Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 March 11

= March 11 =

Thick Margins
Hello. When I print a website more than one page long, my HP C309g printer squeezes the webpage out of proportion and allocates thick margins on the top and bottom of the paper even during single-sided prints even though Internet Explorer 8's Print Preview does not show me such margins. This is troublesome when I have to send commands to print divider tab inserts one piece of perforated paper at a time. Thoughts? Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 02:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Sounds like a bad print driver. Try downloading and reinstalling, in case they've added a fix ? StuRat (talk) 03:03, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Mozilla support newsgroups
I'm trying to use the Mozilla support newsgroups on news.mozilla.org, specifically mozilla.support.thunderbird and mozilla.support.firefox. I use Forte Agent newsgroup reader. I can read them fine, but noting I post shows up there.From my end it looks like my messages are sent, but they never show up. Is there some trick to getting them to show up there? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:06, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Are you sure new posts are supposed to appear immediately ? Many sites wait until they are checked by a moderator, at least for posts from new users. StuRat (talk) 06:21, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * The ones I have posted in the last several months never appeared. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 15:34, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Have the posts of others appeared ? If not, you may just have a dead board where the moderator has left. StuRat (talk) 18:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes. Actually, my posts through Agent to Firefox get there, it is only the ones to Thunderbird.  I tried deleting the Thunderbird folder in agent and adding it again, that didn't fix the problem. But I can post to the Thunderbird newsgroup from Thunderbird (but that is not how I prefer to get newsgroups.)  Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 19:38, 13 March 2012 (UTC)


 * StuRat, he's posting to a usenet newsgroup; it's not a site and vanishingly small numbers are moderated in any way. Bubba73, before I read your last entry I was going to ask if you got usenet access through EasyNews, which by default does not allow you to post messages (you have to request it). Depending on how much you've tweaked Agent, it's possible you've messed up a setting for a particular newsgroup (or, just as likely, only fixed it for one). If it's not too onerous a problem, I'd consider uninstalling Agent and starting from scratch. You could also check settings to make sure they're (the groups, that is) set up identically. Newer versions of Agent are great, but the increased ability to fine tune each group's settings often just makes it that much easier to futz with something you shouldn't have - speaking from experience there! Matt Deres (talk) 14:50, 14 March 2012 (UTC)


 * There may be something wrong with the settings for that group, but I did delete the problem group and put it back in, and had the same problem. But this problem did start when I got a new computer (and a new version of Agent to put on it). Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 05:33, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

LaTeX font question
I'm aware that there are font commands for semi-bold and condensed font series, but I have yet to find a single font family for which these exist (I'm left with medium weight after using them). Does anyone know of a font family for which these series are defined, and distinct from medium weight/bold? I'm just curious what they might look like.--Leon (talk) 10:09, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Removing extraneous seconds from WAV file
I recorded the background music of Trollie Wallie as a WAV file using VICE on my Fedora 14 Linux system. However, I accidentally stopped the recording too late, so now the WAV file has some extraneous seconds at the end where the music starts over again. How can I remove them? J I P &#124; Talk 11:02, 11 March 2012 (UTC)u


 * I would use Audacity, which should be in Fedora's repos if you don't already have it installed. Simply open the file, highlight the section of the waveform that you don't want and press delete. Then File > Export to create a new WAV.  AJ  Cham  11:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Audacity or, as you have the command-line-cojones for it, SoX 91.125.155.37 (talk) 11:51, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, this worked. It's interesting to note that a WAV recording of a Commodore 64 chiptune taking a couple of kilobytes can be tens of megabytes in size. But this is of course because of fundamental differences in the format - a chiptune is machine language program, and thus can utilise programming constructs, whereas plain music formats must have every sound spelled out explicitly. A chiptune saying "play these notes ten thousand times" would not take much more space than one saying "play these notes twice". J I P  &#124; Talk 21:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Debian installer preseeding issue
Hi, I'm having issues getting the Debian installer to do what I want.

Normally, I'd do this:

sfdisk -D -uM /dev/sda<<END ,3900,L,* ,3900,L ,3900,L ,,E ,3900,S ,,L END

Which gives me the following disk layout: sfdisk --dump /dev/sda unit: sectors /dev/sda1 : start=      63, size=  8000307, Id=83, bootable /dev/sda2 : start= 8000370, size=  8000370, Id=83 /dev/sda3 : start= 16000740, size= 8000370, Id=83 /dev/sda4 : start= 24001110, size=288575595, Id= 5 /dev/sda5 : start= 24001173, size= 8000307, Id=82 /dev/sda6 : start= 32001543, size=280575162, Id=83
 * 1) partition table of /dev/sda

But when I to partition the disk using a custom "recipe" in a preseed file for an automated Debian installation, I always end up with crap like this:

sfdisk --dump /dev/sda Warning: extended partition does not start at a cylinder boundary. DOS and Linux will interpret the contents differently. unit: sectors /dev/sda1 : start=    2048, size=  7966720, Id=83, bootable /dev/sda2 : start= 7968768, size=  7968768, Id=83 /dev/sda3 : start= 15937536, size= 7968768, Id=83 /dev/sda4 : start= 23908350, size=464488450, Id= 5 /dev/sda5 : start= 23908352, size= 7966720, Id=82 /dev/sda6 : start= 31877120, size=456519680, Id=83
 * 1) partition table of /dev/sda

fdisk -l Disk /dev/sda: 250.1 GB, 250059350016 bytes 255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 30401 cylinders Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disk identifier: 0x000bb36a Device Boot     Start         End      Blocks   Id  System /dev/sda1  *           1         497     3983360   83  Linux Partition 1 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda2            497         993     3984384   83  Linux Partition 2 does not end on cylinder boundary. /dev/sda3            993        1489     3984384   83  Linux /dev/sda4           1489       30402   232244225    5  Extended /dev/sda5           1489        1985     3983360   82  Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda6           1985       30402   228259840   83  Linux

(Please ignore the varying size of sda6, one of my two test systems has a larger disk, and I'm simply telling it to use the entire remaining space for sda6.)

The custom recipe looks like this: d-i partman-auto/expert_recipe string\ 4080 4100 4100 ext3 \ $primary{ } \ $bootable{ } \ method{ format } \ format{ } \ use_filesystem{ } \ filesystem{ ext3 } \ mountpoint{ / } \ label{ BSYS } \ . \ 4080 4100 4100 ext3 \ $primary{ } \ method{ format } \ format{ } \ use_filesystem{ } \ filesystem{ ext3 } \ mountpoint{ /foo } \ label{ PROD } \ . \ 4080 4100 4100 ext3 \ $primary{ } \ method{ format } \ format{ } \ use_filesystem{ } \ filesystem{ ext3 } \ mountpoint{ /bar } \ label{ BETA } \ . \ 4080 4100 4100 linux-swap \ method{ swap } \ format{ } \ . \ 4080 300% -1 ext3 \ method{ format } \ format{ } \ use_filesystem{ } \ filesystem{ ext3 } \ mountpoint{ /ney } \ . \ I've tried playing with the numbers, but no matter what I try, I always end up with the "Partition n does not end on cylinder boundary." crap.

What do I have to use so that the Debian installer does the same thing as my sfdisk command from above? -- 88.67.157.60 (talk) 11:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * (Solved with help from the German RefDesk) The solution is to add d-i partman/alignment select cylinder to the preseed file, which restores the old behavior. Cylinder boundaries are respected, thus, no more warnings, no more fatal errors in cfdisk. A newer cfdisk is said to be able to deal with partitions that don't match cylinder boundaries, so, who knows, maybe that parameter won't be needed any more in the upcoming Wheezy release and beyond. -- 88.67.157.60 (talk) 16:55, 11 March 2012 (UTC)

Proxy servers
Are proxy servers legal in the uk?--WOLfan112 (talk) 16:38, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes. Many businesses, schools etc connect via proxy servers, and ISPs often use caching proxy servers to save bandwidth and load times. 82.45.62.107 (talk) 19:35, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * But some activities, such as using a proxy server in a different country to get around location restrictions such as those used in iPlayer, may be illegal. Note, however, that the reference desk does not give legal advice, so if you need to know about a specific aspect of the law relating to proxies you should ask a lawyer (or at least your local Citizens' Advice Bureau). - Cucumber Mike (talk) 22:25, 11 March 2012 (UTC)


 * Tragically, the CAB is (in many areas, at least) so massively overworked right now that unless you're in dreadful debt, on the verge of being evicted or foreclosed, or in some terrible domestic violence situation, they're unable to find someone to see you. 87.115.67.78 (talk) 23:36, 11 March 2012 (UTC)
 * I think the law on this topic is sufficiently complex and new that the CAB would be unlikely to be able to help even if you could ask them - they claim to offer advice on "debt, benefits, employment, housing, discrimination, and many more issues" but internet/IP law isn't necessarily one of them. --Colapeninsula (talk) 16:03, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
 * The asnwer is yes, proxy servers are legal in the uk, however using one for nefarious purposes can be illegal. Depending on what you are doing and what service you are subverting, the answer probably lies buried within the EULA or terms and conditions of the serice. But don't assume you're fine even if you can't find your specific purpose in those documents. In these circumstances, unless you know better and are willing to accept the risk, it's probably better to err on the side of caution. Vespine (talk) 02:20, 13 March 2012 (UTC)