Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2006 December 16

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December 16

PowerPoint and VBA

If I write a macro in in the Windows version of PowerPoint and saved the .ppt file, will the macro run if I open the file in the Mac OS X version of PowerPoint? -WikiY ^{Talk E-Mail} 00:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

It should, yes. There are no doubt some localized differences (i.e. how they deal with file paths, and if you access external libraries) but VBA within an Office application should, in theory, work pretty seamlessly cross-platform. --24.147.86.187 17:19, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

If it doesn't, check the security settings to see if macroes are disabled. 68.39.174.238 00:49, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Song Information Plugins for Various Media Players

I am making a web application which allows users to submit song data from media players to be displayed on their profiles on certain websites. For Winamp I am using a plugin called DoSomething, which lets me specify a URL to be pinged after song changes, allowing me to embed bits of information about the song within the URL (such as the song name, the band, the track length, etc.).

However, I would like to offer capability with more than Winamp. A lot of users use Foobar2000 and Windows Media Player, but after some deep searches I've not found any readily-available plugins for either which let me ping a web address with song data. I found one called 'Now Playing', but it costs $10 - I'd prefer to work with a free version so that people not using Winamp don't have to buy additional software. Does anyone know of any free programs meeting the above criteria for any popular media players? If 'Now Playing' is the only one of its kind available for Windows Media Player, is it capable of doing what I want it to do? Thanks. RevenDS 02:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Get a Mac campaign

I noticed that a recent Get a Mac ad claimed that Macs are "selling like hotcakes now". Is this in any way true? Are there any published statistics about Apple's sales increasing/ decreasing as a result of their many, ah, interesting marketing campaigns? Please advise! Lovablebeautyme 06:00, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I always assume that's a lie in any ad I hear. After all, if they were really selling as fast as they can make them, then what would be the point in advertising them ? StuRat 06:30, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

But there are laws about what ads can and can't say. In any case, what I really want to know is if the Get a Mac campaign has increased sales at all. (Somehow I doubt it -- I think Macs will always be restricted to Mac fans...) Lovablebeautyme 08:07, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

If they claimed a million had been sold when they had only sold a thousand they would get into trouble, yes, but who's to say that a thousand doesn't qualify as "selling like hot cakes" ? That term could mean anything. StuRat 12:54, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

They'd only have to sell four to "sell them like hotcakes", at least I think that's how many you get at your typical waffle and pancake place. :o) Droud 14:52, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

On that note, I'm certain that very few people are buying four Macs at a time. Droud 15:17, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know, I've seen people buy 4 Big Macs at a time, at the same place you can buy hotcakes, maybe that's where the ad idea came from ? :-) StuRat 17:32, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Not sure, but I doubt it. That campaign is rather infamous for making false-truth statements, anyway. --Wooty Woot? contribs 10:41, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

What a bunch of FUD! Try this instead:

• Based on Apple’s own financial reports over the past two years, sales of Apple’s Macintosh computers, iPod players and "music-related" services have all experienced record growth when compared to a previous year. — Boston Herald

The penalties for lying in financial reports are severe; it is highly unlikely Apple would risk it. Maybe instead we should worry that Dell is hemorrhaging sales due to declines in customer support, as reported by a reliable source.

• In the most recent quarter, Dell missed its sales target, one reason its stock has dropped 18%, to $34, since the start of the year. — BusinessWeek

Apple has released preliminary fourth quarter results, and states the following:

• Apple shipped 1,610,000 Macintosh® computers and 8,729,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 30 percent growth in Macs and 35 percent growth in iPods over the year-ago quarter. — Apple Computer

Most businesses would agree that qualifies as "selling like hotcakes", and would love to see that kind of increase themselves. --KSmrq^T 05:20, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Wow, thanks so much for the reliable information! This is exactly what I was looking for. Lovablebeautyme 08:07, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

One can argue that hotcakes do not sell so fast. --Proficient 04:34, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

My CD not readable by DVD-rom

I got this probelm with my DVD-rom. When I put in my FIFA 07 CD-rom (which requires a DVD-rom) into my DVD Drive, and after the auto run won't work. So I go to My Computer and double click DVD/CD-RW Drive, and realize that the CD is not read by the DVD drive. I check whether there is scratches and there weren't. I tried again and again, but to no avail. The thing is, I tried many other games and they all worked, except for this. Its original, not pirated, FYI.

Maybe there is something wrong with the CD. So I went back to the shop, wanting to exchange the disc to another one. I explain the probelm to the guy in the shop, then he tried on one of the computers, and shockingly to me, the CD was readable by it. Anyway I still changed the CD (this CD was proved to be working because the guy also tried it on his computer) and hoping that this one would work. When I reached home, I tried, but failed. I tried several times relentlessly but still nothing. Its like as if I didn't put anything inside. But other disc works!

Sorry, I'm not to good in computers and pardom my English. Hope you can figure out my probelm. Denester 15:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I would suggest replacing your DVD drive, as these symptoms point towards it having trouble tracking (moving the laser). You can also try cleaning and greasing it as suggested here. Droud 18:06, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

2.5mm/3.5mm M/M jack

does anyone know whence I can aquire a 3.5 to 2.5 mm Male to Male headphone jack cable? MHDIV ɪŋglɪʃnɜː(r)d(Suggestion?|wanna chat?) 15:57, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Have you tried a local Radio Shack or similar electronics store? They usually have all sorts of converters. --24.147.86.187 17:36, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Radio Shack does not carry this item, but they carry enough adapters that you could combine two parts into a cable (audio quality aside). Droud 18:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

This froogle search turns up a few. Droud 18:11, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Satiric wikipedia

whats the name of that site thats exactly like wikipedia, except its satire? anyone?

Unencyclopedia. --24.147.86.187 18:34, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

You've got it wrong! Wikipedia is satire, while Uncyclopedia is the truth. --h2g2bob 09:04, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

There's also EncyclopediaDramatica--Codell ^{[ Talk]} 23:13, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Phex IP blocking

How does Phex decide what IP addresses to permanently block as "system rules?" For example, why does it block 4.2.161.0 (which appears to belong to a county auditor in the US)? NeonMerlin 19:44, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

I suspect it uses a block list, similar to just about every other P2P security software out there. See for example, http://test.blocklist.org/ and PeerGuardian. 68.39.174.238 00:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but how does it decide, for example, that some government addresses should be blocked? What would happen if connections to those addresses were allowed? NeonMerlin 15:34, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

From http://www.phex.org/mambo/content/view/62/2/ , "Additionally Phex now includes the www.bluetack.co.uk - bad-host database, a ban-list, which blocks known spam- and secret service IP-ranges.". Basically, bluetack seems to maintain different lists based on different categories, one of which is government addresses. I'm going to guess that that list just includes every IP known to be registered to a government agency of any government anywhere, county auditors included. 68.39.174.238 22:13, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Creative commons and GFDL compatability

To what extent are creative commons licenses and the GFDL compatible. Obviously NC and ND licences can't be relicensed. I think CC-BY can be relicensed under GFDL (naturally not the other way round), but I'm not sure, can anyone verify. I'm not even 100% sure that CC-BY can be relicensed under CC-BY-SA due to some mentions of a clause in some of the revelevant internet pages I have been reading.

More importantly, what about CC-BY-SA and GFDL. I know some effort whas being made to make them compatible - has this had any progress, are they either way?--Bjwebb (talk) 22:05, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Technically they can't be "re-licensed" as one or the other by a third-party at all (ditto CC-BY to CC-BY-SA or any other CC license; they are different licenses and are not interchangeable). They can sometimes be used in the same projects if the individual copyrighted works are easy to segregate and indicate (i.e. if it was a picture used in a paper, then you could easily distiguish that the picture might have a different copyright status than the text). You can multi-license, which means that the original licensor can say, "This is licensed as this or this, pick your license as your want", and they can do this at any point (I can take something I licensed as GFDL and later say, "oh, you can also use this as CC-BY-SA"), but a third party could not do this. They are compatible only in the manner I mentioned earlier (about the segregated works); see "Collective Works" in the CC license and "Aggregation With Independent Works" in the GFDL. Hope that makes sense. Personally I think it would be wonderful if the CC/FSF boys would come up with some sort of clause which would say that you could easily translate GFDL to CC-BY-SA and vice versa (they are equivalent from a free-content point of view, the main differences are in their specific formulations and the GFDL has a whole bunch of crud about invariant texts and the like in it) but I have very little faith that the FSF would ever do something like that (CC, I don't know). --24.147.86.187 22:42, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Thankyou for that, some of it is useful, but what I want to know is whether CC-BY content can be incorporated into a GFDL work e.g. whether text licensed under CC-BY could be used in Wikipedia.

Also, I know that the GFDL and CC-BY-SA were not compatible, but I have read that creativecommons was thinking about rewriting its CC-BY-SA license to allow it to be translated to GFDL. I would like to know whether any progress has been made in this direction, and whether the FSF have said anything at all about allowing GFDL content to be relicensed under CC-BY-SA.--Bjwebb (talk) 16:52, 17 December 2006 (UTC)