Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 October 26

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October 26

Some YouTube stats

Hi, I'm writing a piece on international streaming video sites... I seem to be unable to find an approximate number of video clips and user accounts on YouTube.com. I realize that those numbers have to be increasing rapidly, but maybe someone knows something. Thanks anyway... --Saber^Excalibur! 18:02, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

If I search for "*" on youtube videos it says there are about 48,100,000 results. It deosn't seem to work for channels (users) though. I guess if you contact them they might give you the information. -- DatRoot 22:05, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Searching with google for site:youtube.com inurl:"profile?user=" gives an estimated 158000 results, which would be the amount of users. Similarly site:youtube.com inurl:"watch?v=" gives 13,900,000 for the amount of videos. These numbers depend highly on the amount of youtube pages that Google has indexed (though it's probably all of them) and the accuracy of their estimate of total results. Still, it should give you some idea. This means an average of about 90 videos per user. That's more than I expected. risk 04:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Resetting a PC

I have a computer with Vista Home Premium and I would like to format it and start afresh (due to reduced performance, bugs, etc...) Unfortunately, it will not allow me to backup all operating system files onto a DVD-since it's not Vista Ultimate. How should I go about formatting my PC so that I can still install Vista on it without having to go out and buy it? Thanks. Acceptable 21:42, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

So you own a license to use the OS but not the install media itself? I believe this means, if you were to borrow an install CD from someone else, and use your own license key with it, you're all set and perfectly legal. Friday (talk) 21:44, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, the Vista Home Premium OS came with the new computer I bought. But it didn't come with the CD's or DVD's of the OS. Acceptable 02:59, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

You might have got "system recovery disk" or perhaps there's a hidden partition with it all on, but I suggest you get onto your PC vendor and demand request they give you the OS installation disks. Surely it is unreasonable for a PC vendor not to supply the disks. Astronaut 05:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Really? All the new computers that I have bought, here in Canada, never came with OS installation disks. Acceptable 15:31, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

In my experience too, it's very common for the install media not to be included. Friday (talk) 15:40, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

If it does not have a restore CD then it should have a method to do a restore from the hard drive. On Dell, it is Ctrl-F11 during boot. --Justanother 19:25, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Yep either will have a restore from the hard drive method or an option to create your own set of boot disks from the hard drive using your own disks, I helped a friend who bought an HP and she had the option of using 8 cd's or 1 DVD, go with DVD's if ya have the option lol windows boot cd 1/8, 2/8 I also have restored my girlfriends HP laptop off of the hard drive by F11'ing it at startup, so maybe there are both options, that I am unsure about, I have no prebuilt comp myself, all my blood sweat and tears in mine. Dureo 09:08, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

chatting

I have not been online for a few years but now that I am bac on, I wish to do some chatting, However due to several IT issues, too complex to go into now, I have no email. What I wish to do is go to a free, informal web site and just have a chat with some people. I do notwant to become a member ect. Do such websites still exist? Or are all of them topic specific, register to use, email password verification required ect. please help me. Thancs —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.3.149.242 (talk) 21:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Check out IRC. -- Diletante 21:57, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Or any forum system. If you have specific interests, do a google search on whatever that is with the word "forum" and you'll find online services that don't require email. SteveBaker 02:25, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Forums almost always require an email address to sign up, that's why we have services like mailinator and spamgourmet (not to mention bugmenot). Anyway if you just want to have a chat with some people go with IRC. There's no centralized list of servers of course- try searching for something that interests you with google and add "irc" to the end of your query- join their IRC server. If wikipedia interests you, try following the instructions at WP:IRC to chat with us :) --ffroth 04:09, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Linux command line question

I'm a fairly new convert to linux and i'm still learning the ropes. I've been getting into the habit of having a terminal open most of the time and often i launch programs from there ("Oh, damn, I forgot to launch amarok. Oh, hey look at that nice terminal!"). This isn't the smartest thing in the world because it ties the terminal up the terminal and if you shut the terminal down the program you launched also dies. What i did to solve this was to make a little script called "forker" which I placed in my path that forks itself and executes the rest of the commandline and then quits (so you type "forker amarok", and you can continue to use the terminal and amarok wont die if you shut the terminal down). This works well enough, but it feels like there is a cleverer way to do this. In the interest of learning, can anyone educate this poor beginner on how to exactly do that? 83.249.100.242 22:20, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Don't know what dist you are on, but a simple "nohup" before the app has the same effect in Ubuntu. I.e. nohup amarok. --Saber^Excalibur! 22:28, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Welcome to Linux! You can start programs in the background by putting an Ampersand (&) after the process, i.e.

   % amarok &

However, your bash shell (assuming you're using bash) might have set huponexit set, so it sends a HUP signal to all process when it exits. You can use the aforemented nohup to start processes, or turn off that option with:

   % shopt -u huponexit

-- JSBillings 22:36, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks! I'll do that from now on (I'm going to miss you, forker, old pal). 83.249.100.242 22:47, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

If you forget to stick an '&' on the end of the command line - you can type a control-Z in the terminal window and you'll get your prompt back. At this point the application is paused - type 'bg' to put it into the background or 'fg' to bring it into the foreground (as it was before your typed ^Z). You can use 'fg' to bring a process that you backgrounded with '&' back into the foreground too. You can also use the 'jobs' command to get a list of the programs you have in background right now - they are numbered. You can use the numbers with a percent sign with the fg and bg commands - so 'fg %5' brings job number 5 back into the foreground. There are lots of other commands that work with these '%' thingies to give you more control of tasks running on your machine. "kill %5" kills off the 5th job. "stop %5" pauses it - so you can resume it with 'fg' and 'bg' (handy if some task is slowing down your computer and you want to stop it for a while, do a quick task and then let it carry on from where it left off). You can also use '%' with the first few characters of the program name. So if you do this:

gimp & -- Starts gimp as a background task

stop %1 -- Pauses gimp (because it's job number %1

...do some stuff...

bg %gi -- Places gimp into background (restarting it - because it's the only job that starts with "gi").

SteveBaker 02:18, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Mac Mini restore CD with a macbook pro?

I have a restore CD from my mac mini, will it work with my macbook pro? The hard drive is corrupted and I cant find my macbook pro restore cd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 23:16, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Why not call Apple's support line? It shouldn't be hard to get your restore CD replaced. They might even have advice on the best way to recover from hard drive corruption. If you wound up restoring the wrong disk image, you could be missing some drivers. EdJohnston 17:01, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

It should work—the OS is the same, the HDD filesystem is the same. Does the Mac Mini have an Intel processor or is it PowerPC? If it is Intel-based then its CD is probably almost totally identical to the Macbook Pro one. You might as well give it a shot, in any case — it'll tell you if it won't work, no doubt. --24.147.86.187 18:05, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

My not-insignificant experience with Mac restore CDs is that they will not work except on the model that they belong to. Just like many OEM Windows restore CDs. --Justanother 19:22, 27 October 2007 (UTC)

Do you have AppleCare? --Kushal^t 03:00, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope. NO applecare. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.124.101 (talk) 03:07, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Mac restore cds have a hardware-specific version of the OS on them (they lack components of the OS used by diferent hardware, and have optimized components for the hardware they're made for). The installer probably won't let you install, and even if it will you'll get a version of the OS that won't work well with the hardware. Apple will probably replace the disc if you ask nicely, though. 69.123.113.89 04:37, 28 October 2007 (UTC)