Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 November 26

= November 26 =

How to burn .flv files to DVDs
Hello! How do you take a .flv file and burn it to a DVD so that it will play on a standard DVD player in the US, without downloading any dodgy software? I tried searching on Google, but most solutions recommended I download some strange freeware. Is it really that hard that you need a special program to do it? I have VLC media player and an ISO-Image-to-CD/DVD writer. I figured I could convert the video to the right format and burn it. I found this website, but I'm not sure I fully understand the directions; when I tested converting the video with the NTSC-format requirements, the resulting video was very choppy (don't know if that's VLC's fault or my possible typing in the specification incorrectly). Thanks for any help or advice on this topic.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 01:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * There are 2 things you need to do to be able to view .flv video on a DVD player. The first is to convert it to a format that DVD players understand (which is called MPEG video) and the second is to add the information that the DVD player expects about the video that is there - menus and the like.  This ends up with a number of file types - .vob, .ifo and .bup.  This is often done in two stages - convert the format and then create the DVD.  However, you can find programs that appear to do both - for example, the DVD author at AVS4YOU appears to do both (http://www.avs4you.com/AVS-DVD-Authoring.aspx).  --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:53, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Convertxtodvd is a stellar program that works really well, I highly reccommend it. The only thing is that it's commercial software that you have to pay for, although I think they offer a free trial (but it leaves a watermark on the video). --96.230.227.148 (talk) 17:11, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Computer troubles and open source questions
Basically, I'm breaking point with windows based computers. My computer isn't up to the speed as to what it used to be. Of course it still works, but somehow its not what it used to be. The computer is a Dell Desktop from 3 1/2 yrs ago (January, 2010). Just used for emailing, internet, and etc along those lines then advance stuff. At the same time have no income in able to afford a new computer and have no help from my parents or sibling. Since somehow in the past had a tendency of breaking of computers and getting new ones short while after that. Rather do it right this time around

Think thats it for now.

Thank you, in advance.

Jessica A —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicaabruno (talk • contribs) 03:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what your question is, exactly. Do you need help speeding up your computer (very likely possible).  Do you need recommendations for a new computer?  Chris M. (talk) 04:17, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The standard way to fix a slow computer is a format and reinstall.F (talk) 04:58, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * You say "...and open source questions" - are you looking to switch to Linux or something? Linux is really good for old computers for several reasons - but mostly because each new revision doesn't require vastly more computing resources than the previous one, so you can keep your OS software up to date without needing continual hardware updates to stay current.  If that's what you're looking for then probably you should start off by downloading and burning a Linux "Live CD" - you can boot Linux from that and experience 90% of the joys of Linux without having to risk screwing up your PC.  If you like what you see then you can install a full Linux distro - and one nice way to ease the pain & risk is to install it as a "dual boot" system where the hard drive is split between a Linux "partition" and your existing Windows software.  Now you can reboot your PC and you'll be presented with a little menu that lets you boot into either the wonderful world of Linux - or into your original Windows system.  This is handy because you can still boot into Windows to play games or do other Windows-only stuff.  When you realise that it's been six months since you last booted into Windows - you can wipe the Windows partition and reformat it into Linux to get back some disk space.  But until you're ready to commit, Linux can read files from the Windows partition so you can get to all of your data from within Linux.  There are a gazillion Linux distro's to choose from - I happen to use OpenSuSE - but probably the most popular/well-supported version right now is Ubuntu...so I guess that's probably where you should start. SteveBaker (talk) 05:30, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure whether this would be seen as good advice, but I have a fairly old laptop (a Thinkpad X30, bought second-hand in 2007; 512 megs RAM and 1.2 GHz processor) and it used to take an age after switch on/wake from hibernate/sleep. The disk thrashed and it was pretty much unusable.  I thought I'd experiment by getting rid of the anti-virus (AVG).  It now boots almost instantly from sleep/hibernate and is a completely usable machine once more.  I am careful about what I open/view and have never had any machine I use detect a virus, so I feel comfortable with doing this.  It may be worth trying getting rid of the AV, to see whether this has a noticeable effect.  However, unless you are always extremely careful, I would not leave a PC without any AV protection.  --Phil Holmes (talk) 09:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree - antivirus software is some of the most troublesome software I have to deal with. It can be a huge performance boost to run without any antivirus software at all.  The caveat is that if the user doesn't know what they are doing (and sometimes, even if they do), a virus infection can be a serious problem.  In general, good security practices are more valuable than good antivirus software; but your usage pattern may change factors in the risk evaluation.  Nimur (talk) 22:24, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * The newest Windows edition -Windows 7 - is rumored to require less RAM than Windows Vista and run faster. Anyway, a 3 1/2 years old computer should completely be able to deal with things like email, internet surfing and the like without any noticeable problem.--Mr.K. (talk) 12:32, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanx for all of the info that you guys give me on this. Basically, was asking more about linux then computer troubles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicaabruno (talk • contribs) 23:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanx and tried it again. Having a much easier time this time around as suppose the other time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicaabruno (talk • contribs) 21:00, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Toolbar disappeared
I'm using explorer 8 and my toolbar has disappeared. I tried all the F keys with and without Alt and Ctrl to no avail. see here Note to Astronaut: The reason I was concerned about Besser was not malwear but identity theft because of all the places on the planet he could have been he is actually about a mile from me. I thought he was somehow picking up my zip code. WOW!


 * Is this any use: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962963 ? --Phil Holmes (talk) 11:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This problem was discussed at some length last week. See Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 November 20.  I'll be interested if the advice from Microsoft helps.  Astronaut (talk) 14:33, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

The advice from Microsoft didn't work. Yesterday I asked a knowledgable friend for help with this and he had done all the things which the advice from Microsoft said already (Delete ITBarLayout from the registry)The Microsoft page had the option of "Do it for me" and "I'll do it myself". I clicked the former several times and waited but nothing happened. When I went to do it myself I found that all the ITBarLayout's were already deleted, (Find didn't find any also)The Microsoft page also has a "Did this work? option which I'll go to now and say "no" and see what happens. Next I'll call Besser. I e-mailed him to no avail. Maybe, if he's still alive, he'll walk over here and help me. I just had an idea - my delete key isn't working, maybe my F10 key isn't working too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.195.206 (talk) 16:11, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Today I went to Dell for help. They took over my computer and noticed I was missing a lot of other things also and said I had to reinstall the whole operating system again. I didn't have a blank DVD available, only a blank CD, so I was only able to save a few pictures and music, but I reinstalled the operating system then all security then all drivers etc, then the printer. Next I'll download all I've saved and try to get back whatever I've lost. I got my toolbar back and got rid of Explorer 7. Then I'll go to windows update and spend the next few hours updating that - CAREFULLY! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.41.228 (talk) 23:14, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh well; I was rather hoping you would be able to avoid reinstalling XP. Hopefully your backup to the CD was sufficient and you didn't lose too much.  Astronaut (talk) 01:54, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all your help Astronaut. I lost a lot but I got my toolbar back and I'll never, ever try Explorer 7, 8 or any other. I'm in 6 and I'll stay there as long as I can. I hear the new Windows 7 costs $50 and has a lot of bugs also. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.77.186.253 (talk) 15:04, 28 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Both IE7 and IE8 are much superior to 6, and there will come a time when you will be unable to get updates without upgrading to IE8. However, you could always try a different browser.  Astronaut (talk) 10:41, 29 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Well every version of Windows has lots of bugs. You should be aware you're not going to get much support for Windows XP bugs anymore Nil Einne (talk) 23:46, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

According to the above reference from Astronaut Internet Explorer 6 was once the most widely used browser version. During the summer and fall of 2009, 8 years after its introduction, IE6 still held the top spot in terms of browser marketshare. Microsoft have themselves, despite admitting to some of its many flaws, stated that they will support IE6 until Windows XP SP3 support is removed, meaning IE6 will be officially around until 2014, 13 years after its release.

60,000+ jpgs
I have a lot of images completely unorganized, with lots of the same images under different filenames. I need a simple, hopefully free software program that can browse and help organize them, search them via their metadata, and to detect duplicate images and remove them. Any suggestions of good programs which would be good for this? Many thanks for your help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.114 (talk) 14:08, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * f-spot or digikam? --194.197.235.240 (talk) 14:36, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks, but I should mention I need this for windows not linx
 * Sorry, I thought f-spot would run on windows too but google seems to think not. But digikam will run on windows (search 'kde for windows'). --194.197.235.240 (talk) 19:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Not specific to pictures, but I've found Duplicate Cleaner works well at finding duplicates. TastyCakes (talk) 15:16, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Visipics and DupDetector are two freeware programs for finding duplicate images. They can find similar pictures of different sizes. Other freeware programs called Plumeria and i-Fun Viewer can sort pictures I think. 78.146.191.42 (talk) 20:51, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Picasa won't help you with finding duplicates (there were other suggestions above), but it's excellent at helping you to organise your images, as well as perform simple fixes. &mdash; QuantumEleven 22:55, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Picasa has a fatal flaw in that it assumes that the file creation date is the date of the photo and stubbornly refuses to let you change it. So, if you have 60,000 pics that you took over, say, 10 years and you put them on a server to sort them with Picasa, it will claim they were all taken on the day you put the server.  A very big headache for attempting to organize and sort photos. --  k a i n a w &trade; 23:03, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * I've found that using a Wiki (a private one) is very handy for organizing photos. The automatic creation of thumbnails - things like categories and galleries are a snap to create.  If you use MediaWiki (the same software that runs Wikipedia - and, significantly the vast WikiCommons image farm) - there are extensions to let you do bulk "uploads".  Categories can contain categories.  Images can belong to multiple categories.  You can create galleries from categories.  You can add text to images - make pages that mix media.  You can also store movies and sounds.  When you're happy with your setup - you can easily put the entire shebang onto the web.  The revision control mechanism (like the 'history' tab, above) lets you store the original photo from the camera - as well as subsequently cropped, color-adjusted versions - so you can always go back to the original pristine image if you ever need to.  This doesn't solve the issue of duplicate images - but you can fix that with one of the other tools before you start. SteveBaker (talk) 01:04, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Excel List Problem
Hello, a juicy Excel problem for you here.

I have two lists, each with a word and a number, for instance HAPPY 234. This indicates how many times the word HAPPY has appeared in a document. This list is in columns A and B of a sheet.

In columns C and D of the sheet I have a similar list - and you guessed it, I want to combine the lists so if HAPPY 234 appears in cells A1 and B1, and I have HAPPY 50 in cells C34 and D34 I will get a merged result of HAPPY 284 somewhere else.

I have found a guide [|here] but this only works if the list is one column wide, mine is two.

Hope this makes sense, any ideas?

Thanks 195.60.13.52 (talk) 16:28, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Pivot tables are your friend here. Move the data in your C and D columns underneath the data in A and B columns, so you have one list in two columns; add header to each column - say "Word" and "Count", for example; select the whole data area including headers; create a pivot table with "Word" down the left hand side and "Sum of Count" in its body. Pivot table will find all rows with a given word in column A and will add up their word counts from column B. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that, that's damn nearly got it. Only problem, the list tops out at 9500 ish - my original combined list is 13000 or so rows. Is there a limit for a pivot table? Thanks 195.60.13.52 (talk) 11:54, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * This page says there are no built-in limit for pivot table rows in Excel 2003, but you may be limited by available memory. This page suggests a limit of 8000 items, but that may be for an earlier version of Excel. You could sort your list into alpha order, then split in two to analyse, say, A-M and N-Z separately. Gandalf61 (talk) 12:16, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Looking for the Ithkuil font available for download somewhere on the Internet
Searching through all the references on its article and many google search results has been to this point fruitless. 71.161.45.144 (talk) 17:05, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Ithkuil is a synthetic language with few users. As such, it was not included in any of the important unicode or other character encoding standards.  It seems probable that there is no standardized computer representation of the written form.  Further, because its written form grammar is very complicated and position-based, a simple "font swap" inserting symbols in place of other unicode characters would be unsuitable for a full representation.  This means you probably won't be able to find fonts, and will have to synthesize them yourself (or write out the language by hand, e.g. with a tablet computer), and save the writing as a raster image.  Nimur (talk) 22:15, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

rsync and non-regular files
To be able to keep a backup of my entire Fedora Linux system, I copied most of the system directories (such as,  ,   and so on) into a subdirectory under my own home directory and then both  ed and  ed the copies under my personal account instead of. But when I tried to run rsync it still skipped them as "non-regular files". What makes them so non-regular? J I P | Talk 19:44, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Block devices, character devices, named pipes, sockets, doors on Solaris, and network sockets on Neutrino. Essentially all the things that hang around in a unified unix filesystem tree that aren't files, directories, or symlinks. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:09, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * But the thing is, it happens even with files that aren't block devices, character devices, named pipes, sockets, doors, network sockets or such, just plain files. J I P  | Talk 04:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)


 * If you want to find out where such objects are (and the rsync log isn't helping you) use find: find -type b to find block devices, etc. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally I don't backup /lib /usr /var /opt /boot or things like that; I don't really think such a backup will turn out to be useful. I backup /home and /etc (with rsync, among other things). For cases where I want to say "the system is working nicely now; I want to be able to come back to this" then I dd the physical volumes off to another physical disk. Keeping any kind of backup on the same physical disk doesn't seem like a productive idea. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
 * It's not to keep a backup on the same physical disk. I use rsync to back my entire home directory to an external disk. This way it would automatically back up the copies of the system directories too, if I could get it to work. J I P  | Talk 04:10, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
 * Those files might be symlinks, or hardlinks. I don't know rsync well enough to know what else would cause it to throw out like that. Maybe you could post the ls -l output on some of the files it doesn't like (not that doing so would elucidate that much). Finlay's point isn't about the same physical disc as much as it's about the fact that those system directories are going to be standard, and if your system gets hosed 99% of the time you're only interested in user files and not those system ones that he mentions (although I'd include some of /var for logs). In the rare event you want to straight copy over using dd is a low hassle option. Shadowjams (talk) 09:12, 28 November 2009 (UTC)