Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 June 17

= June 17 =

Toubleshooting in USB pen drive
When i copy a file to my USB pen drive it gives the following error message: "THE FILE CANNOT BE COPIED.THE DISC IS WRITE PROTECTED . REMOVE THE WRITE PROTECTION OR USE ANOTHER DISC." This happens even when i use another pen drive.Can anyone tell me what i should do ?Shraktu (talk) 04:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Hmm, that is a bizarre one. Some USB drives come with software so that you can lock the data on it.  Was that installed?  Are you positive that you are selecting the right drive letter?  If so, I'd try getting anything you want off of it.  Then in Windows Explorer, right click the drive letter of it and format it.--Wonderley (talk) 20:37, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I wonder, is there at all a switch on the USB Pen? Some USB devices have a little switch that you can flick to put it in a read only state. You may accidentally have that flicked on if you have one.  Rgood erm  ote    22:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to plug it into a business machine/corporate network? I only ask because it's possible that they simply have the "write" function disabled on portable storage devices. ZX81  talk  00:08, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well yes it is on my company's network? so can i remove the write protection if i'm not connected to the n/w?Shraktu (talk) 06:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * So just to confirm, does it work fine on another (non business) computer? If so then it would seem that the company lock down USB devices (a wise policy!) and physically unplugging it won't make any difference since the software and/or policy have already been downloaded/installed on the computer. ZX81  talk  14:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Streaming live video to a large audience?
Hi, what's the best way to stream live video to a worldwide audience of thousands cheaply? The organizers can't afford to get lots of servers. The receiving software should be gratis and run on Windows. The last attempt to stream the 20th anniversary candlelight vigil in remembrance of the Tiananmen massacre (zh:維園六四燭光晚會) two weeks ago to thousands of overseas Hong Kongers wasn't too successful, people have trouble connecting and the quality is horrible. The next large scale event in Hong Kong is the Hong Kong 1 July marches two weeks from now. Oh, and it can't be a Chinese product, we don't want it to be "harmonized". F (talk) 04:35, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There is a classic saying in IT development and procurement : "Cheap, quick, reliable - pick two of three". In other words, you can get high quality results quickly if you are prepared to pay a premimum; you can get high quality results cheaply if you are prepared to wait; you can get cheap and quick results if you don't mind lower quality. You seem to be trying to tick all three boxes at once. I will be very surprised if you can find a solution that meets all of your requirements; maybe you should start to think about which dimension you are prepared to compromise on. Gandalf61 (talk) 08:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm no expert, but I would think
 * if it's a happening like Chinese democratic protesters, perhaps secure the backing of some organization abroad that has a big server park / software and can scale up a feed sent from China? I'd imagine there be people/organizations willing to do this in the US or western Europe.
 * If not, you could consider some P2P technology, though I'm not sure how well that works in real-time (and the end users might be wary of installing the software on their own computers)
 * Jørgen (talk) 13:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * (e/c) Ustream is a company which provides this service. I've heard several people say it works quite well, although I haven't used it myself. Unfortunately, I can't get on their website at the moment due to restrictions on my connection, so I don't have much more information. I imagine there are other companies which do a similar thing.-- Kateshort forbob  13:47, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, it seems Justin.tv and BlogTV are providing similar services. F (talk) 02:43, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

PDF TO WORD
Could you recommend a free software to convert pdf files to word files so I can remove blank pages and reduce the font size. Thank you

124.43.38.246 (talk) 07:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Just google it. 211.30.108.203 (talk) 08:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * My Adobe reader actually lets you save the file as a text file. I have just normal adobe. Its an option in the File menu24.171.145.63 (talk) 05:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Chinese
Are there programs that convert traditional to simplified? Are there programs that convert simplified to traditional? For example, does the Chinese version of windows media player conver t this automatically? (Let's say you put in a CD written in Traditional (the Artist Name, Song Name, etc. etc.), and then Windows Media Player plays it in Simplified? And then when you rip a song, it becomes written in Simplified?)174.3.103.39 (talk) 08:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Microsoft Word does it, you can also use Google Translate. Don't know about the CD ripping though.F (talk) 08:24, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Using Krita (image editor) in Windows
Krita is supposed to be cross-platform. Does anyone know how to make it work in Windows? I'm interested in the software but not KDE or KOffice in general; I don't want to compile from source or install unnecessary libraries/applications. --173.49.12.233 (talk) 09:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * There's a KDE port for windows at windows.kde.org. Get their installer and choose to install only Krita. --194.197.235.32 (talk) 19:44, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

/usr/bin/nm-applet in Ubuntu Jaunty; other Jaunty concerns
Does anyone know where to find documentation on this gadget? It seems to work behind the scenes without telling you what it's doing, which is sort of not what I use Linux for.

I recently installed Ubuntu Jaunty after a long and reasonably happy experience with Gutsy, because you can't get updates for Gutsy anymore. So far I haven't come across anything that strikes me as obviously better, and some things are worse, although maybe just because I haven't figured them out yet. One of them is this nm-applet, which seems to be the only way I can now get my wireless to work, even though I was using it from the command line just fine in Gutsy. Also, it keeps telling me that the "keyring" is "locked", but it doesn't tell me where the keyring is; bizarrely, it seems to be locked with my old password, which makes me wonder where it found this thing, given that I reformatted the root partition. (I did keep the /home partition, but it would seem odd to put it there.)

I haven't been able to get KDE working to my liking in Jaunty, either, though there are just two deal-breaker issues left. One of them is the wireless, since my command-line approach no longer seems to work. The other is that I can't figure out how to turn off the triple-damned tap-to-click feature (who was the genius who thought that would be a good idea?). Previously I had turned it off in Xorg.conf, but that no longer seems to have any effect. In Gnome it doesn't tap-to-click, so that's alright, but I'd rather use KDE. --Trovatore (talk) 09:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * nm-applet is the network manager from gnome(very specific name, eh?), similar to knetworkmonitor in kde, they both do the same thing. As for tap and click... idk, try in the system settings somewhere, in the mouse section. Mile92 (talk) 16:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * But I want to be able to do it from the command line, with iwconfig and dhclient. For some reason that isn't working in Jaunty.  So I want to know what nm-applet is doing, at a low level, so I can reproduce it.
 * I've already looked in the system settings, obviously. --Trovatore (talk) 17:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Newer versions of xorg don't use xorg.conf for input configuration (that made hotplugging hard or smth), they use HAL (software) which stores it configuration in *.fdi (xml) files. 'xinput' command might also help. --194.197.235.32 (talk) 19:32, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I'll look into that. Any idea why iwconfig/dhclient would stop working?  It seems that I have to call the interface "wlan0" whereas before it was "eth1", but other than that nm-applet seems to configure it pretty much the way I would do it manually, but when nm-applet does it it works, and when I do it it doesn't. --Trovatore (talk) 21:22, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * xinput was a good hint; thanks. The magic formula (on my system) is:
 * xinput set-int-prop 5 255 32 0
 * which sets the integer property on device 5 (the touchpad), property 255 (tap time), to a 32-bit 0 (presumably milliseconds?) I still don't know who ever thought tap-to-click was a good idea, though.
 * However I still can't get the wireless working in KDE. That's a bit frustrating.  I did install the network-manager-kde package but it doesn't seem to work; don't know why. I'd still prefer to do this from the command line so I know what's going on. --Trovatore (talk) 08:38, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

eah4870
What is the difference between the eah4870 512 mb and the Radeon HD 4870 512 mb ATI graphics cards? --81.227.68.117 (talk) 17:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * http://www.custompc.co.uk/reviews/222096/asus-eah4870-top.html - it's pre-overclocked, it's also got a slightly different name. Did you want more insight? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 18:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * It's just the ASUS brand, they label all their "Radeons" EAH. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 19:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * (Ooops, yes my mistake - the EAH4870TOP is the pre-overclocked one, the EAH4870 is practically identical except maybe some stickers etc) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 19:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks! --81.227.66.246 (talk) 20:43, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Replacing the motherboard in my old computer
Would it be practical to replace the motherboard in my Pentium III computer with something more recent please, and still have the XP Sp3 operating system accept it after replacement? I'm wondering if its a way of upgrading the computer. I would not mind not having the very latest motherboard, but just something better than the 733MHz CPU 750MB (maximum) memory that I currently have. 89.241.37.231 (talk) 18:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Windows is installed on the Hard Drive, so switching the hard drive to a new motherboard will have all the same things. Just make sure the new mb is compatible with everything else. SD RAM or maybe DDR, the IDE or SCSI, etc. Seems like a whole lot of bother. In my opinion, replacing a mb is replacing a computer. Buy something cheap and install the old HDD as a slave if you must, or back it up and toss it. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 19:46, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You might have to redo the Windows activation and if the XP install disks are OEM supplied you might have some other problems. Astronaut (talk) 20:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Pentium 3's generally used SDRAM with some using RDRAM and I don't think you'll find a modern motherboard that supports either of those with a modern processor, not that RAM is very expensive anymore. Likewise I think it doubtful your PSU is going to have the required connectors for newer motherboards and if you've got a graphics card it's probably AGP and they don't make motherboards with AGP slots anymore either. So basically adding to what Mxvxnyxvxn said above, it sounds like you'd be replacing the motherboard, the processor, the RAM AND the PSU (you could get away with onboard graphics if performance isn't important to you) and you might as well just throw in a bigger harddrive and you've got a whole new PC :( ZX81  talk  00:00, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Sorry I got so carried away I forgot to answer the actual question! Windows XP activation will certainly throw a wobbly because you can get away with changing 1 or 2 bits of the hardware, but this would be a completely new system (the motherboard carries a lot of weight) and if it's OEM it certainly wouldn't reactivate and Microsoft wouldn't help you either (an OEM licence being for the machine it was purchased with). If it's retail though you SHOULD be able to reactivate it though as those licences can be transferred. Although if you're purchasing so much new kit, you might just want to look at an OEM Vista licence as the OEM versions really aren't that expensive (easy for me to say, I'm not buying it!). Hope that helps! ZX81  talk  00:04, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Telco Cylinders
What are those cylinders that say "Call Embarq before you dig" or "Always notify the local telco before you dig" that you see everywhere? Some of them are plastic cylinders, and some of them are metal rectangular prisms about the same size. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 20:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Not sure about cylinders or prisms - I guess it depends on your location, but "call local telco before you dig" is usually put there to warn you of underground cables and/or pipes. In other words, call someone before you accidentally dig up the phone/electricity/gas services causing massive explosions or cutting off whole neighbourhoods (and probably landing you with a huge bill and/or expensive lawsuit).  Astronaut (talk) 20:27, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * (Edit Conflict)Googling reveals that Embarq is a provider of telecomms (i.e. telephone/cable/internet services), and "the local telco" means the local telephone company. These are therefore warnings that telephone/internet cables are buried beneath or closely nearby, and anyone wanting to dig there (so as to install or repair other buried services such as gas or water pipes, lay building foundations, etc) should first check with Embarq/the local telco to find out exactly where and how deep their cables are, so as to avoid damaging them, and perhaps also blocking access points to them. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:34, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Further to Astronaut's answer, someone once did exactly that on an industrial site that was being levelled, next door to the operating site I worked on. Huge bang; all our power lost. Someone had hit a buried electricity mains cable with the bucket of his Excavator, which instantaneously melted a large hole in it. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 20:42, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know this. But I'm pretty sure these are a little more technical than just "signs" since they're wired into the telephone network. I'm just wondering what purpose the cylinders serve; the reason for the "call before you dig" signs on them is obviously because where ever they are there's wires that could be potentially broken. PCHS-NJROTC  (Messages) 20:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Photo? Tempshill (talk) 21:20, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * What leads you to believe they're actually wired into the phone network?  I can see that they might have a cable or wire leading from them, but that's possibly just a dead finder wire (the utility guys follow that down to find the buried cable itself; it spares them from digging a bigger hole than they need to).   Now in the UK at least you'll see a weird little tic-tac shaped pod on the side of most telephone poles, with cables running in and out of the bottom; these are just weatherproof junction boxes. Could Embarq somehow be leaving their junction boxes on the ground?   Anyway, there doesn't seem to be a wikipedia article on the no-dig markers (maybe there is, and we've just not figured out what it's called). A related thing is a pipeline marker (which is mostly for larger pipes bearing gasses and liquids) - that's described a bit in this page, and this page says they're US DOT mandated (and presumably standardised).  This page shows a colour scheme for buried-stuff markers, but it's not clear if that's also a standard, or just for that one region or company. 87.113.134.218 (talk) 22:11, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, there a utility location article. 87.113.134.218 (talk) 22:13, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * They're probably the points where the different customers hook into the telephone network. They look just like those CATV things where the customers hook into the cable tv system. We actually had neighbors that unhooked our CATV connection at one of these things and connected it their house. That's called cable theft, and we had to notify our cable company about it. You only see them where the phone or cable lines are underground because something similar to the cylinders are on the poles. Sorry, I don't have a picture, although if there's an article that I could add a picture of one to, I'd be happy to get a picture. I was wondering what they're officially called, and if WP had an article about them. Also, is they called the same thing on phone networks and catv networks alike, or are they called something different on catv networks than phone networks?Are they something as simple as a spliter? PCHS-NJROTC  (Messages) 19:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Air manifold? The large bundles of phone lines are run in a sheath that is pressurized with air to keep out moisture. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:55, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Or it could be a pedestal— the term the telcos used for a junction box. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 11:58, 19 June 2009 (UTC)


 * (outdent) As 87.113 said, these are most likely just the marker posts that are sometimes used - samples can be seen on this page, about half-way down. Orange ones, which indicate phone or CATV, do not contain any circuitry or wiring, they simply mark the location of underground wiring.  The only function is to be seen and to give the message "hey, DON'T DIG HERE!".  -- LarryMac  | Talk  13:17, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
 * More info ... based on this Google search, if there were to be an article, it might be called "utility marker". Not sure if it would survive as a standalone, though, maybe it should just be a section in utility location.  I could not find any images for cable markers in Wikipedia articles, but there are photos of pipeline markers in Columbia Gas Transmission and Central European Pipeline System.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  13:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Reset Router
Is it possible to reset routers without unplugging them from the electric? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 20:59, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Most routers have a small button on the back that can be pressed with a small implement such as a pen, toothpick, or unfolded paper clip. Consult your manual, or the manufacturer's website if you don't have the manual. Xenon54 (talk) 21:04, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That button usually has to be held down for more than 2 seconds in order to reset the router (or switch), for what it's worth. Tempshill (talk) 21:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Why is the OP asking about unplugging it? Unplugging it never returns it to factory settings. I think the OP is actually asking about rebooting/restarting the router, which you can do by power cycling it. The reason for power-cycling it is usually to discharge the capacitors, which you must unplug it from the electricity to do. Otherwise, there is not much reason to reboot your router at all. --76.173.203.58 (talk) 21:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Routers occasionally get confused, and need to be rebooted. Most router's have a web interface, and the possibility of rebooting the router via a menu choice from the web interface. When you type the ip-address of the router in the address line of your browser from a PC that is connected to the router, you'll get a login screen. (If you don't know the ip-address of the router, open a dos prompt and type "ipconfig". The router's ip address is shown as "gateway", and is usually something like 192.168.x.1, where x is 0 or 1). A typical username/password combination is admin/admin. Check the manual of your router, or google your router name + "default password". Example search: . If you want to restore to factory settings, Xenon54's advice is the way to go (although some routers might permit even that from the web interface). --NorwegianBluetalk 21:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * How do I go about powercycling my router, as 76.173.203.58 suggested? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.90.51 (talk) 22:02, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * The intial sentence of the article: "Power cycling is the act of turning a piece of equipment, usually a computer, off and then on again." To do this manually: simply pull out the plug of the router, wait a minute or two (giving capacitors time to discharge), and put the plug back in again. --NorwegianBluetalk 22:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You pull out the plug and count to 10.  Rgood erm  ote    22:38, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Yes but my original question was specifically for doing this without disconnecting the router from the electric
 * There is no other way. To power cycle you must let the capacitors drain, to let them drain you must disconnect them from a source of power. Now if you are talking about reseting your router to factory settings you should be able to do so using a paper clip and a little button on the router some where. But a power cycle requires you to unplug it.  Rgood erm  ote    23:09, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I've got to question that there is no other way - the capacitors I assume hold charge representing bits - eg things such as IP address etc. They get their value through software I assume. So surely there must be a software method - of doing a 'refresh' eg literally poking the original set up values into the relevent registers. ie a soft reset —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

A capacitor holds an electrical charge. The data is held in a chip, most likely flash memory.  Rgood erm  ote    23:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * With regard to the reset button on the back, I believe that button will typically reset all settings back to factory defaults – the administrator password, the SSID, the security codes, and any other customized settings. I would not recommend using this as a substitute to cycling the power.  -- Tcncv (talk) 00:18, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That depends on the router. A Linksys that I had previously did do a simple "reboot" when the button was pressed in momentarily. If it was held for ~30 seconds, however, it did a factory reset. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:09, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Electromagnetic interference - 'stealthy shielding'
I was wondering if there were any home consumer examples of using a semiconductor eg such as silicon powder in an injection molded case, to block or attenuate electromagnetic waves escaping from an elctronic device? Specifically as an alternative to grounded faraday cages (a lot of devices aren't earthed - and connecting to zero would 'inject' the EMI onto the ground line (made more difficult because we don't use transformers as much nowadays which act as natural chokes). Would the method even work?

Also in the article electromagnetic interference can someone expand on what exactly is a RF gasket. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.100.250.79 (talk) 23:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Connecting the case to 0V and then adding a choke onto the cable would be a lot cheaper than "injected silicon", which is why you see USB cables with chokes nowadays. --antilivedT 01:03, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Well yes, but if you think about it that doesn't really answer my question at all since there are many sources of radiation inside any device, most of which I would expect would not benefit from being choked or having a capacitor connection them to ground (would degrade digital signals, and possibly mess up timings in synchronous device?)83.100.250.79 (talk) 15:25, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * You may be interested in TEMPEST. I have done a bit technically with TEMPEST and have done some RFI testing on missiles and printers. An RFI gasket simply ensures there is conductivity between devices. If you have a shelter where all of the incoming and outgoing signals are filtered, then the filters are attached to the shelter using a gasket made of silicone with a wire mesh in it. Any doors on the shelter will have a wire mesh gasket around the edge to mate with the fram to ensure a conductive seal. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 12:55, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
 * That's interesting - though I was thinking of much more mundain applications - such as stopping my CD player interefering with FM radio :)
 * Thanks for explaining RF gasket - I was expecting something a lot more complicated.
 * 83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:59, 18 June 2009 (UTC)