Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 February 21

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.

February 21

CD/DVD drive not reading a disk...

OK, my question is a bit odd. I have an older computer (4-5 years old, Windows XP, the whole nine yards). It works fine most of the time (except it seems to be interminably slow lately... I guess she's just getting old), but tonight I tried to play a DVD I rented, and it simply wouldn't read it. I could go into My Computer and look at the drive and everything, and it simply was not reading the disk. I tried a CD, it picked it up right away. I tried a different DVD, it read that as well. What possible reasons could there be that it's not reading the rented disk?

There's another bit I should have mentioned earlier... I also tried the disk in a laptop (about the same age, also Windows XP [I suppose that's obvious, what else would it have?!]), and it worked fine. So it's not the disk. Does anybody know why the drive isn't reading that particular disk and how I can fix it? I seem to recall this happening once before, but for the life of me I can't remember how it was fixed. --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 03:20, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

My guess would be that it *is* the disc. Major studios often include DRM to limit or prevent access to content in certain situations, and computer access is sometimes prevented in a misguided attempt to prevent copying. (It's also possible that the key for your specific DVD drive was "leaked" and revoked by the powers that be to prevent further decryption of their content.) If this is the case, you can try replacing your DVD drive with a newer one, purchase a standalone DVD player, or download software to circumvent the DRM (which is illegal according to the DMCA). Or save some time and money and just download an un-DRM'd copy from Pirate Bay (legality questionable). – 74  04:11, 21 February 2009 (UTC) edited 06:45, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

There are some relatively cheap disk cleaners out there as well. Computer DVD readers can be a little more picky about the first track than TV DVD players. Sometime if the first track has a scratch or bubble (I forget if it's the inside or outside) they don't want to read the rest of the disk. — Ched (talk) 13:40, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Yea, I've noticed this difference between computer DVD readers and units for TVs. I played a scratched movie DVD on my TV, and it was fine except for a few glitches. I tried playing it on my computer and it just kept trying to read the same bad spot over and over again until I ejected it. The problem seems to be that the computer DVD readers assume that it's data you're reading, where one bad bit means the program containing the bad bit might crash or do something else very bad. However, with a movie, a few bad bits are no big deal, we can just ignore them and move on. Computer DVD players need some way for us to tell them it's a movie or music, so it'll just keep going past any errors. StuRat (talk) 18:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The existence of Linux's sdparm --set=RRC=0 suggests that the ability to tune the hardware retry count is not unknown ;) And... there must be a way to put the drive into 'raw' mode too (I'm thinking cdda), so I'm inclined to think that its not really computer DVD readers assuming anything, but rather the devdrv/OS doing so. -- Fullstop (talk) 20:26, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

According to this webpage, obtaining RAW DVD data is somewhat complicated. – 74  21:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

All right, thanks for all your input... there were a few scratches on the disk, and that may have been it. They weren't particularly bad scratches to the eye, but that was likely it... it did work on a different computer, though, so I don't think it was the DRM, though. Unless it's specifically protected against desktops... --Alinnisawest,^{Dalek Empress} (extermination requests here) 02:29, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

whats the number one wikipedia article

by page view. and congrats for whoever created this new function!!!Troyster87 (talk) 06:16, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The top Wikipedia article is Main Page. --wj32 ^t/c 06:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

how bout the top ten?Troyster87 (talk) 11:08, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

and actually you're wrong Main Page says its #2=(Troyster87 (talk) 11:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Interesting feature, indeed. But what is the most viewed page? I tried Special:Watchlist, Special:RecentChanges and sex, but it was not one of them. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 12:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Main Page is correct. #1 is Special:Search, which isn't an article.

Also, Top 1000 ranking is as of August 2008, which skews things quite a a bit. "2008 Summer Olympics" ("#4"), Sarah Palin ("#7") and Michael Phelps ("#9") are not really high interest pages anymore. -- Fullstop (talk) 13:03, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, I replied Main Page but I don't consider that to be an article :) --wj32 ^t/c 22:34, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It changes all the time - see WP:POPULAR. Dendodge Talk^Contribs 22:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Skype wireless headsets

Hi, I'm looking for the cheapest way to get a wireless headset for Skype so I can wander about the room while talking. Wireless headsets that use RF frequency seem to be 2-3 times more expensive than buying a Bluetooth dongle and Bluetooth headset. Are Bluetooth devices easy to setup? Are they suitable for what I want do? A class 2 device looks suitable in terms of range. I have no experience with Bluetooth though. I found installing Skype easy but setting up a wifi modem hard to give you an idea of what I consider easy and hard. Thanks. 202.74.217.143 (talk) 10:39, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Bluetooth devices are generally very easy to set up. All it typically takes is that you need to press a button on the Bluetooth device -- in this case, the headset -- while pressing another one on the base station you plug into the computer in order to pair the two devices (so they know that they are to stay connected to each other). Unless there's a problem -- and if you buy a headset from a well-established manufacturer, there really isn't any reason to expect problems -- that's pretty much it. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 15:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm interested in this too. Can anyone recommend a model that would appeal to my extremely thrifty nature, but is still fully functional and practical? And is offered in Canada? (probably not a problem). NByz (talk) 19:55, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Oregon Trail on Which Exact Model of Apple II

Which exact model of the Apple ][ did this version of Oregon Trail first appear on?

File:OregonTrailScreenshot.png

Thanks for any help,

--Grey1618 (talk) 13:44, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I had to de-link the image. We can only use 'free' images here and not ones that we are using under "fair use". Anyway, as I recall it was available for the Apple IIc. I don't know if that helps you any. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:50, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

According to the The_Oregon_Trail_(video_game) article, the game was published in 1971. According to "Apple II series" they were first released in 1977. It seems to me that Oregon Trail would work with any Apple II. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 17:53, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I know the article says all the apple II's but that's for all versions of the game. I suspect the screenshot I've linked to is for the Apple IIc, but I wanted to try and confirm that. --Grey1618 (talk) 08:52, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Word 2003

I'm running Word 2003 on XP. I saved a wikipedia page on my local drive from MSIE and opened it in Word. Then I saved it as .doc. I have deleted the Wikipedia header and footer and left column data to just leave me with the article itself. For reasons I am unable to fathom, every line starts ~1.5 inches from the left margin (which itself is 3 cm from the paper edge). I cannot move the text over to the margin. Indents are all set to 0, there are no tabs, there don't seem to be any frames, the ruler at the top of the screen shows the line as being margin to margin and yet I can't make the text do that. Anyone got any ideas? (BTW the article I'm doing this to is Carcassonne (board game) in classic skin) -- SGBailey (talk) 21:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

It's hard to tell without a screenshot. But, in these situations, I tell Word to display formatting marks (CTRL + SHIFT + 8). I also display table borders (Table --> Show Gridlines) in case Word saved it as a table. If it is a table, then you would highlight and right-click on the cells you don't want and delete them. In the future, you might want to open up HTML documents in a web-page editor, like Microsoft Expression.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 21:38, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Does Ctrl+Shift+N help? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 21:42, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

The printable version (accessible by clicking 'Printable version' in the toolbox on the left) has much simpler formatting and no sidebar, so if all you need is the article you may have more luck saving this version and importing it into Word. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 22:10, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

See File:Word carcassonne.jpg. I am displaying formatting marks, there aren't any relevant ones that I can see. Table gridlines are hidden, when I showed them they were all internal to the infobox shown, so it isn't a table. The whole purpose of this was an experiment to see how easy it is to get wikipedia articles into a "formatted but non-html format" in Word, so other applications are not what I am wanting here (but thanks for the suggestion). I'm not sure what Ctrl+Shft+N does, it seemed to removed the bold from the first line. It left the text still in the middle of the that line. The suggestion of using the print version is sensible and I'll do that in future. I still want to understand why this text can't be moved to the left margin though. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:18, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

I just saved the entry inside Internet Explorer and opened it inside Word 2003. Then I saved it as a .doc file. The body of the entry is set correctly. The infobox is a table, but you can get text to wrap around it by moving your mouse to the upper-left corner of the box. A square with a cross should appear, and if you right-click on it and choose "Table Properties," you will be given the option to wrap the text around the table. It will also let you align the table. Also, move your cursor around and see if the center alignment button becomes selected on its own. Text and tables can be left-aligned by highlighting them and then clicking the left-align button.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 23:09, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Your best bet would be to strip the formatting using this trick: copy the text into notepad... copy it again from notepad and then into Word. Yes, there are easier ways, but that is quick and dirty. ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 23:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks but... I have now deleted everything except the title line which says "Carcassonne (board game)". I still can't make it move to the left margin. There must be some Word setting that is doing this, but I've no idea what it could be. I've looked everywhere in "Format styles", I've looked on toolbars. Word is often too clever for its own good. It is doing something here that must be turn-off-able. Bt what? -- SGBailey (talk) 00:44, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Is this just an issue with that document, or Word in general? If it's just that document, then I would start over and try converting it again. I think I went through the same steps an hour ago, and the alignment was fine. I saved it as a web page (complete). It was in Word 2003.--K;;m5m k;;m5m (talk) 01:19, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

I tried again and exactly the same thing has happened. I'll list the steps in detail:

• View Carcassonne (board game) in MSIE7 on XP using Classic skin. Save As Webpage complete.
• Open Word 2003. Open htm saved file. Get warning message "Missing file: ...php?title=User:SGBailey\standard.css&action=raw&ctype=text\css"
• Save as word document. Get warning message "Linked style sheets are only supported in web format files. By saving to this format, all links to style sheets will be lost."
• Highlight table above title line. Right click. Cut.
• Highlight little yellow box at start of title line. Delete.
• Place cursor at the start of the second line (that says "From Wikipedia"). Ctrl-Shft-End. Delete. Leaving only the title line.
• View Print layout which shows the problem.

There just must be a hidden word parameter doing this indent. -- SGBailey (talk) 08:59, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, or possibly a bug. However, I am unable to reproduce the problem in Vista and Word 2007. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 11:57, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

For anyone who cares, I think I've found a work around. Having cropped the head and tail I don't want, select the entire remaining document (Ctrl-A) copy it and paste it into a new blank document. It is now left margin aligned. -- SGBailey (talk) 09:22, 23 February 2009 (UTC)