Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 26

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August 26

Array of strings

Hello folks, I am trying to put words into an array of strings as pointer arrays inside a loop. However, when I tried to display one of the string, turns out that every word in the array is the last word in the file. I did malloc but it didn't help. I'm lost in confusion now. Thanks. 60.240.161.162 (talk) 00:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

void loadData()
{
	char line[200];
	char *word;
	char *stoppedWords[500];
	FILE *bookPointer;
	FILE *stoppedPointer;
	int test = 0;

	bookPointer = fopen(BOOK_FILE, "r");
	stoppedPointer = fopen(STOPPED_FILE, "r");
	
	fgets(line, 100, stoppedPointer);
	
	while(test < 477)
	{
		word = strtok(line, "\n");
		fgets(line, 100, stoppedPointer);
		
		stoppedWords[test] = malloc(sizeof(word));
		
		if(stoppedWords[test] == NULL)
		{
		   printf("There is a fatal error. Exiting.\n");
		   exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
		}
		else
		   stoppedWords[test] = word;
		
		test++;
	}
	printf("\n\n");
	printf("%s\n\n", stoppedWords[0]);
	
	fclose(bookPointer);
	fclose(stoppedPointer);
}

Most importantly, it looks like you're using strtok wrongly. See [1]. You should be using NULL instead of line as the first parameter after you first access that line, and keep doing so until you pull up the next line. strtok will remember which string you're dealing with; once it's cleared out the string, it'll return NULL, which is your end-of-line condition. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Most importantly (the way I see it), this code is written by someone who thinks C has strings. Strings are an illusion in C. You can't copy a string with the = operator, and you can't get the length of a string with the sizeof operator. You need strcpy(stoppedWords[test], word); instead of stoppedWords[test] = word; and malloc(strlen(word)+1) instead of malloc(sizeof(word)). The +1 is to make room for the terminating \0.

The strtok sure is bizarre though. I can't figure out what it's trying to do. All it's really doing is zeroing out the \n in a string which is about to be overwritten by an fgets anyway. Then there's the fact that 2 files are opened, but only one of them is used. Very confusing. And I'm not sure what the input file format is. One word per line? Multiple words separated by whitespace? That might explain why strtok showed up. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 08:10, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And note, of course, that malloc(sizeof(word)) in this case will allocate whatever the size of the pointer is (4 bytes nowadays)? So you're scribbling somewhere on the heap, which may or may not mess you up. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 17:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Notice how the other bug prevented the first bug from causing memory corruption: the wrong amount of memory was allocated, and then it was leaked. Never used. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Often the hardest bugs to find -- those where one error is masking another error. Though I must say, malloc(sizeof(some pointer)) is probably among the most common errors among beginning C/C++ programmers. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 16:48, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Mac Mail

I just tried to configure my Mac Mail to receive Gmail, but I seem to have made a mistake in the settings. Is it possible to modify the settings or even delete the account so I can start again?--ChokinBako (talk) 00:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you mean the program in OS X called "Mail" (otherwise known as Mail.app)? If so, then just go to Mail > Preferences > Accounts. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Probably that, yes. You can also use "Prefs" to disable it temporarily, Gmail help has instructions on how to set it up, you could go over it again or try a different protocol. If you use POP, try IMAP, or vice versa. My name is anetta (talk) 09:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

AMS Runtime

Ok, I tried to extract a file on my computer, and it gives me an error that says AMS Runtime Error: Extract Error 9. What does that mean? What can I do about it to make the file work? And I'm positive that the file itself is fine and not corrupt or anything. Please help!

--Screwball23 talk 00:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Weird spam message

I recently got an e-mail message consisting only of the words:

limpkin turbidity superlunary? dragon, cervantes ponder. sealant superlunary visionary visionary superlunary deaf, tradesman schlesinger compositor lecher calculable rightward.

caine hove dragon

appellate galway schottky? hove, insoluble collimate. blowback schlesinger denture examination attributive schlesinger, limpkin compositor photolysis backbone lecher ponder.

dragon assume selectmen

examination activation galway? paprika, pagoda limpkin.

scripture activation.

It's obviously some sort of spam, but I have no idea how it sells anything? Anyone have any guesses? Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 01:07, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

FWIW, this sort of use of random words to evade spamfilters is called Bayesian poisoning. I can't help you with the point of the message. Algebraist 01:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe they're trying to send spamfilter-evading messages to random addresses to tell which ones are active (by way of the fact that your e-mail is returned if you send it to a nonexistent address) and then spam the ones that work. Does that seem likely? Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 01:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more effective to just send those addresses spam in the first place, if that were the ultimate goal anyways? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Looks like a Markov chain, incidentally. (As an aside, I suppose these sorts of things are our modern era's numbers stations, in a way.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What makes you think it's Markov specifically? Algebraist 02:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't really look like that, it's pretty dang random. I'd bet on bayesian poisoning over anything else. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What's the spammer's purpose? Presumably this is not intended for display, and what you're supposed to see is instead some graphic. Either you've set up your browser to ignore or reject the graphic, or the spammer is too clueless even to succeed in attaching or linking to it. -- Hoary (talk) 09:34, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps you have a secret admirer wooing you with absurdist poetry? --Sean 12:33, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For sure it's a spammer. The idea is that the software that detects what is spam and what is email that you actually want to read uses statistical measurements of word usage in the mail and it "learns" the patterns that you, personally, like to read and the patterns you reject. (This is the "bayesian" thing). By sending lots of gibberish - or long sections of non-advertising (like long quotations from books and such) they hope to drown out the statistical analysis of spam and non-spam and thereby make bayesian spam detection work less well. If you spam filter has learned that any email containing the words "guaranteed", "v*agra" and "buy" is 85% likely to be spam - then now it also has to knows that some spam contains "limpkin turbidity superlunary" and that mail that DOESN'T contain those words is therefore LESS likely to be spam. This generally reduces the filter certainty when it sees: "buy guaranteed v*gra!". So sending you occasional chunks of gibberish makes it easier for subsequent spam to make it past your detectors. SteveBaker (talk) 17:41, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This doesn't work against a good spam filter, though: it'll just learn "limpkin", "turbidity", and "superlunary" as additional spam words, without reducing the spam probability of "guaranteed", "v*agra" and "buy". --Carnildo (talk) 21:49, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The idea could be to make it falsely detect mail containing those words as spam, thus making more likely to look at your spam e-mail occasionally (and presumably buy v*gra). Bart133 ^{t c @ How's my driving?} 23:06, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

For that, wouldn't you want more words likely to appear in genuine emails? Algebraist 23:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Constant freezing when accessing wikipedia using Windows 2000 IE 6

We constantly encounter issues with page freezing when accessing Wikipedia (English) using Windows 2000 workstations and IE6. Please let me know if this has been escalated before? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.193.1.6 (talk) 01:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

This board is more for general computer-related questions than Wikipedia tech support. A better board would be Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

WAIT. I have the same problem with IE6. --mboverload@ 02:42, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I've moved the question over to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Constant_freezing_when_accessing_wikipedia_using_Windows_2000_IE_6, hopefully get some more eyes on it. Probably best to move discussion over there just to centralize it. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 02:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Apache/Windows

Running Apache on Windows, how can I set up a scheduled check that the service is running, and if it isn't, start it? The service has a tendency to crash, thanks probably to modperl and a perl script I'm running (this is a personal server). I'm envisioning a scheduled batch file that checks the output of "httpd -k start", but I've never done batch-file "scripting" (was always under the impression that it is pretty limited in capability). Thanks. Whiskeydog (talk) 02:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Batch file scripting will make you cry; stay well away. Since you've already got Perl installed, the following program should do it:

#!/usr/bin/perl -w
for (;;) {
    system("httpd -k start");  # assuming this is harmless if it's already started
    sleep 60;
}

The "-k start" thing is Windows-only, so I don't really know what it does, but that's the idea. --Sean 11:56, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll try that. Yes, the command is harmless if already running. And to imagine I never thought of using Perl. "This is your brain. This is your brain on Windows."  :) The Apache service itself can be configured at the Windows OS level to take certain actions upon service "failure", but I don't think it's seeing what happens when my installation crashes as a "failure". Whiskeydog (talk) 22:45, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

backing up the system

Hi - I've received a microsoft XP service pack, and it's asking me to back up the system - forgive my naivete, but I know how to back up files, but not the system. Can anyone tell me how, please?

Ta,

Adambrowne666 (talk) 03:03, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

What size of stuff do you want to backup, and do you have a DVD Drive to burn to, or external HD to put them on? Or you could use an online backup.My name is anetta (talk) 09:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

thanks, but I don't know the answers to those questions: I don't even know what they mean by 'system' - what system am I to back up? Adambrowne666 (talk) 09:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well it's just another way of saying there is a very very small chance this service pack with completely screw up your computer and you may need to format it and start from scratch. In my case, and the vast majority of others, the service pack goes in fine, but just in case, so you can't say you weren't warned, you should have back ups of everything. So system means windows, your files, plus any other applications you use, pretty much everything you'd need to get it back to how it is if your computer was completely wiped. Vespine (talk) 11:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

OK, KISS - keep it simple stupid. Are you using Windows XP?78.144.131.106 (talk) 11:54, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well i hope so, otherwise the microsoft xp service pack isn't going to do them much good ;) Vespine (talk) 11:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, we do need to keep it simple; like all autodidacts, I have big holes in my knowledge - it is XP, as you say, Vespine. Adambrowne666 (talk) 19:18, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Vespine seems to have nailed it in his first reply - the SP3 update is "simply" telling you to back up everything on your computer, most importantly all files that could not or would not be recreated by re-installing the operating system and applications. This would include any documents, photos, MP3s, etc that you yourself have created or downloaded. I rashly allowed the installation to proceed last night without doing any backup, and I even left the room while it was doing its thing. I did, however, exit all other applications that I'd been running. Once it was finished and called for a reboot, I crossed my fingers and clicked OK; everything seems to be working fine since then.

Yes, I am sorry I didn't read your question the first time :-) 78.144.131.106 (talk) 19:29, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

That's great - thanks, all - yes, I was worried 'system' meant all the software in the pc or something - anyway, backed up, loaded the pack, and all's well - thanks again. Adambrowne666 (talk) 12:44, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

For future reference, to do a backup in XP, do this: Click Start, Click Run, type "NTBACKUP" and click OK. The Backup/Restore Wizard will start, follow it's instructions.

Nobody expects the flashing question mark!

My MacBook freezes and when I turn it back on I get the flashing question mark. I've tried zapping the PRAM and reinstalling OS X with the disk, but on the "Select a Destination" screen it can't find my hard drive. What do I do? (Oh, and if this helps, the computer makes the infamous clicking sound until I insert the install disk.) --Lazar Taxon (talk) 04:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You could see if it's a problem with your internal drive, by plugging in an external drive. See if it recognises that one, and if it does, reinstall. If the superdrive is a problem, can you use a USB optical drive as well?My name is anetta (talk) 09:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds like a hard drive problem. Have you tried taking it to an Apple store? They'll be able to tell you whether it's something that can be quickly fixed on your end or whether you'll need to send it in. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:39, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm gonna be taking it to an Apple Store. I've heard it has something to do with faulty Seagate hard drives? I've read that this has happened to some people more than once - is this a problem that's been fixed? --Lazar Taxon (talk) 02:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Debian network error?

After installing Debian, my computer can't connect to the Internet. "Ping" gives "connect: network is unreachable". This is strange because the system was installed by downloading packages from the Internet while installing. I can, however, access the Internet from the rescue shell that came with the installation CD. Any ideas? I've tried restarting the computer, unplugging the router, and even reinstalling the entire OS. Same result. --99.237.101.48 (talk) 08:50, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I wonder why ping is trying to connect to something. It's ICMP; there are no connections.

(Time passes...)

Oh great, ping in Debian has been replaced by something stupid that uses UDP. How could they mess up something so fundamental? Well that's not your main problem. Tell us how far you can get in this general network diagnostic sequence:

1. Driver check: Does the kernel recognize the network interface? Run "ifconfig -a". On the left there are interface names like "eth0" and "lo" and each one has a paragraph of information to the right. In this step all we care about is whether eth0 is in the list or not. If it's there, go to step 2. Also make a note of any extra "eth" entries (eth1, eth2, etc.) If it's not, tell us what you do have in the left hand column.
2. Link layer: Does your ethernet card report a link? Run "mii-tool". It should report "link ok" and the link speed. If not, try running "ethtool eth0" instead. That should say "Link detected: yes" at the bottom. If you've got an eth1, eth2, etc., run "ethtool eth1" and "ethtool eth2" also. Once you've found the active link, go to step 3. If you don't have a link anywhere, this is a problem with the cable or with the switch/router/modem on the other end of the cable... or a wireless negotiation problem if that's the type of connection you've got.
3. IP layer: Run "ifconfig eth0" (and/or "ifconfig eth1", "ifconfig eth2", etc.) Is there an "inet addr" listed? (It'll probably be on the second line.) Is the keyword "UP" present? (It'll probably be on the third or fourth line.) If yes to both, go to step 4. Otherwise stop here and show us the contents of your /etc/network/interfaces.
4. Routing table: Run "netstat -rn". Is there a line with "0.0.0.0" in the Destination column? If yes, go to step 5. Otherwise stop here and show us the contents of your /etc/network/interfaces.
5. Gateway test: In the netstat -rn list, find the line with "0.0.0.0" in the Destination column and then move over to the Gateway column. The address there is your default gateway; it should be the address of your home router if you have one, otherwise it'll be the address of the ISP router that serves your area. Whatever address you found there, ping it. If the ping succeeds, go to step 6. If it says something about being unreachable, stop here. If it just sits there doing nothing, it could just be a stubborn router refusing to reply to pings so go ahead to step 6 anyway.
6. Getting Out To The World: Run "traceroute -n 4.2.2.1". It may be slow, so be patient. If successful, it will end with a line showing 4.2.2.1 and a list of times in milliseconds. You can move on to step 7. If unsuccessful, show us the last 2 lines. If you got several lines of stars at the end, just show one of the lines of stars, and the line before it.
7. DNS test: Run "dig www.wikipedia.org". This is the last step so if you get this far, tell us what it says.

--tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 20:00, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The system recognizes eth0, the only Ethernet port I have, but "mii-tool" yields "no MII interfaces found". I've never had any previous connection problems with this computer, so I'm puzzled as to what can possibly be preventing Internet access. --99.237.101.48 (talk) 03:57, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

You know, I spent like an hour writing a network diagnostic run-through covering lots of different possible endings; and this is a stupid place to do it because in a few days it'll be archived where nobody else will ever see it so it was basically done just for you. And you didn't even spend 10 seconds to read where it says if mii-tool doesn't give the right answer, run "ethtool eth0". It's quite insulting really. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 21:43, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

I tried "ethtool" but the command does not exist on Debian. Because of this, I assumed that you meant both "mii-tool and "ethtool" can be used, whichever exists. I apologize for misunderstanding the "if not" part, but rest assured that I read your entire post and appreciate/appreciated your help. --99.237.101.48 (talk) 03:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Web-page as a single file

How can I save a web-page in one single file (not html + some folder with the images)? I know there is mhtml, however, the Linux browser that I use doesn't support it. Any other solution?Mr.K. (talk) 10:25, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

For archiving and "transmission" purposes, I'd save as HTML and separate images and then put the whole lot in a single zip file. (I know you mentioned MHTML yourself, but there are references on that page to convertors to other linux archive formats which may help). -- SGBailey (talk) 11:55, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

A web page is HTML - which does not contain pictures. Those are embedded from separate files. To have the pictures part of the page, you have to use a different format such as the open document format or PDF. There are many HTML to (whatever) converters. In Windows, you can use the PDFCreator thing to print the web page directly to a PDF file. -- kainaw™ 12:02, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The problem about using a zip file is that in this case I will not be able to open it with one click, right? I´ll try converting all to pdf files and save them as that, since I don´t have to update them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 13:04, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox supports the jar: uri scheme, which allows it to access resources from a JAR file (which, for our purposes, is just a ZIP file with a .jar extension). Here's a simple example - first to make a JARred website (you'd just copy files, the echo thing is just to make my illustration easy for me) :

    echo "<h1>page1</h1><a href=p2.html>p2</href>" > index.html
    echo "<h1>page2</h1><a href=index.html>p1</a><img src=foo.jpg>"> p2.html
    zip fin.jar index.html p2.html foo.jpg
 

(foo.jpg is already in that directory; this zip creates the archive /home/fin/Desktop/jar/fin.jar)

then I point my firefox at the following (admittedly rather byzantine) URL: jar:file:///home/fin/Desktop/jar/fin.jar!/index.html and it works like a little self contained website. I'm not aware of any restriction on what (client-side, natch) stuff you can put in there. This scheme (in one form or another) has I think been in firefox since it was Netscape, and is used in some WHATWG standards (whether officially adopted or not I don't know). The only (mild) snafu is that you can't open it with one click, as .JAR is generally associated with the Java language runtime, not with Firefox. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 13:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

targeting and other technology for advertising agency

we are planning to start an online advertising agency, a niche one I must say. Is there any company out there which provides things like targeting technology, bid matching algorithms and technology, an base software engine which we can buy and use it as our matching engine, etc? Does double click, the company acquires by google provide targeting information and technology? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.96.31.2 (talk) 10:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Help

I have created a document and cannot get it onto a computer other than my own. I need that document for school. I've tried printing it, but my printer doesn't work. I've tried e-mailing it to myself, but the e-mail program freezes when I try to add an attachment. I've tried copy-pasting the source of my document into the source of my e-mail, but it takes a while to respond to the sending and when it does respond, I get a warning message saying "Unknown" and the e-mail does not send. I could copy it to a CD, but it instead copies to the folder called something like "To Be Written to the CD". So now what can I do? February 15, 2009 (talk) 12:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Webmail?78.144.131.106 (talk) 12:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Once it is in the 'to be written to CD' folder put a CD in your CD-writer drive and choose to 'burn' the contents to the CD. Alternatively borrow a USB stick and transfer it onto that. Alternative to that try opening the document on your PC and saving a copy (file > save as) and try saving it in a different format (if it's word try word 97 for example). Then try emailing it/doing what you've done so far again with that version. It could be that the file has corrupted. Also if the file has a certain name it could confuse the system. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 13:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Try using Gmail, it's pretty good about attachments. Or get a cheap USB stick—you can get a GB of space for only a $10 or so, and it sounds like you'll run into this problem in the future, too, so it'll be a good investment. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

And even if you don't own a USB memory stick, most MP3 players, many digital cameras and even some cellphones can be used just like a USB memory stick! SteveBaker (talk) 17:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(If you're really desperate - you could copy/paste it into your Wikipedia User: page then retrieve it online once you get to school. But that's against Wikipedia policy - so don't tell anyone I told you that!) SteveBaker (talk) 17:13, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Windows wont accept four related fonts

I am using Windows XP and have been sent four .ttf font files from a user of Kubuntu Linux. I am trying to install the fonts but Windows will only install one because it seems to think that they're all the same font. They are in-fact different variations of the same font (e.g. bold or oblique etc). Thus, I can uninstall and install any single one of these fonts but not have them all installed at the same time which is madness. There must be some attribute that needs to be renamed before Windows will accept that they are different fonts (it is not the filename). What can I do to install these into Windows? ----Seans Potato Business 14:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, supposedly it should understand them to be the same family, and then when you make the font bold, italic, etc. it should transparently reference the new font files. Supposedly. I've noticed some programs, like Microsoft Word, are very bad at font management and sometimes do this and sometimes put every style as its own font. But, again, the thing is that you are in fact installing four files into one family, which should show up as one font in your menus. Programs made especially for design, for example, like Adobe InDesign, will have a very elaborate font style menu that goes way beyond the simple Bold and Italic buttons in Word, to reflect all of the many variations that fonts can have (e.g. light, light oblique, heavy, condensed heavy, etc.). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Question about included software in windows 3.1

In windows 3.1 their was a game included in which you built machines to solve problems. Does anybody know what this game is called and where i can find it? Thank you, Canadakid2 (talk) 14:35, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Are you thinking of The Incredible Machine? It was not a standard part of Windows, but may have been pre-loaded onto some systems. --LarryMac | Talk 14:44, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

There are a bunch of sequels and variations on The Incredible Machine - I recommend "The Incredible Toon Machine" - similar gameplay - but much funnier animations as you try to help the cat, the dog and the mouse in their epic struggle. SteveBaker (talk) 17:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

If you have a modern machine you might want to check out Crazy Machines 2, which is a fairly decent TIM clone with 3d graphics and physics and such. 88.211.96.3 (talk) 09:05, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Timing out on Firefox

I'm running Firefox 3.0.1 on an Pentium 4, w/ 500 MB RAM, running XP MCE version SP2. Every so often, when I try to go to another site or save a Wikipedia edit, it times out on me. Then, when I retry, there's no problem. I run Ad-Aware and have Norton. Any ideas? Clarityfiend (talk) 16:17, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It is most likely a DNS issue. If your status bar has "looking up wikipedia.org" for two minutes and then times out, it is DNS. If it looks it up and then times out, your computer lost connection to wikipedia.org. That is network and most likely your ISP (or the modem or router or wire...). -- kainaw™ 16:20, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You really think it's a DNS issue? According to this nice little page I found with some googling, the default cache time for the Windows XP dns resolver is 24 hours. Unless Clarityfiend is making some big-ass, several day-spanning edits, I find it unlikely that en.wikipedia.org would disappear from the cache between the time he presses "edit page" and "save page". Certainly, even if the article is incorrect, a dns record doesn't just vanish within minutes.

I think it's much more likely that you simply have a spotty connection that sometimes doesn't let the pages through. What's your bandwidth? Do you have any other programs running in the background that uses up your bandwidth (Bittorrent would be a prime example)? Probably you just have a lousy ISP 90.235.4.253 (talk) 20:08, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Ehmm, well, turns out I was not entirely correct there, ehhmmm :) I just checked, and en.wikipedia.org has a TTL of 180 seconds on my computer. My bad! Kainaw is probably correct (although it could still be the spotty connection thing, but the DNS things seems likely too). 90.235.4.253 (talk) 20:15, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It's happening right now. I have 3 tabs in Firefox, but no other program running. It says "Loading..." on the tab and "Waiting for xyz.com" at the bottom. Windows Manager shows 0% network utilization and not much on the CPU front either. I can go into another tab and bring up a different site, so it's not a network problem. This didn't use to happen until recently, i.e. within the last few months. So does this confirm it's DNS? And what can/should I do about it? Clarityfiend (talk) 02:14, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's DNS, then there's nothing you can do. It's not exactly a server issue, but it sort of is. It's out of your control, so the only thing I can think of to do is to copy and paste your edit into something else (like Notepad) and wait until the site's back up.

But I'm not convinced this is a DNS thing- usually with that, it'll say something along the lines of "Internet Explorer (or Firefox, or Safari, or whatever) cannot find the server at www.xyz.com, yadda yadda yadda." You sure it's not an internet connection issue? Sometimes I'll get problems with my connection, it'll look like it's connected and everything, but it's really not. Although if other pages will come up, then that's not the issue. --Alinnisawest(talk) 02:28, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

The "waiting for" means that it got DNS lookup and it is waiting for a response. This is a network problem. The first thing I normally replace is the network cable. In offices, they are usually well out of the way, but in homes they are commonly strung across floors or desks and get beat up. Once you get a hairline crack in a wire, you get intermittent data loss. Assuming replacing the cable doesn't help, check your ISP's service. It may be cable with a low signal or dial-up with static on the line. Who knows. Networks have a lot of components. -- kainaw™ 02:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Computer delay times

I am giving a presentation and I need a simplified computer structure to demonstrate the extremity of the difference between accessing memory and disk data. I cannot find a list of average computer data access times. How long does it take an average computer to access memory? How long does it take to swap a page of memory? How long does it take for a drive to write data to DMA? How long does it average seek time take? Is there a list somewhere of average computer times? -- kainaw™ 17:26, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

List of device bandwidths should have some of that info. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 17:38, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - that has all the values I need to create a good demonstration and, just plugging in a few numbers, it matches up nicely with experiments already performed. -- kainaw™ 18:19, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Such a presentation would ideally benefit from an analogy, as conveying the orders-of-magnitude differences between in-cpu-cache and load-from-disk with numbers alone can be difficult. The best I've come up with (after failing with various ski-resort analogies) is something like: in-cpu-cache==book open in front of me, in-memory-cache==walk to next room; collect book from shelf; put on desk, and pull-page-from-disk==order container load of books from Amazon, wait until container delivered to street, get book from container and put on desk. But that's lousy; surely we can do better than that? -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:23, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

You have the right idea, but I don't think it's THAT many of orders of magnitude faster. --mboverload@ 00:50, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Unicode (IPA) characters in IE6

I'm doing web development for a fellow who does historical linguistics. He requires me to occasionally have letters on the page well outside the standard character set, like the schwa (ə) or the funny T-comma (ț). I've set the Content-Type of my page to "charset=utf-8", and the page itself is saved as UTF-8. Now the schwa, for example, shows up fine in Safari 3 and Firefox 3 on OS X. But I tried it on IE6 on XP and, well, I got the dreaded empty box character.

What's the best approach here? He's got some complicated stuff. So far I had thought about either just doing it with the HTML entities and damned to people who use old browsers, but if there's a better way to go about it than that, I'd be appreciative. Obviously I could just render the really weird ones as graphics and have them dropped into the text either as IMG tags or with CSS but each of those have their ups and downs too.

Any suggestions? I've never done any web development before that involved such exotic characters. --140.247.133.59 (talk) 17:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I really think you should use images - at least as an alternative for people who don't get "the right thing" natively from their browser. The trouble is that images are not searchable like the proper characters - so I think I'd shoot for two versions of the page - one with the characters rendered using the extended character set - and the other as images. Show the version with the extended character set by default and have a nice prominent button saying "If you can't see all of the exotic characters on this page, please click here."...much as I hate IE6, some people are stuck with it through no fault of their own.

SteveBaker (talk) 18:57, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I blame Microsoft, not the people. Making a crummy browser, forcing it to market dominance, and then not updating it for a decade is, well, unpardonable. Sigh... thanks. It looks like the images are going to mandatory anyway because this particular field uses extremely non-standard characters to render various sounds, way beyond unicode in some cases (as far as I can tell). --140.247.133.59 (talk) 19:14, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

As a general principle: "If in doubt, blame Microsoft". You really don't need a reason!

I would be tempted to stick some PHP or maybe JavaScript in there to deal with it. You could invent your own markup for these super-special characters and automatically insert the images as required as the pages are served. That would at least make it a "one time effort". SteveBaker (talk) 21:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I really can't see any reason for this not to work in Internet Explorer. Whatever its problems with standards compliance, a lack of UTF-8 support isn't one of them. Both the characters you just mentioned are in Arial. I just tried visiting International Phonetic Alphabet with Firefox 3 and IE7, and the only characters that rendered correctly in Firefox and not in IE were the affricate tie bars. -- BenRG (talk) 23:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Our OP was talking IE 6 - not 7. Dunno if that makes a difference. SteveBaker (talk) 03:41, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If it's any help I see this T Comma - ț as a little box and I'm on internet explorer 6 as well so it's a problem with IE6 and not your particular PC I think. God knows why they haven't upgraded to 7 here. Does it not work with Windows 2000 or something? 88.211.96.3 (talk) 09:03, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

My mistake, "Latin Small Letter T With Comma Below" (U+021B, ț) is not in Arial (or Times New Roman). What is in Arial is "Latin Small Letter T With Cedilla" (U+0163, ţ), which looks like a t-with-comma. This comment tells the sordid story. I can believe that IE7 and Firefox 3 make this substitution and IE6 doesn't. You may as well use characters in Arial where you can, so switch to ţ. But "Latin Small Letter Schwa" (U+0259, ə) is most definitely in Arial and Times New Roman, and I still can't see a reason in the world why it wouldn't render in IE6. Are you sure you haven't made a mistake somewhere? I'm grasping at straws here, but your Content-Type is "text/html; charset=utf-8", not "charset=utf-8", right? Have you tried using numeric character references to see whether the problem is with the UTF-8 or the Unicode rendering? Could you post the malfunctioning HTML file somewhere so we can take a look? -- BenRG (talk) 09:56, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Firefox "xmouses" to top

Hi! I'm using the TweakUI tool to get xmouse behavior on my XP system and it works fine except for firefox 3.0.1 which always pops to the top when it get focus (hover, not click). This is a new behavior. Is there a way to turn this off? Thanks. Saintrain (talk) 22:24, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Remotely enable exception in Windows Firewall

Is it possible to enable the Remote Desktop exception in Windows Firewall remotely? I'm working with Vista, but it might be the same on older versions. I would like to be able to do this in the registry. There is a nice trick to remotely enable RD by using regedit's Connect Network Registry feature, but I'm pretty sure that RD is not a default exception in Windows Firewall. Thank you Louis Waweru  Talk  23:05, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

(I think) [2] --mboverload@ 01:02, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

"subnotebook"? Lame!

Hi. Is subnotebook really the most widely used and accepted term? Cause quite frankly, it sucks. (Or hopefully the article is not aptly named?) -- Kreachure (talk) 23:12, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

It's better than notepad, haha. But I can only think of compact notebook/laptop and sub-compact notebook/laptop, subnotebook's occurance in google has them beat by a longshot. Louis Waweru  Talk  00:11, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

If Net neutrality prevails and the Internet access becomes better, cheaper in cost, and more accessible, we might start using Netbook. Kushal (talk) 19:25, 27 August 2008 (UTC)