Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 3

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 3

Computer problems

Hi i bought a pavilion pc a 6000 cmputer two week ago after install every thing i'm getting error massage and can not run some programes.below mentioned massages are appearing in my pc.

Recovery-Reminder has stopped working A problem caused the programe to stop working correctly.windos will close programe and notify you if a solution is available.

other error is,

Windows host process (Rundll32)has stopped working.A problem caused the programe to stop working correctly.windos will close programe and notify you if a solution is available.

please tell me y and any wrong with pc.

thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.96.226.88 (talk) 04:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

I would say get HijackThis, SpyBot S&D, AVG AntiVirus free edition, and SUPERAntiSpyware. Run a HijackThis and save the log file. Copy it and submit it here. Fix anything it tells you to fix. This should probably fix your problem. Just to try to get rid of what may have caused it, run a scan with AVG, S.A.S., and S&D. Fix anything these programs tell you to fix. This should get rid of your problem. Cheers, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 05:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you mean an "error message" ? (Although I can see how you could think that an "error massage" was computer related, as that's when they accidentally touch your naughty bits.) :-) StuRat (talk) 13:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Moving Safari profile

1. Where does Safari store its data (bookmarks, preferences)? (I use Windows XP.)
2. Is there any way to force it to use a different folder?

--grawity 13:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

What is this "Safari" thing you speak of? Is it related to Firefox? --mboverload@ 03:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Mboverload, Safari is a web browser from Apple lol. I will install it today and try to find the solution. -Abhishek (talk) 04:20, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Click the word "Safari" in my question. --grawity 16:04, 4 August 2008 (UTC) P.S. I only use Safari for testing my website, so stop trying to switch me to Firefox.

I found %AppData%\Apple Computer\Safari\, but how to force it to use a different folder? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Grawity (talk • contribs) 16:53, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Search for that string in the registry. Go to Start>Run>regedit.exe --mboverload@ 03:22, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Feeding Papers Into a HP Deskjet 3420

Hello. How do I feed several pieces of paper into a HP Deskjet 3420 without it taking all the papers at once? I want to feed several pages (below the maximum) to the paper tray and the printer will take on one page at a time. I realize the benefits of feeding one page at a time but I would need advice on printing single-sided on many pages. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 16:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Can you clarify what is you are trying to do? I don't understand the "without it taking all the papers at once" part. You should be able to put as much paper in the paper tray and it should only take one at a time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:13, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

My old HP Laserjet 6L developed a fault where it would take in several sheets at once. HP recognised it as a known problem and provided a free fix kit to anyone who requested one. My Laserjet now takes one sheet a time from the feed bin (this is normal behavoir for printers - manually feeding each page when needed is not normal). Perhaps a similar problem has affected the Deskjet 3420. I suggest you visit HP's support site for your country. Astronaut (talk) 17:27, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This seems to be quite a common problem with printers. I just feed them one page at a time. This has another advantage of being one of the few ways you can stop an out of control printer from printing junk pages, by just denying it paper. I then get an "Out of paper" error, and it actually allows me to cancel the print. If I ever got a printer that could feed paper properly, I wouldn't know what to do with it. StuRat (talk) 22:10, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Elements of a computer

hello, asking about the five elements of computer...thanks for the immediate reply... —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yagifranci (talk • contribs) 16:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

As it says at the top of this page Do your own homework. You might find the computer article helpful. Astronaut (talk) 17:29, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Five? I'd would have imagined there are more than five elements in a computer. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:02, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

If your teacher has five specific elements in mind, you might have to consult the assigned reading/lecture notes. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 23:00, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Earth, air, fire, water, and upgrades. OtherDave (talk) 04:05, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

As has been pointed out, a physical computer has far more than five elements. However, perhaps your question relates to an abstract computer architecture with five main components, in which case Von Neumann architecture may be what you are loooking for. Note that this is not the only possible computer architecture - see Harvard architecture and Modified Harvard architecture for other possibilities. Gandalf61 (talk) 09:45, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Command Prompt

What's up with the start "%~dpnx0" command. It seems that all the text in parentheses does is title the prompt opened by the start command. Even if one types in start "" or simply start a new command prompt window will open so why the %~dpnx0? Thanks, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 17:46, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

The help for the start command starts like this:

Starts a separate window to run a specified program or command.

START ["title"] [/D path] [/I] [/MIN] [/MAX] [/SEPARATE | /SHARED]
      [/LOW | /NORMAL | /HIGH | /REALTIME | /ABOVENORMAL | /BELOWNORMAL]
      [/AFFINITY <hex affinity>] [/WAIT] [/B] [command/program]
      [parameters]

... and suggests any text between the quotes becomes the title of the created command prompt window. If I enter the command start "%~dpnx0", I get a new command prompt window with %~dpnx0 in the title bar, which is exacly what I would expect to happen. However, environment variables are substituted for their value when surrounded by "%" chars. Perhaps "~dpnx0" is an environment variable on your PC. To use it in a start command, the command would be start "%~dpnx0%". Astronaut (talk) 18:16, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

When I use start "%~dpnx0%" I get a command prompt window with title %~dpnx0%. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 18:19, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

...in which case ~dpnx0 is not an environment variable (it's not on my PC either). Astronaut (talk) 18:45, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

so what's it for? Why would anyone name a window that? 74.193.92.53 (talk) 18:55, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, it should be start "" "%~dpnx0", because now start thinks that the % thingy is a title, while it's a command. Also, this must be started from inside a .cmd/.bat file to work. (Create a new file, anything.cmd, and put this command inside.)

In cmd.exe, %0-%9 refer to command line parameters. For example, if you launch foo.cmd One tWo thRee, then %0 will be foo.cmd, %1 will be One, %2 will be tWo, and so on.

Some version of Windows introduced a way to expand these parameters. For example, if %0 is foo.cmd, and it's located in C:\MyScripts, then %~d0 will be the drive (C:), %~p0 is path (\MyScripts), %~nx0 - name and extension.

So %~dpnx0 will expand to the full path of the batch script.

--grawity 19:05, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

In short, create a file with extension .cmd (or .bat), and put this inside:

start "" "%~dpnx0"

That should work. (Save all unsaved documents before starting.) --grawity 19:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Great joke... just love that never-ending command window creator. Astronaut (talk) 14:25, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't tell you to launch it :) If you liked that, this is nice too:

:a

start "" "%~dpnx0" & goto :a

--grawity 16:02, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Playing normal DVDs on an HD screen

Hi, can anyone tell me what the quality is like playing normal DVDs on an HD screen? Like does the quality look impared compared to playing them on a standard def. screen? I was specifically thinking of buying the base level Sony FW model, but wanted to make sure my normal DVDs wouldn't play badly. Cheers, LHMike (talk) 20:30, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Providing you're not sitting very close, it shouldn't look any worse. How it does look will partially depend on the DVD player - a lot of newer DVD players have some pretty good upscaling, which manufacture fake details to produce an HD-dimension image from the standard dimensioned DVD signal. It's certainly not as good as a real BluRay or HDTV source, but the mismatch between people buying HDTVs and yet not buying BluRay players to match has been ascribed to people being largely happy with the upscaled images they're getting now. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

At least in my case, I don't want to pay for a BluRay player unless it can also record in BluRay. I'll continue using my current DVD players until they can do both, at a reasonable price, and without any defective DRM logic that prevents it from working. StuRat (talk) 22:01, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Stu, I think your objection is really waiting over price and not recording functionality. If you want to record HD just get an HD Tivo. Why would you want to record HDTV on to Bluray discs that (will eventually) cost 2 bucks each? --mboverload@ 22:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

How much does TiVo cost for a month ? Enough for several BluRay disks, I imagine. How would I store 100 HD movies on a TiVo ? Also, how would I hand a TiVo to a friend who wants to see the movie ? I would guess that BluRay blank disk prices will also eventually come down to the price of blanks DVDs. StuRat (talk) 22:21, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

All great points Stu. I mostly use Tivo to timeshift and keep shows for a week, whereas you want to keep them for longer, which I did not consider. --mboverload@ 00:47, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Your DVDs will look ok. It really depends on the MPEG-2 codec your laptop has. Laptops usually have PowerDVD, which is pretty good. --mboverload@ 22:08, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks all, big help. I suppose even before blu-ray people watched DVDs on screens of many different resolutions. In a couple of years, if I'm desparate for HD, an external drive will be far cheaper than the price difference to a blu-ray model is now (heck, they're already cheaper than the price difference...). LHMike (talk) 19:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

External hard drive and eSATA

Can you plug an external SATA hard drive into the eSATA hole (sorry, I mean, port) on a computer and expect it to work? Are these interfaces compatible, or do you need an enclosure? I have read this article [1], and to me it looks like they were designed to be compatible - it just seems a bit alien to plug an internal hard drive into a computer as an external peripheral.78.144.211.104 (talk) 21:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

[2] --mboverload@ 22:12, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

So yes, you can. Because although they have slightly different form factors (eSATA is symmetrical, SATA is L-shaped), there are cables on the market which will connect an eSATA port to a SATA hard disc. Thanks. SATA HD's must be bus powered, then.78.144.211.104 (talk) 22:37, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Mathematical Keyboard

I'm not sure if this should go here or in the Mathematics desk... Anyway, is there a way to input advanced mathematical symbols (like ∝, ≈, ⇔, ⊕, ∫, among others) from the keyboard? As one can type accented characters with a US-International keyboard configuration, I was wondering if there was something similar to this? If not, perhaps there are some IMEs to do this? Since I use mathematical symbols quite often, I'd rather enter them from my keyboard than having to copy/paste or going to Character Map all the time. Maybe perhaps even a macro editor? Thanks for any suggestions. 63.24.175.154 (talk) 23:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft Office allows you to map keyboard shortcuts to insert any symbol (including Greek characters and equation characters common in mathematical writeups). Nimur (talk) 00:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

I use Open Office. It has a math module that lets you type a math markup language very easily (or point and click at a cheat sheet if you need to). -- kainaw™ 01:11, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

If you use them that often you may want to look into LaTeX or other applications designed to make writing mathematical expressions easier.--droptone (talk) 12:17, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

TeX is more practical, but you could probably rig up a space-cadet keyboard if you really wanted to. --Sean 15:07, 4 August 2008 (UTC)