Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 December 12

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[edit] December 12

[edit] MacBook

Is it possible to reinstall Mac OS X in a MacBook (not macbook pro) from an external USB optical drive? Thank you --Kushalt 00:10, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm. I'm not sure—I'm suspicious that the OS would be able to boot from the USB optical drive. But googling around, this page seems to suggest it is possible. Sounds daunting though.
It is very easy to reinstall OS X onto a MacBook from another MacBook, using a Firewire cable. (I've done that a few times with iBooks, should be the same thing with a MacBook). You hook the MacBook to-be-installed-upon up as an external drive in target disk mode and then use the one which already has OS X on it to install it upon that drive. Not sure if that will work in your situation but thought I would throw it out there. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 01:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The only problem is my sister lives around thirteen hours away and she is the only other person I know who owns a MacBook.

To be specific, the optical drive has a CD stuck in it so I cannot use the CD drive to reinstall Mac OS X. The computer boots up and all I get is an empty screen. (Its become just a very expensive iPod charging device.) :'( Any suggestions? Has this happened to anyone else? --Kushalt 00:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Check to see if the external optical drive also has a Firewire connnection. You can boot off an external Firewire drive, but I'm not sure about USB. As far as the stuck CD goes, try this: hold down the trackpad button as the computer boots; that's the universal MacOS signal for "eject the disk in the floppy/CD drive." If that doesn't work, you'll probably have to take it to an Apple-authorized dealer. From what I understand the Macbooks lack the old pinhole to force a manual eject. - 68.156.149.62 (talk) 01:16, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you. I will want to try that. --Kushalt 16:19, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

That did not work. It would be great to find a solution to remove the stuck CD from the drive. Any suggestions? --Kushalt 13:12, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Translation

I would like to be able to enter into my address bar "Spanish: Word" and have Firefox translate the word for me. This can include going to a site, like wordreference.com, and automatically searching for it. Is this possible? --Omnipotence407 (talk) 02:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

  1. Go to bookmarks->organize bookmarks
  2. New bookmark
  3. Name it whatever you want
  4. In the location put http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=%s
  5. In the keyword put Spanish
  6. Hit OK (this would be the perfect thing to "Load this bookmark in sidebar", especially since the site layout is so thin)
Now type Spanish run or whatever other word you want in the address bar and hit enter --ffroth 08:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Works Great, Thanks --Omnipotence407 (talk) 22:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, now that that works great, I was trying to do the same to verbix.com's online conjugator, but after a while, staring at sourcecode, and trying to make it work, didnt work. Im computer literate, but certainly not fluent. Can I do the same for Verbix in some way? --Omnipotence407 (talk) 03:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I looked at verbix.com's Spanish conjugator and the needed url pattern seems to be http://verbix.com/webverbix/go.asp?D1=1&H1=101&T1=%s --Bavi H (talk) 03:55, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, it worked --Omnipotence407 (talk) 16:44, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What are the hot keys for HTML of web page on Mac

My apologies because I bookmarked this answer before but can't find it anywhere. What are the hot keys to bring up a web page in HTML please? Tried to remember the combinations but zip. Thanks in advance, Julia Rossi (talk) 02:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

⌘+U? --antilivedT | C | G 06:22, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
We also have a table of keyboard shortcuts (which does not include the HTML source one, though). ›mysid (☎∆) 08:07, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
When using Safari on a Mac, it's Option-⌘-U. I don't know what it would be in Firefox or Opera. Dismas|(talk) 21:06, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks all, much appreciated. It's the Dismas one. Julia Rossi (talk) 22:03, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Search engines indexing

Are 'public' search engine like google and yahoo equally fast at indexing pages? 217.168.0.203 (talk) 03:50, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine that depends on a lot of different things. Google and Yahoo will have different algorithms, different criteria for indexing, different frequency of re-indexing sites. Their Web crawlers will work differently, and crawl different areas at different times. Some SEOs did a test in 2006 that suggested Yahoo was faster. In August, Matt Cutts reported that Google was indexing pages pretty much instantaneously, but they probably don't check all pages on all sites with such frequency. The correct term is apparently "index freshness". If you search Google index freshness or Yahoo index freshness there are some relevant results, including a paper on the subject in 2005. --Kateshortforbob 10:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Sometimes Google can take a lonng time to reindex pages. I've sometimes changed pages on a site I own and had to wait a month or so for its cache to update (and for it to begin indexing the new subpages, for example). I'm not very high on their spider's priority list! --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Random crashes, "bad pixels" leaving trails on moving windows

Okay, here's a computer problem I can't make any sense of. I'm hoping someone here with more experience with odd hardware faults might be able to diagnose this for me.

Some months ago, I agreed to buy a friend's computer when he was leaving to work abroad. It's a pretty nice new system, but he warned me that it had some stability issues, which he suspected might be caused by a faulty motherboard. Indeed, while the computer mostly runs very nicely, it does have a tendency to occasionally crash (either rebooting or just spontaneously turning off) for no apparent reason, usually in the middle of perfectly normal web surfing. It's quite infrequent, only happening about, oh, say, once or twice a month with typical usage, so I've been mostly just putting up with it and waiting to see if I could figure out more about what's causing it.

Besides the spontaneous crashing, so far I've found one way that seems to reliably trigger a crash: copying files with WinSCP off another computer on the same LAN has, on the few occasions that I've tried it, always resulted in a crash after a few minutes of copying. Note that merely running WinSCP does not trigger a crash by itself; I can use it just fine to access a server over the Internet, it's only when copying lots of data from a server on the same LAN that it crashes.

The case feels quite warm when the computer is running, so my own suspicion (until the latest symptoms, anyway) had been insufficient cooling. However, merely running the CPU (both cores, even) at 100% load does not seem to trigger a crash, and while I'm not into 3D gaming, my friend did play some and he at least didn't mention any correlation between crashes and 3D load.

Also, a couple of times after the system had crashed and shut down, the power LED (I think; not 100% sure it wasn't one of the HD LEDs) was blinking on and off at about 1 Hz and the system absolutely refused to turn back on. More curiously, even after pulling out the power cord from the PSU, the LED still kept blinking and the system still refused to power on after being plugged in again. Pulling off the power cord and holding down the power button for a few seconds, however, stopped the blinking and allowed the system to power up again after plugging in. (My assumption is that, by doing so, I was draining some capacitor that was providing standby current while the PSU was unplugged, but that leaves me none the wiser as to why it would act that way.)

Finally, and here's the symptom that left me stumped and prompted me to write this query, just this morning I noticed something odd while working with images: on certain parts of the screen there were some small colored dots that initially looked like bad pixels on the TFT. (I can see a couple right here as I'm typing this.) However, when I dragged the window the "bad pixels" appeared over, they left trails on the image in the window! What's more, I even managed to take a screenshot(!) of the trails, which I've uploaded here.

So, does anyone have any idea what might be causing all this?

Oh, one more data point: when my friend originally bought and built this computer, it would crash a lot more than it does now, to the point where he couldn't even install an OS on it since it always crashed during the install. The problem was eventually traced, using memtest86, to a faulty RAM module. After swapping the broken RAM for a new one, the system has since been working much better... apart from still occasionally crashing, that is, and now these funny pixels.

I'm thinking maybe I should do another memtest86 run, just in case there's still something wrong with the memory. In the mean time, I'd be most grateful for any help you might be able to offer in solving this. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 06:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

The pixels look like a problem in the graphics card, but everything else sound like the motherboard. My friend had a similar problem where it would randomly crash and sometimes couldn't even display the graphics card BIOS information before POST. It failed a memtest and my own working ram module that I used to test it was also blown after the test. The CPU couldn't boot in other machines after a while of testing. In the end the whole motherboard, CPU and ram had to be replaced. I suspect there's either something wrong in the regulators on the motherboard, or the power supply, which is ruining the components one at a time. Since your problem affects the graphics card is well and randomly reboots, I'm more inclined to suspect the power supply than the motherboard. Try using another one to see if it fixes the problem. --antilivedT | C | G 07:19, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
You might want to try running chkdsk (boot from your XP CD and run it from the repair console) and HDD Regenerator (boot from hiren's bootcd) in case it's a hard drive problem.. the copying of large amounts of data triggering a crash is suspicious --ffroth 08:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
This is definitely symptomatic of overheating. The messing around you did with powering down, pulling out the cord then holding down the button then plugging back in again weren't actually having any effect - except that they gave the computer more time to cool down. Problems with crashing are rarely related to dropouts on the graphics card - and dropouts on the graphics card are rarely caused by CPU/motherboard issues - so you very likely have two separate sets of symptoms of the same root cause. You mentioned it was a high end machine - well, faster CPU's and GPU's means more heat. It may also mean that the power supply is being run closer to it's upper limit (which will generally make it run hotter too).
I recommend taking the lid off of your PC and take a gigantic box fan or office fan and blast air at it's internals. Run it like that and see if your problems go away. If your PC is full of dust and fluff, then gently vacuum that out - it blocks heat flow around the components - which is bad. Make sure that the CPU, GPU and powersupply fans are all working. Check that your friend didn't set up the BIOS to overclock the CPU in an effort to get more speed - that too generates a ton more heat. If there is a card in the slot next to the graphics card - and if you have another slot free - move the card away from the graphics board to give it more room to breathe. If all of those things produce no great result - but taking the lid off and blowing it with a desk fan fixes it...then you may need to consider more drastic measures. Additional fans inside the case, venting out the back somewhere would be a good idea. Try to avoid putting things on top of or close to either side of the computers case - leave room for air to circulate around it.
SteveBaker (talk) 20:59, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Subfloats and prooftrees in LaTeX.

Hi, I am using the subfg.sty and bussproofs.sty package. Is it possible to put the prooftree's from the latter into a subfloat from the former? When I try I get; "Someting is missing - perhaps a missing \item".

\begin{figure}
  \centering
  \subfloat[Splitting proof]{
\begin{prooftree}
\AxiomC{\begin{small}$u^1/a$\end{small}}
\UnaryInfC{$a$}
\end{prooftree}
} %Error message points at this line.
\end{figure}

Packages used;

\documentclass[10pt,a4paper]{article}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amsfonts}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{lscape}
\usepackage{graphs}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{bussproofs}
\usepackage{accents}
\usepackage{subfig}

Error occurs also if I add another subfloat, but not if I but the contents of the subfloats to asdf.

What am I doing wrong? How can I get my prooftrees into subfloats?

Taemyr (talk) 11:08, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] SATA and PATA ??

Hi,

I just got a new SATA drive today. It is a seagate 80gb one, and it specifically mentions "SATA" on the drive. I opened up my desktop CPU to plug it in, however on the motherboard I don't find any ports like these - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:SATA_ports.jpg

The motherboard definitely has the IDE PATA ports. I will need to look again, though because about the SATA ports. However, assuming my motherboard does not have those SATA ports can I still use the SATA hard disk ? Are converter for PATA -> SATA available ? If I use one of those converters, will I get the speed benefit of using SATA ?

Also, if I do connect the SATA drive, can SATA and PATA drives be used together on the same computer ? If not, is there any way I can transfer my data from the PATA drive to SATA drive ? (without using something like external pen drive or online storage)

Thanks a lot !!

--RohanDhruva (talk) 12:04, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Converters are available.
Atlant (talk) 13:16, 12 December 2007 (UTC)


Yes, there are converters. Here is a page full of them. The speed of the transfer will be limited by the bus you're using (IDE, SATA, etc). But the speed of the hard drive, in terms of cache size, latency, etc, will not be effected by the connector type. If you're going to go the SATA -> IDE converter route, then sure, you can use them both just as you would multiple IDE drives.--droptone (talk) 13:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, that explains it :) I'll go for a converter or a casing to use it as an external drive .. --RohanDhruva (talk) 13:42, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Uninstalling GRUB bootloader

I used to dual boot my laptop with linux and windows. The bootloader I had was Grub. I recently deleted the entire linux partition. Now the trouble is, when the computer starts, I get the GRUB comand prompt and I have to type the following to load from my windows partition:

grub> rootnoverify (hd0,0)
grub> makeactive
grub> chainloader +1
grub> boot

I'd like to know if there is some way by which I can make GRUB execute this code automatically each time my computer boots? Or even better, can I completely unistall Grub and get my windows partition to load by default? Thanks for the help!--Seraphiel (talk) 13:11, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi .. Insert your windows xp cd, boot from it. Select to go into the "Recovery console". After you get into it, type "fixboot" followed by "fixmbr". That should do it. --RohanDhruva (talk) 13:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The computer as general purpose tool and the internet as general purpose network and slices of salami

I had a worrying thought this afternoon, it went roughly as follows:

  • whereas there is an ongoing and probably still accelerating boom in mobile telecommunications largely powered by proprietary technology and connected via subscription telephony;
  • whereas internet utility is more and more being subsumed into black-box technology behind web interfaces (facebook, et al);
  • whereas the rate of change of technology seems to be out-pacing the agreement of open standards (the complete failure of the semantic web movement):
what is to stop large corporate interests (mobile network owners, mobile computing proprietors, rights-holding groups, etc.) from salami-slicing the utility of the general purpose (free) computer and internet until they are useless in comparison to the feature-full, ubiquitous but centrally controlled and fundamentally unfree alternatives?

Can someone, or even better, lots of people, please reassure me that this isn't going to happen, preferably with some believable and consoling reasons? 86.146.254.177 (talk) 16:54, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

It's unclear to me what you're asking, exactly. But, there are a few assumptions you've made that are IMO wrong. Facebook is hardly a black box- they have an API. Open standards are not failing at all- they're a large part of what is allowing the changing landscape you describe. I dunno where you live, but I PAY for my internet access. And the companies making money off that have an interest in ensuring future business. I don't see that the internet is in danger of going away any time soon. Friday (talk) 17:01, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
I think it's unwise to assume that the companies are always going to be making money off of YOU. If net-neutrality fails then ISP's can make money from charging data providers for access to their customers. There will then be scope for reducing costs to internet users - perhaps to zero. So, we can imagine someone (and let's say it's "NetZero" since they started out in the 'free ISP' business) decides they can give you free DSL access - but charges Google et'al for access to their customers. Now, there is no pressure on them to do what subscribers want - and instead they are driven by whichever data provider pays them the most. If Microsoft wants to pay the ISP's ten times what Google can - they can drive Google out of business by arranging that their packets are so slow as to be useless. Services that are free (and free of adverts) such as Wikipedia are going to have a hard problem surviving. The Internet becomes a place which (like television) is paid for by advertising (never a good thing for content!) and only those with deep pockets can afford to play. Personal websites (like mine) will be too costly to maintain. The only way for an individual to get his voice out onto the net would be via wrapper services like facebook, youtube and others who can screen your content wrapped with their adverts. SteveBaker (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
(OP:) I say black box, not because you can't use it for certain purposes (you can get lots of information from a black box recorder), but because there is central control and opaqueness of what happens behind the scenes (how does facebook work? can anyone make it work better without being on the inside? (yes i know, the api provides opportunities for innovation, but *only to the extent* that the people who run facebook allow)). I didn't say open standards are failing, just that they might be too slow to keep up with commercial non-open-standards (which is reasonably evident: what web2.0 features do you use?). And lastly, of course companies making money will continue to encourage business, the point is that they are less economically-motivated to encourage openness, in fact, it's much more appealing to try and control information if you have a vested monitary interest. Hope this clears things up a little. 86.146.254.177 (talk) 17:30, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
The big issue is not charging for Internet use. It is network neutrality. If I want to download the latest Fedora install disk on bittorrent, I should be allowed to. Comcast has decided that bittorrent transfers should be randomly blocked to drastically slow down the service. Right now, Comcast is the only viable Internet carrier in my area. But, I live in a highly capitalist society. If Comcast continues to make people angry, someone will see the opportunity to step in and offer more network neutral services - probably at a slightly higher cost. I'll be happy to pay an extra $10/month if I an get truly unlimited Internet access. This is currently happening to cell phones in my area. Up until last year, the "Internet" access was only access to a handful of preset web-like pages that contained a few news articles, a couple videos, and a few songs. One company offered real Internet access last February. It quickly became the top-selling service in our area. So, another offered it. Then another. Now, Verizon is the only cell-phone service in our area (that I know of) that doesn't have true Internet access. So, to summarize, capitalism can be a tool to ensure the people get what they want. -- kainaw™ 17:14, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
A note on your further definition of "black box". Capitalism can help there also. If you don't trust Facebook for some reason, there are alternatives. One of the big advantages of the Internet is that there are always alternatives. One thing is the king of the mountain for a few years and then another takes over. Think about Lycos, then Alta Vista, then Google. You may consider the move from Slashdot to Digg similar. The corporations are trying to use patents to stop competition, but that isn't working too well (yet). All in all, the Internet is capitalism at its best. There's even competition among the nasty parts of the Internet - spammers competing to be the next great spam king, porn sites competing to get the next big porn service, illegal gambling sites competing to find new ways to get people to think they actually have some shot of winning money... It is a big brutal slug fest and we benefit from it. Hmm... Nupedia... H2G2... Wikipedia... who's next? -- kainaw™ 17:39, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
As a general principle, (and not enough people think about this) you should pay for things you use. Things that are "free" rarely are. When I buy a printer or a video game console - I'm paying a fraction of what the thing cost to make - and making up the difference in overpriced ink/games. This is a bad thing because it means these machines have to be unnecessarily encumbered with patents and encryption. Small games companies can't write games for game consoles because they can't afford the 'tax' they have to pay the Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft people. In the end, the user saved money up-front, but then made up for it increased costs down the line - but this isn't a zero-sum game. He also he suffers from a lack of choice because only the big games companies can afford to provide content. Similarly, if I want to watch TV - I would prefer to pay my share of the production costs for the programs and my share of the transmitter infrastructure and NOT have it supported by advertising. Why? Well, firstly I want the programs to be made to suit me (and the other consumers) and not made in such a way as to keep the advertisers happy. Secondly, things that are paid for by advertising aren't free. The cost of making and broadcasting the advert is added to the price of goods you buy. I heard somewhere that between 20% and 30% of the cost of a car is the cost of advertising it to you! When you think how much money that is, on this single product alone, you can imagine how much better it would be if nobody advertised and you paid for your television directly. You actually lose out on this deal because if the TV station charges $X for advertising, then the advertising company (who have to make the adverts and get them screened) have to charge the car company $(X+Y) and the car company has to pass that on to the car dealership (who has to make some profit) so the cost to you is $(X+Y+Z}. If you paid the TV company $X to start with, you'd be better off and get better TV programming.
Getting back to the Internet, I'd rather have websites that charged you money to visit them than websites supported by advertising. I'd also prefer net neutrality (meaning I pay my entire share of the cost of my ISP) rather than having "cheaper" internet access but forcing (say) Google to increase the amount of advertising it does in order that it has the additional revenue to pay my ISP for my share of it's bandwidth.
It's always cheaper to pay more for access to these kinds of things than to have the price buried in something else. In the case of the Internet (as Kainaw so rightly says) there are always new alternatives popping up. However, how many of those things started out as big business ventures? Google? Nope - two guys with some Linux boxes doing a project. Nupedia, H2G2, Wikipedia? Nope - just some guys fooling around having fun. Slashdot? Nope - some guy's blog. The services we like the almost never came from big businesses. If we let big business pay for the Internet, how will new and creative stuff like that ever get started? If we lose net neutrality - it's the end of the Internet as we know it - and the beginning of just another TV network.
SteveBaker (talk) 20:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
"If we let"? Not our choice.. and I honestly can't see an electoral candidate getting ahead in the polls because he bases his platform on not letting ISPs take bribes from websites. Middle america would be scratching their heads saying "who the what now?" --ffroth 02:04, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Seems obvious to me that the Internet can't possibly last the way it is. We're in the golden age of the internet, and golden ages always come to an end. My prediction is that bad legislation will mark its downfall. --ffroth 02:00, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
The net neutrality thing isn't a matter of bad legislation - if network neutrality fails, it'll be caused by a LACK of GOOD legislation.
As the world is today, there is nothing to prevent an ISP from deciding that packets to and from (say) Google are going to be delayed by 5 seconds. They could then write to Google and say "we'll stop holding up your packets if you pay us $1 per year per person we have subscribing". If enough ISP's did that, Google would either go out of business - or pay up. Sure, the ISP's won't phrase it like that. They'll say "You Tube is serving up the horrifically high bandwidth videos that are clogging up our pipes - why should we pay to increase our bandwidth when YouTube are the ones making the advertising revenue? We must either cripple the bandwidth that we provide to YouTube's customers - or have YouTube pay us to improve our bandwidth." Phrased that way, it sounds almost reasonable...and there is certainly no law preventing that from happening, right now, today. The problem is that when YouTube cave in (as they must if a lot of ISP's did this together) - then they can pick on every large content provider and demand the same consideration. Before you know it, if you provide content and you don't pay the ISPs a pile of cash - your packets will be slowed to the point of uselessness. If only the big content providers were hit this way - I couldn't give a damn - but what happens when the Wikimedia Foundation (which, you'll recall is the 8th biggest content provider in the English speaking world right now) is served with a demand for a few tens of millions of dollars? We certainly can't pay that...so either Wikipedia dies...or it becomes too slow to be usable...or it has to start selling banner ads that are tied to the kinds of articles you read and all sorts of other terrible things. That might work for Wikipedia - but what about the 200 member "Mini Owners of Texas" car club that I run? There is no way we can afford to pay even $100 a year to the ISP's - and I doubt we'd be able to earn enough from advertising - so our website dies for sure. It really would be a disaster.
But the point is that there is NOTHING stopping this from happening right now. What is needed is a new law that says that ISP's are not allowed to discriminate on how they transmit packets based on content or where the came from. It's a right akin to free speech in our increasingly networked culture.
This is one of those rare cases where "the market" can't sort it out. Clueless newbies will be attracted to "free internet access!" - having no clue that the ISP that's providing it is practicing network discrimination rather than net neutrality. The few ISP's that resist the temptation to do this will be crushed because they can't offer free service and maintain neutrality. Those of us who would prefer to have a neutral network and are prepared to pay for that will be about as lucky as those of us who'd be happy to pay more for cable TV if it carried no adverts, or to pay $100 extra for an inkjet printer that didn't require $50 ink cartridges. "The market" drives us in the direction of a PERCEPTION of low cost - however illusory that is.
SteveBaker (talk) 18:52, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] How do I clean my notebook screen??

I need to clean my notebook screen, how i do this?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Exdeathbr (talk • contribs) 18:00, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Usually a little water and a soft rag will do and is a very safe bet. But your manufacturer probably has instructions printed somewhere on their website or in the notebook's manual. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 18:21, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

By soft rag, you mean, Newspaper or A piece of textile??? Sorry but I`m not a native english speaker. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.79.11.127 (talk) 18:35, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Java Chat rooms

Hey, I don't know if any of you have come across one, but an example of one is here. I wondered if anyone knows what you type in to change the settings (such as cap the amount of people aloud in)? I have looked on Google and could find very little. Thanks in advance. Creative Lemon (talk) 19:56, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

You'd have to have some kind of administrative privilege --ffroth 02:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Apache server redirection...

When you go to a wikipedia page like, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aardvark you're not actually going to a page called Aardvark under the directory wiki in the filesystem, you're actually going to http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aardvark . That's some deep apache hoodoo! How do you do that? That is, actually query a php-script with some parts of the URL when it looks like you're accessing a file? 83.250.203.75 (talk) 20:40, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I haven't used it myself but it's something to do with mod_rewrite. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 21:02, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
For this, and using Apache's mod_rewrite linked above, I'd make a file named ".htaccess" (note the dot at the start) and fill it with this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^wiki/([-a-zA-Z_0-9\+\.]+)$ w/index.php?title=$1
Something like that. Note the use of regular expressions and the documentation for RewriteRule.
— Shinhan < talk > 09:45, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] FTP Client for windows needed

Hi! I need an ftp client for windows. Something like Filezilla, except it doesn't suck. Thank you--193.196.64.2 (talk) 21:29, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I rather like SmartFTP. More are listed in Category:FTP clients. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:35, 12 December 2007 (UTC)
Just for my own interest, why do you think FileZilla sucks?
Atlant (talk) 01:03, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm going to go out on a limb here: because it does? --ffroth 02:07, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Eh, not an altogether helpful answer, considering Atlant seems to have asked it out of curiosity. I can't see why either; though I don't use it every day, Filezilla has been fine for me. Can you kindly elaborate? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 05:06, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I ask because the only FileZilla suckages I've noticed are:
  • Right now, the new release is being updated rather too often; perhaps it wasn't quite ready for "prime time".
  • As recently as a few days ago, it still had a definite problem operating with the VxWorks FTP server.
  • It ought to automatically reconnect after a timeout-inspired disconnect, more like Fetch.
But generally, I find it to be pretty useful and, of course, free.
Atlant (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
http://www.google.com/search?q=filezilla+sucks --ffroth 21:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
That, of course, doesn't answer the question of why Gadget850 193.196.64.2 thinks it sucks; I was interested in hearing their specific reasons.
Atlant (talk) 00:15, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
That was the original poster, not me; I have never used FileZilla. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 00:44, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
So the GUI sucks, the development model sucks, someone's screenshots of something unrelated suck, someone's unrelated web hosting service sucks, it doesn't give you an option to un-asterisk passwords, Tom sucks, it's awesome, things which look best in OSS often suck most, gFTP sucks, WS_FTP sucks, and you can't easily specify where to download files to (though as far as I can tell, you can). Thanks? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
Start -> Run -> ftp.exe -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:48, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
That's kind of a "feature free" client, though, and certainly not applicable if someone is looking for a GUI.
Atlant (talk) 13:11, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

Also, WinSCP. SCP, FTP and SFTP support. — Kieff | Talk 05:58, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

I prefer the FTP client in Total Commander. --Ouro (blah blah) 07:45, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] So-and-so has added to your FunWall!!! Really?

(Ok, I know this question is a little specific, but I assume there are other people on WP that have a "FunWall" on FaceBook or have received this notification...)

I keep getting messages that say "So-and-so has added to your FunWall!" When I click on the link, I am asked if I want to create a FunWall.

Question: Are these people really adding posts to my non-existent wall, or are they just telling me to get one? Do they see a whole bunch of posts that have gone unanswered? Can they see that I have not yet created my FunWall?

Thanks! Mark, 22:18, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

I use Facebook myself - and many of the applications when you first join them, give you the option to "write" or "add" things on your friends pages with the application, whether they actually use this application on their facebook page or not. For example, I added a bumper sticker application to my page, and sent a bumper sticker to my brother in law that says I heart my family. I also sent the same bumper sticker to my sister, but she chose not to add that application. So, the bumper sticker I added currently shows up on his page, but not on her page, when I view their pages.

So yes, they are probably adding posts to your non-existent wall, that you will not be able to see until you add the application. If you do choose to add the application, you will be able to see the posts they have sent you. Until then, neither you nor anyone else will be able to view those posts. Hope this answers your question! Userafw (talk) 23:47, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Don't think the other people can see it. It's just an additional (annoying) way of spreading an application. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 04:47, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
I wish most of those would go away. Facebook was fine without some. I only really use iLike. But when someone sends you that, its because they are required to invite at least one friend.the juggreserection (talk) 17:35, 13 December 2007 (UTC)
Okay, please don't take this the wrong way because it is about to sound like I think you are dumb, which I don't, but it is the nature of the question...are you sure that you never downloaded Funwall ever? And that it is not at the bottom of your page? I only ask because I have "Scrabulous" and although it appears on my page and I play it regularly, if it is in my *feed* and I click on it it will ask me if I want to sign up for it. That and the fact that, unbeknownst to me, I have some "Daily Show" application too that doesn't appear on my page and that I don't remembered ever signing up for that I only found when I was changing all my privacy settings during the Beacon debacle. Otherwise I would say it is just spam. What is weird is that it says someone has added X to your wall. Did you ask your friends if they really *did* add anything to your wall? I hate Facebook, but I love "Scrabulous" so I am complicit with the downfall of privacy in the Brave New World. Saudade7 02:51, 14 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure if this is a threading artifact or what, but... what? This is how Funwall etc. work: anyone with the application can submit items to other people, even if they don't have the application. If that other person does have the application, it appears for them; if they don't, what's sent instead is an invite to download the application. Nothing tricky about that, though it can be a bit annoying. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:56, 14 December 2007 (UTC)