Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 May 18

= May 18 =

Moving Windows XP to new hard drive - how much pain will it cause?
Thanks in advance for answering this question - I know it's one of those things that could probably be learned with an afternoon of Googling, but I - unfortunately - don't have that level of free time. I'm sure for someone who already has the background knowledge, this is a "what is two plus two"-level question.

I purchased a Dell Whateverion that I'm mostly content with. However, I'm looking to increase the storage space, and due to a lack of SATA ports on the motherboard (who the fuck thought 2 SATA ports was a good idea?) and an inability to find a PCI-SATA controller that's affordable and functional, I've decided that the way to go is to simply replace the current 300GB hard drive with a 1TB hard drive.

So, simply put: Windows XP is currently installed to hard drive "A". I would like to put hard drive "B", with more capacity, in a USB enclosure, clone the smaller drive "A", and when all is said and done, have my XP install on the new, larger drive.

I, naturally, do not have actual XP install CDs, and am even unsure of my ability to scourge up the "rescue disk" (it's probably buried somewhere along with the "how to plug in your keyboard" poster).

So, is this a relatively painless operation? Or will I end up needing to buy an actual XP install CD (at which point it'd make about as much sense to just get a whole new damn computer - seriously, two SATA ports? Two? Why, Dell, why?), either to install SATA drivers or phone home to M$ or whatever?

Thanks for your help! Badger Drink (talk) 00:20, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I think it should be OK, actually, if you are actually cloning the drive (e.g., with gparted or Ghost or something like that), and not trying to manually copy the files. In any case, you could easily clone it first and see if it works—and if, for some reason, it doesn't, then you could buy the install CD. But I honestly don't think it's a big deal. In fact, I'm not sure even in that situation you'd have to buy a new install CD—all that really matters is your product key, which you can get off of the old hard drive. All you'd have to do in that situation is find someone else with an XP install CD. I don't think that would really irritate Microsoft—what's important for them is the license, not which CD you use. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I recently did this exact thing. I used Clonezilla to copy my XP harddrive. Worked like a charm. No complication at all.  To be honest, I was suprised at how smooth it went. APL (talk) 03:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * The most you would need to do is reactivate Windows, although I doubt you need to do that. It would be faster if you attach both hard drives to the SATA ports on the motherboard instead of using USB. Boot the cloning tool from USB or (PATA)CDROM. F (talk) 10:22, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How about using a pocket hard drive? How much space do you seriously need???? I have a Dell Inspiron E1705 with about 200 GB but I barely use 90 gb of it! --Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 05:10, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have 1.75 TB of space on my current computer, and use about 3/4 of it at the moment. It's really not that strange... I'd try and clone it. Also, if you need to, before buying another copy of Windows, try phoning Microsoft. I've got them to send free installation CDs out in the past, as long as you can quote a valid key and purchase information. People say they're support is bad, but to be quite frank, most of them have pirated Windows and then wonder why Microsoft doesn't want to help them. Of course, if you have, they won't help much. A le_Jrb talk  14:43, 20 May 2010 (UTC)

Contacting amazon.com ?
Is there no way at all to send an email to amazon.com? I had trouble ordering something and wanted to ask for assistance. I went through their contact interface and was told I couldn't contact them because I didn't have an order number. That seems really really rude. Michael Hardy (talk) 03:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/general-questions.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=518316&type=email&skip=true Half  Shadow  05:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you tried the "Skip sign in" button on this page? Winston365 (talk) 05:00, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Or you could use the link I just posted; it's even more direct. Half  Shadow  05:02, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, you should. I didn't get an edit conflict warning but I think we must have posted at the same time or something. I wouldn't have added the comment if I'd seen yours there. Jinx ;) Winston365 (talk) 05:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually, I posted pretty much the same thing that you did and then realized a direct link would work just as well. Sometimes they set it up so you have to click a button; a direct link won't work, but in this case it does. Half  Shadow  05:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Winston365: I posted my query here BECAUSE OF my experience with the particular page you're pointing to.

Entering a valid order number was NOT optional. I could not send them an email and I was told that was because I had left the "order number" blank.

I just tried it on a different machine and it worked. Michael Hardy (talk) 06:12, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * How about phoning them instead? You can ask about your difficulties placing your order and also mention that you cannot email because their stupid form insists on an order number you do not have.  Alternatively, lie on that form and provide an obviously fake order number.
 * Their phone number used to be hard to find, but it seems better now. The form where you enter your email and compulsory order number is one of three tabs.  Another one of the tabs is the option get them to call you back or for you to call them an 866 number.  Astronaut (talk) 09:34, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Singing computer
Is there a computer that can sing like a human yet? 71.100.0.29 (talk) 03:41, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Not so that you couldn't tell it was a computer, no.
 * Computers have been able to sing essentially for as long as they've been able to talk. (See this demo from 1963. http://www.vintagecomputermusic.com/s2t9.php) However, even just talking at an ordinary tone of voice, speech synthesis is not perfect. You can usually tell it's a computer. APL (talk) 04:09, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Though, with the amount of post-production in 95% of the vocals on the Billboard Hot 100, some may already have trouble finding the difference. For instance... Badger Drink (talk) 04:50, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * They can help &mdash; Autotune. Shadowjams (talk) 08:36, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The Harrington 1200. Lanfear's Bane  |  t  16:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * See Vocaloid FancyMouse (talk) 20:40, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * There are some robots that can sing one though... --Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 05:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Little Sister level on Bioshock 2
Does anyone know how did they manage to dynamically change props and stuff on the Little Sister level in Bioshock 2? The scene starts out (and continues on) as a dream world with bloom effects as well as fairy tale-esque decorations and textures, but it then changes into a decaying state whenever the Sister drains ADAM off a splicer. Is this possible on other engines, and how is it implemented on Unreal? Blake Gripling (talk) 04:04, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's called 'programming'. You may have heard of it? Half  Shadow  05:03, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, I know it is done through programming trickery, but does anyone know of similar implementations and/or stuff? Blake Gripling (talk) 11:06, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I have a feeling that however it's done, it'd be a proprietary thing you'd only find out the real details to, if you had the rights to the 3D engine. Maybe one of the multitude of gaming forums out there could help you further. Peter Greenwell (talk) 13:31, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I haven't played Bioshock 2, so I can't comment on the specifics of that game, but there are several general ways in which a map can be mutated to give the appearance of change. Firstly some of the "objects" in the world (say lights or wall hangings or furniture) can be separate objects (not part of the "world" object), so they can be manipulated (changed, added, deleted) just like other actors in the game (monsters, allies, health boxes, etc.) - so you'd substitute burned or smashed or rotten versions of these. Secondly textures can be changed (so you'd substitute a decayed version of a texture for its hitherto intact one) or overlay a decay-effect texture.  Bioshock 1 does this when you incinerate someone - it overlays a gnarly fried-chicken texture (or does it substitute a burned-up version of the monster's texture, I'm not sure).  Thirdly it's also often possible to change the lighting, either by turning on or off dynamic lights, or for engines that use an underlying light map, swapping in a new one wholesale; that seriously changes the character of a room, with very little actual effort.  Lastly, if the mutation is very profound (and there aren't too many phases of change, and there's a pause like a cutscene between phases) you could actually be talking about different maps altogether.  One game I kinda remember (was it NOLF?) had you on a ship, but the ship was then damaged by an explosion. So the next level was in a damaged, listing, and partially water-filled ship, with internal furniture moved around and decks and bulkheads buckled; some of the spaces were full of water and the lighting was totally different.  Really they'd just designed a second level built off the same basic geometry as the first, and moved you over to it (moving other stuff like npcs and items wouldn't be hard either, if that was necessary).    I don't know the specifics of modern commercial game engines well enough, but it's my understanding that they have a more modular view of world geometry than Quake's classic "THE world + many actor meshes" model, which would make substitution of wholesale geometries practical; any game that can do destructible scenery and buildings (which is getting more common) can equally do decayed or wrecked stuff too, by geometry substitution.  Valve's Source engine does "cinematic physics", which does some fairly wholesale geometry changes (buildings blow up, bridges fall down).  -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:57, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Appending data to a file with Java
Hello! Could someone please post a code snippet demonstrating how to append data to a file in Java? I have a really large text file and I want to be able to append Strings to the end of it. The only way I know how to do this is to load the whole file into memory, append the Strings, and then use a java.io.Writer to write it back, which is really inefficient. I think there's a better way using the java.nio package to append the data directly to the file, but I don't know how. Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 06:07, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * The FileWriter and FileOutputStream classes both have constructors that take an optional second argument, a boolean indicating whether to append. --Spoon! (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And the RandomAccessFile class allows the programmer to manually append. Nimur (talk) 08:54, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Great. Thank you!--el Aprel (facta-facienda) 06:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Graphic editing in HSV space
Which raw converters, apart from Adobe Camera Raw, enable adjustments in HSV space? I know Bibble tried to mimick ACR's six channels (they had a good point making three of six channels user-definable in B5) but it just didn't work (too harsh, too noisy to be usable). That is, shrunk to 800*600, Bibble output is much better than Adobe's (or maybe their learning curve is nearly instant) but on pixel level it is unusable.

P.S. I waited for the new ACR (Lightroom 3) expecting the ability to adjust hue and width of HSV channels... this was, perhaps, the most wanted improvement. No luck, come next time :)) East of Borschov (talk) 06:13, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Archiving MS Office 2000
I use an old XP computer with MS Office 2000 installed. I never use the MS O2000. Would it be possible to archive it somehow so that I could remove it from the HD but retain the possibility of restoring it if I wish or need in the future? Both the XP and the MS O2000 are legit copies. I do not have any instalation disks. (I'm guessing that a programme which could do this would simply copy the O2000 software into an archive file, AND put all the relevant enteries in the register into a .reg file.) Thanks 92.24.191.128 (talk) 14:25, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't know of any software that does that &mdash; it sure would be handy for me, too. If your objective is to get more disk space, I would instead buy a large new hard disk, and use disk cloning software to make an exact copy of your old hard disk onto the new one.  The disk cloning software will then let you enlarge your new disk's partition, so you end up with a lot more space than you started with, and all your installed programs and registry are the same as they used to be.  The only disadvantage may be that some software may detect the change in hard disk size and challenge you to find those installation disks, thinking you've copied the software to a new computer.  YMMV.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:46, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps a possible procedure would be to 1) take a copy of the registry using Erunt. 2) copy the O2000 using something that would preserve the directory structure. 3) Uninstall O2000. 4) run a registry cleaner to remove the remains of enteries for O2000. 5) take another copy of the registry with Erunt. 6) Compare the before and after Erunt files and create a .reg file with the differences in it. Discard the two Erunt files. 7) Put this .reg file in a zip file with the copy of O2000.

To reinstall it, unpack the O2000 copy. Run the .reg file to restore the registry enteries.

Does anyone have any opinion if the above procedure would work? If it does, I wish someone would write a freeware program to automate the procedure. 92.26.56.233 (talk) 23:16, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Programs tend to rely on more than simply registry entries to work (I ran into this problem recently when I was trying to create a portable version of another program). They also need to call on dll's which can be scattered throughout the drive. If one of these dll's is missing, at best an optional function in the program will not run, at worst your program will crash. Obviously you wouldn't want to have this kind of instability while manipulating important data! I am not really certain which files you need to run MS Office. It's possible someone has documented this on the web already. A quick Google search by me came up with little information specifically regarding which resources it calls on, but if you care enough you can probably figure it out yourself.
 * Your suggestion reminded me of VMware's ThinApp. Which is really not exactly what you're talking about, but takes similar steps of automatically figuring out what dll's and registry entries a program creates so it can bundle them into a portable/easily transferable version. But it's not really intended as an archiving solution, no.
 * If you figure out a solution, I'd love to hear about it. -Amordea (talk) 03:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * A less elegant solution (it should work, but could someone please double-check before the OP tries it) is simply to move the main programme folder (e.g. C:\Program files\Microsoft Office) to backup, leaving the DLLs and registry intact. This will release most of the hard-drive space, but will allow the software to run again on restoring the folder.  I think I've done this successfully in the past.  (Sorry, I haven't a test-machine available at present.)    D b f i r s   18:05, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * ... alternatively, why not just record the Product ID (5 digits - OEM - 7 digits - 5 digits) (using Help->About), then uninstall, and if you do need the software in future, just find someone with an installation CD but install it using your own legal product ID?   D b f i r s   19:55, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I am not shure that will work, at least for windows XP the Product ID from an OEM-install will not work when installing from retail media or enterprise media. Gr8xoz (talk) 04:22, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Ah, yes, it would have to be the same version. (I'm puzzled now because my Office 2000 comes up with an OEM product ID, but it wasn't pre-installed. (There must be thousands of old Office 2000 installation CDs floating around - or have they all been thrown away?) Does anyone have a test machine to check that just moving the folder works.  One would need to avoid using a registry cleaner.    D b f i r s   06:44, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you considered trying to obtain what would otherwise be a pirate copy of the software? --Jabberwalkee (talk) 04:52, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

how does hard disk work ?
how does hard disk work ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Poobharathii (talk • contribs) 14:34, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * See Hard disk drive. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:37, 18 May 2010 (UTC)

Good value laptop with Ubuntu?
I'm getting a new laptop in the $500-800 price range for work and some play (no need for high powered components). I'd like to dual-boot Ubuntu on it, but the resources on the Ubuntu site all give lists of laptops that various people have gotten to work. What I'd really like a resource like WINE has, where I could look up if a given laptop works rather than having to sift through various lists to see if anyone's tried it. So, I guess my question has two parts: 1) does anyone know of a resource like the one I described? and 2) does anyone have recommendations for laptops they know work? Also: I know that some companies sell laptops with linux installed, but my company is footing some of the bill on this and the guy in charge of that won't sign off on a laptop from a "non-standard company". 173.52.5.181 (talk) 21:38, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
 * How about get a Windows laptop and install ubuntu on it? You know its free do you? http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/ --Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 05:06, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * OP here. How about reading questions carefully instead of defaulting to condescending sarcasm? You know it's irritating don't you? http://www.emilypost.com/ 64.61.167.178 (talk) 14:08, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If I'm understanding right, I think the OP is asking about compatability with Ubuntu. I am no expert here, but I'll lend my experience: having run Ubuntu on at least 4 different machines without any hitch, I'd say there isn't much hardware that Ubuntu cannot run on. Especially if you're doing something name-brand--there is bound to be a lot of support in the Ubuntu community for this. I ran 8.04 in a dual-boot setup on my old (and quite obsolete even at the time) Compaq Pentium 4 desktop a few years back with no problems and currently have 10.04 running on my Acer netbook as a virtual machine (which I wouldn't think the desktop version would have much support for netbook hardware, but it runs fine). It runs on my Athlon 64 x2 desktop just fine as well (also in a virtual machine). Take from that what you will, but I doubt you'll have any serious issues with any hardware you choose. Maybe someone else here can support or refute that? -Amordea (talk) 06:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I tried Ubuntu with live CD on a brand new Dell Studio 15 Laptop without any problems. --Tyw7 (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 06:04, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If you can find a physical computer shop with the model you want why not bring in an ubuntu liveCD and ask if you can try booting with it to see whether everything works. 131.111.185.68 (talk) 08:14, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I was once told here on the RD that IBM/Lenovo laptops work well with Ubuntu. --Ouro (blah blah) 09:16, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Dell is non-non-standard, and sells some Ubuntu machines. But the selection is really limited.  I'm writing this on a Dell machine that came with Windows which I installed Ubuntu over.  Paul (Stansifer) 13:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * If I needed certainty of full coverage, I'd have to buy a laptop that came with Linux installed; in addition to the handful of netbooks that Asus and Acer sell, I'm only aware of the limited range that Dell supplies, and a few people like linuxcertified.com that put linux on a big-name laptop and certify that it works (which may be enough to satisfy your purchasing people). IBM/Lenovo and HP used to sell a small range of Linux laptops, but I can't find any that they sell right now.   The trouble with anyone recommending a laptop that works is that you almost certainly can't buy the laptop they're recommending - laptop makers rev the hardware incredibly quickly, and very often make like-for-like substitutions without changing the product number (they say it's got 802.11n, but they don't say if its a Broadcom chip or an Atheros chip or what) and they're quite possibly shipping two versions of the same laptop, at the same time, without differentiating one from the other.  As long as they all have working Windows drivers, the manufacturer is covered. In practice things are much better - I've not seen a laptop in years that doesn't get the core stuff working (core chipset, display, wired ethernet, audio, cd/dvd, hard disk), and I don't believe I've had a problem with wireless in the last four Ubuntu revisions or so.  Support for webcams, bluetooth, cardbus, and memory-card-reader is patchier (and I'm suspicious when people say "everything works" they haven't tested all of these).  I've had good results with Acer laptops, but not perfection - my 30 month old Travelmate's memory-card-reader doesn't work (it seems to have got a driver with the latest Ubuntu, but it still doesn't seem to see cards). Special keys (those media keys and the like) generally don't work out of the box. So TL;DR: other than buying one of the few ships-with-linux laptops, it's very difficult to trust anyone's recommendation of a fully-working linux laptop.  In your position I wouldn't dual boot - given the performance of virtualisation platforms like VmWare, I'd install Ubuntu in one of those, maximise the window, and try to pretend that Windows wasn't there at all. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 15:32, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * My experience is ubuntu 10.4 happily works on my laptop (a random Toshiba), including cardbus, media keys, wifi. I haven't got a webcam. 3G wireless network seems to work better on Ubuntu than Windows in my experience too. Anyway, take an ubuntu live CD (or live USB if you're looking at machines without CD drive) with you to the shop, ask to try out the machine you want to buy, try it out, buy exactly that machine if you're happy with it. Note that some laptops have bios switches for webcam, bluetooth and wifi, so if those aren't working check bios (as well as hardware switches/buttons) --203.202.43.53 (talk) 08:53, 21 May 2010 (UTC)

PHP question
Mr.98 write this little php script for me a while ago to display entries in a text file:

$line \n"; } ?>

I was wondering if it would be possible for the script to only display say the last 10 entries, or the first 50, or 10 entries after the first 50, etc. A way to customize which entries are displayed instead of just displaying them all in one go. Thank you! :) 82.44.55.254 (talk) 22:15, 18 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Modify the foreach loop so it meets your customization criteria. PHP has a variety of control structures which can be used to set up your selection criteria; see the  control structures section of the PHP manual.  Astronaut (talk) 09:09, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I am extremely new to php and I don't really understand what you are saying. I know it's asking a lot, but could you post a small php example script of what you mean so I can see it in action and then modify it for what I need? That would be so helpful :) 82.44.55.254 (talk) 10:52, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Would this work for 51-60 ?

 50) && ($i < 61) { echo "$line \n"; } } ?>


 * StuRat (talk) 12:17, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Or even more directly:


 * That for loop just means: "$i is a variable that is initially set to 50; while <tt>$i</tt> is less than 61; repeat the code below, adding one to <tt>$i</tt> each time." Then, inside the code block, <tt>{$lines[$i]}</tt> just means "the value in the array <tt>$lines</tt> at index number <tt>$i</tt>." Does that make sense? If you change the numbers you'll get different lines.
 * If you wanted it to get the last 10 entries (and you don't know how many entries you have to begin with), you'd want something like this:


 * Where we've gotten the total lines, then had the "start" <tt>$i</tt> variable at the total lines minus 10, and have the "end" <tt>$i</tt> variable end with the total lines. (*Note, of course, that if you have less than 10 lines in the file, you will end up with a negative starting number, and that will probably throw an error. So in a real-world application, we might then check to see if $total_lines-10 is less than zero, and if so, set it to zero, e.g. <tt>$start = $total_lines-10; if($start-10<0) $start=0;</tt>) For the first 10 lines, it is even easier:


 * Note that your array of lines starts with "0" as the first index (it's just how arrays work with PHP), so item #10 will really be the 11th item. Anyway, does that make sense? It's just a matter of setting up the logic to give you the numbers you want. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:23, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * <3 <3 <3 Thank you! That works perfectly! And thank you for the explanation of what it all does, I'm slowly learning :) 82.44.55.254 (talk) 16:21, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

I have a bold guess that this whole "show entries from a textfile" involves a task that is better suited to, say, a MySQL database. What does the textfile contain, and what do you do with it on the site? 198.161.238.18 (talk) 16:00, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * It's not for a site, it's just me messing around with php scripts on my home computer for fun really, and to try and learn how they work. I don't know anything about MySQL, using a text file seemed the easiest option. The text file just has random thoughts or things I wanted to remember written in it. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 16:21, 19 May 2010 (UTC)


 * And there's really nothing wrong with using a flat file database in many applications. Not everything needs a big relational database behind it. At some point, if the data gets complicated or you want to do more complicated things with it, learning how SQL works and migrating the data might make sense. But there's nothing inherently wrong with a flat file, as this type of data storage is called. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:33, 19 May 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it's a great exercise for someone learning PHP or any language. I assumed you were working on a site. Of course there's nothing wrong with flat files, but there's also no reason to be scared of databases -- it quickly becomes a standard in your toolbox and has all kinds of benefits that take a lot of "creativity" to reproduce with flat files (this was my thought as your questions were getting more complex). Keep experimenting and asking questions, no better way to learn imo. 198.161.238.18 (talk) 16:45, 19 May 2010 (UTC)