Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 August 22

= August 22 =

How to really search for an exact phrase on the internet
I just searched for the phrases "Made in China (E)" and "Made in China (W)" (with quotes, as in http://www.google.com/search?q="Made+in+China+(E)" ), and both Yahoo and Google just take the parenthesis out and seem to take neither the space nor the characters literal, so they'll match such strings as "made in China,e.g." or "MADE IN CHINA è un marchio di fabbrica". Is there any way to really only get the pages that contain this exact phrase? &mdash; Sebastian 01:28, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I don't think it is possible to do that (if anyone else knows a way to do so, please let us know). What you can do, though, is tell Google not to include certain phrases, such as  http://www.google.com/search?q="Made+in+China+(E)" - "e.g." - "fabbrica" .  I did this when I was searching for info on the mathematical term "matrix" and kept getting hits for the movies.  A "matrix" - "keanu" - "film" - "movie" search did a much better job for me. StuRat (talk) 13:20, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Apparently you're only allowed _ and &. See http://www.marketingshift.com/2006/3/google-special-character-search-string.cfm 81.131.6.207 (talk) 17:32, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Thank you, that's interesting! &mdash; Sebastian 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The replies provide two links: http://www.google.com/apis/reference.html, which is generally interesting, but doesn't say anything about this particular issue, and http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=430 which is 404 now. But it's not just Google: Yahoo seems to have the same problem. &mdash; Sebastian 19:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Simply search "Made In China (E)", including speech marks. 84.92.105.93 (talk) 11:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That's what I did - it's what I meant by "with quotes" above. Yes, it should work, but it doesn't. &mdash; Sebastian 15:05, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Download an entire YouTube channel
I want to download all of somebody's videos. There are 435. What is the most efficient way to do this? Mac Davis (talk) 01:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid you'll have to download each one seperately using a youtube video downloader. Do you use firefox? Warrior  4321  04:18, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I know enough ways to download an individual video. I was hoping there was a batch tool of some sort. Mac Davis (talk) 05:39, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Here is a command line youtube video downloader. Here is a youtube channel's URL:

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BarackObamadotcom&view=videos&start=0
 * Here is what each video link looks like in that channel page:

href="/watch?v=R3XW5XQLnk8&feature=channel_page"
 * so to get the whole channel, just do something like:


 * Untested! --Sean 12:49, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Microsoft Word keyboard thing
So, what’s happened is that at work, I got a new (used) computer, but in Microsoft Word, some of the keyboard shortcuts (Control + whatever) have gotten changed around. Instead of Ctrl+c giving me the copy function it prints the character “ç” for some reason. It’s the same for Ctrl+a, instead of selecting everything, it prints “à,” and Ctrl+ gives “î” instead of italics. There are probably some other ones. It’s really annoying. Anyway, how can I stop this and bring everything back to normal? I’ve looked in the help file and online, but apparently I haven’t typed in the right words or something. Anyway, any help you have will be greatly appreciated. Thanks. 169.231.32.17 (talk) 08:07, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It sounds like your Ctrl key now has the function of an AltGr key. Have you installed the computer from scratch, or did you take someone else's installation? If the latter, then maybe that person messed around with the keyboard layout. There are programs, such as Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator and Wyrdplay, with which you can change the individual key settings. Maybe you can reset it by going into Control Panel -> Regional and Language Options -> Languages tab -> Details -> under "Installed services", select "English" -> click Add button -> check "Keyboard layout/IME" -> in the dropdown, select another layout (presumably one of the "United Kingdom" or "United States" settings, depending on your preference). &mdash; Sebastian 19:23, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, I overlooked that you wrote "Microsoft Word". Do the keys behave as expected in other programs? In that case, it seems as if the settings in Word have been changed. Go to Tools -> Customize -> Keyboard button -> Reset All. (Before you reset all, it may be wise to check if the keys are really reassigned in word by testing them. Do that as follows: Select the box under "Press new shortcut key" and check what it says below after "currently assigned to". If that's the correct function, then the key has not been reassigned in Word. &mdash; Sebastian 19:29, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm pretty sure it's the second one, but in either cse, I now know what to do. Thanks so much. 169.231.32.17 (talk) 19:35, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

Adobe's code signing cert revoked?
Hi, I'm trying to install Flash on XP. The installer downloaded wouldn't run, saying "You must unblock this publisher". Digging further, I found that the code signing cert issued to Adobe Systems Incorporated serial ‎76 57 f9 cb ca c1 ea 95 04 83 8e 3e d9 35 5d 2d is "revoked by its certification authority". Anyone know why? Should I just remove the revocation and install it anyway? 121.72.171.75 (talk) 10:30, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * FWIW, I can't reproduce this under Windows 7. The installer runs fine. — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 01:45, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK this is weird, Youtube works fine now, no need to reinstall Flash. Thanks. 121.72.171.75 (talk) 09:14, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

How to reinstall Windows XP - where can I get CDs?
I have MS Windows XP which I have a license for. I have no install CDs - either I lost them or I suspect I never had any. How can I get them - will MS give them to me? Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.49.27.114 (talk) 11:31, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Contact whoever you bought the computer from (assuming it came with XP?) - They may be able to sell you a "media kit" for a small fee. ZX81  talk  11:53, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Check first whether there is a recovery partition. 121.72.171.75 (talk) 12:16, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Download them —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 05:34, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I removed a direct link to a probable copyright violation above which is against policy Nil Einne (talk) 18:11, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I linked to a search engine, not any copyright works directly. My link was no more of a copyright violation than linking to a google search string.
 * That's a highly inaccurate description of what you did and your link was most definitely a link to a probable copyright violation. In any case, this is clearly OT here so I won't discuss it anymore here Nil Einne (talk) 19:05, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * My link was to a page on mininova.org, a simple html page with text and a few images. There is zero copyright work in that page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.136 (talk) 19:19, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but we're not up for any sort of pointer to a copyright violation. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:09, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * may be of use Nil Einne (talk) 20:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)


 * To clarify the "recovery partition" mention by 121 above &mdash; HP, for example, does this; the hard disk is partitioned so C: is most of the drive, and D: is the "recovery partition". You are supposed to get 3 DVD+R discs when you open up your computer, and run a utility that ships on the HP's hard disk which will use the data on the D: drive to create boot discs you can use to start from scratch, erasing everything on the hard disk and returning it to the way it was when you first opened the box.  (They make you burn these discs rather than ship the discs in the box, because, like all computer manufacturers, HP is trying to shave every cent off of the cost of the computer.)  I think you can boot from the D: drive, too, though I'm unsure whether HP's recovery partition lets you.  Anyway, look to see if your computer has a similar D: (or other letter) drive that looks like it might be a recovery partition, and you may be able to boot from it or otherwise recover the C: drive with it &mdash; check the website of your computer manufacturer.  Tempshill (talk) 05:27, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Testing a web based software Vs testing a conventional software
Its not about comparing two types of softwares that do the same. It is about differences in testing methodologies. Can you please say the differences in testing a web based software (say a pixlr) and its software counterpart (say gimp)?. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.220.46.25 (talk) 13:06, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * With any web-based software, I would expect the performance to vary dramatically based on the current connection speed. Therefore, you'd need to test to see how it handles that.  For example, Netflix streaming videos dynamically adjust the image quality based on the current connection speed.  Software that doesn't do that may become unusable if the speed drops dramatically, as it often does.  Netflix also has an example of how not to do things, on their queue on their website.  When you select the widget to move a movie to the top of the queue, it appears to move it up one position in the queue, refresh the page, then move it up another position, refresh the page, etc., until it gets to the top.  This type of inefficient programming may work fine on a dedicated computer, but not when dealing with web connections of suspect speed.  Instead, the obvious solution is to move the movie to the top of the queue and only refresh the page once, instead of up to 500 times.


 * So, any web-based testing should be run with both high-speed and low-speed connections. I'd even test on dial-up, to see what happens. StuRat (talk) 22:43, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd add that testing should not only be high-bandwidth vs. low-bandwidth, but also high-latency vs. low-latency. Another awful area of testing is that you do not control what browser your users are using.  There will be bugs viewing the web-based software in Internet Explorer 6 that do not exist when using Mozilla Firefox 2, and probably vice versa.  Tempshill (talk) 03:42, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Not just bugs, but varying levels of implementation of javascript and the document object model amongst others.
 * A related question came up a few moons ago about how to find what language a user is using within a browser - the actual implementation of this is more complex that might be thought see - in this case the way the navigator. object works depends on what browser is being used - I imagine there are many more (I'd call this a bug). Assuming you are aware of these issues it should be a design problem rather than testing..83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:44, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

glDeleteTextures
I've been doing some OpenGL programming (in C, no garbage collection). Will I be leaking graphics card texture memory if I don't call this function at the end of my program? The examples I've been working from don't use it, and the GL redbook only mentions it as useful for freeing up memory to put more textures in. 81.131.6.207 (talk) 17:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * You won't be leaking memory. The gpu driver will get informed when your program terminates and free (if it's not buggy) all resources allocated by you. --194.197.235.63 (talk) 18:10, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Excellent! Thank you. 81.131.6.207 (talk) 18:36, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

chess script programming
is there any way to change the script for the chess game that comes with apple computers? I want to tinker a bit but can't find it's programming... Thanks for any help   81.34.109.174 (talk) 17:41, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
 * It's a compiled program, not a script. You can get the source code here.  --Sean 18:51, 22 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Specifically, here — Matt Eason (Talk &#149; Contribs) 01:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)