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March 25

Computer display

VGA was for ages the most common and practically only monitor connection on all computers, that ubiquity made it so convenient. You practically never ever had to worry about not having the right cable or adapter for any computer and any display. Why is it that before a new standard completely replace the last one, we have a competing, partially compatible one replacing that. DVI was just fine. Then HDMI added audio, and rearanged the pins to ensure we need new passive (mechanical) adapters that are expensive and never there when you need them. And now, display port is already replacing HDMI (for computers at least), and again, we need to find proper mechanical passive adapters to get that partial compatibility. Whats the point of all of this? And to add to all of that, every one of these new standards has multiple types of connecters (Mini and Micro, and sometimes alternative pin arrangements even) makes it a huge hassle to find the right connectors and adapters. Why cant we agree on ONE standard that has only ONE or maxium TWO sizes, and keep the exact same connecter on future versions of it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably because they make more money selling you all the cables and devices with all those connectors. Myself, I just stick with a D-SUB DE-15F connector (the one you are calling a VGA connector). It seems to handle my monitor's max res of 1920×1200 at 32-bit color depth just fine, with no pixel crawl. I think part of the problem is the convergence of TV screens and computer monitors. TVs had their standards and computer monitors had their's. That gives us twice as many standards already for combined devices. StuRat (talk) 06:05, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Are there ANY penny auction sites without prepaid bid packages?

I'd rather pay-as-I-go instead of having to pay $60 for $100. Having only $40-odd in my checking account, I have no other choice.

Therefore, which (reputable) penny auction sites allow me to start without a bulk bid package, and pay as I go? I'd love to get started on this and one day even resell my winnings on Craigslist or at a consignment store for a good profit, but I need to find a good way to start. Thanks. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 00:55, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

PS: What is the best time-of-day to win these bids of brinksmanship? I need to know when the site is least active so I'd have a higher chance to win. Thanks. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 01:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The only winners of penny auctions are the hosting sites, who get the vast majority of your money. They charge $60 a pop because there are suckers willing to pay $60 a pop. There are probably sites that charge less, in order to cater to suckers gambling away their last $40 like you. But please don't be an idiot. Everyone goes into these things planning to "beat the system", and most of them are much better prepared than you seem to be. If you can't do your own IP traffic analysis and rent a geolocated server close to the hosting server, you're wasting your time and money. If you can do those things, you're still going to lose money, but perhaps less than 100% of it. -- BenRG (talk) 03:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The basic problem is that there is always a cost for moving money from one place to another -- whether you use Paypal, credit cards, or whatever. If the amounts of money moved per transaction are too small, the per-transaction costs will kill you. That's why pay-as-you-go doesn't work: the premium for each payment is too high. Looie496 (talk) 18:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Then how do I build my own penny-auction site?

You know, there could be a lot in it for me if I built my own penny-auction site, and I'll start it with a bid-as-you-go system of 55¢ each, then bulk bids to start at 50¢/bid in a package, and lower per-bid cost as one buys a bigger package.

Therefore, how do I get started? How much overhead and start-up costs, and what else would I need? I do hope to become self-sufficient on an online business one day. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 03:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

How do you start a penny-auction site, with only $40 in your account? You don't. Even the most blatant scam needs startup cash. Try earning an honest living instead. If that isn't an option, try relying on the kindness of strangers, rather than on the gullibility of fools. AndyTheGrump (talk) 03:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well Andy, how much would a typical penny-auction site cost to start-up then? (And would you break down the individual costs if you can?)

At least I'm not one of those paying gullible fools because I found *******.com, which happens to give me 19 free bids upon registration. (Found a 10-bid coupon code through Google, 3 bids for signing up, 3 bids for adding bank account, and 3 bids for adding debit card.) I didn't have to pay anything up-front on that one, though that will likely be one of 5 free-bid-giving p-a site of the hundreds (thousands?) out there. I have 6 bids left and didn't win anything, though several times I was pretty close. --70.179.169.115 (talk) 03:58, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

(Note: I have removed the name of the penny-auction site from the above post - we don't need spam links here) AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:02, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

No. Several times you thought you were close: if it was that easy to win, they wouldn't be making a profit if they gave away free bids. Since you appear not to understand how these sites work, why do you expect to be able to run one at a profit? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You truly live up to your name, and at least I never had to pay anything to participate in a couple of websites, thanks to their free bids. (Of course most I came across didn't give free bids, but some would like newcomers to "try out" their sites by giving very few upon opening accounts.) Now, would anyone please break down the costs of starting up and operating these kinds of sites? --70.179.169.115 (talk) 04:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I won't, because I don't want to help people run scams; but here's a paper by a Stanford economist that's all about penny auction sites. Comet Tuttle (talk) 19:11, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If I were starting one of those sites, I'd try to have between $50,000 and $100,000 available, with the major expenses being lawyer consultation and advertising. --Carnildo (talk) 00:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Good, Business Web Design Company

I am looking for a professional-looking business website to be created for a friend of mine's company. The website will need to have some server-side scripting with a searchable database. He is not financially-limited. Could someone recommend me a good web designer/web design company that will be able to do this? I know there's a lot out there, but does anyone know any particularly good ones? Thanks Acceptable (talk) 02:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If the site is for marketing or public relations purposes, you need an advertising agency. If the site is for internal or operations purposes (things like cloud- or web-based enterprise information system), you need an IT consulting firm. 118.96.160.241 (talk) 06:31, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There are lots of web designers out there that are not advertising agencies. Anyway, my recommendation is that your friend should check out local options first. Even in our well-networked world, there is something to doing business with someone who you can meet face to face to talk about particulars, and figure out whether they are legitimate or not. There should be a bazillion web developers wherever you are, these days, and they should all have ample examples of the kind of work they have done. It's a little harder to be more specific than this — it isn't like there is one big web developer clearing house or anything like that. Any web developer worth their salt can deal with server-side scripting and a searchable database, that is the easy part. The hard part is making it look and work right within a budget. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

How do I start my own money-making website with the lowest possible start-up costs and overhead?

To begin, I'd rather sell anything that doesn't involve physically holding an item and shipping them. I also don't want to have to pay wholesale costs until the moment the item is already sold and received by the buyer.

(One possibility is designing my own online e-cards and somehow selling their designs for starting at 50¢ each or so. There's no shipping there, so without the overhead of holding physical items, it should be an easier business to start, right?)

But if there are better ideas on how to start an ultra-low-overhead, and high-margin online business, then I'm all ears.

I don't mind paying a $20 upfront domain registration fee through GoDaddy or another domain broker, but I would hope not to pay much more beyond that just to start it off.

I look forward to suggestions. Have a good day,

--70.179.169.115 (talk) 03:30, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

You just need one red paperclip, i.e one original idea, which you won't get here.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 07:47, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Your most expensive outlay might be advertising your website because it will not make money (even with a brilliant idea) until people know about it. It is possible to do this at no cost to you, through social networking, Youtube etc, but you need some subtle marketing. Dbfirs 08:23, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Don't expect very good suggestions here. Usually these kind of questions get a lot of "if we knew how to do this, we'd be doing it, not telling you about it" mixed with "here is a ridiculously stupid idea I just came up with, look how easy it is to make money." The truth is that coming up with original business models that work is actually quite difficult. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:44, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Besides that, there's a logical problem: if someone posts a biz idea to the web, many can copy it, reducing its scarcity and making it less of a money-bringing idea. Quest09 (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I heard that there are still a lot of Nigerians who are entitled to plenty of money but have difficulties accessing it. Recently they have found it harder and harder to locate trustworthy people who help them. (I believe this is due to a number of black sheep who were not actually entitled to any money and were just scammers.) Just create a web page on which you offer your services to these poor souls. Hans Adler 18:52, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

If you can draw, write comedy, and dedicate a lot of time to the project for years before it makes you your first dime, then Webcomics may be your answer. See the book How to Make Webcomics for details.

Just about all answers are going to be along those lines. Many people make money on blogging, selling artwork, running forums, hosting interesting social web applications, etc. But these people not only have a talent, more importantly they've been doing it for years slowly building up a fan base and a reputation.

I'm not aware of any way to put up a website and just watch the money pour out of it like a faucet. APL (talk) 22:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Tyan 5086B-TRF Eight-Socket Server & Intel 80615 Series Nehalem-C Processors

Hello!

  Does anyone here have any information about Tyan's new 5086B-TRF Server and/or Intel's new 80615 Series 10-Core Nehalem-C Processors? I know the 5086B-TRF is 5U-high and is said to support eight Nehalem-C 80615 Series processors, but haven't been able to find anything much else about either from Google.

  Thank you. Rocketshiporion♫ 04:50, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Untraceable IP

Are there IP addresses whose origin is untraceable. I am unable to find 172.51.19.160 on any of the lookup databases, but the IP visited a webpage that I track. Shyamal (talk) 08:16, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

An untraceable IP address would be useless, at least for visiting webpages -- there would be no way to send information back to it. It is however possible for IP addresses to be de-allocated. Looie496 (talk) 18:51, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There are also IP addresses that do not resolve to an internet name. --Phil Holmes (talk) 19:09, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The specified address, 172.51.x.x, is close (but not inside) a reserved private address space block. So it's possible that your network administrator has set up a non-compliant private network and allocated addresses beyond the 20-bit block (at slight risk of routing incorrectly). Since it appears that 172.51.x.x is not allocated on the internet, including it in a local network address space seems like a functional engineering workaround if your LAN runs out of IP addresses, though it's really not "best practice" to override proper internet routing. Read RFC1918 for technical details. Nimur (talk) 15:26, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Japanese fonts

PC with Windows XP Professional. I can't see Japanese fonts on Wikipedia. I loaded them from Windows but it doesn't seem to work. Strangely, I see Japanese fonts on the edit mode. Any help? --Chris.urs-o (talk) 14:41, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Try this. Control panel → Regional and Language Settings → check ja. See List of Control Panel applets. Oda Mari (talk) 15:14, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Thx. Could have asked u directly ;) --Chris.urs-o (talk) 10:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Point and name color

Is there an app - Windows or Linux - which tells you the name of a color, when you hover your mouse pointer upon it? I know some applications tell you the name of a color in a palette, but I need a more general solution. Quest09 (talk) 17:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Both "name of a color" and "palette" have different meanings for computers and humans, so let's clarify: are you looking for a program which displays strings like "red", "green", "pale teal" and "french blue" - could be useful for the color blind - or one which displays strings like "0000FF", "00FF00", "7DC1BA" (ew) and "9CA6D0"? 213.122.56.174 (talk) 18:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I need something for the first purpose, helping the color blind. Both options may be combined. After pointing the mouse, it would say: green/00FF00. Quest09 (talk) 18:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

There is a program called gpick that I believe has this functionality -- written for Linux but it may work in Windows as well. Looie496 (talk) 18:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This page - the section on colour recognition lists a couple of programs which claim to name the colour which the mouse is pointing to. Both for Windows, but I can't test them at the moment, as I'm at work. In the browser, there are several Firefox extensions which do the same thing, including this.--Kateshortforbob _talk 12:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Why is MySpace (reportedly) losing out to Facebook?

I've never used either of these sites and hence know nothing about their appeal to people, but why has MySpace been reportedly losing out to Facebook? See http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/12862139

Is it just a fad or fashion, or can you do things with Facebook that you cannot do with MySpace? Thanks 92.28.242.170 (talk) 20:26, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, in principle, there doesn't really have to be any particular reason apart from people using a particular service more for whatever reason. I suppose that what makes Facebook so dominant is their marketing - I'm not sure how they did it, but in just a few short years, FB has managed to become a part of millions of lives around the world. I don't think MySpace ever was that significant from a cultural viewpoint, it hasn't been such an integral part of people's lives. And I'm not saying that FB should be, but to be totally honest, it is. Zakhalesh (talk) 20:45, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is one article from Fortune from a few months ago that claims 2 main reasons that Facebook beat MySpace. Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Honestly, I have a hard time figuring out how MySpace got so popular in spite of having such awful design. Paul (Stansifer) 17:22, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The recent MySpace site redesign seems to have pissed off a lot of long-time users. MySpace was always clunky and slow to navigate to an extent (depending on how OTT the user in question went with the gratuitous embedded stuff and hi-res images - often 'very') but now it seems much, much worse. I only really go on MySpace to see what my favourite bands are doing and I've noticed a lot of 'MySpace has gone shite now - go to our Facebook page for regular updates'-type posts popping up over the past few months. Just a personal observation. --Kurt Shaped Box (talk) 17:45, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Virus problem, help appreciated

Resolved

 – Darigan (talk) 00:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I've picked up a virus that has changed my screen background blue, with the warning "Warning!Your're In Danger! Your Computer Is Infected With Spyware!......", and something called 'System tool' uses constant alerts to try to flog me some anti-spyware software. Now, I know that this is a scam (The grammar as much as anything else would suggest this), and having looked at forums the top suggestion seems to be to use system restore, but, system restore will not open for me. I have also tried to insall Kaspersky from my uni-student license, but while I can download kaspersky, I cannot install it - It fails in the same way as system restore. Has anybody got some straight forward (laymans terms) way to sort this out. Lots of my programmes won't run, and those that do, run very slowly. Any and all help appreciated, cheers, Darigan (talk) 21:03, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Edit - Running vista if that makes any difference, Darigan (talk) 21:04, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you know how you got the virus ? That is, what was the last thing you did before the problem occurred ? StuRat (talk) 21:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I was browsing online, I think I must have picked it up from a dodgy website. Currently trying to download and install Kaspersky again. Darigan (talk) 21:20, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you download and execute a file ? StuRat (talk) 22:29, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

This article http://www.removevirus.org/warning-yourre-danger-your-computer-infected-with-spyware seems to cover the issue I have, but I am not familiar with the site, and am a bit worried that downloading anything from it could exacerbate the problem (If linked site is also dodgy) Darigan (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Try downloading and installing the antimalware program from Malwarebytes. Our list of steps at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing/Viruses discusses what to do if you have to reformat your hard disk and start from scratch. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi,was writing a response when windows shut the computer down because of threats - Working from my partners' now. Tried downloading the Malwarebytes software (V 1.50.1), but I get the message: "Warning! Application cannot be executed. The file FlashUtil10l_ActiveX.exe is infected. Please activate your antivirus software" - And, when I click on that alert it directs me to a window (designed to look like a windows window) asking me for bank details to purchase a 'software license' for 'System Tool'. The virus appears to be blocking me from using any tools (already installed,or newly downloaded)that might let me get rid of the virus. Is it the case that I may need torestorefactory settings? Thanks for your help. Darigan (talk) 21:59, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

The first thing I'd try is killing whatever virus is currently running. Use <CTRL> <ALT> <DELETE> to bring up the Task Manager and kill anything that seems suspicious (this is written for Windows XP, but I assume it's similar in Vista). If you kill a vital process, then you might need to reboot and start the process over. Hopefully, after you kill the currently running virus process(es), you will be able to run anti-virus scans again. However, some more sophisticated viruses are able to spawn new processes as fast as you kill them. StuRat (talk) 22:13, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

CheersStuRat, but, unfortunatly, when I use Ctrl-Alt-Del, I get the options: lock this computer; switch user; start task manager; etc. - But, when I hit "start task manager" the Ctrl-Alt-Del menu disappears (almost as if task manager was going to start),and I return to the windows interface but nothing happens. It is as though the virus is disabling all programmes that could be used to stop it functioning(Such as system restore, and the installation of Kaspersky). Darigan (talk) 22:24, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried a reboot ? (I'm not encouraging you to reboot normally, as this could make it worse, just asking if you already tried it.) If you have the ability to boot in "Safe mode", this might be a good first step toward disabling the virus. StuRat (talk) 22:28, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

I have rebooted,but not using the safe-mode restart yet.I am a couple of minutes away from completeingthedownload of some anti-spyware software - If that doesn't work, I'll try the reboot and restart in safe mode fingers crossed Cheers Darigan (talk) 22:33, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

OK - Same problem as before with the latest anti-virus/spyware software I've tried (I can download it, but it won't install). I've restarted, and the computer is in 'Advanced Boot Options' - Amongst a number of options, I can "Repair your computer"(sounds promising), or start in "Safe mode"... are either of these options likely to help? (BTW - Really appreciating the feedback) Darigan (talk) 22:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Safe mode is likely to help, as it limits the number of things which are loaded automatically at startup (such as viruses). One potential but rare flaw in this is rootkits. I recommend rootkit revealer and (more practically) autoruns, both found here: [1]. The latter shows you what is set to load automatically and lets you turn off anything suspicious (which, of course, works best in safe mode, so the virus doesn't just undo your changes). Picking through everything that loads at startup by hand is tiresome, but educational. 213.122.11.210 (talk) 23:10, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Yea, I'd try safe mode first. It probably will stop the virus from running, but may very well stop the virus scanners, too. Let us know if this happens. The "Repair your computer" option will probably want to do a system restore, which should work, provided it was saved before the virus, but you will also lose changes made since then. StuRat (talk) 23:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi all, I've restored factory settings in the end - I lost quite a bit of data,which is frustrating, but I did have my more important recent work backed up on USB. The virus stopped me from installing/executing anti-virus software,and'safe-mode' didn't help either. I tried a number of options from the boot menu, but again, to no avail. Cheers for all your help tonight, I think that part of the reason I got infected in the first place was because I let my anti-virus run out (face-palm) - Silverlining: my desktop is a lot cleaner now *grinding teeth*. Cheers, Darigan (talk) 00:10, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Glad you were able to fix it. Did the virus still run, even in "Safe mode" ? StuRat (talk) 00:27, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm sorry you lost data. May I recommend that you set up two accounts on the computer now, one account with administrator rights for installing software, and the other account with no admin rights, for daily use? If you accidentally download any malware in the future, the lack of admin rights will limit the amount of damage the malware can do to your system. Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

This seems less than ideal, unless the account with the admin rights has the foresight to install lots of anti-malware tools on the account without admin rights - and even then, I don't think they'd be allowed to operate on the more privileged account. So all it would really be good for would be seeking online advice, and since applying the advice would require switching account, and getting more advice would require switching back again, using somebody else's computer in a crisis, as the OP did, seems preferable to me. 213.122.33.172 (talk) 02:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I advise that if needed, you try to recover any data that you need. Just be more careful now while on the Internet. General Rommel (talk) 09:01, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Mega-unindent... FWIW this particular nasty could be picked up without downloading and running an exe. My recollection is that it relied on a browser flaw and came from adverts on innocent sites, with the advert server having been compromised. The simplest way to get rid of it was to run as an uninfected user and clean the PC - a further reason for always having separate admin and user accounts. I did this with my next-door-neighbour's PC and cleaned it in about 20 minutes.--Phil Holmes (talk) 11:20, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Unfortunately I didn't see this discussion before you restored from your backup. I've had good results from booting up in "Safe Mode with Networking", then downloading, updating and running Malwarebytes. Safe mode seems to stop the problem of the malware intefering with the execution of Marlwarebytes itself. You might want to try this if the situation recurs. Exxolon (talk) 19:12, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

VoIP and 7/10 digit dialing

I currently use FiOS Digital Voice for my home phone, which requires 10-digit dialing, even if the area code itself doesn't require it by default. Is this the general rule with VoIP systems? 98.116.108.191 (talk) 22:17, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, if they didn't do it that way, they would first need to determine your location to know which numbers are local. This is possible, but they must find it simpler to skip that step. Cell phones are similar, in my experience. StuRat (talk) 22:25, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

March 26

Picture of a DIN 7/16 connector?

Could anyone make a free picture of a DIN 7/16 connector ..? Electron9 (talk) 07:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Does the Mini-DIN connector article help? Astronaut (talk) 13:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not an expert on these things but the pictures from google images look different to the ones in that article, and the RF connector article states that DIN connectors are "not to be confused with the 7/16 DIN connector" 82.43.90.38 (talk) 14:31, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Ummm, that looks very similar to a BNC connector or maybe a RF connector similar to that found on the back of a TV. Indeed the RF connector article mentions 7/16 DIN, but there is no article or image. This page does have a small, but quite clear image. This catalog from Delta Electronics Mfr Corp has detailed diagrams and other tech specs, though you would probably need to seek permission to use their material in another publication. Astronaut (talk) 00:34, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Ubuntu installation error

I get the message "Error: Dependency is not satisfiable: libdbus-glib-1-2". Said package is installed. What's wrong?

I'm no expurt (!) but my wild guess would be that the software requires 32-bit libs and you're running a 64-bit system and have only the 64-bit libs. Other than that, you could try installing the dev package for it as well. Please report here if it works or doesn't! Zakhalesh (talk) 12:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm running a 32-bit system. No luck so far with the extra -dev packages. Quest09 (talk) 13:06, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

What are you trying to install and what tool are you using to install it? Or are you simply trying to install Ubuntu itself, as the question seems to imply? If so, what sort of system are you trying to install it on? Looie496 (talk) 17:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The question should be: Installation error on Ubuntu. I am trying to install gpick with a .deb package.

If you're trying to do what's discussed in #Point and name color, above, the following Python program will show the colour (r,g,b), and will display its name if its an exact match for one of the X11 color names. I'll have to have a think about "nearest". This requires the standard Ubuntu python install, and the python-xlib package (from the standard ubuntu repository).

simple python program

#!/usr/bin/python import time, struct, Xlib.display # needs package lines = open('/etc/X11/rgb.txt').readlines() colours={} for s in lines: if not s.startswith('!'): r,g,b,name = s.split(None,3) colours[(int(r),int(g),int(b))]=name.strip() root = Xlib.display.Display().screen().root while True: pos = root.query_pointer()._data img = root.get_image(pos["root_x"],pos["root_y"], 1,1, Xlib.X.ZPixmap, 0xffffffff) b,g,r = struct.unpack('BBB',img.data[0:3]) print r,g,b, colours[(r,g,b)] if colours.has_key((r,g,b)) else "" time.sleep(0.5)

-- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have worked through the vexing world of Color difference and come up with what I think does a CIE76 "nearest" function, but the results are rather unsatisfactory, leading me to believe that either I'm doing it wrong, or I have quite a pronounced colour vision problem (the former, I fear). I'll post it somewhere if anyone wants to see a bunch of arbitrary-looking numbers being multiplied together to be produce an unintuitive, and probably wrong, result. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:34, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

That works fine for me. Thanks. Quest09 (talk) 23:37, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Hologram

HOW CAN I MAKE A HOLOGRAM OF MY COMPANY WITH THE USE OF CORAL DRAW OR OAGEMAKER OR MS OFFICE? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.215.121.140 (talk) 14:08, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about Hologram where the section Hologram#Viewing and authoring gives tips on how they are made. You cannot do this with the PC drawing programs you mention. It is necessary to use a laser and a camera with high resolution. Cuddlyable3 (talk) 16:44, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure you really mean a hologram ? Perhaps you mean some other form of 3D image ? StuRat (talk) 18:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Welcome to the Wikipedia RefDesk! Please avoid typing in ALL CAPS, as it is considered the online equivalent of shouting. Thank you. Rocketshiporion♫ 20:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Database Transfer

I am playing around with some simple databases. I would like to transfer a small SQL database that I made on a Windows 7 VM with phpMyAdmin (3.3.9) over to a OpenSUSE VM - but opening it on MySQL workbench (5.2.31). What do I need to do to export the DB and how would I open it with MySQL workbench?24.89.210.71 (talk) 14:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

At the command line, MySQL datbases can be dumped with mysqldump and restored just by streaming that file into the mysql command line program (as the dump is a list of sql CREATE TABLE and INSERT commands). MySQL Workbench has a data dump tab. PHPMyAdmin has an "export" function. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

YouTube forcing people to have a Gmail account

I tried to sign in to YouTube, but it won't let me do it unless I sign up to Gmail. I don't want a Gmail account, as I hear they read emails to send targeted ads and probably other bad things. Is there any way around this? More unhappy people here: http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/01/10/Google-Forces-Youtube-Account-Linking.aspx Thanks 92.29.127.59 (talk) 14:52, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Sign up but don't use if for email, easy--Jac16888^Talk 15:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

The OP seems concerned about privacy, and even just signing up for a google account now requires you to "verify" it by giving them a mobile phone number 82.43.90.38 (talk) 15:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

No it doesn't, just signed up another email took 2 minutes, no phone number--Jac16888^Talk 15:51, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what you're doing differently, but every time I have ever tried to make a google account it asks for a phone number. I just tried it again, here's a pic of the screen asking for it. Also, from googles own help pages Account verification via SMS or Voice Call. 82.43.90.38 (talk) 16:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I expect this depends on the IP address that is trying to open an account. Google works pretty hard to prevent Gmail from being used to send spam. Looie496 (talk) 17:30, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Note that as far as I know Google does not force you to link Gmail account. They just force you to link a Google account (at least that's what all I've read from Google says). Despite the apparent confusion of a lot of people discussing this elsewhere, a Gmail account and a Google account are not the same thing and you can have a Google account linked to a non Gmail email address and can sign up for one right here [2]. Or to put things a different way I'd go by what Google actually say rather then what random people on the internet who don't appear to know what they're talking about say. Note that it appears you can delete Gmail from your account at any time [3] (and I presume link your Google account to another email). This compares to a Live account which if linked to/signed up for with a Hotmail/Livemail address is (at least whenever I've tried it and looked in to it) permanently linked to your Live account and can't be linked to a different address. (If linked to a non Hotmail/Livemail address it can be changed.) However it appears once you are linked to Gmail you can't unlink without deleting Gmail [4]. Note sure about Yahoo never looked in to that. Nil Einne (talk) 17:57, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

It would be totally unacceptable for me to give Google/Gmail my phone number, so no more YouTube for me. 92.29.127.59 (talk) 18:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

You might be alright, since you're in the UK. I wasn't asked for a phone number when I signed up to gmail last year. I think it's a geographic thing, for some reason. 213.122.64.30 (talk) 19:03, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

82 is from the UK so that can't be enough. It may depend on the ISP, perhaps the fact 82 is quite dynamic doesn't help (but so is 92). Ultimately of course if as lot of people have been using your ISP to spam and your ISP hasn't done enough to stop them you're probably screwed. Nil Einne (talk) 21:40, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Occasionally when asked for a phone number and I don't want to give it, I give an obviously fake one, such as 00000-000000. Often that is good enough. -- SGBailey (talk) 20:24, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I've tried with a fake number and it doesn't work because Google sends a verification code to the number, which you have to then enter back 82.43.90.38 (talk) 20:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

When I've signed up for new Gmail addresses, if I put an existing Gmail address into the "what other accounts do you have" slot, they've usually let me in without verifying it. (I've tried it both ways.) What I didn't try was putting in a nonsense Gmail address in and seeing if that worked. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I just tried and it works! 82.43.90.38 (talk) 20:59, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there even any evidence they ever ask for a phone number when all you want is a Google account? Nil Einne (talk) 21:38, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I think they mixed it up with a Gmail account General Rommel (talk) 23:04, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I hope the EU puts their thumb down hard on privacy issues like this - I'm grateful for what they have done so far. 2.97.210.137 (talk) 22:10, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Cursor only focuses where I place it on second click when coming back to a window

Possibly relevant: on an Imac, running Mac OS X 10.6.6, using a magic mouse. Say I go to a Wikipedia article (though this is not Wikipedia specific) click edit, put my cursor at a particular place in the article, then go to an offline document that's also open on my screen to retrieve some text. When I click back into the article, I click where I want to paste what I've just copied but when I do so, my cursor does not focus where I just clicked. Instead, that first click back "invokes the page window", with the cursor blinking where I left it, and only thereafter can I place it where I want. I'm sure I will get used to this eventually but I do a lot of things by rote very quickly, such as clicking somewhere and hitting ctrl+v in almost one operation, and it's driving me a bit mad with the pasted text being placed somewhere other than where I expected it to appear (in fact it led to this bungled move, where the move rational was pasted into the new title field because of this problem).--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 17:47, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if you can change this behavior, but would like to point out why they may have done it this way. Let's say you first find the place in a long page where you want to do a paste, then go and cut what you want to paste from another document. This way, when coming back to the paste page, you don't need to search for your paste location again. StuRat (talk) 18:46, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure if there was a question in the original post. But yes, your description of leaving and returning to a window is typical. I suggest you learn to manage it. -- SGBailey (talk) 20:22, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I've found it annoying when some applications work the other way. I click on it just to make it active, and then it starts doing something I don't want, because of where I clicked on the window. StuRat (talk) 20:41, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, but this is not the way it's ever worked before now for me (or works now on a PC I just tried), thus my lament about it being an ingrained thing that I will have to learn to deal with if there is no fix. Is this just a difference between Apples and PCs?--Fuhghettaboutit (talk) 21:00, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's just the way the Mac OS people chose to do it. They value consistency, so often these things are not configurable. Here's an article about a developer trying to get 0-clicks-to-focus behavior in OS X. It's not pretty. Paul (Stansifer) 11:41, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Mouse problems - Windows Vista

Resolved: Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

So my mother is running a (really crappy unpatched) installation of Windows Vista on her desktop. The computer has major issues with going to sleep, and recently when it woke up from sleep, neither the wireless nor touchpad mouse was working. No biggie, right? Well after two restarts, it's still not working (and I am getting the blame for it because I put the computer into sleep mode... *sigh*, the burden of being computer literate among the computer illiterate). If I play with the the cursor for a really long time, I can get it to haphazardly and unpredictably move, but it's far too erratic to have any control over it. However, the touchpad mouse right and left buttons still work.

I think I need help fixing this problem, and I don't know where to start. Any ideas? Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:39, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

PS. Her last system restore point is, obnoxiously enough, over 6 months ago, so I'd rather not go with that option unless necessary. Magog the Ogre (talk) 21:48, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

First unplug the mouse, turn off the computer, plug it back in, and boot up. Does the mouse need cleaning ? It that doesn't help, reloading the mouse driver might be a good next step. If that still doesn't help, try a different type of mouse (USB versus PS/2) or a different USB port. Is this a wired mouse or wireless ? With a wireless there are also batteries and interference to consider. If this is a ball mouse, does the ball roll effortlessly ? For either a ball or laser mouse, are you using a good mouse pad ? StuRat (talk) 22:02, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Or you could have the computer "put to sleep", permanently. :-) StuRat (talk) 22:05, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Ugh. Update: Apparently when I advised my mother to replace the batteries the other day, she just got used ones out of the drawer, so the wireless mouse went dead. Also, the touchpad appears to be junked up independent of this event, which she never noticed before. Did I say something about the joys of being computer literate among the illiterate? Magog the Ogre (talk) 22:09, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

My favorite was when somebody plugged all their computer components into a power strip, then plugged the strip into itself, and wondered why nothing worked, since "everything was plugged in". :-) StuRat (talk) 22:17, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I once plugged a PDU wire into a socket on the same PDU instead of into the UPS, then spent a whole day trying to figure why my workstation wouldn't boot, and even tried replacing each the workstation's PSUs one by one with the spare! It's rather easy to get mixed up when there's a big nest of cables. Rocketshiporion♫ 07:32, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Free Alternatives to Microsoft Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition

Hello fellow RefDeskers,

  I'm still trying to build that SAN Head from last year, and so far I've put together the hardware, and now all I need is the OS. I've found Microsoft's Windows Storage Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition to be ideal except for its fatal flaw of costing more than the hardware itself!; so my question now is - can anyone point me to a free (either as in speech or as in beer) storage-server OS which has similar SAN functionality to WSS2008R2? (I'm not concerned with NAS capabilities, as I'm only interested in the SAN functionality, particularly the allocation of LUNs as VHDs is advantageous.)

  Thanks as always! Rocketshiporion♫ 06:28, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

If you want Microsoft software but don't want to pay the full retail price, there are great deals from Microsoft if you look around. For example, if you are a student, you might be eligible for Microsoft DreamSpark, Microsoft Campus Agreement, and MSDN Academic Alliance (all very cheap or free). If you are using Microsoft software for non-production purposes (learning, testing, and troubleshooting), there is Technet Subscriptions (from $199). If you are using Microsoft software for software development purposes, there is MSDN Subscriptions (from $699). Good luck. 118.96.164.90 (talk) 02:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Nope. I'm not a student, and the SAN is for production (albeit non-commercial) use. Rocketshiporion♫ 03:57, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

There are solutions out there. Googling open source SAN gives [5] but I have no idea of how well these systems perform. Taemyr (talk) 09:29, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Try FreeBSD with iSCSI ..?, also what kind of clients in terms of iSCSI/PXE support, OS etc? Electron9 (talk) 09:35, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

---

  Thanks for the suggestion, but to clarify - what I'm looking for is an SAN-OS that:

1. Supports both the iSCSI and Fiber Channel protocols
2. Allocates LUNs as VHDs (this is crucial for data backup reasons)
3. Can be managed via a Graphical User Interface
4. Will support both Windows and Linux clients

Rocketshiporion♫ 10:13, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

I have tried Open-E's Data Storage Software v6 Lite, but didn't find it to be very functional, and couldn't get it to work properly. Rocketshiporion♫ 10:32, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

March 27

Email clients supporting binary MIME

Are there any email clients supporting binary MIME#Content-Transfer-Encoding encoding method? Such email application could store email attachments in message bodies as efficiently as storing them outside as files in filesystem. -Yyy (talk) 08:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Variable-sized tuple class in C# or other such language

I recently had need of a C# class representing ordered pairs of any generic type, so I wrote the following:

public class Pair<T, U>
{
  private T first;
  private U second;
  public Pair(T first, U second)
  {
    this.first=first;
    this.second=second;
  }
  public T First
  { get { return first; } }
  public U Second
  { get { return second; } }
}

Now this works OK, but I came to think: sooner or later I will probably need ordered triples, ordered quadruplets, and so on. It is of course very easy to write a class such as the above for all of them, but it would be easier still if I could do something like this (not legal C#):

Tuple<3><string, int, bool> tuple = new Tuple<3><string, int, bool>("Hello world!", 6858, true);

with me having to only write one definition of the class Tuple. Is such a thing even possible in C# or any other C-based object oriented language? JIP | Talk 17:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Python already has tuples built in, that can be of any length you need and contain any value you want. More generally, what you're after is a variadic constructor. We can do that in Python trivially; it's trivial because Python passes the actual parameters of a function to that function as a tuple. Here's an example:

python vararg constructor
#!/usr/bin/python class Mytuple: def __init__(self, *args): self.store=args def __len__(self): return len(self.store) def __str__(self): val = "Mytuple:" for x in self.store: val += str(x)+" " return val def __getitem__(self,index): return self.store[index] a = Mytuple("Hello world!", 6858, True) print a[1]

-- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

That looks otherwise like what I'm after, except that what I was thinking of would have compile-time static typing, i.e. the number of items in the tuple and their types would be fixed at compile-time, and trying to misuse them would cause a compile error. Given enough time, I could be able to simulate something like the above Python sample in C# or Java or a similar language, but it would require run-time type checking. JIP | Talk 18:54, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think you can do it statically in C++ using compile time template metaprogramming; I don't think Java's or C#'s generics mechanism will help because, as you say, they operate at runtime. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:28, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

In C++ you can overload templates on argument count, so you can declare tuple<>, tuple<A>, tuple<A,B>, tuple<A,B,C>, up to the maximum length you think you'll ever need. The new C++0x standard has template varargs, and I believe that can be used to declare a truly arbitrary-length tuple template. But either way, you should not write your own tuple template; you should use boost::tuple. -- BenRG (talk) 04:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

You could always do Pair<A,Pair<B,Pair<C,D>>>. It's the traditional way to do it in ML-like languages (though I should point out that it looks much uglier ported to C# like this, since C# lacks infix type constructors and type-based pattern matching). Paul (Stansifer) 23:31, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In C++ you can do it with template metaprogramming as Finlay McWalter says. I guess you'd have a projection function that take an integer parameter since the template obviously couldn't generate first, second, third, fourth, fifth, .... In Haskell you could use a phantom type encoding a tuple size, as an index to a type constructor for tuples (see here) and use Template Haskell to generate such types automatically. You could also look into dependently typed languages. They let you use term-level values as part of type constructors, so "tuple 5" could be the type of 5-tuples, but you can also encode much more complicated invariants as types. This paper explains a little of what they are about. WP's article generic programming needs a lot of work but has some further info and references. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 17:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

How do I read iPhone app code?

How do I read iPhone app code? I've heard that it exists on the phone only as binary and as such cannot be read, but even if this is true there must be a way to convert back. Some decompiler of some sort?Elatanatari (talk) 18:53, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

IOS apps are distributed as .ipa format files, which are just .zip files. Inside those is a Payload directory which contains the app's assets and its binaries. The binaries are Mach-O fat binary format. These files themselves are unencrypted, but I can't tell whether their code sections (the chunks of the file containing the actual code) are encrypted or merely cryptographically signed. If they're encrypted, you're really out of luck. If they're just signed, the OS-X disassembler otool will (reportedly) disassemble them (as will an appropriately targetted build of GNU's objdump). Even then you'd be left with a ARM architecture assembly language file, not anything like the Objective-C sources from which the program was originally compiled. There are decompilers that try to reconstruct an Objective-C source from such an asm dump (e.g. boomerang). In general, reverse engineered source isn't very nice to read, but can be understood with perseverance. Again I stress: I don't know whether the code sections are encrypted. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:03, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not possible to encrypt code and allow the user to run it, without providing the user with the ability to decrypt it. However, compiled code is basically incomprehensible, and decompilation is of limited use, since making code readable in the first place requires great effort, and most of that is wiped out by the compilation process. Paul (Stansifer) 07:29, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Strictly speaking, only the CPU needs to decode the binary to execute it; this can be done with a key stored in a on-CPU ROM. However, unless the CPU has enough on-CPU RAM to hold the decoded image, then a computer bus analyser can recover the decoded binary. There several CPUs that come with a small PROM on their die. The PROM can be marked as inaccessible to external bus accesses. CS Miller (talk) 10:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like this is a mountain I'd do better going around than climbing. Thanks!141.211.250.151 (talk) 22:24, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Sometimes executable are "encrypted" in such a way as to confound decompilers. Never heard of this being done for C code, though. C code confounds decompilers pretty well on it's own. APL (talk) 22:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In the interest of precision, I'd like to emphasize those scare quotes by stating that that process is security through obscurity, not encryption. Paul (Stansifer) 23:33, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Gtalk vs. Google Talk

Is Gtalk the same as Google Talk? I presume it is as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gtalk redirects to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Talk, and googling Gtalk mostly leads to pages titled Google Talk. But where does the name Gtalk come from? I see Gtalk (or GTalk, gtalk or gTalk) used much more often than Google Talk. --Mortense (talk) 19:24, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think so. It's in the same style as Gmail, and there appears to be only one protocol involved. Shadowjams (talk) 21:30, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I think its the same situation as Gmail vs Google Mail, where Google was forced to give up one name because it was already trademarked in certain regions and continues to use it everywhere else. The products are the exact same and its just a matter of names that avoid trademark infringement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 03:25, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Samsung Wave Apps

Can the Samsung Wave run unsigned apps, a la Android or jailbroken iPhone? --Melab±1 ☎ 19:59, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Intel PC Camera

I want to connect my Intel PC webcam type CS120 to a PC running Vista but lack the necessary driver. On the web I have found only driver sources that demand payment, installation of a scanning program, and/or registration with e-mail address. Is there any free source of the driver? Cuddlyable3 (talk) 20:06, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You can always get a fake email address, for free, just long enough to satisfy their silly requirement. Gmail is one option. StuRat (talk) 23:08, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Ummm, tricky. That particular webcam seems pretty old, so old that the Intel Support Download centre doesn't list it (or any other webcam). Resorting to Google, I tried a few sites and got dead links. Beware that some sites have a prominent "Download now" link that is actually a banner ad to another site; the dead download link is much less prominent. I've never encountered a driver download site that demands payment or installation of more software, although I have had to sign-up before (use a disposable web mail address for this, if you don't already). To be honest though, it might be easier and better to buy a new webcam - they range from £5 to £30 or more from many suppliers. Astronaut (talk) 23:55, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you tried running the driver software in Compatibility Mode? Right click the setup, go to properties and go to compatibility. Then select whatever OS you want to pretend it to be. General Rommel (talk) 09:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

HP software in Chinese

I have recently purchased a HP Officejet 4500 printer with the installation CD installing only in Chinese. Regardless, I installed the programs. Furthermore, I just scanned a postcard and it created the PDF file in a folder listed in Chinese. How do I switch the program to English? Is this a software issue? --Blue387 (talk) 20:43, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Either take it back to the store where you bought it and demand they supply you with an English language install disk (shouldn't be too hard to do this in New York). Alternatively visit http://www8.hp.com/us/en/support-drivers.html and download a new driver and all the bloatware you want - sorry, every HP driver I've ever had came with gigabytes of unnecessary bloat. Astronaut (talk) 23:21, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The ever growing tentacles of Google

While I like "good" Google, I do not like "evil" Google. Despite their "Don't be evil" motto, I do not like the "bait and switch" privacy policy, where at first they bait you in by offering goodies without any personal information demands, but then switch to demanding personal information so that they can take over the world use us as targeted advertising fodder. Another example is gathering people's wifi details "by mistake", sure. Its like the Stasi, where they put their information together to have a file on everyone.

Supposing I wanted to boycot all of Google and its sub-companies under different names, what should I avoid please? What could I use instead? Thanks 2.97.210.137 (talk) 22:23, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

See Internet privacy#External links. -- Wavelength (talk) 22:49, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

You are in luck my freind, because boycotting Google is much easier than boycotting Microsoft. Just keep using its rival Empire's software from Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple etcetera. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roberto75780 (talk • contribs) 03:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple are not obviously better than Google. I think they're worse. Perhaps Yahoo isn't worse, but only because it has less power. -- BenRG (talk) 03:55, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Lumping Microsoft, Apple and Google together implies you are thinking of product lock-in. The OP seems concerned about privacy, which is a different kettle of fish. I would not advise trying to answer the question "how can I avoid dealing with any company which is slightly morally transgressive?", since (quite apart from cynicism about everybody being awful) it's a somewhat subjective question. 81.131.30.20 (talk) 07:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Though potentially embarrassing and vaguely intrusive, the objective of targeted advertising is to tell you about things you might like, which doesn't seem all that evil a goal. I'm not aware of the Stasi offering people cheap consumer goods and holidays. 213.122.12.61 (talk) 08:53, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The Soviets certainly offered consumer goods to party officials (in foriegn currency shops) and holidays to model workers. Presumably that applied to East Germany too. The Nazis definately did the former, from stolen Jewish property, but I think their plans for holidays in that giant hotel on the the Baltic coast that they built got cancelled due to the war. 92.15.14.99 (talk) 12:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

(responding to 213.*) I feel the same way—ads for products/services I might want to buy are better than ads for products/services I would never buy. I like to know which companies are throwing away the most money on advertising, so that I can patronize different companies. I can't exercise that market pressure unless the thing being advertised is something that I might theoretically buy. What is bad is intrusive advertising. I wonder if people associate the phrase "targeted advertising" with intrusive advertising. It kind of sounds like there's a target painted on you and advertisers throw rotten apples at it. Google, of course, made its fortune from ads that were better targeted and less intrusive than the competition's.

I've never understood this concern over "reading" mail to find advertising keywords. If you use GMail then all of your mail is stored on Google servers, at least temporarily, and there's no way to prove they don't keep a permanent copy. Exactly the same is true if you replace GMail and Google by any other company's email service. And it's probably true of every intermediate router between your email server and that of the person who sent the mail. What difference does "scanning for keywords" make when they already have the entire text? Scanning the text yields only such information about you as was already present in the text. If you really care about privacy, then encrypt your emails. Don't just change email providers, since that merely changes the name of the company that gets to read your mail. -- BenRG (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

E-mail is an inherently insecure method of communication: see Email#Privacy_concerns. If you wish to send sensitive information through e-mail, you should use some sort of E-mail encryption such as Pretty Good Privacy which utilizes Public key cryptography to encrypt messages. Do not rely on the perceived benevolence of a certain company to safeguard your sensitive data. Even if a company isn't currently misusing your data, company management will change with time, and companies may be sold or taken over, in which case all bets about your personal information are off. Buddy431 (talk) 00:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Ben, if I mention Coca-Cola in my email and get served a Coke ad, Cokecorp gets billed for the ad even if they don't know who received it. If I mention Fanta (another Cokecorp brand) and get served a Fanta ad, Cokecorp gets billed for that. By comparing the two advertising bills Cokecorp learns something about the relative proportion of Coke vs Fanta drinkers among gmail users. That means every time I email somebody who uses gmail, I'm participating in a Cokecorp marketing survey against my wishes. If I don't like Coke and don't want to be in their survey, it's irrelevant from that perspective whether the survey is anonymous or not. (Coke is just an example; I don't actually have particularly big problems with that company). Let's say I've sent you a 1000 character email. The standard definition of confidentiality in information security going back to Shannon 1949 is something like: a communication system maintains confidentiality if an adversary can't tell with better probability than guessing, whether a given message is meaningful (i.e. it is drawn from some known non-uniform probability distribution) or it is meaningless (drawn from the uniform distribution on 1000-character messages). Leaking statistical information about the contents of messages (i.e. the size of the ad bill yields a prior probability that the message mentions Coke) as gmail does means gmail fails confidentiality according to that definition. And of course the amount of marketing info collected from gmail scanning is far more extensive than this simplistic example. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 19:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

These ads are pay-per-click, so if you don't click on them, no money is transferred. Furthermore, this kind of (extremely low-quality) information is available anyways. Even Duck Duck Go may store searches in a "non-personally-identifiable way". If they do that, then probably everyone does. If you don't want to participate in data aggregation, the only thing you can do is get off the Internet. Paul (Stansifer) 05:54, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

(Wikipedia is another good example of a place that publicizes aggregate figures. In addition, if you're really that concerned about any information leaking, you would have created an account so that you don't reveal your IP address (and therefore your location)... Paul (Stansifer) 14:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC))

If the advertisers are told the click-through rates (which I think they are), that reveals the number of views. Wikipedia should not be disclosing page view stats of non-logged-in users, an invasive practice that has been bugging me for a while and that affects my own wikipedia browsing habits and my whole concept of how Wikipedia should work. If someone is editing the encyclopedia they're disclosing a certain amount of info on purpose, and we could interpret logging in (even without editing) as active Wikipedia participation that also opts into some kind of aggregated info gathering, but for passive readers we should be aiming for privacy equivalent to that provided by printed encyclopedias. If you read articles from Encyclopedia Britannica at the library and put the volumes back on the shelf, there is no disclosure of any sort, aggregated or otherwise. That IMO is what reading Wikipedia should be like. (Note: this discussion sort of resembles one I had with BenRG here a few weeks ago, so I don't want to keep railing about it here at refdesk: NOTFORUM and all that). 75.57.242.120 (talk) 17:11, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Are there any companies which use a different name but are in fact owned by Google? I thought Yahoo was, but the comments above suggest not. YouTube is. Android is I believe Googleware. Any others please? Thanks 92.15.14.99 (talk) 11:16, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In addition to products with "Google" in the name, Google subsidiaries and affiliated projects include: YouTube, Blogger, Orkut, DoubleClick, On2 Technologies, Picnik, Aardvark, AdMob, Android, Keyhole, Inc., and GeoEye. Presumably there are others as well. Yahoo however is not affiliated with Google. Dragons flight (talk) 12:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

But none of that matters, because you should judge companies by their business practices, not by whether they are affiliated with a company named "Google". -- BenRG (talk) 21:36, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It's incredibly difficult but you might start by using AdBlock to block Google analytics from tracking your web browsing. They have beacons almost everywhere. A lot of web sites also won't function without Google API's or for some reason transclude jquery from a google site, but maybe you could avoid most of the google pings by setting up a static caching proxy. You also have to stop email communication with anyone who uses gmail, and you have to ask them directly whether they use gmail since lots of folks forward addresses at other domains to their gmail accounts so you can't tell just by looking at the address. You have to stay indoors all the time to avoid being photographed by the Google Street View van, and so forth. 75.57.242.120 (talk) 17:30, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

March 28

Using WebGL in Firefox 4

Every time I try watching WebGL examples in demos.mozilla.org I get this message:

Unfortunately, while your browser supports WebGL, your video drivers may be too old. To view any of the demos tagged with WebGL, try updating your drivers at NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel.

I have updated everything I was offered to update after doing this test, but I still get that massage. I also tried to change the settings in 'about:config' (as suggested here), but that 'enabled_for_all_sites' doesn't exists anymore, and was replaced with 'disabled' (which is set to false).

Can it be fixed somehow? Thanks a lot, 212.143.55.119 (talk) 08:47, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Are you sure your graphics card (and its driver, and the operating system) are supported and not blocked by Firefox 4? 118.96.158.177 (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively, you can try "force-enabling" it and see what happens, at the risk of crashing Firefox. See the last section of the linked page. 118.96.158.177 (talk) 00:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Why computer manufacturers disable CPU virtualization capacity by default?

Resolved

The first time I'm aware of this is on Microsoft website, when I was downloading Windows Virtual PC. After some VMware Workstation installation, I can see all computers, both desktop and laptop, on which I installed it, have virtualization disabled by default. On my laptop (Phenom II N930), the BIOS says something like this: "Hardware virtualization technology is designed for specialized software to allow many virtual machines to run separately from each other. If your computer does not have specialized software, HP recommends this feature being disabled." So is that any bad when this feature is being disabled? By the way, is emulation speed faster when it is enable? I'm a bit lazy to test it myself because even with virtualization enabled, the virtual machine seems too slow for gaming compared to the host. -- Livy the pixie (talk) 10:38, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I can't comment on why they leave it off (maybe they figure that the less users can do with computers, the less they can get into trouble?), but virtualization generally has a pretty small time overhead, since userland code is permitted to run unimpeded (though it occurs to me that there will be a bit of extra time taken for painting things to the screen. If it's poorly implemented, that could be a bit costly.). Gaming may work poorly because the virtualization software doesn't have good graphics card support. Paul (Stansifer) 11:20, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Apparently it's because they're afraid (probably unreasonably) of hypervisor-based rootkits. -- BenRG (talk) 21:46, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. -- 113.190.212.155 (talk) 04:44, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

32GB DIMM

  The only 32GB DIMM I've been able to find is Samsung's M393B4G70AH0-CH9 - which other manufacturers make 32GB DIMMs, and which manufacturers have motherboards which support 32GB DIMMs? Thanks as always. Rocketshiporion♫ 11:56, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think anyone else is making them, or that you can even buy the 32gb's yet. I remember reading when they were announced, they use some very fancy packaging techniques as well as ultra-dense chips. I saw your motherboard question further up and I'm drooling over the machine you seem to be trying to build. How much are you planning to spend on it and what are you planning to do with it, if you don't mind my asking? 75.57.242.120 (talk) 19:49, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm trying to keep the cost under SGD50K if possible, but no more than SGD60K at the maximum. It's for running GNU Octave in parallel; although Octave doesn't currently support MATLAB's parfor function, I'm banking on it that the FOSS community will implement an equivalent for Octave soon. It's simply unaffordium to get MATLAB 7 and/or MATLAB Distributed Computing Server - the price of the license fees is more than the cost of the hardware itself! Rocketshiporion♫ 10:24, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

what's the max proces name lenght on winxp

t.i.a. --Ulisse0 (talk) 12:40, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

In .NET, the process name is a Property value that is treated as a System.String - so it can have arbitrary length. See Process Name reference from MSDN. If you are using the core WINAPI functions, you provide the process name as a long pointer in the CreateProcess() function. For most purposes, your Process Name will match a subset of your command-line, which is explicitly limited to a 32k character array: "The maximum length of this string is 32,768 characters, including the Unicode terminating null character." Is there any reason you would want exceptionally long process names? Nimur (talk) 04:33, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

thank you! The reason i that I wrote a little tool to monitor the tasklist --Ulisse0 (talk) 08:09, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Non recognition of D:Drive

I have recently installed Windows 7 Ultimate on a Dell Dimension 1100 and I am unable to get it to read anything in the D:drive (CDs, DVDs etc) Can someone please give me an idea about how I can activate this drive. I have completed all the menus on the Control Panel which ask how I want my pictures, DVDs and CDs to initiate - and still nothing. Thanks in advance. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 15:05, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Did the drive appear in Windows Explorer? In the Device Manager? When you first turned on your computer (usually under "IDE Devices" list)? What happened if you insert a disc into the drive? Did the drive spin or make a sound? 118.96.158.177 (talk) 00:37, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Not in Windows Explorer or in Device Manager, but there is an A: drive(floppy disc drive) identified which I don't actually have as hardware. A disc does nothing when inserted, no noise, no spinning, a couple of blinks of the indicator light by the drawer and then nothing. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 08:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Either Windows is not detecting the drive because the appropriate driver is not available (very unlikely for an optical drive in a modern operating system), or there is a problem with the drive, the data cable connecting the drive to the motherboard, the motherboard's IDE/SATA port, or the motherboard's IDE/SATA controller (more likely). 118.96.165.228 (talk) 14:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Have you went to Disk Management? Type in the search bar in the start menu, hit enter, then select properties for your DVD drive. If you can't see it, I'm guessing it's not plugged in properly. General Rommel (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Because it was working before (or at least I assume that from what you said) it sounds like a software issue and it's probably an issue with the filter drivers, see here for more information and a fix - Be sure to reboot afterwards though! That link offers an automated fix or a manual registry fix, I've only ever ran the registry fix method, but the automatic one should do the same thing. Yes I know that link is for Windows Vista, but XP had the same problem/solution and I don't see why W7 would be any different either, it's not replacing any files just removing some values from the registry so I'd recommend trying it.  ZX81  ^talk 15:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for those excellent responses. I finally solved it by downloading the driver from the MS website, so extra thanks to ZX81. Caesar's Daddy (talk) 17:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Resolved

Saving a document in Microsoft Office Word 2007 as a "read only" file

Is there a way to save a document so that it becomes a "read only" file, one that cannot be edited by others? I have a Word document that I want to email to someone. However, I want to make sure that they cannot actually enter the Word document and change it or edit it. I only want them to be able to read the document. Is there a way to do this with Microsoft Office Word 2007? Normally, I would save the Word file as a PDF file. But, in this case, that's not an option. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC))

You can password protect it from modification. Go to File > Save As > Tools > General Options > Password. Change the modify password (not the file open password). --Mr.98 (talk) 19:49, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

However, that doesn't stop them pasting the contents into a new document and editing that. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 19:51, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Hmmmmmm. I am pretty sure that I have read some Word files that I have tried to open and edit. And I would get a message that says "this is a read-only file" or something similar. And thus I would be prohibited from editing or changing the contents of the Word document. Am I mistaken about that? Or is there some way for me to make this happen? Thanks. (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:23, 28 March 2011 (UTC))

Yes like what Mr.98 said... Nil Einne (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't really stop them editing the file either. There are various tools which can remove or get round any restrictions. Same for PDFs. Suffice to say, if the person you're sending can open/view the file, restrictions such as those should be thought of as at best stopping those without much knowledge and sending a clear message of what you want (perhaps with some legal backing in some countries). Nil Einne (talk) 20:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

OK, thanks to all. So, as a follow-up ... let's say that I used Mr. 98's method from above. Now, whenever I myself want to go in and edit the document, I need to have my password to do so? Is that correct? If so, that seems like a big pain in the neck? Or is it just the other person (the recipient of my email) that needs a password to try to edit the file? Thank you! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:03, 28 March 2011 (UTC))

Well, you could always save a copy of the document, then password-protect one of the copies. You e-mail the protected copy, and keep the unprotected one to work on yourself. --Trovatore (talk) 21:12, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Everybody that uses it would need to enter the password to be able open it as a read-write version. Your best bet is to Version control the document, keep a record of the original version and then use that as the Baseline to compare against. That is to say save a version as 1.0 and then issue it (making that version the baseline), noting that any changes should be made to a saved-copy as a 'draft' version (e.g. version 1.1) that requires sign-off to replace the existing 'baseline' verison. This amount of document control (whilst doing nothing to prevent unauthorised changes/secondary copies etc.) is generally pretty valuable, provided the document is worth the hassle of doing that (given that it does represent a bit). ny156uk (talk) 21:10, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

As noted above, doing all of this does not stop someone from cracking the password (using one of the many free online programs), copying the text and pasting it into a new writable Word document, turning off version control, etc... Once you place text in a file, it is possible to edit that text no matter what you do. You have to decide what you want to do. You can try to make it a pain to copy the text if you simply want to stop lazy people from editing it. You can try to track changes if your goal is to see who edited it. -- kainaw™ 12:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

See also Analog hole. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:52, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

The source control option is great if you have the interest and willpower to implement this solution, giving the other viewers of the document their own passwords and usernames and access to your source control server. If not, then the usual way to make sure that someone doesn't make changes to the document — let's say I were to write a contract and e-mail it to you, and you add some sort of signature and e-mail it back — is for me to have saved a copy of the document on my own hard disk, and then when I get your copy, I use Word's "Compare" option to compare my copy to yours. If it sees no changes, then there weren't any changes. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you need to protect against the user editing the file? Would it be sufficient to be able to later verify that you are looking at the same document that you sent. If verification is sufficient then create use a cryptographic hash function to generate a checksum for the original document. You can then later show that your original document matches the original checksum. And altered versions will not match. Taemyr (talk) 18:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You can also get a cryptographically encoded timestamp of your document so people are sure not only that you wrote it but that it was issued at a particular time and you didn't sneak in a later one! Dmcq (talk) 10:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

iOS SDK Standalone

Is there somewhere I can find the iOS SDK as a standalone?141.211.250.151 (talk) 22:26, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

The only official internet site for iOS developer information and tools is: http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/ - you can navigate around there and see if you find what you are looking for. Nimur (talk) 14:10, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

sfdisk input format

I have a hard drive with three existing primary partitions. I would like to make the fourth partition an extended partition, with five logical partitions inside.

If it was an empty disk, I would run

sfdisk <<EOF
,,E
,3900,L
,3900,L
,3900,L
,3900,L
,,L
EOF

however, this erases the three existing partitions and creates one extended partition that covers the entire disk. How can I tell sfdisk to leave the existing partitions alone and partition the unallocated space only? -- 188.105.131.8 (talk) 23:58, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Is there any reason why you are using sfdisk? fdisk (line-input) and cfdisk (curses) are friendlier. sfdisk looks like it is designed for use in shell-scripts. If you don't want to keep the data on the fourth partition, delete it, and then create an extended partition in its place. If you want to keep the data in the fourth partition, then gparted might be able to convert a primary partition into a logical partition. CS Miller (talk) 18:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, there is a reason why I am using sfdisk - I want to use it in a shell script. There is no fourth partition - three primary partitions are defined, the space behind them is unallocated. That's where the sfdisk should create an extended partition (,,E), and fill this extended partition with five logical partitions (4 times ,3900,L and ,,L). -- 188.105.131.8 (talk) 21:19, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

March 29

Virtual VS. Augmented reality

Whats the difference between Virtual reality and augmented reality?--Accdude92 (talk) 01:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Virtual reality is completely fake, while augmented reality starts with a real scene and then "enhances" parts of it (like magazine cover-girls). StuRat (talk) 02:31, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Augmented reality takes reality and overlays 'virtual' information over it. At least that's what it does on the mobile phone apps (search augmented reality phone app on google). The idea of augmented reality is say you hold up your camera-phone and it shows you the real scene infront of you with information overlaid onto it. As StuRat says virtual reality on the other hand tends to be an entirely created virtual world that you place yourself in by way of controllers/equipment (e.g. you put on a helmet and gloves and interact with the entirely fictitious world around you). ny156uk (talk) 06:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

However, let's not confuse technology with equipment. The helmet and gloves approach can be used for either augmented reality or full virtual reality. It's a question of whether everything you see and hear is virtual, or if the system combines the real and the virtual.

The promise (rarely realized) of augmented reality is that you could use it to 'augment' your knowledge of what's going on around you. Imagine opening the hood of your car and and seeing everything neatly labeled, with interactive instructions on how to change your oil.

In full virtual reality, you'd might be standing in an empty room learning to change the oil on a car that doesn't really exist but looks real to you.

APL (talk) 14:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Another example of augmented reality might be a Google satellite map, on which street outlines and names have been overlaid. StuRat (talk) 09:00, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

How to download this "spreadsheet"?

This page http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/mar/29/indices-multiple-deprivation-poverty-england#data includes a link to a spreadsheet towards the bottom, where it says "DATA: download the local authority spreadsheet". When I click on it, or try to save it, it only appears as a "Google Docs" webpage. (The page also says my browser is incompatible with Google Docs, but I'm using Firefox 3.6.16 which is compatible according to their help page). How can I save it as a conventional spreadsheet please? Thanks 92.29.126.172 (talk) 13:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Google docs works for me, I am on firefox 3.6.16. Have you disabled javascript or something like that? Taemyr (talk) 18:20, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

File>Download as>[Whatever format you want], if the menu bar is usable for you. I don't see why it wouldn't be; I'm using the same version and it works for me. Reach Out to the Truth 19:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

That does not work for me, and don't you think that would be the first thing I'd try? All I get is an html page, not a spreadsheet. 92.29.119.112 (talk) 09:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Saving with Firefox: normal vs. scrapbook

Why does the ScrapBook add-on saves pages better than Firefox standard saving? Some web-pages get a broken layout when saved with the latter procedure. Couldn't Firefox integrate Scrapbook into its core?

I don't know about the individual specifics, but code for Firefox is held to high standards of correctness, reliability, and security, while there are no standards for add-ons. They'd need to vet any code before integrating it, and there's no guarantee that any add-on's code is even in suitably good shape to evaluate. Paul (Stansifer) 14:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Question about article Digital Visual Interface

Hello,

on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Visual_Interface, pin C1 (Analog Red) is not displayed. It is present in the list however when you want to edit it.

What is wrong here?

Best regards,

FLConcorde — Preceding unsigned comment added by FLconcorde (talk • contribs) 14:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

(I added a title to your question.) 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:02, 29 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.

Beats me. Maybe bug in Infobox connector??? 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC) Martin.

Yes, that "custom name" feature is only used on three articles and the first custom pin is erroneously omitted in all of them - so it looks like the template has an error. I've left a message at Template talk:Infobox connector. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 16:48, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Update: there was a typo in that template. I've fixed it, so it should be okay now. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Saving and Exporting in Snow Leopard

Hello chaps, I recently upgraded to Snow Leopard and I'm on 10.6.6. When I used to save or export things on my old Mac, the Finder window would give me the entire folder structure in columns, so I could easily navigate to other folders. Now when I save, I am offered only the folder I am in, with no option to navigate anywhere else apart from a rather unwieldy drop-down box. Is there a way of making Finder behave in the (better) way I am used to?

Cheers 195.60.20.81 (talk) 15:59, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

In Finder generally: View > As Columns. In the Save dialog, click on that little icon of columns in the top left, part of those little icons that are just to the right of the left/right arrows. If those aren't visible, click the little down arrow next to the filename to make that appear. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, but I'm already in column view, the problem is that I can's see all of the files, I cant navigate back along the columns to the root of the folders. Finder only lets me see the folder I am in, even in column view. 195.60.20.81 (talk) 15:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

New York Times limitation on the number of articles

What alternatives do they have to know when someone already reached the limit of 20 articles? You might try to guess: "counting them up to 20." But that leaves an open question: "how do they know who are you?" IPs can be changed, cookies can be deleted, and they do not require that you sign-up for your 20 articles. So, can they limit users at all? Quest09 (talk) 16:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Searching Google for "New York Times paywall" quickly finds some articles about how it works and how trivial it is to circumvent (I guess WP:EL means I won't link to them). From the description it doesn't sound like it's anything fancier than an HTTP Cookie and an url "cookie". -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:13, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, and what about the claim that "the Times paid $40 million to erect its paywall in the first place." Is that possible? $40 millions for that? Quest09 (talk) 17:25, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Philip Greenspun wonders the same here. The whole thing may have fancier features than they've turned on yet, but still that does seem vastly more than you'd expect. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:33, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

One thing I will say is that if they're serving custom page content to every visitor (rather than the same content to everyone) they'll lose a lot of the efficiencies of page, page-fragment, and database-result caching, which will significantly increase their hardware requirement. Wikipedia serves almost everyone (that is, everyone who isn't signed in, which is almost all readers) with fully cache-able content, and so a lot of the traffic just comes from squid web caches (and doesn't trouble the web app proper, or a database server). Facebook, by contrast, serves almost every visitor with custom, database intensive content (because, at least as far as I can tell, most Facebook traffic is from signed-in Facebook users). The difference will be manifest in the two datacentres. Perhaps that $40 million reflects the ongoing licence fees for things like Oracle (which is swingingly expensive) and other software, and for professional services over an N year interval. But it's still a lot. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Keep in mind that 100% efficiency is probably not required in their business model here. They're no doubt factoring in circumvention along various lines. IP tracking would probably be some 90% effective — the number of people who are going to circumvent is probably low, and some means of circumvention will burn themselves out if they are repeatedly use (e.g. if lots of people used tor, you'd still have a lot of IPs that went through their 20 a month — the more people who use it, the more quickly it fails to be reliable). --Mr.98 (talk) 19:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Exactly. We say, "Oh, all you have to do is delete your cookies". For probably a large majority of internet users, that's something they would not know how to do, and would not think of doing to evade the paper's page limit. The NYT doesn't need to prevent every single person from viewing too many pages, just enough of them for their business model to succeed. Buddy431 (talk) 18:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"delete your cookies". For probably a large majority of internet users, that's something they would not know how to do" You don't have a high opinion about the average Internet user, do you? 212.169.177.145 (talk) 19:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

You must realize, that this desk, and Wikipedia in general, are not representative at all of the world population, or even the computer using population. I don't know where you work and who you associate with. I attend a high ranked public university in the United States. Using a computer is essentially mandatory, if for nothing else than checking e-mail and word processing assignments. I would bet that less than 50% of the student body would have any idea what a HTTP cookie is. If you told them to clear their cookies without any context, most of them would have no idea what you were talking about. If you told them to clear their cookies on their web browser, maybe half of them would start poking around the options menu of their browser, while the other half would say "huh?". Maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one. See this study. I generally take the attitude that any given person is ignorant of any given concept until they show me otherwise. This strategy has rarely let me down. Buddy431 (talk) 20:46, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

The sad truth is that you are very probably right. 212.169.177.145 (talk) 21:27, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Getting around the pageview limit in google books isn't easy. I haven't made any serious attempts to mess with it, but the obvious stuff like clearing cookies doesn't work. 21:11, 29 March 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.242.120 (talk)

I'm not sure there is a limited number of pages in the case of Google books. I think some pages are simply missing. You can preview the rest. Quest09 (talk) 23:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

It used to be that some books would trigger maximums. I haven't seen this for awhile, though. --Mr.98 (talk) 15:45, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Epson TX 111

i have a Epson TX 111 in one inkjet printer about 11 months old. when i give it the order to print it print few pages or even not and the paper jams before printing any thing on it and it shows a general error that remove any foreign object from printer and turn the printer on. i don't find anything in the printer. what should i do. it also occurs when i give it order to copy. please help me i am in trouble as it is my home printer which i use to print or copy.

-all the cartridges are full and new.
-good power supply with required voltage.
-no part of it is damaged.
-placed in a flat surface.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopalmishra77 (talk • contribs) 16:55, 29 March 2011 (UTC) 

It sounds like a mechanical issue and nothing at all to do with your computer (because you said it happens when you press the copy button and that shouldn't even need the computer to be turned on) so in which case if you can't see anything visibly wrong there isn't really much you can do except contact who you bought it from and/or Epson to get it repaired/replaced. I don't know what part of the world you're in, but I would assume that as it comes with at least a 12 month warranty it's likely they'd fix it under that (assuming no physical signs of abuse etc).  ZX81  ^talk 17:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

I've had continuous problems with paper jams in my printers. It's almost always a result of the page feed mechanism pulling in multiple pages instead of one. Thus, a workaround is to feed in a single sheet of paper at a time. I use the manual paper feed for this, but, if your printer lacks a manual paper feed slot, you can also take all but one sheet of paper out of the paper bin. Yes, this is annoying, but I find it better than endless paper jams. StuRat (talk) 21:14, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

slow shutdown (Windows XP)

i had a computer with

Intel core2due 2.93 ghz processor
Asus G41 motherboard
2 GB ram 
320 gb hard disk

and no hardware problem and about 20 gb of free space in system drive partition with windows Xp loaded in it. it has a good and updated antivirus which scanes system daily. and updates daily. my computer takes about an hour or two to shut down but starts very fast. i have tried all types of computer shutting down process(including comand prompt) but problem still presists. i also tried it by deleting cookies and temp file from my computer. and also by taking out the cmos. i also tried system restore to a point when i install windows to it. about 9 months ago.. so please tell me what should i do to shut down my computer normally... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gopalmishra77 (talk • contribs) 17:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Second question moved to own section CS Miller (talk) 18:28, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Up above, apparently. StuRat (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

If you already tried a system restore that far back, I suppose you might as well go all the way and re-install the O/S, after wiping the hard disk completely. StuRat (talk) 21:06, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Capacitor colors

Does the color of a capacitor have significance? (I'm thinking of the small capacitors used in computers and monitors and television sets.)

I tried to search this on google but 'capacitor color' finds pages about the color codes used on capacitors, not the actual color of the capacitors.

Thank you, Wanderer57 (talk) 20:56, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Apart from the colour code that is sometimes used to define the capacitors value, the colour has no significance. Different manufacturers go for differnt colours. -- SGBailey (talk) 22:08, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

((( For reasons I don't understand, el Aprel deleted my original reply. I have replaced it and left his to follow mine. Whatever... -- SGBailey (talk) )))

My mistake. There was an edit conflict that I didn't look closely enough at and misread the diff.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 02:59, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

(e/c)I don't think so, other than the color coding you mentioned, which isn't used all the often (compared to the color coding of resistors).--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 22:09, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Wiki spam

I'm a moderator on another wiki. For the last month we have been suffering from someone posting spam - a single figure number of pages a day. They are very consistent about what they do: Post a page on some irrelevant subject under a username made up for the purpose of this page. The page title is long and descriptive and ends with an integer (EG "How to make friends and influence people 73"). The page include one picture which is uploaded after the text has been edited. The picture name is shorter but descriptive and also ends with a integre - usually larger (EG "Image:Mixed Drinks 860.jpg") which is uploaded by an IP address user. Names and IP addresses are not (yet) repeated. The pages get deleted some time in the following 24 hours.

Why do they do it? What is the point of the integers? -- SGBailey (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Who knows what would motivate a vandal on a low-traffic website! Or on any website, for that matter! It's probable that your wiki is being attacked with a bot: that might be a program written as a toy-project by a novice programmer who thinks it's fun and cool to "hack;" or you might be the victim of a non-technical enthusiast who is operating some program written by somebody else. (We have an article on script kiddie, a known phenomenon on the internet). The integers are probably a (very simplistic) randomized value added to prevent you from exact-string-matching the contributions (making it marginally more difficult to block the vandalism). If possible, apply access control by requiring user-logins (read the Preventing Access section of the MediaWiki manual, if you're using MediaWiki). That will categorically prevent non-authorized users from contributing. If you must allow anonymous users to create accounts or edit the wiki, consider other options, following the Wikipedia vandalism-prevention model. Use social pressure to discourage vandalism and establish community norms. If the wiki is mission-critical, consider hiring (paying) moderators to monitor contributions. Nimur (talk) 04:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

So much as I thought. We just keep pressing Delete. Thanks. -- SGBailey (talk) 05:40, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

There is the possibility this is being used as one way of controlling a botnet. Tell homeland security and worry them it might be terrorists passing secret messages and let them deal with the perp. Actually no I wouldn't wish a government organization on anybody but a virus firm might be interested. Dmcq (talk) 10:35, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

CAPTCHA is used precisely to prevent this kind of thing. No idea how hard it would be to implement though. 01:00, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Surveillance

Is there a way that I can set up a program on my computer that will record sounds from users without the users even knowing that it is there?

That's illegal in many places. Shadowjams (talk) 06:38, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Illegal or not, you don't need a computer to do that. Much easier to use a bug, sound recorder, or simply a mobile phone.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

But these aren't really answers to the question. [This site] explores the legality of audio surveillance. From my perspective, the OP seems to want to record sounds from his own computer. Depending on the context, I can understand the motives behind it. The easiest way I can think of to do this, especially if you have a laptop computer with a built-in microphone, is to open Windows' Sound Recorder and simply let it record in the background. As far as actively concealing the presence of the microphone or the program, I couldn't really say. Kingsfold (Quack quack!) 16:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Windows lets you do some truly... unique things with other programs and the Explorer shell. I have a book that describes, among other things, how to disable specific buttons in the Windows Calculator from another process. I imagine one could write a program which, given sufficient privileges, would hide Sound Recorder's window and taskbar icon while leaving the program itself running. This is certainly not the most time-efficient solution, though. « Aaron Rotenberg « Talk « 02:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yahoo/AT&T Display Name

Greetings and salutations, fellow denizens of the Internet. I have an issue I hope you can help with. I have an at&t email address (which was switched over to Yahoo! about a year ago with all the others). Every time I send an email, the recipient gets it listed under "First Last" instead of my real name (which Yahoo! does have). Why does it do this, and how can I fix it? 71.236.122.228 (talk) 23:29, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Probably the easiest way is to contect customer support on Yahoo!. Taemyr (talk) 05:26, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

March 30

Core Duo processor

Some programs and operating systems say they will only work on a Intel Core 2 or newer. My laptop uses a Core Duo processor. Can it handle these programs? Is there a diagram of the full line of Intel processors? --T H F S W (T · C · E) 01:31, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Despite similar names, a Core Duo is a much older and "weaker" type of CPU than a Core 2. It also lacks certain critical architecture features. If the software specification is correct, and does actually require the Core 2, then the Core Duo will not do the trick. Core 2 includes SSE4 and supports the x86_64 instruction set, and some software might require these features - in other words, will not run or will crash if you use a Core Duo. Other software may simply be suggesting the Core 2 for its higher performance; a Core Duo may under-perform and adversely affect your experience, but will still run the software. (We can't know which is the case without more specific details from you). We do have a comprehensive listing of all Intel microprocessors, and we have an entire list of lists of Intel topics and CPU types. Read the Intel Core 2 article; and don't let the confusing Intel brand-names get to you: Core Duo and Core 2 are not the same at all. Nimur (talk) 04:58, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Computes reset during boot.

When I try to start my computer, the computer reset before it enters on windows, it happens on safe mode too. The computer reset and then start to boot again, just to boot again. Happens in the windows xp logo loading bar, before it and even if I choose safe mode. But it doenst happens while on boot setup (making the test right now, 5 minutes on boot setup without a reset).

What can be the problem? 201.78.136.48 (talk) 01:43, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like it might be the operating system. If so, you need to find some way to boot from another device. Does it have dual-boot partitions ? If so, try the other one. If not, then you're down to booting from the CD/DVD drive, or USB pen drive (if boot from there is supported), or even a floppy disk. Of course, you will need a boot disk or pen drive to do this. Once you're able to get it to boot, then you'll have the opportunity to fix your original boot partition. Of course, all of this is quite complex, so a computer geek or repair shop might be in order. StuRat (talk) 05:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Try using a Live CD. If that works, then you know it is not a hardware fault. I had a similar problem (using WinXP), except it would boot in safe mode, and I eventually found it was due to a defective driver. When the driver was deactivated, it booted up OK. 92.15.1.33 (talk) 15:48, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Going on vacation, need gmail autonotification

Is there a setting where gmail will automatically tell people that e-mail me that I'll be on leave for 13 days?--Lenticel ^(talk) 06:25, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"Settings" (top right next to your gmail address) then on the "General" tab you'll find the "Out of office autoreply" settings near the bottom of the page. Roger (talk) 07:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Yup found it, thanks  :) --Lenticel ^(talk) 07:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Be a bit careful with these. They might be read as "I'll be away from my house for the next week or so, and so anyone wishing to break in can do so without my being there".--Phil Holmes (talk) 07:56, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, only if you have local burglars listed among your contacts. But do remember to check the box that says "Only send a response to people in my Contacts" otherwise all the spam (and all the other out-of-office autoreplies) gets your message too.--Shantavira|^{feed me} 09:18, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

You also want to be careful if you have signed up for any email discussion lists. You can annoy a lot of people really quickly if every post to the list is followed by a "Sorry, I'm out of the office ..." response from you. (Probably the best way to handle that is to remove any mailing list posting addresses from Contacts and tick the setting Shantavira mentioned.) -- 140.142.20.229 (talk) 16:16, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

What if I send you a message, after you set autoreply, and set the autoreply myself? Will be messages be bouncing to and fro until we come back from vacation? 212.169.177.145 (talk) 19:15, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I think auto replies only get sent once to each contact. I think there are other "processes" in place to prevent out of control nested looping situations like that. Vespine (talk) 00:52, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

The Vaction responder setting in Gmail says "If a contact sends you several messages, this automated reply will be sent at most once every 4 days." I assume other e-mail clients do something similar. --Bavi H (talk) 00:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

There exists an email header keyword, Auto-Submitted that indicates whether an email was automatically generated or not. Hopefully, vacation autoresponders will (a) set that header, and (b) not autorespond to something with that header set. Paul (Stansifer) 17:19, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

ms PICTURE IT

HELP!! I WILL BUY ANY PROGRAM THAT CAN OPEN/READ MY 50 CD'S OF PICTURES. THEY WERE MADE WITH MICROSOFT 'PICTURE IT, 1.0' FORMAT '.MIX'. Currently using win7. One idea, buy old computer with win95 and install PICTURE IT. Anything else? Thanks, Mike — Preceding unsigned comment added by DIVER0247 (talk • contribs) 17:32, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Apparently Microsoft Word will read them (you should be able to drag a whole CD-worth from Windows Explorer and drop them on a fresh Word document) and you "save as webpage" to get it to emit them as JPGs. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:36, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

According to this, you can run Picture It on Windows 7 by settings Windows 98 compatibility mode in the file properties. They used Picture It 2001 (5.0), but it's worth a try with 1.0. You could also download a free PC emulator such as VirtualBox and run Windows 95 on that, instead of buying another machine. -- BenRG (talk) 17:54, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Wireless Sky TV

Is it possible to have a second sky TV box in a second room with sky any room, but to connect the second box wirelessly and with the capacity to change channel separately from the original one.

If it is possible, what exactly would I need to buy.

Lucas 83 19:08, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't think there is any way to decode satellite signals through a wireless connection. In theory it should be possible, but in practice all the equipment I've seen needs a co-axial cable to the decoder (box) then the decoded signal can be sent wirelessly to a TV. I would suggest that your best option would be a quad LNB (£10) at your satellite dish, and run a twin co-axial cable to a second SKY box which is then completely independent of the first box. Do you need the subscription channels in the other room(s)? Dbfirs 21:42, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

I would need the subscription channels and unfortunately I thought that what you said was true that a cable from dish to second box would have to be run through. It's possible, just requires lots of upheaval in the flat. Cheers anyway. Lucas 83 23:19, 30 March 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lukerees83 (talk • contribs)

Sky's page on multiroom suggests they supply an additional Sky decoder box (and presumably a duplicate subscription card). If you were to combine that with Dbfirs' suggestion above - ie. fit a quad LNB on your dish and run another pair of coax cables from the quad LNB to the second box - you should then have the ability to watch (and record/pause) different things from that in the living room. Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to this wirelessly. The bigger problem though might be Sky's view on you changing your installation in this way (you are in effect creating two subscriptions for the price of one). Astronaut (talk) 06:01, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes, safest to stay with Sky if you need their subscription channels. I think Sky regard the equipment as your property, but if you are relying on them for maintenance, then it is best not to make alterations. I've modified my own Sky installation, but only after I cancelled my contract with them. If you don't need more than two subscription channels at one time, then there are other options. You could purchase a wireless transmitter to relay a chosen channel from one room to another, and most such devices allow you to change channels from the other room. I've found these devices to be rather unreliable over time, but perhaps they have improved since I last used them. They can also interfere with wireless internet. Dbfirs 13:20, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

php

Resolved

I have the following php script which lists the files in a directory. How can I make it list in order of their modified date, newest first?

Extended content

<? $Directory = opendir("."); while($entryName = readdir($Directory)) { $dirArray[] = $entryName; } closedir($Directory); $indexCount = count($dirArray); sort($dirArray); print("<TABLE border=1 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 class=whitelinks>\n"); for($index=0; $index < $indexCount; $index++) { if (substr("$dirArray[$index]", 0, 1) != "."){ print("<TR><TD><a href=\"$dirArray[$index]\">$dirArray[$index]</a></td>"); print("</TR>\n"); } } print("</TABLE>\n"); ?>

I made a few modifications. Commenting included. The trick is to make an array of the file modification dates, then sort those in a way that keeps the original index associations, which are identical to the directory array indices. Then instead for a for/next loop, you use a foreach loop to iterate over the file modification array in the order it has been sorted in, but use that index to call the directory array. Hope that makes sense!

Extended content

<? $Directory = opendir("."); while($entryName = readdir($Directory)) { $dirArray[] = $entryName; $dirFilemod[] = filemtime($entryName); //make array of file mod times } closedir($Directory); $indexCount= count($dirArray); arsort($dirFilemod); //sort the file mod times in reverse order (newest first), but maintain their original keys print("<TABLE border=1 cellpadding=5 cellspacing=0 class=whitelinks>\n"); foreach($dirFilemod as $index=>$val) { //instead of using a for/next loop, use a foreach loop, running it over the file mod array in the sorted order if (substr("$dirArray[$index]", 0, 1) != "."){ print("<TR><TD><a href=\"$dirArray[$index]\">$dirArray[$index]</a></td>"); print("</TR>\n"); } } print("</TABLE>\n"); ?>

--Mr.98 (talk) 00:54, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! 82.43.90.38 (talk) 11:56, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Apple Keynote: "Reapply Master to Selection" if object has been deleted?

Hello,

I have another question on Keynote by Apple.

I know that I can make - for instances - Text Boxes in the Master Slide, and then choose Format->Define as Text Placeholder.

This way I automatically obtain a text box that I can move, change, resize, colour or even remove from one individual slide. I can also do "Reapply Master to Selection" if I want to go back to the default setting from the Master Slide.

But what I have simply removed that object? Is there any way I can "get it back"? Just copying it from another slide does not do the trick, it seems to lose any connection with the Text Box in the Master Slide.

Or am I missing something?

Many thanks, Evilbu (talk)

I don't think so. What I do in that situation is just copy the things I want, create a new slide, paste things back in. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

March 31

Weird Xcode Problem

I'm trying to build an application in Xcode, but every time I compile it, it gives me this error:

Error from Debugger: The program being debugged is not being run.

So, I navigate to it in the finder, and it has a little prohibitory sign. Double clicking it, it says that the application can't be opened because it is damaged or incomplete. However, I can get it to open by opening the executable in the Package Contents>MacOS folder. Could anyone explain what is going on? --Thekmc (Leave me a message) 00:28, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition - Temporary Licensing Non-Compliance

Hello RefDeskers!

  If, on an eight-socket server with four installed processors running Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition, fifth and sixth processors were to be installed several days before two extra per-processor licenses are acquired and assigned, thereby causing license non-compliance, would the server continue to function normally or would the server stop functioning due to license non-compliance? I tried asking at Microsoft TechNet, but did not get an answer to the question, and was instead schooled on the importance of license compliance.

  Thanks as always.

There is generally a grace period for license activation, usually 30 days. Server 2008 seems to have one for retail/oem versions ([6]). Our article on Client Access Licenses says that only two products currently use technical means to enforce licensing: SBS2008 and Terminal Services, but that is uncited. If you use volume licensing, the best thing to do might be to speak to your reseller or account manager, as they would be able to give you a definitive answer. --Kateshortforbob _talk 09:13, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Upgrading to Firefox 4 from Firefox 3.6.16

Should I save any of my bookmarks, history etc before upgrading? Will the same add-ons be installed automatically? Thanks 92.29.119.112 (talk) 09:55, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

I had no issues with bookmarks and history, but you should definitely keep them backed up if they are important to you (not just when you upgrade). The add-ons should remain in place if they are compatible with Firefox 4; if not, they will be disabled until new versions are available. 130.88.134.221 (talk) 15:51, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Firefox 4

Now that I've installed it, I have a few annoying minor problems. First, I keep having to log into Wikipedia each time. Second, where did the refresh, undo, redo, etc. go, and how can I get them back? Clarityfiend (talk) 18:04, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Refresh is the little circle-arrow button at the right end of the URL bar. It changes to the stop (X) button when a page is loading. I don't know what you mean by undo/redo : if you mean the back/forward arrows, I still have them to the left of the url bar. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:09, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

All of that stuff is on the "navigation toolbar", which you may (now) have turned off. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:10, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Undo/redo let you remove/restore your last edit or edits. They used to be on a menu, but the menus seem to have all gone the way of the dodo. Clarityfiend (talk) 19:07, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. Those are still in the EDIT menu: you need to turn on the menubar to get it back. I'd have thought you should be able to get icons back for them from the customise option, but I can't immediately figure out how. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 19:34, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Algorithm used in Mega Millions POS computers

I just saw a news story stating how the buyer of the ticket that recently won $319 million (before taxes) had someone cut in line and he opined that if this hadn't taken place, the other guy might have gotten the winning number. But that's assuming that the algorithm the machine uses is sequential in that the machine is seeded maybe upon startup and the time span between ticket purchases doesn't matter, i.e., the next number that comes out will be the same (even if nobody knows what it will be) whether you wait 25 ms or 3 hours. If upon each purchase the machine took a random seed like the time from the system clock, then not cutting in line almost certainly wouldn't have made the cutter get the winning number and also would have made the guy who did get the winning ticket get to the counter earlier than he did, almost certainly totally changing his numbers too. Is there any public specifications of those machines, or is that top secret information? Just curious. 76.27.175.80 (talk) 22:42, 31 March 2011 (UTC)