Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 July 17

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 17

Removing images from a PDF, using Adobe Acrobat Professional

Assuming that the file doesn't require a password, is it possible to remove images from non-locked PDFs with Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional? A discussion is going on at Commons:Commons talk:Licensing, section "PDF with possible unfree images", about a PDF that's marked as free but has images that may well be non-free; people are talking about deleting it because the images can't be removed, but it seems silly to delete if it's not too hard to remove the images. Nyttend (talk) 02:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Go to Tools → Advanced Editing → TouchUp Object Tool and select the image, then hit DEL on your keyboard. You can also right-click on the toolbar and select Advanced Editing, then click on the TouchUp Object button.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks; I was expecting the first response to be "sorry, it's not possible". Removing them was quite easy. Nyttend (talk) 10:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

How to find current Mac OS version usage

Is there any place where I can learn what percentage of Mac users are currently using Cheetah, Puma, Tiger, Panther, Leopard, Snow Leopard... and even Mac OS 9? --68.102.163.104 (talk) 05:52, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Here are the polls I've seen: [1], [2]. Nothing in the last few months, but it seems as though 10.6.x accounts for roughly 65+%, 10.5.x accounts for about 20%, and 10.4.x accounts for around 7%, with the remaining few percent tapering off on 10.3 and lower. --Ludwigs2 06:19, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Sound won't stop

Just a couple of minutes ago, I accessed a site with music playing in the background, then Internet Explorer closed itself, but now the music is continuing playing! Apart from muting the computer's sound, as well as restarting the computer, how can I stop that music? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 06:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you are running a Windows computer, my first weapon would be to kill any remaining Internet Explorer processes. Hit ctrl-alt-del and launch the Windows Task Manager, then click the Processes tab, click iexplore.exe, and click the "End Process" button. Repeat until all the iexplore.exe processes have been killed. Comet Tuttle (talk) 06:48, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

availability of multipurpose 'Light Emitting Diode'(LED) monitor

is there such a LED monitor available in market that can be connected to CPU,DVD player,internet, any USB and a cable network simltaneously for the respective purposes06:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)~ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 218.248.64.129 (talk)

I'm not really sure as to what you're looking for, but yes, there are monitors out there with TV tuners built in. The CPU and DVD could function as one, I assume the internet access is meant for the computer, and the cable network could come from a DVR box hooked up to the monitor. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 07:10, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

There are however few true LED monitors. Most things sold as 'LED monitors' or TVs or whatever are actually LCD monitors with LED lighting Nil Einne (talk) 11:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Ubuntu 64-bit - Not recommended for daily desktop usage?

The Ubuntu download page advises against using the 64 bit version for daily desktop usage. My questions are (1) why?, and (2) which version would be the better choice for virtualizing Ubuntu with VirtualBox on a PC running 64 bit Windows 7? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 07:13, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm running Ubuntu 9.04, 64-bit, on a laptop. Mostly works great. But there's a certain amount of consumer software that hasn't been completely ported. For example I have to run a beta version of Skype, and it doesn't seem to want to let me select the output sound device. There's a drop-down box for it, but only one entry in the box. So I can't use my USB headphones, which is very annoying. --Trovatore (talk) 08:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! --80.32.202.187 (talk) 11:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC) (NorwegianBlue, not logged in)

Weird computer flying shadows after Windows update

I did a Windows update yesterday on my XP computer and when I turned it on this morning it displays weird behaviour. Unfortunately I also installed a Java update, a Flash player update, and an Adobe security patch, so not too clear what is responsible for the problem. It was working OK after I did all this yesterday. 1) When I put the cursor over any icon on the desktop, a dark blue 'shadow' of the icon and its text flies off to the right. 2) When running programs such as Ccleaner, the buttons do not function. What might be the cause please? How can I fix it? Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 08:57, 17 July 2010 (UTC) Update: After writing the above post, the computer behaved normally again. Perhaps something was protesting thast it needed time after start-up to do whatever it had to do. I'd be interested to know what it was. Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 09:06, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I recommend you do a virus scan on your computer, as it could be malware.  A p3rson ‽ 02:35, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Google Street View

I use Google Street View in the UK. What is the significance of the yellow line that is sometimes displayed in place of the white line? The views are shown as a series of panoramas at regularly spaced positions along the street. Is it possible to get Street View to display the view in between these positions? Is it possible to save an image to HD? Is it possible to drive or cruise along the street without needing to keep clicking the arrows? I recall a freeware program that allowed this, have not been able to find it aghain. Thanks 92.29.114.16 (talk) 12:14, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Which yellow line, do you mean double yellow lines? If near the kerb in the UK, they mean no parking. If in the middle of the road in the USA, they mean no overtaking. The single yellow line near the kerb in the UK indicates a restriction on parking.

I haven't succeded in getting Street View to show an intermediate image. As I understand it, a Google car drives down the street taking still photos at fixed intervals - intermediate images simply do not exist. Images can be saved by pressing print-screen at any time. An image editor can be used to manipulate the image as you wish. However, the resolution in which the image is saved is dependant on your screen resolution. Astronaut (talk) 20:18, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

No I do not mean road markings, but the line that Google shows over the image. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 08:59, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

My logical deducation is Street View is just following Google Maps in the line colour. A quick test suggests this is correct, as when the lines show as yellow on Google Maps, they show as yellow on Google Street View, when white on the map they show as white on Street View. As to what the actual difference between yellow and white is, my logical deducation is they mean what they mean in most maps (Google or otherwise) yellow being some form of highway/motorway, white being a more ordinary road. Again a quick look at Maps shows my deducation appears born out by what's being shown. There may also be a legend somewhat which will say the same thing or you can look at the map yourself and see Nil Einne (talk) 23:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

sequential numbers

I need a program that can make a list of urls with sequential numbers at the end. For example, if I wanted everything from http://example.com/page1 to http://example.com/page50390000 I've been using a javascript snippet someone here posted a few weeks ago, but it does not work for very large (5000+) numbers. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:45, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

can you link or copy the script you're using so that we can modify it? --Ludwigs2 15:33, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Here, but I'm unsure if using my browser to to this task is wise for very large numbers of links. I'd prefer a stand-alone program if possible 82.43.90.93 (talk) 15:43, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

well, then we'd need to know what platform you're working on (unless you want something written in PHP, and have PHP enabled on your system). --Ludwigs2 16:38, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 82.43.90.93 (talk) 17:56, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

well, it's for someone else, then - not something I work with. --Ludwigs2 18:05, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Why not just do it in Excel? Set cell A1 to 1. Then set cell B1 to: ="<a href=""http://example.com/page" & A1 & """>http://example.com/page" & A1 & "</a><br>" Now just set A2 to: =A1+1 . Then copy and paste A2 to as many you'd like (it'll auto-update the reference), and copy B2 down the column as well. If you want to start with a number larger than 1 (because I think Excel can only have 32,000 rows or so), just change A1 to be whatever you want to start with (e.g. 5000). If you copy all of B2 and paste it into a text editor, it'll just output as a list of HTML links. If you want the output formattedly differently, just modify B1 and re-copy. This is how I'd do it, anyway—easier than scripting. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:03, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I don't have Excel on my computer. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 19:17, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

You could do it in OpenOffice Calc, as a free alternative. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:47, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Powershell is standard on Windows 7, isn't it? (I only have Vista and XP boxes handy.) If so, then 1..50390000 | foreach { echo http://example.com/page$_ } should do it. —Korath (Talk) 19:25, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

OT but yes Powershell 2.0 is installed/available by default on Windows 7 although I'm not sure if that applies to all version e.g. Windows 7 Starter. Nil Einne (talk)

The Javascript you linked does work with large numbers, but it has a hardcoded limit of 1000 URLs (to − from ≤ 999). You can search for "999" in the code and add some more nines to increase that limit, but you will probably crash your browser if you try to list 50,390,000 URLs at once. -- BenRG (talk) 22:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Windows 7 start menu + hovering

This is a bit complicated to explain, but on Windows 7, whenever you hover over the name of a programme in the start-menu, a list of recently-opened-files-with-that-programme pops up to the right. This all worked absolutely fine for me until within the last day or so, when Microsoft Word 2007 completely stopped responding to this. Every other piece of software is OK, but Word has stopped. Any clues? (Diagram here if it helps...) Thanks! ╟─TreasuryTag►directorate─╢ 07:25, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

I know what you're talking about but have never had this problem. You could try unpinning Word 2007 from the taskbar or startmenu if it's pinned and removing Word 2007 from the recent list (right click) although I doubt that will help. I'm guessing clicking on the arrow doesn't work either? Does the shortcut still work i.e. you can open Word 2007 with it? Nil Einne (talk) 02:45, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Scam using Logmein123

I got phone call other day from indian gent telling me my computer was infected and I had to go to logmein123 website. When he asked me to put in pass word I refused and hung up. What is this scam? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.104.91.109 (talk) 22:30, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Can you expand on your question? It's a scam - not sure what else could be said? --mboverload@ 22:32, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Nothing about it on WP.--88.104.91.109 (talk) 23:23, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

Well, no, but there aren't articles on thousands of other scams that are out there either. They have to be notable for inclusion here. Perhaps there's something at Snopes. Dismas|^(talk) 05:43, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Essentially, you log into the site and you're prompted to install an ActiveX control that allows the remote technician to take control of your computer. I've seen it used by legitimate technicians for troubleshooting, but it can obviously be misused, as in this case.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:48, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

This scam is to earn money from people in the UK, US and Australia. They operate from India. DO NOT in any cases listen to them. They will scam money from you, telling you're computer will get infected without installing some expensive software. Here's the article: [3] Sir Stupidity (talk) 00:02, 19 July 2010 (UTC)