Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 October 4

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October 4

RAM thumbdrive?

Don't ask why, but I can't change the virtual memory on a computer to anything higher than 20 MB. Explorer keeps crashing it's so low... But it did give me the option of using a separate memory space - in this case, a thumbdrive. Is it even possible to use my thumbdrive as a sort of pseudo RAM? If so, what would I need to format it as? --69.144.233.96 02:03, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Even if you can use your thumb drive, I suspect you will still use it as a virtual memory. By the way, some details on the operating system and error messages would be nice. --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 02:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot. I believe it's Windows NT... 200 some odd megs of RAM normally; bumped down to 20 because I was screwing with some stuff. I have a limited account coughschoolcomputercough, but it appears that I can change the virtual memory - just not on the C drive, if that makes any sense. --_{King of the Wontons} | _{lol wut?} | _{Oh noes! Vandals!} 02:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

It makes total sense if C: is nearly full. Remember RAM is physical memory and virtual memory uses your hard drive as sort of "virtual" RAM. Having too little of one can't be offset more than a little by having insane amounts of the other. As far as format goes, since it's NT, use NTFS. Just don't forget to set the size in even multiples of 8. — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 02:46, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thankees. --69.144.233.96 02:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

CAD thing

Does anyone know of a program that can allow you to build computer chipsets (like a mobo, graphics card, etc.)? I mean, one that allows you to add things like stock parts (PCI ports, CPU sockets, graphics chipsets, and so forth). Thanks. --68.89.95.20 02:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

In priciple, any VLSI design package can accomplish this. In practice, you can't drag-and-drop components to create a viable PC chipset. — Lomn 15:02, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I recommend KICAD - it's free, OpenSourced and you can do schematics and circuit board layout with it. I've only used it for one very simple project - but I know of people who have used it for fairly serious stuff. SteveBaker 17:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Does this work for anyone?

Just wondering if the streaming video works for anyone here. If so, what is the direct url so I can put it directly into WMP. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.169.145.28 (talk) 02:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I tried but I could not see the video. Sorry :'(--Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 03:11, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Worked for me. [1] — User:ACupOfCoffee@ 03:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Here is a direct link to the .flv file, if that helps: [2] —Akrabbim^talk 16:23, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Resizing NTFS partitions....

I'm thinking of making a dual-boot system (with Ubuntu) on a computer that already has XP on it, but to do that I would obviously need to resize the NTFS partition. Can today's finest Partition editors do that? 83.249.113.29 10:53, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Actually if you just put in the LiveCD and actually went ahead with the installation you would find out that it can resize partitions (including NTFS) during installation, and then you can spend half an hour surfing or playing sudoku or whatever and have your new Ubuntu system with dual boot already configured. So much easier than a Windows installation. --antilived^{T | C | G} 11:04, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

This is what I thought, thank you :) 83.249.113.29 11:58, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Minidisc player down

Hello I have an electronics question about my sony MZ-R55 MD player that uses NH14WM batteries. Although I have several batteries for it, even fully charged by an independent charger, none of them last for more than 20 seconds. The Minidisc works fine when plugged into the mains via an adaptor. What could be the problem and can I do anything to fis this? Thank you Keria 13:00, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Is your minidisc player from the age when Sony was using lead-acid batteries in their rechargeable players? If so, the batteries are probably "sulfated" and past their useful life. Even if they're not lead-acid, is there any reason to suspect that these batteries aren't simply failed at end-of-life?

Atlant 13:14, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Well after I noticed the problem with the one battery I had I bought 4 'new' (packaged anyway) ones from ebay from 2 different sources with the exact same result: about 15 to 30 seconds of battery life and they've been charged until the green light goes on in an independant charger. Keria 13:25, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

All of the rechargeable battery technologies have problems of one sort or another. NiCd's get 'the memory effect' where if you don't discharge them completely, they gradually only accept less charge. Most of the other kinds are only good for a certain number of charge/recharge cycles before they die. Lead/Acid batteries don't like being completely discharged - and leaving them discharged for any amount of time is bad for them.

But the fact that your "new" batteries aren't working either is interesting. Look at it this way: either the batteries aren't getting charged - or they are being discharged very fast. If they were being discharged very fast, where did the electricity go? It wasn't powering anything useful - and a full battery charge would generate a lot of heat if it were shorted out or something. So did anything get hot during those 15 to 30 seconds? If it did then something is shorting the batteries out - and you'd better be careful because that kind of thing can make batteries EXPLODE! But if the batteries went dead over 30 seconds and didn't get amazingly hot - then they couldn't have had much electricity in them in the first place...so either the battery itself is faulty or your charger(s) are faulty. You claim to have new batteries - and from two different sources - it's unlikely that all three sets are bad (although who knows what you get from eBay). So I think the problem may be in the charger. Can you charge them some other way - at least as a test? How long does it take before the green light goes on on the charger? Are you sure the light means "Finished charging"? SteveBaker 17:50, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sulfated lead-acid batteries go to their "fully charged" voltage very quickly, but there's very little electrochemical activity that took place to get there so there's very little available charge stored in the battery. So they then go from "full charge" voltage to "no charge" voltage just as quickly. My first guess we'd be that all the batteries are of a similar age and all are dead.

Atlant 23:57, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

How safe is it to put banking details on a website?

I have a client who wants to sell things on the internet, and for those customers that don't have a credit card, he wants to provide them with his business's bank account details. I'm having great trouble researching online if this is "safe" or not - because every google search brings up results about providing your credit card details and bank account login information over the internet - which is not what I'm asking. If I gave you may bank account details like this:
ACCOUNT NAME: John Doe
BANK: Commonwealth Bank
BSB (Branch Code): 123-456
ACCOUNT NUMBER: 123-456-789-111-213
, what could a person possibly do with this information other than pay me?
Rfwoolf 13:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure sounds dangerous to me. Someone with that info could pretend to be you and empty your account. Perhaps banks require signatures and are supposed to check them against a signature card for withdrawals, but one lazy teller and you're account can be pillaged. StuRat 14:21, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Precisely right, this info can easily be used by a smart dude for identity theft. For those customers that he has that don't have credit cards (which can't be that many), how about just asking them to snail-mail him a check or something (not as fast, obviously). --Oskar 15:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

As a sidenote, lets see how wikimedia foundation does things. Please turn to http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Fundraising which provides the following information:

Direct deposit Deposit money directly into our bank account.

The Wikimedia Foundation has a bank account that accepts money transfers.

Account holder: Wikimedia Foundation

Bank:

Dexia bank/Banque Dexia Pachecolaan 44/ 44, bvd Pacheco 1000 Brussels/1000 Bruxelles Belgium

Account number:

IBAN BE43 0689 9999 9501 BIC GKCCBEBB

National Belgian account number: 068-9999995-01 For transfers inside Belgium or from countries not supporting the IBAN-system

Does it pertain to this question at all? --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 17:24, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you have to give HIM your bank account details so he can deposit to it.. why would you be able to withdraw from someone's account with just the account number? You can only deposit --froth^t 17:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

That does seem AWFULLY dangerous. But then the information you are giving out is only what is printed on one of the cheques in your chequebook - and you give those out to complete strangers all the time! But still - with the prevelance of identity theft - tell the bad guys as little as possible. Have people mail you the money - it's worth a couple of days of delay just for peace of mind. If you do decide to do this, I REALLY think you should talk to the bank. They are the true authority on what's safe and what isn't. SteveBaker 17:39, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Amen --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 18:27, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

You can just put account number/sort-code up and have people use that to send money. I've no idea if it is a joke or actually true but in Private Eye (the magazine) they often have little comical 'begging' ads in the classifieds...Things like "trying to restore classic Mg but too lazy to earn the money myself, A/c: XXX XXXX and Sort Code: ZZ ZZ ZZ", or things like "just graduated, looking for rich individual to gift student loan A/C xxx xxx ..." (you get the idea). As noted it is perhaps not advisable but surely this individual can speak with the bank to have an account setup that will allow this (lots of firms seem to have odd accounts that look like normal accounts but are businessy instead). ny156uk 22:44, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

(http://www.eyeadvertise.co.uk/?section=classified&catid=13) there's the link...One says "just for fun, i'd like £200. Thanks! 12-60-60. 02423083. :)" ny156uk 22:45, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Hello, my name is George Agdgdgwngo, I'm from your billing society, and could I just have your bank account number and sort code? -Wooty [Woot?] [Spam! Spam! Wonderful spam!] 01:49, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

!!!Actually this is a common practice in europe, but the accounts are generally configured for deposits only and not withdrawals. You should talk to the bank and see what they are willing to support. I did know one company that wasn't set up properly and people were withdrawing money from the company instead of depositting it. A quick call to the bank sealed the leak but the company had to contact a bunch of customers and get the money back. Again please talk to your bank if this is advisable in whatever country you are doing business in!!!

Wich AMD?

1.Whats the suitable AMD CPU for 3D computer graphics, CGI, Animation , 3D displays and softwares?and because of what particular characteristic, that device is suitable?

2.and what about ATI graphic cards(when work with that CPU)?(I want a specific model and answer in both)Flakture 19:10, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Why AMD ? --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 20:02, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Athlon_64_X2 seems to be a good start. (I am biased against AMD for no reason.) --Kushal^{Click me!} write to me 20:06, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Internet Explorer versus Firefox

It was taking well over a minute and a half for Google to load so I suspected the problem might be Google since other sites seemed to load okay. The problem appeared to be resolved when I decompressed my partially compressed C drive so I thought I was back to normal. However, IE will not allow Google maps to be viewed and all I get is a blank screen This happens with other HTML pages using IE so I loaded Firefox which I had unloaded at one point thinking it was part of the Google load problem. Sure enough after viewing several Google maps with FF I tried to use IE to open Google and again it took well over a minute and a half before Google would load with the hard drive light remaining on the whole time. Now I think its a war between IE and FF because my IE cookies had been disabled and I was no longer able to log on under several different accounts. So is that a possibility that IE and FF are fighting it out by messing with each other's settings and using my computer as the battleground? If so what can be done about it? Clem 22:18, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Opera (browser) ? StuRat 04:05, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

You probably need to reinstall your OS. You're attributing way too much personality to software. IE and Firefox don't "fight" over each other's settings. You simply have an OS problem. Keep in mind that IE has been integrated into the windows operating system, so anything you've done to mess that up might show up in IE performance. On the other hand, software such as Firefox or Opera, once freshly installed, use far less of the OS's libraries. Since you have mentioned in this question and earlier that you partially compressed and decompressed your C:\ drive, I suspect you've somehow managed to damage or corrupt your OS install, which is affecting IE. I recommend reinstalling the OS from scratch, and NOT turning on compression. -- JSBillings 10:31, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

dead pixels

There a lot of dead pixels on my Ti-83 plus. Is there anyway to get rid of them? (Pressing on them made it worse)71.218.38.193 22:32, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Replace the screen? Having a look at dead pixel it seems some 'broken' pixels can be fixed/will fix themselves but other pixel problems are unfixable. ny156uk 22:37, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Never press on a LCD-screen. Never!!! It damages the screen.

195.35.160.133 14:28, 9 October 2007 (UTC) Martin

Bypassing DRM

I'm not asking how one does this, but rather I am doing a a short project on the Digital Rights Management technology associated with downloaded songs. Can the DRM technology, which for example allows a song to be played only a certain amount of times, be bypassed so that the song can be played an infinite amount of times on a computer? If so, how hard would this be? Thanks. Acceptable 23:17, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

The analog hole is one way. If you haven't seen it already, Digital rights management#Digital Millennium Copyright Act might be of interest - in the US, it's illegal to produce or disseminate technology that allows users to circumvent DRM. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 23:26, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Another fairly obvious way is purchasing a non-DRM version of the media. If just one form of it is non-DRM (say, on a non-DRM CD) then it is exceptionally easy to create non-DRM digital versions. (So instead of buying a DRM-ed mp3, you buy/borrow a non-DRMed CD and turn it into mp3s). --24.147.86.187 12:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Also, every major DRM system has been broken, allowing people to strip the DRM protection off the protected media. The specific technique varies from system to system. --Carnildo 20:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Here's the problem (from the content-owner's perspective) in a nutshell: he wants to ship data (lets say audio, but it's the same for video) and not have it copied. To prevent usable copies from being made in transit (over a wire or on a medium like a disk) he encrypts it. But your eyes and ears don't understand encrypted data (it's just gobbledigook) so, before the audio gets delivered to you it as to be decrypted. So there are three places where the whole DRM scheme can be attacked:

• Before encryption: (this is the favourite of the serious, scary-dude Triad pirates) they just get a copy of the music/movie before it goes off to be made into a final, encrypted product. Using bribes (and maybe a bit of common theft) they get studio tapes, screener DVDs, insider copies, rushes, and other materials.
• Reading the encrypted data: as noted by others, above, the encrypted data can be read by unauthorised parties (and thus copied, generally to unencrypted data that anyone can read and copy) using a variety of methods (which vary by the encryption scheme). People can reverse-engineer existing players (that's how DVD-HD and DVD-BR were broken), or they can exploit defects and backdoors in existing players. DVD-VIDEO (that's regular DVD videos as used by most people now) was broken because the CSS cryptosystem used was very weak (and was badly implemented to boot) making a brute-force attack on it quite easy.
• After decryption:Some attacks against DRM capture the data after it's been decrypted (even before the analog hole, most OSes (including Windows before XP) allow you to capture the digital audio before it goes to the soundcard, and it's trivial to save that off); a partial solution to this is making the entire computer system part of the DRM framework, with trusted hardware and trusted signed device drivers (which is how TPM and Vista work) - but the downside of that is that it's very error-prone and inflexible, and relies on everything in the computer working perfectly (which no computer ever has done). Some people ascribe a lot of Vista's current reported slowness (in copying files, playing media, or doing graphics operations) to the omnipresent DRM infrastructure that permeates the whole system.

-- 217.42.190.82 00:00, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

IMO that permeating security so there's no "analog hole" in your hardware is desirable from a holy crap that's ultra cool hardcore security standpoint.. as long as it's not used against you. Anyway yeah, to restate your points perhaps more clearly, the goal of DRM is to distribute the work, but not actually let you have it. It's the classic paradox of DRM. They want to get it in your hands, they want you to buy it so it becomes your property, but they want to control it --froth^t 02:20, 6 October 2007 (UTC)

• As a linux user, I have to say that busting DRM is easy. I run Audacity with a duplex ALSA sound card - I play the drm media out in one direction, and switch Audacity into record at the same time. So I play out and take in what I am playing out. Then Whatever I have recorded, I export as MP3 and it takes about 5 minutes per track. We already have a codec base (libfaac & libfaad) for working on iTunes stuff which is coded in AAC or m4a. It's nothing to do stuff like this! Thor Malmjursson 11:49, 11 October 2007 (UTC)