Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 December 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Computing desk
< December 2 << Nov | December | Jan >> December 4 >
Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.


Contents


[edit] December 3

[edit] tight and square autoshapes in word

In microsoft Word when I set autoshapes to to be tight or square in text why do they regularly do such odd this as to move to random pages, stick to the top of pages and refuse to move, refuse to change pages, and cause text to jump to the next page. Other people I know also experience this and it is ridiculous, whoever wrote the script that causes this must be totally incomprehensibly incapable. Why is this not addressed, it has been an annoying feature in office word for many years know, and yet has remained completely unaddressed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.203.50.108 (talk) 00:13, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

MS Word is not a paint program or a slide show program. It is a word processor. Squares, circles, arrows, and the like are not words. That is why it is not an important feature of MS Word. As for why it acts the way it does... When you create a shape (or embed a picture), it is anchored to an invisible location in the text. When that location moves, so does the embedded shape or picture. Also, there are many ways in which it affects the text around it - based on the set text wrapping. It may also be aligned left or right - causing more effects. Because the anchor is invisible and difficult to manage, it is often necessary to cut the image/picture from the page and then paste it back in again where it is needed as opposed to simply dragging it around. -- kainaw™ 02:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
try to be helpful. if all i wanted to do was write words why don't I just use notepad, in fact for those purposes why does word even exist. But the matter of the fact is I am doing a report and as a result I need many figs of graphs, diagrams and data etc. embedded in the page. What program should I use then, is there Microsoft Word and Pictures and Graphs and Diagrams out there, and I'm just to stupid to realise. Don't be obtuse. Your explanations don't really serve the problem at hand.
You asked "Why is this not addressed" and I answered that question. How is that not helpful? I even explained why the problem occurs and then explained a common trick for handling the problem. I completely fail to see how that is not helpful. Perhaps you want help for a problem other than the one you asked about. -- kainaw™ 02:12, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Solution: Right click on the Picture, Format Picture -> Layout -> Advanced -> Picture Position and then uncheck "Move object with text". In this window you can also order the picture to top left corner for example (rather than moving it manually). I'm not quite sure about the "Lock anchor" setting though. Moving objects with text is turned on by default so you can insert image smilies for example and have them stay at the same point in the text. — Shinhan < talk > 13:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm trying to get the shape to sit tight in text, and not move. Even when th text moves, but it refuses to do this, when I type over the end of the page, it moves all (not just new text all of it, leaving the page blank, if you click the cursor on this blank page it simply waits at the bottom of the previous page as if you cannot edit the page) the text off the bottom the page and jams all the images to the top of the page, and if you drag them away they jump straight back, its clearly a glitch i'm not just being moronic. Also now when images are set to tight text refusing to go in line with them, as if the images are set to be inline with text, this is a new glitch to me.
This has annoyed me for as long as Word has allowed you to do AutoShapes. Even the 'Move Object With Text' and 'Lock Anchor' options don't work all the time. My advice is to 'Group' Autoshapes together if they're part of the same diagram, otherwise different parts move independently and mess the diagram up. As somebody else said, Word isn't the best application for this kind of thing, something like MS Publisher or Serif PagePlus which has frames deidcated to text that will not 'go' anywhere they're not supposed to are better. GaryReggae 22:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proxy

So, if I'm using a proxy such as www.hidemy.info, what does that actually hide me from? Can my network administrator not see what I've been accessing, or people hacking my computer, or what? I've always been rather unclear on what a proxy actually does... Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 00:52, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It masks your IP and other complicated things from the website receiving your request, so it essentialy makes a request for your computer, then gives it to you. A network admin can always see what you're doing, so if you go to www.someporno.com, then they see you've been to that site. I don't know what you mean by hacking, as in what, so I can't help you there, but in general I'd say they can still hack you.YДмΔќʃʀï→ГC← 12-3-2007 • 02:10:50
I was thinking about something I read about Tor where it said that people randomly scanning for unsecure computers would be unable to see what you were doing. But thanks. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 02:24, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I use tor with privoxy alot, in the form of the browser OperaTor. Privoxy helps secure Tor. In that sence, it depends. YДмΔќʃʀï→ГC← 12-3-2007 • 02:26:40
hidemy.info appears to use an unencrypted connection, so it's not protecting you from very much. About the only useful thing it does is prevent the target site from seeing your IP address. Anyone who could spy on your web browsing before can still do so; this includes your ISP, anyone using the same wireless access point as you, and so on. It probably also anonymizes your HTTP request and strips cookies, but you can install software on your own machine to do that (Privoxy, for example). Tor is much more secure (though probably slower). The usual suspects (ISP, etc.) can tell that you're using Tor and how much data you're transmitting, but that's all. But even with Tor the exit node can still spy on the connection, as can the exit node's ISP and so forth. They don't know who you are, and don't know whether different HTTP requests come from the same source, but they might be able to make a decent guess by looking at the content of the traffic. -- BenRG 04:28, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cell phone info - Razr

Can anyone tell me how I can transfer songs from my computer to my mom's Razr? I know that they use a non-standard screw size, and they set these systems up intentionaly. Since we're not rich, please don't suggest we buy one from Alltel, and switch out from Verizon. We tried to get the memory card out, but the (for lack of a better word) 6-sided screw is a 1 in metric. Thanks! YДмΔќʃʀï→ГC← 12-3-2007 • 02:06:51

If your computer has bluetooth, you can send it that way. USB bluetooth adapters are pretty cheap now, you could probably buy one for $20 if your computer doesn't have it built in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 02:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I tried that, but couldn't figure it out. It kills my internet each time I try it so I've got to use system restore. Thanks though! YДмΔќʃʀï→ГC← 12-3-2007 • 02:28:09

I don't get it. What kills your Internet connection? And Why do you need to use System Restore just because your Internet Connection got terminated? Will not a reboot (after removing the bluetooth adapter) reestablish the connection? --Kushalt 22:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to do. You just need a P2K browser, like P2k commander http://www.savefile.com/files/920161 Just download that, connect the phone via usb, and then you should be able to browse the files. 76.224.121.58 (talk) 01:07, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] using .gzip, .gz, and .tar

How can I use any of these on windows? That thing in DOS won't work, and I don't see any software that I can figure out (Picozip). Plz help!Wanda Church 02:30, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I think WinZip can handle unix archive formats. Also see Comparison_of_file_archivers#Archive_format_support--APL 02:59, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
If a file is compressed using gzip, gz, tar, bz, or bz2, then it is most likely a unix/linux file. There isn't much chance that it will be any use in a Windows environment. Of course, it is is possible to use tar to compress a picture or movie or similar, but when something is meant to be used on multiple platforms even the unix/linux guys will usually be nice and use zip to compress it. -- kainaw™ 03:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
(No, we Linux guys use all of those formats for cross-platform AND windows-only stuff - it's more convenient than ZIP). You'll also see '.tgz' which is a file that's a '.tar' file that has been gzipped. SteveBaker 21:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Cygwin can handle all these kinds of file. Open source Source code is often stored in this way. And yes Winzip can handle those three formats: .gz and .tar. gzip is the program to zip into .gz format. And tar handles .tar format. Graeme Bartlett 03:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
winrar supports all those formats and I find it more useful then winzip. Vespine 05:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
It's the winnar --ffroth 18:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

7-Zip will also handle these formats and is available under GNU Lesser General Public License(i.e. free). See also Comparison of file archivers. --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 18:26, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Outlook express error 0x800ccc79

How do I get around this please? I am using windows98. - CarbonLifeForm 12:36, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

That error appears to mean that the SMTP server requires authentication. Try the steps listed here (scroll down a bit). If that doesn't work, just google the phrase "Outlook express error 0x800ccc79" and check out the other results. --LarryMac | Talk 12:41, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
"My server requires authentication" box is checked. Emails arrive; nothing goes. - CarbonLifeForm 12:53, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I had that (or something similar). In the end it turned out that the outgoing port was wrong. The secure connection for the outgoing mail should give a different port number, you'll just need to find out what port your email provider needs Jackacon 20:34, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

It was working fine 3 days ago on ports 25 110. And I can access emails through easyspace.com webmail. But not outlook. - CarbonLifeForm 21:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
In my experience, Outlook Express can't tell the difference between "server is not responding" and "incorrect username or password". It could be that the server you're trying to connect to is down. --Carnildo 01:24, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
It is possible that your email address has expired. Check with the provider. - Kittybrewster ☎ 15:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] stopping websites

how do you stop websites from being accessed via the notepad? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.138.222.238 (talk) 17:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean you want to disable the "View / Source" menu option? Any attempt you make to do so can be circumvented in lots of different ways. A browser needs the source to be able to render the page, that's pretty much how it works. Information wants to be free. HTML wants to be naked and promiscuous. --LarryMac | Talk 19:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Interestingly, from notepad you can enter a URL into the File->Open requestor, and it will go out and retrieve the source! Neat! --Mdwyer 21:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Wow! Thanks Mdwyer, that is cool! Think outside the box 14:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
The answer is that you make them into flash animations or generate them on the fly from JavaScript or something. SteveBaker 22:07, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
If you generate them from JavaScript, you can always just download the JavaScript directly and find some way to execute it so that it produces the HTML to you on disk. Flash is a bit more difficult because it's a proprietary language, but the Flash application can be downloaded to disk with HTTP just as easily as HTML can. The only difference is that making sense of it is more difficult, but Flash decompilers do exist. I use a free software Flash decompiler called Flare myself. The bottom line is, anything you can view in your browser, you can store on disk. There is really no way around it. If you want to restrict access, implement a server-side policy that refuses to send anything to non-authorised clients. JIP | Talk 22:29, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
In firefox you can highlight "generated" html and select view selection source to see it. Select all ftw. --ffroth 19:01, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Trying to disable this functionality makes about as much sense as disabling right click on images. All it does it make is slightly harder to retrieve the information. Anyone who has any idea what they're doing can get it very quickly. Exxolon 23:22, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
And will probably avoid your website in the future if they possibly can. risk 00:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I believe Internet Explorer 5 had this ability to encrypt a website's source, so that the source code was simply rubbish - via an ActiveX control. That being said, I haven't heard it being ported to any other browser nor upgraded - it sounds a little sheepish to me. That said, you can disable it if you are an Administrator on a Windows platform: [1] - but as people have said, it doesn't stop people from viewing a website's source. And the website developers themselves cannot do such a thing (without, of course, writing something akin to a virus). x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:15, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
What's stopping users from using a different browser than MSIE, or a direct telnet connection? This Internet Explorer hack only works if you have control over your users' computers (family, corporation, or university campus). If it's meant to be a globally visible web page, you have no guarantee your users will be using (a) Internet Explorer 5 with ActiveX, (b) Internet Explorer 5, (c) Internet Explorer, or (d) Windows in the first place. JIP | Talk 20:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
It largely depends on what you need done, you can't prevent the source from beeing visible but you might keep the information you want hidden out of the source. Taemyr 15:06, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Free animation software

Does anyone have any experience with any freeware animating software? I need to combine a set of images to be the frames of a movie file. The individual frames are exported out of mathematica, so they can be any format I wish: .jpg, .bmp , .svg etc etc. I want the result to be as portable as possible and retain the quality of the original images so a quicktime movie would be best, but an avi would work also. I have googled "Free animation software" already and found a large number of results, but figured I could see if anyone else has any advice before starting the trial and error process.

Thanks in advance. Man It's So Loud In Here 19:20, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

For short 'GIF' movies containing just a handful of images, I use GIMP (just put each image into a separate layer). For more serious stuff (MPEG, etc) I use an open-sourced program called 'mencoder' - which is a part of the 'mplayer' package. SteveBaker 21:42, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] C++ library for an http server

I want to code a c++ project that creates a web server over http that can handle login authentication, cookies, and basic get and post interaction all in c++. I can probably figure out how to do this from scratch (maybe not) with sockets. Is there a good library out there that does this? something i can tell it to just sit and wait for a http connection then send off an on the fly generated webpage. I dont want to use apache/php or some otgher standard way of doing it i want to do it all embedded in one program. Thanks --Iownatv 22:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

  • For reasons completely obscure to me, C++, which is one of the most widely-used languages in many domains, doesn't have a reasonable standard library like other comparable languages. The STL and other standardized parts are extremely puny as compared to even Java's base libraries, much less something like CPAN. You can search for "c++ httpd.library", but as with so much else in the C++ world, you may be better off rolling your own. I hope that boost.org will blossom into something to be proud of, but for now they're focused on just making up for C++'s inherent inadequacies. --Sean 01:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • yeah a CPAN for C++ would be great. It doesnt make sense that something like that doesnt exist yet --Iownatv 03:03, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
  • also thanks for that google query, my searches for C++ web server library and http server werent showing good results like the one you gave me. I found one that seems good called Minimal httpd library MIHL written in C. --Iownatv 03:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Google search help

How can I search for the dollar sign ? I want to add this to a search for a GPS unit so I can only find sites that list actual prices. (As a bonus, I won't have to deal with sites that list prices in pounds or kwedizels.) StuRat 23:05, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

This Google help page doesn't tell how to do that, but does give you something that might be more useful: you can search for GPS plus an amount in dollars that must be in a set range. Algebraist 00:49, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Yea, "GPS $100..$200" works pretty well, thanks. StuRat (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
If you're using Google to search for products/prices/online shops, you might also want to try froogle, Google's online shopping search engine. --Monorail Cat 02:28, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
You put a backslash in front of it. eg \$200 SteveBaker 02:46, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
That method doesn't seem to work for a dollar sign without a value, like "\$", to list all prices found in dollars, unfortunately. StuRat (talk) 21:36, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Doesn't work for other characters though. I was trying to figure out why this page thinks that .jpg.html files are potentially malicious but the backslash doesn't affect the dots and google searches it as 2 separate terms. --ffroth 03:27, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Was that a serious question? I can put a link to www.myserver.com\puppy.jpg on a website, and everyone enjoys the cute picture of a puppy. Or, I can put a link to www.myserver.com\puppy.jpg.html and some inattentive people will think it's the same thing. It's not; its an HTML page that displays that puppy picture, installs two trojans, and formats your backup drive. -SandyJax 20:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
"Malicious" is a funny word to use to describe HTML. Marnanel (talk) 19:09, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] itunes is irritating

hello, this might sound like a simple question but it is perhaps not so simple. how do i turn off the itunes plus feature? I want to purchase an album but i cannot due to it costing more because of being listed as an itunes plus product.

help appreciated thanks. 142.161.226.96 23:19, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

iTunes is not irritating. They recently changed the prices to be equal for Plus and regular. —Nricardo 12:08, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
I can back that up. iTunes Plus is the same price as iTunes -- 99¢ US. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 00:48, 5 December 2007 (UTC)