Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 January 18

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January 18

Negative memory

Moved from WP:RD/Misc Nil Einne (talk) 03:09, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Hi,

I recently installed half-life 1 on my computer... but it didn't run because it said: "your system reported only -3824k of physical memory. Half-life requires at least 16mb"... and i'm not too familiar with computers so i don't know what on earth it means... can some one help me? that would be great. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ireallyneedanewsn (talk • contribs) 02:52, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

It would help if you provide your system specs, particularly the amount of RAM and VRAM your system have and what OS you are using. It would also help if you post to the computing reference desk rather then misc as I've now moved it. My gut feeling is you have too much memory and Half-life is not properly designed to support such a large amount of memory and ends up thinking it's negative. Nil Einne (talk) 03:07, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Er... considering i have 4 gigs of ram i probably have too much memory and it thinks its negative... but is there any way to circumvent that?

Maybe maybe not. You still haven't mentioned what OS you are using. If you are using a 64bit OS (Vista x64, XP x64) then running in a 32bit one (Vista x32, XP x32) may help although I cannot guarantee it. There could also be a user patch, try searching Nil Einne (talk) 03:22, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Oh also I forgot to mention, temporarily removing one stick, presuming you have more then one or more sticks (likely since 4gb sticks are expensive and would prevent dual channel) to get it down to 2gb may also help. BTW, I had presumed you'd updated to the latest version, but according to this [1] & [2] which I found via searching, may be not. I strongly suggest you update to the latest version whenever possible if you are having problems with an application. In this case you will have to install Steam and I presume register for an account which you may find annoying but it's the simplest solution and will ensure you are less likely to encounter any other odd behaviour. You can uninstall it when you're done after all. If you can't use Steam because you only have a demo or other version then you'd have to try something else. If you can't use Steam because you don't have a valid CD-key then we can't help you (while it is possible to get Steam updated software in other ways don't expect help here for it.) I would point out that HL1 on steam is only like $9.99 or something IIRC. Nil Einne (talk) 03:27, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

thank you very much ^_^ greatly appreciated. I just ended up buying it. 10.00$'s not too much to pay for a great game. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ireallyneedanewsn (talk • contribs) 03:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Maybe HL1 treats 4GB as a signed integer? In that case it would be -2GB, which it... somehow turns into... -3.8GB... --wj32 ^t/c 09:45, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

That would be a pretty surprising bug - most game developers have really high end PC's that are maxed out on RAM, etc. I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed during routine development if it were that simple. SteveBaker (talk) 02:52, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the development in question took place more than 10 years ago. I'm pretty sure it would have been quite unreasonable (if not impossible) to have 4GB of RAM at that point. In fact, if this site is to be believed, the typical hard drive was around 4GB. So no, this error is not particularly surprising in context. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 03:31, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - that's true. I guess I'd kinda forgotten just how old that code was. But look closely at what the OP said - the error isn't saying that there is -3.8Gb - it says -3824kb - which is only 3.7Mbytes - not Gbytes. So if they have the error you guys think they have (they used a 'signed' integer instead of an 'unsigned' integer) then -3.8M would represent an amount of memory just 3.7Mb short of the 4Gb that there actually is. Since this is talking about the amount of PHYSICAL memory - we must conclude that 3.7Mb of the physical address space is consumed by something that's not addressable memory. That's not impossible. Certainly, our OP is going to need to drop his memory down to <2Gb to fix the problem. SteveBaker (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Gnome equivalent to KATE

Does Gnome have a KATE program? I need a text editor that can seamlessly open a file through SFTP (as though it is a local file) and display the file for editing with context highlighting. -- kainaw™ 02:17, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Modern versions of TRAMP allow Emacs to edit over SFTP; older versions support editing over SSH (without the SFTP layer), which might also work for you. --Tardis (talk) 03:11, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

What happens if you just open up the remote location via GNOME's "Connect to Server..." and then just opening the file using gedit ("Text Editor")? --71.106.183.17 (talk) 07:20, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I haven't tried that. Pretty much every task I do is on a different server. So, from KATE, I just type sftp://user@some.server.com/dir into the file dialog and then click on the file I need to edit. A few minutes later, I read the next email, type another sftp location into the file dialog and click on the file I need to edit. The sftp locations I access a lot are bookmarked to make it even quicker. I would prefer to avoid leaving the editor to open a server connection and then going back into the editor to edit the file. -- kainaw™ 15:06, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

gedit will edit a file over sftp if you choose the "Open Location" in the File menu. Unfortunately you have to type the full filename to the server (it doesn't open directories), and it doesn't let you save bookmarks of your favorite sites. I don't know of a gnome editor with those features, but I suppose there could be one. Indeterminate (talk) 20:10, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Of course, if you really love KATE, you can always just use that. You can still use KDE programs even though you're in a GNOME environment. It's trivial to install KDE programs if you have a distro with a package manager. 90.235.11.149 (talk) 18:24, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that the version of KATE that works is not supported by any current version of Linux. The new version of KATE doesn't work anymore. I figure that nobody on the KDE team uses it, so they can happily ignore all the bug reports. Since KATE is the only reason I've stuck with KDE, I have hoped that Gnome would recognize the usefulness of the program and make a competitor. -- kainaw™ 15:41, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

External (USB 2.0) Hard Drive not Recognized as a Hard Drive

I have a laptop with windows xp and recently my hard drive started to fail. So I bought another hard drive and an enclosure that connects to the laptop with usb 2.0. I tried to use ez gig 2 to copy an image of my old hard drive into the new hard drive and the first attempt did not work because the software could not find one of the hard drives. So I goggled possible solutions and tried the one where the new hard drive is put into the laptop and the old hard drive is put into the enclosure. This time the software recognized both drives and formatted the new drive. About half way through copying the partitions the power went out in my house and since my laptop battery is messed up the laptop shut down in a couple of minutes. When I found out what happened I tried to restart the process but the software stopped recognizing one the hard drives. I think it has something to do with the other hard drive being a corrupted copy of my old hard drive. (for now I put my failing hard drive into my laptop) My laptop recognizes the new drive as a usb mass storage device and does not allow me to do any hard drive operations on it. Anyone know how this situation can be fixed? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.16.131 (talk) 06:26, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like you need to totally reinitialize and reformat the drive at a bare minimum. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 01:57, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The problem is that I can't reformat it because my computer does not recognize the drive. The backup drive shows up correctly at device manager but does not show up at my computer or disk management. I was thinking of putting the backup drive inside the computer and then using a cd disk to re-format it. However I don't know how to create a cd-disk that would reformat the drive to a format that would be recognized my windows xp. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.171.16.131 (talk) 04:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

The Windows XP install disk (or any system recovery disc that came with your computer) is most likely bootable and capable of reformatting a drive. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 04:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Uploading using Terrapin FTP

Toby and I live in UK and both use Orange ISP; we each have our own orange username and password; we live 50 miles apart. We both upload files to my website (which I bought through domaindirect), using the same username and password. Or we did. Recently Toby has found he can’t do it. And I have noticed that when he has tried to upload a file (sometimes) it uploads file of size 0kb rather than 525kb. Then nobody can read them. On other occasions he is told the website is trying to connect him but it fails to do so. I am having no problems. We each have our own terrapin password. We have both reinstalled the latest Terrapin and reset to the same password. What else could we try? Kittybrewster ☎ 12:12, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Is there a device in which USB is enabled with bluetooth —Preceding unsigned comment added by Karthikpanuganti (talk • contribs) 15:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

No. Kittybrewster ☎ 17:30, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

How about having him try a different FTP program? That'll at least rule out the program as a problem. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:33, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

If you followed my previous advice, what did Orange Tech Support say when you asked whether they had tightened up the security?

I have used Terrapin before and I know it is quite tightly integrated with Orange's web hosting, however 98.217 's advice is good. Your friend should at least be able to copy something up to the host location with the right credentials, unless he is deliberately blocked. Astronaut (talk) 15:14, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Free software for backing up a disk partition

I would like to create a new partition on a computer's hard drive and install another operating system in it. But I want to make sure that if I make a mistake, or if I don't like the new operating system, I can reliably restore the hard drive to its previous state. Can someone recommend a free utility that can back up a disk drive partition to DVDs or an external drive? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.49.15.243 (talk) 16:29, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

What operating system are you using? What file system is the disk (NTFS? FAT? HFS+?)? These things matter when figuring out things like this... --98.217.8.46 (talk) 17:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Windows. NTFS. --173.49.15.243 (talk) 17:21, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

A Gparted LiveCD might do the trick for you. I don't know if it will let you export a partition as a image file, which might be something you'd like, but it can certainly clone partitions with ease. Unlike most Linux programs it is actually pretty easy to use. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 18:31, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I've used PartImage and the Seagate DiskWizard for that purpose. The latter is free as in beer only, requires that you're using Seagate disks, and is the easier to use of the two. If you want to backup your master boot record, you'll need do do that separately if you use partimage (I've used dd from a linux live CD to backup the MBR). Whichever tool you use: if you want to be 100% certain that you don't mess up, I'd reccommend buying a second hard disk, clone your disk to the second disk, and then replace the first disk with the second, make sure it boots normally, and proceed from there. If you really mess up, you've still got your original disk. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 18:54, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Norton Ghost would be the old answer. There might be something new out there that is similar. If you want the bare-bones method that I think works excellently, then use dd with *nix (unix, linux, mac, etc.). dd will read/write bits off of the disk bit for bit. It does not care what filesystem you have. It is available on most live linux cds. LH (talk) 09:33, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

I too have used dd successfully (once) to clone a disk, but I found it unbearingly slow. (Maybe I selected a too small block size? I don't remember the details). --NorwegianBlue ^talk 12:42, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Connecting Thinkpad T61 to internet, turning "on" tower icon?

Recently, my son's computer was exposed to a virus. The computer pro had to remove and re-install everything. We just got it back, but now we can't figure out how to turn on the internet "tower" icon on the lower part of the screen (get it blinking) so that we can connect to the internet? Any help thanks.Williamwinkster (talk) 18:41, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

There is usually a special combination of keys that enables/disables wireless (often some function key + F?). If the combination doesn't work, you probably need to update the wireless drivers. A good place to find them would be the website of the computer's brand. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 19:36, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Many laptops also have a dedicated button or switch to enable/disable wireless networking that is not on the main keyboard, often on the computer's front, right or left side --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 19:53, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I have a T61p, which should be pretty close. On this, I have Fn+F5 and a hardware switch on the front-left of the base. If all the drivers were properly reinstalled, then it should work right off.

Do check the Lenovo Support site to make sure it was all reinstalled. There is a utility program that helps control the wireless radio Fn+F5 and the switch too. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Washii (talk • contribs) 20:40, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Buying cheap .ac (ascension island) domains

When buying them directly at nic.ac they are quite expensive (£69 per year). I have heard that domain resellers are sometimes cheaper. Does anyone know of any cheap .ac resellers? Thanks, --217.227.118.94 (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

Google knows. The best price I saw was £55 at e3internet, though I have no information on their service. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 03:15, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Videoclip in iTunes/iPod

ok, basicaly, i have a number of movies which format's are (according to Windows (XP)) just: 'Video Clip'. These dont go onto my iTunes (the latest one), which is very annoying, how do i get them to go onto my iTunes (and then my iPod)? thanks, --84.67.191.166 (talk) 22:35, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

The videos definitely have a format other than 'Video Clip' (thank Microsoft for hiding that useful information from you!), but you might try searching the web for something like "convert video for ipod"; Google found these directions on cnet which might prove helpful to you. -- 74.137.108.115 (talk) 02:53, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Try DVDVideoSoft's converters (they're free) - [3] --wj32 ^t/c 05:34, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Frequency Ranges

Which frequency range does the FCC regulate and is anything outside of that range able to be used without a license? --Melab±1 ☎ 23:25, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

According to IEEE 802.11, IEEE 802.11 works on 2.4, 3.6 and 5 GHz spectrum. A google search for unlicensed frequency can be helpful. For a fuller treatment, please study the following PDF document. Hope that helps, (and please come back for any more questions). Kushal (talk) 01:47, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

I think this is what you're looking for. But a minor point: generally the FCC regulates the entire spectrum (I'm sure the precise wavelengths are defined somewhere) and certain frequencies like 2.4ghz, 900mhz, etc. are unlicensed. This is slightly different than unregulated. LH (talk) 09:15, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

The FCC page linked above says they only regulate 9 kHz-275 GHz. Frequencies below that (Extremely low frequency, Super low frequency, etc) are used for a number of applications, including military uses (Communication with submarines) and underground communications. Above the higher limits, you're getting into terahertz radiation; it has a very limited range so there's probably no great need to regulate its emission at present. ITU-R regulates radio globally (including communications with satellites); as an international body it has no power over citizens, but depends on its member governments implementing laws. The article on very low frequency says the ITU doesn't regulate below 9 kHz and this band can be freely used in many countries, although there is no citation given for this. --Maltelauridsbrigge (talk) 15:05, 21 January 2009 (UTC)