Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 March 23

= March 23 =

World Book Cyclo-Teacher Learning Aid
Around 1976, World Book Encyclopedia published a "Wheel of Learning" accessory with encyclopedia sets, which contained a packet of disk-shaped cards which were placed in a mechanical computer capable of showing a question in a window, and if my memory serves correctly, scoring the series of multiple choice questions shown through that window. I can only find a single passing reference to the Wheel of Learning on the web. Can anyone find a description of the scoring capabilities of the machine, or a photograph? Thank you. 99.56.137.254 (talk) 07:28, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I had a 1967 or 1968 complete World Book set, and I don't remember any such accessory. (It sounds like something I definitely would have remembered).  At least this puts a lower-bound on the year they introduced it...  I haven't found any information via a cursory web search, but I wonder if you could contact World Book directly to request information.  Alternately, you could check used-book and online auction sites to see if anyone is selling one, and contact the seller. Nimur (talk) 14:46, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I remember it. It was a flat plastic beige box about 18". It was hinged on one side and you opened it an placed a large paper disc with the questions on a spindle, then the answer disc on top. There was a spring loaded trigger to rotate the wheel. It wasn't a computer, just a fancy sort of flash card. We proabably go our WBE set around 1972— they had the off-white covers. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:50, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Found it! It was the Cyclo-Teacher Learning Aid. Here is a photo. We also had the Childcraft series— Snopes should use it as a source for urban legends. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:33, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Here is a 1966 ad. I remember the salesman coming to the house— I can't pin it down, but it had to be between 1963 and 1974. WBE + Childcraft + the Cyclo-Teacher = $393.15. Big money when a dollar would buy a glass vinegar jug of gas for the mower and a popsicle at the Esso station. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Excellent! Higher-resolution picture, and a detail of the wheel inserts.

I remember now, the scoring usually wasn't automatic, but an answer would appear along with the answer you wrote for the previous question when you advanced to the next question, and the oval area was available to write in your answer's score. Am I correct in remembering that the 1976-era version had some kind of a digital counter to keep track of the score? Also, am I imagining this or was there also a punch-card track for multiple choice questions somewhere on the wheels? The more I think about this, the more it feels like I am remembering from imagination, so I'm very curious to know whether someone else remembers a punch card system for multiple choice scoring. Web searching with the correct name of the device (thanks to Gadget850!) leads me to believe that the memory may be entirely from my imagination. I really wanted it to be true, and I still do so much it almost seems real. 99.56.136.197 (talk) 15:18, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

Lyrics display
I know there are plug-ins that can display lyrics for a song by downloading them from the internet, but are there any plug-ins or options in Winamp that enables a person to view the lyrics that are stored as metadata in the .mp3 file itself? Thanks in advance. 117.194.226.40 (talk) 12:30, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * WinAMP Plugin Search found 25 "lyrics"-related plugins. I haven't used any of these and have no specific recommendations.  However, I do know that WinAMP does have built-in display for lyrics that are stored in MIDI files, though that interface is very clunky.  I was not even aware that MIDI files could store lyric information until I started getting these irritating popup windows out of WinAMP.  Nimur (talk) 16:12, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

digital age classroom
what is a digital age classroom? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.99.44.25 (talk) 16:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * A classroom in the digital age? I'm not sure it has a precise definition. It probably means that the classroom uses computing as part of its general instruction. I would imagine this would range from taking attendance on the computer screen (which they did even when I was in high school, over a decade ago) to the regular use of the internet in assignments, communication with students, learning, etc. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:25, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * To me, the use of ebooks is one of the most obvious benefits for the classroom, eliminating the need for students to carry heavy and expensive books around. (Not finding a booger in your book from last year is a nice bonus.) StuRat (talk) 16:32, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe if you spent more time studying and less time picking your nose, you would have moved on to the next grade and wouldn't still be using your books from last year ;) NByz (talk) 03:25, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It is just a buzzword for having computers in the classroom. It means nothing about how they are used or how effective they are. --  k a i n a w &trade; 18:35, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Verifiable donations to a ACLU/EFF/Wikimedia/Free Software Foundation sort of organization
I want to find a charity that takes online donations in such a way that I, a third party, verify the donation was made (with the permission of the donor, of course).

Let me back up.

Like lots of people, I wrote a little tiny nothing piece of software for my own needs. When I was done, I threw it up on a website, gpled it, and called it good. But except for me, end users are generally non-programmers, so even though the improvements are simple and quick for me, they're out of reach for my users. So even though my one-time need for the program is over, I still try to make the requested changes to improve it when I have time.

But as the program is evolving, more and more requests are coming from people using the software for a business. I don't mind doing these changes, but I certainly don't enjoy fulfilling these sorts of requests as much-- because I'm basically volunteering to be an unpaid employee of a corporation.

What I would like to do is use this as a fundraising opportunity for some charity that I would be proud to help out. I think this would be a lovely solution--  The requesters gets the new features they want, I get to know my time is valued and I'm not being used, the charity gets money to make the world a better place, and everyone gets slightly a slightly better tiny nothing piece of software.

But, to pull it off, I need some way to verify that the requester has made a donation of x dollars to the charity. All aspects of the donation and verification need to happen online-- for ever postage stamp required, I bet I'd lose half my requester.

It needs to be "Click here to donate" button, and then I need to be able to verify the donation as soon as possible thereafter.

Is there anybody who might have such verification system and might also be A Force of Good? I listed the geek liberties groups, but really almost anything non-evil would work. Given the sums and the geography, I don't think "tax writeoffs" are going to be a concern, so it doesn't really matter whether it's a technical charitable donation or not. Just needs to be good, take online donations, and verify them.

Any suggestions for how I could go about finding such a thing? -CreedShandor —Preceding unsigned comment added by CreedShandor (talk • contribs) 18:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Justgiving (UK based - they also have a US based page called First Giving) exists to do just this as far as I can tell, however they are a for-profit company and take 5% of donations before giving it to the charity, so it depends whether that bothers you. Most people use it to raise sponsership for a specific event, but I beleive you can use it long-term as well (one group I found uses it to take donations for an ebook). Equisetum (talk) 18:59, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know of one that's actually up and running (I hadn't heard of First Giving before) but I'd heard such proposals in relation to anti-spam protocols. Basically you'd make a verifiable donation to a charity of your choice and then anyone who verified the donation could choose to give you some digital cash tokens; then anyone else into spam suppression could recognize tokens from trusted issuers (sort of like OpenID).  In your case it's probably simpler to just ask the change requester to pay you directly, or connect up them up to a bounty organizer so they can find someone else to make the change. 66.127.52.47 (talk) 19:18, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You could register as a "provider" at http://www.fiverr.com, and say "I will write an upgrade to _____ for $5". They have the architecture already in place to collect and remit payments, and with a sufficiently "obscure" tagline, you probably wouldn't get bombarded with requests.  (The site keeps $1, you get $4, and you can donate it to whomever you wish.)
 * Not exactly what you were looking for, but heading in a good direction -- and maybe close enough? DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:23, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Mount a laptop hard drive in a desktop?
Hello! My laptop (for all intents and purposes) died a few days ago; whenever I turn it on, all I see is a gray screen, not even the POST or any way of accessing the BIOS (and seeing what I'm doing), but the CPU light keeps flashing, the fan is running, and it does seem that the insides are functional. When I tried booting from a Linux live CD, I could hear the CD drive spinning and the CPU working, but no visual feedback. Anyway, my friend has been generous enough to let me open up his desktop computer and install my laptop's hard drive so I take off all my important files, but I don't know if this is even possible. A google search seems to indicate it can be done, but requires some extra hardware. Both the laptop and the desktop are made by HP, both running Windows Vista (but desktop is 32-bit and laptop is 64-bit, but that shouldn't make a difference). What's the easiest and cheapest way to do this (assuming the problem isn't the hard drive), for someone who has little hardware experience but has seen someone install an internal hard drive? Thank you for the help, or any suggestions about what's going on with my laptop, but I imagine it's one of those things a professional has to play around with for a while to fix. Thanks!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 21:19, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Presuming you just want to recover the data and not leave it installed. You can get a SATA/2.5PATA/3.5PATA to USB adapter on eBay for ~$5. The downside is that they ship from Hong Kong and take a few weeks. You can find enclosures at Radio Shack and the like. Ensure you know whether you have a SATA or PATA (IDE) interface. ---—  Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 21:36, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * If it's an IDE drive, you need something like this (I searched for "laptop IDE converter"). If its a SATA drive then it should just work. Installing it should not be difficult - the only thing you might need to do is to make sure that the desktop will still boot to its own internal disk, rather than the new one (this is configured in the BIOS, and is almost certainly already set up the way you want). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:40, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Sounds like just your screen as died, in which case you can hook your laptop up to an external screen. Easiest would then be to get (or borrow) an external HDD to which you can copy all your data.213.160.108.26 (talk) 22:10, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just to synthesize a bit of the above: hard drives are just hard drives, but they have different pins that speak different languages. What you need to do is find out whether your laptop hard drive is SATA or PATA or IDE, and then figure out whether the desktop is SATA or PATA or IDE. If they are the same then it is no problem other than removing the hard drive from the laptop and plugging it in as a "slave" to the desktop (which, depending on the model, might be a tough job -- plugging things into desktops is easy but removing parts from laptops can be hard depending on how compactly they are engineered... look online for a tutorial for your model if you can, and keep track of the screws!). If they are not the same then you will need something that will let you mount the laptop drive, like the SATA to USB connector, or an external hard drive enclosure. You can look up whether it is SATA or IDE or etc. by just Googling the model numbers—you should be able to find technical specs about the hard drives. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:38, 23 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Just for the record: 213 said that the monitor is broken- Though it also may be the video controller. Before you open it up, plug it into an external monitor and see if it works. Otherwise, Mr.98's summary should hold you in good stead. Mxvxnyxvxn (talk) 18:15, 24 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you all for the information. Your help has certainly made this situation more manageable.--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 23:22, 24 March 2010 (UTC)