Music producers are able to take a singer who can barely sing and make them sound reasonably good. My question, then, is if a program exists, or could be written, which could do the same thing. Here are some of the things I would expect it to do:

1) Add background music, as in a karaoke machine.

2) Adjust pitch, when the singer goes off-pitch.

3) Adjust timing, when the singer goes off the target pace.

4) Mute all sounds when the singer should be silent, so no breathing noise or coughs come through.

5) Filter out high frequencies, so you don't hear too much hiss from S's.

6) If this works for one singer, then perhaps multiple singers could be used, each recorded separately, and combined.

So, the goal would be to make a song recognizable as having the singer's voice, but better. Is this doable with current technology ? If not, why not ? StuRat (talk) 00:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, the technology:

1) any multi-track audio program can do this

2) this is Auto-Tune, which is a plugin for several professional audio suites

3) this is tempo quantisation; it's straightforward for some instruments (particularly when given a MIDI signal rather than actual audio) but figuring out what this actually means for a singer is hard. A decent producer with full-featured Digital Audio Workstation software can manually stretch a phrase (without pitch-shifting it) to fit the tempo, but automating that seems unlikely (for any normal kind of singing); most singing isn't terribly amenable to beat detection

4) this is just a graphic equaliser

5) this is a noise gate

6) again, just multitrack

A half-decent karaoke machine does a bit of this (1,4,5,6 and could do some limited 2), all with basic, inflexible, dumb settings. But human voices and actual vocal performances are very nuanced and highly diverse, and if you tried automating this you'd either get something largely ineffective (that's a karaoke machine) or that altered the sound and made it sound obviously artificial. Distinguishing what makes Aretha Franklin and Suzanne Vega "good" and you and I "bad" (so as to know what knobs to twist to turn the latter into the former) is a real AI challenge. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 01:23, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

4) can be done better with an automated "de-esser", which again most DAW software has, although producers would probably want to spot-fix this with EQ. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 01:26, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also, don't underestimate the power of reverb and chorus. These effects are easy to add in realtime or in post-production, using free software and/or professional/commercial tools. Reverb and chorus can make a vocal sound much fuller than it actually is; but, like auto-tune, if over-used, create a very synthetic sounding vocal that may sound unpleasant. We also have an article on overdubbing, a special-effect use of multitrack recording.

Regarding software: you can do all of this in Audacity. If you need the effect to work in real-time, you can try a line-in plugin for WinAMP and search for DSP effects plugins. I have found the latency in many free software tools to be unsuitable for real-time audio effects. You might find a low-cost DSP or analog signal conditioner electronics box at a professional music store; these usually do the trick better if latency is an issue. Nimur (talk) 01:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks so far. Just to clarify, I'd like to use a camera analogy. There are cameras that allow you to adjust the zoom, focal length, aperture/f-stop, etc., manually, and those which are "point and click". I'm looking for software that's like the latter. You pick a song and sing into the microphone, and it "fixes" it, no questions asked. Is there anything like that out there ? StuRat (talk) 02:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How is the software supposed to know if the singer is off-pitch or out of time? Will it have a transcription of how the song should be sung, or will it be able to access a recording? There is text-to-speech software that can customise voices (albeit not without work) and allow them to mimic individuals[1][2][3][4][5], and many text-to-speech systems can sing melodies[6], so something in the general area would be possible, but again only if you know what it's supposed to sound like. (Although many auto-tuned vocals don't sound anything like the original singer.) --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:02, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It would work like a karaoke machine; you would pick a song and it would read the lyrics to you while you sing them, then it would add in background music. The difference is that it would also correct mistakes in pitch and timing, and perhaps a few others. StuRat (talk) 23:30, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm helping someone manage a few Windows XP + 7 machines for family. I've modified quite a few GP settings. (These aren't security related - several features are most easily changed via Group Policy settings).

I'm sure there is a way to effectively save these GP settings so they can be applied to other PCs, but I can't figure out from documentation how it's done. Some GP settings have well-known registry equivalents which makes it easy (.reg file) but others don't. As a home user, what's the quickest simplest way to save a number of GP settings so they can be easily applied to future installations? FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a series of .avi files. I want to take a group of files that were recorded with different dimensions (i.e. one 1280x1024, one 640x480) and mash them into a single video.

I have a program that can convert .avi to a couple of other formats (been working with .mkv mostly). Windows movie maker has resulted in poor quality in the past and it takes forever, so I'd like to avoid using it.

Any ideas? SDY (talk) 03:13, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at VirtualDub. It's free, doesn't install anything (just run the program from any folder) and allows quite a wide range of basic functions sufficient for your needs. It would not be hard to convert your files individually to the same format, then cut and append them into a single video. There's an input format converter here if you need to import from other formats than AVI. It can take a bit of getting used to, but it does the job well and is simple and very well supported. FT2 ^{(Talk | email)} 03:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I am running Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 LTS in a virtual machine using Oracle VirtualBox on my workstation. The VM's screen resolution is set by default to 640x480, and I want to change it to 1200x900 - how do I do this? I know that the problem isn't with the VirtualBox settings because I have previously installed OpenSolaris in another VM, and that VM's default screen resolution was 1024x768. So the issue lies inside the Ubuntu VM. Thanks. Rocketshiporion♫ 04:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry for being pedantic, but let me start by correcting a bit of confusion in the question. There is no such thing as "the Ubuntu VM". The VM is the machine that Ubuntu is running on -- only this machine happens to be constructed out of software rather than hardware. Concerning the question, Ubuntu generates its display using the X Window system, and for this to work, X needs to have a driver for the virtual machine you are using. There is no guarantee that OpenSolaris and Ubuntu are using the same X driver, so there is no guarantee that they have the same capabilities. The first thing to try, though, is to go into your System menu to the section dealing with the display and see whether you can manually alter the display resolution. (Sorry, I'm in Windows rather than Ubuntu at the moment and can't remember the exact labels for the menus.) Looie496 (talk) 04:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm well aware that the Ubuntu OS and the VM are two seperate entities. Sorry about any confusion; I was merely using Ubuntu VM as a short-form of virtual machine on which the Ubuntu Desktop operating-system is installed. But back to the actual question. I went to System -> Preferences -> Monitors and tried to change the screen resolution setting, but the only options provided in the drop-down menu are 640x480 and 800x800. Might there perhaps be some way to incfrease the screen resolution to 1200x900 via the command line? Thanks. Rocketshiporion♫ 05:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't used VirtualBox, but if it's like VMware then you need to install a special video driver to get decent graphics support. Otherwise it falls back on a generic driver with limited features (probably VESA). You could go an entirely different route, like connecting via VNC or SSH with X forwarding, in which case you wouldn't need the graphics driver because you wouldn't be using the (virtual) graphics card. -- BenRG (talk) 07:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't connect to the VM via VNC or SSH because I'm not remoting into the VM. VirtualBox runs as an application locally on my workstation, and the VM runs in a normal window. And resizing the window in which the VM is running makes no difference whatsoever to the VM's screen size. Rocketshiporion♫ 08:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you using the Open Source Edition or the proprietary version of Oracle VirtualBox (does it give you have usb support ect)? Chapter 4. Guest Additions might give you the info your looking for. --Aspro (talk) 10:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The VM almost certainly has a virtual network card with an IP address that you can connect to, and if not you can add one. VMware has three options: host-only networking (equivalent to virtual Ethernet cards on the host and guest connected by a crossover cable), NAT (the host acts as a NAT router for the guest) and bridged (the guest acts as though it's on the same network as the host). I think VirtualBox has the same three options. Resizing the window will not solve your problem (as you discovered). -- BenRG (talk) 10:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have had this precise problem. My suggestion would be to ensure that your initial step on running your VM is to Install the Ubuntu distro, rather than running it Live. It's easy to miss this instruction and produces the problem above. --Phil Holmes (talk) 18:09, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you mean placing the ISO of Ubuntu on Desktop instead off trying to run it from a Ubuntu disc in the DVD drive.--Aspro (talk) 18:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. What I said was what I meant. I had downloaded an ISO of a customised version of Ubuntu, and selected it as the boot medium for VirtualBox. Its default run mechanism was "live", which runs it off the .iso. To install it and establish your own preferences, you need to install it.--Phil Holmes (talk) 22:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

@Aspro - I downloaded the VirtualBox application from the VirtualBox website. It does support USB filters.

@Phil Holmes - The Lucid Lynx distribution is installed on the VM's VHD. The ISO was removed right after installation.

Rocketshiporion♫ 02:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This may be a stupid question, but have you tried resizing the VM window? At least if the VirtualBox tools are installed, it should register that and change the resolution of the virtual monitor appropriately. Paul (Stansifer) 04:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, as I've stated above, I have tried resizing the window in which the VM is running. It made no difference at all to the VM's screen size. Rocketshiporion♫ 05:17, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you confirm that you have the Guest Additions installed? --Phil Holmes (talk) 12:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes: Guest Additions is all important. As I posted above, here is the GA info Chapter 4. Guest Additions. With that installed, one can just drag the screen to the size that you (or your wife) whant's.... (Because as you say, you have USB support and thus have a version that needs this app)--Aspro (talk) 18:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What are some reliable free video converters that are available for download, that can convert any video to Nokia x2 supporting format fully. --RAIJOHN (talk) 07:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A quick google search tells me x2 supports MPEG-4, 3GPP: H.263 and H.264 codecs. FFmpeg should handle most of those. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FFmpeg certainly, and if you're not in Unixland, one of its frontends such as WinFF or HandBrake perhaps. If you can't find a preset that works, make a video with the phone and upload it somewhere, then someone can instruct you in how to duplicate its precise properties. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:51, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have added a few lines to /etc/rc.local that output some text when my system boots. This worked under Ubuntu Hardy Heron. Now I tried upgrading to Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (the next LTS release), and while my code is being executed (I can see it if I add a "sleep 10" after it), the screen is blanked and replaced with the regular login screen after rc.local completes. Is there any way I can bypass this, so my messages remain on the /dev/tty1 screen, with the login appearing below? -- 78.43.60.13 (talk) 11:45, 23 February 2011 (UTC) (Addendum: After some more googling, I ran into a few messages saying the use of rc.local is deprecated when using an upstart-based system like Lucid Lynx. So, alternative question: How do I turn my rc.local-script into one that upstart understands?) -- 78.43.60.13 (talk) 12:01, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What sort of software would be used to add all the little animated stuff into the replays of football games we see on TV, where for instance dotted circles appear under the players and an animated arrow shoots out showing us what direction he went or should have gone? Would this kind of thing be done in Adobe After Effects? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on the Telestrator, but it does not provide a lot of details. --LarryMac | Talk 13:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but that's not quite what I mean, I think. I was thinking more of the kind of animation you see in war documentaries showing the movements of forces across maps, and how they now seem to be used in sports commentaries (not in realtime, but after the action), albeit with little circles under the players as if it's a video game. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying several different combinations, but they never work. I write a lot of documents where indentations are important (plays, mostly). I'll type them in the text editor on my mac (I've tried Pages, too, to no avail). The thing with text editor is that it allows me to save the file as a Word 2007 document. When I try opening it on a PC, though, all the lines I centered appear to the left. It's just annoying to have to fix fifty pages of that. Is there some trick I'm missing? Thanks! 129.3.179.97 (talk) 13:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know that 'why not try something else' is not usually the required answer, but I have never had any trouble with NeoOffice, if you want to give that a try. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How are you creating the indentations? Not all whitespace is "created equally." Depending on your program, white space and indentations might not be "portable." I suspect "user error" is responsible and hope that this help-page from Microsoft can help you determine exactly what is getting garbled; but below I will try to explain why something so seemingly-simple as text-formatting can be so complicated.

A word processor is a very complicated program, nowadays. It reads your document as a binary file, deciphers the content, and runs a sophisticated program/algorithm to calculate the position of every single pixel of every single character that it displays on screen. Different file-formats and different word-processors do not always have the exact same capabilities - so when you export between formats and programs, you need to "emulate" the behavior of the other document-processing program's layout engine and try to create a new and different document that would render the text and its position on the page in the same (or "most similar") way.

Simple text is represented as a plain text file, with no formatting information at all. When you open those documents, all you see is text characters, positioned arbitrarily on screen. You can manually insert whitespace to "add" formatting to a plain-text file. Word-processors also add metadata to store extra formatting information.

Of course the most portable type of blank character is a "space" character - from pressing "spacebar" - but not all programs interpret space-bar the same way. The next most portable whitespace is a tab character; opinions rage about whether it is a good or bad idea to use tabs instead of spaces. Next, all the various types of formatting meta-data, such as adding paragraph-formatting commands (in Microsoft Office, this is the set of options under "Justify" and "Center" and so forth. And in Microsoft Office, you can also add "tab stops" or tab limiter marks - the oft-misunderstood "tiny L" marks at the top of your document. (See this Microsoft tutorial for more information - it may be the trick you need to solve your current problem). You can also set margins, internal columns, floating text-boxes, and all kinds of other tools to position text on the page. Most modern office suites, like OpenOffice.org and the Mac software like Pages also support similar sophisticated text-layout. Now, because these formatting metadata rely on the text rendering program, they are inherently less portable than simple spaces and tabs - so those are the ones that require special handling when exporting to different formats. One short answer is, "avoid complex formatting, and only use regular spaces and tabs." This may be prohibitively difficult to maintain in a large document, and defeats the point of using a powerful word processor in the first place. The next option you can try is to export to an intermediate format, like HTML - and hope that the other program can open that format. In my experience, this can either solve your formatting issues or mangle the document even worse than before - it really depends on subtle details of how you performed your text layout. Finally, as a last resort, you can simply stick to a single program that correctly interprets its own file-format and meta-data. If you do so, you should think carefully about the best document format. Many people prefer plain-text files, or HTML files, because they are easy to read and edit. Many people prefer MS Word document files, because Microsoft Office is so omnipresent, and does have a lot of power and flexibility. Finally, as a suggestion, use the most simple representation of your text that serves your purpose. Plain-text might be unsuitable for your task, because of the complexity of your documents, but you might find that HTML is a good alternative, and is very portable between platforms - albeit with variations in final document appearance. Nimur (talk) 16:10, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What stand-alone on-computer free spreadsheet would people recommend from personal experience please? I've switched from the huge OpenOffice to Abiword, which although a close MSWord clone, is only 5% the size of OpenOffice (tip to British users - move the british.heap file into the dictionary folder from the mistaken place where it is installed). But it does not have a spreadsheet.

In addition to those listed in Comparison of spreadsheet software and List_of_spreadsheets there is also Sphygmic, Abykus, and Spread32. Thanks 92.29.115.56 (talk) 15:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From personal experience I have to say that there is simply no substitute for Microsoft Excel. Sorry it's not free. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:19, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It really depends what you need from it. Excel has a lot of overkill functions in it that someone who is just summing columns and making graphs can do much easier or better with other things. (I use Numbers myself, which I find to be far superior than Excel for the few things I actually do with spreadsheets). --Mr.98 (talk) 18:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I followed your lead and downloaded Abiword, but it has a lot of trouble with words with apostrophes in. Specifically, it puts a red underline on all of "shouldn't couldn't wouldn't isn't aren't didn't hasn't", and also "I'll" when smart quotes are on. I'm unable to add these words to the dictionary, because only the part up to the apostrophe is underlined, and I see no way to manually add (or remove) a word from the dictionary, so I would only be able to add, say, shouldn, which isn't a word. With smart quotes turned on, line-breaks can occur at apostrophes, so that for instance "haven'" can appear at the end of one line and "t" on the next. Is there any way to fix any of this? (I'm sorry I can't recommend a spreadsheet application.) 81.131.7.179 (talk) 20:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tried typing shouldn't couldn't wouldn't isn't aren't didn't hasn't into Abiword and it did not have any underlining at all. Perhaps you have the wrong dictionary installed. As it is open source you could in theory change the source code if you wish. Sorry I don't know what "smart quotes" are - why not just use ordinary quotes? Edit: a little tinkering shows that I only got your problem when I typed the above within quotes, but even then when I typed shouldnt and then added the ', there was not any underlining. So perhaps its a minor bug. Unfortunately it does not have a forum like normal software, but something else. I suggest turning off "Smart Quotes" which apparantly show quotes as 6699 rather than just "" - what I prefer. 2.97.221.215 (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! Deleting the apostrophe and reinserting it makes the underline go away. Good discovery. I visited their IRC channel and then left a couple of bug reports on their bugzilla thingy. Maybe I will fix it myself. Almost certainly I won't fix it myself, because it would be hard. The smart quotes thing seems more serious, really (every printed publication uses them, and they fail in their purpose of adding an air of professionalism if words sometimes break on apostrophes). 81.131.2.174 (talk) 22:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the problem is that the fancy "Smart quote" apoostrophe character is different in its character code from the normal '. You could try copying and pasting the SQ ' into the dictionary. To me the SQ ' and " look clumsy and in bad taste, so I'm not going to use them.

By the way, the big advantage of Abiword over OpenOffice is that the former can do grammar checking. 92.28.242.165 (talk) 12:16, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a VERY new PHP user, and trying to do something dangerous :)

I have set up SQLite, and would like to do this simple thing. Have an HTML table with data and an edit button in each cell, you click edit, then you can put in whatever information you want, and it gets updated into the table.

simple enough...but what am I supposed to do with the post'd data? if action=edit&cell=whatever&newdata=__________, what am I supposed to do with newdata before I insert it into the database? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.128.211.187 (talk) 17:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our SQL injection article discusses how to do it wrong and how to do it right. --Sean 17:15, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can also take a look at the PHP manual's discussion of avoiding SQL injection attacks. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Alternatively, just use PHP's PDO (Php Data Object). It has built in protection against sql injection attacks.--v/r - TP 18:18, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The least is to sanitize the string mysql_real_escape_string.Smallman12q (talk) 02:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a certain url, and I want to find out which other sites, if any, are redirecting to that url. Is that at all possible? --78.35.195.4 (talk) 20:37, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Standard Apache log files show redirect pages under the referer url. Using that, you can see which pages actually redirected but cannot see redirect pages that exist but were not used. -- kainaw™ 22:08, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where can I find that log file for any given website? --78.35.195.4 (talk) 23:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can't. Kainaw presumably thought you owned the site in question. I believe Google has a "what links to this page" feature, but I'm not aware of any such thing for redirects. Sorry. --Sean 00:52, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, OK. Thanks to both of you for answering my questions. --78.35.195.4 (talk) 01:20, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I came to think about this question when browsing our company's own private wiki, which runs on MediaWiki just like Wikipedia does. Is it possible to permanently delete wiki pages on MediaWiki? I understand that WikiMedia projects don't allow permanently deleting pages because of GFDL reasons, but this question is not about wikis hosted by WikiMedia but a technical question about wikis running MediaWiki. Is such an action possible (without directly hacking the database) and if so, how is it done? JIP | Talk 20:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a DeletePagePermanently extension on MediaWiki.org that should be able to do that for you. Nakon 20:59, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is a certain awards site which is not active now. The site used to include separate links to specific years in a section called "past winners", and each link presented a list of awardees. I used the archives and now when I get to the page of "past winners", only a few links are found in the archives and other get into a page named "Not In Archive". Pretty frustrating, because it is very important and many pages depend on it. Does anyone know what the problem could be and is there some way to get access to the other links? Shahid • ^Talk2me 21:29, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give us the actual URL/site in question? It's pretty hard to discuss this in the abstract. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, here it is - it's a site called bfja.com - here's the "past winners" link in the archives - [7]. If you click on one of the year links, you will see that very few of them will work. Shahid • ^Talk2me 21:58, 23 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bump. Shahid • ^Talk2me 11:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that waybackmachine would find the archives, but these pages on bfja must have had the instruction to deny access to robots, so they were not archived. Dbfirs 22:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I want to make a RAID 1 array using three disks, and want to know if it's possible. Let me make clear that I am not referring to RAID 1E, where the capacity of the array is exactly half the capacity of all its disks combined. I mean an array of three or more disks, where each disk is a mirror, i.e. the capacity of the entire array is equivalent to that of just a single disk. Is there any hardware implementation of this anywhere? And I need compatbility with both Windows 7 and Ubuntu. Thanks, folks. Rocketshiporion♫ 08:59, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, RAID 1 requires an even number of disks (usually two, but you can chain it together with RAID 0 to make RAID 10 or 0+1 volumes which are still an even number of disks). If you want to use 3 disks, then RAID 5 is probably your best bet.  ZX81  ^talk 10:29, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Adding to my own answer, did you mean literally having the same disk mirrored THREE times? If so then yes that's technically possible, although I've personally never heard of a controller card that that'll actually support that.  ZX81  ^talk 10:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I meant a array of three mirrors. If it hasn't been implemented anywhere in hardware, can it be done via software, and if so what are the software option(s)? Rocketshiporion♫ 12:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen anything like that. The primary reason is that RAID 5 is not really much slower than RAID 1 or RAID 0 when implemented through hardware. Examples of RAID 5 latency are engineered by writing tons of very tiny files - the weakness of RAID 5. Normal computer operations write a few large files. Further, RAID 5 will give you S*(N-1) capacity where S is the size of the drives and N is the number of drives. Assume you have 3 1TB drives. Mirroring all of them will give you 1TB capacity. Using RAID 5 will give you 1*(3-1)=2TB capacity. So, RAID 5 isn't worse than RAID 1 or 0 in practice and it is better when it comes to capacity. The demand to support more than one mirror just isn't popular. -- kainaw™ 13:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not true RAID 5 isn't worse (in any way). If you use RAID 1, you will get double redundancy so can survive the failure of 2 discs whereas RAID 5 will only give effectively single redundancy and can only survive the failure of one disc. That's where the additional capacity goes. I would agree it's not done much, I suspect it isn't normally considered worth it for such a simple array, however there are more sophisticated schemes with double or even triple parity usually used with a much larger number of disks, see Non-standard RAID levels and RAID. I presume the OP is aware that RAID isn't a sustitute for good backup practices and the primary reason for the extra redundancy is so you can keep the array up with limited risk if one drive fails in cases where downtime is not acceptable (and with large arrays rebuilding may take quite some time). Nil Einne (talk) 17:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Getting back to the question ZFS appears to be able to do triple mirroring in their fashion [8] [9] [10] [11]. (ZFS also supports triple parity.) Oracle/Sun does have storage appliances that support ZFS although I don't know if that's what you want. Bear in mind ZFS is still fairly new and fairly complicated (or at least I think fairly different from a lot of other file systems) and some of the claims made tend to be controversial. Nil Einne (talk) 18:38, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

While I never tried it out myself, I think I saw a reference in the mdtool man page that a software RAID1 on Linux can be used with three (or more) active disks. The usual three-disk configuration with RAID1 would be one hot-standby drive, though.

Also, I agree with Nil Einne that a RAID1 alone is not a replacement for a backup.

If you can live with the downtime, though, you can use a RAID1, especially with more than two disks, as a basis for your backup strategy: Power down the machine, remove one disk from the machine, label it with the current date/time and store it somewhere safe, insert a blank hard disk, power up the computer and have it re-build the RAID.

Assuming "somewhere safe" is that far away that a fire or other catastrophic loss of your main computer won't affect your backup, you can insert the backup hard drive in a new computer, boot from it, and add blank drives to restore the full RAID functionality.

My former employer backed up Windows Terminal Servers that way - they had no user data on them, and the backup software in use had some... well... issues with doing a full restore on bare metal. It was actually cheaper and less of a hassle to send a "disk monkey" into the server room each Friday evening. Of course, with Windows, you occasionally run into the issue that restoring a backup causes the machine to drop out of the Windows domain (because the machine security token had changed between the backup and the fallback), but that could be easily fixed by leaving and re-joining it. -- 78.43.60.13 (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I did not intend that a RAID array should be used as a subsitute for backup - in the event of data corruption, the RAID controller will happily replicate the corrupted data across the entire array! It is possible, using four disks, to make a RAID 1+1 array? I'm hoping this might be more feasible. The primary operating-system of concern is Windows 7 Professional, so that's the OS for which compatibility is a must. Rocketshiporion♫ 06:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just tried to install my old copy of Q3:TA on my new Win7 64 bit machine and was mercilessly denied by Windows itself. Wouldn't even let me try! Anyways, what else out there can offer Quake-like gameplay on a 64 bit box? The Masked Booby (talk) 01:34, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure you don't want to try to get Q3:TA to work? It's almost certainly possible. You might try the procedure described here. -- BenRG (talk) 01:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am searching for a site where people may post there own opinion pieces, and articles. Is there such a site? -Shahab (talk) 05:30, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Normally you would use a blog for that rather than a wiki. Why would you want other people to edit your opinion? Anyway, blogspot.com, wordpress.com, livejournal.com, etc. are popular blogging sites. There are some wikis like c2 which contain opinion pieces, but only on a certain range of subjects (like programming). And I guess there are some general wikis from a particular POV, like conservapedia.com. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 06:33, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sites like Yelp contain people's opinions in the form of reviews of places. Chevymontecarlo 11:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any way to block websites in OS Xu that meets the follow two criteria:

1) The website (such as facebook.com) is blocked in all browsers

2) The website is only blocked at specific times

Thank you for any help. --CGPGrey (talk) 10:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Have you looked at the Parental Controls in System Preferences? There may be a setting somewhere in there. Chevymontecarlo 11:07, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have, but they only match need #1, not need #2 --CGPGrey (talk) 11:29, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The easiest way to do this is probably through your router settings — most have some way of restricting sites, and many have ways of restricting times of the day. You might take a look there. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like SelfControl might do what you want. It seems a bit drastic, though; I prefer browser-based solutions like LeechBlock and Chrome Nanny. Paul (Stansifer) 16:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How does a browser set up an HTTPS connection through an HTTP proxy? Does it use the CONNECT method to set up a tunnel to the remote endpoint (usu. port 443) and allow SSL handshakes to happen over the tunnel? Does it do it some other way? TIA. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.82.13 (talk) 13:32, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, it's always done with CONNECT. That is certainly the normal way to do it. -- BenRG (talk) 02:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, this may sound quite elementary but I'm having problems with it. For an exercise, I need to make this doctest pass:

"""

 >>> nlist[2][1]
 0
 >>> nlist[0][2]
 17
 >>> nlist[1][1]
 5

"""

What does nlist[1][2] mean? When I create a list called nlist and just ask it to print nlist[1][2] it gives me an error saying that the string index is out of range. I think I'm having a blonde moment over something really basic and I'm gonna kick myself when it's explained. Thanks for any help 86.133.115.179 (talk) 15:42, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This would be valid syntax only if nlist was a list of lists. nlist[1][2] says "take the list of lists called nlist, retrieve the [1] element, and of that list retrieve its [2] in turn. In this case, it's either than nlist doesn't have 2 members (so nlist[1] is failing) or that the list nlist[1] has 0 or 1 members. What happens when you print nlist[2]? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since it says "string index", you should also note, if you don't know already, that strings are lists of characters. Paul (Stansifer) 16:06, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, they are not. Strings are an immutable sequence type (with the individual elements being characters). Lists are a mutable sequence type (with arbitrary elements). Things common to all sequence types (like indexing) work the same in strings and lists. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 16:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, but Paul is right to notice the error message; if one misreferences a regular list it says "list index out of range", but if one misreferences a string then indeed it says "string index out of range". So it looks like nlist is a string, but the code is trying to treat it as a list of lists (or a list of something else that's indexable). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That syntax in Python is valid not just for a list of lists, but also a list of strings, a list of dictionaries, a dictionary of dictionaries, a tuple of lists, etc - basically any integer-indexable container class which holds an integer-indexable class (including objects of user-defined classes which have implemented the indexing operator). The syntax is saying "take the object nlist, and give me the contained item indexed by 1. Take this new object, and give me the contained object indexed by 2." If all you want to do is make the docstring pass, then something like:

nlist = {}
nlist[0] = {}
nlist[0][2] = 17
nlist[1] = {}
nlist[1][1] = 5
nlist[2] = {}
nlist[2][1] = 0

using dictionaries, will work. But that would be horribly confusing, as "nlist" would then not involve any lists at all, and likely won't help for the other use cases. -- 174.24.194.184 (talk) 17:44, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. The "nlist" probably is supposed to be short for "nested list" - if you do a Google search for "nested list python" (without quotes) you should get a number of pages which discuss them. -- 174.24.194.184 (talk) 17:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

OK, thanks for the help. I now have the following code:

#  Add your doctests here:
"""
>>> nlist[2][1]
  0
  >>> nlist[0][2]
  17
  >>> nlist[1][1]
  5
"""

# Write your Python code here:

nlist=[[0, 1, 17], [0, 5], [1, 0]]


if __name__ == '__main__':
    import doctest
    doctest.testmod()

Still getting this error though:

File "__main__", line 3, in __main__ Failed example:

   nlist[2][1]

Expected:

     0

Got:

   0

It expected the same as it got!! Surely this is not an error? 86.133.115.179 (talk) 18:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your indenting in the test script is wrong; it should all be lined up vertically, but the first line isn't. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:19, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Today I received a "service message" on my phone containing nothing but the message "1 new message!" and the following link: http://w03.v762.net/app/s/hj92kjk/n0pZo_0_u3/ centre-aligned on screen. Obviously my spam sense was immediately triggered. Visiting the link on a PC only displays an error "Sorry, your mobile device does not support this service". I still haven't clicked the link on my phone. My main question however is: how did this arrive as a "service message" rather than a normal SMS? And how did they centre-align the URL? It does not seem to be an MMS so it shouldn't be capable of any formatting. Is it even spam? And if so how is it accomplished? Zunaid 15:50, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: I had wget retrieve it with a user-agent faked for a Nokia phone, and it returns a page saying "Sorry, this link is not valid anymore. In case of any problem call 0861000983." v762.net is owned by some guy in Germany (who may have nothing whatever to do with this). Depending on the national dialling plan of whatever country you're in, that might be a perfectly innocent number, or an expensive number operated by scammers. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:12, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Further: a Google search for that number quickly finds several posts by people claiming they've been billed on their cell plan for stuff they didn't order, including this. The name of the company matches the email address of the whois record for v762.net. You may wish to call your own mobile company and tell them what happened. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:28, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

HOLY CRAP!!! That is scary indeed. I'd report it to MTN but I don't think they'd take it very seriously judging by people's experience in the link you provided.

So now the technical question: how did they make it appear as a service message and not a regular SMS? Zunaid 10:13, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From reading the link provided it sounds like they are a Wireless Application Service Providers so probably have an agreement with your provider enabling them to send service messages. I don't know about the situation in South Africa but I know generally there's a lot of semi-dodgy stuff that goes on with those sort of things not to the extent of people being signed up for without actually doing anything but I think it's fairly common for people to sign up for a service without realising the actual cost (which tends to be quite high) or that it will be recurring until and unless they unsubscribe. I see a lot of ads on more questionable sites while browsing from NZ IPs with stuff like 'are you compatible' or 'read your fortune or 'know where you will die' where it says somewhere in the small print (can't remember in the actual ad or only when you click) you'll be charged $3 or $5 or something like that for recurring messages. Similarly with Malaysian IPs I see a lot of even dodgies ads telling me I can see what that girl looks like nude (well from the pictures, in lingerie) and clicking on them I find in the small print it'll be RM4 for recurring messages (I think they send some sort of wall paper). I think SMS reply confirmation from your phone is the norm but don't know how well it's implemented. Nil Einne (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

does it exist? --Il signore degli dèi (talk) 16:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

stdlib.h is a pretty mixed bag of stuff; .NET should have equivalents for everything, but not in one place. For example, stlib's exit() call is Environment.exit() in .NET, but conversions functions like atof are in .NET's Integer and Double classes and the like. Which call in particular are you asking about? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Surely the question is about system(3). --Tardis (talk) 22:25, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

.NET has a System.Diagnostics.Process class. Its Start method and its various overloads may be what you are looking for. Example:

System.Diagnostics.Process.Start("notepad.exe");

. Regards, decltype (talk) 09:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have limited computer knowledge and want to set up a Wiki account to fundraise for slaughter bound horses. I already have a Wiki account. What's next? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Logan52286 (talk • contribs) 16:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

By "wiki account" do you mean "an account here, on Wikipedia"? If so, that's an inappropriate use of Wikipedia; this is an encyclopedia and contributing to that encyclopedia is the only purpose for which accounts here should be used. If you mean an account on some other wiki, you should discuss your goals with the other users of that website. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:01, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In the UK, an account with Justgiving can be used for that sort of purpose. (You will need to demonstrate that you are genuine by setting up a charity or registering with HMRC first.) No doubt there are similar schemes in other countries.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:54, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I know there are places like reddit, but it's not as targeted. where did all the people who used to be on slashdot go, where do they leave the same level of insightful commentary on the same 'nerd' issues/news as a few years ago on slashdot? 217.136.146.233 (talk) 17:40, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Must be one of the following sites. The visitors to those sites are highly likely to also be the visitors of Slashdot. 118.96.164.137 (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When attaching an external HD to my computer via USB, I mistakenly turned it on and off too quickly, while the computer was recognising the new hardware. Now the thing is always recognised as malfuntioning hardware by USB. How can I reset USB, ie get USB to forget its memory of ports and what has been plugged in them? Thanks 92.15.22.226 (talk) 21:27, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Try turning off (unplugging) the external drive for a while and restarting Windows. 118.96.164.137 (talk) 09:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You can also go to the device manager and delete the USB device. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:26, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

... and if the device doesn't show up in the Device Manager, you might need to do these steps. 118.96.164.137 (talk) 10:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I had a look at Device Manager. At the moment all I have attached to my computer via USB are an optical mouse, a printer, and a USB2 four port hub. Under Universal Serial Bus Controllers, there is listed: Unknown Device, USB Printing Support, USB Root Hub (repeated five times), VIA Rev 5 or later USB Universal Host Controller (repeated four times), and VIA USB Enhanced Host Controller. Is this unusual? The malfunctioning entry has disapeared. What do the different lines mean? Thanks 92.29.115.47 (talk) 15:38, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Update: the problem may have been a cheap external hub, probably the "unknown device" listed above, which was not working properly so that nothing happened when I plugged things into it. Thanks 92.28.245.149 (talk) 14:51, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How do you turn off "tap to click" on a laptop touchpad, running Windows 7? I've been to the control panel, mouse settings, hardware settings etc and I cannot find any options to disable it. 82.43.92.41 (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If it's well designed, the touch-pad should have its own settings for what actions are enabled (or at least mine does). You may be able to find the settings right in the control panel (that's where mine was). Otherwise, you can probably go to mouse properties, and disable the entire device (I know, not what you want to do), or, if worse comes to worse, uninstall the driver so that it can't work (again, not an ideal "solution"). Buddy431 (talk) 22:14, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I always turn that off, too. What is the manufacturer and model number of the laptop? The most popular touchpad manufacturer is Synaptics — at least, based on how frequently I've personally seen their touchpads — and on at least one laptop of mine, I have had to download a Synaptics driver from the Synaptics website in order to let me turn off "tap to click". Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:10, 24 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all,
According to the definition of Free software by FSF and Open source software by OSI, I realize that:

• 6th criteria of OSI meets freedom 0 of FSF
• 2nd and 3rd criteria of OSI meet freedom 1 and 3 of FSF
• 1st criteria of OSI meets freedom 2 of FSF

So, IMHO, every open source software is free software, too. However, FSF states "nearly all open source software is free", it means "exist open source software is not free".
Any idea? If such software actually exists, please give examples and explain what is wrong with my idea.
Thanks!
-- 113.190.148.238 (talk) 06:31, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Take a look at this and this list. The intersection of both lists is the list of software licenses which are open source but are non-free. 118.96.164.137 (talk) 09:49, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Examples: the Artistic License (which the FSF says is too vague), and the NASA Open Source Agreement, version 1.3 (which the FSF says doesn't allow you to incorporate other people's work when you modify the software). Possibly also the RPL, but I think the FSF may be talking about an old version. Paul (Stansifer) 14:24, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If Android is a free software (and open source) mobile operating system, why won't its competitors, say, start reverse engineering Android's API from its source code and start adding "Android application compatibility" to their own operating systems?

Second question, can any handset manufacturer actually use Android as their handsets' operating system without paying anything to Google?

Thanks for any answer. 118.96.164.137 (talk) 09:30, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Per Android (operating system), the software is released under open source licences, and so yes, any manufacturer can use it without making payment to Google (or anyone else). There does not seems to be any licence-baed reason why a manufacturer of a non-android phone could not provide android emulation for the purposes of being able to use android apps. However I suspect there might be some interestingn engineering issues involved. --Tagishsimon (talk) 11:25, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For the first, they can and have: see Dalvik Turbo virtual machine. For the second, yes, of course, just as I can run Wikipedia's software on my own computer without paying the Foundation anything. Marnanel (talk) 12:10, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From what I heard, phone mfgrs can ship Android on their phones at no charge, but if they want the phones to have access to the Android Market, they have to pay Google. I dunno who cares about Android Market, which sounds almost like MS Windows download sites in terms of virus infestation. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 12:48, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As for allowing users to run free Android apps on their phone... Phone companies in the United States do not appear to be interested in that. They want to charge customers to download and run similar apps. Allowing them to do something free is simply a loss of income. -- kainaw™ 13:27, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is risk in even acknowledging you have a competitor, particularly when you (can easily argue, as Microsoft or Apple) are already ahead — you may inadvertently inform the consumer of an option they weren't previously aware of. Keep in mind that your average consumer is not the sharpest tool in the shed. Once competition becomes closer, of course, other options surface. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:41, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(OP here) Thanks for all the responses. To tell the truth, I actually asked this question because I really can't believe Google is actually releasing Android for free, with no strings attached, even for its "corporate customers" (competitors and handset makers) which obviously have a lot of money (and do not mind spending them). Even "free software" Linux distributions are sometimes not free. 118.96.158.179 (talk) 03:27, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Another factor is that Google are updating Android with great frequency, a new version with exclusive new features every few months (e.g. Flash in 2.2). Trying to keep up with that is very challenging - other projects like Wine and Mono often lag far behind the software they are mimicking and seldom support every application. --Colapeninsula (talk) 15:09, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Image of tree structure [12]

I have a vps running debian OS and would like to create user accounts on it.

I want it so that when the user logs in with sftp, everything in var appears to be their home directory and they cannot cd out of it.

For example, when user3 logs in, they have access to everything in var (read, write, execute) but cannot view (cd) user1 or user2's personal stuff.

How would I go about doing this?

I think I have to do this in chroot, but I have no idea how this would work.

Thanks -- penubag  (talk) 11:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

chmod 700 /home/duke/aa/servers/user? 90.220.118.193 (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No. --Sean 18:16, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To expand, you could do this with chroot, but you'd need to extensively hardlink /var and so forth back in. chroot is useful for specific daemon processes that only require a small amount of explicit access to system directories, but it's a pain for general user accounts. 90.220.118.193 (talk) 11:40, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

chmod 700 just gives them file permissions no? I would like to jail them into var/ which would only hold a few text files. I don't want to open up my vps anymore than this. Could you please explain (in detail) how I could do this? Thanks for your help so far. -- penubag  (talk) 11:45, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hello. When I attach files to my email via Adobe Reader X, it cannot launch my mail application. Is it possible to upload attachments to Windows Live Mail through Reader X? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 13:06, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

am presuming my university's Facebook Wikipedia page and the original Wikipedia article it is based on are linked. In the past, any changes to the Wikipedia article (such as the logo) have been reflected automatically on the university's Facebook Wikipedia page.

However, the original Wikipedia article has the logo (as the university crest) and it has been like that for some time, but the Facebook Wikipedia page has suddenly gone blank - the logo has disappeared. I don't believe this is the result of a delay in updating as it has been like this for several days now.

Does anyone know why this has happened and the logo has disappeared from Facebook, even though it has been visible in the Wikipedia article?

Here is the university's Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancaster_University

Here is the Facebook version: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lancaster-University/108262075861948#!/pages/Lancaster-University/108262075861948?sk=wiki

Here is a reply from the Help Desk (which referred me here):

"The crest information you mentioned is contained within a Wikipedia template -

. If you look at the bottom of the Lancaster University page below the External links section, you'll see more templates (Navigational box templates). These Navigational box templates do not appear in the Facebook page. For what ever reason, it appears that Facebook is transcluding the entire Wikipedia article except for the material contained within a Wikipedia template. As for why this might be, you may want to post at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing. (Perhaps the templates were using up too much of Facebooks computer resources.) However, as Rehevkor points out, you'll be best off contacting the admins of the Facebook page. -- Uzma Gamal (talk) 12:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)"

It might just be that Facebook removes infoboxes because there isn't enough horizontal space, what with the right sidebar of ads. Paul (Stansifer) 16:15, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's now back on Facebook. I am presuming someone saw this and fixed it. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.102.47.237 (talk) 18:01, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How does the computing power of the Honeywell 200, shown as the futuristic state-of-the-art in the film Billion Dollar Brain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa7rrLImVHQ compare with your average desktop home computer nowadays? Thanks 92.29.115.47 (talk) 16:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Being Turing-complete, it can complete any operation a modern computer is capable of. However, the tricky part is computing speed. The ENIAC, at least according to its Wikipedia article, was bested in the 1990's by a small microchip. Honeywell is a lot more powerful than ENIAC, and two-three times more powerful than IBM 1401. This site says the 1401 could perform 193,300 8-digit additions or 25,000 six-by-four-digit multiplications. The modern computers are a lot more effective, performing, I'd approximate 0,5-4 GFLOPS. You'll probably find this section interesting as well: Flops#Hardware_costs. I sure did. Zakhalesh (talk) 16:52, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Instructions_per_second might also be of interest! Zakhalesh (talk) 16:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Furthermore, besides just "computing power," the Honeywell used interfaces that are now considered obsolete: so you couldn't connect it to a modern color VGA monitor, or printer, or to the internet, for example. (Nor even to a keyboard! It had its own proprietary hardware console board, or could connect to a card-reader) So even if running a web browser were theoretically possible, the software support for such an operation is non-existent. A simple day-to-day task like performing a web search requires very little in the way of "FLOPS", but does require a compliant TCP/IP stack, a video output device, and software to support a graphic web browser. A tiny mobile-phone processor may pale in comparison to even a 1950s-era "supercomputer" if you benchmarked FORTRAN on it (... or maybe not, depending on the phone's CPU) - but the mobile-phone is still a more capable computer in a lot of respects. Nimur (talk) 19:53, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think most modern phones would beat ENIAC, for example, in raw computing power as well as usability (supercomputers aren't too good in this generally, as they're meant for professional use in any case). Zakhalesh (talk) 20:20, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you benchmarked them using Fortan or Assembler, how would they compare? Never mind the graphics. Thanks 92.28.247.68 (talk) 00:00, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It more or less depends on what you're doing but I'm still on the smart phone's side. I'm pretty confident that it has more processing power, especially if we strip all the unnecessary phone functionality and leave it as a basic general purpose computer. Every machine should be equally good at running their own assembly code (of course bad instruction sets can ruin this), in comparison to FORTRAN which may cause computation speed differences depending on the implementation of the compiler, so when running assembly code only the raw processor power and implementation should matter. Zakhalesh (talk) 07:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When you say smart phone are you thinking something like an Android phone/iPhone/Blackberry/Windows phone or a more ordinary/average phone perhaps with MMS and WAP and J2ME at best which can be thought of as a smart phone but usually aren't included in that category? Nil Einne (talk) 09:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Smart phones as in iPhone, for example. I still do think that a common phone could also compare quite well against ENIAC, but can't be sure. Zakhalesh (talk) 10:23, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

So am I right in thinking that a modern desktop would benchmark at about 50,000 times faster than the Honeywell 200? I estimated that from the CPU speeds. I don't know how to calculate the comparative flop speeds. Thanks 92.28.245.149 (talk) 15:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't be sure about the exact number, but you can be sure that a modern consumer grade computer is way (or perhaps even WAAAAAY) faster than the supercomputers from 1970 in terms of hardware. However, just a random thought, but software back then was much more resource-effiecent, as there were no extra computing resources to spare. This might even it the difference out a bit, but not enough for Honeywell to come even close to modern computers. Zakhalesh (talk) 15:15, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This clip shows more of the machine: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efvhQ8kWIEY&feature=related I wonder what the point of all the various labels and buttons was? 92.15.20.7 (talk) 14:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My computer has twelve CPU cores each running at 3.3GHz, and I've been able to overclock up to 3.5GHz, so I'd bet my computer can beat the Honeywell 200 anyday. Rocketshiporion♫ 06:54, 1 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Its rather a disapointment that all the great computing power in a PC is wasted on playing SuperMario rather than taking over the world, Billion Dollar Brain style. Its like having a sleeping genie that is never woken. 92.15.29.32 (talk) 01:31, 2 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When I try to use --ignore-length in wget to make it ignore the content-Length headers, --convert-links stops working and none of the downloaded pages are converted for offline viewing. Is this a known problem or am I doing something wrong here? I'm using wget 1.12 on Windows 7 82.43.92.41 (talk) 16:42, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm right now at an internet café. Strangely, I can connect to wikipedia and some pages, but not to others like cnn.com or nytimes.com. What's wrong? I am also able to download torrents. The waitress is useless to solve the problem. What could be the cause of this? I get the error Error 105 (net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED): The server could not be found.77.231.17.82 (talk) 18:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Problem solved, without any interference. But, if anyone knows why it happened, I'm still curious. 77.231.17.82 (talk) 19:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That might have been a DNS error. I was going to ask whether the appropriate IP address got you your NYTimes, but if the problem's gone away by itself then it's too late to experiment. 81.131.64.218 (talk) 19:21, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, but can a DNS error occur locally? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 19:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

DNS can be cached by the local operating system, or by the network gateway or router. The DHCP server who assigns you an IP address will usually tell you its preferred DNS server, and if your computer isn't configured otherwise, you will use whatever server the router suggests. If that server is failing, or is untrustworthy, a DNS resolution error can occur (either failure to resolve, or redirection to spoofed websites, or so on). That is why it is so very critical to use HTTPS and other secure technology and to verify presented certificates against known certificates. It is this last step which is often overlooked - you can have a secure connection to a machine, but unless you can guarantee that it is the server you think it is, by comparing its current certificate to a known, trusted certificate, all bets are off. Nimur (talk) 19:58, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

and to verify presented certificates against known certificates. And how do you do that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Quest09 (talk • contribs) 20:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Your web-browser (or your operating system) uses a chain of trust approach that accepts signed certificates traced back to an acceptable root certificate authority. These RCAs are the "built-in" organizations that your computer or browser is pre-installed to trust. You should verify that you trust every root certificate authority in the list: here is, for example, Firefox's list of trusted certificate authorities. If you don't trust any of those agencies, then your Firefox is not secure. Most people trust these agencies because they have been vetted by the Mozilla Foundation; but that process is not cryptographically secure; nor is it really a solid, safe practice to "outsource" your trust to another agency (even one as benevolent as Mozilla). If you have special security needs, you should clear your root certificate authority list and only add root certificates from agencies you know.

Alternately, you can eliminate chain of trust and only accept specific certificates for specific servers (such as those servers you own, or servers operated by agencies you trust). You would do this by manually obtaining and installing the public certificate from each server - via a secure channel such as receiving the certificate on disk, in person, from the server operator (or via a trusted network) - and then comparing the certificate provided via the untrusted network connection.

For the average user, who does not work with extremely sensitive data, the most practical thing that they need to do is to understand these Firefox error messages (or the equivalent for their web-browser or other internet browser / software). When one of these certificate errors shows up, your browser is warning you that something (either the network, or the server you are accessing) is awry - and this can mean a serious security vulnerability. Nimur (talk) 21:59, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum - you will, occasionally, see some security warnings to the effect of "... a highly capable attacker could ..." - which is, of course, a euphemism to describe the fact that a malicious government could overtake a root certificate agency and issue arbitrary security certificates that would be accepted by anyone with their default security settings - in other words, the implicitly-trusted list of organizations included with most operating systems and browsers. If, simultaneously, a "highly capable attacker" might overtake the root DNS servers, they would be able to redirect any of your web-browser queries to a completely different server than you expect - while providing you with a completely valid SSL certificate and secure connection. Such cryptographic attacks by "highly capable organizations" might seem very unlikely in this era; it is easier to shut off the internet than to eavesdrop on it. Nimur (talk) 22:08, 25 February 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Resolved

(EC?!) Is there any way to stop CCleaner from deleting all my passwords? I will admit it's a bit of a pain having to login again everywhere, especially when I actually don't know the password and have to request a password reset email (which sometimes doesn't arrive for several hours). Actually, I don't think it is actually deleting the passowrds, because on some sites (notably here) I just have to press the 'login' button and I am taken to a page with my username and password already filled in for me, so I am not sure what CCleaner is doing. In any case, is there a way to prevent this? --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 19:33, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cleaner → Windows → Internet Explorer → uncheck Saved Passwords. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:54, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I will give that a go, but does it work for all browsers? Is 'Internet Explorer' a generic name for all browsers? I don't even use Internet Explorer.... (by the way, it is unchecked anyway). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:51, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(EDIT) - 'Session' appears to be the correct option to uncheck. Cheers. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:57, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

My browser doesn't currently display any difference in text marked with the small tag (e.g. in this post right there). No choices in 'Preferences' -> 'Fonts and Colors' seem to fix it. I'm using Firefox 3.6.13 in OS X. How do I get it to work properly? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 22:39, 25 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure about Firefox on OS X, but if it is similar to Firefox on Windows, you may want to check the advanced settings under "Fonts & Colors"— specifically the setting for minimum font size. It may be imposing a minimum font size that Firefox won't go below. --173.49.10.78 (talk) 03:19, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, it's obvious now. Thanks! SemanticMantis (talk) 03:50, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, when I block http://geoiplookup.wikimedia.org, I can no longer edit or even view any Wikipedia page. It just doesn't load. However, when I take wikipedia.org and wikimedia.org off my whitelist for NoScript (meaning that I block scripting completely), there's no problem. I prefer JS to be enabled on this site but I don't want to have to allow this geolocation thing. My question is why does this have to run? Yes, it's not a big deal (IP gives away my location anyway so this isn't a privacy thing), but I'm interested in the why. Voxii (talk) 01:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I block the geoiplookup with adblock and can view pages just fine. The geoip is used for serving ad banners and (I think) for gathering readership statistics that are none of Wikipedia's business and that certainly shouldn't be disclosed to third parties, so blocking it is appropriate. I certainly notice that blocking the geoip server suppresses the ad banners. I don't think that raw server logs include viewer (as opposed to editor) IP addresses, though I could be wrong. I may try to find out. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 02:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It does. Actually, it's more than just server logs. IP addresses of logged-in users are available to anyone with the "checkuser" right (along with developers and staff). I too use Adblock with the EasyPrivacy filter and that's why it's blocked. BTW, this only happens when logged in. Voxii (talk) 03:06, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see, that is weird. All the more reason not to log in, I guess. Are you seriously saying that CU can examine the browsing (not just editing) activity of all logged-in users? I didn't realize that and I find it creepy. Or do you just mean it can see what addresses have received authentication cookies for which accounts? That's more reasonable. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 03:49, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, just edits are recorded (and anything that triggers the abuse filter when trying to edit). They also get to see your user-agent and possibly other things. That's how they investigate "sock puppets" since most IPs are dynamic. Voxii (talk) 03:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think it's worth opening a bugzilla ticket about not being able to view pages with geoipserver blocked, especially if you can reproduce it on another computer, etc. It's not good behavior of a free encyclopedia to not work without invading reader privacy. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 04:42, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ugh, I hate using bugzilla. For now I'm just blocking scripts from wikimedia.org and that works. I forgot why I white-listed it in the first place but it doesn't seem to break anything on this site so far. If I start feeling motivated I might try it on another computer with Chrome (instead of Firefox) and report it if the same thing happens. And yeah, I agree it's not good for Wikipedia's image, however they kinda already any respect they had with those stupid humongous donation banners. One even said "Help Keep Wikipedia Ad-free" lol. Voxii (talk) 05:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Voxii and adsl-71-141-88-54.dsl.snfc21.sbcglobal.net, I think we need a dose of sanity here. The server named "geoiplookup" looks up information about the source IP address of the HTTP connection in a database and returns that information over the same HTTP connection, where it's used by Javascript running on your machine. It's not logged. If you think that Wikimedia is "secretly" logging this information and selling it to third parties in violation of their own policies, why don't you believe that they've been secretly doing that all along? If they were trying to hide what they were doing, they could give the server an innocuous name, like, I dunno, en.wikipedia.org. Your fear of this new server on the basis of its name is completely irrational. Furthermore, don't you realize that virtually every other web site on the Net keeps long-term records of everything you do on that site? You can't "block" that except by not visiting the site. It's hard to think of a web site less deserving of your fear than Wikipedia.

The IP addresses used by logged-in Wikipedia users to make edits are recorded for some period of time, and a very small number of people have the ability to view this information using a tool called "CheckUser". The only permitted use of this is to prevent sockpuppetry. Every use of this tool is logged to prevent abuse (the log does not include the IP information, just the user doing the lookup and the looked-up user); anyone abusing the system would have their checkuser right revoked (I don't know if this has ever happened). Again, this is vastly more concern for your privacy than you'll find nearly anywhere else. -- BenRG (talk) 08:58, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Also -- ad banners? Are we using the same site? Not logging in as a way of avoiding having your IP address recorded; do you understand that when you aren't logged in, your IP address is being more easily recorded than it had been previously? Not logging in as a way of them not getting readership statistics: every visit to every page is in some server log somewhere, with your IP address. (And who says it isn't their business to gather aggregate reader statistics?) Very strange conversation here; like we're talking about a different site or something. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like 71 thinks there are ad banners but they're simply not shown because they blocked the geolookup. Of course when advertising servers use geolocation they simply do it in the background and serve different content based on the results, they don't need to rely on a seperate server telling the client what their geolocation is which the client then tells the ad server but anyway... Nil Einne (talk) 18:12, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

No, apparently it was about the donation banners, which encouraged us to donate money in order to make Jimbo's huge potato-like face go away. I believe this coercive method was quite effective. 81.131.21.81 (talk) 19:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Except all you had to do was log in to make them go away! (Some coercion!) --Mr.98 (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed the whole idea is actually incredibly silly. If you want to do a geolookup for purposes of usage statistics, there's no reason you even have to do it from a publicly accessible server or in realtime. Just store the IP in a database and activity in a database and do a geolookup on the IPs in the logs where it's not already store. If you did want to do it in realtime, you'd still not bother to give any indication to the client, a geolookup would be made by some again potentially not publicly accessible server and this would be stored in the logs. The client doesn't see any sign of this since it goes on in the background of the server farm. Nil Einne (talk) 18:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You might find it useful to also post this at WP:VPT (if you would rather not open a bugzilla report) as some of the coders are frequently active on that page. Nanonic (talk) 06:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you do a Google search for ip address, you can see the surveillance abilities of some other websites. Who deserves to have the power of surveillance? Who deserves to have the power of privacy? How can the balance of those powers best reflect justice? See also Caller ID.

—Wavelength (talk) 15:08, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of asking two "who" questions and implying that every person is always deserving or always undeserving, I would have done better to ask two "when" questions to reflect different circumstances. When or in what circumstances does a person deserve to have the power of Internet surveillance? When or in what circumstances does a person deserve to have the power of Internet privacy?

—Wavelength (talk) 15:33, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not "surveillance" — it's how computers work. You have to send a return address to get the site information you're asking for. If you are completely paranoid about that, there are multitudes of easy programs (e.g. tor) or proxies you can use to disguise your web surfing habits. If you're concerned about internet privacy, Wikipedia is probably the least of your troubles! Listen, I'm a huge advocate of internet privacy. But the collection of server data in and of itself does not to me pose any major threat to that. What you do with said logs is another question, but I see no indication that Wikipedia does anything invasive whatsoever with them. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's not how computers work. It's how IP works, but it didn't have to be designed that way. Compare IP with the (pre-Internet-age) telephone network, where every switch effectively behaves like a NAT router. Tracing a call was very difficult because it required compromising the security of every switch (probably by calling the switching station and convincing them that you had authority to request the trace). The Internet was not designed with privacy in mind, which is very unfortunate. IPv6 makes things worse by eliminating the need for NAT and dynamic IP addresses, which were introduced to delay address space exhaustion but happen to have the side effect of improving privacy. -- BenRG (talk) 01:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't mind the existence of checkuser and some other info gathering, as long as it's only used on editors--that is, IMO, Wikipedia should not be collecting any data about readers who do not edit. By "ad banners" I mean the WP fundraising banners and so forth. If you block geoiplookup, those go away. Obviously there are other websites whose practices are worse than Wikipedia's, but we're supposed to be ahead of the curve (maybe bad metaphor, if the curve is going in the wrong direction). I do know that WP has recently been disclosing location data about its readers, which I see as a bad idea. And, my understanding had been that IP addresses of read-only page retrievals were not logged, making it impossible to gather geolocation info by post-processing the logs. But, the computing desk isn't the right place to get into a general debate about Wikipedia data collection practices even though the issue has been bothering me for a while, so I'll try to stop. 71.141.88.54 (talk) 18:56, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that checkuser does not let admins see anything about your reading habits, just your editing habits. So what's the big deal?

I fail to see at all how aggregate location information violates anyones privacy in any way. Knowing that 50% of your readers are from one country, and 30% are from another, tells you absolutely nothing private about the individual readers involved. The only potential privacy violation I can see is posting individual IP addresses... which is what happens when you edit without logging in. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:01, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

CheckUser only works on edits. I believe that page views are sampled in order to collect aggregate statistics; that is, one in 1000 requests or so increments a counter for the page requested and perhaps one for the general region of the world that the request comes from. This information isn't obtained by postprocessing of logs.

The Foundation has to meet its expenses (primarily related to serving pages for a top-10 web site) somehow, and I can't think of an alternative to the current annual pledge drive that isn't either more annoying or more compromising of its moral integrity. The fact that blocking geoiplookup makes the banners go away doesn't mean that geoiplookup is somehow responsible for the banners; it just means that the request to geoiplookup is one step in displaying the banner and if that step fails, the banner code gives up. Most other web sites would fall back on a default banner in that case, but the WMF is nicer than that, apparently. -- BenRG (talk) 22:48, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

AFAIK the details are stored for a limited time although you're correct it's only 1/1000. See [13] [14] where for example it's mentioned

One in thousand server accesses are logged and stored for a limited time for analysis purposes.

and

The 1:1000 sampled squid logs are scanned one day at a time. Counts per day are added to monthly totals. Since each record stands for thousand original server accesses, totals are multiplied by 1000.

Note that the privacy policy does not say your page visits won't be logged:

When a visitor requests or reads a page, or sends email to a Wikimedia server, no more information is collected than is typically collected by web sites. The Wikimedia Foundation may keep raw logs of such transactions, but these will not be published or used to track legitimate users.

and

No more information on users and other visitors reading pages is collected than is typically collected in server logs by web sites. Aside from the above raw log data collected for general purposes, page visits do not expose a visitor's identity publicly. Sampled raw log data may include the IP address of any user, but it is not reproduced publicly.

and

To provide site statistics. The Foundation statistically samples raw log data from users' visits. These logs are used to produce the site statistics pages; the raw log data is not made public.

To solve technical problems. Log data may be examined by developers in the course of solving technical problems and in tracking down badly-behaved web spiders that overwhelm the site.

All of which suggest IP addresses are logged at least for a short time, as with probably 99.99% of the internet. While the info is unclear, I presume all visits are logged for a short time but only ever used by developers, and there is also a 1/1000 sample of the logs which is used for analysis.

Anyway another thing just occured to me. The statistics AFAIK are all gathered from the squid caches. However (again AFAIK) logged in users do not use the squid cache so if you want to stay out of the stats, being logged in may help (I'm lazy to ask anyone since I don't care). To emphasise, I'm pretty sure this won't stop you being logged since as I said I'm pretty sure all requests are logged even if only kept for a short time and not used except as needed by the developers when there are problems. It simply means you won't have a possibility of being sampled in the stats. One thing is for sure, blocking the geolookup server is not going to do anything about whether or not you're part of the visitor statistics logs.

Nil Einne (talk) 15:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

BTW the geoiplookup info it used to choose fundraising banners [15]. It's an interesting way of doing things and I guess reflects the way all this is designed. As I've remarked I'm pretty sure it's not very common practice, most servers would just serve you different content based on the info they gather from you (including IP which they'll geolookup and possibly more themselves, cookies, any info you provided to them previously etc) rather then getting you to make a geolookup request and then send the info to them. Privacy wise I wouldn't say it's better or worse then a server doing a geolookup in the background although you can block it or send differing info which some may see as a plus. See also [16] Nil Einne (talk) 16:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft tried to do an update to my computer to prevent USB pen drives from running auto-start (while allowing CDs and DVDs to continue to do so). I refused. I went to their site to try to figure out why they wanted to do this, but didn't find an answer. Does anybody know why ? StuRat (talk) 05:14, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because security researchers, users and anti-malware companies have been demanding that they do this ever since auto-run was introduced to Windows. Many malware items such as Conficker use the auto-run functionality of USB drives to help them spread. See AutoRun#Attack_vectors, [17], [18] and [19]. Nanonic (talk) 05:45, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed. It is a REALLY good idea to disable USB autorun. The Masked Booby (talk) 13:36, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you can. I've been trying to disable USB autorun in XP for the past year. I even downloaded the software from Microsoft that was supposed to do it, but it doesn't :-( --Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to me that a panel that pops up and tell you what it's trying to auto-run, and asks your permission to do so, would be better than just disabling it completely. StuRat (talk) 21:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dear Wikipedians:

I saw in the news that:

Sr. Director of Engineering at Mozilla Corporation, Damon Sicore, posted on Google Groups ahead of the public release: "Yesterday we killed the blocker list, ...

My question is: what does Damon mean when he said "we killed the blocker list.", does it mean that:

a) There are still blocker bugs, but the list was simply struck out so as to try pushing Firefox to market ahead of IE9?

OR

b) all blocker bugs have been squashed?

Thanks,

66.241.140.111 (talk) 14:25, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well, certainly not (a). There are ways of getting rid of blocking bugs without fixing them, such as reducing the severity or postponing them to a later release, but those decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis. Mozilla's public tracker should tell you the fate of every former blocking bug, but I don't know how to search it. -- BenRG (talk) 21:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I kind of assumed they could, but I'm thinking I've been naive. I was just reading the Python see below documentation and saw this:

Every block of memory allocated with malloc() should eventually be returned to the pool of available memory by exactly one call to free(). It is important to call free() at the right time. If a block’s address is forgotten but free() is not called for it, the memory it occupies cannot be reused until the program terminates.

This seems to say that any forgotten blocks will be freed, by Windows' intervention, when the program terminates - and therefore not every call to malloc has to be balanced by a call to free, if the freeing is intended to take place at the end of the program. Have I got that right? I write in C (on XP) and usually have a clean_up() function which is the last thing the program calls, containing several calls to free() for things I've malloced but which behave similarly to globals, i.e. I want them all the time and never want to free the space while the program is running. (This might be a hangover from writing on the classic Mac systems, where if I remember rightly it was possible, by forgetting to free stuff, to put blocks of memory out of use until the next reboot.) Can I just throw away these clean_up functions? 81.131.21.81 (talk) 17:09, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As far as I know, Python's interpreter won't allow memory leaks unless bugged somehow. However, should you write the program in C or even assembly code, I'm pretty sure you can waste all the memory you like! Zakhalesh (talk) 17:20, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I wasn't actually asking about Python - I just happened to be reading about it (that part of the documentation relates to embedding Python in C, which I was considering doing). Python, to be clear, is a distraction: ignore the bit about Python. My question is, can I really, using C on Windows, leave blocks of memory unusable after my program has quit, or will the system ensure this doesn't happen? 81.131.21.81 (talk) 17:30, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm. As far as I know, the OS will be able to reclaim the memory once the program has quit, creating the "sawtooth" that memleaks are known for, but I'm not sure so I'd like someone a bit more experienced with this to answer as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zakhalesh (talk • contribs) 17:41, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You shouldn't need to worry, as long as you're using an OS with memory protection (any modern OS). If I recall correctly (but I might not), the OS only assigns whole pages of memory to a particular process. When that process ends, the OS reclaims all of the pages it assigned, since they're no longer needed. Paul (Stansifer) 17:55, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. 81.131.21.81 (talk) 18:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a common misconception that languages with garbage collection prevent all memory leaks: they prevent losing the capacity to reach an unfreed object (so long as they do cycle detection), but an algorithm may never use a reference again and yet "forget" to clear it (some Java-based examples). --Tardis (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is correct that there is no value in freeing memory directly before a program terminates. It may be helpful in certain types of debugging situations (so that you can use a debugger to check for memory that was accidentally left unfreed when it ought to have been), but other than that it is a waste of code and time. Looie496 (talk) 18:16, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't call it a waste: it's good practice (in both the training and the "course of work" senses), and it allows your code to be composable. (There's no prohibition against calling main() recursively, for instance, and in Python (even though that's not the OP's real point) any script can be loaded as a module.) It's probably possible to leak some things like shared memory objects or so, but I'm not sure. --Tardis (talk) 01:49, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"There's no prohibition against calling main() recursively" - true in C, false in C++ (see sections 3.6.1.3 and 5.2.2.9[20] --Colapeninsula (talk) 17:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can't remember the password to my laptop is there some way to recall it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SonyaMMD (talk • contribs) 20:39, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but we'll have to go deeper. [21] 109.128.182.182 (talk) 21:13, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It is possible to recover Windows passwords using rainbow table lookup, if the passwords aren't too long (less than 14 characters). You may want to take a look at the article Ophcrack. Using a functioning PC, follow the links to the website, download the CD image corresponding to your windows version, burn a CD, and and boot your laptop from the CD. A program is automatically started, which tries to detect all user passworrds, including the administrator password, on the laptop. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:29, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is it the windows password or the BIOS password? 82.43.92.41 (talk) 00:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There are also options to reset the password. If you have Windows on your laptop you can use your Windows CD I believe. Or this one that I have used in the past also works: [22]. And it works well enough. Though I didn't test to see if it keeps any passwords you had saveed on your login (such as if you saved your web mail password in your browser). - Akamad (talk) 04:40, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I fixed your question title. In the future, please use more helpful titles. StuRat (talk) 21:14, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

http://webchat.freenode.net/?nick=lostPassword&channels=##windows ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to print from my personal laptop to the networked printer at my place of work. I'm connected to wireless network but I guess the printer and workstations are probably connected some other network. Is there some software I can install on my workstation (I have administrative rights enough to install software on my work machine) and my laptop that will enable me to send documents to print via my work desktop? Laptop: Win7; PC: WinXP. The IT department say I can't do it but they just don't like taking time out from their goblin slaying/gold hoarding MMPORGS. --129.215.5.255 (talk) 22:05, 26 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When IT says you "can't" do it, they may well mean that it's against workplace policy and you could face disciplinary action for doing it. I think your best bet is to copy the file to a shared folder and then print it from the work machine, since that's unlikely to run afoul of any rules. There is probably a supported way to log in to the work machine from your laptop (e.g. VNC) and to copy files to it (e.g. SSH and WinSCP). -- BenRG (talk) 00:36, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to figure out how to run a SQL command that will multiply a given field by 10 and update that row. Basically I have a table where rows have weights, and I want to change a weight of 1 to 10, 2 to 20, 3 to 30 and so on so I can have room (BASIC line numbering style) to put weights in between. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.237.229.90 (talk) 03:08, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

ok this is much easier than I thought. update table set weight=weight*10 works. --76.237.229.90 (talk) 03:29, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

StuRat (talk) 21:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How can a distributed p2p database work at all?

take something simple. I have half the phone book (m-z), you have half the phonebook. (a-m). I ask you if Abigail Atkinson is listed, and you say "yes, there are seven Abigail Atkinsons, here are the records"

but there aren't seven. There are eight.

You are one of the 10k imposter nodes the eighth Abigail hired to keep people from finding her number.

how can a p2p database defend against that? 109.128.182.182 (talk) 04:51, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that peer-to-peer databases in the real world are either of a type where there are no malicious nodes (because you own all the nodes, and the benefit is the lack of a single point of failure), or they are key-value databases where the key contains enough information to authenticate the value (and the key is much shorter than the value, so you only need a low-bandwidth connection to a trusted source). It might be possible to have a network with a priori untrusted nodes and a priori unverifiable replies, using some kind of automatic trust-building process (you send identical queries to a node you trust and a node you don't trust, and if you get the same reply then you trust the second node—except a bit more sophisticated than that). I'm sure somebody is researching it. The Wikipedia articles web of trust, trust metric and reputation system might be relevant. -- BenRG (talk) 08:31, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

One other option that comes to mind, though this is not something I know anything specifically about, are situations where comprehensiveness is not a goal. Let us say that our p2p database is a list of computers you could connect to (as in actual p2p file sharing software). I find some way to get an initial list of participating computers, and then each of those nodes can expand the list to more. It's true that there could be bad data in there (RIAA computers that gave junk info), but the amount of good data should exponentially overwhelm the bad data by the nature of the p2p system (every good node connects you to X more good nodes, whereas every bad node is probably just a failure). This sort of arrangement would be very practical for a p2p system, because it doesn't all assume the need to have one giant, coherent dataset at any one time. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:11, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to track down a paperback copy of Samuel Butler's Hudibras, but I'm having difficulty filtering the results on Amazon.co.uk so that POD books are not included. There are hundreds of results when I search [23], but it seems impossible to refine the results by – for example – publisher, or to exclude the POD titles. Any suggestions? 87.114.87.69 (talk) 12:38, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Amazon publishes some book search tips and there is an advanced search which can search by publisher. (Of course, this requires you to know the publisher in advance). I managed to narrow the results to 234 using this, but haven't been able to experiment with it further yet. --Kateshortforbob _talk 17:26, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Something else you could try is to sort by "bestselling" rather than by "relevance" (there's a list-box near the top-right of the results); this may be better with advanced search. Do you know if thre is any non-POD edition currently published?

Abe Books allows you to omit print-on-demand titles from their advanced search (although annoyingly not to search by condition or for only new books), but none of the other big booksellers do. Although Abe is mainly for secondhand, you can get some brand new books there.--Colapeninsula (talk) 17:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to find out whether there is a non-POD edition currently available, which is why I'd like to exclude the POD titles from my search. As the Magic 8 Ball says, "all signs point to no"... 87.115.50.126 (talk) 19:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

a program to find out that the two are twin prime nos or not.Create a function which will return a boolean value —Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.97.28.57 (talk) 16:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please do your own homework. JIP | Talk 18:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone know how to stop repeated LinkedIn invitations? The person they purport to come from claims not to be able to stop them, and there is no "unsubscribe" link in the emails.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 17:35, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's probably an email with fake header. Gmail, at least, allows you to set rules to automatically delete specific email. Check your email provider for something similar. Quest09 (talk) 19:19, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Tell your friend to do a virus scan. APL (talk) 05:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The spambots now use fake LinkedIn invitations that direct you to a phishing website to try to steal your password. There is nothing that any of us can do to unsubscribe from phishing spam. The fastest solution is to delete LinkedIn e-mails that come into your inbox. (Apologies if LinkedIn phishing spam isn't the problem you're referring to. If the problem is that a single known user is sending you lots of invitations, I would write a rule in your e-mail program to detect known text strings in the e-mail and delete anything with those known text strings.) Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

A few days ago, my HDD on my laptop started to get smaller and smaller, at a rate of around 100MB/minute. I never worked out what was causing this, but I did happen to do a malware check with Malwarebytes, and it found two infections, which were promptly removed. The problem of shrinking disk space has since gone away. Now, I was right down to 64KB on my disk at one point. After uninstalling a load of stuff, I am up to 20+GB, but I am sure there is space missing, as I had 20+GB and all those programs installed before this problem happened. I have run Disk Cleanup (inc. deleting restore points) and have use Auslogics Disk Defrag to defrag the disk, both to no avail. Is there anything I can do to see if there is indeed any disk space that is not registering? I am on Vista Home Premium SP2 (32-bit). --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 18:33, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well the space swallowing malware seems to have downloaded lots of stuff and put it somewhere. After eliminating the usual suspects (folders called tmp or temp, the temporary internet files, and such like), I would search the entire disk, including system and hidden files, for anything created since the malware infection took hold, particularly strange named folders. You then need to make a judgement call on what to actually delete. Note it might take Vista some time, especially if your disk is several hundred giga-bytes so this is not something to do when you are about to go out. Astronaut (talk) 20:37, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you right-click on a folder and select "Properties", you will get a report of the total disk space occupied by that folder. You could do some exploring to see whether the total size of your folders adds up to the size of the disk, and whether any of the folders is a lot larger than you expect it to be. I can't think of a more efficient approach. Note that it doesn't take malware to cause a problem like this -- all it takes is a buggy program that goes into a loop and keeps endlessly appending material to a file somewhere. Looie496 (talk) 22:46, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Google disk space visualizer or file space explorer or visual disk space for several pieces of software that show you a visual map of what folders are consuming space on your hard disk. Unfortunately you have to download something, and it's not something that's built into Windows. Personally I have used SpaceMonger (here's the download.cnet.com link) but I'm unsure whether it's totally Windows 7 compatible. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:41, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

PS: Your mileage may vary, but I just ran SpaceMonger on my Windows 7 machine and it worked fine. Who knew that I had 12GB in my Recycle Bin.... Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I need to convert 100,000 .mht files into html. I've tried Mozilla Archive Formats convert wizard, but it fails on 60% of the files. I've also tried several other free programs which claim to do this, but they mess up the links to images and css, resulting in broken pages. I'm on Windows but can try linux programs if there is one which does exactly this. Thank you 82.43.92.41 (talk) 18:59, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Our MHTML article mentions a linux program called kmhtConvert, which looks like it might do what you want. Looie496 (talk) 19:44, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From the screenshots and documentation it seems designed to convert one file at a time manually. I have 100,000 :/ Is there a way to make it do them all in one go? I have zero experience with linux and would like to be sure it will work before I install linux over Windows 7 82.43.92.41 (talk) 23:52, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you have a file containing a list of the files you want to convert, it is easy (for somebody used to working in Linux, anyway) to write a script that automates the whole process. But when you said "can try linux programs", I didn't realize you meant installing Linux specifically for this purpose -- I have doubts that it would be worth doing just for this. Looie496 (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Installing Linux to do one task would be crazy, but maybe some sort of live-disk would be reasonable. APL (talk) 05:45, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like there is a non-interactive option, "--NoGui". If you post a few input files I'm sure someone will run it on their Linux system to see if the output's OK for you. --Sean 14:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am trying to work out why my signature isn't functioning properly. Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 19:13, 27 February 2011 (UTC) Here it seems to work fine, but sometimes the "discuss" link does not work (e.g. here) or it goes all funny like this: [24]. What is going on here? Thanks so much for the help in advance.[reply]

Gah, it took me a ridiculous amount of time to figure this out! The link does not work because it would link to the same page that you are already on -- it is an item on your talk page linking to your talk page. The sandbox appearance looks strange because you have spaces at the front of the line -- any text that starts with spaces will be placed in a border and printed using a special font. Looie496 (talk) 20:06, 27 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much - sorry it took a lot of your time to figure this one out! It was driving me crazy as well. Jay _{Σεβαστός}^discuss 15:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

  I now want a RAID 1+1 array; is there any Windows-compatible hardware or software which implements RAID 1+1? I prefer hardware-based RAID to software-based functionality. Rocketshiporion♫ 00:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I urgently need to find a way to mass attempt to copy a file from a USB into every folder, subfolder and subsubfolder in C:\ and if it works attempt to run the .exe file. It will be even better if a log can be produced showing where it was sucessful or not in copying and/or running a .exe. Can anyone figure out how to put such an instruction into command prompt or powershell? General Rommel (talk) 01:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you mean that you want to copy tha same executable into the root of every directory and all sub-level directories on C: (which I'm presuming is your Boot Drive), and then execute all the copies of the executable? Rocketshiporion♫ 04:27, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

And if that is what you mean, I'm curious to know why anyone would want to do such a thing? Other than as a rather arbitrary test of disk drive reliability, it wouldn't do anything that you couldn't achieve in other ways. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Rocketshiporion, that is exactly what I'd like to do, and to AndyTheGrump, I just want to test something about my computer. General Rommel (talk) 08:11, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(Assumption 1: you're on windows). Assuming access to suitable tools (e.g. excel, openoffice), it's fairly easy to take a recursive listing of a folder structure from a command prompt (e.g. dir /s /a:d > filename.txt), load into excel and parse out distinct folders using (in column B) a formula such as =IF(MID(A1,2,1)="D",RIGHT(A1,(LEN(A1)-17)),""). You can then use these as the basis of a batchfile, by putting together a repeated list of copy xyz.exe c:\dir\dir\ strings by formula, notably using syntax such as +A1&A2&A3, where A1-A3 contain the sub-elements of the command. It's a job of a couple of minutes. --Tagishsimon (talk) 14:32, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've been trying to figure out how to do this. I'll record myself playing guitar with Garage Band '08. What I want to do is take the notes I have just played and convert them into notes for a software instrument. Is this possible? I can copy and paste the guitar information in the top track section, but when I look in the bottom track editor section, the information doesn't paste into the software instrument track. When I try playing the software instrument track, it doesn't do anything. Is there any way to do what I'm trying to do or does it just not work like that? Thanks 129.3.151.117 (talk) 03:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Detection of the notes you play, and conversion to a software instrument format (e.g., MIDI), is an incredibly difficult challenge. Converting recorded-audio to MIDI has been discussed many times on the desk (see this archive-search), and the answer is generally summarized as "currently impossible" or at least "extremely difficult," due to inherent theoretical challenges in the detection of the notes. In this discussion from November 2010, I described some research-grade software technology that can convert MP3 to MIDI, and some of the reasons why this research is still far from being a "one-click conversion" software tool. What you could do is obtain an electronic guitar with a MIDI interface: Guitar synthesizer or "MIDI guitar" and play through that. And, with professional-grade software (and a high-end, hybrid synthesizer/guitar), you can record both the waveform of the music as well as the MIDI note meta-data. As far as I know, this is not something GarageBand can do - but it can probably take in the MIDI track only, which may be suitable for your needs. Nimur (talk) 18:37, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have a first-generation MacBook running Snow Leopard, and I've recently started having trouble with the battery indicator. If I unplug the computer, it still shows the charging icon, right through the whole cycle, at which point it will die with no low battery warning. Sometimes I can prod it into showing an unplugged icon by repeatedly unplugging and replugging, but it's inconsistent and laggy - sometimes showing an unplugged icon while the machine is plugged in. How do I fix this? --140.232.184.35 (talk) 06:49, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Odds are it is a problem with the battery — see if you can't find another battery and see it does the same behavior. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:17, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just replaced the battery a few months ago (because the original one was bulging), and the new battery has been working fine. So no, I'm not going to waste money replacing a perfectly functional battery. How do I fix the indicator bar? --140.232.177.147 (talk) 18:54, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, reset the System Management Controller.[25] If that doesn't work, then calibrate the battery.[26] ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:00, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, I'd reverse that - I had this problem when I first installed a new apple battery in the same kind of machine, and calibration fixed the problem. I think Apple introduced this weirdness in the last update (somehow it's recalling information from the last battery and getting confused about the new battery?) --Ludwigs2 19:12, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I do not like bloatware, so I want to replace the Adobe reader with some other. The Adobe reader is about 45MB, and I think I recall reading that it is several times that when loaded into the computer. What would people recommend from personal experience please? I use Windows XP. I have already looked at various Wikipedia articles, but nothing evaluates them rather than just describing them. 92.15.3.182 (talk) 11:58, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've used Sumatra PDF and it's very small, under 2MB. It handles most .pdfs fine but can occasionally have trouble with complex .pdfs 82.43.92.41 (talk) 12:35, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you haven't used Adobe Reader for a while, you might want to give it another try. It sure has been bloated, slow, and difficult to use in the past (version 7 is the worst in my opinion). However, the more recent releases of Adobe Reader (including the current version, Adobe Reader X) is actually faster and easier to use than its predecessors. And I tried it on the very same hardware I once used to run Adobe Reader 7. There is an Adobe Reader alternative called Foxit Reader, but I like Adobe Reader better. 118.96.165.14 (talk) 12:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I use Okular. I hear that it has a Windows version. -- kainaw™ 13:21, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

everyone uses Foxit. You won't be disappointed. Ignore the respondents above. 109.128.222.233 (talk) 14:39, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see three problems in as many sentences here:

• 1) Not everybody uses Foxit - because I (and evidently some of the above respondents) do not.
• 2) "You won't be disappointed" is an absolute.
• 3) This is a reference desk. We do not advise people to ignore other people's answers, especially when they offer relevent advice. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, but he should still just install foxit. 109.128.222.233 (talk) 16:47, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

For me, Foxit Reader does not support form filling. In both Windows and Linux, it does not support catalog indexing and has a tendency to mangle copied text. So, why install it? I will certainly be disappointed. Please make some attempt to comprehend that this is a reference desk. If you want to state absolute facts, they need to be true. If they are questionable, you need to provide references to back them. -- kainaw™ 17:09, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I seem to remember IrfanView as being able to view .pdf documents. The only disagreeable (to me) feature of this (free) software was its ugly icon. It uses Ghostscript to render .pdfs, but as for its accuracy I cannot say as I have not used it recently. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 17:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Evince is available for Windows as well. For the technically-inclined, it does not use ghostscript (so certain subtle PDF-rendering artifacts are avoided). Here's a comparison of Evince vs. Adobe Reader features. Nimur (talk) 18:30, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I just use preview - does everything adobe reader does, and more, and is generally snappier to use. or if you want something more sophisticated, get Skim. --Ludwigs2 19:15, 28 February 2011 (UTC) wrong platform, sorry --Ludwigs2 19:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Google Chrome has its own PDF reader. Downloading Chrome just for this is probably overkill, but if you have it already, or are otherwise looking to use a different browser to the troubled IE, this might be an option for you. I've found Chrome's PDF viewer to be fast and reliable. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:46, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This advice is orthogonal to everything above, but my advice is to permanently abandon your dislike of bloatware, since your objection to it is based on either RAM or disk space. Here in 2011, RAM is cheaper than it has ever been in history, hard disk space even more so, and who cares if software takes up more RAM than "it ought to", since today's operating systems use a page file and will immediately take care of the "problem" if you somehow fill up your computer's RAM with such software. I had the same attitude fifteen years ago, but these days I see this posture as being analogous to complaining that 1.44MB floppy disk drives are needlessly slow. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:31, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If someone was just running Adobe Reader and nothing else then it shouldn't be a problem on a modern computer. But considering most programs try to take ~300MB each, even running just a few programs at the same time can cause a 2GB system to be used up quickly. Upgrading RAM isn't always an option especially on netbooks or laptops, and why upgrade more RAM so that badly written / bloated programs can run when the same task can be done by a small / well written program? 82.43.92.41 (talk) 21:29, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

About 12-14 hours ago I wanted to upload a few pictures to Commons using Internet Explorer. The first one or two went as usual. Then after entering all of the correct information and clicking on the upload button it started returning a IE unable to (do not remember exact) page. I would use the back up button and I would get returned to an unfilled picture upload information page. I would then re-enter the information exactly the same and then click on the upload button and it would work correctly uploading the picture. This happened about 2-3 times and then I started getting a pop up small window saying Internet explorer stopped working. The program tried to recover the tab and after a few tries I got a page saying it was unrecoverable. I went to a couple of other non Wiki websites and they worked fine, I then tried Commons again with the same results. I restarted my computer with the same situation (all other sites working including Wikipedia just not Commons), gave up thinking I would retry latter. It is now latter after my computer has been shut down for the night and again the same situation. I cannot get onto the Commons main page or any of the Commons pages I have bookmarked, I also tried to get there by going through Google with no success. Always the same small pop up window and the attempt to recover the tab. Anybody else with this problem? any thoughts?
--RifeIdeas Talk 14:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Commons site now seems to be working, I just uploaded one picture. We will see if it continues.
--RifeIdeas Talk 14:59, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

is there any way I can make a video on my computer of me speaking into the mic while flipping through powerpoint slides, this is called a screencast I just realized, so I have my answer: yes, as well as the search term to use. Thank you. 109.128.222.233 (talk) 21:36, 28 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]