Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 December 11

= December 11 =

X box 360 live
I am having trouble getting xbox live. The network tests all come out fine, but then I'm told that I need to download updates to continue. When I click on Yes the updating bar appears, nothing happens, then an error message appears. I have also tried the hard drive and it appears to be saving and loading data fine. What do I do? X-box.com is useless! Thanks, 86.41.148.55 23:03, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Is your 360 behind a firewall or router? Also, please post the error message you are receiving.  Droud 02:15, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * As far as I know it goes into a LAN port on a DSL router along with the PC. Here's what appears on the screen:


 * An update is available for your console from Xbox live. If you decline this update, you will be signed out of Xbox Live.
 * Do you want to apply the update now?
 * ME: Yes, update now
 * Please wait while the update is applied.
 * Do not turn off or unplug your console.
 * (nothing happens for a few seconds)
 * A failure occurred during installation of the update. There may be a problem with your network connection or your storage device may be full. For more info, go to www.xbox.com/support.


 * The hard drive has 13GB free, and the Test Xbox live Connection gives:
 * Network Adapter: Wired
 * Wireless Network: (blank)
 * IP Address: Confirmed
 * DNS: Confirmed
 * MTU: Confirmed
 * ICMP: Confirmed
 * Xbox live: Failed
 * NAT: (blank)
 * Thanks, 86.41.148.55 02:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm. It is possible the router's firewall may be interfering, turn that off temporarily or use a software firewall and see what pops up on alerts and logs. Failing that, I'd call MS and see what's up - perhaps it's a bug on their end. --Wooty Woot? contribs 03:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Enabling UPnP on your DSL router should solve the problem, as that will allow the 360 to configure the router itself. If your router doesn't have UPnP you're probably out of luck and need to upgrade to one that does.  These can be had online for $20-30 or $40-50 in stores. Droud 01:37, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Size of Windows XP temp directory
How is Windows XP sizing the temp directory located at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Temp? Is it based on a percentage of available free space on the disk?

Is there a way that I can manually control this?


 * There is no automatic control of temp directory size. Quotas can limit the size of your Documents and Settings folder, or you can easily clear unneeded temp files like this. Droud 02:19, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

system perspective
what is system perspective?


 * Could you be a bit more specific? In what context did you hear this phrase? &mdash; QuantumEleven 09:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

It means considering the whole system, versus just looking at a portion of the system. StuRat 12:49, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

pc memory
What is the difference between 'ECC' and 'nonECC' memory and are they interchangeable ?


 * Our article on error-correcting code is not the greatest explanation... ECC memory has extra chips that give it error checking and correcting. Occasionally one of the billions of transistors on a RAM chip flips randomly. It doesn't happen very often, but if you have gigabytes of memory it could happen once every few years. ECC detects the error and either corrects the error or crashes the computer (which sometimes is much better than getting wrong answers from software). Whether your computer supports ECC depends on the motherboard. Check your computer's hardware manual whether it accepts ECC memory, non-ECC memory, or even a mix of the two (allowing a mix is rare though). ECC memory is more expensive than non-ECC, and is usually used in servers. For a desktop PC non-ECC is usual. Weregerbil 13:06, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * ECC and non-ECC modules are interchangeable in a desktop computer, since they share the same slots and connectors (per memory technology). Some servers will require the ECC modules to run. Droud 01:33, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure I've had some boards that would not boot with ECC memory. Am I just mistaken? jdstroy 04:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I've never encountered a board like this, but they could definitely exist. Even with the compatible connectors, I imagine it takes support in the BIOS to use ECC DIMMs, even if the ECC is not taken advantage of. Droud 14:26, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Open Street Mapping
hi,

Iv just downloaded the Java version of OSM onto my computer (Windows XP) but theres a problem. Whenever i try to download images from OSM and i select the area i want to download, then do all the otherstuff necesery, click ok, then it tries to download but then says "Connection refused:connect". Help!

(please not too advanced explenation, please keep it simple)

thanks, --84.68.42.63 14:12, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a security setting problem to me, something like "JAVA - Network I/O - Connect to non-file URL codebase - NO". StuRat 22:00, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * One way to change your JAVA permissions is as follows (this is for Windows 98, it may be different for you):


 * 1) Right click on the Internet Explorer icon.


 * 2) Select "Properties".


 * 3) Select the "Security" tab.


 * 4) Pick the "Custom Level..." button.


 * 5) Scroll down to "Microsoft VM" + "Java Permissions".


 * 6) Select "Low safety".


 * 7) Select OK.


 * 8) Try using your program again.


 * 9) If that didn't work, set JAVA back to the old safety level.


 * StuRat 22:10, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Way to bond cable modems?
I know T1 lines can be "bonded" to double bandwidth. Is there something similar that can be done to increase upload bandwidth using cable modems? If not, what's the cheapest type of service for 2~3Mbit upload speeds? --24.249.108.133 18:23, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * A router could be configured to bond the channels for you, but this level of functionality would either require a very expensive router or else a specially configured computer (perhaps running Linux) with two ethernet cards. As for cheaper service, it would depend on where you live. --Dgies 23:26, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * You can always run a router that spreads connections among multiple modems. Individual network connections will be limited to the speed of one modem, however, since each modem uses a unique address. Droud 01:12, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

Excel question
I hope I can explain this adequately. I want to have Excel automatically fill in the cells in a row based on the content I type in the first cell and have the program take this data from another sheet in the same workbook. How do I do that? - Mgm|(talk) 19:14, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Well the drag and fill feature works for raw data and for formulas, so that would work. Let me see if I understand you correctly. You have data in cell A1 in sheet 1, and you want to fill a range of cells in sheet 2 with that data? Is that correct? If so, it's dead easy. Anchoress 19:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Pretty much, but I want Excel to find the appropriate row based on what I put into cell A1 and copy the entire equivalent row from sheet 2. In short: fill out one cell, have all the other filled out as a result. - Mgm|(talk) 19:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * OK you've lost me, I don't think that's what I envisioned at all. Could you be more specific, using cell and sheet numbers? Anchoress 19:56, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Imagine a sheet with data. The A column contains the identifying name of a geographical location, columns B to H contain other details of that location. On another sheet. I want to be able to fill in one of the names in the A column and have the other related data automatically appear in the other columns. Basically, I want to be able to copy entire rows based on the data in one cell so I can make a list of visited locations by date without repeating myself. - Mgm|(talk) 20:21, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Ah so for a certain cell you're not necessarily pulling in data from any particular cell; the other cell you get data from is dependent upon whatever's in that first "certain cell." So instead of the usual

data[n]
 * You have...

data[address[n]]
 * It sounds like you need some kind of excel dereferencing operation, and I don't think there is one --⁪froth T C  20:44, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Oh got it, that's easy. There are a few ways of doing it, an IF statement formula would do it. And you can format your A cells to 'pick from list' so that you don't even have to type in the data in that cell, you can just pick from a drop list. Anchoress 21:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * How can you use an if statement? I can only say, if A1 is X then fill in Y. But there's more than one option to account for. - Mgm|(talk) 21:11, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * If statements in excel can have multiple nestings, so it's not just two alternatives. Anchoress 21:16, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I believe the point is for this to be scalable. --⁪froth T C  21:27, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to nest multiple IF statements and, yes, scalability would be nice. - Mgm|(talk) 21:31, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I think you're looking for the Cells.Find function combined with some address calculations for the row of data. I found info about it here. Droud 01:31, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * A VBA solution would work but it would be very, very slow. --24.147.86.187 14:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)


 * I am not sure I totally understand what you want but have you looked at the CHOOSE, VLOOKUP, and HLOOKUP cell functions? One of those should do what you want, I think. They can choose a value from a set of values based on whatever criteria you want. --24.147.86.187 14:27, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * I agree with 24.147.., you guys are making it way too complicated with all this VBA, nested IFs, etc. Here's what you need. Setup sheet1 as above. In sheet2 cell A1 you can type in whatever name corresponds to sheet1!A1. In sheet2!A2 enter "=LOOKUP($A1,Sheet1!$A:$A,Sheet1!B:B)" which means it will compare the contents of Sheet2!A1 to all the rows of Sheet1's A column, until it finds the matching one, then return the corresponding value from that row of the B column. Because of the fixed vs relative links, you can copy and paste this formula quickly across multiple rows and columns of sheet 2 to easily fill out your reference chart. The only limitation on it is that the data in Sheet 1's A column MUST be in alphanumerical order top to bottom. The rest of the data can obviously be in any order you need. --Maelwys 16:59, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The ordering limitation seemed burdensome, and I was under the impression that VBA would run with less performance penalty than cell formulas. Is this not the case? Droud 01:39, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * In my experience VBA always has a huge performance penalty, even if the operation performed is relatively small. Cell equations are much faster, and have no trouble with updating. VBA functions run into all sorts of problems in part because on top of whatever performance penalty you pay it will often require manual triggering of updating the functions if you don't want it to update all of them each time it recalculates the table. --24.147.86.187 22:35, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, this sounds more like I need it to work. I'll see if it works as soon as I can. - Mgm|(talk) 11:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Hooray! It appears to work. Thanks! - Mgm|(talk) 19:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Associating a gamertag with an Xbox forum account
Hi everyone - I've been having some difficulties getting my gamertag associated with my xbox live forums account (ready for upgrade to 360). When I sign in with either of my passport accounts, I'm taken to a registration wizard, when I input my gamertag (Martinp23) and am told that it's not associated with this .NET account and that I need to log in with the right one (or something like that...). When I try to log in with my alternate account, I get the same problem. I'm wondering - have the xbox forums changed their policies (by associating gamertags with passports) within the last year (or two), or have I just used soem other email address? Thanks, M a rtinp23 22:41, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Nothing has changed that I know of (when I upgraded to a 360 last year). You're going to have problems convincing MS Support to tell you which account is associated with a gamertag if it's been registered, as that passport account would contain the billing information. I suggest you try all the accounts you have and then try begging :) --Blowdart 20:27, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

TP-T9 Mp3 player from samsung Firmwire
Hello i was wondering if anyone could help me with finding the firmware update to make the device a UMS..any help would be appreciated.
 * Have you tried looking on Samsung's site for that player? --Dgies 23:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)
 * yes i have and its a firmware update but it doesn't allow UMS transfer..i have been looking for the firmware update and its supposed to be european or Chinese or something along those lines...