Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 November 26

= November 26 =

Combining multiple files into a single executable
Hey, I'm looking for a (preferably free) program that is able to combine multiple files such as DLLs, EXEs, files in subdirectories, etc. into one EXE. I'm not looking as to run them all at once, but rather still have functionality for a certain program. For example, if I had a game file whose location had 6 subdirectories (containing data files), several DLLs, other EXEs, and game.exe, the program would be able to combine all those files into a game_full.exe, where the functionality would be the same if I'd just run game.exe. Does anyone know of any program that would be able to accomplish this? Again, free preferably. Many thanks to helpful answers.  V ic93 (t/c) 01:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Winzip and some other file compression programs let you make an "executable archive" which compresses a large number of files into one handy executable program. However, you must then run that executable archive to unpack the files at the destination before you can use the files again.  However, I suspect that what you really want to do is something like how Busybox makes some flavours of Linux work.  Astronaut (talk) 11:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * ILMerge does this on the .NET Framework. Chemical Weathering (talk) 12:48, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * There is no that you could do it without some sort of background virtual drives. If you want programs to be installed to 1 file, the best way is to use a program like truecrypt, create a container file and amount it as a drive, install to that drive, so on your file system you will have one file, and on the mounted drive you will have the game.--Dacium (talk) 04:17, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Sandboxie probably does what you want; it saves everything in one container, including your saved games and settings. -- Fullstop (talk) 08:47, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

Yahoo
How do I turn off the marketing e-mails from Yahoo? I've asked this question several times on Yahoo Answers. I've done what the answerers said - go to the e-mail page, click "My Account", and choose "marketing options" - but there is no such option on my My Account page. So now what can I do? JCI (talk) 04:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

footnotes in Word: page breaks
I'm constantly having issues with footnotes in Word: Page breaks occur in the middle of footnotes, sometimes several in one footnote (spreading the footnotes over three pages!). And sometimes, for no apparent reason, footnotes simply aren't printed on the same page as the text they refer to, but at least one page later. That's not just the case for footnotes near the end of the page--sometimes, a long paragraph follows the passage with the footnote, but the footnote is still moved to the next page.

I'm using simply text, no tables, no graphics, nothing else that seems to prevent footnotes from just appearing on the page that they refer to. I'm using a Word version from 2000 (strangely, I can't remember having had any issues like that until relatively recently). Switching to a new Word version is not an option, nor is switching to OpenOffice (sorry, not at the moment).

Any recommendations would be welcome--if I cannot make Word automatically do it right, what's a way to at least manually correct this mess (except not using footnotes, which isn't an option either)? Thanks a million (!), Thanks for answering (talk) 04:13, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I've often had such situations. Word seems to balance...something...to keep the footnote region from getting too large. I've never seen a footnote get pushed onto a different page than its antecedent unless putting it on the same page would not fit (though sometimes it took me a while to recognize those situations!). Only solution comes to mind and only aimed at one of your issues: adjust the Footnote Text style paragraph-formatting to "keep lines together". DMacks (talk) 06:05, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

google maps
How accurate is google maps, in terms of measuring the distance in certain segments (e.g. point A to point B to point C.) when looking up directions? --AtTheAbyss (talk) 04:57, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * In my experience, not very accurate at all, though I'm sure it varies. --Sean 14:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Do not count on Google Maps giving an error of less than ±200 meters. Your mileage may vary. Kushal (talk) 15:26, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Their street addresses are occasionally extremely off. If you have a short street, that's obviously not a concern, but when it's a long street, I've had some "surprising" locations. Their distance should be calculated based on these false locations, so they can be very off. I don't know if there distances between intersections etc. have the same problem. --Thanks for answering (talk) 18:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * One further complication is that Google apparently places addresses based on postal codes (ZIP codes, in the US, I guess). That's normally not an issue, but renders my address very inaccurately as I don't get home delivery of the mail; the mailbox is actually two blocks from my house and that's where Google thinks I live. The people across the street from me have their mailbox in front of their house, so Google would presumably show our residences as being perhaps 200m apart from one another. Matt Deres (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * If you have a Google account, you could correct this error. Click me for details! Kushal (talk) 21:01, 1 December 2008 (UTC)
 * I find yellowpages.com more concrete in giving directions, IMO. --Crackthewhip775 (talk) 21:55, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I have found that when getting directions it can give a distance of say 6.8km, then when using the pen to write your own path, the same path gives a distance of 7.8km, then when using google earth instead of maps and going from the exact same places I get a distance of 8.6km.Dacium (talk) 04:14, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Address in google maps, and basically all addressing mapping applications, use geocoding methods based on interpolating addresses between known numbers at street corners. At least this is the case in the United States, where address numbers for intersections are easily available, but actual parcel data with corresponding address numbers is much harder to come by (and involves more data and processing effort; plus there are privacy issues regarding parcel data, or should be at least). Geocoding is "good enough" most of the time, but there are some cases where it fails miserably. Also, while the streets are fairly accurate, spatially, for most of the US, they can be way off and highly simplified in other parts of the world. It depends, I expect, on what data is available. And, even in the US there are numerous minor mistakes in the street data that can radical change driving directions. As an example, all computerized street datasets I've seen, including google maps, show a very short street segment near my house that connects two other streets. There is no such segment, but if there were it would be an excellent way to get to my house. I've informed the local governments who made the data, and google as well, who acquired the data from them, to no avail. I suspect the error originated with the US Census Bureau, which creates and freely released geospatial street data and address geocodes for the US. The fact that the segment is exactly on a county line probably makes it trickier for local governments to fix it. Anyway, these kind of minor errors are quite common. Combined with address geocoding.. well... results may vary. (Looking at the geocoding WP page now I see its intro is misleading and perhaps plain wrong. The "Address interpolation" section describes what I'm talking about. Pfly (talk) 07:02, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * The reason I used google maps was because it has walking directions, and I'm trying to map out distance for my run. It says the distance from point A to point B is 1.1 miles, but now I'm not so sure...--AtTheAbyss (talk) 07:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * [squeeze] There are also walking distances on maps.ask.com - they've actually had them before Google. Just in case you don't want to use Google anymore for everything... --Thanks for answering (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I just looked it up on yellowpages (thanks for the idea), and it stated the distance as 1.9 miles, so I guess it's close enough. Thanks all. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 07:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Image size
Is there any image format that takes up more size for a given image dimension than bmp (assuming a single (flat), non-vector image)? Thanks :) 203.122.33.194 (talk) 13:51, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Uncompressed TIFF Chemical Weathering (talk) 14:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Thank you. However I went to that article and it seems TIFF incorporates layers and vector images. Can you please shed some light on this? 124.30.235.62 (talk) 14:04, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * TIFF can incorporate those but it doesn't have to. It is a versatile format, though it is usually used for flat, bitmap images. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:16, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, so if I understand correctly, TIFF uses somewhat higher number of bytes even when storing an image as a flat bitmap than the BMP format, and that's because it has extra information attached (like whether layers/vectors/compression has been used or not)? 125.21.165.158 (talk) 14:56, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Not always so… Uncompressed TIFF may be larger because it may contain extra records: physical resolution, author's name & used software, etc. On the other hand, BMP requires each pixel row to be multiple of 4 bytes, padded if necessary – and that means up to 3 extra bytes per row. For example, 999×1000 24bit BMP image has 3000 bytes wasted for padding. Skarebo (talk) 16:12, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Strictly, TIFF is a 'tag file' and it can contain any set of tags with associated data whatever. Since you're allowed to make up your own tags (and many software packages do exactly that) - the file could be arbitarily long...it could even contain a BMP image.  So for sure, BMP isn't the most inefficient image format.  Probably the largest would be one of the high-dynamic-range (HDR) image formats - where the image could have more than 8 bits per color component.   But then there are also images (often stored as TIFF varients) that are used for satellite imagery that may contain infra-red and ultra-violet "image" data and other color samples as well as (or instead of) the usual R,G and B.  Also - it's untrue to say that compressed images such as PNG ALWAYS take up less space than uncompressed images.  It is provable mathematically that no lossless compression algorithm can squeeze data out of every possible image - so it's theoretically possible in some extreme cases for (eg) a compressed PNG to come out larger than the BMP.  SteveBaker (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * That's not only theoretical. Just compress pure random noise. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.187.106.12 (talk) 02:05, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Try the ASCII variants (P1–P3) of the PNM format. Doesn't get much more bloated than that.  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 19:21, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Buying advice for macbook hard disk drive
Hello, I was looking into the possibility of upgrading the hard disk on my macbook. Here is some information from System Profiler. According to toshiba, this hard disk seems to have "ATA7/Serial ATA 1.0a/Serial ATA II 1.2"as its interface.

What would be the best value for money replacement drive? Would something like this NewEgg drive be good? I welcome any suggestion and criticism.

You guys are awesome. You helped me with the HP Compaq laptop among many other stuff. Thank you very much in advance. Kushal (talk) 15:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Hamming distance
How many errors in a single code pattern could be corrected when using an error correcting code in which each code pattern is a Hamming distance of at least seven from any other code pattern? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.29.211.122 (talk) 16:25, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

(You might try reading Hamming distance and Error detection and correction - the answer you seek is definitely in there - but you're going to have to learn something to find out!) SteveBaker (talk) 17:10, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

gmail doesn't work with google chrome??
This is the weirdest thing in the world! I uninstalled google chrome, reinstalled it. this is a fresh computer with windows xp and the latest service pack. gmail used to work until they introduced themes, now it works fine in every browser except Google Chrome! am I the only one with this difficulty? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.217.99.209 (talk) 17:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Works fine here (Chrome 0.4.154.25 on Vista, Gmail with the 'Planets' theme). What happens when you try to access Gmail? Does the basic HTML version work? — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 01:12, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

Video Cards
Should a PCI video card work (inserted in a PCI slot of course) on a motherboard that has a dedicated PCI Express slot? I have a mother board I'd like to use but no PCI Express cards. I have several cards that look almost like PCI Express cards but don't quite fit. So I'm left with a PCI card, but it's not producing any video signal....69.180.160.77 (talk) 18:02, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure if the PCI card will work if you have PCI-E slot, but I think the other cards that don't quite fit are probably AGP. Useight (talk)


 * It should certianly work. However, your bios might be set allow it. If its not working try to reset your bios by removing the battery or read your motherboard manual for more info. Usually the motherboard should know that it can't find a video card on the express slot and try a PCI slot. --Dacium (talk) 04:11, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Of course, if you are not getting video, then it might be hard to change BIOS settings. Also, maybe you can just try to wait a while and see if anything comes up after the OS loads, because most OSs can probably use PCI video cards. --71.106.183.17 (talk) 05:55, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Borrow a PCIe graphics card, enter the BIOS of the computer, and finding the option "Init display first" change it to PCI. It helped me on one occasion. MaxVT (talk) 22:53, 28 November 2008 (UTC)

Soft reboot
How do you soft-reboot on Windows 98 if your Ctrl key isn't working? And is there any explanation for why both my Ctrl keys aren't working while all the other keys are fine? --120.138.100.154 (talk) 18:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * If you press (but not hold) your power button, often this will force a soft boot. Seems less often this works on laptops, for what that's worth. Holding the power button will force a hard reboot. Other than that, if you download psshutdown you can use that to do a soft boot. -- Kickstart70 T C 01:47, 27 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't have a way to test it, but you might open a command window and try "shutdown.exe /?" to see it exists and what options are available. If it doesn't exist, this site lists several commands that might help, such as "rundll32.exe shell32.dll,SHExitWindowsEx 2".  I have no ideas regarding the Ctrl key problem.  -- Tcncv (talk) 02:01, 27 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Are you sure it is not a hardware problem? 121.72.170.238 (talk) 12:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Am not sure, but this problem just developed overnight and my keyboard hasn't fallen down or anything for it to be damaged. And like I said, it's only these two keys specifically that have stopped working, while the rest of the keys work just fine. Anyway, is there any alternative key combination for Ctrl-Alt-Del? I need something for closing individual programs that have stopped responding without having to do a complete reboot? --120.138.100.99 (talk) 09:04, 1 December 2008 (UTC)