Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 February 21

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[edit] February 21

[edit] Web Browsers

Can i get your guys opnion on some web browsers. I dont know which one is (argubly) the best and would like a real good one. thanks :) BonesBrigade 00:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an endless debate. There isn't necessarily a "best" one (although there are certainly browsers that suck), there are different ones that do different things well. Really big into Web 2.0? Try Flock! Are you kneeling down at the feet of Steve Jobs? Try Safari! Do you like slick proprietary code and Norwegians? Use Opera! If you just like a good all-round web-browser which will render the entire internet pretty much as intended, Firefox is probably your best bet. Try different ones, and see which one you fancy the most. 83.250.201.184 (talk) 00:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
If you want horrifically bloated feature creep, try Seamonkey. Chances are you also like emacs :D :D\=< (talk) 00:35, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If you want a browser that "just works" and is very fast to load, with quite a small memory footprint, try Opera. If you want a browser that is highly customisable try Firefox with its large amount of addons, but the tendancy to use a horrible amount of memory after a few hours of use. If you want a browser with a very slick font rendering engine and a GUI that clashes with Windows have a look at Safari although this is still in beta on Windows. All these browsers are free, Firefox is Open Source to boot. TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

If your computer has 1 GB of RAM or more, Firefox will not disrupt at all. If you have an older operating system like Windows XP, you can actually get away with 512 MB of RAM. Kushal 11:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It's not that Firefox uses a lot of memory, it's that it leaks memory. No matter how much RAM and swap space you have it will eventually fill it all, at which point it will crash and any other program that was trying to allocate memory at that moment will go down with it. As an experiment I made a local page with about 50 megabytes (uncompressed) of inline images and repeatedly opened and closed it in Firefox, and the memory footprint increased by 50 megabytes every time. So it seems to leak 100% of the image data, and probably other stuff as well. At least, that has always been the case on my machine, and disabling all my extensions didn't fix it. I eventually worked around this with an extension (I think it was MR Tech Local Install) which can close and restart the browser with all the same windows and tabs, including page history and partially filled out forms. Fortunately this seems to be fixed in 3.0 beta 3, so you could try that. All of this on Windows XP, incidentally. -- BenRG (talk) 13:15, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Technically, it's not "leaking" memory, it's just managing it very very poorly, in many cases due to questionable design decisions. To the end user, the effect is the same, or worse. A lot of improvements seem to have been made in FF3, but only time will tell. --LarryMac | Talk 14:05, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
No, it's massive caching. You can tweak it in about:config :D\=< (talk) 14:29, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
If it were caching then reloading the same page with the same inline images wouldn't cause a footprint increase each time. That's contrary to the whole purpose of caching. I did try tweaking the seemingly relevant parameters in about:config and never managed to make the problem go away. I guess it's possible that it's specific to my machine, caused by a rogue plugin or something. -- BenRG (talk) 15:37, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

And just wait till you see the final specs and minimum requirements for Firefox 3! Kushal 11:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It always annoys the "cool kids" (cough) , but I love Internet Explorer 7. It looks nice (especially in Vista), it's finally got tabbed browsing, and it works. Neıl ☎ 14:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Toss out all the pejoratives you want (while being mindful of NPA of course), but lips that touch ActiveX shall never touch mine. Or something like that. --LarryMac | Talk 14:39, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
We "cool kids" are not amused. IE7 stole a lot from Firefox, which stole a lot from Opera, which stole a lot from [help me out here]. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 14:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Netscape Navigator, probably. Neıl ☎ 15:06, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
This is completely irrational. First of all, if you don't need ActiveX you can globally disable it. Second of all, all that ActiveX does is download software and run it on your machine (asking you first, of course). On what basis do you trust any of the software that you run? If you trust a web site enough to download software from it (like, say, mozilla.com or opera.com), there's no rational reason not to allow ActiveX controls from the same website. The computer illiterates who install "free" download managers and end up with malware infections are going to get infected regardless of whether the vector is an ActiveX control or DLManagerInstall.exe. Internet Explorer is a good browser. I'm sure its dominance is due in large part to being bundled with Windows (and in part to other browsers spoofing it, like the way every browser now claims to be Mozilla), but that doesn't change the fact that starting with version 3.0 it was clearly a better browser than the contemporary version of Netscape. I use Firefox now, and I guess it's better, despite having major bugs that go unfixed for years that would probably be considered release-blockers by Microsoft. -- BenRG (talk) 15:31, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Internet Explorer 7 is generally good enough. It is way better than IE6, especially the version on Vista. Of course, some people will never use IE7, but for most people it is fine. Most websites will also render just fine, which you can't necessarily say about some of the other, minor browsers. -- Imperator3733 (talk) 17:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I really dont like IE cuz it doesnt allow twinkle to work. And no one really went into detail about opera which i am curious about. BonesBrigade 17:20, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Twinkle not working on IE is not Internet Explorer's fault. Neıl ☎ 00:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

Tell that to my friend who got an XSS attack on Internet Explorer. He is using Firefox now and there is no problem, even though he does not use NoScript. Moreover, we are getting Cross session resuming beginning firefox 3. I think the best thing to do if you are on Internet Explorer is to switch to Mozilla Firefox, if you can. Kushal 17:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I use IE6 because I hate tabbed browsing. Useight (talk) 18:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Who is forcing you to use tabs? --LarryMac | Talk 18:33, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
That's true. You can set Firefox to open new links in windows if you are so inclined. You can even make it look exactly like IE. I have yet to find an extension, however, that slows down the loading of web pages to match IE (I don't know if anyone else has this slowness problem). The best browser is probably the one someone I used to know used. It was called "Avant" or something. Uses basically no resources. I never gave it a try because I like the 'fox so much. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 19:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

How can you bear to use IE7, let alone *shudder* IE6? Don't you realize that every time basically anything at all looks right, it's because some special version of the page is being presented to you as a kludge to not completely exclude IE users? Do you realize that internet explorer completely defies established web standards? The W3C literally said "your browser needs to behave like this" and microsoft said "no we like our way, take your standards and shove em". Microsoft can't just do that, and you are unbelievably stupid for buying into their garbage. :D\=< (talk) 04:09, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

With all due disrespect to Microsoft, that last comment looks like an WP:NPA. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 11:29, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Does User:Microsoft exist? Is Microsoft a Wikipedian? I think, at least they are not officially Wikipedians as a company. Kushal 18:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

No, but User:Neil and User:Useight do, and saying they are "unbelievably stupid" is inappropriate. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 19:39, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Any free programs that let u turn text into mp3?

Does anyone know any free programs that turn texts into mp3? I want to put it on utube. --Gary123 (talk) 00:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Text is a form of written expression. MP3 is a form of audio expression. YouTube holds primarily video expression. What is it that you want, exactly? There are ways to go between the mediums but you'd better be specific or you'll get answers that won't help you. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 01:11, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh let's take a guess... Speech synthesis#Specific_programs and LAME (surprised that Category:Speech synthesis software and Category:MP3 encoders didn't exist) --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 01:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I work with text-to-speech software on a daily basis; it's really not that good, unless the text has been specifically marked up (using, for example, SSML) to create proper prosody. Depending on the type of text you want to use as input, there might be other problems - as a real life example, I recently received a call from a company that was going to install something at my house. The street I live on is something like "Rosewood Drive", abbreviated as Rosewood Dr.. So the automated system that called me wanted me to verify that I live at "123 Rosewood Doctor."
Bottom line, yes you can use a combination of the software that tcsetattr linked to, but the results might not be what you expect. And for the benefit of 98.217, there are more audio-only "videos" on YouTube than one might imagine. --LarryMac | Talk 02:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Microsoft Word - keyboard puzzle

Very often, when I type the word "country" in Microsoft Word, the letters "cou" appear in the document - then the 'Save As' dialog box suddenly opens. When I type the word "Congress", the "Congr" appears on screen - then the preceding sentence is immediately copied and pasted right in the middle of whatever I'm typing. This happens frequently, but not every time I type those words (I use them both a lot). This is a little bizarre. Am I hitting on some secret keyboard shortcut? I can't find anyone else with the same problem, and I can't find any keyboard commands in the Tools/Customize menu that might be responsible. Can anyone enlighten me? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.247.201.197 (talk) 02:42, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

It could be software, but it could also be your keyboard: a keyboard does not have a wire for each key, but rather they are combined. So if you press two keys at once, it can appear to be a totally different key. It's called chording I think. Anyway, try a different keyboard. Also try pressing various two keys are once and see what happens. Your keyboard could even be damaged. Ariel. (talk) 06:43, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
I often find that strange stuff like this happens when the Ctrl, Alt, or Shift keys are "stuck" and the keyboard thinks they are pressed when they actually aren't. What works for me every time is tapping all those keys repeatedly until the problem stops. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 14:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
This is usually an OS-level problem—the key-up event got lost somewhere and it will continue to think the key is down until it gets another one. So it should only be necessary to tap each key once, but you have to remember to tap both the left and right ones (if your keyboard has both) because they're handled separately by the OS, even though they have the same effect in most software. -- BenRG (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Thanks very much for the replies. It looks like it might have been a 'chording' problem - I did some more experiments, and realised that it was only happening when I typed very quickly, i.e. pressed multiple letter keys at once. I've deleted all the default keyboard shortcuts for the 'Save As' and 'Repeat' commands, and that seems to have solved the problem. 140.247.201.197 (talk) 04:19, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mercury Levels in Laptops

I am hearing that most laptops have mercury within them. Is there a way to avoid contact with the chemical and how much mercury could the average laptop contain.--logger (talk) 07:45, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Most computer hardware will contain small amounts of mercury (less than a thermometer unless the PC has a very old CRT monitor) and as long as you don't go setting fire to your laptop you will be perfectly safe from mercury poisoning. I am not 100% sure where the merucury is though. Possibly in the Capacitors. TheGreatZorko (talk) 09:14, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You might be interested in our articles on Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive and Battery Directive. --Sean 17:03, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
The cold cathode fluorescent lamp used as the backlight for most liquid crystal displays contains mercury. It may also be that certain battery designs use/used mercury. It's unlikely to be anywhere else in the laptop.
Atlant (talk) 17:49, 21 February 2008 (UTC

Thank you--logger (talk) 09:15, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] MIDI to WAV

Hey I'm looking for a freeware product which will convert MIDI files to WAV files. This can't be all that difficult to do, and so I'm becoming annoyed that all of the products I'm finding which are pay-for or trial only. Any suggestions? The Evil Spartan (talk) 12:24, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

TiMidity -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:10, 21 February 2008 (UTC)


Quicktime Pro will allow you to save as wav. Radiofred (talk) 18:54, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] how to use a plotter?

can a plotter be used to plot text, such that it looks to be hand written? if yes then what will such a plotter cost? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.116.106 (talk) 15:19, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes it can. There is nothing special about such a plotter, just check the prices for any plotter. The hard part will be programming each letter. If you really want it to look like text you're going to have to change the appearance of the letters each time they are used, and that's going to be even harder (if you need that). Plus cursive will need special joiner letters for letters that join their tails at various spots. I'm sure such code exists somewhere though. Ariel. (talk) 10:10, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't exactly recall the context, but there was a device that was used to do original signatures, it was a type of plotter. So I'm sure the device you're speaking of does exist. Rfwoolf (talk) 10:42, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
An autopen will reproduce a signature. (As seen on an episode of CSI: Miami.)
Atlant (talk) 13:45, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Recurring appointments in Outlook/Pocket Outlook

Is there a way to fix how Outlook (and, specifically, Windows Pocket PCs) handles recurring appointments? Here is an example. Suppose I have a meeting scheduled for the 15th of every month (i.e., on 1/15, 2/15, 3/15, 4/15, and so on, with no end date). Suppose that the meetings on 1/15 and 2/15 went as planned, the 3/15 meeting was re-scheduled for 3/18, then the 4/15 and 5/15 meetings went as planned, but starting in June the meeting is permanently re-scheduled on the 20th (so it would be on 6/20, 7/20, 8/20, and so on).

My problem is with the June's meeting. On a Palm-based device, I could re-schedule the 6/15's instance for 6/20, and it would leave all prior instances alone (i.e., the meetings that happened on 1/15, 2/15, 3/18, 4/15, and 5/15 would stay there), while at the same time taking care of all future instances (6/15 would be moved to 6/20, 7/15—to 7/20, etc.). Outlook, be this stupid thing damned forever, in all its eternal wisdom re-schedules all meetings on the 20th (so the 1/15 meeting shows up on 1/20, 2/15 on 2/20, 3/18 on 3/20 (!!!!), 4/15 on 4/20, and so on). One way to avoid this, of course, is to enter the 5/15 end date for the 5/15 meeting and then to create a new thread starting on 6/20, but, considering that I have to do such a task at least once or twice a week, it is a great pain in the butt.

Is there a solution of any sort that would make Outlook and especially Pocket PC calendar behave just as Palm OS calendar did? At this point I no longer care if such a solution would be free or if it costs hundreds of dollars; I just want my calendar to work the way it should be working. The only option I don't have is going to Palm OS, but I'll consider anything else. Any pointers on this one?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); 16:44, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Prevent Apple Software Update ever starting in Windows XP

Hi,

I usually prevent unwanted processes (dozens of update apps, notifiers, etc) from running at startup by using msconfig and services.msc. My problem is that I can't find the process name for "Apple Software Update" (google is useless due to the generic terms, even with various combinations of quotes) and can't really find and disable it in the two tools I mentioned above. It is very annoying to have the window pop up while I am in the middle of doing something else (breaking one of apples own gui guidelines), and I am not interested in updating iTunes just for a new point version.

Oh yeah, one last thing I should mention is that the shortcut properties for the update has a blank target, so they're probably using a deep windows api to do it all or something. Thanks for any help, Krackpipe (talk) 17:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes one thing is left running after msconfig and services. I go crazy and go on a deleting spree only to find that it was in the "startup" folder the whole time. 206.252.74.48 (talk) 17:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
You could always go to the app itself and alter your preferences. The program can most likely be found on your start menu: START > All Programs, or you can simply search for the terms "Apple Software Update" on your computer. Once you have the program pulled up, go to the "Edit" menu, go to your "Preferences", and select the update option "Never". Hopefully that should work for you. :) Let us know it if doesn't. --JamieS93 19:13, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Try Autoruns or just uninstalling that piece of junk :D\=< (talk) 19:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
That's the thing about apples, they tend to rot very easily in certain environments. If you want to keep Apple applications, keep them in a Mac environment. Also, I hate iTunes, and I usually take music from my friend's iPods using just Explorer. Turns out that all iTunes does is rename all music to a 4 letter file name and stick it in random hidden folders. A $70 mp3 player I bought just copies them over with the original filename and it works fine - with no bloated software, might I add. What exactly is Apple's agenda? 206.252.74.48 (talk) 20:07, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
Um, the agenda is obvious, it's an attempt at simple DRM, the idea being that iPods won't be major vectors for sharing mp3s. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 23:00, 21 February 2008 (UTC)
206.252.74.48, it sure takes balls to act so indignant while admitting to stealing music. —Nricardo (talk) 19:55, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
It sure takes balls to bleat your way into conformity with the RIAA's biased terminology. I bet you saw that MPAA video putting "stealing" movies next to stealing a car. And liked it. :D\=< (talk) 04:14, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Yep, there are always these smaller programs like Juice (software) for podcast downloading, VLC media player or Winamp(proprietary) for playing music and so on ... if you don't like iTunes.

However, I am pretty sure that iTunes does allow you to disable automatic updates. I would try doing what Jamie suggested above. Kushal 22:12, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Edit->Preferences..., the "General" pane, uncheck "Check for updates automatically".
Atlant (talk) 13:49, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] my.yahoo script mystery

Starting a few months ago, trying to close my my.yahoo page or leave it via a link causes a box to come up "A script on thsi page is causing Explorer to run slowly. if it continues to run, your computer may become unresponsive. Do you want to abort the script?" with yes and no buttons. of course, it closes promptly whether i hit yes or no. anybody know what the heck this is? tia.Gzuckier (talk) 20:32, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] PowerPoint

Is there a way to change an Excel Chart in PowerPoint while it is in View Show? 68.193.147.179 (talk) 22:04, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I doubt it. View Show is not the place to be changing things! If you want to have it transition from one chart to another, just put a different chart on each page of the slide (page 1, value = 3, page 2, value = 4, whatever). --98.217.18.109 (talk) 22:52, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] FLV joiner

Hey I'm looking for a freeware product which will join flv, I've searched the internet but all I could find were demos. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.232.121.164 (talk) 22:25, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

You'll probably have an easier time converting the FLVs into other formats (with something like ffmpeg) and then joining those. --98.217.18.109 (talk) 22:50, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Mozilla and download manager

Hey all, anybody who uses mozilla firefox would notice that when u want to download a file, the browser takes charge of it. Is there a way I could change that option because sometimes I'd like to download a file using download manager instead(right click on the download button doesn't help). Thx. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.232.121.164 (talk) 22:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Try FlashGot. It's what I use with Firefox and Internet Download Manager. —Wayward Talk 03:02, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
If its a direct link to what you want, right click and select "Copy link location". Then open your download manager and past the link into it. Think outside the box 13:47, 22 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks.js

Hi! I am a french user on Wikipedia FR. For the canals IRC Wikipedia-Fr and Vandalism-fr-wp on ChatZila, I looking for apply the script Wikilinks.js on the french irc for user. I write: [[test]] on Irc and I open the link and I am on test. The goal is the page fr:test. How did I modify the script? Sorry for bad english.--207.134.151.96 (talk) 22:51, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean Wikipedia:Scripts/Wikilinks? I've written a very quick French version at User:x42bn6/Sandbox which is probably not complete - I've replaced the links to enwiki to frwiki and replaced Template by Modèle but it's not fully translated, but see if that helps. x42bn6 Talk Mess 13:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
It is bizzare, I changed the first line that you have changed, but the revised version did not appear. I closed IRC and it worked:) I had the answer already made:) Thanks + + --207.134.151.96 (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2008 (UTC)