Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 August 23

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August 23

Scanned Pages

How can I turn a scanned jpg page that opens up in Adobe into a word document or a way to copy the scanned page and paste it somewhere else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.143.158.118 (talk) 02:13, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

You need OCR software. Astronaut (talk) 03:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

iPhone

Should I get the 8- or the 16-gigabyte iPhone? Does one have any distinguishing advantage over the other aside from the obvious one—more memory? Thanks, anon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.155.162.102 (talk) 03:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A (very) quick scan of this page - (http://www.apple.com/iphone/specs.html) shows that the 'white' colour version is only available on the 16gb version. I suspect that the 16gb will weigh slightly more too - (as per point 1 in the small-print). ny156uk (talk) 09:17, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I would go with the white one, simply because pretty much no one has it, and friends will be like, "Whoa, were'd u get that?" 75.66.48.112 (talk) 18:20, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That is, after all, the main selling point of IP(hones/ods): What my friends will think. :) ---J.S (T/C/WRE) 18:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps an archive-fu master will swing by, as something along the lines of this has been answered for an iPod, but as a vague rule of thumb (my thumb, if we'd like to dispute this), 1 megabyte per minute of music, and about 4 per video (that is, at the resolution the iPod Nano allows), so 8000 minutes of music, or 2000 minutes of video. Given a 4 minute average song length (which is a little over the standard these days, but round numbers are cool), that's about 2000 songs, or 500 music videos - for the 8gig one. 98.169.163.20 (talk) 04:20, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

My general philosophy (which you can subscribe to or not, as you wish) is to always buy the best available configuration that I can afford. You will never look back and say "You know, I could have lived with the smaller configuration", you'll just keep adding songs (and the like) until the iPod/iPhone/computer hard drive is full. You may miss the $100 that the bigger iPhone cost you, but if you've already got the $199 for the base model, you can probably find the $100 for the top model. This will also make you feel slightly better when the product is next "revved" and is now available in 16 GByte version and a 32 GByte version; you'll at least still have a product with as much storage as the new low-end configuration so you won't feel as much "upgrade envy". And finally, yes, the white phone is much cooler than the black phone ;-).

Atlant (talk) 14:43, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

.ram-files from the BBC websites

Is there any possibility to save the audio and video files that the BBC provides in .ram format locally on a harddisk so that I can use them offline, and how can they be converted to mp3/wma or mpg/wmv. I want to use them in the classroom, which should be OK with copyright (fair use)? -- 84.160.18.195 (talk) 08:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

We can tell you about saving them and playing them offline, but not about copyright because that would be legal advice (which we have a policy against giving). If you would like to know if you can play them in the classroom, you need to hire a lawyer.

As for downloading them, the simplest thing to do is just to use the iPlayer. It's a program for PC's (no Mac/Linux version available) which you can download programs to. Just remember that it does have digital rights management, so the programs expire after a certain time - I think it's usually about a month. Not all British Broadcasting Corporation stuff is available on the iPlayer, however.89.241.141.9 (talk) 13:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Oh yes, and either you or your proxy server has to be in the United Kingdom.84.13.90.183 (talk) 13:25, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Just a note about copyright: at times, fair use claims for education have been very wide, and at times they have been very narrow. It's never totally clear. But in my experience most academics don't fret over copyright for the purposes of lectures, and I've never heard of any who ran into problems with that. Teaching generally gets one very wide leverage with fair use, esp. if it's one-time events with only registered students, etc. (e.g. not just posted to an academic webpage). But again, this is not meant to be legal advice, just a recollection of how I've seen this handled before. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've found the easiest way to deal with RAM audio is to set up something where you play the audio and record it at the same time. Then you can have the audio in any format which is conducive to you. I think you can do with the Audacity, but it might depend on your soundcard—you make the input your output, if that makes sense. You can do things like this with video, I am told, using video-capture programs, but I've never used that, and am not sure what software one would use. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:43, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for all your advice so far. (Sorry, I forgot that the English-speaking WP won't give any legal advice, but that wasn't my main question anyway.) I'll see what I can do. -- 84.160.18.195 (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Many BBC radio shows are available as podcasts on iTunes, if that's any good for you. --Joe^Talk_Work 16:35, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

About Coumpter

Who is the inventor of first computerAshish.20.jain (talk) 09:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Take a look at History of computing hardware. -- BenRG (talk) 11:42, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

There really wasn't a single inventor. The part that does calculations and the part that decides what calculations should be done were pretty much invented by different people at different times. Some of these parts were invented, forgotten and then re-invented.

So automatic mechanical calculators were around since ancient times with machines like the Antikythera mechanism and people like Hero of Alexandria had invented programmability to some degree - and all of that was over 2,000 years ago. But nobody bach then seems to have thought of connecting up a mechanical calculator to a programmable sequencer - so no computers were ever made (as far as we know). However, much later, in Europe in the 1600's, people started working on mechanical calculators, and Jacquard invented a programmable weaving loom that used punched cards as "memory". But still, nobody put the two together. In the 1800's George Bool invented boolean logic - a very important mathematical step towards computers - but he didn't think of automating them. The first thing we could really point to and say "That's a computer" was invented by Charles Babbage. He was really master of that stuff - a true genius - but an impossible person to work with. He conceived and started to build a gigantic (but pretty decent) mechanical calculator called "The Difference Engine" - but never really finished it. There is a fully working replica of it at the Science Museum in London - so we know it would have work had he only got the 'grunt work' done. But for the first time in history - he realised that taking a mechanism like the Jacquard loom and connecting it up to something like his difference engine would result in a programmable calculator...a true computer. He called this "The Analytical Engine" - and never completed work on it either. There were even a few programs written for it which modern programmers can look at and understand. (Ada Lovelace is sometimes credited as being the first programmer - but the modern view is that she simply wrote down what Babbage had done).

Yeah! So Charles Babbage is often credited with inventing the first computer - and that's 100% true. The trouble is that:

1. He never built his machine (although from what modern researchers have found, it would have probably have worked if he had).
2. His invention was almost totally forgotten. The subsequent "inventors" of computers were completely unaware of Babbage's work.

So while he invented "a computer" - he did not invent "the computer"...the machine that lead to the development of all modern computers.

Subsequently there was important contributions from Herman Hollerith who invented punched card tabulation machines. So now we have to look to the second world war - when the British were frantically trying to automate the cracking of German codes and other people were intent on calculating things like artillery trajectories. Alan Turing designed and built machines at Blechley Park in the UK that did logic operations and were programmable by re-wiring the hardware - and his theories really do underpin much of modern computing. John von Neumann was also doing research in these directions in the USA that lead to useful machines. But even those are not a "clean" claim to fame. If we look at this table:

{{Early computer characteristics}}

To be a proper computer, the machine needs to be "Turing complete" (as in "Alan Turing") - it's claimed that the Zuse Z3 was turing complete - but that's really not true in practical terms. For some very simple calculations that require Turing completeness, you'd need more film stock than it's mechanism could reasonably contain - and it wasn't even realised that the machine could theoretically be used in a turing complete way until 1998 - so we should dismiss that one. The first to be Turing complete was therefore the ENIAC. It was programmable - but you had to use patch-cords to "set up" the program - it didn't follow the "Von Neumann architecture" that almost all modern computers use in which the program was stored in the memory of the computer. So you could certainly argue that it owed more to the Jaquard loom's "hardwired" programs than to "software" in the modern sense. For that, we need to talk about the British EDSAC machine.

In my opinion, the EDSAC was the first entirely modern computer - it was the first to contain the ideas of Turing AND Von Neumann - it could run programs out of it's main memory. It was the first machine to run SOFTWARE - and software is what makes modern computers useful and interesting.

So - who gets the credit? The unknown inventor of the Antikythera mechanism? Hero of Alexandria? Babbage? Turing? Von Neumann? Well, I'd have to hand the prize jointly to Turing and Von Neumann - they were the two people who caused the modern computer to come into existence. The didn't know about the work of any of the earlier people - and none of the ideas of those earlier people are used in modern computers. But Babbage...urgh!

It's truly not a simple matter.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

A slightly different designation- the inventor of the personal computer, according to the National Inventors Hall of Fame, is Apple Computer's Steve Wozniak. JeremyMcCracken (talk) (contribs) 02:53, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Then 1968 Kitchen Computer - 8 years before Apple!

Well...I might want to argue about that. I owned an Altair 8800 almost a year before Apple started business. You could try to claim that the Altair wasn't a "personal" computer - but it's a very fuzzy definition. For *ME*, my Altair was a personal computer. However, the Honeywell "Kitchen Computer" from 1968 was an honest-to-goodness programmable computer (intended for the Kitchen?!?). It was offered for sale for $10,000 in the Nieman-Marcus catalog seven years before Apple started making the Apple I and while Woz was still in high-school. I can see where the National Inventors hall of fame are coming from - Woz's work was amazing - and he took the computer from a machine you had to program yourself to one where you could buy software and do stuff without needing programming skills - it was a clever design and he deserves a place in the pantheon (and he's also a HELL of a nice guy - probably the only one of those early computer geeks who kept his inner-geekness without turning going crazy or turning evil). But I don't think it's fair to take away from Ed Roberts, and Forrest Mims who TRULY came up with the first computer that came in a nice case that a hobbyist could actually buy and play with. SteveBaker (talk) 18:47, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

linux for old machine

I am thinking of switching to Linux from WinXP on my seven year old Intel machine with 256 SDRAM. Which distro can run on this machine? 59.91.253.30 (talk) 16:11, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

7 years... that would be... 2001? Well, Damn Small Linux can be run on pretty much anything. FreeSpire has a BIOS cutoff date of 2000, so u can barely run that. Others, I don't know. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 16:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

That's not a lot of RAM. xubuntu maybe? --18:24, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

yeah, Xubuntu should be a good option. SF007 (talk) 19:00, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I've successfully run Xubuntu on a crappier computer than that, so I also support that suggestion. rspeer / ɹəədsɹ 04:22, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

If it'll run WinXP - it'll run Linux. I used to run Linux on a '386 PC with 16Mb RAM and a 256Mb hard drive - so if you pick a sufficiently old distro, it literally will run on any PC that's less than maybe ~15 years old. SteveBaker (talk) 17:00, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

data onlile sources

what do you mean by data online sources in regard to marketing and management? this comes under the topic called data collection and no information is found in any of the study material. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tintucrazy (talk • contribs) 17:02, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If this is for homework, honestly, just consult your course materials and the answer will be there. Because "data online sources" by itself doesn't have any obvious discrete meaning separate from the very literal definition of it (e.g. sources of data which are online). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:04, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Linux probs... or just operator error

I'm running DamnSmallLinux from a "Live" CD. All the FAQs ive gone too hav been no help at all, so: How do I install things? I downloaded the firefox 3 installer for linux, then opened it, and it took me to something like "Beaver", but it didn't do anything. 2. Why do I have 4 different desktops? I mean, that's really cool, but really unusual, too. If I had some application or something to control them, that'd be amazing. 75.66.48.112 (talk) 17:51, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

If you've never run Linux before, and are used to a Windows or Mac machine, well, prepare to invest some time in it. Something as simple as installation on Windows becomes a big freakin' deal on Linxus if you haven't done it a million times. It sounds to me like somehow you've opened up a shell script in some sort of text editor, but I don't really know. The few times I have tried to install any sort of Unix/Linux utilities (on my MacBook, in Terminal, etc.) I have usually spent about 3 hours tearing my hair out for these sorts of reasons. The people who make this software generally assume that everybody downloading the Linux version of it understands Linux backwards and forwards and often give totally incomplete instructions. (I had one in which to try and get a little command line utility, I had to download the source files, then had to figure out where to get the compiler, but then it was missing another necessary set of files, so I had to try and download those and get those installed, and so on and so on, until I finally just gave up, frustrated and completely turned off from anything of this nature!) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 19:39, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

So, I should take a college course on the subject? Is there an easier way? Like, a software that actually runs? 75.66.48.112 (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Heck if I know, man. In my opinion the money saved isn't worth it in terms of time lost! As has been said, Linux is only free if your time is worthless... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:56, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

You shouldn't install stuff when running a Live CD because the software is on the CD-ROM (which you can't edit) and not on the hard drive (which you can). Linux distributions generally come with a piece of software called a package manager which you can use to easily install lots of free software.

DSL isn't designed to let you install software, so only has a text-based package manager called apt. You can install the graphical installer synaptic with the command apt-get install synaptic, and run that to install more software. But as I said, you can't edit the CD-ROM, so all your newly installed programs should disappear when you restart your computer!

98.217.8.46 is having a hard time because he or she is installing everything from source code. It's far easier when using a package manager, but computers running Mac OSX don't have one.

DSL is designed to be a small, leightweight Linux - I'd suggest changing to Ubuntu which is designed to be easy. Key bits of software - including GNOME (or KDE), OpenOffice.org and synaptic - come ready-installed. --h2g2bob (talk) 21:59, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm aware that Linux is particular difficult to deal with on OS X for this reason, but I'd also point out that everybody I know who decides to switch to Linux spends endless hours recompiling things and trying to figure out why their package manager has only downloaded half of the dependencies and etc. It's no walk in the park unless you've already invested a lot of time into learning its particular arcane ways, and frankly the manual resources and online assistance assumes a level of understanding of Unix-specific concepts that I just don't think the average user has. Someone could probably make a killing writing books on switching to Linux targeted at people who are comfortable with Windows and OS X, explaining how to do the sorts of things they are used to doing in the new system and explaining why it is done differently. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 02:59, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

With the exception of the infamously bad wireless support (which is due to the manufacturers not supplying Linux drivers, not Linux itself), I have never had any problems setting up Ubuntu or installing software. Also, I have yet to encounter a situation where I have had to compile any code but my own. Finally, if you go to your local bookstore's computer section, you will certainly find a number of books on migrating from Windows or another OS to Linux - in fact, I own one of these myself. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 04:01, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Switching to Linux means I don't have to reinstall Windows every 3 months (and consequently all the apps, utils, games, etc), doesn't need to bother too much about firewalls and stuff, and the system automatically maintains my system and all my applications up to date. Try a proper desktop distribution, like Ubuntu (I'm not saying DSL isn't good, just that this is not what it's designed for), and dig around for a few days. I have grown to love the package system, where I can easily install (almost) any applications automatically. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:46, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

So, switch to Ubuntu. Why Ubuntu? Aren't there like a billion different versions of regular linux? 75.66.48.112 (talk) 20:12, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. But Ubuntu is the most popular one, has the best community and tech support, and is the easiest for beginners. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 22:08, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Other issues aside, Kubuntu might be slightly smoother and just as easy. -- Hoary (talk) 11:21, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Ahem. If you don't like having to reinstall an OS because it's out of date, then (K)ubuntu is not a good distro. Consider an alternative distro that's more conducive to incremental upgrades. And while I'm no fan of Windows, I've no idea why anyone would have to reinstall it every couple of years, let alone every three months. If you want Windows, just install Windows 2000 with appropriate security precautions (including, but certainly not limited to, the avoidance of Outlook Express and Internet Explorer), use your brain, ignore "virus" hysteria and the nagging from Microsoft, and definitely avoid any "essential" utilities in impressive shrinkwrapped boxes from Symantec or similar. -- Hoary (talk) 11:22, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

retrieving phone numbers on the computer

Whenever I look up a phone number on my computer, It will appear and then quickly fade away. This includes emails and general articles or even White Pages. I am using a Dell laptop with Windows Vista. Does anyone else have this problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.184.124.178 (talk) 18:49, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand your question. Where are you looking up the phone numbers? Can you give more details? « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 03:52, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

That sounds like a really bizarre prob. I'd guess you have some "nanny" software on your comp trying to protect you from calling strangers who may wish to do you harm. It likely reads everything on the computer screen, detects anything that looks like a phone number, then blanks it out. If so, that's a stupid, brute force approach to safety. StuRat (talk) 21:24, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Do you happen to have Skype installed? I'm asking because it transforms numbers that look like phone numbers into clickable links, so you can just click on them and make a telephone call over the internet. I've found that sometimes it takes a few seconds for the numbers to transform after a web page has been loaded, so they change as I look at them. I'm pretty sure it can also do the same to HTML-based e-mail messages if you use Outlook or another compatible program for e-mail. If you do have Skype installed, I'd bet that's the cause, except in your case it's not working right. There should be a Skype icon somewhere in your browser's tool bar that lets you turn this feature off, or you could simply uninstall Skype and see if that does the trick. (If you don't have Skype installed, that's a really weird problem.) -- Captain Disdain (talk) 04:38, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, this was the problem...I removed Skype and now its okay. Thanks again

Huh. That was pretty much a shot in the dark. Glad it worked out for you, though! -- Captain Disdain (talk) 06:13, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

Internet Connection

Resolved

Ok, so my Dell Inspiron 600m came in today. It's supposed to have wireless, bluetooth, and stuff. Well, I can't figure out how to connect to the internet using it and in network connections it only shows bluetooth even though our router and modem is working. When I try to use the wizard to connect, it says I need to get the neccesary hardware and try again then. So we used the wizard for adding another computer to the network on a computer that was already connected. I don't know what to do since it's supposed to already have capabilities. Does anyone know how I can physically check for the precence of a wireless card? Thanks in advance, Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:28, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

It's possible that there's a physical switch, or (more annoyingly) a particular key combination, to activate wireless. Algebraist 20:33, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

According to Google, it's fn+F2. Algebraist 20:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Hrmm, that's just turning on my bluetooth (with which I'm not having a problem), but it's still not letting me connect to the internet. Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:40, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Ok, well it's not the card or anything that's wrong. I just hooked the ethernet cable directly from the modem into the laptop and I still couldn't connect to the internet. Any ideas? Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 21:37, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

What system are you running? Can you log into your router or modem? Algebraist 00:13, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP1. No, ipconfig doesn't give me anything. Apparently it's not recognizing my ethernet hardware. By the way, I reinstalled Windows and now my GRUB bootloader menu won't show up and let me log in to Kubuntu. Also, now my bluetooth connection isn't showing up (since I reinstalled Windows). Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 03:50, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Please upgrade to XP SP3. It has much, much better wireless support. --mboverload@ 08:10, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

I had XP SP3, but when I formatted and reinstalled it gave me SP1 on the OEM's disks; and I don't know how to upgrade without internet access.Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 16:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

For the record, I've worked on Dells before that had a switch (almost hidden) with which you could turn wireless on/off. I suggest looking for that switch; you may find it. Magog the Ogre (talk) 18:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Well, I found out that I needed some drivers that weren't on the CD. Got em from dell.com and now it works! Ζρς ι'β' ^¡hábleme! 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)