Computing desk
< July 15	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	July 17 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

July 16

Need help printing articles with equations.

When I print an article with equations, some of the equations are not printed out--- just blank space. Also the spacing of text with math is different (bad)in the printed version. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Waperkins (talk • contribs) 00:01, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Try the "download as PDF" option in the toolbox in the menu on the left, then print the PDF from your PDF viewer. 87.114.72.159 (talk) 01:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Toxic URL

What's the URL to that page that, if you go to it, will cause your computer to break? If I remember correctly, it's somewhere in lanl.gov and they put it there so bots would not systematically download everything. Some pages have links to the "dangerous page" with text that a human would clearly understand describing the consequences. I have an old junk computer and just want to see what happens. Of course if you are able to answer this question, don't make the link active. Thanks! 71.161.47.224 (talk) 01:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I call urban legend. How would a web page "cause your computer to break"? Supposing there were a problem with all web browsers, why would the web browser authors not all fix their browsers as soon as the problem were found? Comet Tuttle (talk) 04:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the story/explanation has been garbled by the OP. It sounds like they are trying to describe a honeypot or web spider trap. It could "break" some basic automated processing task, like web spidering; alternatively, it might attempt to exploit a known bug and install malware; but no webpage can "destroy" a computer just by being loaded. Nimur (talk) 04:09, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Honeypot (computing) and spider trap may be better links. You can also Google for general information, for example software damage hardware. I haven't heard of a specific known website but some websites have browser exploits to try to gain control of visiting computers. Then they could theoretically do damage to certain computers with vulnerable parts. PrimeHunter (talk) 12:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a person asking the same question you are about lanl.arxiv.org (formerly known as xxx.lanl.gov) and the answer- http://serverfault.com/questions/2562/what-does-the-arxiv-org-anti-bot-search-and-destroy-actually-do If the answerer is right, it doesn't break anything, it just delays the bot for about 10 minutes. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 12:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In the past there have been webpages that crash your browser. My favorite ones involve tiny gif files that expand to truly monumental images which browser naively tries to decompress and hold in memory uncompressed. If you were lucky this would crash your browser. If you were unlucky your computer would hang and you'd eventually get frustrated and reboot it. I think modern web-browsers are smart enough to avoid this trap nowadays.

APL (talk) 05:47, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changing Bookmark Font Size in Google Chrome

Is there any way to increase the default font size in the menus and bookmark folders in Google Chrome for OS X?

Thanks in advance

--71.70.224.6 (talk) 02:04, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

[RESOLVED] Millions of components cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced

Hey guys, I'd just finished doing a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit from Vista 32 bit and everything was running like a charm. I fired up Company of Heroes and was playing a casual (though fairly graphically intensive) game when suddenly all the power goes out in my office (though not the lights). The monitor and speaker both wouldn't turn on, and only started working again when I replugged them in to the surge protector.

I thought I had just suffered a minor inconvenience and could resume playing when I turned on the computer. When I pressed the on button, it powered up, but was a complete no post. Then, when I tried to shut it off manually by holding the power button for 5 seconds, it wouldn't work. Now, the only way I can turn on/off my computer is via the switch on my PSU in the back, which shouldn't happen. To top it off, when I opened the case, nothing was functioning at all- the fan on the processor wasn't spinning, the case fan was off, and I could feel no air coming from the fan on my 8800 gtx.

I'm actually really worried that my power supply (Ultra Power, 500 watt) burned out my components. What do you think is going on? This is way over my head. The only changes I'd made recently were installing two more sticks of RAM (up to 4 GB) and upgrade to Windows 7, and both those could hardly cause a power failure by themselves. Hopefully, it's just the PSU. Otherwise, I'd have no access to a computer (except for this library one) for a long while as I'm pretty broke.

Computer specs (this is a cheap HP I upgraded with my friend's unwanted parts):

crappy OEM Athlon 4200+ dual core (2.26 ghz)/ OEM mobo / 4 GB RAM DDR2 / Nvidia 8800 GTX / Ultra Power 500 watt PSU / standard 320 GB HDD

Thanks for your time. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 02:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If I understand that correctly: when you turn on the PSU at the switch, the PSU fan spins but nothing else connected to the motherboard receives power? If so, it could be that the PSU connector to the motherboard or the wire leading to the connector has melted during the power surge. I've had a switch melting before during a power surge (even with UPS connected) but it's very unlikely that all your components have fried so you can breathe easy. Are you able to borrow another PSU just to try? It's also possible the motherboard was hit; the power switch on your board (between the PSU and case switch) can be tested (sometimes with a screwdriver) but you'd need to be a real techie to find that on the board. Sandman30s (talk) 06:54, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, exactly. Actually, as soon as the PSU receives power, it turns on, oddly enough; normally, it will only turn on when the switch is the on position and I press the button in the front of the computer. I'm unsure if this unusual behavior warrants a replacement PSU. Somehow, the mouse is still receiving power while the keyboard is not. Thank you for your advice, it's a huge relief. But I really hope it was just the PSU and not the whole motherboard. I don't have an extra PSU handy, but I've heard that Fry's will do free testing on your computer parts.

EDIT: I've confirmed that it's only the components attached to the motherboard. The DVD drive and HDD both seem to be fine. The fact that the mouse is getting power is very curious. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 13:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I thought that the power supply is only supposed to turn on when the motherboard tells it to turn on (because of the power switch in the front you mentioned); see the ATX article and look for the text "PS_ON#" in the "Power Supply" section. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:34, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

'Curious' is the perfect word to describe this. Look, everything connects to the motherboard. DVD and HDD connect via IDE or SATA in most cases and your keyboard and mouse most likely use USB connectors which all attach to the motherboard. I'm not an electrical expert so I can only guess that your PSU is somehow not distributing power evenly. The PSU is usually the component that goes first - some advanced PSU's have fuses and surge arrestors (not that surge protection is ever guaranteed to work) and what not. I see you have access to technicians so I think that's your best bet, they should be able to test each component. Sandman30s (talk) 19:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I just fixed something like this. Finally unplugged the media bay and it booted. Apparently the customer's cat had peed on the front of the computer. Extra charge for biohazard cleaning. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 23:35, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It *was* the PSU. Thanks a ton, guys. My friend gave me his old 500 watt, so all's well that ends well I guess. Thanks again. 184.36.120.202 (talk) 21:15, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Test power supply

I have a power supply that might be broken but I'm not sure. I am planning to swap this power supply with one from a working computer to test if it works. However, I am worried that if this power supply does turn out to be broken, it will cause damage to the other parts of the computer. Is this possible? (I want to know because if so, then I would rather just throw out the power supply than risk damage to the computer) Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.144.35.27 (talk) 07:15, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are absolutely correct to worry about possible damage. A "faulty" power supply, described in such vague terms, could have any number of problem symptoms: there could be an over-voltage, an over-current, or a leak of AC signals onto the DC lines. Any one of these faults could be dangerous to your board, or to yourself. Once the "fault" is characterized, it can be more reasonably determined whether the unit is safe to handle and/or to connect to your PC (which does have some protection from certain levels of over-current and over-voltage - but not "infinite" protection from any power-supply error). Typically, the first step is to test the voltage levels that come out of the power supply. Let me again state, to be very clear: if you have a "faulty unit", such testing may expose you to high voltages or the AC line. Usually, for this reason, power supply units are specifically labeled as "NOT USER SERVICEABLE" - i.e., "if it doesn't work, don't touch it." So only proceed if you are experienced in dealing with high power systems - an AC fault could electrocute / kill you. (We can't know what is wrong with a "broken" power supply just based on your description). If you have a multimeter, you can probe the power supply outputs - which should be 12 and 5 volts. If they are not, then something is wrong, and the unit is cheaper to replace than to repair. But for the eager hobbyist, you can still do some diagnostics - but unfortunately, beyond measuring voltages, a modern power supply is a bit complicated and often has digital control pins; so you will need a power load (a specialized hardware test unit that simulates the power consumption of a computer). Even if the voltages are correct, the power supply unit may deliver insufficient current (or too much current); it may be spitting out high-frequency noise; it may be sending garbled commands over a digital interconnect line. If you have a very new unit, there may even be active digital feedback control; A Practical Introduction to Digital Power Supply Control, a free course from Texas Instruments, will train you in everything you need to know to diagnose those problems. In practice, unless you have thousands of unit-failures, it is cheaper and easier to replace the PSU than to try to repair it. Nimur (talk) 15:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The problem with testing computer power supplies is twofold - one is that they often only power up a minimal amount of circuitry on the PC until a signal is sent to bring them out of standby mode. That means that unplugging the supply from the computer and probing around with a multimeter won't work. Secondly, they are often switched-mode power supplies and they don't show the right voltage until they are under load...so again, you can't tell much with just a multimeter. Instead of plugging the bad power supply into a good computer (and possibly wrecking it) - you're better off taking the good power supply out of the good computer and plugging that into the computer that isn't working. While it's quite likely that a bad power supply could damage a computer...it's unlikely (but not impossible) that a bad computer could damage the power supply...and that's a risk I'd certainly be prepared to take. Also, if the worst comes to the worst, it's much cheaper to replace the power supply than the computer - so risking a good power supply in a bad computer is much less risk than a bad power supply in a good computer. Look at it this way:

Worst case scenario: You plug the good power supply into the bad computer and blow it up. Now you have two bad power supplies and a bad computer. Well, replacing a computer is costly - and the extra cost of buying a new power supply for the 'good' computer is pretty negligable in comparison. If you don't do this test then you'll have to buy a power supply anyway - and if the fault isn't in the power, then you'll have to buy a new computer anyway. So the worst case is no worse (financially) than what you were going to do anyway.
Best case scenario: With the good power supply plugged into the bad computer, your machine comes up and works just great - so you buy a new power supply and you're done.
Or you plug the good power supply into the bad computer and it doesn't work - but it doesn't wreck the power supply either.

IMHO, power supplies are much more likely to be the cause than your motherboard - so the 'best case' above is by far the most likely thing that'll happen. One word of caution though - make sure the 'good' power supply has enough wattage to drive your computer...otherwise bad things might happen. Also, the most common cause of early death in power supplies is that you're using close to (or over) their maximum rating. The closer you get to the maximum, the hotter the power supply runs - and the sooner it dies. So if you do have to buy a new power supply - get one with more capacity than the one you had before. It'll add maybe $10 to the cost - but it'll double it's lifespan...which is a good deal. Read reviews of the power supply you intend to buy - sometimes the manufacturers ~~lie~~ are "optimistic" in the assessment of their wattages and talk about "peak wattage" and quietly don't mention their "sustained wattage" - which is what you actually care about most of the time! SteveBaker (talk) 23:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I test power supplies by plugging them in to a power cord and inserting a pin between pin 14 and a ground wire. Then, the power supply's fan will start turning and it should supply the appropriate voltages to the cables, as shown here. There's no need for power-load equipment. The main drawback to using a multi-meter is that it isn't very sensitive. There can be quick drops in voltage that aren't registered by the multi-meter, but that still cause the computer to crash. For the best results, use an oscilloscope. As for damaging your computer, in my experience, it's far more likely for a dying power supply to stop working entirely than to supply too much power. The fan inside goes bad, and then it overheats. Or, it stops turning occasionally, and then the power supply stops that one time and the computer crashes. I would definitely test the power supply before replacing it, either with a multi-meter, an oscilloscope, or by plugging it into another computer before wasting any money on a new one.--Best Dog Ever (talk) 18:32, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

how much for a desktop workstation?

How much should I pay for a desktop workstation with at least 4 GB of RAM, at least 1 TB hard drive at a fast speed, and quad core i7 or i5, plus an appropriate video card for image editing, and windows 7? Thanks. 84.153.219.234 (talk) 11:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is a pretty huge jump in price between i5 and i7. If you buy an i7 core, go for the i7-9xx series, these have larger caches and use QPI, while i7-8xx will use older dual-channel memory bus. Your price is going to vary significantly on these kind of choice (a factor of nearly 30% or 50% between an i5- (HP p6580) and i7- (HP e9150t) workstation based on some cursory scans at major vendors). Another way to rephrase your question: are you still uncertain which processor you need, and is price more relevant? If so, the i5 is a fine chip - but you will definitely see a performance boost with the i7- if you are doing CPU-heavy or memory-intensive tasks. You should pay in the neighborhood of US $500-700 for an i5- system; and in the neighborhood of $700 - $1200 US for an i7-system depending how much you deck it out with RAM, graphics, and where on the spectrum of specific processors you choose to land. Note that if you include the keyword "workstation" in your search for desktop PC, you will end up finding yourself in the "business purchases" section of the vendors' websites, and they will charge you more for essentially the same hardware. Nimur (talk) 15:21, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Also the most expensive i7 costs the same as four i7-930s. 121.72.166.173 (talk) 06:24, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

antivirus software

What is the best antivirus software to buy? Norton didn't protect my computer at all! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tomjohnson357 (talk • contribs) 11:49, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The best antivirus isn't software, though. It costs $60, and it is an hour, or an hour and a half, of a computer expert's time, who will explain to you how to surf safely. If YOU do not bring viruses on board by actively downloading, and then running them, by not inserting USB sticks in a way that will autorun them (and their virus payloads), and so on, you will be almost totally safe. Real computer experts use no antivirus software at all; they don't need 'em. Spend that hour listening and you won't either. 84.153.219.234 (talk) 13:08, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I concur. Though, this was not always true, and may not be true in the future; it has historically been the case that serious errors in the operating system made infection possible even if the user took no action to initiate it. In previous years, an additional layer of protection was sometimes necessary. However, such security-holes are extremely rare in 2010 - and usually get fixed by the operating-system vendor within a few days of becoming known. At this point in time, the safest thing for your computer is to understand how and when it can install programs - and only take actions that install programs you trust. Nimur (talk) 15:07, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

There is no "best", they are all different and have different strengths and weaknesses in their detection rates. I would suggest a free antivirus such as Avira, and 84.153.219.234 advice above. 82.43.90.93 (talk) 13:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The free antivirus software is just as good as the pay-for kind, and there is quite a choice. I currently favour Avast! as the resident antivirus. There are other things you can have also such as Ccleaner and SpywareBlaster. Good malware on-demand scanners are Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, Superantispyware, and Spybot – Search & Destroy. 92.24.182.219 (talk) 13:25, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How is CCleaner an antivirus? --mboverload @ 22:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

92 did not say it was an antivirus, although it does clean cr*p out like tracking cookies that malware scanners pick up on, makes malware scans quicker by removing garbage that would otherwise have to be scanned, and removes any bad things that may be lurking in the cr*p. 92.24.178.184 (talk) 09:07, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I, as a Windows user, use the free Microsoft Security Essentials. I agree with 84 that a lesson in safe surfing is very valuable (but disagree with the cavalier implication that "real computer experts" should just go without antivirus software). An important tip is to create an account on your computer that has no administrator rights, so even if you do something foolish like download and run an executable file from an untrusted source, the virus will have a more difficult time compromising your system; see the virus FAQ for more suggestions. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:29, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft Security Essentials is great and what I recommend to everyone not in an enterprise environment. --mboverload @ 22:37, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've been very happy with free AVG for the last few years after McAfee systematically destroyed my one computer. Sandman30s (talk) 19:20, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One of the most common tricks these days is for the virus/malware authors to watch for new OS security upgrades and to target the bugs that this patch addresses. (On the grounds that a lot of people won't upgrade immediately). So one thing you can do is to always upgrade your PC the very moment the patch first becomes available. Practicing safe-surfing is also a good idea. Putting a hardware firewall between you and the Internet is another thing that can help. Best of all - don't use Windows...but that's not useful to most people. SteveBaker (talk) 23:02, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let me just say that anyone that says you shouldn't run an antivirus does not understand what they are saying. How do I know? I used to be one of those people. Viruses often get installed completely out of the hands of users themselves. Exploits in Flash, Java, PDF, etc will get you infected without doing anything. With infected ad networks you can (and people do) get infected on website like the New York Times. YOU NEED AN ANTIVIRUS AND ANTIMALWARE. Period. End of discussion. You ALSO need to keep Windows updated, keep Windows Firewall on, and keep all your browser addins updated.

Being an non-administrator, while very, very helpful is not complete protection against viruses. There are now a proliferation of user-mode rootkits and viruses thanks to Mirosoft's UAC.

I personally recommend Microsoft Security Essentials/NOD32 for antivirus. Paid-for versions of PrevX or MalwareBytes for antimalware.--mboverload @ 22:44, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why won't Google index the PDF that I've shared on Google Docs ("Public on the web - Anyone on the Internet can find and view")?

Hello,

Last week, I uploaded a pdf as a google doc and set it to "Public on the web - Anyone on the Internet can find and view", and pasted the link in my WP:user page. Yet the pdf has still not been indexed in google searches. Does Google not index Google Docs pdfs? Do I need to post the link to some other webpage? Or something else?

Thanks. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 16:26, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if Google indexes them, but Wikipedia's external links use nofollow, so linking to it on this site won't help get it indexed regardless. Reach Out to the Truth 16:38, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And along with the above, it can take Google a long time to index pages in my experience, if it is not on a domain that it is updating its index on regularly. (Wikipedia changes are very quick because Google is constantly updating its Wikipedia index... but that won't help you, for the reason given above.) On some of my web pages, it has taken weeks for changes to thoroughly filter through the Google index. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Apparently they don't yet search PDFs. --Sean 18:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if that's true (that thread is mostly from 2008, anyway). I've seen lots of PDFs that not only have their content searchable via Google, but PDFs that aren't actually OCRed to begin with—which implies that Google runs its own OCR on the PDF when indexing it. Whether that applies to Google Docs or not, I don't know, but it's certainly not beyond Google's own capacities in general. (Here is an example. The first hit is not an OCRed, searchable PDF, yet Google has clearly done some OCRing of its own, given how it represents the summary and returns the document.)--Mr.98 (talk) 21:59, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

See Scribd. -- Wavelength (talk) 19:03, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

embedded addresses of an ad

when I have an ad on my page trying to get me to click on an image or button, when I place my curser over the image an http address appears at the bottom of the page. If I move the curser away from the image the address disappears and the word Done appears. when the address appears it is sometimes too long to fit in the space given and shows up incomplete...how can I see the complete address without clicking on it, as it redirects the page and has the homepage address but not the one embedded. please send me an answer to: e-mail address redacted thank-you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.160.183 (talk) 17:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've removed your e-mail address to try to save you from spambots. We don't respond to e-mail addresses here anyway; any responses to your query will be posted right here, so others may read the answer, correct it, benefit from it, etc. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:23, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You can try right clicking the ad, and selecting "Copy link location" in Firefox, "Copy shortcut" in IE, or similar depending on your browser. Then paste that into a text document to view it in it's entirety. You could also view the pages source code, by going to View -> Source / Page source, and try finding the ad that way. However many flash ads don't display their links in the html source code, so this method might not work 1230049-0012394-C (talk) 17:24, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Strange "redirect"

I figured I'd be told this was a browser problem and not Wikipedia.

So, copying from the Village Pump Technical:

I was looking at a very long article, but if I went back to it the computer would have to scroll down to get back to what I was reading. However, it didn't do that. It jumped forward to an article whose link I clicked on earlier while looking at the very long article, and the back button was no longer blue, meaning it couldn't be used.

I've asked similar questions before but no one seems to have an answer for this. Sometimes with very long articles or emails the back button won't go back to them, or the forward button won't go back to them.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And it just happened again. I used the back button several times and it wouldn't go forward again because THIS page is so long. I should also add I have IE8 and Vista.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:13, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm pretty sure the answer is something other than the length of a Web page, or everyone on the Web would be familiar with this problem. Do you ever use tabs? (Try holding down the Ctrl key while clicking this link, for example.) You'll notice that the newly created tab has no history; the Back button is not colored blue. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:48, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Actually - there have been problems with long articles in the past (see: Wikipedia:Article_length#Technical_issues and Wikipedia:Browser notes) - there used to be a rule here that articles shouldn't go over 32k bytes. However, the problem was with INCREDIBLY ancient browsers (early versions of Internet Explorer, I think) and Wikipedia removed that rule a couple of years ago. If you're still running something that old then the answer is to upgrade. If you aren't running FireFox 3.6, go grab it now. SteveBaker (talk) 22:36, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

He said he's running IE 8. Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I used to have the problems at libraries too, with very long emails. I've reported it here and never gotten an answer. But it's always very long pages that seem to cause the problem. And no, I hate tabs. I want all my web pages at the bottom of the screen. That's why I won't deal with Firefox.

It's not going to the page once that causes the problem. It takes several edits on such pages for me to discover I can't go back beyond a certain point.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions ·

Here's more of what I said (and probably shouldn't have) on the Village Pump (there was a response there, which I didn't copy, regarding scrolling down acting like going forward):Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 18:42, 19 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I know there wasn't an actual redirect, but the behavior of the computer was like when there is one.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

This is, again, a browser issue but it's like when I click on "Back" and get something I've already backed away from. I wonder if there's a glitch in the function of IE8? Only this time, instead of scrolling down to the specific point in the Wikipedia article (which is sort of like a redirect), it sent me back to an article I had clicked on "back" from.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:55, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm seeing the forward button turn gray instead of black when the computer scrolls down in a long article or other type of page. It doesn't usually happen in a short article.Vchimpanzee · talk · contributions · 20:58, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

JavaScript cursor.

I'm using some JavaScript to change the cursor to a small image map on my browser-based game:

   document.getElementById("canvas").style.cursor =
                      "url(\"http://blah.com/mycursor.png\"),move" ;

...this works OK - but the image is an 'aim cross' - a circle with a + in the middle. The trouble is that the system assumes that the 'aim point' of the cursor is the top-left corner - and I need it to be in the middle.

Any ideas how you'd adjust that? SteveBaker (talk) 22:11, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You could use a .cur or .xbm image that has the hotspot defined in it or follow the url with two integers, defining the hotspot. Don't put commas there, just use something like document.getElementById("canvas").style.cursor = {"url(\"http://blah.com/mycursor.png\") 8 10,move"};

Awesome! That works great. Many thanks. I couldn't find anything like that documented anywhere - and it's not exactly obvious! SteveBaker (talk) 22:40, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Just to make it easier to find if you need something else... It is called a "hot spot" not an "aim point". Googling for "javascript cursor hotspot" found this. I agree, it isn't obvious. -- kainaw ™ 02:20, 18 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hash calculator + cracker

Is there a free program for Mac and Windows that can compute hashes (from various algorithms) from a text string or file, and can also attempt to crack any hash (back to a text string), i.e. using brute force, wordlists, etc.? I'm talking about something like this, with the added ability of being a hash calculator (from a file or a text string), too. Samwb123^T-C-E 22:17, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any reason why you can't use two separate programs?121.72.166.173 (talk) 06:21, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

C+

I've heard of the languages known as "C" and as "C++", but has there ever been a programming language known as "C+"? Nyttend (talk) 22:51, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

no. the '++' comes from the peculiar convention of incrementing variables using ++ or -- notation. i.e. 3*x++ means multiply the variable x times three and then increment x by 1. --Ludwigs2 23:28, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

C++ Etymology, and from the C++ WikiBook, C++ History. See also, C programming language history; you can trace the language nomenclature all the way back as far as you like. Nimur (talk) 23:44, 16 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I read through C++; apparently I missed the etymology section. Thanks for the other links, none of which I knew existed. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 17 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]