Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 January 5

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January 5

Fonts in Inkscape

For some reason, neither bold nor italic font styles work in Inkscape for me (it is a very recent version for Mac OS X). The fonts show up fine but selecting bold or italic does nothing. I've checked out the SVG and the style setting is there, but it does not display and it does not export. I have tried it with a variety of fonts, both common and exotic. No dice. I've Googled around but this doesn't seem like a common problem. Any thoughts? --24.147.86.187 00:19, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually having a similar problem. Haven't got a clue why though... --saxsux 17:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

This may sound silly but I took a look at inkscape to see if worked for me and noticed it didn't seem to work either (ubuntu) but then my daughter noticed that I didn't click "apply". Could that possibly the problem or am I the only idiot in the room? Theresa Knott | Taste the Korn 17:08, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Mine has definitely been applied. The raw XML says that the characters should be italic, but it doesn't apply it on screen. Maybe it's a bug I should report to them; I hadn't seen anyone else complain about it but if others are experiencing it, it is probably more about font handling than my specific machine... --24.147.86.187 23:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

We've had lots of problems with the SVG Inkscape generates, older versions seem to work better, you may find some help atWikiProject Maths/Graphics -SVG problems. --Salix alba (talk) 12:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Pixel counter

Is there any (hopefully free) software that can count pixels? I am looking for one that allows me to counter the number of dark pixels and light pixels. --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 00:26, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It sounds like you want to be able to change the brightness of an image. Pretty much every picture edit program ever made has that ability. You might mean you want the average brightness of a series of images to match. That's a bit more difficult, I'm not sure which products offer such a function. StuRat 00:54, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Oops...'count' not 'counter'. --hello, i'm a member | talk to me! 01:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

You could rig up a number of scripting programs to do this sort of thing for you. You would have to set parameters about what you considered "dark" and "light" though. PHP's GD image library would make this fairly easy using the imagecolorat function, though it would be time consuming to go over an entire image. --24.147.86.187 03:29, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Using GIMP, you should be able to open an image, go to Dialogues->Histogram, and drag-select portions of the histogram containing "light" (to the right) or "dark" (on the left) pixels. This will show you the total number of pixels in the image, the number of pixels in the selection, and the percentage (mislabeled "percentile" in the version I have; I should file a bug about that) of pixels in the selection. This sounds like what you need; hope it helps! grendel|khan 14:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Can I export .pst data from subfolder in Outlook Contacts to Excel?

I work on Outlook2003 and went to export sub-folder contacts to excel. I can get the contacts to a pst file but can't export to .csv or other format. At home I work on thunderbird or excel and would like to clean a database. Anyone help me?74.12.145.238 02:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I just tried it and it worked.. you can map the fields how you want too. I went to File->Import/Export -> Export to another file -> Comma separated values -> selected "Contacts" -> File save location -> Map custom fields -> Finish. You'll want to map the fields, by default it does like 50.--PiTHON 03:47, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

External Hard Drive and OSX

So I've got a new Mac, and a new iPod. Both are the same size (80 GB). Clearly I would not be able to use the iPod's full capacity on the Mac alone, so I got an external hard drive (250 GB). I've got it hooked up without a problem. As a test, I copied iTunes into the external hard drive. How do I make sure when I start putting songs into iTunes that it goes into the external drive? Should I get rid of the iTunes in my main HD? Will that work with other applications? --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 03:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

In the Windows version of iTunes, go to the "Edit" menu and select "Preferences...". Under the "Advanced" tab, there there is a textbox labeled "iTunes Music folder location" and a "Change..." button. Clicking the button shows a folder browser dialog where you can set the directory of your external drive. -WikiY ^Talk 04:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

'Kay. But this is for my Mac. --Jeffrey O. Gustafson - Shazaam! - <*> 04:13, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I don't use iTunes on my Mac, but I'd go to the "iTunes" menu, and select "Preferences...". Under the "Advanced" tab, there should be a textbox labeled "iTunes Music folder location", and a "Change..." button. Clicking the button should show a folder browser dialog where you can set the directory of your external drive. --Carnildo 20:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Computer Help please

Lately my computer has been experiencing periods where many of my programs crash. I am currently running XP service pack 2, using up todate antivirus and overall, taking good care of my computer. any ideas why it is lagging and crashing its programs so much and how to fix it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 75.36.211.252 (talk) 03:51, 5 January 2007 (UTC).

Could really be anything, drivers, registry, software, RAM, any number of issues... I work in IT and after mucking around for a bit, the ultimate fix is reinstall windows, that fixes 90% of problems, but unfortunately can be a pain if you have a lot of drivers and software to reinstall after... Vespine 05:07, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. The "easy" method is to reinstall Windows. Blame Windows. WP 10:29, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Try downloading "Spybot - Search & Destroy" to remove spyware and adware. Also you could stop windows from running certain programs during startup by typing "msconfig" in "RUN" from the start menu and deselcting programs that u do not want to load during startup (It is done under "startup") But then as said by Vespine it can be any kind of issues.

Dead Laptop

One day my sister brought back her Acer laptop from a road trip. When I used it, I noticed that the keyboard and a USB flash drive would stop working sometimes. A couple days later, it would not boot WinXP. The POST screen does not appear. A Knoppix live CD would not boot either. Every time your put a cd in the tray the IDE light flashes for a bit, but otherwise the computer does nothing but sit there with a blank screen. It does not make any beeps. The laptop is a little over an year old.

• Acer Aspire 3003LCi
• AMD Sempron ~1.8ghz
• 512 mb RAM

Does anyone know what happened to it? -WikiY ^Talk 04:02, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Educated guess here, but could something have happened with external trauma (dropped it, fell off or bumped around in the car, spilled something on it)? Some of it sounds like motherboard issues, but if any of the above happened, you'd get the generic "everything's falling apart" sort of issue you're having now, thanks to the fact everything is so close together in a laptop. --Wooty Woot? contribs 05:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Yea it could be so many things its hard to tell you where to start. One thing I would try is to plug it into an external monitor, theres usually a function key you can hit to switch between the LCD and an external monitor, I've seen a few laptops where this doesn't work and it will only display on the external monitor. It could even be something like the button that detects if your monitor is closed or not is stuck in the down position (the same thing that makes your computer go to sleep when the monitor is closed). But the motherboard or something else thats major is probably messed up. When the "keyboard would stop working" would the touchpad still work, or was the computer actually locked up? If it was fully locked up its usually indicative of a hardware problem, which is now related to your no video/no POST problem. As for "a USB flash drive would stop working" thats not very specific. Were you transferring files off it and the computer locked up? Did it not even detect? Would it detect than disappear randomly? etc.. But also try taking out the battery for a few minutes and trying to boot it again, unplug the AC adapter when you try this as well. edit; Well plug in the batter and/or the AC adapter obviously first, but leave the laptop with zero power for a few mins :p--PiTHON 07:11, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I hooked up a monitor and tried to switch, but the monitor was still blank. The backlight switch works (I can see the backlight go on/off). Before, the touchpad worked. I could see the WinXP login screen and move the pointer/click, but can't type my password. USB devices would not be detected (No power to usb devices and no XP 'device detected' sound). Now, nothing works (except the power lights). -WikiY ^Talk 23:30, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

My IBM ThinkPad laptop screen goes out on occasion, but I've found I can barely make out what's on the screen if I shine a very bright light at it. It's like a very small portion of the needed power to illuminate the display makes it through. Try this on yours and see if there's any sign of life. I usually have to open and close the top until I find a point where it makes the connection properly, then the monitor starts to work again, until I bump it. StuRat 20:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Another possibility is the power supply. It may no longer work off the batteries, or may now only work from batteries. Try it both way. StuRat 20:32, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

JVC LT-32X576 connected to Computer

I just got the JVC LT-32X576 and I want to connect it to my computer. I am not overly worried that it will be blurry or the text will be unreadable, I just want to know if it will work. I have DVI output on my computer and the TV has HDMI input. I assume that I should be able to just get a DVI to HDMI cable, but the TV's manual says that the input will not work with a computers output. I would like to know if that is true, and also if it is safe to plug the cable in and see if it works. Mah Freend Amee 04:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Personal subst templates

Is it possible to use some own templates, like {{subst:welcome3}} client-side in wikipedia, or would you have to use some browser extension to do this? Like for example I would like some templates for myself for common occacions, could I write them in anyway into monobook.cs or such user files to make them work? Aetherfukz 04:32, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

You could create something like User:Aetherfukz/Welcome, and use {{User:Aetherfukz/Welcome}} to use it. Not sure if that's a problem, though. — Kieff 11:39, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Vista requirements

I ran Windows Vista Upgrade Advisor on my computer. I have 508 MB of RAM, and the Home Premium edition requires a whole gigabyte. I'm not too internal component-savvy, so how exactly would I boost my RAM up? Could you point me to where I could find the solution? Thanks.--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 05:44, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Crucial has a database of pretty much every computer, select your manufacturer and follow the rest of the links to figure out how much ram your computer can take, what type of ram etc... and choose to order from them or go to a local store. Looks like you'd want at least another 512mb to get to 1gb. Although, you have 508mb because your computer is probably sharing 4mb with an onboard video card, which wont handle the vista interface very well from what I've heard. May need a new vid card. edit; a new video card would be needed to use their Aero interface. Onboard video should be fine if you aren't wanting to use it. Also their site shows 512mb of ram should run it. But minimum requirements usually mean the program runs pretty slow.--PiTHON 06:04, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

With only 512mb you'll run into memory issues and will require a lot of hard drive swap / virtual memory usage with very little open. If you do anything that normally requires a lot of memory, such as photo or video editing or gaming, it will become very unpleasant (though even on XP you might have those issues). -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 16:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

So, you'd recommend another 512 MB? Anything past that is ridiculously expensive...--the ninth bright shiner ^talk 22:33, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Best thing is not to use Vista at all unless you really need it... --antilived^{T | C | G} 10:32, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Can somebody play on-line using a PlayStation 2 emulator?

Thanks in advance. Taraborn 10:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Try Kaillera --Russoc4 20:43, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much, buddy. **(This question has been successfully answered) ** --Taraborn 11:24, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

OH SHIT. Seems that no PS2 emulator is available for Kaillera... --Taraborn 11:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Java Web Start dug out from cache

Suppose you install a simple app using "java web start" (like a little graph plotting tool). Is there a way to dig that app out from the cache (or wherever it is stored) so you can save it to a USB stick and install it on another computer that does not have internet access? NoClutter 17:59, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

If you got the file from a link, right click the link and choose "Save Target As..." or "Save Link As..." and save it on your USB stick. In Firefox there is a "Open Containing Folder" menu item when you right click the download item. That shows you the contents of the cache. For IE, I think in the "Internet Properties" dialog, there is a button somewhere that shows you the contents of the Temporary Internet Files folder. You can try searching in those folders for your app. However, some browsers empty the cache after they quit so you might have to download it again. -WikiY ^Talk 23:12, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

war in mmorpg

there is mmo's like world war 2 online, and planetside that in the game you fight in a war, but those 2 games are FPS games, that is any war RPG MMORPG game??? (i don`t want games, like dark age of camelot that just some areas of the game are in war [i think this type of areas, are called sieges]). Exdeathbr 21:16, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I forgot that i posted this and asked again the same question, look here for updates. Exdeathbr (talk) 15:48, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

removal of aol demo

hi, when i boot up my new computer i get an annoying aol demo.

what is the safest way to remove it? it seems lodged in the registery etc,so i dont want to delete and have a crash! TIA.

Have you tried using the Add/Remove Programs option from the Control Panel? That's the "safest" place to start... --24.147.86.187 23:57, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

reply:YES!, it doesnt show up there!

go to start->run and type "msconfig" and hit enter. click on the "startup" tab in the upper right corner, sift through here and uncheck anything that looks aol related, and uncheck anything else you dont want to start with your computer (leave antispyware/virus programs). If you think you messed up you can always go back and re-check something, so don't worry about hurting something.--PiTHON 03:40, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

reply: perfect solution, thanks buddy!

Intel Centrino Duo vs Core 2

Which processor is best for laptops, the Intel Centrino Duo or Intel Core 2 Dual-core? Jamesino 23:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

centrino duo is not the processor, it is the chipset. Learn more about it here. Vespine 01:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Centrino is a marketing platform. Our Wikipedia article on Centrino says it is "a platform-marketing initiative from Intel, [that] covers a particular combination of CPU, mainboard chipset and wireless network interface in the design of a laptop personal computer." More recent Centrino Duo-branded laptops should have a Core 2 Duo processor. bCube(talk,contribs); 22:23, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

No numbers to load game to p.c

I recieved a game for christmas that has a code needed to download on to my pc. I wasnt given the box that has the numbers in it. Is there any way that i can be given the numbers so it be possible to load game on my pc. Game Info...... DELTA FORCE BLACK HAWK DOWN 72489-0414 Is the number given on the disk but that number does not work for loading the game. Thank you for your time Scott Miller

You said you weren't given the box that has the numbers in it, does that mean that whoever gave you the game has the box or did they not receive it either? It's possible the code may be somewhere else, like the CD or the manual. I got Galactic Civilizations II for Christmas which told me I needed a code that was located on the back of the box, after 10 minutes of examining every square inch of the box in vain I gave up and realised there was a code printed on the CD which worked. --Kiltman67 00:43, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

could that number right there be the code? --froth^{T C} 07:05, 6 January 2007 (UTC)