Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 October 21

= October 21 =

Tyical pronunciation of RAR
Regarding RAR files, is RAR pronounced by most speakers in the know: Arr-A-Arr? Rare? Rahhhr?--108.54.26.7 (talk) 01:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * The third from what I have seen. It's actually part of an internet meme where one says "You winRAR". Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 23 Tishrei 5772 01:49, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you!--108.54.26.7 (talk) 02:07, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Please note though that that is the only context I have actually heard it pronounced in and that pronounciation was mostly for the purpose of the actual joke which was supposed to be a sort of roar. It might be best to ask the fellow(s) who made it via email. Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie &#124; Say Shalom! 23 Tishrei 5772 06:18, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "RAR (as in car)", asserts a site selling a RAR archiver.  Card Zero  (talk) 06:45, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I always say "rare file" and so does everyone I know. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:13, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It's "rar" as in car. When used as a verb (cf. "wikied", "googled") the past tense is "rarred" or "winrarred" (cf. "zipped", "winzipped", "7zipped") rather than "rared" if the pronunciation had been "rare".--  Obsidi ♠ n   Soul   18:21, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * rar as in raaaaaaarr. Shadowjams (talk) 09:34, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Display preferences for downloads
Is there a way to set my imac preferences on downloads to display the detail of the kilobytes or maybe megabytes? What I mean is this: right now I'm downloading a file that is 1.5 GB. The display says (frozen at a moment in time) "1.3 of 1.5 GB (357 kb/sec)" I would much rather, instead of it climbing by tenths of gigabytes, it climbed by kilobytes or at least by megabytes, so that I could actually follow the download more closely, that is, when it's at 1.3 and will next hit 1.4, for example, I can't see where it is until it changes which, takes quite a while and wish it said instead "1,368,486 kb of 1.5 gb (357 kb/sec)" or "1,368 mb of 1.5 gb (357 kb/sec)". The answer may be that there is no way but I'd like to know if there is. I looked for a way to change the display but didn't find any options like that.--108.54.26.7 (talk) 03:23, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I've been using Macs since the early '90s and have never seen a way to change this. There may be some little known command line way of changing it but as far as the GUI, it's not an available option.  Dismas |(talk) 03:56, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

building
I don't know much about building computers but I went to one of those build your own computer sites and managed to create and 16GB RAM i3 processor monster (compared to my shitty 1GB current computer) for just £515. Does that price sound right?

Also, it asked if I wanted to pay for Windows 7 and I said no since I have a Windows 7 disk or might want to try linux. Is that okay? Am I going to run into any big problems doing that, like the hardware saying "no! you must have shop bought windows pre-installed with lots of bloatware!"

Thanks for your help — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.182.132.103 (talk) 10:09, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * You may have problems with the Windows7.  It may not let you activate Windows on more than one computer. Microsoft wants you to buy a new copy for each computer.   Worse than that, if the Windows7 disk came bundled with a name-brand computer (Dell, Gateway, etc) it will almost certainly not work with a computer that's not that same brand. APL (talk) 10:29, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm pretty sure if you have a full retail version of Windows 7 (with the product key) you should have no problem activating on another computer if you've only ever activated it once before (this includes re-activating it because of hardware changes). If you've done it multiple times (I think the limit is 3 or 5) you may have to call Microsoft for activation. Of course the licence for most versions of Windows only entitle you to use it on one computer, so you should be using a single copy on 2 different computers concurrently, activating it on the new computer will de-activate it for the first computer (which the OS will find out when it checks). If you have an OEM version you generally can't move it between computers. If it's an upgrade retail version, it's a little more complicated. I believe the computer you're transferring it to would either need to have its own qualifying licenced copy of Windows (unlikely for a new computer) or you'll need to have a copy of Windows with a qualifying licence that you can transfer to the new computer (i.e. probably a full retail licenced copy of Windows that qualifies for the upgrade). Note if you are going the Windows 7 route, however you get there, you will need at least Home Premium and the 64 bit version or your 16 GB is going to go to waste. Nil Einne (talk) 16:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * (EC) 16GB is a huge amount of RAM, while the Core i3 processors are quite a long way from the top of the range. If you want relevant advice, you should tell us what you expect to use your computer for, but I doubt there is any use for which that combination of RAM and CPU would make sense.  You should probably check with the company which operating systems are compatible - I have heard that some laptops have security 'features' that make it difficult or impossible to install a different OS, and I am sure there must still be some hardware that Linux doesn't cope with. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 10:35, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Also, I don't think we can really give you an opinion on the price without knowing the full details of what it includes - monitors and graphics cards in particular can be quite expensive. You can probably bring the price down significantly by cannibalising parts from your existing machine if you don't want to keep it. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 10:44, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

After building computers myself a couple of times, I came to the conclusion that unless you have special requirements, it's generally cheaper to buy one ready-built. The labor in assembling a desktop computer is trivial -- it's just a matter of plugging a bunch of things into slots. And companies like HP or Dell can buy the components cheaper than an ordinary consumer can. You can make a better computer by building one yourself, but you'll have a hard time making a cheaper one. Looie496 (talk) 18:17, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

gaming
what is a good set up for a computer for gaming? (online games, wow etc.) im here in the philippines, and im on a budget. i already googled some ideas, id just like to know what wikipedians will say. thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.112.82.1 (talk) 18:30, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * RAM and a good processor are imperative. → Σ  τ  c . 22:09, 23 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Video card is the most imperative. Then worry about CPU, and RAM in that order. If you can be more specific maybe we can give you ideas. Shadowjams (talk) 08:36, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Most games will tell you the minimum requirements as well as the optimum requirements on the box or on their web page. Take a look at the games you're interested in, and they can tell you how beefy of a box you'll want to look at. 129.128.216.107 (talk) 02:00, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

mysql multiple update
There are a lot of hidden features in mysql. I was wondering if there is a hidden way to do this:
 * update table set field1=val1 where field2=val2, set field3=val3 where field4=val4;

I know the update table set field1=val1 where field2=val2 syntax. I would like to do multiple set...where groupings in a single query. Why? I have an update query that joins three extremely large tables (takes about 10 minutes for the joins). I need to set ah=1 where cat='AH', set ld=null where fdad is null, and set DM=0 where ADM=1. Right now, it is a good 30+ minutes because I have to join it all three times. -- k a i n a w &trade; 20:21, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Now that I've had time to be removed from the problem, I think I can use the if statement to set ah=if(cat='AH',1,ah), ld=if(fdad is null,null,ld), DM=if(ADM=1,0,DM). -- k a i n a w &trade; 22:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

making a C++ template more specific
I'm teaching myself C++ (I've plenty of experience in C and Java). On writing the following program, I wondered if there was a way where I could make it explicit that print_deque should take only a deque. Right now I guess it will take anything that has empty, front, and pop_front methods (I suppose that makes this duck typing) which means that if a caller gives it something else, they'll most likely get a "foo has no member named empty" error, where it would be clearer if they got a "foo is not a deque" error. Is there a way to tighten the specification of T? Thanks. 87.113.137.36 (talk) 20:31, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Try changing  to  . I don't remember enough C++ to say for sure, but it might work.


 * C++ templates behave like duck typing, but strictly speaking, they're not typed at all. They're a syntactic preprocessor, so they just generate code and C++ typechecks that code. Paul (Stansifer) 03:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that should work. You might be interested in concepts, which will presumably find their way into the C++ standard at some point. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 17:09, 25 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Not sooner than 2021, I think, given that they're not in C++11 and there's a minimum 10-year gap between standards revisions. Kind of a shame. -- BenRG (talk) 05:56, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

A portion of the article about Arab Spring does not print properly
I ran into a problem when printing the article. The first four pages are fine but near the bottom of page 5, which is only about one fifth of the way thru the "Summary of protests by country" table, the Background heading followed immediately by the Motivations heading are printed over the top of Oman in the table and the remainder of the countries in the table are not printed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.89.146 (talk) 22:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Wow, it looks like that article will print to almost 60 pages. It's possible your printer ran out of memory!
 * From the information you've provided, it's difficult to know whether the problem is due to the web-browser (incorrectly reflowing when laying out for the print page-sizes), or due to the printer (something more complicated). Can you print similarly-sized articles?  Can you try saving the page as a PDF (for example, by using this link from Wikipedia; or using your own favorite method to create PDFs from web-pages)?  If you print the PDF, does the result look okay?  Nimur (talk) 00:24, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Using the link that you suggested, I created a PDF of the article and was able to print the entire Summary of Protests by Country table. The situation that I described (ie four fifths of the table being skipped) was also true when I used print preview prior to printing. All remaining pages (6-49) looked ok in print preview. I have printed some fairly long PDF files in the past and have not had any similar problems and in this case I was only printing the first 5 or 6 pages so I assume that the problem is not related to printer memory. Therefore, I guess that your suggestion that the web-browser might be the culprit may be correct. I usually use Firefox so I may pull the article up in explorer and see if the same thing happens. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.89.146 (talk) 05:35, 23 October 2011 (UTC)

The problem was eliminated by using Internet Explorer. Thanks for your help. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.191.89.146 (talk) 05:45, 23 October 2011 (UTC)