Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 November 7

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[edit] November 7

[edit] HTML keys?

Are there command keys that let you see the html of a web page? I use a mac tigerJulia Rossi 00:21, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming you're using Safari (and assuming the Mac version's menus are the same as the Windows version's), go to View and click View Source. Apparently the keyboard shortcut is Command-Option-V; can't check though, I'm not on a Mac. — Matt Eason (Talk • Contribs) 00:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Command+Option+U, but yeah. --24.147.86.187 04:08, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks guys - it's the one with the U. Appreciate it. Julia Rossi 21:56, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 4 x NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB vs NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D (2 x dual-link DVI)

Looking at Apple online store's Mac Pro customization options [[1]], under the graphic card options, there is an option of four NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 256MB or a more expensive, single NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500 512MB, Stereo 3D. Looking at the price, is the Quadro FX truly better than four GF 7300's? Thanks. Acceptable 01:09, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

For video rendering? Ohhhhhhh yes. -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 10:36, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know this particular board - so it's possible that Wooty is correct - but generally, I'd be very surprised. The Quadro boards are the 'professional' version of the regular 'gamer' cards. Typically they use the exact same chipsets as the regular nVidia cards but the boards are built to higher reliability standards (which means they don't overclock the chips and they may use better RAM chips and nicer cooling arrangements). Sometimes they have a few extra features turned on in the drivers (things that games and such don't need - but CAD programs do...stuff like depth-cued line rendering). Customer support for them is typically MUCH better. But in my experience, the Quadro equivelent of the same GeForce chip is slower and vastly more expensive and I would never consider buying one for my own use. SteveBaker 20:06, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh, suppose if one chooses the highest configuration for everything: 2 x Intel Xeon Quad Core at 3.0 Ghz, 16 gigs of RAM, whichever of the graphics cards that are better, etc.... Is it really as fast as it looks on paper? Acceptable 23:48, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

God might have used such a computer to run his CAD program to design the universe.. there's no reason you'd need that much power for a workstation. Go with something cheaper; those stats will be hopelessly outdated in 10 years and you'll look silly having spent $7000 on power you never used --ffroth 00:20, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Second Life and Vista

I used to have alot of fun on my Second Life account until I bought this new computer. Now when I try to freelook (click on my character and look around) in Second Life, the camera flips around over and over at dizzying speeds. Apart from upgrading the hardware, the only changes I've made have been upgrading to Vista and changing my monitor over from 4:3 to 16:9. Could either of these 2 changes account for this disturbing error in gameplay? Sappysap 01:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Try turning off mouse acceleration in your mouse settings? That sometimes wreaks havoc with mouse sensitivity in games --ffroth 04:11, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
I didn't think Second Life was compatible with Vista unless they have issued a new release. Have a look at the Second Life website [here] for more info. Alternatively, you could post a question on the forums on their website. GaryReggae 08:04, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] System requirements for installation of Visual Studio.NET on Windows XP Service Pack 2

Which framework do i need to install and what are the system requirements?

[edit] win98SE USB webcam

I am running Win98SE and have a USB card and a webcam. Is there software I can use to view the images produced by the web cam? The USB card has a USB 2.0 driver but the web cam came without a disk and is labeled "driverless?" Clem 13:37, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Roving Broadband in UK

Is it possible for me to buy a broadband modem to attach to my laptop (or use the built-in modem) so that I can log into an ISP on a PAYG basis when I am travelling on trains in UK? The train's ISP is very expensive at £3 for 30 minutes. - Kittybrewster ☎ 16:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

You can buy a wireless internet card (http://www.wireless.att.com/businesscenter/solutions/wireless-laptop/modem-cards.jsp) but I think the ISPs charge a fair bit more than 'wireless home' broadband (that is to say that this broadband uses the mobile-network to connect to the net, while your home 'wireless' network uses cables. 17:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ny156uk (talk • contribs)
OK. I have the modem card. How do I access broadband? - Kittybrewster ☎ 12:03, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
What do you mean by "a modem card"? Unless it's a wireless-internet card (which are sold by Orange, 3, t-mobile, Vodafone and O2) then it's not going to work. If you have one of those then they all come with a special program and full instructions. But they're all targeted at business users, and so are quite pricey (Vodafone's is £75/month). You can get a cable to plug into many modern GSM phones and use the built in GPRS modem some have. That's the same idea as the plugin cards. On a moving train you mostly won't get the 3G service, so you'd be on GPRS anyway, and that's not a terribly pleasant experience. The Lunchbox of Dooom 15:47, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] My document are ruined, and changed into another file-type by itself...

Hey, after i copied a document from my old computer to my new one, it has suddenly changed into something called "DOCX"-file and when i open it in Microsoft-WORD and the likes it is impossible to read. the letters are twisted into nonsense, like this:



PK��� � �  ! Ýü•7f� � � ��[Content_Types].xml ¢��( � ´TËnÂ0�¼Wê?D¾V‰¡‡ªª��ú8¶H¥�`ì XõKöòúûn�DU�A*å�)YïÌììăÑÚšl 1iïJÖ/z,�'½ÒnV²ÉK~ϲ„Â)a¼ƒ’m ±Ñðúj0Ù�H�u»T²9bxà<É9X‘ �ÀQ¥òÑ ¤×8ãAÈO1�~ÛëÝqé�‚Ã�k�6�<A%��³ç5}Þ*‰`�Ë�·�k®’‰�Œ–�I)_:õƒ%ß1�ÔÙœIs�Ò É`ü C]9N°ë{#k¢VEÄWaI�_ù¨¸òrai†¢�æ€N_UZBÛ_£…è%¤Dž[S´�+´Ûë?ª#áÆ@ú�[Ü.zÒ9Ž>$N{9›�êÍ+P9Y� ¢†vuÇG�D²ì�ÃÆoR€”wàͳ¶� ÌIÊŠ~‰‰˜�8›ïWòZè“"V0}¿˜ûßÀ»„´ù“>þÁŒýuQw�H�oî·á� ÿÿ� PK��� � �  ! �‘�·ó N� � ��_rels/.rels ¢��(




To me it seems the whole document is ruined... its a shame if so for i need it. is there any way I can restore it or open this DOCX-file in some other programme to read its contents? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Krikkert7 (talk • contribs) 17:50, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Try opening it using notepad or wordpad. The above looks like what i've seen when i've tried to open a MS Word 2002 saved doc on a MS Word 98 machine (i.e. a doc type the system doesn't recognise). Alternatively try renaming the document to be a .doc file (from .docx) - this site (http://docx-converter.com/) looks like it might have something of use. ny156uk 17:55, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
The docx type replaced the doc type in Word 2007. It appears the user saved the file in Word 2007 as a docx and is not trying to open it in an earlier version of Word (which will just show garbage). When saving files in Word 2007, you must save them in an older doc format, not docx, if you want to open them in a non-2007 version of Word. -- kainaw™ 17:59, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Or install the Office Compatibility Pack on the computer running the older version of Word — Matt Eason (Talk • Contribs) 18:44, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
The first 2 bytes PK are typical of zip files. Maybe it's just been zipped. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 19:13, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
You are correct... Word 2007 uses the docx file format which, as noticed, is a zipped group of XML files. -- kainaw™ 19:18, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

The file was saved by a newer version of Word in its default format Office Open XML (.docx). Older versions of Word don't support that file format. You'll have to use the newer version of Word to translate the file back into the older version if you want to view it with an older version of Word. --ais523 15:07, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Accessing images on website that are not used in pages

Hi, any tech wizards here know how to legally access the file and folder structure of a website that I don't have the FTP access information for. I know that a file exists on the one URL, and I remember that the file itself was public, but I don't remember the exact location in the folders of the site, and cannot ask the creator of the site. -- Zanimum 19:24, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

When you install Apache (or, presumably, other HTTP servers), you can choose to allow access to directory information or to block it. If they've blocked it then you either know the filename or you don't. If you know the URL, then you can get it - otherwise not. If they've left open the directory access feature then you can try typing in the name of a directory that you know and then maybe you can see the tree structure of the file system and browse it. However, even that fails if they put an 'index.html' or an 'index.php' in the directory because that's what the browser will show. Anyway, there is a handy command-line tool that I use called 'wget' which will (with the right options) extract an entire directory hierarchy from the remote machine - but it can only do that if the HTTP server allows it. Now, whether this is legal or not is an entirely different matter. If the files involved are not released under some kind of open licensing (eg GFDL) then almost certainly, it's illegal to copy the file - but it's generally considered OK to look at any page that's accessible from the web. SteveBaker 19:58, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
Pretty dumb, eh? I seem to remember some guy convicted of computer hacking for putting a /../ in the URL to access a higher-up directory just exploring the publicly-available directory structure --ffroth 00:17, 8 November 2007 (UTC)
I have got lots of images from websites (you can guess what kind) by extrapolating filenames from those of sample images. Serves them right, I say. It goes by what Tim Berners-Lee (I think) said: "To stop someone from going through a door, you lock the door. You don't hide the door itself." JIP | Talk 21:10, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I do that all the time- yesterday after reading Dinosaur_Comics#Easter_eggs I saw http://www.qwantz.com/fall.gif and extrapolated http://www.qwantz.com/winter.jpg http://www.qwantz.com/spring.png and http://www.qwantz.com/summer.png. Says the government, that's hacking though. o_O Especially like what you're doing- apparently obscurity is a good enough attempt at security for them to have a case if you violate it. I'll try to find a link to the story.. --ffroth 21:34, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
Found. He used ../../../ (which makes no sense in this context.. where would you put it on a payment processing form? Why would the server possibly try to open a filesystem handle based on the input of your name and credit card number or whatever? And of course it would be totally ineffective if you just put it on the end of a URL to try to get outside of the web root.. web servers aren't stupid) and put a single apostrophe in an input box to check for sql injection protection (this at least makes sense, though I use quotation marks in my sql.. I guess that means my databases are safe from hackers?). Bam, convicted. It was only a $1000 fine, no prision time or anything, but it's still crazy. shudder --ffroth 21:57, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
And OK so that's not exactly the same as just trying different URLs in the address bar, but give me a break the story was like 2 years ago --ffroth 22:06, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
You can try a search engine with the name of the file and the site in the search. Alternatively you may be able to explore yourself if the directory structure is not too complicated. If you have access to a file, normally you would also have access to all the higher level directories. Go to ftp://site.name/ in your browser and then look for likely directories. /pub/ is a likely common directory. Some sites will include a directory listing for you to download so that you can look for where your file is. And some other sites will include text to help you. Graeme Bartlett 20:02, 7 November 2007 (UTC)