to recharge your phone faster. --cesarb 12:43, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Right, there's usually no harm in using a power supply that is capable of delivering more power than necessary (unless the device consuming the energy is very poorly designed). I wouldn't risk using a supply that cannot deliver at least 500 mA of current, however. I'd also be a little wary of the typical wall wart; the cheap ones often leave a significant amount of AC signal in their output. This may disagree with the charging system on your MP3 player (probably not, but play it safe), which could have been designed with a much cleaner DC USB supply in mind. -- mattb @ 2007-03-05T22:50Z