Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 August 2

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August 2

Hyper-V Eight-Socket (64-Core) 1TB RAM Server for hosting Ubuntu Linux Virtual Machines

Hi.

File:Http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/57/Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.png

Logo of Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2

   I am now seeking a server which meets all of the following criterion. The server is to be run on Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2, and contain multiple virtual machines running on Ubuntu Linux.

1. Accomodates eight Intel Xeon Eight-Core processors.
2. Supports one terabyte of RAM.
3. Has redundant, hot-swappable Power Supply Units.
4. Has atleast five x8 PCIe 2.0 and three x4 PCIe 2.0 slots.
5. Is rackmountable; amount of rackspace consumed is not a concern.
6. Preferably consumes no more than 3,000 watts.

   Thank you to everyone in advance.

If you want a terabyte of RAM, you will have to wait a few design-cycles, or use a multi-node virtualization technology like Altix. I don't think the SGI machines will run Windows (not even Hypervisor). Unless you have a lot of money and a special development / R&D contract with a hardware vendor, there is no way you can buy a single system with one terabyte of RAM in 2010 (or probably even in 2013). Are you working at a government lab, by any chance? Or perhaps you have mis-interpreted your spec, and actually need an entire rack of servers (not a single unit). Also note that your image did not work, (you used Wiki Syntax, when you probably meant to use a hyperlink); but even if we fix that, your link can not work, because you have neither uploaded the actual file nor placed it on a publicly accessible network address. (172.x.x.x is a private IP). Do you need assistance uploading files? Nimur (talk) 15:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Useful article: Distributed shared memory. Clearly, if you are virtualizing your terabyte of RAM to run separate virtual Ubuntu servers, you don't need shared memory anyway, so you don't need a terabyte in one box. If I understand your actual parameters, what you really need is eight Ubuntu servers with 128 GB of ram each (still on the extraordinary end of the spectrum); and you also want a software management tool (Hypervisor) that can configure, manage, and/or provision all of them. Some marketing-ese brochures will call this setup "one server" or "one system" - this is just a matter of nomenclature. Nimur (talk) 18:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the OP intended to upload anything. I believe they were simply trying to hotlink to [1] although it's not a particularly useful image. The private IP is I guess just some sort of non transparent proxy set up where you access other websites thorough a webserver gateway. A quick search shows plenty of other people having done similar things, I guess there's some sort of software that does this Nil Einne (talk) 09:50, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Believe or not Nimur, Dell and HP will both sell a single system with 1 TB RAM. The Dell PowerEdge R910 is configurable up to four 8-core Xeon processors and 1 TB RAM for a measly $100,000. The HP DL580 G7 will also go to four 8-core Xeons and a 1 TB RAM though they want $120,000 for it. As far as I can tell neither vendor supports a system with more than 4 of the 8-core processors. Dragons flight (talk) 10:31, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Those are multi-mainboard systems; more than one server in one chassis. Still, good find, Dragons Flight. Nimur (talk) 21:03, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

It doesn't seem that this question is going to be that many more responses so perhaps I can ask, am I the only one who is surprised by these sort of questions (I'm not complaining about them)? It always seems to me when we get these sort of questions that if you're planning to buy a $100k+ system you just have to call a bunch of vendors and they'll be more then happy to call, e-mail or visit you personally to try and work out something that fulfills your needs and any person in charge of such a purchase decision would likely know that and definitely won't need to rely on volunteers on a reference desk to help you find such systems. If the question is just for personal interest (do such systems exist and how much do they cost) I would understand but of the ones I seen they seem to suggest the person asking is really planning to buy such a system. Nil Einne (talk) 13:53, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

There's atleast one server in the world that supports eight processors and a terabyte of memory; the Fujitsu Primergy RX900 S1. Though seeing as it takes up eight units of rackspace, I don't know why anyone would want this machine instead of four 1U servers with two processors and 128GB of memory each. Those are a lot more common. Oh, and I removed your hotlnk (because it doesn't lead anywhere) and changed the section title from Eight-Socket (64-Core) 1TB RAM Server to Hyper-V Eight-Socket (64-Core) 1TB RAM Server for hosting Ubuntu Linux Virtual Machines, so it's a lot more descriptive now. Elspetheastman (talk) 12:33, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Dosbox

Ctrl-F12 speeds things up. How do I add this to config.sys so I don't have to keep pressing this a few dozen times each time I launch dosbox? Clarityfiend (talk) 03:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The config file it goes in is dosbox.conf, which usually lives in the same directory the dosbox executable does; the parameter to change is "cycles". —Korath (Talk) 04:25, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally if you are running different games and you keep needing to adjust settings for each one, I'd recommend getting one of the graphical front-ends such as D-Fend Reloaded. They allow you to create profiles for each game with its own configuration saved separately, such that you never need to touch actual DOSBox at all. Think of it as something like MAME but for old DOS games and you get the idea. Zunaid 13:32, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Wireless All-in-One devices... but wireless fax?

I'm looking at several attractive wireless all-in-one printer/scanner/copier/fax machines. One thing I can't get over is that the fax part of the machines require an old wired telephone line (which seems to defeat the purpose of wireless printing and scanning). Are there any AIO devices that exist that can wirelessly fax over the internet? --68.102.163.104 (talk) 03:48, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Most fax machines are connected to a phone line and receive their input by this method. An image sent over the internet would normally be printed from a computer on a normal printer to preserve best quality. Normally, people send PDF or similar format pages over the internet, but yes, it is possible to send in fax format. Having a fax not connected to a phone line seems to defeat the purpose of a fax machine. Why not just use the scanner and your computer in wireless mode to send your image (as a scan, PDF or fax). Someone else will explain how to send a fax from your computer to a fax machine because I don't know anyone else who has a fax machine but no computer, so I never send this way. Dbfirs 08:01, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Good point. I guess my concern is that a fax machine is very easy to operate even if you don't know anything about computers. Stick in a piece of paper, dial a phone number, and press start. Scanning a doc into a PDF then emailing it or using Fax software requires a number of steps involving a scanner, computer, mouse, file hierarchy, multiple software apps, and OS. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I guess that the designers of your "all-in-one" wireless device assume that anyone wanting to use the fax facility will have a phone line and will know how to plug the device into this. In theory, if they knew what software you had on your computer to send faxes, they could integrate the fax output with this and automate the process. When all telephone calls are integrated into the internet (will this ever happen?) then they might consider this. At present, most telephone and fax calls are separated from internet traffic at each end. The data might well travel along the same routes in between, though mine doesn't. Dbfirs 17:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I have VOIP at home, so running a hard phone line from the fax machine to a splitter on the VOIP module at the other side of my house isn't really possible. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:31, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The article Internet fax outlines some options, but doesn't give details. I'm sure it should be possible to connect your computer to your VOIP splitter so that you can send faxes to people who have no computer or e-mail address, but such people are becoming rare, so is it worth the effort and possible cost? Dbfirs 07:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You could get a wireless Analog telephone adapter that supports T.38 (something like [2] but wirelss) and connect that to your MFP although that would still require an extra box. Alternatively MFP that supports T.38 do exist both according to our article on MFPs and [3] although that isn't wireless. You could also use some server, if you have one, to run a T.38 server and then just print with the MFP, you could probably integrate with the MFP somehow to send faxes too but I'm not sure how easy it would be.

There are probably several reasons T.38 or other FoIP support is rare. For starters it seems many VoIP providers don't apparently support T.38. And for business they may prefer to have a server manage that sort of thing for a variety of reasons like record keeping, easier and greater control etc. I also suspect many people particularly those home or SOHO users most likely to have VoIP setups aren't that interested in fax anyway. Some may find subscribing to some sort of fax service easier for those odd faxes they receive and the odd occasions when they send faxes.

Note there exist (expensive) MFPs [4] [5] that can scan to e-mail I presume these just need to be set up with the SMTP server and then the sender needs no further apps. The receiver would need something to open the file, but realisticly few people can't open PDFs or TIFs, the only risk may be some smart phones. (I don't think the e-mail client counts since anyone with an e-mail address must have some way of checking their e-mail). More importantly perhaps many receivers would probably find receiving an e-mailed attachment more convienent then a fax anyway and particularly in the developed world there is probably an increasing number of business (let alone ordinary people) who can receive e-mails but not faxes and decreasing number who can receive faxes but not emails. E-mail also enables colour which is still rare in faxes AFAIK.

In fact even most of the cheaper MFPs seem to have some sort of pseudo scan to e-mail thing where they use software on the PC to attach the file so you go back to your PC, type in the address and perhaps a subject and send. E.g. I think this [6] does that. Some may even have the ability to input the address on the scanner so they really automatically send and you don't even need to go to your PC provided it's running. In fact even my 8 year old scanner had an e-mail button, but I never set it up. Even without scan to e-mail in a streamlined setup drag the file to your email client (or otherwise attach it).

I would actually suspect scan to email functionality is in greater demand then T.38/FoIP support for MFPs.

Nil Einne (talk) 11:09, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Mobile phone in Europe

I'm planning on traveling to europe soon with my unlocked t-mobile phone. Now it supports 850 / 1800 / 1900 mhz, but not 900 Mhz. My question is could I get decent coverage on 1800 mhz alone in the following cities: London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Milan and Venice? Also, could I find a prepaid gsm network to support my phone in those cities, preferably one reasonable priced? Thank you71.229.144.57 (talk) 04:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

You can most definitely find cheap pay as you go phones in Europe. I'll let others field the frequency questions (GSM has a few frequencies it operates on, but I assumed most phones could operate on any of them). Shadowjams (talk) 05:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

T-Mobile and Orange both work on 1800 in the UK, so your 'phone should work with either of those providers. You should be able to buy a cheap PAYG SIM for either, as well. --Phil Holmes (talk) 07:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

OK, and what about France & Italy?71.229.144.57 (talk) 23:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I've never had any problems taking my UK mobile to France or Italy - I drove to Venice a year ago and never had any problems with my phone, though I did get a £90 bill when I got back! Astronaut (talk) 13:10, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Any mobile sold in the UK should at a minimum be dual band with 1800/900 so it doesn't really help the OP who as he/she has said, has a triband phone without 900mhz as used in much of the world, including Europe, but not parts of the Americas including the US and Canada. See GSM frequency bands if there is any further confusion. Nil Einne (talk) 06:52, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

From [7], [8] and [9] it doesn't appear there is any 1800 only network in France or Italy. (One in GSMWorld for France is listed as 1800 but the same network is listed as 900/1800 under a different plan so I doubt its accurate.) This doesn't mean you should give up. 1800 is commonly used in the more urban or populated areas so if your sticking to those places you've mentioned you may be okay. A simple search find various discussions e.g. [10] [11] which should provide more help and suggest you may be able to get by with a 1800 phone in France and Italy in the urban areas as I suggested. You could also try it and see, if you find coverage is too poor you could pick up a cheap phone while in Europe. Nil Einne (talk) 07:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies - my phone has just worked everywhere I've been in Europe and I've never had to consider particular frequencies. If I'm understanding the coverage maps on this page, all operators in both France and Italy provide 900/1800 MHz coverage in all but a few rural areas. I assume that means both frequencies are avalable pretty much everywhere. The same site will let you check out roaming agreements between your mobile operator and European operators and their coverage maps if one is available. The same site let me finally explain why my supposedly quad-band phone was useless in Montana and Yellowstone NP - my operator only has a roming agreement with AT&T and not with Verizon. Anyway, if you are still unsure, check with your operator before you leave. Astronaut (talk) 12:13, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

No the coverage map just means they're covering the whole area. What frequency they're using will vary depending on numerous factors and the coverage map doesn't provide that level of detail (probably partially because it can vary quite a lot over time and from the providers POV it doesn't matter for most of their customers). It's likely to be rare that an area is covered by both frequencies from the same provider, in fact I suspect it's likely there are quite a few areas without any 1800 coverage at all. I mentioned that 1800 is usually used in urban areas, but didn't mention what may automatically follow 900 is commonly used in more rural or less populated areas, the reason is primarily because 900 transmission characteristics means it has longer range so a provider can cover a wider area with a smaller number of transceivers, useful in such areas. BTW from what I can tell the OP, isn't planning to use roaming, and really I'm not surprised. You can still ask them, and they'll probably help particularly if you don't tell them you don't intend to use roaming but I personally wonder whether they'd be able to provide much better information then 'it may work in some areas but not all' (if you're some sort of major business customers they may try harder). Of course you also have to see what their roaming partner/s are, if they have more then one then coverage could be improved as you can use either but since I'm guessing domestic roaming between the French providers if it exists is only going to work in areas where coverage on both frequencies is spotty this won't work so well for you if you're using a new sim card. On the flipside it's possible one provider may provide better coverage in the 1800mhz but isn't a roaming provider. Nil Einne (talk) 16:50, 5 August 2010 (UTC) (modified from original)

Scribus vs. InDesign

Dear wikipedians,

If you were supposed to be the editor of an academic journal and could choose to use either Adobe InDesign or Scribus, which one would you choose and why? (no money problem: the software will be paid)

Thank you in advance,

82.229.204.155 (talk) 08:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Indesign CS5 certainly has far more features than Scribus...and its a bit easier to use. The scribus interface is a bit lacking...Smallman12q (talk) 12:00, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

What would you use it for? At least in my field (Computer Science), authors will nearly always be required to submit "camera-ready copies" (i.e. in reality either PDF or LaTeX sources). Very few, if any, journals still typeset the final copy. If you expect authors to submit machine-readable documents, the only really plausible alternatives are LaTeX, PDF, or Word(spit). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:17, 2 August 2010

(UTC)

Scribus has improved considerably since 2010. It now can produce PDF output, and has gone through a major upgrade (ver. 1.4).

~~

I don't think that's common across disciplines. In the humanities and social sciences, anyway, authors submit Word or RTF files (not PDF, which would make reconstructing footnotes a HUGE pain). They are typeset with programs like InDesign or Quark. In any case, I would not trust humanities/social science academics to know how to submit something camera ready! They are not tech savvy, and do not know LaTeX for the most part. (Which is a science thing.) Hell, they barely know how to use Word, in my experience. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Not that I disagree on the substance (although my last and only paper not printed directly from my final submission was a 1996 publication in the Journal of Symbolic Computation). But I'd bet that for most humanities papers LaTeX is actually easier to use than Word... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:24, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

If you are comfortable with using markup languages, which is well beyond the technical comfort level of your average humanities scholar. But I do essentially agree—Word is a pain and produces more problems than it solves. The one place where Word edges out LaTeX as I understand it (as a non-LaTeX user) that is important for the humanities is in being able to easily "track changes" (used in indicating edits), and being able to easily "visually" edit the document, both of which are pretty crucial to the humanities workflow. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

For an academic journal it probably doesn't matter much — they are very simplistic when it comes to layout (says someone who used to work on one). InDesign is clearly the superior program on general design/ease of use terms, though again, for this particular application, I doubt it matters much. If it were me, I'd probably choose InDesign, mostly because the program is well-known through the printing and design industry, and has been intelligently augmented and built up continuously for really well over a decade. The practical tradeoff there is that most everything "works" as expected (I can't recall the last time I ran up against a genuine "bug"), and if I get specific instructions from a printer (e.g. export this with a given inside bleed and with certain color settings), there is always a straightforward way to do this with InDesign. I haven't used Scribus enough to make an intelligent contrast, but my general feeling with open-source design software (e.g. GIMP and Inkscape) is that these kinds of considerations generally get the back seat (hence GIMP still has no support for color management, and it is hard to export Inkscape files reliably into formats other programs can understand). Maybe Scribus is radically different, but I doubt it. If I were just playing around with stuff at home, I'd probably give it a whirl for the price alone, but if price was not an issue, I'd go with the better program. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:25, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Nobody has mentioned ODF? While OpenOffice is a bit clunkier as a user-interface, its document file format is probably far superior to any of the above. It is modern, extensible, works with free and open-source software editors and has convenient libraries for machine processing (and most new commercial software can read, modify, and save ODF too). It is also the underlying back-end architecture for Google's web-based "thin client" Google-Docs utilities. As far as Tex: (I've removed my anti-TeX rant, I will replace it later with some referenced commentaries about usability. To the original questioner: don't underestimate the value of usability. Nimur (talk) 16:28, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

sqlcmd

Hi! I found this example:

-- c:\sqlvariable.sql
DECLARE @myVar varchar(255)
SET @myVar = '$(myVar)'
SET @myVar = @myVariable + ' ' + suser_sname()
PRINT @myVar

You can run it from a command prompt:

SQLCMD -E -i"c:\sqlvariable.sql" -v myVar="You are connected as "

I think th right snippet should be

DECLARE @myVar varchar(255)
SET @myVariable = '$(myVar)'
SET @myVar = @myVariable + ' ' + suser_sname()
PRINT @myVar

t.i.a --217.194.34.103 (talk) 09:11, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a question? --Sean 16:18, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It appears that he is asking if the first "SET @myVar" should be "SET @myVariable". Yes, it could be that way. Or, you can change the original @myVariable to just @myVar. -- kainaw™ 16:20, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Excel sorts A- higher than A+

Hello, in my spreadsheet I have a column with letter grades in, from A+ to E-. When I sort by that column, Excel rates the minuses as higher than the plusses, so I see all of the C, then the C- then the C+ for instance. Do you know how I can ask/make Excel see these in a different hierarchy? Thanks 195.60.13.52 (talk) 16:02, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Assign values to each grade (with A+ > A > A- etc) in a lookup table then use the lookup function in Excel, then sort on these values. Dbfirs 16:57, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I don't think either of those linked articles is actually very useful for a novice Excel user. Better to link to an article that specifically discusses lookups in the context of Excel, like this one. In any case I think the CHOOSE/MATCH method is easier for this sort of small range of possible values. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The easiest way to do this that I know of is to make a separate column that converts these letter grades into data that Excel can sort. An easy one would be a field that simply converted them into numbers, e.g., if column A is the one with the letter grades in it:

=CHOOSE(MATCH(A1,{"A+","A","A-","B+","B","B-","C+","C","C-","D+","D","D-","E+","E","E-"},0),10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0,-1,-2,-3,-4)

Then you sort by that column, descending. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:05, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the link - I was looking for a better one, then got distracted. The alternatives are better anyway unless the OP wants to calculate average grades, and then your choose-match function is probably simpler. Dbfirs 17:54, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

actually, the easiest way to do this is to create a Custom List. Go to the Preferences, choose the Custom List lab, and then type in the grades in the order you want, one grade per line. Excel does a pretty good job of data-typing, so when you sort grades it should automatically choose the custom list for the sort value (or if not you can choose it explicitly by clicking 'option' in the Sort window). --Ludwigs2 17:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I think my way is easiest! No additional typing, no messing around with odd Excel features you aren't familiar with. Just copy and paste my formulae (changing the "A1" to be the correct initial pointer), and you're done, done! :-D The trick was just to ask someone to come up with the formulae for you, of course, which I'm not including in the difficulty rating. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Except that you have to do that every time you want to sort by letter grade. creating a custom list gets excel to do that for you. for instance, I did this with my copy of excel once, 4 years ago, and its been sorting by letter grade transparently ever since. --Ludwigs2 19:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I have an easier way, though it's not nice looking. In column A, put the letters, and in column B, put the plus / minus / normal modifiers, spelled out like that. Then when you sort, sort by column A by A to Z, and the second level sorting is column B, sorted by Z to A. The sort will look like "A plus", "A normal", "A minus", "B plus", etc. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

That's only easier if you don't count the time spent re-entering the data! The true "easiest" way would have been to put it in numerical form to begin with, to be sure. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I have tried Ludwigs2's solution, and he is the winner! I never knew about that feature. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:23, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Force needed to press a keyboard key?

What's the force needed to press an average desktop computer keyboard? How about laptop keyboard? And what weight (mass?) is needed to keep it depressed? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 16:03, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's the same as it was the last time you asked. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 16:40, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you! I knew I had asked it before, but I couldn't recall how I phrased the original question when searching for it! --70.167.58.6 (talk) 22:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Lwavuc.exe

After some malware problems (running Windows XP), which I thought were fixed, I continue to get messages about lwavuc.exe. I don't know what this file is. A Google search for it gets zero hits so I'm suspicious that it is malware.

The messages are that this program is trying to access the internet. As a precaution, I have been blocking it. Today I got a window (created by what program I can't tell) wanting to reinstall this program.

Can anyone please tell me if this lwavuc.exe is part of a legit system, how to tell if it is corrupted, whether I need it and what for, or is it malware? Any leads on this would be much appreciated. As I say, Google found nothing about it.

Thanks, Wanderer57 (talk) 16:36, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I searched my hard disk and did not find lwavuc.exe on my Windows XP system, nor via a Bing or Google search. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:12, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Certainly sounds like malware to me. However, it also sounds like there is another component that checks up on lwavuc's activity and if it suspects it has crashed, tries to restart it. I suggest you do a more thorough search, perhaps using a program like Malwarebytes. As for not finding any information about lwavuc on Google or Bing, much of the malware I have encountered recently has used a random name generator to hide it from obvious searches. One thing I would check is to see if you can find the lwavuc.exe on your PC (I would not be surprised if it is hidden by a rootkit). Astronaut (talk) 13:03, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both. "Anti-malware" from Malwarebytes was very useful. It found bad files and registry entries (16 in all) which other programs had missed (or which were not present when the other programs were run).

Lwavuc.exe was the third of a series of malfiles - lwavua, lwavub. At this point, "everything" seems to be working. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:15, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

S.O.S.

I followed a fooloish advice. I saved this as "block.css" :

   * { display: block !important; width: 100% !important; }
img, td, th { width: auto !important; }

Then went to "Tool" - > Internet Options -> Accessibilty -> Format using my stlyle sheets and took it to "block.css". It got all shitty. Now I reseted the option. Even deleted the "block.css" but things ain't getting back to normal. Please help  Jon Ascton  (talk) 18:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

[Note to others: For previous context, see Screensize. --Bavi H]

To turn it off, go to the same box and uncheck it: Tools, Internet Options, Accessibility button, uncheck "Format documents using my style sheet", click OK.

My example was a little extreme, I should have described it better. My goal was to force everything to fit into the width of the browser, but I should have stated that it doesn't work well on all websites. I apologize. --Bavi H (talk) 23:52, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

It's OK, man. There's nothing to apologize. You did try to help. It's all right. But I have already tried that before I posted this message : I have already -> Tools -> Internet Options -> Accessibility button, uncheck "Format documents using my style sheet", click OK. That was the first thing I did to get back to normal. IT DID NOT WORK. Then I even deleted that "block.css" altogether. Now there is no "tick" in the box at "Format documents using my style sheet" option, nor a "block.css", but browser is in very state. What should I do ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 05:53, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You may have to clear your cache and or press reload to purge the items. Or install Firefox and use that instead. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:37, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course I know that, I did that, I cleared cache a dozen times, and refreshed the page all the way. Doesn't work.

Hm, if you have unchecked that box, then it sounds like your problem isn't caused by the user style sheet. (A possible test: Make an empty text file, call it empty.css, set it as the user style sheet and see what happens.)

It sounds like something else may be causing your problem. Can you compare how a certain website looks in your browser and in another browser or on another computer and describe the differences? Can you post a screen shot? --Bavi H (talk) 00:49, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It seems Wikipedia pages are the only problem givers. Though fonts appear a bit too thick on google too, but that's still readable. Here's the screenshot -> http://khurmi.com/ghgh.JPG -- Jon Ascton  (talk) 15:07, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

It looks like the Text Size may be set to Largest. Try going to View, Text Size, Medium. --Bavi H (talk) 23:53, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Session expired

Hey all. I'm trying to screen-scrape [12]. Alas, when I try to cURL it I get "Sorry, this session has expired." I sort of understand why this happens, but I am at a loss at how to fix it. Any input appreciated, 92.2.85.143 (talk) 19:04, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

You might have to grab a cookie and re-present that when you do your curl. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:08, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Is there free software (for Windows) creating Searchable PDF with hidden text layer?

For Ubuntu see http://www.ubuntugeek.com/howto-make-scanned-pdfs-searchable-ocr-using-pdfocr.html Thanks! --FrobenChristoph (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Googling "free ocr pdf" turns up a lot of possible solutions. The question is which ones are better than others, I suppose. (Quality of OCR can vary a lot.) --Mr.98 (talk) 20:14, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that these solutions can create "Searchable PDFs with hidden text layer"? I have found no free program doing THIS --FrobenChristoph (talk) 23:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

That's what most programs that make OCRed PDFs do, yes. OCR = searchable. Inside a PDF, that is 90% of the time done as a hidden text layer. (Some more ancient programs used to convert the scanned text to "computer" text but this usually looks really bad — e.g. see page 2 of this pdf. It is programatically easier to make it a hidden text layer in any case.) --Mr.98 (talk) 23:30, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't find a single free program with this feature. Can you point me to at least one program which is doing this: creating a searchable PDF? --FrobenChristoph (talk) 03:36, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

If you just want to add invisible text to an existing PDF (without OCRing it) then I've cooked up a little example program using iText to do that. It's written in Java, and you'd need to be a moderate Java programmer to adapt it for practical use. If that's useful, let me know and I'll post it here. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 20:46, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I have'nt these skills --FrobenChristoph (talk) 23:06, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Google Images

Any way to go back to the old Google images? The new format instituted a few weeks ago is not fun.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 22:35, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing#Google_gone_weird_-_malware.3F 82.43.88.151 (talk) 22:49, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah, much better, thanks.--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 00:20, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Nikon Camera/Computer File Saving Format

Resolved

I have a Nikon Coolpix880 that saves to my CompactFlash card. For some time, it saved into a folder called 100Nikon, and then suddenly all photos started being saved into 101Nikon. Now there's a third foler, 102Nikon. Perhaps this is so that file numbers don't overlap because I took so many photos, but if I delete the 101 and 102 files, will photos be safely saved, or can I mess with the file saving ability if I do that? DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Online Manual, page 143'The camera file system conforms to the Design Rule for Camera File Systems (DCF). Under this system, folder names consist of a three-digit folder number followed by the folder name (e.g., “100NIKON”). Each folder can hold a maximum of 200 images (it may hold less, depending on the size of the memory card and other factors). Should a folder fill up, another folder will automatically be created with the same name but a different folder number (e.g., “101NIKON”). ' There's more detail in the linked manual, but in general, I'd say to let the camera manage the CF card. --LarryMac | Talk 23:53, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Wow...thanx! Don't have the manual and didn't think to look online. DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:06, 3 August 2010 (UTC)