Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 June 10

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June 10

DirectDraw Problem

Hi there,

I am a Wikipedian and also a SimCity 4 player. Recently, I was not able to open the software (SimCity 4). There was an error message box showing "Hardware Error - Could not initialize DirectDraw" or something similar. Well, SimCity 4 requires DirectX 8, and I have installed DirectX 9 jst for this specific problem. I don't know if my computer has enough memory for this though. Also, recently, I have "splited" my computer into two hard drives (C Drive and D Drive), this might affect the result. What's wrong? Why is my directDraw not working? When I test it with the diagnosis tool, it worked perfectly fine, and yet here at the disc, nothing showed up, just that dialog box!

 Smcafirst | Chit-Chat | SIGN  posted at 00:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Please place your help reply at User talk:Smcafirst/Requests, as it will be easier for me to check for the answer. Thanks!

Commond

How to send a message through networked computers by commond promt? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mufleeh (talk • contribs) 04:33, 10 June 2007

Assuming you are talking about Microsoft Windows networked computers, the command is net send. --cesarb 05:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If my friends IP is 192.168.142.144,how should i type the commond ? (His userr name is maheshiw)

Try net send 192.168.142.144 Hello! or alternatively net send maheshiw Hello! ›mysid (☎∆) 08:27, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I tried as above,but the error message comes as "The message alias could not be found on the network". But I assure that whole the computres as are networked.

Check what services are available on his machine with nmap --h2g2bob (talk) 20:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

How should I check those services? as well when I send as above from a non XP WINDOWS installed computer i got to know that the message goes.But when I am try to send from my computer the above error message comes on !

Are you on the same subnet? --froth^t 14:22, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

must be,whole the computers are under one server,some of them are XP and others are 2000,messages canbe sent between windows 2000 installed machines but not XP windows installed machines.I want tio know whether there is any way to enable for send messages from XP installed computers to 2000 installed computers?

Another Mac Question

Is it possible to get a log of events over the last, say, 24 hours/7 days/30 days? Manga 09:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

cat /var/log/messages.

Thanks. I tried that, but got an error message. This is in Terminal, I presume? Manga 16:41, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you admin/root?

If you look in "system profiler" (applications/utilities), then it has a "log" section at the bottom which displays a load of system logfiles. Ojw 19:00, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Google cache

A search term, when entered into Google, brings up Wikipedia as the first result. However, it is no longer on Wikipedia. How long will it be before Google update their cache?--Rambutan (talk) 13:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It varies: popular articles every few days, but for unpopular (those either with low pagerank or those that change infrequently) potentially a couple of weeks. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Any way to hurry it along?--Rambutan (talk) 16:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Not really. I think if the page contain[s/ed] copyright-violations or legally-sensitive stuff then a formal legal communication from a materially concerned party will make Google manually pull the page, but that's all. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 16:35, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia takes a day or two. Sites with pagerank zero can take 6 months to a year --h2g2bob (talk) 20:51, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, the Internet Archive keeps stuff forever --h2g2bob (talk) 20:54, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess a few days to 2 weeks. 5dsddddd 22:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Bare Linux Kernel

Earlier, someone asked what a Linux kernel would do if booted by itself. Now I'm asking, how would I do this? How do I point the computer to the kernel, and make it boot? Thanks everyone!--67.181.167.227 14:13, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Linux kernels are normally installed in Linux file systems on Linux hard drive partitions, and are booted using a boot loader such as LILO or GRUB which is executed on system startup. An alternative boot loader, Loadlin, can be used to boot a Linux kernel from DOS or Windows. --Tony Sidaway 14:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

This page describes how to compile and install a kernel. It will still want to start the primeval process init. To prevent more user space stuff running have the boot loader specify a different process (one that just sits and does nothing) in place of init (see Init#Skipping init). Naturally you'll now be responsible (in some kernel code) for setting the system up and doing something useful - init scripts do a bunch of pretty fundamental things like start daemons and configure hardware and services. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 14:40, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to boot a linux kernel by itself, you won't need to to use anything but a linux kernel and one of the aforementioned boot loaders (GRUB, LILO, Loadlin, etc), however, it will just panic once it tries to start up init. If you want to actually do something, you'll have to direct the kernel to use a linux filesystem or put everything in a initrd. -- JSBillings 15:38, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Hotmail

Hello. When I login to my Hotmail account with my correct username and password on Internet Explorer 6, I am redirected to the login web page that says the username and/or password was incorrect. I retype the same username and same password; I successfully login to my Hotmail account. I recently installed a parental control program, ICRAplus. Why is this so? --Mayfare 15:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Are you logging in at http://login.live.com/login.srf?id=2? What happens when you try logging on using the secure sign-in page? — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 15:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Lost online game

A while back I played an online racing game based on 24 for which I had to download a helper program called "Octoshape Streaming Services". It was part of a promotion of either the 6th season or some new car. Can anyone help me locate it again. - Mgm|^(talk) 16:57, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Is this what you're looking for? Cybiko123 19:01, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I should've been clearer. I still got the plugin. I need to find the game. - Mgm|^(talk) 19:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you have an idea what the game was called? cybiko123 21:21, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

• If only I did. I seem to remember it to be a car commercial for either Toyota or Hyundai, but I could be wrong about that too. - 131.211.210.11 08:35, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

VGA -> BNC

I was looking at buying a VGA to BNC cable, but all of them have five BNC connectors; Why is this? I want to transmit video over some cat5 with a BNC, will I be able to do this, or are all five BNC connectors needed for this? MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 20:15, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

You are apparently getting Red/Green/Blue/Horizontal Sync/Vertical Sync on your BNC cable. That is pretty much a 1-to-1 mapping from the VGA Connector (the ground/returns are not handled as a separate wire in BNC). You want to send it over Cat5. While it may be possible, I would expect problems. I would keep Reg/Green/Blue with their ground all separated - that is 6 wires. Now, you only have 2 for Hor and Vert sync and nothing to ground them. A better option would be to convert the RGBHV signal to an RGBS signal. Then, you only need 8 wires for all signal/ground pairs. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:44, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to transmit VGA signals over Cat5, it probably means you are thiking of structured cabling. Indeed, a google search for "structured cabling vga" (without the quotes) does return several hits which seem relevant. And it is possible to use only three connectors for the video signal, if you can convince your video card and monitor to both use sync-on-green. --cesarb 21:05, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Ok, new angle. Can anyone think of somewhere I could get a cable converting a VGA (m) on a laptop to a single RCA (i.e. the yellow plug from composite A/V?). Or possibly a VGA plus 2x RCA (for sound) to a scart. I have looked around amazon and ebay; can anyone suggest a better search? MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 16:16, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the products available at svideo.com, you might find some item or items to do what you need. However, they are located in the US, and you seem to be in the UK, so you might have to search further for a more local supplier. --LarryMac | Talk 00:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Dell Color Printer 725

I have a Dell 725 Color Printer (inkjet, i believe) . Can I just use black ink (non-color) cartridges in it instead of color ink cartridges? thanks!!!!...

I don't know about that printer specifically, but, if it's a 3 color printer, the answer is probably no. Four color printers have the 3 colors, plus black, typically in a separate cartage from the 3 colors, so can be used to only print in black and white, if desired. You would either have to set the printer to black and white mode or set the printing software to do that, on the computer. StuRat 03:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC) StuRat 03:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)