Computing desk
< October 5	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 7 >

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.

October 6

Power adapter for external hard drive

I have a Maxtor One Touch II external hard drive I would like to use, but I lost the power adapter some time ago. The drive says "+12V 3A", and the product description on Maxtor's website says that AC input voltage is 100-240 VAC and that input frequency is 47-63 Hz AC. Would buying any power adapter with "+12V 3A" in the description do, or do I need to be more particular than that? If so, can I be pointed to a place or website that has the one I need? Thanks, 69.143.24.5 (talk) 00:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Any 12V 3A power supply will do - provided that

it has the right plug and is wired correctly
that it supplies the correct type of current ie either DC or AC whichever you need.

Google "12V 3A power supply" , look for somewhere reputable in your country. eg maplins, radioshack etc , you need to find out about the plug etc first83.100.251.196 (talk) 01:09, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Most external hard drives use 12v DC, and have centre positive power socket, but you must check the specification of yours. Try the company's website. You might invalidate the manufacturer's warranty if you use any adaptor other than their own. Dbfirs 09:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Preferences

How can I make the background of templates black to match the black background? (I am using the black background with green text Gadget) --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:47, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Or how can I make just the editing page black and green? --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PuTTY to copy files (presumably ssh)

I'm supposed to be copying files between my laptop and my school server via ssh. I've got a windows computer, so I've downloaded PuTTY to be able to ssh. I can open up my account on in a shell, and move, edit files within my account. But I can't figure how to actually move files between my computer and my account. I know the format: "scp myName@remoteSever:file.txt file.txt" to copy a file from my account at school to my computer. But I don't know where I'm supposed to put that. Am I supposed to be opening up PuTTY in localhost (and if so I'd have to run my own ssh server, right?). Do I need to use a different format and use Windows Command Prompt?

Thanks for any help, 137.165.243.1 (talk) 02:54, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It'd be probably faster if you run sftp instead of ssh (both are included in the PuTTY distribution), as otherwise you would need to do exactly what you described. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 02:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If you didn't actually grab the PuTTY PSFTP program, it can be downloaded from the official PuTTY distribution site. Nimur (talk) 03:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes you need to use an SFTP or SCP program. PSFTP and PSCP are text interface programs included with PuTTY. You can also use a graphical SFTP/SCP program like WinSCP. --Spoon! (talk) 05:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Transclusion

Is it possible to transclude an off-wiki site such as google? --William S. Saturn (talk) 04:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I do not know if it is supported in modern standards (e.g. XHTML and HTML5), but the IFRAME element might work. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 07:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Our help page - Help:Transclusion - explains how Wikipedia defines transclusion. Within this context, it is not possible to include off-site content (for a variety of policy reasons, not due to technical limitations). I believe you can set up your own MediaWiki server to allow wiki-formatted iframes, or something more complicated, to transclude across different sites. Nimur (talk) 15:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think it would be a help to transclude google above the editing space while editing an article. That is what I want to do. --William S. Saturn (talk) 01:17, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Then I think that wouldbe best in JavaScript. Thanks, gENIUS 101 22:27, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Crashing Computer

Ever since I moved my computer its been crashing intermittently when I used the internet. As far as I can tell its not from a virus because I've performed every virus scan imaginable several times (this problem has been around for a while; I just got used to it). I had to reset my computer by turning it off holding its power button. I was reading someone's question about hard-resetting their laptop and their problem was caused by an underpowered graphics card. I was wondering if my problem could be caused by an underpowered wireless card. It's some Belkin pre-N card connected to a Sony computer. I could provide the exact details if needed. The problem only happened when I moved my computer to a room with a really crappy wiring set-up. Also, I've opened my computer a few times to install a hard-drive from a crashed computer- could that have caused my problem? Thanks for any help -- 66.133.196.152 (talk) 04:48, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I'm going to say no to the wireless card idea. Those people were talking about a high-end graphics card for a desktop; the card was allegedly drawing a lot of power and the combined load drew more than the power supply could reliably provide. Wireless network cards draw a small amount of power by comparison. Tempshill (talk) 06:07, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's not likely to be the wireless card, though you can check by connecting to your router without going on the internet, and also by connecting to the internet without using wireless (network cables are cheap). Are you sure that you didn't loosen something when you opened your computer, then moved it? What web browser are you using? Does it crash using a different browser? Dbfirs 09:19, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I'll double check my computer. But its crashed using Firefox, IE, and Chrome. Also when something is using the internet (Starcraft Battle.net, using iTunes to download podcasts). If I loosened something what should I check? I can't imagine what the internet would be causing. --66.133.196.152 (talk) 01:50, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spam

I heard that simply by opening a spam email, you automatically send a message back to the spammers letting them know that this is a valid email address. Is this true or would you need to click on a link or similar to let them know you are an active account?Popcorn II (talk) 08:38, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It depends. As a general rule, opening a mail does not inform the sender that it has been opened. However, they might ask for a Read Receipt which would inform the sender, or if you are allowing your mail client to display HTML, they could put an image in the mail that comes from their server - your opening the mail would then request the image from the server and let them know you've opened it. To be safe, try never to open spam. If you can't do this, ensure your client does not send Read Receipts unless you authorise them. And don't display HTML if you can avoid it. --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Phil buried the lead. His reply should have been: Yes, it is often true, if, as Phil says, the spammer sends you an HTML e-mail that includes an image link to their server. That's why Microsoft Outlook 2007 and GMail default to not showing any images in e-mails you receive, until you tell the e-mail service (or program) to go ahead and display the pictures. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:30, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

PhotoSketch: real or hoax?

Can anyone tell if this is a real application/plug-in, or fake? Many tech blogs have fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, and it's a trending topic on Twitter, but I find no actual cases of people using it themselves, just the video. This site I linked to apparently has binaries, but I doubt it, because I can't download them or the user study. -- Zanimum (talk) 13:27, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The site seems to be swamped by heavy traffic. However, I wouldn't be surprised if it was real. (However, it's probably a lot more limited than you imagine.)

What I get from the second hand descriptions and a lot of guessing, is that it uses a massive collection of source images, and puts them together. The neat thing here is that it's guided by a sketch.

For vaguely similar work see Texture Synthesis by Non-parametric Sampling(1999) and Visio-lization: Generating Novel Facial Images(2009). Techniques like this can yield impressive results. APL (talk) 14:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, the reason I thought of that paper on Generating Novel Facial Images is because part of it is interactive. The researcher showed in his SIGGRAPH presentation that you could take a paint tool, draw on facial hair, or some glasses, and run it through the algorithm again and get the same face, but with glasses or facial hair. APL (talk) 14:24, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I'm going to say "Real". They appear on the list of research papers to be presented at SIGGRAPH Asia 2009. SIGGRAPH is a serious research conference on computer graphics and they won't allow a paper to be presented without review.

Unless some serious scientific fraud it being perpetrated (unlikely) I would say that this is completely legit.

I don't promise that it's as cool as you're imagining, though. APL (talk) 14:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I managed to grab the executable, but it'll be a project making this work. For one thing I can't seem to find OpenCV 1.1 libraries. For another, it looks like you need to set up your image databases manually. APL (talk) 15:00, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Darn, I was sort of hoping this all was fake. Thanks for the research and input, everyone! -- Zanimum (talk) 17:36, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

blue screen during installation of XP.

Resolved

Hi. I am trying to reinstall Xp on my computer, but it crashes at the time the installer starts windows. What could be wrong, and how can I fix it? Taemyr (talk) 14:45, 6 October 2009 (UTC) Additional information, the computer starts normally when I am not trying to do a full install. And the blue screen has been a problem from two install CD's. So presumably it's not the CD that is the problem. Taemyr (talk) 14:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In your case, I'll try to install Ubuntu instead. It is an amazing OS, it is for free, it is user-friendly. You can download it from: [1].--Quest09 (talk) 17:21, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That works, sort of. Ie. I have tried installing Ubuntu, and I can do so. However the computer is to be used to teach someone to use Windows, so as a solution it falls a bit short. :( Also, I still get the blue screen after ubuntu have been installed and I try to install XP. Taemyr (talk) 17:23, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It would be very helpful if you provided more details on the BSODS - are they the same when you tried 2 different CDs? What is the message? What version is your XP install CD? --17:56, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I am too tired. XP professional. The error message I get is ***STOP: 0x0000007B(0xF78D2524,0xC0000034,0x0,0x0). Which seems to mean that the necesarry driver for the hard disk. I don't have the make of the hard disk atm. this seems to indicate that I will need OEM drivers for the hard disk, and install those from floppy. unfortunately there is no floppy drive on the PC. Taemyr (talk) 18:29, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If your computer has a newer type of Hard Drive controller, such as SATA, Windows XP might not be able to install into it (I had a computer where this was the case, although it did not bluescreen. It just did not detect the drive). Usually, the drivers for these controllers can be loaded from a floppy disk during install. But since your computer does not have a floppy drive, you will have to insert them (Slipstream (computing)) into a custom Windows install disk and install from that. Programs such as Nlite that will help you slipstream the drivers. Here is one of many guides that will show you how to use nLite: [2]. You should verify that you actually have a SATA drive and controller and it is actually the problem before going through the procedure. Also, in the settings of some BIOS's, you can set the hard drive controller to operate in PATA or IDE mode. Windows XP should be able to recognize and install to a SATA drive appearing as a PATA drive. If it works, you will not have to go through the whole slipstreaming procedure. WikiY ^Talk 07:31, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thx. I was fearing having to mess about with the install disc. Modifiying the bios works though, as one of the pupils figured out. Seems the factory setting of this bios was to have the SATA drive emulate a RAID setup. Switching that to IDE took care of the problem. Taemyr (talk) 13:45, 7 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Flip flops

WHAT IS TOGGLING ACTION TAKES PLACE IN FLIP FLOP —Preceding unsigned comment added by Amol.sinare (talk • contribs) 17:16, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Are you referring to Flip-flop (electronics)? That article goes into a lot of detail. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:26, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

If someone has a problem and I recommend Ubuntu: is that trolling?

Moved to talk. -- Coneslayer (talk) 17:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Stripping HTML tags from a CSV File

Hi All,

I was wondering what would be the best way to go about this. Note though that some fields on the CSV include a crlf in the fields with HTML formatting (\r\n, found out when I opened in notepad++, just in case it matters) , plus the fields are enclosed in double quotes.

My machine is XP, though I do have an Ubuntu machine if necessary (I was thinking maybe a shell script would be sufficient).

Thanks in advance - PrinzPH (talk) 19:20, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion, the easiest way to remove HTML from any file of any kind is to use lynx. Just run "lynx --dump filename". It will dump the file with all tags removed. However, it does parse the HTML. So, if the tags denote a table or something similar, it will output in a table format. If you want to use sed, you can use "sed -n '/^$/!{s/<[^>]*>//g;p;}' filename". Are you saying that the crlf is inside the tags themselves? If so, sed, by default, will only parse a file line by line, not as one big blob of text. -- kainaw ™ 19:31, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the prompt reply. What I meant by the clrf is that the CSV was made using MS EXCEL, and the field containing the html-formatted text seems to have been written on an external application, then pasted into the cells. MS Excel can naturally read this CSV File correctly, however when I open it using say plain Notepad this is what I get (supposed to be one row)

field 1,"field 2, with comma","<table>
<tr>
<td>cell1</td><td>cell2</td>
</tr>
</table>",field4,field5

Hence the reason for my concern that other programs might not read it correctly. PrinzPH (talk) 19:49, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The sed example should handle that fine. The crlf is not inside the HTML tag. I'm positive that there is a port of sed for Windows so you can use it from the DOS prompt instead of Ubuntu. -- kainaw ™ 21:02, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Cygwin might be the easiest way to get sed. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 23:18, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]