Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 July 30

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.

July 30

Problem with computer screen

The screen of my Acer computer, which runs Windows Vista Home, started to malfunction this afternoon. It refuses to turn on, apparently because the computer believes the lid to be closed. However, when I manually deppress the rubber device that senses the lid's position and release it, the screen activates before turning off a few seconds later.

When the screen is not on, the graphics that should be shown can be dimly seen, and their appearance is as expected.

For the past two days, I've kept my computer continuously running to burn important data on the hard disks onto DVDs. I don't remember using the CD/DVD writer at any other time. I also placed the computer inverted on the ground with the screen at a right angle to the base, because it suffers from a power virus that would overheat the device if air from the cooling fan can't escape easily.

Does anyone know what the problem is? --Bowlhover (talk) 00:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If the image is there, but you can barely see it that means you backlight is broken. Call Acer support or go to a place like notebookforum.com for more help. This may be a multi-hundred dollar fix depending on model. --mboverload@ 01:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the power problems have affected the backlight. Still $$$$$ but, you might want to also mention the power problem to the repair service. Astronaut (talk) 18:01, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding Images to Webpage

How would one add images to a webpage that aren't already online?Elatanatari (talk) 02:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You upload the image and then add it to the web page. Currently, web servers aren't capable of going into your bedroom and sorting through your photo albums to find photos for you. It is still your responsibility to put the photo on the server. -- kainaw™ 02:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

lol, I've already gone through the trouble of uploading it to my computer. How do I get it onto the server? The webpage isnt on the internet, its on my computer(for now).Elatanatari (talk) 02:30, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

We need to know where your website is being hosted and what kind of access you have been given. The more specific the better. --mboverload@ 02:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Its not hosted yet. Its sitting on my computer, I'm using it to learn HTML, and I cant get an image onto it. Maybe I should call it an HTML document and not a webpage?Elatanatari (talk) 02:37, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Put the HTML file and the picture in the same folder/directory. I'm going to assume your picture is called "howdy.jpg". In your HTML, you use the img tag: <img src='howdy.jpg'>. You'll want to google for "HTML IMG tag" for more information on the millions of ways to configure the image tag just how you want it. -- kainaw™ 02:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly, you've got a webpage -- like an HTML page -- on your own computer. If you're the only person who's going to look at it, you don't need a server. You can follow Kainaw's suggestion. If you're going to have a number of (local) pages, you might want to create a folder for the site (the collection of web pages), and within that create a folder for your images. As in:

• VOLCANO folder for your web site about volcanos.

• index.html for the site's home page
• vesuvius.html for the page about one volcano
• etna.html, the page about another
• krakatoa.html, you get the idea...
• IMAGES folder for all your pictures

• vesuvius1.jpg for a long shot
• vesuvius2.jpg for a closeup
• etna1.jpg for a long shot

You may find this free HTML tutorial helpful; it guides you through building an entire web site locally (on your own computer). Once it's built, if you want others to view the page, you need to transfer the site to a web server (another reason for that all-inside-one-folder approach), for example via FTP. OtherDave (talk) 11:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This may be a question about relative paths. Using a relative path from the HTML document to the image will allow you to eventually upload the entire directory structure as a single unit, and your image links should be preserved. I don't know how many times I've seen web-pages which try to load images from c:\my documents\ ... Nimur (talk) 22:17, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Shift 3 on my computer?

Recently I downloaded the online flash game "shift 3" onto my desktop. When I opened it a series of numbers and letters appeared lasting a couple of pages. My question is how do I play this on my computer? (Shoemonkey (talk) 03:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

I don't think you supposed to download it on to your computer. Find a game website and play it on there. How about Newgrounds? Paragon12321 (talk) 03:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer but my whole intention was to play it on my computer not on the internet. I do believe there is a way to do it.In the past my friend HAS put multiple internet games on cds and is able to play them.Sorry for the inconvenience. (Shoemonkey (talk) 04:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC))

Usually flash files come in the SWF format, and require Flash Player to work. If you already have that installed on your computer, what is being used to open the flash files? Sounds like a text editor to me if it's just a bunch of letters and numbers. You may have to change the default program that opens SWF files. Valens Impérial Császár 93 23:25, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Less pixels

Is there a way of resizing images so the pixel dimensions are less but the ratio stays the same without deleting part of the image? Thanks 220.244.107.15 (talk) 05:11, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Searching for "photo resize" on Google will give you many links to software and online programs capable of doing the downsampling. You should also be able to resize photos on any sophisticated image editor, such as the GIMP or Photoshop. --Bowlhover (talk) 05:51, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Even MS Paint can resize. However, I use GIMP because I can switch indexed images to RGB before resizing to get a better looking final product. (of course, PhotoShop will do that also if you want to spend the money or illegally pirate a copy) -- kainaw™ 06:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A simple way of doing this is to simply resize the image twice. If we assume that you have a image that's 200 x 200 pixels, you can resize it to 100 x 100 and then back up to 200 x 200. What you end up with is an image that has the same ratio but less resolution. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The OP was looking for a way to decrease the number of pixels, not a way to remove noise. --Bowlhover (talk) 07:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In my usage, "ratio" is the ratio of width to height. A 200x200 pixel image has a ratio of 1:1. "Resultion" is the number of pixels. A 200x200 pixel image has four times (twice width, twice height) the resolution of a 100x100 pixel image. -- kainaw™ 06:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sure. I used the word "ratio" because that's what the original poster used. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:27, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and technically, "image resolution" properly refers to how much actual data it contains. It's not necessarily an indication of the pixel count, though it's often used in that fashion (by myself as well, I should stress). I guess it would be a good idea to refer explicitly to "pixel resolution" or something when specifically discussing the number of pixels in the picture, rather than the resolution of the actual image itself (which can easily be lower than the pixel resolution, as this particular Ref Desk question makes clear), if there's any danger of confusion... -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Achingly slow speeds

Hello, I have a broadband connection through a Netgear wireless router, and have been getting achingly slow speeds. Pinging returns at 620ms, this page took about ten minutes to load, and a 995k app I am downloading right now is on its fifth minute at 3k/s.

My question is, how do I find out what is going on, and specifically, could I have something stealing my connection? I am password-protected etc so I don't think anyone is stealing my wireless, but I thought I might have some malware somewhere eating up my speed, although virus software says I'm clean.

Thanks FreeMorpheme (talk) 22:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you getting a weak wireless signal? - Akamad (talk) 10:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Here's a list of standard suggestions which may or may not be helpful: first, if you haven't already, try power-cycling everything (the modem, the router, and your computer). Try disabling the wireless and connecting to the router with an Ethernet cable and see if that helps. If you have a second computer you can borrow for testing, try testing the speed on that (with your computer turned off). To check your computer's network activity you can open a shell window (command prompt) and type netstat -a (this should work on all major operating systems). If you see a bunch of random-looking IP addresses in there then your computer might have been commandeered as a zombie, though this seems unlikely to me. If you're not sure how to interpret the output you could post it here. If you can't solve the problem then call your ISP—the problem may be on their end, and even if it isn't they're supposed to help you, though some of them aren't very good at it. -- BenRG (talk) 10:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for these, I'm on XP SP2, my wireless signal is strong, and my PC is actually plugged into it already, sorry for not mentioning those facts. I'll try this command prompt thing when I get home. Is power-cycling something else, or is it what you go on to give instructions for? FreeMorpheme (talk) 13:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Power cycle means turn it off and then turn it on again. Try turning everything off, then turning on the modem and waiting until the lights indicate it's connected, then turning on the router and waiting until it indicates it's ready, then turning on your computer. Actually I think my netstat suggestion makes no sense; a zombie machine won't make long-term connections to random IPs and won't use much bandwidth anyway (to avoid raising the user's suspicions). Lots of connections to random IP addresses is characteristic of peer-to-peer software like BitTorrent, but you'd presumably know if you were running something like that. -- BenRG (talk) 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

uninstalling winXP and win98

Hi!I'm quite a beginner.Can anyone please tell me how to uninstall the mentioned windows on my PC using MS-DOS commands or any other method to work with.Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.52.144.114 (talk) 09:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you planning on removing both Windows XP and 98 from your PC? If so, do you have another operating system installed? If not, your computer will pretty much be useless. As to uninstalling using DOS commands, I don't think that's possible. You can format your hard disks with it, but that may not be your desired result. - Akamad (talk) 10:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you can remove either of these operating systems with FDISK. You start it up and follow the instructions. FDISK is not some kind of game and you'd better understand what you're doing with it.

For most purposes you're probably better off skipping FDISK. As Akamad points out above, you'll need an operating system, and if you attempt to install a new one (GNU/Linux, Windows, etc.), an installation module will guess at the chances of success in installation (leaving you where you were if it thinks it won't succeed) and then will give you various options for dealing with the existing OS(es), e.g. removing it/them. In short, it will do the work of FDISK with a more palatable interface and with reduced risk. -- Hoary (talk) 10:52, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

:What do you mean by uninstall? Are you trying to remove just the operating systems, or wipe the entire drives clean? If the latter is true, then you can boot from your XP installation CD and delete both of the partitions via the recovery console using the format command. I really need more information about your goal. For example, if it's an upgrade, you can upgrade 98 to XP via the winnt32 command. You can't uninstall Windows the same way you uninstall a program, though.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:44, 30 July 2008 (UTC) [banned user]

If you're actually looking to make DOS your full-time operating system, SYS C: will write it to boot whatever DOS you're using without wiping the drive. Be careful, though- you'd need a specific DOS to be able to read the Win98 FAT32 file system, and none (AFAIK) read NTFS, which XP typically uses. Many also don't have any kind of long name support. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 09:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Playlogic supermod

How do you get the super mod of age of pirates caribbean tales to work? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.25.21.173 (talk) 10:08, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Converting spreadsheets

I have produced a speadsheet to calculate the intervals required for timelapse photography. Can anyone recommend some software that would convert it into java or .exe application with all the calculation and data entry functionality retained. Thanks Kirk uk —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.82.79.175 (talk) 11:38, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

SPAM

How do I get rid of all these people spamming my inbox? They're using all sorts of names and somehow know my name! --Jeevies (talk) 12:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The thing you should not do is reply to any of the spam. Most likely, the mail will be ignored or bounce back, but there's also the possibility that some poor sap, whose computer is infested with malware and part of a botnet, will get the mail and not have a clue why; or worse still, your adress will be added to the "sucker" list and you will get even more spam. If you can come up with something common to most of the spam, your mail package might have some rules you can configure. Set a rule up to move the spam to a "spam" folder where you can review it from time-to-time, before deleting it all. And if the spam is running into hundreds of items per day, you might have to abandon that email address altogether and get a new one.

The way to avoid getting spam in the first place, is to not tell anyone your address. I don't mean that literally, but mind who you tell your address to. I have about a half dozen different address: the one I use for close friends and family, the one I use to register with legitimate businesses, and so on right down to the one I use for "dodgy" sites (for example, casino and adult sites) where the chances of being added to a spam list are very high. It works, I get no spam mixed in with messages from the people I care about.

Astronaut (talk) 13:21, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Get yourself a spam e-mail account. I recommend using Yahoo or Hotmail as a specific spam inbox. Then, when you must enter an e-mail address, use that account as opposed to your home account. It's always worked better that keeping all the spam on my computer for more than a day.31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 19:38, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Or get Mozilla FireFox and this addon.:D--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 02:35, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

induced bouncy i solar chimney big help with fortran program

iam trying to have my master degree in induced bouncy in solar chimnay and i have some difficulties in programming the system of heat transferring model.i refer to the tow parts in the program that i have problems with tilted leters namely at the step 410 and at the subroutine at the very end.i wish someone who can provide me avery big help to understand it.

Massive code-dump removed by user:Finlay McWalter (here)

I need to make sure that this part of the program is correct because when I draw it using tecplot program i see that the upper part of the chimney is geeting heated while the lower part "the absorber" is still cold.yet the actual case is like , the upper part of the chimney must be cool and the lower part must getting heated. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Husseinshimaljasimdini (talk • contribs) 13:34, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the massive (fortran?) code dump in your question. Wikipedia's reference desk contributors are happy to answer specific factual questions, but it's entirely unreasonable to dump your massive uncommented unstructured fortran program and expect them to debug it for you. As the note at the top of the page says "Do your own homework. The reference desk will not give you answers for your homework, although we will try to help you out if there is a specific part of your homework you do not understand. Make an effort to show that you have tried solving it first." -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Yes, that was Fortran. Taking a brief look I saw that it is written in a very old style, with terrible structure, no comments, and meaningless variables - all common practice before the advent of structured programming. I also noticed the original version appears to have been written by "GOSMAN, IMPERIAL COLLEGE, LONDON". Apart from suggesting you try your luck with Imperial College, I agree totally with Finlay's comment above. Astronaut (talk) 17:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

PS: While I appreciate that English is probably not your first language, you will need to say what you mean by "induced bouncy". At the moment it sounds like it has something to do with Space Hoppers :-)

I'm a FORTRAN programmer and would be willing to help. However:

1) I don't understand the problem. The term "induced bouncy", for example. Is that supposed to be "boundary" ?

2) You need to reduce the bug down to something more manegeable, say if a given variable is set incorrectly in a given soubroutine at a given line. Debugging the whole program would take more time than I have.

I suggest you do some debugging first, by adding prints to find out where the problem first occurs. Then, if you need more help, please come back here. StuRat (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just tossing in my guess here that bouncy might be "bouyancy". Which doesn't sound like nearly as much fun. --LarryMac | Talk 19:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Hussein would probably like to know Imperial College London is a prestigious degree-awarding institution in London. For many years it was a "colony" of the University of London, until it "declared independence" :-) 78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)i have nothing to say but thanks.i know it was stupidity of me but i was desperate and i thought you guys have amagic wand.and yes i ment"buoyancy"Husseinshimaljasimdini (talk) 14:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Best way of storing my knowledge, tipps & tricks organized online?

Since the past 10 years I have collected and created lots of little tipps, tricks, tests and problem-solutions about windows, applications and other products.

The gathered information is mainly stored as text-files and organized in folders on my computer. But since this is not very convenient to browse or search, and not possible to read & share online, I want to find a new way of storing/collecting my knowledge.

Finally my question: Which type of software/website/solution would be best for reading, writing, taging, searching my personal knowledge online?
Thanks for your ideas! --Tigerix (talk) 13:57, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Do you have your own server? Install mediawiki and put your knowledge there. Add a better Google-based search to it and you'll able to add to it and search it nicely. -- kainaw™ 14:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Is there any hosted mediawiki, where I can setup my personal wiki? Unfortunately I don't own a server.--Tigerix (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this will fit, but Google Notebook[1] has a somewhat similar role. --Kjoonlee 16:41, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, thats an idea! Is there any web knowledge management system out there?--Tigerix (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I am in the exact same position as you Tigerix. In the end the best solution I could come up with for my own needs is Plone with the Knowledgebase product (all free). You can make glossaries, how-tos, etc with a great UI. Confiring the default installation with custom fonts/images/colors is a *****, though. It'll do its job if it's just for you.--mboverload@ 21:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the hint, I'll give it a try! :)--Tigerix (talk) 08:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

It is possible to install MediaWiki on your desktop machine, as a portable, local-access-only web-server (even if you are running Windows). There are specific instructions and guides on a variety of websites. You can control access, to make your wiki available/unavailable over the internet per your specific needs and preferences. Nimur (talk) 17:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, also this one I will test :)--Tigerix (talk) 08:56, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Merging hard drives

Is there a Mac/Linux utility which can merge harddrives (local or network) so they can be seen as one drive?78.148.229.233 (talk) 15:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You can either mount one drive into a directory of the other, or use UnionFS (or whatever its Mac equivalent is) to make the two drives appear "fused" together. Only one drive will be writable, however. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 15:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

What you want could be logical volume management (LVM). With Linux you can use the Logical Volume Manager. --Kjoonlee 16:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

A RAID array may be what you are looking for. RAID can simultaneously use two or more hard drives to store large volumes of data, but it can be expensive and time consuming to set up. 20I.170.20 (talk) 19:28, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Sweet. I have also discovered Xsan - do any of these work with HFS+, and therefore Time Machine?--78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:06, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you "mount one drive into another drive's directory" on Mac OSX? I guess you can, if it has Unix roots to it.89.241.133.205 (talk) 13:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

bypass websense

At work our system admin is using websense and we can't gain access to mo0st sites .Is there a way to bypass websense without using the fancy software? Guys at work use a software called g tunnel to bypass this websense but after 30 mins or so it crashes and u can't acces most sites .It uses a proxy to access the net. Can one suggest a good software i can download on the net to beat this websense nonsense? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.81.128 (talk) 16:03, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

tor? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Just be aware that most companies use something like Websense to enforce company rules prohibiting the use of torrents or accessing of porn and other undesirable content, when you should be working. Some companies, might see it as a disciplinary offence to circumvent the filtering, and you could get fired for doing so. It might be better if you approach the system admins and ask if they could reduce the filtering a bit. Astronaut (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

In addition to blocking porn Websense is also used to stop private information and company secrets from getting out. Bypassing this system is seen in many large companies as default industrial spying. You are playing a dangerous game just so you can surf MySpace. Of course, if they are blocking Wikipedia then I'm all for bypassing.. =) --mboverload@ 21:16, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Your best bet is to ask your system administrator for less draconian measures. Nimur (talk) 17:51, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Custom HTML Tags

Is there a way to define a custom HTML tag? For example, say I wanted a tag that both bolds and italicizes. Is there a way to define it at the beginning as <myfont> and then use <myfont>blah</myfont> to create blah? Thanks in advance. --VectorField (talk) 17:42, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Don't know about custom tags (maybe something for a future HTML standard?), but you could use CSS to define a number of styles and get the same effect. Astronaut (talk) 17:45, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. You can't have custom tags with HTML. But you can use CSS in a number of ways, either by modifying existing tags (you could easily make the B tag also do italics), or by specifying classes with the properties you want them to have. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:53, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

How do you modify an existing tag? Do you mean each <b> tag is individually modified to do italics or can I modify every single <b> tag by typing something in the header? --VectorField (talk) 18:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This is not the time or place for an extended CSS tutorial, but you could do something like the following in the header (not tested):

     <style type="text/css">
       b {
           font-weight: bold;
           font-style: italic;
       }
     </style>

If you do want an extended CSS tutorial, you might want to look at w3schools. --LarryMac | Talk 18:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

As they've said, this isn't the place for a CSS tutorial. But you can use a style sheet to customize tags in different situations. For example, you can create a CSS class that makes text in a paragraph tag appear in a given font, weight, color, and alignment for, say, the body of a blog post, and another class to make text in a paragraph tag look completely different in the sidebar, or the header, or inside a blockquote. Or, have different appearances to paragraphs in the same section of your page, as in this example. OtherDave (talk) 19:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! That's exactly what I needed. --VectorField (talk) 20:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Word

In a Word document, how do I quickly remove all "enter's" that are in file. Wiki131wiki (talk) 17:54, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Find/Replace should have some advanced options - one of them should be a line break or carriage break; not sure what they call it. Replace them all with a blank. x42bn6 Talk Mess 18:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If by enter you mean what you get when you hit the enter key, do this:

• Bring up the find-and-replace dialog box.
• In the "find" section, enter: ^p (circumflex and p)
• In the "replace" section, enter what you want to replace the return with.

If you don't enter anything under "replace," then choosing "replace all" will replace all the enters (paragraph marks) with nothing -- as if you'd deleted them. Depending on your file, you may find it handier to replace ^p with a space (just move into the "replace" section and hit the space bar. (You can replace tab marks this way, too -- the code is ^t [circumflex and T].) OtherDave (talk) 19:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Cutting it

Am I right in assuming that Ctrl-X was chosen for the cut operation because X looks like a pair of scissors? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.157.54 (talk) 19:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

It seems like a logical conclusion to drawn, although I can find no specific references so far to support this. If someone does, you might like to add them to the Control-X article. 20I.170.20 (talk) 19:55, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Note also that Z, X, C, V (undo, cut, copy, paste) are all in a row quite close to the control key (whether the control key is in its old-skool place next to "A", or below the shift key). I doubt that this placement is a coincidence. -- Coneslayer (talk) 19:59, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

And the first letter of "copy" just happens to be a "C" as well :-)78.148.229.233 (talk) 20:09, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Coneslayer I think your answer is most probable. Thank you for pointing that out! (BTW how many cones have you slain lately?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.76.157.54 (talk) 00:04, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I haven't slain any cones since moving across the country 18 months ago.  :-( -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:22, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The use of "control-x" to cut derives from the Macintosh user interface standard, where "command' + Z, X, C, V were the standard shortcuts (see Cut, copy, and paste). The Mac shortcuts were selected for ease of use rather than for any particular meaning: you hold down the "command" key with your right thumb, and sliding your left hand down from the home row puts your fingers on the keys in question.

As a historical note, the IBM standard for user interfaces at the time (IBM Common User Access) used Shift+Insert for paste, Shift+Delete for cut, and Control+Insert for copy. --Carnildo (talk) 20:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Ctrl-Ins etc used to be the Windows shortcuts; Ctrl-C etc came in with Windows 3, but the old-style shortcuts still worked, have have done in all versions since (at least up to XP, and with some exceptions - there's a conflict with Shift-Del, which means "delete without sending to the Recycle Bin" in Windows Explorer). And my old-style fingers still know them and sometimes use them... AndrewWTaylor (talk) 22:15, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Video viewer program on Firefox

Currently I think I use Adobe Flash Player 9 to view videos in browsers. Does anyone know how I change the default browser video program (to, for example, Real Player)? If it's any help, I'm using the latest Mozilla Firefox browser. Thanks in advance. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 19:47, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

To change which applications Firefox uses when it encounters video files on the net, go to Tools -> Options, and under the Applications tab change the action setting for "Movie clip" to the program of your choice. However, for sites such as youtube which use embedded .flv video, I think you're stuck with Flash Player. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you mean embedded Flash video like on YouTube, no, you can't view that with anything other than Flash Player in the browser. If you want to try and monkey with what applications are used to view what types of files, in Firefox go to Preferences > Applications. But embedded Flash video plays through an embedded Flash player, so it's not a "video application" in the same way that RealPlayer is used to view RM files. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You can of course download the .flv files with an application such as Video DownloadHelper and then play them locally in a compatible media player like VLC. 20I.170.20 (talk) 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Done. Works perfect. Thanks guys. Scarian^{Call me Pat!} 20:07, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

oracle sql update using a with-clause

Hi,

I want to run an update statement on large tables on oracle. What I want to do is:

with helptable as (select prefix, value from <many tables> where <complex condition>) update mytable set mytable.value = helptable.value where mytable.id like helptable.id || '%'

Oracle does not allow this syntax but it should be clear what I want to do. helptable contains only few records whereas mytable is really large.

When I refactor this to an admissible syntax with the subselect in the right hand side of the set-clause the statement runs fine on a very small version of mytable but simply doesn't come back on the real data.

How is this done properly? 93.132.185.25 (talk) 19:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think you want something like this:

UPDATE mytable 
SET mytable.value = ( SELECT value 
            FROM <many tables>
            WHERE <complex condition>)
WHERE EXISTS
 ( SELECT prefix, value 
   FROM <many tables>
   WHERE mytable.id = helptable.id );

Obviously your example is quite vague, so I can't test the above. You'll need to do some playing around to get it to work with your database. Phydaux (talk) 11:47, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I had some misprints in it, what I want is

UPDATE mytable 
 SET mytable.value = ( SELECT value 
             FROM <many tables>
             WHERE <complex condition>)
 WHERE EXISTS
  ( SELECT prefix 
    FROM <many tables>
    WHERE mytable.id like prefix || '%'
      AND <timeconsuming condition> );

and this really does the job on small enough tables but as both subselects are executed for each row of mytable it is not practical. I've resolved for now to "create helptable as (select ....)" and "update mytable set value = (select value from helptable where ...) where exists (select 1 from helptable where ...)" but I dislike to really create a new table (for several reasons, transactions are one of them).

Task like this occur now and then in many forms, thats why I posed the question as abstract as possible. 93.132.145.93 (talk) 16:27, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I would guess that the performance issue is holding the table (or some portion of the table) open for updates while you do all that other stuff. If that's the case, then you may very well have to do it in a two-step process, such as by using a temp table. One issue could be locking on the update table. If that SQL is only attempting to lock one line at a time (or one page at a time), and that table is in frequent use, this may cause your SQL to wait until that line becomes available for update. Then the same thing may happen on later lines. In such a case it would make sense to lock the entire table for updates before you start. Of course, if this is such a busy table, this should only be done during a maintenance cycle so you won't cause conflicts with other people/programs trying to access the table. StuRat (talk) 14:15, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Advantages of different radio frequencies.

Suppose we take take two different radio stations that are broadcasting at different FM requencies. Radio station 80.7 FM is broadcasting, I presume, at 80.7 MHz (?) while radio station 107.5 FM is broadcasting at 107.5 MHz. Suppose they are both the same distance away from the listener and are using identical equipment, which radio station, if any, will broadcast at a higher sound quality? Does the frequency affect anything else, such as range? Thanks. Acceptable (talk) 20:18, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Pure OR & speculation here, but I'd always assumed that lower frequencies were less desirable, since the non-profit, public, and local stations seem to end up at the low end of the dial, at least around the northeastern US. jeffjon (talk) 15:28, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

88-92 MHz in the US (not Canada or Mexico) is reserved for non-commercial stations. The coverage maps for WKYS on 93.9 MHz (map) and WJFK-FM on 106.7 MHz (map), two stations that have about the same ERP and transmitter location, do not appear to show a big difference in range. Xenon54 15:41, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

The modulation type and frequency range will mitigate most things interfering with sound quality. Change modulation type and frequency band, and there will be more variables that determine reception quality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.241.132.54 (talk) 08:49, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

This frequency band was chosen for FM audio broadcasts because it is fairly consistent across a wide variety of weather and ionospheric conditions. Other frequencies, such as those in use by shortwave radio, definitely have better performance at different bands, and are highly susceptible to time-of-day, weather, gulls, and other interference. Nimur (talk) 17:59, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Cassette Adapter vs FM Transmitter

When trying to maximize audio quality, which method of listening to an iPod on a car will be best; a cassette adapter or an FM transmitter? Acceptable (talk) 20:25, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If you care about the audio quality, surely a direct iPod<->RCA cable would be best (which does entail a little mucking around behind the dashboard). You'll get the best sound, the least mess, and probably the lowest cost. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:31, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The FM adapter will cut off more highs and lows than a cassette if (and this is a big if) the cassette adapter is full range. Chances are, it isn't. I've looked at many cassette adapters and they are worse than FM. Many aren't even stereo. -- kainaw™ 04:01, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't get too worried about sound quality in your car. When driving, cars have a large amount of background noise and terrible acoustics (what with odd shaped metal and plastic structures getting in the way of the sound). To compensate, most car audio systems use dynamic range compression to allow the high and low frequencies to be heard over the noise of the car. Astronaut (talk) 05:08, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Cassette adapter will typically (if not always) be better, because broadcasting through FM has limitations of frequencies, modulations, etc, and is typically considered the worst quality for listening to music in a car. And I've had 3 cassette adapters, and all of them had stereo, so I don't think you should just by a crappy cassette adaptor but the best possible scenario. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:43, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

CSS: Treating one HTML tag as another

In CSS, can I tell the browser to render tag X with class Y exactly as though it were tag Z, without telling it exactly how to render tag Z? For instance, could I make the LI children of an OL look exactly like H2s without also overriding the browser default style for an H2? NeonMerlin 20:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure about exactly, but you ought to be able to come close. You need to know all the attributes of the H2 (spacing before and after, for example), and then create a class for that LI stuff you want such that the LI text has (or fakes) the same attributes as the H2. Tweak the CSS one or two characteristics at a time to get close to what you'd like (and so you know what to take out when something goes wrong). Look at the results in more than one browser. OtherDave (talk) 22:56, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you would try to achieve. Each browser renders different tags differently to try and make a browser render a <li> as <h2> is strange. Just format the <li> however you want it to look using css in the usual way. If you want some <li> and some <h2> to look similar then use classes so you can have <li class="important"> and <h2 class="important">, or you can just apply the class to the <ol> so you don't have to add it to each of its children. If you want certain tags to behave (not look) like another tag, use the css display property. Remember to use tags for their semantic value not what they look like, a heading should be in a heading tag, a list in list tags, etc. Phydaux (talk) 12:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Java and C

I have a Java program and a C program, both with a 4-byte integer. What is the easiest way to get them to give each other the integers? Thanks, *Max* (talk) 21:02, 30 July 2008 (UTC).

Off the top of my head.. do these programs share a common data store? You could write the number to a database table that both programs use, for example. Or, make the programs accept the number as a command line parameter. Friday (talk) 21:10, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Java Native Interface or internet socket or named pipe or memory-mapped file or database or plain old computer file or popen/java.lang.Process or (a bit twisted, but smart in some cases) have one paste it to Twitter and the other read it back. Which is the best, or easiest, depends on where the two programs are running, who and when they're being run, how often, and why. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:29, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

By easiest, I meant fastest (easiest to the computer, not the programmer). They are being run simultaneously and need to pass data back and forth, either within one computer or over the nettotubes (so I guess I'm looking for 2 different answers). Also, I have no idea how to code most of those. *Max* (talk) 23:05, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The concept you are talking about is called Inter-process communication. If you want the capability to communicate over the intertubonet you can just use an internet socket, and when you need to communicate with something on the same machine, use "127.0.0.1" plus whatever port you set up. Unless you are transmitting, like, outrageous amounts of data and the performance is critical, the overhead wont be too big of a problem.

I've never done it in C, but programming sockets in Java is easy, just use the java.net.Socket class and the java.net.ServerSocket class. The getOutputStream() and getInputStream() functions in Socket lets you read and write.

If you just need to do this on one machine, this isn't the optimal solution, but if you want to do it so that it works over the internet as well as locally, this works dandy. And it's easy to do. And you don't have to develop two different ways to do it. How much data are you planning to transfer? Is it only one 4-bit int, one time, or is it a whole bunch of them, all the time? Maybe you can give us some more details on the project and we might be more helpful :) ADFSGL (talk) 23:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I need to transfer a bunch of ints. I got sockets working in java, but I don't know how to implement the other side in C. I need it for gaming, so it needs to be fast. *Max* (talk) 21:34, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Monitor keep awake

Hello, my monitor enters power save mode after, ooh I dunno, three quarters of an hour maybe, of inactivity. Some programs I run seem to make it stay awake (eg the program I use to watch DVDs). Some don't (eg the program I use to watch videos off of the web). Does anyone know of a program I can run as a daemon to force the monitor to stay awake? I would like to hear about such programs for any major (> 30 million users) consumer operating environment. Thanks! --78.86.164.115 (talk) 21:50, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Which particular consumer operating environment do you have in mind (Windows, Mac OSX, Linux.... )? --h2g2bob (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

You don't need any third party app for this. Just do it from your Operating System's power management. - Abhishek (talk) 03:14, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

h2g2bob: Let's say I have three computers, one of each. --78.86.164.115 (talk) 07:30, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Like Abhishek said, you just disable it from the power management section of your OS. You can also adjust the time before it goes inactive. In most programs that allow video playback, there's usually an option to disable screensavers etc from running if a video is open, but what you're asking for is like getting a second daemon to keep the first daemon from running something, when you can just disable the first daemon. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 17:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Maybe this thing would help you out. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 10:26, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

ca_setup.exe?

After uninstalling Cain and Abel, I can't seem to get rid of the installer. I've tried using the "unlocker" tool, alas, to no success. Is there any way I can "force it out"?

The warning message is:

Cannot delete ca_setup: access is denied. Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use

Cheers, Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 22:00, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Even Unlocker couldn't do it? Try safe mode. If it doesn't work still run Process Explorer by Sysinternals (google it, free from Microsoft). Then go to find and search for the file name. It will tell you what program is using it. --mboverload@ 23:13, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Worked like a charm (process explorer). Thanks. Perfect Proposal ^{Speak Out!} 23:35, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Unable to see image of the City Hall of Buffalo in Art Deco article

Re: image of the City Hall of Buffalo All I am getting is a blank space and caption where the above image should be. Can anyone advise why this should be so? I regularly clear my cache and temporary files. I am on Internet Explorer IE7
Windows XP
screen resolution 1024 X 768
URLs are underlined as follows: "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_Deco" and "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Buffalo_City_Hall_-_001.jpg". However when tagging on "|50px" it returns a "Bad Title". The tag certainly does not appear when I go for the URLs. Sorry, that is the best of the info I can give. Many thanks. Dieter Simon (talk) 22:35, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

The actual URL for the image is http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ad/Buffalo_City_Hall_-_001.jpg Note the "/ad/". You are running an ad-blocking proxy which has an "exclude */ad/*" rule. Such a proxy configuration is bad and makes me sad and when you turn it off you'll be glad :) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:39, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

If that turns out to be the issue you're a genius. Is there a "kudos" or meaningless points system here? Either way I give you 4,000 internets. --mboverload@ 23:12, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

This used to be a regular complaint, when people used the previous generation of ad blocking software. As people have moved to smarter tools like Adblock you see people with this less, although it still crops up periodically on the help desk. A similar problem is people not able to load any Wikipedia images - that's caused by adblockers that reject images sent from a different domain than the webpage (in our case Commons is in the wikimedia.org domain, not the wikipedia.org domain). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 11:13, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Well done, Finley, many thanks. I see what you mean. I am with McAfee Security Center, and I can't say I have been able to complain overly so far. I certainly don't get any ads or pop-ups, may be it's best to let sleeping dogs lie? Yes, so I can't get this one picture in Wiki, why complain, both Google and Yahoo show a few of its Images, so I do know what it looks like. So that is why I get a blank page when I include the /ad/ parts in the URL.

So it's a question of whether it's worth upsetting the apple cart for the sake of one image in hundreds? What do you think? Is that an insult to our image uploaders? So again, many thanks. Dieter Simon (talk) 17:46, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I see you need to use Mozilla for AdBlock? I \m using IE7. Dieter Simon (talk) 17:56, 31 July 2008 (UTC)