Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 December 6

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December 6

Forcing Google to recognize punctuation

Is there a way? I thought maybe, the same way that you can substitute that percentage language for problematic urls (I have no idea what that's called but you computer gurus must know what I'm tallking about, right?), there might be some code you could use to make Google search with punctuation. An example of what I mean: I was just trying to look up whether a certain animated short, T.R.A.N.S.I.T., was available online. Of course, I searched with various delimiters like "animated short", etc., but it would be much easier if Google would actually search for the punctuated term.--71.247.123.9 (talk) 01:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's a way to make them recognize it. It's likely because the database itself doesn't recognize punctuation, which would optimize it for situations except those which required specific punctuation (which are, you must admit, comparatively rare). --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

It's not as rare as you think. Think of software developers. Google is the best way to bring together all the technical forums into one search. But if you can't specify exact syntax it makes it a lot harder to filter down what you want. Code syntax can produce a VERY specific search. But not if the search engine throws out characters from your search term. There really should be a way to switch on puntuation recognition. Maybe a Google for coders or something. I don't think any database is incapable of recognizing punctuation. It is like some form of mental block that makes people think that there are illegal characters. There are no illegal characters. You just need to make the structure such that the data is separated from the structure. The technique to try to roll the structure in with the data by reserving certain chars is too restrictive on the the contained information. It is INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY. Lets get hi-tech enough that we can recognize all the characters in our langauges. Information in an information field of memory should view equally at least every nonzero width printable character in the ASCII, or UNICODE char sets. They are all really just numbers. This was the intention of making them numbers so they could be treated equally. A period has a number. A letter A has a number. But you have to separate the Data Segment and the Code Segment and make sure the IP doesn't walk out of the code segment into the Data is all. What is the problem? I think it was Microsoft that invented this idea and we need to get rid of it. Get back to the fundamental Computer Science always. You aren't bound by any rule other than what truly can be done. Not what someone else asserts can be done.

Actually even zerowidth or nonprinting chars could theoretically be searched, allthough less usefull perhaps, it is not more work it is just a 32 bit number from 00000000 to FFFFFFFF. Each one is equal, it is more work to pick a few out and treat them specially than it is to treat them all the same. Because they are in a properly implemented Data Segment, they are simply lifeless letters, symbols or glyphs etc. and can cause no harm or discontent. They are our notes, our writings our chicken scratch. The stuff computers are supposed to keep for us. It's all just a string of marks letters and punctuation alike. And it is not benneficial to structure our IT otherwise.

anything I can buy for an 80 gig iPod classic that puts a headphone out on the bottom (from the "dock" connector)

okay, I'm thinking of something like this but with a headphone jack out instead of a whole bluetooth thing. Anyone find this solution?

the reason why is because i have an iPod where the headphone jack at the top got damaged (don't ask) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.107.213 (talk) 01:50, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Try googling "ipod line-out" and you'll find a lot of likely things... not sure how that would work with headphones, as headphones amplify the audio whereas line out does not... hmm. Might be worth just getting someone to replace the head port. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:01, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Nevermind. A line out won't work with headphones. You won't be able to control the volume with the scroll wheel and such a port would not be suitable for hooking up to headphones, from what I gather. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 03:06, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

thank you. actually I have reason to believe such a thing is possible, because, in a forum post about this speaker thing you dock the iPod into (just an example, it might have been a different specific one) people were saying the sound quality is worse than with a typical iPod stereo dock on these things, since it uses the dock connector's headphone line instead of the dock connector's line out line, in order to allow the remote control to control the iPod volume. so there's already a line in the dock connector for what I want ... I'm just looking for a manufacturer who makes the bluetooth-like thing in my first link, but with a speaker out instead (and going to the headphone, not the line out line)....

worse comes to worst I'll just have to use that bluetooth model, though it's too expensive for me...

actually! while having to type the captcha I thought of this: couldn't I just buy the cheapest PORTABLE iPod speakers on the planet (that use the dock connector) and just rip it up, cutting the lines that go out of the dock connector to the speaker, and instead wiring these lines directly to a headphone jack? I have NO electrical experience, is this even feasible? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.107.213 (talk) 04:18, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

From [1] it seems that there is no "headphones out" on the bottom connector. However, it could still be that there are speakers available that use the "control" signal from the Ipod to do volume adjustment on the line-out signal. If cheap speakers are very cheap you could try your idea, otherwise I think it may be better to open the iPod and try to see if you can fix the headphones-out port, or attach the headphone wires directly into the internal workings of the iPod (where you see the headphones port is (or should have been, I don't know how damaged it is...) ) Jørgen (talk) 21:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Video to audio transcoder.

I am looking for a program which I can use to extract the audio into a video (mpeg to mp3). I tried using VLC and it produced some quite annoying clicks that also resulted from plainly changing the file extension on my mac. Does anyone know of a transcoder that doesn't do that?

♫Deathgleaner 04:43, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm having difficulty understanding "extract...into". Do you mean "extract...from" or "insert...into" ? StuRat (talk) 04:49, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Let's say you have video with audio. I want to take that audio and put it in a separate file, and kick out the video. So yes, I would like to extract the audio from the video. ♫Deathgleaner 04:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I believe many CD/DVD rippers have that feature. StuRat (talk) 14:39, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Could you give me the name of one? ♫Deathgleaner 22:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I use Puppy Linux, and they have the PupDVDtool, which contains such a video to audio ripper. I haven't tried it myself, though. StuRat (talk) 04:09, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Under Linux, mplayer/mencoder can do all of that stuff. I believe there is a port of those into the Mac environment. SteveBaker (talk) 04:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Can you give me a link so i can download such file? ♫Deathgleaner 04:31, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a link in our mplayer article. SteveBaker (talk) 05:42, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Quicktime Player Pro also does this. Just select Extract Audio and Paste into a new file. --70.167.58.6 (talk) 19:29, 10 December 2008 (UTC)

Why are Blue-Ray recorders so freakin' expensive ?

They seem to run around US$3000. What's the deal ? Do they have a pixie inside each one, captured from Peter Pan at great expense ? StuRat (talk) 04:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Not at all, this page shows far lower prices and I know for sure I can get them around $250 locally (South Africa). And I think it's officially called "Blu-ray" instead of "Blue-ray". Sandman30s (talk) 07:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm confused now. This page lists the model numbers for Blu-Ray recorders: [2]. It doesn't list prices, but when I Google the price of those models I get listings around US$3000 each. The model you listed is for mounting in a bay on a computer, while these are standalone units for TV. However, that shouldn't make them cost 10x as much. Perhaps these are high-speed devices for production of Blu-Ray discs ? StuRat (talk) 14:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Recorders linking directly to TV systems have always been far more expensive, and I don't know why. Look at the prices of "commercial" DVD recorders vs the $30 units you can get for computers - and there's no difference in their capabilities but range between 5 and 10 times more in cost. Perhaps it's commercial greed aimed at technophobes who are desperate to record without having to learn how to use a computer. The same goes for hard drive recorders in satellite decoders, or for that matter the hard drives in the PS3 - they should not cost that much as they are cheap for PC's. Sandman30s (talk) 19:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Do manufacturers of devices for recording off TV have to pay massive bribes to the producers of TV content ? That might explain this discrepancy. StuRat (talk) 02:00, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

"What's the deal" is basically that Blu-Ray is still fairly new and is bound up very tightly in patents and lack of licensing. So this would be absolutely the worst time to try and buy a recorder. Give it a couple years and you'll start seeing the knockoffs. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:36, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

In Australia they are around $1800, which is a fair bit lower in USD, but in the past the same happened with CD recorders, and DVD recorders when they were new. The developers are trying to get as much money as possible, so they will get payment from those who are prepared to pay thousands first, before the price drops to hundreds. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

However, if selling them at one tenth the markup means that they'd sell 100 times as many, wouldn't that be the better strategy ? StuRat (talk) 04:04, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Only if you could manufacture 100 times as many. APL (talk) 21:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

BluRay uses different light frequencies (blue ones) than regular DVD's and CD's. Laser diodes with the right color and enough power are both expensive and in short supply. So prices are still high. It'll get better over time (of course). SteveBaker (talk) 04:20, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there any inherent reason why blue lasers are more expensive, or is it just due to a shortage ? StuRat (talk) 06:01, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

According to laser_pointer, a Japanese company basically has a monopoly on blue-laser production, which could in part explain the high prices. In addition, I remember from shopping for laser pointers that red lasers are pretty cheap, but green ones are well over $100. Green lasers are very powerful and can pop balloons at close range and the beam is visible in the night sky (great for pointing out constellations). The blue laser must be even more powerful, and perhaps creating stronger lasers just takes more money, though that article does mention that green laser diodes are in shorter supply than red ones, so low supply probably contributes greatly to cost as well.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 20:50, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yep - and remember that a CD/DVD WRITER has to have a much more powerful laser than a READER - that makes matters still worse. SteveBaker (talk) 13:36, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

StuRat, you didn't mention that you were actually interested in purchasing a B-R recorder, but assuming you are, there are some things you should keep in mind. First, every standalone DVD-recorder I've owned has made proprietary discs that were unreadable by other DVD players and recorders, or even the DVD-RAM recorder in my 'puter. I can't say anything about the B-R recorders you're looking at, but I'll add that nowhere in the print ads or on the boxes or manuals did my standalone recorders mention that shortcoming. Second, I've recently purchased a Samsung B-R player and it doesn't play recordable discs (CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, etc.) of any kind. I don't have any recordable B-R discs, so I can't try them out, but I'll assume that they can't be played either. That doesn't bode well for your recordable BR discs being usable in other players. Be forewarned... especially if you're dropping three grand on something! Matt Deres (talk) 21:04, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I've had the same experience. At best, you can hope that a certain brand of blank CDs or DVDs, recorded on a given device, in a given format, might be able to be replayed on that same device. Any variation in brand, format, or device is likely to cause problems. StuRat (talk) 17:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

I remember not too long ago (2001) that DVD-R drives were $1000 and discs were $5 each. And just 7 years later they are 1/20 of that. So give it some time. Every new technology is expensive at first. Just be patient. --69.149.213.144 (talk) 14:32, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't worry, there's no risk of me spending $3000 on anything without an internal combustion engine in it. StuRat (talk) 17:22, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

telephone calls over the internet: Recommendations?

What software do you recommend for phone calls over the internet? I've heard too many bad stories about Skype (and it's just ways too popular and I'm all for the underdogs ;))... so... what would/do you use? --Thanks for answering (talk) 07:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Skype 4 *is* cool - even I use it (but only for IM). There's also Gizmo 5. --grawity 15:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Is Gizmo more secure than Skype? That's pretty much my main concern. Apart from reliability, sound quality etc., which I assume isn't such a bit problem anymore with pretty much any software? --Thanks for answering (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Hello-o-o? Anyone out there? I'd really appreciate tips. There's just too much out there... Thanks!! --Thanks for answering (talk) 04:58, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Youtube (2)

I really hate the new look of Youtube, so let me just ask why they added/changed/deleted stuff:

1. Why, when searching for vidoes, are the video details on one line instead of their own lines?

2. Why are the "x minutes/hours/days/weeks/months/years ago" missing from Related Videos?

3. Why does it no longer say "From:" before a user's username in Related Videos?

4. Why is the text in Related Videos smaller?

5. What's with the new Recent Activity feature? It allows you to spy on other users. Yes, I know users can disable the feature, but still!

6. Why were bulletins removed?

7. Why are recent comments shown in italic?

8. Why are the video times merged with the video thumbnails?

9. Why do videos with very long names no longer have "..." after the part of their names that is visible?

10. Why, when looking at the list of videos a user is made, is that user's username shown under each video? They must think we're idiots or something. It's OBVIOUS who made the videos, so why show us?

And 11. And why, in the above question, is the user's username linked? It takes us straight back to their channel, a pointless idea since we can easily click the "Back" button. And clicking on that link in their 9 or so most recent videos in their channel - takes us to, you guessed it, A PAGE WE ARE ALERADY ON!

So there you have it. Ten easily noticebale bad changes. I'm not ranting; I'm just asking why those changes were made. 60.230.180.175 (talk) 07:58, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

If Youtube's look changes every six months, you can safely say its because of fashion... :) Rilak (talk) 09:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why do you think users on Wikipedia would know why designers at YouTube made particular decisions? Go complain at You Tube. 89.167.221.3 (talk) 10:57, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said before, complain to them, not to us! You're ranting, because we don't have your answers and there is no reason to assume we would. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Suck it up. Redesigns happen, just deal with it. In a month, you wont even remember how the old style looked. Stop whineing and get used to it 83.250.202.208 (talk) 00:06, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Well please tell me why you think they made those changes. Those changes piss me off a lot and I will never like this new redesign! I'm not the only one who hates it. Almost everyone else hates it as well! 60.230.180.175 (talk) 10:38, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

The reference desk is for factual questions, not a place for discussing opinions. Please take this either to youtube or some forum, here just isn't the place. YouTube is a business, they can do whatever they want. They could shut down their site tomorrow and there's nothing anyone could do about it. DaRkAgE7_[Talk] 01:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Criticism of UTF-8

Is UTF-8 often criticized for discrimination against Indic scripts? --88.76.232.95 (talk) 10:30, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

UTF-8 is a form of representing Unicode characters as a sequence of 8-bit bytes. It uses one byte for any character of ASCII and more for others. For a Devanagari character three bytes are used. Any other "discrimination" of specific script is the same in all representations of Unicode, not only in UTF-8. MTM (talk) 20:55, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Multiprocessing without Registered RAM

Is there any current Processor family that supports multi-processing (a.k.a. having multiple physical processors) with unregistered,unbuffered RAM? Masterfreek64 (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

DNS lookup

One of my linux machines had really slow DNS lookup. I checked its /etc/resolv.conf, and it turned out it only pointed to my router's ip-address. I copied the nameserver addresses from resolv.conf on a ubuntu installation, and DNS lookup was fast again. My question is: how does the linux installer (and knoppix, for that matter) find the ip addresses of my ISP's nameservers? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:47, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

When you connect, your computer or router gets the settings - your IP address, DNS servers - from the ISP. --grawity 15:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

More specifically, from your ISP's DHCP response. -- JSBillings 17:23, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

And if you DHCP before the router has contacted the ISP, it may give itself as the DNS server. This will be configurable on the router too. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:14, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Is there a command that I can enter, from the command line, that forces a look-up and displays the result in real-time? Like this;

# what_is_the_nameserver_addresses_that_my_ISP_currently_is_using
nameserver 193.213.112.4
nameserver 130.67.15.198
nameserver 130.67.60.68

? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 23:54, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Most likely, your router/gateway is providing your computer's DHCP service, not the ISP , so you'd need to check what it is configured to provide. It depends on the manufacturer on what you can do to override the behavior you're seeing. I'd probably configure my /etc/dhclient.conf to override the DNS information with my own. -- JSBillings 17:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

As I said, I had a router that provided the computer's DHCP service, because it was the only nameserver listed in the resolv.conf file of one of my PCs. And it was really slow (the router was acting weirdly in other ways too, something which a reboot fixed, but that is beside the point). I had two other linux PC's, and these had resolv.conf entires corresponding to the nameservers of my ISP. They were connected to the same router, and DNS lookup was fast. When I modified resolv.conf of the first PC with the nameserver entries from the other two, DNS lookup was fast again. The only way I can imagine that these nameserver entries could have gotten into resolv.conf, was that the linux installer must have sent some DHCP info request, and written the result into resolv.conf. Moreover, when knoppix boots, it has resolv.conf entries corresponding to the nameservers of my isp, and does not mention the ip-address of the router. So the linux installer manages to do this. Knoppix manages to do this. But I'm unable to find a command that does it. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:08, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a command found in both Windows and Linux called nslookup that will tell you the DNS servers of your ISP. Just typing nslookup will tell you the currently-used server. Typing (I think) set q=a, ENTER, then ls -d and the domain name of your ISP, then ENTER, inside nslookup should output the names of all of the servers.--192.94.73.1 (talk) 21:30, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. It turned out the Debian implementation was very limited, trying to use the features you describe just results in a message that says that the command is not implemented. I'll just settle with using knoppix when I need to check if my ISP's nameservers are correctly listed in /resolv/conf. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:28, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Web books

Please can someone who knows about Web books add me on msn messenger so i can ask them about them? email address removed Quidom (talk) 15:51, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

No, but you can ask about them here. StuRat (talk) 16:27, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I've removed your email address so it doesn't get harvested by spambots. Asking questions here is appropriate. -- JSBillings 16:44, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Own Wiki

I would like to set up my own Wiki site (not to create an encyclopedia!) and wonder what is the best way. I would anticipate that, at most, it would have 1,000 contributors and perhaps 50 concurrent users. Should I have a company host the MediaWiki software for me? Is there a company that allows you to "spawn" a whole new MediaWiki installation? Any advice on the best way to go, would be appreciated. Twotinsofbeans (talk) 16:26, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"We" have an article on comparison of wiki farms - a "wiki farm" here referring to a provider which, commercially or otherwise, will host and maintain a wiki for you. At a glance, it has some useful overviews of the services on offer, and more importantly lots of external links for further research. Hopefully somewhere in there is something that meets your needs. - IMSoP (talk) 20:42, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Many web hosters will let you run a Wiki. I use www.dreamhost.com - it has a one-click install for MediaWiki that'll get you going really quickly (I run several sites with MediaWiki - it's really quite painless). That'll cost you about $10 a month and should easily support the the numbers of contributors/readers you have. There are (of course) many alternatives. SteveBaker (talk) 04:14, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

fake antiviris software

The New York Times carries a chilling report saying, "A Russian company that sells fake antivirus software that actually takes over a computer pays its illicit distributors as much as $5 million a year." Can somebody tell me the name of the product? --Halcatalyst (talk) 16:56, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There is a lot of fake anti-virus software out there, software that claims it'll help you but really just is a virus. Stick with big names and just Google anything suspicious. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:53, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The first one that comes to mind is Antivirus 2007/2008/2009/2010/... --wj32 ^t/c 06:07, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

c compiler

I have been using, whilst at univeristy, the c compiler xcode, now I have to continue working into the vacation, but I have been told the xcode is only available on apples. Is there a compiler, similar in interface and usability that I can obtain for free, that runs on wondows. Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.1.146.243 (talk) 17:08, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Xcode uses GCC to do all the compiling. You could use MinGW on your windows system to compile C, C++, etc., however if you're using Apple's Interface Builder and the Cocoa API to create graphical interfaces, you'll need to switch to using a MS API instead. -- JSBillings 17:22, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

MinGW is an option - you could also download the 'Cywin' package - which contains gcc/g++ and has a command-line interface, 'Make' tools, etc, etc. Also, (if you must) there is a zero-cost downloadable 'learning edition' of the Microsoft Visual Studio package - which include C & C++ compilers. SteveBaker (talk) 04:10, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

There's a list of free C compilers here. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 15:23, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Storing DVD-R/CD-Rs in sleeves safe?

Are there any dangers of storing DVD-R/CD-R in paper sleeves for long term storage? Are Tyvek or Plastic sleeves safer? All of my archival discs are in full size jewel cases and they take up quite a bit of space. I was thinking to switching to thin jewel cases, but sleeves even more space saving. But I'm pretty sure paper sleeves aren't acid free and I wasn't sure if there's any bad chemistry going on in paper and the recordable media dyes --69.149.213.144 (talk) 19:03, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Paper can be abrasive, so if there is any movement, your disks could become scratched slightly. If archiving for a very long time is of concern for you, then a proper case is the way to go, but check out how the plastic in the case holds up for the long term. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:10, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I had a lot of audio CD's stored in one of those plastic vinyl storage binders - the disks had been ripped - so I didn't use them for a couple of years. When I came back to use the physical cd's, the ink on the printed/colored side of the disks had somehow bonded to the plastic of the binder and the CD's were utterly ruined. Paper is better - but (as previously stated) it can cause micro-scratches. The original jewel boxes are the best thing - they hold the disk such that no part of it (other than the hub) is touching the case. No matter what - stand them on their edges for the best possible long-term safety. SteveBaker (talk) 04:03, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

So 1/2 thickness slim CD cases are probably the best trade off between size and protection? --69.149.213.144 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Also note that DVD's and CD's WILL fail (randomly, at least in my experience) after a few months on the shelf. You will pick them up one day and your PC will complain about CRC (cyclic redundancy check) errors trying to read them. They are not durable media and not suitable for archiving. I would get a second hard-drive in another PC for archiving purposes. Check out CD rot. Zunaid 05:41, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I found an old CD-R from college (11+ years ago) and it worked just fine. Also, I've had DVD-Rs as old as 7 years (when the first SuperDrives shipped in Macs) that work fine. So I guess your milage will vary. --69.149.213.144 (talk) 13:52, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

The nature of CD failures (at least the spontaneous kind) is that they either fail within a year or so - or they never fail. One mechanism is that microscopic pinholes in the metal layer grow slowly by a mechanism akin to surface tension in liquids until they are big enough to disrupt reading of the disk. Pretty much all disks have a few of these tiny holes - and the reason some disks survive and others don't is that disks have error-correcting codes built into the data - single errors can always be corrected but multiple errors relating to the same data sector may not be. So if the pinholes are in just the wrong place - the disk will work fine for a while - but then fail after a year or two. If you are luckier, they'll be in places where the errors can be corrected and no matter how old the disk gets, it never fails. The best way to be safe with archived data is to make several copies and check that they still work every six months or so. If any of your copies fails, make a copy of one of the good ones. Eventually, disks that are likely to fail will all fail and be replaced - and all of the copies that remain will be 'immortal'. SteveBaker (talk) 05:39, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Setting up password for website

I want to create a blank web page with a single link on it. The link will link to a Word Doc on my web server. When the user normally clicks on the link, they will be prompted to either open or download the file. How do I set a password for this download? I would like to prompt them to enter a password before they can either view or download the Word file. What is this simplest way to do this? Acceptable (talk) 19:16, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

There are two ways that are pretty easy:

1. Put it in a folder that has a password coded into it by the server. You'll recognize this as that "username/password" box that your browser sometimes gives you before letting you access a page or directory. Whether this is easy to do depends on how your server is set up. Usually it requires either being in control of the server software itself or having a "server control page" or something like that through the web host. If you only have FTP access then you can't do this.

2. Make a simple little PHP script or something similar that feeds you the file if you have the right password. For example:

<?php
$pw = "yourpassword";
if($_POST["pw"]!==$pw) {
	?>
	<html><head><title>Password</title>
	<body>
	<form method="POST">
	<p>
	Password required: <input type="password" name="pw" id="pw" size=20> <input type="submit" value="OK">
	</p>
	</form>
	</body>
	</html>
	<?php
} else {
	$filepath = "YourWordDocSecretName.doc";
	$downloadAs = "WhatItWillBeDownloadedAsOnTheirComputer.doc";
	header("Content-type: application/x-download");
	header("Content-Length: ".filesize($filepath));
	header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$downloadAs\"");
	header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
	readfile($filepath);
	exit;
}
?>

In the second instance, note that if they had a direct link to the file, they could still download it. Hence having the file path being different than what the file will be called when they download it. (Note that the code above is

Note that neither of these are very high security, as they both send the password in the clear. You could get around that by setting it up as HTTPS session, if that was available, or you could have Javascript hash it for you (as MD5) or something like that, if you were really concerned about total security. Depending on the likelihood of someone trying to access it illicitly and the contents of the file, you may or may not think worrying about that sort of thing is overkill. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 20:28, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the requirements for using HTTP authentication (getting the browser to prompt for the username and password) are being somewhat overstated here: I think it's fairly common practice to allow this kind of setting to be over-ridden by a per-folder configuration file.

For sites hosted using Apache, this would be done by creating a file called .htaccess with the relevant settings; a search for password .htaccess turns up plenty of tutorials on how to do this. I imagine there are similar facilities available in IIS, but I've never had occasion to know about them.

And just to be clear, as far as your web server's concerned, the "download" or "display" of an MS Word document is no different from the "download" or "display" of an HTML page or an image, so no special consideration is needed for that. - IMSoP (talk) 20:52, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Because PHP will not block people from directly linking to the word document, I suggest using .htaccess to protect the directory that the word document is in. Any attempt to access any file there will prompt for a password. -- kainaw™ 14:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

remote monitor shutoff

Is it possible to remotely shut off a computer's monitor? Explanation: I'm away from my house and on a sucky comp, and have a VNC software installed on my comp at my house. I manage a website, so I keep files on my computer (and nowhere else). I need to be able to access/edit those files, without downloading them to this computer (which, as I said, sucks/has a tiny harddrive). So I need to VNC to my house's comp. But the problem is, I have another person residing in my house, and that person is considerably comp-illiterate. If s/he saw the computer moving by itself, s/he would freak out and unplug it, smash it with a baseball bat, or just point at it menacingly and repeatedly yell, "Witch!"(end sentence) So I need to be able to shut off the monitor, or at least make it display a constant, unmoving image. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 22:34, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

Why not just leave the monitor off when you are away? Also, I think you can configure your VNC or whatever to open a completely new session instead of attaching to the existing one running on the display. --128.97.244.52 (talk) 01:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm guessing that this other person actually uses the computer monitor at times, so you want it left on for them when you're not using it. There are appliance timers which could cut the power to the monitor at certain times, that would be the cheapest and easiest solution. I suppose there are also Internet controlled switches you could get, but that sounds rather involved and expensive. Also note that, depending on the monitor, when you turn the power back on it may not turn the monitor back on without physically hitting the ON button again. StuRat (talk) 01:54, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Eh... I believe that I should reword the question. The other person uses a different computer, but will see my comp's monitor (while walking by, etc.); so no, they're not actually using mine. I cannot go home right now to plug my comp into an appliance timer. I need some way to, without physically touching anything, make my comp's monitor display nothing. Maybe there's something in the XP control panel on this? The home comp is using XP (please, no switch-to-Linux comments). flaminglawyer^cneverforget 02:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I still don't get it. If nobody is using it, then why is the monitor on? --128.97.245.100 (talk) 03:53, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

(Sorry - but this would be REALLY easy in Linux!) You can't turn off the power to the monitor remotely. Windows really isn't a proper multi-user operating system - so I don't think you can do it. Can't you just phone the other person and ask them to turn off your monitor "because you forgot to do it before you left"? SteveBaker (talk) 03:56, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

For 128.x (hi), the monitor is on because I can. I leave it on so that when I have an impulse to look something up on Wikipedia, I don't have to wait 5 seconds (oh dear!) for my monitor to warm up. And for Steve (hi Steve), I'm not going to switch to Linux no matter how hard you push, and I'm not calling John Roommate just to say "I forgot to turn off my comp monitor. Can you turn it off, pretty please with a cherry on top, so that I can save some ridiculously small amount of money on my electric bill?". So I can't do any site-managing tonight... :( Oh well. flaminglawyer^cneverforget 05:25, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

On mine, I can go to the control Panel, pick the Display icon, go to the Settings tab, pick the Advanced button, and change the color map to 0 red, 0 green, and 0 blue. That may or may not work for you, depending on your monitor and graphics card. If it does work for you, be careful, as that may make it difficult to reset later. Another possibility is the Power Management settings. I'm not sure if they are triggered by any computer activity or only use of the keyboard or mouse. In the latter case, the screen might already be dark, and stay dark, even when you access the computer remotely. StuRat (talk) 05:58, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this whole story sounds a little... fishy to me. Can't you just call your friend and say "If the mouse is moving, don't worry, it's me doing it. I'm controlling the computer remotely. Yes, you can do that.". It's not that big of a deal. 83.250.202.208 (talk) 23:57, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Yeah - I agree. This sounds a lot like someone who is trying to hack into someone's PC and doesn't want them to see what's going on. It's simply not credible that you can't convince your roommate to either turn off the monitor or ignore what's going on. I'm sorry - I just don't believe you. Since I don't approve of hacking - I'm not giving any advice. SteveBaker (talk) 05:23, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

I agree it sounds a little off, but we all have our weird hangups about stuff like this. I recall back in the day scanning through reams of gopher pages trying to find someone's email address. One of the help pages I came across said (paraphrasing here): "For some bizarre reason people won't just call their friend to ask for the address. That's insane! Just ask your friend or uncle or whatever and they'll tell you their address!" So I did and got on with my life, but I'm sure if WP had existed back then, I'd have asked a group of strangers how to look up my friend's email address rather than asking him directly and, based on the some of the pages I came across, I wouldn't have been the only one. Some plans sound fine in your head and only sounds really weird to other people. Matt Deres (talk) 21:20, 8 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh! i know. This is genious, lol. While on vnc, change the resolution to something huge... so the physical monitor can't show it(so it'll show the crappy message saying out of range), but you still see it trough vnc(a little big i guess). Now.. if that doesn't work why can't you tell the person what you're doing exactly, i never had problems with that; my comp illiterate friends always understand how i can get into computers from the internet. Mile92 (talk) 16:02, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

If your monitor is off because the OS shut it off automatically, I don't think VNC will turn it back on. I think the wake-up is caused by interrupts produced by keyboard presses or mouse movement. (I'd have to experiment to be sure.) Certainly ssh'ing and port-forwarding a VNC session from my linux workstation doesn't wake up the monitor. For example, you wouldn't need to wait for the 5 seconds it takes for your monitor to "wake up" because pixels on the screen are being displayed from the same framebuffer as the VNC session, one view is not dependent on the other. -- JSBillings 17:34, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Different monitors respond to bad resolutions differently. I must be the only one here who actually uses VNC on Windows... What you want to do is look for the Remote Input / Blank Monitor option. On my computer, it's available by right-clicking on the titlebar and selecting "Enable Remote Input/Monitor", or by looking for the icon of a mouse with a green line through it. I use UltraVNC; I don't know if the version you use supports this feature or not. Basically it launches a process that blanks out the screen to the viewer but allows you to continue working - I use this when I don't want end users to see tweaks in the backend (such as temporarily disabling the proxy server). Please post back if you have any trouble with this. Coreycubed (talk) 20:48, 11 December 2008 (UTC)