Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 October 25

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October 25

NetBeans with BlueJ

I've been trying to add the BlueJ plugin to NetBeans but even though the plugin is installed nothing ever shows up in BlueJ view, even when I've opened a project in BlueJ. Anyone know how to fix it? Thanks: 02:00, 25 October 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.196.152 (talk)

Expandability of integrated graphics

My computer has 64MB integrated graphics, taken out of the RAM (1024MB physical RAM, 980MB available). Would it be possible to devote 128MB of the RAM to graphics, leaving me with 916MB RAM? Thanks, 110.175.208.144 (talk) 06:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Possibly. You'd need to go into your BIOS as that's where the option will be if your computer supports it (varies by motherboard whether you can change the RAM used or not). If there's no option then I'm afraid it's not possible. ZX81 ^talk 07:15, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

(ec):"It depends". Enter the BIOS when your PC starts up (typically by hitting DEL, F2 or F10 repeatedly as the PC starts, watch the screen closely for a clue). Typically there will be a setting which adjust how much memory is allocated to the graphics card. Different BIOSes will have it under different settings as well as call it many different names (on my desktop PC's Award BIOS it's called a rather cryptic "frame buffer" under the "advanced settings" menu). Let us know what brand of BIOS or model of motherboard you have and we can be more specific. Note that onboard graphics have an upper limit on how much RAM they can be allocated, yours might happen to be 64MB anyway. Zunaid 07:40, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

My BIOS is an "Award Software International, Inc. F6A, 6/10/2005 v2.3", and under "Display" it says "SiS 661FX" if that is useful to you. Thanks! 110.175.208.144 (talk) 07:35, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay. I assume you know how to get into your BIOS when your PC boots up. Have a look around your various menus for "frame buffer size", this is the setting you want to adjust. This setting will most likely be under the "advanced settings" menu (if your Award BIOS looks like mine, the advanced settings will be the second option on the main BIOS screen, just under the basic settings). If you don't find this or something similarly-named then please list your BIOS menu settings here. As a last resort you can go through The Definitive BIOS Optimization Guide which lists every BIOS setting in the known universe. You can cross-check your BIOS menu items against this list until you find one which adjusts the memory allocated to your onboard graphics. Zunaid 08:49, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Umm, the problem seems to be that the BIOS post lasts for a fraction of a second, and I can't see anything in there about which button to press... seeing as our BIOS brands are the same, which button do you press to go into the BIOS? Thanks! 110.175.208.144 (talk) 11:20, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

I press DEL. I'm note sure if that is BIOS specific or motherboard specific. Some other options I've seen include F1, F2, F8 or F10. Just bash away repeatedly at them as the PC starts up. (Note that some PC's would allocate one of these keys to network boot your PC instead of loading up the BIOS.) Alternatively some PCs require you to HOLD IN the CTRL key while booting. You can also try hitting the PAUSE key, which will pause the startup process enabling you to read the screen. If you don't come right with any of these try Googling your motherboard model number with some keywords such as "BIOS" etc., or try to find and download motherboard manual to find out. Incidentally, once you are in the BIOS there might be a setting that adjusts how long the "Press DEL to enter Setup..." prompt appears for. Adjust it to something human-friendly like 5 seconds. Also if your PC displays a huge Intel splash screen at startup instead of showing you what the BIOS is busy doing, you can disable that also in the BIOS somewhere. (You can also dismiss this screen instantaneously by pressing the ESC key.) Zunaid 14:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry for taking ages to respond, I stuffed something up in the BIOS and had to hunt around the house for the recovery DVD... And yes, I press DEL, and I put the integrated graphics up to 128MB. Thankyou alot for your help! 110.175.208.144 (talk) 04:17, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Capitalizing conventions in programming languages?

In programming, you capitalize the general (like a class name) and lowercase the specific (like an object name). Where did this convention originate from? Maybe SmallTalk?

It seems to be the opposite of human languages, where common nouns are lowercase and proper names are capitalized.--Sonjaaa (talk) 10:09, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I doubt you'll ever be able to do more than track the usage of these conventions. Emphasizing text in different ways is nothing new, and has been applied often without explanation throughout history, for reasons both logical and not. Didn't a lot of older computer terminals only support uppercase text? Might be a place to start. ¦ Reisio (talk) 11:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I want to note that "human languages" is a bit of a generalization—German capitalizes common nouns as well as proper names, for example. Capitalization reveals quite a lot of richness of possibility with "human languages". --Mr.98 (talk) 14:52, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

There's a discussion at CamelCase#Computer programming, but I can't vouch for its accuracy. -- BenRG (talk) 18:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it more or less comes about from the C language convention of uppercase for #define's constants and lowercase for variables and functions. Using camelcase instead of inserting underscores between words of a longer variable became more common as experience showed that it was at least as readable - and less typing. But when C++ came along and the names of structures and classes become more prevalent throughout the code, a third convention was needed. Starting the name with a capital letter seemed like the most natural way to distinguish them. However, where I work now, both variables and classes are camelcased with a leading capital letter. I don't know what to deduce from that! SteveBaker (talk) 20:53, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

32-bit apps on 64-bit operating systems

I must admit to having a considerable amount of confusion as to how it is that:

1. a 64-bit processor can run a 32-bit operating system (thus proving the back portability of the processor to 32-bit) yet
2. a 64-bit operating system is unable to run 32-bit applications without a special program (e.g., Alien).

I believe I have run 32-bit apps on 64-bit OSX for the PowerPC (I might be wrong?): when I've compiled programs in XCode, and it seemed to include 32-bit code for both the PowerPC and the x86 architectures, both in the same executable. Why can't Windows and/or Linux do the same thing? Magog the Ogre (talk) 13:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

The 64-bit Windowses are fully capable of running 32-bit applications. See WoW64. decltype (talk) 13:54, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

So is, basically, a 64-bit Linux - as long as 32-bit compatibility support is compiled into the kernel and needed libraries are installed in 32-bit versions. I use a 64-bit Gentoo Linux and I can easily install a 32-bit Firefox, for example. --dapete 14:58, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that Ubuntu is blah in terms of cross-platform support? Magog the Ogre (talk) 17:11, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

A good linux program will run on arm, powerpc, alpha, x86 and more with the same source code. Usually you wouldn't want the overhead of running a 32-bit program on amd64, you'd rather compile it for 64-bit. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 18:19, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure how 'alien' is used to run 32 bit applications on a 64 bit OS. It's a tool for converting packages between different packaging systems. For an x86_64 system (the 64 bit Intel chips, sometimes called EM64t), you can 32 bit programs just fine, however, these programs might be linked against other 32 bit libraries that you'd have to install before it worked. This isn't the OS's fault really, just the way the dynamic library loader works. -- JSBillings 18:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I was using a 32bit Firefox binary on my 64bit SuSE Linux box for ages without problems (because some of the plugins I wanted to use weren't available in 64 bit yet). It's certainly possible under Linux - and if you choose the right options when you install the OS, it's really painless. Since most programs are available in source code form - and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of Linux developers shifted to 64 bit years ago - you really shouldn't have problems getting 64 bit versions of pretty much everything these days. The slow rate of adoption of 64 bit software in the Windows world is horrifying though. SteveBaker (talk) 20:46, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Server Processor for a Desktop Computer

Hi! I'd like to have a fast computer, but I don't want to run games on it. I'm neither doing demanding graphics or video processing. What I'm doing is developing web applications with the Eclipse IDE where source code validation, compiling, deploying, and initialization of the application server are taking painfully long on my 1.5 GHz Core 2 Duo system, though it seems to have sufficient RAM. Are server processors like the Opteron and Xeon CPUs a good choice for such a situation? Or will a Core i7 bring equal or better improvement? TIA --95.223.207.169 (talk) 17:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Your computer should be good enough for such tasks. How much is this 'sufficient RAM' exactly? Is the application server local (on your PC)? Sandman30s (talk) 20:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, Sandman30s! I'm running Tomcat on the Same machine. I've 3 GB RAM, of which there is usually more than 1 GB free. --95.223.207.169 (talk) 21:28, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes that should be good enough to run any sort of IDE. I presume that you don't have a million lines of source code or something prohibitive. There's possibly something wrong with your setup, or Eclipse could be experiencing some kind of memory leak on compile. Impossible to say without more information, log files, timing, etc. Have you checked on the Eclipse forums? Did you try a different java IDE to see if there's any improvement? Did the entire process ever run fast then slow down upon adding a framework? How long does it take to compile? Then timing to deploy? Timing for app server startup? Does the code run fast after all of this? Etc. Sandman30s (talk) 15:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your help! I'm using quite a number of validators (for Java, HTML, JSP, JavaScript, XML an Resources). When I turn some of the off, I gain some speed. Building and server initialization take about twenty seconds each. --95.223.207.169 (talk) 16:34, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

If 20s each is too long to wait, then the i7 will definitely help on compile time. A modern hard drive with large cache (or SSD) will also help for the I/O. 4G RAM should be enough. Hey, it's your money, but I wouldn't spend that much on a development computer unless build time is critical to you financially in some way. All of these are presumptions based on the exclusion of some IDE or operating system problem eg. virus! Sandman30s (talk) 18:03, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Try these:

• RAID 0 (faster read, faster write, no space loss, reduced reliability)
• RAID 1 (faster read, faster write, 50% space loss, increased reliability)
• 10K/15K RPM hard drive to hold just critical data like OS, programs, intensive-use data, etc.

--Masatran (talk) 04:42, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

Tank you for your tips! A SSD, RAID or new HDD is a interesting idea, I wouldn't have thought of this as a potential bottleneck. I heard that with Jetty and Apache Maven you can change a application without having to do a full rebuild. If I can get this working, together with new hardware, it would solve my speed problems. --95.223.207.169 (talk) 14:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

How to view a .ram movie using unintrusive software?

The movie linked to from this http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2002/09/0923_020923_egypt.html page (near the headline) is a .ram file that my WinXp computer does not play automatically, although it appears that MediaPlayer will play it if I download MediaPlayer. I seem to remember that MediaPlayer is rather intrusive and takes over your computer to a certain extent. Is there any other way to play it? The .ram file is only a few bytes so I presume it links to something else. I already have GomPlayer, VLC and QuickTimeAlternative installed. Thanks 89.243.197.90 (talk) 18:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

.ram indicates a Real Audio movie. There's a Real Alternative program that should play it. --LarryMac | Talk 19:51, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Recovering lost Gmail/Skype passwords

1) About 6 years ago I had a gmail address similar to the one I already have. But I'd like to get back to the same address except I have forgotten the pass word. I did try some likely pass words but I just couldent access it. I was unable to maintain my account because I did not have a computer for some time.

2) It is almost the same problem with regard to my skype address. I did not have access to a computer for about 3 years and have forgotten the pass word. I'd be happier & prefer to have my old addresses with a new pass word as I feel it is more like me.

Please help.

Thanking you,

DT

This wasn't the case with email, but I've had accounts removed after I didn't use them for a certain period of time. The way to check this is to try to start a new account with the old address. If the accounts still exist, and you have absolutely no way of attaining the password, there's really no good way to get them back, short of hacking. Try the "forgot password" option, and see what they come up with. Good luck, Falconus^{p t c} 18:50, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Thank you Falconus. I did try your tip several times over the months but failed. Only after that I decided to seek help from Viki! I dont know how to Hack!!! DT

Most sites have a password reset link. This will either send a password to an alternate email (in the case of skype I believe) or it will ask you a security question to recover your password. If you haven't tried this yet, it's another good thing to try. As a note for the future: I find a good practice for passwords is to write them down and store them in a secure place (such as a safe where I keep other sensitive documents). I'm sure someone will disagree with me, but it has made me more confident in making more secure passwords so it can't be that bad for security :) 206.131.39.6 (talk) 17:08, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks again. I'll try it & if it works I'll let you know....... At least it will be worth a try I must say! Thanks again. DT

Nope. No luck. I guess the reason must be because I have changed my email address too. Tnx very much for trying to help me, DT