Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 January 19

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[edit] January 19

[edit] Extracting images from a video file

Hi. I'm looking for a way to batch extract images from a .mov or .avi or .mpeg file with the idea of getting nine images out of every second of footage. Even a program which would create an image file for every frame would be useful because then I would just delete the extra images. I have Adobe Premier and Windows Movie Maker, so do any of these have this kind of batch capability? Thanks! Robinoke 01:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

VLC can do it, but I don't remember how. Check its forums or ask the VLC mailing list. --h2g2bob 03:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Use Irfanview's "extract all frames" feature --frothT 03:40, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Thanks guys, I'll give those a try... Robinoke 14:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] AIM 6.0 Format Screen Name

I have used AIM's "format screen name" option to add a space in my screen name, but for some reason the space is often lost when i sign off and sign back in later, and I have to continually re-add the space. Is there a way to resolve this? In a less important side note, I would ask on the AIM message boards but no matter which computer I try to access them, I get an error message that says "An error occured. Please try again later." Any help? I'm currently using AIM 6.0.28.1... Thanks! --Nevhood 02:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I get a very similar message whenever I pick on a non-AOL "From" or "To" address within an AOL e-mail header: "System Error: We're sorry, the AOL Member Directory page you requested is not available right now. Please try again later". They don't seem to check for non-AOL addresses. Perhaps you are on CompuServe or some other software which shares AIM but isn't fully supported by AOL ? StuRat 00:23, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
I use IE7, maybe they just don't have support for it yet. --Nevhood 18:38, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] which is better, GeForce2 GTS or MX

I have two Nvidia video cards: GeForce2 GTS and GeForce2 MX200. Which one should I use? From this page, it seems like the GTS has better specs. But the current version of the drivers do not support the GTS and does support the MX. Thanks. -131.215.159.11 04:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Thats because MX200 is more recent. Depends on what u want to do really, overall i would say GTS is better, it has better memory, among other things and lets u do more things. --|K.Z|Z.K| Do not vandalize... 04:37, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where to store files?

Moved from /Science

I have more than 30,000 text records (several GBs). Is there a Windows software tool that can create a compressed virtual disc to store these files? There was a program "ShrinkWrap" for Mac OS that does exactly this job. Is there any comparable software for Windows? -- Toytoy 01:20, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

You should probably ask this at the computing desk. --24.147.86.187 01:56, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Well depending on which version of windows you use, XP has a very easy native compression option under the general tab of your disk properties, you just 'tick the box'. Of course, it is a bad idea to compress your boot disk, so if you only have one hard disk in your PC you may need to repartition it. 202.2.57.126 03:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Try running "Disk cleanup" and checking the "Compress old files" option. This will work best of the "disk" in question contains them and nothing else. 68.39.174.238 15:23, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I need a better solution. I have more than 40,000 small files. They use up space. They make my other files fragmented. They are difficult to move. The best thing I can do is to make a compressed virtual volume. With ShrinkWrap under MacOS, I could:

  1. Make an empty volume slightly larger than the files.
  2. Move the files into the volume.
  3. Make a compressed volume from the uncompressed volume.

If I need to use the files, I can mount the compressed volume. If I don't need them, they are in ONE compressed virtual disc file.

Windows does a bad job handling thousands files. -- Toytoy 01:45, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like what you really need to do is import them all into a database or note management program. Something like Notelens for basic organization would keep them all in one place, and you can simply zip the database file. -- Kesh 02:14, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
See, if this were Linux, you could just dd if=/dev/zero of=virtual_drive.img bs=4096 count=1000000 (which gives you about 4GB); then you could just format the partition with mke2fs virtual_drive.img (or some other filesystem that does better with a hojillion little files; maybe ReiserFS?), and mount it via a loop device, like mount -o loop example.img /mnt/drive_image. You could copy/move all the little files onto it, and then (when unmounted) it would look just like a big file that could be moved, copied, backed up or whatever. You can even use compression on the device (see cloop and SquashFS, though these are read-only solutions). This is pretty much what was happening under your Mac. I'm not aware of anything similar under Windows, though if you can create a VMWare image (you can do it with the free VMWare player and a copy of QEMU under Linux), you could use something like Virtual Disk Driver to mount the filesystem in the VMWare image on your Windows system, too. (VMWare doesn't support compressed images, however.) Now that I think about it, your best bet might be burning a DVD image to a file (make it double-layer or whatever gives it enough space to store all your stuff) and then using something like Nero ImageDrive to mount the DVD image as a virtual drive. It doesn't support compression, but it's probably the easiest method to use. Windows doesn't let you do this sort of thing very easily. grendel|khan 22:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
dd if=/dev/zero of=virtual_drive.img bs=4096 count=1000000
losetup /dev/loop0 virtual_drive.img
mkfs.xfs /dev/loop0
losetup -d /dev/loop0
mount -o loop virtual_drive.img /mnt/virtual_drive
--wj32 talk | contribs 01:36, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] trOubleshoOting

hello!!! I am an I.T student, and i had a project.. I search it in many sites but there is no specific anwer, and i try to ask here can you help me?

my question is... what are the basic computer troubleshooting tools and equipment?? thats it.

thank you... for all those who read and answer this... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.217.67.44 (talk • contribs)

Does your course have a textbook or any assigned reading? Because the formatting of the question makes it sound like something where they're looking for a specific answer that was either addressed during a lecture, or written in the book or notes, rather than found randomly on the internet. --Maelwys 13:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Exactly what I was thinking. There's no "basic computer troubleshooting tool" unless you're in a very specific context. --frothT 19:18, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

How about your brain as the "basic computer troubleshooting tool" ? (Don't use it as a hammer, though.) StuRat 00:15, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I troubleshoot computer problems on a daily basis as part of my work and the above is correct, I can't think of any other specific tools I couldn't do my job without apart from my head and hands. Vespine 01:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Debian on PS3

Anybody else trying this? I've got it working perfectly now, but now I want to cut my teeth on programs that use the SPU's (special processing units), which are vector processors. Sony doesn't allow direct connection to the graphics card hardware vector pipes, but with 6 of these things, who cares? --Zeizmic 13:29, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Hebrew History

Contrast the difference between the way the Hebrews viewed history and the view held by most other ancient cultures. How do the words linier and cyclical apply?

We can't answer homework questions, and you'll probably get better help if you post on the right Reference Desk, Wikipedia:Reference desk/Humanities. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:53, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Consumed Crustacean is right on both counts. However, since you're here, the following two article sections may help you get started: Time#Linear time, Time#Cyclical time. -- SCZenz 18:14, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Cyclical: We keep getting repeated requests to do students' homework for them every day. StuRat 00:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Linear: Doing such homework problems for the students is a line we won't cross. StuRat 00:10, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Website Blocks

I was wondering how to block sites under categories, not individual sites like www.myspace.com I want to know how to block like gambling sites. Do you get it? 216.253.128.27 17:03, 19 January 2007 (UTC)nicholassayshi

You'll need some sort of "Content-control software". I don't have much knowledge of the specific products, but we do have a list of them, though not all have articles or external links. Try Googling them if you're curious. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 17:12, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That approach is not going to work well, because somebody would have to go through the millions of web sites, growing by thousands every day, and classify them, then reclassify them constantly, which is never going to happen. Alternatively, you could look for words like "gambling" on the page, but that would block many good sites ("Those with a high cholesterol diet are gambling on their health") and miss many sites you wish to block, which will just avoid using the keywords they know the program is looking for. There have been attempts to do this sort of thing, but you end up getting a very small subset of the web which has been reviewed and approved, with the majority of sites blocked, not because they've been found to be bad sites, but just because nobody has the time to review them. StuRat 00:03, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

If u are willing to buy products, Trend Micro has a classification blocker that might help. Its included in the Internet Security '07 pack. The company hire hundreds of workers just for classification so it should block most websites u don't want. --|K.Z|Z.K| Do not vandalize... 10:24, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Just tell your kids to stay away from gambling sites. If they have any technical ability at all they'll be able to bypass content control software. --frothT 00:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Would you care to bet on the chances the kids will do as they're told ? The odds are against you. StuRat 08:13, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clicks, crackles and blips on new headphones

I received a pair of Sennheiser HD 415 headphones yesterday, and have noticed clicks, crackles and blips that I didn't hear before. They happen on both my PC and my iPod. They didn't happen with any of my previous headphones, suggesting it's a problem with the headphones, but they happen identically at consistent points in songs, suggesting it's a problem with the audio files. It's possible it's a headphone anomaly that only affects specific sound patterns, but it's also possible the artifacts were just outside the frequency range of my old headphones. Any ideas as to where the problem is and what to do about it? (This doesn't include the stuttering and stuck-record-like behaviour that happens on the PC if enough other programs are running.) NeonMerlin 18:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I got a pair of fancy noise-cancelling headphones, and noticed a lot of new things. Try the usual things of getting the best feed you can. Even to the point of buying a cd! --Zeizmic 21:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Find a friend with a good quality stereo reciever and CD player. Pop in a CD. Listen to it on the speakers. Listen to it on your old headphones. Listen to it on your new headphones. Try this with a couple other CDs. If you hear the popping consistantly across discs on those headphones and no others, it might be a bad pair. If they only happen on certain discs, then it's probably just noise in the original recording that you can't normally hear on speakers or cheap headphones. -- Kesh 21:36, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
How loud are these artifacts you're hearing? Sounds like a bad cable, shorting out. Droud 23:46, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know about blips, but crackles could be due to clipping. Replay Gain could be the answer. --Kjoonlee 12:43, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Combining split files in Windows

I had to split up a big file to transfer it, so I used the linux command split. Now I'm on a windows computer (alas, I miss my shell), and I wish to reassemble it. Is there any smart way to do it. It would be trivial to do with some coding, but since I'm not on my own computer, I'd prefer that I'd not install anything. Anyone got any tips? Oskar 18:13, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

That is, it would be trivial to do a little programming, but I'd prefer not to install a big compiler or IDE or anything. If there is a program for just this purpose, I wouldn't mind installing that :) Oskar 18:22, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Use cygwin to get a bash console on your windows box. --h2g2bob 18:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Well, you see, when I said that I didn't want to install anything to major, I include cygwin in that :) Come on, there has to be a way... Oskar 19:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
From a cmd prompt, do:
copy chunk1+chunk2[+.....] destination
Cheers, Davidprior 20:49, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Thank you. Oskar 22:15, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
If you're dealing with binary files, copy /b first + second + third bigfile might be a better idea. --Kjoonlee 12:41, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] General Linux Questions...

Alrighty, so here's the thing: I'm a native Windows user, and I've gotten to know just about everything there is to know about Microsoft's OS, except programming, mind you.

I've always found Linux intriguing, though, and had a few questions about it. Please excuse my lack of knowledge on the subject, but I've never really gone deeper than seeing what it looks like. And I did read the article, but it just went over my head as a bunch of computer gibberish that I really don't understand.

  • Will Linux run Windows and Apple software, i.e., FireFox, iTunes, games, and word documents, or will I have to download them separately to make them Linux-compatible?
  • Is there a form of it that basically mirrors Windows, so I won't have to learn how to use a computer all over again?
  • Which version is the most popular?
  • If I use a live CD, will it wipe my Windows-based hardrive and install Linux-type stuff on it, or will it override Windows and just show me how Linux works?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.--Wikify me, captain! 21:19, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

    • Windows, yes, sort of. You have to install a program like WINE to fool the program into thinking it's running on windows.
    • Nope. There are graphical interfaces that are similar, but you're going to have to learn some new things to get around and take care of your system.
    • ... yikes, what a loaded question. Right now, Ubuntu is gaining popularity, but Debian and RedHat are well-known. I'm sure someone else will pipe up with their favorite distro shortly. Check out List of Linux distributions for a pretty large list.
    • Live CDs don't touch your hard drive at all. The entire OS will run from the CD/DVD and let you play around with the interface. If you finally decide to install it, the installer will generally create a seperate partition on your drive for Linux, letting you Dual boot into either Windows or Linux when you want. -- Kesh 21:44, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


  • A few points on the above reply:
    • If you're running Linux on an Intel-based computer, you can run many Windows programs using WINE, almost all old DOS games using Dosbox, and all Macintoh apps for the ancient 68k CPU using Basilisk II.
    • The GUI that is most similar to Windows is KDE.
    • For a beginner who wants a Windows-like interface, I'd recommend a Kubuntu live CD.
    • Not only do live CDs not touch your hard drive, they often make it hard to find your hard drive at all.
--Carnildo 22:17, 19 January 2007 (UTC)


  • A few comments on the above points
    • x86 or x64 CPUs, namely Intel and AMD ones, work with WINE. "Intel-based" is a little confusing.
    • KDE is fairly close to Winders. However, to be honest the largest commonality is that the bar starts on the bottom of the screen, as well as the default style being somewhat bubbly. As a Windows user, I found it wasn't really any more comfortable than GNOME or Xfce, though I gravitated towards it at first because of said small superficial things
    • ..., though you may want to try out a plain Ubuntu live CD (Kubuntu = Ubuntu + KDE), or the countless other LiveCDs to see how the different desktop environments compare; rewritable CDs/DVDs wouldn't be a bad idea ;). Coming from Windows I prefer Ubuntu and GNOME, but it could just be me.
    • I don't know that they make it hard to find, but they definitely don't touch it unless you ask. Just be sure you don't choose the option to install the CD
-- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 23:26, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Ah, some very, very informative stuff here! Thanks, all, it's greatly appreciated. --Wikify me, captain! 23:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Another note: YOu mentioned Firefox and Word documents. There is a version of Firefox that is compiled specifically for Linux - so you don't have to run the Windows version of Firefox on Linux. Also, AbiWord and Open Office both open, edit, and save most Word documents fine. When you get those weird ones where the author tries to use every trick in the Word menu, you'll run into trouble. --Kainaw (talk) 23:39, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
Cool. I'm downloading the live CD of Kubuntu now to try on my computer. --Wikify me, captain! 23:54, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
A brief comment on WINE - it runs a lot of windows stuff, but not all. However, there are free versions of pretty much everything you could want (ie MS Office → OpenOffice.org; MSN → GAIM; iTunes → Songbird (sort of); PaintShop → GIMP; and so on). These are also available for Windows, so you could get to know them on either OS. Personally, I recommend knoppix over ubuntu, but there's not much difference. --h2g2bob 02:06, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
A much better substitute for iTunes is amaroK. It's a fantastic music player, as good or even better than iTunes Oskar 10:46, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
By the way, Linux will be a much better experience if you learn to program in perl or bash or something --frothT 23:54, 20 January 2007 (UTC)
Just a comment, but I seem to recall reading about Linux distros intended to mimic (at least in appearance and feel) Windows. Couldn't find on List of Linux distributions, though. Someoneinmyheadbutit'snotme 07:13, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
It used to be called Lindows. After getting sued to death by Micro$oft, they changed the name to Linspire. --Kainaw (talk) 11:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)
Re-answering your questions (being very strict about naming):
  • Yes, for Windows software, using WINE.
  • No, because Windows is an operating system, and Linux is a kernel.
  • Umm, go to kernel.org for the latest version.
  • To see how Linux works, please buy a book on Linux.
Also, Linspire is extremely non-free. --wj32 talk | contribs 01:18, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Also it sucks --frothT 20:01, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Organizing music

I have a messy collection of mp3's many of them have incomplete or incorect id3 tags full of links and other useless info. i heard u can use iTunes to automatically rename and re id3-tag your mp3 collection (retrieving info from a database). How do you do this!!!??

  • Hit control+A
  • Right click
  • And go to the id3 tags option (sorry, I forgot exactly what it says)

And there you go! --Wikify me, captain! 23:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)