Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 February 18

= February 18 =

berel is good?
Added title for question --NorwegianBluetalk 08:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

berel is good? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.114.223.129 (talk) 00:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What are you talking about? Algebraist 00:54, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Beryl (window manager), perhaps? I haven't tried it, but according to our article, Beryl and Compiz have decided to merge their projects back into one, and to shut down the Beryl project in favor of the new merged project Compiz Fusion. --NorwegianBluetalk 08:34, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

GAME MAKING
Hello, I want to make a game 3D and more over a FPS.

So I was thinking should I programme through OpenGL in c++ or should I do it on some game engine like BLender or ORGE. I know just basics of graphics in c++ and want to upgrade myself in game programming so what should I do. I want easy and better method if it is there, else I want to know better method to go for.

If game engine is better then which game engine should I prefer

124.247.198.69 (talk) 03:43, 18 February 2009 (UTC)harshagg


 * Perhaps it would be a good idea to start with an existing open source FPS game, and make a few modifications as you learn your way around the system? (If you insist on starting from the engine, there's also a list of open source FPS engines.) Good luck. –  7 4   04:13, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Re-Size Pictures Program
Many computers ago, I had a stand alone freeware program that would re-size pictures (jpg, jpeg, gif). The program was named something like "MPEG". Does anyone know what the program may be called or where I could find another copy? (After the resize, there was no loss of color or pixels.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.225.133.60 (talk) 08:38, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * No loss of pixels? What do you mean by resize? Resize the image so it has less pixels (e.g. 640x480 to 480x320) or compress the image so it takes up less space (e.g. 8kB to 2kB)? --wj32 t/c 09:03, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I mean the loss is not noticable. It will take a regular size picture and either shrink it or enlarge it. Mainly done so you can email the picture to someone. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.225.133.60 (talk) 10:19, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I was going to suggest a website called rasterbator which does let you take your photo and increase its size to much larger without (based on the theory of viewing distance v resolution) any notable loss in quality, but it seems you want to go downwards. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 11:23, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If you are using Windows XP, there is a powertoy specifically for that. It's not stand-alone, but it works. To use it, just right click the image and select "resize pictures". It's free, but it's Microsoft (not open-source or whatever). Gabeeshy (talk) 12:25, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * This kind of thing is ImageMagick's bread and butter. --Sean 13:19, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't think the OP is talking about resolution reduction - they said "not noticable", which wouldn't apply to that. Again, do you want to change the picture's resolution or change its filesize? These are completely different topics - you didn't answer the first time. --wj32 t/c 07:52, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I just want to shrink a large picture down to a smaller picture, so it is easier to email. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.225.133.60 (talk) 09:29, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Pretty much any image editor lets you shrink your image and resave it. Take your pick Category:Graphics software.  Astronaut (talk) 15:37, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I use EZthumbs, found at www.fookes.com/ezthumbs. Easy to use, and quite versatile. Bunthorne (talk) 19:04, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

How do I convert .rm to .wmv in MediaCoder?
Please answer!!-- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  09:53, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * P.S. There could be a barnstar in it for you!-- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  09:59, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Suggestion here and forum here. Seems to have a rather awkward interface, sounds like it would be easier to try another convertor - http://www.download.com has lots of freeware and shareware bits and pieces, bound to be something there somewhere (would suggest one but SurfControl doesn't want me to look). Barnstar not required, I don't come here for the gongs.  Lanfear's Bane |  t  15:19, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * I used this one with no problems. Free trial was enough for what I needed. BigDunc  Talk 09:45, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Visual Basic application installation shortcuts
This is a work question... A colleague is using VB from Visual studio 2001 and has created an application and a user manual as a PDF. When installing the application, the program and manual are placed into the "Program Files" tree and shortcuts are added to the Windows start menu. For some reason, the shortcut pointing to the PDF file comes with a generic icon and doesn't pick up the icon associated with PDFs. He can't find a way to specify an icon that isn't included as part of the project itself, and anyway it is likely to be in different locations on different computers. Any suggestions as to how to fix this? -- SGBailey (talk) 12:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a pain, isn't it? The difficulty seems to be in the fact that they're not "real" shortcuts. When you do an install and look at the properties of the shortcut, it registers as an application target instead of a "pdf document" or "text document" etc. I'd like to know if there is a solution... yandman  15:24, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Web download
How can I resume my download after shutting down my system —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.124.171.124 (talk) 13:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * What browser/download manager are you using? More modern ones let you pause over system restarts, and then provide an easy resume button. If you didn't pause the download before the system restart, you've got less of a chance (I actually submitted that as a bug to Mozilla). - Jarry1250 (t, c) 13:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * It also depends on the web server you are downloading from, and where the file comes from. If the file is dynamically generated from form input or something, then chances are that you won't be able to resume. --164.67.100.97 (talk) 21:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Word 2007 Spell Checker
I'm doing some biology coursework and I need the spell checker to work, but as I have been typing I've noticed that it does not appear to be spell checking tables, and if I type a load of gibberish it comes up with nothing, no red zig-zags or anything. Does anyone know how to fix it or have similar problems?

78.145.34.128 (talk) 16:56, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * See if the spell check is enabled. Go to options and click the spelling and grammar tab and see if the Check Spelling As You Type option is checked. If that does not fix it, change your font to Times New Roman. The spell checker cannot check all kinds of fonts. Even if your font looks like Times New Roman, double check to make sure it's not Times New Roman Unicode or anything else with a similar name-- penubag  (talk) 05:14, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Downloadable JavaScript Tutorial
Where? Buffered Input Output 17:14, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure about a downloadable, but w3schools.com has a very nice JavaScript tutorial Belisarius (talk) 22:37, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * Ours and theirs — Ched (talk) 22:46, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * We have a Wikibooks entry on it here JavaScript. Usually you can download wikibooks entries in pdf format. -- penubag  (talk) 05:11, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Add gui search to Excel file
Hello. I have a fairly large excel file (about 11mb). I would like a program that i can use to search the contents of this excel file. It would be awesome if this program can be embedded in to a web page (as a few hundred people would need to use it in any given month). I don't need this program to be able to edit the file, just search it and display the results. Thank you – Vector Eng. Inc.   17:21, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * There are a number of Javascript spreadsheets about never mind Google Docs but your spreadsheet is a bit big for that sort of thing. Your web host may supply SQL database support, mySQL is very common, in which case I'd load the data into that and just treat it as a database. Dmcq (talk) 19:00, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Microsoft provides a suite of integrated tools that can accomplish this (Excel files can generally be read and used by Visual Studio projects, including ASP.NET, which would allow you to create the web interface). However, this does require support from your webhost and is not an "out of the box" solution (some programming will be required). Alternatively, Dmcq's suggestion of converting the spreadsheet into a database will work with a large number of webhosts and shouldn't require much more than writing simple SQL queries. –  7 4   20:20, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * It is not very hard to convert Excel files into flat CSV files that, say, you can read with a quick PHP script. But it is not so quick as to be effortless. --140.247.249.163 (talk) 20:30, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * If you do go for the SQL which you'd probably support using PHP then can I just ask that you really take the messages on the SQL injection page to heart thanks. Dmcq (talk) 20:35, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You can also use the built-in VBA for Excel. Hit Alt+F11, it'll bring up the a project window, right click your project (the excel file), insert -> Userform. When done with the form, add [your-form-name].Show to the Workbook's Open event. PrinzPH (talk) 18:05, 25 February 2009 (UTC) -whoops... missed the part about the webpage, sorry-

Autofilling of song metadata
Hi there, I have some songs on my computer, in mp3 format. The other day I went to open one and saw that some of them had had their metadata (album, artist, year, etc.) filled in automatically. However, some of the songs hadn't been touched. These songs were not downloaded via iTunes or anything like that. I recently downloaded WinAmp. Would that be affecting the songs, or is it something else? My computer is a Windows XP. Thelb 4 17:41, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * The place you downloaded them from may have tagged the metadata automatically. Or if you burned them off a CD, the same may have been done by whoever made the album. Livewireo (talk) 20:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * According to Winamp's website, Winamp has a feature called "Auto-tag" which automatically updates metadata. Presumably this modification occurs when the song is accessed/played (not on all songs on load), and it probably won't update songs that aren't in its database (due to insufficient identification, insufficient distribution, etc.). –  7 4   20:29, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Easy way to see # of RAM modules installed
Say I know a computer has 2 gigs of RAM currently installed, and I know that there are 4 total RAM "slots" available (i.e, 4 DIMM connectors). Short of just opening up the case and looking inside (which isn't that hard, I guess), is there an easy way to tell if the 4 2 [edit: correct typo] gigs is made up of 2 x 1 gig modules or 4 x 512 MB modules? I can't imagine it'd be the latter, but I just want to make sure so I know how many 1 gig RAM modules I need. In Windows XP/Vista, is there some "system information" page or something that will state this? Thanks... Dgcopter (talk) 21:12, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * cpu-z will tell you exactly what is plugged exactly where. yandman  21:15, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * dmidecode for Windows can also do this, I used dmidecode for this task under linux. -- JSBillings  22:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)
 * (edit conflict) Belarc Advisor will also tell you the info you require. BigDunc  Talk 22:40, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I wouldn't trust software to tell you that. If you simply get the screwdriver out and take the cover off, you should be able to count the memory modules and establish their type for sure.  Astronaut (talk) 15:30, 19 February 2009 (UTC)


 * cpu-z and Belarc have both been quite reliable for me in the past. The amount/number of ram chips is something the OS must know since it manages the memory. Cracking open the case and taking a look is also a good way, but it doesn't necessarily tell you what you have.  2 gigs of memory and 4 chips.  That could be 4x512meg... or 1x1024, 1x512 and 2x256.---J.S  (T/C/WRE) 18:12, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

OpenSSL
I'm using OpenSSL and I have a file that contains the keys I want to use file.key. How can properly put it into a pem file that will contain parameters for an X.509 certificate like how it will work when you use this command: openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 1825 -newkey rsa:1024 -keyout host.pem -out host.pem

This would make a new key though which I don't want, instead I want to use the keysthat are in file.key --Melab±1 &#9742; 22:36, 18 February 2009 (UTC)