Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 July 5

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July 5

How do i play the games stored on the hard drive of my chipped Xbox?

i have a chipped Xbox with several games on the hard drive, however, when i select them, the only options i get are; 'delete', and 'copy'. how do i play these games? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.28.43.197 (talk) 05:35, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

You're probably not going to get any information on how to play illegally copied games here, sorry. Exxolon (talk)

For what it's worth there is nothing inherently illegal about keeping games on the hard drive of an Xbox, (so long as you are in legal possession of the original media and hence a licensed user.) The illegal part is actually using the modified firmware that is required to coerce the Xbox into loading the alternative operating system and launching the games. The original code is of course copyrighted, and the modified code itself is not only an unlicensed derivative work but a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. So no, it's not quite as black and white as "you are stealing games", it's more like "Microsoft would really rather you not do that so here are a bunch more laws to choke on". --Jmeden2000 (talk) 17:55, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Play speed

What media player would enable me to play music and video files at a faster speed than normal, but also let me adjust the speed? All the increase speed functions I've seen so far go too fast and distort the sound too much, and don't have precise settings, it's either "fast" or "slow" etc. -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 08:58, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

In Windows Media Player 11 (maybe 9 onwards) - select enhancements, play speed, it's fiddly to adjust though.83.100.250.79 (talk) 14:28, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

See [1]

Anything other than WMP? -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 21:38, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

vlc. --194.197.235.36 (talk) 22:41, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think you can speed up sound in VLC... Theleftorium 23:11, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

BSplayer has a playback rate feature, but I don't quite know what you mean by "distort too much" - if you change the rate of playback, the sound has to be distorted. Sandman30s (talk) 11:17, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll check that out. I mean that when the sound is speeded up it'll start to sound like chipmunks and I was hoping there would be a player that could compensate and reduce the pitch or something to make it sound more normal -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.128 (talk) 11:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

chipmunks...lol. I was going to talk about laughing gas. Yeah, BSplayer's playback rate feature makes the original sound like a chipmunk or Darth Vader... I was going to suggest DJ software but then these don't typically handle video. Sandman30s (talk) 12:57, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably means changing the tempo without changing pitch. I don't know about BSplayer but I'd guess changing the playback rate means the same thing. A machine that can do that is a great addition when playing dance music to cater for the skill of the dancers or the moves they're making, just a small adjustment up or down can make a big difference in the enjoyment. What happens is the fourier spectrum of the music is taken then converted back with a scale difference in frequency. and It involves distortion of course but mainly of phase which the ear can't detect. Dmcq (talk) 11:41, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

FOund an article about it: Audio timescale-pitch modification Dmcq (talk) 11:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Just found out the latest release of VLC has the feature now! Fuck yeah! --

Does it really? It looked to me like they just had a way of speeding or slowing everything by some factor other than 2 but the pitch would still go up or down, i.e. you'd still get chipmunks if you sped it up. That would be for compensating for playback problems or where the user had overclocked everything on their pc without the software knowing. Dmcq (talk) 10:01, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Jsp custom tags

I need to have a custom tag that has access to its inner elements. Actually I want a tag to be used instead of the HTML select. I would like to keep the structure of the inner option-tags unchanged but be able to read them, look at their attributes and modify the final output according to the specials of my application. I have lots of ideas for workarounds but I would like to do it the obvious way: in the doStartTag-method read the inner elements in a DOM-like way and then do what is necessary.

I have searched the net for two days now. Is there really no way to access the body elements of my tag? (I haven't tried evaluating the bodyContent into a string, write a parser and retrieve the object this way, I still hope there is a more straight approach.) 95.112.189.234 (talk) 12:19, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

running a c-programm

i have used turbo c for running my routine c-programms,now i have studied microcontrollers as well.in microcontrollers we burn the programm first and then controller runs the code picking instructions 1 by 1 from its rom.but what happens when i run a c-programm on turbo c.is it first saved (burnt)then its processed?i mean running of c-programm on pc involves how many stages! 119.152.53.191 (talk) 18:37, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the answer that you're looking for is that the Turbo C compiler compiles the C source code into object code, and saves it to a file on the hard disk, called perhaps a.exe. Then when you use Windows or DOS to run a.exe, the a.exe file is loaded into RAM and then the processor picks instructions 1 by 1 from RAM and executes them. Does that answer the question? Tempshill (talk) 18:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

A crucial distinction is that most microcontrollers are hard-wired to begin running the executable stored at a particular location in memory. As soon as the system turns on, the microcontroller automatically jumps (sets the program counter) to that memory location and begins executioin. While PC microprocessors typically have similar hardwired logic for boot-up, you rarely design your programs like this. Instead, your system is already alive and running, with an operating system. The operating system handles the low-level tasks like loading the executable and jumping to its location; Windows and Linux and most other modern systems also use multitasking (which is a big difference from a simple microcontroller code, though you can multitask on any CPU or microcontroller). You interface with the operating system, and when you are ready to run a program, you request the operating system to load the executable and jump execution to it. (You might perform this request by typing the command into a shell or terminal; or by clicking on an icon; but ultimately, you are asking the operating system to do the program-load for you). Depending on your operating system, the method of that program load can vary. On Windows, the program is loaded into virtual memory, and then the operating system assigns a hardware thread to it (or emulates a hardware thread with software). This allows the program to run "simultaneously" while the operating system is still alive and in control of the CPU. If your program finishes successfully, (or if it crashes or does something that is not permitted), the operating system should resume control. Because Windows has an interruptable time-sharing kernel, you can multi-task - meaning that your executable program can run side-by-side with other programs that also need the CPU. The exact method for this type of scheduling is very complicated, but it boils down to this: at all times, one program is running (the operating system's thread scheduler or "Process Manager" on Windows). This program is a great big while(true) loop. It runs as long as the computer has power; and it checks if there is any work for the CPU to do. Your program, as well as any other programs or system tasks, get allocated a time slot, and are allowed to run for a little bit, and then are stopped. Their intermediate state is saved somewhere (usually in main memory in the kernel's thread table). The next program that has work to do is re-loaded, including any half-finished work from the last time it was allowed to run. This continues until all programs finish, and/or the computer is powered down. Nimur (talk) 19:43, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

WiFi, iPod and Email

I will be creating a temporary email for travelling use to send emails on public Wifis because i don't want hackers potentially sniffing and stealing my password to my real email. I will be using an iPod Touch and its default Mail application to check my email. With the application, my email and password is stored and each time I start the application, it logs into my email and retrieves all my mail. My question is, if the iPod does this, will this be the same as entering my email and password onto gmail or Hotmail in terms of being sniffed by a hacker? Hence, does this mean i should "remove" my real e-mail addresses from the Mail application on my iPod and leave only my temporary email account turned on? Acceptable (talk) 19:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

If you use gmail access over IMAP (I forget about POP3, but it's probably the same) the whole thing goes on secure sockets. I've used gmail+imap+iPodTouch quite a bit, and it's a nice combination, and pretty safe. I'd consider not entering your password in the config screen, which makes it ask for the password when you connect - that way, if your iPodTouch is lost in darkest Peru, someone can't (easily) know your password or read your email. 87.113.26.43 (talk) 19:48, 5 July 2009 (UTC)