Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 April 15

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[edit] April 15

[edit] Connect two computers with an ethernet

Is it possible to connect two computers with just an ethernet wire between them? Both computers have a network card. If not that what about with just a hub? If not that then what about with just a switch? A router? (obvoiusly with a router you can do it) Whats the minimum needed to just get some files across. Would I need to specify ip address differently? A router handles the dhcp so this is probably something that would need to be implemented with one of the computers acting as a server.

ethernet frames are transmitted only knowing the mac address (right?) so this should be possible yet it doesnt seem to be discussed anywhere that ive looked. 24.136.121.150 01:23, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes it is possible to do this, I did it once. You have to use a special ethernet cable, called a crossover cable. And as for IP adresses if your using windows XP the network setup wizard will handle them for you. --Lwarf 01:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. I would have had no idea about this crossover cable. 24.136.121.150 02:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Some newer network cards will automatically "cross-over" a normal ethernet cable when it is used between two PCs, so it would be worth giving that a try (if you have a vanilla cable available) before purchasing a crossover cable. →Ollie (talk • contribs) 03:06, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Really? Darn - I didn't know that - would have come in handy once. Rfwoolf 03:16, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Also, you can buy a small converter which turns a normal cable into a cross-over one. --Kjoonlee 03:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Or, if you're feeling adventurous, you could make your own using existing cable... Johnnykimble 08:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
AFAIK all GbE cards should be able to do auto crossover as GbE doesn't have crossover. Note that a card capable of autocrossover should have no problem using a crossover cable either. Also, I would presume only one card needs to be able to do auto crossover for it to work properly Nil Einne 23:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

well, I know Macs can connect to each other well without crossover cables. I don't know about other systems.

Recent Macs, anyway. Not all Macs.
Atlant 16:27, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Word Math Plugin

I really hate MS Word's math capabilities and was wondering if there was a way to put in math formulas by typing in code like latex or the way they have it in openoffice. I already found texpoint (http://texpoint.necula.org/) but I want to know about any other options before I drop $45 on that one. Iownatv 03:12, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Cheapo way would be to enter formulas while editing a page and pressing preview. Splintercellguy 05:47, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Into what program? What are you referring to? Where is there a preview button? (print preview?) I dont think You know what a properly typeset math equation looks like. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iownatv (talk • contribs) 08:09, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
I think he means using Wikipedia's TeX functions, and then grabbing the image it produces. Which is pretty cheapo indeed but not very high resolution. --24.147.86.187 12:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
No, the cheapo way would be to install TeX for windows, create images from the formulas, and drop them in.
That's not the type of workflow I'm looking for. I should be able to edit the formulas within word. I found that of the ones that offer this type of functionality are Rapid-pi, texpoint, and ribbit. Still I wish there was something free. How do technical books do this? What programs do they use? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Iownatv (talk • contribs) 19:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC).
Why not just use openoffice like you mention? --Russoc4 01:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Perl or PHP

What is the better language for web servers? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 208.54.94.33 (talk) 04:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

That's very hard to answer objectively. What do you mean by better? Ease? Being common? You can take a look at this page. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:30, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Can you program in either Perl or PHP? The best language is the one you know. If you don't know either one, go to the book store and scan a book for each one. The one that you pick up quicker will likely be the best one for you. --Kainaw (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Personally I wouldn't hazard writing a web server in either language, though PERL would probably fare better. -- mattb @ 2007-04-16T16:39Z

[edit] GIMP batch operation

I'm wondering how to set up a simple batch operation in The GIMP. The operation is to open each of a series of bitmaps, set the input black-point to 80 and white-point to 230 in Levels, convert the image to greyscale and save as a GIF with the same name. How would I do this? NeonMerlin 04:51, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[sarcastic answer] Why in the world would you want to set up a "batch operation"? Batch operations went out with mainframes and punchcards, though many semblances have unfortunately remained to this day, thanks in large part to the undue influence of Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, and the excessively nerdly, utterly command-line-driven, programmer-friendly but user-hostile operating system and programming environment they came up with.
As everyone now knows, modern interactive graphical user interfaces, with menus and toolbars which always make all options visible, are the only way to go. If you're saying you want a "batch operation", you're saying you want to revert to an antediluvian mode where you had to memorize longs lists of cryptic commands and option flags, where you had to cumbersomely specify objects to operate on by name or ID, rather than just conveniently pointing at them with your mouse. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:17, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
[P.S. My serious answer is of course that this question is a perfect example of why a "modern interactive graphical user interface", where you get to pick from a bunch of visible options, and conveniently point at things with your mouse, is not always the "only way to go." I had no idea until reading TotoBaggins's answer below that The Gimp had a batch mode; I'm delighted to hear that it does. —s]

This page gives you the general idea, and "Xtns => Procedure Browser" will let you look up "levels", say, and see the parameters you must pass in. --TotoBaggins 18:40, 15 April 2007 (UTC)


Hey, NeonMerlin, stop learning Scheme! The (excellent) ImageMagick program "convert" will do what you want. --TotoBaggins 20:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
 convert -type GrayScale -level 31%,90%  input-image.jpg output-image.gif
Works great. But now I have a more complicated operation: swapping the red and blue RGB channels of each of a number of JPEGs, without altering their compression. Will ImageMagick do that? NeonMerlin 04:27, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
If it won't, I bet Netpbm can. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
The below will do that. The man page here is good. --TotoBaggins 13:59, 16 April 2007 (UTC)
   convert -channel R -separate input.jpg red.jpg
   convert -channel G -separate input.jpg green.jpg
   convert -channel B -separate input.jpg blue.jpg
   convert -channel RGB -combine blue.jpg green.jpg red.jpg swapped.jpg

[edit] Blue Screen of Death

How do I fix the BOSD error? The error has caused windows to shut down abruptly and on the BSOD, I noticed that windows has to shut down due to a recent hardware change. When I restarts windows, should I start in in safe mode, start safe mode with networking, start with the most recent good configuration or start windows normally?Urgent.Invisiblebug590 06:34, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Starting it normally is fine, except in rarer instances where some driver gets corrupted, then you would restart again and choose most recent good configuration. You can get that menu again after the motherboard boot sequence finishes and you press F8, if you need to choose most recent good configuration after choosing boot normally the first time. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 06:49, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Did you try starting with the most recent "good" configuration? You might actually need to be able to pick one before that configuration. I once had a problem that while windows was shutting down, the power kicked off. (I was a bit late in turning off a computer due to a storm). When I tried booting it up again, I kinda freaked out because I had a deadline I needed to meet and when I booted up the computer, all could do was to get it to continually boot up, try to load windows, die and reboot, not even allowing the human eye to read the message (I had to use my digital camera as a video recorder to get the message). After recording and reading the message, I decided the best thing to do was to try to get the system back to a previous system restore point, but I didn't have a bootable windows CD because I use a "business" computer the business OEM CD was not with me. I ended up having to buy a $50 bootable CD utility which allowed me to pick a previous system restore point for booting, and it worked.
BTW, I'm assuming your computer saves a system restore point fairly often (like once a day). That seems to be the way my computer's set up. Root4(one) 14:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] index.dat

An entry was found in my index.dat file, using Encase software, which my employers believed this to be an attempted log onto the website however a pice of software called 'Websense' blocked it, I have contacted Websense who have stated that they would not have blocked this attempt log on and certainly would not have put an entry in the index.dat file. The entry looks similiar to the following

REDR----á—··€/~৳http://www.faceparty.com/·–·

I have looked into this and it appears that this is nothing but a redirect to the site. Can anyone give me any information on this at all?

My email is my_post_is_where (at sign thing) hotmail (round blob) com

Many thanks —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 87.112.31.71 (talk) 11:15, 15 April 2007 (UTC).

Request For Clarification:
Hi, an index.dat file can come from any given program available on the net - so where exactly did you find this index.dat file - you need to be a bit more specific about this, what program do you think uses the index.dat file. Secondly, explain what you meant by "using Encase software" i.e. what did you use Encase software for? Unfortunately your post isn't making much sense, or at the very least doesn't provide enough information for anybody to familiarize themselves with the elements. Finally, it's unlikely that someone will be emailing you an answer - you should look to see if there is a reply here on this page. Cheers Rfwoolf 12:50, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] yahoo messanger

i am not getting any idea about how can i deactivate sign in to mobile device in yahoo messanger . pls provide some info about it thanx in advancechakradhar 12:25, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

  • Are you asking how to sign into yahoo on a mobile phone? If so, it's not always possible, sometimes the browser configurations on mobile phones are really poorly designed, and prevent you from actually be able to do things such as enter a password, needed for a yahoo login, my phone especially (: VectorPotentialTalk 18:42, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

thanx for ur information but how to signout from it........?

[edit] ClearType on Adobe fonts

I have ClearType turned on but it doesn't seem to apply to any of the fonts in C:\Program Files\Common Files\Adobe\Fonts. All the fonts I have stored in C:\WINDOWS\Fonts (including OpenType fonts) render in ClearType when I open them in the Windows font viewer, but those in Adobe\Fonts just use the standard smoothing method. I'm running WinXP Pro. Any ideas? — Matt Eason (Talk • Contribs) 22:07, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

Aren't the Adobe fonts PostScript not OpenType? Nil Einne 23:26, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
The first line of the font info for Myriad Pro Regular reads "OpenType Font, Digitally Signed, PostScript Outlines , Single Master". — Matt Eason (Talk • Contribs) 23:41, 15 April 2007 (UTC)
Ah, looks like the PostScript outlines are the problem - "The following situations do not support ClearType antialiasing ... The font is not a TrueType font or an OpenType font with TrueType outlines. For example, the following do not support ClearType antialiasing: Type 1 fonts, Postscript OpenType fonts without TrueType outlines, bitmap fonts, vector fonts, and device fonts." http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533931.aspx — Matt Eason (Talk • Contribs) 23:44, 15 April 2007 (UTC)