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February 19
the screen of my tablet pc cannot be turned on anymore I'm afraid some password is still stored in browser autocompletion db
the repairer could steal those passwords.. what could I do? could I try buying a hdmi cable to connect the tabletpc to another monitor? --Ibozoo-uu-indrid-cold (talk) 14:50, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
- Well, you could remove the hard drive before sending it in for repair. If the repair only has to do with the screen, then it can probably be fixed and tested without the machine being booted into an operating system. You could provide a bootable copy of Linux on a USB stick and then the repair guy can use that to verify that his fix is working. However, you should certainly be able to use an external video cable to get the laptop running so that you can flush out all of that stuff first...it's just a bit of an inconvenience to have to dump all of that useful stuff, and if you're worried that the repair guy is "evil" then who knows what else you might need to remove. There have been stories of those guys stealing music, copying photos, games and who-knows-what from people's computers. Sure, you might remove them from your browser's database - but suppose he can check your email and do password-recovery from various websites to get your details...suppose he inserts a trojan onto your system that reads your password file every hour for the next month and sends it back to him? Once you give someone that you don't trust physical access to your computer, all bets are off.
- So either you have to find a repair guy you trust - or you remain with him while he repairs your computer - or you yank the hard drive before you give it to him. SteveBaker (talk) 03:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
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- One solution is to change all the passwords that may be stored on the device. If you have access to a different PC, you could do it before sending the tablet in for repair. (This is more secure.) If you don't have access to a different PC, change the passwords after you get the tablet back. (This is not as secure, but better than nothing.) Mitch Ames (talk) 08:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
"49 Err 3D910C8" but I KNOW its a computer problem, not a printer one
I have an office network that contains a processing computer, several networked computers and two printers. When attempting to print to either printer from the processing computer, it reads "printing document" for a bit then switches to "49 err 3D910C8 Please turn ON and OFF" It's unresponsive until I restart the printer.
Now here's the thing: the other computers work perfectly with the printer. I send the job, it prints. That means the problem's gotta be with the processing computer. But online, everyone seems to think that error message requires repairing the printer somehow. What can I do to find what's causing the problem from the processing computer?
(Also of note: last night an employee accidentally downloaded an Ask toolbar that took over my browser, they were attempting to open a PDF. I only wonder if this is relevant because this person mentions a similar backstory to their problem.) 50.43.130.15 (talk) 19:10, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
- As a IT and printer specialist, it appears you have an HP LaserJet series. 49 is analogous to a blue screen of death. Since it is related to a specific computer, there is a problem there. I suggest you delete the driver, download the latest version and reinstall it. -- Gadget850 talk 02:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
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- It does sound like a driver issue. Try the hp Universal Print Driver for Windows. http://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/cache/343033-0-0-225-121.html?jumpid=ex_r2845_go/upd I use it for Windows 95/98 era printers and it works great on XP and Win7. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 07:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Well, I'm not sure what fixed it, but its fixed. (Yes, you are right it's an HP Laserjet. Sorry for forgetting to specify.) I downloaded your driver and I ran a bunch of anti-viruses to remove the toolkit, and one of those two things fixed the problem. The computer is incredibly slow to print now (can take up to 30 seconds to process, send and finally print a one-page document) but it works again. Though the problem is fixed, any advice on speeding the printer up? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.43.130.15 (talk) 15:49, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- It does sound like a driver issue. Try the hp Universal Print Driver for Windows. http://h20331.www2.hp.com/hpsub/cache/343033-0-0-225-121.html?jumpid=ex_r2845_go/upd I use it for Windows 95/98 era printers and it works great on XP and Win7. 196.214.78.114 (talk) 07:13, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
February 20
List of webmail bigger than wikipedia one?
Any place with a list of webmails, that is bigger than the (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_webmail_providers ) wikipedia one? 201.78.220.93 (talk) 13:39, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
Anachronism in Schoonschip article?
Given that the 68000 series of processors were only first released in 1979, and given that the article specifies that the program was written in assembler, how can this program have been written for the 680x0 architecture in the 1960s? Either the date of first development must be wrong, or the program must have been developed in something other than assembly language, or this program must first have been developed for some other processor architecture. -- 80.168.174.216 (talk) 15:05, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- The README on the schoonschip archive linked from our article makes clear that this code dates to 1991. It is probable that it has a historical lineage dating to earlier code. Nimur (talk) 16:08, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- I've amended the article with some details of the program's early history. The first version ran on an IBM 7094, and was then ported to CDC. "Porting" assembly is really "rewriting", but unless architectures are radically different, you mostly end up with much the same structure and much the same data layout on the new machine. The IBM had only a 32kbyte address space, so we might imagine the original program (it'd be nice to find that) might assemble down to 16kbytes. Porting/rewriting 16k of assembly might be a chore, but it's perfectly tractable. A couple of decades later it was common to similarly port 8 bit computer and console games to different architectures, bugs and all. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:02, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
MP4 videos into WMV videos
Is there a program that is like RealPlayer but it can convert MP4 videos into WMV videos without having paying anything? Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.31.18.16 (talk) 15:48, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Format Factory would probably do the trick, and is easy to use. DanielDemaret (talk) 06:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Why should it matter whether you are sorting apples or oranges? Or searching for a needle in a hay or a face in a crowd? OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:21, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- You seem to be confusing data structure with data. If you intend to study computer science, you need to really understand this very important, albeit abstract, difference. Nimur (talk) 18:36, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- One reason is that any useful algorithm has to be implemented, and you can improve performance by placing restrictions on it. The abstract case may always work, but it usually takes longer than a more specialized implementation (think of prime factorization). OldTimeNESter (talk) 21:56, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- Suppose you work in a used car lot. There are a lot of black cars, white cars and red cars in a huge parking lot with numbered spaces. Your boss tells you that you should make it easier for the sales staff to direct customers to cars of the color they want.
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- One approach would be to put all of the white cars in the lowest numbered spots, all of the black cars in the highest numbered spots and all of the red ones in the middle. You'd spend a lot of time driving cars around to make that happen.
- A better approach might be to write down a list of all the cars - and which parking slots they are in - and then make a new list with all of the white cars at the top of the list (along with their parking slot numbers) and all of the black ones at the bottom.
- The cars are the data items, the parking lot is an array of cars. The paper list is an array of pointers (slot numbers) to cars. The parking lot and the paper are both data structures. Clearly, it's a lot easier to rearrange the list on paper than it is to drive cars back and forth. So even though the sorting "algorithm" is the same, it's a lot easier to use with a better choice of data structure. You always have to be careful about this though. If these were not real cars in a parking lot - but toy cars on a shelf, then it's probably quicker to move the toys around than it is to list them all out on a sheet of paper. These kinds of trade-off are common things to consider when making a data structure for a particular kind of data element.
- The algorithm is completely separate from that. You could use an analog of a 'bubble sort' or a 'quick sort' to sort the cars in the parking lot - or the list of cars on paper...the algorithm being the same - albeit with a different data structure.
- Some algorithms work better with one data structure than another - often there is a trade-off between the amount of time you spend planning what you're doing versus actually moving data around. There are also situations where the algorithm choice is determined by the available data structures. If you have a spare parking lot just across the street - you might find that sorting the cars by driving them off to different slots across the street was a faster way to sort them out than to mess around with bits of paper...but if you only have one spare space in your only parking lot - then sorting the cars into order becomes a massively difficult task. (eg, Pick the right-most white car, drive it into the spare space, find the left-most black car, drive that into the space you just vacated, drive the white car out of the spare space and into the newly vacated space...what a pain!)
- There is no one "right" data structure or "right" algorithm for all kinds of data...which is why some people can make a career out of being experts in the field.
- SteveBaker (talk) 17:06, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
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- For a case like that, with a very small number of unique values (just 3 colors, in this case), I like a bin sort. Using pointers makes it even better. However, I do think the buyers would prefer to go to the red car area and see all the red cars at once, not have to walk all over the lot to find them. So, it's more work up front (moving the cars), but less in the long run (accessing the cars). StuRat (talk) 07:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
Deleting the $hf_mig$ folder
An old XP computer I still use from time to time is running out of disk space. I have used disk cleanup, I regularly run CCleaner, I have deleted Java, all the $NtServicePackUninstall$ folders in the Windows directory, the entire content of the dllcache folder in the Windows/System32 directory. But there are still a few GB tied up in the $hf_mig$ folder. Can that folder be safely deleted (considering that Microsoft is not going to come up with updates for XP anyway), or will this cause problems? Count Iblis (talk) 19:37, 20 February 2014 (UTC)
- The role of $hf_mig$ is described here. As I read it, its contents are only used when installing hotfixes and service packs, and hotfixes are not distributed through Windows Update. Therefore, if the machine already runs XP SP3 and you will update it only through Windows Update from now on, it should be safe to delete $hf_mig$ even before support is terminated. -- BenRG (talk) 03:58, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
February 21
Uninstalling the $%^&ing Respondus Lockdown browser
Does uninstalling the $%&*ing Respondus Lockdown software completely undo the wide-ranging system changes caused thereby? If not, how can I repair the security holes that it introduced into my system? Thanks in advance! 24.5.122.13 (talk) 06:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- I'm not familiar with the software you've mentioned but System_Restore might help, provided you have the feature turned on and you can find a recent Restore Point that is not going to create more problems than it fixes. It should undo any changes made to the registry. Obviously you need a restore point from before you installed the software.196.214.78.114 (talk) 10:12, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
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- I'm familiar with System Restore (in fact, I've had to do it once already on my current machine, and at least twice on older machines), but it sounds a bit drastic because it would probably also roll back other updates that have nothing to do with this piece of malware masquerading as a browser. Still, I'm willing to do it if need be, but I don't want to do it needlessly. So can anyone tell me if removing the Lockdown "browser" completely reverses the system changes that it has made? Because if it does, then there's no need to do anything else -- but if not, then System Restore (or even System Recovery if there's no suitable restore point) may well be in order. 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- It might be too specialised a product for anyone here to know about, you may be better asking on their support forum or submitting a ticket[1]. It you do want to uninstall it, check things like your firewall and the registry. I've never tried the software but it looks like a browser with a very specific function, locking down the computer so you can't cheat in a test, I would not class it as malware as it is not malicious software. You may need to undo the things needed to get it to work, do the reverse of this page: turn on all virus checker, set security setting back to high, check firewall exceptions and the port block list, reenable any popup blockers. You may also want to uninstall java which it seems to relay on. If you really worried, run some hardcore malware scanners.--Salix alba (talk): 09:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- System restore is a fairly benign task, if you have only installed Respondus in the last week or month then restoring to just before it was installed is a good solution. Yes you have to rerun updates but for most programs thats a fairly automatic process.--Salix alba (talk): 09:12, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! Just want you to know that I had already uninstalled the program before asking this question, and just wanted to know if I had to do anything else to completely restore my computer security. And I've scanned my system with two different scanners -- Norton says everything's fine, but McAffe says that my anti-spyware apps are disabled (for no apparent reason) and spyware definitions are out of date. Which should I believe? (Both are updated daily, BTW.) 24.5.122.13 (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Why do you think it compromised your security? I couldn't find any online discussion of security holes associated with Respondus Lockdown, though I didn't look very hard.
- I don't know what McAfee's scan meant when it said your anti-spyware apps are disabled. Is it scanning for third-party software like Ad-Aware? That would be weird, and I wouldn't trust it to do that reliably. If it's talking about McAfee products, it's most likely trying to scare you into paying for them. If you could quote the exact McAfee product you used and the exact message you got, I might be able to guess better. -- BenRG (talk) 21:51, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- All right then, so it sounds like my system is clean. (I'll re-scan it with Norton just in case, but it looks to me like the McAfee security scan is probably giving a false alarm because it doesn't recognize the Norton product.) Thanks! 24.5.122.13 (talk) 02:32, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Thanks! Just want you to know that I had already uninstalled the program before asking this question, and just wanted to know if I had to do anything else to completely restore my computer security. And I've scanned my system with two different scanners -- Norton says everything's fine, but McAffe says that my anti-spyware apps are disabled (for no apparent reason) and spyware definitions are out of date. Which should I believe? (Both are updated daily, BTW.) 24.5.122.13 (talk) 20:30, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- I'm familiar with System Restore (in fact, I've had to do it once already on my current machine, and at least twice on older machines), but it sounds a bit drastic because it would probably also roll back other updates that have nothing to do with this piece of malware masquerading as a browser. Still, I'm willing to do it if need be, but I don't want to do it needlessly. So can anyone tell me if removing the Lockdown "browser" completely reverses the system changes that it has made? Because if it does, then there's no need to do anything else -- but if not, then System Restore (or even System Recovery if there's no suitable restore point) may well be in order. 24.5.122.13 (talk) 07:25, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
piecewise-linear optimization
I have in mind a potential project that involves minimizing linear functions of a large number of variables with linear constraints — just the thing for the simplex algorithm, right? (Something I hadn't thought about in thirty years!) But wait, the function I want to minimize is not a simple linear function but the maximum of a family of linear functions. Does Numpy or Sage, for example, have a black-box simplex function that can handle this, or would I need to write my own? Or is some other approach more appropriate? —Tamfang (talk) 08:16, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- Around here, cvx is the standard. It's "sort of" open-source software. Nimur (talk) 08:56, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- It is possible to transform an LP problem with a piecewise linear objective function into a linear objective with extra variables and constraints, e.g., [2]. Programs such as AMPL can handle these problems--here is a book chapter on piecewise linear objective functions in AMPL. --Mark viking (talk) 19:52, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
Is html5 a programming language?
According to wp, it's still a mark-up language, but since you can create html5 applications, and there are people talking about html5 programming or html5 developers, shouldn't we already call it a programming language? It is indeed one that run on a browser, but many languages are interpreted by something else, and are still programming languages. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:09, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- If you do a search for an obvious seach term like 'html5 programming language' in a browser, whether or not your browser supports HTML5, you should find plenty of useful discussions like [3] [4] [5]. Maybe even [6] (not sure as it's Quora). All these sources in fact even the article you linked to emphasise that you need to consider there is a difference between HTML5 and HTML5 + CSS + JavaScript. Nil Einne (talk) 19:57, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- Pay attention, that doesn't enter into the implication of my question, of why it's not a programming language still. This discussion do not enter into what sort of algorithm it can not implement, or it's Turing completeness. Even if we don't consider it in combination with js. If I wanted a discussion I would have not come to the RF. So, don't point to irrelevant discussions. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you're trying to say, but HTML 5 (without Javascript, etc.) does not fit the usual notion of a programming language very well, especially because it doesn't have a computational semantics. It is a formal language, though (as are programming languages). -- BenRG (talk) 03:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- As BenRG has also said, you haven't really explained why you believe it is a programming language in any manner that I can really understand. Nor for that matter what you actually want. Your only statements you have made that I can make sense of and appear relevant are
- 1) Lots of programming languages are intepreted. This explains why it could be a programming language but it doesn't say it should be a programming language as I presume even you acknowledge plenty of intepreted things would not normally be considered programming languages. To use a simple example, all versions of HTML are clearly interpreted, are you saying they are all programing languages? Or if you are saying that, I don't get why you brought up HTML5 at all. (Note that a blog post linked in one of the sources I've provided does actually say that all versions HTML are programming languages [7] but it does give a far more sophisticated explaination then simply 'it's intepreted'. Which isn't surprising since I'm pretty sure you could come up with plenty of other things which are intepreted yet which even the blog post author wouldn't consider a programming language.)
- 2) People talk about programming HTML5 apps. Yet as the discussions I linked to and our own article explains, there is a big distiction between HTML5 itself and HTML5 + CSS + JavaScript. Most HTML5 applications would be nothing without at least one and probably both of these and maybe even more. You can do some fairly sophisticated things with HTML5 alone but most people do use various other additional stuff in their HTML5 applications. I.E. when people talk about programming HTML5 applications they are usually (although probably not always) talking about developing stuff using all of these and possibly more (for example server side programming). So the only real thesis of why HTML5 is a programming language you've provided has been more or less answered in the what I've already provided.
- I don't get the relevance of much of your followup. Turing completeness is only mentioned by two commentators in one of the source, with no mentioned elsewhere as far as I can tell (I even checked the Quora one to make sure) and so is clearly not the main thesis for why HTML5 is not normally considered a programming language. The sources briefly discuss what can be implemented in HTML5 alone but it seems clear to me it's not the only reason why most of them suggest HTML5 is not normally considered a programming language, instead they generally go in to more sophisticated explainations (like BenRG did) about what they consider is needed from a programming language and why HTML5 lacks it. Although as I've said, ironically the only real thesis you've provided for why it is a programming language appears to be what can be implemented in HTML5.
- Note that I used the term 'discussions' losely, one of the links is to a blog post on a university website which while probably not a WP:RS (the person who wrote it doesn't appear to be a notable subject matter expert) is not really a discussion either. But it does explain in some detail why HTML5 is not normally considered a programming language. (It also includes some discussion from commentators, including some who suggest HTML5 is a programming language which I presume you've read considering you mentioned Turing completeness and it doesn't seem to have been mentioned anywhere else. I'll be honest I didn't actually notice the discussion before this reply as my main point was the blog post which seemed decent enough.) Another source is potentially an RS but doesn't really directly speak on the question of whether HTML5 is a programming language. I presume you are already aware that in the case of the only real discussion source, as with many discussions, contain a number of explainations from partipants of why HTML5 is not normally considered a programming language, something which I checked before my first reply. (As I made clear, I didn't check the Quora one well but it does provide some brief explaination.)
- If you look hard enough, you could probably find a RS that says HTML5 is not a programming language which I would note would be enough for any article dispute, unless you look even harder and perhaps find a RS which says HTML5 is a programming language and able to demonstrate that it isn't WP:UNDUE. But such sources won't necessarily explain why it isn't normally considered a programming language which I presume is what you want yet which the sources I have provided do attempt to answer that question (well except for one).
- Perhaps you can find a RS that does both, but as I've said, it's not clear why this is necessary when you already have plenty of sources explaining why HTML5 is not normally considered a programming language, even if they are not RS. And you haven't actually given any good explaination that I can tell of what you're asking for that isn't answered in the sources provided which as I've said were easily found using a simple search.
- I presume you aren't trying to edit an article, as you should be doing this in the article talk page then. (In any case I'm not sure there is any reason for any of this discussion in an article, calling HTML5 a markup language in our article is clearly the right thing considering thats what the spec itself calls it as the sources I provided said multiple times. And whether or not it should also be called a programming language doesn't seem sufficiently relevant since it's primarily irrelevant semantics or categorisation.)
- Of course as the anonymous IP has said, as with many things, there's no strict definition of a 'programming language' so none of this means it's impossible to call HTML5 programming language (and from the sources I've provided there clearly are some people who do), simply that there are plenty of reasons why it many people don't call it one.
- Nil Einne (talk) 04:56, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- I don't think HTML5 is interpreted, either, since that again implies some sort of execution semantics. -- BenRG (talk) 21:36, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you're trying to say, but HTML 5 (without Javascript, etc.) does not fit the usual notion of a programming language very well, especially because it doesn't have a computational semantics. It is a formal language, though (as are programming languages). -- BenRG (talk) 03:42, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Pay attention, that doesn't enter into the implication of my question, of why it's not a programming language still. This discussion do not enter into what sort of algorithm it can not implement, or it's Turing completeness. Even if we don't consider it in combination with js. If I wanted a discussion I would have not come to the RF. So, don't point to irrelevant discussions. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:33, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- HTML5 contains several elements, one of which is a programming language. I guess (without having the polling data) that most people would not call HTML5 itself a programming language. But there are no strict mathematical/legal/etc definitions of these concepts. Is a spreadsheet a programming language - even when it is Turing complete? I suggest you should not expect or demand a definite yes/no answer. Or mu, or category mistake. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 22:02, 21 February 2014 (UTC)
- If PostScript can be referred to as a programming language (as our article does in the first sentence), then I suppose html5 can too. Looie496 (talk) 16:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- PostScript is a programming language. It's Turing-complete (which, while probably neither necessary nor sufficient, is a pretty good indicator) and people have, at times, written real applications in it that e.g. used the Apple Laserwriter as a computational engine at a time when it's 68000 processor was beefier than many PC cpus. Of course, PostScript is mostly used for generating images, but then so is Logo with its Turtle graphics. HTML (including 5), as far as I know, is only a markup language (though again, the terms are not necessarily contradictory - LaTeX is both a mark-up language and a programming language). A programming language needs a way to describe reasonably general algorithms - I'd insist on at least functionality equivalent to primitive recursion, i.e. iteration over finite but conceptionally unlimited sets. JavaScript has this, but plain HTML5 does not. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:17, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- If PostScript can be referred to as a programming language (as our article does in the first sentence), then I suppose html5 can too. Looie496 (talk) 16:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
February 22
VM in Win Serv 2008
I've been posting on related subjects a few days back and gaven some misleading information to people who tried to help me. Now I established that my CPUs are firmly E5450 (Intel) and I have four cores in each with virtualization as a parameter in BIOS, plus virtualization for direct I/O. Both are turned ON.
In one of my previous posts I claimed that the CPU was 5400 which is false. I simply misread the BIOS.
Well, the issue here is that despite all this the actual virtualization does not work, or more accurately worked only once and then after I quadrupled the RAM it stopped setting up the VMs. I wonder if anybody will throw me a suggestion as to where I shall go trying to overcome the obstacle? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:11, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
This is what I just did. I have two more OS's here on this hardware. One of them is Windows 7. I went there, downloaded and set up Oracle Virtual Box and installed Ubuntu VM 32 bit only. It did not allow me to install 64 bit version, and I think I understand why. It seems in this CPU E5450 there are only 38 physical bits and the rest of them 26 or more are added virtually. The question now is why cannot I install Ubuntu in the Virtual Box I set up in Windows Server 2008 on another hard (optical?) disk on this machine? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:06, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
The VM business works flawlessly on Windows 7 but I have an ignorance problem. The Virtual Box here behaves totally different from what it did on Windows Server 2008. It is just different! In particular it offers me to either USE the Ubuntu or INSTALL it. The Installation option when I tried it gingerly offered me to wipe out my entire disk and install Ubuntu as one sub option (an option after you clicked on Install button). The other sub option is offering me to partition the disk, etc. The option to USE Ubuntu is safer but the "installation" is wiped out next time you reboot.
I hoped to operate it as a virtual machine which is ignorant of the physical reality on my computer but I am not sure it is what's happening.
Has anybody had this experience? I would like to hear from an expert. Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:57, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Well, it looks I just made a bona fide installation of Ubuntu in Win 7. Had to go through a tree of choices and am not sure I've made all the right ones but the VM seems to be working. One thing I cannot find. How do I make a link (url) attached to desktop with an icon for easy finding some websites? --AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Mozilla Firefox vs. Internet Explorer
I prefer Mozilla Firefox. It's easier to surf the net with it. Internet Explorer has a lot of problems Microsoft hasn't addressed and if they did, they need to do more. B-Machine (talk) 03:33, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Do you have a question for the RD? Nil Einne (talk) 05:51, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- You might like to check out Comparison of web browsers.--Shantavira|feed me 09:03, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
MFM hard drive transfer rate
I've been trying to find the typical data transfer rate of a 3600 rpm MFM hard drive, circa late 1980s. I haven't been able to find it - does anyone know? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:15, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- Lots of analysis of Tandy MFM drives here, and some more here. Data transfer rate seems to have been 5 Mbit/sec. --Canley (talk) 00:54, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- One word of caution: the height of one drive is given as "0.75mm" in the second source, so I wouldn't be surprised if the data transfer figures were off as well. 5Mb/s looks about right for the data rate that saturates the bus, not the actual data rate the drives used to deliver.
- From a late 1980's desktop I remember data transfer times of about 4 to 5 seconds per megabyte, so that would be about 1.6 to 2Mbps. Just shy of the broadband internet I'm using right now. 217.255.185.158 (talk) 14:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- From same source: "in a single-platter drive, you'd waste 50%, but in a big 8-platter drive, you only waste 12.5%."
- It would be 12.5% in an 8-SURFACE drive, and only 6.25% on an 8-platter drive. So the point they made is valid, but their figures are off again.
- Sorry for nitpicking. 217.255.170.25 (talk) 15:03, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
How to block specific cookies on Safari
I use Safari for Windows as my browser. I'd like to block all cookies from Google, and Google alone.
Is there a way to do this? If not, do other browsers allow you to block cookies from just one site?
Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:55, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- You must know their domain. Then you go to Control Panel==>Network and Internet==>Internet Options==>Internet Properties==>Privacy Tab==>Sites Button==>Enter the domain you want to block in the narrow window. I assume you run Windows 7, of course. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 19:15, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- I wonder what wonders MS has in store for the next upgrade ? No words, just icons for everything ? Or maybe instead of just autocomplete for the word you are typing, it will anticipate what you are writing and finish your sentences for you ? "Bill Gates must have his head rammed so far up his....excellent perception of user needs that he is able to provide the perfect product at an affordable price." :-) StuRat (talk) 20:47, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- For some reason the above solution is not working. I even restarted the computer and verified the various google-related cookie entities are blocked, but I still have to delete cookies or run into the same problem. The underlying issue is that have two email addresses I use for unrelated purposes.
- Google wants me to relate them under its new unified account strategy. So one I log into one, the only way I can log onto the other is either to add them to the same overall GOOGLE ACCOUNT or go and re-empty my cookies. It seems Google has found some way around the Windows 7 privacy settings.
- Assuming my concern is understood, is there another way to address it, or another browser that will actually not accept cookies according to the windows setting? μηδείς (talk) 21:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- Had you considered using 2 browsers: one for each account?--Phil Holmes (talk) 11:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
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- I don't think any major browser honors the "Internet Options" settings except for Internet Explorer. It's really "Internet Explorer Options". You need to configure Safari to block the cookies through its own UI (I don't know whether it's possible). I'm not sure that blocking all google.com cookies will solve your problem in any case; it will probably just leave you unable to log in to either account at all.
- Google does allow you to log into more than one account at the same time; see here. I don't think this merges them in the sense you're worried about (the linked page says "Multiple sign-in does not merge account data, and it does not give one account access to another.").
- Windows Safari apparently hasn't had an update since mid-2012, and unless Apple is still releasing security fixes for it, it probably isn't safe to use for general web browsing any more. If you use another browser for most web browsing (which I recommend) and Safari for certain trusted sites, you could also "solve" your problem by logging into one of the accounts in Safari and the other in the other browser. -- BenRG (talk) 22:16, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- Yeah, the solution through Google which you have suggested is just what I want to avoid--a hierarchical account that unifies my personal email under my name with an account I set up to use facebook, youtube, and disqus, which I don't want attached to my family and business email. Even if I didn't have a problem with that (why the eff do they think I set up two separate accounts?) it is clunky as all get out. This was not a problem until last year. It seems I will have to switch email providers for the "web" account. I hate Yahoo!. Does anyone have any good suggestions for free email providers not affiliated with gmail or yahoo? μηδείς (talk) 23:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- There's no hierarchy or unification or master account. You log into each account with its own credentials, and they are only connected inasmuch as they all show up in the dropdown menu. When you log out that "connection" is gone. The only legitimate concerns I can see here are 1. By logging in to both accounts you're explicitly telling Google that they both belong to you, and they could conceivably use that information someday when they turn evil; 2. You might inadvertently use the wrong account. I'm not sure that using a second provider would necessarily solve either of those problems. -- BenRG (talk) 07:20, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Chrome, Firefox and some stand alone download managers do follow the proxy settings in most cases by default, although this behavious can be adjusted and you can often set a proxy in the browser itself. I'm not sure they follow much else. Nil Einne (talk) 14:35, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Yeah, the solution through Google which you have suggested is just what I want to avoid--a hierarchical account that unifies my personal email under my name with an account I set up to use facebook, youtube, and disqus, which I don't want attached to my family and business email. Even if I didn't have a problem with that (why the eff do they think I set up two separate accounts?) it is clunky as all get out. This was not a problem until last year. It seems I will have to switch email providers for the "web" account. I hate Yahoo!. Does anyone have any good suggestions for free email providers not affiliated with gmail or yahoo? μηδείς (talk) 23:08, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- I suppose I'll have to use Phil's suggestion, and move one of the accounts over to IE, although that won't be ideal, since I already use IE solely for youtube (it crashes safari) and have a dummy account there I use solely for logging on to things like my dummy facebook account I use to access webpages that require a sign on through facebook or some such portal. The real problem with two gmail accounts on safari now is not that I don't want google knowing they are both me, but ease of access.
- It used to be that if I wasn't signed into gmail, there would be a field for username and password, and if I typed the first initial of the username, autofill would do the rest and the password. So, to check email I clicked the bookmark, typed the first letter, and hit enter--three keystrokes. Then sign out would let me get the other email via the same process with three keystrokes. But NOW, once I sign out of the first account, it doesn't go back to blank username and password fields. It has my last-used username with no way to overtype it, and I have to type the full umpteen-character password to get back in, no autofill.
- In order to get in the other account I either have to dump cookies and start over, or go through googles "add a second email to your account" process. This means manually typing in the whole second user name and password, then telling google, no, I don't want to merge the accounts, and having to be prompted every time I sign in whether I want to give google my cell phone, my first born and a pound of flesh, and have to look for the invisible link in offwhite text saying, "I'll hand my kids over later."
- That all done, autofill will not work. So I have to sign out from one account, click on the name for the second account, and type in my entire umpteen-letter password. Checking both email accounts has gone from three keystrokes, sign out, and three keystrokes, to 10-12 keystrokes, no, I am not going to give you my cellphone, sign out, another 10-12 keystrokes, no, you can't have half my baby, and off to the pub to calm my nerves.
- So, to fix this, instead of using safari for almost everything I do, I will have to switch one of my emails to IE, end up having to browse sites I usually browse in Safari over on IE if they are associated with whichever gmail I move over, deal with the fact that that email will want to associate itself with youtube, which I do not want.... In fact, I think I'm going to end up moving my private/family gmail to Firefox, which will be the only reason I will user that third browser, unless anyone has any other suggestions. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 18:07, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Is this script that removes google one account safe to install?
This site http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/184950 offers to install a script that gets rid of google one account. Is there any way to know if it's safe to install? Will scanning it with AVG tell me if it's okay before I execute the file? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 19:39, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- I don't exactly know what Google one account means but assuming it is an executable program why don't you try to go to Control Panel==>Program==>Uninstall a program and remove it. Everything should be there. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:30, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Malware problem? Or?
I have to preface this by saying that I know little about computers save how to turn the damn thing on and off. I seem, however, to have developed a problem; whenever I go to many Web sites (I can't figure out exactly what they have in common; most seem to include a lot of advertisements and graphics—newspaper sites and MSN Games and the like—but not all of them), my browser doesn't crash, but my Internet connection disconnects. All the lights on my cable modem (except the "on" light) go off, and it takes a minute or two for the connection to be reestablished. So far, I'm OK with Wikipedia and most other sites without ads. I've run my antivirus software to no effect, and I'm unsure what else to do. Does this sound familiar to anyone?
If it matters, I'm running Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 (and a response other than "Use some browser other than IE" would be appreciated). Deor (talk) 21:48, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
- It sounds like the cable modem is crashing and restarting, and I think it's most likely a problem with the modem itself. It could be overheating, for example, or the power supply could be failing to supply enough current or voltage to support a high load (lots of simultaneous connections to different hosts, as you'd normally find on a "busy" web page). If it was provided by your ISP, call them and see if they'll replace it.
- I suppose it could be malware, such as a malicious ad trying to hack the router and crashing it instead, but I doubt it. You could try viewing the problem sites in a different browser to see if the same thing happens. -- BenRG (talk) 22:53, 22 February 2014 (UTC)
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- Looks like I'm not the only one to have this problem -- when I updated IE from IE9 to IE11, my modem crashed and wouldn't reset every time I tried to run it, but after I rolled it back to IE9 (and reset my modem, and called my ISP), the problem went away! So it DOES look to me like a problem with the software itself. 24.5.122.13 (talk) 04:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- I installed Firefox as a test, and the problem is still present when I use it rather than IE. I can't figure it out at all; sometimes I can view a page without the disconnect occurring, but at other times I'm disconnected by viewing the same page. Pages with streaming video ads or automatically changing ads seem to be the worst, though I seem to be able to view YouTube videos, for example, with no trouble. Deor (talk) 21:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Looks like I'm not the only one to have this problem -- when I updated IE from IE9 to IE11, my modem crashed and wouldn't reset every time I tried to run it, but after I rolled it back to IE9 (and reset my modem, and called my ISP), the problem went away! So it DOES look to me like a problem with the software itself. 24.5.122.13 (talk) 04:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
February 23
Need a site for publishing details on a DSP algorithm
I've recently worked out the details for implementing a specific real-time sample rate conversion algorithm. There is a lot of information online about the basic technique, but next to nothing focused on how to actually get from the theory to functional code. Working it out took a lot of jumping between several different references to tie together all the details. I'd like to write up a nice article describing how the method works and how to actually implement it so that other people can benefit from it, but I don't know of a good place to publish it online. It's the sort of thing I would have published on my blog, but it's been offline for a few years and I don't want to revive it now. Katie R (talk) 02:46, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- Sounds great. If this is a general sort of algorithm, you might consider the wikibook on DSP, it might go well in multirate systems section. If this is more specialist and/or novel, people sometimes publish on Github, but you'd still want some venue to let people know about it. If this is for an audio application, KVR forums might be a place to discuss the algorithm and musicdsp.org has a lot of great DSP-related source code. --Mark viking (talk) 03:30, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
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- If I publish any code it will be psuedocode, because this was done at work and I can't release code developed for the project, so Github is out of the question. The algorithm is pretty common, and is implemented in a few open-source libraries, but I needed to develop it from scratch to avoid licensing issues. Does wikibooks have the same sort of rules as wikipedia for OR? The details are all covered in various sources, but pulling it all together involves some reasoning that isn't covered in any sources I found. Katie R (talk) 15:49, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
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- The Wikibooks OR proposal seems compatible with pseudocode examples based on algorithms from published sources. --Mark viking (talk) 23:26, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
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Writing Unicode text to files
I'm working on a project where I perform sentiment analysis on tweets, and I'm trying to stream Hindi tweets and write them in a file in a human-readable form. I've tried the following piece of code for writing the Hindi data to a .txt file.
with open("C://Users/User/Desktop/hindistream.txt","ab") as f: f.write(tweet.decode("UTF-8").encode("UTF-8")) f.close()
Funnily, the code works when I give it a variable tweet="भारत का इतिहास काफी समृद्ध एवं विस्तृत है।" or something along those lines, but doesn't work when I plug it into the twitter-streaming code as below:
class listener(StreamListener): def on_data(self, data): try: tweet = data.split(',"text":"')[1].split('","source":')[0] tweet = tweet.decode("utf-8") print tweet with open("C://Users/User/Desktop/hindistream.txt", "a") as f: f.write(tweet.encode("UTF-8")) f.close() return True except BaseException, e: print 'failed ondata,',str(e) time.sleep(5) def on_error(self,status): print status
The data does get written, but it's encoded (the text becomes something like "\u0939\u0948\u0902", instead of Hindi characters). Can anybody tell me where I'm going wrong? La Alquimista 06:04, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- JSON strings can contain \uXXXX escapes, and you don't have any code to unescape them. I suspect that's your problem. Use the standard json library instead of str.split to parse the data. -- BenRG (talk) 07:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
I'm not sure how to. >_< I'm a rookie still, and much of the code has been stitched from multiple pre-existing snippets... You mean I should not use the split() function? What equivalent function does the json library have? La Alquimista 08:52, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- I think that your input data is JSON, and Python's json library will parse it correctly and give you a Python data structure, avoiding the need for ad-hoc parsing. Try replacing the first two lines of the try block with something like
data = json.loads(data.decode('utf-8')) tweet = data['text']
- This may not work if the "text" key is nested inside something else, but if the tweets look something like this then it should work. You also need to import json at the top of the file. By the way, you can delete the line f.close(), because exiting the with block closes the file. -- BenRG (talk) 12:03, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
Thank you! It totally worked! A barnstar to you sir! However, I have a follow up question. Earlier, I was using the split() function to get the main tweet that appeared inside all that code (the tweets always appeared between "text:" and "source:", so I had made that the criteria for my split). But this code appears to work fine just with 'text'. How does that work. How does python know where to stop extracting the tweet from? La Alquimista 15:44, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
minecraft server?
some friends of mine have decided to set up a small minecraft server, so we can all play together, seems a good idea, but for some reason even the computer experts are flailing around trying to find a way of linking us all to the game. Originally we tried hamatchi, but it kept dropping out or not working properly, so we switched to something called tunngle, seems to be working, but it's throwing adverts at us all the time and generally being annoying. Anyone know of a simpler, less intrusive way we can get something set up? I don't know much about computers, but I get the impression these programs are effectively doing something we could set up ourselves without their help, perhaps with better server hardware/software? or perhaps not, maybe we just need a better program to run the connection for us? any thoughts?
many thanks,
94.8.179.211 (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
- There are many free software utilities to create a virtual private network. It can be done! But the reality is, especially if you are using Windows, setting up the VPN server will take a lot of effort, even for a pretty skilled computer technician. Are you running Windows or something else? Nimur (talk) 04:44, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
at the moment I am running both Windows and Mint, and have the option to install another OS if needed, though it'd need to be something others can access through Windows devices. We have the extra hardware to set up a physical server within my house if that would be easier? (assuming it can't, or at least shouldn't, be hosted off the same commercial server account my websites are on) 94.8.179.211 (talk) 11:31, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
February 24
The character
What is the character, and what is the point of it? Earlier, I was writing something in Notepad, which I saved and have just now reopened; while writing, probably when typing an extended character, I added the character, but since it was hours ago, I have no memory of what I was trying to type, let alone what I actually typed. When viewed in Notepad, the character's a little box, although in my browser it looks like a zero-width space. I attempted to see if we had an article about it (e.g. a redirect to some article about Unicode), but [[|that link]] produces the MediaWiki:Badtitletext warning. It's percent-encoded as %7F, but Googling this produces confusing results: some pages seem to say that it's a control character (yet we have redirects from some control character titles), and others seem to say that it's something else that I don't even understand. Final note: this was the result of pressing the wrong buttons in Windows 8.1, and my browser is IE 11. Nyttend (talk) 04:57, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- It probably helps if you work this out from first principles rather than using an internet search. As percent encoding mentions, the way percent encoding works is to write the ASCII or UTF-8 (the distinction doesn't really matter in this case as it's a 7-bit character) byte value of the character in hexadecimal after the percent sign. As both the ASCII#ASCII control code chart article and the UTF-8#Codepage layout make clear the character 7F (or 127 decimal), which is the highest numbered 7-bit character, is the Delete character. Although as the article on it says, in some non ASCII character sets like Code page 437, it may be the house symbol. As Wikipedia:Page name#Technical restrictions and limitations which is linked from the bad title page says, the delete character or 127 decimal, is a restricted by the wikimedia software. It doesn't say why, but it's easy to imagine several reasons why it's undesirable. Nil Einne (talk) 05:38, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Question regarding Pyside and Qt for android app development
Hi, i´m new to the world of programming and I would like to know if I can build an android app using python (I have the 2.7.3 version)and also I have Pyside (1.2.1 version) plus Qt (4.8.5 version). Can I do it with what I have or I need something else to download or install? Thank you for your answers. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.222.244.122 (talk) 05:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- Android apps are generally created in Java - and Google provides a development kit with an IDE based around Eclipse and an Android phone simulator that lets you do most of your development work on a PC. I believe it's free to download after you register as a developer for a small lifetime fee ($20 IIRC?). SteveBaker (talk) 20:35, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
Download XP SP3, but not through Windows Update
Hi all, a weird one for you... my father is the president of a non-profit community art group. While we have relatively new laptops, we need to maintain a desktop computer for our high-end printer. The computer we've been using for years died recently, so we've brought in one of the oldies that we kept on standby.
Thing is, the new old system has never been connected to the internet. I've got Windows Update turned on to automatically download, but it's not grabbing SP3. I go to the Windows Update website, it says I need a new browser. I downloaded a version of Firefox from 2012, the website says I need Internet Explorer. I try and download Internet Explorer, it says I need SP3!
I can access a SP3 download page, but it's supposedly only meant for IT professionals and developers. Will this work?
Is there any other way to download the Service Pack? They used to sell CDs of the updates, but I presume those are resting in Alamogordo, New Mexico with ET for Atari. Help? -- Zanimum (talk) 19:39, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
- I know this doesn't answer the question but I assume the reason you need to use an old computer is because the printer connects via an LPT port? If that is the case, you can get LPT to USB adapters that should enable the modern computers to work with the printer. Also, are you sure you need SP3 to run the printer? It is very possible that the printer will work without SP3. I am very sorry if this has not been helpful. 82.44.76.14 (talk) 20:04, 24 February 2014 (UTC)