Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 December 19

= December 19 =

Display is cut off
Dear Wikipedians:

I have assembled my Zotac mini-PC and linked it to my Insignia 42-inch TV via HDMI. Everything works fine except the display seem to be cut off at the edges, as shown in the photo I took below:



Is there anything I can do to fix this problem?

Thanks,

L33th4x0r (talk) 02:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Check your TV's settings to make sure "Overscan" is set to zero. APL (talk) 03:16, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much! Problem solved! 70.29.24.167 (talk) 22:19, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Also, under Control Panel + Display, you may have some options for resizing or moving the display (depending on your graphics card). It might be worth trying other resolutions, too, as some might work better than others. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Does that on my TV as well unless I turn off 'overscan' on the TV's menu. Astronaut (talk) 05:00, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Apache, MySQL and PHP
Can I run Apache, MySQL and PHP on a computer with no Internet access, having them process only locally hosted files, for the purpose of learning PHP and SQL? Of course, the programs would be downloaded from a computer with Internet access and transferred through a thumb drive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 09:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's a very reasonable thing to do, one that many people do when they're learning web technologies. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:03, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Depending on your OS, the easiest solution may be to download a full WAMP package rather than trying to install each of them individually. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:50, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Writing stories by computer
I've always been fascinated by the idea that one day we will be able to read stories written by a computer/AI. While I was browsing the web I stumbled on this thesis, which was published in 1976. They must have made some progress in the last 35 years! Could anyone tell me, if they did, where I could get some information on this line of research? Thanks. --BorgQueen (talk) 09:30, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Sadly, the original TALE-SPIN program has been lost. But the field of AI research it began is progressing, slowly but surely. It's now usually called "Interactive storytelling" or similar.  (Not "Interactive Fiction", which is something else.)
 * There's a wiki here on the subject.
 * At the 2010 Game Developer's Conference I attended an hour long panel on the subject, and I see that they're selling audio from that presentation for $4. I remember being fascinated, but I don't remember if talk itself was any good, or if I was just fascinated by the concept, so I can't promise that it's worth buying.
 * Hope this helps. APL (talk) 11:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Difficult-to-remove folders with random names, Windows 7
After installations and Microsoft updates, folders with random names like "3286eb5992e84d4ec46ad5" are sometimes left behind on my largest drive. When I was using Xp, I just deleted such folders. With Windows 7, this turns out to be more difficult. Here's what happens: So the question is: How do I get SYSTEM privileges, and remove the folder. Surely, this is junk? --NorwegianBluetalk 09:51, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) I right-click on the folder, choose delete.
 * 2) Windows replies: "Are you sure?"
 * 3) I click "yes".
 * 4) Windows says (translated from Norwegian): "Folder access denied. You need administrator privileges to delete this folder", and displays three buttons, one with a blue-and-yellow shield "Continue".
 * 5) I click "Continue".
 * 6) Windows starts counting files, but then displays a message: "You need permission from SYSTEM to change this folder". Buttons: Try again and cancel.
 * 7) Trying again just redisplays the dialog.


 * Those are used by the Windows System Update, so if you're got pending updates waiting to be installed or otherwise dealt with you should not mess with those folders.
 * If you're absolutely sure that Windows System Update is not doing anything, and has somehow left those folders behind accidentally, they can be deleted after you take ownership of them. APL (talk) 11:58, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Yes, I'm absolutely sure there are no Windows System Updates pending, or other updates for that matter, and I've deleted such folders without problems when using Xp. I followed the link (which is for Xp), but was able to take ownership only of the files in the directory, not of the sub-folders (of which there were many). I was unable to repeat the procedure sub-folder by sub-folder, the dialogs that appeared when right-clicking these were different from that of the parent folder. So I booted into linux, deleted the folder, emptied the trash, and the folder was gone. --NorwegianBluetalk 08:28, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * You should be able to take ownership of the whole directory, including subcontainers and objects, give yourself permissions and the delete the entire directory in Windows 7 in advanced permission settings. I've done it before Nil Einne (talk) 12:16, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I anticipated that this might be a problem, and looked for checkboxes etc. to indicate that I wanted to take ownership of everything recursively. I don't remember the details, I think I checked off that that was what I wanted to do. However, in the process, warnings came up for the subdirectories (saying I needed SYSTEM privileges to take ownership of the subdirectory), and saying that the folder would be in an inconsistent state. So, as mentioned above, I deleted the whole thing after booting from Linux. If the problem appears again, I'll try again from Windows, and take careful notes and screenshots! --NorwegianBluetalk 13:14, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Is there a Facebook app that matches me up to users with the most common interests?
Omegle has something like this, but sadly, it only pairs me up with users at random, who may or may not have the same interests as me.

Then I met a young lady from California who shared about 55 interests with me! I was too busy counting, so she nexted me, sadly enough. (Some of you would even cut yourselves over this, but if something was meant to be, it was meant to be.)

These interests would be fanpages that we subscribed to.

Now would anyone please help me find an app that matches me to anyone with the most common interests? I have every confidence that in this way, I could find a (true) love at first sight! --70.179.174.101 (talk) 10:20, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

I don't know of any apps like that, but I wouldn't recommend facebook for getting to know people, especially potential mates. You learn very little about their actual personality (which you would be living with), the degree to which they have those interests, and what organizations they are part of. People rarely put stuff like school gangs in their profile... 99.43.78.36 (talk) 19:53, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Speaking of Facebook, our very own article which the OP linked to says Omegle supports connecting people who share interests on Facebook. Nil Einne (talk) 12:22, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Local Apache/MySql/PHP access
Can I run Apache, MySQL and PHP on a computer with no Internet access, having them process only locally hosted files, for the purpose of learning PHP and SQL? Of course, the programs would be downloaded from a computer with Internet access and transferred through a thumb drive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.126.19.150 (talk) 10:33, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Title added . Yes, use the IP address 127.0.0.1, aka localhost. This is an alias for "the machine I am currently using". CS Miller (talk) 10:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * The same question was asked an hour before. Shadowjams (talk) 12:18, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Move similar programs in the taskbar independently
In Windows 7, similar programs join together on the taskbar. For example, if I open three instances of notepad they all lock together, and when I move one, they all move. I also cannot move the third instance of notepad in front of the first, because they all move together. This is annoying. In taskbar properties I set it to "never combine" ages ago but this doesn't affect the behavior I am describing. How can I set it to move them each independently? 82.45.62.107 (talk) 16:44, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Do you have notepad "pinned" to the taskbar? If you do I think it will do the behavior you're describing. If you "unpin" it (right click on the icon and the option's there) you'll have to open it from the start menu or some other way, but it should behave how you expect. If you want it on the taskbar you can reinstall the Quick Launch bar which isn't in the default Windows 7 setup but is still there (without needing additional add ons). To use it you right click on an empty part of the taskbar, go to Toolbars > New Toolbar, and put "%appdata%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Quick Launch" in the field. (cite).


 * If you do both of these things your taskbar will behave much closer to XP than the default Windows 7 settings. Shadowjams (talk) 18:24, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I think you have misunderstood. I am not talking about program shortcuts, I am talking how programs which are running and active are being organized in the taskbar. Maybe I haven't explained it properly so here is a picture of what I mean. When I try to move one of the notepads, they all move. I don't want this, I want to move them individually. For example, I might want paint to be in-between the first and second notepads. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 19:08, 19 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Hm, I have the same behavior. Never noticed that. Question's still open I guess. Shadowjams (talk) 21:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)

Converting an FLV to an MPEG-4 Pt. 10 AVI using mencoder: audio out of sync
Hello,

I have a long (more than an hour in length) FLV file encoded using the On2 VP6 codec that I'd like to convert to an AVI encoded with x264 (a.k.a. MPEG-4 Part 10). I'm able to convert the video using mencoder, but the audio becomes increasingly out of sync as the converted video progresses (the audio is ahead of the video). The source FLV appears to have a number of duplicate frames, which may be the source of the problem.

I've tried the following mencoder commands based on recommendations in the MPlayer/MEncoder manual and a few threads online:

 mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -noskip -mc 0

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -noskip -vf harddup

mencoder input.flv -o output.avi -of avi -ovc x264 -oac mp3lame -vf harddup 

Unfortunately, none of these produce a video without the audio synchronization problem.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 16:46, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I had a terrible audio sync problem using mencoder. My solution was to completely remove anything remotely related to pulseaudio from my system. Once I got rid of pulseaudio, mencoder worked fine (and, a lot of other problems were instantly solved as well). -- k a i n a w &trade; 21:04, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * Well, I don't have Pulseaudio installed, so I don't think that's the problem, but thanks for the suggestion nonetheless. Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 22:41, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * It sounds like the audio is being encoded at a slightly different timebase to the video, causing the skew. This thread discusses some options, mostly to do with skipping and about forcing the video and audio rates. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 23:09, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * After reading the thread linked above, I used -ofps to force the frame rate to 24000/1001 and specified PCM audio output (the lavc mp2 suggestion in the thread didn't work when I tried it, as the version of mencoder I'm using - a relatively recent one - doesn't have the mp2 codec available). This resolved the issue to my satisfaction; there are still parts of the video where the audio seems to be slightly out of sync, but not enough to be irritating. Thanks for your help. Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 20:48, 20 December 2011 (UTC)


 * If you have the time to learn FFmpeg syntax, I find it suffers these sorts of problems less. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:59, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

WORM (write once read many)
In Linear Tape-Open with WORM, does the write once mean that you can only write to the tape once or just that any data written to it can't be modified though more can be written (as long as there is space, of course)? --178.208.197.76 (talk) 22:10, 19 December 2011 (UTC)


 * This whitepaper discussing LTO3-WORM operation says the "tape drive will not allow data to be recorded prior to the End of Data (EOD). The EOD is a set of data (that also contains WORM codes) recorded at the end of each user dataset written to the tape cartridge – thereby preserving all previously recorded user data (and initialization data) as non-rewriteable and non-erasable." Which means, for a WORM tape, you can only append - you can't erase or change. Once the tape is full, you can only read it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:28, 19 December 2011 (UTC)