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December 20

Browseprotect.exe

I downloaded a screensaver (yesterday), since then a file "Browseprotect.exe" (in all cap) is asking permission to access internet. AVG pops up with options allow, block etc. Can you tell me if it is a legitimate system file and if it is a virus then how I can remove it (full scan or search and delete (though I can't find the file in search)! --Tito Dutta (talk) 05:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

There are plenty of "free screensaver" sites that bundle in malware, so I certainly would not trust this new program. I can't find much about "browseprotect.exe", but is some information online on "browserprotect.exe" that seems to come along with some free downloads and is hard to get rid of. Unfortunately, all of the sites that look promising are blocked on our company's network. (Although the obviously scammy "free pc fixer" sites are allowed...) I did a search for the filenames in ICE that confirms that there is no component of Windows 7 that contains "browseprotect.exe" or "browserprotect.exe". 209.131.76.183 (talk) 14:53, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Yep, it's malware. These "free screensavers" almost exclusively make their money on selling advertisement and personal information. i kan reed (talk) 17:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

How big can an internal HD be?

Low large of a capacity can an internal drive on serial ATA on a Windows computer be these days? Is the maximum capacity limited by the motherboard, SATA, Windows, NTFS, or what? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The largest hard drives manufactured today for PCs are 4 TB in capacity: [1].

The theoretical limit for the NTFS file system used in the newest releases of Windows is 256 TB. The ext4 file system used in Linux can support volume sizes up to 1 EB. Older motherboards without UEFI can only boot off of drives that are 2 TB or less in size. UEFI supports a maximum volume size of 8 ZB.

So, to answer your question, the capacity is limited by the tolerances within the hard drive itself, assuming the rest of the software and hardware in your computer is relatively new. Hard drives are increasing in capacity every year. The 4 TB drives hit the market in 2012 and 3 TB units were introduced in 2011, and so on. They've been increasing in capacity steadily since they were introduced in the late 1950s.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 06:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It's usually possible to trick the computer to boot from the first < 2 TB (or 2 GB etc) and then load drivers needed to make use of the whole space. Common trick with BIOS limitations. Electron9 (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The theoretical limit of NTFS is one yobibyte (2⁶⁴·64K). The implementation in Windows 8 is limited to 256TB, according to the article. -- BenRG (talk) 00:25, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, and there is nothing on the motherboard, SATA, Windows, etc, that prevents a Windows system from using the whole 4TB? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 07:19, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

It's basically down to which SATA standard version your controller complies with minus any chip bugs. As for Microsoft it's depend on driver (supplied by manufacturer) and filesystem (by MS). Beware the Windoze bugz ;) Electron9 (talk) 17:27, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

When I got this computer last year, 2TB internal drives were the largest you could get with the computer. It has eSATA and 8 or 9 months ago I got a 6TB external HD (two 3TB drives, RAID0), with eSATA and USB2. I tried to use eSATA, of course. But I couldn't write more than about 2TB to it. At about the 2TB mark, it would drop down to less than 5MB/sec, and a while after that it would stop. I tried it many times. I got an eSATA to USB3 adapter, put it on my USB3 port, and it works OK. I think something in my system doesn't support more than 2TB on SATA/eSATA. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 00:45, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Which operating system are you running? Assuming you're running Windows, you must initialize any disks above 2 TB with a GPT — not an MBR: [2]. Windows XP is not supported. It must be running Windows Vista or later.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 01:05, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Windows 7 then, 8 now (both 64-bit). I think I did use GUID. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:23, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

So, you checked the GPT radio button shown in this picture: [3]?—Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:47, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me that a few years ago, HDs were rapidly getting larger and cheaper/GB. They don't seem to be doing that now. Is that right? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It hasn't been consistent from year to year:

Year	Maximum capacity
2012	4 TB
2011	3 TB
2010	2 TB
2009	2 TB
2008	1 TB
2007	1 TB
2006	750 GB
2005	500 GB
2004	300 GB
2003	250 GB
2002	160 GB
2001	120 GB
2000	80 GB

I think I rounded one of the figures above because I remember there was a year when they had 1.5 TB drives. But still, I don't notice a trend myself. In the 80s and 90s there were some years where it jumped like 300% and other years where it increased 50%, just like recent years.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 02:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

In terms of price/GB, price/GB has been continuing to drop and I don't believe there has been a major change in the rate. However there was a massive price/GB increase after the Thailand floods and prices are only now beginning to reach preflood levels. Nil Einne (talk) 04:36, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I concur, the Thailand floods messed the supply and price of disc drives seriously. Electron9 (talk) 19:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

That probably explains my casual observation that it hasn't dropped compared to a year or two ago. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 19:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I don't think the original question specified if capacity was in bytes or cubic meters ;-) ANyway if you want to see how big a HD can be just look at the early ones in History of IBM magnetic disk drives which provides an extension of the figures above for data capacity too earlier dates. Dmcq (talk) 12:26, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Parse two-dimensional array from string in C#

I have run into the following problem at work. I am given a string such as this:

{ {a, b}, {c, d} }

I am supposed to parse this into a two-dimensional string array, such as s, so that:

s[0][0] == "a"
s[0][1] == "b"
s[1][0] == "c"
s[1][1] == "d"

The number of items in both dimensions can vary. I can get to know these dimensions beforehand. The format is otherwise always the same: the whole array is surrounded by { - } brackets, and so are the rows within the array. The rows, and the individual items inside the rows, are separated by commas (,). But I don't know at all how to write the parsing code. Is there a pre-existing library that can do this? Or if I have to write the parsing code myself, how can I do it? JIP | Talk 07:21, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I would tackle this by deleting the outer {} elements, using a regex to get all the text inside the inner {} pairs, and then string.Split to get the individual elements. Don't think it would be too hard to code up in 2 loops. --Phil Holmes (talk) 14:26, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

You don't really need str.Split() when you use regex. Use one or the other. See here for regex, and this question for str.Split. --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 22:14, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Serving scaled images and relative widths

Pagespeed is telling me to serve scaled images. However the design uses relative widths. Is there any way to combine the two? bamse (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, of course, Pagespeed is just advice, and if you have good cause to ignore it, there's no shame in that. But do you really want the browser scaling images for you? The browser's image scaler tends to be rather poor. For background images in an adaptive design, I often find myself putting a fade-gradient on the edge of a background image, so that it fades to the background colour. Then I have the background non-repeating of a fixed size with a specified background colour too. That way it fills the background of the element acceptably, regardless of the size to which that cell is resized, and without scaling in the browser. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:42, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Example; the original image (without the fade on the right) is on Commons -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:11, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks a lot for sharing the idea and code. Unfortunately fading is not an option in my case. The images appear together with text in a table-like listing: think a forum with avatar images on the left and some text around it. Let's say the container of the image is 10% of the full width. As far as I understand, there is no way to prevent image scaling by the browser if the image is supposed to fill all of the container (correct?). I read somewhere that one could use javascript to provide differently sized images (to be further resized by the browser) based on the display size. Is this really worth the effort, particularly for a site which would typically not be accessed from small mobile phone screens? bamse (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

As a side question, is there some online-tool that allows to calculate recommended image resolution (of the stored image) based on the eventual display size (in % of screen size)? bamse (talk) 22:26, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The connection to the server was reset while the page was loading.

The above message has been appearing in my browser with apparently increasing frequency - this applies across at least 7 machines using Palemoon and Firefox. Similar errors appear in IE.

Clicking on "try again" is usually successful, however.

I have attempted to discuss the matter with Talk Talk my ISP, but since they tell me that 0870 numbers are free to call, don't know the difference between dropped packets and a dropped line, don't return calls and will on no account pass me to a supervisor, I have little faith other than they may have performed a whoosh test, and it may have shown everything to be fine.

In an attempt to diagnose the problem I have re-pointed my DNS to Google DNS, reset the router many times over the last few weeks and preformed a few network diagnostics viz:

1. emulated an http connection by using telnet
2. checked traceroutes and pings for basic connectivity and possible route-flap (seems ok, but hard to be sure)
3. used ping -t to check for packets being dropped - 0% to Google, .1 % to Wikipedia

My options seem to be based on getting a new router or switching ISPs. I am tempted to switch ISPs anyway since this bunch seem such a shower, but I'm not convinced that it will solve this problem. Any ideas? Rich Farmbrough, 16:00, 20 December 2012 (UTC).

Your symptom sounds like you may have a software proxy server or web cache - either on your machine, or somewhere upstream, provided by your ISP - that is misbehaving. Unfortunately, diagnosis of an amorphous symptom like this requires a lot of effort and often results in no progress fixing the problem; but from your described troubleshooting steps, it sounds like you are on the right track and have the technical proficiency to proceed. So, here's my recommendations:

First, isolate whether the cache or proxy is local on your machine, or upstream by your ISP, by connecting a different machine to your cable or DSL modem. If the symptom reproduces on other computers on the same connection, the problem is not your fault! An amorphous cache server configuration bug exists, it's your ISP's fault, and there is essentially nothing you can do to fix it until a skilled-enough technician happens to repair the error (and that sounds unfortunately unlikely). Try to work around the bug; you can try using HTTPS/SSL/TLS in your browser, or try to disable caching, or so forth.

If the problem only occurs on your machine, and not on others, check for common cache and proxy and firewall software. It sounds like the problem occurs in all browsers, so it is not likely due to a browser setting. Other places lower down the system stack to check include your system network settings and your antivirus programs. Antivirus programs sometimes set up such network trickery for your "protection," and it has been my experience that their implementations are often imperfect. Again, try to workaround the problem using non-caching or secure HTTPS pages. Finally, check for malware "web accelerators" and similar ill-intentioned software that lives in your network stack; sometimes this can be quite well-hidden. Good luck with the troubleshooting. Nimur (talk) 18:38, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, yes I thought some kind of caching, even worried that someone was intercepting my traffic clumsily. As I don't use an explicit local cache or proxy, and I'm getting this on 7 machines I shall provisionally blame the ISP, and probably move, hoping the new bunch aren't even more hopeless. Rich Farmbrough, 23:07, 20 December 2012 (UTC).

I've had the same thing, too.

Basically, screens start loading and even displaying, and when I cut the connection (I'm on 56k), the page vanishes and displays that silly error message. It's been increasing slowly and steadily from 2008 on , even after reinstalling, and jumped up recently when the "Edit saved" pop-up came up on wikipedia. (Is that malware? it looks damn genuine to me.)

To make a long story short, it's like some demon in my machine that decides, "If you don't stay connected 24/7, you don't deserve that WP content," which is silly. After all, I received most of the info, and all I want is a tall ship and a browser which shows me that info rather than a full-screen error message.

Cancel seems to avoid the error message, but it's a pain and a half to push cancel on each page before cutting the connection. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 06:51, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I get the same error message sometimes, especially when it is raining heavily, but in my case the problem is almost certainly an intermittent internet connection (delivered via a microwave chain). Dbfirs 09:31, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

How is Google connecting merchandiser ID data to the person using Google?

From this article: " If you bought a T shirt at The Gap in the mall with your credit card, you could start seeing a lot more Gap ads online later, suggesting jeans that go with that shirt." If you read the article, you'll see that what it's supposing is that Gap uploaded its sales data using this Conversions API that Google is going to offer to advertisers. So that's how your shirt purchase got known in the Internet. But how is your identity getting connected to Google ID whateverUser395, or even if the name Joe Blow on your credit card were loaded up by Gap and your Google ID was Joe Blow, there could be twenty other Joe Blows in the world. I don't remember giving any hard ID like address, and definitely not SSN, when I created a Google account. I wonder how uploaded advertiser data can get pinned to given Google IDs especially when it says in the article "Neither the advertiser nor Google will be able to track you individually." 20.137.2.50 (talk) 18:34, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Google is getting scarier each year. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:41, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

You might read business intelligence and data mining for a start. Also, keep in mind that 100.0% accuracy is not necessary; if a few errors occur, a few targeted advertisements "convert" to untargeted advertisement, which is not a total loss to the advertiser. So, the specific data-mining and identity aggregation methods in use only need to be accurate enough to provide competitive advantage over alternative advertisement strategies. Nimur (talk) 21:09, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Content supervision

When a software designed to monitor what webpages a person visits (like the ones installed on computers in work and academic environments), does it merely record the URLs of the webpages you visit, or does it record the content of those websites as well? Like for example, if you're looking up porn on Tumblr, does it only know that you've been on Tumblr or does it know specifically what you were looking for on that site? And does using the "site:example.com" function of Google also give away your activities? 74.15.143.46 (talk) 23:04, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The firewalls I used to administer would record the URLS, not just of the "pages" you visit though. If you visit a page the images are fetched by a separate request, so their urls will be recorded too. it is also possible to record information over and above the url, but often search terms are in the URL. I suggest for a fuller answer you look at the manuals of the software in question, familiarise yourself with HTTP and SSL, and get in the habit of looking at the URL in you address bar as you browse to understand more of what is going on. Rich Farmbrough, 00:27, 21 December 2012 (UTC).

But the thing is, I'm not installing or running the software. I'm merely asking on the off chance that I'm having my personal web browsing activities monitored (I honestly don't know if that is indeed the case, and can't tell if it is). 74.15.143.46 (talk) 02:42, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The thing is, it should be fairly obvious software could record everything if it wanted to, so it's a pretty meaningless question. Most set-ups don't record everything simply because there's little point (recording the entire URL would usually be enough, they could always visit the URL later to check what the content was if it hasn't disappeared and when it isn't you normally just have to record the request rather then the response to get an idea of what the person is doing such as by revisiting the page) and it would take a lot of storage space if you have a large number of users and they use a fair amount of bandwidth but you can't rule it our in some arbitary set-up. And even if the software doesn't normally record everything, it may still analyse pages and record stuff that may be of concern or the IT admins could choose to record stuff if a user is of concern. If you are concerned, your best bet is to read the appropriate policies or employment contract or whatever is relevant to your situation, seek help for any areas that confuse you and then don't do anything that violates it. For your personal internet access, choose a service provider that provides sufficient guarantees to allay your concerns. Note that presuming someone else has administrative control of the computer you're using then there's nothing stopping them recording everything done on the computer including stuff which you would not expect to pass through the network, as well as either recording a decrypted copy of stuff which uses end to end encryption lime HTTPS or otherwise enabling themselves to decrypt encrypted traffic. If you also have administrative control in addition, you could try to stop this but it may itself be a violation. Nil Einne (talk)

I work in IT for a fairly large corporation. I can tell you first hand that some of the systems in place these days used for large volume content filtering are very sophisticated indeed. We use a system that doesn't just "track" what you look at, but can heuristically analyse images in websites and email in real time and automatically flags it if meets the rules for inappropriate content, (the volume of flesh tone being the most obvious, but not only, example). It then goes on to be assessed by a human, but the system does 99% of the work.Vespine (talk) 05:39, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Every color from black to brown to yellow to sallow white to white to pinkinsh white? Do you get lots of false positives like beach volleyball or lion films or teleconferencing with unusually skin-toned clothes or something? Porn is overrated. After seeing every kind of woman's body naked (about 3 months) I lost the phallomanipulative compulsion. (one of the last ones was Elaine Benes. Oh baby, you have no idea how hot she is until you've seen her (photoshopped) naked (and gotten a bit closer in age) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I used to hope I'd get somewhat closer to you in age, too. But achieved fuck all. ;)

To OP. There could be some process capturing your screen in 30-sec intervals. That would defeat end-to-end encryption and many other tricks. The server could challenge the process using some kind of question only that process would answer, sl killing the process would draw some attention, too. Or maybe it's bayesically the kind of thing Vespine mentioned. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 18:31, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

December 21

What was/is the original Linux OS?

What was/is the original Linux OS?13:02, 21 December 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.115.209.8 (talk)

Start by reading History of Linux. When first announed, Linux included a kernel, the bash shell, and gcc (a C compiler). This was the operating system: the kernel and the user-interface (i.e., a command-line interpreter). More recently, the user-interface utility now named X.org was ported; many utilities like desktop managers and commonplace software packages became bundled as "Linux distributions," and many software forks split off. There is still one canonical repository of "the" source-code, hosted at http://kernel.org - though this contains source for the Linux kernel only, and not for full distributions of GNU/Linux or alternative operating systems. Nimur (talk) 17:22, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

If I understand the question correctly, the OP is interested in which the original linux distribution (i.e. packaged bundle of linux kernel and tools) was. Have a look at Linux_distribution, and especially at the nice timeline plot in that article. The answer to the question is probably that (apart from a few short lived efforts) Slackware is the oldest distribution which is still around. The other major distributions such as RedHat, Debian and derivatives are independent of Slackware though, so it is doubtful you can call Slackware the 'original' distribution. 81.156.176.219 (talk) 22:15, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I will be sincere here. Linux is a kernel not an os. But I saw some people on some places saying something like the kernel being an os or something like that. So I decided to post that here to see what answers I would get.177.98.122.31 (talk) 10:19, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

As you read more about operating systems, you will learn that the term is not very clearly defined, especially around the edges of its use-cases. For very simple systems, like the very earliest incarnations of Linux, there was no significant distinction between "the kernel" and "the system." This was especially true for the earliest Linux, because its scheduler was deeply architected to take advantage of the Intel 386 system. So, the kernel and its platform-driver were the same pieces of code. And, in the very beginning (during development), the kernel booted and did nothing; perhaps it ran Linus's test hello world program. Eventually, it booted and ran the bash shell. That was the operating system. Now, in modern use, we distinguish kernels from system-software as a whole; because (especially in the last few years), the code has become clean and standard enough so that you can easily separate these entities. You can replace Linux Kernel with GNU Hurd, and the "operating system" appears identical - not just the user interface, but even things OS programmers think about, like your USB keyboard driver, and your X.org server. So, on modern GNU/Linux distributions, we can "cleanly" say that the kernel and the OS are "separate parts." That clean separation is not always true for other systems, even some Linux systems. Nimur (talk) 18:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Hash that allows for similarity comparison

Disclaimer: This is not for security. It is not for true hashing. It is for a very specific task that has absolutely nothing to do with common hashing tasks.

Is there a one-way function (like a hash) that allows for similarity comparison? Example, I want to hash names. I hash John Lennon and John W. Lennon. I want the result to allow me to identify that those two things are much more similar than a hash of Paul McCartney. So, this function requires two things. 1: It is one-way. I don't want to know the original information. 2: It retains similarity. 128.23.113.249 (talk) 13:24, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you might need to be a bit more specific about your requirements. What kind of data are you hashing (presumably not names of musicians), and what does "similarity" mean in this context? Do you actually require the hash to be one-way, or is it just that it can be one-way? How much smaller do you want the hash to be than the original data? If you actually are interested in names, then are you aware of soundex and similar algorithms to group words with similar pronounciations together? 130.88.99.231 (talk) 16:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

The data will be names. But, the names cannot be known. Therefore, there must be a one-way hash-like function. So, assume the function spits out 8 digit numbers. I give you 12345678 and 12245678 and you can see that the original names, which you don't know, are about 90% similar. The end goal is to identify similarity of names without having an easy means of knowing the original names. 128.23.113.249 (talk) 18:27, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

If similar inputs give similar outputs, and if (as you apparently do), you also want to be able to reliably conclude the reverse (given similar hashes, you want to know that the names are similar), then it's hard to see how you can prevent someone from inverting the function, by just searching. What you're looking for seems (almost?) provably nonexistent. --Trovatore (talk) 18:37, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps Soundex would work for your purposes? —Chowbok ☠ 20:20, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

I suppose I could be a little more explicit about what I mean by "just searching". Suppose I have one of your hashes, and I want to know the input that generated it. I start generating inputs and evaluating the distance between their hashes and the given hash. I change a little bit and see if it improves or degrades the cost function (that's the distance between the hash of my chosen input, and the target hash). Now if I always accept a change that improves that, and always reject one that degrades it, that's called greedy descent, and it might not work because I could get stuck in a local minimum.

But there are lots of strategies to avoid this fate. A simple one is simulated annealing.

This might not work all the time, but it's probably going to work a significant fraction of the time, and it's hard to see how any scheme fitting your requirements can be made resistant to it.

On the other hand, since you say you don't care about "security", maybe you're not interested in preventing someone from recovering the input if he's willing to work that hard; you just don't want it to be trivial. That's probably possible. I'd start with a search on "obfuscation". --Trovatore (talk) 18:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

It sounds like you want fuzzy hashing (context triggered piecewise hashes) (which we don't have an article on?). ssdeep does a version of that, although I'm sure there's something better for text. The soundex is a step in the right direction but I don't think it directly does what you want. Does anyone know if there's some better wiki articles on fuzzy hashing? I don't know the name of any algorithms that implement it, but that's what I'd start to investigate. Shadowjams (talk) 07:53, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

And, even ignoring the hashing issue, which names are most similar is still difficult to define. I'd assume the family name is most important, but this is sometimes the last name and sometimes the first name, depending on the culture. Then the given name may be next, or perhaps a nickname. Middle names are less important, but there can be any number of those. And what do we do about aliases, nom de plumes, etc. ? StuRat (talk) 08:23, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Is a hash of length 27x26 bits ok?

(OR) If it is, you zero all bits first. Then you process all pairs of letters (JO, OH, HN, LE, etc.) as follows:

-Treat A as 0, B as 1, ... , Z as 25.

-Compute N = 26 * (first letter) + (second letter). If there is only one letter (W for example in JOHN W LENNON), make that the second letter and make the first letter 26.

-Set the Nth bit of the hash.

That way, the bit pattern will resemble the letter pattern. The XOR of two hashes is the "distance."

If 27x26 is too large, take the first letter modulo 9 and the second modulo 13. Voilâ, a 9x13-bit hash at the price of some accuracy.

Close to trivial, and probably inferior to soundex, but maybe my hashing strategy is closer to the thing you had in mind. Hope that helps. - ¡Ouch! (^{hurt me} / _{more pain}) 18:05, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Is it possible to display 2 Excel 2007 spreadsheets on screen at the same time?

Resolved

I'm using Excel 2007 and have 2 spreadsheets open. Is there a way I can display both on the screen at the same time? What I would love to do is to snap one spreadsheet to the left side of my monitor and the other spreadsheet to the right side of my monitor. But Excel won't let me do this and I don't see an option to turn it off. I'm using Excel 2007 and Windows 7. I have one monitor. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:21, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Nevermind. I figured it out. You go to the View tab on the ribbon and click Arrange All. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

For older versions of Excel, you can just open the spreadsheets in different instances of Excel, then resize as required. Dbfirs 21:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

December 22

Is the data rate of a connection the same as that of the slowest device in the path?

Consider two (simplified) networking systems. In one, a high-speed device sends data over fiberoptic cabling to a device with a low upper limit of bitrate (eg, 56K). The second system is the same, but the cabling is telephone line rather than fiberoptic. Would the download speed of the recieving device be any different between the two systems, given that fiberoptic is "faster" than phone lines?

Is it like a car changing speeds at different parts of its journey (the total average speed of the car is not the same as its slowest speed)? Or is the total average speed generally the same as that of the slowest device or technology (computer, NIC, UTP, hub, switch, modem, phone line, server, etc) that the data travels over? ± Lenoxus (" *** ") 01:18, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Think of the bits of data as being like cars then and your telephone line being like a road through a small town. Just because a multi lane highway brings cars to the outskirts of town does not mean that any more cars are going to be able to go down the small road in town every hour. The time for all the data to download is normally far longer than it takes for the first item of data to arrive after being sent, even a small web page consists of tens to hundreds of thousands of bits, so the rate going through the slowest part is what is important. Dmcq (talk) 01:49, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

That's a good analogy, and it carries through to the case where the only roads are narrow over the whole distance. There are likely to be delays further back along the route, so even the last (56K) narrow road might be unused at times if it is waiting for traffic that was delayed further back. The analogy doesn't quite carry through to average speed, because it's congestion that causes the main delays further back, and it's the number of cars that get through per unit of time that matters. Your 56K is the main limiting factor, but congested telephone lines further back might mean that download is even slower than the 56K narrowest part. Good buffering (car parks, but with engines running ready to go again) at the right places can mitigate this effect. Dbfirs 09:01, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Buffering doesn't help, it actually makes things worse by hindering TCP's ability to adapt to the available bandwidth. See bufferbloat. I think the OP is simply asking whether fiber-optic cable is really faster than a phone line, and the answer is not much if at all. Optical fiber says that a typical index of refraction is 1.6, meaning the signal travels at about 5/8 of the speed of light, while speed of electricity says that it can be as much as 97% of the speed of light in unshielded copper, though I suspect it's slower than that in phone lines. Optical fiber also needs fewer repeaters, which add delay. However optical fiber is "faster" in that you can pack more bits longitudinally in it, meaning you can transfer more data in a given time, though each bit takes just as long to arrive. -- BenRG (talk) 00:07, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying. I'd assumed the OP was asking about download speed. Also, I wasn't aware of the buffers' effects on TCP. I suppose one could design a protocol where buffers helped, but if that's not what the internet uses, then it's pointless. Dbfirs 08:02, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia

1. Why accept the establishment of Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia (Meta) with it is known that the Egyptian Arabic dialect?
2. Can this version is canceled? --41.130.174.90 (talk) 10:31, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Our article about that version of Wikipedia is at Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia. It has nothing to do with this English version and it has nothing to do with this reference desk which is about computing questions. Why not ask your questions at that Wikipedia instead? In general all that is needed for starting a new Wikipedia is a demonstration that there would be sufficient support, that obviously was shown. Basically the attitude I believe you'll find anywhere on Wikipedia to your idea of stopping something that has support is that if you don't like it that's your problem and you can go and lump it. Dmcq (talk) 12:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

My laptop speakers have become crackly & tinny - how to restore the sound myself?

Hello, the left speaker doesn't put out at all, and the right one, as of 15 minutes ago, started putting out a severely ruined sound that is more tinny and crackly than true sound. I now can't make out the words 3/4 of the time.

Instead of buying external speakers, how do I get in there and actually repair the workings of the speakers so that they put out correctly again?

The computer is a Dell Inspiron 1720 and went out of warranty in September. I hope to get a killer replacement next month (preplanned for quite some time) but would like to know how to fix the speakers in order to tide me over until then. Thanks kindly. --70.179.167.78 (talk) 17:29, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

I'd suggest just using headphones until then (or external speakers, when home). Laptops are quite difficult to repair, and you're likely to damage something else in the process. Plus, you'd likely need to buy new speakers to install into the old laptop, and, unlike external speakers or headphones, those can't be reused elsewhere, so it's just throwing money away on something you will only use for a month (less than that, including delivery and installation time). There's also some possibility you just have some loose wires to deal with, but, unless you're an expert at soldering, that's not easy to repair, either. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Video calls

How do video calls work on phones. Do they work over 3g data? Im confused as many mobile networks don't class video calls as mobile data. Clover345 (talk) 17:35, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It's probably less about the specific route data takes and more about whether one can reasonably say that a wireless provider for a phone with a video camera is not assumed to provide video phone calls. Some providers are picking nits about this however (and some aren't). ¦ Reisio (talk) 06:42, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Bear in mind MMS also uses data (3G if you're using 3G) but few carriers charge for the data directly (they charge per MMS, in many countries only for sending). As I understand it, push to talk also uses data, but I believe any mobile provider offering it doesn't charge for data. Ultimately a provider can choose to set-up their data charging however they want, those offering Facebook Zero don't charge for using it, and there are or were plans to offer a similar service for wikipedia. However according to this link, [4], real video calls over 3G don't use what most people would call 'data' they use a circuit switched connection similar to real voice valls. 3G-324M seems to confirm this. If you're using something like Skype or Facetime, then this would be using data, I'm not aware any provider offers these free but perhaps they do in the US since evidentally they don't offer real video calls there. Nil Einne (talk) 07:48, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

There's little stopping people in the USA from making video calls, except that they aren't interested in doing so. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Ping hosting provider

I am deciding on a hosting provider and am considering companies that are located in another country (than most expected visitors to the website). I would like to compare ping and download time for various providers. Is there a tool to do that, and more importantly, which server/ip should I ping? bamse (talk) 17:42, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Ping time is measuring the delays in the route to the hosting server. Download speed also depends on this route, and also on congestion at the hosting server and their link to the internet. I don't know of a tool, but if you use these tests, make sure that the slowest link is not your own internet connection. I would also want to look at data on server downtime. Dbfirs 20:54, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. But which server should I ping? E.g. for OVH, should I ping just their website at www.ovh.de for instance, or rather something else, since my server might be at a different location than the server hosting their website? bamse (talk) 09:17, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, OVH have servers in several data centres in different countries, so you can't know in advance which server you will be allocated. I would have thought that it would, in general, be faster to use servers in the country of your customers, but there are so many other variables to consider, so neither location nor ping time need be a major factor in your decision. As you probably know, you can't really be sure that your hosting provider will provide all of your requirements efficiently until you have tried them for a while. I'm not an expert on this topic, so perhaps someone else can help? Dbfirs 11:23, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

What other Chrome Apps are like Session Buddy?

Just an hour ago, in the last crash-restart, my Session Buddy lost all of its sessions that it has ever saved, and I have no idea how to recover them. I had 44 tabs open, and would prefer to find them anyhow.

But for the future, in case Session Buddy goes wrong again, I'd like to run another app like Session Buddy that will hopefully have all the previous sessions if Session Buddy no longer does, or vice-versa.

So what apps are like Session Buddy that can hopefully save my sessions if Session Buddy doesn't? Thanks. --70.179.167.78 (talk) 21:11, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

how do I prevent text from being part of a link? (esp. Google Docs)

I always have to do really funky things, like click on the next line, write some text and then backspace so the text can be adjacent to the link but not actually part of it. It's so annoying! When I use "clear formatting" on the part that I don't want to be part of the link, it doesn't work at all! How do people explicitly specify that a link should stop? 72.229.155.79 (talk) 22:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

December 23

Youtube's 500 Internal Server Error

Occasionally when I go on Youtube, there's an error that's called the '500 Internal Server Error', and a pack of monkeys were sent to deal with the situation, which I'm pretty sure it's for humor. But is this actually real? WWEWizard2 (talk) 00:36, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

While packs of server maintenance monkeys are almost certainly a joke, the "500 Internal Server Error" code is one of standard HTTP status codes, which means what it sounds like - the server experienced some sort of an internal error, but no further information was provided as to what the error actually was. — daranz [ t ] 00:41, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

How secure is the https connection in Wikipedia?

How is https connection to wikipedia currently been encrypted? How can these connection be attacked to retrieve datas such as what edits have I done or what pages have I visited?--Inspector (talk) 07:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't us telling everyone reading this how the connection could be 'attacked' make it easier to do? If you are going to be paranoid, at least be logical about it... AndyTheGrump (talk) 07:20, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Information security experts generally take a dim view of trying to keep vulnerabilities under wraps by just not telling people about them. See security through obscurity. Most of the time, the most effective strategy is to assume that, if a vulnerability exists, the bad guys will find out about it, so you try to find it first by vigorous open discussion.

(By the way, Inspector, anyone can find out what edits you have done, just by visiting Special:Contributions/Inspector. No hacking required. This is public information.) --Trovatore (talk) 08:10, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

At least attacking will require some degree of working. For example, if ISP holds important imformation about decryption, then not everyone would gain access to it.--Inspector (talk) 07:28, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Or, you can say what kinds of attacking do not work for https. If there do exist any easy methods of attacking that can be post on somewhere and a number of people can do it quickly, then I guess I won't even be able to ask this question on Wikipedia.--Inspector (talk) 07:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Finding the edits you have done doesn't need any kind of attack. Rojomoke (talk) 07:57, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, yes, I really asked a silly one. And how about the things I have visited?--Inspector (talk) 07:58, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, that might or might not be possible, but breaking https doesn't seem particularly relevant. Assuming the information is stored somewhere on the Wikimedia servers, which it may or may not be, you'd have to hack the servers themselves. --Trovatore (talk) 08:12, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, unless you mean someone monitoring your traffic in real time. I suppose breaking https would help with that. --Trovatore (talk) 08:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Not that if the adversary has continous control over the wikimedia servers (e.g. via hacking) then breaking https still becomes irrelevant even for real time monitoring. Even if you want to monitor the connection in between for whatever reason rather, you don't need to break HTTPS, just use information from the wikimedia servers to decrypt to connection. The point of end to end cryption is to stop Man-in-the-middle attacks but it's not a MITM when the 'man' actually is the the same person as one end. Nil Einne (talk) 10:57, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I seemed to remember why did I ask this question. Let's say, if anyone knows I am Inspector on Wikipedia, how would he/she know who I am? I guess first he/she needed to find out my IP address. So is the URL I access on wikipedia secure in the middle of transmission?--Inspector (talk) 13:16, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

If they don't have access to the wikimedia servers, probably. The point is, if they do, then there's little point worrying about them monitoring your connection in between. If you're worrying about someone 'breaking https', you really should be more worried about someone breaking wikimedia's security. In fact if you're worried about them associating your IP with your account, then you don't even have to worry about the security of the servers, but the security of every single WP:checkuser. Although even this probably should be your main worry, your main worry should be your own personal security. Can you really guarantee that you aren't going to give away your IP (e.g. by accidentally editing while logged out) or as much info as your IP reveals even without giving away your IP? Plenty of people have unintentionally done this sort of thing. Can you at least guarantee you aren't going to give enough to make a guess of who you are and then use any insecurity on your computer to find out for sure? For that matter, depending on the resource of your attacker and how much info you give away, you should consider the risk of correlation attacks. Although to be honest this is fairly unlikely (i.e. the wrong thing to worry about) except in the case where someone needs something which will stand up in court in a developing country where potentially this would, but probably not if they illegitimately break in to your computer or wikimedia's. BTW, are you even sure you always use HTTPS (so breaking HTTPS even comes in to it)? Nil Einne (talk) 13:40, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

HTTPS seemed to be a recent development of wikipedia. Well, it is quite useful when there is much probability to encounter pages that contains informations that would be blocked be GFW.--Inspector (talk) 13:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually secure.wikimedia.org has existed for a long time. The recent change has been the implementation of HTTPS via the main servers. BTW, I'm not sure if you're getting my main point which is even in a case like China, if you're really worried you're probably worrying about the wrong thing if you're worrying about someone breaking HTTPS, there are plenty of other more likely avenues of attack. In other words, while it may be true HTTPS provides difficult to break end to end encryption when you use it, you still need to worry about either end. Don't have a false sense of security from the security of HTTPS. As I'm sure Nimur would love to point out, are you even sure you can trust your trusted certificate authorities? Nil Einne (talk) 14:05, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

(EC) One thing I wanted to add (and looking at your user page I can perhaps someone understand your concern), remember that if you don't always use HTTPS and you are worried about man in the middle attacks, remember that you don't even have to actually post. Just using preview would probably be enough. In fact using preview and then later posting under your proper identity will potentially be even more of a giveaway than just posting under an IP (depending on what you posted) if someone is really monitoring your connection. The same with my point about using HTTPS, you need to set up your system to ensure you always use HTTPS, I have heard in the past even after HTTPS was implemented on the main wikipedia servers recently that the servers were still mixing secure and insecure content. Nil Einne (talk) 13:56, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

The HTTPS connection to wikipedia is as secure as is most other HTTPS connections. There's a large body of literature dedicated to the PKI around the certificate system. Despite all its criticism, it's done relatively well. It should upgrade signature hashes (sha1 is inadequate), and should insist on 4096 keys and above but beyond idle complaints, it's worked remarkably well in practice. Responses here have veered off into other issues, which is fine because they're relevant, but the OP asks about https. Our article on that is good at demonstrating the strengths and weaknesses of that system. Shadowjams (talk) 10:47, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Why have some programming languages failed and others not?

OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

By "failed" do you mean fallen out of use ? StuRat (talk) 16:44, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, regarding the use. I wonder specifically why Java became so fashionable. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:01, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, there are some general rules for any new technology:

1) It must be sufficiently better than what's out there to justify the costs of changing over.

2) A certain "critical mass" must be reached for it to "catch on". That is, nobody wants to learn a language nobody else uses, or buy a computer that's incompatible with everything else. How to get there is an interesting problem. Apple gave discount computers to schools to get to the "critical mass", for instance.

3) Then, once it does catch on, it must be updated regularly to fix bugs and add new features. However, you don't want old JAVA code to need to be rewritten. StuRat (talk) 23:35, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Java became popular at the same time the internet did, and that was the way the world was moving. It was the technology behind interactive web pages and remains popular today even though there are many rival technologies. The huge advantage of java over the traditionally popular languages of the time (C, Basic, Pascal, etc.) was that you could maintain code in one place and access your application from anywhere, instead of having to deploy upgrades every time changes were made to binaries. So, essentially, the world is moving towards the dumb client/mainframe days, just on a global scale, and with user friendly devices able to seamlessly connect to the internet. Therefore, to the masses, java and related technologies are indistinguishable from magic. Sandman30s (talk) 08:55, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. In computing terms, that means one with corporate backing, eg. Java and Sun, JavaScript and Netscape. There will be plenty of exceptions, but it certainly helps having a company behind a language. IBE (talk) 13:33, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Can I use a different laptop power adapter?

I have travelled (a long way) home for the Christmas holidays, but unfortunately left my company-issued laptop's power adapter at the office. The laptop is a Dell Latitude E6320, and the label on the bottom says what the expected input voltage and current is expected. However, the label doesn't say what Dell model power adapter is expected and the Dell website doesn't list which adapters are compatible with the laptop. My neice also has a Dell laptop (an Inspiron) with a PA-12 65W power adapter which outputs the same voltage. Can I use her adapter to charge my company's laptop, without damaging it? Astronaut (talk) 15:19, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

If the plug fits, and the polarity is the same, and the adapter outputs at least as much current as the laptop requires, then you should be safe. -- BenRG (talk) 17:29, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, if the voltage is higher than what the laptop is designed to take, you can fry your motherboard. You can go higher with the amps, but not the volts. In this case, he says the voltage is the same, so he should be safe.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 23:14, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm reasonably sure BenRG knew that, but the OP had already said voltage was the same. Nil Einne (talk) 03:39, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You can buy a general power adapter. They come normally with isntructions and specific plugs for common models.

Check the bottom of your laptop and the adapter to see what volts, amps and polarity they require. It's almost 100% sure that another Dell adapter will fit your laptop. OsmanRF34 (talk) 21:06, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Meaning there's only a 1% chance it will explode into a ball of flame ? :-) StuRat (talk) 23:28, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the answers, but my question is about these specific models. The laptop only states the voltage and amps expected, with no indication as to the model of the power supply or the polarity that it expects. The PA-12 adapter is a very common Dell adapter that is compatible with a lot of Dell laptops, but not all of them (for example: my own personal laptop uses a different adapter). I was hoping someone might have a Dell Latitude E6xxx series laptop and would be able to check their adapter for me. I would rather avoid damaging up my company's laptop. Astronaut (talk) 09:25, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

As stated above, the only thing you apparently need to find out is the polarity of the adapter and laptop and whether the plug fits. For the former, if it's a common adapter this shouldn't be hard, for the laptop you may need to check out the spec sheet or similar (but are you sure Dell even has adapters with different polarities but the same size and type plug?). For the later, actual testing should be harmless provided you don't force it in when it isn't fitting. I'm assuming you already checked the adapter can supply enough current. The actual adapter used by a Dell Latitude E6xxx series is largely a moot point, it could for example be a lower current one in which case it will not be the same adapter but it doesn't mean you can't use the other adapter. But if you really want to find out, the simple solution is to find out what Dell says. (And it would actually probably be riskier to assume the Dell Latitutude E6300 uses the same one as the E6320 unless Dell indicates so.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:46, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

The polarity and the plug are the same, but the E6320 seems to need 90 watts (19.5 volts 4.62 amps). Using the 65 watt adaptor will probably result in an error message from the laptop, though I gather that this can be ignored and the laptop will actually charge slowly. The risk is to the adaptor which might overheat. I don't know if this helps. I don't own a Dell, but I think the adaptor you need is a PA10. Dbfirs 10:52, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

As I said above, " buy a general power adapter. They come normally with instructions and specific plugs for common models." The manufacturers know what they are doing, and these adapters normally come with enough amps (volts can be chosen). OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:24, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Standardisation of power adapters

A lateral thought from the question above...

PCs and laptops benefit from international standards for most connectors these days. Is there any hope some sort of standardisation could arise for power adapters and connectors? HiLo48 (talk) 23:45, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

There are existing standards (plural) for DC power connectors, both for coaxial and others. These are for the connectors, not for the voltage and amperage - the latter is more difficult to standardize, as various devices will require different values, and so manufacturers are better off tailoring a power supply for what the particular device will need. Connector size requirements, too, can vary depending on the size of the device itself (think laptop compared to a netbook).

Of note is the fact that there are standards for mobile phone chargers, like the Common External Power Supply. This is easier to accomplish since mobile devices generally have a smaller range of power requirements, and a lot of them are capable of charging off MicroUSB anyway. — daranz [ t ] 01:02, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

To me that's like saying that it's hard to have standards because things aren't standardised. Most connectors began their lives as some individual company's approach, and now they have become standardised across the industry. I suspect it could happen with power supplies too if suppliers actually wanted it to. HiLo48 (talk) 21:18, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

December 24

Sorting photos into folders by creation date

I have thousands of photos in several dozen arbitrary subfolders under "My Photos" on a Windows 7 PC. Is there a way to copy/move them into folders arranged by the date the photo was originally taken? I know one can view them sorted like that but I want them to actually be physically located in separate folders for each date. Roger (talk) 09:51, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Be pretty easy to script from most any Unix environment. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:33, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

OP is on Windows 7 though. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 19:17, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You don’t say! :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:01, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Windows has Windows Scripting Host with VBScript and Javascript preinstalled, and Windows PowerShell. But I've never gotten around to learning any of those. I'm willing to write you a Python script, but you'd have to install Python (and PIL or some equivalent if you want to use the EXIF date). -- BenRG (talk) 19:50, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

If we can assume each file's last modification date is good, you can do this:

1) Move them all into a single folder, and create the new folders you want.

2) Use the "Details" option when listing them all (let us know if you don't know how).

3) Pick on "Date modified" to sort by that date.

4) Select the first file in a range you want, by clicking on it.

5) Select the last file in the range you want, by holding shift down as you click on it.

6) Drag and drop the selected group to the desired folder.

7) Repeat steps 4-6 until all files have been moved.

8) Delete any extraneous folders. StuRat (talk) 20:31, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps some of the photo management software (lightroom, nikon transfer,...) could do this!? bamse (talk) 22:56, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

1920x1200 monitors -- how good is the rendering at that resolution

I was considering getting an external monitor for my laptop so I could have two screens, and I find that it is difficult anymore to find 4:3 monitors at a reasonable price, which I think is too bad — 16:9 is great for movies but not so great for writing code.

So to get 1200 vertical pixels at a decent price I seem to need to go to 1920x1200, which gets lots of hits. But then when I look a little deeper, it appears that these are natively 1920x1080 for 1080p HD (that's again 16:9).

So what happens if I get one of these monitors and try to run it at 1920x1200 resolution? Does the picture appear "stretched"? How well does text render in the vertical dimension? --Trovatore (talk) 12:20, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

Actually, now it looks like my searches for 1920x1200 were just popping up a lot of 1920x1080 results. The 1920x1200s are more expensive.

So maybe my question is, can anyone recommend a decent monitor, not outrageously expensive, with at least 1200 vertical pixels? I don't really care about horizontal within reason (meaning I don't want to turn it 90 degrees and go down to 1080 horizontal, but I would accept 1600x1200 or above). --Trovatore (talk) 12:37, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

You could try a refurbished HP LP2065 (20", 1600×1200, S-IPS or VA, matte) for around $100 on eBay. Another option is the off-brand Korean 27" 2560×1440 IPS glossy monitors that are currently going for about $300 new on eBay. However they only support dual-link DVI, which might require an active adaptor (~$100) or a docking station (price varies) to work with your laptop. Some laptops don't support 2560×1440 at all. Prices may vary wildly if you're not in the US. -- BenRG (talk) 18:19, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

I use 1920×1200 when writing code. I can have multiple windows open, with each overlapping window being 1600×1200. If you look at a monitor at a store, be sure to ask them to bring up some text on it, so you can see how well text is rendered (even if the monitor isn't connected to a computer, you can still bring up the on-screen controls on most, so long as they have power, and that text is a good test). StuRat (talk) 19:15, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

December 25

How can I synch from iTunes to my nephews' MP3 players?

I have a large iTunes library on a PC, presumably in AAC format (although some of it comes up as MA4 in Windows Media Player) from which I would like to sync a playlist to my Nephews' Irulu brand MP3 players. Can this be done from iTunes itself? Is there a program that will either let me convert a playlist or create and sync a playlist from the existing library to the MP3 players? If I have to, is there a program that will simply let me convert the library to MP3 as a whole? (Much of the library is not available to me on disc.) I have searched the archives and the internet but not found a helpful answer. I'll be happy to download a new program or follow directions in the archives if anyone can point me in the right direction. Thanks, and Merry Christmas. μηδείς (talk) 04:26, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

You’ll probably need to find your audio files, convert them to a format the player supports, and then copy them over. If the player supports one particular type of playlist, you probably could use or convert a playlist generated by iTunes, but it’d probably be easier to give all the files in the playlist series a unique filename prefix. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:56, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Multiple connections for wifi

I have a Nokia Siemens modem with wifi that's attached to my desktop. I've turned on the wireless feature by going to 192.168.1.1. Now, I can connect my laptop to the internet via the wifi if I switch on the lap's bluetooth. But, I can't surf the net simultaneously on both my PC and my lap, or on more than one laptop for that matter. How can I enable multiple access on the modem? Thanks in advance 117.194.249.228 (talk) 15:22, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Downloading Adobe Flashplayer - no success

I have attempted to download and run Adobe Flashplayer 11 from at least 7 different sites. While I appear to be able to complete the actual download, when I try to install it, I get to about the 52-53% point then get a message that it was unsuccessful and that I need to quit.

Any suggestions why this may be happening. I am running the Wiondows 7 OS (having just purchased this computer 3 months ago).

99.250.103.117 (talk) 17:58, 25 December 2012 (UTC)