Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 April 9

= April 9 =

mysql
hi, i want the coding of connection string and insert query of MySQl with .net framework. —Preceding unsigned comment added by VAIDEHI SMARTq (talk • contribs) 03:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Hope this helps. There are more links in our ADO.NET article. Jay (talk) 08:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * There's also www.connectionstrings.com. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 11:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

office automation
why is automation necessary in the following workplaces:

library

bank

payment department

examinations council

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.51.11 (talk) 12:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * It isn't. It is kinda handy, though. Algebraist 12:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * In a profit-seeking entity, it is necessary if competitors gain from it. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 12:10, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Could this be a homework question? -- Hoary (talk) 13:36, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * We have an article on office automation, which may serve as a definition (it's also the top Google search result). Our automation article has a section on "impact" too.  This should be good enough for a starting point, but we won't do your homework for you.  Cycle~ (talk) 14:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Google getting results that don't match (?) what I type
While researching to complete an article on a lock and dam, I searched Google this morning with the following words:"'beaver county times' merrill lock"Not finding anything useful, I added "dam" [without quotes, just by itself], and the number of results jumped from 342 to 367. I thought the idea was that Google found pages that displayed all of the typed words; but as I can't imagine that there are more pages with all six words than with just five of them, I'm confused. Can someone explain quickly what I'm misunderstanding? Nyttend (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've found this before. Some of the rerturned results are pages that have the search words in links to the page, so that might have something to do with it. LHMike (talk) 13:51, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Google result counts are an estimate: explanation. --205.174.162.243 (talk) 16:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "Estimate" is giving it too much credit. There are cases where it estimates 100,000 hits when the actual figure is closer to 100. For example, "regulatory region" and "regulatory sequence". -- BenRG (talk) 20:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Does SQL server have view constraints?
Does SQL server (2005) have view constraints? I'm not interested in the WITH CHECK OPTION or having it actually enforce the constraints, I'm more interested in being able to extract the metadata. I'd like to put a primary key (and not-null) constraint and a foreign key constraint on one column, and a not-null/unique constraint on another column. (haha you can do this with Oracle :)).--205.174.162.243 (talk) 15:50, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Knoppix and Virtual PC
I'm having trouble booting a Knoppix CD with a virtual machine under Virtual PC 2007. When I boot Knoppix 5.1.1, the Knoppix splash screen does appear, then the screen goes black and the Virtual PC window size gets larger, and a penguin appears in the upper left. Usually at this point the system appears to hang forever. Sometimes, it gives the "Welcome" string, says it's enabling DMA acceleration for hda and hdb, and then it gives an IO error when "Accessing KNOPPIX CD at /dev/hdb".

When I try typing "dos" from Knoppix's boot prompt, I get the error message, "Cannot load disk image (invalid file)?".

I've tried booting the physical CD and the iso image and gotten the same issue. One odd thing is that I've used Virtual PC's disk wizard to specify that the virtual disk image should be 20GB, but Windows reports the .vhd file to be 42K in size ... but I hadn't thought this would matter with a CD-booting Knoppix.

Thanks in advance for any help - Tempshill (talk) 16:14, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Postscript: I have been able to boot from an Ubuntu CD in this same Virtual PC setup.  Tempshill (talk) 22:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * ...Ubuntu ftw —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.106.235 (talk) 06:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

OpenOffice Writer Copright Symbol
When I type (c) into a sentence in OO writer, it autocorrects this into a copyright symbol. Would be great if that's what I wanted. However, I'm writing about a piece of legislation and I wish to mention sections and paragraphs e.g. section 4 (3) (c). I can't seem to turn it off! Fribbler (talk) 16:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm sure there's a technical way of doing this, but the following works: type 4(3)fc) and then go back and change the f to a ( ╟─ Treasury Tag ► contribs ─╢ 16:24, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * You can remove the autocorrect by going to Tools -> Autocorrect and click on the Replace tab. Just delete the autocorrect there. Livewireo (talk) 16:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * TreasuryTag's suggestion worked, albeit non technical :-). However, the replace tab itself contains nothing. No custom Autocorrects. Nor can I see it on the list in the Word Completion tab. Fribbler (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Still slightly non-technical... why don't you try creating a custom Autocorrect for (c) to (c) - 'replace' it with itself, see if that overrides whatever's causing the copyright symbol to appear. ╟─ Treasury Tag ► contribs ─╢ 16:34, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately not. I'd guess it was replacing (c) with (c) and then applying it's own autocorrect . Fribbler (talk) 16:43, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Look again in the "Replace" tab. Either it's there or you are using an odd version of OpenOffice. You'll also find various other horrors thereabouts. (About the first thing I do when installing OOo somewhere is to uncheck "Replace 1st with 1^st", a horrible notion that, like much that's bad in OOo, apes what's bad in MS Word.) -- Hoary (talk) 17:07, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I haver solved the mystery. My replace tab said "replacements and exceptions for language: English(Eire)" whereas I was typing my document in English(UK), where the copyright autocorrect exists. I changed the whole doc to Éire (why didn't they use "Ireland"? Éire is so Daily Mail) and problem is solved. Fribbler (talk) 17:21, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Another workaround could be to type (c) in Notepad, copy it, go over to OpenOffice, and paste it? 24.16.106.217 (talk) 17:35, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Yet another workaround would have been to do a global search and replace of © to (c) when you'd finished typing. --Sean 17:55, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Also, pressing Ctrl-Z after an autocorrect will undo it and stop it from happening again during the session. --jh51681 (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Internet connection sharing
I have a Windows XP computer with an ADSL internet connection and I'm trying to share that wirelessly with my Windows Vista laptop. I'm pretty sure I have all the settings correct on the XP machine with the internet connection shared over the wireless connection, and the Vista machine is connected to the ad hoc network and it's aquiring an IP address correctly (with correct default gateway, etc.), but Vista apparently can't see the internet connection, it says the wireless network is "Local only". Any ideas? Is there something I need to do to tell Vista it should look for an internet connection on that wireless network? Thanks! --Tango (talk) 19:32, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Just gots to [BestBuy] and gets a wifi router —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.106.235 (talk) 07:28, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I would love to, but I'm not allowed to change the way my grandfather's computer is set up too greatly or we'll worry him (or so I'm told...). --84.71.164.106 (talk) 16:45, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

DVD/CD-ROM Drive Name
I recently installed and played Rome: Total War under Sandboxie. Because all the changes to the disk were sandboxed, nothing was written the rest of my hard drive and I easily wiped off 2 GB of data in the sandbox today. However, now when I open "Computer" from the start menu or look at "Computer" from any Windows Explorer window, my DVD/CD-ROM is displayed as "DVD RW Drive (F:) SEGAROME" and it has the Rome: Total War icon next to it rather than the standard Vista CD drive icon. How do I revert to the old name and icon? [Old name was "DVD RW Drive (F:)" with the standard Vista CD drive icon]--Xp54321 (Hello! • Contribs ) 21:27, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Never mind. I fixed it myself. All you have to do is edit the registry. Create a text file like this:

[Change the file extension to .reg afterwards and the file is now a registry script that can be executed.]


 * This reset the drive name to "DVD RW Drive (F:)" and also reset the drive icon. This can be used to customize your optical drive names and also the icon for the drive. Simply point it at your preferred icon: @="youricon.ico" Don't forget: "Explorer\DriveIcons\YourDriveName\DefaultLabel" Otherwise it has no effect as you'd be renaming the wrong drive. ;)

Cheers! --Xp54321 (Hello! • Contribs ) 21:58, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

DHCP Problem
I have a Dell XPS running Windows Vista. I work in an environmental consulting firm. I travel a lot. I connect to an average of 5 different networks per month. 2 of these networks do not have a DHCP router. To connect to these i have set up the Alternate configuration for my NIC. I am having a problem when i try to connect to one of my networks that does have a DCHP router. When first plug in the network cable my computer takes a while trying to get an IP address before it tells me that it has Limited Connectivity. I have to "repair" the connection before it will finely grab an IP address from the DHCP router. This takes about 20 minutes and it really getting annoying. There is nothing wrong with my network cable or the cable going to the switch. There is nothing wrong with the DHCP server as my computer is the only one that has this problem (maybe because i am the only one on the network that has an Alternate Configuration). But the other computers on my network does take about 5 to 10 seconds to grab an ip address. This problem with my computer only happens when i try to connect to this one network, does not happen on any other network i have tried. This includes my network in Peru, Chile, My internet at home, The internet in hotels, The internet at internet cafes; They all work just fine. I suspect that the problem is with my DCHP router, i think that it's taking it's time to issue an IP address. So my question boils down to this: Is there a way that i can make Vista wait longer before trying the Alternate Configuration? Thank you. – Vector Eng. Inc.  21:52, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I might consider writing a little batch ("xxxx.bat" in a text editor like notepad) that does the following:


 * ipconfig /release
 * ipconfig /renew


 * Run the batch file when you first connect the the network and see if it gives you an address right away.NByz (talk) 02:27, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Why would your router take it's time to respond? Could it's speed be increased? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.30.106.235 (talk) 07:05, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This might be of some help.Spammeristatic07 (talk) 22:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu Question
In ubuntu when i type in 'ifconfig' it lists my network conections. My question is; Is there a way that i can change the name of one of my network cards? Right now my wifi card is named "Wlan0" and i would like to change it to "eth2". Thank you. – Elliott (Talk|Cont)   22:04, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I initially thought that the best way to do this might be by creating an alias (which is discussed in the ifconfig man page), but I think you might want to look at this instead, as it might be more directly what you're trying to do. Shadowjams (talk) 05:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu and Virtual PC and networking
I've installed Ubuntu 8.10 in my Virtual PC 2007 setup. I'm able to ping external websites by specifying their names ("ping www.yahoo.com" resolves to f1.www.vip.sp1.yahoo.com, for example, and it sends all the packets and shows the ping times) but Firefox and wget are never able to connect to websites. Firefox is "Waiting for www.yahoo.com" forever. Any ideas on how to troubleshoot this? Thanks in advance - Tempshill (talk) 22:20, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I am not sure what would be wrong but you should update your copy of ubutnu, you can do this from the command line: sudo apt-get update – Elliott (Talk|Cont)   23:26, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I downloaded it 2 days ago and doubt that an update is needed. I did try, and got an error staying it was unable to lock the list directory.  Tempshill (talk) 21:56, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I would strongly suggest you tried Ubuntu on other VM, like VMware Workstation (closed source, non-free) or VirtualBox (open-source and closed-source, but free/gratis), they are much better than Virtual PC... SF007 (talk) 03:52, 12 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I tried VirtualBox and it just works! Thank you!  Tempshill (talk) 23:17, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Random word generation
I've got an old handwritten text that I can only partially decipher. I thought that if I could find a way to generate all the possible combinations of words I could, by process of elimination, figure out what it is. Is there any way I could do this? I know roughly the length of the word, and what some of the letters are (It's something like "???i[n?]ly", where the ?s have no ascenders or descenders). Is there any easy way of doing this? 76.117.247.55 (talk) 23:33, 9 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Maybe a photo or screen shot of this text whould be very helpful. !– Elliott (Talk|Cont)   23:41, 9 April 2009 (UTC)!
 * You might consider a crossword dictionary for this. Good luck! — Zazou 23:49, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * You could try to get a large (complete?) list of words in the relevant language (from Wikisource perhaps? Or the index of Wikipedia, if that's feasible), learn regexp, and search for the regexp equivalent of "???i[n?]ly" in the large list of words. I'm sure a simple Perl script could then output all the matches. I don't know the exact details of these things, though, but to my eyes they look pretty simple to learn if you're determined. Jørgen (talk) 23:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't want to ask assistance with the word itself, only to try and find out if this is possible. I will try the xword puzzle solver though. Thanx, 76.117.247.55 (talk) 23:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Less information has been used to successfully uncover redacted text . You might want to review the field of document analysis of handwritten manuscripts. –  7 4   03:08, 10 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Using the online crossword dictionary and the criteria above then for the version without the contents of the brackets the results are (sorry output was in uppercase): AIRILY COSILY COZILY EASILY EERILY MAZILY NOSILY OOZILY RACILY ROSILY SEXILY SICILY TINILY VERILY WARILY WAVILY WAXILY WIRILY - assuming that "z" is written without a descender. For the version that includes "n" alone then only one word is returned: PLAINLY but as this is ruled out as it has a descender. It could also be a name such as Emily. If the ? after the "n" signifies a character, then all the words returned include ascenders or descenders. You may also be interested in regular expressions. 89.243.179.4 (talk) 00:03, 15 April 2009 (UTC)