Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 November 28

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[edit] November 28

[edit] Sony Erricsson P1i

HI there! i want to know about sony ericsson p1i smart phone .i wish to buy it so want know its problems if it have,becoz in most furems it got bad reviews.so kindly advise me for that and plz and plz what is the price of p1i in Saudi Arabian currency .......thanx.GREAT PEOPLE..GREAT ADVISE —Preceding unsigned comment added by Star33 2009 (talk • contribs) 04:51, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

this should help. and for currency, XE.COM is the best. The Updater would like to talk to you! 10:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiHaquinator (talk • contribs)
Google also does currency conversions, search for e.g. 80 dollars in Saudi riyal. ›mysid (☎∆) 12:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I know forums can be filled with lots of strong points-of-view. In my experience, technology product forums are filled with people who either love the product (eg. "fantastic", "best gadget I ever bought", "5-stars", etc.), or people who have had particular problems (eg. "poor construction - screen broke when I sat on it", "doesn't get a signal in the desert - 0-stars", "oh dear, it doesn't have GPS", etc.) The best I can advise, is to get a good look at it in a phone store, make sure it has the features you want and try them out in the store, ask the sales person about some of the problems you have read about. Astronaut (talk) 18:01, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Saving Wikipedia in my computer

I used to read many articles from wikipedia.Whenever I save those articles by (file=>save as=>file name in HTML, save as type usually be .htm or .mht)I have this problem in displaying correctly. But I cannot get the exact fonts and the background images in my pc when I open those saved files while I'm offline,whereas the article contents such as the images or pictures and the words look good.I'm talking about the background image only. Why is this?.Do i need any special software for making wikipedia articles display correctly in my pc offline?.Please help because reading those articles while offline does not give a satisfaction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 04:59, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I guess you will need to download the Cascading Style Sheet files as well (*.css) that are linked to from the HTML code. ›mysid (☎∆) 08:11, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Switch over to Safari for Mac or Windows. It can save all content (except Flash movies, videos, etc) into a .webarchive file. The backgrond and all graphics will stay intact. --24.249.108.133 (talk) 17:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Firefox will also save all ancillary documents when you save a page. 68.39.174.238 03:47, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Autopause video playback

I am looking for a piece of (Windows) software that will play a video file (such as an AVI) and automatically pause the playback at a specified point, before letting me manually resume the playback (for example, I may want to pause it at 00:24:32, 00:37:58, 01:02:19). Any help pointing me to some useful software would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, --Dunsten123 (talk) 11:35, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

That seems like a really specific application need (so specific that I can't actually imagine what you could need it for—can't you just hit pause on your own?), and I really doubt there's going to be much out there that supports that. You're probably looking at some sort of custom scripting solution whatever you end up doing, either that or you manually break the file into four pieces and have them triggered to play one after another (say, using Flash video). --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:04, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
You may be able to do this with a complex series of Mplayer arguments. See the man file here [1]. But off the top of my head I can't work out exactly how. 72.10.110.107 (talk) 15:38, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I have had a quick look at Mplayer, doesn't seem to be any arguments that would suit my needs. Can anyone help with this? I need this for a psychology experiment I am running, I could hit pause myself but I preferably need millisecond timing accuracy (although this isn't completely essential), and also if I forget to hit pause during the experiment, even if I remember just a few seconds later, that's alot of participants time I have wasted and it ruins the experiment.--Dunsten123 (talk) 19:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I could do with something like that for music files, pausing the song after say ten seconds would be great for running 'guess the intro' music quizzes. GaryReggae (talk) 19:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, you can tell mplayer (and mencoder) the time to start and for how long to play, so you can have something like this (it's a bash script; I think for Windows you'd substitute "wait" for "read"):
#!/bin/bash
mplayer sound.mp3         -endpos 4
echo "push return" ; read
mplayer sound.mp3  -ss 4  -endpos 4
echo "push return" ; read
mplayer sound.mp3  -ss 8  -endpos 4
echo "push return" ; read
mplayer sound.mp3  -ss 12 -endpos 4
which plays the song in 4 second chunks. The problem with this is that for the 2nd and subsequent sections there's a little high-freq chirp (when the output circuit jumps from 0 to a given sample value discontinuously. The right thing to do is to put a little volume rampup at the start of each section, but I don't know how to do that programatically (I'll look see...) You could always chop up the file (as above, just using mencoder rather than mplayer) and put the little ramp on manually with Audacity. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:28, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, here's a solution that works. Using SoX rather than mencoder - it properly puts the start ramp in for you. On Unix there's a play program included in the SoX pack, so those mplayer lines above just become:
play sound.mp3 trim 12 4
Unfortunately our SoX article (which may be out of date) seems to indicate that the Windows version of SoX doesn't come with the nice play program (its equivalent of mplayer). If that's really true (grr) you'd have to do something naff like:
sox sound.mp3 fragment.wav trim 12 4                   
mplayer fragment.wav
...
But that should do what you want. Better, SoX/play will take trim arguments with fractional times (or times in so-many-samples), giving you the millisecond accuracy you want.-- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:57, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Urgh, darn, I misread your original question. SoX only does sound, so the mplayer solution is for you. I tried it with video files and it manages to not chirp for them. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Being again that I have no idea why you want to do this, if you were doing this to, say, display it to a group, you could most easily break the video file up into chunks and then just insert each chunk into different slides in Powerpoint. After one finished it would wait for you to hit a key and advance to the next slide to continue. But again, no clue if that actually would help you—it'd be much easier to come up with workarounds if you gave us more context for why you want to do this. --24.147.86.187 16:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] configuration of modem for UMTS

My UMTS provider tells me that I should put the +CGDCONT=1,"IP","internet" string on my PC modem configuration. Although my connection works, I wonder that does this string means. If I don't put it I can go into the internet the same way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.168.3.246 (talk) 12:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Programming advice

I'd like advice on learning programming, and from comments above it looks like there are users here who have strong opinions on the subject. Please suggest the best language and way to learn it based on these criteria:

  1. The types of things I'd like to do: automate repetitive tasks when using excel, make or modify simple bots like those used on wikipedia, screw around and learn
  2. I don't envision ever moving into a career involving programming.
  3. I have a full-time job and would perfer to learn at home, unless you really think classroom learning is the way to go.
  4. I just bought an XO laptop (the $100 laptop, all open source software). Maybe there is something I can use in this environment that is good for learning.

ike9898 (talk) 15:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

"automate repetitive tasks when using excel": Visual Basic macros. There's no better way if you want to do it straight from excel.
"make or modify simple bots like those used on wikipedia": Any scripting language, preferably something modern like Python. -- Chris, 15:12, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Automating tasks in Microsoft Office applications is most easily done with Visual Basic for Applications. It's not that hard though the automation aspects of it feature lots of arcane syntax that requires constant checking in a manual to get right. As for simple bots, most of the Wikipedia ones are written in Perl, some in PHP. Both of which are good languages to start with in my opinion; Perl is a bit more formal and standard as languages go, though PHP can be pretty powerful if you have any interest in web development. On the XO, it looks like Python comes with it natively, which also has a reputation as a good language to begin learning with. So there are some options—Perl, and PHP have very similar (C-like) syntax, so if you learned one you'd probably be able to read and mess around with the others. VBA is totally different and is basically a bit more constrained for using MS Office stuff. I've never used Python but looking at code examples it seems like it does it own thing syntax-wise; a bit different than the C-like syntax but still pretty similar. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 15:15, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Creating a Wikipedia bot isn't too hard - Wikipedia provides an API for bots to use (api.php). Python is a good choice for Wikipedia bots. The "standard" Python book is Dive into Python, and is available online; and other people who have written bots can help you (take a look at [[WP:BOT).
Python is also a good choice for reading (or writing) csv and text spreadsheets, but for doing things inside Microsoft Office, you will need to use Macros or Visual Basic. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Firefox keystroke shortcut to return to select page(s)

Hi all,

Does anyone know of any firefox extension that would allow me, with the stroke of a key, to quickly replace whatever is in the browser with some number of pre-selected tabs? Yes, I'm slacking off at work; yes, I want to be able to quickly make it look like I have work-related webpages open when the boss walks in. Yes, I could have a second window open, but I wouldn't always remember to do that...

Any ideas? Thanks!

--Chris, 15:07, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Would a single click of the mouse suffice? If you have a folder in your bookmarks-bar that you middle click on (i.e. you click with the mousewheel) it will replace all your tabs with the pages in the folder (it will ask you if you're sure you want to do that the first time, but you can turn that off). Just put four or five pages in there, click it, and your nefarious slacker deeds will be covered up! 213.112.18.52 (talk) 00:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

THIS looks like it might do the job but it only does it with one tab I think. I cannot try it out because these college PCs don't have Firefox on them though. Please tell us how it works out though TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] unreadable CD

Five years ago I bought a data CD which came in a clear thin plastic sleeve. I copied what data I needed onto my hard drive, and put it to one side, since when it has been stored in its sleeve. Now I need some more data from it but although I've tried it in several CD drives, no one seems to be able to read the disk. The company I bought it from has gone out of business. I don't know exactly what the sleeve is made of, perhaps polythene or vinyl. Could that have affected the surface of the disk? I have tried cleaning it with warm water to no avail. Is there something else I could try treating it with or have I lost the data for ever?--Shantavira|feed me 18:56, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

You could try cleaning the face of the CD (the side that goes face down in the drive) with something slightly more aggressive such as Turtle Wax (which has restored many a scratched CD for me). I guess this stuff skims the very top layer of the surface off and if only the top layer is scratched or damaged or has reacted with the sleeve, it may fix it. Don't use anything aggressive on the top side of the CD as it has a thin reflective layer that will stop the CD from working if damaged. You can also buy dedicated CD repair kits but I'm not sure how (or if) they work. Good luck! GaryReggae (talk) 19:48, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Car wax doesn't "skim" anything off - otherwise your car would be worn down to the bare metal after enough polishing! What actually happens is that it fills in the cracks and scratches with wax. In a good car wax, the refractive index of the wax is similar to the clearcoat on the car paint - so if you have some superficial cracks and scratches, that don't penetrate through the pigment of the paint, it's like the scratches were never there. Hence, it makes the car look shiney. If the refractive index of the wax is close enough to the plastic of the CD at the frequency of the laser-diode then it's quite possible that it'll "fix" scratches fairly effectively. There are CD repair kits you can buy out there that have magic liquids in them that claim to fix up shallow scratches - I suspect they are also waxes, but perhaps their refractive index is a better match for the CD's plastic than car polish (on the other hand, this may just be REALLY expensive car wax!) SteveBaker (talk) 21:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Is it possible that your CD as been laying data-side-up in occasional sunlight these five years? UV rays can ruin a CD. -- Chris, 20:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
It's also possible that the original CD had some microscopic holes in the metallisation layer (there was a time a few years back where this happened a lot) - and the 'surface tension' (for want of a better word) of the metal in the foil is enough to open up these tiny pinholes to the point where they are actually damaging to the data. Sometimes you can hold the CD up to the light and see light shining through the holes. I've also had old CD's get stuck to vinyl sleeves - to the extent that taking the CD out of the sleeve pulled off the paint from the non-data side of the disk! These days I keep a stock of empty jewel cases and transplant important CD's into those for safe keeping. Anyway - if either of those things are what's happened, then you're doomed. SteveBaker (talk) 21:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
See CD rot and CD bronzing. CD resurfacing works only for minor scratches --— Gadget850 (Ed) talk - 21:40, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Could check with dd_rescue (in Cygwin or Knoppix if you use Windows), perhaps. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:26, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] comparing ddr ram and ddr2 ram

hi i am looking to buy some ram for my pc for gaming purposes.

i use ddr ram usually but i have hear ddr2 ram is better. iss all ddr2 ram compatible with ddr ram. also if i do have to stick with ddr ram can i get a higher mhz ram i am using 333mhz at the moment can i change for a higher.

thanks James Ford —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.150.216.125 (talk) 23:34, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

No, the pins for DDR2 are in different locations than DDR, you need to buy a new motherboard to change. Yes, you can replace slower RAM with higher frequencies, if they are the same type (DDR w/ DDR, DDR2 w/ DDR2, DDR3 w/ DDR3). - ђαίгснгм таιќ 23:55, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I recommend using a RAM compatibility site before buying new RAM for your machine. The one at http://crucial.com is pretty good. You don't have to buy from them, but it'll tell you which types of RAM your system can take. It takes a lot of the guesswork out of it. --24.147.86.187 (talk) 00:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Not all motherboards support using RAMs with different frequency. I once had two rams operating in two different FSB(though it was under the FSB range specified by my mainboard :-( manual) which resulted in frequent restart unknowingly. Later I found that it was the RAM with different and incompatible frequency. Check your motherboard manuals for more details about the maximum FSB support.Anything less than or equal to that maximum value will do suit well. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 06:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I can verify that that problem is not rare. I had a computer with frequent restarts. It turned out that the 60ns DDR RAM was being autodetected as 70ns DDR RAM. I set the RAM to 60ns in the BIOS and the computer worked fine. -- kainaw™ 16:10, 29 November 2007 (UTC)