Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 January 25

= January 25 =

Literati java window help
I used to play a game called literati at Yahoo games. I hadn't been there in ages and I went back a few months ago to play and here's the problem I encountered. When the apple javlet window for the game opens, the bottom part of the screen is cut off. That part of the screen has your score, and the typing screen as well as the place where you see messages. There's no way to access it. I tried going to half screen and grabbing the corner and moving it down and up. It doesn't work. The screen moves up but it doesn't resize the game any way; the applet size is hardcoded. Moving it up just obscures more of the screen. I got rid of my task bar and have the upper part of my browser hidden but it's still obscured. I thought maybe it would work with a different browser (I was using Firefox), so I tried with Internet Explorer and with Safari. Same thing happened. So then I thought, well maybe the program is broken and everyone is having this problem. But I've gone back in succeding months and it's the same. People are playing without problem on the site. By the way, I have a normal size monitor, 19 inches. Anyone have any advice?--70.19.64.133 (talk) 00:48, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Monitor size is unimportant; the key is display resolution. You can likely change your display's resolution. In Windows xp, right-click on the desktop and select "properties". Click the "settings" tab, then use the "screen resolution" slider to change you display resolution. If the slider is grayed-out you probably need to upadate your video drivers. Another option is to try Opera; it has a "zoom" feature that works correctly with images, flash, etc., which might allow you to "shrink" the java applet (I don't recall ever testing it with java, though). -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 01:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Amazing! Worked like a charm. I would kiss you but ip addresses taste metallic:-p--70.19.64.133 (talk) 02:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Firefox auto-restore feature
So Firefox has this nice feature where if it or the computer it's running on crashes precipitously, the next time you restart it, it notices, and offers to restore your previous session, i.e. which pages you had open in which tabs and windows. A very nice feature, especially if you tend to keep 37 different tabs open as reminders of what you're working on.

But I've noticed that it doesn't always work, because it seems to collide with this other feature. If you've upgraded Firefox or any of its plug-ins, the next time you restart Firefox, it auto-opens one or more pages crowing about the upgrades. And that auto-opening step seems to take precedence over the restoring-your-last-session step, nuking the list of what you had open last time.

Question 1: Is this a bug? Has anyone else noticed it?

Question 2: Anyone know where Firefox keeps its list of what it had open last time? I'd like to try to find the 37 tabs I had open before my computer crashed a little while ago, and before the upgrade I forgot I'd performed three weeks ago was finally able to consummate itself with its little splash screen. —Steve Summit (talk) 03:35, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For Q1 - that's not a bug. Firefox recognizes that it wasn't an involuntary close, so it deletes the list of tabs (which are backed up at regular intervals on your HDD). Either that or Firefox has decided that knowing what browser version you have takes priority over your old tabs. For Q2 - Firefox probably keeps them in some kind of file with a weird file type that would be hard to find/open. You should consider just bookmarking your "reminders of what you're working on" instead of keeping them open; keeping this open is killing your performance. flaminglawyer 04:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Oh, it certainly *was* an involuntary close: as I said, the computer crashed. (And I *know* Firefox keeps the information somewhere, and that the information probably won't be trivial to use, which is why I'm asking if anyone knows anything about it, so I won't have to spend time rediscovering it.) —Steve Summit (talk) 04:10, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * For Q2, this page has details on where the restore file can be found and how to force a restore prompt on the next execution. As for Q1, it sounds very buggish to me. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Perfect! Thanks much.  (Unfortunately, the referenced   file, now that I know what it's called, contains details only of the now-open splash screen concerning the upgrade, not of the 37 previous tabs.  Wish I'd known to stash a copy of   *before* the restart. :-\ ) —Steve Summit (talk) 04:42, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Hallelujah! There's also a   file sitting in the same directory, containing what appears to be the previous state!  All is right with the world again!  Thanks again, 74! —Steve Summit (talk) 04:46, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * You can start ignoring my advice now... flaminglawyer 05:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

web designing
html tutorials —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yerragudivishnu (talk • contribs) 06:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Type "HTML tutorial" into Google - you'll get hundreds and hundreds of great links to tutorials. Every one of the results on the first page you get back is great stuff. SteveBaker (talk) 06:56, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * For HTML/CSS (and even PHP), I strongly recommend w3. flaminglawyer 21:52, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Windows Vista Sidebar RSS Gadget
I use Windows Vista's RSS Gadget to view the newsfeeds from http://svt.se. The gadget shows four items at once, and cycles through all pages (1..4, 5..8, ..., 37..40). But every time it changes page from the last page (37..40) to the first page (1..4), it consumes 100 % of my CPU's both cores, for approximately a second. It is no "big deal", but I really do not understand how such a simple application (gadget) can be so CPU intensive... Any ideas? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:11, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Well, the reason is probably that the gadget is updating. When it's listed all the items in the rss-feed, it downloads and parses the feed for the next cycle through. It's incredibly weird that that would take up 100% of your CPU for no good reason though, it's a rather trivial task. Maybe it does it in a thread with super-high priority or something. Probably it's just a badly programmed gadget. Belisarius (talk) 14:21, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

McAfee SystemGuard keeps getting disabled.
I'm using McAfee Security Center on a Dell PC running Windows XP. I've got no major problem except my McAfee keeps informing me that 'I'm not fully protected' and I have to open up the Security Center and click 'Fix' every half hour or so because the 'SystemGuard has been disabled'. I assume this is some sort of spyware trying to get in?? I've a scan with the McAfee to detect any problems and they've not shown anything up. I've also updated my Windows Defender and done a full scan with no results. Any ideas on how to stop this happening? Thanks.91.109.235.99 (talk) 14:18, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm guessing that "SystemGuard" is a program that runs all the time and checks for viruses in every file you download. This may sound good, but this level of protection can make your computer unreasonably slow.  Perhaps it was set to not run when installed, either by you or by it doing an analysis of your computer and determining that SystemGuard would put too much of a load on it.  So, when this is turned off, it instead waits until some event happens, perhaps a certain number of files are downloaded, and then suggests that a scan be run (this might be the "Fix").  If you are downloading more than they anticipated, this might cause the warning (that you need to do a virus scan) to pop up annoyingly frequently.


 * Also, it might be trying to run with SystemGuard on, but be unable to do so. An amazingly large percentage of software, when it gets any type of error, just tries the same thing again and again, ad infinitum.  If so, consider yourself lucky that it at least waits half an hour before trying again.  One possibly cause for this type of error is running two anti-virus programs at once.  They can view each other as a virus and thus fight each other.  You might want to try running either Windows Defender or McAfee, but not both at the same time. StuRat (talk) 15:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

bloody XP
So i was going to install the Windows 7 beta onto my comp. and before that downloaded AVG anti virus and installed it and it went smoothly.But the moment i ran it its executable ran but no window came up.So i checked the task manager and saw its process running there.Then i tried to run some other software but it said "You do not have permission to access this file or whatver" .Then i saw that whatever i clicked on my desktop the same message came .I couldn't even open My Computer,nor could i open control panel to try and uninstall AVG.Then i restarted my computer and quickly went to control panel and uninstalled it before it could run and then everything became alright.Then i downloaded avast antivirus and AGAIN THE SAME THING HAPPENED.Only this time Avast's User interface came up and it actually started scanning but even then i couldn't access any other file or folder or run anything. Finally i managed to somehow remove it .Does anyone know why this is happening on my comp.?And this seems to be happening ONLY when i install some antivirus! And Don't say its some virus cause i haven't come across a virus which can block all the processes and do this by DETECTING EXACTLY when an antivirus is being installed!Vineeth h (talk) 14:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I suspect that the anti-virus programs, being more worried about security (specifically some virus attacking them), intentionally create files which only they have access to. There is probably a way for you to access them, by using a different logon, for example, but you don't normally have this access. StuRat (talk) 15:19, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Yeah StuRat thats a possibility but i really need to know how to overcome this problem!If anyone else whose reading this has had the same problem amd solved it do reply ASAP.Vineeth h (talk) 15:48, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I think that you do infact have a virus, depending on how advanced the virus is and whether it has a rootkit or not it could do what you are talking about. This virus could infact simply prevent you from installing an anti-virus for the sol purpose of leaving your computer open to attacks. I would recommend you not enter any sensitive data in to your computer until this problem is fixed. (sensitive data being credit card numbers, SSN and so on. If you have the ability i would recommend that you download a Linux live CD, burn that to a CD and boot in to Linux, after doing so you could run an anti virus on your main hard drive. If you have no idea what i am talking about then i would not recommend it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by E smith2000 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 26 January 2009 (UTC)


 * This is a problem with AVG. Apparently (according to this website) a recent definition for AVG 8 for some languages can destroy a working copy of windows. 63.80.111.2 (talk) 02:55, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Plug in Problem.
I want to download web videos but I am not finding desired plugins all the time. If I reinstall the Operating System, then I need to install the Plugins once again. Is there any browser which can automatically store videos without any plugin? 217.151.231.10 (talk) 15:00, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes, you can obviously try one browser, that is Safari, it can download any video without any plug-in. Although it is for Apple, it can also be used on XP. To download any video, go to Window->Activity and expand the symbol of the page. You'll find a number of processes and out of those, one will be very large sized, say more that 3 MB. Double click on that process and you'll start downloading the video. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 15:07, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * My first thought was that this sounded ridiculous, but I now realise you're just taking the question more literally than me, and showing how to save the video file that the page is trying to load. But I'm not sure this really answers the question, because even if this works, the poster would still need something to actually play the video.
 * Surely the real answer is that there is no one standard for videos on the web. Some sites will just present them as files, which can be downloaded by any browser, but which will need software that can play them (e.g. VLC); others will embed them in the page itself, using a plugin such as Adobe Flash or Microsoft Silverlight; still others may use some proprietary P2P plugin.
 * Browsers can make finding and installing these plugins easier, but there is no way they could handle all video formats without any plug-ins at all. - IMSoP (talk) 19:14, 25 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Most of the Web videos are .flv or .mpeg or .wmv. For playing .mpeg and .wmv, Windows Media Player id sufficient, and for .flv (such as in youtube), You can try  Applian Flv Player, which is free! You may also try Sothink Video Player, as per your choice. Thus the video can be played easily. Thank you friend

IMSoP, for further extending the answer. Anirban16chatterjee (talk) 08:02, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Anirban16chatterjee, it solves the problem! Safari Browser is awesome! It can download almost anything from any page. Its display quality is better too and added a new dimension to Wikipedia browsing! May I keep contact with you via your talk-page? 217.151.231.10 (talk) 08:05, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

eee pc
Can I buy a eee pc? what are the advantages and disadvantages of it? how easy is web browsing in 1) 7 inch eee pc, 2) 9 inch eee pc, 3) 10 inch eee pc? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.92.113.42 (talk) 17:58, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Hello - I'm using an eee pc (Eee 900 series). It's the 9 inch screen model. I'm pleased because it does all I want it to do - mostly browsing the web and listening to music. And it's very small and light, which is good. I'd say the 7 inch screen is too small; some programs/websites only just fit in my 9 inch (they could probably fit better if I reduced the font size, but then I'd just be squinting at it all the time). But overall it's not a problem, but sometimes a website with flash video like BBC iPlayer only fits if I change FireFox to full screen. YouTube fits normally, but only just. The keyboard is also smaller than I'm used to (but that's just because the whole thing is so small). If you can, go to a shop and try the screen/keyboard and see if it works for you.
 * I'm a bit unusual because I got the Linux version and installed Ubuntu on it (rather than the default Xandros), so I can't speak for the XP version. --h2g2bob (talk) 20:24, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I found the keyboard on the eeePC too small and so I went for an Acer Aspire One which has much better keys, but a lower battery life, (which I personally don't mind). Theresa Knott | token threats 20:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Yacc (bison) %union
When trying to compile the above, I get a very verbose error from parser.y: "parser.y:11: error: expected specifier-qualifier-list before ‘mpq_t’". If I replace mpq_t with int everything works fine. I'm not too good with these things so it could be something obvious but it would help a lot if somebody told me what's wrong. I'm on Ubuntu 8.10. --194.197.235.61 (talk) 21:13, 25 January 2009 (UTC)
 * parser.y has an unterminated comment. --Sean 18:16, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Oops, but it's not the problem.. I don't have the comment in the original copy. (missing */ added now) . --194.197.235.61 (talk) 19:37, 27 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Solved. gmp.h needs to be included before parser.h. --194.197.235.61 (talk) 19:06, 28 January 2009 (UTC)