Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 September 24

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September 24

Abuse contact

Does anybody know the abuse contact for uni-pr.edu? Tracert is showing that it resolves to ThePlanet.com, but something tells me there's a better contact to report abuse even if they do use ThePlanet.com. GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 01:46, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The common practice is to email abuse@whatever.the.domain.name.who.sent.the.offending.email.is. Don't expect much of a reply. There is no guarantee anyone will read your complaint. Youth in Asia (talk) 03:43, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Here's what I found. Can't verify the authenticity of the information though. AreJay (talk) 04:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I thought you have to be an educational institution to get .edu domain. Apparently not. Probably because it was grandfathered as explained in the link. Kushal (talk) 10:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Don't expect much of a reply. There is no guarentee anyone will read your complaint. This is true, but to assume that because a small percentage of networks ignore all abuse reports that all networks are like this is like assuming that because a small percentage of vandalism survives Wikipedia's vandal fighters that Wikipedia cannot be trusted. There are many responsive abuse departments around. An example of a responsive abuse department would be Embarq ANS (I say that because blacklisted Embarq spammers who show up at trustedsource.org almost never show further activity after abuse reports are submitted). An example of one that does NOT repsond would probably be Comcast Network Security, but they do respond in some cases (an example would be a few of the fraud websites I've gotten Comcast to take down). GO-PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 03:48, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

I imagine they'd be pretty upset when they find out that you're not a admin. or spokeman for Wikimedia. That's assuming they read your e-mail, though. Some major American ISPs don't even go after hackers. Those aren't 16-year-olds who added the word balls to an article anyone can edit. They're people running networks of hundreds of infected computers that take down entire web sites. They ignore them, or sometimes, send them warnings. Even if you get a response from a live person, I doubt the banned user will hear anything about it from the ISP.--Tree 'uns 5 (talk) 04:12, 25 September 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tree 'uns 5 (talk • contribs)

Find and replace multiple files, but only between <title> tags (Mac OS X)

Hi -- thanks in advance if anyone can help me with this.

I have a folder full of HTML files, and I'd like to do a "Find and replace" on the text inside them, but only on the text inside the <title></title> tags. I'm using Mac OS X. What would be the easiest way for me to do this?

My ideas so far: I don't know regular expressions, but I was thinking along the lines of using grep to get the text I want, and then what? piping it into another program that'd actually do the find/replace/save? Alternatively, I have TextMate on here, which I use for other things, but it has a very complicated interface, I have a feeling perhaps the feature I want is buried in there somewhere?

As you can probably tell, I know very very little about UNIX things, I just know there should be a way for me to do this, I just don't know how.

If anyone can help, I really appreciate it. Thanks again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.90.126 (talk) 03:19, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Sed is used for that. You will want to use regular expressions, such as s/(<title>[^<]*)dog([^<]*</title>)/$1cat$2/. Hmm... haven't used placeholders in sed in a while. I don't think they are $1, $2, $3... Anyone remember? -- kainaw™ 03:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Just remembered... I believe you use \1, \2, \3... -- kainaw™ 03:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks!! I now have something to work off, I'm reading a guide to sed as I type this, so I should be able to figure it out from here. Thanks again for the help. :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.90.126 (talk) 03:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

data management

I'm working on an API that requires some basic databasing, and in trying to design my database I realized something that made me feel...well, ignorant: I'm not really sure what the difference is between a table and an array. Is the information in an array stored in a table, or does it need to be coded? Is an array a table that can only sustain one data type? What merits using one and not the other? I have a feeling that permanent storage requires use of a table and displaying information often merits use of an array, but I'm really not sure what the funcitonal difference is. Maybe more functions can be performed on a table than an array. Specifically, I'm thinking of a table in a MySQL database, and an array in PHP. Thanks. --Shaggorama (talk) 06:10, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Different beasts really, both an "array" and a "table" are ultimately collections of data (but then so are lists, trees, etc), but "array" is (usually) used in the context of a programming language to refer to contiguous data where individual elements can be accessed (directly) through a numerical index, while "table" is used in the context of a database, tables are sets of structured data with relatively complex underlying mechanisms to store and retrieve individual entries. Equendil Talk 06:55, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Note that my answer is not specific to PHP, the PHP manual says about arrays : "an array in PHP is actually an ordered map" (ie associative array). I'm not really familiar with PHP and its level of technical obfuscation, so it's probably best someone else answers specific questions. Equendil Talk 07:09, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

They have different dimensions, for one thing. A table is more like a Microsoft Excel worksheet—each individual row can contain multiple fields each of which have values. An array is something different—each item in an array can contain only one value, but you can make arrays multi-dimensional.

You can store the same data in either but you'd store it differently. If you were storing pixel information in a table you'd have each row contain fields like "x" and "y" and "color", and you'd say, "get me the data for row whatever" and it'd let you manipulate those values. For an array though what you'd probably do is have a multi-dimensional array like pixel_color[x,y] = your value.

You see the difference? You can store the same data but you'd do it differently. Of course if you wanted to save an array permanently you'd have to output it somehow, usually into a table but not necessarily. There are also very different ways to manipulate arrays and tables. With something like SQL you can very quickly sort huge amounts of data in a table by very complicated criteria, whereas with an array usually the best you can do is use regular expressions or just cycle through the data manually one piece at a time. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:23, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with most of what comes before. Programmers universally use the term "array" for a very specific language feature - a contiguous block of data - accessed with a simple integer "index" - there can be one, two and three-dimensional and even N-dimensional arrays...same deal - contiguous data, N integer indices. Some languages (like PHP) might implement arrays some other way "under the hood" - but they are essentially simulating that same thing. There is really no other meaning for the word.

On the other hand, the term "table" is a pretty vague term - it's used much less formally for all sorts of different things. It doesn't have the solid connotations of words like "list", "array", "stack" or "tree". I might talk about speeding up the 'cosine' function by making a "lookup table" - this table is likely to be a simple array of floating point values. On the other hand, I might talk about a table of some kind of data that's stored associatively - or in a linked list or in almost any other kind of physical structure. So a table MIGHT be stored as an array - and an array MIGHT be used to implement a table - a table MIGHT NOT be implemented with an array and an array MIGHT be used for something that's not a table at all. SteveBaker (talk) 01:59, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Microsoft office word - Text-type

Hey, i wondered if it is possible to somewhere get more various types of text-types.

You know, "times new roman" is the most standard one and then there comes many other types with it to choose from, but I still don't have some types that I had on my previous computer which I liked to use. So I was hoping it might be possible to somehwere find and install/download new types or something

And i want to say thank you beforehand for any answers :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.164.177.171 (talk) 15:27, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

They are named fonts. Most fonts can be bought, some are available freely. Microsoft Windows stores available fonts in C:\Windows\Fonts directory, they can be installed by copying their files there. The Wikipedia article has some useful data on this topic. MTM (talk) 16:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

This page [1] tells you how to install them once you download them -- Mad031683 (talk) 16:31, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Extreme content control

Hello, is it feasible to establish a www content control system on a computer by

1) stopping the computer talking to any name servers whatsoever 2) hard coding (20 or so) permitted hosts' addresses into the hosts file

How often would I need to edit the hosts file? Also can someone remind me how to achieve the first point on a Windows XP box? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.27.114 (talk) 18:24, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, filtering network traffic is what a firewall does, so I would use that. Requires control on outbound connections though, which the Windows firewall doesn't really offer. A pretty good firewall on Windows is "Look'n'Stop" (20€). Does anything you expect from a firewall and hasn't grown into a bloated piece of software that checks your mail, scans your files for viruses, takes a memory stick for itself and goes into 100% CPU mode now and then like ZoneAlarm.
• If you want to try your method here though, you can disable your ISP's DNS by setting up the connection manually (no DHCP) and not giving it any DNS server. Won't have anything to talk to then. Edit the LMHOSTS file and make sure LMHOSTS lookup is activated (WINS tab in TCP/IP properties/advanced). Equendil Talk 18:58, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
• Oh and how often you would have to edit the hosts file depends on how often the hosts change their IP address, so can't really answer that one. Equendil Talk 19:02, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Did you mean hosts or lmhosts? If I remember correctly, lmhosts is more for computers inside your network, whereas hosts works more for non-local addresses (i.e. - Internet) Washii (talk) 18:40, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Can't get scroll wheel to work

I just bought a Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 and I can't get its scroll wheel or back button to work. The wheel button however, does work. There should be a simple solution to this, but I can't figure it out :/--SquareOuroboros (talk) 18:29, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Which operating system are you using? It's quite ironic, but I've had quite a bit of problem trying to get my Microsoft keyboard and mouse combo working under Windows (only works in certain USB ports), so it's not unusual. Did you install intelliMouse (or whatever it's called) that came with your mouse? --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:17, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

History: The laptop I am using (a Gateway) is supposed to support Bluetooth naturally, but it doesn't act like it does. So instead, I stuck the Bluetooth USB radio receiver from my Logitech keyboard (which is not being used). That seemed to work, except for the scroll wheel and back button.

I am running Vista (32-bit). I've installed the program "Microsoft Mouse" and this specific mouse is oddly not in its drop-down list for devices. Also, message states "Some mouse settings might not work until you connect a Microsoft mouse to a USB port on your computer or set up a Microsoft mouse that uses Bluetooth technology." on startup. How, nowhere in my control panel is there anywhere to set Bluetooth settings.

So, help?--SquareOuroboros (talk) 07:33, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Monitor clock/phase reset

Why hello. I changed out my graphics card the other day, and it all has worked fine, except when I turn my PC on my monitor's clock/phase settings have reset and the picture is blurred and vanishing off the screen, requiring me to manually fix it.

Anyone know how to fix this?

Thanks. 80.229.160.127 (talk) 18:45, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Probably can't really answer that one, but you might want to indicate what graphic card and what monitor you have. Best always state what's your hardware and system (or any relevant info) when you require technical help. Equendil Talk 19:14, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The new card is an ATI x1950, the monitor is an Ilyama. I didn't really see it as a fault in the hardware, more of a software issue. I do have the latest drivers for the card, too. 09:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC) talk)

The settings you are after are likely in the graphics driver, you may be driving the monitor at an inappropriate refresh rate for the given resolution. Try adjusting the settings in windows to the specifics of what the monitor is supposed to support. Also, if the monitor has an onboard "auto adjust" feature, give that a whirl. --66.195.232.121 (talk) 15:35, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Dealing with a dead laptop

Hello, I am a graduate student whose HP Pavilion DV1000 laptop recently died. I turned it off a couple of days ago, and I was not able to turn it back in an hour or two later. No lights appear anywhere on the machine. The disk drive does not open. To my recollection, the battery was fully charged before I turned off the laptop (I had it plugged in). I've tried different techniques to bring it back to life -- ejecting the battery for a while, being plugged in with the battery inserted, being plugged in with the battery ejected, holding down the power button at all these different points, removing and reseating the memory, etc. Someone said it may be a "fried motherboard", though I'm not clear what this means.

With the laptop being a few years old, the warranty has expired. The laptop, running on Windows XP, had been holding up fairly well, though Office 2007 (necessary for my classes) was a little sluggish on it. I was wondering if there were any other fixes possible. If not, is it more fiscally reasonable to get this laptop fixed by HP or another place, or to get a new laptop altogether? Thanks, 140.182.135.28 (talk) 19:56, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Do you feel comfortable removing the hard disk and placing it [as a slave, if needed] in another computer and then recovering your data? Kushal (talk) 21:24, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not likely that it's the hard drive that's faulty - I doubt that it's the RAM of the graphics or the display - the machine would at least boot to the BIOS layer - lights would come on. It's possible you just have a dead battery. If you know someone with a similar machine - borrow the battery and see. Failing that - you have to take a chance and buy a battery...sadly, you might do that and find it's really something else. A "fried motherboard" is certainly possible - a totally dead machine could indeed have a faulty motherboard - or a dead battery - and there is really no easy way to know which. I guess I'm a little surprised that not a single LED anywhere would come on - even with a faulty motherboard - so again, the battery seems the most likely thing. But a new battery is (presumably) cheaper than getting the motherboard replaced - and replacing the cheapest thing first is really the only sane way to proceed. I'd try a computer repair place first...have them give you a cost estimate - only you can know whether the cost to repair is more cost-effective than cost to replace. When you do replace it - how much important data do you lose? Swapping the hard drive into a new laptop probably won't work...fixing this one does. Dunno - get as much information as you can and make an informed decision. SteveBaker (talk) 01:24, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Steve, I did not mean hid hard disk was faulty. Actually, I was hoping that his hard disk was not faulty. I just wanted the OP to not lose data in case he proceeds to more exquisite steps. Kushal (talk) 20:06, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Computer TV appliances on Linux?

As my TV recently broke down, my mother's husband suggested I get a USB appliance for my computer to receive TV signals and watch TV on my computer instead. The only problem is, unlike 99.999999% of Finland's population, I use Linux and not Windows. Will these appliances work on Linux just as well or would I be forced to finally succumb to Bill? JIP | Talk 20:01, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the MythTV folks could point you in the right direction. --LarryMac | Talk 20:13, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Look at the list of supported hardware at the Video4Linux-wiki 90.235.30.211 (talk) 15:05, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

MythTV works great - but I strongly recommend buying hardware that's well supported by them - search Linux user groups to find someone who has a really nicely working system - and copy it exactly! Once you get "off the beaten track" you can run into horrible installation problems. SteveBaker (talk) 01:02, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia template help on Template:User BRUIN ALUM

This template appears to transclude itself, revealed by the template's "What links here" special page. I am having trouble determining how the <include> and </noinclude> tags are allowing this. I would appreciate assistance! Newportm (talk) 20:49, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The <noinclude>d parts of the template page transclude the template a few times, to illustrate the template's function. This is done on many template pages. What's the problem? Algebraist 20:57, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I guess there's no problem. That is my first experiment with <noinclude> tags. Newportm (talk) 02:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Fedora - Keyboard - Noob

Hi,

I am using Fedora 9(KDE). Some keys on my keyboard don't work with Fedora, to be specific the Volume +/- keys, calculator key, the "Email" key (supposed to open the email client when pressed) and the key with MS Windows logo on it (I want to open kMenu with it). How do I get these keys to work? My keyboard is Compaq 5185 if that helps. Thanks for reading-Abhishek^Talk 23:26, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Those keys are not magic. Compaq installed a program (that they didn't tell you about) in Windows when they shipped the computer. That program listened to those keys. You need to map them in Fedora. Click on the "f", then System Settings. In the settings, select Keyboard and Mouse. Choose Keyboard Shortcuts. You'll see KDE Components and the actions that you can map to a key. Select the component and action. Click on the > and press a key to map it to that action. I just noticed that I have shutdown without confirmation mapped to Ctrl+Shift+Alt+PgDown. I better make sure I don't accidentally press that. -- kainaw™ 01:53, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

It would also help that you got the right keyboard in System/Preferences/Keyboard (I thought Fedora uses GNOME?). You should have a few options under Compaq, try them all and see if they magically work. --antilived^{T | C | G} 06:14, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I got the Volume +/- keys working following kainaw's advice, but I can't figure out how to map the other keys. The configuration utility provides a very few options to configure; and doesn't allow me to create custom shortcuts either. Someone pointed me to this wiki, but when I tried to open the file I was supposed to edit it said the file didn't exist!-Abhishek^Talk 15:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Connecting to the Internet

I recently installed a modded version of Windows XP on one of my partitions, made specifically for gaming (it takes out most of the crap like movie maker, etc) and the full iso is only 92 mb for example. It says it came with most drivers removed EXCEPT networking drivers and drivers necessary to connect to the internet are supposedly with the setup. My problem is that I absolutely cannot connect to the internet! =[ and I fear it is because it didn't install the necessary drivers (the OS works flawlessly excepting that). What can I do? I don't even know where to start. Thanks for the help. --71.98.3.250 (talk) 23:30, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

You should probably get the full version on XP, and then disable all the stuff you don't need. Or, make your own version using NLite Mile92 (talk) 05:21, 27 September 2008 (UTC)