Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 August 18

Humanities Science Mathematics Computing/IT Language Miscellaneous Archives

The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions at one of the pages linked to above.

< August 17 Computing desk archive August 19 >

wallpaper changer

the code provided by some wikipedist is working extremely well.thanx a lot. but there is a major problem that it works only with .bmp files.converting jpegs to bmp causes loss of quality of the image.any code that would allow wallpapers in jpeg format is actually required.if possible.plz help.

No, decompression to bitmap does not cause loss of quality. It does increase the size. --Kjoonlee 05:22, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

YES, there is a loss when a image file from the JPEG converted to Bitmap but there are some few conversion tools which does very minimum or negligible loss hence u can use them

Password Protect

Is there any way to password protect folders in Windows XP? I don't want to create a new account, or have a password be prompted everytime you return to the computer after the screen saver has been on, as these are not really feasible options. Thanks for any help. --71.117.36.250 03:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Try these instructions. Weregerbil 06:20, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

network neutrality

After reading the wikipedia article concerning internet neutrality, which i assume is a non-biased source, I believe i have come to an understanding. Offering different quality bandwiths for different qualities is illegal. That is how i understood one point of the article concernig "tiers" within networks. I live in twin city that lies in Arkansas and Texas. Consumers are offered to companies for high speed internet, one being CableOne(cable connectin), and the other being Valor Telecom(DSL connection). Both offer different bandwith levels depending on how much one is willing to shell out for service. Does this violate the policy regarding "tiers" within the network nuetrality philosophy? Im not accusing, or condemning, I am just trying to grasp a better understanding of this issue that is new to me. Thanks Much to anyone who can enlighten me!!

Ever since the Internet went commercial, connection speed has been linked to price. A university would pay for a T3 connection, a business might settle for DSL, and a home would use the existing phone line and a low-bandwidth dial-up modem. That stratification is not what worries people about neutrality.

Your friendly local telephone and cable companies would like to charge you more if your traffic is BitTorrent or other peer-to-peer exchange; they would like to charge you more if you are connected to Google instead of their own proprietary service; they would like to charge you less if you connect to their affiliates; and they would like to charge non-affiliates more to allow you to have the same level of service.

Suppose CableOne has a stake in Ask.com; then they might give you better service or charge you less if you get your information from Ask.com, and give you worse service or charge you more if you instead use Wikipedia. Suppose Valor Telecom has partnered with Microsoft; then they might penalize you in price or performance for your iTunes downloads.

Today, Warner Bros. and FreeBSD both take advantage of BitTorrent for distributing large files. The proposed policies would likely have suppressed such advances, and may still penalize such traffic.

And since telecom and cable companies have enormous economic and political clout, and many lobbyists, they will describe this to your elected representatives in a way that makes it sound like they are doing you a favor by implementing such policies. Since your representatives understand money (especially re-election money) more than they understand technology, they may be persuaded.

Perhaps someone with a different perspective would like to comment as well. --KSmrq^T 14:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

I tend to think that consumers would avoid an ISP which penalizes them for going to certain sites, so long as the consumer knows about it in advance. If they are already locked into a long contract when they discover their favorite site is now unusably slow or has a surcharge, they may well be stuck. So, there should, at a minimum, be laws stating the following:

"Full disclosure of all sites which will receive sub-optimal bandwidth or incur surcharges must be made prior to the consumer's decision to purchase the product. Also, any addition to this list of sites or reduction in bandwidth or increase in the surcharge must be accompanied by an option for the consumer to drop the service immediately, with no additional charge or cancellation fees. In such a case, the consumer will only be charged the prorated fee up to their date of cancellation." StuRat 18:18, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

You have a lot of faith in the consumers. I feel that most of them chose their ISP based on how dumb the people in the ad were. Note the AOL ads: "Using AOL is so easy, a monkey with half a brain can get online!" Locally, we have one that shows a guy trying to drill a hole in his electrical outlet to show how stupid he is, but he was able to us whatever service it is. I consider it moron advertising. They are honestly saying, "You are stupid. Give us your money." Apparently, it is a great business plan because the companies using it are making a lot of money. --Kainaw ^(talk) 20:50, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

The "For Dummies" series of books is quite similar. I don't think people buy them because they think they are idiots, but just want a book, or ISP, that even an idiot could use, knowing that means they, not being an idiot, should have no trouble using it. I see this as a natural reaction to things geared toward experts only, which, however, fail to say that on that cover ("Prereq: A phD in computer science, obtained not more than 2 years ago"). Even Wikipedia has many science and math articles which seem to be written "for experts only". StuRat 00:38, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

For many consumers there will be no choice. Every broadband ISP will be doing this. Worse, few consumers will be aware of the issue, fewer still will understand it, and almost none will act on it. Yet the long-term consequences will impact them in ways they very much care about. --KSmrq^T 00:20, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

I disagree. Say a Christian ISP came along that blocked all porn sites. Thet would immediately lose the business of many consumers and televangelists, who see no other purpose in the internet (or life, for that matter). :-) StuRat 00:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Fact is stranger than fiction sometimes. Given the concentration of media ownership, we could have "Christian" ISPs and "Blue State" ISPs and "censor the Dixie Chicks" ISPs. And they'd find subscribers. And if your views didn't match those of enough of your neighbors, you might have no choice. --KSmrq^T 07:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks a lot, i know there is much grey area, and you have cleared much of it up. But with this answer comes another question...Why would ANY consumer want to not advocate net neutrality?

3D animation

what are the contents in the 3d animation course ? can you explan me the difference in 3d animation and multimedia.please explan in detail. can you give me best institute in INDIA(country) state is Andhra pradesh city is Hyderbad. i want best institute in Hyderabad.Thanks for any one who gives information.

My reaction to your question is that the first thing I notice is your struggle with the English language. Technical instruction, especially for 3D animation, depends heavily on English-language sources, so this could be a serious obstacle.

As for the difference, multimedia includes recorded and synthesized music and other audio; it includes video recordings; it includes graphics — both 2D and 3D; and it includes the integration of all these into a composite result.

As for what 3D animation covers, start with our article on 3D computer graphics.

I have no specific recommendations in Hyderabad. --KSmrq^T 00:33, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Midi Output

Is there a way to get a difference midi playback device other than the default one in XP: "Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth"? I have a SigmaTel (Dell standard) sound card. --Russoc4 20:08, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Some audio cards have their own MIDI playback devices (I remember my old AWE32 did, and was vastly superior to the clunky MS software synth). But if the device-driver install for your card hasn't set up a MIDI playback device then it clearly isn't capable of doing that - most cheap soundcards aren't (they just shovel samples back and forward and do now't more). But gone are the AWE32 days when you needed a custom ASIC to synthesise decent sound in real time - any half-decent modern PC has plenty of CPU power and can easily do the synth in real time - take a look through this list. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:21, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm, well, can you recommend a program that can play back .mid files with higher quality? My old computer had a SoundBlaster card and it too had a really good playback device. I believe they are also modifiable via SoundBlaster Soundfonts. I was just wondering if the same was true for all sound cards, including cheap ones.--Russoc4 20:29, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

There are several MIDI synths in the list I gave above. As you don't, it seems, need real time, then WAVmaker seems to do a pretty nice job (judging by the mp3 samples on their site). -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 21:02, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

When I installed Sibelius 4, it gave me a choice of about six different MIDI choices. There was more than one that came with the computer on the sound card. Sibelius's was called "Kontact Player" I think. Something like that — [Mac Davis] (talk)

Problems Playing DVD-Videos

Hi, im having problems playing dvd videos on my pc. WMPlayer 10 displays this message: "Windows Media Player cannot play DVD video. Open Display in Control Panel, and then lower your screen resolution and color quality settings. To view the DVD Troubleshooter, click More Information.". Doing what it reccomends doesn't solve the problem. This has only started happening since "My demo version of the dvd-video plugin has expired (Displayed by nero showtime)".

Does anyone know where i can get one of these plugins? Preferrably for free!

Download VLC media player for free instead: no need for naff plugins from anyone, nothing expiring, no worrying about the application phoning your tastes in DVDs home to its evil masters. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 20:56, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Just tested out VLC with K-Pax... works a treat! Cheers

VLC is awesome. — [Mac Davis] (talk)

Can anyone recommend a graphics card?

I need something with 32MB Open GL 1.4 compatible PCL or AgP 3D hardware accelerator with hardware transform and lighting (T&L) capablity--67.172.248.207 22:36, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Those are trivial requirements for current graphics cards. However, there can be compatibility problems, depending on whether your motherboard supports PCI Express or AGP or only PCI; and if AGP, what version. You may be able to learn the capabilities of your motherboard with a free software utility like SiSoftware Sandra Lite or Belarc Advisor. To survey many of the current options in cards, try a vendor like NewEgg. A card that meets such modest requirements should be very inexpensive. --KSmrq^T 00:58, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the help.--67.172.248.207 01:02, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

YouTube

Is there a way to download YouTube videos onto my hard drive? User:Zoe|(talk) 23:31, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Use youtube-dl -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 23:49, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

What's a Python interpreter? User:Zoe|(talk) 01:46, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

It's a program you can download from the site the previous link pointed to, that will allow you to run programs written in the Python programming language. --jpgordon^∇∆∇∆ 03:40, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to both of you. I'm just leery of downloading things when I don't know what they are. User:Zoe|(talk) 23:00, 19 August 2006 (UTC)