Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 April 5

= April 5 =

Ubuntu's Auto-mounting System
What does Ubuntu use to Automatically mount drives and show them on Nautilus's desktop? I have a costom Debian system with the basic gnome package, and I want that auto-mounting feature. How do I get it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.127.62.211 (talk) 01:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello. My Ubuntu indeed exhibits this behaviour.  Searching in Synaptic suggests that this is enabled by the package:

gnome-volume-manager

GNOME daemon to auto-mount and manage media devices gnome-volume-manager is a GNOME daemon that acts as a policy agent on top of the kernel, udev, D-Bus and HAL. It listens to HAL events and reacts with user-configurable actions. Currently it supports automount of new media and hot-plugged devices, autorun, autoplay for CDs and DVDs, and automatic camera management. It is expected to be simple and free of polling and other evil hacks.


 * and it seems this is available in Debian: http://packages.debian.org/gnome-volume-manager - Good luck --90.203.189.60 (talk) 23:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Cross Over Question
When I am in Steam in Crossover for Mac, and go to play Team Fortress 2, it begins to start up and then closes and says "No permissions to run 'tf'" Why does it say this and how can i get rid of it so i can play? --69.127.64.22 (talk) 03:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Bootcamp error: "hardware not supported"
Hello.

I'm using the bootcamp beta on my macbook (tiger as the OS). Workes fine, though it refuses to install the drivers. When opening the driver CD within XP (swedish x86 pro) it gives me the following:

Macintosh Drivers for Windows XP This software does not support your hardware.

Does wiki know where I can find the ethernet/network and graphix drivers myself? Thanks! 90.231.145.160 (talk) 10:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

How do i open a pen drive when there is no removable disk?
When i plug a pen drive into my usb port, an icon appears in the task bar and when i right click on it, there is only one option called "safely remove hardware"! Then when i go to "My computer", i do not find any removable disk, then how will i open the pen drive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.110.21.195 (talk) 11:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't click "Safely remove hardware", then the pen drive should be there in My Computer. If you clicked the "Safely remove hardware" first, then Windows will have disconnected the pen drive from the system so it can be physically removed from the USB port without loss of data.
 * Once, you have finished moving the files to/from the pen drive, now is the time to click "Safely remove hardware" (remembering to wait for the acknowledgement message), and physically unplug it from the USB port. Astronaut (talk) 11:35, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Does it do this every time? Did you try waiting a minute after the "Safely remove hardware" message comes up, just to make sure? Kushal 11:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Does it happen with all pen drives? You may be missing drivers for USB MASS STORAGE DEVICE. Most modern installs of Vista and XP should have that installed already, however I think older versions of XP might be not install it by default. Windows 98, and 95 probably don't have them unless you specifically installed them. APL (talk) 02:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

iPhone programming
Should one know programming language to create applications using Apple iPhone SD kit? What about Java Mobile and BREW? What all should we know? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.24.44 (talk) 11:12, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not intimately familiar with the SDK, but I would imagine that one uses Objective-C for iPhone development, since Cocoa Touch is based on Cocoa. iPhone OS supports neither Java ME nor the Binary Runtime Environment for Wireless. —Larry V (talk &#124; e-mail) 19:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Anyone know a good paid POP/SMTP email service?
Anyone know where I can find a good paid POP/STMP email service? Something where I can keep my email that goes to POP-accessible accounts usable when switching ISPs? The free ones are very unreliable and often close down. The paid ones are usually overpriced, sometimes costing as much or more than dialup when I won't be getting that much email through them. It would also be good if they allows login SMTP through a non-port 25 port (as all ISPs block port 25 now). William Ortiz (talk) 12:44, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * What about Gmail? They have free POP and IMAP support. And I don't think Google is going anywhere anytime soon. - Akamad (talk) 13:32, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict). I forgot something in my question. it would be nice if I could have more than one (say 5) email addresses in my one account and pay one fee for the five and not have to pay the fee again just to have one more email that I'll barely use. William Ortiz (talk) 13:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm gmail says it has free POP and forwarding. That's odd. In the past companies that did free POP usually went down, lost mail, etc. then went paid. Free forwarding also in the past tended to lose mail. Is gmail's free POP reliable? William Ortiz (talk) 13:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If you are willing to pay for the service, then I'd suggest getting a collocation service and put your own fully customized email server there. You can set it up however you like. --  k a i n a w &trade; 17:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I would say that Gmail's POP is reliable. Mind you, I didn't use it too much. But their IMAP is certainly reliable, since I use it all since it first became available and haven't had any issues with it. - Akamad (talk) 00:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There are some random and not-so-short-term problems that occur. I have a client who uses it and he couldn't receive mail all day Tuesday (kept asking for his username/pass through IMAP, he had to check email on the web).  When that rectified itself, he couldn't send.  Got a "service unavailable" error until about noon on Wednesday.  I figure the GMail server he uses had a glitch that took a little over a day to fix.  Of course, ANY mail service is susceptible to similar glitches. --  k a i n a w &trade; 00:58, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I have used GMail's POP features for a few years. I have never had any significant problems. - SigmaEpsilon → Σ Ε 02:13, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Is gmail the only good service out there? William Ortiz (talk) 09:04, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Gmail is the best by far. D\=&lt; (talk) 04:43, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo! Mail Plus seems to be pretty good too. It is not free of cost at USD 19.99 a year, it looks like the best bet if you cannot use Google. Upgrades has more information. Kushal 13:14, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia error page
Hi everyone! I just got the Wikipedia error page (the one that says the servers and messed up). How can I view it again, out of curiosity, without waiting for who knows how long for there to be another error. xxx User:Hyper Girl 15:08, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a pic of it here. If you want the source code, its available here. D0762 (talk) 19:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating. As an HTML novice, I have to ask: What's the " < b r / >" tag in the middle of the TopLinks list (about a third of the way down the file)? (Spacing added to keep it from being eaten...) 209.181.224.243 (talk) 03:42, 6 April 2008 (UTC) Danh


 * A line break. The slash is there because it's XHTML and the slash closes the tag. — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 08:55, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Graphics card "warming up"?
Is there any reason why my computer would "get better" at 3D Desktop effects (eg Compiz) after being on for a little while (like half an hour)? --90.203.189.60 (talk) 17:01, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I'd be shocked if it was your graphics card warming up. I suspect it is services and programs that turn on at startup that are slowing your PC at first.  When they are done - tada, faster PC.  Can you run Compiz in safe mode?  Doubtful, but if so, that would test that theory.  Reguardless, I'd look at all the startup programs and especially the services that turn on with your PC.  Useless services can be a real pain in the neck.  --Wonderley (talk) 17:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes I'd be shocked too. But the timescale makes me think it's not just about start-up processes.  Any other theories?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.203.189.60 (talk) 18:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have many, many programs installed (like that god forsaken photo album software that comes with any digital camera you buy) then I wouldn't be surprised if it took half an hour to start up. Uninstall anything you don't need. D0762 (talk) 19:13, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It's possible that your computer is taking a while to get things like disk caching, virtual memory, and graphics buffering sorted out -- your computer can't magically know what parts of what programs need to be kept in memory or what files you're going to open. Once the computer's been on for a while, it can better organize things for speed. --12.169.167.154 (talk) 22:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My guess is that you have "automatic updates" turned on. This means that each time you start up your computer it goes online and looks for updates for your software.  If it finds them, it downloads them and installs them.  This could take half an hour, especially if you have a slow DSL connection or, God-forbid, dial-up.  I've seen where software, namely AOL, keeps trying to download the same update, can't install it for whatever reason, but goes right ahead and downloads it again the next time anyway, ad infinitum. StuRat (talk) 02:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't see auto updates slowing down the GPU. I doubt it appreciably slows down the CPU either, and most autoupdaters I've seen, outside of that for Windows, don't download updates until you tell them to do so. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 21:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

rar
by how much can i compress a file{938MB} using rar--scoobydoo (talk) 17:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I think it depends what's in the file - for example you could have 938MB which describes a very long text file where every line is the same, or 938MB which describes 2 hours of high quality audio / video. The former could be compressed to a tiny size, the latter not so much.  --90.203.189.60 (talk) 18:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * There is a good comparison table at Data compression. D0762 (talk) 19:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * As extreme cases, a 938MB empty file can be compressed down to a kilobyte or two, while 938MB of cryptographic-quality random numbers will be slightly larger after compression. --12.169.167.154 (talk) 22:34, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Wireless weirdness
I have a Netgear MR814v3 wireless router. It has worked great for about two years now, never any problems with it.

Last week or so it started acting up, though. On both my MacBook and my wife's iBook, the wireless signal will go from connected to disconnected to connected to disconnected fairly rapidly (switching states one a second or so) for no apparent reason. It's not an issue of signal strength, I'm sitting right next to it. The internet connection from the cable modem seems fine. It's the router itself that seems to be doing weird cycling issues. After it does this for about 20 seconds then it usually connects just fine again.

The router has the latest firmware, and I even did a full reset to factory defaults and reconfigured it. Same problem. I tried changing its channel, that didn't seem to help either (though I've just tried changing it again, having made sure that there is no one around using one the same channel). I haven't otherwise really changed the settings with the router or the two computers.

Any idea what is causing the mishaps? It's a weird problem. The router uses WPA Personal security. The fact that the issue happens on both computers makes it look distinctly like a problem with the router. Blah. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 18:15, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * After two years, maybe the hardware is simply broken from heat stress (those wireless cards get very hot with constant use). I advise you get a friend to test the connection with their laptop and a different wireless card, to see if the problem is the card or the router. D0762 (talk) 19:06, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, as I said, I've tried it with two different computers (which are different ages and models), so I don't think it's a problem with the machines. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:21, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Then it looks like something is up with your router. What, I can't say. D0762 (talk) 19:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I think the routers just burned out after two years. Plunk down the sixty bucks for a new one (and if you're a badass you can do this thing) --Oskar 18:41, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, firmware replacements are something to look at. Though I want to note, I have a Buffalo WHR-HP-G54 and I've found the Tomato firmware to be far more stable than DD-WRT. And the interface is nice too. OpenWrt is the other popular option. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:02, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

generating words in a pattern
I want to generate a set of names that all follow a certain linguistic pattern. There are five possible "slots" for a letter, and severl possible letters that can go in each. The first slot can contain G,Q,C,H or no letter. The second can contain A,E,I,O,U or no letter. The third can contain R,L,W or M. The fourth is the same as the second. The fifth can contain M,N,R or no letter. What I want to know is am I looking at an impossible or a workable number of possible combinations? And if the number is large, is there a way of getting a computer to generate them for me instead of doing them by hand? My computer programming knowledge level is zero. But I do have a computer :) (P.S. there are a couple of additional constraints, such as single-letter names and names without a vowel are disallowed, and that neither Q nor W should be adjacent to I. But I suspect that might make it really far too complicated.) Thanks for any advice. 65.92.188.177 (talk) 21:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)


 * The number of possible combinations is easy to calculate. It's 5*6*4*6*4 = 2,880.  Writing code to create this list is easy, but not if you aren't a programmer.  Do you have Excel.  Office Excel, not the Excel that comes with MS works?  Making the code to create a spreadsheet with the list of "words" wouldn't be too hard.  I could maybe give you somethign to cut and past into a macro.--Wonderley (talk) 22:17, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much. I do have Office with Excel. I don't know what a macro is, though. But 2,880 might not be too bad. I was afraid it'd be far more. Let me know if the macro thing is easy to explain? 65.92.188.177 (talk) 22:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Currently working on it. Almost done.  It won't be too bad.--Wonderley (talk) 23:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, here it is. Rather than talk you through the cutting and pasting, I put the spreadsheet on my web site: http://wonderley.com/misc/wikipuzzle.xls

Once you get rid of 1 character words, words without vowels and words with "QI", "WI" or "IW" ("IQ" is not possible) the list drops to 2508. I'll go ahead and post this and just for those who might be interested, I'll make another post with the macro. Very simple, but it was longer than I thought it'd be. --Wonderley (talk) 23:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's the code:

Sub MakeList

'Kenneth Wonderley

'4/5/2008

Dim FirstLetter As String

Dim SecondLetter As String

Dim ThirdLetter As String

Dim ForthLetter As String

Dim FifthLetter As String

Dim FisrtSlot As Integer

Dim SecondSlot As Integer

Dim ThirdSlot As Integer

Dim ForthSlot As Integer

Dim FifthSlot As Integer

Dim FiveCharName As String

Dim WordOK As Boolean

Sheets("Sheet2").Select

Range("A1").Select

For FirstSlot = 1 To 5 'G, Q, C, H, blank

If FirstSlot = 1 Then FirstLetter = "G"

If FirstSlot = 2 Then FirstLetter = "Q"

If FirstSlot = 3 Then FirstLetter = "C"

If FirstSlot = 4 Then FirstLetter = "H"

If FirstSlot = 5 Then FirstLetter = ""

For SecondSlot = 1 To 6 'A, E, I, O, U, blank

If SecondSlot = 1 Then SecondLetter = "A"

If SecondSlot = 2 Then SecondLetter = "E"

If SecondSlot = 3 Then SecondLetter = "I"

If SecondSlot = 4 Then SecondLetter = "O"

If SecondSlot = 5 Then SecondLetter = "U"

If SecondSlot = 6 Then SecondLetter = ""

For ThirdSlot = 1 To 4 'R, L, W, M

If ThirdSlot = 1 Then ThirdLetter = "R"

If ThirdSlot = 2 Then ThirdLetter = "L"

If ThirdSlot = 3 Then ThirdLetter = "W"

If ThirdSlot = 4 Then ThirdLetter = "M"

For ForthSlot = 1 To 6 'A, E, I, O, U, blank

If ForthSlot = 1 Then ForthLetter = "A"

If ForthSlot = 2 Then ForthLetter = "E"

If ForthSlot = 3 Then ForthLetter = "I"

If ForthSlot = 4 Then ForthLetter = "O"

If ForthSlot = 5 Then ForthLetter = "U"

If ForthSlot = 6 Then ForthLetter = ""

For FifthSlot = 1 To 4 'M, N, R, blank

If FifthSlot = 1 Then FifthLetter = "M"

If FifthSlot = 2 Then FifthLetter = "N"

If FifthSlot = 3 Then FifthLetter = "R"

If FifthSlot = 4 Then FifthLetter = ""

FiveCharName = FirstLetter + SecondLetter + ThirdLetter + _

ForthLetter + FifthLetter

WordOK = True

If Len(FiveCharName) = 1 Then WordOK = False '1 char word

If SecondLetter = "" And ForthLetter = "" Then WordOK = False 'No vowel

'Neither Q or W can be adjacent to I - IQ is not possible

If InStr(1, FiveCharName, "QI", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then WordOK = False

If InStr(1, FiveCharName, "WI", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then WordOK = False

If InStr(1, FiveCharName, "IW", vbTextCompare) > 0 Then WordOK = False

If WordOK Then 'Put it on the list

ActiveCell.FormulaR1C1 = FiveCharName 'Put the word in the sheet

ActiveCell.Offset(rowOffset:=1, columnOffset:=0).Select 'Move down a cell

End If

Next FifthSlot

Next ForthSlot

Next ThirdSlot

Next SecondSlot

Next FirstSlot

End Sub

--Wonderley (talk) 23:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Kenneth, you're amazing. Thank you so much for taking so much time to help a total stranger with a weird request. By using help I could make the file work and the list is exactly what I wanted. Have a great evening! Jan 65.92.188.177 (talk) 00:10, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My pleasure. I like writing programs.  I can't constantly do sudoku.  BTW - If you look at the code it's very easy (or dare I say Basic?) to follow what it's doing even if you're not into programming.--Wonderley (talk) 00:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * My language of choice for this sort of thing is often sh. Here's how it might look:

for l1 in G Q C H  ; do for l2 in A E I O U  ; do for l3 in R L W M; do for l4 in A E I O U  ; do for l5 in M N R  ; do w="$l1$l2$l3$l4$l5" if echo $w | grep -q '^.$'; then continue; fi if echo $w | grep -q '[AEIOU]'; then :; else continue; fi if echo $w | egrep -q 'I[QW]|[QW]I'; then continue; fi echo $w done; done; done; done; done


 * —Steve Summit (talk) 04:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * This is like a text-book example of showing the awesomeness that is Prolog:

first(A) :- A = ''; A = 'G'; A = 'Q'; A = 'C'; A = 'H'. second(A) :- A = ''; A = 'A'; A = 'E'; A = 'I'; A = 'O'; A = 'U'. third(A) :- A = 'R'; A = 'L'; A = 'W'; A = 'M'. fourth(A) :- second(A). fifth(A) :- A = ''; A = 'M'; A = 'N'; A = 'R'.

word([A,B,C,D,E]) :- first(A), second(B), third(C), fourth(D), fifth(E), \+ (B = , D = ), \+ (A = 'Q', B = 'I'), \+ ((B = 'I'; D = 'I'), C = 'W').


 * Just define the constraints and then let prolog do the rest. Note that I didn't include the "more than one letter long" constraint because it is equal to the "has to have a vowel constraint" (that is, they are both equal to "letter number 2 and 4 can't both be empty"). I love prolog, it's a shame that you can't use it to do anything sensible :) --Oskar 18:19, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Steve, I think that would go a lot faster if you just echoed all the $w's and piped the loop through grep. Not so many exec's of the greps.
 * Yeah, I was just about to post that correction myself. Duh! —Steve Summit (talk) 21:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC) [P.S. Also I corrected yours a tiny bit.]
 * And if you have any newer shell than Bourne, brace expansion will help with the looping:

for w in {G,Q,C,H,}{A,E,I,O,U,}{R,L,W,M}{A,E,I,O,U,}{M,N,R,}; do echo $w done | egrep -v 'I[QW]|[QW]I' | grep '[AEIOU]'
 * (In zsh it can actually be a one-liner: print -l {G,Q,C,H,}...|grep...)
 * Oh and since nobody else has mentioned it: the root operation here is a Cartesian product of the 5 sets of options. Knowing that terminology may help in the search for other methods. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:08, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The comments after the answer reminds me of "When the only tool you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails."

Now back tot the original question. Jan, did you get your puzzle solved? Well, I assume it was a puzzle. --Wonderley (talk) 20:21, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Old emachines computer power supply
Hi, I have an old emachines t2742 that I'm trying to repair for a family member. I need to find a new power supply for it and I found this one: http://www.cputopia.com/emachine-480w-t-series-t2742.html

That one is supposed for this model, but it has a SATA hdd port and the computer doesn't have a SATA drive. So, I'm trying to find one that doesn't have a SATA port on it. Any help would be great :) thanks --Zach (talk) 22:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Pretty much they're all going to have SATA connectors on them these days. But you don't have to plug it into anything, just leave it. The power supply will also have connectors for IDE drives. Useight (talk) 22:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)