Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 September 28

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September 28

Safari vs. Google Chrome

Is Apple's claim that Safari is the fastest web browser true? Is it faster than Google Chrome, which claims to be faster than Safari? Intelligentsium 00:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

On my system (Vista Home Premium), Chrome is by far faster than Safari. Having said that, K-Meleon is way faster than both of them. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 01:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The tests I've seen online put Safari and Chrome neck-and-neck. Of course, mileage will vary from system to system. On mine, Safari 4 is way, way slower at rendering than Safari 3, which is sad. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm under the impression that the most recent Google announcement about the speed of Chrome was mostly or entirely based on JavaScript performance rather than whole-browser benchmarks. Tempshill (talk) 03:16, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

There are very many variables. Yes, on my sole surviving Windows antique, K-meleon runs a lot faster than Safari (though the latter is burdened with a couple of plug-ins) and about as fast as an old version of Opera. -- Hoary (talk) 03:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

google rulez!

by: Mc.X.man

Window/ Dialog box cut off at right side and bottom

The windows/dialog boxes of some programs get cut off at their right sides and bottoms on my computer. The windows/dialog boxes (sorry, not sure which is the correct term here) are displayed relatively small. They don't allow scrolling (as if that were cut off as well) nor resizing. As a result, the program becomes impossible to use because I can't access some of the buttons, menus, etc.

Most recently, it happened when I installed HotRecorder (window/dialog box in the size of the typical small Windows boxes "Do you really want to... - Yes / Cancel"), but I had experienced it before with another program (probably some media player like QuickTime... the window/dialog box was larger, but other than that same story).

I'm using Dell's Windows XP version. I've tried different dpi settings, but at least with Hotrecorder there was no change.

Thanks so much for all recommendations!! --Thanks for answering (talk) 01:45, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Could you take a screenshot (hit the Print Screen button on your keyboard, then run the Paint program in the Start menu's "Accessories" folder, then Paste, then save) and upload it to Flickr for us to look at? It vaguely sounds like you have some sort of Theme installed that's operating badly. Tempshill (talk) 03:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Recording Yahoo Messenger Voice calls / conversations

Which program allows me to record a phone call via Yahoo Messenger (i.e. my voice and the other party's voice) for free and even if I call a landline? I wanted to try HotRecorder, but don't get it working so far (see post above). I haven't yet seen another free program, but I'm sure there must be one?! [BTW, I'd prefer mp3 or wav files... but I'll rather have any program... :o)] --Thanks for answering (talk) 01:50, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

YMMV but Audacity (software) could be just the thing for you. Kushal (talk) 09:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

There is any web search engine that let me search more than 32 words??

I was trying to search this: site:pandora.com "Features Of This" -"extensive vamping" -"minor key tonality" -"age influences" -"ambient soundscapes" -"instrumental arrangement" -"wet recording sound" -"major key tonality" -"repetitive melodic phrasing" -"unsyncopated ensemble rhythms" -"slow moving bass" -"mellow sounds" -"mild rhythmic syncopation" -"vocal-centric aesthetic" -"gravelly male vocalist" -"light synth fx" -"prominent use of synth" -"affected synths" on google, but google dont let me search more than 32 words.

There is any web search engine that let me seach more than 32 words???
PS: as you saw in the search, the web search engine needs to be able to have something like the -InsertWordHere syntax on google, something like the "insert word here" syntax on google, and the site:InsertWebSiteHere syntax.
PS: This search is not complete and i will add more words to the search when doing the search on the web search engine.

If no one comes along and answers your question you might consider just downloading all of the site you're interested in (see wget) and do the searching locally, where you could do whatever you want. --Sean 15:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Software for side notes

How can I write side notes on pdf docs and similar stuff. Of course, I could always tell people to go to page x and look at the end of third line of the second paragraph. But this is kind of clumsy, isn't it?--Quest09 (talk) 16:11, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Adobe Acrobat allows revision, review, and change tracking, but it is not free software. Nimur (talk) 17:07, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Word 2007 does, too, for its .doc and .docx files. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:09, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

... but you need to convert .pdf to .doc first. For some pdf files, the only way is to print, then scan with OCR. Dbfirs 20:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Preview for OS X allows limited annotation ability. See List of PDF software. Unfortunately we don't have one of those big "comparison" tables for PDF readers that specify which ones allow you to annotate. Unfortunately, the whole PDF reader field is one of fairly slim pickings, with the stuff you'd really like them to be able to do usually bundled in either for-pay suites (like Acrobat) or as a bunch of cryptic command-line programs. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

For windows PDF X-Change viewer has a very usable free version (I use it as my primary PDF viewer) which supports annotation.194.164.140.216 (talk) 12:49, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Turing test for virtual reality

Is it possible to make a picture so realistic that it will convince a human that it is real? For example, showing him a picture of a landscape and telling him it is a window.--Quest09 (talk) 16:15, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Sticking a picture or CGI image on the wall would never work, because we can tell the difference between photos (perfectly realistic images) and windows. To do this, a computer program would have to take account of exactly where a person was relative to the picture, and update the position, lighting etc. of the image, as well as activity so the picture doesn't appear static and so on. It would be extremely difficult, but it's possible, yeah. Give it a few (lots of) years, and who knows? Ale_Jrb^talk 16:19, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Perspective could be dynamically adjusted to account for the viewer's position - Head-related transfer function describes this for sound, and it has been experimented with for video. But - if you have a room with multiple people in it - a 2D display cannot correctly model the 3D perspective for each person (who has a different view angle and position). Nimur (talk) 17:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It's certainly possible to add head-tracking to a computer screen and make it "window-like" in the sense that if you move your head to one side you get a slightly different perception.

But it's not really possible to create one that would fool a person (With reasonable eyesight). The technology just isn't there and the difference would be obvious for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that he would probably be wearing some sort of headgear to create the needed stereo effect. 72.10.110.109 (talk) 18:44, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Moreover, when you move your eyeballs, you see from a slightly different angle; I expect that it would be significantly harder for the computer to adjust for eyeball movement than for head movement. Nyttend (talk) 19:22, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

(What does this have to do with a Turing test?) The biggest problem here is less the rendering of the scene (which could be done with enough hardware and good choices over what to render), but the fact that monitors aren't anything so powerful and detailed as a real simulation of reality would need. They just don't have the necessary density or brightness to really look like even indoor lighting (much less outdoor). I don't think it's just something you can "scale up" from existing technologies, either—putting a more powerful backlight would probably still not make things look realistic, and would potentially introduce new problems as well (e.g., you'd probably start to cut into how "dark" your darknesses could be). Monitors and screens just don't have anything like the color and brightness depths of reality; you would have to have pretty poor vision to be fooled easily.

That being said, with controlled conditions, you can make a pretty convincing illusion. I'm thinking of simulator rides. When I was a kid, I was totally blown away by the "Star Tours" ride at Disneyland, and was thoroughly convinced that somehow it was actually blasting around different environments. (Granted, I was a young kid, and wanted to believe. But you didn't discount either!) That was accomplished by playing a movie in an environment meant to make you feel it was a window; with the right coordination of movement and sound effects and things of that nature, it can be a compelling effect. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:06, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not a real Turing test, but it is analogous to a it. In a Turing test, the machine passes if the human is not able to tell the difference between artificial intelligence and natural intelligence. In my speculative version, the picture passes, if the human is not able to tell the difference between artificial pictures and natural pictures. 80.58.205.37 (talk) 14:56, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I have worked on laser-rendered graphics systems for flight simulation that had more resolution than the human eye - so much brightness that staring into the simulated sun hurt your eyes. For that system we projected the image onto the inside of a 30 foot 360 degree dome - which is far enough away that the usual problems of depth perception and field of view were a non-issue. However, our graphics weren't (then) good enough to have people confuse our images with reality for anything but the most simple scene (eg, we could paste a satellite photo onto the ground - a photo of real clouds onto the sky - and put the simulated viewpoint so high in the air in the virtual world that you couldn't see that things like buildings were not truly 3-dimensional). That's about as close to "real" as I've seen from a display system. For the actual graphics themselves, I think there are plenty of games out there that are hard to distinguish from reality in still images - many car racing and sport simulations have such constrained environments that the graphics system has plenty of horsepower to make it look real. Some of the publicity shots for the Crysis game engine showed side-by-side still images of scenes from a real pacific island and the one in the game - and in many cases, it would take a trained eye to pick the real from the simulated. The graphics in many movies are similarly impossible to distinguish from reality - but they can't produce their pictures in 'realtime'. Even the best 'real-time' graphics tend to give themselves away when things start moving. Every year we get closer though...I think that if someone wanted to pass a graphical 'Turing test' - it could be done. SteveBaker (talk) 03:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

No, it is not possible, but then again, some real visual fields of view don't seem real. You have to compare visual perception that contains all the cues of stark reality to anything created as mimicry of that to find the shortcomings of the imitation. Bus stop (talk) 04:01, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Search term request

I'm looking for search terms to help locate papers on a new topic that I want to learn more about. The best I can explain it is with a pathetic example. You run an online movie rental service. You have the basic "if you like A, you may like B, C, or D" based on actions of other users. You want to take it one step further. "After you watch A, you probably want to watch B, C, or D". The new version simply adds an ordering to it. That is my interest. I want to read about adding an ordering to the common "you may like" search heuristic. -- kainaw™ 17:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

This article may help as it seems to be about what you mean http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8268287.stm 89.242.159.115 (talk) 21:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

"Automated recommendation"? This phrase has taken off with startup companies and has been featured on StackOverflow and Wired Magazine. Nimur (talk) 22:37, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. I've been looking through a lot of papers on automated recommendation. I've found a few (very few) mentions of placing the recommendations in a sequential order. For example, if you select A, you may want B. However, if you select B, you may not want A. That is because the algorithm understands that B follows A, but A does not follow B. -- kainaw™ 00:33, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

History glitch in Internet Explorer 8?

More detail is here.[1] and [2]

In summary, I tried to go back, while on Wikipedia, and ended up where I had already been, again and again.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Here's another example: I saw some information about WGTM on a message board. I went to that station's article from a Help Desk archive page. I edited the article based just on what was already there, mainly adding links, and making inconsistent details consistent. I checked Hurricane Hazel to make sure that was the name of the article. When I went back to where I was, I went to WGTM first, then Hurricane Hazel, then the Help Desk archive page. That's backwards.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Purchasing an Ethernet cable

I live in an apartment, and I have my PC set up on a desk in my bedroom. There is no way to connect to the Internet in my bedroom, so I would like to purchase an Ethernet cable to connect the PC to the router. (No wireless capability, and not that interested in pursuing it.) Where is the best place to buy an Ethernet cable that would be between 25 feet and 50 feet long? I'm wary of electronics stores that may gouge me. I searched on Newegg, but I could not seem to find what I wanted there. Any suggestions? (I'm in the US.) 129.42.208.178 (talk) 18:59, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You could try Best buy.Accdude92 (talk) (sign) 19:03, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm surprised Newegg didn't have anything. I share your concerns of gouging (and Best Buy will certainly do that), but I figure that shipping will eat up most of the savings you'd have made online. My advice would be to check for an independent computer parts store in your area. My local place, for instance, charges $10-$15 for a 50-foot ethernet cable, as contrasted with $40 at Best Buy. — Lomn 19:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh, Newegg does have such cables. They're under "Networking" instead of "Computer hardware", which may be why you didn't spot them. 50 foot cables appear to be in the $7 to $10 range. Throw in $7 for shipping and the price is on par with my local place, except I don't have to wait three days on the local place. — Lomn 19:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Best Buy's components are all very overpriced in my experience. Use Newegg as a price guide and then call around to your local electronics stores. The first question they will ask is the length of cable, and the second question is: Cat5, Cat5e, or Cat6? (Cat6 is overdoing it for you.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:28, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I recommend Monoprice for all sorts of cables. Cat 5e cable will set you back $2.55 for 25 feet, or $4.33 for 50 feet, plus shipping. I just ordered a batch of assorted AV & network cables from them, and the build quality is uniformly good. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:08, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Making a video

I have some sets of 24-bit bitmaps that I wish to concatenate into a video. Some sets are 800x600 pixels, others are 770x700 pixels. The sets range in size from 500 bitmaps to 7500. The bitmaps are labeled "frame####.bmp", with #### being an integer ranging continuously from 0001 to the end of the set of bitmaps. These labels are in the order I wish to concatenate them (i.e., I want frame0001.bmp to come first, then frame0002.bmp, etc.) The output video should retain the 24-bit colorspace and be in the .mov, .qt, .wmv, .mpg, or .mpeg format. Considering that I run Windows XP, are there any freely-available programs I can use to do this? --Lucas Brown 42 19:14, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

FFMpeg can do this:

ffmpeg -f image2 -i frame%04d.bmp my-movie.mpg

--Sean 19:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Umm... Is it possible to download a binary file? I'm not that adept with this stuff yet. --72.197.202.36 (talk) 20:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Googling "ffmpeg binary" suggests this unofficial builds page. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:18, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Try here for some unofficial builds (binaries). But yeah, it's a pain you can't just download pre-compiled binaries a little easier! Most of the free-software types have a pretty limited view of who will use their software... even if you do know how to compile things from scratch, it's a terrible pain to get everything working right that way. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:17, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Haha, look at the diffs on our edits. Somehow, neither of us got an edit conflict. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:23, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It is not that the authors refuse to make binaries. They just don't have the need to do so. There are a lot of open source projects that have a lot of Linux users and very few Windows users. The Linux package managers handle the binaries, not the authors of the project. Since Windows is not package-based, there is no package manager to make binaries for it. That is why I've argued for many years that someone needs to make a Windows package system (like APT or YUM) for Windows users. Then, Windows users can open it, search for ffmpeg, locate the package, and click "install". When the package is updated, they get a systray notice and easily upgrade the binary. -- kainaw™ 03:23, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

You can also do this with the inbuilt Windows Movie Maker, albeit with restrictions about how long each image is displayed. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:41, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Studies of WP vandalism

I'm aware that studies have been done to check the percentage of articles that are in a vandalised state at any given period of time, the frequency of vandalism, etc. However, has anyone (whether Wikipedians or academics) tried to determine the longest that an article has remained in a vandalised state? I've just discovered that an article on my watchlist for two years was vandalised five years ago, and I only discovered it because someone else finally detected the vandalism today. Nyttend (talk) 19:20, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

The signpost did a feature on vandalism survival times, see Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2009-06-22/Vandalism —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avrillyria (talk • contribs) 12:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

My Yahoo email nightmare continues

Of course, no one has bothered to respond. They didn't respond quickly when it was an emergency, meaning a password problem.

For this, they are just showing they don't care and they'll be lucky if I ever decide to use the service again.

More about this is here.[3]

What just happened was that I went to Yahoo email while working on something else, then tried to go back to what I was doing--which I couldn't! When I tried I got a big yellow error message.

Then the folders disappeared.

The yellow triangle appeared in the lower left corner. Line 10, char. 17037.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:48, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I was finally successful in clicking on the "Error Code 21" message. Which normally disappears as whatever's on the screen is replaced by something that shouldn't be there. This gave me the screen for Error Codes 14 through 17, NOT 21. This is to be expected from people this incompetent.

I was successful also in getting back to the "beginning", thogh it skipped over what I've been working on all afternoon. More here. [4]Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 19:56, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Time to switch to GMail instead. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:10, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yep I'm sorry too, but I'm not sure there is much we can actually do when the program supplied is screwing up - from your previous problems I'd suggest trying Safari web broswer, and maybe getting your mail through windows live mail which seems fairly stable. Both are free. Sometimes a change is the best solution.83.100.251.196 (talk) 20:30, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm NOT changing browsers.

And I don't like certain things about Gmail either. I've had Windows Live Mail the longest and thanks to recent changes I try not to use it. Furthermore, the computer came with a Yahoo toolbar.

I have actually told the Yahoo people to read what is here.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Signing off Wikipedia until Wednesday. Internet Explorer and this computer seem to have done very well for me. When it works, Yahoo does pretty much everything I want except for the text being too narrow when I print or try to copy and paste. This wastes space on printouts and causes other problems. Other than that, I have been happy until recently.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:58, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I couldn't resist the temptation to come back when I didn't really have the time. Okay, one thing I forgot to mention yesterday. It's only the back button that's a problem now. I had no problems with composing an email that I started at 1:00 and sent to myself four hours later. The problem was going to Yahoo from another window and not being able to back out. Maybe Yahoo will respond to that issue.

Of all the services I've tried, only Fastmail seems close to perfect, but my storage has about filled up.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 22:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Update: I was told Java might be the problem. I installed the Java update that I've been nagged to install for at least a week. I am always reluctant to install anything since I've had to do system restore twice. I don't recall anything messing up the coimputer in a way that didn't require that.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm NOT changing browsers.' Why not? It's not as they cost anything. I have about five browsers on this one computer, a similarly wide set on others. -- Hoary (talk) 09:31, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't like the new and strange. I like the comfortable and familiar. For years that's what Yahoo was. Things seem to have improved and I can probably adapt to the rest, thought they really should fix the last problem.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 21:00, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

There's little that's strange about other browsers, and what little there is that is strange is usually the result of cosmetic options that can be turned off. -- Hoary (talk) 14:26, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

String as linked list in .NET

In the .NET Framework, what classes if any implement a text string as a linked list of characters? NeonMerlin[5] 20:40, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

I haven't worked with the .NET Framework much recently, but I don't think that such a class exists. If you need an efficient dynamically-expandable string, use a StringBuilder, which implements a string as an array list. If you just need a linked list of characters, use... a linked list of characters. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:03, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

You're describing a kind of trie, which is pretty esoteric and unlikely to be built in. Googling for "c# trie" gives some implementations. --Sean 01:14, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

It depends how exactly you mean "a linked list of characters". If you just mean a set of characters, one after the other, then this accurately describes a string, from the System.String class. If you really mean a linked list, then the most recent version of .Net includes a generic collection called LinkedList<T> which you could instantiate with chars. It wouldn't really be worth doing, but it would be possible. --Phil Holmes (talk) 08:32, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

A good web-application builder?

Can anyone recommend a good online app-builder for a beginner-to-moderately-experienced developer?

I have been looking for an application for some time that combines some of the features of a task manager, a time-tracker, and a motivator. I can see in my mind exactly what I want this site to look like, but none of the applications I've seen online fit the bill. So I figured I'd write my own. However, my knowledge of data-base-backed web programming with nice UI is limited (I know some php, some ruby, less rails), and I'm looking for a good product that can use to get some demo-ware out quickly. I heard that Coghead was a good app-building application, but it's dead now.

Any thoughts? Thanks! — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:51, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

computer -- suggestion

It would be useful to have somewhere (if it is, sorry that I didn't find it) a TABLE. Link to which I come when I look i.e. for Megabytes / gigabytes. I.e. to find out 4.38GB CD is space for how many and how long songs ? [As a USEFUL tool for the people who are still not so squilled about making the operations themselves :-) ]. thank you very much. jsyh

This is difficult. Not only are songs of different lengths, but there are different encodings. You could have a dozen different two minutes mp3s and each of them could have a different file-size.

Furthermore, not all songs are stored in MP3s. You might have them in OGG or FLAC format, or some proprietary Microsoft or Apple format.

All that said, If you count on 16hours per GB, you're probably safe, and will probably have space left over. APL (talk) 21:52, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes for numbers - mp3 songs vary from 64kbps to 320kbps a difference of 5 times.83.100.251.196 (talk) 22:13, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Look for a FIRST-GLANCE CLEAR SET bytes CONVERTING TABLE KB-MB-GB-TB [computer -- suggestion]

Multiple-byte units
Decimal Value Metric 1000 kB kilobyte 10002 MB megabyte 10003 GB gigabyte 10004 TB terabyte 10005 PB petabyte 10006 EB exabyte 10007 ZB zettabyte 10008 YB yottabyte 10009 RB ronnabyte 100010 QB quettabyte	Binary Value IEC Memory 1024 KiB kibibyte KB kilobyte 10242 MiB mebibyte MB megabyte 10243 GiB gibibyte GB gigabyte 10244 TiB tebibyte TB terabyte 10245 PiB pebibyte — 10246 EiB exbibyte — 10247 ZiB zebibyte — 10248 YiB yobibyte — — —
Orders of magnitude of data

It would be useful to have somewhere (if it is, sorry that I didn't find it) >> a TABLE as a USEFUL tool  :-) -- Even to which one is led by any Link from Google-search: "Megabytes", or so typed, leading to that Table which is built/looks like "a chess-board" where one can find all necessary information/conversions even though he has not the technical and mathematical know-how --> for Megabytes / Gigabytes/&co. I.e. to find out 4.38GB CD is space for how many and how long songs ? Thank you very much. jsyh

The problem you will run into is that a song is not a measurement of disk space. The length of a song (in minutes) is not a measurement of disk space. So, you cannot convert disk space to time. You cannot convert disk space to number of songs. This is similar to me asking you to tell me how many boxes I can put in my car. All you can do is make a guess at the average size of a box to try and make a guess at the answer. Then, since your answer won't be exact, I'll complain. If I were to make a guess at how much disk space each and every one of your songs requires, and then guess at which ones you want to put on a disk, and then guess at how many will fit, I will end up with nothing more than a wild guess. It won't be accurate. You will complain. -- kainaw™ 03:16, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Kainaw. My MP3 music files vary from just over 1MB to nearly 9MB. MP3 is compressed data, and you can choose your compression (sacrificing quality). Normal HiFi CD format takes up much more space (perhaps 40 or 50MB per 3-minute track, but it varies). As an average for MP3 files, you could reckon on 1MB per minute (compared with 10MB per minute for full CD quality), but it varies. By the way, my CDs are only 700MB. Perhaps you meant DVD? (4380MB) Dbfirs 03:35, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

The OP just wants to convert between bytes and megabytes, they might find this table useful. Nimur (talk) 13:17, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

share of CMOS in computer booting119.152.28.135 (talk) 22:46, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

what kind of information a CMOS(used in computers)stores? forexample there is port for keyboard,and there is a keyboard atatched already to it.now i reboot my pc,as pc wakes up ,does this cmos will have information about new pc keyboard,its model ,(posibly)its driver,OR it simply will have just a mere info that "there is port for keyboard at this location go and detect it"?

In theory it could, but in most operating systems, information on drivers to be loaded is stored in initialisation files (the registry in windows) stored on the bootable hard drive. The CMOS often contains information on which drive to go to for boot files. See our article on Bootstrap loader. Systems with fixed keyboards can store the driver in ROM. (My knowledge of operating systems is out of date, so perhaps an expert can tell us if some modern sytems store keyboard information in CMOS? ) Dbfirs 02:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Most modern BIOSes have support for USB HID devices - meaning mouses and keyboards. In theory, they can query the manufacturer's ID and model numbers with this protocol; but the USB HID standard provides a standard, reduced set of features that is independent of any manufacturer's specific implementation - so it should never be necessary. For mouse or keyboard connected over PS/2 port, it is fairly unlikely that there is any metadata about the keyboard model provided to either CMOS or even the full-blown operating-system driver. A proprietary driver might be able to override this limitation. Nimur (talk) 11:57, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Can Python do database things easily?

I'm considering learning a free clone of Clipper (programming language). But a Python tutorial I looked at suggests that Python is easier to learn than I thought. Would Python be able to do database things easily? Can it do old fashioned database things like searching or sorting records? 89.242.159.115 (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, and it can do string-processing very well, which is worth a lot in data processing applications. Here's a nice reference on Writing MySQL Scripts with Python. In some incarnations, the database access is nothing but a wrapper for SQL statements; but there are other features as well. Nimur (talk) 23:33, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Which mainstream languages are the most compact?

Looking at this comparison of computer languages, http://www.99-bottles-of-beer.net/abc.html it seems that BASIC is much more compact (ie requires the least amount of code) than the other languages I looked at. I like compact languages. Which mainstream computer languages are the most compact? 89.242.159.115 (talk) 22:53, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Depends on the application. I'm a fan of Python (programming language) myself but if you did lots of matrix work you might like APL (programming language) and you might like something completely different for analyzing natural language or for producing diagrams or interrogating a database. Dmcq (talk) 23:05, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

It depends highly on your application. For example, MATLAB can very succinctly represent a matrix inverse calculation; but it is very verbose at string concatenation, compared to, say, php. Nimur (talk) 23:36, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Twenty-five years ago I used a sophisticated timetabling programme written in abbreviated BBC Basic (mixed with machine code) and it all fitted into 32KB of memory (Yes, I do mean 32 x 1024 bytes). It was the most condensed coding I have ever seen, fitting many commands into each line. (called "T-squared" if anyone recalls it) Is Cobol at the other extreme? Dbfirs 01:58, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

For languages that actually use words rather than just symbols (sorry, APL fans), I'd suggest that the stack-based or concatenative languages, such as Forth and Factor, are some of the most concise. This is because they strongly encourage turning any repeated code into its own function. Stack-based languages aren't so widely used for applications programming, but your office printer probably uses one (PostScript), as do Sun SPARC, Mac PowerPC, and OLPC XO-1 computers in their boot firmware (Open Firmware). --FOo (talk) 09:07, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

I think there is some confusion in the definition of "compactness" that respondants are assuming here. Compactness of source code - and compactness of run-time representation are not the same thing at all. BASIC can be a very compact run-time language because it's interpreted and most implementations 'tokenize' the input stream to get rid of spaces and to squish reserved words down to a single byte. I suspect that Forth (programming language) could come close.

But the source code of BASIC is only small for the crudest of applications - it's a very crude/simple language with very little 'power'. Almost any C-like language will annihilate BASIC in a contest of source-code size (before anyone thinks to object to that statement - I recommend they look at the IOCCC entries (The rules require programs to have at most 2048 characters of source code in the C language. In the 2007 contest, one of the winners was a chess playing program! You couldn't come close to programming Chess in 2k characters in BASIC!!).

I agree that APL (which is indistinguishable from transmission-line noise to most people) is amazingly compact - you can say a lot with a very small number of source code characters - but the trouble with APL is that it's rather specialised for mathematical operations. For 'general-purpose' languages - I'd probably guess Python or maybe Perl would win the competition.

However, any experienced programmer worth a damn in the business will tell you that source-code compactness is quite utterly irrelevent - the more compact it is - the more incomprehensible it'll be when you come back to it months or years later. APL has been justifiably described as a "Write-only language"...Perl has been accused of the same thing. I've been a programmer for close to 40 years now - I earn a small fortune doing it (I'm a game programmer) - and I like my programs to be verbose and clear...CRYSTAL clear. Clarity and legibility are by far the most important thing if you want code that actually works - and stays working.

Compact source code only ever mattered for those few years when teeny-tiny microcomputers had less than 4k bytes of memory - that was the last time when BASIC was a good choice for ANYTHING! So - forget BASIC - pick a language with the power to do what you need - and, if possible, pick one with lots of runtime efficiency.

SteveBaker (talk) 03:04, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree in principle with everything - especially the parts about verbose and clear code. I deal with a lot of "numerical kernel" code - written by physicists and applied-math types - and they love single-letter variables, function-pointers, and GOTOs - things that should have died two generations ago. It's impossible to read - regardless of how compact it is. I believe it stems from a misconception that long variable-names somehow generate less-efficient compiled code. This is categorically not true. Variable name lengths (and in many cases, compactness of source-code) are not related to efficiency of code in either the size of the binary or the execution time. In fact, more verbose code styles can often be optimized by intelligent compilers better than hand-tweaked stuff (depending on a lot of confounding factors). Finally, I would just note that (although I am not a VB programmer), Visual Basic is a very modernized version of BASIC; and it is used by a huge number of applications-programmers. I don't think it's any less efficient than, say, Visual C++ or Visual C#; (nowadays they all use the same back-end compiler and runtime environment). Personally, I espouse Java for as much as possible; and pure C whenever real speed or hardware access is needed; but these are more for reasons of readability, maintainability, simplicity, and portability. Code compactness (either measured by source-code size or binary size) is about as low on my list of priorities as you can get when choosing a project implementation language. Nimur (talk) 04:28, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

You're incorrect about variable name lengths not affecting binary sizes, at least with all the ABIs I've ever worked with. External variables have their names stored in the binary (as-is for C, mangled for C++ and others). I do agree that variable name length has no meaningful effect on efficiency, but it's not zero. --Sean 14:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Er, unless you strip them. --Sean 21:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of people's opinions of whether they like compactness or not, the OP said he likes it, and some of the reasons for writing compact code are steeped in pride and pleasure. Many moons ago I created a .COM program in DOS (ah the good old days when dot-coms meant something else) to generate prime numbers - and the entire program fitted into 38 bytes, something which I was proud of at the time. Then I fiddled around with writing efficient sprite handlers in assembly and found that there was an entire community that thought in the same way - the cult-like demo community that has its roots in the good old days of the home computer back in the early eighties. Demo writing is still strong and people pride themselves in writing compact code to do as much as possible, and they come together at parties to showcase their talents and hard work. The OP can check some of these efforts at pouet.net. Look at some of the 1K entries; lots of them have code included. You won't find BASIC here though; it will be mainly assembly and some C code. It's pretty amazing what can be done in 1K or 4K; there are even some brilliant demos that fit into 64 bytes! Sandman30s (talk) 11:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I have no time for "demo" writers. They are generally hopeless practical programmers and produce nothing of any real value. It's an exercise in egotism that doesn't impress "real" programmers in the slightest. Sure, you can build some horrible piece of code that does something fancy - but what they produce is completely and utterly useless. It can't even generally be re-used for something important. The big difference with producing a "demo" and writing real code is that you are under no constraints in writing your demo. If something is too difficult - you don't have to do it. When writing real code - if some particular effect has to be produced - you have to find a way to do it - period. With demo writing, you can change what you produce to fit your ability to do it - that removes all of the sources of difficulty - and actually eliminates the real challenge. Demo's - however superficially clever - are deeply unimpressive to most professional programmers. Produce (for example) a playable game - that's fun, bug-free, looks good and runs fast with clear, readable code - and THEN you've actually achieved something. Produce that same thing with code that can be re-used to produce your next game - or handed off to someone else to maintain and expand upon - and you can consider yourself to have done a good job. I can't count the number of people who send these silly "demo" programs in with their resume's when applying for programming jobs in the games industry...we don't run them - we don't even look at them - they tell us nothing about how good a practical programmer this person is. It's about as relevant as whether they are good at doing crosswords. Being a habitual "demo" programmer is a negative when seeking a paying job because it implies that kind of hackish mentality that makes the person produce really crap code that nobody else can work with - and the last thing you want when you're down to the wire, finding the last bugs as shipping deadlines loom - is to discover that someone wrote something in the "demo" style - and it's quicker to toss it out and rewrite it clearly than it is to fix it. That's not to say that you shouldn't try to write compact code - but compact-when-compiled, not compact in terms of source code size.

The game I'm working on right now contains a little over a million lines of code. There are about a dozen programmers working on it - so we each have to work with a good 100,000 lines of code. If it's not clearly written, that's a nightmare.

SteveBaker (talk) 12:59, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

There's a huge community of demo writers who would take offense at this. You make it seem that writing a game is about the only 'professional' thing that can be done; a case of blowing your own trumpet it seems. Lots of demo writers are students who do this in their spare time while studying to do the more commercial stuff like write commercial games and applications and any number of more 'useful' things. That doesn't mean to say that demo writing is not useful; 3dmark is a commercial demo that comes to mind. They've worked in collaboration with demo writers to create efficient code in awesome demos over the years. These demos are used in shop windows for example to showcase the power of that spanking new graphics card, or used to benchmark and compare PC's around the world, with graphics companies buying advertising space in the setup screens. Remember also that it takes a talented team to make a really great demo, such as the unreal series. Some of the musicians have gone on to successful music careers just by advertising their talents in widely spread demos. Some demo groups have been supported by graphics and sound card companies over the years, and even attend the bigger parties held by them. These companies have even sponsored equipment at parties and as such created successful relationships with the most talented individuals, some of them going on to work for these companies. Now you call them 'hackish' - it's a bit unfair for someone with 40 years experience to compare against people who are inexperienced but in some cases hugely talented and have no other way to express themselves to people like you who don't believe in them. Sandman30s (talk) 13:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Don't know if you're still paying attention to this thread, but those 99 Bottles examples are all sorts of apples and oranges. For instance, the BASIC example just prints out the words. In the Java example, however, someone went to town with creating classes for walls and bottles and methods for actually drinking beer at a certain speed and stuff. I think the Java example is someone having a laugh, actually. As for the C++ example, the person seems to have deliberately found the longest way to get the desired effect. Looking at the comments, it seems to me like everyone's in on the joke. Don't use this site as an example of actual length of code of a sample program. — Sam 63.138.152.155 (talk) 20:28, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

To echo what Steve said above, take a look at the Perl example from the same site. It is all very clever and the author is complimented on his cleverness by no end of people. But can you imagine being given this code and told to change the word "Beer" to "Coke" wherever it appears in the song. Suddenly, the code is not clever at all but a bloody nightmare you have to fix before you get to go home for the evening. Clear, easily understandable code wins every time. Astronaut (talk) 00:34, 2 October 2009 (UTC)