Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 July 7

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July 7

IPAD MINI

How can I play mp3 songs on an ipad mini. thank you.175.157.11.170 (talk) 03:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

That depends. Are they already on the ipad mini? You should see them in your Music/iTunes app. If not, you'll need to download them from online or another computer/device. Apple Support for iPad and iTunes [1] is a good place to start. El duderino ^(abides) 21:18, 11 July 2014 (UTC)

Middle mouse button.

I'm running windows 7 with a Microsoft 2 button + wheel mouse. I am very happy with it except that when I scroll the wheel, I almost always end up clicking it and that often causes a program to start doing something (often slow continuous scrolling!).

Is there any way to disable the wheel click but to retain the wheel scrolling? -- SGBailey (talk) 10:41, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

In control panel under "mouse" you should be able to configure the buttons. But perhaps a less sensitive mouse would be good to consider sometime down the line. You may find you'll miss that middle mouse button eventually. Mingmingla (talk) 17:29, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I'd say, try a different mouse. A quality mouse comes with a wheel that is both easy to scroll and fairly resistant to pressure(so you don't end up clicking when trying to scroll).

Some cheap mice are quite hard to scroll, which means you have to push the wheel (*click* – damn!), or don't have a constant pressure threshold (*push* – huh?) for the wheel button. The price differences are not huge, but around $10, there are very few mice without any flaws. Other bugs include weak optical logic – ball-mice used to "jam" when dirty and didn't move along one of the coordinate axes, while weak optical mice tend to wander off into any direction, or simply disappear and reappear in one of the corners.

However, there are quite decent mice around $20 (so no great deal if you don't go through mice like crazy) and in the long run, you might be better off with a different mouse. Avoid devices made in China if you have the choice. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I was with you until the last sentence. That is a joke, right? Anyways, I've had plenty of mice (Warcraft III seems to wear down the cable, so they all die of contact issues in the cable). I now have a cheap optical Logitech that has held up for some years (made in China, of course - what isn't?). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:23, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

I had the feeling I went through two Chinese mice for one Taiwanese. OTOH, the latest one is Chinese and not TOO shabby. It's getting harder each day to find non-Chinese hardware too; if they're catching up, they might be worth my money in a year or two. Right now, I prefer to use one $20 mouse to two $10 ones. Less getting used to different hardware on my part, and more things actually getting done. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 15:18, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

It is a decent mouse (Microsoft). I can't find any settings in the control panel to do this. I can do things to the left button or the right button or to the wheel scrolling size, but not to the wheel button. Anyway thanks, I'll just continue suffering. -- SGBailey (talk) 11:33, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

@SGBailey: There may be third party software that provides additional options for mouse control. E.g. I use this software [2] to get more out of my touchpad on OSX. Best I windows options I could find at a short search was this [3]. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:20, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Don't assume it's a quality mouse because it says Microsoft on it. If you look at the box or label, I bet you'll find it's just cheap crap made in China. StuRat (talk) 00:14, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

I feel like Emmett Brown right now for starting the "Made in China" topic. ("I must be the electronics, Marty. Look a this, it's 'Made in Japan', no wonder it's fried.")

Maybe the savings in manufacturing actually go into some better components. There's still not much use in a superior image sensor if every other one ends up misaligned. :(

Let's say I had a lot of bad luck with China, and I know a victim (not dead or hurt, but it was quite expensive) of a PSU fire. I don't have anything WP:RS-like about mice, or why so many optical mice tend to "teleport", though. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 05:57, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

section numbering in latex

I m writing a thesis in latex using texstudio.But first chapter section start numbering as 0.1,0.2,.... so on up to 0.10 but my problem is for next chapters .chapter 2 section numbering starts from 0.11,0.12,... but i want to start it as 1.1,1.2,... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 182.187.3.81 (talk) 19:24, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

This can happen when the "counter" in LaTeX gets screwed up with conflicting packages and class files. You can fix this manually with the \setcounter command, and you can change the increment behavior using the variables 'thechapter' 'thesection', etc. Some similar questions and answers here [4] [5] [6]. You could also post your question at one of the first two links for more help. If you want more help here or there, it will be much easier if you can post a minimal working example of the .tex file. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

More typically, this happens if the wrong structuring elements for the document class are used. Book and report classes usually have "chapter" as the highest level element, then sections. If you use a \section{} without an enclosing \chapter{}, the first section is by default section 1 of chapter 0. So either use article class, or start with chapters. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 22:05, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Is it weird that it starts with 0.1? Wouldn't 0.0 or the more traditional 1.1 make more sense? 99.56.15.181 (talk) 09:21, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

Well, "more sense" depends on your outlook. But from an implementation point of view, whenever you have a new \chapter{}, the chapter counter is increased by one, and the section counter is reset. The first section of the first chapter is 1.1. So if you are "before" the first chapter, the chapter counter is 0. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 10:22, 10 July 2014 (UTC)