Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 September 14

= September 14 =

Videos from Picasa2
How do I put videos on youtube from picasa? and I don't mean the picture slideshows, i mean the actual videos that I filmed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.119.61.7 (talk) 00:26, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You don't use Picasa, that's how. Just go to Youtube, choose the upload function, and find the file on your harddrive. Why would Picasa be involved? 24.76.161.28 (talk) 23:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Dragging Messages in Windows Live Mail
Hello. When I drag sent messages into a folder within Windows Live Mail and log out, the same message appears in the Sent Items folder as if I never moved the message. I would have to redrag that message into the folder to have it there permanently. How should I fix this? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 04:33, 14 September 2008 (UTC) I don't use Windows Live Mail but in Outlook Express I just right click the message and click "send to" and the folder I want a message to and it's moved. They can come from anywhere to anywhere.Wiki asker (talk) 12:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Flickr "all sizes" option
Hi; I've been trying the numerous API 'hacks' to get the full-res versions of this image, this image and this image. Could someone else try to see what I'm doing wrong? :-( Thanks! ╟─ Treasury § Tag ► contribs ─╢ 08:08, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * The article you linked links to Flickr documentation which says that the full-size image uses a different secret from the others. I assume this change was made sometime between 2005 and now to thwart the hackers, and it's no longer possible to get the full-size images without authorization. -- BenRG (talk) 19:17, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Bar (form factor)
I noticed that Nokia handset has different physical structure. Such as slide bar, candy bar. But what can be the exact name of handset that has folding system? Should it be folding bar or something else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.168.229.245 (talk) 13:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Generally they are called Clamshells or flips. Nanonic (talk) 15:31, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

microprocessor
In about 1981, I recall doubling the memory of an Atari ST512 personal computer by placing additinal memory chips on top of the existing chips and soldering the overhanging pins to the pins of the chips below. (It helps to be disparate to do this.) Is there currently a PIC processor which would allow physical stacking in a similar manner to build a multi-processor PIC based computer, cheaply? 71.100.10.11 (talk) 14:14, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * No - definitely not! You have forgotten something about the way the RAM expansion on the Atari ST worked (I know - I did it too!).  All of the pins EXCEPT ONE would be soldered together like that - the other had to be wired up to a different address line or something.  If you wired up all of the pins together - and the chips were identical then they'd both be given the exact same data and would produce the exact same result...so the two blocks of RAM would contain identical data at all times - which is not very useful.  What's needed is to have the new RAM decode to a different range of addresses - and typically you do that by bending up a pin and wiring to a different address line or a different chip-select or something.


 * This works for RAM chips because they are designed to be "bussed" together - so that each chip's outputs are turned off when it's not being spoken to.


 * Microprocessors aren't like that - they have lots of outputs (like the ones that talk to RAM for example) that are "always on" and piggy-backing them together results in the outputs of two chips trying to drive outwards at the same time. This is the kind of thing that makes circuits blow up...and that's exactly what would happen if you piggy-backed your PIC chips.


 * Worse still - back in the days of the Atari ST, chips didn't get very hot (there were no fans in the ST remember!) - mostly because they worked V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y by modern standards. Most modern computing devices generate significant heat and they rely on having decent airflow around them.  Piggybacking traps the heat from the bottommost chip - and may well be another reason why it would be damaged...although the PIC (being fairly slow and designed for low power applications) may not have that problem.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 02:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your response SteveBaker. I left out the part about the "flying" pins so the upper 512k could be tapped. What I am asking in regard to the PIC is whether any exist that are intentionally designed to be clustered in such a stacked manner? I mean I can already use the enable line (assuming a PIC has one) with a multiplexer chip to select which processor I want to use or memory bank, etc. I'm just looking for something a bit more plug and play. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.100.15.15 (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Harddrive Crashing?
I've recently (past week) been experiencing quite a few crashes on my computer. Programs, especially Firefox, crash randomly. Pidgin was having some problems with the MusicTracker plugin. Random BSODs too (stop code 0x000000C2 was the most recent). It's a Dell 9300 with Windows XP SP2. It's 3 years old. I tried reformatting and reinstalling Windows, and during the reinstallation, Windows had difficulty copying one file to the harddrive. I don't remember which file it was, but after retrying twice, it seemed to have copied correctly. Could my harddrive be failing? Is there anyway to check? Should I just buy a new hard drive to prevent any data loss? --Russoc4 (talk) 15:43, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * You might be right - but if I were you I'd do a comprehensive RAM test first. It could just as easily be a RAM fault.  Try to find a RAM test program that you can boot straight from a CD=ROM direct from the BIOS without loading Windows first - that allows the test to be performed without the Hard drive being involved at all...which makes for a more conclusive test.  SteveBaker (talk) 02:37, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Hard drive capacity corruption
I've recently had a problem with my hard drive. Some of the metadata seems to be corrupted (model number, serial number, firmware version, etc. show up with some correct characters and some random "&" "%" ")" characters). One of the things that seems to be corrupted is the capacity. This is a 45GB drive, but shows up as having 6GB under Linux and under most hard drive utilities. It seems to be reporting the wrong number of cylinders(?). However, IBM (the drive maker)'s own DFT program as well as Seagate's SeaTools see it correctly as a 45GB drive (maybe this is because they use LBA or something?). The SMART info seems to indicate that the health of the drive is good; and reading on the first 6GB doesn't show any errors. I believe that the data on the drive is intact and accessible, if I can only somehow convince the operating system to see it as a 45GB drive. i.e. I think that if the OS was convinced to read past 6GB, that it would still work perfectly. Is there a way to somehow override the drive capacity in Linux or other OS, so that I can, for example, use "dd" to copy data off of it, past what it thinks is the end, to a capacity that I specify? Thanks, --71.147.13.131 (talk) 18:59, 14 September 2008 (UTC)
 * You may find that the cable is not plugged in correctly or that there is noise appearing on it. Make sure that the connector cable is not running too close to other electrically noisy cables in the PC.  When I saw this before myself the hard drive was close to failure. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Did you install the OS recently? Going back and forth "the automatic partition thing" could cause something weird, along the lines of using only the half of the space allocated last time. --194.197.235.221 (talk) 08:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Upload
Sometimes when I'm uploading a file somewhere, the site lists me as uploading at speeds which are impossible to achieve. Recently it list me as uploading at 14MB/sec. What gives? --76.29.116.172 (talk) 23:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * "The site lists me"—what site? The site you are uploading to, or your browser, or what? --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)
 * The site may be telling you how fast the packets of data came in to their machine, and if they have a higher speed link, perhaps 100 meg, then the data may come into them in a burst, particularly if you are uploading a small file. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:07, 15 September 2008 (UTC)