Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 January 31

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[edit] January 31

[edit] Freeware Cartoon makers

Does anyone know of some simple easy to use freeware cartoon makers? Possibly that would allow me to put it on youtube? --Gary123 (talk) 00:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you are talking about 3D animation projects, Blender (software) will blend it! Kushalt 00:27, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Visit the english Wikibooks for free books to jumpstart your animation career! Click here to begin ... Kushalt 00:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming you mean cel-based cartoon art, I'm not sure if there is any freeware way to do it that is simple and easy. A non-freeware approach would use Adobe Flash. Looking through Category:Animation software (which I found by looking at what categories Flash was in), Express Animator seems to have a free two-week trial, and KoolMoves has some sort of shareware version too. I've never tried it, but Synfig seems to be totally free, though from its Wikipedia page it seems to suffer a number of open-source plagues (not enough developers, no attention given to binaries, etc.). The free pickings seem pretty slim. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 02:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Default font for notepad in vista

What is the default font in vista's notepad on installation? Wiki seems to imply that it's (still?) lucida console or lucida sans, whereas some other sites seem to imply consolas, but neither of those looks quite right... is it just me?? 210.138.109.72 (talk) 01:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You know that you can always change it, right? Kushalt 02:03, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Anecdotal evidence: it's definitely lucida console. I just logged into an unused account and checked the font. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:55, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
OK thanks. I know it can be changed... I'm just the kind of guy who can't sleep at night when I've changed the settings but can't simply reset them to the defaults > <210.138.109.72 (talk) 09:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally speaking, I very much like Arial Narrow. Kushalt 12:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia freezes Internet Explorer

Strangely, I can browse/edit wikipedia with no problems when I am not logged in. As soon as I try to Login on my user name, wikipedia will freeze my browser, every time. This has been going on for several months. Any ideas?? 69.124.194.70 (talk) 01:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I know this may be cynical and not really helpful, but it's not Wikipedia that is freezing IE, it's the other way around. 210.138.109.72 (talk) 01:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

If you have access to another computer/web browser, can you try logging in from that? Please let us know. Kushalt 02:02, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I tried intasalling FireFox, and here I am. However, if I experience any crashes I will come back and report it. MrPrada (talk) 22:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Had this problem also. Go into task manager and look for a process called "ctfmon.exe" and kill it (right click - end task). Should solve your woes. 195.194.74.154 (talk) 15:22, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Nope, that didn't do it. 69.124.194.70 (talk) 21:56, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Get Firefox AJUK Talk!! 00:49, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Formulas

Why when I type \hbar=Dirac's constant=\frac{h}{2\pi} it is in big print but when I type c = speed of light it comes out in little letters? and how could I make the latter big? Zrs 12 (talk) 03:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

It is your web browser, not the math module. In the first example, PHP is turning the formula into an image on the fly and sending the image to you. So, you get the font size used by PHP on the Wikipedia server. In the second, there is no need to use an image, so it is just sent as code-style text (usually fixed-width). Apparently, your web browser is using a small font for fixed-width text. -- kainaw™ 03:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
If you're logged in to wikipedia, the "preferences" page has a few choices for math rendering which will affect the way those things look. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 04:29, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
If you add \,\! to the formula, it will force it to render as an image for all users, no matter their preferences. For example : c\;\!. You can also use \textrm to write text inside a formula, for example: \hbar=\textrm{Dirac's\ constant}=\frac{h}{2\pi}. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 12:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks Zrs 12 (talk) 13:00, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] How do you make a WYSIWYG Editor for websites?

I want to make a WYSIWYG Text Editor (to replace <textarea>) but I can't find any information on how to do it. Thanks, 86.41.136.50 (talk) 13:35, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Um, it's a huge amount of work to write your own text editor from scratch. Perhaps you mean, "Is there some sort of WYSIWYG Text Editor applet that I can just drop into my website?" I don't know the answer but I'm pretty sure WordPress has something like that inside it, so you could take a look at their source code, I guess. But you'd have to have a pretty good understanding of both Javascript and PHP to make something like that work. --24.147.69.31 (talk) 14:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

No, I need to make one myself because 1. I want to learn how to do it, and 2. none of the WYSIWYG editors I found do what I need them to do. For example, I make hyperlinks using a <link> tag (which gets converted to <a> tag when you view the page), obviously no WYSIWYG Editor available can handle that. I have looked at the source code for a simple one, but it is so long and complex I don't know where to start. What I need is some info on how they are made. Thanks, 86.41.136.50 (talk) 14:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Check out the source and developer docs for WikED. --Sean 14:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, first you need to spend a few years to learn how to program. Then spend next 10 years working full time coding the WYSIWYG editor. Or hire a few programmers, then you may be able to finish the task in just 4 to 5 years. Creating software at that level of complexity typically requires at least 10 to 20 man-years of work. - PauliKL (talk) 23:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Pushy web pages

Is there a way to keep Safari from allowing web pages to push themselves to the front when they load? I normally have several tabs open at once and it's annoying to me that various sites feel the need to show themselves once they start loading. Right after web pages with sound, this is the most annoying thing in the way of web page design. Dismas|(talk) 14:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Just FYI, Firefox can do this, under Preferences => Content => Javascript => "[] Allow raising or lowering page". --Sean 18:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hard drive max

What is the theoretical maximum size a hard drive can be? 195.194.74.154 (talk) 15:19, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, with memory becoming cheaper and with flash drives becoming bigger, I'd assume that the "limit" would be huge... Possibly many terabytes in size? I don't have a definitive answer, but would assume that there is no limit as memory is so easy to expand nowadays. ScarianCall me Pat 15:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
There are a lot of variables that would need to be defined before attempting to answer that. What form factor? 2.5" "notebook" size? 3.5" "desktop" size. IBM mainframe DASD? How many platters? Strictly within the personal computer universe, there might be BIOS and operating system limitations, which are artificial, but then again, there's no use in having a gigantic drive if you can't access all of it. So, my answer is Big. Really really big. Like space. --LarryMac | Talk 16:10, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
There used to be a limit of 137 GB. The software couldn't handle anything bigger than that, but that was 10 years ago when hard drives were in the 20 - 40 GB range. When XP got Service Pack 2 (or was it 1?), it corrected that problem that allowed single drive partitions to be greater than 137 GB. Useight (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the biggest, standard/cheapest commercial one (available to the average Joe) I've heard of is around 320gb... but, yeah, they can definitely/will definitely get bigger. Much bigger. ScarianCall me Pat 16:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
When you throw in terms like "standard" and "cheapest" it muddies up the waters a bit, and strays away from the original question; however there are terabyte+ drives available at most large electronics stores. --LarryMac | Talk 17:30, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Formats have limitations. FAT32 has them. even ext3 has limitations (just outrageously HUGE). But we are not talking about format limitations, are we?

I read in Scientific American quite a while ago that they went from recording data directly on the platters to a form somewhat perpendicular to the platters. SciAm said this bumps up the "size" or capacity of the hard disks considerably. Kushalt 17:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they have perpendicular recording now, which is what finally allowed standard 3.5" internal drives to increase up to the current 1TB. But a drive of that size will cost $300 to $400, depending on the brand. Useight (talk) 17:49, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In Currys in the UK i bought a 500gb HD for £90...so about $180.....which i thought was pretty cheap...(its a 'SUMO' one thats all i know) :) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.76.110 (talk) 18:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

As with most technology, if you don't purchase the absolute best, in this case 1TB, and go down a notch or two, there will be significant savings; my semi-recently purchased 750GB cost $170 (but it's an external USB drive). You can still get it for the same price here. Useight (talk) 18:14, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
1) 1TB is not the "best", there are plenty of larger drives already available (albeit with large prices). 2) You got 3/4 the capacity from the guy above you, for only a $10 savings, that's not significant. 3) As with most electronics and computer gear, wait a week, prices will change. --LarryMac | Talk 19:09, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
The guy above got 500GB. No-one's yet mentioned less than $300 for 1TB. Algebraist 19:37, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I could swear that used to say 1TB from Currys, although the page history is clear. My bad. However, on the newegg page I linked, there's a 1TB Western Digital drive for $282, which I know is pretty close to $300, but if you poke around that site there's an internal 1TB drive for $255. Anyway, this is way off-topic from the original question regarding the theoretical maximum size of a hard drive. Which I'll once again say is "big. really big." --LarryMac | Talk 19:57, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Theoretical size of a hard drive is limitless, because you could (in theory), just make the platters larger, which would raise the capacity.techguyss (talk) 20:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, but I assume we're talking about 3.5" drives. I guess they do have larger drives than 1TB, I thought all the 1.5TB and 2TB were actually multiple drives inside a single enclosure. Useight (talk) 23:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extracting part of movie file

What free (speech) software for Linux command line is there that would allow me to extract individual frames of a portion of a movie file (Quicktime) into PNG images? Mplayer seems to be useless for this [1]. Thank you! —Bromskloss (talk) 16:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Just extract them all and delete the ones you don't want.. --:D\=< (talk) 16:44, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Unfortunately, that would use too much disk space and computing time. The size of the movie file is 170 GiB. —Bromskloss (talk) 17:25, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Well you can split it first using transcode. --Kjoonlee 18:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
I have never gotten it to compile (lacking root access). :-( Anyway, I'm weary that it might perform just as badly as ffmpeg, on which it relies (like Mplayer, mentioned above). I did get ffmpeg to compile, but just as described in the Mplayer link, it doesn't output the frames I want! It seems it can't be trusted. —Bromskloss (talk) 18:47, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] biggest memory

hi,

basically what computer/hard drive etc has the biggest memory in the world and where is it? (in gb please ;))--81.79.76.110 (talk) 18:12, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You say hard drive, but you also say memory, which refers to RAM. Which are you actually asking about? Useight (talk) 18:16, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
What I've found so far, supercomputers are normally measured by teraflops and the number of processors it has, as opposed to its hard drive capacity or RAM. I'll keep looking. Useight (talk) 18:20, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
A problem is that you can always make a bigger storage facility by giving your supercomputer more hard drives. I don't know how big the biggest single hard drive is, but the biggest digitised data stores seem to be of the order of a few petabytes (see article for a partial list). A petabyte is either a million gigabytes or 2^20 gigabytes depending on who you ask. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Algebraist (talk • contribs) 18:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
btw, see question 'Hard drive max' above: apparently 1TB (=1000 or 1024 GB) drives are readily available. Algebraist 18:36, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

i meant what is the biggest memory storage 'place' in the world, eg i have a 40gb laptop/300gb external HD...but what the biggest in the world, im guessing a supercomputer of some sort. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.79.76.110 (talk) 19:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

In that case see my answer above. The largest listed there is 15PB; the true largest probably isn't a whole lot bigger. Algebraist 19:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] When did Brussel change their telephon numbers from 6 figures to 7

Wel, anybody who knows when they changed the amount of figures? Very thankful for answer! Al the best, Charlie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.247.50.178 (talk) 19:31, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Seems to me I put this question in the wrong forum - but with all you smart computer people maby someone of you know where to find the answer........................ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.247.50.178 (talk) 19:39, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  1. No bold text here, please.
  2. This is not a forum.
  3. Maybe they just ran out of phone #s?
--grawity talk / PGP 19:54, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Also 4. Please do not crosspost questions. They obviously ran out of numbers - Poland moved from 6 to 7 digits a few years ago just because of this - but the OP asked for a date - which I cannot provide. --Ouro (blah blah) 21:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Appears to be 14 September 1996: See [2] and [3], about a third down the page (search for "Belgium"). x42bn6 Talk Mess 14:07, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
No, it doesn't. If the first link contains anything relevant to changes within Belgium I can't find it, while the second one clearly says that: "a similar move has already been made" in Brussels. So whatever the right answer is, it must be earlier than July 1996. --Anonymous, 00:52 UTC, February 8, 2008.

[edit] Advice on Information Technology Degree and employment opportunities it may offer in France

Hello,

I'm a 24 year old Irishman living in France and I'm seriously considering taking the following course from Oscail, Dublin City University's distance learning programme.

http://www.oscail.ie/it.php


I have some questions that I hope someone can answer for me.

I decided to take this course because I have no third level education at the moment and it has been difficult to find work in France . I have an interest in computers, Internet and generally in technology. But what jobs would this qualification allow me to actually do?

Also what would be the French equivalent of this course or the qualification it offers?

Does anyone know the types of jobs that would be available in France if I was to finish this course with the diploma and if I was to finish with the BS?

Thanks for any help, David —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.7.72.178 (talk) 20:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Say, if you understand French, perhaps turn to the French Reference Desk on the French Wikipedia, located here. I'd say you could be a system administrator or something, but ask them, maybe? --Ouro (blah blah) 13:04, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Slideshow software for very large number of files

Hi, Wikipedians :)

I'm having some software trouble, and was hoping someone could advise me. I'm trying to set up a slideshow of random images from an extremely large collection (tens of thousands. Potentially eventually hundreds of thousands)

I had been using Irfanview for this, but the problem is when adding images it uses a listbox control to hold the filenames. As the OS I'm using is Windows 98 (I know, I know), the listbox, and therefore the slideshow, is limited to around 32,767 entries, and I can't find any software that will do a better job.

It seems the ideal thing would be some kind of slideshow program that will just read a random line from a very large text file of image names and display it, thus not having to hold the entire list in memory.. but I can't find anything to do that (I'd write my own too, but I'm having a hell of a time getting smooth image resizing in Delphi)

So.. basically, any ideas for a slideshow program on Win 98 with the ability to display from an unlimited collection of images?

Also, I know that the practicalities of putting together such a slideshow can be argued, especially that it'd probably take years to see all the images, but this is a part of a larger project I'm working on.. there are reasons to my madness :)

Any help greatly appreciated. --Monorail Cat (talk) 22:26, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Irfanview has command line options to start a slideshow from a folder or a text file listing, see Irfanview's help for details. I tested it and it uses the options selected in the Slideshow dialog box, so you can select the random ordering there. I'm unable to test if this will alleviate the limit or not.
If that doesn't work, maybe you could make a program to make sub-slideshows. For example, it could create a random list of 100 images, send that to Irfanview as a slideshow, wait for it to finish, then repeat. The disadvantage is there might be a noticable change when one slideshow finishes and the next begins. --Bavi H (talk) 07:46, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Linux on SONY VAIO VGN-NR21M/S

Do you have any experience with any Linux distro running on notebook SONY VAIO VGN-NR21M/S? Thanks for info. --147.229.206.243 (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't but can give you a pointer - rather than asking here, turn to a Linux support forum for any particular Linux distribution you favour and ask there. I personally wouldn't touch a sony laptop, and have asked a similar question a few months ago, and one of the top suggestions for Linux-friendly laptops were IBM/Lenovo. Hope this helps a bit. --Ouro (blah blah) 12:58, 1 February 2008 (UTC)
Just some peripheral data - I have successfully booted an Ubuntu Live CD on my Sony S150, although I did not do an extensive checking of capabilities. But live CDs are easy to get or download for Ubuntu and other distros, so why not just give it a try? --LarryMac | Talk 14:13, 1 February 2008 (UTC)