Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 January 20

= January 20 =

Laptop
Hello. I recently purchased a Dell D620 laptop. It is running Windows Vista Buisness 32-Bit. I want to install Ubuntu, preferably the 64-bit version. How do I know if the hardware can support a 64-bit version? --  T H F S W  (T · C · E) 03:17, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Download and run GRC SecurAble. 118.96.159.107 (talk) 05:31, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * See Dell Latitude. It has a 64 bit cpu but apparently some brain damage in the memory architecture.  67.122.209.190 (talk) 06:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I am suspicious of the article's claim of "brain damage in the memory architecture" given the lack of sources and poor grammar. It looks like it was added by a single disgruntled user whose problem could have had any number of other causes. -- BenRG (talk) 09:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I took out some of the info at Dell Latitude. I found this, which describes a Dell D620 running ubuntu (but interestingly enough, with a 3.3GB limitation possibly caused by the so-called "brain damage").  (talk) 10:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

The easiest way to install any version of linux is with a live DVD off of which linux will run if you so choose (you will need to change the bios settings to boot from a cd/dvd before the hard drive but in many cases the computer is already setup to do this - probably to make system restore dvds easier to use). There are separate dvds for 32 bit and 64 bit. If you try to use 64bit live media without the corresponding hardware it will tell you. Best of luck, I quite like Ubuntu. Mattbondy (talk) 03:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING
WHAT IS THE IMPORTANCE OF CHEMISTRY IN COMPUTER SCIENCE ENGINEERING? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.198.33.180 (talk) 11:51, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Chemistry is important in electronics. Electronics is important in computer science engineering.  If you have no interest in the hardware, I strongly suggest you switch majors to something like computer information science or computer media science. --  k a i n a w &trade; 14:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Please also don't type in capital letters. Online, it's considered the equivalent of shouting. Chevy  monte  carlo  17:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Internet Explorer RSS feeds
Google Chrome is my main browser but I retain Internet Explorer 8 for RSS feeds as Chrome doesn't support RSS without installation of an application. Recently, when I open IE8, my RSS feeds do not display on screen; there is only a blank white screen. What is wrong with the RSS feeds? Could I export my RSS feeds to Google Chrome? What should I do? --Blue387 (talk) 12:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Linux calendar sync
I have three google calendars, two exchange calendars, and a droid calendar. Is there a program in Linux that can manage syncing all of the calendars to one another? It appears that exchange is the big hurdle because every solution I've found requires a working install of Outlook - which is not reasonable in Linux. -- k a i n a w &trade; 14:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I have not tried this, but have you looked into Sunbird? It appears to have plug-ins for all the things you mentioned.  How well they work, I couldn't say. APL (talk) 15:26, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It appears to me that Sunbird is a simple way of getting Thunderbird+Lightning. I tried Ligthning and I couldn't get it to load any events from either Google or Exchange with each of those plugins.  The documentation is extremely lacking.  For example, it asks for the "location" of the exchange mailbox, but gives absolutely no hint about what the format of the location should be.  I tried numerous guesses based on my exchange login information and all I got was numerous empty calendars. --  k a i n a w &trade; 16:12, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

CPU examples
5 examples of central processing unit —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.220.69.6 (talk) 17:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Please see central processing unit. Your question appears to be homework.  We will assist with concepts and ideas, but will not answer your homework questions for you. --  k a i n a w &trade; 18:03, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Have a look at Intel's processor web page. For a very boring answer to your homework assignment, you can submit the following list of five example Intel i7 steps:

Intel Core i7-860 SLBJJ(B1) Intel Core i7-860s SLBLG(B1) Intel Core i7-870 SLBJG(B1) Intel Core i7-870s SLBQ7(B1) Intel Core i7-875k SLBS2(B1)
 * If When your teacher complains, just say you were following the machine instructions. Did you know that there are other types of CPU besides the Intel i7 8xx series?  Nimur (talk) 20:29, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Is a PDF-file in some way more portable than a ZIP-file containing .PNG images?
Is a PDF-file in some way more portable than a ZIP-file containing .PNG images? (When moving content back and forth between various platforms). --Seren-dipper (talk) 18:44, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The images-in-PDF would be easier to view on an iPad/iPhone/iPod-touch than a zip-of-images; I think the same is true for Blackberry, but I don't know about Android in this regard. In general many devices which fancy themselves eBooks will render a PDF (well or badly), but won't know what to do with a general zip file. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:58, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

No, particularly not with the popularization of Comic Book Archive file readers. PDF is an awful format. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Can you say specifically what's awful about it? -- BenRG (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * In lieu of a long rant about the philosophy of data portability, consider reading Technical Information from the Library of Congress's National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program. If you really want to be truly platform portable, you should provide source-code for your documents, a free and open-source program that can render the document, and instructions for use.
 * If all you seek is portability across a few major modern operating systems, like Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista/7, and Ubuntu, then either PDF or archived PNGs will work. All you need to do is evaluate the ease-of-use and convenience of each option.  I will also comment that both PNG and ZIP technology and file formats are totally unencumbered by any proprietary IP or copyright claims; this is very good for long-term data storage.  Nimur (talk) 20:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Patents expire in 20 years, so they don't matter as far as long-term data storage is concerned. The PDF format was published as an ISO standard in 2008, and there are free-software implementations of it. Knowing all that, do you still have an objection to the use of PDF as an archival format? -- BenRG (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * There's unfortunately more to it than that. PDF, part of an open specification or not, is controlled by Adobe, and since Adobe's reader has massive penetration and others do not, whatever their reader supports—in the spec or not—is a de facto standard that people will expect to be supported.  After that we get into what happens if Adobe ever goes under or decides it doesn't like PDF.  Consider what happened when Oracle bought Sun, and how now the OpenOffice, Java™, and MySQL projects are suffering, despite having been open source. ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * How exactly are those projects suffering? Oracle is releasing new versions of all of the products you mentioned and they're still very popular. As for PDF, why don't you tell us what you think will happen if Adobe doesn't like PDF? The format has seen very little change since version 1.5 in 2003, yet it's never been more popular. Many open source projects, like OpenOffice.org, have embraced PDF, too.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:27, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * http://www.geekgumbo.com/2010/11/06/the-decline-of-mysql/, Oracle Corporation, LibreOffice. ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:28, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * PDF is a scalable vector format like SVG, not a raster format like PNG, though (like SVG) it supports embedded raster images. It allows selectable, searchable text to be overlaid on a raster-image background; alternatively, the text can be made invisible, allowing scanned book images to be searched and copied as plain text without altering their original appearance. Among the bitmap formats it supports are JPEG2000, which losslessly compresses photos a lot better than PNG, and JBIG2, which losslessly compresses low-color images a lot better than PNG. Zipped PNGs can't do any of these things. If all you need is a bundle of losslessly compressed raster images then a ZIP archive of PNGs is pretty portable, but it makes little sense to compare it to PDF.


 * Since people are talking about PDF I should mention DjVu, though I don't know which if any ebook readers support it. -- BenRG (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You just compared ZIP'd PNGs with JPEG2000 inside PDF. My question is this: why? Actually that's rhetorical.  JPEG2000 images inside a ZIP, done.  Read the original question. ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Ridiculous. The file size of a bunch of PNGs would be incredible and the resources needed to zoom in on high-resolution bitmap images one at a time would make a very frustrating reading experience. (I'm assuming this is an e-book.) I've made many e-books myself from PNGs, so I'm speaking from experience. By the way, the PDF supports ZIP compression. You can choose to compress text and vectors using ZIP and images using either ZIP, JPEG, or JPEG2000.


 * There are also advantages when it comes to searching for text in a PDF as compared to PNGs, which can't be searched at all. You can also add bookmarks and hyperlinks to PDFs.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The question was about PDF versus zipped PNGs; that's why I compared those two things specifically. I don't dislike ZIP or PNG, nor do I especially like PDF (DjVu is probably better for scanned documents, which is why I mentioned it). But I get upset when people express strong opinions about which things are good or bad despite apparently having no factual knowledge of the things themselves. There's an emotional sense that certain things are "proprietary" and other things are "open" that doesn't seem to have much connection to reality. PKWARE, the original publishers of the ZIP specification, have continued to publish revised versions adding strong encryption, Unicode filenames, and a variety of new compression methods, among other things. WinZip, which I believe is overwhelmingly the most popular utility for creating and extracting ZIP archives, supports these features, while the support in free implementations is much spottier. WinZip has also added its own extensions that aren't in the PKWARE standard, exploiting its position as market leader. This is what you said you feared would happen to PDF, and it actually has happened to ZIP. Does that make ZIP a bad archival format? -- BenRG (talk) 06:59, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * First, I'd like to clarify for the record: I don't think I ever said (or even implied) that PDF is a "bad" format. It has definite advantages, particularly with respect to search-able text, high compression ratios for vectorized graphics, etc.  And it does have free and open-source implementations; and as BenRG has correctly pointed out, the PDF format is (now) an ISO standard.
 * I think we also need to be very clear: "PDF" is not identical to "anything that Adobe Acrobat spits out with a .pdf extension" - and "ZIP" is not identical to "anything that WinZip spits out with a .zip extension." In general, there are standard data formats and there are (free and non-free) implementations of programs that work with those data formats.  I strongly recommend using standard data formats - without extensions (whether free or proprietary).  If a data format extension (free or non-free) is useful, it will eventually be standardized and alternative programs will be developed that can handle them.  The crux of data portability is, by definition, not having to rely on a single platform implementation.
 * But I will also point out that the more esoteric your platform, the more you need to worry about "portability." While it is definitely true that PDF has open-source implementations, I doubt they would be easy to port to a non-(Windows/Mac/Linux) computer.  On the other hand, ZIP, PNG, JPEG, and many other program implementations are trivially ported to any platform (like a mobile or embedded device).  "Portability" has a mystique associated with it; it is presented as a binary "yes/no" of whether a particular thing can be ported to a particular platform.  In reality, portability is a measure of effort required to make something work on a new system.  Standard formats are easier to "port" because somebody else will have done the work for you.  Simple formats are easier to "port" if you have to do the work yourself.  As a programmer, I would rather have to implement a ZIP/PNG decoder on a new hardware and software platform, rather than a PDF reader - even though source code is available for both formats.  As a user, I would rather have my data in PDF format, because it has the numerous advantages listed above, and because it is so popular, I can generally trust that some other programmer has already done the work to port it to my new platforms.  Nimur (talk) 18:33, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the 'bad format' issue was in reply to Reisio who did seem to say it was although I understand the need to be clear you weren't and didn't say it was a bad format. Nil Einne (talk) 11:15, 23 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Considering that I have encountered a huge number of websites which distribute documents in PDF format and have encountered exacly none who use zipped PNG files. Whilst most OSes are capable of opening a zip file and displaying PNGs, as Best Dog Ever says, reading them could easily become a very frustrating experience.  Furthermore, there are a number of programs which will produce PDF output for free, so the previously high cost of authoring PDF files (when it was in Adobe's hands only) is no longer an issue.  It is also worth considering that PDF files often have controls to protect the content from modification/distribution if that is important to you - zipped PNGs have no such controls.  That said, if you are simply distributing a web comic, via a torrent for example, then I can imagine a Comic Book Archive file or zipped PNGs are as good as any other and may provide the hosting site with an easy way to provide visitors with preview pages.  Astronaut (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you, all, for your input! :-) --Seren-dipper (talk) 07:09, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Dual-boot system
I have some questions about dual booting. I can figure out how to partition the hard drive, but I can't get the second operating system to boot on the second partition (it wipes out the first). What software could I use that could help with dual-booting? --  T H F S W  (T · C · E) 21:20, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * GRUB: "(GNU GRand Unified Bootloader) is a boot loader package from the GNU Project." Note that some operating systems do not like to be installed on secondary-partitions.  In my experience, it is easier to install Windows first (on the first primary partition) and to install Linux afterward.  Allow Linux to install GRUB and overwrite the Windows-installed bootloader.  GRUB will be the first thing you see when you boot up, and will let you choose which operating system to launch.  If this doesn't work for you, you'll have to elaborate on your setup - you haven't even specified which operating system(s) you're installing.  Nimur (talk) 21:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

You can get real-time help at irc://irc.freenode.net/linux ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I partition using the disk manager in windows because I do not expect windows to 'play nice'. I figure if I use windows tools to make changes to windows I will keep it 'happy'. Once the open partition is there I put linux and a linux bootloader in the open partition. I prefer to leave the windows bootloader alone (I had some bad experiences before GRUB2 came out). By default linux will replace the windows bootloader. Usually this is changed just before the final step in linux installation (to the hard drive) through an 'advanced options'-like dialog box. There is a piece of software for windows that is freely available called EasyBCD. It can edit the windows bootloader to add entries for linux (and a few other options - which might be important since you never specified what OSs you are working with). I think this approach might be best described as creating a chain of boot loaders since the windows bootloader does not directly load linux, it loads the bootloader that linux installed to it's own partition and uses this bootloader (usually GRUB) to load linux. I have had no problems with just using GRUB2 to load windows and linux but the one time I tried this setup it was not intentional. Neosmart Technologies, in addition to offering EasyBCD, offers Windows Vista & 7 bootloader restoration disks which can be a lifesaver. Good luck. Mattbondy (talk) 03:20, 25 January 2011 (UTC)