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Main page: Help searching Misplaced Pages

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Main page: Misplaced Pages:Reference desk/Guidelines

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December 16

Misplaced Pages page decline

I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.

Regards, Mirza Abid Ali Baig, — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infoluckyids (talk • contribs) 11:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Please read up on WP:COI, WP:NOT, WP:NOTE, and then WP:RS - there are likely other guidelines and policies that applies as well, but those are of the top of my head. In short, you would probably be better served by waiting until your company is notable enough for someone who is not related to your company to write an article. WegianWarrior (talk) 12:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Reliable sources, which show notability. I could make my own press releases, but it wouldn't make my topic notable. Also beware of Conflict of Interest. Thanks ツ Jenova20 12:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Are there any magazine or newspaper articles which cover your company? For example, you could use this Reuters article as evidence of notability, however, you will need more than one article to prove notability. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 17:46, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

December 17

How to delete Null Zeros in XML file?

How to delete Null Zeros in XML file?

For Ex:

Input = Premium 00506.0800

Output = Premium 506.08

I want like the Output above. Please connect my name when anyone answer.--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 13:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

@Tenkasi: It's impossible to answer the question unless you tell us what software environment you're working in. XML is only structure, it doesn't determine process. Looie496 (talk) 17:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Environment Means?

OS is Windows 7 and XML is stored from web (Internet Explorer) as Simplified XML format. Is it enough or some other details you want?--Tenkasi Subramanian (talk) 19:19, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe you will understand the problem better if I say that the simplest way to do it is to edit the file using a text editor (XML is just structured text), and erase those zeros. If you need to do it on too large of a scale for that to work, then you will need to write a program. But then it is necessary to know what sort of programs you are capable of writing. Looie496 (talk) 20:05, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

You could load the XML file into your text editor, and then run a global search and replace from " 0" (that's a space followed by zero) to just " " (space). When that completes, run it again and again until you get no replacements occurring. Save the result using a different file name - do NOT overwrite your original file in case this method removes a zero you didn't want to lose. For example, it will turn "Premium 0" to "Premium ".

You will get a better result if you can use a programmers' editor which can search on regular expressions. If you don't understand what regular expressions are, ignore this paragraph. If you have such an editor, ask just below this paragraph and someone more versed in such expressions than I will give you suitable search and replace terms.-gadfium 00:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Can Word be persuaded to open XML files? If so, then the wildcards function in the replace tool is powerful enough for this. find " 0{1,}({1,})" replace " \1" (without quotes, note the leading space on both expressions) finds a space, followed by at least one 0 followed by a string containing only the numbers 1-9, or a newline, and replaces it with the string (i.e. gets rid of leading 0s). For trailing 0s: find "(.{1,}{1,})0{1,}()" replace "\1\2" (without quotes, no leading space) finds any string starting with a . followed by at least two significant digits, followed by at least one 0, followed by a space, a comma or a newline, and replaces it with the decimal point and the significant digits followed by the space, comma or newline. find "(.{1,})0{1,}()" replace "\1\2" works for only one significant digit (but not if there is a significant 0 after the decimal point, e.g. 0.01000). More punctuation can be added into the final square brackets if needed (e.g. if you have something like: "process 003.04300;", then throw a semicolon in there. If you can't open the XML file directly, then copying the text into word and pasting it back into the file you want (making sure to keep the old file as a backup in case it all goes wrong) should work. MChesterMC (talk) 10:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Forgot to ping Tenkasi MChesterMC (talk) 11:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Notepad will work for most cases. My recommendation is to make copies of the xml file step by step and then to "save" changes rather than "save as" to avoid character coding issues. Alternatively, Notepad++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ is quite useful for editing xml files, if ordinary notepad wont work for you for some reason. DanielDemaret (talk) 11:53, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Facebook

Any way to prevent friends from seeing only the recent friends I added? thanks. Ben-Natan (talk) 17:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

You previously could, as of now no. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:10, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Does anyone still use HTTP 1.0 anymore?

There is a security flaw in older versions of IIS that deals with HTTP 1.0. To fix the issue, one of the options we are considering is to turn off support for HTTP 1.0. My question is, does anyone still use HTTP 1.0 anymore and if so, how many? HTTP 1.1 was finalized in 1997, so I would expect that nobody is still using HTTP 1.0, but how would I know such a thing? This Microsoft Knowledge Base article indicates that this maybe a problem with some Windows XP users. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I've seen some proxies and some programs use only HTTP/1.0, so, I'm sure some would use HTTP/1.0, I don't think most notice, you don't support HTTP/1.0, But eventually someone will. 190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm going to see if I can gain access to our IIS logs to see if there are any 1.0 requests. (As a mere developer, I don't have direct access to our production servers. I have to go through a different team to see the log files.) AnonComputerGuy (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I think there are still enough HTTP/1.0-only clients out there that disabling it would be problematic (see this thread for example). If you do look at the logs I'd be curious to know what you find (assuming you're allowed to tell). -- BenRG (talk) 08:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I was able to examine our production server logs and the results were very surprising. 70% of our traffic is using HTTP 1.0. I was not expecting that. So, completely blocking all HTTP 1.0 requests is not a viable option. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 18:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Memory Screenshow/Image states.

I wouldn't know how to call this, actually, but in the past, I've used some Virtual Machines, using VMWare, I've noticed it has a pause button, and a screenshot button, (which saves the actual state/image of the computer, not a raster image). So basically it can stop any arbitrary program and run it again from where it was, also some emulators like NES, SNES, WII, PS1 seem to have some "save mode" which saves the whole state as it was.

I wonder if I could do anything similar with an executable, pause it, save it, and maybe restore previous states, is there anyway I can do this? (I'm using windows 7.)190.60.93.218 (talk) 19:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Normally you would do that by running the program in a debugger. In order to re-start a program from an arbitrary state you need to create a core dump, which is generally more trouble than it is worth. Looie496 (talk) 21:32, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

And if the program has open files or handles (which it will) then there is pretty much no way to recover it perfectly after completely unloading it. The program doesn't run in isolation - it talks to the OS for all sorts of things, so the OS would need to be in the same state as well. Pause/unpause can be done with a debugger but usable save states won't happen. It works in virtual machines because the entire state of the system, including the OS, is saved. Katie R (talk) 13:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Steve Wilson on YouTube

Where is his video where he says "awful suffering" "the world will be in chaos" "it will not be business as usual"? it's almost certainly a may 21 (/may 21 2011) video.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 20:50, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Recovering a replaced file

My laptop is running Windows 7. I accidentally moved one file named "Note 1.txt" to another folder that contained a file of the same name. I accidentally clicked "Move and replace". How do I recover the file that was replaced? Is it deleted and then replaced? — Melab±1 ☎ 23:40, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The contents of the file will very likely still be present, unless you've done other things with that disk in the meantime, but you'll probably need file recovery software to get it back. Meanwhile: don't use that disk. Looie496 (talk) 23:55, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

How can I recover the file then if I can't use that disk? What software should I use? It doesn't make sense. — Melab±1 ☎ 01:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that he means that you shouldn't use the disk until you begin recovering the files. This is because NTFS "deletes" files by allowing them to be overwritten. The actual information is still there, if one looks closely. But, by using the disk, you run the risk of writing over that information.

I used ntfsundelete on a folder containing several gigabytes of information, once. →Σσς. (Sigma) 07:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) Recuva is a good undeletion tool for Windows. The data from your file will remain on the disk until it's overwritten with something new (unless it's an SSD, in which case the data is probably gone already). If you install Recuva on that disk, the files making up Recuva might overwrite the file you're trying to recover. Most other "uses" of that disk will create new files as well (for example, web browsers write files to their disk caches). Your safest bet is to download Recuva on another computer, install it to a USB stick or other external storage, plug that into the afflicted computer and run Recuva straight off the USB stick. You should also save the recovered file to the USB stick. Once it's successfully recovered, you can move it to where it belongs. -- BenRG (talk) 07:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I used Recuva but the files its showing me seem to be ones that HAVEN'T been deleted. — Melab±1 ☎ 19:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Isn't there a possibility that the data has already been overwritten when the contents of the file were replaced with the new contents. If the new file was longer then it may well have been written to a new location, retaining the old contents, but if the new file was shorter, a portion of the old file may have been irrevocably overwritten. Does anyone know the approximate probability of overwriting on a modern hard drive? Old floppy drives tended to use the first available space, but modern file systems and controllers are much more sophisticated. I know that overwriting is unlikely on flash memory where new contents are normally written to new space, even with a file of the same name, but won't most operating systems and hard drive controllers use the same space over again for a shorter file of the same name? Dbfirs 08:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

To partially answer my own question ... I was thinking of the old FAT system where the old contents would almost definitely have been overwritten if the new file was shorter. I think under the NTFS transactional system there is a high probability that the new file was written to new space and then the old file subsequently deleted. Have we an article that explains the process? Dbfirs 08:18, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

"Move and replace" doesn't overwrite the replaced file, it just deletes it and then proceeds with the move as though it had never existed. If you moved the file from another folder on the same disk then it almost certainly just updated directory entries and didn't touch any file data at all. On NTFS that means it just marked the replaced file's MFT entry as deleted/available, changed the parent directory in the moved file's MFT entry, and updated the directory indexes. Directory indexes are stored as files and can overwrite file data when they grow, but in this case neither directory grew in size, so I think that won't happen. Recuva and similar utilities just read the MFT and ignore the indexes, so you can always recover the file immediately after the move in this scenario. On FAT, the directory "indices" are the only record of a deleted file's former existence, and I think there's a good chance that the moved file would overwrite the deleted file's entry, making the file data much harder to recover (though it would still be there).

If the move did copy file data, I think there's a very good chance that it picked a different location on the disk to put the copy, especially if you have a lot of free space. I think you're right that the chance is higher on a transactional filesystem, but I don't really know. -- BenRG (talk) 08:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification, and apologies if I seemed to be doubting your original reply. (My brain tends to get stuck in its memory of outdated systems.) I agree that there is a high probability that the original file contents are still there, and that the probability gradually reduces as the disc is used. My old version of Windows (Vista) seems to spend a lot of time on boot-up writing many small files, some of them for reasons that are not clear to me (though I expect it has good reasons for writing them). Presumably any of these could overwrite the sectors where the original file was stored, so booting from a USB or CD will be important. Dbfirs 09:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Recovering a lost file is elementary. Place the mouse cursor on the file name in Windows Explorer, right click and go down the options. You will see "Restore Previous Versions." click on that and it will give you the choice of dates. You should choose the date which predates your unfortunate move and your file will be restored. You can also do it with the whole sub directories as well. AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

Well, yes, we've all being assuming that Melab-1 has no backup of the lost file. Obviously, the first thing to try is restoring the file from a backup. "Restore Previous Versions" will work only if Windows Backup has been run since the lost version was created (or if a backup was created with a restore point). We've been giving advice on the assumption that there is no backup available. The Recycle Bin will not have a copy of the deleted file if it was deleted as part of a move. Dbfirs 11:01, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

You are right about that. The backup and restore option must have been set up for that to be effective. I am not sure but is it not a part of a default windows configuration, a part of "Windows for dummies?" AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

I haven't seen it set up as a default, but some suppliers might do so. We all just assumed that Melab-1 was intelligent enough to have looked for a backup before asking the question. Dbfirs 18:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

December 18

Why do people still say "w w w dot" when naming websites aloud?

I just saw a commercial for Lumosity, and in the commercial they say something like "just go to w w w dot ..." I haven't typed www. anything in years (does anyone?) You just type imdb.com, or google.com or whatever. Why do people still say it and is there any purpose in actually typing it, like some millisecond faster connection (that would not make up for the time saved in not typing it in the first place)?--108.46.96.174 (talk) 06:11, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Your IP address geolocates to the USA, which explains a bit. Sites in other countries have country codes on the end (e.g. .uk, or .au), which must be typed, or an American site may come up. You must also only ever go to sites with ".com" on the end, or use other means to get to this site. If you look at the url for this page, you'll notice it's got a ".org" there. Typing the full url still has its place at times for some of us. As for why American advertisers do it, maybe they're not all that computer literate. HiLo48 (talk) 07:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The question is about the www. prefix, which is equally useless everywhere in the world. -- BenRG (talk) 07:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Well to access the uk version of yahoo it's uk.yahoo.com not www.Dja1979 (talk) 10:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There are plenty of less-popular web sites that only support www.foo.bar (or even only foo.bar). It isn't hard to support both but it isn't automatic either. If foo.bar redirects to www.foo.bar then the latter will be faster (and vice versa). I think that advertisers like Lumosity worry that some people would not know how to "go to lumosity.com" without the www to make it clear that it's a web site, but that's pure speculation on my part -- BenRG (talk) 07:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Human idiocy is unquestionable. About 10 people a day attempt to call our fax number at work every day, despite our business cards and catalogues stating FAX:xxxxxxxx and Telephone:xxxxxxxxx very clearly. I'm sure it's the same people who use email addresses as website addresses. Thanks ツ Jenova20 10:28, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

"Does anyone?" Well I do, quite often. While Ben points out that www.foo.bar is a different address from foo.bar, not every where automatically redirects from one to the other, therefore I often put the www. in even if it is strictly not needed. Astronaut (talk) 11:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm sniggering at Austronaut and his www.-triggered carpal tunnel syndrome.--108.46.96.174 (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I work at a college here in the UK, and we have to type www,www1,www2 and www3 depending on where were want to get to on our website servers. We also have cases were www isn't required, or is replaced with something else, eg vdi. I don't know why but that's the way it is and we just accept it (and yes it can be confusing). --TrogWoolley (talk) 16:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I can go one better; not only do I type in the www, I also usually type in the http://. I'm well aware it's not necessary, but I picked the habit up in the old days when you had to specify between HTTP and FTP on the browser (I'm assuming Netscape Navigator, but possibly other early ones as well). I find it useful to annoy my daughter as well, so the practice is not without merit. Matt Deres (talk) 17:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

• One use of saying "w w w" out loud is to signal to the listener that a URL is coming. In some oral contexts that can be very useful. It may well be that such a signal is found conducive to an audience which also listens to an ad, besides watching it. For a radio ad it's very useful, I imagine, even if redundant. Drmies (talk) 19:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The Ali G multiplication problem?

What is meant by it?

Input: two d digit numbers (mostly 9s)
Output: the product of all the numbers

Is it something you would find in the serious literature? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It seems to be meaningless babble. 'd' is undefined and "mostly" doesn't help much. The phrase "product of all the numbers" is odd - you'd expect it to say "product of these two numbers" or something...which implies to me that you don't have the question right. As given, it seems like there are an insane number of answers for any given 'd'. What is the context of the question? Maybe there is more information about it there that would help us to get you an answer. Certainly there is nothing in serious math literature that would be written this badly. SteveBaker (talk) 14:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It was from a ppt presentation, in the context of computability. The source is ]. It is from the CS department of the Univ. of Virginia. See ] too for the "10012 Things Every Self-Respecting Computer Scientist Should Know." OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:38, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem comes from this episode of Ali G. The point made in the presentation (and by Ali G), as I understand it, is that we'll never be able to build a computer that can solve any multiplication problem, simply because the input factors can be arbitrarily long (d has no bounds). --Wrongfilter (talk) 14:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the Powerpoint slides shows an Excel spreadsheet in which the product of a column containing 999999999 and four 99s is computed to be 96059600903940400 (the correct/exact answer is ...399). The next slide concludes "There are many decidable problems we cannot solve with real computer: the numbers do matter". Yes, they matter, but this is a terrible example. Exact multiplication of d-digit integers for very large d is easy (unlike, say, integer factorization). Excel got an approximate answer because it's using fixed-precision arithmetic. Maybe it shouldn't, but that's not a computer science issue. This example is not something you'd find in the literature; it was made up for this Powerpoint presentation (along with the name). In my opinion the whole presentation is pretty bad. It covers the usual computer science cliches but isn't well researched or insightful. And Ali G is an idiot, of course. -- BenRG (talk) 21:33, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Ali G is an idiot like a fox. --Trovatore (talk) 05:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The problem seems more about the input and output. If you could input the two numbers and be able to output the answer then you could write a program to do the multiplication using Arbitrary-precision arithmetic. Such a system would be able to handle any number Ali G could think of but not any number a computer scientist could think of. --Salix alba (talk): 19:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If you have a turing-engine (ie a computer) and sufficient memory to hold both input numbers and the output, then you can compute the result in finite time. Clearly the numbers might be too big to fit in memory - but that's a problem no matter how you do the computation. The observable universe itself isn't large enough to hold arbitrarily large numbers. The problem is nothing to do with computers - it's to do with storage space. You can't multiply two arbitrarily large numbers on an abacus either if you don't have enough paper to write the numbers onto! It doesn't really make a very interesting point. There are much better examples of uncomputable problems that might even seem deceptively easy. For example: Given seven 3×3 matrices with integer entries, can they can be multiplied in some order, possibly with repetition, to yield the zero matrix? No possible computer can solve this - not because the numbers involved won't fit in memory...any modern computer can easily hold the definition of the problem...but the problem can't be solved for every set of input matrices with any kind of turing engine. SteveBaker (talk) 23:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

FORTRAN Compiler

I've posted here recently (To hire a programmer for a job, etc). I've got a few good suggestions and I am grateful for them. I've decided in the end that I will need a FORTRAN compiler. Years and years ago I did a lot of FORTRAN, so I hope the programming part won't be that difficult although now it seems the FORTRAN allows to do graphics, etc. The old FORTRAN of course did not have it.

I think StuRat, one of the participants here stated that he does a lot of his work in FORTRAN. I hope someone will recommend which compiler I should download. I checked the web. There is this crazy Intel FORTRAN "Composer" costing over a grand. I will need the compiler for a single task only so for me it won't be a good investment. There are "free" compilers but I am afraid to download from a website I don't know. So, I count on some compromise. BTW, my Windows 7 is 64 bit. Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

Have you looked at gfortran?--Aspro (talk) 16:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a bad decision. The only valid reason to use FORTRAN nowadays is if you have legacy code. Otherwise you are much better off using C -- the available tools are vastly superior. Looie496 (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If the OP is the guy who was asking how to do a web-page, I'd say he needs neither Fortran (it's not FORTRAN anymore, BTW), nor C. He would be fine with html + CSS + JS. OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:39, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I am the guy who asked how to build web pages. So what? I tried to do this project with Microsoft Visual Studio and C# recently but could not get the precision I wanted. As a matter of fact the iterative errors were overwhelming. At the same time years ago I did a similar job with one of the old versions of FORTRAN compilers and everything worked fine. I do not remember if I used double or even quadruple precision. Most likely it was double, 16 digits. I am waiting for StuRat's comment. He is using FORTRAN every day in his work. BTW, "Fortran" is highlighted by Misplaced Pages as an error. Thanks, AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:56, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

So what? Ỹour purpose is not completely clear, but you seem completely lost. Anyway, I don't know what you mean by "highlighted by Misplaced Pages." Fortran is clear that the name is "Fortran (previously FORTRAN)." Maybe you are confusing your spell checker with Misplaced Pages. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:17, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There are still valid reasons to use Fortran these days, mainly computing speed: due to the simplicity and rigidity of the language optimizing compilers are usually more successful with Fortran code than with other languages. This is pretty much only an issue for heavy number crunching that is cpu bound. Precision, however, is not a reason to use Fortran. All modern languages implement floating point arithmetic as per IEEE-754, so the results will be the same in any language. I don't know what your webpage is doing, but if this is some algorithm to compute something that doesn't converge or result in large computational errors, then your algorithm is wrong and not the language used. Maybe you need to talk to an applied mathematician and not a programmer? 86.128.183.4 (talk) 23:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It is an issue of numerical integration with special functions (Spherical Harmonics). The trouble is I need Associated Legendre polynomials of a very high order l about 200 at times. For this I naturally have to use recurrence formulas. If you are familiar with the subject you should appreciate that many iterations will be involved. AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

FINALLY you tell us what problem you are actually trying to solve! Finally! It would have saved a shitload of time to say so from the beginning. The Numerical Recipes books -- the bible for people who need numerical algorithms -- contains a section on how to calculate spherical harmonics, section 6.8. There are C and FORTRAN versions of the book, and each of them gives you source code for calculating Associated Legendre polynomials, using a robust method. It also warns against half-a-dozen other methods that seem like they ought to work but in practice are too sensitive to precision (exactly the problem you ran into earlier). Looie496 (talk) 03:09, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. It is interesting! I will check the book, for sure. AboutFace 22 (talk) 04:02, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

I just checked the book. There is a copyright snag in there. Just read the customers' reports on Amazon. No, thanks. The thing is programming for this project is elementary. It is a snap. I now have my own code in C#. I had written it in Fortran years ago. I need the compiler. Using so many iterations kills the result unless it is in Fortran, this is my experience. AboutFace 22 (talk) 04:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

The gfortran package could be one option, if you are willing to use Linux, and Fortran 77, maybe up to 95. Alternatively, if it's non-commercial, use the Intel compiler for free ]. OsmanRF34 (talk) 08:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

That book will explain why you're having problems in other languages and how to properly do the calculation to avoid the errors. Even if the code can't be copied, you can learn from the text and write your own implementation of the robust algorithm. It is definitely the best reference you're going to find for this problem. Katie R (talk) 13:22, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks to Osman and Katie (?), the last two contributors for your suggestions. Every drop of thought might be helpful eventually. AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

I know that it's a waste of time, but I'll try once more to explain. YOU ARE USING A BAD ALGORITHM. The algorithm you are using is numerically unstable. If you don't switch to a more stable algorithm, all this other stuff is useless. Trying to make an unstable algorithm work by operating at ultra-high precision is always a losing proposition. The solution is to replace it with a more stable algorithm. The Numerical Recipes section that I pointed to explains what you need to do. Looie496 (talk) 17:00, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Looie496, I will get the book. I will order it tonight. It is not a problem. The problem might be that there is no way to improve the algorithm. It is a simple iterative procedure, using recurrence formulas. If you look at them (the recurrence formulas) in Misplaced Pages (Associated Legendre Polynomials) you will see that there is nothing to improve there, since the operation is so straightforward. If you talk about Numerical Integration which is also one of the components of the whole project of mine, then it is a different story. In that area the algorithms have been optimized and improved for years. But this is a different part and I am not discussing it here (yet!). Of course any criticism is helpful anyway. Thanks AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

You don't even have to order it, you can read it online at http://www.nr.com/oldverswitcher.html. Looie496 (talk) 18:43, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't see this thread until now (you could have contacted me on my talk page to speed up my response). I concur that gfortran is the way to go, I use it myself. It's a bit tricky to download, as I recall, as the links keep taking you back to the gcc compiler (I think gfortran is bundled with gcc). But, gfortran is free, works well, and supports recent versions of Fortran, as well.

And I would certainly argue that there are many reasons to use Fortran instead of a C variant. Fortran string handling is much simpler, you don't need to include libraries for basic functions, you don't have to worry about pointers and addresses unless you want to, etc. StuRat (talk) 18:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

StuRat, thank you. It is all I wanted: your endorsement. It clinches it. I will download it tomorrow. Looie496, thanks for that suggestion also (reading it online)AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

You're welcome, and be sure to let us know how it goes. StuRat (talk) 12:34, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Request assistance from a C++ programmer

I'm attempting to compile the C++ code listed in this article, ISAPI Filter to reject HTTP/1.0 requests. However, I am getting the following error:

Error 1 fatal error C1189: #error :  Building MFC application with /MD (CRT dll version) requires MFC shared dll version. Please #define _AFXDLL or do not use /MD
c:\program files\microsoft visual studio 8\vc\atlmfc\include\afx.h	24	

I'm not a C++ programmer. Can someone please help me to get this code to compile? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 18:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

What this error message is saying is that you cannot compile the code in question unless you have Microsoft Visual Studio. MFC stands for Microsoft Foundation Classes. They have multiple files to support the compilation and then run the code (dll's, etc) MFC is a part of VS. You can purchase the VS with MSDN (Microsoft Developer Network) - about $800.00 - professional, 2013. AboutFace 22 (talk)AboutFace_22

I do have Visual Studio installed. I followed the instructions given in the article and I'm getting the above error. Do you (or anyone) know what is wrong? If you (or anyone) have a copy of Visual Studio, can you try it and let me know if you get the same error? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 21:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

On a more careful examination it seems the compiler wants a specific header file: afx.h. Could you go down the chain of sub directories and verify that the header in question is there, and if so, open it and check if there is some content inside. Headers are just text files. AboutFace 22 (talk) 21:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

I just found your header on the web. Everything is available! Amazing! I don't know how you post the links. Anyhow, the URL is http://www.cppdoc.com/example/mfc/classdoc/MFC/AFX.H.html AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:00, 18 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

I don't think that's the problem. But I did check and I have multiple versions of the file, one for each version of Visual Studio installed on my PC. Since this is Visual Studio 2005, I believe the one in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\atlmfc\include\ is the one we. I opened it up and it looks fine. But I just installed Visual C++ 2005 yesterday, so it's unlikely the file would have been tampered with.

Did you try to compile the code? Did you get the same error? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 23:54, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

C:\>dir afx.h /s
Volume in drive C has no label.
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\MFC\Include
06/15/1998  12:00 AM            60,113 AFX.H
              1 File(s)         60,113 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\atlmfc\include
10/01/2002  04:27 PM            55,851 afx.h
              1 File(s)         55,851 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\VC\atlmfc\include
11/04/2009  10:43 PM            60,070 afx.h
              1 File(s)         60,070 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 11.0\VC\atlmfc\include
06/05/2013  09:31 AM            61,674 afx.h
              1 File(s)         61,674 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\atlmfc\include
12/01/2006  10:55 PM            62,490 afx.h
              1 File(s)         62,490 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\ce\atlmfc\include
09/23/2005  01:23 AM            73,323 afx.h
              1 File(s)         73,323 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\atlmfc\include
04/23/2008  05:08 PM            54,980 afx.h
              1 File(s)         54,980 bytes
Directory of C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\VC\ce\atlmfc\include
04/30/2007  06:44 AM            61,038 afx.h
              1 File(s)         61,038 bytes
    Total Files Listed:
              8 File(s)        489,539 bytes
              0 Dir(s)  14,088,654,848 bytes free

Do you have #include statement for this header in your C++ code? AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:30, 19 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

Yes, I have this header in my C++ code. I followed the instructions in this article, ISAPI Filter to reject HTTP/1.0 requests. Can you (or anyone besides myself) try to compile the code? If so, do you get the same error? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 05:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Often the most effective way to find a solution to a problem is to paste the error message into Google and see what comes up. In this case I find this Microsoft page, which gives instructions for fixing it that hopefully will work for you. Looie496 (talk) 03:40, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Often the most effective way to find an answer to a question asked on the Reference Desk is to pay attention to what the OP is asking and try it yourself. In this particular case, I am following the instructions given in this article, ISAPI Filter to reject HTTP/1.0 requests. All I am asking for is a C++ programmer to try to execute these instructions and try it for themselves.
  • Are there any C++ programmers on the Computing Reference Desk? Is so, can you please read this article and see if you can get this code to compile? There's not a lot of code, so this should only take a few minutes to try it. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 05:19, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I can get to it later today - I'll use VS2005 since that's what you mentioned above. However, could you try to add "#define _AFXDLL" to the top of your source or turn off the /MD switch? It will be somewhere in your project configuration - each item in the configuration pages mentions which compiler switch it applies, so you should be able to find it. Katie R (talk) 13:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Good news! I got it to compile. It looks like the article is missing an instruction. To get it to compile, I went into Project Properties | Configuration Properties and changed Use of MFC to Use MFC in a Shared DLL. AnonComputerGuy (talk) 17:01, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Facebook linked to Gmail, maybe?

I had an email exchange with a Gmail user, and to my surprise my original message, in her response to me, had the layout of a Facebook wall post, complete with my Facebook avatar (though it had my real name, not my Facebook alias, next to the avatar). This is odd: the sender has a Facebook account too, but we're not friends, and she's not a member of the only group in which we could conceivably share membership. So, how does she (or her Gmail account) know my Facebook avatar? Drmies (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You might want to ask this on the computer desk, given the subject and that that desk gets a lot more attention than this one. μηδείς (talk) 17:13, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Will do (I mean, done)--thanks. Drmies (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Even if you are using Tor, proxying your IP address, using a newly-created email address, and avoiding disclosure of any personal information, it is still possible to uniquely identify which human you are. This is called data mining, and it is a reality of the 21st century. At all times, without even realizing it, you are leaking personal information - in digital form, and in other forms. A dedicated attacker (like Google or Facebook or a government police force) can use a strategy of centralizing trillions of pieces of insignificant information into one common repository for the purposes of producing meaningful connections. The exact nature of the connections, the exact details of which pieces of data forge the connections - are irrelevant. What matters is that if an organization collects enough tiny insignificant pieces of information - it can construct a very complete picture of the whole "situation." Two specific technologies that are used include Facebook Beacon and Google Analytics; these surveillance tools collect information about users on a wide variety of websites, even when the users perceive that they have no interaction with Google or FaceBook. No doubt, there are many, many, many trillions more pieces of information that these corporations use to "complete the picture." Nimur (talk) 20:24, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It's often possible through police work to identify people who are trying to hide, and one way they can do that is by analyzing web server logs. But that isn't an automated process and it's obviously not relevant to what happened here. I don't think there are any companies that go out of their way to do automated forensic analysis of logs in order to deanonymize you for the purpose of inserting a photograph into your email that reveals that they've deanonymized you. It doesn't seem like a winning business proposition. -- BenRG (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The case of the Harvard bomb hoax is pretty specific. They had a starting point (all Harvard students with exams approaching and who could use a little bit more time), and, although what goes through Tor is hidden, they can still know who entered the network. PUt on top of it that there are enough human resources to track down this kind of things. A 'normal' user, who fears being tracked for commercial purposes, as it's the case of a user of FB and Google, would be pretty anonymous through Tor or similar strategies. It's important not to get paranoid here. Also notice that the Harvard guy was not caught using data mining, but something more like computer forensics. OsmanRF34 (talk) 08:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

While I would agree we should be careful about reading too much in to the Harvard case, it and in particular your post does actually raise some important considerations. You mentioned 'they can still know who entered the network', but the obvious question is 'do they'? In the Harvard case they (meaning the FBI) likely had the advantage that the purpose was using the Harvard university network who likely keeps logs, and they would almost definitely have had Harvard's cooperation and were given access to these logs after the fact. This would apply in some other law enforcement cases but it gets more tricky if you have no particular ISP to target but lots of possibilities.

On the other hand, there's also the question over who's keeping track in the general case. It always seemed likely and the recently leaks seem to affirm, that intelligence agencies particularly US ones and probably other ones are in fact keeping track of those using Tor and also have access to a lot of key routes (and probably run a few of the entry nodes themselves) so they do probably do know the precise time any specific IP in the US and most likely IPs in other places access/make requests to Tor. Having this sort of information, combined with access to what comes out of Tor exit nodes which they likely do all have, does of course make these sort of correlation attacks (link doesn't cover this sort of thing) much more feasible in the generic case as well.

And it's perhaps worth remembering even if you're using HTTPS, even without breaking the encryption or having access to either end, adversaries can often guess at what you're accessing on the other end by the size of your requests etc.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Indeed, Tor has its weak points, claims 'We will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time' but 'with manual analysis we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users'. But what do you expect when you are trying to hide from any government agency, which has much more resources than the average user and can make the rules to seize any device and subpoena any information? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

1. What email provider and email application (or webmail) are you using? 2. How sure are you that this Facebook information was not actually in the email you sent to her? It's extremely unlikely that Gmail added it. A Google+ avatar maybe, but not a Facebook avatar. -- BenRG (talk) 00:25, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'm using Outlook Webmail and my university email, connection courtesy of Charter. I don't use Facebook to email or to make email connections (don't even know how to do it). I'm not friends with this person on Facebook and, again, the name accompanying the avatar in her response was my name, not my Facebook alias. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 15:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

December 19

iPhone 5 won't display attachment icon in message bodies

I can download email attachments sent to my iPad but not my i5. In message list there is a paperclip to show the attachment and when I select the message to view a new pane opens and I see the spinning wheel and ...Downloading... but there is no icon in the message body after. I've tried jpgs and docs with the same result. Any ideas? signed... Perplexed — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.120.208.98 (talk) 00:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

A faster way to edit an OsCommerce website?

I use OsCommerce to update my works website, but it's painfully slow to add, edit, or delete things off of. We already upload a price file each morning to change prices. Is there a way to edit the site offline and upload it, or use a program that can do it? Thanks ツ Jenova20 09:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Cannot watch videos on YouTube

Many videos won't play for me at all. And those that work stop after 5 minutes (stop loading). http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2013_November_26#YouTube_.2B_flash_game_problems.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 09:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC) Could someone send these videos to me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6s5WGmCKC4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRrNvmvTAC4

& a

May 21 2011 video with scorpion sign/billboard (with countdown to may 21) they say in it that the end of the world is just 30 days away and "the mayans said december 2012 but these people say the end is much closer"--78.156.109.166 (talk) 09:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The videos will be copyrighted most likely, and so they can't be sent to you. The hyperlink can, but then you already have that anyway. The loading issue may be due to a poor internet speed for streaming video. Have you tried lowering the video quality? Thanks ツ Jenova20 09:49, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks it worked. How come?--78.156.109.166 (talk) 09:53, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Changing the video quality worked? If you're trying to watch a HD video on a poor connection it will buffer slowly and lowering the video quality or upping your internet download speed are the only two options you really have. Glad to be of help ツ Jenova20 10:01, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

What else, young lion? SomE vids still wont play but changing vid quality worked even on some of the vids that wouldnt start.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:12, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

it wasnt hd. it wasnt a hd issue. also, on the higher quality (which made the videos unplayable) the videos didnt buffer slowly, they didnt buffer at all--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I used "HD" because i didn't want to say 1080p, 780, 360, etc. If one won't play then restart your router. If it still won't play, then lower the quality to one your connection can manage. Thanks ツ Jenova20 09:28, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

What going on with Google News?

I used to find lots of useful information through google news archive. It used to be an option through "advanced search", but the regular search defaulted to the last 30 days. Now, though, there does not appear to be anything called archive search, and now all searches default to results for "anytime". But somethng's wrong. I had done a bunch of searches over the past week or so, and was surprised to find nothing.

Today, though I did a search of which I expected to find hundreds and hundreds of results going back 200 years, and I found only six recent results, even though I made sure I was searching "anytime". I said to myself, "Huh?". So I then tried something I was absolutely sure should have huge results: "Abraham Lincoln" using a custom search of 1850 to 1920 and got no results at all.

My only conclusion, then, is that search is broken, or the archives that used to be so useful are no longer part of google news, or have somehow been separated out. If this was isolated to today, I would just chalk it up to Google News being broken for a few hours or today, but as I said I had started noticing this over the past weeks or so. Anyone know what's going on?--15:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.166.18 (talk)

You are not the only person to have noticed this problem. It was reported at the Village Pump, where it received a response from a Google employee. It appears that they are in the process of replacing the News Archive search, and have disabled the old version in order to reduce the burden on developers. There is some information on how to get results using the standard Google search here, although I am not sure whether it will provide the results you want. --Kateshortforbob _talk 18:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Ah. Thanks much for posting that link. Good to know they are working on it and it will be fixed some months down the road. Meanwhile it is really mindblowing that one of the top website in the world (maybe the top?) would have something like that go down without any prominent advance notice, nor any prominent explicit notice on the service that it is not working while it's not working, with the service purporting to work but just not providing any results. There may be scads of technical genius over at Google, but this is true amateur hour conduct from a customer relations and business management standpoint.--71.167.166.18 (talk) 22:05, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

How to archive this PDF of a journal article?

At http://escholarship.org/uc/item/86r2j122 I'm trying to archive a PDF of a journal article on http://webcitation.org or on http://wayback.archive.org. When I do a webcitation for http://escholarship.org/uc/item/86r2j122.pdf (the supposed download link, URL seen if you hover over the "Download PDF" at http://escholarship.org/uc/item/86r2j122 , you get redirected to http://escholarship.org/uc/item/86r2j122 WhisperToMe (talk) 17:22, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The trouble you're seeing is because the server is checking the HTTP referer; if there isn't one, or it isn't from their site, they send the HTML page rather than the PDF. So, in essence, the document can't be linked directly from another site. That's behaviour they've intentionally introduced. It's possible to download the PDF directly from the URL only if the user agent does referer spoofing. All may not be lost, however. I don't know specifically how archive.org's crawler works - it may be that if you ask it to store the html page, it will also crawl the PDF. If it does that, when you view the archived HTML, it should have a link to the archived PDF. You could then use the archived PDF's url directly (because, I'm pretty sure, archive.org does not check referer). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

escholarship.org is blocked by robots.txt so my only hope is to try archiving the HTML page with webcitation.org WhisperToMe (talk) 23:37, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I made http://www.webcitation.org/6LzeIYoxI - Can someone please check to see if the webcitation server actually got the PDF or is the PDF being read from the escholarship.org server? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

From Google Scholar:

@article{rogers2005superneighborhood,

title={Superneighborhood 27: A Brief History of Change },

author={Rogers, Susan},

journal={Places},

volume={17},

number={2},

year={2005}

}

Is the bibtex entry of any help? --109.189.65.217 (talk) 20:39, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

gps

hi all, can anyone suggest/guide me through to get this server coding in php for gps tracking system that I wish to host . if at all anybody have tried please do guide me through it am not going anywhere in this thanks in advance — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.210.206.27 (talk) 18:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what you're trying to do. What do you mean by "this server coding in php"? Does GPS navigation software help?--Shantavira| 12:02, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

You need to state your setup and objectives a lot more clearly if you expect to receive any helpful answers. In what way are you interfacing to the gps device? Are you processing gpx files or are you planning on doing real-time interfacing to a gps device in php? --109.189.65.217 (talk) 20:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

PHP runs on the server - not on the client. It doesn't know where the client is geographically located unless the client tells it. Hence you need to write code in the client to send that data to the server in order for the PHP code to process it. Client-side code pretty much needs to be in JavaScript code. So on the client, you need something like:

 <script>
 function showLatLong(position)
 {
   alert ( "Latitude: " + position.coords.latitude + " Longitude: " + position.coords.longitude; 
 }

 navigator.geolocation.getCurrentPosition(showLatLong);
 </script>

In place of the "alert" command, you'd need to use something like AJAX to send that data to the PHP code running on the server. You can find a bazillion examples of how to do that online.

SteveBaker (talk) 23:08, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Cut, copy, paste, delete, select all not working in ie + back/forward buttons

but undo works, in the same menu (rightclick menu)... the functions work in firefox... i was messing a bit with settings but i just imported data from ie to firefox, nothing else iirc--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC) back/forward buttons in ie dont work.. not clickable or blue or anything--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:14, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Offline pages in firefox & ie

I cant browse offline in ie. work offline button in file menu doesn't get checked when i click it, nothing happens when clicked.. how do i view which pages are viewable offline in firefox, like a list or something? instead of checking all pages i have ever visited to see if any are cached in firefox for offline-able viewing.--78.156.109.166 (talk) 19:11, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Guessing game

Is there a Misplaced Pages article for a "guessing game" played on a computer? The idea is that the user thinks of something, and the computer asks a series of yes/no questions about it, finally providing a guess, asking the user if it was right. If it was not, the computer asks for a question to distinguish the right answer from what it was guessing, and adds it to a (presumably) binary tree data structure about how it should ask questions. JIP | Talk 20:20, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Twenty Questions, Akinator. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:27, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I was just going to post that! 190.156.122.141 (talk) 20:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The computerised version of Twenty Questions is at 20Q. I've seen Animal, Vegetable or Mineral? adapted for computer use, usually focussing only on animals. An example is at animalgame.com.-gadfium 00:50, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for the question, and for the answer. Drmies (talk) 01:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

"Guess Animals" (which is the game that http://animalgame.com implements) was the first game like this that I ever saw...and that was in 1975 - so it's a very old idea! Basically, it has a database in the form of a binary tree with animal names at the leaves of the tree and a yes/no question at each node. It starts at the top of the tree, asking the question, branching to left or right, asking the next question and so forth until it reaches a leaf node - when it says "Were you thinking of a ...". If it guesses right, then we're done. If it guesses wrong, it asks the user to tell it what animal you were actually thinking of and to provide a question to distinguish between it's incorrect guess and the animal you were really thinking of. This allows it to extend the database. You only have to have half a dozen people play with the software for 20 minutes each and it'll manage to guess correctly almost every time. Obviously, it works with things other than animals - "Guess Cars" (or "Guess fatal diseases"!) also works!

The main problem with it is that it's dependent on the user providing good questions - and it may have to ask a ridiculously large number of them to get the answer correct. On the other hand, it's quite clever in that it will eventually self-recover from badly asked questions or vaguely thought out animals. For example, if you're thinking of a dog, and the computer guesses "cat" - you might input the question "Is it more than 12 inches tall?" - without thinking that some dogs are actually shorter than that. If someone happens to be thinking of a Chihuahua, they'll answer "No" and the computer will guess "Cat" again...but then that user will add some other question like: "Can it retract its claws?" that will fix that for future players. It can also fix vagueness - if one player really does add "Dog" as an animal and subsequent people think of specific kinds of dogs - the system will eventually add all of those breeds and the system will again provide better guesses.

Another common game from those early days guesses a number between 1 and a million by doing a binary search. So the first question is "Is your number greater, less than, or equal to 500,000?"...If you say "Less" then it asks again at 250,000 and if you then say "More" then it'll ask about 375,000...each time halving the interval of numbers that it knows your number lies within. Within 20 questions, it has your number, every time. This impresses a lot of mathematically-naive people.

SteveBaker (talk) 22:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

December 20

How to determine which remaining paragraphs of Avicenna was written by Jagged 85?

Has someone written a program that could determine how much of Avicenna was written by User:Jagged 85?

As per Misplaced Pages talk:Requests for comment/Jagged 85/Cleanup content written by that user needs to be checked and cleaned up. Because he actually inserted things that are true, instead of massively deleting his content, editors need to actually check over his edits which makes things worse.

If a program could compare his revisions to the text in the article currently, maybe editors could zero in on the paragraphs that he wrote and go to Misplaced Pages:RX and ask for the relevant sources so they can check them.

Thanks, WhisperToMe (talk) 02:11, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:WikiBlame solves the problem another way, showing who did what text. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Any way to tile an image you're linking to in the link?

Hello I'm wondering if it would be possible to tile an image I'm linking to. Let me explain: on my blog, I have a link to an image from a different site (my friend's deviantart account). The link leads directly to the image (not to the deviantart page) and displays the image when clicked against a blank background. My question is, is there anything I can add to the hyperlink that will make the image tiled when clicked on? I've never heard of editing hyperlinks for html effects, so I'm not sure if it's possible, but I figured I'd ask anyway. Thanks! 74.69.117.101 (talk) 02:57, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

If I understand what you want to do, the answer is probably no. If deviantart has a way for you to display the image 'tiled' (I presume you mean you want lots of copies of the image displayed in a tiled fashion), then all you have to do is to change your link to tell deviant that when the links is clicked on (which is usually but not always possible depending on the way deviant actives the image tiling mode). But if they don't and I'm guessing they don't, then what you have to do is to make a page hosted on your server which will specify that the image should be opened and tiled. The trouble is this would require image hotlinking which many sites don't like and take action to prevent. (Some adfiltering and other security software may disable such hotlinking as well thinking it's being done for unwanted reasons.) Nil Einne (talk) 03:25, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

A bit of javascript might do what you want. The following code changes every link with the "tilelink" class so that when you click the link it loads the image the link points to and then tiles the background of an element in the page you are currently on.--Salix alba (talk): 11:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

<html>
<head>
<title>Tile</title>
<script type="text/javascript">
function setup() {
	var eles = document.getElementsByClassName("tilelink");
	for(var i=0;i<eles.length;++i) {
		eles.onclick=tile;
	}
}
function tile (event) {
	event.preventDefault();
	var ele=document.getElementById("target");
        var src=event.target.href;
	ele.style.backgroundImage="url("+src+")";
}
</script>
<style type="text/css">
#target {
  width: 400;
  height: 400;
  border: 1px solid black;
}
</style>
</head>
<body onLoad="setup();">
<a class="tilelink" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/70/Example.png">example</a>
<a class="tilelink" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/ba/1974_Iceland_1100_year_coin_%28reverse%29.jpg">coin</a>
<div id="target"> </div>
</body>
</html>

iPod Updates

How do I stop my iPod 4Gen from telling me to update apps which need an iPod 5Gen with iOS 7 on it for the update? My AppStore app now has an unsightly big red circle next to it with a large number, which is increasing daily, because many of the apps cannot be updated. Alternatively, is there a way to get iOS 7 onto a 4Gen? KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 09:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

You could just turn off the 'badge notifications' for the App Store. I'm afraid I've already updated to iOS7, so I can't really remember how to do it on '6, and I can't find any instructions on 'tinterweb either, but if you poke around in the settings you should find a list of apps and what notifications are allowed for each one. Simply turn off the ones for the App Store to remove the red circle. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 11:44, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I thought of that, but that will mean I will never know which apps I CAN update on this architecture. What I really would want is for the AppStore to notify me if I can update, and not do anything if I can't. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:10, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Are algorithms universal?

When analyzing the efficiency of an algorithms can we assume that they would work in any kind of computer architecture? (even if it's something completely different to what we have right now). Are they something like 2 + 2 which should be valid anywhere? OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:56, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

What you're analyzing is the number of times a specific operation will run relative to input size. Any system that follows the algorithm will run those operations the same number of times. The simplest step to a "different" type of architecture is moving to a parallel system. In that case time can be saved by doing some of the operations at the same time, depending on how independent the operations are. The same tools and techniques apply, but you also need to understand how the new system affects the evaluation of the algorithm in order to do the analysis. The parallel system may do 5000 multiplications faster than the one-processor system because some are run in parallel, but the complexity in terms of operations performed is the same. Several laws were derived that define maximum gains in speedup from adding more cores and other similar relationships between one- and multi-processor systems; it seems reasonable to think that the same sort of work would be done with a novel architecture. Katie R (talk) 13:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

So, the paraphrase the above, "No". Also, if you consider embedded computers, then each system will be tweaked to favor one algorithm or another to accomplish a specific task, depending on the actual hardware. StuRat (talk) 14:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, but what about sorting something and going through it? Wouldn't it be always more efficient than just going through it? No matter where? At least, can't we postulate the existence of some universal algorithms? OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, consider that the optimal sort method depends on how much memory is available. It's possible to sort in-place, but such a sort is less efficient than one which uses lots of RAM. So, your ideal sorting method would vary depending on the hardware (as well as other factors). StuRat (talk) 17:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Running a linear search will always take O(n) comparisons, and a binary search will always take O(log n). But without knowing the details of the new architecture, it is impossible to say how much time those operations take. Maybe the new architecture can run n comparisons simultaneously, in which case a linear search could be O(1) in time (being generous here - if you define the algorithm as "check each element to see if it matches, and return true if one does", then it could run on either system). A binary search would still be O(log n), because each check is dependent on the one before it. Katie R (talk) 16:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Computer science is the abstraction of mathematical principles for the purpose of computing. It studies algorithms using techniques that are independent of the specific design constraints of any machine.

Computer engineering is the application of computer science, electronic engineering, and related disciplines, to solve problems related to computers, using specific machines that we know how to design - usually, electronic digital computers implemented in VLSI integrated circuits.

When we study an algorithm, we are talking about a pure mathematical representation of a process. When we implement the algorithm, we have to place it in a form that can be understood by a machine - a programming language. Then we can study how machine limitations might impact the performance of the algorithm.

A few computer scientists spend time thinking about algorithms that are well-suited to run on machines that are very different from today's machines. But in general, a representation of an algorithm - as studied by a computer scientist - is already sufficiently abstract that it is not bound to a specific computer architecture. Nimur (talk) 16:48, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's a great example - the infamous spaghetti sort. To a novice student of computer science, the spaghetti computer looks like a fantastic way to break the "big O" rules - the time complexity of a sorting algorithm. (We all learned that sorting a list takes n·log(n) time, and if you have a way to do better, you'd make a lot of smart people very happy). Spaghetti sort naively claims to run in O(1) - constant time - to execute. Jumping on the opportunity, the eager computer scientist and the NSA stop purchasing electronic computers, and start buying immense quantities of spaghetti, so that they can start breaking those pesky cryptographic hashing algorithms that everyone is always trying to break.

But the skilled computer-scientist actually thinks about the algorithm, and recognizes that the plain-english description of the spaghetti-computer has glossed over some very real, very important details. The spaghetti computer just "finds" the longest rod of spaghetti - which is done "by inspection." But the description forgot to mention the sort time to prepare the spaghetti - which is linear - and the search time - which is still order of n·log(n). Because the analogy was so convenient, and because an ordinary handful of spaghetti can be "sorted by inspection," the naive computer science student has incorrectly confused "really fast" with "constant execution-time." That's a big error! It's tantamount to saying that if we just build our L1 cache large enough, then we can store the entire internet in it; compute any problem and retrieve any data in zero time! It's just a stupid error. The computer scientist actually has to think about why the algorithm takes time, by breaking the procedure into its most fundamental and atomic steps. If we assume that the "spaghetti computer" has constant run-time for a sorting algorithm, it implies that we don't need to compare - which is a flaw in the basic logic of the algorithm. Another day, I might use the same approach to poke some holes in a lot of the claims made about the oft-lauded, infrequently-defined quantum computer).

And finally, the skilled computer engineer starts looking at the problem even more critically. So, you want to sort a list, and you want to do it with Spaghetti. How large is a spaghetti? How much energy does it take to move around one spaghetti rod? The naive approach is to conflate "very little effort" with "zero effort." And the same goes for space: each spaghetti rod is very small: we can hold "a lot" of spaghetti in one handful; but if we sort n rods, we need n times as much space! What if n goes to 10? That spaghetti is gonna get pretty heavy and we're going to need a few billion billion trucks. This is all because the simplified description of the algorithm relies on an unfounded assumption: infinitesimally-small is conflated with zero-size. That's just a stupid mathematical error. It also takes very little energy to move around a few electrons, but your computer still requires energy. Each transistor is very small, but when we build one billion of them, the chip becomes quite large. Engineers have to count these things. A very small amount, multiplied by a very large number of repetitions, is no longer negligible - this is a theoretical underpinning of most of modern mathematics.

Today, when we look at all the possible things we might build a computer out of, we find that the smallest, lowest energy devices are electronic logic gates, manufactured using photolithography on simple semiconductor substrates. Yet, no matter how much we optimize the processes, and no matter how we finagle with the physical processes that represent our information, we still can't beat the algorithmic complexity. This is a mathematical fact. Nimur (talk) 19:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

What about quantum computers? Is believed Integer factorization is in the bounded error quantum complexity class but suspected to be outside of polynomial time complexity class.--Salix alba (talk): 20:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I think the term "quantum computer" is just poor word choice. Exactly what is "quantized"? Digital computers already quantize every quantity that they deal with - in time, space, voltage, current, everything - at the microscopic and at the macroscopic level. I'd bet money that your computer quantizes the images it displays to you; it quantizes the voltages and currents that flow through its transistors; it quantizes the information that it processes. So, which part of the computer you use today isn't already quantized? Or perhaps, the terminology is wrong, and "quantum computer" as used in the popular press really means "probabilistically-correct computer whose information is stored using certain specific elementary physical properties of simple atomic-scale structures (only, never yielding quite as high a probability of correctness as the existing commercial computers that use different specific physical properties of more complex atomic-scale structures)?

The word "quantum" is bandied about as if it has some sort of magic power. It is lumped together with aspects of atomic physics. It is implied to have mysterious characteristics. It is used as an incorrect surrogate to describe probabilistic models, whether they are quantized or not. But then, if you spend any serious amount of time studying either the atomic physics associated with quantum mechanics, or the fundamental mathematics associated with quantization and discretization of continuous quantities, you find most of the mystery evaporates. So, you've got a bunch more tools, but you're still solving the same old problems.

So, what about quantum computers? Nimur (talk) 20:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Prolonging life of electronics

Which is better to prolong the life of electronics - keeping it always on or in standby or switching it off completely whenever it's not in use? Clover345 (talk) 21:37, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It depends:

1) Risks from leaving it on include overheating. Here I'm not just talking about the critical overheating which causes an immediate shutdown, but long-term heat damage. Electronic devices which spend years close to the upper temperature limit will tend to break down.

2) Risks from restarting include a voltage spike which can cause damage, too.

So, how these risks are weighed against each other depends on the device and how you use it. Take light bulbs. Incandescent bulbs used a lot of electricity when left on, and got very hot, so were prone to long-term thermal damage (the filament would slowly sublimate). CFL bulbs, on the other hand, don't use much electricity and don't get all that hot, so the voltage spike when turning them on and off is more likely to damage them. Thus, while incandescent bulbs should be turned off when you leave the room, CFL's should probably be left on, if you plan to return soon. StuRat (talk) 07:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a multifaceted issue. In the old days it was simple. Electronic circuitry used thermionic valves. The thermal cycle of being switched on and off caused stress on the metal-to-glass seal (both which have different coefficients of expansion and contraction) leading to the ingress of air and failure. Also, soldering irons of that era were un-plated copper bits. Some of the copper dissolved into the solder forming an alloy the would more readily 'work harden' and lead to a 'dry soldered joint'. Modern electronic circuits are a little different. The soldered joints are smaller, run at lower temperature and are less prone to these issues. The IC packaging, likewise are less prone to thermal cycling. Yet, these days we expect 'consumer' electronics to run faultlessly for ten years or more, where a a few decades ago we had to have the TV repair man in a least one a year. So, to get to the gist of your question: StuRat mentions: 1) Risks from overheating. True, yet you get what you pay for. In a good quality board, the components should not be operating at their limit and thus should last for years. A good example of where this is not done, is that in some routers for instance (by some well know companies) have used cheap Japanese capacitors in their switch-mode-powers-supplies and so last just about the two years before the warranty runs out (good news – cheap to replace). 2) Risks from voltage spikes. Again, it depends on what you pay for. Well designed electronic should cope with spikes. So, if your are looking for general guidance, I would say leave things switched on (or in sleep mode) all the time. Buy one of the many  Power Cost Monitors and consider if, the few cents a day it cost you to leave the equipment on is worth it. Then look at what your system is doing. One of my computers was constantly read/writing to a terrabit external drive – regardless of whether I was using it. OK. it might last three years and amortized to a few cents a day, at that usage, but it turned out to be a bug. So, always take time to occasionally look at the bigger picture too. Some things need to be powered down. Like some external hard drives (and OK... someone has just shouted out over my shoulder, not to forget to switch off your wife’s Vibrator – which I assume is Androids latest release) ( P.S those in the room with me are quaffing down all the vintage Port (an expensive vintage at that) which was meant as a reward for father Christmas). Just think. If Farther Christmas had licensed his intellectual property as to how he can be descending all chimney at once. He could have sold the rights to quantum computing to Microsoft . Then he would be rich enough, to give me that train set I asked him for when I was ten years old. In Britain, we were just coming out of the post WW2 recession. It came with little signals posts and something that filled the water tender up, and a little lead-cast station master with a flag. There was also a signal box and some points (railroad switches), were I could arrange two trains to come together and crash! If it had come... but it didn’t! So I spent all of that Christmas, just sitting in front of the Christmas tree, just cracking walnuts. If your reading this father Christmas (and I know you are... my parents told me you know everything about me and whether I have been naughty or nice). All I am asking for, (very humbly) is for my very own Dublo train set. Your truly ...--Aspro (talk) 18:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Another thing to consider if you run electronics continuously is the fans driving the dust inside of the cases. I realized it long time ago and since then I've always turned my computers off when I am done. AboutFace_22 — Preceding unsigned comment added by AboutFace 22 (talk • contribs) 16:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

On the subject of dustThe case, tower, (or what ever the box is called that houses your mother board, power supply etc.), can be opened. First, vacuum out all the fluff – not hard! Second, (and as you vacuum) use a good quality artists brush. I don't know were in the world your are situated but in the UK I would ask for something like a 'squirrel brush' (less than a dollar). Purchase also, a can of Gas duster. With brush and can, will blow out all the fluff from the CPU heat sink (a big aluminum thing with fins on the mother board) and other hard to reach places. Replace cover. Off the top of my head, I can't estimate how long it would take you to do it, because when I first did it, I already knew a little bit about where fluff would collect. However, use your common sense. You know what fluff looks like and that it can impede cooling. As long as you don't poke the board with anything sharp (I assume you use common sense and have already disconnected it from the mains/ UPS before taking the cover off) then you will not do any harm (err, should I mention grounding here?). The reason I have gone to lengths over this, is that other readers may be reading this, whom might not be able to buy a new computer. Yet, they may know of someone that is throwing out a computer because it no longer works. Very often it is because (as you warn) its fluffed up. 20 minutes of de-fluffing and hey-presto, you have a functional computer (an' OK, before any other Smart alecks get a chance to say it – another forty minutes more, to instal Linux and you will have a FULLY functioning computer. Just wanted to get that bit in before anybody else did). --Aspro (talk) 19:17, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

December 21

iMovie

I just encountered a problem on iMovie where the software takes a random screenshot from the movie and puts it in places where it shouldn't be. 1) Has anyone else encountered this problem? 2) Is it fixable? Theskinnytypist (talk) 03:27, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there a free Android App that can do this?

Locate on a map the cell phone on which the app is installed from a browser on a computer an unlimited number of times. Send a bell/sound/chime to be played by the cell phone, forcing volume on even if the phone was set to vibrate, on which the app is installed from a browser on a computer an unlimited number of times. 75.75.42.89 (talk) 12:53, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Just for clarification: you are looking for a free phone tracking app for Android? Mingmingla (talk) 16:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, to find the Samsung phone with my computer. Samsung's Find My Mobile isn't available for phones in the US. 75.75.42.89 (talk) 16:33, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Prey (software) does everything you ask, and is free. Although there is a paid option it's not necessary for any of the functionality you describe. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 23:14, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Bing Weather

In Windows 8.1, there is a tile on my Start Page for Bing Weather. It is set to my correct city, state, and zip code. However, the temperature is always off (and off by a very considerable margin). In other words, it's not even close. On a day like today, when it is about 60 or 70 degrees, Bing Weather reports the temperature as perhaps 10 or 11 degrees or so. This is not a one-time discrepancy; this has been happening every day, consistently, for the past several months. The Bing temperature does not list a unit such as Fahrenheit or Celsius; it just says "10 degrees". I am located in the USA (which the computer "recognizes" by my zip code), so I assume that the temperature is being reported in Fahrenheit. Does anyone have any ideas as to why this would be so inaccurate? Is there some way to fix this? Is there some "setting" on my computer that I am supposed to change? Any ideas? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:01, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

OK, upon further investigation, Bing Weather is indeed reporting temperature in Celsius. It is now 53 degrees (F°), where I live; and Bing reports the temperature as 12 degrees (which indeed corresponds to the correct Celsius conversion). Does anyone know how I can change the settings to report F° instead of C°? I fiddled around a little bit, but I could not find any place to edit settings and such. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:18, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you know how to bring up the app bar? Open the app and right-click anywhere and there should be a button in the lower right to change to F°. If you have a touch screen, you can bring up the app bar by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:29, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

A-ha. Perfect! Thank you! Windows 8.1 is new to me; so all of these "apps" are unfamiliar. I was used to the old Windows 7. Thanks! This worked perfectly. Much appreciated. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:45, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Restore friend's computer from my disk image

I updated both my father's and my friend's computer from windows 8 to 8.1. I created a disk image for my father of 8.0. My friend recently installed a 3rd party card playing program, and it crashed. Now he gets "attempting to repair disk" when he boots, which fails, then goes back in a loop to try to attempt to repair the disk again. First, if I have to, will I be able to sue the disk image from my father to get him back up on windows 8.0? Second, is there some other easier obvious solution I am missing? (Both are HP pavilion laptops) Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 17:50, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you want to sue the disk image or use it? :-) AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:28, 22 December 2013 (UTC)AboutFace_22

Hehe, use, obviously. μηδείς (talk) 21:08, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I once had this problem on Windows 7 and the following worked (it turning out there was nothing wrong with the disk). Press F8 immediately after boot to get via the advanced options into safe mode. Once in safe mode shutdown and reboot normally. Easy as that. A clean shutdown clears the repair loop. However, it seems Microsoft has been making improvements in Win8 so F8 no longer works. However, they give an alternative which I have a horrid feeling won't work because you likely are not getting as far as the sign-in screen. However, someone else may know how to boot into safe mode in Win8. Thincat (talk) 21:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Maybe http://www.howtogeek.com/107511/how-to-boot-into-safe-mode-on-windows-8-the-easy-way/ ? Thincat (talk) 21:38, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

If that fails, take it to PC World. If it had been a Mac, the Apple Store would have been the alternative. Classsic. The Rambling Man (talk) 21:57, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

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