Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 June 14

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[edit] June 14

[edit] Modules in Access

Could someone explain exactly what an INNER JOIN is in MS Access. What does it do and how do you code it in a module?
Zain Ebrahim 07:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Remarkably, this very site has an article on the topic! Inner join. If that's not sufficient, THIS PAGE has a very readable explanation. Anchoress 07:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The wiki page was actually better. Thank you.
Zain Ebrahim 07:52, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

INNER JOIN is SQL. You can code SQL into modules in a number of ways. If you are just executing one line of code (e.g. deleting a record, adding a new one, updating a record, etc.), running it as a Query object is very fast. If you are trying to retrieve records, you will want to use with DAO or ADO. (I prefer DAO, but that is just me). Anyway you will want to read the Help file a bit (look at the example given for .OpenRecordset, for example) if you are new to using SQL in modules. --140.247.240.131 14:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Generic TV Tuner on a Mac?

Can a Generic brand of TV Tuner run on a Mac?

Any assistance appreciated

Vincent.hardy 08:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It would help if you told us what TV Tuner brand and model you are trying to use, and which Mac version. In general, I would say no without the proper drivers. Splintercellguy 17:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Ages ago, I used an iXMicro TurboTV PCI card in a PPC mac running MacOS 7.x, which had drivers, but I don't think the product line exists anymore. For what it's worth, it was just a Brooktree bt848 tuner, for which there are plenty of drivers. -- JSBillings 17:10, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] wireless card radio tuner

Can a standard computer wireless card (one used for wireless networks) be used to recieve normal radio signals, for example FM or AM? Think outside the box 09:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Not a standard card, which is designed to receive IEEE 802.11 data at 2.4 GHz. FM transmissions occur in the realm of ~90-100 MHz and are also modulated differently. Perhaps you should read about radio and frequency modulation to get an idea of background behind these technologies; you will readily see that they are not directly compatible. A "non-standard" wireless card might hypothetically be constructed (especially if future advances in software radio allow direct digital processing of received wireless signals); but at present no such device is commonly available. Nimur 10:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
AM radio operates around 600 to 1500 kHz and is even less likely to be usefully detected on a computer wireless card. Nimur 10:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] raster file to vector file

could you help me to find any free software to convert a raster(image) file to vector (line arc)file. thank you 124.43.246.129 12:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Inkscape has a pretty nice trace function, which will allow you to make some raster images into SVGs. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 12:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Generally speaking though unless your raster file is of very simple overlays of color almost all tracers fail pretty spectacularly at making anything useful. Inkscape is about as good as any others out there, in my experience, which is to say, often not that great. I do a lot of tracing by hand in such situations. --140.247.240.131 14:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Odd video

My computer popped up a welcome video (Welcome to Microsoft ME) after F6 disking my computer. How do I access it again after I close it? I can't seem to find it at all. Thank you, --IP Address 15:54, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Spider (solitaire)

Where is the scoring kept? I searched for it in WINDOWS but cant seem to find it. I found most of the games (winmine was the first). IP Address 16:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Probably the registry. See here but also be careful whenever you edit the registry. iames 16:59, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know that but I don't know how to edit the registry. Thats why I wanted to know where in the files it is located. That way I can edit it using Notepad. IP Address 17:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
If it is in the registry you can't edit it in Notepad — it wouldn't exist as an external file. --24.147.86.187 18:58, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Did you look at the link I gave you? Launch regedit and look into HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Spider. iames 19:12, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Also have a look at Windows Registry. iames 19:17, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes Iames, I did read your link (word for word), look in the registry & found it. The first time I tried to edit something in the registry I killed the .exe function. Thats why I'm wary of editing the registry. IP Address 23:41, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
It's just a configuration data store, nothing to be afraid of.. though microsoft really does abuse it by not keeping a vanilla backup. Interestingly, Steam's configuration data is all glommed together into gigantic GCF files, and if you want to change a model or texture or sound, you just drop the appropriate file into the appropriate folder and it overrides the vanilla setting, which makes it much more stable and easier to correct problems (if all else fails you can just delete all the files to restore the original settings). --frotht 17:29, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Floating Point in Palm OS 5

Palm PDAs running Palm OS 1 - Palm OS 4.x ran Dragonballs, which did not have hardware FPUs. The third-party Mathlib software was required to support IEEE-754. My question is via what mechanism is floating point supported in Palm OS 5? Do any of the CPUs used in Palm OS 5 devices have built in FPUs? - MSTCrow 17:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, take for instance the Palm Zire 72, which according to [1] uses a PXA270 CPU. Our article on the PXA27x says it doesn't have floating point hardware. As for MathLib, it already comes with PalmOS 5 (take a look with FileZ and you'll find it). --cesarb 22:49, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
I'm still using a Palm Vx running Palm OS 4.1.  :-( So I can't check anything first hand. A quick search of the ACCESS Developer Network had no hits for mathlib, and didn't find anything searching for "Palm OS 5 mathlib" on Google. The official mathlib page, http://www.radiks.net/~rhuebner/mathlib.html, has no mention of it being integrated into Palm OS 5. Do any past Palm OS based PDAs have FPUs? - MSTCrow 00:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
It's certainly possible to simulate floats in software, Floating point describes some of the ways to compute it without using a FPU. --antilivedT | C | G 06:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Nice Font

I was wondering if anybody knows of a good font I could use in excel, where the numbers are all standard width, so that they line up in columns. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 144.160.98.31 (talk) 19:55, June 14, 2007

Consolas? JoshHolloway 23:02, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Courier and Courier New are the fonts I use, since every character has the same width, so it lines up nicely. Lucida Console works too, as does almost anything that has console in it.--GTPoompt(talk) 12:18, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] TweakUI

Hello. I installed TweakUI to disable Autorun. Now I wish Autorun can be enabled for specific removable storage devices. For example, I wish Autorun to be enabled for a specific USB thumb drive not for the port where my USB thumb drive goes. I unsuccessfully tried looking for the autorun.inf file in my USB thumb drive as what the Autorun Wikipedia article said. How can I do this? --Mayfare 22:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you can enable autorun for a specific, individual thumb drive. In any case, you have to create an autorun.inf file — it is not created automatically. The autorun.inf file is what would tell your system to autorun if you had autorun enabled. If you don't have it enabled, you would need to click on that file. But in any case you need to make the file if it does not already exist. --24.147.86.187 01:53, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Best work around for your situation:

  1. Insert the thumb drive you wish to enable autorun on
  2. Open Disk Manager (Run: C:\windows\System32\DiskMgmt.msc) (Assuming XP And Admin priveliges)
  3. Right Click on USB pen and click "Change Drive Letters and Paths"
  4. Add new drive letter that isn't normally used on your PC, e.g "Y:"
  5. Remove old drive letter
  6. Open TweakUI
  7. Enable AutoPlay settings for the Y: Drive (or whatever letter you chose)
  8. Close all windows, remove pen drive and reinsert (Wait 30 seconds or so before reinserting drive)

Tswsl1989 12:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't add a new drive letter. --Mayfare 16:38, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If you have admin priveliges (which you sya you have), then it shouldn't be a problem IF no other windows are open. Close everything first, then follow the instructions above. Read http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;307844&sd=tech
You need to restart at the end, not just remove the pen drive.

Tom::Leave a message 08:00, 21 June 2007 (UTC)