Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 December 16

= December 16 =

Eventservice.exe
On my new notebook, on start|all programs is a thing called eventservice.exe. What is this please? DuncanHill (talk) 00:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Can you check the location of the target of the service?Samineru (talk) 04:32, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * If I knew what you meant then probably! DuncanHill (talk) 13:14, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * He probably wants to know the path of the application, e.g. "C:\Program files\Some product\eventservice.exe". In addition, right click on eventservice.exe, select Properties and the Information tab. There you can find information about the manufacturer, the application description, version and so on. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 13:34, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's at "C:\Program Files\OEM\EventService\EventService.exe", and described as "Notebook EventService". DuncanHill (talk) 14:05, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * FYI, OEM means "original equipment manufacturer", and probably refers to the company that made your computer. --Sean 15:19, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The best way to find out would be to disassemble it in IDA Pro. Let us now what you find out.--Drknkn (talk) 07:26, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You want me to download and run an exe file I've never heard of from an unnamed site with no documentation? No thanks. DuncanHill (talk) 15:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Then perhaps you should use Google? I'll help you out on this one: . That wasn't too hard, was it?--Drknkn (talk) 16:31, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I did do a web search, and as with the results you linked to, I couldn't find anything that actually explains what it is.

Successor
Will Wikipedia have a successor? jc iindyysgvxc  (my contributions) 05:53, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Do not ask for us to predict the future. --  k a i n a w &trade; 12:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In addition to what Kainaw said, it all depends on what you mean by "successor". Wikipedia isn't going anywhere, and there is no theoretical reason why it cannot continue indefinitely. So in some sense, Wikipedia is Wikipedia's successor. Also keep in mind that, due to the free license of Wikipedia, the content can be forked and reused by anyone. So even if the Wikimedia foundation closes, someone is likely to take the database dump of Wikipedia and set up another "Free Encyclopedia", which will effectively be Wikipedia, even though the name and the organizational structure is different. That said, Wikipedia is going strong, and such a replacement is unlikely anytime in the near future. "... and your |your donation can help keep it that way!" -- 128.104.112.87 (talk) 20:29, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Why should Wikipedia need a successor? Wikipedia is fine as it is. J I P  | Talk 21:13, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Videojug offers a huge collection of educational and informative videos from different people (and Youtube has lots as well, as well as the more popular videos of cats falling over). If you believe moving images are a successor to the written word as a way to offer useful information, sites like that could qualify. --Pleasantman (talk) 16:39, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Running Noise Ninja on 64-bit Linux?
I downloaded the trial version of Noise Ninja, but it doesn't even start up. I get an error message:. This could be because I am running a 64-bit system but Noise Ninja is only available as a 32-bit version. If that's the case, can I somehow emulate a 32-bit system so Noise Ninja would run? J I P | Talk 06:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No, the problem seems to be that it can't find the C++ Standard Library which the binary was linked with. This probably means that you don't have that version of libstdc++ installed.  Find a package which provides it and install it; for Debian-based distros that'd probably be libstdc++5.  (The other possibility is that the library is there but the program can't find it for some reason, in which case you may have to adjust the library search path.  See e.g.  for details.)  —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 14:49, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't have libstdc++.so.5 but I do have libstdc++.so.6, both 32-bit and 64-bit versions. I guess that won't do, though, I need the 5 version. How do I install it? I am running Fedora, not Debian.  didn't find anything, at least.  J I P  | Talk 20:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

OK, with some Googling I found a website with RPMs providing the correct version of libstdc++:. I installed the correct version (Fedora 9 for x86_64) and Noise Ninja started up all OK. I made my first try intuitively without reading any documentation. All the standard controls were easy to find, but it took me some time to find out how to actually make it do something. Eventually I found out what I have to do: This will make Noise Ninja remove noise based on an automatically generated default profile. If I try to remove noise without first generating a profile then it won't actually change anything, because it doesn't know what to change. The unregistered version of Noise Ninja has the "save image" function crippled. If I were only working with images that fit the screen this wouldn't be a problem, because like most modern OSes, Fedora 9 comes with a "capture screenshot" function as standard, but the photographs my camera takes are about 5.65 times as large as my screen. J I P | Talk 19:40, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) Open an image
 * 2) Go to "noise profiler" and select "profile image"
 * 3) Go to "noise filter" and select "remove noise"

Problem with Gmail in google chrome.
Hi all,

I am facing a strange problem while composing mail in Gmail. Whenever i type anything, the words appear with an underline(to indicate incorrect spelling) even though the words are spellt correctly. If I right click on the word to correct it the Chrome crashes. The message says "Whoa, Chromes has crashed Restart now", or somethin like that :D

The problem does not appear with IE, have not tried Firefox.

Any clue whatsoever? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.227.79.2 (talk) 09:31, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * What version of chrome do you have? You might want to switch to the latest version or downgrade. My version of chrome from here works fine. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 15:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * In Google Chrome, I clicked the wrench menu, then Help, searched for spell check crash and found this: Spell-check crash. --Bavi H (talk) 02:46, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Remote desktop
Hey,

I'm looking for a way to connect from a win7 computer to win vista with only an IP address. So that I can remotely control the vista pc from the win7 one.

Any ideas? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.181.170.7 (talk) 11:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * I dont know about built-in applications, but you can probably use VNC. Lukipuk (talk) 11:55, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * An IP address is more than enough for Remote Desktop, but if it's not working then it sounds like on the Vista machine you'll need to open/forward TCP port 3389 on your router/firewalls so that the Windows 7 machine can connect. ZX81  talk  12:37, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * You obviously need to activate it on the Windows Vista computer too Nil Einne (talk) 12:52, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * That's a good point! I made the classic mistake of assuming it was already turned on, but I forgot that it's not on by default. More information on enabling remote desktop can be found here. ZX81  talk  13:18, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * This says that remote desktop doesn't work if the host is using home premium, as you can imagine, that is my situation.  Any way around this?  Chris M. (talk) 20:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Not legally, at least with Remote Desktop proper. You could use other remoting technologies, but part of the SKU differentiation between editions of Vista is the ability to use it as a RD server. Business, Enterprise and Ultimate support it, Home editions do not. If you wish to use Remote Desktop, the legal way to enable support is to upgrade your SKU. It's up to you to decide if you believe the benefits are worth the price. &mdash;ShadowRanger (talk 20:58, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Getting PDFs to show first page instead of generic icon.
I had a version of Adobe Reader Lite (possible between version 8.0 and 9.2) which, when I downloaded a PDF, would show the icon of that pdf as the first page of the document. One day I decided to download the full Adobe Reader to use the "Read Out Loud" feature. Unfortunately I thought it was rubbish so I uninstalled it, and went to the internet to download the lite version again (v9.3). After installing this version however, all of the PDFs I downloaded just showed the generic icon, where as the PDFs which I had downloaded whilst the old Adobe Reader Lite was installed still had their first page icons. I want to know if it is possible to get the newer versions of Adobe Reader to show the icon as the first page, or whether I have to download the old Adobe Reader Lite from some dodgy places (rapidshare) since there is no longer a link to the older versions on their legitimate release sites. --Mark PEA (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, oldversion.com has version 8.11 . This is arguably less dodgy than rapidshare, though distributing malware by uploading old versions of adobe reader to rapidshare would be an extraordinarily lame way to go about it. ...Oh sorry that's the full version not the lite. 81.131.54.224 (talk) 15:45, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

%sign
What is the meaning of symbol % that is so frequently seen in computer commands and elsewhere e.g. %cd% etc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.178.8 (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * See Percent_sign —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.88.54 (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * From the example you've given I think you're talking about variables within Batch files. There's more information on them here. Hope that helps! ZX81  talk  16:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

C/C++ vs. TI-BASIC
Is there a function in C or C++ equivalent to TI-BASIC's getKey function? If so, what? --Lucas Brown 19:47, 16 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs)


 * What you want is commonly referred to as "non-blocking input". It is not a basic part of C or C++, but it is possible with extra libraries.  Google for "C/C++ non-blocking input" and you'll find a lot of varying solutions.  Since there are many solutions, I'll leave it to you to choose the one that you like most.  If, on the other hand, you don't care if the input blocks, you can use something as simple as cin>>b; in C++.  It reads input to the variable b, but requires the user to press the enter key after the input. --  k a i n a w &trade; 20:03, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * To me it sounds like something dependant on the OS. If you are programming for Microsoft Windows, you can use the GetKeyState and GetAsyncKeyState functions. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 20:56, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * That's good if you're writing a GUI program, though I'd strongly recommend against using GetAsyncKeyState until you really know what using it means; that function is misused constantly. If you don't need a GUI though, those functions are overkill; they do a hell of a lot more than I suspect you want, and require a full UI thread and message handler to be used properly (not to mention that they only query a specific key). If you are writing a GUI program, then go ahead, it should work fine with tweaks (like using the keyboard state functions to look for *any* key changing state), but if you are writing for the console on Windows, you probably want something more like kbhit combined with getch to read from the console if a key has been pressed. &mdash;ShadowRanger (talk 21:16, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

PDF unlocking
Okay, so here's the situation. I have multiple PDF files that I want to merge. Unfortunately, it's password protected (and I have long since forgotten the password), preventing the merge function from working. I've tried the Freeware PDF Unlocker (Google it for more info), and it works fine. The problem is that one of its side-effects is that it removes bookmarks along with the limitations. Is there a program (or possibly an online tool) that is similar to the aforementioned unlocker, but one that preserves bookmarks? Thanks for any help. 141.153.217.205 (talk) 23:11, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Celeron
Is there any truth that Celeron processors are simply Pentiums which have failed testing? F (talk) 23:42, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * No. It's a pretty silly idea on the face of it for a whole variety of reasons—practical, technical, evidential. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:50, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * See the Celeron article &mdash; the hardware differs from their counterpart Pentiums. What you may be confusing this with is the practice by some CPU manufacturers of manufacturing a large quantity of their chips designed to run at, say, 2GHz, and then if a chip fails testing at 2GHz, they may retest the chip at 1.8GHz, and if it succeeds there, then they will put it in a box and sell it as a 1.8GHz chip.  (Counter-question for the Refdesk:  Is there a Wikipedia article about this practice?)  Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:54, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Actually as somewhat hinted at in the article there's more to it then that and it is sometimes true. Some Celerons are indeed the same die as a more expensive processor with some cache, perhaps a core and perhaps other features (power savings, XD bit, SMP, hyperthreading, hardware x86 virtualisation) disabled. However many Celerons are specialised cores. It's not uncommon you will get both sold under the same model number and you need to look at a more detailed CPU id or number to find out which is which (or look at the naked core). Look at the Merom-L case discussed in the article for example. In some cases all the CPUs are of that sort, e.g. AFAIK all Phenom X3s are the same die as the Phenom X4, one core is simply disabled. In fact there's even some Athlon X2 lines like that (7x50). This has continued with the Phenom II AFAIK. Of course the CPU speed, FSB speed, hypertransport speed may be limited although this isn't something that's enforced per se (although the multiplier may be) and you can usually overclock these.
 * It happens in other areas too. For example some graphics cards use the same core but with pipelines disabled. Some are limited by the memory interface (which means the PCB). Obviously the amount of memory and type varies and speed of both memory and GPU obviously. Then of course the was the Nforce 4 chipset which had several different versions most of which were the same thing with features disabled (in the early days it was possible to enable them, notably SLI could be enabled albeit it was of little use unless you had something like the DFI NF4 Ultra which has 2 PCIe-16 slots.) I believe other chipsets have had similar things. ::Nowadays most companies are fairly effective at preventing you reenabling features they purposely disabled. But there have been plenty of examples when they didn't. E.g. graphics cards where you can reenable pipelines (the ATI Radeon 9500 is probably one of the more famous examples there.) You could reenable the cache on some Durons and some other Athlon XPs. The most recent example is with some Phenom IIs and some motherboards where you could reenable the disabled core.
 * BTW the 9500 example is also relevant in that it illustrates that this is usually only a good idea if your yields are bad or as a short term measure or something. Otherwise it does indeed make sense to make a specialised die where you don't have the features you disabled as happened when ATI released the 9600. This also doesn't happen when it's easy (and likely cheaper) to just exclude the feature. E.g. in most cases if the memory bus is limited it's in the PCB. A lower end motherboard may use the same PCB in some cases but the components for whatever features are disabled won't be there. Redesigning and producing multiple dies is trickier and then you have poor yields to worry about and production likely happens long before you know how many orders you have so it happens. With OEM others they may also want odd stuff or perhaps if you have a bunch of problematic dies you can make a special model which you only sell to OEMs. Intel of course sells much larger quantities then AMD and also have a lot more fab space so a more likely to have a greater variety of dies I suspect.
 * P.S. What you're referring to is usually called speed binning but we don't have an article.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 17:56, 17 December 2009 (UTC)