Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 July 27

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FTP

i would like to know how you use FTP and why you would use it please.

Have you read our article File Transfer Protocol? —Keenan Pepper 01:12, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I would normally suggest using a menu based file transfer program, like Sharity or Kermit, but the command line FTP program can be used when nothing else is available. FTP commands can also be embedded in a program you write to give the program the ability to transfer files to and from other computers. StuRat 04:08, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Program for programming in multiple languages

Is there any easy to use, easy to install program out there that will let me develop and test programs in multiple programming languages. I've heard that Macintoshes come with these things installed on them, but I'm not using a Mac.

I'm not sure what you want this program to do, exactly. Are you looking for a multi-language integrated development environment? Try Category:Integrated development environments. —Keenan Pepper 02:15, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

You can program in assembly and decompile to just about any language you like. Realistically, there is no pseudo-language you can use because the important differences between different languages require completely different programming structures. You can write code that looks almost identical in multiple languages, but it will likely run poorly in all of them. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, I was looking for the integrated development environment.

Can you suggest an software to remove voice from musics?

please tell me one

This has already been answered, see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing#Music software. Short version - unless under very specific circumstances, it's very hard to do. — QuantumEleven 06:26, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't see how it is possible without the audio already in seperate tracks. — The Mac Davis] ญƛ. 20:20, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's possible: XMMS has a voice removal plugin. Written by Anders Carlsson. Basically it removes any sound in the center channel. Typically in a stero recording the instruments are at various locations, but not usually in the middle. With a soloist, the voice is usually centered. Any sound that's identical in the left and right channel is removed. It works pretty well, but not perfectly. 71.199.123.24 21:57, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Return to (page)

Where can I find the code and MediaWiki template that allows someone to return to the last page he/she was viewing after logging in? -- Wikitravel Sapphire 04:54, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Black screen in text mode

I have a very annoying problem. When I boot up the computer it doesn't show anything at all for a long time but then the Windows boots up and everything looks okay. But if I run a text mode aplication in fullscreen everything goes black again. It seems that my computer for some reason is unable to display anything in text mode. The problem appeared after the old power supply started to deteriorate, but it continues with the new power supply as well - maybe videocard or motherboard got damaged in some way. Did anyone had or heard of this problem? What is likely to be at fault?  Grue  08:50, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It sounds like the video card lost the ability to display in VGA mode and is only doing SVGA. Assuming you have an average computer, a replacement video card isn't very expensive and easy to install. If you are like many gamers with video cards that cost more than the rest of the computer, then I'd just suffer with the loss of VGA. --Kainaw ^(talk) 14:47, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Woth Playing NTSC disc in PAL compatible Player?

Guys!...Is it typically bad for the optical pickup in a DVD Player if an NTSC DVD movie is forced or tried to play in a PAL DVD Player or in a player that doesn't support NTSC format?..Will the laser pickup loose it's power eventually as a due of this?.Please Do Not mention the TV compatible format and the region code restrictions,since my question is all about the laser diode/circuitory response or health as a result of playing incompatible formats!... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Balan rajan (talk • contribs) 10:58, July 27, 2006 (UTC).

If by 'optical pickup' you mean the laser which reads information off the DVD, no, certainly not - all the laser does is read information off the disk, it doesn't know anything about encoding, that's all handled by other pieces of electronics. The laser doesn't care what it's reading, of whether the rest of the player can make sense of it. — QuantumEleven 09:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Oh fine.Thanks perhaps I too wondered this way...,but I've heard from many that when lasers are subjected to read some discs of either incompatible format or scratched one,the laser power gradually reduces because of excessive strain...Is it true so?..Or will playing the wrong compatible DVD or typical one make any electronic circuitry damage or some kinda firmware mess?..Because many times I've noticed that the ejection door has failed to eject at such occasions and the disc spin up never spins down until it's turned to off and back on...

Morever, it's just a laser diode and hence it has life time hours say 10,000hrs for instance.Now if it's subjected to much strain? won't its life time be shortened?...So I guess not many companies recommend to play scratched or damaged DVDs in their product and claims no warranty if hooked,is it so?..

It's a laser, not a human :) Components like lasers do not suffer any "strain" from reading damaged or incompatible disks. It sounds like your friends are anthropomorphising your DVD player a tad too much. The expected lifetime of a laser affected by such things like ambient temperature and humidity, how often it's dropped or kicked around and how often you stick a pen into the CD slot and poke around inside - reading damaged disks (unless they are so badly warped that, by spinning, they impact the read head) or incompatible disks has no effect on the expected lifetime of the laser. You can put your mind at ease. — QuantumEleven 13:28, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

However, while the laser will not be affected by bad disks, the firmware of the player can get confused, causing it to do some things with the mechanical parts which have some small possibility of causing strain to the hardware. For instance, some players fail to brake the spindle (which can even cause the disc to go flying if it is ejected while still spinning); some other players might move the pickup (where the laser is) back and forth a lot of times before giving up (trying to find a specific point at the disc and failing). Any firmware confusion, however, should be easily cleared with a reset. --cesarb 16:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Is this question being asked in relationship to a Playstation 2? It is commonly held that the dvd readers in certain models are 'sensitive' to certain kinds of media and can actually fail prematurely due to long term use. This affected all types of discs on the early models, and on later models was mostly a problem for recordable media. In any event, it is the physical media causing the issue and not the way the data is encoded. --Jmeden2000 18:09, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Hey Thanks Guys! that was really helpful.By the way I didn't have any intention of PS2 in mind whilst asking that.Recently I bought DVD Drive(PC) though it kicks my back since then like when I play DVDs(movies) with little scratchs,it won't play or just simply get struck at that location....I got tampered when the very same DVD(movies) played well in my DVD Player...Do most of the DVD Players have such compensating Hardware design to skip the damaged tracks too?....I've realized in PC that with a physically damaged Discs,windows generally fails to copy such file there's a data in the damaged location of the Disc.But when I used a special software like the "Bad CD Pro",I easily could copy the file which was a bi damaged....Why this isn't possible in windows?.My point is that with the caution of copying error data,windows might not copy such files.So is there Something like a dedicated program that can skip the laser from tracking the damaged sector to the next sector?

Most PC drives are designed towards reliably reading the data, and so they retry reading the data when the read fails. If the disc is damaged enough, the retry fails, leading to another retry; it can take some time before the system gives up (and even then it will probably just give you an error message). On the other hand, most standalone players are designed towards reliably playing the disc; it's acceptable to skip the audio or video if a read fails, instead of stopping right in the middle of the climax scene. Some software try to emulate the behaviour of standalone players (skipping damaged data); they are usually designed to be able to rip the maximum possible amount of data (for instance, cdparanoia or dd_rescue), and might write the failed data as zeroes or try to interpolate. However, even with a program which tries to skip when faced with a failure, the drive's firmware might still retry for more than a minute before returning a failure indication to the operating system (this is not much a problem with a ripper, since it only makes it slow; however, it is a problem when you try to play it in real time). --cesarb 20:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Free Video Converting

Where can I get a truly free video converter (i.e. no shareware or trial version) to convert video formats, specifically from .rmvb to .wmv and MPEG. Many thanks! --217.42.132.207 09:18, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

By the way did you try in Google Search?...I recommend you sure will get what you are looking for.You can by the way use any Video converter but what all you gonna need is the necessary codec which you can avail in many sites for free depending upon the codec type...they may or mayn't be for free...

In addition to google try videohelp.com, how to...convert link at the left. Weregerbil 10:53, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. Keep searching on google. Search things like "freeware video converter" ".rmvb to .wmv freeware" "freeware file converter" etc. --Proficient 15:59, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know what the ".rmvb" format is, but MEncoder can convert almost anything under the sun. --Serie 23:24, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

RMVB=Real Media video. Completely obsolete. Also, if you happen to need a meida player also, try VLC media player, it can transcode (not too efficiently, might need to up the bitrate), stream, and play almost every format available.--Frenchman113 on wheels! 00:41, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

DVD-R compatibility question

Hello, I was wondering if a DVD-R, once recorded, can be used in any computer DVD drive, or if it will only work on drives that are specfically labeled DVD-R or DVD±R. I've already checked the DVD-R and DVD+R pages, as well as others, and none of the pages answer this question.

Some more context for this question: I have a lot (about 3 GB worth) of vacation pictures, and I was hoping to share these with relatives and friends, some of whom aren't so computer-savvy and have no idea what DVD types their computers will take. I have an older drive that will burn DVD-R but not DVD+R.

Thanks for your help. --Tachikoma 12:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

It's a difficult question - a DVD writer (a drive labelled "DVD-R" or "DVD+R") can obviously read them. With DVD-read drives (ie drives that can only read but not write DVDs), it comes down to when they were built. Drives that were made after DVD-R and DVD+R were commonly introduced will read them, drives before them won't. For instance, I have a PC bought in 2000 which has a DVD-read drive which won't read DVD+R discs (which were introduced in 2002). However, I can't give you a more specific 'cut-off' date, I imagine it probably varies by manufacturer. Looking through a computer catalogue, I can find any number of DVD-read drives which will read DVD-R and DVD+R (from the detailed technical spec), even though it doesn't say that anywhere on the drive itself. My recommendation: burn your photos to a DVD-R (it was introduced in 1997 and is therefore more likely supported by older computers), and for the two people who have a computer built before about 1998 you can come up with a custom solution :) — QuantumEleven 13:17, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I may have to resort to burning several CD-Rs instead. Thanks for your answer. --Tachikoma 14:35, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

File Tansfer Through Lotus Notes

I have to develop an application using lotus notes Now I need to tranfer this file using the lotus note code itself How do I do that?

Laptop spec

Hello all. I am buying a new laptop. I want a laptop because it's portable (duh), and I can play Civ 4 while sat on the toilet. Plus I'm getting cheap wireless broadband. But this is my question. What sort of spec should I be looking for? I don't want anything ridiculously powerful at a very high price; I want something that will run modern games happily, and will be fast when browsing the net, using Office, etc. And how good a graphics card would it need? Proto::type 15:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

A lot of people get Dell laptops and use the various discount coupons that can be found on the Internet. Perhaps you can take a look at these: http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/entnb_e1505?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs.

You should probably be looking for at least 1 GB RAM, and a dedicated GPU (probably 256 MB). A dual core laptop will probably be nice as well, since more and more games/software are taking advantage of the two cores. --Proficient 16:11, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

If you plan on using wireless, see what the capabilities of your wireless access point are and ensure you are taking full advantage of it. A fast access point will not speed up a slow wireless modem in your laptop. --Kainaw ^(talk) 17:27, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Playing a game in the bathroom on a laptop can be difficult. If the game requires that the CD be in the computer, the CD can get dammaged (a laptop should be on a stable level surface when there is a CD in the drive). Cloning the CD and loading an image could solve that problem. Also the computer runs slower when not pluged in. But maybe you have a desk and a plug in your bathroom. That would be cool. Jon513 18:40, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I have a laptop and I play Civ IV on it - my suggestions: I echo Proficient in saying get plenty of RAM (1 GB is good), and most importantly, a good graphics card which does not use shared memory. A 256MB card would be brilliant, but they can be a bit expensive (I have a 64MB one on my machine, and it's adequate if a touch slow for Civ IV). As for playing on the toilet, where are you going to put the mouse? Or were you (gasp) going to play with the touchpad? I realise a lot of Civ IV works with the keyboard, but you still need the mouse a good deal. Note that since Civ uses the numeric keypad a lot (for moving units), on a laptop you need to keep the Fn key depressed to use it, since it's integrated into the main keyboard for space reasons. Since you're in the UK, myself and several tech-savvy friends have had very good experiences with Novatech, they may provide an alternative to Dell (obviously, check specs and prices). Have fun Civving! — QuantumEleven 10:10, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Above all my point is that a Notebook can never be a worthy gaming machine at all cost.It has always been a best candidate for Mobile browsing and Office works and some entertainment but not for gaming freaks....Mobility leads to damaged Drives while playing discs at high speeeds,high heat dissipation factor decreases FERTILIZATION when placed in laps,much hang up time between switching applications with heavy payloads have been the regular customers.My Bro has (Dell)512 MB Phy RAM,P Centrino plat with a decent nvidia 128 MB but still it doesn' give a good damn on Underground2 for instance as my Desktop does..I have noticed many users giving their comments after getting used to...Better think more than twice before you plan for....

Another Firefox question (scrolling)

In IE, when you middle-click, you get a scroller that scrolls when you move the mouse. Firefox has it too, but when you use the arrow keys on the keyboard, it doesn't move. Is there an extension or perhaps some option in about:config to make it work with arror keys? Wizrdwarts (T|C|E) 23:19, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Works for me, always had, with no extention. Don't know what to tell you. Jon513 09:04, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Works on me too. Click the roller, then the arrow pointer will come up. Then don't move the mouse, then use the arrow keys up or down. Iolakana|^T 14:01, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Funny, never worked for me ever since I started using Firefox. Wizrdwarts (T|C|E) 18:25, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried uninstalling then installing back again? Iolakana|^T 14:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)