Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 September 26

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September 26

Strange things happening to Windows XP clock.

For the last few days, maybe a week, strange things started to happen to the clock of my Windows XP. Sometimes it jumps forward or backward one hour, and sometimes it even jumps back and forth one full day. As I observed, I think it happens mostly when waking up from standby mode. Has anyone an idea what can cause this? I have firawall and antivirus, and just in case they let soemthing through, I googled a lot for malware which behaves like this, without any success. I use this system since around a year ago, and these strange things started happening only recently. --217.91.40.206 (talk) 10:44, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Time and date weirdness can be a result of the CMOS battery going dead, but that shouldn't happen on a year-old system... Xenon54 / talk / 13:39, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems too organized for that. It's not resetting to 00:00, it changes from AM to PM, increases or decreases the day or the hour by one, but the month, year, and minutes are still correct. That's why I'm still suspecting some funny malware, a bug, or other software-related issue. However, I couldn't find anyone with similar symptoms by googling. --217.91.40.206 (talk) 15:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Could be changing to different time zones if the minutes and seconds stay the same. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:10, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with h2g2bob, it sounds (to me at least) as if it is switching the time zone. Try checking the time zone next time it happens. Thanks, gENIUS101 20:03, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Two fold laptop question - struggling m9750 Alienware laptop

Hello all. My long suffering Alienware m9750 laptop ius on the fritz again. When turned on, it begins to boot up for perhaps 1.5-2.5 seconds, and the fans give a hint of whirring, and then it turns off. Long term problem that sounds most like the fans failing to initialise but, it has happened before and when I left the laptop for a couple of days then came back to it, it switched on fine. The last time it did this, I left if for about a month in my laptop case while shopping for a new one - and I randomly returned to it one day and it worked perfectly. That was July 9th, and it has worked flawlessly until the other day. I'm not sure if a fan failure can manifest like that. I have a laptop cooling pad also which produces nice cooling air for it. Blasted thing, any thoughts?

Second thought. Failure of the Power-on self-test? I don't know what system it may use to understand what error code it may be reporting to me. SGGH ^ping! 14:11, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Secondly, in the opinions of the informed users here, what are some good, reputable laptop producing companies that still contruct their laptops from components they manufacture themselves, rather than 3rd party imports like Alienware does? Preferably good to high-end performance laptops of the visual kind. If I need to replace el Alienwareo, I am hoping to get something whrre third party component conflict and shoddy construction principles in the mould of the new Dell-Alienware merge aren't going to crop up (also want to get away from their dodgy customer services!). Thanks guys, SGGH ^ping! 13:21, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You have a more serious problem than the fans. If a fan fails, the most that will usually happen, with a fairly recent system, is that the BIOS screen will pause at bootup and tell you there was a fan error. As with the post from yesterday about a failing laptop, your first priority is to back up all the data when you do get a good boot and a stable system. Then it's probably time for a new laptop, unfortunately. As for components, no laptop manufacturer manufactures their own components. Tempshill (talk) 16:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It's already all backed up - as it worked yesterday morning for a while. It is also backed up, as this is a common occurence. What are some reliable laptop makes? 90.206.202.29 (talk) 20:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Sorry that was me above. New development: While it was going through its 2-second boot-and-fail-malarky, I managed to pop the CD drive open and took out a CD that was left in there... and it carried on booting happily and is now working... is a CD being trapped in the drive giving it too much to do on boot up? SGGH ^ping! 21:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends how it's set up. Very often a computer is set up to boot from a CD and if no bootable CD is present then to boot from the hard drive. (This presents an obvious security risk if your computer is physically accessible to others.) If a CD is present and looks bootable but has a half-baked (and in practice unbootable) OS on it, then I'd expect just what you described above. With most computers you can alter the booting sequence, etc., via a submenu of the BIOS. (If the computer is where others can play with it, you may wish to restrict the options and password-protect the BIOS. But don't then do what I once did: forget the password.) -- Hoary (talk) 10:34, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Glad it's backed up. The usual suspects are Dell and Hewlett-Packard; I like the latter, and a friend of mine likes the former. Pick something with a long warranty, and double the warranty by purchasing with a credit card that doubles warranties (i.e. most of them). For what it's worth, there was a Wall Street Journal article yesterday or the day before in which it was claimed that HP is at war with other laptop manufacturers by lowering their prices; their profit margins are supposedly around 4% to 5% currently. Tempshill (talk) 04:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The Dell I am using right now is definitely not made by Dell, and it is flaky -- though its spontaneous reboots occur only (ha ha) once a day or so. My other Dell never acts up (though Gnash running on it does). My nine-year-old Toshiba laptop remains utterly reliable, but Toshiba's new products look glossy and nasty (though for all I know they're fine underneath). My office-issue Fujitsu laptop is a dog, but a friend's very different Fujitsu is fine. My Apple laptop has appalling design faults, but other models seem good (if overpriced). Perhaps the brand means very little. -- Hoary (talk) 23:24, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

How to stop OpenOffice writer from splitting words at the ends of lines?

I have OpenOffice 3.1.0 and WinXP. I've copied some text that I typed into a Notepad file and pasted it into an existing document. OpenOffice for some unknown reason is often splitting words into two with a hyphen at the ends of lines. The words are ordinary short words. How can I stop it doing this? I want justified text with whole words only. I've tried chaging the font size - does not make any difference. Thanks 89.242.92.200 (talk) 13:36, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It is doing it I suspect because the text is running outside the print margins on the sides of the page, and when your resize the text it is retaining the hyphens because by then they were already there. Perhaps expand your print margins before typing the sentence, rather than after? SGGH ^ping! 14:07, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I cannot imagine that altering the margins would make any difference. It is supposed to be able to justify the text within the margins. It has done on all previous occasions. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 14:19, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

In that case you have auto-hyphenation switched on. Hitting F11 should open your Stylesd and Formatting box. Right click on default and select modify, then click on the text flow tab. Then deselect automatically from the top and save the new preferences. That should stop it? SGGH ^ping! 14:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help. Before reading your second responce, I copied the text from the open office document into Notepad, un-wordwrapped it (no hyphens found) then opened another OO document and copied the un-wrapped text into it. This time there has been no hyphening. I deleted the previous document and emptied the recycle bin, so sorry I do not know if what you suggested would work. Seems to have been a problem with the formatting of the original document. Thanks. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 15:57, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Best way to create small simple single-user no-frills database by non-programmer?

Long long ago when I used CP/M, it was easy to find database software that would allow you to design a simple on-screen form and create a simple database. But now there seems to be nothing available that can do this - at least no free software. (Some former freeware that could do this is no longer freeware). The database I have in mind involves entering information onto an on-screen form, and then choosing the form(s) to display based on searches on the various fields on the forms.

What would be the easiest no-pay way to create a database like this please?

Side-question - I can understand the simpler commands of SQL easily enough. But I understand that SQL is normally accessed through some other language. Are there any available front ends or "GUI"s that can make use of SQL without requiring that you learn another language as well? 89.242.92.200 (talk) 13:55, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

You might try OpenOffice.org Base. I have found it a bit too slow and clunky for personal use (and I already have and know Access so there's no real motivation to learn it), but its goal is to be something like Microsoft Access or FileMaker Pro, which are the pay versions of what you are looking for. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:04, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Is there any such thing as a self-contained database language now, as there used to be in the good old days? One that does not require you to learn another language as well, and that is not part of some huge multi-purpose package either? Edit: The xBase article lists two or three free database languages at the end. I'd be interested to hear of any SQL-like languages that are self-contained and can be used without another language. 89.242.92.200 (talk) 16:00, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Answer to side-question: There should be plenty of sql guis out there, eg pgadmin. --91.145.72.227 (talk) 18:45, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Are there any simpler ones please - PgAdmin looks fiendishly complicated. 78.151.116.146 (talk) 19:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It isn't that complicated, but I admit it is not exactly zero-setup as you must install postgresql first. Perhaps sqliteman which uses sqlite, so you only need to press ctrl-n to get going. Btw I'm no expert, I'm just copy-pasting debian repository contents here. --91.145.72.227 (talk) 19:28, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It looks pretty complicated, compared to what the OP wants. Frankly, I think what the OP really could use is FileMaker—sounds about the level of complexity. Unfortunately, it's not cheap ($300). The more lightweight Bento might actually be a good compromise if the OP has a Mac—not as feature-rich, but if it's just for a personal database, it might be worth the $50. Unfortunately all of the free programs are generally made for DB people, not general computer users. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

What I want seems to be covered by no-pay clones of the Clipper (programming language). These are listed at the end of the xBase article, and include Harbour and xHarbour. They look as if they are BASIC-like with database capabilities thrown in, which suits me. Thanks. 89.241.43.172 (talk) 11:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Looking for imageSorter2004V1.3.zip

I'm looking for a copy of this freeware program http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Others/Image-Sorter-2004.shtml Unfortunately every download link I can find simply redirects to the programmer's home page, which no longer exists. Does anyone know where I could find a copy of this file on the internet, not just a dead link please? Unfortunately Google does not allow (AFAIK) you to search for a file rather than just a link - perhaps there is some way of searching for files only? Thanks 89.242.92.200 (talk) 15:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)