Would it be possible to sculpt and rig a character in blender, move it into different positions and export those as .stl files, retaining all information on how the different parts are arranged?

86.15.83.223 (talk) 10:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, Blender can both export in .stl format and you can choose what to export (highlight in object mode). OsmanRF34 (talk) 11:11, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all,

I was wondering if it is possible to load a single element of a webpage in a browser? For example it is easy to just load a single image like www.example.com/example.jpg , but is it possible to just load the text "main page" on wikipedia, or in my case I need to load the text "As of Nov 28 2012" just below the graph at http://funds.ft.com/uk/Tearsheet/Summary?s=GB0003197281:GBX without loading all of the pesky ads/images and so forth. Essentially I have hundreds of similar pages and have automated reading that bit in VBA but it takes ages loading all the web page every time. If so, how would you acomplish this? Many thanks for any help given. 80.254.147.164 (talk) 13:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It simply can't be done. You could see if the website has an API available to let you progamatically query things without loading all the HTML. What you're doing now is called screen-scraping, which is often against the TOS of a website. If you do it somewhat often the people running the site may notice and cut you off, and no matter what you'll be vulnerable to slight changes in the layout of the page breaking your code. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 13:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You can't selectively pre-load specific data unless the website makes that explicitly available to you. Otherwise you have to just do what you're already doing. Though I'm confused as to why it "takes ages" — you should be able to just load the HTML first, then grab anything you want out of that, right? Without ads or images or whatnot. Your VBA code sounds inefficient. (We can help on that, if you post it.) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How would I do that? All examples I have seen involve loading the page first then opening the HTML file. The relevant bit of my code is:

      URL = "http://funds.ft.com/uk/Tearsheet/Summary?s=" & ISIN & ":" & Curr
      With IE
        .Navigate2 URL
        .Visible = True  
      End With
     Do Until IE.readyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
     DoEvents
     Loop

80.254.147.164 (talk) 15:22, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like you're using VBA to drive IE, so it's IE loading the page. Presumably it's all the ancillary stuff you don't want on that page that's slowing things down. Slaving IE like this seems like a pretty desperate way of doing things when all you want is the HTML text itself. You'll surely get on much better having your program download the html itself. This MSDN article discusses web scraping in full Visual Basic. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:35, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That looks like VB.NET to me, not VBA. Among the tip-offs is that VBA doesn't really do multithreading. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What you are really asking VBA to do, if you just want the text content, is to make a simple HTTP request and then give you the contents. Here's a bare outline of how such a thing would work (this code was originally written for MS Access; it might take some adapting to use it in Word or Excel or whatever you are using; if you have difficulties, just Google the line that's giving you guff, or ask us on here):

Public Function http_Resp(ByVal sReq As String) As String

    Dim byteData() As Byte
    Dim XMLHTTP As Object

    Set XMLHTTP = CreateObject("MSXML2.XMLHTTP")

    XMLHTTP.Open "GET", sReq, False
    XMLHTTP.send
    byteData = XMLHTTP.responseBody

    Set XMLHTTP = Nothing

    http_Resp = StrConv(byteData, vbUnicode)

End Function

Basically you past your URL to sReq and, in theory, it'll return the HTML of the URL in question. Then you'll need to process it (e.g. parse the XML; there are VBA APIs for this as well if you Google around a bit) and extract the value you want. Much quicker than trying to get IE to do it for you. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've managed to work that into my macro, but I am having trouble parsing the XML; it is very confusing as I'm not sure how alot of the links relate to my case. Currently I have the html as one massive string and am using InStr("Name of element") To find where the element is in the HTML string and then returning the value. Would parsing the XML be faster than this method (it currently can run through 60 ish websites a minute - ie one a second). 80.254.147.164 (talk) 14:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am writing a BlackJack Program in VB.NET. The game has 4 actions the player can take: Bet, Hit, Stand, and Deal. The player can only take some of these actions at certain parts during the game, for example, at the start of a new round you can only Bet, and not Hit, Stand or Deal. The actions you can take are tracked using properties: CanBet, CanHit CanStand and CanDeal. So for example, at the start of the round they are all set to false and CanBet is set to true. The UI handles a property changed event to update the state of the relevant buttons.

For example, here is the Bet routine:

    Public Sub Bet(ByVal amount As Integer)
 
        ResetPlayerActions()
        CanHit = True
        CanStay = True
 
        BetAmount = amount
        Me.Amount -= amount
        NewHand()
 
    End Sub

Is this the correct way to implement this behavior, or are there any design patterns that can do a better job.

86.40.42.232 (talk) 15:00, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe the abstraction of a Finite-state machine will help with this. For each state the game is in, only a certain subset of actions are allowed. Astronaut (talk) 18:26, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any conditions where you can hit but can't stand, or vice-versa ? If not, then a single variable will do.

Stylistically, I'd place the "CanHit = True" and "CanStay = True" lines after the "BetAmount = amount" and "Me.Amount -= amount" lines. It won't make any difference in the execution for non-objected oriented code, but it just seems more logical to enable the next actions after the bet has been placed and the hand has been dealt (did I miss where you did this ?). Under an object-oriented approach, setting those Boolean variables early might trigger play to start before the bet has been set. BTW, do splits, double-downs, insurance, and side bets have to wait for version 2.0 ? And I assume we reshuffle after every hand ? StuRat (talk) 19:21, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't say whether you wish to take an object-oriented approach or not. I assume VB.net gives you the choice. First, let me discuss the non-object oriented approach:

I seem to see a logic error. If "NewHand" is only called at the beginning of a hand, then there's no need to tell it you can hit and stay, as that's always the case at the beginning of a hand (I sure hope NewHand doesn't have a call to Bet, as that would make for an infinite loop). If you did want Boolean variables to flag when you can hit and stay, say to pass on to the next subroutine, then initializing those at the start of "NewHand" would make more sense than here. However, I suspect that what you call "NewHand" is actually intended to be called not only when the hand is new, but for each subsequent action, as well. In this case, initializing the values for "CanHit" and "CanStay" here is appropriate, but the name "NewHand" is not. It should be called something like "MakeMove", if it is indeed to be called for every move, not just the initial move.

In addition, you may be able to do away with the "CanHit" and "CanStay" variables entirely. They are only useful if the conditions you evaluate to determine whether you can hit or stay are remote from where you want to use those variables. If it's as simple as (in pseudocode) "if DealerPoints < 21 and MyPoints < 21", or (allowing for 5-card Charlies) "if DealerPoints < 21 and MyPoints < 21 and MyCards < 5", then just put that line where you would put "if CanHit".

I also don't think you need CanBet and CanDeal variables, as the dealing always happens directly after placing the bet. In Object-oriented programming they tend to do it this way, but, in a more traditional approach, you can just place the deal code after the bet code.

So, to summarize this all, let me suggest (non-object-oriented) pseudocode like this (only the subroutine names are listed):

MAIN
      .
      .
      .
 do until UserQuits: 
   MakeBet
        .
        .
        .
   DealCards
        .
        .
        .
   do while DealerPoints < 21 and MyPoints < 21 and MyCards < 5 and not UserStanding: 
     MakeMove
          .
          .
          .
   ComputeHandResults
        .
        .
        .

Of course, if you want to take advantage of the object-oriented approach, you can do that instead. That might look more like this:

 MAIN  
   CanBet = True
   CanDeal = False
   CanPlay = False
   HandOver = False
   UserHasQuit = False

   MakeBet (fires when CanBet is set to True)
        .
        .
        .
     CanBet = False
     CanDeal = True

   DealCards (fires when CanDeal is set to True)
        .
        .
        .
     CanBet = False
     CanPlay = True

   MakeMove (fires when CanPlay is set to True)
        .
        .
        .
      if DealerPoints ≥ 21 or MyPoints ≥ 21 or MyCards = 5 or UserStanding:
         CanPlay = False
         HandOver = True 

   ComputeHandResults (fires when HandOver is set to True)
        .
        .
        .
     HandOver = False
     if UserQuits:
       UserHasQuit = True
     else:
       CanBet = True

   UserQuit (fires when UserHasQuit variable is set to True) 
        .
        .
        .

StuRat (talk) 19:49, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The game is it's own object, the window knows nothing of the game rules, it just enables/disables whatever actions the game says are available (via INotifyPropertyChanged). There are style problems which I intend to fix, I just what to mack sure I'm on the right track with this first.

BTW, do splits, double-downs, insurance, and side bets have to wait for version 2.0 ? And I assume we reshuffle after every hand ?

Yes they do. They are not on the Assessment Brief, so there's no marks for adding them. Shuffling is done only once, when the deck(s) is/are first created. This allows card counting! 86.40.42.232 (talk) 21:58, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, it limits the number of hands you can play. With 52 cards in the deck and an average of maybe 6 cards per two-player hand, I'd only expect to get in maybe 8 hands. StuRat (talk) 22:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You should probably start designing your code at a higher level first, where you list individual functions and what each will do, before getting into the details of where each variable is initialized. Have you done this yet ? StuRat (talk) 22:28, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On the subject of packs of cards and shuffling, at the casino's I've played in the dealer has had perhaps as many as 8 decks in a shoe. A marker is placed someway towards the back of the shoe by one of the players and when the marker is reached all the cards are shuffled before the next round starts. Astronaut (talk) 18:58, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Does the icon often associated with WiFi (not the Wi-Fi Alliance's logo) have an official name? Who came up with it and when? Is it copyrighted? Paganpan (talk) 19:50, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My guess is it's rooted in the history of radio and wireless radios. I doubt whoever first came up with or popularized it bothered to take any credit. Iconography/symbology/graphic design wasn't exactly as important or career associated back then, I dare say. No doubt the history of people drawing invisible emanating "waves" from a particular point is about as old as drawing. ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:17, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Translating a website from English to Polish I am stuck at the following phrase: "Last %s items", where %s is a number larger 1. The translation in Polish will depend on the size of %s as the language has multiple plural forms. Is it possible to add a condition (if statement) directly in the po file to take care of this or would I have to go back to the website code to add an if condition there? I read about "plural forms" in this context, but is this what I need? bamse (talk) 21:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

GNU's documentation for its implementation of gettext says the PO syntax supports the ternary (conditional) operator ?:, documented here. It looks like you can nest multiple ternary operators to handle the complications of Polish language plurals (Polish is explicitly called out in the programmatic section of gettext's plurals documentation here). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:57, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. In fact it was easier than that. Just had to wrap all such strings in "ngettext" and I get the option to translate to various plural forms in poedit. bamse (talk) 23:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've recently started learning Python, and I'm trying to write a simple program to calculate the day of the week. However, the following code (designed to determine if a user-entered year is a leap year, in which case 1 must be subtracted from the total) does not appear to be valid:

if month == January or February and year % 4 == 0 and year % 100 != 0:
total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code - 1
elif month == January or February and year % 400 == 0:
total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code - 1
else total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code

When I run the program, I receive the following error:

 File "Weekday.py", line 53
   else total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code
            ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

What is invalid about the "l" of "total"? Pokajanje|Talk 00:06, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

missing colon after else. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, but also Python requires proper indentations, as a syntax element. Perhaps they were lost when the OP did the cut and paste, but, just in case, here it is corrected:

if month == January or February and year % 4 == 0 and year % 100 != 0:
   total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code - 1
elif month == January or February and year % 400 == 0:
   total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code - 1
else:
   total = day + month_code + int((year_breaker[-2:]/4)) + int(year_breaker[-2:]) + century_code

StuRat (talk) 00:20, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Note that error messages frequently point to the next thing after the error, rather than the error itself, as in this case. StuRat (talk) 00:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the quick responses and your patience. I am now receiving another, unrelated error. The formula requires that one of seven different numbers be added to the total, depending on the month (I have named this variable "month_code"). So early on in the program I have:

month = raw_input("Enter the month (the whole word). ")

And later I have an if statement beginning with:

if month == April or July:
    month_code = 0
elif month == January or October:
    month_code = 1

When the program runs, I can enter all the data, but then I receive:

NameError: name 'April' is not defined

Just as the previous error, I'm sure this is something obvious, but I don't know enough to see it. Pokajanje|Talk 00:34, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

• (edit conflict) Note that month == January or February will yield True as long as February is not False/None/0; use

month == January or month == February

or

month in (January, February)

Use parentheses to force the operator precedence you want, for example

if (month == January or month == February) and (year % 4 == 0) and (year % 100 != 0):

which also comes with the benefit of added readability. About the April symbol error, look up your code, make sure that April is being defined before execution reaches that point — Frankie (talk) 00:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I tried all three of your suggestions. None worked. I intend that if the user enters "April", thereby making "month" equal to it, "month_code" will be zero. So there's really nothing to define. Pokajanje|Talk 00:55, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, are you doing something like month = raw_input("Please enter the month: ")? If so you need to use quotes because it is a string: if month == "April". It's case sensitive, so if the user enters "april" it will yield False — Frankie (talk) 01:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, and I have since fixed that and several other errors. The program now runs fully, but it gives the wrong days (calling November 30, 2012 a Monday). I looked through it very carefully, and checked the math and the formula myself, but I still can't find my mistake. The full source code (thus far) can be found here. The formula I am using can be found here. Pokajanje|Talk 04:59, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Diagnosing these problems is called debugging and it's a very major component of programming at every level, so now you get to develop some skill at it. The amount of code you wrote without testing and debugging it was already maybe larger than ideal. You should write just a little bit of code (just a few lines when you're just getting started), test it, fix any problems, write a little more, etc. But this program is still pretty small and you should be able to find the problems and fix them.

Anyway what I'd suggest is working through the formula by hand with pencil and paper for a known date like November 30, 2012; write down all the intermediate results. Do you get the right answer? In this case, the program has errors. Add a series of print statements to the program to show the intermediate results during the calculation, and compare them to the steps in your hand calculation. Where you see a discrepancy, figure out what has happened, and that is probably a bug. Of course there may be multiple bugs, so keep testing and checking til you're confident that everything is fixed. Generally, don't try too hard to figure out in your head what the program is going to do at a given point, since it's easy to make errors. Add print statements to trace the program's activity so you can know for sure whether it's going wrong at a particular place.

One note: the integer division operator in Python is // (double slash) rather than / (single slash). Single slash works in Python 2 but will throw a warning is deprecated. In Python 3, it will give a floating point result and that can lead to wrong outputs. 66.127.54.40 (talk) 07:09, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware of debugging & its importance. I just don't know enough to see the bug yet. Pokajanje|Talk 17:15, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A few minor problems I see:

1) When you give the error message "Error: this program cannot find dates before 1500 or after 2699", you don't do anything to prevent it from executing the rest of the code normally. Ideally you would loop back and ask for the year again.

2) Asking for the first two digits of the year, then the last 2, is sloppy. You should just ask for the full year and parse it yourself.

3) The prompts should end in a colon, not a period. This is how the user can easily distinguish between normal prints (ending in periods) and prompts.

4) As pointed out above, you need to change the month name to either all uppercase or all lowercase, to make comparisons work despite their case. Python provides simple methods to do those conversions.

5) "Enter the day" is ambiguous. Try "Enter the day of the month" (versus the day of the week).

6) You have part of the last line repeated at the end, causing a syntax error.

As for why you are getting wrong answers, if you can provide a text description of the logic you are attempting to implement, it would be easier to for us to help you debug. StuRat (talk) 07:41, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just to help the OP along: You program still has the (incorrect) if month == "April" or "July". This is not interpreted as if (month == "April") or (month == "July") as you intend. "July" on its own is the the second expression evaluated for the or. Since the truth value of a non-empty string in Python is True, this part is always true, and (anything or True) is also always true. Use the expanded version (something like that works in nearly every language), or use month in ("April", "July") - something similar works in many modern high-level languages (like Python), but not in other languages. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

What I would suggest (kind of a more specific debugging suggestion) is printing the values of month_code and century_code after they are computed. Are the results what you expected? If not, you have narrowed down the problem. 66.127.54.40 (talk) 08:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The problem was with century_code as described by Stephan Schulz. The program now works perfectly (I have removed the error messages for simplicity) and it can be seen here. Thank you all for your patience. Pokajanje|Talk 19:23, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You haven't addressed my points #1 and #4, so it's not going to work in those cases. Also, you might want to change from "was" to "is" when you print the results, since the date might be in the past, present, or future. (You could also check against the current date and use "was", "is", or "will be", where appropriate, but that gets involved, as it depends on time zones, daylight savings time, etc.) StuRat (talk) 02:23, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The simplest way to fix issue #1 is to add an "else:" after the error message, and indent the rest of the program after it. This won't prompt them to re-enter the year, though, the program will just end. StuRat (talk) 02:34, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The simplest way to fix issue #4 is to add this line after they input the month:

month = month[0].upper() + month[1:].lower()

This will make the first letter of the month uppercase and the rest lowercase. StuRat (talk) 02:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, I suggest you replace the last bit with this:

               print "%s %s, %s is a" % (month, day, year),
               if   total % 7 == 0:
                       print "Saturday."
               elif total % 7 == 1:
                       print "Sunday."
               elif total % 7 == 2:
                       print "Monday."
               elif total % 7 == 3:
                       print "Tuesday."
               elif total % 7 == 4:
                       print "Wednesday."
               elif total % 7 == 5:
                       print "Thursday."
               elif total % 7 == 6 :
                       print "Friday."

The advantage (along with being shorter), is that there's a single point of control. Thus, if you want to change the common part of the print, you need only change one line, instead of all 7. StuRat (talk) 03:24, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An even simpler and more compact idiom would be

         weekdays = ("Saturday", "Sunday", "Monday", "Tuesday", "Wednesday", "Friday")
         print "%s %s, %s was a %s." % (month, day, year, weekdays[total % 7])

I.e. make it data-driven, not driven by control flow. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 08:16, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

...but don't forget to change "was" to "is", as I did, to avoid "January 1, 2200 was a Wednesday.". StuRat (talk) 08:38, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Instead of month[0].upper() + month[1:].lower() you can write month.title(). StuRat, I know you just started learning Python and I don't think you should be instructing people in it quite yet.

The test century < 15 or century > 26 can be written not (15 <= century <= 26). This doesn't work in most other languages, though. (In C or C++ it will silently do the wrong thing).

For what it's worth there are standard library functions to do all of this stuff. You can replace everything after the raw_input statements with this:

        import time
        t = time.strptime("%d %s %d" % (century * 100 + year, month, day), "%Y %B %d")
        print time.strftime("%B %d, %Y is a %A.", t)

See the documentation. Of course, it's fine to do everything yourself for practice, but once you're done practicing you should discard your code and use the library functions, since they're already debugged. I think no one has pointed out yet that your code tests century % 400 == 0 (it should be century % 4 == 0), and there may be other lingering bugs. -- BenRG (talk) 18:11, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Your method only shows them how to change a string to title form, while mine teaches how to change to uppercase and lowercase, and also how to slice and concatenate strings. Also, I doubt if you would have thought to show them any of it, had I not already brought up the issue. As for the 400 year check, I think that's right. The leap year rule is, every fourth year is a leap year, except for every hundredth year, except for every 400th year. So, 1600, 2000, and 2400 are still leap years, while 1700, 1800, 1900, 2100, 2200, and 2300 are not. StuRat (talk) 19:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, Ben, I did at least test my code. Your code doesn't work. First you need to define "century", perhaps with "century = year_breaker[:2]". Also, you are using "year" to mean just the last two digits of the year, while the OP is using it for the entire year. Finally, I get a string/integer incompatibility error when I try to run it. StuRat (talk) 19:30, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm working on this exercise: http://www.codecademy.com/courses/jquery-checkers-part-2/0#!/exercises/1

If you click "Result", you see a brown outline of a box and the words, "Checkers Moves: 0". Well, I get that far when saving the four files: Checkers.html, provided.js, script.js,style.css to a folder on my desktop.

However when I add the code that creates the 64 squares, it works on Codecadamy, but on my computer it doesn't register the changes (64 squares do not appear within the brown box, it looks just like it did before). I am positive I saved my work. Any ideas why it isn't showing the changes? 169.231.8.73 (talk) 09:16, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you linking to the JQuery library? The Codeacadamy frame includes a JQuery call that isn't listed in checkers.html (probably to simplify things, but it strikes me that it will confuse things). In the "<head>" section of checkers.html, add <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js" firebugignore="true"/> (which is the missing line of code). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:06, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It works!!! Thank you!169.231.8.73 (talk) 01:51, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I was thinking of getting a Teknique Freeview Box T181 from my nearest store, but there is very little information for it both in store & on their website. All I would like to know is does this product have a Timers Menu option (so I can set it to come on to record a programme if I'm out), similar to the DigiHome AV16890. I have already tried their website but its getting upgraded or something. Any help ? 80.254.146.140 (talk) 12:06, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, are there any other freeview boxes that have the same/ similar Timers Menu feature as the DigiHome AV16890 ? 80.254.146.140 (talk) 13:28, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone explain in simple words what the difference is between having 32 bit OS or 64 bit OS? 117.227.39.231 (talk) 14:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A 64 bit OS can make use of more RAM, whereas (normally) a 32 bit OS is limited to a maximum 4GB of RAM. 64 bit programs and drivers will not work on 32 bit OS. These are the two main differences 92.233.64.26 (talk) 15:54, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Older x86 processors (386, 486, etc.) ran 32-bit code. Later (starting with the Athlon 64 and crossing over to Intel) a 64-bit mode was added, which expanded the instruction set and the address space, but also supported backwards compatibility with 32-bit processors. 64-bit mode is generally faster because of the added instructions and registers and because the instructions operate on bigger chunks of data. Its drawbacks are incompatibility with 32-bit processors, and increased memory consumption (because pointers and sometimes integers use 8 bytes instead of 4, and your program might use a lot of them). You have to use completely different compiler settings, runtime libraries, etc., so there are generally separate OS installs. I haven't benchmarked carefully or anything like that, but I'd say use a 32-bit OS if your computer has 2GB of memory or less. If you have 2-4GB, it's a toss-up and the best choice might depend on your workload. Above 4GB, you probably want a 64 bit system. 66.127.54.40 (talk) 16:33, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

In Windows, if you have 4GB of RAM, in 32-bit you get access to only 3.2GB or something like that whereas in 64-bit I think you get access to the whole 4GB. Of course, the 64-bit may use up more memory than 32-bit, but with 4GB I prefer 64-bit Windows. (I have two computers with that configuration.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:22, 6 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is covered at 64-bit computing, and 64-bit computing#32-bit_vs_64-bit. If you just want help deciding which version to use on some hardware you've got: if the processor is a 64-bit processor, you may as well use a 64-bit OS. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:30, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Originally, when computer designers said a CPU was "64-bit", they were referring to the smallest addressable memory, and the default word-size for arithmetic operations. This is a very specific technical usage, and it had a lot of implications to performance. Because computers are very complicated, one single parameter like "word size" is not a complete way to define the performance of the entire system. This is complicated by the fact that inside a single processor, different parts need to be 8, 16, 32, 128- bits, 36 bits... and so on - in fact many different bit lengths are typically used internally. In general, "64-bit" has ceased referring to a specific parameter, and has come to mean a more recent generation of higher-performance-class processors. Often, it means that the x86-64 Intel architecture is in use, referring to a specific standard architecture; but not all 64-bit computers are made by Intel or use the Intel architecture. Consider this parameter in the same way that you read "4-cylinder" and "6-cylinder" engine. In isolation the number tells you nothing about the performance or quality of a car or its engine. In practice, it is widely known that 6-cylinder engines are designed and marketed as more powerful engines for more expensive, higher-performance vehicles. The same applies to computing: a 64-bit processor is usually built into and marketed for a higher-class, higher-performance machine. In the last few years, it has actually become difficult to find processors for consumer personal computers that are marketed as 32-bit systems, because 64-bit technology has matured and captured this market. Nimur (talk) 19:53, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can anyone give me a link where I can download Visual Basic 6.0? 117.227.39.231 (talk) 15:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'll Assume Good Faith that you're not asking for pirated software, which we can't provide links to, of course. Alas, VB6 is not legally for sale anymore, unless perhaps you find old installation disks on eBay (the legality of which is at least murky, licenses and first sale and all). You can, however, get VB.NET for free, in the form of Visual Studio Express. There are tools that sometimes — but not always — can automatically convert VB6 code to VB.NET, but they are really very different languages. If that isn't satisfactory (which I don't disagree with; I think VB.NET is a fairly painful language in comparison, a strange mix-up of VB and other languages), your only recourse is to illegal methods, and we can't help you with those. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:56, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/#searchTerm=visual%20basic%206 ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:27, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm, that's interesting. It seems with certain types of MSDN subscriptions you can get VB6 Enterprise Edition? It's too bad that they all seem to be fantastically expensive (hundreds if not thousands of dollars). --Mr.98 (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it'd be too bad if VB6 were worth having (at any time in history). :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:51, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's not a bad little language for quickly mocking up something with an interface. Surely even you can admit that. VB.NET is a poor substitute in this respect — it has pretensions of being a real language but it's not, and yet it makes quickly mocking things up more difficult than it ought to. Worst of both worlds. It's still stupid that you have to have an expensive membership to get access to a discontinued language. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:13, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, but it's so old, it's hard to care that they don't care. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:31, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yack, what's the deal with not providing illegal advice. Legal advice is the kind we are to avoid...

No really, in the EU, it's OK to pick up genuine CDs via ebay (and virtually any way as long as it's genuine and not used at more than one place at a time). Yes, anything beyond that would be a "surprising" requirement, and if you cannot see that requirement before buying the product, it is void. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 18:37, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's not so much the Reference Desk has specific "illegal advice" policies, it's that we don't want to run afoul of Wikipedia's own copyright policies. Anyway, it is not exactly hard to figure out how one might do a thing on the Internet. But we shouldn't play a role in that. Actually, the OP's IP geolocates to India anyway, so it's probably neither here nor there to cite EU vs. US first sale policy (I find the EU's approach much more sensible than the US's, but who cares what I think?). --Mr.98 (talk) 19:28, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Also, if you are looking for a VB6-like language, you might check out Realbasic. It's not really VB — and so can't used VB linked libraries or OCXs or COM controls or whatever — but the actual language itself is functionally almost identical to VB in terms of syntax (and difficulty), and the interface provides many of the same features. It also can be cross-compiled. There are free trials on their website. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:17, 1 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ouch again. I know that WP:LEGAL and similar rules are not RD-specific; I should have added a little emoticon to the 1st line of my reply. I just wanted to point out that not all countries have regulations sillilar to the US's (which are a bit on the pro-industry side), and that there is good point in WP:AGF on this topic. I was afraid that the topic could be dismissed as criminal by one who didn't know. That would have been a good-faith closure but still a very poor one.

Reisio said it best - I'm not exactly fond of VB myself. So-called object-oriented languages without destructors are not any better than qBasic IMO. And all those silly file extensions (VBX, OCX, etc) are no good either. They are glorified DLLs.

Just my bits. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:42, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! Can someone explain the main diffrences between Borland Pascal and Free Pascal in normal English (i'm a dummy in these things, so i won't understand if you start to explain in programmers language)? And does "Turbo Pascal" is the same term as "Borland Pascal"? --84.245.229.37 (talk) 08:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Turbo Pascal article explains the difference between it (the cheaper product) and Borland Pascal (the more expensive one): "Borland Pascal had more libraries and standard library source code." -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:12, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Borland, and Turbo, Pascal was a closed source commercial solution for MS-DOS and Microsoft Windows (both only on x86), which hasn't been developed or sold for a long long time. Free Pascal is an open source pascal solution for a range of architectures and operating systems, and is still developed and used. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:17, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a company based in Poland which has international customers, I was wondering whether facebook, twitter, linkedin and similar sites support multi-language (English/Polish) features. For instance, ideally I would have a single twitter account and create each tweet in either language. Followers could then decide in which language to follow and would only see the tweet in their chosen language. bamse (talk) 09:02, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you expecting the site to do a machine translation for you ? StuRat (talk) 09:14, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

No, definitely not. I would prepare the text in both languages. I just want to avoid having two twitter accounts, one for Polish and one for English. Having only one account would also make it easier to make sure that all the tweets are send out in both languages. Similarly for facebook. If I decided to change the design or add some information it would be good if it applied immediately to both, the English and the Polish facebook page. bamse (talk) 09:31, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

WP:OR here but I don't think you're going to get what you want with Facebook. A user can change the language of the site (menus, options, etc) to their own language or a few miscellaneous ones (Pirate, Pig Latin, Klingon, etc) but the posts will still show up in the language that they were posted in. My brother will sometimes post in German but all that is offered to me is a translation link, provided by Facebook, to a machine translation. Additionally, I admin a business page on FB and cannot target posts to a specific language based on user preferences. Or at least not that I've seen in the preferences available to me. Dismas|^(talk) 12:00, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

attempting to rescale a complex object in blender, but rather than wanting it just made bigger, I want something like this: http://i1067.photobucket.com/albums/u437/Kitutal/private/scaling.png such that effectively the negative spaces around it are proportionally smaller. is this possible, and how would I go about doing it?

thank you

86.15.83.223 (talk) 13:04, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I do not believe this is a standard feature in Blender - at least, it isn't straightforward. It is possible, though; you need to set up constraint and relations to define the radius of the round, relative to the characteristic length of the limbs of the object. Blender doesn't support that kind of parameterized geometry as well as other some other 3D modeling software. For example, this would be easy to do in SolidWorks by specifying constraint equations. But, Blender's model geometry is accessible via its scripting interface, so if you are fairly adept at python programming (and a relative expert at Blender), you could write a script to define such constraint equations and scale your object in that way. Nimur (talk) 14:49, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Unless I'm misreading your request, you want to scale uniformly away from the surface (along normals)? You can do that in Blender with the Shrink/Fatten tool. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 20:22, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

scale away from the surface along the normals, that's the jargon I was looking for, and a fatten tool sounds about what I would want. I'll give it a go, thanks 86.15.83.223 (talk) 09:53, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So, Windows Live Messenger is being shut down in February. When it's running, it produces a little popup when an email is received; you can also check the WLM window to know how many unread emails you have. Are there any other programs out there that have this same functionality? 90.193.232.108 (talk) 14:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Most email clients can do this in some form. See Comparison_of_email_clients#Database.2C_folders_and_customization and look for the column headed "New email notification".--Shantavira|^{feed me} 15:26, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

That should do the trick. Thanks very much. 90.193.232.108 (talk) 00:34, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I just opened a Word document from Yahoo Mail and made numerous changes to it, with track changes on. I selected "Save" but did not Save As, and then I closed Word. Normally I would save as to My Documents, but I apparently forgot to do this. Now I can't find the document anywhere, although I assume it must be somewhere on my hard drive; a search for a distinctive part of the document name does no good. Any suggestions? John M Baker (talk) 19:56, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Look in Temporary Internet Files. But, unfortunately, it's all too common in this circumstance for people to close the doc, realise they've closed it, and then re-open it from the browser or mail client. Depending on the temp file naming scheme, that can mean the new copy gets the same name as the old, so you've overwritten the document you changed with a fresh version from your email. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:08, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It should also be in Word's history (perhaps with an unhelpfully mangled name). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:09, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I was eventually able to find it in Temporary Internet Files For some reason, accessing Temporary Internet Files through Windows Explorer didn't seem to work (or maybe I just overlooked the document in question), but I was able to find this file by accessing Temporary Internet Files through Internet Properties. I had indeed re-opened the document from Yahoo Mail, but the second time was a new document. I couldn't open the document directly from Temporary Internet Files, but I copied it to My Documents and was able to open it from there.

Incidentally, our article on Temporary Internet Files needs updating to reflect Windows 7 and, I assume, Windows 8. John M Baker (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm now on my 4th printer on this system, every one of which has installed a surprisingly large number of entries in the Firefox config system. Is there any way to REMOVE, not just reset, all that obsolete crap?

If you are using Windows and referring to the list of printers within the "Print" dialog, open My computer-->Printers (or Control Panel-->Printers), right-click the obsolete printer, and delete. Then open Control Panel-->Software, look for an entry resembling "(printer model) drivers", click it, and click "remove".

That'll remove the printer clutter from your other applications as well.

If I misunderstood you, tell us, the better the chances that someone else will help you. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am talking about the Firefox config system. Open a new tab, type about:config in the address bar, then type print into the search bar.

In my case, there are FIVE SCREENS of configuration parameters that start print.printer or just printer_ -- 75% of which are obsolete because they're for printers I no longer have.

Can this be cleaned up? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:20, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ahem, *facepalm* , now I see.

Take the following with a grain of salt:

I found one named print.print_printer, value (foobar) on mine, and several named

print.printer_(foobar).whatever and I think it would be safe to remove those where the (foobar) part is not the value of print.print_printer. However, I doubt that a mere page and a half (out of 40) has any significant effect on performance.

Your amount of config settings seems to be comparable to mine (one screen per printer, or a bit more). I wouldn't touch it, esp. since I'd have to delete one setting at a time. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to search the Firefox help system myself, I entered remove config in the search box. This got me 1000 results, NONE of which (in the first couple-hundred entries) contained both remove and config -- apparently the default search is "OR".

But, remove +config did the same thing, as did "remove config". Any suggestions as to how I could have searched more effectively myself? --DaHorsesMouth (talk) 20:45, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure, but I've had almost no luck using the search facility in online help like this. What they need is a proper index, where, you might find, say:

Resize:
  Disk partition
  Paging space
  Window:
    Frame
    Scroll buffer

Without this, a search for "resize" gives you all of the above, and, if the place you actually want happens to call it "adjusting the size" instead of "resize", you won't find it (you might not even find the word "resizing"). So, a search is a terrible substitute for a proper index. StuRat (talk) 20:55, 2 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Horse: Did you try remove and config ? Not sure if it works, tho.

StuRat: It's not a "search vs. index" thing, but most search features stink. For starters, a decent search feature could work with wildcards reserved words like and and plus (A plus B to be used to return only the topics containing "A B", not "B A" or "A blah B").

If you want to search for "resizing Microsoft Plus DriveSpace files", you could search for

(resiz* or adjust*) and drivespace and "plus"

(resiz* will find "resizing", and "plus" will, due to the double-quotes, not be seen as a reserved word.)

Of course, an index (or merely a keyword list attached to each article) is always superior, as there is always a risk of ambiguity; a search for "substitute" would return this very topic. Keyword lists can cut down on that kind of returns which are syntactically correct but still useless. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:43, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There's a problem with having to list every possible synonym for the words in your search. Even if you can list them all, you're likely to get too many matches. For example, "adjust" might also return info about how you should adjust the brightness of your monitor to avoid eyestrain. And I wouldn't expect the average Windows user to know how to perform Boolean search operations, while using an index is quite simple. StuRat (talk) 20:27, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"And I wouldn't expect the average Windows user to know how to perform Boolean search operations" It would have to be documented, of course. But if it is, the average user can do it too. Well, maybe not the kind who got suckered into buying Vista, then 7, and now 8. But you cannot make people smarter with an index either. Unless you WP:WHACK! them with one. ;)

Your example is somewhat flawed, too. I don't see why the help page on display adjustment would mention DriveSpace. (It could mention Plus!, though.) - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 08:04, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My example assumes they can't successfully use Boolean searches. A proper, cross-referenced index is pretty much idiot-proof. StuRat (talk) 20:52, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Windows 7 home premium, VLC 2.0.1.

i download many videos. some show a video preview in the File icon\Thumbnail.

most of the videos show a VLC orange cone. the cone is nice but i'm sorry, i need to see video preview. how i get that all videos will show a video-preview?

because the problem is very frustrating, i send the largest thanks to any helper, may you be blessed ! :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.64.163.33 (talk) 01:48, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Some possibilities:

1) Are the ones that didn't give thumbnails a different format (AVI vs MPEG, etc.) ? Perhaps VLC is only the default viewer for some formats.

2) Or perhaps a different codec ? Maybe it can't build thumbs for certain codecs.

3) It might just time out after spending a certain amount of time building thumbnails. You can try to regenerate the thumbs by closing and reopening the window.

4) Your computer might be low on resources, like memory. Try rebooting, then run just that app.

Also, unlike with pics, video thumbnails aren't all that useful. The chances that whatever random frames it uses for the thumbnails will be recognizable are quite low. (I wonder if they now have the ability to designate the thumbnail image in a video, to fix this problem ?) StuRat (talk) 02:23, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) The file types that does show thumbs are AVI and MP4. all other files who does not show it are FLV (Flash video file). i believe this is a direction for solving the problem, anything you could add?

3)trust me, it's not time.

4)trust me, i have enough computerlish power to show all in a sec.

sincerely. 109.64.163.33 (talk) 03:19, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

1) OK, this is likely the problem. I can think of two possible solutions, one easy, one painful:

A) Please pick "open" on the ones that work, to see what opens them up. Then pick "open" on the ones that don't work, to see what opens those up. If a different program is opening each up, then you may just need to change your file extension mapping to allow the one which gives previews to open them all.

B) If that doesn't work, then it looks like FLV format just isn't supported for thumbnails. In that case, you'd either need to find some program that can give you thumbnails for those, or convert them all to supported video formats.

3 & 4) It may not just be displaying those thumbnails, but extracting and generating them from the videos at the time. That takes considerably more resources than you might think. StuRat (talk) 06:01, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

It's definitely the FLV format. Windows doesn't support FLV thumbnails by default. The thumbnail system in Explorer is extensible (that's how e.g. PDFs can have thumbnails when you have Adobe Reader installed), but I don't know of any specific program that installs an Explorer extension for FLV files. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 20:16, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

VLC would be my first stop. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:18, 3 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

[1] is probably far simpler. A number codec mega packs also support thumbnail generation but they are IMO a bad idea, they tend to screw up stuff. Nil Einne (talk) 15:42, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

doubt on synchronized block in java

Hi ! some people are feeling bore on my regular questions on threads. Do not feel bore on my regular questions.I am a beginner.I am learning java with out any teacher.I need your valuable suggestinons.Today i am going to ask on synchronized block.

the general form of synchronized block is
class table
{
    .......

    void printTable(int n)

    {
        synchronized(object)
        {
            ......
        }
    }
}

1)Here object means object of any class.i.e we can lock object of any class besides the object of "table" class.
2)if we place this in place of object it is possible to lock object of table class
3)then how can we lock object of a class other than table?can you give example based on below programme?
4) if we want to access a variable or method from table class we need object of table .
if we lock object of table class it is not possible to an object of table class to access synchronized block of table class
from two different places simultaneously.
but if we lock object of another class,say X,how can the object of class X can access synchronized block of table class?
because object of class X is not object of table.object of table only can access members of table.

I think you got my doubt.
I request you to clarify my doubt based on below programme.

import java.io.*;
class table
{
    void printTable(int n)
    {
        synchronized(this)
        {
            for(int i=1;i<=5;i++)
            {
                System.out.println(n*i);
                try{
                    Thread.sleep(500);
                }
                catch(InterruptedException ie)
                {
                    System.out.println(ie);
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
class MyThread1 extends Thread
{
    table t;
    MyThread1(table t)
    {
        this.t=t;
    }
    public void run(){
        t.printTable(5);
    }
}
class MyThread2 extends Thread
{
    table t;
    MyThread2 (table t)
    {
        this.t=t;
    }
    public void run(){
        t.printTable(100);
    }
}
class synchronizedblock1
{
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        table t=new table();
        MyThread1 t1=new MyThread1(t);
        MyThread2 t2=new MyThread2(t);
        t1.start();
        t2.start();
    }
}

output:

5
10
15
20
25
100
200
300
400
500

Hello! I am new here in the USA and I want to know if there are some huge Internet Forums like Baidu Tieba which allows thousands of people to post information and discuss with others in the USA? Thank you very much.--Jack No1 06:48, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Nothing perfectly analogous to that comes to mind, but take a look at list of Internet forums and Yahoo! Groups. ¦ Reisio (talk) 09:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is INTERCAL so fussy with politeness? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.135.48.170 (talk) 16:35, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

INTERCAL is a joke. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:43, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template:Formerly

What is the HTML code for a marquee tag in a title bar?

• http://allianzeunicollege.edu.my/portal/programmes-a-admission/degree/md-ucc.html

—Wavelength (talk) 17:48, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There isn't an HTML tag for that. They're using Javascript to manipulate the title DOM element, using the j7titlescroller extension for Joomla. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:58, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I am revising the heading of this section from Marquee tag in title bar to Scrolling text in title bar, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings).

—Wavelength (talk) 20:30, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

"What is the HTML code for a marquee tag in a title bar?"

Annoying, that's what. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:56, 4 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

For a few months now, my laptop bluetooth's not been working properly. I can switch it on, and detect the presence of other devices (my cell, for example), but I can't exchange stuff (cell to laptop or vice-versa). Everytime I try to do so, it says something like "Service not supported by other device"... When I go to the Devices and printers section in the control Panel, (I use Windows 7) there's a small notification icon at the bottom corner of my laptop's icon, which tells me to troubleshoot the bluetooth connection. When I do so, it says "Driver not detected".. I tried reinstalling the driver, but during installation, the installer notified me that the required driver is already installed. Any idea what's wrong with my lappy? 117.211.6.139 (talk) 10:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming you have the driver installation program available, why not delete the old bluetooth drivers first and then reinstall it again. Astronaut (talk) 17:03, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Tried that too. Now the driver installer tells me that the driver is already installed. Weird. Control Panel doesn't list any bluetooth driver installed, but it still refuses to work... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.190.191.191 (talk) 18:28, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Uninstalling might be a two stage process and might be distributed across a few places (low level driver, a service,and the higher level stuff that appears in the control panel). Assuming you rebooted after uninstalling you might still have some of it left around. You can't just delete the driver files either, so have another go - maybe checking the laptop's BIOS screen to make sure the hardware is off. Astronaut (talk) 18:40, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I want to edit some executable file (EXE) resources on windows 7, I've tried resource hacker and other resource editors, but none of them provides an "API" or something that lets me automatize the replacement since it's very tedious to do it manually.. Is there any program that allows automated replacement? Or, how could programatically edit an executable resources? I have not been able to find any usefull information. Thanks. _{PS:Should work on 64bit} 190.60.93.218 (talk) 17:27, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I guess when you're says "EXE" you mean a Portable Executable (PE32 and PE64) format file, and not an old 16 bit New Executable or a .NET process assembly. So what you need is a library for whatever language you're intended to write your automation in, that can manipulate PE headers. There are libraries for Python and C++, for example. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:21, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A discussion on doing this in C# is here -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

An alternative might be to took through the sources for Mono, which contains sources for its implementation of pedump and monodis, and for Mono's own resource compiler. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:15, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Two settings I find annoying and want to change:

1) It seems to make the window title bars somewhat transparent, showing whatever is underneath them as a fuzzy image. This is both ugly and a silly way to waste resources. How do I make them either completely opaque, or, failing that, transparent without fuzziness ?

2) In Control Panel, it seems to sort in an annoying order, like this:

  1                    2                    3                    4
  5                    6                    7                    8

I want to change it between row-major order and column-major order, like this:

  1                    3                    5                    7
  2                    4                    6                    8

How do I do that ? Thanks for your help. StuRat (talk) 18:35, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Window and title-bar transparency settings are controlled in Window Color personalization options. Nimur (talk) 18:46, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(ec) :Under "Personalization", there is "Window color" along the bottom icons. That one leads to a screen with "Enable transparency" ticked. There are more extensive options under "Advanced appearance settings..."

As for the control panel's sort order, you can't change that at all easily. From my experience with XP, I know things like the control panel are likely stored somewhere as a directory of shortcuts, and you might be able to introduce something to override the way it is presented on screen. Astronaut (talk) 19:00, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks to both of you. They admit that transparency may adversely affect performance, yet make it the default option. I turned off the "Aero" themes entirely, and went back to Windows Classic, as I'm not too concerned about poking myself on the pointy corners. :-) StuRat (talk) 19:22, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The transparency is silly, I had the bar at the opaque extreme… but man, give the aero a chance and you will never want to go back, this thing is really comfortable and practical Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 23:09, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Using vb express 2010, is there a way to compile the xml comments into a file. I know there is a /doc option somewhere, but i can't fine that option in the express version.

Thanks, 86.42.161.253 (talk) 19:08, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just a caution that the results might not be as useful as you hope. For example: "Add these two values together to get X:" is rather meaningless without the code showing which two values they are talking about. StuRat (talk) 19:33, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Just bought two new RAM modules a few days ago, however, after testing with Memtest86+ (Ubuntu Live CD) it appears I get a few errors:

http://bayimg.com/GaGEOaAeN

http://bayimg.com/haGeAAaEn

I'm not 100% familiar with the program, so can anyone confirm those are in fact errors? Assuming they are errors, is it "normal" to get these kinds of errors? Thanks. - David Candoso — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.80.244.207 (talk) 19:43, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, the summary above says that 0 cases pass, so that does sound bad. Either the memory is bad, or the scanning program is. StuRat (talk) 19:53, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Memtest86+ is a well-known program that is distributed with both Debian and Ubuntu, probably other distros as well. As the OP will know, you boot into Memtest86+ instead of booting into the OS (Memtest86+ appears on the GRUB boot menu). There is no reason to believe that the problem is with Memtest86+. I once had a dual boot PC in which CPU-intensive tasks crashed in Linux, which showed no symptoms of any kind when booting windows Xp. I initially thought the fault was with Linux. I checked with memtest86+, and immediately got screens like the ones you posted pictures of. Replacing the RAM it fixed the problem. I have no idea how Xp was able to run stably with defective RAM. There is a (remote?) possibility that your RAM is not mounted properly, but if the PC boots OK, I doubt that that would be the problem. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:25, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Facebook still shows that in case you don't have an access to your e-mail for password recovery there is an option "How can we reach you?" available after clicking on "No longer have access to these". However presently that option isn't shown when you click on "No longer have access to these?" - there is another screen instead, which isn't helpful. Is there something wrong or they removed "How can we reach you?" and forgot to update the troubleshooting video? 93.174.25.12 (talk) 22:02, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Super Windows eight just gave me this error… some clue what could it be?

• [ Name] volmgr
• EventID 46
• [ Qualifiers] 49156
• Level 2
• Task 0
• Keywords 0x80000000000000

• EventData
• \Device\HarddiskVolume1

0000000001000000000000002E0004C0091000000F0000C000000000000000000000000000000000

( Crash dump initialization failed!)

thanks Iskánder Vigoa Pérez (talk) 22:57, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I'm just looking at a bad sample, but it seems like whenever I look at netstat while running Internet applications that are seemingly a perfectly fit for UDP's multicast functionality, they're all implemented with TCP connections. From what I've seen, online radio broadcasts, Ustream, live sports video, and similar applications all show up as using TCP connections. Couldn't overloading and limited-bandwidth issues on the server side be avoided by using a UDP multicast? It just seems to me that UDP multicast was designed for these applications, yet I can't find a significant number of them that use it. Why?--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 23:14, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]