Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 February 27

= February 27 =

Looking for a graphics application.
I expect to elicit many responses. I am pretty sure a lot of people do this stuff at work, etc. I need a graphics program for my Windows 7 machine that will allow me essentially draw and print out, if necessary, flow chart diagrams, work schedules, etc. For instance I have to formulate a set of sequential steps for a programmer to write certain software for me. I know approximately the steps that will have to be taken, etc. I put it in writing but it does not look impressive. I want to have everything written in rectangular blocks with arrows between them, etc. I would prefer that people recommended applications they themselves use. Thanks --AboutFace 22 (talk) 01:53, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * LucidChart. --  Gadget850talk 02:02, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Graphviz, especially if you have written it down anyways. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I have had good luck with Dia (software). It's free. --Mark viking (talk) 13:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Inkscape has good, easy tools for making flowchart type diagrams. It is free as in freedom as well as free as in beer. It can do pretty much anything that adobe illustrator can do, but, oddly enough, illustrator does not have flowchart tools! There is some learning curve, but I think it is worthwhile, especially if you just want to make flowcharts at first - that's an easy way to get started. SemanticMantis (talk) 15:58, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Microsoft Visio is a paid and licensed version of pretty much the same thing as the responses above. However, as a analysis and design aid for a programmer, flow charts are a bit passé.  I've not needed one (nor seen one) for many, many years and most programmers worth employing should be capable of requirements gathering from the client (ie. you) and producing a design or prototype to show you what they will build.  Astronaut (talk) 16:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much everyone who contributed. There are definitely a few options to choose from. I checked the LucidChart last night. What kind of surprised me was the way the information is stored. I think the charts are stored on their website. It makes sense because they offer them also for communications. A groups of people can make partial contributions. Is it the way it works? Astronaut: I recall a post about 5 years ago most likely on MS MSDN website about a young programmer somewhat disappointed in his six months old job and it seems one of his complaints was that he was given swimlanes to work on and it was becoming rather mechanical. Many thanks to everyone, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:19, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Were you thinking of program flow charts for which you would have used one of these templates in the past? If so then perhaps my comments are valid about them being a bit passé - I had one of those templates in the 1980s and never used it back then.  There are however, other flowchart-like diagrams such as process flow diagrams of this type, or the whole load of diagrams used for UML.  It is also odd you should mention swimlanes - my recent experience of them has been in the context of Scrum in Agile software development as a way to view the progress of user stories towards done.  Astronaut (talk) 18:00, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Astronaut: Thank you for those pieces of real life experience. Very interesting. Will study them tomorrow morning. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:48, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Flowchart templates? Are they just plastic templates? Sure, they are things in the past. I may still have one of them somewhere. No, I thought of something more contemporary. It is a rich world out there. Almost like in a fairy tale. Just imagine what you want and next you have it in your directory. :-) --AboutFace 22 (talk) 16:39, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Free Game Recording Software
Hi, I'm looking for a free recording software that can record (mostly racing) games. Can anyone suggest some with a capacity of recording at HD?-- Jos   eph   11:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Fraps is one that works well. Bandicam is another possibility. Newer NVIDIA graphic cards can do this natively, without extra software.217.158.236.14 (talk) 13:27, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Fraps is really good - and it's widely used by video game developers, so you know it's OK. However, it's not "free".  The free version does frame rate measurement but can only video-capture for 30 seconds at a time, at limited resolution - and it puts an ugly watermark over the resulting video.  According to our article, Bandicam does very much the same kind of thing - you have to pay for it if you want to avoid various messy limitations. SteveBaker (talk) 16:09, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Bandicam, the free version, allows for 10 minute captures, and adds a watermark. The best free option is Nvidia's own software, but it requires a modern Nvidia gaming card. http://www.geforce.co.uk/geforce-experience/shadowplay 217.158.236.14 (talk) 09:50, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Twittter
Whose tweets and which tweets appear in a twitter users timeline.117.194.254.206 (talk) 15:40, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Those that our saurian overlords select for us. —Tamfang (talk) 05:27, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

JSONP
Hi all. I'm just getting started with JSONP (in jQuery), and I'm interested why the following are not equivalent (the first works, the latter doesn't; url ends with ?callback=cb): Thanks! - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 15:41, 27 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I can't speak to your specific example, but getJSON will do JSONP automatically if the URL has callback parameter. This example, adapted from from the jQuery docs, works for me:


 * -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:41, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Your example works but replacing the URL with mine doesn't. I thought perhaps it was a MIME type thing, not sure what file format I should be using for my JSONP file on the server; or a port thing (I'm trying to load from a different port on the same domain). - Jarry1250 [Vacation needed] 22:53, 28 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Then I think you need to break out Firebug and play spot-the-difference with the URLs that actually get sent. Clearly both the ajax and getJON methods can handle JSONP fine. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:22, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

cell phone camera pixels
My daughter is trying to decide between two cell phones. The camera of one has 1.1 megapixels and the other has 2 megapixels. With the low quality of the lens in phones, will there be much difference in the photo quality? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 16:55, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * These devices use a lot of processing to compensate for the poor lens quality, movement when taking pictures at low light conditions when you have longer than ideal exposure times etc. etc. A higher megapixel sensor is then useful to perform the necessary digital processing to make sure the picture looks ok. So, while at the level of the pixels you have a lot of distortion, the software can use the information present at that level to get to a picture that looks ok. Count Iblis (talk) 18:34, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * There is a Megapixel Myth - indeed, higher is not always better. But 1.1 megapixels is quite a bit below the sweet spot for current sensors. Everything else is never equal, so the only way to reliably gauge the image quality would be to compare actual photos taken under different light conditions. Still, if that is not an option, my guess is that the 2 megapixel camera will be superior. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:15, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:31, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Archive Converter
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen.

I am looking for a online converter that supports 500 MB files and can convert archives from RAR to ZIP.

Thank you for your responses.

All the very best.--92.105.189.138 (talk) 19:00, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Is there a particular need for it to be an online tool? I'd say you're quite unlikely to find a site that would allow you to upload a 500MB file in the first place, and even if you could, the amount of time required to upload and re-download the result would make it a far less efficient process than simply downloading a tool to do this yourself. Organics LRO 13:31, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Is there a tool, that does not manipulate my own system? I am asking because one of these programs used to ruin my former computer.--92.105.189.138 (talk) 16:03, 1 March 2014 (UTC)
 * There is a portable version of 7-Zip available .  d avid p rior  t/c 22:05, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the link.--92.105.189.138 (talk) 09:01, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Hey! Bubba73, that's very interesting. Here I would like to share a very simple but tricky way of converting online zip file to rar or vice-versa.

Steps

 * Log on to http://1freehosting.com/
 * Create a account (its free).
 * Choose a sub-domain and complete the registration.
 * After getting registered, go to switch> choose domain and click on file manager.
 * Upload your files and there you can extract or compress any files into zip/rar.

Good luck tc.  IN  Panda   17:14, 3 March 2014 (UTC)