Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 June 19

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June 19

SATA-to-USB bridge

Hello! I bought a SATA-to-USB bridge to connect my old laptop's SATA master drive (don't worry; I know the drive still works even though the laptop broke) to my desktop computer with the USB. When I connect the drive, Windows recognizes a "USB Mass Storage Device" has been connected, and states that the corresponding drivers have been successfully installed, but the drive doesn't show up in My Computer. I accessed the disk management utility, and it recognizes the drive but says it's uninitialized, but when I try to initialize it, I get an error: "Device is not ready." I tried this on two different computers (Vista and Win7) and two different SATA drives, and it didn't work. Am I missing a step? Does it have to do with the drive's configuration as a master drive? I wanted to use this bridge for emergencies when a computer breaks down and I need to access its hard drive. Would that be impossible anyway? Does Windows need to format a drive before it can mount it? The bridge was cheap, so I can't rule out the possibility that it's just crap, but the OS's ability to recognize it as a USB storage device gives me some hope. Thank you in advance for any comments or suggestions!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 02:06, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Why not just connect it to your desktop directly via SATA? The SATA interface is exactly the same on laptops as on desktops, it'd be faster and almost guaranteed to work. --antilived^{T | C | G} 08:07, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Does that drive shows up in disk management ? -Yyy (talk) 10:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can't connect it to one of my desktops because they only support the PATA interface. I have a PATA-to-SATA adapter, but I'm already using it in a permanent setup, so I bought this to try to save myself a lot of the hassle of opening desktops and disconnecting and reconnecting the adapter. Yes, disk management recognizes athe drive is connected, but it doesn't know what to do with it. I should also mention that the SATA drive is adequately powered from a wall AC converter that came with the bridge.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:52, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

It did not assign drive letter automatically? Does windows recognizes that drive as foematted? If do, then it should be possible to assign drive letter manually. (change drive letter and paths in right click menu on partition) -Yyy (talk) 07:27, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

visual land vl-875

I bought a Visual Land VL-875 media player in March. Now, it is having trouble connecting with my Windows OSs (xP and Vista). When i plug it into the USB port, it thinks the media player is charging. But when I used a friend's USB cord meant for a printer, it works! Any way to correct the computer connection problem? thanks for ur help :-)--LastLived 02:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

The VL-875's USB cable is probably out-of-order. Try replacing the USB Cable. If that still doesn't work, then try uninstalling then reinstalling the VL-875's drivers. Rocketshiporion (talk) 05:14, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Free natural voice text reader

Do you know where I can get a free natural voice text reader? I've already downloaded several text readers, but the only voice available is computer Sam which sounds very robotic. I'd appreciate it if someone could point me to a place where I can download for free (most important) a text reader which has natural-sounding voices that can be played (most important). Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.109.119.6 (talk) 04:02, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure I've ever heard a speech-synth program that I really thought was "natural". But a good place to start would be Wikipedia's rather incomplete Comparison of speech synthesizers APL (talk) 06:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Microsoft Sam is the default voice of Microsoft Windows XP. Microsoft Anna, the default voice of Windows Vista and Windows 7, is far improved. However, finding a free voice better than these is probably impossible. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 06:24, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Also, 99.9 % of all freeware text-to-speech applications available on the Internet for Microsoft Windows do not implement their own text-to-speech engine and voice, but rely on the Microsoft Speech API (SAPI), included in Windows. Hence, the only thing these programs actually do, is to call the Windows function SpVoice.Speak("This is a text"). You know, it is like all these freeware (and even shareware) web browsers that actually are nothing but alternative front-end GUIs of the Internet Explorer web browser. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 06:34, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

url

Resolved

I want to generate a list of the same url, each time appending a higher number onto the end. For example http://www.example.com/page/1 to http://www.example.com/page/100 and everything in between (http://www.example.com/page/2, http://www.example.com/page/3, etc). How can I do this automatically? 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:08, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Save the following function as a bookmark:

Code

javascript:(function(){%20function%20selectColor(i)%20{%20return%20["#fdc",%20"#cdf",%20"#bfd",%20"#dbf",%20"#fbd"]%20[i%5];%20}%20var%20u=location.href,%20ul=u.length;%20var%20tparts=[""],%20zparts=[],%20nz=0;%20function%20isDigit(c)%20{%20return%20("0"%20<=%20c%20&&%20c%20<=%20"9");%20}%20for%20(i=0;%20i<ul;%20)%20{%20for%20(;%20i<ul%20&&%20!isDigit(u.charAt(i));%20++i)%20tparts[nz]%20+=%20u.charAt(i);%20if(i<ul)%20{%20zparts[nz]="";%20for%20(;%20i<ul%20&&%20isDigit(u.charAt(i));%20++i)%20zparts[nz]%20+=%20u.charAt(i);%20tparts[nz+1]="";%20++nz;%20}%20}%20if(!nz)%20{%20alert("No%20numbers%20in%20URL.");%20return;%20}%20D=window.open().document;%20D.write();%20D.close();%20function%20a(n)%20{%20A(D.body,n);%20}%20function%20A(p,n)%20{%20p.appendChild(n);%20}%20function%20E(q)%20{%20return%20D.createElement(q);%20}%20function%20cT(t)%20{%20return%20D.createTextNode(t)%20}%20function%20cBR()%20{%20return%20E("br");%20}%20function%20cS(t,ci)%20{%20var%20s=E("span");%20s.style.background=selectColor(ci);%20s.style.fontWeight="bold";%20A(s,%20cT(t));%20return%20s;%20}%20function%20cTB(v,oc)%20{%20var%20b=E("input");%20b.size=6;%20b.value=v;%20b.addEventListener("input",%20oc,%20false);%20return%20b;%20}%20function%20cCB(t,oc)%20{%20var%20L=E("label"),%20b=E("input");%20b.type="checkbox";%20b.checked=true;%20b.onchange=oc;%20A(L,b);%20A(L,cT(t));%20return%20L;%20}%20function%20cL(nz,tparts,zparts)%20{%20var%20L=E("a");%20var%20u="";%20for%20(var%20i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20A(L,cT(tparts[i]));%20A(L,cS(zparts[i],%20i));%20u%20+=%20tparts[i]+zparts[i];%20}%20A(L,cT(tparts[nz]));%20u%20+=%20tparts[nz];%20L.href=u;%20L.target="_blank";%20return%20L;%20}%20a(cT("Original%20URL:%20"));%20a(cBR());%20a(cL(nz,%20tparts,%20zparts));%20a(cBR());%20a(cBR());%20var%20fromBoxes=[],%20toBoxes=[],%20padChecks=[];%20for%20(i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20a(cT("Run%20"));%20a(cS(zparts[i],%20i));%20a(cT("%20from%20"));%20a(fromBoxes[i]=cTB(zparts[i],%20listURLs));%20a(cT("%20to%20"));%20a(toBoxes[i]=cTB(zparts[i],%20listURLs));%20a(cT("%20("));%20a(j=cCB("%20Pad%20with%20zeroes%20to%20maintain%20length",%20listURLs));%20padChecks[i]=j.childNodes[0];%20a(cT(")"));%20a(cBR());%20}%20a(cBR());%20resultDiv=E("div");%20a(resultDiv);%20listURLs();%20function%20listURLs()%20{%20while%20(resultDiv.childNodes.length)%20resultDiv.removeChild(resultDiv.childNodes[0]);%20var%20lows=[],%20highs=[];%20for%20(i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20lows[i]=parseInt(fromBoxes[i].value,%2010);%20highs[i]=parseInt(toBoxes[i].value,%2010);%20if(highs[i]-lows[i]%20>%20999)%20{%20A(resultDiv,%20cT("Too%20many"));%20return;%20}%20}%20urls=[];%20function%20cb(sta)%20{%20var%20newzparts=[];%20for%20(var%20i=0;%20i<nz;%20++i)%20{%20var%20z=""+sta[i];%20if(padChecks[i].checked)%20while%20(z.length%20<%20zparts[i].length)%20z="0"+z;%20newzparts[i]=z;%20}%20A(resultDiv,%20cL(nz,%20tparts,%20newzparts));%20A(resultDiv,%20cBR());%20}%20fors(nz,%20cb,%20lows,%20highs);%20}%20function%20fors%20(n,%20callback,%20lows,%20highs)%20{%20function%20fors_inner%20(states,%20v)%20{%20if(v%20>=%20n)%20callback(states);%20else%20for%20(states[v]=lows[v];%20states[v]%20<=%20highs[v];%20++(states[v]))%20fors_inner(states,%20v+1);%20}%20fors_inner%20([],%200);%20}%20})()

Navigate to the first page you want, click on the bookmark and it will allow you set the initial and final value of your page range. I use this all the time when downloading a list of sequentially numbered pictures for example. If you JUST want to generate the list though, doing it in Excel is easy. Put the standard part of the URL in one column and copy-paste it all the way down; put the numbers sequentially in the next column, then use the CONCATENATE command to combine the 2 into a third column. Or wait for someone to post a Perl script to do this in one line in the next few minutes :) Zunaid 10:17, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That's great, it generates a nice list which is just what I needed. Thanks! 82.43.90.93 (talk) 10:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

How to translate a Word Document into forum code

Hi. I have an extremely long document that I want to post onto a forum. The document uses bold, italics, strikethrough, and underline however, which normally don't show up when copy-pasted into a forum text box.

I've been attempting to find a way to use Word's find/replace feature to add [b][/b], [i][/i], [s][/s], or [u][/u] around the necessary parts, but I haven't had much luck. Is there an easy way to do this, with or without the Find/replace feature? --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 10:57, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

You could paste it into a forum with a WYSIWYG editor, then turn off javascript and preview it. It should then show the code. Findstr (talk) 13:13, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Save as html, open in a decent text editor like Notepad+ or Emacs, trim off the opening verbiage, and replace the html bold, underline, italic tags with their (very similar) forumcode equivalents. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 13:55, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Server Requirements

   Now I am looking for a server which meets all of the following requirements; I have considered major brands such as HP, IBM and Dell; but I have not been able to find anything similar. Maybe someone here has come across such a machine...

1. Has eight processor sockets, and is able to accomodate eight-core Intel 6500 or 7500 series processors.
2. Accomodates one terabyte of DDR3 ECC RAM running at atleast 800MHz, and preferably 1066MHz or 1333MHz.
3. Has two internal 2.5" drive bays, and is able to boot from a RAID 1 SATA SSD array.
4. Has atleast three, and preferably four, PCIe 2.0 x8 Slots.
5. Consumes no more than two to three units of rackspace.
6. Has a depth not exceeding 100 centimeters (39.37 inches).
7. Has a motherboard which supports Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2.
8. Is entirely compatible with the Dell PERC H800 External RAID Controller and Dell MD1200 DAS.

   In my (perhaps hasty) enthusiasm, I have already placed an order ten days ago for a Dell MD1200 DAS to be configured with twelve 2TB 3.5" 7200rpm NL-SAS 6Gb/s HHDs in a RAID 6 array; before actually finding a compatible and suitable server, or deciding confirmedly what hypervisor I'm going to run on the server. So here I am again... Thanks in advance. Rocketshiporion (talk) 11:15, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

You should really be talking your your account reps at those companies. Unless they're totally worthless, like ours. --mboverload@ 07:46, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Create a Wikipedia Bot with no experience

Hello, I'm looking for someone that is willing to teach me( or tell me) how to create a Wikipedia bot. Is this possible? Sir Stupidity (talk) 11:21, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

User:Chzz might be able to help you. They use bots a lot. Of course there are other people too but that's the person I thought of first. You might want to ask at the WP:HD instead, someone might be able to point you to a help page or something. Chevymontecarlo 11:28, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi there, Sir Stupidity.

See also: Wikipedia:Creating a bot

Thanks for you interest and enthusiasm.

A lot of new users get interested in Wikipedia bot, and I'm not really sure why. Bots mostly perform very boring repetitive tasks. They require considerable programming expertise, and they need approval - it's not easy. We already have bots to do most things, so if you have something that needs doing, it is much easier to ask an existing bot to do it, than to write a new one.

Before you start to create one, you need two things;

1. Computer programming skills. This part is not within the scope of "Wikipedia help" - if you do not know how to write computer programs, then look around for tutorials either online, or in books, or college/university courses.
   
2. A fairly high level of experience with Wikipedia; as you only appear to have made 60 edits, and created this account a week ago, I suggest waiting a while.

Then, you could try out auto-wiki browser, which a semi-automatic editor - you need around 500 mainspace edits, and a good editing history, to use it. Use of AWB helps to learn about some of the many complications in automated editing.

Beyond that, you should carefully study the Wikipedia:Bot policy, and get involved in the Bot Approvals Group - watch what happens there, with other requests for approval. And, study the code of existing bots to see how they work.

Feel free to ask me any further questions on User talk:Chzz, or even better, talk to helpers live, with this. Chzz  ►  14:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

assign JSON response to variable

The twitter API (the JSON version) returns the response in the form of an array. Just like it's supposed to. If I just say,

<script lang="javascript" src="http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.json"/>

then it just executes the object, and I've got an object floating around without any way to access it. How would I assign the response to a variable so I can manipulate it? Thanks, 74.177.0.70 (talk) 14:31, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

I will mention that I have already tried the callback parameter (http://twitter.com/statuses/public_timeline.json?callback=onCallback, where onCallback is a function that is called when the response comes back), and it appears to not work. 74.177.0.70 (talk) 14:48, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Call eval on the JSON text to assign it to a variable. Ale_Jrb^talk 14:50, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

i.e. if you're using onCallback as your handler, Twitter will call onCallback ( 'JSON text' ); - as your callback function, have function onCallback ( text ) { var data = eval ( text ); } and so on. Don't forget that you should make sure you sanitise anything you request from an external server before calling eval on it. Ale_Jrb^talk 14:53, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Or, if you're only targetting modern browsers, you can use the native JSON.parse - I think most JavaScript libraries will automatically use the native function if available. Firefox example is here. Ale_Jrb^talk 14:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

(same person, different ip) Thank you. I forgot to turn it into an object. I was just trying to manipulate the raw text. This should fix it. 75.66.64.192 (talk) 16:51, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, screw it, I'll just log in. I am the same person as the two IPs. It still isn't working (using eval or JSON.parse), so I placed an alert in the callback function to see if it was even being called, and it isn't. It appears that twitter isn't calling the callback function when it returns the text.

Here's the full code of the page that I'm referring to, html and all. For simplicity's sake, I've only decided to use the "source" attribute of each tweet, and I've limited it to 20 tweets. I've placed several alerts in there just to check if it's working (which it isn't). The jsr_class.js is a pretty straightforward application of a dynamic script tag, explained here. Any help on what's going wrong? [flaminglawyer] 17:30, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Why won't back button work?

Actually, there was no reason I needed to use it, as I didn't need to go back to anywhere in particular. But I've edited Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which is 158,000 bytes, several times. Once, when I tried to go back, the back button was no longer blue and I couldn't.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 17:31, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Is your browser configured to not save internet history? Arloz (talk) 18:42, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

No, that's not it. Ordinarily, it will go back. I've asked this question before. It used to happen with very large emails I sent myself. Before I had a computer that was the only way to store information from web sites I thought wouldn't be accessible after a period of time.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:23, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Photoshop Tutorials

Could anyone recommend an excellent site for teaching oneself photoshop, mostly filling in gaps with the basics then perhaps building up to more complicated things. But rather than just googling or youtubing CS4 tutorials and coming up with a list of stuff that simply shows you how to make a certain type of photo (e.g. change this ordinary photo into a dreamy portrait, or turn this face in to a character from avatar, both of which were proposed fairly highly on the results lists I found, but which just show you the settings you need to change, as opposed to showing you how the different settings can be used more generally to create specific effects) I would like a good site that teaches you the elements of photoshop and the different ways to use them, e.g. mastering layers, certain filters, layer modes, smart objects, etc.

If there is one also that will allow you access to the images in the tutorials so you can guide yourself step by step that may be helpful.

Any suggestions?

86.140.210.188 (talk) 18:58, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

http://tv.adobe.com/show/learn-photoshop-cs4/. There are other tutorials on Photoshop (and all Adobe products) scattered around tv.adobe.com.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 21:22, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

eBay weird

I've been trying to bid on things on eBay, and literally every time I've bid, someone else bids within the 10 seconds or so that it takes to confirm a bid. I get that this would happen if the auctions were nearing the end, and I know that would happen if there was a bidding war, but literally, there's like 8 days left on some items, no bids, and then suddenly someone's "happened" to bid right before me. What gives? It's literally mechanical, this. It cannot be just coincidence that every item I go to, this happens. -- 99.228.45.121 (talk) 21:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you understand the basics of eBay's bidding system? Each person bids an amount that is the maximum they are willing to bid at that time. Another person comes along and bids their maximum. But the amount shown as the "current bid" is the minimum amount up to anyone's maximum that is greater than the previous maximum bid.

If I come on to a piece which current bid is $1, and I bid $5, and there are no other bids at that time, the current bid is liable to show up as $1.50 or $2. Then you come along and bid $4; the current bid is going to jump to $4.50 or $5; more than your bid, and do it automatically because of what I put as my maximum when I bid in the first place.

rc (talk) 22:38, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes. But that's only a partial solution. For many items (ie:items that don't have a firmly established, precise market price) there is no magical price where I would happily pay that price, but refuse to pay fifty cents more.

In fact, some people would argue that it is the very essence of an auction: A bidding war. It's not really a bidding war if there's no back-and-forth. Your options are to either bid reasonably, secure in the knowledge that someone will bid a nickle more three seconds before the auction ends, or to bid too much, and hope that no one calls your bluff. APL (talk) 03:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Yep, what rc says is right - it's explained at this page - http://pages.ebay.com/help/buy/automatic-bidding.html 83.100.252.174 (talk) 22:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

There are two possibilities. One is automatic bidding—but in that case, it'll tell you immediately that you're not the highest bidder, yet. The other is using a piece of software, known as auction sniping. --Mr.98 (talk) 07:16, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

At the risk of giving away a secret, my preferred strategy is to avoid round numbers at all costs. Many times I have won auctions by bidding $50.55 that I would lost in the final seconds if I had bid an even $50.00 APL (talk) 03:05, 21 June 2010 (UTC)