Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 January 31

= January 31 =

How to load a mouse driver without a mouse driver ?
One of my old Win 98 computers just had "an accident". The PS/2 mouse fell off the desk and did a "bungee jump" routine just short of the floor. The laser mouse seemed OK, in that the laser was still lit, but the pointer will no longer move on the screen. I rebooted several times, with no luck. I plugged in another PS/2 mouse and again rebooted a few times, no luck. So, I'm guessing that the connector where the PS/2 mouse plugs in was jerked and it broke a connection behind it. I really don't want to disassemble the computer and try to solder it back together.

So, the other option is to use a USB mouse. Unfortunately, the USB plugs on a Win 98 computer don't seem to come with any built-in drivers. So, how do I download a USB mouse driver on a computer where I can't use the mouse ? I do have other computers, and the Win 98 computer is networked to them, so I could download a driver and place it in a shared folder, but can't figure out how to navigate there without a working mouse. The only other option I can think of is to burn the mouse driver onto CD on another computer, but again I can't figure out how to install that driver on a computer without using the mouse. Any ideas ? StuRat (talk) 06:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * With the keyboard you can do pretty much anything! Press Winkey+E to open explorer. Use the arrow keys and tab and enter and alt+tab to navigate. Von Restorff (talk) 06:58, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I was able to download the mouse driver this way, but still can't install it. How do I do this without a mouse ? StuRat (talk) 07:13, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Sorry, I need a bit more information. If it is something like setup.exe it should be easy to do via keyboard. Is it a INF file? Is the default action (the one that happens when you press Enter) not install? Did you try selecting the INF file and pressing SHIFT+F10? Von Restorff (talk) 07:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Problem seems to have fixed itself after about the 10th unplug/replug/reboot cycle with the PS/2 mouse. Must have been a pin not making contact or some such thing.  Thanks for your help. StuRat (talk) 22:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Blame Bill. Von Restorff (talk) 22:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Refresh webpage continuously
If I have a website which serves quasi-static pages, but those change over time, is it possible to make them change continuously (every second) by adding something, or would it require changes to the code of the website.

More specifically, the website includes a timer (T) and some other fields (F) that change over time due to actions of registered users. On the user end, the site shows "T" and "F" at the time of the page load and does not change. If the user reloads the page in the browser it shows a new "T" and potentially new "F". Is it possible to have it show always the current "T"/"F" without user interaction (reload)? bamse (talk) 10:36, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, using Javascript. Depending on what you want updated, it can be a very tiny piece of code, or it can be a more complicated AJAX-style query. But Javascript is generally the answer to all manner of "I want a webpage to do something more or less in real time, without needing to be refreshed." --Mr.98 (talk) 13:12, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * There's also the deprecated Meta refresh, which has the advantage of working even if JavaScript is disabled. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 13:42, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I see, but wouldn't that require changes to the original program? Basically what I have is a program not written by me which I don't want to touch. This program requires refresh. Is it possible to have a small piece of extra code written for it without touching the source of the original program? bamse (talk) 13:53, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * One way to do that would be to have a new page which uses JavaScript or Meta refresh for the refreshing, and includes the original site as a frame or iframe. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 14:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you. As far as I understand meta refresh is not good for refreshing every second, correct? How about javascript? Can I refresh every second with javascript? As for the refresh in frame approach, are there any ready made scripts which I could use? What should I google for to find them? bamse (talk) 14:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Another option is a program which clicks the mouse every second, with the mouse positioned on the refresh button. I use XuMouse, but it has a minimum of 5 seconds between clicks.  In any case, your computer will pretty much be unavailable while continuously refreshing the page. StuRat (talk) 22:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I am looking for a program to be installed on the server not on the computers of each of the many users. bamse (talk) 23:26, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks for the clarification. StuRat (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Here you can find an example of Javascript that tells the browser to refresh the page after a configurable amount of time. Von Restorff (talk) 04:05, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. bamse (talk) 12:09, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Onion
Just how anonymous is Onion? Is it really untraceable? Is it even anonymous to the courts if someone did something mildly bad from it, but not anything serious like fraud or threatening to blow up the White House? (Not asking for legal advice here, obviously since I'm not providing enough details for somebody to provide good legal advice, I just want to know exactly how anonymous Onion is). 31.204.130.206 (talk) 16:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * I take it you mean onion routing - some potential attacks are described in the article. A hypothetical perfectly anonymous communication system wouldn't be very useful in most circumstances anyway, as you would have no way of knowing who you are communicating with.  I don't think we can really advise you on how likely your country's (or another's) authorities are to intercept your messages. 130.88.99.231 (talk) 16:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Do you mean sniffers? 31.204.130.206 (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Seems like this is already answered. It is not very anonymous. It is not untraceable. Von Restorff (talk) 17:29, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * So only access to Internet in out-home places without providing mine identity remains. 31.204.130.206 (talk) 17:43, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Exactly. VPN's are not very secure either, even though the people selling them tell you otherwise (they need to make money). In my area there are plenty of wireless networks that are not protected, sometimes I use those. Be aware of your own idiosyncrasies so you know what to avoid. If you use a virtual computer you can easily change identifiable features like the operating system you are running and the MAC address. Think about plausible deniability, use plenty of red herrings and create an alibi in advance. Von Restorff (talk) 17:50, 31 January 2012 (UTC) p.s. If you are not using it already you may want to read TrueCrypt.
 * VPNs can be very secure, if configured properly. There are free software implementations that allow you to use a VPN or a proxy over SSH (for example, set up the free and open source software utilities OpenSSH or DropBear with SOCKS) - which somewhat deflates the argument that salesman are overselling the capabilities "for profit."  I think Von Restorff may be conflating security with anonymity.  These phrases are not synonymous.  We have an article on Computer security and Anonymity on the Internet.  The distinction is clear: "computer security includes protection of information and property from theft, corruption, or natural disaster," while anonymity "typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown."  Nimur (talk) 23:02, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Excuse me, I meant to say VPN's are not very anonymous, thanks Nimur! Salespeople frequently tell potential clients that their VPN's are totally anonymous, and those people then end up in jail for downloading illegal stuff or hacking et cetera et cetera. In most cases VPN's are also not very secure, but if you use the correct software they can be very secure, like Nimur correctly pointed out. Von Restorff (talk) 04:00, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

google
I like the simple results page scroogle gives but they are constantly being blocked by google making the service difficult to use. Is there any way to get a similar "no clutter" results page from google directly, with all the cache links, similar pages links and related searches stuff removed? 82.45.62.107 (talk) 17:18, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you are familiar with CSS and willing to spend some time I would recommend Stylish. You can make your own CSS sheet and apply it to Google. Userstyles.org hosts tens of thousands of user styles made by other Stylish users that you can try. The webdeveloper toolbar may be useful when writing your CSS. Von Restorff (talk) 18:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC) p.s. If you have your own webpage you can build a custom search engine frontend based on Google (google: "custom search engine"). If you like black you can give blackle a try, it even claims to save energy.
 * What is scroogle? wow me noob --190.60.93.218 (talk) 18:08, 2 February 2012 (UTC)
 * http://scroogle.org/ Von Restorff (talk) 23:48, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

Meta machine learning
What research, if any, has been done on using AI and machine-learning algorithms to inform the design of other AI and machine-learning algorithms, e.g. choosing the algorithm and its parameters for a given narrow-AI problem? Neon Merlin  17:27, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Running installers on Windows 7
I use a Windows 7 machine at work but I'm not too familiar with the OS.

Sometimes when I run newly downloaded EXEs, it'll take maybe 2 minutes to actually run the program, usually before it gives me one of those "are you sure you want to let this program do stuff?" admin confirmations.

Why would this be? (And is there any way to stop the wait?)

It's not an issue with the speed of the machine, which is blazing fast. Not an issue with memory or anything like that. The machine IS networked in various complicated ways, so maybe that's got something to do with it. Or maybe some kind of anti-virus issue? I'm just not sure. Any thoughts? --Mr.98 (talk) 20:05, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Probably User Account Control, you can disable it if you want to. Google "disable uac win7" for instructions. Von Restorff (talk) 20:14, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * No; Mr.98 is complaining that it takes too long to get to the UAC dialog in the first place. I would try booting in safe mode without networking to see whether it still takes a long time. (To be more precise you should actually just turn off each networked drive instead of using the hammer of safe mode.)  I think you're probably right and Windows is trying to connect to its various networked drives to look for ... something, before deciding to proceed.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:59, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Eh, wut? Von Restorff (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * If you do not want to disable UAC completely you can try to turn off the "Secure Desktop" feature so that it does not dim the desktop. Von Restorff (talk) 21:11, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Might you have one of the more intrusive anti-virus programs? Perhaps some process is scanning the installer executable before even starting to run it.  -- LarryMac  | Talk  21:09, 31 January 2012 (UTC)

Changing interfaces' colour
Anyone knows any way Wikipedia/Google's general white background can be changed? 62.255.129.19 (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * In Wikipedia, you can edit your profile in My Preferences + Appearance. StuRat (talk) 22:16, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Skins, you mean? They go much beyond changing colours, though... I'm hoping I could simply retain the current skin along with turning the background white to black and the text to white (for example). 62.255.129.19 (talk) 22:56, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Under your current skin you have "Custom CSS" and "Custom JavaScript" options which allow you to modify the skin's colors, etc. I suggest copying from somebody who has theirs set up like you want. StuRat (talk) 01:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * For Google, there is a (somewhat protracted) route you can take. This relies on you having a Google account and remaining signed in. If you go to www.google.com and click on "Change background image" in the bottom left corner, you will be able to choose an image from a gallery. If you don't see one you like, you can create your own; however, this seems to require you to download Google's Picasa software, create an image (a plain black rectangle, for example), and then select it using the "your Picasa web photos" option, which seems like a lot of work. An easier option would probably be the extension Stylish which works on Firefox and Chrome. Once installed, go to www.userstyles.org to find styles you like (eg. Google styles), which you can also modify to suit your needs. There are also styles for Wikipedia. -- Kateshortforbob talk  11:23, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Vertical bar!
I was referred here from this thread. A somewhat esoteric matter and yet one that bares practical significance for me as an editor: How do you produce the |-sign on the standard Microsoft keyboard? I know, it's found to the top-right between Backspace and (+/=). But when I press the combined Shift+(|) it would type a tilde (~). I must switch to the Hebrew mode each time that I need the (|). :-( Is my keyboard totally f***ed-up? Thanx, 31.210.183.246 (talk) 22:54, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * It would appear that your operating system has misconfigured the keyboard layout. Have a look at Microsoft's Keyboard Layout FAQ, and particularly the section "How to add an input locale or keyboard layout?"  This provides instructions to edit or add a keyboard layout; you may need to try variations on the standard software layouts until you find the correct one that matches your keyboard.  This way, you can ensure that software will interpret the physical keypresses in the way that you intend (whether or not that matches the glyphs painted on the keys).  Nimur (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. I now followed conversationexchange.com/resources/keyboard to finally match my keyboard language definition with the system language one (= it appeared to have been UK-English on the language side and US-English on the keyboard side). But sadly this didnot change anything in the typing results, and Shift+2 still produces " instead of @ and Shift+| generates ~. That is, the keyboard only functions well when I'm on the Hebrew mode, to which I constantly need to toggle. How annoying. 31.210.183.246 (talk) 23:32, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Are you sure you are selecting the right keyboard layout? Looking at the images in keyboard layout, it sounds as though your OS might be assuming a UK or US layout rather than a Hebrew one.  Also, which OS are you using?  It is possible that it doesn't have support for the Hebrew layout, or that you need to install an update or a third-party extension to support it. 81.98.43.107 (talk) 14:48, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh what's an OS >: ? 94.230.90.111 (talk) 15:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll now check the How to add an input locale section suggested above as it is possible that matching the system language settings is just not what's important for our matter. I thought this is identical with doing the keyboard layout thing. 94.230.90.111 (talk) 15:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Well.. how confusing. I just now followed the initial steps given in that link and was halted right at the second, which says "Click Keyboard, and then click the Input Locales tab" – as there's simply no Input Locales button in my Keyboard control panel.. (Pictured) 94.230.90.111 (talk) 16:16, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * OS means Operating System. Basically he is asking which version of Windows you are running. I think the answer is Windows XP. Go back here and follow the instructions at the bottom of the page under the header called "Add language support". Reboot. Then try to find the tab called Locales at the same place you made the screenshot again. Von Restorff (talk) 21:21, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Naa... well. Step 5 there says "Under Supplemental language support, select the check box beside the applicable language collection", and I don't have such thing/option on the relevant control panel. Thank you. 94.230.83.66 (talk) 21:40, 1 February 2012 (UTC) And yes, it's an XP here. 94.230.83.66 (talk) 21:43, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Try this then. It probably requires a Windows XP cd-rom. Von Restorff (talk) 21:53, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you, but are you sure that one page's relevant. It seems it handles how to view Hebrew properly and here the thing is "Keyboard Layout", as it looks. 94.230.83.66 (talk) 22:06, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Not 100%, but I would say it has more than 75% 95% chance of helping, other people tell you to check that checkbox too. The checkbox is named "Install files for complex script and right-to-left languages (including Thai)". AFAIK modern Hebrew is a right-to-left language. If you have a WindowsXP cd it should be quick and easy to try, and it does not have disadvantages AFAIK. Von Restorff (talk) 22:20, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The Windows used here is a legal copy so I have the cd, however, I don't wish to decentralize the efforts and lose focus off the hub issue that started this thread, that is, the misplacement of some characters across my English keyboard. This honestly is not supposed to have to do with the Hebrew configuration, which works perfect here. :/ 94.230.83.66 (talk) 22:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I just clicked the checkbox and a messagebox popped up saying: "You chose to install the Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Hebrew, Indic, Thai and Vietnamese language files..... et cetera et cetera". You do need to have a Windows XP cdrom. Von Restorff (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Plz see above. 94.230.83.66 (talk) 22:39, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * and jeez, I'm sorry for the frequent changing of my identifying number. 94.230.83.66 (talk) 22:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Ah wait! Is your keyboard layout called United States-International or just US? It should be United States-International. Von Restorff (talk) 22:45, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Please tell me how I can tell this. The little language bar at the bottom of the screen reads English (United Kingdom) - but I can assume that isn't what we look for 94.230.83.66 (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I suspect this is the problem. Go to: Control panel (in classic view) -> Regional and Language options -> Languages -> Details. In the box Installed languages it says (on my computer) English (United States) [This is the language] and under that it says Keyboard and under that it says United States-International. Von Restorff (talk) 22:55, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * screenshot. I think you are using the US-English keyboard layout instead of the US-international keyboard layout. Click "Add" and use the combobox at the bottom to select US-International. Von Restorff (talk) 22:56, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Hehe, but see, just a bit earlier I followed http://www.conversationexchange.com/resources/keyboard-language.php - to which I was referred on the WikiCommons help page - and it ended in successfully matching the two categories you're illustrating to one-another but towards the UK-English choice :) (which is my better-comprehended dialect) so what's now? 94.230.83.66 (talk) 23:08, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The one at the bottom has nothing to do with the dialect of the English language, it has to do with the keyboard layout. Von Restorff (talk) 23:18, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh. So switch again to US ? 94.230.83.66 (talk) 23:22, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * US-international. Von Restorff (talk) 23:27, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Did it, and rebooted, and.. hooray, it.. works. After a long, long time. @"||||||||||||| Thank you. 31.210.181.210 (talk) 23:42, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Whooohooo! You are very welcome of course! Von Restorff (talk) 23:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Windows media center tv guide listings die at 6pm tonight? D;
Hey, i was watching tv with a tuner card in my pc, when windows media center told me my guide listings will expire within 3 days and i should really download the latest info. So i think "yeah sounds like a plan".... Telling it to download them seems to do nothing (i told it to get listings several times via the settings menu). It always tells me that its downloading even though the standard windows media icon with the green download arrow never shows up near my clock. Looking at the guide info inside the settings panel i get this view:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/29/listingx.png/

Am I to understand that charter has packaged some guide data that ends Jan 31 2012 and that i can no longer receive this data from them? Can i get a newer listing somehow (setting up the tv connection from scratch perhaps?)? Please help, as having no info about my favorite shows is sort of depressing!

Thanks! 137.81.118.126 (talk) 23:21, 31 January 2012 (UTC) WEll you can search in each channel they normally got a schedule there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.60.93.218 (talk) 18:19, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

floating point types in Windows programming languages
Embarcadero Delphi has three floating-point types:
 * single - 4 bytes, 23-bit mantissa
 * double - 8 bytes, 53-bit mantissa
 * Extended - 10 bytes, 64-bit mantissa on 32-bit platforms but the same as double on 64-bit platforms.

Is there a technical reason for the 10-byte extended type to not be available on 64-bit platforms? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 23:24, 31 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know the reason why it doesn't support  on 64-bit, but you might find the open source replacement uTExtendedX87 useful. I'm not a Delphi programmer and haven't tried using this myself.- gadfium  01:38, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * It appears to be unsupported because Delphi XE2 64-bit uses SSE2 for floating point, which does not provide the 80-bit extended float. There's a discussion about this at Thread: Delphi XE2: Extended Floating Pt Numbers -- Team B: HELP. Search for "SSE2" in the thread for the relevant information, but you might like to read the whole thread because there are warnings about  use there too.- gadfium  01:51, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Thank you both for the informative replies. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:07, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * If you must use floating-point with better than double precision, you might consider Arbitrary-precision arithmetic. Because most modern computers do not support 10-byte floating-point math in hardware, it is probable that your Delphi compiler was already using a software-emulation feature; so the conversion to an arbitrary-precision math library will probably not incur a significant performance penalty over your previous code.  I am unfortunately not aware of any Delphi language bindings, and our article doesn't help out there either; but you can try compiling GNU Multiple Precision Arithmetic Library (implemented in C) and linking it with your Delphi code.  It also appears that your compiler vendor, Embarcadero, has IMATH library, listed on their site.  Nimur (talk) 04:24, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * x86 processors have had 80-bit floating point in hardware all the way back to the original 8087. Maybe you are confused because Microsoft C hasn't supported it for many years, but it has always been there. Delphi's floating-point types are the hardware types of the floating point unit it uses (x87 in 32-bit mode, SSE in 64-bit mode). -- BenRG (talk) 05:19, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * My error, thanks for the correction, BenRG. The latest (December 2011) Architectures Developer's Manual makes this abundantly clear: (Section 8.1.3...) "The precision-control (PC) field (bits 8 and 9 of the x87 FPU control word) determines the precision (64, 53, or 24 bits) of floating-point calculations made by the x87 FPU (see Table 8-2). The default precision is double extended precision, which uses the full 64-bit significand available with the double extended-precision floating-point format of the x87 FPU data registers. This setting is best suited for most applications, because it allows applications to take full advantage of the maximum precision avail- able with the x87 FPU data registers."  And, ..."The precision-control bits only affect the results of the following floating-point instructions: FADD, FADDP, FIADD, FSUB, FSUBP, FISUB, FSUBR, FSUBRP, FISUBR, FMUL, FMULP, FIMUL, FDIV, FDIVP, FIDIV, FDIVR, FDIVRP, FIDIVR, and FSQRT."  I think that's fair to call "hardware support" for double extended precision!  In any case, though, using double-precision words means working with ten-byte pointers.  Although the FPU handles these pointers gracefully, they probably require a lot of cooperation from the compiler elsewhere - probably the reason that some compilers will not provide support for double extended precision.  Nimur (talk) 18:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
 * (reply to earlier) I have used multiple precision before, but it is quite a bit slower. The 32-bit versions of Delphi have 64-bit integers, but division and mod on them is slow if numbers > 2^32 are involved.  They also have a Comp type which is a 64-bit integer but is handled by the FPU.  The Comp type is much faster than division and mod with 64-bit integers on 32-bit platforms, so I have been using it for many years.  But changing Extended type from having a 64-bit mantissa to a 53-bit mantissa has some bad consequences.  When doing division on Comp type, the intermediate result is an Extended type.  That was fine when Extended had a 64-bit mantissa, but now it means that if the result of Comp division is > 2^53, it is incorrect.  However, in the past month I've gotten all of my routines that are common to many programs converted from Comp/Extended to 64-bit integers.  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:13, 1 February 2012 (UTC)


 * More than 40 years ago, the IBM 370 had a quad-precision, 128-bit floating-point type. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 18:33, 1 February 2012 (UTC)