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December 25

TeamViewer

I do a lot of travelling (for my freelance work), and am a musician (of sorts) doing music on my computer. Whilst on the train (or waiting for it), I connect to my main PC using my Mac and I will do whatever I have to do. When making music, however, it annoys my mother (I live with parents, looking after them) because my PC suddenly starts playing music when I am hundreds of miles away. Is there any way to turn the sound off the PC, whilst still being able to hear it on the Mac via TeamViewer? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 00:04, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

All sorts of ways:

1) Use external speakers with a volume control, and turn it all the way down.

2) Use an external speaker plug, with no speakers attached. I use this method on my laptop, as it's a lot quicker to plug and unplug a jack than bring up the volume control panel and pick the mute icon. When using the laptop late at night, this time can be the difference between waking up others or not.

3) Plug in headphones. Even at full volume, they will still be quiet unless on your head.

4) Mute the PC. Not quite as good, as some software can unmute it. StuRat (talk) 00:11, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

Un-install what ever operating system you have and install Linux. On top of that, reinstall what ever operating system you have on your / parents PC in a virtual machine. Your parents and you, can still surf the web, email and make beautiful music together. But it stops Microsoft from controlling your computer – which you own – from doing whatever Microsoft wants it to do.--Aspro (talk) 00:21, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

StuRat has the correct answer. --  Gadget850 ^talk 01:20, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't think any of StuRat's answers are really necessary. If the OP is using Windows on the computer in their shared house, you can just enable one of the other outputs and make it the default device even if there's nothing plugged in. It should still work on the OP's laptop since it's mostly irrelevant to the audio stack which TeamViewer is I presume connecting to whether anything is plugged in or not. I also have doubts that muting the parents computer will work. I suspect it will also disable audio on the OP's Team Viewer session. I suspect you will have the same solutions and problems for most other OSes.

Aspro's answer seems particularly silly since Microsoft Remote Desktop (although only available on the high end versions of Windows) has supported what the OP wants for a very long time. VNC probably the most common traditional alternative on Linux doesn't generally support audio in any form. Now Remote Desktop has a number of annoying limitations (depending also on OS), but ultimately unless you're coding your on software there's always a strong chance it does something you wouldn't want and doesn't do something you do want. It is true with any commercial software, particularly one made by a company with which also does other stuff, the limitations may relate to the company wanting to convince you to pay for something. In any case, there are of course alternatives on both Linux and Windows which support (like TeamViewer the OP is using) and don't support audio or playing the audio remotely only (I imagine tunneling X over SSH may work) so it's ultimately a matter of choosing what best meets your needs. But there's no evidence the OP is particularly interested in looking at any of these alternatives so I wouldn't have even mentioned RDP were it not for Aspro's stupid suggestion. Np>Running stuff in virtual machines may help in some cases, but I'm a bit uncertain it will help here. For starters, if you're actually playing music with a keyboard and some other stuff, you often want very low latencies which mean running something in a virtual machine in probably a bad idea. Obviously this is a moot point for the remote session but it'll be fairly annoying to have one OS for the remote sessions. Also, it's unclear to me whether this is actually a shared PC or whether it's just the OP's PC which is in their shared house, the OP never actually said anything about the parents using this PC. If only the OP uses this PC, then there's also less reason to worry about VM.

Nil Einne (talk) 03:17, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

"If" the OP has the high end versions of Windows. “Now Remote Desktop has a number of annoying limitations”. I'm suggesting to the OP that he is not compelled to jump though all the hoops that Microsoft demands. There is more than one way to skin a cat.--Aspro (talk) 16:52, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Telling the OP to uninstall Windows and install a different OS just for this issue is not useful.

Remote Desktop has nothing to do with this issue. Although it has the same purpose and many of the same features, it takes more work to access it from outside your LAN, especially with a dynamic IP.

I will do some testing in a day or so. --  Gadget850 ^talk 18:14, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Just updated all my systems to TeamViewer 10, so YMMV. This is quite simple: After logging in, set the remote system to mute. Then click off of the remote session (anywhere on the local screen) and adjust the local volume as desired. If you don't click off, then you will be adjusting both remote and local volume. I'm using a knob on my keyboard for volume but it should work using the mouse. --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

How to find an Apple Authorized Service Provider near Hastings, UK.

I have Googled but can only find actual apple stores. I prefer to go to mom and pop repair shops but still have applecare plan so need to find someone who honors that. Any help appreciated. Saudade7 01:01, 25 December 2014 (UTC)

This looks promising. You should probably phone ahead and make sure the place can service your particular machine, and accepts Applecare, of course. (I hope that's the right Hastings, I'm not very familiar with UK cities.) Horselover Frost (talk · edits) 14:01, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Hastings is a town, not a city. It's on the south coast, 50 miles SE of London. Best remembered for the Battle of Hastings, 1066. And, I kid you not, there's a small town called Battle nearby :-) Igor the facetious xmas bunny (talk) 16:01, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

December 27

Activating IPA Extensions for Windows 7

I use Windows 7 and am interested in using IPA Extensions through unicode. I understand this requires me to edit my registry, which I am loathe to do. The article is a bit too jargony for my comfort. Is there a trustworthy program I can use to activate unicode? Is there a site that would give step by step instructions on editting the registry? Or am I confused, and is this unnecessary? I am going by my experience with ASCII which allows some non-English characters and accented characters but which does not include any IPA symbols like ʃ, ð, or ŋ. Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 02:14, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

I couldn't find anything on modifying the registry to make this happen (maybe I'm misunderstanding) what exactly do you want to make your computer do when you say "activating IPA extensions". Something in here [1] may help with using IPA, please let me know if this is not what you're looking for, I'm sure there is a doable solution with minimal risks. :-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 07:02, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Yeah I'm a bit confused by what the OP is trying to achieve and what the current problem is. Windows has been Unicode native since XP or earlier and there's no need to enable it. Application support for Unicode has sometimes been a a bit hit and miss, but it should be fine in any recent decent browser by now (this includes IE, I think since IE 7 or 8). And AFAIK Windows 7 has a decent complement of default IPA supporting fonts [2]. Are many of the characters that μηδείς pasted not working for them? Or many here Phonetic symbols in Unicode (probably showing up as boxes)? If these are rendering fine, then perhaps the problem is data entry. If that's the case there are vaious methods to do that already. For example those in the above link. The wikipedia edit box also lets you enter IPA. Help:Special characters has some info, but I'm not sure if it's useful here. Help:IPA does have some recommendations on checking for possible rendering issues. That (sort of by the font comparisons), the special characters help page (in the IPA section) and Help:IPA for English (under see also) has some font suggestions if the OP isn't happy with whatever ones on their browser. Either way there should almost definitely no need to touch the registry. Nil Einne (talk) 13:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that I am ignorant enough of the issue that I am finding it hard to formulate the question. Let's say I am typing a paper in default settings in MS Word using times roman, etc., and I want to use the ð character. I know how to type the ñ character using ASCII. ALT+XXX whatever the code is, since I don't have the numbers for XXX in front of me. I understand that ð will require a four digit hexadecimal code, and am familiar with hexadecimal from the RBG color format. But how would I actually enter the code for it, what keystrokes? If I can do that, then all is well. But for some reason what I have read has implied to me that the registry in windows 7 has to be editted to allow such entries. That latter part may be totally wrong, based on my ignorance and misunderstanding. So, if we go step by step and assume my windows seven laptop is already compatible, what would be the keystrokes to enter the symbol ð, (U+00F0) when simply typing in a blank word document? Thanks for your patience. μηδείς (talk) 00:38, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Apparently, windows will type something when you use the alt+, but it need not follow the unicode hex values. I would suggest using one of the programs I linked too - then you don't have to memorize hex numbers. However, to get it so that if you type in Alt+<number in hex form> (you'll need to hold both alt and +) to give the symbol, you may need to add a value to the reg. I'll email you a reg script and instructions to use it, then you don't have to do it manually. (you will need to logout, then back in, for this to take effect - or you can restart the computer).Phoenixia1177 (talk) 04:55, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

If you want to use Alt codes with Unicode hex values, you do need to edit the registry. Here's a page that shows the steps: Typing Arbitrary Unicode Characters in Windows.

To find the Unicode hex value you need, go to Character Map, click on the character, then look at the bottom status bar. I happened to know ð is called eth, so I used the Advanced View search box to find eth. ð is U+00F0.

Once you know the Unicode hex value you want, careful reading of Wikipedia's Alt code article suggests you would enter it like this:

• Make sure Num Lock is on.
• Hold down the Alt key.

• On the number pad press +.
• Press F.
• On the number pad press 0.

• Release the Alt key.

--Bavi H (talk) 08:12, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

You do not need edit the registry or anything. You do not need remember any codes. Entering the IPA symbols as simple as that (for Windows):

1. Download this installation.
2. Run and wait until it installs.
3. Add the new layout. Use as any other layout.
4. If you do not remember or do not want to remember where each character is, use the On-Screen Keyboard.

I've been using this layout already for 10 years.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 10:05, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all the answers so far and email. I have guests arriving in a few hours and will be busy, so just stopping by to say thanks before I get the time to try the various suggestions. μηδείς (talk) 20:22, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

TIFF source code capable of reading and writing 16-bit color images

I'm looking for source code (C or C++ preferably), capable of reading and writing TIFF 16-bit color images. I'm aware of Libtiff. However, this library appears to handle only 8-bit color images [3]. Any suggestions? Thanks, --NorwegianBlue ^talk 11:38, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

According to [4] the library should support 16 bit - however, the user manual says that it does not, yet that it does for 24/32 bit. I've never used it, so I'm not sure if there is a typo somewhere - but it might be worth a look.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 11:56, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

For clarity, I'm fairly sure when the OP refers to 8 bit and 16 bit images, these are referring to the bit depth per channel. For a RGB images 8 bits per channel (well most colour formats without transparency) these will be 24 bit per pixel. For RGBa (i.e. with the alpha channel/transparency) these will be 32 bit per pixel. These are almost definitely the 24/32 bit referred to since 24 or 32 bit per channel image formats are almost unheard of, if they exist. 16 bit per channel images will be 48 or 64 bit per pixel. So there isn't any contradiction with the user manual saying it supports 24/32 bit per pixel but not 16 bit per channel. There may be a contradiction with the site saying it supports 16 but although I don't see it saying that. I only see mention of support for 16 and 48 bit for the PNM plugin which I guesss supports the Netpbm format and a few other formats like PNG as well as generally better support for such formats, but no specific mention of support for 16/48/64 for TIFF. Is it at some other part of the site? Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

From under 3.7.0 "The main additions concern the support for HDR and 48-bit TIFF/PNG images" - which is why I assumed they were talking bit depth in the user manual - there is no 48 listed there, thus, it didn't make sense to me to say they support it, but not even mention it (and, personally, if they're putting down things they don't support, 16 bit depth isn't unreasonable, it seems odds not to include it). --just justifying why I made the assumptions I did.Phoenixia1177 (talk) 13:19, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Whoops sorry, I missed that one. Would seem to suggest there may be support. May be checking the libtiff source and comments will help clarify what the status is. Nil Einne (talk) 17:09, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Phoenixia and Nil! Yes, I was referring to the bit depth per channel. Encouraged by your replies, I downloaded LibTIFF 3.9.7, which with some minor adjustments compiled in Visual Studio Express 2013. I built some of the tools, and did some testing. It turns out that it does support reading 16-bit-per-channel (=48-bit) color images. I haven't checked whether it will read 64-bit RGB+alpha images. With the tool tiffcrop (which does a lot more than cropping), I was able to turn an original upside-down, and concatenate the original and the upside-down image. However, the tiff2bw tool, which generates a black-and-white image from a color TIFF image, failed with an error message about only supporting 8-bit images when given a 16-bit-per channel image, but worked nicely whith a 16-bit image an 8-bit image. So there is support for reading and writing 16-bit-per-channel images. How much support there is for manipulating 16-bit-per-channel images, remains to be seen, when I delve into the difficult part: figuring out the API. Thanks again! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:41, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

It works. I was able to read a 16-bit image scanline by scanline, manipulate it (switched red and green channel, just to prove the point), and write the result as a new 16-bit image. I cut and pasted from the code of the tiff2bw tool, which did not contain too much clutter, and modified as necessary. Googling the function names that were used (or "man <functionname>"), was the easiest way of getting information on how the API worked. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 13:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

One thing you might want to check - some tools that claim to support more than 8 bits per channel are actually reading the wider data but storing it as 8 bits internally. This can fool you into thinking that it's working when it's really just throwing away the low order bits. SteveBaker (talk) 16:09, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, Steve. I'll double-check, though in this case I'm fairly certain the whole bit-depth is actually used. I get a 6-byte per pixel buffer in, and write a six-byte per pixel out. But I'll check histograms, to verify there are no gaps. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 22:42, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

December 28

Cutting North Korea off the Internet permanently

I thought the US controlled the Internet at the top level.

1) Is this still true ?

2) If ordinary North Koreans have no access to the Internet, and it's solely used by hackers to damage Sony, etc., there would seem to be justification to cut NK off permanently.

3) I can see how this might cause worry in other nations, that the US might cut them off, too, so perhaps some kind of international body should decide the issue. Is there any such body with jurisdiction over the Internet ?

4) Can NK bypass any restrictions and go through China ? StuRat (talk) 21:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

No one controls the internet. Server Administrators can block ip addresses originating in North Korea (and any server that has not blocked north korea) and this must be done on a case by case basis. However, there is a chokepoint between the majority of the internet and north korea, all of the north korea traffic passes through China, perhaps one single server. Never the less, your claim that North Korea solely uses the internet for malicious hacking is unsupported. Secondly, it is important to understand that the internet can only be controlled if it becomes centralized like a star network, a healthy internet is decentralized like a fully connected mesh so that if one hub fails, information can be rerouted until the failure is replaced.Fractal618 (talk) 17:03, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA or ARPA) developed the ARPANET that was a predecessor to the existing Internet, but the Internet is now international. The United States has less control over the Internet today than Jimbo Wales has over Wikipedia. What little central control there is over the Internet has to do with the allocation of addresses, technical standards, and a few other matters. As Fractal618 notes, the Internet is multiply connected. What little control there is over North Korea's connectivity is in China, not through the US. There isn't really any international body that can deal centrally with rogue-state use of the Internet. At the same time, while there is very little access to the Internet by "ordinary" North Koreans, some wealthy North Koreans have access to the Internet, not for hacking. Also, if there is any US plan for dealing with potential North Korean abuse of the Internet, it should be and probably is classified, possibly also involving malware. (See Stuxnet to illustrate that this is not merely hypothetical.) Robert McClenon (talk) 05:27, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

But, as you said, there are choke points. It seems a plan should at least be in place to cut off NK, should they decide to go all out and just do as much damage as they possibly can. StuRat (talk) 18:08, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

If there is a 'choke point', it is going to be between NK and China, and accordingly the Chinese would need to cooperate. And if they were motivated to do that, they would have more effective ways of putting pressure on NK anyway. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:13, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I would think they would be obligated to prevent ongoing criminal activity, if they could stop it, under international treaties. StuRat (talk) 18:16, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know of any such treaties. A lot of countries condone things that are considered "ongoing criminal activity" in other countries, so the situation is not simply black-and-white. Also, NK could easily and quite cheaply buy alternative connections onto the net. You don't need a huge bandwidth to control such attacks - if you need massive compute power or bandwidth downstream, you can easily rent servers anywhere, or even buy compromised botnets. Per John Gilmore, "The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." That is part of the beauty of the internet. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:02, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

There are many sanctions in place against NK, and I would expect some of those to exclude providing them with computer services or technology. As for routing around problem areas, you are assuming a nation with a strong network, while I would expect NK's to be the bare minimum. StuRat (talk) 19:11, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

I don't know how authoritative SanctionWiki is, but a quick grep does not find the terms "computer" or "internet" mentioned. Anyways, while such a block would inconvenience business, it would do essentially nothing to prevent against cyberattacks. You don't need a strong network to route around cut-off points for a simple control connection, as you only need bandwidth for basic command line access. You can use any communication channel to bring large malware payloads to any place on the planet - in a pinch, you can mail a USB stick, or send it by Avian Carrier. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:21, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

That would require having a NK agent at the other end, making the operation a lot riskier. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It's academic. Suppose you successfully cut them off from the Internet. All they need is a cellphone and someplace close enough to the border with South Korea to pick up a cell tower and they're back online...OK, so you cut off cellular services and every WiFi node within 30 miles of the border. They don't need much bandwidth to hack - so they'd just get 56000 baud modems and landline phones. So you'd have to cut off all communications. Then they just buy an innocuous-looking office in some other flea-bitten country that doesn't give a damn and set their hackers up there. It's actually better if they hack from inside their own country because it's easier to monitor what they are doing and verify who is really responsible. If the hacks came from a low-rent office in Syria, Libia, Namibia, etc it would take much more effort to figure out who was truly responsible. SteveBaker (talk) 19:01, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Cannot backup bcdedit in Windows 7

Hi there. I have to remove one entry in the start menu in my Windows 7. That second OS has been wiped out while I tried to install the newest version of Ubuntu and it is the first one on the menu, so every time I boot my computer I need to wait until what I think some people call GRUB (although I am not sure) and use the downward arrow and the Return button to start my Windows 7, otherwise it will default to the first, now non-existing choice.

I use this website to guide me. It highly recommends to create a backup first and I am trying.

I use this command: bcdedit /export "<fileName>" Pretty much as the website recommends.

I get an error:

The store export operation has failed. Insufficient system resources exist to complete the requested service.

I don't know what kind of resources the error message refers to, but if this is memory, I have 16 GB of RAM and 111 GB of empty disk space on C:\. What else?

Googling shows that it a known bug. Various posts show that it is not easy to find a solution. Any suggestions? Thanks, ---AboutFace 22 (talk) 22:39, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

How much free space is on the partition where the BCD file is stored (the hidden System Reserved partition/recovery partition in a normal install, or may be the EFI System Partition in some EFI cases or probably something weird in esoteric installs like those that came with laptops)? Nil Einne (talk) 18:28, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

December 29

How to uninstall Cydia Jailbreak

I need help. I bought a iPhone 6 from Apple which is a Tmobile unlocked phone. My ex boyfriend (who was not my ex at that time) jailed broken my iPhone with Cydia and Pangu. He is a phone technician. Unfortunately I broke up with him and now he is not in talking terms with me.

I have no idea how to uninstall the Cydia Jailbreak as I did not install it.

I am thinking about performing a backup using my iTunes in my macbook and then install an (new) IOS 8.1.2 upgrade on the iPhone but I have no idea if that would even work so I did not try that yet. Please help and advice me. 166.154.94.86 (talk) 17:31, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

It may not be necessary to uninstall it. What problems does it cause ? StuRat (talk) 18:03, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

The problem it is causing is that Apple Store told me that they will not support my phone and will not answer any questions about how to use my phone. I literally have no support at all. 166.154.94.86 (talk) 18:07, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

As far as questions, you can probably find online manuals and discussion forums to help with that. You could also ask here. And note that putting the phone back the way it was may not mean they will then support you, if they have a record of it having been previously hacked. StuRat (talk) 18:10, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

If you have iTunes, you can connect your phone to the computer, open iTunes, select the device, go to the summary page, and click "restore iPhone". This should reinstall a clean image and restore all default settings. Unfortunately (?), it will also wipe all your data off the phone. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 20:45, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia dropping my edits ?

I had a couple edits of mine just disappear entirely, from the history of the page as well as my contribution history, as if they were redacted. These edits were in no way controversial, so that should not have happened. The edit sessions seem to complete with no error message, but when I look at the page, no change has occurred. I even caught one soon enough after that I could hit the back button on my browser (Chrome, on Windows 7) to go back to the edit session, and to my surprise the edit was gone there, too !

So, is there something wrong with my PC ? Has anyone else had this problem ? I've made many other edits before and since with no problems. StuRat (talk) 22:22, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear @StuRat: Odd problem. Eran Galperin writes: "Bugs that are hard to reproduce are the hardest one to solve."[5] You should install Lazarus Form Recovery or a similar tool for now. It is freeware. It will save an extra copy of all your future edits for a couple of weeks or so after you make them. I've used Lazarus inside Chrome, and it works very well. If you do install it, I advise you to set a Lazarus master password, for security reasons. But why have your edits disappeared? I have no idea. Do you remember whether or not you were told "Your edit was saved" after you saved them? And are you sure you clicked "Save page" instead of "Preview"? I forget where I read this, but based on what I read in a very old book about computers, perhaps your best bet is to install Lazarus and then to abandon trying to find the cause of the problem. Please let us know whether or not you've installed Lazarus, and whether or not it is working for you. Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 06:15, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I used to have this problem fairly regularly, but, in my case, the cause was a dodgy internet connection. Sometimes I could go back and resubmit the edit and sometimes I couldn't. When the problem was at its worst, I used to copy all my edits to the clipboard (or even to a text editor) before submitting so that I didn't have to repeat them. I wish I'd known about Unforgettableid's suggestion. I assume that your internet connection doesn't have any glitches. Dbfirs 08:16, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any, but that doesn't mean they don't happen. The way it seems to have erased all memory of the edit, even what should be local to my PC, seems quite odd, though. StuRat (talk) 18:32, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear StuRat: Unfortunately, the back button is not always reliable. Did you install a form saver browser addon? (I think everybody should install one.) If so, how do you like the addon? —Unforgettableid (talk) 20:19, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

No. I'm concerned about security, specifically it logging my passwords, etc. StuRat (talk) 20:26, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

December 30

Two questions related to Vagrant

I'm using the 64-bit edition of Windows 8. I'm considering installing Vagrant. Please answer each question in its own subsection. Thank you, —Unforgettableid (talk) 05:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Installing Vagrant into a directory with spaces in its name

The installer asked me where it should install itself, and suggested "C:\HashiCorp\Vagrant". I don't know why it didn't suggest installing itself into either "C:\Program Files\Vagrant" or "C:\Program Files (x86)\Vagrant". Is there any disadvantage to installing Vagrant into a directory with spaces in its name? Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 05:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Vagrant versus VirtualBox

Really, I just want to install and use Ubuntu or Debian on this PC. Cygwin isn't ideal: operations such as "tar xzf" tend to be kind of slow inside Cygwin. I don't want to dual-boot: it's a shared PC, I don't want to force anyone else onto Linux, and I want Windows fast user switching to always be available. I'm familiar with VirtualBox; I've never actually used Vagrant. Plus, the VirtualBox Windows installer is 100% open-source; the same cannot be said of the Vagrant Windows installer. What would I lose if I simply installed plain old VirtualBox and downloaded a prebuilt virtual machine image from the Ubuntu website? Regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 05:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Credit Card Processing

Say I have a simple application to acts a cash register, on a desktop computer, and can receive credit cards via a usb swiper, how would I go about actually processing the cards, charging them, etc.? More clearly: what would I need to do this in the situation described, what services might I need to use, what info would I need (merchant accounts, etc.), and how would I get started doing this programmatically? I realize that's a lot, but I'm not looking for a full answer, just a few leads that can get me started - when I've looked this up, I'm not 100% sure what all I need to be looking for, so any direction would be helpful. Thank you:-)Phoenixia1177 (talk) 06:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Merchant account has quite a bit of information. Or Google search for something like "small business credit card processing".--Shantavira|^{feed me} 08:36, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Phoenixia1177 BTW, it is very rare these days to run that kind of application from a desktop computer. I would recommend using a hosting service such as Godaddy or Google sites. Google was free last time I used it and Godaddy is free or very cheap. Those are just two there are many others and most of them already have various built in widgets for doing basic things like processing credit card info. Here are some links I found: http://basicblogtips.com/credit-card-processing-alternatives.html https://developers.google.com/wallet/instant-buy/ http://credit-card-processing-review.toptenreviews.com/google-checkouts-credit-card-processing.html --MadScientistX11 (talk) 18:50, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Dear Phoenixia1177:

Ah, card acceptance! A confusing jungle of options.

I don't live in the US, so it's hard for me to advise you. Here's the best advice I can give anyway.

Your user page says you live in the state of Pennsylvania in the US and you manage a hotel. So you definitely want to accept Visa and MasterCard. Maybe also American Express, though I hear they charge higher "interchange fees" to merchants which accept their cards than Visa and MasterCard do. (Are there other types of credit cards which are issued overseas but not issued in the US? I dunno. Visa and MasterCard are pretty common in a variety of English-speaking countries.)

As for debit cards: It's good (but not crucial) for you to be able to connect to one of the classical debit interbank networks, such as Pulse, NYCE, MAC, Tyme, SHAZAM, or STAR. (You may only need to connect to one debit network, since many of them are interconnected with each other.) They charge lower fees than Visa Debit and MasterCard Debit do. See Debit card#United States.

So, what are your options? As I see it, you have three options.

• One option is an Android or iPhone card-acceptance app, plus (optionally) a mobile swiper doodad. It's easy to sign up. These tend to have zero monthly fee and high fees per swipe (about 3%). You can buy a swiper for $10. Since the monthly fees are so low, customer service may not be very good. If you run into problems with funds being held, it might be hard to get them released faster. These apps may not connect to the debit interbank networks at all.
• Another option is something PC-based like PayPal Virtual Terminal. You pay a monthly fee and get better customer service.
• A third option, and I think the most common choice of hotel owners, is to buy or rent a card-processing machine and to get a traditional merchant account. Highest monthly fees and lowest per-swipe fees. Signing up can be a big hassle. (They want to make sure that your hotel is in good financial shape, since they're in big trouble if you go bankrupt.) Many traditional merchant accounts are connected to one of the classical debit networks. Amad Ebrahimi of the Merchant Maverick website advises, "Negotiate yourself a good interchange-plus rate with a processor that doesn’t charge an early termination fee". I advise you to consider buying a card-processing machine upfront instead of paying higher monthly fees in order to get a "free" one. Nothing is ever truly free. :)

Regarding surcharging: Ever since the Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation was settled, it's been permissible for merchants in many states to charge customers a surcharge to help cover credit-card processing fees. I'm not sure whether or not this is allowed in Pennsylvania. I'm also not sure whether or not your guests will be annoyed or not.

How big is your hotel? How long has it been in business? Has it ever accepted credit cards before? How much money do you expect to be charging to credit cards per month?

Kind regards, —Unforgettableid (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Only one browser will connect to the Internet

For some reason, I can go anywhere I want on the Internet with Google Chrome but not Firefox or Safari. I'm using a MacBook with the latest version of Yosemite. I just downloaded the newest version of Firefox and Safari should be up to date as well. Both FF and Safari just eventually time out. These were both working fine a couple days ago when I last used them. I haven't changed anything about my system since then. Any ideas what could be causing this? Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 17:05, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Update: I'm unable to connect to the Apple App Store as well. Dismas|^(talk) 17:07, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

You have probably done all these things already but just in case here is my list of steps that will fix a surprising number of browser based problems: Clear the cache in the browser, restart the browser, restart the router, and if none of that works restart the computer. Also, I get excellent answers from the free Apple online support community: https://discussions.apple.com/welcome You might try posting the problem there. --MadScientistX11 (talk) 17:57, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Well, now I feel stupid. I'd done everything you suggested except restart the computer. I don't normally do that at all but I guess it finally needed it. Thanks, Dismas|^(talk) 19:45, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Facebook Question

How do I stop my Facebook from being accessible to people I have unfriended, or am not friends with? There's an ex-girlfriend who keeps accessing my page, and thinking some of my posts are about her, then keeps sending me ridiculous messages. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 18:54, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

At the top right of the newsfeed, there is a lock symbol with three lines coming out of it. Click that. It will provide a menu with the various privacy settings. The first one is "Who can see my stuff?". You might want to change this to just your friends. If it's already chosen that way, you might want to ask yourself if maybe one of your friends is letting this ex see what you're posting. Dismas|^(talk) 19:49, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Change your password on Facebook as well, in case she has it.-gadfium 20:53, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion to install Chrome

Prior to installing Chrome, when I went to google.co.uk in IE, I would get a notice encouraging me to install Chrome. When I dismissed this notice, it went away, until such time as I deleted IE cookies, at which point it would return. So far so good, but now that I have installed Chrome, I no longer get this notice when visiting google.co.uk in IE, even after deleting all cookies. (I know that the Google cookie(s) have been successfully deleted because various other notices reappear when I open google.co.uk, as expected). This puzzles me. How can the Google website, when opened from IE, detect that I have Chrome installed? 109.157.10.129 (talk) 20:31, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Browsers transmit depressing amounts of information. Go to EFF's Panopticlick website to get an idea. The browser does, e.g., advertise all the fonts installed on your system. Maybe Chrome installs a special font for some UI elements? Or it installs an IE plugin? Or maybe Google caches your IE fingerprint or IP address? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:34, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, I think it cannot rely on IP addresses because for many users these are non-permanent and/or shared amongst devices. Personally, I doubt it is based on font detection because fonts can be installed and uninstalled independently. I have no Google add-ons or toolbars in IE. May I ask what you mean by "IE fingerprint"? 109.157.10.129 (talk) 00:46, 31 December 2014 (UTC)

December 31

Blender

Is the v2.6 user's manual still the latest and greatest, even though the product is past that? 75.75.42.89 (talk) 00:53, 31 December 2014 (UTC)