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:::The best thing I can think of as a sensible definition of a comment (which is really what this is about), following [[WP:SIGN]], is to break after lines that end with a timestamp (since those are added after people's varied signatures). Using [[WP:INDENT]] is tempting, but doesn't work well for posts (like this one) that have internal structure. --[[User:Tardis|Tardis]] ([[User talk:Tardis|talk]]) 07:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC) |
:::The best thing I can think of as a sensible definition of a comment (which is really what this is about), following [[WP:SIGN]], is to break after lines that end with a timestamp (since those are added after people's varied signatures). Using [[WP:INDENT]] is tempting, but doesn't work well for posts (like this one) that have internal structure. --[[User:Tardis|Tardis]] ([[User talk:Tardis|talk]]) 07:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC) |
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::::Thanks for your fast answer. What I want are the hardest parts because I can do the remainder myself of course. I put !nosign! because I wanted to be sure Sinebot wont sign. This not necessary for creating a ''dear wanted'' Sinebot equivalent for common. It is to perform some actions on a specific user message. It is to be general purpose. [[Special:Contributions/2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA|2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA]] ([[User talk:2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA|talk]]) 12:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC) |
::::Thanks for your fast answer. What I want are the hardest parts because I can do the remainder myself of course. I put !nosign! because I wanted to be sure Sinebot wont sign. This not necessary for creating a ''dear wanted'' Sinebot equivalent for common. It is to perform some actions on a specific user message. It is to be general purpose. [[Special:Contributions/2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA|2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA]] ([[User talk:2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA|talk]]) 12:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC) |
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::::Update By C++ for typedef I mean using full C++ features inside typedef. I don't really know how to deal with C++. it don't mind using typedef using things such as class as long as they are ready to use. |
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== Average computer configuration by years == |
== Average computer configuration by years == |
Revision as of 16:57, 4 September 2013
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August 30
Can I plug and unplug smartphone for power too many times?
I like to keep my phone partially charged, meaning I only tend to charge it for short periods of time. I've read that this should keep the battery the healthiest, but it also means I am always plugging and unplugging it from the micro-USB cable. 67.243.4.94 (talk) 04:11, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, you will eventually wear out the plug. If you only need to replace the wall wart, that's not so bad, but the connector in the phone could also break. I doubt if that's designed to be serviceable, so at that point you would either need a new phone, or perhaps you could replace the batteries with charged ones, and charge the dead ones outside the device, then repeat. If you have an extra phone, that might be one way to do this. I had an IBM ThinkPad which had this problem, and it was a real pain to deal with. StuRat (talk) 05:29, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Get a regular USB cable and an USB-MicroUSB converter, don't unplug that except if the USB side is worn out. Works like a charm with all microUSB devices. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 11:03, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- (I read the question as being about the phone end (MicroUSB), not about the USB end, though both can suffer from wear.) The only solution to the problem at the MicroUSB socket in the phone is to take care when plugging and unplugging, and avoid any side pressure. With care, the socket should last as long as the phone. Dbfirs 11:17, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- As USB#Durability notes, a microUSB receptacle is rated at at least 10,000 insert/remove cycles. That's the minimum which all compliant ports should meet, which means in practice most will manage several times that. Mobile phone recycling says the US average person changes their phone every 24 months (but the source it cites says every 18 months). So at the every least, to even approach the minimum threshold where you might wear out the receptacle, you'd have to be making more than 13 insert and remove cycles per day, every day. I really think people worry far too much about preserving their battery condition - the phone has a smart charger already. Batteries are cheap, and your time is expensive. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- As Finlay points out, you probably don't have to worry about wearing out your plugs (at least on the phone end) before you end up replacing them anyway. As for keeping the usb port on your PC in good shape, as I've said before, you can - (if it's not a laptop) - buy a cheap usb hub and keep it plugged in at all times; therefore, all the wear goes on the hub's plugins and not the one that's actually connected to your PC. When the hub finally wears out, it can be cheaply replaced and the port on your PC would be relatively undamaged. In theory it could work for a laptop that doesn't travel around much but having the hub dangling off the side could be kind of awkward; though I guess that depends on the design of the hub you're using. Edit: Just realized that's pretty much what One.Ouch.Zero suggested above, but in my case you'd get a hub so you'd have multiple plugins to wear out before it would need to be replaced. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:44, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Well, yes a hub can work. But keep in mind that USB 2.0 hubs are only designed to supply 500mA of power, which means recharging will probably be pretty slow. I believe most modern phones support up to 1A charging which USB 2.0 compatible hubs cannot provide. Built-in USB ports can provide 1A power, provided they are designed to do so (like Apple products). USB 3.0 hubs can provide up to 900mA of power per port, but I don't know of any phone that uses USB 3.0 to charge. --208.185.21.102 (talk) 17:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
Windows saves to itunes folder for no reason
Hi all, for saving images (indeed any file) from the internet, I have set the default folder (in Firefox > Options) to C:\My Home\Pictures. For some reason, Windows keeps defaulting to iTunes. What's going on? IBE (talk) 07:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Defaulting to iTunes when you try to open them, you mean? That'll be a file extension association thing; see "Set your default programs" or similar in the Control Panel, or use Open With off the right-click menu and set as default. - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 13:25, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, I thought that IBE meant that the save folder for iTunes was being reset (perhaps by the iTunes website?). Dbfirs 16:12, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Ok, legit misunderstandings. I mean eg. you open Firefox and go to the WP home page and try to save the "Picture of the day" to your hard drive. You have set your prefs in ff, that you want images to save to your Pictures folder. But it just brings up a "Save" dialog, with the iTunes folder open. Not the end of the world, but my computer has been really p...ing me off lately, and this is one of many irritants. IBE (talk) 19:50, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Not exactly what you want but this addon apparently makes saving files (images etc.) more convenient... I haven't used it though. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:24, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- I think that FF opens the last folder where you have saved the last image. If you save another image to another folder the next time FF will open this folder. Rabah201130 (talk) 14:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Not exactly what you want but this addon apparently makes saving files (images etc.) more convenient... I haven't used it though. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:24, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
web development
when i am applying for a trainee at a bewsite then it doesn't on my profile if i am applying again then with same technology or diff technology then it is showing previuos one what i have appled earliear — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.205.31.79 (talk) 08:17, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- I'm afraid it's not clear what you are asking. Can you try to phrase it more clearly? If necessary, ask in your native language and we'll do our best to translate it for you. Rojomoke (talk) 13:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
WP:DBTN |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
- My guess is that this means the website isn't storing the OP's updated data, eg. if you change your preferences for your Wikipedia username, then it reverts to the old data. If this is so, you will have to contact that website. Provide us a link if you can. IBE (talk) 19:46, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
How computer hardware works
I'm planning on buying a desktop. I'm curious as to how the motherboard, processor (CPU, right?), memory (RAM, right?), graphics card, normal hard drive, and SSD drive (am I missing anything?) work together generally but also specifically in relation to gaming. For example, I remember reading that the processor doesn't need to be the most-up-to-date, rather the graphics card is much more important and I've no idea how useful an SSD drive is. I'm also wondering about the minimum specs that I'll need to play current games (also games that will be released in the next few years) on max graphics. For instance, some computers have 16 GB of RAM, but I only see recommended RAM of games to be 4 GB, so would I just be wasting money getting 16? Thanks, Ulub (talk) 10:47, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- For learning about the different components I would reccomend taking a look at the articles we have for each of them. In this case - motherboard, CPU, RAM, graphics card, hard drive, solid-state drive. As for the RAM I'm no expert on gaming computers but I know it's never a bad thing to have "too much" RAM. Especially it's good to get a higher-than-you'd-think-you'd-need amount of RAM if you're looking into laptops, because they are a lot harder to modify one you get it... adding new components such as more RAM can be a pain. However you're getting a desktop, which is a lot easier to service; so you don't really have to worry about that. But if you know you'll want to play the most cutting-edge games on the max settings, it would probably be a better idea to get the most amount of RAM from the get-go if you're just going to end up upgrading later anyway. Also, if most of the games you are interested in have a 4GB reccomended RAM, then maybe instead of going for 16GB maybe get 8GB instead; just a suggestion. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:03, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. RAM seems the easiest to upgrade, as I can, for example, just add a 4 GB disc to my current 4 GB desktop, rather than replacing my 4 GB disc with an 8 GB one (right?). Is it right that I can't add-to my motherboard, CPU, and graphics card but I need to completely replace them when I want an upgrade? With the hard drive, I know I can add to it, but is there usually room for that in the tower or would another hard drive need to be externally connected? Thanks, Ulub (talk) 23:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Years ago when I was doing frequent hardware upgrades, I seldom doubled disks because balancing the file trees among the multiple volumes confused me. Instead I replaced the HD and trickled down the old one to someone else. However, if you can organize such things more easily, no problem for you. But you started out asking about RAM, not disks. For RAM, adding chips makes no trouble if the motherboard has enough RAM slots. For the CPU, prying it out and replacing it is pretty easy, but I never took much interest in apps that needed a faster CPU chip. I replaced the motherboard a few times. Big hassle but sometimes I needed it. Jim.henderson (talk) 00:17, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the reply. RAM seems the easiest to upgrade, as I can, for example, just add a 4 GB disc to my current 4 GB desktop, rather than replacing my 4 GB disc with an 8 GB one (right?). Is it right that I can't add-to my motherboard, CPU, and graphics card but I need to completely replace them when I want an upgrade? With the hard drive, I know I can add to it, but is there usually room for that in the tower or would another hard drive need to be externally connected? Thanks, Ulub (talk) 23:45, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- First, a note about terminology. RAM is not made in discs. People generally refer to "sticks" of RAM because they're stick shaped, i.e. long and slender. See the image to the right.
- As far as RAM goes, yes you can often just put in another stick to go from say 4GB to 8GB. But you have to have an open slot to plug it into. Think of a toaster. If you have a two slot toaster and you only have one piece of bread in it, you can put in another. If both slots are already taken, you'll have to pull one slice out to put a bigger slice in.
- You are correct about the CPU/motherboard and graphics card. In order to upgrade, you'd need to replace, not add to.
- As for hard drives, yes, if you have a second bay then you can add another drive. Again, like the toaster, you'll need a bay to keep the second hard drive in. This depends on the case that you get but most cases can accommodate more than one hard drive. Dismas|(talk) 00:34, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Again, thanks for your answers. As a (should be) final question, what specs/specific components (including whether or not to get an SSD) would you recommend to play current games on max graphics? If possible, where online should I buy these components (I'm told that buying the stuff and putting it together is cheaper than buying the computer already built)? Ulub (talk) 01:21, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Also, what monitor? Asking what keyboard seems silly, but any recommendation is appreciated. Thanks, Ulub (talk) 01:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- It's unlikely anyone can provide that useful answer because you've given too little information to help. For example, we have no idea where you live. I could recommend you use [1] to get an idea of prices and what's available locally, but it's of little use to you if you don't live in NZ. Similarly, a 4 GPU dual hexacore Xeon or Core i7 (LGA 2011) will reduce the chance you will ever have to reduce the settings in current games, even with 3 monitor Eyefinity setup, and if you're Bill Gates I have no problem recommending such a setup but I'm guessing you're not and spending US$10k or so for your computer is not on the cards but it's better if I don't have to guess. Nil Einne (talk) 08:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- I should have thought of that! I live in the UK. I'm not really sure on how much to spend. I've looked at some options and I imagine I can get the components required to play games on the best graphics. Not the best components though, just what's required to do the job. Ulub (talk) 14:12, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- I should also be more specific. I'm after a case that can hold at least a 500 GB hard drive with at least one more compartment for another to add later (ie, I'm after at least 500 GB starting out). If an SSD is necessary, then room for that as well and what one to get. I'm not sure about how many RAM slots, as I don't know how much RAM I need now for max graphics (Yellow1996 recommended 8 GB) and how many slots that RAM would take up (some sticks come in different amounts and I'd like to upgrade later too). Thanks, Ulub (talk) 21:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Also, if finding out where to buy these things is too much, then just what they are (like what specific monitor/brand of RAM) is much appreciated. Ulub (talk) 21:58, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Hard drives are all the same physical size. So a 500GB drive will fit in the same size slot as a 1TB drive. I just priced a 1TB SSD the other day and they wanted somewhere around $600 for it. So, for me, SSD is still prohibitively expensive. I can't remember the last time I saw a system with only one RAM slot. 2 or 4 is the standard number. And whether you get a 2GB or 4GB stick, they'll be the same physical size as well. I don't know if they have a UK site but New Egg is a popular online choice for computer parts. Dismas|(talk) 10:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Ah, okay. New Egg doesn't ship to the UK. Shame too, as I compared the prices of a 2x8 GB RAM chip and Egg was like 30% cheaper to Amazon. I'll try a different forum on what specific components to order, though I feel a lot more comfortable evaluating things now. Thanks all, Ulub (talk) 22:52, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Hard drives are all the same physical size. So a 500GB drive will fit in the same size slot as a 1TB drive. I just priced a 1TB SSD the other day and they wanted somewhere around $600 for it. So, for me, SSD is still prohibitively expensive. I can't remember the last time I saw a system with only one RAM slot. 2 or 4 is the standard number. And whether you get a 2GB or 4GB stick, they'll be the same physical size as well. I don't know if they have a UK site but New Egg is a popular online choice for computer parts. Dismas|(talk) 10:43, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- It's unlikely anyone can provide that useful answer because you've given too little information to help. For example, we have no idea where you live. I could recommend you use [1] to get an idea of prices and what's available locally, but it's of little use to you if you don't live in NZ. Similarly, a 4 GPU dual hexacore Xeon or Core i7 (LGA 2011) will reduce the chance you will ever have to reduce the settings in current games, even with 3 monitor Eyefinity setup, and if you're Bill Gates I have no problem recommending such a setup but I'm guessing you're not and spending US$10k or so for your computer is not on the cards but it's better if I don't have to guess. Nil Einne (talk) 08:51, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Accused vs Culprit
Moved to Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#Accused_vs_Culprit. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 05:42, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Another question about iPod batteries
Hello again... :) My aunt finally bought a battery for my but I can't remove the old one. Is it the rectangular box that is at the top of the iPod? Miss Bono [zootalk] 16:41, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Hey Miss Bono, I can't quite recall which model of iPod you had (Nano, Touch, etc.) So I'm going to assume it's a touch - and the battery is right at the back... you'll have to pry the back of the casing off. It would be a lot easier if I could link to a picture-tutorial for you but I know you can't go to those sites. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:53, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- No, it isn't a touch. This is my iPod File:IPod_U2.jpeg, Yellow. I removed the back of the casing off and I can see the hard drive and a small little box that looks like a battery, but it is stick to the top of the ipod, specifically to the hold mechanism. Miss Bono [zootalk] 17:08, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- Oh, okay; thanks for the clarification. :) The battery is stuck there with adhesive material, so you'll have to use some sort of tool to get it unstuck. The page I found reccomends using a spudger to do this. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:23, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
- No problem. Always happy to help! :) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:37, 30 August 2013 (UTC)
August 31
replace the motherboard on old computer
Is it feasible to replace the motherboard on a computer from 8-9 years ago with a modern motherboard and CPU? Is the hard drive likely to work with the new motherboard? What about the video card, etc? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 00:56, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- For a computer 8-9 years old which I take to mean ~2003-2005, there is a slight chance it could have a PCI Express video card, but it's much more likely it will be AGP (and a slight chance it will be PCI). PCI may work, PCI Express should work, AGP will be suppored by probably no recent motherboards. Similar for the hard drive, there's a slight (perhaps higher) chance it will be Serial ATA and a much greater chance it will be Parallel ATA. If it's SATA, it should just work; if it's PATA some motherboard recent motherboards may support it, alternatively you can probably use a simple cheap active converter to enable you to plug the PATA drive in to a SATA port (although you may have to disable AHCI), or alternatively you could use a PCI express card with native PATA support. However in both cases there's the question or what for? The video card is next to useless, it will almost definitely be far worse than even the crappiest SoC graphics like on one of the recent Atoms. There's a fair chance it won't support Windows Aero Glass. There's a chance it won't even have DVI and even if it does, it almost definitely won't support audio so using it with HDMI will be annoying. There's even a chance it might have problems with 1920x1080. The HD will likely be under 200GB, perhaps even something ridiculously small like 40GB which is barely even enough to install Windows 7 or Windows 8. You didn't mention other components but the RAM will very likely be DDR, or maybe DDR2, either way not something a recent motherboard will support and probably a tiny amount like 1GB or less. They keyboard and mouse may work and the monitor probably also. There's a slight chance the power supply is usable but a fair chance it's not and for something getting that old I'm not sure if it's really worth trusting it anyway unless it was a very good one at the time. If it's a standard ATX or microATX case the case should be fine with an appropriate motherboard although will probably not have proper front audio, obviously won't have front USB3 (although even many more recent ones don't). That seems to be about it. To put it a different way, with such an old computer, there's little that's really worth salvaging if you're planning to build a new one with a modern motherboard and CPU. (If you know what you're doing, it may be worth it if you've got other old stuff sitting around and want to make a working comp using them all for some limited OS or function, but that's not what you asked.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, I've decided that it isn't even worth trying. "However in both cases there's the question or what for?" We are replacing my wife's computer, and I thought with a new motherboard I could use this as a minimal computer to run some math problems (a limited function). HD size and video are not an issue (but using them is). The old one still works, and there is a charity that will take it. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:43, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- I intended to make this clear which I neglected to do but I think you're missing the point that when it comes to the video card at least, buying a CPU with an integrated GPU and an appropriate motherboard adds almost nothing to the cost so saving the video card serves no purpose except to waste time. The HDD is more complicated but the cheapest new HD on NewEgg appears to be a 2.5" for $45 which is a little expensive but not that bad considering with CPU+mobo+RAM+trustworthy PSU you're looking to spend at least $200 I would expect. Really at this level though and particularly in the US, if you don't have specific requirements and don't know much about what you're doing it's worth just buying a ready made PC (the alternative is to get a working second hand). Ignoring of course the possibility the HDD will be so small that you'll have trouble finding enough space to install the OS or whatever programme you want to use to solve maths problems, a HD that old is probably even more likely to die at any time, not to mention while HDs are slow compared to SSDs, having tried to use one recently (well not quite that old), I was reminded or how much slower old ones are. In fact if you really don't care about the size (do you actually realise how quickly 20-40GB can disappear nowadays?), you can easily get a 32GB SSD for about that price. My main point is as I said at the end, that ultimately if you want to buy a new mobo and CPU sticking them with such old components is rarely a good idea. This is not to say these old components aren't any use, but rather if you want to reuse them it makes far more sense to stick them with other older components (perhaps not that old, perhaps older depending on the components and other factors) than to stick them with completely new components. Nil Einne (talk) 03:47, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks, I'd have to buy a 64-bit OS too. Anyhow, I bought a factory-refurbished i5 with a warranty tonight on eBay for $289, including shipping, that will do the job. At that price, replacing parts on the old one just doesn't make sense (not even close). Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 03:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah that's my point. I'm currently using a Celeron 900mhz with SDRAM for my router and not that long ago was using a similar vintage computer for my download computer (and my router was even older) and something in the vintage of what you're talking about in your original post for my PVR, and until very recently was using a CRT as my main monitor, so I have nothing against older computers and components myself, it's simply a matter or know what they're good for and what they're not good for and I just wanted to make clear that in my experience, what you're suggesting wasn't worth it regardless of whether the stuff would work (and this is even in NZ where stuff tends to be a lot more expensive) for many reasons (I included a few obvious ones but had to be broad because I wasn't sure where you were going with the idea). Nil Einne (talk) 03:59, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Reason for difference of location of X11 include directory
On my Ubuntu machine, the directory X11 which has, among other things, Xlib.h, is located at /usr/include, thus not requiring any additional -I flags on the compile line. On my OpenBSD machine, however, the X11 include directory is at /usr/X11R6/include, which isn't known by default (to my compiler, at least). Why the difference in location? 75.75.42.89 (talk) 13:16, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- X11 was traditionally installed in /usr/X11R? - it's still there in OpenBSD and Solaris. This meant that the whole X11 distribution (and nothing but) was all mounted in one location. That made sense, particularly on old machines, if you had a disk dedicated to just the X11 distribution. It also makes life easier on an older unixalike without a decent package manager (like pkgadd or apt), where you had to manage third-party stuff like X11 manually by pulling it off a distribution tape. The LSB docs says KDE and GNOME always put their stuff straight into the main /usr hierarchy ([2]); at some point it seems Linux distributors just started putting X11 in there too (this posting opines as to why). LSB now mandates that if there's a real /usr/X11R6 then its important children should be symlinked from /usr. At least between Linux and BSD, using pkg-config (e.g pkg-config --cflags x11) rather than explicit paths can make your build files more tractable, as you don't need to know (or to define) where includes, libraries etc. are. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:46, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- (ec) It's UNIX. If all UNIX variants did things the same way, UNIX would have taken over the world 30 years ago. Then we would have no competition between operating system families, and hence no progress. UNIX hackers, in their infinite wisdom, have foreseen this dire possibility, and hence have added pointless little incompatibilities at every opportunity. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Web browser engines of TVs with Internet functionality
Which/what rendering engines (including HTML, JavaScript engines, and so on) do Internet-accessing TV sets (Samsung Smart TV, Sony Internet TV, LG Smart TV,...) use? If possible, please list specific configurations for every brand/model. --Czech is Cyrillized (talk) 15:09, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- From [3]:
- "Rendering is done with the Samsung proprietary Maple browser, which supports CSS1 and CSS2, a subset of CSS3 plus the CSS TV profile 1.0. It has a JavaScript engine built-in that supports JavaScript 1.6. The BMP, JPEG, PNG and GIF image formats are supported. Applications are written in HTML+CSS+JavaScript. In addition, the platform supports both Flash and Adobe AIR."
- this thread may also be of interest. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 18:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
How to make a searchable online database.
Hello there, everyone:
Until a few months ago, I used a collaborative website to host my dictionary, the online interface of which allowed me to add words to a database that anyone with the link could search through. One of the boons of the software used on the website was that one could search instantly (search results would appear upon typing, no need for entering). Unfortunately, the owner of this website decided to not pay the annual fees and it went down for months. It went up again recently, but with most of the data very out of date.
Luckily, I saved a .doc version of my lexicon a few weeks before the site went down, so lost around 1,500 words rather than the entire lexicon. I'm now faced with the task of making a searchable online database on my own domain, because I don't want to have to go through what I'll have to do now (input several thousand words, again) again. What is/are the best option/s for creating a searchable online database? My computing skills are generally ok, but I'm not very adept at coding, so hopefully there is a relatively straightforward solution.
All the best,
--94.197.122.86 (talk) 16:23, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- It sounds like you may need something less than a full database, but we need more info to be sure. For example, would they know the full word they want to search for and type it exactly, or do you need support for when they type in something close and it brings up a list of possible matches ? Also, do you want to produce a list of matches each time they add a letter, or wait until they are done ? The minimum solution would just be to put everything on a single web page, and have them use <CTRL> F to search for a word. StuRat (talk) 21:17, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for the response, StuRat. Support for possible matches would be good, but I can cope with not having such a feature if it is particularly cumbersome. I'd rather a list of matches appear each time they add a letter, preferably anyhow, but again, if that is very difficult to program, I am flexible with regards to the requirement. I'm currently using CTRL+F with a single page at the minute, and with a lexicon of tens of thousands of words, many of which in the other source language being similar, it is a very cumbersome process, and can sometimes take a minute or two to find the word, so I'll need something quicker than that. I appreciate your help. All the best,
- --94.197.122.84 (talk) 22:28, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Any ideas? -- 94.197.122.75 (talk) 17:21, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- With that many words, it would be good to break them down a bit. One method is by first letter. So, have 26 pages, one for words starting with each letter. Or you could get a bit fancier and try to make each page about the same length, say by putting X-Z on one page, and maybe splitting the B's up to BA-BE and BF-BZ. This approach will take more time up front, but should make searches quicker. Once they jump to the right page, they can still do a <CTRL> F from there. StuRat (talk) 00:38, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
Text files/documents on my PSP?
Hello everyone! This time I'm wondering about reading text files/documents on my Sony PSP. Basically I'd like to read stories on it that I'll download off the internet (not copyrighted works, I'm interested in fanfiction that's all.) So is there a way I can do this? Or is a more convoluted way required (ie. turning each page into a picture though that wouldn't really work for a .txt file since there's really no way to discern one page from another...) though I think my main concern here is word documents... I'd really be fine with any format. Thanks! --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:55, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- If taking screenshots of the text document, you would want at most one pic per page, although breaking a page down into 2-3 pics might make sense, if it starts out in a printable "portrait" format, to make the text larger and fit the wide-screen format better. If the PSP supports slideshows which you can manually page through, then making one of those out of the pics would be the way to go. Of course, they might also support some text format, say for help files. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- Here are two forum threads that offer a few solutions [4] [5]. I don't have a psp, but I'd guess pointing a browser at "file:/PSP/COMMON/document.txt" would easy and reliable (if it works). SemanticMantis (talk) 20:54, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the replies. Looks like those forum pages are full of trial and error and several conflicting anecdotes... but are still worth a try, for sure; I'll try the the browser thing. If I can't get that to work I'll probably just turn them into pictures and view them that way - a little labour intensive but at least it's straightforward (and I'll pretty much definitely have to do that for the 2 PDF stories I have.) Thanks again! --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Grr I just tried the pathway method in multiple variations... all I got was "content could not be displayed". Then I found a document viewer and it looked promising, only to discover that it only works on an ancient firmware version (and still didn't boot on my custom one...) Oh well I guess it's pictures for me! --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 18:34, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Solved!
Update: I've finally solved the problem! For future reference, I found a program called jpegbook (site is in Japanese) that converts .txt files to many JPEGs. It's certainly not perfect (quotation marks turn into Olde English letters, and words are sometimes split between lines without a hyphen!); but it works and is readable, and that's all that matters... I'll try to mess with it to see if I can make the output a little better, though. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting. I could actually write a program to do that (although I'd create an animated GIF). What's it worth to you ? :-) StuRat (talk) 08:46, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not sure about an animated GIF - wouldn't I lose control over flipping the pages however often I wanted? Though if you could write a program to do that with Microsoft Works Word Processor (or, if not possible, even something free like Open Office I'd be willing to download), that would be great (because all the formatting errors associated with notepad wouldn't happen.) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 15:57, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Monitor Connection Problem
how can i connect a VGA monitor to motherboard? The motherboard is Intel DH77EB — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.59.101.136 (talk) 19:01, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- It appears you cannot directly plug a VGA monitor into this mother-board (MB). According to THIS page on the Intel website, it has connectors on the MB for "DVI-I, HDMI, and DisplayPort", so many(most?) recent flat screen computer monitors, or flat screen televisions can be connected directly. It does also have "One PCI Express 3.0 x 16 discrete graphics card connector" so you appear to need a PCI Express graphics card, or cable adaptor for VGA to HDMI, DVI-I or DisplayPort. If you go HERE you can actually see the connectors on the MB (Adobe Flash Player browser plug-in required)--220 of Borg 20:09, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
- To expand on 220's response, your simplest solution is to purchase the DVI to VGA adapter like this. Your motherboard's DVI-I output include VGA compatible analog signals, so you just need the adapter (DVI male to VGA female) and a standard VGA cable. If you have an DVI cable, but no VGA cable, you will need the less common DVI female to VGA male adapter to place at the monitor end of the cable. The display port and HDMI outputs supply digital signals only. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 02:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
September 1
Resetting modem and wireless router
Resetting my modem and wireless router seems to clear up internet connectivity problems a good 95-99% of the time -- my question is how and why, if anyone happens to know off-hand. What the mechanism is. Thanks. Vranak (talk) 00:38, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Perhaps you get a new IP address. Perhaps a bug has resulted in an inconsistent state between your modem and the other end of the connection. Resetting will start that off again, and normally it should work for a while before a bug strikes again. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 11:10, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting. Do you know of any way that I might diagnose or fix such a bug? This has been a chronic problem for years and it never occurred to me that it might be permanently fixable. Vranak (talk) 19:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- I can only speak for one particular router I used to own, but I used to have to restart it due to the Routing table filling up and not clearing correctly, for some reason. This was listed as an issue with the particular modem, I didn't work it out for myself. The solution for me was to get a new router. Now, if you have a modem AND a wireless router, you can do some troubleshooting to work out if it is one device or both playing up. First thing I would do is plug a computer directly into the router so that you are connected to LAN rather then WLAN port. WLAN would probably be the most common cause of problems. Wait until you are having internet issues and try the LAN connection, if it also has issues, you rule out WLAN as the cause. Then, see if you can connect a computer directly into your modem, wait until you have problems and see if the computer connected directly to the modem is affected. That way you can rule out the router. But I suspect the modem is probably the least likely culprit. These days, you can get pretty good modem wireless routers in one device, whether you are on cable or ADSL, that's what I've got and I don't remember restarting my router since i plugged it in probably a year ago. Vespine (talk) 00:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Interesting. Do you know of any way that I might diagnose or fix such a bug? This has been a chronic problem for years and it never occurred to me that it might be permanently fixable. Vranak (talk) 19:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- There is a chance that the modem vendor could have a new microcode for your box on their web site, so you should take a look. However in many cases they will have moved on to a new product and will no longer support the old unit. You may be able to view the status of things on the modem by way of a web page, or SNMP requests (which will need more software to exploit). However any bug may not be immediately evident, but you may see counters not increasing when you expect. Without having access to what the ISP thinks is going on for your device you are partly blinded. You could work your way up through the network layers to try to figure out what is broken. But the effort to professionally debug your issue probably costs more than buying a new device. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:12, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
Java library for animated SVG graphics
I need a java library that can view with animated SVG graphics. More specifically, it needs to be able to tell what color a given point has at a given time. I also need some instruction on how to download the necessary libraries onto Eclipse.
I need a program that can make animated SVG files.
Any suggestions? — DanielLC 03:14, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Batik is the leading SVG library for Java. It supports rendering SVGs into a Java2D Graphics contexts, which would allow you to sample pixels. It supports animation done in JavaScript by using Rhino; I don't know about its support for CSS and SMIL animation. Batik also supports creating SVGs. You should probably ask on the Batik list about specifics, and how to set Eclipse up for it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:59, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Do you have to render an entire frame to get one pixel? I am making an entire image each frame, albeit one without regularly spaced pixels, or even pixels that appear at the same time in the animation. I'm trying to show relativistic effects. I suppose it might be possible to get it to work if I offset the image and only ask for a 1 by 1 image, as long as anti-aliasing doesn't get in the way. — DanielLC 21:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- If all you want to do is to get pixel color at x,y coordinates you may not need a library, but implementing an algorithm that yields the result will still be lengthy. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 15:00, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Do you have to render an entire frame to get one pixel? I am making an entire image each frame, albeit one without regularly spaced pixels, or even pixels that appear at the same time in the animation. I'm trying to show relativistic effects. I suppose it might be possible to get it to work if I offset the image and only ask for a 1 by 1 image, as long as anti-aliasing doesn't get in the way. — DanielLC 21:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
What to do with hard drive strike?
In trying to find an article about read heads striking a hard drive, I searched for hard drive strike and found both Head crash and Click of death. I'd like to make hard drive strike a bluelink, but what is best?
- Redirect to head crash, since the term normally means that
- Redirect to click of death, since the term normally means that
- Make a disambiguation page, since the term can often mean either one
- Make it a bluelink that does something else
- Leave a redlink, because it's not a plausible search term
I think we can here ignore the "We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate" bit, because I'm basically asking for information on what's most commonly meant by "hard drive strike". Nyttend (talk) 04:31, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- I'm not familiar with the term, and google returns nothing useful for it. Maybe nothing is commonly meant by it. Do you have a link you can provide where it is used? RudolfRed (talk) 05:24, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- No. When trying to find an article about the concept, my first thought was "hard drive strike", analogous to "prop strike" in aircraft, when the propellor hits the ground. I have no clue how many other people use it; that's why I offered "leave a redlink" as an option. Nyttend (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- While it seems to me this question is better addressed elsewhere, I'm with RudolfRed here. I've never heard the term used before despite being well aware of head crashes and if there's no results for it I don't think we should make a redirect. Redirects are cheap and I support many redirects for spelling etc but I also think we shouldn't redirect if it's going to confuse which means unless it's obvious there should be some mention of the term. And despite the connection to 'prop strike' I don't think this is obvious enough (head strike perhaps). Nil Einne (talk) 13:05, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- I would rather redirect it to the more general term Hard disk failure, if we make a redirect at all. That would cover both the head crash and the click of death. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 06:10, 5 September 2013 (UTC)
- Hard disk drive failure actually; Hard disk failure is another redirect.
- No. When trying to find an article about the concept, my first thought was "hard drive strike", analogous to "prop strike" in aircraft, when the propellor hits the ground. I have no clue how many other people use it; that's why I offered "leave a redlink" as an option. Nyttend (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Resizing (cutting down) screen protectors
I purchased 3 really cheap, as in heavily discounted, iPod screen protectors. I want to know if it is practical to cut them down to fit smaller screens, like a Digital camera, Blackberry or Mp3 player. As they are so cheap it doesn't matter if it doesn't work, or if I have to experiment & waste one. Anyone tried this or have any suggestions? --220 of Borg 05:13, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- I've done that before without issue; there's nothing special about the edge of a screen protector. Naturally it's much easier to cut it while it's still on the backing material. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- For sure - you shouldn't run into any problems. It's basically like cutting a large piece of glass to fit a smaller window. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:42, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Good to know that it's possible and can be done, though. But that's what I mostly expected. Thanks Finlay and Yellow. I think I paid about A$1.40! 220 of Borg 19:02, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- So much? Nil Einne (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- If they're Apple-official screen protectors, then I bet that's more than a bargain! --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- So much? Nil Einne (talk) 20:08, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Good to know that it's possible and can be done, though. But that's what I mostly expected. Thanks Finlay and Yellow. I think I paid about A$1.40! 220 of Borg 19:02, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Not 'Apple-official' Yellow1996. i'Coustic brand Part № IC097 for 5th Gen Ipod Touch(2012). On 'clearance' at Targét. There are generic protectors available, and they are 'cut to size', harking back to my original enquiry.--220 of Borg 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Ah - thanks for the clarification. But now I'm curious as to how much Official Apple screen protectors cost... ;) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:03, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Are they're bought from a large retail store in which case I guess the price isn't too bad. I bought 3 or 5 from eBay for one or two US cents once, to be fair this was an auction one of the ones some sellers sell to get or improve their feedback so you may have to bid a few different times before you win which may be too annoying for many but when I looked you could get 5 for US$1.00 (probably less, this was the cheapest I noticed per quantity although you could also spend AUD1.00 for 3). Of course you have to wait for it to arrive from HK/China but it shouldn't take that long in Australia. Nil Einne (talk) 13:20, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- CAD$24.95 for one. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 15:28, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Not 'Apple-official' Yellow1996. i'Coustic brand Part № IC097 for 5th Gen Ipod Touch(2012). On 'clearance' at Targét. There are generic protectors available, and they are 'cut to size', harking back to my original enquiry.--220 of Borg 20:29, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
python sockets
i'm somewhat new to network programing, but i have a fair amount of experience programing in python, as well as protocols. in the socket module, i was wondering what the "setsockopt" method for socket objects does. thanks, 70.114.248.114 (talk) 09:03, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- If you are on any kind of UNIX, type
man setsockopt
into the shell. If not, try Googling "man setsockopt" - it will bring up a UNIX (or Linux) manual page among the first hits. Setsockopt is a UNIX system call that allows the setting of various socket options. It e.g. allows address reuse (so that multiple processes can get a UDP data stream), linger time (how long TCP will wait before it releases the socket), enables broadcast, and so on. Many of the functions in the Python OS and network related modules are simply thin wrappers around the underlying UNIX/Posix system calls. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:19, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Windows' Winsock library, which underlies Python's socket library on Windows, roughly apes the same Berkeley sockets library from which modern POSIX sockets descend. So, broadly, socket.setsockopt works on Windows much as it does on Linux. Microsoft's documentation for the native setsockopt is here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 10:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
Telephone numbers
If phone companies reuse numbers, does that mean if someone changed their number due to unwanted advertisement calls or text, the person the number was reassigned to would continue to receive these? Clover345 (talk) 17:26, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- If the number was on someone's robocall list, then I guess they probably would continue to get the unwanted advertisements. If it was an actual person they might stop if they found out the number had changed owners... though maybe not. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 17:45, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yes, for instance there are multiple threads on Vodafone's customer forums about this very issue. A lot of providers hold off on recycling numbers for at least six months to try to prevent this but that won't prevent any persistant callers with out of date records. Nanonic (talk) 19:39, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- This is solely a matter of demand for numbers. Carriers don't want you calling up complaining you are getting wrong numbers, it wastes your time and theirs. New York Telephone, back before it was part of Verizon, would standardly keep phone numbers out of circulation for a minimum of one year. Once they were required to "share" their network with other "carriers" that went down to 3 months, then one month in a lot of cases. μηδείς (talk) 22:00, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- It happened to me. I got the number from a bankrupt home construction company, and would keep getting calls like this: "You installed a deck for us ten years ago, but now it needs repairs". To add insult to injury, the phone company tried to make me pay for their $500 full-page yellow pages ad. StuRat (talk) 00:29, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
computers
how do I safely remove everything from my computer and only put back the things I want? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.74.164.239 (talk) 19:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Are you referring to the hardware or the software? And could you be more detailed in what you're trying to achieve? Dismas|(talk) 19:47, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- I assume they mean software. First I'd back everything up to an external USB hard drive. (Around $100, depending on the size, if you don't already have one.) You can then re-install the operating system, and all the updates for it, which will wipe the install hard drive clean (although not clean enough if you are worried about bad guys getting ahold of it, in which case more severe actions are required). You can manually re-initialize any other hard disk (except for the external hard disk containing your backup, of course.) Any data (songs, photos, text files) can then be copied back directly, or just accessed from the external hard drive, as needed. As for programs, most of those will need to be reinstalled from either disk or the Internet, as copying them breaks their software keys, etc. Note that this entire process will take hours, perhaps days, to complete. StuRat (talk) 00:50, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- StuRat beat me to it! ;) Basically external HDDs are a very useful thing to have when doing something like this (assuming, of course, you mean software); I purchased a 1TB USB hard drive for about CAD$70 a couple years ago. They can probably be found for cheaper now. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:34, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
For uploading videos to Facebook or YouTube: .wmv or .mpg (MPEG)?
Which of the 2 video formats shoud I use to have a better video, or visual, quality after I upload a video to Facebook or YouTube? I know that WMV is for computer use and internet streaming and .mpg is for video CDs among a few other things, but they both can be uploaded to and played on the Internet. Willminator (talk) 20:12, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- Generally WMV will give you better quality for the same file size. Which combination of size and quality you get in each case depends on exact settings though. If you already have the video in one of those formats (or any other that YouTube accepts) and it isn't prohibitively large, then upload what you have. You will never gain quality by changing the format. KarlLohmann (talk) 21:28, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- I have a software called Format Factory that converts one format to another format. I put some videos from my camcorder to my computer, editted them in Windows Movie Maker, and then published to my computer, which was automatically published as .wmv. On Format Factory I converted the .wmv file to an mpg file, so I got 2 copies of my Windows Movie. The .mpg movie copy turned out to be smaller in size than the .wmv movie for some reason (Why?). So, I'm trying to decide which of the 2 movies to upload on the Internet for better quality. Willminator (talk) 02:12, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- In this case, the .wmv is likely to be better. Converting to .mpg cannot exract more quality than was present in the original .wmv. Consider the analogy of copying out a handwritten work. If the original is in poor enough handwriting to be near-illegible, then getting someone to copy it out in neater handwriting is only going to be good as far as the copier can read the original. If the original should read "orange", but looks like "orovje", then all you end up with is "orovje" in very neat handwiting. MChesterMC (talk) 09:30, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- I'd personally suggest, if available, the H.264 format. Containers like .avi, .m4v, and .mp4 are all able to use H.264, and it's the format that YouTube itself processes to. Many editing and post-processing applications will allow you to render and export in H.264 especially optimised for YouTube, including iMovie and Premier Pro. If not H.264, I'd suggest another MPEG format (H.264 is part of MPEG's work) over WMV, as it's industry standard and it's what WMV is based upon. WMV is non-standardised, so can cause transcoding errors and lossy playback if not processed correctly. drewmunn talk 21:36, 1 September 2013 (UTC)
- ...But be prepared to wait a long time in the uploading process! (Unless YouTube's uploading service has drastically changed over the past couple years); I used to be a heavy user years back, and one time I waited 40+ minutes for a thirty second AVI file to upload! Though, of course, if high-quality video is a must, then there's really no other way than to wait. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- .avi isn't the best container out there, I prefer .m4v and .mov by far. With a H.264 .mov, it'll upload in 1080p (or higher, in the old days, when I did upload a 2K once) and process it in not much slower than real-time. The actual upload process will differ depending on your personal upload connection, but as AVI stores each frame with so much data, it takes a long time for the upload to complete. I personally never use AVI any more; if I want to store as much as possible per frame, I'll use DPX, but for final exports, .mov is wonderful, and .m4v is still easily usable. drewmunn talk 10:34, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- ...But be prepared to wait a long time in the uploading process! (Unless YouTube's uploading service has drastically changed over the past couple years); I used to be a heavy user years back, and one time I waited 40+ minutes for a thirty second AVI file to upload! Though, of course, if high-quality video is a must, then there's really no other way than to wait. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:37, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah I like .MOVs as well. That's actually what I ended up converting those AVIs to in order to get better upload time (though the quality was degraded, it wasn't unacceptable.) I personally use the wonderful Total Video Converter aww no article?! ;) (not free!) to do all my converting over the last few years, and I love it; though the media player that's bundled with it isn't very good. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:09, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yes it's quite nice (except the media player, as I mentioned above...) and offers pretty much every possibility in terms of converting that you could want; and as an added bonus it does a very good job of it! ;) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:38, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
So I just uploaded both videos to Facebook. I noticed that the video screen of the .wmv video is larger than the video screen of the .mpg video. It's not like that in my computer where the screens are of the same size. Why? Is it Facebook automatically trying to improve the video quality by making the .mpg video smaller? Willminator (talk) 19:23, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Pretty much. Your WMV is higher quality, and therefore can be displayed larger than your MPEG, which is of lower quality. Your computer's media player is displaying them at the same size by default - if you put them side by side then you'd probably notice that the WMV looks better (I know Windows Media Player does this.) Showing it smaller is displaying it at it's intended resolution; if you made it bigger it would probably be all pixelated/have noticeable quality degredation... --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- But I bet it's possible one could still tell the difference in quality between the 2 in terms of crispiness and brightness despite the wmv being displayed larger than the mpeg, right? Willminator (talk) 12:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- More than likely. Especially if this is a real-life video; not something like a cartoon. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
September 2
PCIe slots
I was looking at the spec sheet for a computer. It has:
- 1 half height PCIe x16
- 1 half height PCIe x16 (wired x 4)
- 1 half height PCIe x1
What does the second line mean? Is it a x16 slot but is only wired for x4? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 01:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- It means that, although it acts as a x16 slot, it's actually only got 4 wires. This means a x16 card will work, it'll have a slower bandwidth than if you connected it to one of the true x16 slots. drewmunn talk 10:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you. The PCIe article mentions 4x speed in a 16x slot, but I didn't know if this was the same thing. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:24, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
HTML 5 and IE10
Hi, when I try to play the video at Greenland's Grand Canyon in IE10 I get a message "For a better video playback experience we recommend a [HTML5 video browser]" and the "play" button remains unresponsive and nothing plays. I have read elsewhere that IE10 does support HTML5, so should it work? The word "better" also suggests that it should work (in some way), so what's up?
(Please note that I am not seeking advice to use another browser, not nor asking for advice about which other browsers might play the video.) 86.179.4.11 (talk) 17:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- I don't have IE10 on hand to check (only 9); but here's the HTML5 compatibility "score sheet" - and IE10 ranks low (compared to other browsers...) Also, in IE9 I get a dialogue asking me if I want to save or open the file, and if I click open it opens in winamp (my default media player), which plays nothing then gives me an error... just checked in Firefox 23 and all I get is a tiny vertical bar with an X at the top... no video. Obviously it's having some problems. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 18:00, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Try again; it seems that this edit may have fixed it. It seems to be an odd and unrelated glitch... 86.179.4.11 (talk) 18:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Seems to be fixed; just tried it and it works. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Try again; it seems that this edit may have fixed it. It seems to be an odd and unrelated glitch... 86.179.4.11 (talk) 18:56, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- (edit conflict) The HTML5 spec covers a lot of different tags, and Internet Explorer, being IE, supports one or two, and in its own way. One of the tags it doesn't support is the Video one, so you can't use it to watch HTML5 video. Some browsers will play the video even if they don't support HTML5, but again, IE isn't one of them. I'd suggest using Chrome; not only does that support the video tag, but it also accepts many industry standard tags and conventions that IE ignores completely. As with every person I come across who uses IE, I'd never recommend it, and I'd always recommend changing to something else. drewmunn talk 18:04, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you, but it seems you did not read my note that I am not seeking advice to use another browser,
notnor asking for advice about which other browsers might play the video, which I specifically included so that people would not waste their time with unneeded advice. 86.179.4.11 (talk) 18:50, 2 September 2013 (UTC)- Weighing up the amount of time it took to write reply versus the amount of time I'd spend as a developer trying to make a site accessible via IE, I'd rather encourage anyone using IE to switch. Anyone who says they're using it illicits the same response from me. drewmunn talk 20:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- I already know that some people dislike IE. It is tiresome to be continually told this when it is irrelevant to the question. 86.179.4.11 (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- With all due respect, you wouldn't have these issues on better browsers. IE has improved over time, but still doesn't touch the others. As tiresome as it may be, there is a reason people are suggesting you switch, and it isn't to piss you off: it's to give you a better user experience. Mingmingla (talk) 21:58, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- I know from past experience that any question about IE tends to elicit "you should use another browser" responses rather than actual answers to the question. I am extremely familiar with these opinions and the reasons for them. However they are totally irrelevant to my present purpose, which is to establish whether IE10 ought to play Wikipedia video. That is precisely why I asked people not to bother with the usual rants (not that I am characterising your response or Sonicdrewdriver's as such). 86.179.4.11 (talk) 22:32, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- With all due respect, you wouldn't have these issues on better browsers. IE has improved over time, but still doesn't touch the others. As tiresome as it may be, there is a reason people are suggesting you switch, and it isn't to piss you off: it's to give you a better user experience. Mingmingla (talk) 21:58, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- I already know that some people dislike IE. It is tiresome to be continually told this when it is irrelevant to the question. 86.179.4.11 (talk) 21:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Weighing up the amount of time it took to write reply versus the amount of time I'd spend as a developer trying to make a site accessible via IE, I'd rather encourage anyone using IE to switch. Anyone who says they're using it illicits the same response from me. drewmunn talk 20:45, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thank you, but it seems you did not read my note that I am not seeking advice to use another browser,
- Really, I think that there's so many different browsers out there; people should be able to find which one(s) suit them best and use them, even if that browser happens to be Internet Explorer. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Very true. The problems come when it doesn't do what the user wants it to. Mingmingla (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- You're right. But if someone is determined to stick with a certain browser, there's always a workaround to get it do do what they want.[original research?] Well... most of the time... ;) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Indeed since IE10 does support the HTML5 video tag and uses system (Media Foundation) codecs (although I'm a little uncertain if it's all or only approved codecs), all you have to do is install appropriate codecs, as Microsoft themselves [6] have no problem telling you (linking to [7]) for VP8/WebM support. This may still not help with sites which only use Theora, and I'm unclear if IE10 can support Theora, it was supported at one stage [8] but I'm not sure if that continues and can't find much about either that or a Media Foundation Theora codec (although I didn't look that hard). As I said below, other than a few sites doing so primarily for legacy reasons but perhaps occasionally because of mistrust of Google, VP8 has pretty much taken over as the theoretically royalty free codec which is likely a big reason it's hard to find out about Theora. I believe all WMF videos should be available as VP8 unless the transcoding hasn't happened so it should be much of a problem here but I'm not entirely certain. There may be plenty of reasons to move from IE (for me it was the tendency of IE to lose stuff I was writing when going back although it pales to iPad Safari), but it's questionable if HTML5 video support is one of them considering the history and politics here and suggesting it is without providing full information is I presume the sort of response the OP considers unhelpful and let's not forget the open didn't even ask 'can I get it to work' but simply 'what's going on/why doesn't it work'. Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Personally, I left because I found it lagged a lot, and I just wanted to try something new. Actually, Wikipedia is pretty much the only thing I still use IE for (just out of familiarity; and of course - what viruses/problems will you get by editing WP? Not impossible per se, but very rare.) In addition to that minimal usage, my main browser is Firefox (currently 23) and I also have Lunascape. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 15:36, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Indeed since IE10 does support the HTML5 video tag and uses system (Media Foundation) codecs (although I'm a little uncertain if it's all or only approved codecs), all you have to do is install appropriate codecs, as Microsoft themselves [6] have no problem telling you (linking to [7]) for VP8/WebM support. This may still not help with sites which only use Theora, and I'm unclear if IE10 can support Theora, it was supported at one stage [8] but I'm not sure if that continues and can't find much about either that or a Media Foundation Theora codec (although I didn't look that hard). As I said below, other than a few sites doing so primarily for legacy reasons but perhaps occasionally because of mistrust of Google, VP8 has pretty much taken over as the theoretically royalty free codec which is likely a big reason it's hard to find out about Theora. I believe all WMF videos should be available as VP8 unless the transcoding hasn't happened so it should be much of a problem here but I'm not entirely certain. There may be plenty of reasons to move from IE (for me it was the tendency of IE to lose stuff I was writing when going back although it pales to iPad Safari), but it's questionable if HTML5 video support is one of them considering the history and politics here and suggesting it is without providing full information is I presume the sort of response the OP considers unhelpful and let's not forget the open didn't even ask 'can I get it to work' but simply 'what's going on/why doesn't it work'. Nil Einne (talk) 12:37, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- You're right. But if someone is determined to stick with a certain browser, there's always a workaround to get it do do what they want.[original research?] Well... most of the time... ;) --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:07, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Very true. The problems come when it doesn't do what the user wants it to. Mingmingla (talk) 19:52, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Really, I think that there's so many different browsers out there; people should be able to find which one(s) suit them best and use them, even if that browser happens to be Internet Explorer. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 01:07, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Internet Explorer 10 doesn't support HTML5 <video> tag, the solution will be to find another website that has the content in a way your browser does support. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- IE10 has some limited video tag support. Wikipedia:Videos seems to indicate that Wikipedia wants Ogg Theora videos, which IE10 doesn't support, at least not 'out of the box'. Unilynx (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- The WMF actually supports both VP8 and Theora with server side transcoding between the two as the only two codecs promoted for HTML video claimed to be patent unencumbered (well with Google's patents being available under a free licence) and therefore theoretically always royalty free but IE supports neither by default as with Safari. Nil Einne (talk) 09:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- IE10 has some limited video tag support. Wikipedia:Videos seems to indicate that Wikipedia wants Ogg Theora videos, which IE10 doesn't support, at least not 'out of the box'. Unilynx (talk) 19:44, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- For all those above lecturing about the evils of IE or IE10, it would be helpful if they actually knew what they were talking about. As people keep highlighting HTML5 video) yet as Unilynx has inidicated IE supports the video tag and has since IE9 (2011). It doesn't support Theora or VP8 without addins but nor does Safari. And really whatever people may think of the patent and open source issue, with iOS and other mobile devices being one of the pushers of HTML5 video and lack of hardware acceleration (Android) or simple lack of support (iOS and older Android), outside Wikimedia projects H.264 support is generally far more important than VP8. Yet Firefox only supported H.264 on Windows by default (presuming OS support) on version 21 (2013) and something similar on OS X with AFAIK Mozilla previously being reluctant to support it even using the OS provided codecs as they currently do, Chromium still doesn't, Chrome has for a while but Google has threatened to remove it. It's no wonder the OP is annoyed if you are not only offering advice the OP specifically asked you not to, but your advice is just plain wrong. (And yes it's probably helpful to know this sort of stuff which is mentioned even in our article if you're a webdeveloper, more important in fact than the OP learns the evils of IE.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:52, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- I know all of the above, but I deemed it not to be important to the question as asked. Yes, IE does have partial support for the video tag, but it is significantly more partial than other popular browsers. It's severely limited compared to that of Chrome (which has the best HTML5 support cross-platform for all tags that I've come across in testing), so I suggested that. Although Google has threatened to remove certain container support, they haven't yet. As there is no standard required format, it is suggested that either H.264 or Theora is used in video tags, and it is preferable that both are made available. Chrome supports one of the above, but IE doesn't. In my mind, and it's something I know has been discussed somewhat previously, there is little reason to fill up WMF's servers with data to specifically support IE, say, when the number of users are minimal compared to those who are using supported browsers. Bundle that with the fact that certain other Wikipedia features don't work with IE, it's logical to suggest editors consider another browser to enrich their experience. I don't really take kindly to being told I don't know what I'm talking about; I'm a qualified web developer and software engineer. Weighing up the options, I don't believe a user who wants information as requested needs to know the background behind the scenes, when switching browsers is by far the simplest solution. drewmunn talk 09:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- But you provided information which the OP specifically asked you not to provide (suggest the OP change browser) and also provided completely wrong information "One of the tags it doesn't support is the Video one, so you can't use it to watch HTML5 video". The OP themselves has indicated they did not find your information helpful, and frankly I'm not surprised. It's not a personal attack to provide information to you which you consider useless, when you yourself have already indicated that there is nothing wrong with providing such information by providing such information when it was specifically requsted not to provide it (and you no where even said you did not want to hear about what you should know as a web developer). And if you're going to use your credentials to try and give weight to your arguments, there's nothing wrong with someone pointing out that whatever your credentials, you seem to not actually know what you should know (note that I never suggested you were not a webdeveloper). And between assuming someone said something they knew to be untrue or was simply mistaken, assuming someone is mistaken is generally the more good faith assumption so a fair one to make. If you're going to effectively lie to the OP to try and justify an answer the OP specifically asked you not to provide, and not even provide helpful information to explain their actual question, than use a lame excuse about the actual accurate information is "background behind the scenes" which the OP doesn't need to know, this is frankly more offensive than anything I have said.
- Your new claim that IE support of HTML5 video is far less than other browsers ignores the fact as I pointed out of several other popular browsers, one of them didn't support the far more important HTML5 video codec until very recently and one still doesn't support any more than IE. And while you did suggest Chrome, no where did you tell the OP to make sure they don't use Firefox or Safari or Chromium, in fact the tone of your response indicated that any browser will be better which considering that issue was HTML5 video is questionable considering the history. And AFAIK, Google have not yet withdrawn the claim they intend to withdraw HTML5 video support for H264 even if they seem to be tarrying a lot with it. Do you intend to visit the OP personally and tell them if Google does remove it? If not, I have no idea how you can claim to the OP one of the key features you're highlighting namely HTML5 video support may one day be far worse than IE10 outside Wikimedia projects, is stuff they don't need to know for the browser you specifically recommended.
- P.S. In case it's unclear, while the original question was about HTML5 video on a WMF project, Unilynx was the first person to even highlight the fact that it depended on which codec you were referring to and the WMF used one (actually 2) so it seems fair to discuss the wider HTML5 video support issues with regard to earlier answers. P.P.S. Outside the WMF and a few like minded projects, Theora never really took off and appears to be dying in favour of VP8, even Youtube doesn't support it so the claim Theora and H264 support are what is important is questionable.
- Nil Einne (talk) 09:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Maybe it would have been better to say "The HTML5 video tag is not supported by IE in the way Wikipedia uses it". I'm going to disengage, because I could do without getting into an argument with someone right now. I gave the poster the information required to resolve their issue, and it was their decision what to do with that information. If they found it useful, then they could use it. If not, it hurt neither me nor them. Now, however, I'm discouraged from posting such advice here because it seems I've made an enemy of you for no reason. The fact that IE is the most restricted of HTML5 video-compliant browsers is true; it shares that title with Safari, each of which only supports a single codec. Theora may be dying, but it's still a suggested format, and is supported by as many browsers as VP8 and H.264 at this time. We seem to disagree over the status of your claim that I know little about my area of expertise, so I'm going to step away from this, and probably delete this page from my watchlist so I'm not drawn into something like this again. drewmunn talk 10:50, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- P.P.P.S. I didn't bother to read the above response since frankly I tire of this pointless discussion, which could have be answered without lying to the OP, as for example I did so here Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 June 28#Detecting HTML 5 support (in general, and specifically on Wikipedia, and heck you could have still thrown in a 'change browser' response in addition without having to lie to the OP and maybe the OP would have been less unhappy with this if they actually got a proper explaination and weren't lied to. But I just wanted to point out that while H.264 is used a lot more on the web for HTML5 video, some may argue that it's actually not so important because probably most sites except Apple ones which use HTML5 also generally support Flash Video or perhaps occasionally Silverlight which on Windows you probably have both whereas some sites like the WMF and other parts of the open source community reject any of these plugins and of course patent encumbured video formats in favour of ones which should theoretically be royalty free forever. So in that regard Theora and WebM (I mentioned Theora here since these are also sites which may use Theora and not WebM for a variety of reasons including never bothering to change after they first supported it) could be regarded as more important than H.264. Personally I disagree but it's a legimate argument which I realise I didn't mention before. Nil Einne (talk) 12:01, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- P.P.P.P.S. I also wanted to say that while I did consider the possibility the response was unintentionally misleading despite the person responding evidently knowing the background, I can't see how anyone with a decent level with English could not consider "The HTML5 spec covers a lot of different tags, and Internet Explorer, being IE, supports one or two, and in its own way. One of the tags it doesn't support is the Video one, so you can't use it to watch HTML5 video. .... I'd suggest using Chrome; not only does that support the video tag, .... As with every person I come across who uses IE, I'd never recommend it, and I'd always recommend changing to something else. " would be intepreted to mean 'IE10 doesn't support the HTML5 video tag' which I think we all acknowledge is wrong. Particularly considering the actual answer and so what it should mean is something along the lines of 'IE10 supports the HTML5 video tag but similar to Safari, by default due to a lack of system codecs it only? supports H.264/MP4 and doesn't support the VP8/WebM or Theora/Ogg codecs and containers which the WMF uses. There's no codec or container required in the standard so IE10's lack of support is in terms of feature set no worse than the Firefox 20 and current Chromium default on Windows of not supporting H.264 which means they will work with wikipedia but not many other sites out there.'. If it's claimed it really was not appreciated how misleading this would be and how the comment would be interpreted then I accept that and apologise for assuming there was an intention to mislead in my response to DrewMunn after they clarified they already knew what IE and the other browsers support (but not for all the rest which I feel is fair). And to be clear, I'm only referring to Drewmunn here, I presume the other respondents were simply confused about what IE10 supports as I initially assumed Drewmunn was. Nil Einne (talk) 12:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- I know all of the above, but I deemed it not to be important to the question as asked. Yes, IE does have partial support for the video tag, but it is significantly more partial than other popular browsers. It's severely limited compared to that of Chrome (which has the best HTML5 support cross-platform for all tags that I've come across in testing), so I suggested that. Although Google has threatened to remove certain container support, they haven't yet. As there is no standard required format, it is suggested that either H.264 or Theora is used in video tags, and it is preferable that both are made available. Chrome supports one of the above, but IE doesn't. In my mind, and it's something I know has been discussed somewhat previously, there is little reason to fill up WMF's servers with data to specifically support IE, say, when the number of users are minimal compared to those who are using supported browsers. Bundle that with the fact that certain other Wikipedia features don't work with IE, it's logical to suggest editors consider another browser to enrich their experience. I don't really take kindly to being told I don't know what I'm talking about; I'm a qualified web developer and software engineer. Weighing up the options, I don't believe a user who wants information as requested needs to know the background behind the scenes, when switching browsers is by far the simplest solution. drewmunn talk 09:31, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
What does SSF mean in this URL?
http://www.oregonlive.com/comics-kingdom/index.ssf?feature_id=Mgoose&feature_date=2013-09-01 — Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:47, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
- The .ssf extension, and some ssf comments in the html, seem to emanate from a closed-source content management system used by a number of newspapers. I have been unable to determine which one - I don't think it's any of the big ones described in this article. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:44, 2 September 2013 (UTC)
September 3
Wikipedia bot scripting in C
Hi I wonder how to get a table that content the comment list on a talk page such as: list[0][0][0] would be read as first section; first comment; first letter
For example if the comment is "hello everyone first person date and time"
list[0][0][0] would be h
list[0][0][] would content the string "hello everyone first person date and time"
list[0][1][] could content "hello first person, thanks second person date/time"
Or Maybe a something like a struct would be better rather than a table.
If it is impossible or too difficult, I'd like use pywikipedia or APIbot(PHP). 2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 00:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- It's not impossible, but it's likely to be rather painful because C's string handling is verbose and few other users of the MediaWiki API use C (so there will be little in the way of examples, libraries, and colleague support). It will also be hard to reliably parse comments (simply because parsing is hard); it might be worthwhile to consult the page history to see who added what text, but you'd have to decide what to do with edits that did other than simply add one or more comment paragraphs. The outline, though, is easy and would look like (error handling omitted, and C99 used, for brevity)
const char *page_name=/* ... */,*text=get_wikitext(page_name);
char **section_starts=find_sections(text); /* array of pointers into 'text'; the last points at its '\0' */
unsigned nsec;
for(nsec=0;*section_starts[nsec];++nsec); /* count sections */
char ***list=malloc(nsec*sizeof*list);
for(unsigned i=0;i<nsec;++i)
list[i]=parse_section(section_starts[i],section_starts[i+1]);
free(section_starts);
free(text); /* it's all copied into 'list' now */
- parse_section() would in turn have to find the comment starts and ends between its two arguments and use malloc() to create an array of strings to return (each of which in turn needing malloc() and strcpy() to hold a separate copy of a single comment). (Alternatively, you could mimic strtok() and modify the text string in place by substituting NULs for newlines separating the comments. Then you wouldn't free(text) until you were finished with a page, since all the comment pointers would be reusing its memory.) --Tardis (talk) 13:31, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Well the most difficult thing in this example is to implement the functions you described: get_wikitext() find_sections() parse_section().
- After thinking a little, creating a new type using some typedefs could be the best thing. My compilers support C++. I don't know how to code using class. So the typedefs can be coded with latest C++ standard as long as I can use them in a extern "C" {}. Again, if this too difficult, it could be done in a better supported language2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 21:56, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Update I had some idea for the way to get a section, but I have no idea how to get the second column. Isolate a specific message is difficult. you can see some examples here. An another thing which is difficult: If the user made more than one edit on the talk page he/she may have updated the message to do something like spell checking. But their must be a way do this: after writing this line sinebot wont put an unsigned comment.
- That's a lot of points:
- Of course the parts I didn't write are the hard part — if this were all so easy as to be included in a comment, I wouldn't call it painful!
- You don't need C++ for typedefs; it merely allows you to refer to struct foo as simply foo without having a typedef. (Are you planning to link some other C code against what you're writing? If not, the extern "C" is also irrelevant.)
- I'm not sure what to make of your de-wiki link; it seems to be redirected to a list of bots.
- You put "!nosign!" into your edit summary, so of course no signature occurred. I already suggested the page history.
- The best thing I can think of as a sensible definition of a comment (which is really what this is about), following WP:SIGN, is to break after lines that end with a timestamp (since those are added after people's varied signatures). Using WP:INDENT is tempting, but doesn't work well for posts (like this one) that have internal structure. --Tardis (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for your fast answer. What I want are the hardest parts because I can do the remainder myself of course. I put !nosign! because I wanted to be sure Sinebot wont sign. This not necessary for creating a dear wanted Sinebot equivalent for common. It is to perform some actions on a specific user message. It is to be general purpose. 2A02:8422:1191:6E00:56E6:FCFF:FEDB:2BBA (talk) 12:21, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Update By C++ for typedef I mean using full C++ features inside typedef. I don't really know how to deal with C++. it don't mind using typedef using things such as class as long as they are ready to use.
- That's a lot of points:
Average computer configuration by years
Is there a comparative historical table or something alike with average computer configuration (CPU, memory, video card, monitor etc.) by years? For example I'd like to know what a new average computer was in 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998 etc.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:21, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Ram versus CPU?
How much difference is there between a slight upgrade in processor and an upgrade in ram? Would it usually be more effective to upgrade the processor, or just as effective to add 4gb of ram? Or do I need to be more specific? Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 08:26, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- You should run a system monitor to check out your CPU and RAM usage. That will tell you which one is topping out when your computer slows to a crawl. I think low RAM is most often the culprit. StuRat (talk) 08:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
Cannot open image attachments on iOS 5.1.1
Was it just me, or is anyone else having trouble opening JPEG/PNG/GIF attachments with iOS? The email account in question is a Yahoo one, and I'm trying to grab them off the default email app. The attachments only appear as a generic paper icon with a blue down arrow on it. Clicking on them would make the file appear like it's being downloaded, but nothing happens afterwards. I tried uninstalling iFile and the downloader tweak from Cydia, but still no dice. I'm ruling in the possibility of Polaris Office and a few other applications conflicting with the system-default email app, but is there anything that I should take note of? Blake Gripling (talk) 12:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- iOS 5 is not the current version of iOS; and the presence of Cydia almost assures that you have modified the device software to use an unsupported configuration. So, you are now in "untested waters," and it's very unlikely that Apple can diagnose your problem; it's even more unlikely that Cydia's developers will care to investigate it. (Cydia's developers have zero stake in your customer satisfaction!) The good news is, you can easily restore your device to iOS 6.1, which is available at no cost, and will restore your device to a known-to-work configuration. Otherwise, all bets are off - but because you've "jail-broken" the device, you are asserting that you're an expert system-programmer who knows how to modify complex software systems and debug these kinds of complicated software problems yourself, right?
- My recommendation is to revert to a known-to-work software version that is tested by Apple, iOS 6.1, or the soon-to-be-available iOS 7. Nimur (talk) 15:37, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah, nothing too big of an issue, but it's an annoyance. I guess I could wait for iOS7 to be released. Blake Gripling (talk) 01:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
windows XP vs 8
so, trying this feature... My wife's laptop runs XP, would it run faster with Win8 - Win 8 seems like a cleaner OS. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wikicheesecake (talk • contribs) 14:03, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- If the hardware doesn't change, it wouldn't. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 15:34, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- (ec) Hard to say without knowing more about your wife's laptop. Windows 8 has minumum hardware requirements, listed here. An older laptop, one which came with Windows XP installed, might not be up to the job. For example, old laptops that I have seen with Windows XP installed, from the mid-2000s typically have 256MB of memory, a small hard drive of ~40GB, and slow dualcore - clearly insufficient for Windows 8. Astronaut (talk) 15:39, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Yeah we definitely need the specs of her laptop in order to make a better judgement... with XP it could meet the requirements, or fall way short. --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 16:06, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
book creator - rendered, document ready for download, file not found
Hi .. how do I find my rendered book? thank you — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hodgepodge25 (talk • contribs) 15:40, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- There should be a download link that you can get to through the Book Editor interface. Is that interface failing to show up? Did you create the book while logged in? Nimur (talk) 15:45, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
VLC duration unknown
I was wondering what was the cause VLC player (or any other media player) may have trouble figuring out the real duration of a file, or shows a erroneous duration when first played, then corrects itself over the playback of the file, why is this? 190.60.93.218 (talk) 18:40, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find an answer... and I don't know it off the top of my head; though this appears to be a really common problem (there are many threads/posts about it on the web) but not conlusions as to why it happens. Now that I think of it I've never had the problem happen to me in VLC, but it has happened in Winamp... --.Yellow1996.(ЬMИED¡) 19:01, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
- The media file may be missing the 'MOOV' atom, or the media player may have had trouble finding it and is trying to estimate the duration by taking the file size and dividing it by the average bitrate so far. Unilynx (talk) 19:38, 3 September 2013 (UTC)
September 4
CPU/RAM question
So i was recommended to look at the performance monitor on Windows 7 (64 bit). I have no idea what i'm actually looking at here. Any tips? I was trying to figure out if my system ideally needs more ram or a better processor. I also looked at the Windows Experience Index, which puts my system at:
- Processor: 5
- Memory (RAM): 7.1
- Graphics: 4.3
- Gaming graphics: 4.5
- Primary hard disk: 5.9
I use it for gaming a bit, which is where i have the odd problem. It does everything else just fine. Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 08:19, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- How much RAM do you have a the moment? As far as I recall, the WIE measures the RAM speed, and doesn't give much weight to the amount (so long as it is sufficient to run Windows). It also depends a little on what games you intend to play, some will be heavily graphics limited (e.g. many FPS games), some RAM limited (e.g. turn based strategy games), and some CPU limited (e.g. RTS games), so different upgrades will help different games. Actually telling us you current specs is likely to be more useful than the WIE. Anoher question would be how much difference changing graphics options makes to how the games run, you may be better off changing your video card, rather than either of the opitions you gave. Or your computer might just be getting on a bit, and benefit from reinsalling windows (after ensuring everything is backed up first of course) MChesterMC (talk) 08:55, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Without much detailed info on me at the moment, i know it currently has 6GB of DDR3 Ram. I'm not sure about the processor. I got it january/february 2012, so it's not ancient, it just struggles to keep up with some RTS and FPS games (Minecraft and Anno 2070) very well (even with graphics at bare minimum). I could give more detailed specs later if necessary. Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 10:14, 4 September 2013 (UTC)
- Assuming you're using Windows 7, hit the Start Button, highlight "computer", then right-click and select "Properties". Look down the page that appears for the row "Processor", and tell us what is listed there. Also, if you can, click "Device Manager" in the top-left of that window, then doubleclick the item that says "Display adapters", and tell us that as well. That will help us determine your major components. -- 140.202.10.134 (talk) 15:43, 4 September 2013 (UTC)