Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 February 17

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February 17

Getting unblocked from TV Tropes

For whatever reason, I can't access TV Tropes from my home Internet connection--it just says "Forbidden - You don't have permission to access /pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage on this server." I'm presuming this means my IP address has been blocked for some reason, but I don't know why, as I've never vandalized/spammed TV Tropes. It's been this way for a few months now, too. I can access the site through proxies and TOR and I know my IP address has probably changed several times since I last was able to get on, so the only thing I can think of is that my ISP (Charter Communications) has been blocked... but I don't know why that would be or how I can get it unblocked. Any help? (yes, yes, I know I'm probably more productive without TV Tropes, but I still want it back!) 24.247.163.175 (talk) 01:21, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

You're going to need to talk to the admins at TV Tropes to get unblocked. Try getting an account and posting about it on their forums. Someone might be sympathetic. Indeterminate (talk) 08:45, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I can't check without the full URL (and it's likely blocked my the corporate firewall I'm sitting behind), but that sounds like a standard HTTP 403 error message. Some more detail on 403 is provided here. I don't think it's personal; it might be a (temporary?) configuration issue. --LarryMac | Talk 13:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The exact URL I'm using is http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage . I'll try setting up an account on another internet connection and seeing if I can ask directly for advice--thanks, it hadn't really occurred to be to try that! 24.247.163.175 (talk) 20:01, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Noisy server

I have a Dell Poweredge server at home (it is >5 years old and was going to be thrown out so I got it for free). I would like to use it more, perhaps as a webserver but find it impossible to keep it on for a long time. It is very noisy, with the three cooling fans and SCSI disks making it sound like a jet aircraft ... well maybe not THAT loud, but loud enough to be obtrusive from the next room. Inside, it has a Xeon processor with a huge heatsink and an equally huge fan, and I was wondering if I could get away with unplugging one of the fans, or blocking some vents to reduce the noise output? Or perhaps someone has a better idea to reduce the noise? Astronaut (talk) 04:36, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Does it have temp monitors that you can read in userspace? If it does you can compare those numbers against processor specifications and get some idea about your temperature tolerance. Shadowjams (talk) 08:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you install the Dell OpenManage software you should be able to read the temperature sensors and fan speeds. You may have an issue if you unplug a fan though because it'll likely trip the system into "error mode" because there's a problem with the fan/it's not spinning and it'll start flashing orange or similar depending on what model you have. ZX81 ^talk 17:09, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

With a lot of case fans, if you gently lift the sticker on top, it'll uncover a hole to the bearings, and you can squirt a little WD-40 or something in there. That'll help them be quiet for a bit longer. (Don't do this while it's running, obviously.) You can definitely unplug some of the case fans, but check the system temperature in the bios to make sure it's not getting too hot with some of the fans off. Usually you can't unplug the CPU fan, but the rest can probably go, especially if your server won't be under heavy load. You can also buy case fans for pretty cheap. Indeterminate (talk) 08:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec) I would definitely look at what temperatures you're running before unplugging fans. As a general rule, bigger fans can run at lower RPMs which is quieter, but if the case openings aren't big enough it might not help. Also, air flow within a case is very unpredictable, so it's a trial and error process. So knowing what temp you're running is pretty important. Shadowjams (talk) 08:52, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If it's that old, figure out its power consumption. The electricity bills could be costing you more (over few months) than replacing the thing with a newer computer (e.g. one of those netbook-like things with no screen, that would probably be about as fast) would cost. 66.127.55.192 (talk) 10:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It's true - if that server is a 1500 watt blade, then you might be spending as much as 20 cents an hour to operate it. That's about $15 a month! In a year, you could afford a netbook - which could run on 35 watts with the wireless and screen off - and might deliver the same quality of service under light load. Nimur (talk) 15:43, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Like others have said you need to decide if the power consumption is worth the utility, as it is likely a significant cost unless you happen to have one of the newer, more power-friendly designs. You can 'rent' a virtual slice of a server for a few dollars a month, almost surely less than you are paying to light that system up, and it will be perpetually online and backed up and you won't need to worry about your ISPs terms of service if you want to make internet-visible pages. If you are set on keeping it, first thing to do is carefully clean out the inside as it probably has dust blockages making airflow difficult. Then, update the BIOS and inspect it for settings related to fan speed, often you can adjust the sensitivity of the fans to have a lower idle speed. --144.191.148.3 (talk) 21:27, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

CD Protection

Hello Sir, I am doing tutorial CD's. The problem faced by me is that I cant protect the CD from being copied. I had known about the software CDRWIN, CD SHIELD etc but I have no Idea on how to use them. My cd contains only a single executable file, I need to make the cd protected such that it will be impossible to copy the file from the cd. Thanking you in advance Kannan.S —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kannanv3jmask (talk • contribs) 06:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but AFAIK that's not possible. If someone can READ your CD (to use it), they can copy it. Indeterminate (talk) 08:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CD copy protection exists, but like all DRM it has a tendency to be (a) not effective, and (b) cause serious inconvenience to legitimate users. Basically, the manufacturer has to make the CD broken in some particular way, and then software to check that the CD in the drive is broken in that way. Indeterminate has stated the fundamental problem very well. Paul Stansifer 15:03, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I thought there was an inner ring of data on CDs that only expensive professional equipment could write to, and that that was used for copy protection? 89.240.100.129 (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

That's true. That's how DVD encryption works, for example. The CD-Rom based versions I think are different. Compact Disc and DVD copy protection is our article on the subject. Shadowjams (talk) 19:06, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Simple regular expression.

Hello all! I'm using an app called Notepad++ to manage some colossal text files. It supports regular expressions in its find+replace function, but alas, despite reading a tutorial on them, I can't work out one to do what I'd like. I want it to find all brackets, and text enclosed within them, and replace it with nothing. Can anyone help me out here? I know if I keep reading I could work it out eventually, but I'm on a bit of a deadline and it seems like a simple thing to someone who already understands regular expressions.

As an example, "Joanna Brown (born 1970), Architect" would be changed to "Joanna Brown, Architect".202.10.86.219 (talk) 12:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Could try " \(.*?\)," (replace with comma alone). ¦ Reisio (talk) 12:54, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Try this:

Find what: \s*\([^(]*\)
Replace with:

Note that this will "eat" the space(s) before the parentheses, and leave intact trailing space(s) after. That works well for the specific example you gave. -- Coneslayer (talk) 12:55, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In case you're curious, Coneslayers regular expression works like this: first match a whitespace character (i.e. space, tab, new-line or the like), that's the \s part. Then match a start-bracket, that's the \( part. Then match everything that isn't an end-bracket zero or more times, that's the [^(]* part. That part is a little complicated. The square-brackets means to match a whole class of characters, so [123abc] will match either the character 1, 2, 3, a, b or c exactly once. The little up-arrow in the beginning means to match everything but the characters in the class, so [^123abc] means "match everything that isn't either 1, 2, 3, a, b or c". So [^(] means "match everything that isn't a start bracket". Then there's an asterisk which means "match the preceding thing zero or more times". So [^(]* means "match everything that's not a start-bracket zero or more times". Then there's only the \) which simply means to match an end bracket.

So in summary, the regular expression means "First match a white-space character, then a start-bracket, then anything that isn't an end-bracket zero or more times, and finally match an end-bracket".

If you need to do things like this with some frequency, knowing how to use regular expressions is a really useful skill. It takes a while to get to know them, but they are very nice things to have in your toolkit. Belisarius (talk) 15:18, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Reading your helpful description made me notice a mistake... I meant:

Find what: \s*\([^)]*\)
Replace with:

That is, once we see a start-bracket, match everything that isn't an end-bracket (rather than start-bracket, as I originally wrote). Then match an end-bracket. Why do we have [^)]* instead of .* (match anything)? Because .* is greedy, and will take the longest string that matches. So suppose you have:

Joanna Brown (born 1970), Architect, married John Green (born 1968), Stunt Pilot

In this case, .* would match everything from the first start-bracket to the second end-bracket, leaving you with:

Joanna Brown, Stunt Pilot

-- Coneslayer (talk) 15:34, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I noticed that little end-bracket deal, but I figured since it only really comes into play when you're dealing with nested brackets, i figured I would ignore it :). Also, you can usually turn off the greedy quantification using a question-mark, like so: .*?. Though I much prefer doing it the [^)]* way. Belisarius (talk) 11:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Need an excel macro

I need an excel macro that will allow me to add details into the next row in a different workbook. For example, if a form comes in with someone's name, address etc, I want to be able to run a macro that will add the details to an excel spreadsheet that has previously been saved as a different excel file recording details from all of the cells. 81.134.2.136 (talk) 12:53, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

CPU performance

Hi,

will an Intel Core 2 Duo T5500, 1.66GHz CPU perform better or worse than an Intel Pentium T4200, 2.10GHz CPU?

In other words, will the different architecture of the T5500 deliver a higher performance at a lower clock rate, like it was "in the old days", when a Pentium 4 with a lower clock rate would still beat a Pentium 3 with a higher one?

From what I've read, the T5500 comes with VT while the T4200 does not, so if I'm running virtualization software like VMware Server or VirtualBox, would that make the T4200 lose out even if it would be the better choice if I ran my software directly on the box, without virtualization?

I'm aware that there's more to system performance than CPU specs, however, the two systems I'm looking at differ just marginally when it comes to RAM, disk/controller and GPU (It's an embedded computer, so GPU performance is irrelevant anyway) specs. -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 13:57, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

When you say "embedded computer", do you mean "battery powered?" If so, you might want to look at performance vs. power and make a decision with that tradeoff in mind also. The Core 2 Duo is a "higher performance" chip using a newer architecture. It's rated at 34 W, one watt lower than the T4200. Here are Intel's specs: T4200 and T5500 (one variant, at least). It looks like the older T4200 beats the newer technology on most benchmarks, though - probably on account of clock-rate alone. T4200 benchmarks vs. T5500 benchmarks. What is your intended application? Does it compare well with a standard benchmark so you can do a targeted line-item comparison on those spec sheets? Nimur (talk) 15:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Re: "embedded" vs. "battery powered", nope, it's connected to mains power, just a compact (about half the size of a shoebox) headless and fanless box. So power consumption is not an issue, and the passive cooler/case is specified for both the T5500 and T4200 CPUs. Its intended use is as a small Terminal Server-like (under Linux, though, not Windows) system, serving a common office environment (Thunderbird, Firefox, OpenOffice) to a handful of users in an environment where the fan noise of a regular system is not acceptable. -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 16:41, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: Nimur, do you have any insight regarding the VT issue? Would a T5500 be faster than a T4200 when running several virtual machines, as it has VT built in? -- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 16:51, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

In theory, virtualization hardware support should improve performance. In practice, I've never seen it make a difference. I can boot my top-level server, nimur-enterprises with or without virtualization supported hardware (it's a BIOS setting) - and I can't tell any difference in VM performance (I run some easy-to-benchmark numerical codes, which might not benefit from VT because they're essentially all-CPU and very little disk). (Ultimately, it's best to run these codes natively anyway). I can do the same BIOS VT enable/disable on my 8-core Nehalem system, nimur-core.nimur.com, which is a totally different architecture machine but also supports Intel VT. I'm still not sure what virtualization hardware actually does. Intel's official technology page and our article subsection on Intel VT don't really elaborate all that much either. Gleaning what I can from the white-papers, I think the VT technology does more for streamlining peripheral device access (like USB and maybe hard-disk drives) than it does for CPU and main memory performance (although there are vague claims about MMU streamlining, which could improve virtual memory access speed). So, your mileage will vary based on your use-case.

Finally, it's worth asking - do you need to virtualize? You can provide terminal service to multiple users, including a graphic desktop, without virtualizing. Since you're already planning to time-share a "low-end" processor among many users, I'd be worried about saving every bit of performance for actual work. A common reason to virtualize is if every user needs "administrative" access - and if you have compute resources to spare - but there are workarounds. Proper design of a multi-user unix or linux platform should enable peaceful coexistence of up to hundreds of users. Even a "toy" linux like Ubuntu features pretty industrial-strength, secure user rights management, file-system sharing, and so on. What exactly needs to be virtual? Nimur (talk) 23:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Well, first of all I hope that for time-sharing of five (that "handful" above was literal ;-)) office desktop environments, one of those two CPUs will suffice. That said, virtualization has some benefits like roll-back in case of a botched update (you can run /home on a different virtual disk, which is snapshot-independent, so you don't accidentally roll-back user data) or easier OS upgrading/testing (you can copy over an image that you prepared on another machine, vm-power-down the production VM, copy the /home disk over, and vm-power-up the new/testing environment). Also, I could run a nice little firewall like m0n0wall in a second VM to make the system more secure:

(Physical ethernet on host)--bridged connection--(Firewall VM)--host-only-networking--(Server VM)

May I ask which VM software you are using? QEMU, KVM, VirtualBox, VMware Server, VMware ESX, VMware ESXi, or something completely different? This seems to indicate that not all VM host programs are already making use of VT.

-- 78.43.93.25 (talk) 00:42, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

I mostly used VirtualBox though I briefly experimented with KVM. As I recall, KVM had some configuration error with my DVD drive and so I abandoned it pretty quick. I have used VMWare (one of the freebies or academic versions, I can't recall) in the past, and it was probably the best of many options. I also had Microsoft Virtual PC on one machine at some point. At present I'm not virtualizing anything.

Regarding your "roll-over" installs - the /home/ directories can be mounted on a separate partition, even without virtualization; but yes, you do bring up useful points. I have found a clean install to be the easiest way to "un-botch" a system, (always preserving my /home/ or its equivalent); but my reliability/uptime needs may not match yours. Lastly, I'm not sure if a virtual firewall is any more or less secure than a real firewall on the same machine - but again, the best security practice is the one you understand fully and implement correctly - so if what you have planned is suitable for your office needs, then go with it. Nimur (talk) 03:35, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Windows Registry

Most programs write stuff to the windows registry. Is there a way to forced them to read and write to .reg files in their own directory instead of the windows registry, essentially making the program portable?

In Windows Vista, Microsoft announced Registry Virtualization. You can read technical details on MSDN Technet. If you are a programmer / application developer, see MSDN's tips for developing applications for a least-privileged environment. Nimur (talk) 15:29, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

hmmm that's not exactly what I was looking for, but thank you. What I was looking for was the way the people at portableapps.com manage to have the registry stuff in a single .reg file. I've read and reread all the pages on that site explaining how to make portable programs but I can't figure it out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 18:50, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

This is the program used to make certain pre-compiled applications portable. I have used it. It works well. That's what you meant, right? You don't want to create a portable application from scratch? Applications are porable by default. The registry is simply a convenience for developers. They must tell the application to write to it.--Drknkn (talk) 19:33, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've had problems with thinapp on different windows versions (a thinapp made on XP won't run on Vista or Win7 etc). I just need a way for programs to use a .reg file instead of the actual windows registry or something similar to that; a portable registry that stays with the program when it's used on different computers. Maybe it can't be done. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.89.27 (talk) 19:42, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

If you are writing a program, you can save settings anywhere you like (ie: a file in the executable directory). It is a standard practice to save to the registry in Windows. If you are attempting to take a program you didn't write and make it think that a .reg file is the registry, then you are trying to either alter an already written program (hard) or alter how Windows works (harder). -- kainaw™ 21:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Right - but note that Vista and Windows 7 do have a capability to virtualize the registry, redirecting the program's registry accesses to a specified flat file on disk. You don't have to modify the program, you just have to tell Windows to put it in a sandbox. Nimur (talk) 16:36, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In case you didn't know, the registry is not made up of .reg files. Your registry is stored in the C:\WINDOWS\system32\config folder in the form of the SAM, system, and software files, along with the NTUSER.dat file located in your documents folder. Files with a .reg extension simply modify those files.

When you finish the capture process, ThinApp will save a list of modified registry keys inside the C:\Program Files\VMWare\VMWare ThinApp\captures directory. Each hive is given its own file. One hive would be the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE.txt file, for example. You can convert these files to .reg files. In this example, you would replace this text

isolation_full HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\UnlockerShellExtension

Value=

REG_SZ~{DDE4BEEB-DDE6-48fd-8EB5-035C09923F83}#2300

with this text:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers\UnlockerShellExtension]

@="{DDE4BEEB-DDE6-48fd-8EB5-035C09923F83}"

and this text

isolation_full HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnlockerDriver5

Value=ImagePath

REG_SZ~%ProgramFilesDir%\Unlocker\UnlockerDriver5.sys#2300

Value=Type

REG_DWORD=#01#00#00#00

with this text:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\UnlockerDriver5]

"ImagePath"="\\??\\C:\\Program Files\\Unlocker\\UnlockerDriver5.sys"

"Type"=dword:00000001

Then, you would add this to the top of each .reg file:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

--Drknkn (talk) 21:58, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The solution that you are proposing is not really realistic. While applications may store their various settings in the registry, often those settings need to be shared and discoverable for other applications. If those settings are only stored locally in an applications folder, then they are not discoverable by other processes that may need them. This was originally one of the primary motivations for creating the registry. 114.158.111.220 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 04:10, 18 February 2010 (UTC).

The only requirement to make settings discoverable would be to store the location of the settings in a central registry. Then, you could copy all the data files and settings from one computer to another and easily run the program. The way the registry is set up now, copying all the data files from one computer to another will give you a program that complains about missing registry settings. It is a poor form of copy protection designed specifically to stop what the nosign-IP appears to want to do: easily copy programs from one computer to another without using the install disks. -- kainaw™ 06:01, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Copy protect

Hi

Firstly I know nothing about computers and I don't know if this is the right place to ask the following questions.

What I'd like to know is...

1. If I have 2 discs with identical information on each, but one is copy protected, how is the one different from the other? -In essence...

1.1 How does the laser lens read the one disc compared to the other?

2. What actually happens when one tries to copy a protected disc, but is unable to?

2.1 What is the mechanism that prevents you from copying a copy protected disc especially audio/video?

3. What is the reason for having all these different formats for movies? -i.e. vcd, dvd, mpeg etc.

3.1 Why are only some dvd players made to play some formats?

Please try as best you can to simplify the answer/s

Thanks,

NirocFX 41.193.16.234 (talk) 15:19, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The simple answer is that when your program "reads data" from a DVD, usually it is actually "requesting somebody else to please read the data for you." In some rare cases, you have access to a "raw read" utility and can pull the exact bits from the hardware. In most environments, though, the operating system reads the data for you and delivers it. In still other environments, a third-party device driver or software application layer reads the disk data for you. That intermediate layer can read and interpret the data however it chooses - and then deliver this data to you (or your program) transparently. If the device layer decides that the data is copy-protected, it may choose not to deliver any data, or to garble it, or to flag an error, or to crash, etc. Many times, even if you can read the raw data, it is encrypted - which means that it is useless and cannot easily be reconstructed into meaningful images, sound, and video. Using the intermediate layer (and surrendering to its whims regarding copy-protection) is sometimes required, because that program knows how to interpret and decrypt the data. (There are sometimes ways to circumvent this encryption).

As an occasional hardware developer, this sort of thing is very frustrating - if I want to read the bits off a disc, I want the bits - not some other program's interpretation of those bits. As far as the actual data on the disc, the laser and hardware to read it is identical whether it is copy-protected or not. But the catch is that the data isn't identical to non-copy-protected data - even if it appears identical after it's been passed through some intermediate processing layer. As far as the reason for different file formats, some justifications are technical - see video compression and container format, while others are non-technical (such as region codes on DVDs). Nimur (talk) 15:35, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

There is a pretty good overview over at our copy protection article. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Unstable WLAN over Ubuntu

When I connect through Ubuntu to a specific network, I have a very unstable connection and have to rejoin every 15minutes or less. Other users (using Windows) are doing fine and the connection is at 100% for all (I'm not very far from it). I also don't have any problem connecting to any other hotspots over wifi. Where is the problem?--ProteanEd (talk) 17:27, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

I've had something very similar before on Xubuntu, until a friend of mine showed me how to fix it. If you run lshw -class network, does your wireless card show up as an Intel 4965 or similar? If so, try installing the wicd network manager. There's some sort of bug with the standard Ubuntu network manager that stops it working properly with that particular line of Intel cards. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 18:16, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The wicd typ seems valuable. I'll give it a try. --ProteanEd (talk) 18:46, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Also having the latest version of Ubuntu with all latest updates always helps. --antilived^{T | C | G} 00:18, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Average daily Google searches per user

How many Google searches does the average Internet user do per day? --Belchman (talk) 17:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

The closest you can probably get to your answer is this report. -- kainaw™ 06:03, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

A confounding factor: how many times does a user see content that was delivered by a search algorithm that was contracted to Google, without explicitly using the google.com main page, or even using a search-box anywhere at all? Google makes a lot of money with Google AdWords, which use search-like algorithms to deliver content to you. It also subcontracts search services to private websites; sells a Google Search Appliance which might be part of a website's back-end content system, etc. Nimur (talk) 16:39, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I would have guessed 1.1 but 1.2 in Feb 05 & 1.5 in Feb 06. The median would be 1 (I guess).
Sleigh (talk) 01:00, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

How does he do it?

I have a Sony Vaio laptop running Windows Vista which occasionally loses it's wireless internet connection. I haven't been able to figure out how to reconnect it, but my 14 year old can do it in a couple of minutes. Problem is, he won't show me or tell me what he's doing (he likes keeping secrets from dad). What steps might he be taking to fix things? Hemoroid Agastordoff (talk) 18:20, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Go to the wireless networks icon in the systray. Select available networks. If you don't see your network, refresh the list. Click your network and select "connect". Also, make sure you aren't accidentally sliding the "wifi" switch on the very front of the laptop. I have had many calls from Vaio owners who accidentally switch off wifi with that nearly invisible switch. -- kainaw™ 18:23, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

It's also possible (with all due respect to your son) that he's being a BOFH - and maliciously cutting out your connection from the router's administrative interface (or elsewhere on the network), so that he can "show off" and fix your computer instantly. Does he have administrative access to your router and/or other parts of your network? Nimur (talk) 03:40, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

Does he have physical access? Nil Einne (talk) 19:28, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

LaTeX: Adding the bibliography to the table of contents with a section number when using fancyhdr

Hello,

For a long time, I've been adding my bibliographies to the table of contents (TOC) in LaTeX files like this:

...

\renewcommand{\refname}{\section{References}}

\bibliographystyle{IEEEtran}
\bibliography{bibtex_file_name}

I've always found this method to be convenient because it's one line and it adds the bibliography/references section to the TOC, gives it a section number, and allows the section to be linked to via the TOC using the hyperref package. However, today I've been trying to use the fancyhdr package to control the footer content in a document (using these commands) that uses this method of adding the references to the TOC and apparently the highlighted command above interferes with it. When attempting to compile a LaTeX document with fancyhdr footer control and the bibliography code above, I receive this error:

! Incomplete \iffalse; all text was ignored after line 2.

<inserted text>

\fi

1.80 \bibliography{bibtex_file_name}

If I remove \renewcommand{\refname}{\section{References}} the file compiles without incident (of course, the reference section heading is no longer listed in the TOC).

So, what I'm trying to figure out now is a way to either get the highlighted command above to work with fancyhdr or figure out a way to add the references section to the TOC with the same end result as my original command. So far, the best I've been able to come up with is:

\phantomsection
\addcontentsline{toc}{section}{References}

This adds the "References" section to the TOC and lets hyperref link to it, but the section is still unnumbered, both in the TOC and in the document itself. Any suggestions as to how I could get it be numbered would be appreciated, as I've searched the net for solutions will no results. If anyone has any idea why my original command interferes with the fancyhdr package, that'd be great, too.

Thanks!

Hiram J. Hackenbacker (talk) 19:13, 17 February 2010 (UTC)