Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 June 30

Computing desk
< June 29	<< May | June | Jul >>	July 1 >

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.

June 30

Newly built computer won't boot

I just finished building my first computer, but I have a rather serious problem: it won't boot. At first, the fans would start up, the lights on the motherboard and case would come on, the lights on my keyboard would flash once like they always do, and I could hear the hard drive spin up, but nothing would come up on the monitor, it just had the orange "standby" light on. I ended up disconnected and reseating my video card, hard drive, optical drive, pretty much everything and finally checked the processor, where I found four bent prongs. I bent them carefully back straight with a screwdriver, put everything back together, and tried again.

This time, things worked slightly better. When I pressed the Caps Lock, etc. keys, the appropriate lights would light up, and when I plugged in my flash drive, it would light up like usual. Again, the hard drive would spin up, all of the fans were running, the lights on the motherboard and case would come on, everything. It's just that nothing will come up on the monitor. There's no beeps, either, although I don't have speakers. Does anyone have some idea of what's wrong? I tried looking up some guides online, but I've done pretty much everything they said--reseated the processor, RAM, and video card, unplugged and replugged everything, checked that the RAM is in the correct slots (I'm pretty sure it is, anyway) and it still won't work. Fletch the Mighty (talk) 01:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears that your motherboard is not using your video card. Does it have on-board video? If so, it is likely using the on-board video until you go into BIOS and tell it to use external video (the video card). It could be that the video card is simply dead. It won't beep without a speaker somewhere. There is usually a speaker connection on the motherboard where you can connect a tiny internal speaker to hear the standard beeps. -- kainaw™ 02:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I checked the manual, and yes, it does have on-board video. If the video card is the problem, would removing it and rebooting work? Fletch the Mighty (talk) 02:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. Just plug the monitor into the mobo.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:16, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all so much!! It's working perfectly now! Fletch the Mighty (talk) 02:43, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

If you want to test whether the video card is functional, and you have a second monitor at hand, then shut down the computer, plug the video card back in, connect a monitor to it, as well, and then start up the computer again. If you're using any recent version of Windows, your desktop should come up on both screens. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:11, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Screensaver

Long ago I saw this screensaver, it was pretty cool, though don't remember what it was called. In this when it starts you don't see a typical pic of kittens or a sunset or a waterfall, no nothiing, the screen remains as it was, but ants begin to crawl on the desktop ! They start from the bottom barline with "start" and climb over the icons on the desktop and spread everywhere! What screensaver it was and where it's found ?  Jon Ascton  (talk) 02:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

A simple Google search for "screensaver ants" turned up dozens of possibilities. Practice safe downloading and make sure you have up-to-date anti-virus software. --LarryMac | Talk 01:19, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, man !  Jon Ascton  (talk) 06:56, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, be careful with websites with screensavers. Some of them contain malicious software. Chevymontecarlo - alt 12:11, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Help me get rid of this virus!

I've just been infected by a malware program called AV Security Suite. Yep it's got it all, colorful graphics, constant telling of computer errors, constant demand to "buy a full version" and (really) bad grammar. I'm pretty sure this is the same as all those other malware programs such as ErrorSafe and Windows Antivirus 2010. It's not letting me run any program other than connecting to the internet and it is constantly bugging me with false errors, random popups every few seconds, blockage of random sites, and seriously bad grammar. Can someone help me get rid of this stupid thing quickly? Its wasting most of my computer's energy. 64.75.158.197 (talk) 09:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

If you have another computer available, take out the hard drive of the infected computer and plug it into the other one. Scan with Malwarebytes, Spybot and your favorite antivirus. Otherwise boot into safe mode and scan. 121.72.218.81 (talk) 10:26, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Try the general instructions here. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:03, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Searching for "AV Security Suite" in Google found lots of detailed instructions for it removal. http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=%22AV+Security+Suite%22&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a0f713e140dfbc98 92.15.3.46 (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Battlefield 2:Special Forces shortcut command line

What is the command line to access the BF2 Special Forces? I lost the shortcut and don't remember the command line. Looking under the properties of the shortcut should find it. Thank you in advance. --Chemicalinterest (talk) 14:48, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

One window wiki

How come wiki software doesn't allow you to make edits in the same window that you view the project? Couldn't there be an easier setup? Supposing there was an "Edit" button to click on that caused the same window you were looking at to transform into an editable window. After making edits you would then click on a "Save" button. Isn't it a bother to work with two windows? Bus stop (talk) 15:36, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

It is possible. I have done it for clients. However, it is difficult. It is far easier and more cross-browser compatible to do all editing as plain text in a text box that is submitted through a standard form. -- kainaw™ 15:38, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

MediaWiki chooses not to implement this feature, in order to preserve a clean and direct mapping between the technical implementation details to the conceptual ideas they represent: there is a distinct and well-defined HTTP POST transaction for each "edit"; there is a distinct and well-defined HTTP GET transaction for each "read". Recent versions of MediaWiki do expose an AJAX API, documented here, or you can roll your own system (as Kainaw has mentioned). Nimur (talk) 17:55, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both very much for that information. I guess I will opt to continue using the editing features as they are. Bus stop (talk) 23:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

rsync help

I was writing a quick and dirty script, designed to copy only program files across over the network, thus i had this

rsync -rCvz -e 'ssh -l username' --include-from=include username@some.server:/some/folder/ . 

where the include file contains, on separate lines:

*.c
*.sh
*.sm
*.py

and everything is running in the same folder, Now unfortunately this isn't working as expected and is pulling everything, which is a problem as there's over 1TB of raw data that i don't want. So what really obvious thing am i missing from my rsync command? Thanks--82.26.227.101 (talk) 15:53, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

See the FILTER RULES section of man rsync: if neither an include nor exclude pattern matches a given file or directory, it's included. You're explicitly including .c, .sh, .sm, and .py files, but not excluding the rest, so add an --exclude '*' after your --include-from=include.

This will also omit directories, so any matching .c etc. files in them will never be seen unless each directory also matches one of those patterns. To get files with these extensions everywhere in the source directory tree, add */ to your include patterns, and maybe --prune-empty-dirs to your options. —Korath (Talk) 18:39, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks its kinda worked --exclude '*' stops me getting any files, doing --exclude '*/*' gets files but only goes one level deep, even though i have set -r and have altered the include file —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.26.227.101 (talk) 22:18, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

rsync syntax is a headache, so I can't be sure this will work like I think it will, but you might try the following include file:

+ **.c
+ **.sh
+ **.sm
+ **.py
- **

the doubled asterisks match anything, including slashes, so this should include all paths that end with the given extensions, no matter how deeply nested, and exclude everything else. --Ludwigs2 01:06, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

SCART cables

Hi! I connected my DTT Amstrad decoder to a LG Hard Disc recorder and in cascade the latter to my Synudyne CRT TV: I see all black & white and the sound is off if the recorder is off.. No problem if the decoder is directly connected to the tv. Thanks in advance --217.194.34.103 (talk) 16:13, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with any of that hardware so I could be way off, but the symptons you're describing suggest to me that the Amstrad device is outputting an NTSC signal which the LG HDD recorder can't handle and in turn it comes out black/white and without sound. Doing a whois on your IP says you're in Germany and PAL is the normal encoding system used there so that adds to this theory. I don't know if you can check on the Amstrad box whether or not to output NTSC or PAL because switching to PAL may fix it (the TV obviously supports both, but the HDD recorder sounds like it doesn't). Someone else may have a better idea though! ZX81 ^talk 17:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Or possibly the recorder can handle a PAL input, but is outputting it as NTSC. --Phil Holmes (talk) 07:13, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thank you both! I forgot to say the I see colors when the recorder takes the signal from its own tuner and not from the decoder. --217.194.34.103 (talk) 07:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Mac OS X sudo copying through the Finder?

I'm trying to restore some old files on a previous Time Machine drive Mac OS X, but the Finder says I don't have enough permissions (even when I go use Time Machine). If I did the copy through the Terminal I could 'sudo cp' the files. Is there anything GUI-based that'll give me sudo power? --70.167.58.6 (talk) 17:56, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

generally speaking, if you try to do something in the Finder that would require sudo, a dialog will pop up asking you to enter an administrative account name and its password. That won't work in every case - sometimes you'll have to drop into terminal to sudo - but it will usually work. --Ludwigs2 00:55, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Muting a program in Windows 7?

Is there a way to prevent a program from producing sound in Windows 7? --Belchman (talk) 18:33, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Sure. Click the sound icon on the taskbar, then click "mixer", now you'll see all the active programs which are producing sound. You can individually control each of them, mute them etc 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

That's brilliant. Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 19:08, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

On a similar topic, is there any way in Vista to prevent Office 2000 from making beeps when it is looking for a file? I have all system sound effects turned off, but Office seems to override this setting. I don't want to mute the speaker. Dbfirs 11:31, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Well Vista lets you control sound for individual programs like Windows 7. However I don't know if this will hold over sessions and it will obviously kill all sounds for Office. The obvious question of course is whether you've looked in the Office settings Nil Einne (talk) 13:21, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

My "mixer" in Vista shows only "Windows sounds" under applications, and I have this muted. There doesn't seem to be any option for file seek sounds in Office 2000. I have feedback with sounds turned off. Dbfirs 10:04, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Shortcut to Desktop

I would like to have a shortcut to my Desktop on my Desktop, as I often have lots of other shortcuts there that overflow off the screen. How could I do this please, in XP? I know there is software that pans the desktop, but I prefer a simple solution. Thanks. 92.15.3.46 (talk) 18:37, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

The contents of your desktop is located in a folder in your user directory. In XP this should be something like "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\Desktop". Navigate to just "C:\Documents and Settings\YOURNAME\", right click on the desktop folder and select "create shortcut". Now just move the new shortcut to your desktop. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 18:40, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, done it. 92.15.3.46 (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Just curious, but wouldn't now be an ideal time to cleanup your desktop? It would make it easier to find stuff and provide space for new stuff. Astronaut (talk) 11:50, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

My Desktop is an informal to-do list of weblinks and changes all the time. So, no. 92.28.247.183 (talk) 20:23, 2 July 2010 (UTC)

You may be interested in a little utility Pitaschio (Google it). Amongst its many cool features is the ability to set your desktop icons to "list view" like you can with normal folders. It helps keep my desktop tidy. Zunaid 12:46, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

That is a bundle of eleven different things, including "calculate the Moon's age", which I find irritating. You could achieve the same thing by moving all your icons into a folder on the desktop. 92.29.126.166 (talk) 08:19, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Database for image metadata

In order to search photo metadata (IPTC and maybe EXIF) of a large number of images quickly, I would like to collect this data in a database. I know that Adobe Photoshop Lightroom can do this, but I am looking for a simpler and cheaper (=free) alternative. Basically what I would like to have is a program which collects all the metadata (or at least keywords, location,...) from a directory of images (".../pics/dogs") and writes it into a file (".../pics/dogsmetadata"). The program should then allow to search for metadata (e.g. keyword "labrador") and display all the images in .../pics/dogs that have this keyword. Is there such a (free) program? bamse (talk) 22:00, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you can extract the metadata programatically using ImageMagick, which would be one part of the solution. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:25, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Our EXIF article discusses many software tools that may be helpful. ExifTool is a Perl script that can pull that data out easily from a list of files. You can use this tool as a standalone program, or as a part of a custom Perl script you write. Nimur (talk) 23:12, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the replies. Since I am too lazy to write any code, isn't there a GUI based program to do these tasks (1. extract and write metadata into file, 2. search in extracted metadata file)? bamse (talk) 08:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Picasa can do some limited sorting and searching operations with EXIF data: Picture Data: Viewing EXIF data and histogram. Will this work? Nimur (talk) 14:06, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, as far as I understand (please correct me if wrong), picasa's database is not easily portable to other computers or just the metadata part saved in a separate file. For instance, I'd like to backup my images together with the metadata file. bamse (talk) 16:40, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

That's my understanding of Picasa as well. You seem to want a fairly customized feature, insofar as you want to take "standard format" EXIF data and put it into a custom format data base (or flat file) of your own invention. I think you may have little alternative except to write your own script; but don't panic - this should not be very difficult and will be a good learning exercise. Perl makes file handling extremely straightforward; and the ExifTool I linked above has reasonable documentation and example code. I imagine you can write a simple perl script that can scan a directory of images and export the EXIF data in the format of your choice, all in around 20-30 lines of code. If you need any assistance with the specific details, feel free to follow up. Nimur (talk) 17:17, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply and the offer to help. At the moment I don't have much time, but I might give it a try in the future. bamse (talk) 18:57, 1 July 2010 (UTC)