Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 December 11

= December 11 =

Desktop link not showing up after I mount Truecrypt volume
In the case of a specific Truecrypt volume (others work as expected) I do not get a desktop link (in Ubuntu) after I mount it. The problem is certainly not THAT important, but I'm curious. Where can this be set? 88.9.210.149 (talk) 00:00, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Apache on AWS/ what am I doing wrong?
Hi. Just recently discovered Amazon Web Services.

Here's my situation:

I have a Fedora Core AMI running in a Micro Instance. It has Apache running in it, and there is an elastic IP address attached to it. The security group that the instance is in, is open on SSH and HTTP. I can SSH in no problem with the elastic ip, and inside the instance when I type http://localhost or http://localhost/test.php the contents of my /etc/var/www shows up just fine. Back here on my local machine, when I enter the elastic ip address in firefox it immediately tells me that it can't find the server at xx.xx.xx.xx (if the instance is running) or it times out (when the instance is not running).

What might I be doing wrong/missing?

Thanks in advance

Duomillia (talk) 03:59, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Something is wrong either with the security group or with its association to the instance. I think you need to stop an instance to meaningfully change it security group settings; maybe you did that for ssh, but not for http? 84.93.151.83 (talk) 11:33, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I'm afraid that's not it. The security group was changed while the instance was stopped. Duomillia (talk) 14:17, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Tablet PCs Christmas sales
Hello. I'd like to buy a tablet PC, Im thinking MotorolaXoom, and was wondering if that is the sort of product that will go down massively in the Xmas sales, ie. between Xmas and early January? Or do such technologies not tend to be discounted? Thanks. --anon


 * Since sales practices vary between countries, you're likely to have to tell people where you live before you can get anything close to a meaningful answer. Nil Einne (talk) 14:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Im in Birmingham, UK. --anon


 * I would expect them to go on sale if they have surpluses left over, just like any other product. This is even more true with technology, since they can't just let them sit in a warehouse until they sell, as the technology rapidly becomes obsolete and they decrease in value. StuRat (talk) 15:39, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Those kinds of reductions are often timed to the release of new models though, not the holidays. Tablets are not a seasonal item, they sell year around, so often there's no incentive to clear out the stock until right before the replacement for that model is on the market. APL (talk) 05:47, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Given the reported shortage of disk drives due to the floods in Thailand, manufacturers might struggle to meet demand for the next few months, so I wouldn't count on major price drops in that time frame. Looie496 (talk) 05:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Previewing Large Libraries
So I have several large collections of music and I have been looking for a utility/media player which will let me preview all of it automatically. I want something where I can just load all the songs and it'll play only the first 30 seconds or something and then move on to the next file and so on so that I don't have to keep clicking next. I imagine everybody has huge libraries nowadays but its amazingly hard to find something like this anywhere. Any good suggestions? Does VLC have that functionality (I couldn't find it anywhere)? Thanks! - Looking for Wisdom and Insight! (talk) 20:29, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You've not said which platform you're running on; if it's Linux, you can do this find /home/kaiser/music -type f -iname "*.mp3" -exec play {} trim 0 30 \;  (where /home/kaiser/music is where your music library is, change as appropriate). If you don't have a play executable, install the sox package. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:42, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Working on Windows...is there any hope? -  Looking for Wisdom and Insight! (talk) 22:35, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, transfer all data files to an external hard drive, then overwrite windows with Linux.--Aspro (talk) 22:56, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ??? -- BenRG (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sure there's hope. You could try the gen_intro plugin for WinAmp. Or you could install Cygwin and then run Finlay McWalter's command. Or you could install Python and I'll write you a short Python program to do the same thing (which could be a lot more versatile with respect to song ordering, etc.). -- BenRG (talk) 23:10, 11 December 2011 (UTC)


 * A Python program (which uses Pygame and thus Simple DirectMedia Layer) follows; I've not tested it on Windows, but it should work:


 * -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:38, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Wow guys. Thanks! The winamp plug-in was exactly what I was looking for. -  Looking for Wisdom and Insight! (talk) 00:01, 12 December 2011 (UTC)