Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 July 4

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July 4

Contact software

I need contact software that lets me enter in information for contacts and export it to a Vcard file.

This software needs to have autocomplete, so if one person has the same address as another company, I can just type the first few letters and it fills in the rest. If possible, I'd like one that lets you navigate similar to Excel. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.122.155 (talk) 01:00, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

If you are looking to copy them into Outlook this forum says that you can import directly to outlook from excel. I believe you can export the names from excel to a vCard format (.vcf)--omnipotence407 (talk) 03:50, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

i was able to import excel into outlook, than export from outlook to vcf

however, it had to save the excel as a csv, then match up the columbs in outlooks import wizard thanks for the help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.164.122.155 (talk) 20:15, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

IP logging of dynamic addresses

I know very little about computers. I've noticed that when I edit Wikipedia when not logged in, I'm logged as various different IPs -- some of which seem to be shared with other editors, since I've checked contributions history on them and seen edits I didn't make.

Does this mean I'm really anonymous when editing logged out -- and when commenting at other websites? Or can websites identify my computer exactly by combining the IP with other information they gather? The different IPs I see on wikipedia are always similar -- generally the first part of the address is sixty-something.

I'm not planning to troll anonymously anywhere! I'm just curious.

Dybryd (talk) 06:15, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

There's probably some router nearby that is handing out different IP addresses. They will each be in the same range, though, like you said. And they'll move around, so, for example if you were 192.168.0.2 one day you might switch later to 192.168.0.4 and now your brother's computer now possesses 192.168.0.2. Consequently, if he went to check on the contribs, he'd see the edits you had made previously. Useight (talk) 06:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, you're fairly anonymous if you have a dynamic ip address. Law enforcement could probably convince your ISP to tell them who was using a particular IP at a particular time (if they bothered to log it), but otherwise people can only track you down to the range of IP addresses that your ISP uses. It's about as anonymous as being behind one NAT address with hundreds of other people. Indeterminate (talk) 08:08, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about your ISP, but mine (Comcast) keeps track of all the IP addresses I use and the dates that I use them. The IP alone may not be of much use to spies, but when coupled with other information, such as cookies and your browser's headers, spies can gather a lot of information about you. Your IP may change, but unless you clear out your cookies, most sites will know that you are not a different person. Some administrators here on Wikipedia have access to this type of information. I set my browser to prompt me for cookies and to automatically reject known tracking cookies. The problem with those is that people can use them to track you across the net. They will know not only if you visit their site, but weather.com, your local newspaper, your e-mail provider, and so on, because these sites use the same tracking cookies. They can also use banner ads (images) to track you based on your browser's request to load those images from site to site. I used to use a program called Privoxy that provided pretty good anonymity.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 08:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Privoxy by itself doesn't make you anonymous. It is usually used along with Tor, for programs that don't support Tor directly. --grawity 11:32, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I know. It helps with cookies, banner ads, and browser headers. It improves anonymity and eliminates annoying ads and popups. Using Tor slows your internet connection down dramatically, and I don't think it's necessary here unless he's doing something risky. Tor only hides your IP address. I use IE7 Pro nowadays as a replacement for Privoxy.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 11:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Powefu

What is more powerful: any of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008_June_25#music_and_programs or Max-MSP?

If there are things more powerful, please list and explain. I thank you so much.68.148.164.166 (talk) 09:55, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

What are you defining as "powerful"? More features? Better application of them? Faster? You might want to clarify what you are really looking for... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:47, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Free Domain Names

Hi all:

Does anyone know whether it is possible to register a new .com domain name for free?

I searched around and found out that I could get a .name domain name for free. There is also this organization offering free .co.nr domain names. Are there any other top-level or near-top-level domains that can allow people to freely subdomain off of?

Thanks.

76.65.14.12 (talk) 11:13, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

You can get a subdomain at co.cc - it looks like top level, allows to use your own DNS servers, configure your DNS records (no AAAA yet) or just set up URL forwarding. --grawity 11:30, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

French keyboard emulator

Hi, does anyone know of any keyboard emulator that would allow for easy typing of French accented letters? I'm using a Cherry RS 6000 M keyboard and Windows XP. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 12:54, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Set your keyboard layout to "US International" you can then use accented letters by typing for example 'e, which will give you é and 'c to get ç. Also works with `a à "o ö, etc. -- Bryan (talk|commons) 13:27, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Right. You don't need an "emulator" to change your keyboard layout. It's somewhere under the Control Panel—international settings or keyboard or something like that, and you can set the "language" of the keyboard. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:36, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks very much. --Eleassar ^{my talk} 09:51, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

sharing internet

hi...I want to share my broadband connection over my hostel's lan...how do i do this...I know that windows allows the internet connection to be shared but I don't know how please explain the complete procedure in detail...also the ip has to be set manually y the users so what is the correct subnet for internet connection sharing...also what's the difference between sharing the internet connection using proxy server and normal sharing i.e. without proxy server....thanking u in advance.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Piyushbehera25 (talk • contribs) 14:40, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to assume that by "hostel" you mean "host". This is amazingly simple. I've done this many times. All you need is a broadband router. I highly recommend Linksys. Quality stuff and it steps you through the whole thing. There are occasionally some bizarre situations (Such as: My niece could not load XP SP2. I host a web site on a server that uses a shared connection. Or, your ISP may not have DHCP, but that is very unlikely.) Those situations require tweaking you may not expect, but Linksys phone support is free and talks you through it.

http://www.linksys.com

What you will do is:

- Unplug the Ethernet cable from the PC.

- Plug that cable into the "Internet" (AKA In) port on the router.

- Use the cable that comes with the router and plug your PC into one of the numbered out ports on the router.

- Any other computers can plug into the other numbered ports.

When you are done, the IP address you that is normally assigned to your PC is assigned to the router instead. On each PC, if you were to run "ipconfig" from a DOS prompt you would see that the PC that powers up first is IP address "yada.yada.yada.100". The next one is "yada.yada.yada.101". etc. The router - routes all the traffic and keeps it straight.

Hope it helps. --Wonderley (talk) 12:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Not that it matters, but I wonder why you couldn't assume that "hostel" meant "hostel". --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 09:43, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

You are assuming that I am a master of the English language. My brain was in computer guy mode - I was actually thinking he wrote "hostile." Yes, I have heard of the word hostel, but rarely and just didn't think of it at the time.--Wonderley (talk) 19:54, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(state of) computer games industry in Germany

Any know much about the above, or got any links. I ask specifically because of Sacred 2 Fallen Angel the only upcoming title from Germany I am aware of seems 'dire', literally many years behind the english speaking world in terms of programming complexity/features included.. And this from the country that gave the world The Settlers.

Have I picked a bad example, are there examples of AAA titles that match the best of the rest of the world? Thank you.87.102.86.73 (talk) 15:52, 4 July 2008 (UTC) (I've excluded crysis since the company appears to be turkish , is this correct?)

Well, Crytek is a German company. The guys who founded the company are of Turkish descent, but I believe they are German citizens, and in any case, the company was founded in Coburg, Germany. Germany has a pretty big video game industry (as well as as a huge and active video game market), but a large number of the games developed there never make it outside the country, as there are enough German-speaking people to support their own industry.

Still, it's true that these days, not a lot of really first-class developers seem to be currently hailing from Germany. Perhaps, at least in part, this is because of the dreaded German index poses certain challenges to game -- and all media -- development. Overall, the environment for creating action-heavy games in Germany is pretty hostile, as Crytek recently made a public statement on. From what I've heard as a gaming journalist, in many "polite" circles simply working for a video game developer can carry a fairly strong social stigma -- not just the general "nerd" thing, but more comparable to working in pornography. It really doesn't strike me as an environment conducive to creative efforts.

Anyway, in addition to Crytek, I can think of Factor 5, but frankly, especially with Lair being such a disappointing game, calling them an AAA list developer would be a real stretch. Egosoft has produced some pretty decent space combat games, as I recall, but they're definitely not in the category you're looking for, either. There may well be companies that I'm blanking on at the moment, of course! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 17:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for an interesting response, though I'm suprised that the industry has negative status.. Board games are very popular in Germany I believe and the country has a history of toy manufacture, plus being practically the birth place of the wargame. How strange.

Thank you very much.87.102.86.73 (talk) 18:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's a little problematic topic, to be sure. Most German games developers aren't making violent games (simply because the laws about them are as strict as they are), but all games are often lumped together with violent games. That's not very surprising; the same thing happens just about everywhere else as well -- most people don't really know much about games, but they know about the games they hear about... so they think that the controversial Grand Theft Auto games, for example, represent some kind of an average product, when the reality is of course quite different. In Germany the gaming culture tends to be pretty different from that of other countries, because active censorship of games is a pretty serious and ongoing issue for the industry. Many games have had their content changed -- classic ways of doing this include changing red blood into green and changing human enemies into zombies, robots or aliens, for example. I imagine that people who make violent movies are treated much the same way, but the difference is, of course, that people don't assume that all filmmakers make violent movies. Movies are just more mainstream than games are, so people make a lot of assumptions to make up for their ignorance of the actual facts. If the many excellent German wargames and boardgames were more violent, they'd probably get treated a little differently as well... but, of course, that medium just doesn't lend itself well to explicit blood and gore. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 20:25, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I, for one, can't wait for the arrival of Sacred 2. This, and Titan Quest, have been the only games that have ever come close to being a Diablo 2 clone. While the world awaits Diablo 3, I guess Sacred 2 will have to do. Crysis was simply stunning as well (if not a bit irritating towards the end, floating around blindly in the alien dome) so as far as I'm concerned, Germans should continue with their great work! Sandman30s (talk) 21:24, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Snapter like software

Hi Wikipedians:

I am looking forward to making some ebooks on my own from camera snapping real books from the library. I downloaded this software called Snapter which purportedly could take the photos and spit out PDF ebooks in one step. Unfortunately it doesn't work on my computer, so I'm looking for other Snapter-like software, hopefully free and doesn't require fancy .NET frameworks.

Any good picks?

Thanks

74.12.39.232 (talk) 16:06, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, no, I've never seen anything else that did this, and I've been looking for something like this. (.NET isn't that fancy—my 5 year old PC running XP can run it just fine. Have you tried downloading and installing the .NET framework? It's not that hard...). Anyway, if your machine is too weak to run .NET... it might be nice if you told us what your machine specs were in the first place. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks 98.217.8.46, I've resolved the problem, turns out I've been running an older version of .NET, when I upgraded it to .NET 3.5 presto, all problems are gone. However, snapter isn't as powerful as I thought, so I was a bit disappointed :-( I'll keep looking. 76.68.9.250 (talk) 00:50, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Only one computer work with a wired connection to my cable modem

Hi all,

I have a cable modem and I used to pass my connection through a wireless router, with my desktop connected directly to the router and the laptops in my house connecting wirelessly. Recently, however, it looks like the wireless router has stopped working, so I thought it was the router's fault, but now I'm not sure. if I connect my desktop PC directly to the modem, it works fine. Here's what doesn't work: anything else connected to the modem. That's the router and both laptops (one Mac and one PC).

Is it possible that some setting has been changed so that only the desktop can connect to the modem? How would I find such settings, if they exist? Is there another likely explanation?

Any help very much appreciated, thanks! — Sam 18:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Your router probably has an "in" port and several "out" ports. Make sure the cable from the modem is connected to the in port of the router, and the desktop to an out port. I suspect you have them reversed; the in port acts as a crossover, which needs to be done for the incoming connection. If you plug it into an out port, but the working computer is on the "in" port, it's still being crossed over for that computer, but not for the others. See this diagram. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 18:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The ethernet cable is definitely going into the in port of the router, and yet no data lights light up. Likewise, the laptops can be connected straight to the modem in the same way as the desktop is, yet they show no connection. This is a new problem, I've never had the router or the laptops not work when connected directly to the cable box.

If it were just the router or just one of the laptops not working, I'd put it down to some problem there, but since none of them work, yet the PC does, I'm wondering if this is some kind of setting in the cable box... The box, btw, is a real basic Cisco Scientific Atlanta -- no buttons or switches or anything. — Sam 19:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

desktop to an out port. I suspect you have them reversed; the in port acts as a crossover, which needs to be done for the incoming connection. If you plug it into an out port, but the working computer is on the "in" port, it's still being crossed over for that computer, but not for the others. See this diagram. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 18:59, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

The ethernet cable is definitely going into the in port of the router, and yet no data lights light up. Likewise, the laptops can be connected straight to the modem in the same way as the desktop is, yet they show no connection. This is a new problem, I've never had the router or the laptops not work when connected directly to the cable box.

If it were just the router or just one of the laptops not working, I'd put it down to some problem there, but since none of them work, yet the PC does, I'm wondering if this is some kind of setting in the cable box... The box, btw, is a real basic Cisco Scientific Atlanta -- no buttons or switches or anything. — Sam 19:09, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

My ISP gives me one dynamic IP address to work with. That IP address is assigned to a single network card. If I were to connect another computer to the modem without releasing the IP address, the new computer wouldn't be able to acquire a network address (I once had to call my ISP so they could manually release the lease; otherwise I might have had to wait a day or two). Now I have a router, and it works because I set it to emulate the MAC address of my computer's network card. Multiple computers can operate on my home network because the router is performing network address translation (NAT), so to the DHCP server at my ISP it is as if there is only one computer connected.

I suggest either making sure you release the lease on your IP address before switching computers, or make sure your router is both emulating the working PC's hardware address and performing network address translation. You could also ask your ISP if you have a similar setup (single dynamically allocated IP address). Many ISPs will even help you diagnose your problem in any case, so a call to their technical support number may be worthwhile. --Prestidigitator (talk) 21:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked perfectly! I worked out my network card's MAC address, logged into my router and changed it's MAC address to match my card's, and then plugged in the router, and it works! Yay! — Sam 17:14, 5 July 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.115.120.108 (talk)

Semi-awesome bar for FireFox 3?

Hi all,

I've just switched to FireFox 3, and I'm wondering if there is some plugin or something that will combine the effects of the awesome bar with the old address bar.

Back when I had FF 2, when I wanted (for example) to go to Google News, I'd start typing in "news...." and the first choice would be news.google.com, and when I wanted to go to NYTimes I'd start typing "ny..." and the first choice would be nytimes.com.

Now, since I go to both equally, when I start typing in "news" I randomly get Google, NYTimes, sometimes even the Onion as the first hit, depending on where I was recently. However, I don't want to go back to a FF 2-like bar, since I do like the awesomeness of the bar... sometimes.

Is there any kind of plugin or setting that will let the first X choices in the list be what would show up on the old bar, and the rest of them be what would show up on the new bar? That way, when I start typing in "news..." URLs that actually start with "news" would always come up first, but, say, NYTimes would still show up there somewhere?

Bit of a long-shot, I know, but thanks for any recommendations! — Sam 19:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

1. Type About:config in the addressbar, accept the warning
2. Type: Browser.urlbar.autoFill
3. Double click it to set it to true
4. ???
5. Profit.

Chris M. (talk) 20:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It's actually Browser.urlbar.autoFill (with a dot, not a colon)...... Dendodge .. Talk^Contribs 20:45, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I knew that >_>... fixed and thanks. 69.177.166.145 (talk) 22:35, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't work anyway, although it's handy. .froth. (talk) 03:25, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Windows Meeting Space, Windows Netmeeting and you

Currently I'm on a Vista Home premium desktop using Windows Meeting Space with another Vista Home Premium desktop (and it's great actually). When I return to college I want to be able to use a similar program from my XP Professional to this Vista Home Premium. Meeting space doesn't work with XP, and Windows Netmeeting doesn't work with Vista Home Premium (I checked).

I don't care if it's another companies software, I'm just looking for something that does what meeting space does just as well between an XP and Vista home premium.

Any ideas?

Thanks! Chris M. (talk) 19:51, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

repair windows xp professional

I have the above mentioned system, but I cannot boot it up. I dont have an emergency boot cd or even a cd-rom. I know that my computer can boot form usb, but what should I put inside the usb? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.128.154.226 (talk) 21:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

We'll need more information on what you mean by "unable to boot it up": can your computer go past POST? Or does it freeze when the Windows logo is displayed? But most likely you'll need a Windows CD in order to repair/reinstall the system. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:48, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I keep receiving the following message:

System Cannot Log You on Because Domain <Computername> Is Not Available

More about it here. I downloaded the hotfix from Microsoft, but since I cannot boot the computer, I cannot use it. :(

Meanwhile I have a cd-rom again and I am trying to find a Windows CD for it. I have Windows XP professional SP2. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.59.92.109 (talk) 11:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Could it be done with Knoppix? And what if I want to abandone my old OS (Windows), save the file and install something else. What do I need then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.59.92.109 (talk) 11:23, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the knowledge-base article, this could be done with a linux live cd that's able to mount XP drives in a read/write fashion, and then doing using either method 1 or method 2 that microsoft recommends (method 1 would only work if you had the file to replace it with, but I suppose you could find it on the net somewhere. It's just basically move and rename operations, so it shouldn't be too complicated. I recommend the Ubuntu Live CD, it's excellent in every single way.

Are you good enough with computers to be able to do this (since you mentioned Knoppix, I assume you aren't a complete dunce), or do you need more detailed help? The easiest way would of course be to simply reinstall windows, but maybe you have files you want to save or something :) --Oskar 21:57, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Also, if you want to abandon Windows and install something else, you can use the Ubuntu Live CD for that too :D. You could even partition the drive in such a way so that the (malfunctioning) windows installation exists on one partition and Ubuntu on another, and then you'll still have all your files! Only in Ubuntu! Isn't Linux wonderful :) --Oskar 22:00, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. It seems that new versions of Knoppix are able to mount drives in a write/read fashion. I'll take a look at Ubuntu too. I will do a backup of my personal files and then proceeed to reinstall the OS. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.128.154.226 (talk) 16:34, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

C++

I have windows vista. I want to program c++. What program (free) do I need?--71.185.138.77 (talk) 22:07, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Visual C++ Express Edition, from Microsoft, or gcc (via mingw) -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 22:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Eclipse CDT with gcc in Cygwin is pretty good too, but it's a real pain to set up the first time. I've also used Dev-C++ a long time ago; apparently it is now developed under the name wxDev-C++. There's a list of IDEs at Comparison of integrated development environments#C/C++. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 00:03, 6 July 2008 (UTC)