Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 April 1

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April 1

Can't boot into Windows XP and/or Ubuntu

I have a problem with GRUB and it won't boot. The error says "Error 17". I happens when I start my computer. What should I do? Jet (talk) 01:49, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Does this page help?--droptone (talk) 11:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Firefox search engine plug ins

Could someone make or help me make firefox search engine plugins for Time magazine and Newsweek.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTD) 06:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

The Add to Search Bar extension lets you add any search field as a search plugin. The plugins will still work after disabling or uninstalling the extension. Good luck! --Kjoonlee 07:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

find proxy server on non-admin account pc

How can I find out what the proxy server and port number of my computer is. Its a windows, but I do not have access to Internet Explorers advanced settings as the computer is restricted. Is there another way short of asking the system administrator, whome is a real bastard. Thanks. 195.194.74.154 (talk) 13:34, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Open up regedit and navigate to hkey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windows\current version\internet settings\proxyserver. If you can't open regedit due to more restrictions, use an offline registry editor :D\=< (talk) 13:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you :D\=<, this may solve more problems than I'd hoped for. I'll give that a try and report back as soon as possible (note, however, that I am not able to do it now due to the aforementioned computer restrions) 195.194.74.154 (talk) 13:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

10 Gigabit Ethernet

One final question. I found the 10 Gigabit Ethernet article while clicking "random article". My question is, how can this work when I though hard drives were not fast enough to run at 10 Gigabit a second. Indeed, the hard drive article says "The fastest ... HDDs ... can achieve sequential media transfer speeds above 1.6 Gbit/s". I see it says "above 1.6 Gbit/s" but thats a far cry from 10 Gbit/s. Thanks. 195.194.74.154 (talk) 13:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Keep in mind that this is used for data transfer between many computers, not just one or two. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 14:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

A RAID controller configured for data striping could potentially write 16Gbit/s if it has 10 1.6Gbit/s hard drives.. also keep in mind that web servers and gateways and routers, what you'd need that much bandwidth for, don't necessarily do a lot of disk I/O, or in the case of the latter two only use a ton of high-speed memory :D\=< (talk) 14:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Also remember that Ethernet never comes close to saturating the full bandwidth. If you get 1/3-1/2 the rated speed, that is about normal. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Huh? I regularly get 90+ Mbit/sec over 100baseT, which is 90% of the rated speed. For gigabit ethernet, it is uncommon for a standard home machine to use all of the line's capacity due to the bottleneck of hard drive speeds (a realistic figure for a consumer hard drive is somewhere around 400MBit/sec) but with good ethernet hardware and a fast RAID array it's not hard to get almost all of the 1Gbps. I see no reason why 10 gig ethernet couldn't be used up to its full capacity. 66.93.12.46 (talk) 22:02, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

10G ethernet is also used for high speed interconnect, although InfiniBand can be cheaper in some configuations. As long as the interface is on the FSB, you can do network IO at the same rate as memory IO, useful for parallel computing. -- JSBillings 23:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm sure you're facing a little more latency going over ethernet than going to main memory.. :D\=< (talk) 00:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

windows movie maker

sometimes when i try to publish a movie it stops saving and the time remaining justs keeps getting longer but it doesn't say there is an error or why its stopped is there anything i can do about this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grant1304 (talk • contribs) 17:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Simple editing of a Firefox extension

[original question got deleted (see below). Sorry!)

Hi all, I'd like to be able to easily edit a Firefox extension that I have already downloaded, without needing to learn all about Chrome and what-not.

I was able to download the .xpi file, unzip it, and made a small change to one of the JavaScript files (not an installer or anything). I then re-zipped the folders and changed the file's extension back to .xpi. I then tried to install the extension using "Open file" in Firefox.

The "Install now" window appeared, but when I tried to install I got the error message: "Firefox could not install the file at file:///[...] because: Install script not found -204." What's going on? I left the name of the extension and the installer scripts completely untouched. If I try to install the original version of the script, using the steps above, it works fine.

How can I install my modified version of the extension?

Any help much appreciated! Thanks!

— Mike 19:06, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You don't say what platform you're on, but on Linux I solve these kinds of issues by attaching to the browser with strace and grepping out all the files he's trying to open to see what the problem is. It's usually a pretty quick way to solve problems where the program is looking for something but doesn't tell you what. --Sean 69.134.209.199 (talk) 00:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia going into "Locked" mode when I try to write a long question....

!!! Gaaa!!! When Wikipedia goes into "locked" mode, can't it at least keep our edits in the next page? Just saying "Sorry, Wikipedia is locked, you can try to edit later" is awful, because pressing the back button does not return you to the post you just wrote! Grrrrrrrrrrrr.....— Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.138.152.238 (talk) 2008-04-01T18:40:41, apparently changing several other anon questions in the same edit (UTC)

yeah, its a real bugger. 79.76.205.189 (talk) 18:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What browser are you using? The only times I haven't been able to go back to my previous edit screen is when using Internet Explorer on a public terminal that did not keep any page caches. Try previewing before posting and see if that helps. Generally whenever I back up from an Edit conflict or an Database lock (in IE on Windows, Firefox on Linux), I get the previous edit screen with my changes. / edg ☺ ☭ 19:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I was using Firefox on a Mac. Often going back does keep the contents of the edit box, but not always (as today when I made this post). I'd say it keeps the contents about 4 times out of 5. Regardless, you wouldn't think it too difficult to add the filled-in text field to the notice page, which would give the user the ability to copy-and-paste their text for later usage. — Mike. 20:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.138.152.238 (talk)

This isn't a great place to make feature requests. Try Wikipedia:Village pump (technical). For what it's worth, I'm consistently able to back up to my previous edits unless I'm on a system that doesn't cache. You may be experiencing a bug, or using a security/privacy tool that wipes this information prematurely. (Those are guesses; dozens of things could be causing this and I lack the expertise to say what system/configuration problem is most likely.) / edg ☺ ☭ 20:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You need to AX it before pressing any buttons. That is, do a <CTRL>A to select All, then a <CTRL>X to cut (eXcise) the selected text, then a <CTRL>V to replace the selected text. This assures that the selected text is in the text buffer and can be replaced with <CTRL>V, if needed. And yes, you can also do just <CTRL>A to select All and <CTRL>C to Copy it to the text buffer, but I don't trust it to copy anything and I want the verification of seeing everything cut and then pasted. StuRat (talk) 17:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Quicktime Pro Video Recovery

Context: When I use in and out points in quicktime pro, I can select a part of a video clip and select "Trim to Selection". That then cuts down the length of the video.

After saving the video and closing the file, I cannot undo that trim (which seems natural), BUT the file size remains the same. Quicktime's inspector tells me it is a smaller file. Finder tells me that the file is still the same size that it was before the trim.

Question: Is there any way to recover the full video?

Motive: I have lost something (that I really really love) by accidentally trimming it, and I can't undo it. Apparently the data for the entire clip is still on my disk.

Thanks so much. Joel (talk) 19:35, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

OVERCLOCKING

I need to know how (and if) the effects of Overlocking can be reversed on a home pc. Aspvgregory (talk) 19:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean the "effects". If you mean "can I go back to the old speed", then sure, the overclocking tool you use will let you do that (or even underclock it). If you've overclocked a machine so much that it has overheated and cooked part of itself, then the damaged parts will have to be replaced. That latter condition is pretty rare - usually if you overclock too much all that generally happens is the system becomes unstable, and maybe you shorten the lifespan of the overclocked components. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:08, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Hey thanks 'Finlay McWalter'. Yes I do mean can I go back to how it was. However, I need to know how to do it. I did not 'Overclock' it originally and now I am having probs with booting up. Once I finally managed to boot up earlier this evening I got the msg regarding Overclocking!

That rather depends on how the previous person overclocked it. If it doesn't (or didn't) boot at all, they almost certainly messed with settings in the BIOS - the best idea is to go into the BIOS screen and have it reset itself to defaults. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

If, on the other hand, it boots a bit and then goes wonky once the windows logo appears, they've probably run a program to run the video adapter at a higher rate. The easiest way to fix this is to boot into safe mode and then uninstall the device driver. Then boot normally (there shouldn't be a crash) and reinstall a fresh video driver from the manufacturer's website. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:21, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

It will help if you tell us what motherboard you have. If the situation is so bad you can't even boot to BIOS, you will need to clear the CMOS memory. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 21:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

download site?

Pornheaven.co.uk and affiliates won't take my credit card any more (used to but just doesn't work anymore). Can anyone recommend a non-DRM adult film site with downloaded films to keep.. Must stock european titles - eg clubseventeen, magma, videorama etc? Any ideas?87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think Wikipedia should recommend porn sites. Look for your own porn. Astronaut (talk) 20:55, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not? Porn is legal, and Wikipedia is not censored. Arguably, the Reference Desks are for factual questions, but other than that I can't see an issue with it. — Kieff | Talk 04:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

For the same reason I don't leave porn lying around where kids might see it. If a user is old enough to look at porn, let them find their own without our assistance - it's not like porn is hard to find on the internet.

Yes, I'm glad Wikipedia is not censored. That way, we can have articles about notable companies and people involved in the business, or articles where aspects of human sexuality can be discussed openly. But please, don't let the reference desk become the place where people come because they are too lazy or stupid to find their own porn. Astronaut (talk) 00:46, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Meh? I don't think we should become a product recommendation site, but your children-looking-at-porn argument doesn't hold weight. If someone wants to leave porn around for children to find it's hardly Wikipedia's place to judge. (Though Kieff's point is enough for me, I'm just saying) -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

TorrentFreak.com lists Empornium, PureTnA and Cheggit as Bittorrent trackers specializing in porn. The Pirate Bay also has porn. Forgive me for inferring, but if you've maxed out your credit card on porn, you might want to read up on Sexual addiction. / edg ☺ ☭ 20:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

You're not interfering. To the contrary, if he's maxed out his credit card on porn, I'd say he's interfering with himself. StuRat (talk) 17:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

myfreepaysite.com asks for an email, but I've never had problems with them. FrebWel2 (talk) 22:29, 1 April 2008 (UTC)