Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 October 24

= October 24 =

IRC block
How do I know, without bothering my network administrator, whether IRC is blocked in my network or not? I can get on IRC via the web such as Mibbit but not via standard desktop apps. I cannot even connect. Please advise. Kushal (talk) 00:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Try telnetting to an IRC server. ie.  -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:58, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Here is the output from telnet that I got:

Kushal (talk) 21:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, IRC isn't blocked per-se, you can connect. I'd suggest trying the same thing using an IRC client (e.g. mIRC). It looks like it should work to me. EAi (talk) 21:36, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * That's interesting. It does look normal. I'd do that^, see if you're getting an error back from the servers; maybe the ones you're connecting to have proxy-detection and they figure you're running an open proxy? It could be anything. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 22:53, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's a snippet of what I got from mIRC.

Thanks, Kushal (talk) 17:45, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Here's another time, using Firefox's IRC add-on, ChatZilla,

. Kushal (talk) 23:10, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you should try connecting on a non-standard port (anything outside of 6666-6669) or even use bouncer.

Thanks. I will do that. Kushal (talk) 06:53, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone a hard from from one to another, not just create an image file?
Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone a hard from from one to another, not just create a useless image file? I looked through the lists of and comparisons of software in the pages wikipedia had, checked them all out and of the free software that works on FAT32 or does a raw copy, it all says it only creates worthless, junky image files instead of copying a hard drive to another outright. I've asked on some of the forum of those websites and they never answer. So.. Anyone know of any free software that will actually clone/copy all the contents of a hard from from one to another, not just create a useless image file?

I asked this before but the question just vanished, likely due to some vandalism burried in the history that I can't find. I don't think a mod removed it because I'd get a note about it or see an edit summary in the edit history. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 01:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * did it. Suggestions were GParted dd (Unix) and Norton Ghost, with the first two being Free software. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:51, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The original question and its responses have been restored. See here.  -- Tcncv (talk) 03:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Are you ready for IPv6? (talk) 03:31, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I used a peice of software calle XXCopy, and it worked well and was fast. BUT
 * Try a few of these.--99.185.0.29 (talk) 12:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * If you are content with software that is free as in beer, and the disk you want to copy is a Seagate or Maxtor disk, then Seagate Disk Wizard does the job quite nicely, most of the time. I've used it under Windows XP, for cloning disks with several partitions, both ntfs, fat32 and ext3 on the same disk. When the target disk is larger than the source (as is often the case), one of the options is to increase the partitions proportionally to the increase in disk size. I've used this option successfully. I also tried the other option, to manually specify the sizes of each partition, but that did not work correctly. --NorwegianBluetalk 13:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Try Clonezilla (http://clonezilla.org). This is an excellent piece of free software that does just that i.e. copies an entire harddisk to another, or a partition to another partition. You'll get it as a downloadable ISO image file that you'll need to write to a CD, boot off it and simply follow the instructions. As well the software allows you to back up an entire partition/harddisk onto an image file that can then be used to restore the partition/harddisk later on, or onto a new harddisk/partition. It's also possible to get a bundle ISO image from this site consisting of both GParted (a disk partitioning tool) and Clonezilla. I've used it 2 or 3 times and it works excellently - on all partition types and OSes i.e. XP partitions, Linux partitions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 196.1.26.35 (talk) 13:51, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Find parent folder of Windows Vista programs?
Is there a general way to find the actual disk folder that contains any particular Windows program on Vista?

What I am looking for is the Windows Vista equivalent of the Unix command "where" or "what" (depending on *nix dialect). For example, my Vista Home premium has MS Office Excel Viewer installed and I can call it with "excel", but there is no program file named excel. Instead, I can locate the shortcut by using the Vista command "where" where I find the filename is "Microsoft Office Excel Viewer 2003.lnk". Although this where is almost what I need, it requires me to wrap the program name in wildcards, and it is very slow. So, are there better ways to do this? (I already know about using control panel with Add and remove programs and Windows Search but they do not work for all programs) -84user (talk) 13:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Presumably there's a list in the registry of applications that can be launched from 'anywhere'... I can't find where though :( EAi (talk) 21:33, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know if this is a) the list in question, and b) in the same place on Vista, but Windows XP has a list of applications in the registry at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths that can be typed in the "Run..." dialog box. For instance, you can type  on a machine with MS Office installed.
 * It's actually quite a useful way of making aliases: each key has to be called keyword.exe, where keyword is the alias you type at the run prompt, but the actual path (the default value in that key) can be anything that you could normally run from the Run... prompt. So you can set "jot.exe" to run "C:\jottings.txt", and the text file will open when you type "jot" at the prompt. - IMSoP (talk) 12:31, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

App Paths is listed in my Vista registry, but it holds only a subset of commands that are callable from the Start dialog. Notepad and Write are missing, for example. Also some programs listed are not callable: I have WinCal.exe and can launch it when I type the full path, but not when I type just "WinCal". And it seems Vista does not let me create aliases that way: I created keyword jot.exe with value "C:\jottings.txt" but jot still does nothing. But there is a HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Applications and that lists more, but not all, available commands. It seems logical there should be a list somewhere, after all how does Windows check what the user types? -84user (talk) 16:46, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Question about modems and Internet problems
Most of the description of what happened to me was posted Monday on the Village Pump. I looked at the modem's manual and found no details on this whatsoever.

I had no Internet access whatsoever Wednesday from the time I turned on the computer around noon until about 3:00, and then I lost the Internet again after having it for about an hour.

I thought there was a relationship between the middle light on the modem and Internet access. After Hurricane Ike, that light was blinking even when the computer was off. It's supposed to always be on when the Internet is working or the computer is off (the tech support person said there's no reason for it to be blinking when the computer is off), and it was always on after I started having problems on Monday--until I turned the computer on. When I had no Internet access, that light was usually blinking or off. This is strange, though--after the problem was temporarily resolved on Wednesday, the light was usually on even if the Internet was not.

I was finally told on Wednesday something I had never heard before--the problem weas outside my house somewhere. I never heard whether it was a widespread problem in my area. But they have fixed it. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 18:22, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What is your question? -- LarryMac  | Talk  19:08, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

I suppose a specific question could be why the middle light blinks when the computer is off when the tech support person said that's not going to happen. Funny, when I wrote the above I thought I was going to get responses, but now that I read it, I'm not sure what I'm asking. I was hoping someone could explain to me what happened. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 20:49, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What is "The middle light" labeled as - does it have a symbol or anything against it? Does it matter that the light is blinking - I can't tell if it's causing any actual problems (beyond the light)? Is it blinking consistently or randomly? EAi (talk) 21:29, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

A simple, free and easy to use program for video conversion to Ipod compatibilty?
I recently purchased a 120G Ipod classic and I am looking for a free and easy program to convert video files so that they will play on my Ipod. So far, I found Itunes itself capable of converting Quicktime videos, but the majority of what I have is WMV, Mpeg or AVI. I have looked quite a bit for a program but so far I have not found anything that was easy to use or not loaded with advertising. Can anyone offer any suggestions? thanks so much and cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 18:57, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * You on a mac? Which version of OS X? Kushal (talk) 20:32, 24 October 2008 (UTC)
 * VisualHub for Mac (recently deceased) is/was good. For PC: Videora seems to be well thought of, though doesn't say it supports WMV - it's free though. PrismPlus is also well thought of, but not free, but supports WMV. EAi (talk) 21:26, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * iSquint? --wj32 t/c 22:11, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Yeah, use iSquint. It's pretty good about that sort of thing. For more complicated things, there is ffmpegx, but it's a bit more of a hassle and takes a lot of fiddling with. --140.247.10.21 (talk) 00:12, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * SUPER is good (see WP article for list of supported formats - there are iPod presets). Only for PC though.  I used it for a load of videos I recently transferred to my iPod nano - works a treat.  Link to download is at the bottom of this page.  Booglamay ( talk ) - 01:14, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Or on Windows, try DVDVideoSoft's products (search google) --wj32 t/c 23:22, 25 October 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're on a Mac you already have tools to use. iMovie and Quicktime Pro have specific features for this. Mac Davis (talk) 02:49, 26 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I am using a PC not a MAC. Thanks for all the help!  cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 12:53, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Um, sorry about that. Kushal (talk) 23:13, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Nuked permissions in XP Pro SP3
I ran "cacls C: /P guest:n" in a command prompt. After that, I was unable to access anything. I shutdown and booted from the OEM CD. I ran a repair install. I rebooted and put the CD in to try to finish the repair installation. It was going fine for about 5 minutes. Then I got a fatal error. I looked the error code up and it said that this meant that there were not sufficient permissions to perform the necessary tasks. Now, I can't even boot into Windows so what is the best way to fix this? Maybe resetting the permissions (if so, how)? (By the way, I have already tried cacls in recovery console and copying it onto a flash drive and running it in the recovery console. Neither work. I am dual-booting with Ubuntu on another partition, so if I need to use linux for the repair, feel free to recommend that.) --Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme! 22:16, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think you can use GNU/Linux to repair NTFS permissions; NTFS-3G doesn't support editing permissions. Try making a Windows XP "Live CD" using BartPE. --wj32 t/c 22:45, 24 October 2008 (UTC)


 * What cacls parameters did you use in the Recovery Console? The standard form for granting permission is this:"cacls C: /E /G :F"I don't know if it'll work in BartPE, but you can also try taking ownership of the files on the drive. If you do not own the files, then you cannot change their permission settings. You would right-click on the C: drive, select Properties and under Security, click Advanced, then Owner. Vista includes a command for this called takeown, and you can download an imitation version that you can include on your BartPE image.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 01:32, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * The recovery console doesn't have cacls and I can't use BartPE because all I have is an OEM CD. Ζρς ι'β' ¡hábleme! 03:11, 25 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Then create a third partition inside Ubuntu and install Windows in it. Use that partition to repair your permissions for your old Windows partition.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 04:11, 25 October 2008 (UTC)