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November 14

Changes in emacs to a C file are ignored when tested in the terminal

I've hit a snag while attempting to work on a lab for school, and I can't understand what I am doing wrong. This lab involves producing ASCII art out of sterisks, specifically making a "T" out of stars. My problem doesn't even let me edit my work, it ignores any changes I've made since I saved my first draft of the starT.c file.

I am repeatedly editing starT.c in emacs, yet when I ./starT it does not reflect my changes, though I am doing ctrl-x ctrl-s after every change. I can verify this because I typed gibberish code into the program but it did not affect it in any way.

So, my steps are:

1) reach /cs/student/myname/cs16/lab03

2) type "emacs starT.c &"

3) edit the code and ctrl-x ctrl-s

4) in terminal type "./starT 3 3" (I've been using 3 by 3 for my default test)

5) It ignores any changes I made in step 3.

Do you know why? 128.111.43.43 (talk) 02:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

In Emacs do M-x compile and for the compile command do

gcc starT.c && ./starT 3 3

Hcobb (talk) 03:03, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Hcobb is right. Your starT.c file is a plain text source file, and you need to compile it to obtain an executable file which will finally print out your art. (Please look at articles I've linked in the sentence above.) --CiaPan (talk) 06:32, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Compile and link, that is. Hopefully the above command will do both. StuRat (talk) 07:38, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

You'll need to do

gcc starT.c -o starT

to create an executable named "StarT", you'll probably end up with "a.out" if you just do "gcc starT.c". Hopefully, since you seem to have an executable that you have made at least once, we'll have refreshed your memory enough on what you did to compile it the first time. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:28, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Would a killer whale in the clouds have saved Romney?

Has any Cloud computing vendor written up how their services would have kept ORCA (computer system) from beaching? Hcobb (talk) 03:05, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. Cloud hosting might have solved the server capacity / bandwidth issues, but from what I've read the problems with ORCA went far beyond that. The people responsible sent out the wrong passwords, forgot to redirect www.whatever.com/orca to https://www.whatever.com/orca, didn't tell volunteers that they needed to pick up certain documents, only sent instructions the night before the election, performed no live testing etc etc. "If you used our services, the project would only have been a big disaster rather than a huge disaster" isn't a particularly compelling ad. 59.108.42.46 (talk) 03:55, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

The oddest part to me is that the American nominating process should have been the perfect test ground to build up and test such a system. First test it in the straw polls, then use it for the first few small states, building up to Super Tuesday, etc. So what was Romney using for tracking during the primaries? Hcobb (talk) 04:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

It didn't matter. Romney never won a primary with multiple contenders. For a mathematical analysis of his candidacy see Safe + Moderate ≠ Electable, Low-beta isn’t always better. μηδείς (talk) 05:24, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

For a party that supposedly stands for business their marketing skills and control of their systems just sucked. As to having a high beta candidate if that meant a Tea Party one then the demographics are against such a person winning. It would have reduced the mean and I'm not at all certain it would have increased the standard deviation anywhere near enough to compensate. Dmcq (talk) 12:12, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

One of the main problems with ORCA was that it was thrown together far too quickly. The Arstechnica writeup makes it sound like they were editing the documentation up until two nights before the election. Nobody, not even a really accomplished software company, can make something like that work in that small of a time window. The whole project was marked by a clear lack of appreciation of the real-world technical difficulties of such a thing. But it doesn't seem like it would have affected the overall election too much anyway. Even if, by some miracle, Romney had gotten enough extra turnout to win Florida, Virginia, and Ohio — the closest states — Obama still would have had over 270 electoral votes in far less competitive states. You'd have to imagine ORCA delivering all three of those plus Colorado for it to have tipped it — an extra 5% pro-Romney turnout. That's a lot to ask for from a piece of software. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:54, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

More broadly, what will IT do for campaigning in the future? Are we going to see a unified smart phone social media app that brings all volunteers for all candidates of a given party together and then has a two-way link to each campaign office? Hcobb (talk) 16:48, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Take a read of the RD header. Nil Einne (talk) 02:13, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

randomly changing fractal wallpaper

How can I get wallpaper that is a dynamically changing fractal composition that doesn't just repeat a loop? I use an NV78 Gateway running Windows 7. Thanks for any and all close answers. μηδείς (talk) 07:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Do you want it to randomly pick from a large group of fractals, or actually generate it's own, by varying parameters randomly ? StuRat (talk) 07:35, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I'd like one fractal that would slowly evolve but not in a loop, which is why I said "random". An occasional change of underlying form would be okay, but I want the moment-to moment evolution to be organic, not just a bunch os flashes from randomly collected still to random still. Basically, I want a programy like those of basic screen saversm bu for my desktop. μηδείς (talk) 07:46, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this what you had in mind (only fancier, with color and shading): [1], [2] ? Here's a screensaver that does leaf forms: [3] (do a find on "Paprotka"). StuRat (talk) 09:14, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Use Winamp visualizations (AVS or Milkdrop) in desktop mode. Try googling the words "winamp fractal visualization". Activating desktop mode for MilkDrop: Preferences (Ctrl-P) > Plug-ins > Visualization > Select "MilkDrop vx.xx". Click on configure and select Render mode: "Desktop Mode (using overlays)". Trio The Punch (talk) 12:16, 14 November 2012 (UTC) p.s. Watch this if you want to use a fractal screensaver on your desktop.

Was more looking for what Trio has linked to, Stu. But thanks because you have reminded me of the fractal lifeforms from Richard Dawkin's book--I'll have to look for those and see if I can get the program off the internet. As for Trio's links, I will have to mess around for a while, so I'll get back if I need help or when I succeed. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 17:33, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

November 15

Trespassing by "Registry Mechanic"

A few months ago I looked at the web site of some proprietary software called "registry mechanic". I did not intentionally download anything. Ever since then, at 7:00 PM each evening, all processes on my computer get shut down so that the registry mechanic software can run. If left to itself, it generates a report saying something's wrong with my computer and I should buy something from them to fix the problem. Tonight I was typing a comment on facebook when registry mechanic came along and shut down the page. There's some software that's supposedly intended to delete the registry mechanic software from my machine, but there can be little doubt that that's a fraud. The idea that they should be polite to people they're trying to sell stuff to exceeds the comprehension of whoever did this. This is clearly a criminal trespass.

Is there a safe way to delete this software? Michael Hardy (talk) 01:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Unless it has replaced core executables, you can delete it as any other software: via Programs & Features or simply by deleting its exectables and files. You might start by running msconfig and making sure it is not set to run upon bootup. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:02, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

See also Registry Mechanic#Criticism.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you, Reisio and Shantavira. Michael Hardy (talk) 22:54, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Use computer monitor for TV

I have an extra computer monitor with standard (VGA) input only and I want to use it as a TV. Is there an inexpensive way to do this?

I googled for this, and found ways requiring a TV tuner. However, I shouldn't need a tuner. I want to connect the computer monitor to either:

1. a digital cable TV box with a coax output, or
2. a DVD player with HDMI, component, S-video, coax, and video output.

Is there a simple, relatively inexpensive way to do this? (I see adapters to use a TV on a computer, but I want to go the other way.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

1. With a tv tuner, you can get them for very little
2. With a simple converter/adapter, you can get them for very little
3. With something like Netflix with an existing computer and VGA cable

¦ Reisio (talk) 01:58, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The tuners I've seen are pretty expensive, and I don't think I need one anyway, since if I use the digtal cable box, the tuner is in the box. And if I connect it to the DVD player, I don't need a tuner. I've seen inexpensive adapters with the right connectors, but they only say that they allow you use use a TV connected to a computer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:19, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Well I found this and this. A little more than I wanted to spend. If I spend that much, I might be better off putting it on a cheap TV instead. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:33, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Or a new monitor with HDMI in. ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I hadn't thought about that - that would work. I have a small TV hooked up to the DVD player in my audio system that I use for selecting from the DVD menu. I have an extra VGA monitor. I want to have a small TV in the kitchen. I'm thinking about ways to either use the monitor as a TV in the kitchen; or move the TV from the DVD to the kitchen and use the monitor on the DVD player. But a monitor with HDMI should be cheaper than a TV, I think. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

How do you want to get the signal for the TV in the kitchen ? With rabbit ears ? Also, do you have any computer monitor with inputs beyond VGA ? If so, perhaps you can swap this monitor with that one, giving you a spare monitor with the inputs you need. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

A coax cable outlet in the kitchen. I checked all of the monitors, and there is only one with an additional input, and I use it for my main computer, and I'm not giving it up.Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:16, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Does that co-ax cable contain a digital cable TV signal converted to analog, to plug right in to a TV ? Or is it still in digital form, requiring a cable converter box ?

As far as swapping monitors, you can check if any friends or relatives have an old monitor with more inputs, and perhaps they will be willing to do an exchange. Failing that, buying a cheap TV is probably the most economical solution, especially if you don't mind a used analog TV (it doesn't matter with cable, since it converts the digital signal to analog for you). I inherited so many analog TVs as a result of the digital transition, that I now have TVs in my living room, bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom. :-) StuRat (talk) 06:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The cable signal is digital. But I called yesterday and I can get a converter box (with analog coax output) from the cable company for free. (HD ones with more outputs cost $10/month.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:55, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

laptop hard disk swap

I stupidly flew with my Sony Vaio laptop in a soft checked-in bag, thinking I didn't want to work on the plane and didn't want to bother with it at security. The screen got crushed enough to display its own abstract pattern Jackson Pollock would have admired but almost none of the desktop is visible. The authorized Sony repair shop here in Amman said that a new screen would cost 290 Dinars and they conveniently had the same computer for 430 Dinars and there aren't many other alternatives so it was a good day for them: I bought a replacement computer (but black, instead of pink, so my ex-wife won't tease me so much), comforting myself with the thought that I would at least end up with a spare charger, battery, and, potentially, a hard disk. But they told me that swapping the hard disk in would void my new warranty.

I've put the old computer's hard disk into a USB enclosure and the new computer sees it but it won't allow me access to my account. (I see various technical looking folders and under users, I see public and I see my account.) I follow some options and try to get ownership of my old account's folder but then it goes into hours of tweaking files, often interrupted by a failure where I can click skip, and then a crash, which requires me to swear and start again.

Question a): Is there an easier way for me to get access to my files on the old drive, and if so, how?

Question b): Apart from voiding the warranty, what should I expect if I put the old drive in the new computer? If it works, I'll copy some stuff to another working external drive, and then either put the new drive back or not even bother.

178.77.141.183 (talk) 13:08, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

I should know the answer to (a), but am apparently not awake enough to give you useful advice on it... For (b), I would expect the computer to boot up and run just fine off of your old drive. There is also a good chance your warranty won't be voided. I recommend reading through the warranty - generally competent third-party service can't void a warranty, unless the service can be shown to be the cause of the failure. (At least in the US, I don't know how the warranty will vary since you purchased it somewhere else.) Worst case, as long as you don't break any "warranty void" seals, you should be able to swap the old drive back in when you have warranty work done on it and they won't be able to tell the difference. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

a) You should be able to access the files just fine from the enclosure. Actually logging into the old account on the old drive is another matter that I wouldn't bother with.
b) It might work, it might not (due mostly to the nature of Microsoft Windows). You don't need to do this just to copy data off the old disk, your enclosure will suffice.
¦ Reisio (talk) 17:21, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Windows isn't going to care about the drive being swapped, so I think the old drive can just be dropped right in. However, you mentioning the enclosure again gave me the idea of booting to a USB device with imaging software installed. You could clone the old drive onto the new drive, so you have the install from your old system without taking apart your old system. I'm not sure what the best free software to use is anymore, other people here probably will have good suggestions for that. Reisio, I think the problem he is seeing is with Windows file permissions on the old disk - the files belong to the user on the old pc, not his new one. Running explorer as administrator gives access to them, but changing the owner is a recursive process that sounds like it is giving him trouble. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 17:37, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

No, it really might care. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

The OP claims that the new laptop is the same as the old one, so the hardware sohuld be identical. Mismatched disk IDs could cause a problem if the imaging software doesn't preserve the ID, but physically moving the old disc into the new computer doesn't cause any issues there. The MAC address will change, but Windows won't care about that. If for some reason the new system refuses to boot on the old drive, it could always be moved back into the old PC. Connect an external monitor and sysprep the system, then move the drive back to the new PC. I shuffle Windows Embedded Standard 7 disks between identical (or near identical) systems somewhat often and have never had an issue, and they are basically a stripped down version of Windows 7. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 20:11, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

That's where might comes into play. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:32, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

OP again. OK, I swapped the drives (which looked the same - both Hitachi - but the old one said it was made in Thailand and the new one China.) (Also I added the old RAM to the new computer.) When I booted up it said somemthing about 'Preparing your desktop' and then a popup message said something like "you have logged in with a temporary profile, you won't be able to access any files, this profile will be removed, try again later". I've booted up three times and that message reappears and yes, I cannot access anything. When I open C:/users/MyName I have the same access problems I had when this drive was in the enclosure. I am currently trying the whole 'Setting Security information' process I orginally complained about, which is bothersome not only because it looks as if it will takes hours but also because it halts and askes me to press 'continue' so much. Any advice or encouragement? 80.90.168.182 (talk) 06:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

You can boot your old system with a pc monitor and connect it to the new one by lAN and then copy the files… Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 10:12, 16 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

Is it auto-logging into this temporary account? Does it let you log out and then back in as your regular user? 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:01, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I don’t fully understand this last part, I’m just telling you a way to get access to your files on the old drive… besides the broken screen, your old laptop present another problem?

What I wanted to tell you initially was:

1 - put each hdd in its respective laptop.

2 – boot both laptops. (in the old one you should not see anything because the broken display, but your things like user account, privileges etc., will still be there)

3 – connect each laptop by LAN (a cable that fix in to the rj45 port)

4 – from the new laptop access by the LAN to the old one and copy all the files you need — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs) 14:44, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks everybody. I wish I'd known of the last suggestion before I, er, threw away the older laptop. Lesson learned.

I'm now using the new hard disk in the new computer and still wondering about an efficient way to access the old drive.Your Username 08:53, 17 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hayttom (talk • contribs)

Again, using the enclosure will suffice. If you're having trouble accessing the files, it's probably a simple software configuration issue. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:48, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well… you could try with some bootable image, like “ACTIVE BootDisk” Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 14:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

I was doing this very thing myself this afternoon, so I have the command line to hand. My external drive was E: so use the appropriate one for yours. First right click on Start->Accessories->CommandPrompt and select Run As Administrator.

cd /d e:\Users
takeown /f e:\Users /r /d y		This will take some time, possibly hours
Then in windows explorer, right click on e:\Users, Properties, Security, Edit, Add
Enter your username in the box, OK
Select your username which should now be in the top pane, click on Full Access in the lower pane, and Apply
This again takes some time

Kram (talk) 19:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Oops, I missed out a step, sorry. The first time I ran the takeown command, the process ran for a few minutes then stopped with a path error. It turned out to be an issue with SYMLINK's and JUNCTIONS's which I fixed by mounting the disk under Linux (I used Puppy, but Ubuntu or any other will work) and just deleting all the lop level symbolic links at the E:\User\YourUserName level. You should be able to do the same thing from the windows command line (run as administrator), just use "dir/a" to identify them and rmdir to remove the links (I didn't because I didn't quite trust random google results telling me to just use rmdir). Perhaps another editor can chip in here. Anyway you may not need to do this (mine was a rather old vista HDD that I needed to get some files off). Good luck. Kram (talk) 20:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

As a follow up (since nobody else has), it does appear safe to use rmdir to delete symbolic links and junctions. It is also possible to assign permissions from the command line via icacls, but its pretty arcane. You can get more info by googling "change file permissions windows command line" (without the quotes). Kram (talk) 16:21, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Find a text editor that can highlight MediaWiki syntax.

Hello! WikED (or AWB) can highlight syntax, and I want a local editor that can do that. But I found UltraEdit seems do not support MediaWiki language...--Anonymous 15:26, 15 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.117.145.246 (talk)

Have a look at Wikipedia:Text_editor_support. If you don't want to dive in to world of hard-core text editors (emacs/VI families), TextMate might be a good alternative. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:39, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

BTW, I started searching for mediawiki syntax highlighting, which wasn't working well. Searching for /wikimarkup text editor syntax highlighting/ took me straight to the link above. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Bluetooth peripherals in OSX

Hello, I use an Apple magic mouse and a magic trackpad on OSX (10.7.5). The trackpad automatically syncs / reconnects each morning when I wake up the computer and turn on the trackpad, but the mouse does not. I have to manually add the mouse again each day via system preferences. Is there a way I can make both peripherals automatically reconnect when powered on? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 15:34, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Help with upgrading PC.

I'm helping someone upgrade a computer that they are using & need some help in getting a list of what parts we will need. From a manual I found, it has a K7S5A Socket A motherboard & I was trying to find what components (ie CPU, Graphics Card, Sound Card, etc) I need to get to "max it out" but when I've googled the motherboard details all I get are lists of every component that compatible with that board. Could someone help & narrow it down for me please ?
PS I know that its an old motherboard & I've offered to get a brand new one for them but thats the one that they want. Scotius (talk) 15:36, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Socket A was back in the AGP days, right? "Maxing out" the video card will cost $40ish for an ancient GeForce 6200, assuming it takes AGP 8x. On Newegg, 4x cards are closer to $60. If they're looking for gaming performance, it is time to update the whole system. The motherboard is going to put very low limits on what you can do. Just to give an idea of what you can do with a new system, this TigerDirect kit [4] is $150 ($200 before rebate) and comes with everything but a hard drive and videocard. A $60 modern videocard, although at the low end of the performance spectrum, will still greatly outperform a $60 AGP 4x card. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 15:49, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like the motherboard has onboard video. According to [5], the onboard video (Radeon 3000) outperforms the GeForce 6200 that is the best you can put in the old motherboard. It is definitely low-end, but it is better than a "maxed-out" card in what they currently have. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 16:43, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

So for the list of components, what CPU will I need ? Scotius (talk) 11:37, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

That's a no than 80.254.146.140 (talk) 15:26, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

Win XP SP3 won't boot

There's no error message displayed, and it won't boot in "safe mode" or "last good boot" mode, either. I'm able to boot it into Linux, using a flash drive, and can access the hard drive that way, so it doesn't appear to be a hardware issue, although there could be a bad sector where a critical component of the O/S is stored, I suppose. Also, the Puppy Linux boot seems buggy. In particular, either Firefox dies with no error or the screen goes black, with nothing but a non-moving pointer. When I reboot, it's good for a while longer. I haven't used this Linux install on this PC enough to know if it's always like this or if this is new behavior. So, short of reinstalling the O/S, what can I try ? StuRat (talk) 16:27, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you elaborate a little more on what is displayed when you boot? Is it just a black screen with a cursor, or...? What's the full sequence of what you see — does the BIOS boot up? --Mr.98 (talk) 16:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

No black screen in Windows. It goes through the normal boot sequence until Windows should appear, then, instead of doing that, it gives the standard, "Windows could not start normally, selected one of the following choices" panel, with each choice producing the same results. StuRat (talk) 17:30, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Did you check the BIOS? Oda Mari (talk) 08:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

No. How do I do that ? StuRat (talk) 18:29, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Support representatives of my computer always say to check BIOS and select "default" when I have booting troubles and, if my memory serves me right, I can check it from the standard, "Windows could not start normally, selected one of the following choices" panel. Or maybe I should press F? key. My XP is an OEM and I have no idea what you should do with yours. I don't think your trouble is related to static electricity, but try to pull out the plug and leave it for a while. It works sometimes. Oda Mari (talk) 07:20, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I tried both restoring the BIOS defaults and unplugging it, with no change. StuRat (talk) 23:33, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

You could try booting a Windows XP install image and running its error checking stuff. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:24, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Error logs ?

Let me ask where I can read error logs which might tell me what the problem is. (Even though no error is displayed to the screen, that doesn't mean it wasn't logged.) StuRat (talk) 06:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Any other suggestions ? If I can't figure this out, I may need to buy a new computer to finish my online classes. StuRat (talk) 22:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

One physical, two logical printers?

Is it possible to configure the same physical printer as two logical devices? Clearly, it would have to have two names; my reason is to have two different default value sets so I'm not clicking on and changing Properties 50% of the time.

Primary interest is for Win7 in a corporate environment -- and I'm not the network admin. We have a big-ass copier/fax/scanner/printer configured as a B&W printer (free) and also as a color printer (for which we charge), but I'd like to install two variants of the B&W device. At my level using Add Printer -> Add Network Printer won't show any other device which I have already added, so I can't "reselect" it and do this on my own. Any other suggestions?

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 17:40, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

It can be done, but I'm not sure if Windows and other operating systems support it. You might have to do something messy, like printing to a file, then send that file to the printer. StuRat (talk) 17:47, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

You may have some luck with the "net use" [6] command. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 18:15, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Nothing prevents you from creating two or more logical printers for the same physical printer (including network printers) in Windows. Ruslik_Zero 19:30, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

Good! But, can you suggest HOW exactly? Like I previously said, Add Printer -> Add Network Printer doesn't seem to be the right path; perhaps you can link me to some more specific instructions? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:00, 15 November 2012 (UTC)

"Add Printer -> Add Network Printer doesn't seem to be the right path". Why? You should just proceed with creation. Ruslik_Zero 11:39, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you suggest HOW exactly? Perhaps you can link me to some more specific instructions? This is getting frustrating.

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 16:22, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Exactly the same as with the first instance of this printer. Just repeat the installation the second time. Ruslik_Zero 19:24, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I would recommend using AutoIt or something similar to chose the desired configuration. Trio The Punch (talk) 21:41, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Given the glaring absence of any real instructions or usable suggestions, I conclude that this cannot be done by an end user of this system.

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:03, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

That conclusion is wrong. [7] Trio The Punch (talk) 14:02, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Excellent -- thanks! (I've never run across that site before, either.)

Since it's Sunday night and I'm not at work, can you answer one question on that procedure? Is the bit about installing the new printer object as a local printer on LPT1: part of the "trick" here, or will this only work for actual local printers? Recall that one of the opening parameters here is that this is an existing network printer (and I am not an admin); in the same vein, I have reservations about being able to change the shared name, but I'll try it tomorrow.

Regardless, though, thanks for digging up that site. --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 00:50, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm going back to my original conclusion. A second instance of an existing networked printer cannot be configured on a Win7 system by an end user. Perhaps I should have avoided the use of the word "install" in the problem specs. --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:08, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

November 16

Activity Monitor downloaded on an old Windows XP ?

Hello, Learned Ones ! That unknown (to me) thing kept knocking every day at the door of my old (2002 version) but otherwise well-running Windows XP (+ Free 2013 AVG) , so I yielded and let it come in. But I see on the WP article Activity Monitor that it is an Apple device... Haven't I let the wolf enter my pigsty ? Must I eradicate the foreigner, or let it go on living its life peacefully ? Thanks beforehand for your answers (but please be explicit, mind I'm not a geek at all, I first knew of info. after my maturity went away, & am still trying to defragment my HDD, it was so easy on Windows 95...) . T.y. Arapaima (talk) 07:16, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

The Activity Monitor you linked to simply will not run on Windows. If you are running something called Activity Monitor on Windows, you need to find out what you're actually running. The fact it's not made by Apple is actually likely a bigger concern. For all the concerns with some of their Windows software, at least Apple software does not normally function like malware, but this is easily possible for some random Activity Monitor you got from some random unknown source. If it actually suggests it's made by Apple in the Help, About or somewhere else this would be an even bigger concern. Nil Einne (talk) 08:31, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Windowssoftware with the same name exists. Trio The Punch (talk) 10:32, 16 November 2012 (UTC) p.s. Step by step instructions to defragment harddrives with Windows XP.

Thanks a lot pals ! Since I'm retired now & don't work anymore for NKVD, I'll try to erase that "soft"ware ! (while defragmenting my HDD, if possible) T.y.Arapaima (talk) 08:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Clipboard/prntsc logger?

Hello, saving images for me it's really slow so I wanted to know if there's any clipboard logger or something that saves images automatically when the Print Screen button is pressed. (I've searched for print screen logger and no relevant results) 190.60.93.218 (talk) 13:11, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Try searching for screen capture tools. There are programs that take over the functionality of the print screen button, usually enhancing it by letting you select specific parts of the screen or other simlar tasks. A quick search shows several sites with screen capture tools or lists of suggested ones. Looking through their feature lists you may be able to find one that automatically saves images. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:21, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

I like to use Tinyresmeter for that. Right-click the tray icon and chose "Screenshots". Everytime you press the printscreen button it creates a file. If you want to share the screenshot online quickly you can use SceenSnapr, it automagically uploads the screenshot you've made and puts the URL on the clipboard. Trio The Punch (talk) 21:08, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

⊞ Win+S should work if you have Microsoft OneNote. Also take a look at Category:Screenshot software. ⋘HueSatLum ? ❢⋙ 02:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Mail

In AppleMac's Snow Lepard it was possible to "bounce" emails, how is that possible in Mountain Lion please?85.211.134.39 (talk) 16:58, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

November 17

An inexpensive video game gameplay capture device?

What are some particularly inexpensive (under $30) gameplay capture (audio and video) devices? Or do they not exist at a price this low? Nicholasprado (talk) 18:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Console games? Which console? Or do you mean PC games? Fraps is free has a free trail version! Trio The Punch (talk) 12:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Fraps is shareware... AndyTheGrump (talk) 14:07, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Oops. Andy is right, just because I downloaded a torrent doesn't mean it is free. Trio The Punch (talk) 14:16, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I mean for console games, yes. Nicholasprado (talk) 18:27, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

for best quality wise- you need to look for an hdmi based pci-e card or possibly a usb card, like those by Avermedia and BlackMAgic. Although they aint under the 30 bucks price range level, but do give you almost uncompromising 1 to 1 quality to what you actually see on the tv screen when playing console games. There are also kinds of cards like the Hauppauge HD PVR and cheaper ones such as dazzle and easycap(crap really) but all of those though to a different degree in terms of the extent they impair the original quality of the signal, they all perform a digital to analog and back to digital conversion which is really something unnecessary and undesirable since you want digital to digital, not some extra converting which adds impurity to the signal and making it less precise and crisp. So if your goal is to have as best quality as possible then go for an hdmi capture card , if money is an object, then you might consider cheaper solutions but again the end quality would be far less superior than with an hdmi card. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.43.160 (talk • contribs)

Which is better? Windows 8 or Ubuntu 12.10?

Which one should I use? Write English in Cyrillic (talk) 05:34, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

They both have pretty silly default UIs, but you can change the one on Ubuntu more easily, and the base system should be comparatively more reliable, secure, etc.. ¦ Reisio (talk) 06:19, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

If you want to play first person shooters... use Windows. If you want to edit video, buy a Mac. If not, use Ubuntu (or any other *nix distro). Trio The Punch (talk) 12:56, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Wow wow!! Only for shooters? And if you plan to use Premiere? Or Composite? Or Lightworks ? or 3ds Max???

And no, win8 is not silly… its very very silly, I don’t understand why they do it this way, I even had to input some stupid code in the cmd to get the netframework 3.5 installed (I need it from my old and expensive autodesk software)

the result right now I have 1 machine with win8 and all the others with 7

my modest opinion:

If you want to see movies, listen music, web browsing etc. ->Ubuntu (and there is no way somebody tell you that is as silly as win8)

If you need to work with adobe, autodesk, solidworks… (and play shooters/cars/anything) -> win7

Lastly if you want to spend a lot quantity of money in a system… say welcome to Mac, and congratulations! now you “think different” 

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 15:05, 17 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

Refresh rates of 59 and 60 Hz

I've noticed that many modern computer display drivers and graphics-intensive applications (including but not limited to simulations and video games) offer exactly two refresh rates: 59 Hz and 60 Hz. I can understand the 60 Hz: 60 is a nice "round" number (more precisely, highly composite number) and 60 cycles per second nicely fits the pattern of 60 seconds per minute and 60 minutes per hour. So, two questions:

1. Why is the other option always 59 instead of, say, 61 (that is, why always 1 under 60 instead of 1 over 60), or some "rounder" (more composite) number like 30, 50, 80, or 120?
2. Why is this option offered at all? Under what circumstances would you want to choose 59 Hz over 60 Hz, or 60 Hz over 59 Hz?

—SeekingAnswers (reply) 06:38, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen 59 and 60... I've seen 50 and 60 though. If you're seeing 59 it could just have to do with how the equipment is measuring the input Hz more than it has anything to do with it actually being actually technically pegged at 59. You would need an oscilliscope to know for sure, but if you're using North American power I'd suspect it's at 60, and Europe, 50 (although sort of a moot point with modern LCD monitors and DC run equipment). Shadowjams (talk) 09:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I find it strange that you've never seen 59 and 60, as they are extremely common values (Googling 59 Hz 60 Hz will return 13.4 million results as of this writing, and those top results all discuss how screens and software offer the choice between those two values, though the top results don't really explain very well why those two values are so commonly used). And the hardware isn't measuring and reporting the refresh rate back as 59 Hz; instead, hardware (multiple different systems by different manufacturers) and software (by many different developers and publishers), are offering the choice between setting the refresh rate to 59 Hz or 60 Hz. —SeekingAnswers (reply) 19:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

This is discussed in numerous forums (example). 60 Hz is a common refresh rate for computer monitors, presumably because it corresponds to the North American mains frequency. 59.94 Hz (approximately) is the NTSC refresh rate. As explained in our NTSC article, in the early days of colour TV they discovered that 'dot crawl' was a problem so they had to move the refresh rate slightly away from the mains frequency. Your graphics driver is helpfully offering you the standard monitor refresh rate and the television refresh rate. Presumably (that word again) Windows rounds 59.94 Hz down to 59 Hz, but if you select it you will actually get 59.94 Hz. --Heron (talk) 11:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

ATX start up

IS there any difference for an ATX PSU and all of the associated hardware in the PC if you turn it on and off just by pushing the power-switch on the back of the PSU(most have them) - and when you leave the switch always on and just plug/unplug the mains cord from a plug socket extension adapter or a wall outlet directly??

Could there be any damage done to the hardware in the latter case?? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.43.160 (talk) 07:57, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Basically no. The switch at the back just interrupts the mains. However, the switch is usually equiped with a capacitor to prevent arcing between the contacts when switching off, which may prevent nasty spikes that could damage the PSU or PC. — Edokter ( talk) — 09:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, when you just plug-unplug the mains cord leaving the psu switch on, does that capacitor which protects from electric arcs also take effect or it doesn't get to do its stuff to deter those arcs from happening and potentially damaging your pc parts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.35.43.160 (talk) 10:31, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

That is true, it still offers some protection. But using the plug to switch the PC on and off is still not advisable; when not seated properly, it may still cause trouble due to poor contact between the socket and the plug. — Edokter ( talk) — 11:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

But then what about those PSUs that don't have a power-switch on them, how are you supposed to turn them completely off-on if not by the power-cord??? I mean would that risk damaging your pc still be there?

I guess there is a low risk to broke the psu or the system by doing that… at least if the psu is high-quality, if the psu is generic, or low-q there are greater chances of troble, (having or don’t having the switch)

Once I had a 300watts ASUS that doesn’t had power switch, and erroneously put it in a 220 volts outlet with the volt selector in 115… the thing make a strident noise that make me think that the whole system was fried… but the psu had some kind of protection and I didn’t even had to go to an electrician, just switch a fusible, put the selector in 220 and everything fine

I had this pc for a while and resolve the switcher problem by buying a extension cord that had one, but I did it just for convenience, not for fear or avoiding risks

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 15:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

What is more "expensive" in Java, memory operations or arithmetic operations?

Say I want to write a Java program that involves computing powers of two with even exponents like 2², 2⁴, 2⁶, 2⁸, 2¹⁰ and so on for all exponents in some interval, like say [2, 1000000] or something. It is clear that once I have computed the lowest such power, I could compute the next one by simply multiplying the previous result with 4. So lets suppose I want to compute the powers of two for all even exponents in the interval [10⁹, 10¹⁰]. Which of the following two methods will be faster?

1. computing 2² and then multiplying the result with 4, multiply that result with 4 and so on or

2. computing all powers separately, thus computing 2², 2⁴, 2⁶, etc.

Of course there might be no significant difference when the exponents are small, but if I am using very large exponents (using a package for large integer arithmetic), which will be faster? -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 17:51, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, it's not especially relevant that you're talking about Java; it's much the same problem in C or assembly or anything else that compiles down (by one path or another) to concrete machine instructions. In general, you won't get concrete answers to specific questions like this without reasoning about the real characteristics of implementations of algorithms, and the concrete characteristics of the real microprocessor you intend to run this on. To understand the relative costs of procedures, you need to know the relative costs of the primitives that comprise them. For your example, you'll need to figure out:

1. the cost (in instructions) of calculating the nth member of the sequence from whole cloth
2. the cost of calculating the nth member when you already know the (n-1)th member
3. whether these operations can be achieved solely in the register set of the target machine, and if not how many load/store operators (moving data between registers and cache) are involved, per iteration
4. to what extent the working set of your program fits into the (data) cache of your target processor
5. and if it doesn't fit, figure out how many put/gets between cache and system RAM the process will take
6. and, from the concrete characteristics of your given CPU and its memory interface (and actual memory) you have to figure out the cost of those reg-cache and cache-ram operations

Hopefully, from this you'll end up with two equations, one for the time taken for your first method and one for the second, and the answer to your question (with I think will be unique, but needn't be) will be the point at which the two cross. In practice, as CPU cores have gotten faster, they've progressively outpaced their caches, and the caches have in turn outpaced RAM, so the breakeven point between calculating and storing has moved outward with time. But where they cross right now, for your algorithm on your cpu, will take a more thorough calculation. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:49, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I have indeed a concrete mathematical problem that I am personally interested in and want to write a Java program for computing solutions to that problem. In particular, I want to compute solutions of the congruence $2^{n}\equiv 1{\pmod {(n+1)^{2}}}\,\!$ -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 19:40, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I know this is a digression but — why would you want to use Java for that? If you're writing a program to solve a problem for yourself personally, you don't need platform-independence, and you should get better performance in C or C++. (Of course, it could make sense if you just know Java better.) --Trovatore (talk) 19:46, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Mainly because I am unfamiliar with C and only know little C++. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 19:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I already thought about possibly using Python. I haven't done much with Python so far, but from what I read on the web it seems to be relatively easy to learn and has built in arbitrary precision arithmetic for integers. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 19:54, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

If you only want to go up to 1000000 (and you're using something later than an 80386) I suppose you really shouldn't much have to worry about speed anyway. But if you are worried about it, which your question seems to suggest, then an interpreted language like Python should be the last choice, even worse than Java.

You don't need arb-precision arithmetic to solve this problem (again, assuming you're only going up to 1000000). --Trovatore (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, I planned for the program to be able to also search intervals with larger bounds. For example, if I want to be able to still use the program when I am somewhere around 10¹⁵ for n then I would indeed need arb precision arithmetic. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 20:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

In any case I don't think either of your proposed algorithms is anywhere near optimal. What I would do is, for each value of n, compute $2^{n}{\pmod {(n+1)^{2}}}\,\!$ by successive squaring mod (n+1)^2, using the binary representation of n. There are even better algorithms but that one is very easy to implement. It does mean that the work that you do for n=17 is irrelevant to the case n=19, but that's a small price to pay. --Trovatore (talk) 20:21, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. I think I will have to study this problem more thoroughly before implementing something. At least I've got some good ideas now that I can investigate. -- Toshio Yamaguchi (tlk−ctb) 21:17, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

What language you use doesn't matter much, since most of the time will be spent in your bigint library, so use a fast one like GMP (library). The python wrapper for this is gmpy (www.gmpy.org). Java's bignum library is also reasonably good, though possibly optimized for cryptographic-sized numbers. The arithmetic will be slower than the memory transfers once the numbers start getting big. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 21:56, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, not up to 10000000, it won't. You don't need bignums at all for that; you can do everything with 32-bit ints 64-bit long long ints. --Trovatore (talk) 22:37, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

To store 2^1000000 you will need 1000000 bits. So you would need bignums. Which is another argument for calculating the modulo value directly. Taemyr (talk) 19:20, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

You don't need to store 2^^1000000. --Trovatore (talk) 19:30, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Right, I see, modding out by (n+1)^2. 10^20 won't quite fit in 64 bits though. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 22:31, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

overflow of box in html

Hi folks, I'm using SimpleModal with jQuery for dialog boxes, as found here, but I'm using it for a simple, general alert box, to override the ugly standard one you get with javascript/ html. But because I use it to add my own custom messages, the text overflows the alert box, and for some strange reason, the browser/ html standard doesn't get that I don't want text hovering in mid-air. How to I make a box resize itself when the text gets too long? The css currently has {height: 140px}. I know I could allocate size on a case-by-case basis, but it strikes me as frightfully simple, so surely there must be an option in standard css. I really can't believe it isn't already the default functioning. Every single google search takes me to an absurd array of things that are not connected, such as the function to allow the user to resize a window, when I want to make html do the automatic resizing. Setting "height: auto" simply doesn't work, and neither do any clearfix workarounds that I've tried, and I've been hunting for at least two hours, so this is driving me mad. Any help appreciated. IBE (talk) 21:11, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Can you link to the specific code you're using? ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:52, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Certainly: the link for demos is here, and the demo in question is the "confirm override" section. However, I think I know what's happening. Based on using Firebug, it seems that the program itself is asserting the css style, that is, Firebug shows the css as @element.style, rather than giving the original css file. I was thrown by the fact that the css contains the height data, but presumably, the javascript takes that css and applies it directly and forcefully, which is absurdly annoying. If anyone can either back this or refute it, I would be interested, but it's probably something like this, rather than a misunderstanding of css rules of precedence, or html/dom manipulation. Any insights welcome, but save yourselves the time if you think I'm right about the basic cause. I'm solving the problem by allocating the height as a parameter, which is easy enough, I just hate not having a general solution. IBE (talk) 14:14, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

In fact, I think I've found it: here is the code fragment, where i.b.e. refers to my own comments:

	$.modal.impl = {
		/*
		 * Contains the modal dialog elements and is the object passed
		 * back to the callback (onOpen, onShow, onClose) functions
		 */

		//blah blah lots of stuff

		update: function (height, width) {
			var s = this;
			//...
			// reset orig values
			s.d.origHeight = s.getVal(height, 'h');
			s.d.origWidth = s.getVal(width, 'w');

			// hide data to prevent screen flicker
			s.d.data.hide();

			//[i.b.e.] this seems to be the offending bit
			height && s.d.container.css('height', height);
			width && s.d.container.css('width', width);

			//...
		},

		//...

So this more or less resolves it, but since I'm here, if anyone has come across similar problems and knows good workarounds, please share them. I get that I could just fiddle with those lines, or even comment them out, but some gurus here might know a better way. Also, for other dummies who are following this for interest, the lines "height && " and "width && " are apparently just to ensure conditional execution of the second part of the line. This took me a while to figure out, so I thought I'd share it. IBE (talk) 14:42, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Mouse repeatedly click when button is held down?

I have a Logitech G500 gaming mouse with the SetPoint software. Is there any macro I can do to program my left click (or another button) to repeatedly register left-clicks when the button is held down? For example, when playing a shooting game and using a semi-automatic weapon, this allows me to continuously fire the weapon just by holding down the button, rather than repeatedly clicking. Acceptable (talk) 22:50, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

There are many different programs who do that, if you Google "auto clicker" you'll find quite a few. Do you want a fish, or do you want to learn how to catch fish? I would recommend learning AutoIt.

I wrote this script for you based on an example I found somewhere:
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
HotKeySet("{F2}", "ToggleOnOff") HotKeySet("{ESC}", "Terminate") Dim $On = 0 While 1 if $On = 1 Then MouseClick("left") Sleep(0) ;you can control the click interval by increasing this number, which is the amount of waiting time between clicks (in milliseconds) Else Sleep(100) EndIf WEnd Func ToggleOnOff() If $On = 0 Then $On = 1 Else $On = 0 EndIf EndFunc Func Terminate() Exit EndFunc

This is just a quick example, you can customize it however you like. The advantage of learning AutoIt compared to simply downloading a program made by someone else is that you are not restricted to mouseclicks. You can move the mouse and use the AutoIt function Send to send keystrokes. If you want to you can even make the script detect the amount of health your character has by checking the color of a couple of the pixels in the healthbar, if they are red you know you have at least that amount of health left. Trio The Punch (talk) 00:19, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Updated version:
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
;I used F2 and F4 because F1 is Help and F3 is Search ;I used two different methods to detect keypresses (HotKeySet for F2 and _IsPressed for F4 so if you want to change them both you have to look in two different lists so I added the URLs of the lists in the sourcecode #include <Misc.au3> #include <EditConstants.au3> #include <GUIConstantsEx.au3> #include <StaticConstants.au3> #include <WindowsConstants.au3> Opt("GUIOnEventMode", 1) #Region ### START Koda GUI section ### Form= $Form1 = GUICreate("MagiClick", 366, 77, 192, 124) GUISetOnEvent($GUI_EVENT_CLOSE, "Terminate") $Label2 = GUICtrlCreateLabel("Press F2 to start the AutoClicker. Press F2 again to stop.", 8, 32, 269, 17) $Label1 = GUICtrlCreateLabel("How many milliseconds should I wait after each click?", 8, 8, 257, 17) $Input1 = GUICtrlCreateInput("0", 280, 8, 73, 21, $ES_NUMBER) GUICtrlSetLimit(-1, 10) $Label3 = GUICtrlCreateLabel("If you hold the F4 button the software will keep clicking until you release it.", 8, 56, 353, 17) $Label4 = GUICtrlCreateLabel("0 - 2147483647", 280, 32, 79, 17) GUISetState(@SW_SHOW) #EndRegion ### END Koda GUI section ### $hDLL = DllOpen("user32.dll") $delay = 0 $guidelay = 0 HotKeySet("{F2}", "ToggleOnOff") ;You can find the list of keys you can use with hotkeyset here: http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/Send.htm HotKeySet("{ESC}", "Terminate") ;You can find the list of keys you can use with hotkeyset here: http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/functions/Send.htm Dim $Active = 0 While 1 = 1 ;loop If _IsPressed("73", $hDLL) Then ;Is someone holding F4? You can change the key by changing the number, 73 is F4, here is the full list: http://www.autoitscript.com/autoit3/docs/libfunctions/_IsPressed.htm WinSetTitle ($Form1, "", "MagiClick - Clicking!" ) CheckDelay() While _IsPressed("73", $hDLL) ;Repeat the following actions until the F4 key is released MouseClick("left") Sleep($delay) WEnd WinSetTitle ($Form1, "", "MagiClick" ) Else ;Is the autoclicker toggled on or off? if $Active = 1 Then MouseClick("left") Sleep($delay) Else sleep(100) EndIf EndIf WEnd Func ToggleOnOff() If $Active = 0 Then $Active = 1 WinSetTitle ($Form1, "", "MagiClick - AutoClicking!" ) CheckDelay() Else $Active = 0 Local $a = AutoItWinGetTitle() If $a = "MagiClick" Then Else WinSetTitle ($Form1, "", "MagiClick" ) EndIf EndIf EndFunc Func Terminate() DllClose($hDLL) Exit EndFunc Func CheckDelay() $guidelay = GUICtrlRead ( $Input1 ) If $guidelay <> $delay Then ;delay must be under 2147483647 (less than 24 days in milliseconds) If $guidelay > 2147483647 Then $guidelay = 2147483647 GUICtrlSetData ( $Input1, "2147483647" ) EndIf $delay = $guidelay Endif EndFunc

You can use something like this to count the clicks. If you want to test it without installing AutoIt you can download the compiled version here. Trio The Punch (talk) 04:53, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks! Acceptable (talk) 18:17, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

November 18

Gadgets in 8

How can I install a gadget in win8??

Somebody told me that the gadgest for win7 will still work in win8…

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez 13:51, 18 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iskander HFC (talk • contribs)

I think you need something like 8GadgetPack to run Win7 gadgets in Win8. Trio The Punch (talk) 14:22, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

since I may find myself in the same position soon enough, what do you mean by gadgets? My Apple wireless keyboard (which works perfectly with Vista)? Wireless mouse? Or something more speccy? IBE (talk) 14:45, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Well, its a bit confusing. Microsoft first introduced gadgets in Windows Vista, as part of Vista's Sidebar. In Windows 7 the Sidebar was removed, it enables you to place gadgets directly on the desktop. After a while Microsoft released a security advisory that suggested to disable Windows Sidebar and Gadgets to protect the operating system against security vulnerabilities that exploit the feature. Nowadays (in Win8) Microsoft wants us to use these things, they are called tiles, but many people call them gadgets as well. Some of the tiles are "live". A live tile is basically the same thing as a gadget. Microsoft removed the support for Win7 gadgets in Win8, but stuff like 8GadgetPack solves that problem. But why would you want to run a gadget anyway? You can use a tile. If you don't like tiles and you want useful but ugly system statistics you can use Tinyresmeter and if you want to make your desktop look "cooler" you can use Rainmeter. Trio The Punch (talk) 15:13, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

A former programmer of our group made a scheduler that we use for specifics proposes, I guess the GadgetPac is what I need.

Thanks for the link

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 15:56, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Yep. And if it does not work for some reason you can try the other methods mentioned here. Trio The Punch (talk) 01:00, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Idle computer power

Can you offer the relatively underused processing power of your PC for some sort of distributed enterprise for cash? If not possible, can you offer it to some scientific endeavor? Comploose (talk) 17:41, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Click on some of the links in the See also section of the SETI@home article, BOINC & Folding@home. You can also run a Bitcoin miner. Or you can help poor webdevelopers. Trio The Punch (talk) 17:44, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

cf List of distributed computing projects. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:44, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I would NOT recommend bitcoin mining with cpu. Your power cost will overwhelm any possible return. Bitcoin mining requires high end graphics cards to be done profitably, and even these are likely to become unprofitable when FPGA and ASIC mining comes onstream. Just google for Bitcoin Mining Hardware Comparison. Kram (talk) 20:29, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

In the old days, PC's used about the same amount of power whether they were busy or idle, so burning spare cycles on something interesting didn't waste any electricity. Today's CPU's (at least the faster ones) are quite power hungry when busy, so you will get a visible bump in your electric bill if you do something like mine bitcoins or SETI or whatever 24/7. Here in California a rough approximation is that 1 watt of power consumed 24/7 costs $1 a year. Max out a 100 watt CPU or a 300 watt graphics accelerator nonstop, and it adds up pretty fast. 67.119.3.105 (talk) 22:36, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Bitcoin miner performance tends to be measured in MH/s (mega-hash per second), where a hash is a single SHA256 hash calculation. CPU's typically mine in single digits MH/s, GPU's in the hundreds. At current returns 1MH/s will mine approximately 10 micro-bitcon per hour, which is worth approximately 100 micro-USDollar. So a typical CPU will return perhaps a few dollars to a few tens of dollars per year. As mentioned above, the power cost is hugely greater. Furthermore the return on mining bitcoin is designed to reduce over time. It will halve at the end of November, though market forces will alleviate this reduction somewhat. On the horizon is ASIC-based hardware which should greatly increase the performance. In summary bitcon mining is a big-boys game, not for the amateur. Kram (talk) 22:49, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

A bit of a Freudian Slip there, bitcon vs bitcoin, but I think I'll let it stand. Kram (talk) 22:59, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Hahaha. I know the solution for that problem: bitcoinmining via botnets. Trio The Punch (talk) 00:04, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

According to our Bitcoin article, it's already happening. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 14:37, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I know. I found some sourcecode in a pastebin. Its a pretty smart way to monetize botnets. Trio The Punch (talk) 21:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

As to renting out your CPU for money, I find it somewhat unlikely that it can work profitably for you. There are cloud services that offer large CPU farms for hourly rent. You would be competing against them, and they have advantages like standardized service, reliability, storage, and network connectivity that a bunch of random home computers can't offer. You'd have to be ultra-cheap to compete, and then you'd have trouble paying for power and machine wear. A big room full of server cabinets is quite cost efficient compared to a bunch of home computers. Free CPU projects as listed above are a more likely thing to want your spare cycles. Even then, I wonder if the world were better served by a fat check from some billionaire to seti@home etc to buy some cloud CPU time - power use and global warming -wise. 88.112.41.6 (talk) 16:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Web design

Hi, when people design cool, simple webpages like this one, what do they do? Firstly, do most web designers use a wysiwyg html editor, or do they hard-code? Do they mainly use templates, and just insert bits and pieces by cut and paste, or do they need to do a lot from scratch? And perhaps most importantly, where do they get their cool graphics/ pictures from? I'm aware there's plenty of stuff with Creative Commons licences, but I've done quite a lot of googling for them, and the bulk of what you turn up seems to be pretty drab, or totally inappropriate for any given website (i.e. some of the images look cool, but very few are at all general in their relevance). Thanks in advance, IBE (talk) 19:58, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

For images, there are many stock photography websites like iStockPhoto (many of which also feature graphic design stuff). These are often pretty cheap and the licence you buy for a given image is sufficiently flexible for every use I've had. Some stock sites allow you to contact the photographer or designer directly, meaning if you find say a graphic designer whose style you think matches the project, you can mail them and ask "how much would you charge for a logo in the style of <this pic you did>, with an orange squid playing the xylophone?". -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Hey that's rather helpful, I must say, because somehow it didn't dawn on me that there would be specialist sites aggregating creative commons images, like your iStockPhoto, but free. I had heretofore been using only google, with the licence filtering service. And so I found this. Call me an idiot, but isn't Wikimedia wonderful? IBE (talk) 20:44, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Commons can be useful, but if you're designing professional websites, you often need some rather dull images that people might not upload to commons - stuff like "business meeting" or "legal paperwork". Plus personality rights is a big problem - professional photographers get model releases from the models who appear (as "dentist" of "business lady" or "judge") in their photos - you essentially never get that on a commons photo. If you're talking about real professional web design, professionals pay what needs to be paid, they don't scrape around Flikr or Commons looking for some free thing they can use for nothing - because their time is expensive, and stock imagery is usually very cheap (and billable anyway). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Most use horrible GUI apps and templates. This person probably used a decent GUI app on Mac OS, and did a lot of hand coding. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:47, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

So is the GUI app typically a wysiwyg, and you add hand-coded tweaks? Some apps I've come across for html are purely template based, ie. you click what you want and it just writes the tags to the document, and you edit as you go. Of course you can constantly refresh the page, but it's not nearly the same as wysiwyg. On the other hand, I've tried wysiwyg (eg. with Open Office), and it is basically awful. IBE (talk) 22:01, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I dare say most people use something that has WYSIWYG (and most of these have a code view, too). Actual professionals (in terms of code quality, not salary) do not use WYSIWYG. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

For a site that's being produced by a team, with a real graphic designer and a real web developer (rather than a good-at-neither hybrid person) the designer will often produce a Photoshop, inDesign, or illustrator mockup, and if that's approved they'll emit a detailed specification (fonts, rgb colours, often some css) and graphics layers (pngs hopefully) - which the developer will built from. A professional site (one that's more than just a brochure) will almost always be built using some kind of web template system; but indeed lots of other sites are jammed together with allegedly wysiwyg tools (there's no such thing as wysiwyg on the web, which real web designers know all too well). A sensible medium path is often found when people skin Joomla or Wordpress or whatever templates, which is often a happy medium for many modest sites. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:09, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

I used at a place that did pretty big name websites. After getting information from the customer (or having a proposal accepted) on the general concepts and ideas they want to focus on, the creative department would come up with a few very rough proposals. These would be of the basic things such as what sorts of pages would be on the site, and how the content would help push the intended message towards the user. After one is approved by the customer, the a user experience designer would flesh out details of all the sections of the website. This includes layout, behavior of links and menus, and other details. This was done simultaneously with the creative department, which would refine the design and come up with more detailed graphics. The artists will design their own graphics, and photos of specific subjects (such as the product) are taken by the photographer. Other photos tend to come from a stock photo agency. By the end of the user experience phase, we would have a complete document with graphics representing exactly what each part of the site should look like and how it will respond to user interaction with every component. This document along with the creative assets (images produced for the layout) would then get passed on to the dev team. Depending on the site, it could be fully hand-coded, or designed to work in a CMS that the customer could take over (still with a lot of hand-coding involved). The dev team consults with the user experience and creative teams for anything they need clarified or drawn. Eventually, the site is completed and handed off to the testers with the same specification the developers used. Oh, and during the process creative writing works on making content for the site - generally the specification holds placeholder text. Other firms use different processes, and smaller-scale things can be done by one or two people, but the key thing to take away from this is that it is a well-ordered process of thought and design that makes sure the final product will be well thought through. The development doesn't even start until there is a good plan for every element of the site, and most of the graphics are designed before coding. Designing the site as you code often leads to more amatuerish design - if you've put dozens of hours into the site, then while solving a problem with it realize that things would have worked out better with a design change that would require throwing out most of your work, you end up motivated to do what you can to make what you have work, even if you have realized it isn't the best solution. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Great answer folks - that last sentence hits home. Still, for a one-person operation, writing as you go is by far the simplest way to learn, although it wouldn't do for a professional job. More info always welcome, IBE (talk) 15:29, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

November 19

Why do uploads slow down downloads

When I upload a video on to YouTube, I can't surf the web anymore, downloads slow to a crawl. Why is this? ScienceApe (talk) 00:19, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Whenever you're uploading or downloading, there is always two-way communication between your computer and the server. When downloading your computer will send a verification message every few packets or so, so the other computer knows you got them. If there's a problem with some of the data, your computer will send a request to resend the corrupted packets. This upstream communication is almost impossible when the Youtube uploader uses 100% of the upload bandwidth.

ADSL differs from the less common symmetric digital subscriber line (SDSL) in that bandwidth (and bit rate) is greater toward the customer premises (known as downstream) than the reverse (known as upstream). This is why it is called asymmetric. Providers usually market ADSL as a service for consumers to provide Internet access in a relatively passive mode: able to use the higher speed direction for the download from the Internet but not needing to run servers that would require high speed in the other direction.

The solution is to restrict the uploadspeed for the YouTube uploader. I use NetLimiter. Trio The Punch (talk) 00:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC) p.s. If you open the Windows Task Manager and go to the Performance tab you can see if your CPU is fast enough to keep up. If the CPU usage is constantly at 100% while uploading then that is the bottleneck, but that should only happen on really old or busy computers.

In principle, a full-duplex communication system can transmit uploads at full speed with absolutely no effect on download speed. In practice, both your hardware and your software are not-quite-full-duplex. Ethernet switches and routers, and other telecommunication gear between your computer and the server, all have hardware limitations. Software protocols at many different levels of the OSI model provide limited support for full-duplex communication. As a general rule, any protocol that exercises a "handshake" - like TCP - is designed such that any data flow in either direction has a corresponding data acknowledgment flowing the other direction. In this particular instance, we don't have enough information to concretely identify the source of the slowdown. Some possibilities include hardware limitations of the networking gear; software limitations of the application software; QoS implemented by the service provider(s); and as always, potential observer bias. Nimur (talk) 12:26, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think there's any observer bias... I just recently switched to a new ISP, Comcast. We had DSL before and we got 1.5Mbps down about 400Kbps up. Back then when I uploaded videos to YouTube, it slowed down my browser sure, but I could at least surf the net still. Now we have 20-25Mbps down and about 4Mbps up but whenever I upload videos I can't browse the web at all. Whenever I try it just says the site is not responding. ScienceApe (talk) 15:41, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Try slowing the youtube uploader down a bit (with NetLimiter or something similar). Does that fix the problem? If it does not the CPU may be the bottleneck (on old or busy computers). Check if the CPU usage is 100% while uploading. Trio The Punch (talk) 16:40, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

raspberry pi stuff

I still need to get a mains wire to plug my raspberry pi in, but I don't know what sort I want. As well, is it possible to get a battery for it, so I can use it out and about like a laptop?

82.132.244.24 (talk) 14:53, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The Raspberry Pi is powered by a micro USB connector (like a lot of phones), but the mains->microUSB power adapter has to supply at least 700mA, which is a lot more than the adapters for mobile phones supply (e.g. the adapter for my phone only supplies 200mA). The same suppliers that sell Raspberry Pis retail will also sell you an appropriate adapter. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You will find a lot of useful information at RPi_VerifiedPeripherals. As for the power supply, assuming you bought from Farnell (or the USA equivalent site), there are power supplies in the accessories section. Alternatively see the link I gave earlier for compatible supplies, which must be ideally rated at least 1000mA (1 Amp) at 5 volts. As Finlay has pointed out you also need a micro-usb cable. It is also possible to back-power from a powered USB hub, see the aforementioned link. As for using it out-and-about, it draws about 500mA with no peripherals, so you'll need to size your battery pack accordingly. I believe it will run off 6 volts, ie 4 * 1.5v or 4 * 1.25V NiMH rechargables. Be very careful with the polarity and pin selection if you power via the GPIO header as there is no protection and applying 5 volts to any pin other than the supply pin will destroy the board. Kram (talk) 15:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm going to roll back a little more on this. The consensus on the Pi forums seems to be 5V ±0.25V (ie the old TTL spec), I had rather naively expected a slightly wider tolerance more in keeping with HCMOS, but things have moved on somewhat since my earlier electronics hacking days, so I defer to more recent voices. Sigh, perhaps I'll go back to lurking.Kram (talk) 19:31, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Please don't do that: your answers have been informed and informative. 87.112.60.60 (talk) 20:34, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

There is more on power supply at RPi_Hardware. I take back what I suggested earlier about using the GPIO pins. Unless you are an electronics expert, just buy an approved external battery pack which will connect via the micro-usb power connector. Kram (talk) 15:42, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

a .pdf for an intel board

Some one knows where I can find the Intel server board S4600LT2 Technical Product Specification??

Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 19:13, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Is this what you are looking for, or do you need more detailed specifications? Yetta Bronstein (talk) 20:46, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

The Technical Product Specification doesn't seem to be linked on the Ark yet, so I suspect there isn't a version published for customers yet. I recommend contacting your Intel distributor for more details on the board. The launch date is listed as Q4, so I wouldn't be surprised if they could get you a decent amount of documentation and possibly a few sample boards. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

HELP... C code keeps asking for an identifier

 int i=0;
 int count=0;
 
 // we don't know how long the string is
 // but we do know it ends with '\0'
 while (s[i]!='\0')
   {
     // count the e's
     if (s[i]=='e')
       count++;

     i++; // if you don't have this line, infinite loop!
   }

 return count;

I keep getting the errors "[i]expected identifier or '(' before 'while'[/i]" and "[i]expected identifier or '(' before 'return'[/i]". What's the typo? Im pretty sure I don't need a parenthesis there. 128.111.43.37 (talk) 21:47, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

Have you declared s? Rojomoke (talk) 22:10, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

(ec) Is this your entire program? If so then you are missing a main() function, vis

char s[] = "Hello World";  // Thanks Rojomoke
int main()
{
 int i=0;
 int count=0;
  
  // we don't know how long the string is
  // but we do know it ends with '\0'
  while (s[i])
    {
      // count the e's
      if (s[i]=='e')
        count++;

      i++; // if you don't have this line, infinite loop!
    }

  return count;
}

87.112.122.5 (talk) 22:15, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm doing this lab (I'm not in the class, doing it on my own) http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~pconrad/cs16/10S/labs/lab05/

(ec)Well, we don't do homework here, but as a hint, check the parentheses of your enclosing function (I got exactly the same errors as you did by omitting the main() function). Kram (talk) 22:33, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What I meant by I'm not in the class, I'm literally not taking Computer Science 16. I'm just going through the labs in order. So I'm not 'cheating' on my homework. Sorry I didn't make that clear 128.111.43.37 (talk) 22:39, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

So I don't want s to be a defined string, I want it to be wahtever string is being tested.128.111.43.37 (talk) 22:25, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You only copied a program fragment. The variable s has to be declared somewhere, even if the value of s is not specified there. Note what your link says above the code you copied: "Next, replace the stub with this code". You didn't replace anything but just copied the code by itself. It's a fragment and doesn't work by itself. Earlier on the page is a link to http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~pconrad/cs16/10S/labs/lab05/code/ where you can see the original function http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~pconrad/cs16/10S/labs/lab05/code/howManyEs.c. PrimeHunter (talk) 22:42, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

So I need to take the code I quoted at the very top of this question, and paste it in for return -42; and that's it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.111.43.37 (talk) 23:16, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

That's it for that file. The exercise relies on other files. Try to follow the page from the start. It says "To compile, use this command":

cc howManyEs.c tdd.c testHowManyEsDriver.c -o testHowManyEsDriver

You need all three c files, and they include tdd.h so you also need that. That's it. The files are in http://www.cs.ucsb.edu/~pconrad/cs16/10S/labs/lab05/code/. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:58, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

What happened to Framing (World Wide Web)

At the end of the 90's, Framing (World Wide Web) was extremely popular, not just for programmers but also designers seemed to like it. The menu, the logo, etc would remain visible all the time. A typical remark as I can remember is something like "This is clearly a major invention by Netscape and such a shame IE followed much later. Users love it, let's just make a page 'you have an outdated browser so you cannot access this site. Click here to download Netscape'." The article mentions "In late 2011 frame-like user interface features began appearing on various well maintained websites." The vast majority of professional sites however still don't and would probably be laughed at as if they were using an animated GIF. Does anyone know what event led to everyone suddenly stopping using frames? Joepnl (talk) 23:02, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

You seem to have missed a whole chunk of the history of the WWW. Perhaps frames were the cool new feature and were popular among end users for a short time after introduction but they quickly developed a poor reputation among end users for various reasons that our article hints at. See also [8] [9] Nil Einne (talk) 02:00, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

November 20

Multi-core processor

This article talks about performance of multiple cores versus one, but seems entirely focused on how to get the optimal performance out of a single program, assuming nothing else is running. What I'm more interested in is the real world, where each PC has dozens of processes either running or idle at any given time. How does having multiple cores impact that situation ? Specifically, can you put the program you care most about, let's say a streaming video you are watching, on one core, and keep everything else off of that core, so that that program will not lag whenever a virus scan runs or a piece of software decides to look for an update ? StuRat (talk) 02:11, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, see processor affinity for starters. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)

Quickly open list of links as tabs in Firefox

Hello! I'm currently in a situation where I have very intermittent access to the Internet via Wifi (Internet access for about 5 minutes at a time), so what I've been doing is saving a copy of the HTML of the websites I like to visit, and then read them offline at my leisure. These HTML pages contain links to images and other content I'd like to view, so I save those links, one per line, in a text file to copy and paste into Firefox next time I'm in Internet range. Obviously, following a long list of links can be a slow and tedious task, so I wondering if there is a more efficient and quick way of opening a file of links into tabs with Firefox. I would expect that this could be accomplished with Greasemonkey, but I have no experience using that plugin, so I would need a beginner's explanation for that. Thank you for your time and help.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 07:16, 20 November 2012 (UTC)