Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 May 23

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May 23

how can I get Google's pac-man home page after it's gone??

 Done

we love the google pac-man home page so much... will it be online somewhere else once it's gone off of google's homepage? thanks. 82.113.119.242 (talk) 01:12, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Usually they are posted at http://www.google.com/logos/ after being removed from the homepage.  7  01:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

If there have been any other Google logos that you have liked in the past, you can get them there too. There was also a Doodle for Google competition that they ran in the high schools here in the UK, and the entries and winners are on there too, which are also great. Chevymontecarlo 19:23, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Plus - if you go to http://www.google.com/pacman/ you can actually PLAY the pacman game. Click on "insert coin" below the search bar.  7  01:49, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Benefits of iWork

Should I get iWork instead of Office? It's cheaper and it seems to save in the same formats as Office. I am sick of Office and I would like other people's opinions on iWork. Does anybody here use this program suite? Chevymontecarlo 08:34, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I've not used the Mac version, but the Windows and Linux versions of OpenOffice.org are very good. It reads the same files, it does much the same job, and it's free. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 08:56, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I use OpenOffice on a regular basis, especially oocalc, but you do need to be aware that it is not perfectly compatible with Office. Excel spreadsheets are usually OK in oocalc if they're not too complicated and don't use obscure stuff. But Word docs often paginate differently when opened in oowrite. As for the OpenOffice version of PowerPoint (I forget what it's called; "impress" or something like that?), it tends to do a rather poor job of rendering PowerPoint presentations. As for the other direction (create a document in OpenOffice, open it in Office), I haven't done that much, so I'm not sure — usually I prefer to create documents in LaTeX. --Trovatore (talk) 08:20, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

They both have trial versions from the respective manufacturers' websites, these might help. Also, Office comes with more 'stuff' in the form of Entourage and Messenger, but it seems to be an old version of Messenger that you can get for free anyway, plus you probably already an e-Mail setup. OpenOffice.org is very good also, and has more 'stuff' than both of them due to database and drawing capabilities (but no mail). But give the trials a shot! 110.175.208.144 (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

If you use PivotTables, get Office. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:47, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

To the IP - I currently use Mail for my email, so Entourage would be kinda pointless to use. I am also a bit of an Apple fanboy...! Anyway, I have used OpenOffice before and several people have recommended it to me, so I think I might try that. Office is so expensive though... £100 although you do get Messenger and Entourage too I don't think I'll be getting Office. I just use it for the basic stuff and I know Word has a ton of features and options which I probably won't use. I will try the trial versions! Thank you everyone :) Chevymontecarlo 19:22, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I only used Pages and Keynote. Those are excellent in what they do. When I opened up Pages and started working in it, my first thought was "wow, a WYSIWYG word processor that does not cause pain". I've not used it much (I'm an hardcore Emacs and LaTeX person), but for what I used it, it is very good. Keynote is, I think, the best presentation program out in the wild. I have a somewhat older version (2008), where I sometimes miss some functions from Powerpoint. But on the other hand the Interface is so much slicker, it's well worth it. I also assume the latest version will have added some of those missing functionality. One caveat: Yes, in theory iWork supports MS office formats. But usually, you need to do some post-processing, as the import is not perfect. If work with MS office documents is important, I recommend NeoOffice, which is OpenOffice with a native Mac GUI. Again, I've only used Writer and Presenter, and found them at least as good as their MS counterparts, and very much more compatible with MS formats than iWork. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:53, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Hi Chevy, I'm a science student who has iWork. Firstly it might be worth popping by a Mac-specific forum, like those on the Macrumors or Macworld sites, since the number of people using iWork will be much greater than here. However, I've got to say that, on the whole, Pages is solid and a rival to Word: its layout capabilities are good, and in a sense it's a hybrid of Word and Publisher (not available on Macs). I haven't used Keynote, but have heard good things about it, but Numbers is a real turn-off. For example, you can only sort by column, not by row, so you find you have to end up transposing entire tables manually if you've started them off the wrong way. Cell reference detection in formulae doesn't always work/change correctly with cloning. It makes pretty pictures, but for technical purposes I would advise against its use. Brammers (talk) 11:09, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! I think I will ask on the [Forums] for more opinions if no one else here has had any experiences with these programs. Chevymontecarlo 15:17, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

If you plan for your files to be used for anything outside of your own computer, you might want to avoid the inexpensive programs like Pages or, on the PC, MS Publisher. They do not export with much elegance. I work in translation and we have to extract text from whichever program the customer has used. I can't count the number of times I have had to deal with files from customer who saved a penny by buying a bargain basement program only to spend a pound trying to get it to work together with something else. MS Word is so prevalent that third party developers have many tools for interacting with it. InDesign, in fact most of the Creative Suite, has a huge capacity for exports and imports. Meanwhile I have never received any documents, in ten years at this job, from any open source programs. If I did, I would probably have to convert it to Word format before attempting to process it for use in translation programs. So, you see, it depends on whether your files will ever have to work with other programs. If they do need to interact with other programs, the money spent on something widely-used could save money lost on quirky workarounds.snakespeare (talk) 16:02, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

For translation? Really? What's wrong with plain ASCII text? I would think any formatting beyond that would just get in the way. --Trovatore (talk) 22:59, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Song recognition

So everyone has that iPhone app that can recognize songs just by listening to them, but is there anything that can do that on a computer? Something that probably happens a billion times a day on Youtube in the comments: "What song was that at x:xx?" could be solved pretty easily with an "app". Nobody in the open source community has come up with something? 210.254.117.185 (talk) 11:00, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There are many applications that can do it. Try Tunatic. See Category:Acoustic_fingerprinting for more. There are lots of open source programs that can use acoustic fingerprinting (check the article), but I'm not sure if there are any open source services (e.g. that hook the technology up to a huge database of fingerprints) at the moment. It seems like MusicBrainz might fit the bill, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 12:37, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to point out that not everyone has "that iPhone app". I don't have a iPhone at all. 82.44.55.254 (talk) 12:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Be careful using generalizations around computer people. They think in 1s and 0s. Dismas|^(talk) 12:54, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Oh come on is it that hard to imagine that I'm joking? My phone can't even access Wikipedia, never mind recognize music! : P 210.254.117.185 (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC) Thanks for the links though! 210.254.117.185 (talk) 13:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

"iPad-like" real computer

Hi:

I am wondering if there is a real computer out there that takes the form-factor of an "iPad", falls within iPad's price range, but is a genuine computer in the sense that I could format its hard drive, install Windows/Linux, and do whatever I want with it. I know the tablet computer is close to what I seek, but it's too expensive and cluncky compared to the iPad.

Thanks,

--174.88.242.83 (talk) 14:52, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Well, you couldn't install Windows on it (as it uses ARM architecture) - but in all other respects the (hopefully) soon to arrive Adam tablet fits the bill - most sources I've been able to find (including Wikipedia) indicate you should be able to install Ubuntu or Chrome OS on it, and it will ship with a modified version of Android. The best thing about it - the dual mode Pixel Qi screen, which should last 160 hrs per charge in black and white ebook mode. They say they're aiming for 16 hrs of HD video playback in the full colour mode, but I'm not sure I believe them on that one (sounds too good to be true). Apparently there will be two versions - a basic one for ~$350 and one for ~$800. 17:45, 23 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.111.185.68 (talk)

They're out of date now, but I've been using a Viewsonic V1100 for years. It's quite nice, if rather underpowered. It uses a stylus instead of your fingers, but I prefer that anyway. APL (talk) 19:27, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There's also some ipad-like devices here and [1]. APL (talk) 16:00, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks so much!!! --174.88.241.71 (talk) 01:51, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Free web hosting

Excluding Google Pages, what are the option for serious looking reliable free hosting? Something which allows an address of the form www.mypage.freehosting.com?--Quest09 (talk) 17:10, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

host-ed.net, based in Germany, is one I know of off the top of my head. Even with a free webpage you get a domain.host-ed.net. A warning, though: a website I frequent that is freely hosted there has gone down several times in the past. Xenon54 (talk) 17:13, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

x10 hosting, sixserve (warning, this site has been marked as dangerous by Norton, but in fact it is one of the sites that have been hosted. ). --Tyw7  (☎ Contact me! • Contributions)   Changing the world one edit at a time! 06:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

qwerty keyboard in portable device

What has a qwerty keyboard, is portable, has WLAN and is not a BlackBerry, nor a Nokia, nor a netbook, nor costs several hundred dollars?--Quest09 (talk) 17:16, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Do you have any reason to suspect such a thing exists? Most everything costs several hundred dollars these days that has a QWERTY keyboard attached. I'm not sure why you ruled out netbooks—they're probably the cheapest option that has what you are looking for in it. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:54, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

iPad? It's not really a real keyboard, just one on a screen, but it's a QWERTY one at that. You gotta love Apple... I guess I am a fanboy... Chevymontecarlo 19:17, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

It costs well more than several hundred dollars... --Mr.98 (talk) 20:44, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Sorry! I need to read people's questions more thoroughly... Chevymontecarlo 15:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Open Pandora finally shipped their first units this week, but there's a waiting list for those. APL (talk) 19:25, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

A quick check of one of those sites lits the price at $330 which may fail the several hundred dollars criterion. I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say you could find several Chinese phones which may pass the above, particularly if you're willing to accept virtual keyboards. If you were actually planning to buy one of these, I don't know if I'd recommend it however. Nil Einne (talk) 21:02, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

There is an $86 Netbook for sale here. Terrible hardware specs, of course, and its ARM cpu runs WinCE not standard windows, but probably usable for web-browsing and email. APL (talk) 22:48, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

Second hand Palm Treo devices. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 09:13, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

That's a netbook which of course is against one of the OPs criteria. However I think we've highlighted the fact the criteria are unclear. What's a netbook? Does a laptop count as 'portable' and 'not a netbook' and if so how do you differentiate between a netbook and laptop? Is a tablet a 'netbook'? What is 'several hundred dollars', everyone is presuming the OP means US dollars but precisely what a rough cut off point should be is unclear. What's a 'QWERTY keyboard', for example is a virtual keyboard okay, is a typical smartphone keyboard okay or do you want a more complete QWERTY keyboard? Does the OP actually want to buy one, in which case where they live and other things are probably relevant whereas if we're talking about in the abstract, things like stuff on DealExtreme or even only really available in China (e.g. stuff you can find on TaoBao) would be relevant. Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Many smartphones offer what you want and can sometimes be had for "free" if you take a 18 or 24 month contract with the phone service provider. In particular, take a look at Comparison of smartphones and sort the table according to your preferred criteria. Astronaut (talk) 11:16, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Of course if you calculate how much you spend on that contract, it'll be several hundreds dollars, potentially even in to a thousand Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

how to get source code of comiled games

if we have files after compilation of source code in any language ,and name of language or software used is known ,then there is any way to get the sourse code from these compiled files ,although it may not be unique ,but how to get only one —Preceding unsigned comment added by True path finder (talk • contribs) 23:43, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

You can try to use a Decompiler suitable to the build environment. The result will often not be very good, in particular for games. Or you can ask the company who made the game to give you access to the original code. Some older games and game engines have been published freely, and there are also some open source games. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:53, 23 May 2010 (UTC)

(disclaimer: I've never used a decompiler before, so this is all theoretical) Decompilation can preserve the semantics (i.e., it'll do the same thing) of the machine code (after all, machine code is just another programming language). You should be able to decompile into any common language you want, regardless of what the program was originally written in. But it can't undo the information-destroying step of going from a high-level language to a low-level language. Not only will control flow (and data structures, etc.) be reconstructed into more awkward, less clear constructs, but all of the variable names and comments (and external documentation) which was vital for making sense of the code was no use to the machine and leaves no trace in the machine code.

Sometimes, even the original source code isn't enough to understand what's going on. Without really good documentation, or someone who knows the source code really well, a large project can be well-nigh incomprehensible. Paul (Stansifer) 01:42, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the software license agreement under which a program is sold often contains a clause prohibiting disassembling/decompiling. Even when it is not prohibited, the results are frequently of poor quality, especially if you don't pick the correct source language (e.g. using a C decomplier on a program originally written in Visual Basic). Asking the person/company who originally wrote the software is almost always the best option. -- 174.24.200.38 (talk) 01:47, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

A good optimizer will remove most of the evidence of what language a program was written in, so I thought that your C/Visual Basic example was incorrect, but looking at [2], it turns out that VB is not compiled to machine code at all, but to a bytecode that leaves a lot of information. It won't even be possible to use a machine-language decompiler on a program compiled to VB bytecode (you could do it to the VB bytecode interpreter, though...). So I should qualify my previous response: if the program was compiled to an expressive bytecode, it's possible for decompilation to produce something more coherent.

That link has some other interesting information. It looks like decompilation of even medium-sized projects from machine code is really hard, even ls can't be done automatically. Paul (Stansifer) 16:39, 24 May 2010 (UTC)

It depends on which version of VB you are talking about. VB5 and VB6 can compile to both p-code and native code. For bytecode, a good decompiler like the JAva Decompiler may produce something that resembles the original source code. decltype (talk) 01:45, 25 May 2010 (UTC)