Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 December 20

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December 20

Remote camera

Here is what I would like to set up:

• 1) A camcorder filming constantly in one room
• 2) The picture being displayed on my TV in another room (via an RF or SCART input)
• 3) The signal being somehow encrypted

Can anybody tell me what technology I could use to implement this, please? WiFiSouls (talk) 00:56, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

To encrypt the signal, it will have to be digital. One of methods would be using computers at both ends and transfer video through computer network. (there probably exists dedicated solutions as well). At camcorder end, there will be necesary some means of getting video in computer (and probably transcoding)(although 100Mbit ethernet should be able to handle DV format video (wifi will not, so it will require transcoding)). Computer network could be encrypted by using VPN. At other end, omputer will have rto run some sort of media player and display video on TV. I am not aware of any video cards having direct RF or SCART outputs, but there are composite to SCART adapters, and dedicated (not built in) video cards with composite and s-video outputs are common. -Yyy (talk) 06:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Most cable headends were using systems that rearranged the video lines or inverted sync or something to like to 'scramble' pay-TV. You might be able to purchase this equipment used, now that everything else is going to digital. However, I don't think I can really recommend it. Ask yourself this: Does it need to be encrypted, or just difficult to intercept? I suspect the latter, in which case, have you considered just using a really long cable? Using something called a 'balun', you can even run your video over twisted pair cables. --Mdwyer (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

What we know is this: Camcorders' don't encrypt. So there has to be something connected to the camcorder to make it do that - and that something has to be a computer. Camcorders are a pain to connect to a computer - that says you should probably use a webcam instead of a camcorder (Webcams are amazingly cheap - so tying it up 24/7 doing this job is a better bet anyway). So the computer can grab the video and encrypt it. You don't say that there can't be a cable between the two rooms...but it's hard to imagine that you'd bother encrypting a signal that just goes between two rooms in one house - so perhaps you're talking about a room somewhere a long way off? In that case, pretty much the only way to get the data there is over the Internet. That means you need another computer at the TV set end (you need that anyway because you've got to decrypt the video and that's a job for a computer)...with a video output that's TV-compatible.

Unless you have REALLY strong reasons for wanting to do this EXACT thing - I think you should consider using the screen of the second computer to watch the video on instead of a TV set - and I severely doubt you really need encryption. That being the case, a simple Internet-capable webcam and a regular computer will do the job just fine. SteveBaker (talk) 00:05, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh no

I tried entering the "format" command on my computer just to see what would happen, and I got a message saying "Paremeter line missing" or something of the sort. Does this mean the "format" command didn't work? Or does it mean it will work later on? Please. I don't want to damage my computer. 124.180.116.201 (talk) 05:08, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You probably did not specify what to format, so command did nothing (and will not later on). To format a drive, use "format drive:", where drive is a drive letter for drive to be formatted. It will probably ask if ypu really want to format, when trying to format hard drive. -Yyy (talk) 05:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

If you don't know how the more dangerous commands work, please, please, spare yourself a lot of time and grief, and don't play with them. You can easily delete your entire hard disk with the Format command. Just don't mess with it unless you have a good idea of what you are trying to do with it. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 15:51, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - that was INCREDIBLY dangerous. The FORMAT command's job is to erase everything on your hard drive...irrevocably...no "undelete". Rule #1 about "unknown" commands is that you don't run them until you understand them! As it happens, you got lucky - you've gotta tell it which drive to reformat by passing the drive name as a parameter on the command line. That's what it was complaining about - and it's what saved you. SteveBaker (talk) 23:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I remember someone trying to make me run a .bat script that would automatically format the hard drive. Would it have worked? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 23:51, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, it is perfectly possible to write the commands in a batch script and tell it to do it silently, but it would only work when Windows was not active. — neuro^(talk) 02:32, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

I recall some years ago I was working with a marketting guy (this was back in the era of DOS) - he called me on the phone saying that his PC had run out of disk space and I jokingly said "Well, you could always try 'RMDIR/S *.*' - ha ha!" (or something like that) - then went on to explain how he could look for junk files he didn't need anymore. Anyway, while I was talking, he interrupted me to say "That command seems to be taking an awful long time?"... SteveBaker (talk) 16:16, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Texture file in games

220.225.242.194 (talk) 06:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg hello, how to make a 3D texture file of extension .fbx,which software can be used for making it can adobe photoshop will be able to do this or I have to use another method for 3D game modelling if present

You will probably need Adobe Photoshop Extended - that version has 3D support. Otherwise, you can use Autodesk's Maya. --wj32 ^t/c 09:52, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you looked up fbx? It's more than just texture data. I don't know of any game engine that uses FBX files directly during runtime. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:53, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not even texture data - it's motion-capture data - to do with animations. I can't imagine Photoshop could deal with it. Maya or 3DStudio probably can. SteveBaker (talk) 23:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Internet

220.225.242.194 (talk) 06:22, 20 December 2008 (UTC)harshagg How can I increase my internet speed without changing my plan's speed which server usually offer

No. Unfortunately, if you ask this question at various places on the internet, you'll be told a bunch of fairy tales that say you can, and you'll be subject to some downright cons. For lots of people, their service is already as fast as the network to their home will support - the internet company isn't clamping it, and if they could offer you a faster service with the same equipment they already would be. For the rest, who are clamped, that's done on a router through which all their traffic flows. It isn't possible to somehow trick that router into allowing more traffic that it has been told to. Now people will tell you nonsense about changing your MTU size, but for an ordinary user that's pointless (and may make things slower). You'll hear the "Windows QoS myth", which claims XP (etc.) reserve a portion of bandwidth, and that you can reclaim that by turning of QoS (it doesn't, and you can't). Then come the cons - people will sell you (or let you download for "free") programs that claim to optimise your connection - some will just automatically apply the above nonsense "hacks"; some will do stupider things that break how the internet protocol works (like the silly "ack flood" things, that acknowledge packets you haven't received yet, in the vain belief this will chivvy up websites etc. into sending stuff faster); and some will just be trojans that take over your machine. To get the fastest internet you can, make sure your machine is free of viruses and trojans, make sure your wireless connection is secure (so you're not inadvertently sharing the connection with your freeloading neighbours), and only run p2p filesharing and telephony programs when you actually want to use them (they're particularly profligate with bandwidth, even when you think they're not). 87.114.130.249 (talk) 11:00, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Ooh. Well said. If you want to monitor your connection speed, use WireShark or something similar. Notice that I said monitor, not make faster. flaminglawyer^c 15:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You can change your expectations though. If you have a slow connection you could set your connection so you rejected flash or even javascript for most sites except ones you approved, it would improve your security too. Dmcq (talk) 12:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, I agree. The speed of the connection isn't limited by your computer - it's dependent on your ISP's setup. So without them doing something - you're screwed. The best advice I could give would be to use something like http://www.speedtest.net/ to measure your ACTUAL network speed (both up and down-stream) - and check that you're actually getting the bandwidth that your ISP promised you in your contract. If your performance is significantly less than they contracted to deliver to you (and that's a surprisingly common thing) - you could complain and they might even do something about it. But if they are delivering all of the performance they promised you - then your only option is to upgrade to a faster service or learn to live with what you've got. SteveBaker (talk) 23:28, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. Well there used to be a program called Google Web Accelerator. However, it is no longer available^link. Kushal (talk) 14:47, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Speed Run Wiki

Renamed header to avoid duplicate Astronaut (talk) 11:02, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Is the Speed Run Wiki (www.speedrunwiki.com) humorous or serious? 124.180.116.201 (talk) 12:01, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It's serious. It's a real site about speed runs. (speed runs = trying to beat the game in the fastest time possible, even if it means ignoring any secrets/powerups/etc.) flaminglawyer^c 15:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Many games give you an extra token for completing a stage fast so this is just an extension of that.Dmcq (talk) 12:39, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Using a Sony Ericsson phone on Mac OSX

I use Mac OS X Leopard, and have a Sony Ericsson W595 phone. The software that comes with the phone is PC-only. How can I put songs onto the phone from my Mac?

Many thanks --Cash4alex (talk) 13:12, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I've got the same phone, and I'm a windows (and linux) user. I never installed any of the software that came with the phone (among other reasons, because of this). You just need the usb-to-phone cable. When I plug it it, I get a menu on the phone display that allows me to chose between four different modes of operation. My menus are in Norwegian, so what follows is a translation which may not be exact:

 (Telephone icon)               Telephone mode
 (Usb icon)                     Media transfer
 (Icon with two drops of ink?)  Print out
 (Folder icon)                  Mass storage

Select the last one, with the folder icon. You'll be notified that you can't use your phone as a phone in this mode, and asked whether you want to continue. After responding "yes", the phone will appear as two new usb devices. Select the one that represents the memory card ("PHONE CARD"), not the one that represents built-in stuff ("PHONE"). Navigate to the folder called "music", and drag and drop your songs there. You can create sub-folders if you like, the phone will still find your songs, but the phone menus won't reflect your directory structure, but the ID3 tags of the songs. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:35, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Does it have Bluetooth? If so, pair the phone with your computer and you can easily browse the contents using Bluetooth File Exchange in your Utilities folders. I had a 610 and s700 and I was able to easily drag and drop photos, voice memos, movies, ringtones and MP3 to and from the device over Bluetooth. I was also able to use iSync to sync Address Book contacts and Calendar events. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 03:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Printing all possible k-subsets of a n-set

Hello. I want to write a program in C++ which given n and k, prints all possible combinations of k distinct numbers chosen out of 1,2...n. For example if n=4 and k=2 I want to print 12,13,14,23,24,34. (The order has to increasing as well, i.e. 32 is not permitted). I can't seem to get the looping done correctly to apply the brute force method for handling this program. Also, the brute force method would become infeasible to implement if n is big (something around 1000). What is the best approach to handle this problem? Thanks.--Shahab (talk) 14:16, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

It seems what you want to do is to generate permutations and then apply a trivial function to compose them (in your example, concatenation). If that's what you mean, then Permutation#Algorithms to generate permutations is for you. 87.114.130.249 (talk) 14:32, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

No I guess I don't want all permutations. I want a list of all possible k size subsets of a n size set. For example if n=10, k=2 then I want a list of ${\binom {10}{2}}=45$ numbers of the form 12,67,89 etc. That is all possible ways of selecting 2 numbers out of 1,2,...10. The should ideally be listed in increasing order, although that's not especially important. Thanks for the quick response though.--Shahab (talk) 14:41, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You are going to want recursion. With for loops, you need a for loop for each iteration of k. If k=2, you need 2 for loops. If k=3, you need 3 for loops. It is rather difficult to write a program that magically increases or decreases the number of for loops it has. With recursion, you have 1 loop that calls itself as many times as needed. -- kainaw™ 14:57, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Recursion is one approach, but a recursive loop 1000 steps deep is likely to break something. So, here's a non-recursive solution I wrote and tested in FORTRAN:

• Set this declaration as high as you like or use dynamic memory allocation:

    integer*2     ARY(29,100000)     ! Array of (digits,solutions).                                       
    integer*2     I,N,K,RECORD,DIGIT,VAL

• Initialization:

    RECORD = 1                       ! Current solution number.
    DIGIT  = 0                       ! Current digit.
    VAL    = 0                       ! Current value of digit.

• Make these user inputs to improve program:

    K = 2                            ! Number of digits.
    N = 4                            ! Number of values allowed for each digit.

• Body of program:

    IF (K .GT. N) GOTO 600           ! Abort if no solutions are possible.

200 DIGIT  = DIGIT + 1               ! Go to the next digit.

300 VAL = VAL + 1                    ! Go to, then store, the next value for the 
    ARY(DIGIT,RECORD) = VAL          !  current digit of the current solution.
    IF (DIGIT .LT. K) GOTO 200       ! Any more digits ?
400 IF (VAL   .LT. N) THEN           ! Any more values allowed for this digit ?
      RECORD = RECORD + 1            ! Go to the next solution.
      DO I = 1,DIGIT-1               ! Copy the old solution up to the previous digit.
        ARY(I,RECORD)= ARY(I,RECORD-1)
      ENDDO
      GOTO 300
    ENDIF

500 DIGIT  = DIGIT - 1               ! Go to the previous digit.
    IF (DIGIT .LT. 1) GOTO 600       ! If there's no previous digit, we're done.
    VAL = ARY(DIGIT,RECORD)          ! Get value of previous digit.
    IF (VAL+K-DIGIT .GE. N) GOTO 500 ! Digit's value already too high 
                                     !  to allow increasing values 
                                     !  to end of solution. 
    GOTO 400

• Program termination:

600 DO I =1,RECORD+1                 ! Add proper prints later.
      print *,ARY(1 ,I),ARY(2 ,I),ARY(3 ,I),ARY(4 ,I),ARY(5 ,I)
   +         ,ARY(6 ,I),ARY(7 ,I),ARY(8 ,I),ARY(9 ,I),ARY(10,I)
   +         ,ARY(11,I),ARY(12,I),ARY(13,I),ARY(14,I),ARY(15,I)
   +         ,ARY(16,I),ARY(17,I),ARY(18,I),ARY(19,I),ARY(20,I)
   +         ,ARY(21,I),ARY(22,I),ARY(23,I),ARY(24,I),ARY(25,I)
   +         ,ARY(26,I),ARY(27,I),ARY(28,I),ARY(29,I)
    ENDDO

You will have to convert to C++ (good luck !). StuRat (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure that I understand the concept of the program. I converted it into C++. The code is given below. But the output is as follows: 1200000000000000000000000000424848013000000000000000000000000022895924199168140000000000000000000000000021472993282300000000000000000000000002291
3480240000000000000000000000000229070003400000000000000000000000001999046107229362400000000000000000000000000022901204198987. This makes no sense to me. Perhaps you can explain what I am doing wrong here. Thanks

#include <iostream>

using namespace std;

int main()
{
int ary[29][1000];
int i,n,k,record,digit,val;
record=1;
digit=0;
val=0;
k=2;
n=4;
if(k>n)exit(0);
NextDigit:
digit=digit+1;
NextValue:
val=val+1;
ary[digit][record]=val;
if(digit<k)goto NextDigit;
MoreValues:
if(val<n)
    {
        record=record+1;
        for(i=1;i<=digit-1;i++)
        ary[i][record]=ary[i][record-1];
        goto NextValue;
    }
PreviousDigit:
digit=digit-1;
if(digit<1)goto Print;
val=ary[digit][record];
if(val+k-digit>=n)goto PreviousDigit;
goto MoreValues;
Print:
for(i=1;i<=record+1;i++)
    {
        cout<<ary[1][i]<<ary[2][i]<<ary[3][i]<<ary[4][i]<<ary[5][i];
        cout<<ary[6][i]<<ary[7][i]<<ary[8][i]<<ary[9][i]<<ary[10][i];
        cout<<ary[11][i]<<ary[12][i]<<ary[13][i]<<ary[14][i]<<ary[15][i];
        cout<<ary[16][i]<<ary[17][i]<<ary[18][i]<<ary[19][i]<<ary[20][i];
        cout<<ary[21][i]<<ary[22][i]<<ary[23][i]<<ary[24][i]<<ary[25][i];
        cout<<ary[26][i]<<ary[27][i]<<ary[28][i]<<ary[29][i];
    }
}

Cheers--Shahab (talk) 10:23, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Some things to add in C++ that FORTRAN does automatically:

1) Initialize the array to all zero values.

2) Include a space between each item printed.

3) Start each print on a new line.

Here's my output:

1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
1 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
2 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
3 4 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

When I reformat your prints I get the following:

12000000000000000000000000004248480
13000000000000000000000000022895924199168
14000000000000000000000000002147299328
23000000000000000000000000022913480
24000000000000000000000000022907000
34000000000000000000000000019990461072293624
00000000000000000000000000022901204198987

So, you're getting the correct output, but with some garbage values at what should be the end of each line, which probably will be fixed by initialization of all array values to 0 and fixing the prints (just printing the first 3 array elements instead of 29 would hide the ugly random numbers and make the output nicer for your particular test case). Also, isn't there something in C++ called "flushing the (print) buffer" ? Once you get it working, you can fancy up the prints a bit more, say by suppressing any prints of zeros. StuRat (talk) 15:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

If you still don't get the concept of how the program works, try going through it manually. That is, write all the variable names down on a piece of paper and record how the values change as you step through the program. For the array, you could maybe make a 3×7 chart and fill in the values as they are assigned. This technique can be tremendously helpful in understanding how programs work. Some debuggers can do this all automatically, but you would likely have to reduce the size of the array to 3×7 (I only made it bigger to show that the same techniques would work with much larger values for N and K). StuRat (talk) 04:26, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Here's one in Haskell:

comb :: Int -> [a] -> a
comb 0 _      = [[]]
comb _ []     = []
comb m (x:xs) = map (x:) (comb (m-1) xs) ++ comb m xs

*Main> comb 2 [1..4]
[[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[2,3],[2,4],[3,4]]

--71.141.111.57 (talk) 12:12, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

The article Combinadic may be of use to you, pre-fascicle 3A by Knuth referenced at the end is particularly useful. Dmcq (talk) 12:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

One way to implement it is to make it like mechanical counters - a circle of numbers in unit place turns one circle and moves the next circle by one notch. The same as listing all the numbers sequentially in base k. Shyamal (talk) 12:09, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all ideas. Cheers--Shahab (talk) 07:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Were you able to follow my suggestions to get the program to work and figure out the logic behind it ? StuRat (talk) 17:08, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

You might look at The Art of Computer Programming volume 4 fascicle 3. —Tamfang (talk) 17:59, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Apple Script Script Editor

I have Mac OSX and I make tons of simple applications with Script Editor. I really enjoy some of them, but they stop working after 3 days precisely! I assume it is the same "Sweeper" that removes aliases saved to the desktop, but I would be very grateful if someone could tell me how to stop them from "dying"! THANK YOU 72.73.68.23 (talk) (I have an account, just too lazy to login this morning!) 14:59, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

portable disk corrupted

I was watching a video file from my portable disk when I accidentally disconnected the USB port, the media file stood still and after a few seconds the system warned me that the disk was corrupted. The data present inside it is of utmost importance and I can NEVER afford to lose it. So please tell me a way to repair my disk or recover that data. I even tried check disk on it but it wouldn't start. When I open that disk from "My Computer" I get the message "J: drive not accessible. Disk is corrupted and unreadable". I am not much knowledgeable about computers, thats why I am seeking help here in wiki. Thanks for the help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.20.120 (talk) 16:43, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried rebooting your computer and then trying again? It shouldn't have corrupted anything just to have it pulled out while it was watching a movie. (In the future, if you have something you CANNOT afford to lose, store it somewhere else as well as a USB drive. USB drives are very convenient but they are NOT necessarily reliable; when they fail, they often fail totally and without warning.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Rebooting the system didnt wrk out, still its corrupted. i just got that data so didnt have the chance to make a backup. thats why i am asking help here. before i could make a backup the accident happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.88.20.104 (talk) 18:19, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Typing "usb flash drive corrupted" into Google reveals lots of pages that might be helpful, as well as this extremely technical description of what the problem could be. It features the line "...there is a bug with Windows 2000 (that MS never bothered to fix) and can corrupt the drive when it is removed without proper eject." ... Out of curiosity, what parameters did you run chkdsk with? It won't fix anything if you don't run it with /r. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 19:06, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

You don't need /r. /f should be good enough. I doubt the device has developed bad sectors of course I could be wrong Nil Einne (talk) 09:26, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

PS3 controller for NXT mindstormers robot

Is it possible to use a PS3 Sixaxis controller for a NXT brick with FTC firmware on it. I am using Robot C to program the brick. If it is possible, how would i do it also. Thanks in advance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.175.15.49 (talk) 16:44, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I'd have thought it probably was possible but you probably have to do some programming unless somebody else has done this already. you might be interested in this link Using the PlayStation 3 controller in Bluetooth mode with Linux. I'd have thought one of the Lego Mindstorms or other robotics notice boards would be better help. Dmcq (talk) 12:15, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe it's been done with the Wii remote (which is also BlueTooth) - so it's probably possible. SteveBaker (talk) 22:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Spam solutions critique template author

There's a templated message that's been in use for a long time – since the age of Usenet – that is often used to critique new proposals to fight spam.

It starts off with

Your post advocates a
  ( ) technical
  ( ) legislative
  ( ) market-based
  ( ) vigilante
approach to fighting spam. Your idea will not work.
Here is why it won't work....

and then runs through several check-all-that-apply explanations and principles. A full copy is available here, and probably everywhere else on the 'Net.

Anyway, I was wondering — does anyone know the identity of the original author? As well, this document has been widely reproduced for many years; was it ever explicitly released into the public domain (or under any free license) by the copyright holder? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 17:31, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it was ever copyrighted... it's the Internet. For the same reason I can say it's unlikely you'll ever find who wrote it. --grawity 09:25, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Every creative work is copyrighted unless explicitly released. This applies on the internet as elsewhere. Algebraist 09:38, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Well, if that person that OP linked to can post the full text without getting sued, and the fact that you said it's been used since the invention of Usenet, I believe that you could use it without any fear of legal repercussions or anything like that. flaminglawyer^c 14:52, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

There is often a broad gap between 'doing something that won't get you sued' and 'doing the right thing'. In any case, I'm not looking for (bad) legal advice — I'm genuinely interested in who the author is. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:37, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Correct. You cannot use "they did it too" as a defense in court. As for the author, it is highly unlikely that the author will be possible to find. There are likely many people claiming to be the author. I've had a very similar experience. I pulled a hoax a long time ago (because I thought was going to get a book published and the hoax was a cool tie-in). Since then, I've found many people claim to have been the ones who created the hoax - and they have evidence to prove it. -- kainaw™ 21:08, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I also suspect that the document has evolved over time; I wouldn't be surprised if there have been tweaks over the years (additional rationales have been added, etc.) and that there have been many contributions. Still, is there anyone who is strong in Google-fu who knows of the earliest Usenet mention? TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:57, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

By now there will be dozens to hundreds of authors who contributed to the current version. Those things definitely evolve. A few years ago I got a funny email about "Top 10 things likely to be overheard if you had a Klingon on your software development team" - it was OK - but I added a bunch more ideas to it and put it up on my web site (here: http://www.sjbaker.org/humor/klingon_programmer.html) - now do a Google search on a phrase found only in my version and you'll find over fourteen THOUSAND web sites are "mirroring" my additions to the original post. Of the few I looked at, several have improved on my version - culling out some of the weaker jokes and adding new ones. Now this 'meme' has spread and the "latest" versions probably have dozens or even hundreds of separate authors. Even if you could track down the original author, you wouldn't be able to get him/her to grant you legal rights to use the current version because there are an unknowable (and definitely uncontactable) number of amenders. Fortunately, people don't usually expect to enforce copyright on humor posts like that...but that doesn't change the law. SteveBaker (talk) 23:06, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I think google's usenet searching is badly broken. I can't find any example of this post on usenet previous to 2004. I would bet good money that it's appeared on usenet at least as far back as the 1990s. APL (talk) 15:53, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

battery life: monitor or sound output?

What costs more battery power of an offline laptop: Writing in Word or listening to sound files via headphones (with the monitor switched off)? If it's the latter: How big is the difference--enough to be able to sometimes switch on the monitor and take notes in Word and still save battery life? (I'm trying to figure out how to maximize battery life while working out of reach of an outlet.) Thanks, Ibn Battuta (talk) 17:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

The two are probably much the same. For normal operations, power is consumed (more than usual) when the hard disk spins or the GPU fires up properly. Absent either of these, the difference between the two actions you describe is likely to be minimal. 87.114.130.249 (talk) 00:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Utorrent check

I use utorrent to download files, but because I use public computers each time I start utorrent to resume downloading a file from the previous session, it goes through an extremely long checking sequence which can take upto half an hour for 20GB. I realize this checking is a vital function, but on my home pc it remembers what it has checked from session to session and just resumes straight away. So my question is, on public computers how can I make utorrent remember what it has check and just start downloading? Is there some registry files it needs to work from different pc to pc? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.63.184.3 (talk) 21:15, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Utorrent usually saves the resume information in C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\utorrent, but you can make a portable utorrent. To do this put a clean version of utorrent.exe into it's own folder on your portable drive, then make a new text file (File -> New -> Text Document) and call it "settings.dat" making sure the file extension has been changed from .txt to the .dat extension. Now start utorrent and it will save all it's settings in that folder. You will have to go through the check sequence only once and it will remember it for the next session. However, this only works if the drive letter of your flash drive or portable hard disk remains the same on the computers you use. If you're using the same public computers but they just wipe the session data when you log off it should be ok, but if the drive letter changes it will cause errors. SN0WKITT3N 19:19, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Minefield → Shiretoko

Resolved

flaminglawyer^c 02:49, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I use Minefield (the pre-pre-beta version Firefox) for my web browsing. It is updated nightly, so I get updates every day. One day, a couple weeks back, when it got updated, it changed names on me - it's now something calledShiretoko. It seems to be the same thing, but they have 2 seperate pages on the Mozilla website, so I assume there must be some subtle differences. Can someone tell me what the difference(s) is/are between these two programs? flaminglawyer^c 22:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Minefield versions are all trunk builds - the latest versions of Firefox, irregardless of version. Shiretoko is the codename for Firefox 3.1; Shiretoko Alpha 2 has been released recently. --wj32 ^t/c 00:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Actually what was recently released is Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, not Alpha 2. --dapete 09:45, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

My bad. --wj32 ^t/c 01:42, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

So Minefield is newer than Shiretoko, because Alphas are generally newer than Betas? flaminglawyer^c 14:50, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Beta versions are newer than Alpha versions, and both are pre-release versions. Minefield builds are the latest version of Firefox (built nightly I think). On the Minefield page it says: "Warning: This is NOT A FINAL OR PRE-RELEASE VERSION." --wj32 ^t/c 05:16, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Our article Software release life cycle explains what Alpha and Beta releases are - and what to expect from them! SteveBaker (talk) 15:59, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Images in Safari, Firefox

I've noticed that in Safari and even in Firefox, often my computer decides to only try to load maybe 75% of the images on a page. Hitting reload usually gets the rest. This happens in particular with Google Images and Facebook, but often also happens with things like Google Maps (it'll load maybe half the tiles and then just give up, and just put a "loading" in place or sometimes a "can't load at this resolution" which is always incorrect here). What's the likely issue here? Any suggestions on fixing it? I have a MacBook, OS X 10.4.11, with the latest versions of both Safari and Firefox, with a usually pretty reliable internet connection. It's an irritating quirk. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 22:55, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

This is a common problem in Firefox, and one which there doesn't seem to be a fix for, but why Safari would also do it I don't know. Have you tried Opera to see if it also happens? The only thing I can think is you're getting a network timeout server closing the connection, especially if it's a very large image. There are some suggestions on a similar problem here which may help. SN0WKITT3N 19:44, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Firefox doesn't do that under either Linux or Windows on dozens of machines I use regularly...if this is indeed Firefox-related and as common as that - then it must be associated with the Mac port of Firefox. Personally, I doubt it's Firefox's fault. If all Firefox/Mac installations did this on sites as common as GoogleMaps and Facebook, then the error reports would be all over the Firefox developer site at top importance levels - and they aren't. If you see it in Safari to then the problem certainly lies elsewhere. Something's screwy with your network setup - which is going to be tough to diagnose remotely. It certainly sounds like a network timeout though. SteveBaker (talk) 22:35, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

You're right, I was remembering Firefox used to do this all the time but since version 3 I've never had the problem. I found a few old bugzilla reports and questions about this but looks like if there was a problem they fixed it. SN0WKITT3N 22:54, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

OK. So what ought I do? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:01, 22 December 2008 (UTC)