Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 June 29

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June 29

Random Article

Is there any way I could find out how many people click on random article in a given day?

There are ways, but they are disabled (at least on Wikipedia) because they take up a huge amount of computing power. Daniel (‽) 21:00, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Anonymous webmail

Anyone know a good free anonymous webmail (pseudonymous actually)? Normally I'd just use tor, but suppose I want to set up my grandmother with a way to send emails that doesn't reveal her IP-- what would I use? --Wouldbewebmaster 00:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know of any off the top of my head, however, revealing her IP Address should not be much of an issue. At least, it's never caused me any problems. --SXT40 05:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Gmail doesn't give out IP addresses? JoshHolloway 15:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

It does, in a "Received" header. --TotoBaggins 19:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thats what Anonymous remailers are used for. But why should your grandma be so worried about hiding her IP? — Shinhan < talk > 13:55, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

HushMail should do the trick for you... 200.35.168.129 18:30, 3 July 2007 (UTC) Ag for MemTech

Help with MIDI...

I use a special digital piano that allows me to take songs from MIDI files (or MIDI songs, one of those) and play them on my piano. However, I'm not sure whether my files/songs are MIDI or not. After reading the this the only notable characteristic I found to discover whether a file/song was a "MIDI" file was if it had an extenstion at the end called

    .mid

For example: BeethovenVirus-banya.mid

But, none of my songs or files have the .mid extenstion! Do I add it at the end and it BECOMES MIDI compatible or is there another way? Are iTunes songs MIDI files? If not then can iTunes songs become MIDI compatible? Thank you for your help!- USer:ECH3LON

Changing a filename will not change the content of the file. For example, if I open up MS Word and type "I love the Beastie Boys" in it and save it as beastieboys.doc (the proper file extension) and then I change the name to beastieboys.mp3, it will not suddenly turn into some Beastie Boys MP3 song. Similarly, changing paulrevere.mp3 to paulrevere.doc will not suddenly turn it into a Word document with the lyrics to the song. So, the song MUST be a real midi file regardless of the name.

iTunes is not MIDI format. It is not possible to easily convert them to MIDI because iTunes uses a (compressed) digital representation of the waveform of the song. MIDI uses an note-by-note sequence on for each channel (or instrument). Converting waveforms into notes usually requires a human. It is the same as trying to convert an audio CD to sheet music. -- Kainaw^(what?) 01:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There is software to convert MP3 files to MIDI files [1], but I cannot vouch for the quality of the output. Likewise, there might also be software to convert AAC (which I believe is the file format for songs purchased on iTunes) to MIDI, but once again, I don't know how well they work. - Akamad 01:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I used a lot of those Wave-to-MIDI converters in the past and they were terrible. However, I can see why a lot of work has been put into them in the last 10 years. Many of the programs say "converts audio to MP3 so you can use it as a ringtone on your cell phone!" Now that most cell phones play MP3s, I wonder if they'll continue trying to improve wave to MIDI converters. -- Kainaw^(what?) 01:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

There are many uses for MIDI beyond cell phone ring tones! It is an ultra-compressed format, and can be used to control musical instruments and sound effects for live performance, studio remastering, and a wide variety of other tools. It can enable swift archiving, identification, and classification of musical style and performance. Though most MIDI at this time does not accurately reproduce the subtle nuances of a performance, ongoing research is always happening to further develop the state of the art. See computer music or sound synthesis for a very rough overview. In summary, yes - "they" will be working on WAV to MIDI converters for the foreseeable future...Nimur 05:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

to test a tile

I've created a pretty fractal image which tiles (in fact I think it would look good as upholstery). I'd like to print some test sheets with repetition, but I don't know how, short of stitching together several copies into a bigger image. Any ideas? I'm using MacOS and my printer is a HP PSC 1410 (inkjet). —Tamfang 04:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Make a simple web page that uses the image as the background, ie:

<html><body background='yourimage.jpg'>hello</body><html>

Then, open that page in your web browser. The image will be tiled in the background. -- Kainaw^(what?) 11:58, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Backgrounds don't print, at least by default (and I can't find where to change that). —Tamfang 22:27, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I had to turn it on - File then Page Setup then Print Background Images. Every web browser on every operating system puts it in a different place. -- Kainaw^(what?) 01:27, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

If you have The GIMP, then you can automatically tile an image any number of times by going Filters>Map>Tile. I'd imagine most Photoshop/Photoshop-clones would have such a feature. Laïka 09:13, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked. —Tamfang 17:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Knoppix in English

I really like Knoppix, but don't speak German. Is there a recommended English language equivalent (as true to the original as possible) to this LINUX variant ? StuRat 04:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

What features are you hoping to replicate? (First of all, I thought there are English Knoppixes... I recall using one a few years ago but it may have been discontinued). If you just want a live CD distribution, note that the new Ubuntu installation discs can dually-function as a live-cd (run Linux without formatting or installing). Is there some other feature you want that is particular to Knoppix? Nimur 05:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I do want a live CD version. Also, I'm using Yahoo/AT&T DSL and Knoppix is the only distro so far that could figure it out and go online without asking me all sorts of questions I can't answer, like the I/P address of my POP3 server. StuRat 16:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

To get an IP adress, just use ping on your email server, like "ping mail.internet.com" and it will show the IP adress. — Shinhan < talk > 14:03, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Knoppix in english! Enjoy! --SXT40 05:56, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that leads to the same download pages as the German site... However there's always a -DE and an -EN version offered. Plus Knoppix is always multilingual, so - according to the cheatcodes - you just start with knoppix lang=us to choose English with a US keyboard (the -DE version has a German keyboard at this point, type Shift-0 to get the "="). --Dapeteばか 10:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The distro I have of Knoppix is on read-only DVD, so what file do I change and how do I change it to get it to boot in English ? StuRat 16:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, as you said, it's a read-only DVD... You might have some trouble changing files, however, you merely need to type the cheatcode above, at the boot prompt, to launch into english. Also, you have the option of downloading and burning the most recent english DVD, but, I'd probably just use the cheatcodes... --SXT40 18:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

multiple IE is opening automatically

Hi, when opening IE, immediately IE is getting opened, pls help me with solution IT's windows XP, IE 7.0. have scanned thru Trend Mirco internet security 2007. removed spyware also even though the same problem persists...

Try this. Click Tools -> Manage Addons -> Enable or Disable Add-ons. Go through and disable whichever add-ons you don't trust. Obviously you can trust addons from Microsoft, Adobe, etc. but if in doubt just disable. Also try doing a run of Spybot Search & Destroy Rfwoolf 16:45, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Which RAM to choose for laptop ?

Hi,

I have an Acer TravelMate 3260 laptop with 512mb RAM. It has one more RAM slot free. I am confused whether to buy 1gb or 512mb for that one slot. The manual says that the laptop is "Dual channel capable". The existing 512mb stick is 566mhz DDR2 RAM. I was told that if I insert a 1gb stick in that slot, I won't be able to take the advantage of Dual Channel. So I have two options - 1) Insert a 512mb stick in the empty slot, making total RAM 1gb and enabling dual channel 2) Insert a 1gb stick in the empty slot, making total RAM 1.5gb but not using dual channel

So the question is - does the advantage of increased speed in 1gb dual channel outweigh the advantage of increased quantity of 1.5gb ? What should I go for, in the laptop ? RohanDhruva 12:52, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

You should definately go for the other 512mb stick. if you go with the asymmetrical option there's a chance your memory controller won't support it (or won't be as stable) --froth^t 15:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Definitely match your ram. Another 512MB DDR2 566 (double check the speed, see next quote) is the way to go, unless you want to buy two 1GB DDR2 SoDIMMs. According to Acer, "Up to 4 GB2 of DDR2 533/667 MHz dual-channel support delivers multitasking performance for work that involves multi-threaded applications. [2]" -wizzard2k ^(C-T-D) 15:20, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Another important thing to keep in mind is that you will probably need to buy smaller, laptop sized memory modules, not the full sized sticks that desktops use --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 16:04, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for all the help :) I will buy a matched 512mb RAM stick, the smaller sized one.. RohanDhruva 06:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

VLC player

My vlc player used to be able to play multiple videos at the same time, now every time I open a new video, it closes the one already playing. Any idea what settings I need to change to get it back to the way it used to work?--VectorPotential^Talk 16:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

• See [VLC Wiki]. --h2g2bob (talk) 23:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Adobe Updater

Hello. I installed the Adobe Reader 8.1 update from Adobe Updater. Adobe Updater placed an Adobe Reader 8 icon on my desktop. Why doesn't Adobe Updater recognize the fact that I have the Adobe Reader 8 icon in my Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder on my desktop? My Desktop Cleanup Wizard has something to do with the Unused Desktop Shortcuts folder on my desktop. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare 20:08, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Trash adobe and get foxit http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/ smaller,works better most the most that u need is free. try it you'll like it!ray81aplRay81apl 21:00, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Um, anyway. Why doesn't Updater recognize it? Because it was not coded to recognize it. As simple as that. Should it have been coded to do so? Probably. Does it really matter? Not much. If you want to get rid of a shortcut on your desktop just drop it in the Recycle Bin. --Fastfission 23:21, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

fat to ntfs

How can I convert my 2GIG flash drive from FAT to NTFS ?Ray81apl 20:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Here's an MSDN blog posting about it. - Akamad 00:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Disk Recovery Software

I accidentally deleted some photos on a Secure Digital (SD) memory card. From what I understand, on a hard drive, I could use some kind of software to restore it. Is this possible on flash-based storage?

If so, what programs would work?

It depends. If the files were just deleted, that usually means they've just been removed from the user's file system, and possibly not already overwritten. If they've been overwritten, i'm unsure, although I'd imagine the nature of flash storage makes it nearly impossible or impossible to recover, that half of my answer is talking out of my ass --_ʇuǝɯɯoɔɐqǝɟ 00:32, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I too thought that recovering files from flash storage would be impossible, but apparently not, have a look at this page this page. - Akamad 00:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I do recall seeing at least one probably freeware program that would do what you want, so try searching on google. 80.3.43.181 11:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

PhotoRec. --cesarb 13:00, 30 June 2007 (UTC)