Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 July 3

= July 3 =

What are these computer games?
First was on an Atari, I think. You play this guy whose spaceship crashes on a planet. The very first scene involves swimming out of your wrecked spaceship before some tentacles grab you. Then you are up on the shore of the lake. You have to move fast or the tentacles will reach out of the water behind you and drag you back into the water. There are some kind of horrible snake/worm things in this first scene as well.

The second was on the Amiga. It is a vertical scrolling platform game. I think it is set on Mars and you play one of two little creatures who are searching for water. There are signs everywhere saying "H2O".

Any ideas? Horatio Snickers (talk) 10:59, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm amazed that I'm stumped for the first one because I am really familiar with Atari games... and is the second one Flood? --Yellow1996 (talk) 17:54, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * The first one: Another World? (I had the Press Start for Game Over trope open some weeks ago, and searching for "tentacle" threw it up.) - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 08:00, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Another World - that's the one! I'm pretty sure the first one wasn't Flood, though. It doesn't look similar to me. If it helps, I think the version I played was a demo given away for free on an Amiga magazine but I have no idea when. Thanks! Horatio Snickers (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Every Amiga game ever released - should be on there somewhere! :) Do you remember anything about the title of the second game? That might make finding it a lot easier than sifting through all those lists (they're in alphabetical order); either way, it's somewhere on that site. --Yellow1996 (talk) 16:30, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I've got it! Flip-it & Magnose: Water Carriers from Mars, apparently! Had a look at that site but there's a lot on there - did a search for "amiga mars water" in the end and it popped up. Thanks for all your help! Horatio Snickers (talk) 10:26, 5 July 2013 (UTC)


 * You're very welcome! I'm glad you found it! :) --Yellow1996 (talk) 17:39, 5 July 2013 (UTC)

Searching in Windows Explorer
Is it possible to limit searches in Windows Explorer (on Win7) to exact file-name matches? By default when searching for, say, file.ext, it seems to find anything that matches *file*.*ext* Rojomoke (talk) 16:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Never mind. Double quotes are what I needed.  Rojomoke (talk) 16:27, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Speaking on the same subject, is there any way to get Windows 7's search to behave/imitate like Windows XP's search function? I find XP's to be much more powerful and requires little/no confusing syntax (since 7's is all in one search box). -- 140.202.10.134 (talk) 16:43, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * This tutorial may be of some help. --Yellow1996 (talk) 17:48, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * In my experience, the Win7 search is unreliable, even if you follow the above tutorial. I either use Super Finder XT (if I want a GUI) or Grep under Cygwin (seeing as I'm from a Unix background). --TrogWoolley (talk) 22:02, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * I, too, find Windows 7's search to be as good as useless. I highly recommend Mythicsoft's FileLocator. The Lite version is free and still does a better job than Windows. The Pro version costs (US $39), but gives extra functionality - in my opinion well worth paying for (if for no other reason than to support programmer's who develop good software like this). Mitch Ames (talk) 13:06, 8 July 2013 (UTC)

Need a complicated, but really cheap site.
A non-profit is looking for someone to create a rather complicated web site. My guess is that it would take an experienced programmer at least 3 months to create it. As the budget is really small (a few thousand dollars at most) I was wondering if there are reliable websites to find freelancers directly at "Bangalore rates", without having to pay for managers, etc. I could do the managing, but I don't have 3 months holiday at hand.. Any ideas? Joepnl (talk) 23:04, 3 July 2013 (UTC)


 * You can always have a look at guru.com - my brother really swears by them, but I'm rather skeptical, personally. I expect that any money you try to save by going the cheap route, you'll have to pay for later in trouble, and most likely it will require quite a bit of managing. 3 months to create a website sounds like a pretty damn complicated website, too - do you have any reasoning behind this estimate or did you just ballpark it? 64.201.173.145 (talk) 02:33, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Perhaps if you can describe the complexities they want, we can suggest simpler and more economical ways of accomplishing the same thing. For example: Do they want a zoomable, rotating Earth as a way to zoom in to any of their sites ?  How about a non-zoomable, pickable flat map instead ? StuRat (talk) 08:10, 4 July 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks both, I'll have a look at guru.com. It's not technically complicated, but there are just al lot of tables, screens, buttons, etc. Joepnl (talk) 13:26, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Downloading and editing portions of a NSA video on polygraphing
There is an NSA-produced video on the polygraphing process: While an NSA-produced video is public domain, it also uses very short excerpts of footage from copyrighted TV shows: Meet the Parents and The Simpsons So, does this mean, for it to be posted on the Commons, the footage of the TV shows has to be cut out (I assume yes, but just making sure)? How should I download the video and do the editing? WhisperToMe (talk) 23:36, 3 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Video: http://www.nsa.gov/media_center/careers/video/Polygraph/index.html
 * Transcript: http://www.nsa.gov/media_center/careers/video/Polygraph/Transcript.html - http://www.webcitation.org/6Hqa0BJZZ - http://archive.is/CSpsI


 * IANAL, but I would assume your notion of having to cut out the copyrighted material would be correct. As for downloading the videos, I have gotten great use out of DownloadHelper for Firefox. For the editing (the cutting-out of the copyrighted material) any free movie making/editing software should do (though Windows Movie Maker generally doesn't play nice with the types of files you'll get from DownloadHelper and similar addons - you'll need a converter.) --Yellow1996 (talk) 16:38, 4 July 2013 (UTC)