Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 July 10

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July 10

How to evaluate social networking sites

I had long dismissed Facebook, MySpace, Twitter etc. as being overrated time-wasters and meant for people with Neurotypical Syndrome. However, I recently read that companies are posting job openings on Twitter and LinkedIn to avoid the high costs of posting at Monster and Workopolis. While I was still skeptical, a reputable business magazine confirmed the story. I'd been searching for a summer job for two months and had just given up. Now I feel like a dinosaur.

What's the best way to evaluate whether social networking sites, and any other Web 2.x or 3.x phenomena that don't seem interesting on the surface, are worth my time, and how to make the best use of them? NeonMerlin 00:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Try some; see what happens. Ask trusted acquaintances who have experience of them. Keep reading about them. -GTBacchus^(talk) 00:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

You should probably get a Linkedin.com account - that is only just barely a social networking site - but it's a busy place for the jobs market. Very professional. It allows you to answer the question: Does anyone that I know have connections with someone else at such-and-such company? If you see that company advertising a job you're interested in - you can say "Hey Joe - could you recommend me to your buddy Jane who works at XYZ-Corp?" - that's usually enough to make sure your resume is at least carefully considered. Six degrees of separation says that you can reach anyone on the planet through a sequence of six carefully chosen connections - but even with just a couple of connections, you can get to a surprisingly large number. SteveBaker (talk) 03:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Doesn't "six degrees of separation" inherently devalue a recommendation acquired through a social network website? If by the logic that "anyone" can have a friend of a friend who works at a company, then what's the point of the "connection"? (It seems like an implicit letter-of-recommendation for anyone on the planet - so it's a devalued recommendation). Whether your true social network is electronified with XML and AJAX, or if it still resides in a paper book, the merit of the social network is independent of the means you use to represent it. Consider actual networking events - like company mixers, university-level short-courses, and conferences - as a better way to actually develop a network. Nimur (talk) 15:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah.com site

How come sometimes when I type in a Wikipedia URL, it takes me to a yeah.com error page? It says "The page you were looking for doesn't exist. You may have mistyped the address or the page may have moved." And I'm quite sure it's not that I'm mistyping it or that the article doesn't exist. Not an urgent question, because it doesn't happen to me very often; just curious. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 06:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

In fact you did mistype part of the URL, and some loser company is paying for that domain name, knowing they will get a certain number of misspelled-URL hits per month and will be able to serve a certain number of ads and get paid. This is related to cybersquatting. Trying "www.wkipedia.com" (no link because let's not help them) sends you to a similar site, for example, claiming it is "Your Online Encyclopedia Source!". Like many of these "typo-only" URLs, the site itself only contains a bunch of links to various legitimate encyclopedia sites, claiming they are "related searches", which I believe is done in order to be able to demonstrate that it's a valid site, if ownership of the URL is contested. Or to fool the unwary into clicking them, I guess. Tempshill (talk) 07:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Some other possible situations may arise, if you are sure you are not typing the address incorrectly. First, and most worrisome, is the possibility that malware or some proxy server is intercepting your browser traffic and selectively redirecting you to this alternative website. Next possibility is the numerous (and very irritating) auto-completion features that many browsers have integrated into their URL bar (now more properly called a "browser input text field" because it is not exclusively used for URLs). Firefox, for example, will automatically prepend domain prefixes (like www.) and append domain suffixes (like .com, .net or .org) depending on your preferences (and if you hit ctrl-enter, for example). This is very troublesome if you have local namespaces (e.g. my local news server, http://news, should never be interpreted as http://www.news.com - two totally different namespaces, and defeating the purpose of hierarchical DNS lookup! It demonstrates to me that modern browser software architects do not respect the DNS system, and so they assume that every DNS entry should redirect me to a top-level site). Similarly, the browsers often default to search-from-address-bar, which I think is a terribly confusing feature (are you entering a search query, or are you entering an address - how do you know the difference - especially if your correct address is a short keyword like "news" ?) You can disable these browser annoyances, if they are the cause of your unwanted redirection. Nimur (talk) 16:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the other sites that prey on Wikipedia typos, but this yeah.com thing seems to be different. Sometimes I'll repeatedly type in the proper URL and it will keep going to yeah.com; last night I typed in the URL once, and it took me to yeah.com, then I typed it in again, and it took me to Wikipedia, then I opened a new window, and the same sequence happened again. It's happened to me on computers at home and at my college. --Lazar Taxon (talk) 19:14, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yeah.com is a known dangerous site that may distribute or have distributed CoolWebSearch. (Often called "CWS"; An infamous adware/spyware toolbar) If you are being redirected there often, it is possible you are infected with some form of adware. I'd suggest running scans with both Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware and SUPERAntiSpyware. What is your current security set-up? (That is, what applications are you currently using to protect your computer from the dangers of malware?)--Xp54321 ^{(Hello! • Contribs)} 20:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I finally figured this out! I had been having this same problem, occasionally getting redirected to yeah.com, for a long time. Nimur's answer above is what helped me figure it out. I'm guessing you almost certainly use Firefox, like me. The site which redirects to yeah.com is "en.wikipedia.org.net". Firefox will automatically add ".net" to a domain name if, instead of pressing Enter, you press Shift+Enter. So, if you're typing a Wikipedia URL ending in a capital letter (for example, I often type "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock Band DLC"), you may still be holding the Shift key when you press Enter. You're welcome! LordRM (talk) 22:58, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Computer won't start - only beeps, no video

Yesterday my old XP computer was working fine. This morning I decided to replace the old PCI video card with an old AGP one, as I wanted to use the PCI one in another old computer. When I turned the computer on, soon afterwards I heard what sounded like a long beep follow immediately by three short ones. The CD-rom drive and floppy drive were busy for a while (probably the normal start-up sequence), then the HDD seemed to start up for a second but then stop. Unfortunately when I replaced the previous graphics card the same thing happened. I have a ECS P6BAT-A+ motherboard. I am using a public computer to write this. Does anyone know what the beeps mean please? Perhaps the first beep was the POST beep. The HDD was monitored by the computer - I forget the name of that - and had no problems. Thanks 81.144.199.142 (talk) 10:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

First, ensure you didn't unplug anything accidentally (it is very easy to partially unplug a drive cable). Second, reset the BIOS. There is a jumper on the motherboard that you connect to reset the BIOS. See the manual for the motherboard (you can download it online) for the exact location of that particular jumper. Third, if this is a Pheonix BIOS, which I believe it is, the 1-3 combinations are "Motherboard is dead" warnings. -- kainaw™ 13:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Make sure your video card doesn't require a separate power connection. Forgetting that is a common cause of this sort of error. (For me at least.) APL (talk) 19:05, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I've got internet access through another computer, but a lot of my precious stuff is on the broken computer. I wil try the BIOS reset. I'm wondering if the video card has damaged the computer - I got given it with some other computer parts and I had not tried it before. If its a Killer Video Card I'm worried about trying it on anything else. Do you have any specific webpage that says that long short short short means a dead mobo please, as I could not find that when I searched? For what its worth I tried a Linux boot CD, no different. 78.146.20.248 (talk) 19:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Don't reset the BIOS just yet, that may be premature. The sequence of beeps you describe may specifically identify the problem. For example, for an AMI BIOS, one long and three short beeps indicates a memory problem, possibly a loose memory card. Try reseating the memory and reboot. If that doesn't work, try to identify the BIOS maker by scanning the motherboard for a chip labeled Award, Phoenix, or AMI. Then search the web for something like "xxx power on self test code", where xxx is the BIOS manufacturer. Somewhere in the results you may find a document showing what the error code means. For some BIOS manufacturers, such as award, many different versions exist and you may need to search by motherboard manufacturer. See Power-on self-test or [1] for some common codes. -- Tcncv (talk) 01:33, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There are/were a lot of different beep codes, depending on the BIOS etc. Beeping instead of starting up is a common lack-of-video problem. You would have needed to set the BIOS setup to account for using the AGP slot. Depending on the model you might get it going without a video card, if it had on-board video, which I think those boards did. The AGP might be a bit too new for it; that board is about 4 years old. If it starts at all, check and change the BIOS settings to suit the card you propose to put in, then save the setting, turn it off, change the card, and it should pick up the setting on re-boot. Clean out the PCI slot before reinserting that card; optimally it should be the closest slot to the power supply. Cross fingers. - KoolerStill (talk) 03:52, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I found out that the beeps mean that there is a problem with the graphics card or with graphics memory. The BIOS is Award. I got this from BiosCentral which is now regrettably defunct, but accessable through the Waybackwhen Machine. (I hope someone harvests all the data from Bioscentral and makes it more obviously available somewhere). I think the problem might be something to do with the different AGP standards being incompatible, see external links at the end of Accelerated Graphics Port but I'm not sure. The mobo manual just says "AGP" so it must be AGP1.0. The graphics cards I tried are more recent. I may have damaged both the mobo and the graphics cards. The mobo does not seem to have any direct video output, unless it uses a non-standard plug with pins sticking out rather than in. The manual is rather ambivalent on this. The mobo is more than four years old - more like twice that. I think I may have to accept that the mobo is damaged, unless anyone has any other ideas. I may try mounting the old HD in a USB "cradle" which I understand are quite cheap. 84.13.50.242 (talk) 17:25, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

AGP cards are notorious for being difficult to seat properly. You really do have to press hard to get them into the slot - it will probably feel like you might break the card. Look to see how well the card is seated in the slot, and try pushing it in harder. Disclaimer - push at your own risk. I and Wikipedia cannot be responsible for you breaking your graphics card or motherboard. -- 128.104.112.84 (talk) 22:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I did press then in firmly. I think incompatible AGP standards probably damaged both the mobo and the graphics cards due to the different voltages of the different versions of AGP - the Wikipedia article ought to make this risk more clear. 78.151.124.180 (talk) 23:09, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, in the old days beeps would mean a ram issue, or maybe also a video issue. Also, the beeps aren't random. They have a code embedded in them, sort of a morse code. Find a manufacturer page or manual for your mobo, then find the beep codes for it. You might find out exactly what's wrong. Also, make sure your ram's seated right, or didn't get accidentally fried. Shadowjams (talk) 05:23, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Computer problems

File:BSOD.jpg

BSOD

Also can you help with a computer problem?

When I insert a quicktime disc I received the following BSOD

I have tried everything, reflashing the DVD and reintalling quicktime but no avail. PLease help asap!

--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 12:04, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Question 2: OS? Seems to happen on Windoze 2003 Server and Vista. Xenon54 (talk) 12:13, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

My operating system is Windows xp pro sp3. Is this a common problem and how to fix it? --Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 13:38, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Please ask questions in separate threads. I've taken the liberty of moving your website virus problem into a separate thread below. On the BSOD, this is the search page for "bad_pool_header" at support.microsoft.com — do any of those look relevant? You might add "xp" to the search. Tempshill (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

reinstall your dvd drivers, run ccleaner Ivtv (talk) 21:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I already did that.--Tyw7  (Talk • Contributions) 10:40, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Then format/recovery Ivtv (talk) 02:56, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Zamzar

Is the website http://www.zamzar.com is virus free? Btw Norton sitesadvisor has flagged Zamzar as a red flag cause it senses two strains of viruses on the site.

Question 1: Yes. Philadelphia's KYW radio (article) did a story about it. SiteAdvisor rates it yellow for popups.

This sort of question is impossible for anyone to answer in a way that will be satisfactory to you — you may be asking us to claim that no file anywhere on the website has a virus on it, which of course none of us can do. Even the supposedly safe and virus-free website download.com has hosted at least one file that had a virus infection. Your best bet is of course to practice safe computing by running an account on your computer that has no admin rights (except when you have to install some software), use an antivirus program, don't run .exe files you don't trust, and so forth. Tempshill (talk) 19:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Zamzar is rather a pain: adverts, delays, more adverts. . . .

KYW radio brightly introduces it: Ever ask your friend to email you a picture, but instead of a jpeg, he sends you a targa file?

If I were using Windows, I'd get IrfanView to convert the file. No adverts, no delays. Indeed, I find that there's a free conversion utility to do most of what Zamzar does. -- Hoary (talk) 12:13, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Tor vs other proxies

Aside from not being web-based, what are the differences between Tor and web-based proxies? Acceptable (talk) 13:33, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Tor is just "several" proxies linked together as peers. At any given time, some proxies are available and some are not. Tor dynamically keeps track of which ones are available. Any given traffic is routed through one or more proxies. I believe that individual packets are may be split among different proxies, to make tracking more difficult. Also note that while you are using Tor, you are also hosting a proxy, which you might not have intended to do. Nimur (talk) 16:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong, you only host a proxy if you choose to do so in the settings menu. It doesn't automatically make you a host —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 16:39, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure you end up as an intermediate hop, though. You do have to choose to be an end-point, though. Washii (talk) 19:10, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Stolen laptop (again)

After reading your advice in answer to my earlier question, it occurred to me that I should protect my Windows Live email account with a different password. I had in mind that the thief might access my emails by gaining knowledge of my password after opening up the files on my stolen machine. So I changed the password yesterday and accessed the account several times without any problem. Today, when I try to access my email account, my password is not recognised. Does this suggest that the thief has somehow hacked into my email account and changed the password, or am I being too paranoid? I also find that I can no longer access networking sites that I am a member of, again because my password is not recognised? Does this suggest the thief has hacked into these sites so as to read my private information?Maid Marion (talk) 14:18, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think this is the old thread. Bus stop (talk) 14:27, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Before jumping to conclusions, are you sure that it is specifically your password that is not being recognized? Perhaps -- just a consideration -- your "user name" was stored on your old computer -- and now you have to retype in your "user name." Bus stop (talk) 14:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for trying, but I was able to access all of these things yesterday, typing in both username and password on another machine and having no problems. I'm wondering whether today the thief has been playing around and has accessed the sites, changing the new password in order to do so (because the new password of course would not be found on the old machine).Maid Marion (talk) 14:59, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It seems more likely that you have not typed the correct new password (Caps-Lock?). It should not be possible to use the old password to access the site and change the new password (if the thief even has the old password). Can you contact the Microsoft Live support? Nimur (talk) 16:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nimur's right. How could he access your account if you've changed the password since the computer was stolen? Tempshill (talk) 17:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you all. In that case, I just can't explain what has happened. I was aware of the caps lock possibility, Nimur, and it is not that that has caused this - I guess we just don't know. Anyway, I'm away on holiday in a few minutes, so I'll thank you all again and see you soon. Maid Marion (talk) 05:55, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

What happens when you click on "forgot password" or whatever? Does it ask you a "secret question"? And if so, is the secret question something whose answer the thief of your laptop would have been able to guess, or find among the files on your laptop? Mathew5000 (talk) 05:02, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

IP info

If someone knows your ip address, like for example my ip address (i'm sure sinebot will be along to post it shortly), what info can they find out about you? What stuff could they do, gain access to the computer, hack, DDOS me etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 16:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

If you google "ip lookup" you'll find websites that tell us where you're apparently at (the UK) and what your host apparently is (Virgin Media). Your city or town can be localized pretty well, too. There are some services like this which also purport to show where you are on Google Maps, though I doubt these are more accurate than the city or town level. A person who knows your IP address could actually find out who you are by telling your ISP the address and the time and date of the computer use of that address, and asking them who you are — depending on local laws, this may require a court order, or may not. As far as hacking into your computer, yes, it's possible for an individual person or a zombie PC or a botnet to take that IP address and try to use known exploits in popular operating systems to hack into your system, or simply do a DDOS attack, as you say — but an individual PC user is not a very interesting target for zombie PCs and the people who run them. There are many millions of IP addresses that are visible; why would they pick yours out for an attack? To be safe, of course, you should have a router between your computer and your cable modem or DSL modem; and you should always practice safe computing by not running untrusted .exe files, utilizing an account on your computer without administrator access as much as possible while surfing, keeping your OS up to date with the regular security patches that come out, running antivirus software, etc. Tempshill (talk) 17:08, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nitpick - to be safe, you should have a firewall between yourself and the untrusted internet - but most home "routers" are actually gateway/router/NAT/firewall combination systems. The fact that the box is also a router serves little or no additional security benefit. Tempshill is correct - it is best practice to put this box between you and the rest of the world -[ without it, you are relying on your operating system to protect you, which is (debatably) a bad strategy. Nimur (talk) 22:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know this isn't your actual question, but just to try and help, if you want to avoid having your IP posted then just create a free Wikipedia login with a username which in turn will hide your IP as long as you are logged in. Also, if you sign your posts with ~~~~ then SineBot won't come along either. To answer your actual question, in your case (and because anyone can do a whois I don't think there's a problem with me posting this) we can tell that you are using Blueyonder (Virgin Media) as your Internet Provider and because of how Blueyonders DNS works it says you're located somewhere in/around the Croydon/South London area. It doesn't identify you more any more than though, however different IP addresses will give away more/less information and in many regards could be completely wrong, for example an AOL address will often appear to come from the United States even if they're located in the UK. Trying to answering the "what can they do" is pretty hard though. If you've got a firewall/router in place between you and the Internet then as long as you haven't configured it really badly gaining access to your computer/network is extremely unlikely. However, if you have software on your computer (like trojan horse), possibly combined with a router that support UPNP then it's possible for an infected computer to allow someone from the Internet to access it. Finally, regarding DDoS's, it quite possible yes (as an IP address is a fixed point on the Internet), although that seems rather extreme for someone to do that on a dynamic residential address because in the event of a problem like that your IP isn't specifically assigned to you and Virgin Media could just give you another one just as easily (although they'd probably want to know why you're getting DDoS'd). Although it sounds slightly paranoid, ideally you don't want to give out your IP address if possible, just in case. Hope this is of some help? ZX81 ^talk 17:23, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Surely, if the IP address is dynamically assigned, it will only tell you where the ISP is located and not where that particular ISP customer is located. Your IP address says your ISP is Virgin Media but the only physical addresses given are for Telewest Broadband in Woking and Bradford (Telewest were taken over by Virgin in 2007). Since Virgin has customers all over the country, there's about a 1% chance that you live in either town. I really doubt the ISP updates their registration details at nominet each time one of their IP address is assigned to a different customer. Astronaut (talk) 04:00, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

For any other ISP I would agree completely, my own IP address being "located" a few hundred miles from where I actually am because of my ISPs location, but with Blueyonder all their reverse DNS on the IPs contains the region of the customer. For example in this case the IP reverses to 82-43-91-128.cable.ubr08.croy.blueyonder.co.uk and as you can see the full chart of their areas here that means the user is in the Croydon area of South London. ZX81 ^talk 05:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

And a quick search with google indicates for instance they may be applying to become a teacher. Dmcq (talk) 19:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Help!

I've got a gforce 4 videod card ruunning the latest version of XP. Ths screen goes blank all the time and I have to reboot and I have to run in 640x480 to minimize this problem. It acts like and Electrical problem but I changed the monitor and cable and it did't do anything. So is it my video card broken or is it a driver problem?

The easiest way to test the driver problem is to simply install/reinstall the latest version of the driver. The latest driver for the GeForce 4 series was 93.71 and can be downloaded from NVIDIA here. However, personally, it sounds like more of a hardware issue and the card is possibly even overheating, but these are just guesses you'd ideally need to try another card to fully rule out if it's the card or not. ZX81 ^talk 18:17, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It's worth noting that some newer versions of the Nvidia driver are claimed to be back-compatible, but I have found that 91.47 was the most stable for my old GeForce. I would definitely avoid getting the absolute latest driver (186.18), which is explicitly not intended for your card. Nimur (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I found that it was the fan on the video card that had failed, causing overheating. I replaced the card with another one which works. But, it's an old one that I found with no name on it, so I don't know how I could get drivers for it - I'm now using the default Windows driver. 17:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.101.13.23 (talk)

Archiving old e-mails on Microsoft Outlook

So I've got a lot of old emails sitting in my inbox and I'd like to archive them. What I want to do is to be able to put my old emails on my external hard disk drive (which is always connected to my computer) so they don't eat up space on my C:\ drive and also put them on a flash drive/CD and transfer them to another computer. How would I go about doing that? Can I open Outlook mails in other email clients? Thanks in advance. 116.71.66.144 (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you mean Outlook (and not Outlook Express, which is an entirely different program, and not the cut-down version that the name might lead you to believe). I don't have one to hand, but you can export a folder, or an whole account, to a .PST file. You can then re-import that PST into outlook. Converting that PST so that other mail programs (Thunderbird, Eudora, Evolution, or even Outlook Express) turns out to be unpleasantly hard. I've used Aid4mail to do this; I've never found a free/OS equivalent that adequately handles Outlook's vexing formats. 87.115.94.112 (talk) 22:11, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

A possibly useful tip: After you create the new .pst file and create a new folder within it, when you go back to your Inbox to view the e-mails, sort the view of e-mails "by type". If your inbox is anything like mine, most of the items will be e-mails which will sort to the top, and some will be Calendar items that will sort to the bottom. Delete the Calendar items, then hit ctrl-A to Select All and then drag all the e-mails to that folder inside the new .pst file. When I archive my e-mails off in this manner, I usually forget to delete the Calendar items first, and then I get an irrelevant and undecipherable error dialog when I try archiving them all off. Tempshill (talk) 04:08, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Programming contests

I'd like to know useful resources for preparing a programming contest, especially lots of problems with judges. Thanks! --62.57.11.200 (talk) 21:42, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

This depends entirely on the programming contest. Which contest are you attempting to compete in? -- kainaw™ 22:06, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Nothing beats a good algorithms textbook. If you are a novice programmer, an intermediate programmer, these books are helpful. Practice coding up theory examples from textbooks, and become familiar with your favorite language's standard library kits (programming competitions often have a time-limit, so you don't want to burn hours redesigning a network stack or a linked-list collection). Nimur (talk) 22:30, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure, yet, kainaw. Maybe Google's? --62.57.11.200 (talk) 09:17, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

File:Botzilla screenshot.jpg

Most programming contests have unbelievably boring topics...seriously tedious stuff. If you are trying to get the interest of kids - or even people who program for a living - then you need something more exciting. What I wrote - and ran as a programming contest during "engineering week" at work for several years was this: http://botzilla.sourceforge.net/ - it's called "Botzilla" and it's free/OpenSourced. The idea is that there are giant robotic machines invading a city (Godzilla-style). Each player writes the software to control a 'bot - and then we toss the bots into an arena and have them fight it out until only one is left standing. The robot's are controlled via a fairly limited "API" which gives the robot reasonable 'sensors' to probe it's environment, means to control it's smashing, shooting and pounding equipment and a way to set the speed and direction they are moving. The graphics are fun - buildings get destroyed - the bots cause immense destruction and there are video-game style "Health" readouts so you can see how then are all doing. The actual programming is done in C or C++ and each player's bot. There are several example 'bot' programs included so everyone has something to use as a starting point. We ran the competition for several years at work - we used a large projection TV and a decent sound system to run the final rounds and had hundreds of people watching and cheering on the bots of the people in their teams. It was a complete blast - and everyone has a lot of fun. More importantly - in one-on-one battles, particular 'bots consistantly beat out their competitors - meaning that this is definitely a measure of practical programming skills. We would also run "brawl" events where we tossed a bunch of robots into the arena at the same time - that's much more a matter of luck - but also a bunch of fun.

The system has 3D graphics - with smart 'cameras' to allow you to view the action. The person running the event can switch cameras and get "bot's-eye views" - even switch the display into stereo mode (In which case you need to issue the audience with those red/cyan cardboard glasses!). There is a good music sound-track and a score-keeping system. You can pre-script which bots fight which and rehearse the whole event before you take it before a live audience so you don't have to fiddle around with mouse and keyboard while the event is happening beyond hitting a key to start off the next event, switching cameras, etc.

Alternatively - Lego robotic competitions are a lot of fun - of course there is a significant cash outlay to buy the Lego Mindstorms systems the first time around - but if you intend to run this competition over several years and have some sort of a corporate sponsor - that may not be an issue.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Is my computer good enough to run a game?

Hi all I want to get a game called team fortress 2 for my PC. Here are the requirements: Minimum: 1.7 GHz Processor, 512MB RAM, DirectX® 8 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

Recommended: Pentium 4 processor (3.0GHz, or better), 1GB RAM, DirectX® 9 level Graphics Card, Windows® Vista/XP/2000, Mouse, Keyboard, Internet Connection

I have a 2GHZ processor, 2GB RAM, I use windows vista, I do have an internet connection and my graphics card is a nvidia Ge Force 8400M GS. Is this good enough for the game to run properly? Thanks RichYPE (talk) 21:44, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, but the CPU is rather weak so you may not be able to play the game to the full potential (i.e. you may have to leave graphics/performance settings a bit short). Xenon54 (talk) 21:48, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

How can you know if the CPU is weak? All he says is that it is 2 GHz. It could be a Intel Nehalem (microarchitecture) (which would blow a 3 GHz Pentium Dual-Core out of the water). We need more specific details on your CPU to judge it - do you know the model and series number? Nimur (talk) 22:19, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I think one needs to take into consideration the fact that it's a laptop. The graphics card may turn out to be the bottleneck. decltype (talk) 01:38, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

How would you know if it is? The OP actually said "for my PC"... -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 15:03, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi guys thanks for the contributions. My processor is a Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T5750. Thanks RichYPE (talk) 09:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Decltype. CPU and RAM is probably not a problem (at all). Advanced games, however, really require expensive GPU's to run in high-quality modes (high-resolution, high texture quality, a lot of animations, perhaps anti-aliasing etc.). But often you can play them at moderate quality (low-res, low texture quality) even with cheaper (yet relatively new) GPU's. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:53, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the best way to be sure before buying the game is to test the trial version? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

No trial version of TF2. APL (talk) 18:24, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I suspect it would run albeit potentially only at low settings and with some graphics lag. I have run HL2 (same engine, I believe) on a very similar hardware setup, although on a MacBook and through a virtualizer (Parallels). Even with that major hinderance, I was able to get HL2 humming along basically decently. I imagine if one were running it natively on that kind of setup it would be a lot smoother, definitely do-able. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 22:54, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Hi thanks for the contributions. By natively do you mean with no other programs/windows open? Thanks RichYPE (talk) 09:57, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

No, by "natively" he means that you run the Windows game on Microsoft Windows (as you normally do!) and not on a Mac computer pretending to be a Windows computer. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 10:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

If I read our article correctly there's an older free version called Team Fortress Classic. There also seems to be a happy modding community. That makes it likely you might find some version/variation that will run on older computers. Worth some googling and forum surfing I'd say. Unless you insist on the exact features of the official release, that is. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 06:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

Looking for a paper

I'm looking for “A Ray Tracing Algorithm for Progressive Radiosity” (J.R. Wallace, K.A. Elmquist, E.A. Haines) from the proceedings of SIGGRAPH 1989. Does anyone know where I can find it? I don't have an ACM membership, and I'm a little loath to sign up for a student one since I suspect I'll have access to ACM materials in a couple months. 94.168.184.16 (talk) 21:51, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

It appears to have been published on this website in addition to through ACM. The direct link is here. It seems to be the same version as the ACM copy I briefly checked. --Kateshortforbob 20:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Created another user account, but it does not have MSWord

I have a second-hand XP computer. To get rid of the large amount of clutter from the previous owner, I have created a new user account with admin privelidges, so that I can delete the user profiles and user accounts of the previous owner. When I logged on as the new user, Windows seemed to load up various MS programs for me, but not Word. When I forced it to load Word, it asked me for the installation CD, which I do not have, even though Word is still on the computer. How do I make Word available to all user accounts please? 89.242.157.3 (talk) 23:53, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how you can do that, but you can find excellent Word programs on the internet to download free, also, have you considered taking the computer to a specialist? Sometimes they will totally wipe out the computer for free. ---Scarce |||| Talk -Contrib.--- 01:14, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I assume that you already have tried to run "winword.exe". --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:49, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I tried manually creating a shortcut and placing it in my menu folder, but when I click on them the computer tries to reinstall Office 2000 (which is what I meant rather than just Word) using its CD, which I do not have (although maybe I'd be justified in downloading a pirate copy to do this repair since I already own the program??). This article describes a complicated procedure which I have not yet digested: http://windowsitpro.com/article/articleid/39568/how-can-i-make-available-to-all-users-a-program-that-i-installed-in-windows-xp-or-windows-2000-to-be-accessed-only-by-myself.html Unfortunately no other user has access, otherwise I could try copying their menu enteries into my menu folder. The cacls command may be relevant, but does anyone know of a freeware program that would do this more automatically? Or have the enteries in their menus that I could copy (they will be files in the menu folder). I deleted the former users profile, and no user on the computer has Office use, although it is still there. Due to a virus problem I closed down System Restore and deleted its old files, so not luck there either. Thanks 78.151.124.180 (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a similar situation - I created a new user account on the old computer someone gave me, and when I try to start Word it says "Please wait while Windows configures Microsoft Office 2003." But, if I click the Cancel button when it says this, Word starts without any problem. The only difficulty this creates is that I have to start Word before trying to load a document - simply double-clicking a document in Explorer won't work. I don't know why this happens - possibly something to do with creating the new account after installing Office? AJHW (talk) 13:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm no expert but when you install a new program on a multi user XP system the installation procedure will ask you at some point whether you want to have the program available to all users or only on your desktop. (This may already be a pre-selected checked box if you use the installation procedure that came with the program.) I'm not sure how and where it registers and stores things then, but if you want to use that program from the other user window later on you usually have to re-install it. hence your system asking for the installation disk. If you don't have the product code of the word program already installed you're likely out of luck claiming ownership. If you do have the code, you might get lucky at MS. (Contact the previous owner if you can and ask whether he still has the code no./disk.) There may be workarounds via the system files and copying things to the other user directories. 71.236.26.74 (talk) 06:57, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details (never actually used it much, if at all), but there is such a thing called "run as", which only needs you to provide the original account's username and password, and i think it would solve your problem. It's in the context menu, IIRC. -- Jokes Free4Me (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2009 (UTC)