Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 April 12

= April 12 =

Wiki-table syntax
This is more a request for assistance than a question. I'd like to remake the table at Chinese pronouns (which I didn't make) in a vein similar to this one. I've looked at Help:Table but am still too inexperienced with wiki syntax to attempt it. There are apparently HTML-to-wiki conversion tools but no English-to-HTML tools for those with no background in HTML. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Recognizance (talk) 04:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This is indeed not a question. You should probably ask at the Village Pump or perhaps at WP:HELPDESK. SteveBaker (talk) 06:46, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Replied on talk page. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 14:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Resetting my homepage
I am trying to reset my homepage on IE8 with a couple of issues: First, my intended homepage is google.com, but for some reason that is completely ignored and instead, IE always opens with Internet Explorer 7: Get It Now. Second, when I try to change the homepage by going in Tools -> Internet Options, the option for setting my homepage is inexplicably disabled with a message that says "Some settings are managed by your system administrator". I AM my system administrator, my computer is not part of a domain or a group, so what the hell? That happens only on my administrator account, IE functions normally on my limited account. I use Windows XP SP3. -- Wh ip it !  Now whip it good! 06:25, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I dont know if this would work but try typeing in about:config in your address bar... this works in FireFox. From there you should beable to change the settings. Alternately go to "c:/documents and settings/YOUR USER NAME/application settings/Internet Explorer" from what i remember there should be a file or folder there that will house your user settings for internet explorer... try playing around in there and see if anything sticks out as being usefull. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.106.235 (talk) 06:59, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Alternatively, switch to Firefox ;) — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 13:00, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Law 87 of The Intertubes; if someone says "Internet Explorer" then, no matter how irrelevant to the discussion, someone will say "Get Firefox". Vimescarrot (talk) 18:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * By an amazing coincidence, Law 88 of The Intertubes says; if someone says "Get Firefox" - you should immediately do what they suggest. SteveBaker (talk) 18:55, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * And Law 89 is that everyone should follow SteveBaker's advice.  Genius  101 Guestbook  19:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * People, I have Firefox. I just don't want some suspicious website making its way through ANY of my browsers. -- Wh ip it !  Now whip it good! 22:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * My guess would be that there's a value somewhere in the Windows registry telling IE to force this as the homepage for admin accounts, presumably to encourage adoption of IE7. You could try searching for that string using Regedit to see if you can find it - although you run the risk of messing up your system if you edit or delete the wrong thing. Also, the value in the registry may be a redirect URL that you don't notice, so you won't find the full URL anyway.
 * I suppose something like Ad-aware or Spybot S&D just might be able to reset it, since hijacking the homepage is frequently exploited by adware.
 * The other option would be to follow Microsoft's advice and install IE7, assuming you haven't actually already done so - it really is miles ahead of IE6 in all sorts of respects, and as a web developer I would love to see the eradication of IE6 with all its eccentricities! The only downside is that the pared down user interface can take a bit of getting used to if you're familiar with the toolbars and menus presented by IE6. - IMSoP (talk) 13:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The asker has IE8. — Twas Now ( talk • contribs • e-mail ) 14:22, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * D'oh! That's what skim-reading does for you! - IMSoP (talk) 16:19, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Does installing Visual C++ 2008 express edition interfere in any way with an existing Visual C++ 6.0 installation?
Title says it all. Anyone here tried this? I don't want to mess up my existing installation, but would like to try out Visual C++ 2008 express edition. --NorwegianBluetalk 14:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I've never found it safe to install a "limited" version X+1 over an unlimited version X, especially a Microsoft product. It's called "asking for trouble". --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 17:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure VC++ 2008 won't conflict with VC++ 6; they are almost completely different products. It's more likely that VC++ 6, being so old, would interfere with your OS (which I'm assuming to be XP or Vista) by installing old DLLs. --wj32 t/c 03:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I have Visual Basic 6, Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008 all on my Vista laptop and have not had problems continuing to use Visual Basic 6 for continued development. (Although I should note that Visual Basic .NET (and later) is esentially a different language from Visual Basic 6.)  I believe there is still a large base of Visual Studio 6 developers out there who have transitioned to the .NET environment, but who also still maintain legacy applications, so I suspect that the two environments coexist in general.  Minor conflicts such as file extension associations exist (clicking on a .cpp mat bring up the later version), but for project based development, this should not be a significant problem.  And I would doubt that even Microsoft would engineer the express version to introduce conflicts that don't exist with the full version.  Bottom line, you should be OK.  Worst case - you have to uninstall Visual C++ 2008 Express and might have to reinstall Visual C++ 6.0. -- Tcncv (talk) 04:48, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, all. I took the chance and installed it. I've so far only tested at the "Hello world" level, no obvious problems. --NorwegianBluetalk 21:01, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have been running VS6 and VS2005 on XP without any problems at all. But if you care at all about standards compatibility, do not use VC6. decltype (talk) 09:34, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Bash script to install file to all $HOMEs (Linux/Ubuntu)
Hi, I am currently trying to make a bash script that would install a script to the "homes" of all users in the system (part of App Runner). I was told the best way was to use the /etc/passwd to check the current home of all users. Any ideas how to do it? (samples, please?) "Sample" of what I wanted: if  then cp /var/myscript.sh  fi Instead of "if" a "while" or "for" or "until" are also fine (as long as it works properly, of course!). Thanks Hacktolive (talk) 15:21, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * the easiest way to break /etc/passwd apart is with awk. You need to skip comment lines and non-users in your environment e.g. uid < 100

awk -F: '/^[^#]/ && $3 >= 100 {print $6}' /etc/passwd | while read homedir; do cp /var/myscript.sh $homedir; done
 * $3 represents the third passwd file field (uid) and $6 is the sixth (home directory)
 * Awm (talk) 16:06, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * [simultaneous post via edit conflict]
 * Well, the basic requirement is to extract the 6th field of /etc/passwd into a local variable, using something like awk or cut. Something like the following should work:

/etc/passwd is guaranteed to be the authoritative source for this information
 * This will include a whole load of "home directories" that you almost certainly don't want to mess with - on my system, the results included /, /bin, /sbin, and /dev/null!
 * You might want to think of some criteria for identifying "real" users. One thought would be to filter out users whose login shell is not a shell (system users will often have /bin/false or similar in that field) - a quick and dirty way would be to see if the shell's name (and therefore the whole /etc/passwd entry) ends in "sh":

= 100 does not eliminate all non-users. However, checking UID >= 1000 eliminates all but "nobody" (UID 65534); I don't know if this is what was meant, and is standard? - IMSoP (talk) 16:17, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry to keep talking to myself, but User identifier (Unix) says that the range of IDs reserved for system users, and the assignment for nobody, varies by Unix/Linux flavour/distribution. If you are specifically targeting Ubuntu systems, you might be able to find its conventions and write your script based on that (probably 0-999 are reserved, as that is mentioned in our article as being Debian's convention). - IMSoP (talk) 16:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

__________

Thanks for all the replies. I have found an easier way to find out it it is a real user: only real users have "/bin/bash" in the /etc/passwd (I tried it and works!!!) But I have some more questions: Is it also possible to put this expression ( awk -F: '/^[^#]/ && $3 >= 100 {print $6}' /etc/passwd | while read homedir; do cp /var/myscript.sh $homedir; done )in a format like: while do           done (samples appreciated...) One more thing... I figured out that I can check if the user is in the group "users" (therefore, and easier way to see if it is a "real user"!):
 * Read the file /etc/group
 * Read the group ID (not user id!) of the group "users"
 * in the script that reads the file /etc/passwd with awk, I could simply do an "if" to check if the group ID of the user matches the group ID of the group "users"  <<--- This is the step I do not know how to do... any ideas?

But thanks, this was great help. Hacktolive (talk) 01:58, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, the "only real users have bash" was my thinking too - I just generalised it to "ending in sh" so that it wouldn't disadvantage anyone who'd set their default shell to, say, zsh or ksh. The awk equivalent would be:

</etc/passwd awk -F: '/^[^#]/ && /sh$/ {print $6}' | while read homedir; do echo -n "Doing something with $homedir... "; echo OK; done
 * To find out who's in the "users" group, you would need to look both at the default group for each user (which is in /etc/passwd) and in the list of users who are additionally in that group (which is the last field of /etc/group). Alternatively, there is a command  which will give you the list of all groups a user is in. However, I'm not convinced this is any more portable than the UID &ge; 1000 check - the Gentoo system I've got to hand has no members in the "users" group at all.
 * As for the command structure, the only difference is that the word "while" isn't at the beginning of the line, because we're extracting the information from the file first, and then using the while loop to go through those results. I'm sure you could re-arrange things using a nested expression instead of a pipe if you really wanted to, but I don't see any advantage.
 * The key point is that the word after "while read" is the name of the variable the home directory is being read into; so if you say <tt>while read homedir</tt>, you need to refer to <tt>$homedir</tt> somewhere in the body of the loop. - IMSoP (talk) 18:31, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

___ Damn, this was hard for a person not expert in bash... But I finaly I was able to make it work! Thanks to all! Hacktolive (talk) 19:07, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Connecting to dynamic ip
I have a computer with a dynamic ip address which I need to connect to from a remote location. How can I do this, preferably for free. Is DynDNS the way to go? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, it is the "way to go". There is also "No-ip". For me the main problem is not the dynamic IP, it is the router/firewall/etc... I recommend you first try to connect using the dynamic IP (put it on paper, ask a friend to tell you that by phone, etc...), and if it works, only then try something like DynDNS or No-IP SF007 (talk) 15:53, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ok, I think I'll need to configure the router, as even entering the ip address does not connect to the server running on the other computer. Any advice on how I do this? Thanks —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 16:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * What exactly are you trying to do? accessing files or running some server? (HTTP or something like that?). You can't just access the files on the PC, using the IP, you need some kind of server (VNC, or even built in tools of the OS: "remote desktop" on windows). And then what you need to do is something called "port forwarding": the way to do it depends on the router, you have to search for that in the interwebs... SF007 (talk) 16:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm trying to set up a remote desktop on Windows Xp, from a previous question I asked here. I'm using TightVNC which is just awesome (I tested it on localhost). I've set a DynDNS account and have the updater software running on the pc, so I'm guessing it's just the router now which is the problem. I don't have direct access to it but I know the password —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 17:23, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You need to enable port forwarding on your router for the two ports that TightVNC uses; see the TightVNC FAQ. –  7 4   20:15, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * If you have some kind of web site that your computer can get to then you can have it copy the IP address there either whenever the DHCP server changes it - or (say) once every 10 minutes regardless. I used to do this and had the computer write a file to my web site that said:

'''                <HTML><BODY> <A HREF="http://xxx.xx.xx.xx">My Computer is at xxx.xx.xx.xx!</A></BODY></HTML> '''
 * ...(where the 'x's were the current IP address) so I could just visit that page and click on the "My Computer!" link to get to it's local HTTP server or cut/paste the IP address for some other reason.
 * SteveBaker (talk) 18:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * To the OP: If you have Internet Explorer and don't mind using it, I would recommend LogMeIn Free.  It doesn't require you to do any tinkering with the router or IP addresses; your computer automatically reports its address every time it boots up.  In my experience, it's as fast as VNC but offers more features (like recording remote control sessions or emergency reboots).  --Bowlhover (talk) 20:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Weird computer video drawing thing
What is the name of the phenomenon seen here and what are the most frequent causes under Windows XP? Seans Potato Business 17:27, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Don't know the name, but you've got a window open that's hung -- not refreshing itself -- so it can't fix the "damage" when you drag a window over it. --jpgordon&#8711;&#8710;&#8711;&#8710; 17:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Aww man this happens so often with my computer. Sometimes it corrects itself but usually I have to end task it. Kinda reminds me of the old windows solitaire game when you win and all the cards jump out like that —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 17:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * The cause is that the window is not being redrawn by the application program - but the window frame is being updated by the OS. When you move or resize the window, you leave behind the previous window frame in the pixels inside the window.  I don't know of any name for this phenomenon - but mostly it's caused by either a VERY slow computer that's not giving enough time to the application to get it's work redone - or by a buggy application that's locked up somehow without crashing out.  This problem isn't specific to Windows XP - and you can even see it happen under (for example) Linux - although simple or slow Linux applications can minimize this by requesting that the windowing system 'retain' the image of the window contents and handle window motion without requiring the application to repaint the window. SteveBaker (talk) 18:37, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * The name I know for it is just what jpgordon called it &mdash; damage. That's the word used, for instance, in the AWT documentation.  --Tardis (talk) 15:19, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Visual artifact may fit the bill for a name. Nanonic (talk) 00:09, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Sounds
Where can I download the Jungle, Musica, Robotz, and Utopia sound themes that came with Windows 9x? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:30, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Hearts
I'm trying to play a network game of Hearts. Since XP and Vista don't have the network version, I downloaded a network version onto my XP computer and my Vista laptop. But I would like to know how I can get network play working. And another question: why did they even remove the network play? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * If you're talking about the Hearts games that comes with Windows, I was under the impression that the network play option was something they intended to some day offer but never fully implemented. Thus they eventually dropped it from the menu entirely.  If you want to play Hearts with others over the Internet, I suggest you go to Pogo.com. StuRat (talk) 09:50, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

E-mail
I keep getting e-mails entitled "How to Get a Girl to Do Anything and Everything" or something of the sort. Though I cannot read the e-mails, I know I have them because of a message saying they were blocked. I can't find any news stories on this, so what is with these e-mails? Why am I even getting them? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * It's called spam and you're hardly alone in getting them. The article on Anti-spam techniques may help you in stopping them. -- Wh ip it !  Now whip it good! 23:02, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

DosBox
How can I avoid that "Mounting C:\ Is Not Recommended" message that DosBox gives when you mount your entire C:\ drive? And why don't they want you to mount your whole drive anyway? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:29, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Any part of the drive that is mounted may be potentially altered by the program. You do not want your system files altered.  They are on the C: drive.  So, the program is attempting to protect your from yourself by warning you not to mount a drive containing your system files. --  k a i n a w &trade; 23:12, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Youtube
Is there a way to view the country flags in Youtube users' profiles that used to be next to country names? For some reason, they removed those flags. Why? And, as I said before, is there a way to view them? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:34, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Windows
Whenever someone lists some versions of Windows, why is Windows 2000 sometimes left out? And why is it left out more often than Windows ME is? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 22:48, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Windows 2000 was not a "personal" version of Windows. It was a server version (like Windows NT).  When listing versions of Windows that people would have installed on their home PC, Windows ME is a possibility, but Windows 2000 is very rare. --  k a i n a w &trade; 23:11, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Er, well, slightly. Back in 2001 or so I and most people I knew had 2000 installed on our home computers, and only two I can think of used it as a server. (ME was dismissed as a joke, with no advantage over 2000 and some major disadvantages.) Microsoft was marketing 2000 to companies and people wearing suits and going to conferences, ME to nuclear families gazing in awe and delight at their one CRT. (The cheapest version of 2000 was pompously called "Professional".) Perhaps elsewhere in the world people consumed these advertising cliches seriously. In reality, you could of course use 2000 for Tetris and the viewing of pr0n if you wished, but you'd have had to be perverse (or underinformed) to trust your biznis to ME. -- Hoary (talk) 23:42, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes, I'd agree with this, and add that at the time I built my computer, Windows XP was just released, and viewed with suspicion just as Vista is (in terms of stability, compatibility, etc). There was no way Win98 or WinME were a better choice than XP, but 2000 was, at the time, a stable option.
 * Nonetheless, the idea that the Windows NT line was not "consumer ready" until Windows XP is probably the reason Windows 2000 would be left out of certain consumer-oriented version lists. - IMSoP (talk) 22:07, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Malware
Why does most malware originate from poor countries? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 23:14, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * What makes you assume most malware originates from poor countries? It originates from criminals.  As for the servers that the malware are launched from, they have a tendency to be from China, mainly due to lack of government/police control over the servers. --  k a i n a w &trade; 23:18, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I thought most of it originated from Russia. Yakeyglee (talk) 00:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Wordpad
How can I change WordPad's default font? 58.165.25.29 (talk) 23:35, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You can't (unless you want to decompile the program to assembly and hack the assembly language to have it load a different font). -- k a i n a w &trade; 23:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, I suppose you could copy another font file over the font file Windows uses for WordPad -- mine appears to default to Arial -- but this would also affect plenty of other things. It's most likely a bad idea. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 13:55, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * One workaround is to set up the font you want to use in the empty document when you first open it. A fancier workaround is to save a file called Blank or Template, containing only one full stop, formatted to the font and size you want to use. Put it on the Desktop or Task Bar, so you open Wordpad by clicking on the Template file. As soon as it opens, File Save As to the name you want for the new file. This will then use the Template file settings, while keeping your Template file clean, for endless re-use. (Backspacing over that one full stop will lose the format, so keep it for the end of the first sentence).The default is probably in the Registry somewhere, I'll come back with it if and when I find it. KoolerStill (talk) 05:44, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Backup RAZR contacts to computer (preferably something involved with gmail/google)
So I'm worried about eventually losing/breaking my phone (like everyone seems to) and I can't afford to lose some of the numbers I have.

I'd like ot find a way to back them up, preferably to my gmail contacts. Also, if possible in a fashion I could transfer them back to some/most phones.

Is there any free way of doing this at all?

Thank you very much guys (and gals), I appreciate all of your help here.

Chris M. (talk) 23:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Ask your cell phone provider. My Verizon account has a feature exactly like this.  It backs up my contacts once a day.  And when I got a new phone last year, I just had to go through a couple menus on the phone to download my contacts to the new phone.  Dismas |(talk) 00:39, 13 April 2009 (UTC)
 * If your computer has Bluetooth and your cell phone provider has not disabled it, you may be able to push transfer the contacts from your phone to your computer via OBEX. Also, some computers have software that will copy all of your contacts from the phone to the computer and viceversa (iSync comes to mind). You might want to give this a try. Tito xd (?!? - cool stuff) 01:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

(Unicode query)
҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿ ̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿

Does anybody know what type of symbols those are and what they are used for and why when they are typed pressing backspace makes the cursor go both to the left and the right? The text also sometimes goes vertical. It's very weird. It's behavior is really hard to describe. My friend and I have been discussing it and haven't been able to figure anything out about them. And if this may help, I am using Firefox 3. Does anybody know anything?--Yakeyglee (talk) 00:14, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿ ̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉҉҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜ ̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉ ̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉ ̒̓̔̕̚ ̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̕̚̕̚ ̕̚̕̚ ̔̕̚̕̚҉ ҉̵̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̊̋̌̍̎̏̐̑̒̓̔̿̿̿ ̕̚̕̚͡ ͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟҉͡҉҉ ̵̡̢̛̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠͇̊̋̌̍̎̏̿̿̿̚ ҉ ҉҉̡̢̡̢̛̛̖̗̘̙̜̝̞̟̠̖̗̘̙


 * See this previous discussion. --wj32 t/c 01:52, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * If you ever want to examine a set of Unicode characters, one by one, you can try my simple Unicode editor Rejbrand Text Editor, which will display all Unicode characters (and tell you their codepoint, name, and block), but will treat all of them like normal characters, so that keyboard commands will still work as usual in such extreme cases like this one. By the way, the RD and even its history (due to the edit summary) is quite messed up by these characters! --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't understand, it displays perfectly well for me, no weird backspace stuff or anything. ‪‪‪ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.87 (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2009 (UTC)