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December 16

Representation of numbers in binary

I would like to know why we can't represent binary numbers in power of two?

For example 5381 can be represented as 5 × 10^3 + 3 × 10^2 + 8 × 10^1 + 1 × 10^0 = 5381 while 1101 can't be represented as power of two's. We can't write 1101 as 1 × 2^3 + 1 × 2^2 + 0 × 2^1 + 1 × 2^0 even though this gives the decimal equivalent of 1101 i.e 13. Is there any way to represent 1101 in power of two's but after adding the terms in the represented form we should again get 1101?JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 09:08, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That is because you are adding in decimal instead of binary. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:12, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Um, 1101 in binary is equivalent to 1 × 2^3 + 1 × 2^2 + 0 × 2^1 + 1 × 2^0. Why did you think it wasn't representable that way? --76.69.45.64 (talk) 09:57, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

1101 in base 10 (i.e. 10^3 + 10^2 + 10^0) is 10001001101 (=2^10 + 2^6 + 2^3 + 2^2 + 2^0) in binary - does that help? AndrewWTaylor (talk) 12:09, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Is your concern that writing

1101₂ = 1 × 2³ + 1 × 2² + 0 × 2¹ + 1 × 2⁰

uses the digits 2 and 3 which not binary? That is because the right hand side is in base ten notation, not binary. If you want it all in binary, you can write

1101₂ = 1₂ × 10₂^11₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^10₂ + 0₂ × 10₂^1₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^0₂

-- ToE 12:45, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On second reading I'm still not sure of the questioner's concern, but I now suspect that AndrewWTaylor answer that 1101₁₀ = 10001001101₂ is more likely to address it. -- ToE 13:48, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not quite sure what Justin's concerned about, either, but another thing that's important to remember is that when we talk about "base 10" and "base 2" and the like, we're only talking about numeric representations of numbers; we're not changing the underlying number. If I ask you to count the number of x's here:

xxxxxxxxxx

you will say "ten", and if I ask you whether your answer was in base 10 or base 2, you'll look at me funny and say "Huh?", because changing the base does not change the number of x's on the line, it's still ten.

But it's easy to get confused, because when we see "10" we automatically pronounce it "ten", not "one zero". Strictly speaking, "ten" is "10₁₀", and we ought to pronounce "10₂" as "one zero base two", not "ten base two". (Or maybe I'm splitting hairs. But remember, "There are 10 kinds of people in the world, people who understand binary numbers and people who don't.") —Steve Summit (talk) 15:04, 16 December 2015 (UTC) [edited 15:46, 16 December 2015 (UTC)][reply]

I am tired of this joke about 10 kinds of people. Don't remember how many times I heard it. Although the first time I heard it in CS 101, my fifth course, I found it funny. --Denidi (talk) 18:33, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of old jokes: you learned about binary in CS 101? --76.69.45.64 (talk) 03:43, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry Dendi. Anyway, the joke is incorrect. There are really 10 kinds of people, those who understand ternary, those who heard the joke about binary and are now hopelessly confused and those who don't understand what the heck we're talking about. SteveBaker (talk) 04:04, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Enough with the stupid old nerd jokes. Happy upcoming OCT 31, everybody. —Steve Summit (talk) 04:31, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I once took a Unix sysadmin class whose teacher was missing two fingers. When we got to chmod, I thought of Tom Lehrer. —Tamfang (talk) 05:10, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Eventhough 1101₂ = 1₂ × 10₂^11₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^10₂ + 0₂ × 10₂^1₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^0₂ is the correct way to represent the number in binary it doesn't gives us the value 1101 rather it gives the value 13 which is the decimal equivalent of 1101.I think it may not be possible to produce such a representation eventhough in decimal it's possible.This might be a weakness of binary but not sure about it.JUSTIN JOHNS (talk) 06:46, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The thing is, the value 1101 in binary is exactly the same as the value 13 in decimal. It's sort of like if I asked you how far it is to the end of the road - 300 feet, 100 yards, 91.44 metres, and 9.66E-15 light years are all the same answer, just in different units. 1101₂ and 13₁₀ are the same number, just in a different base. MChesterMC (talk) 09:40, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhere I have a marvelous old HP "programmer's calculator" that does decimal, binary, octal, and hex. If I put it in binary mode and ran the calculation 1₂ × 10₂^11₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^10₂ + 0₂ × 10₂^1₂ + 1₂ × 10₂^0₂ (rearranged into RPN, natch), the display would show 1101. —Steve Summit (talk) 11:15, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I may never forget the time a coworker punched a hex number into such a device, converted it to decimal and then asked me whether or not the result ≥ 2^15. —Tamfang (talk) 01:55, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think User:scs's comment is correct about this. Numbers aren't in any base, they just are numbers. But in order to write them, we need representations of numbers, and those representations are in bases. The number of fingers on a person's hands can be written as 10₁₀ or 1010₂, but the actual number is still the same. JIP | Talk 18:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Google Chrome on iOS

Hi, my Chrome app is acting weird. Specifically, when I look at these ref desk pages, they all come up with the last posts on December 12. They used to work fine, and all other pages seem to work fine. I've tried clearing my cache (and cookies, history, etc) in Chrome and also forcing WP to purge its cache, but neither helps. Any ideas? Thanks, SemanticMantis (talk) 15:11, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Could an anti-virus and similar malware tools lead to less security?

In the same way that a seatbelt, air-bag or insurance could make people possibly drive less carefully, could an anti-virus make people be less careful with what they are doing? Risk compensation examples are rarely about computer security, but why wouldn't the phenomenon arise in this field? --Denidi (talk) 16:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, conceivably - as you ask, why not? Risk compensation seems to be pretty basic to how humans work. I can't find anything as explicitly empirical and data-driven as e.g. the Munich taxi data, but here's a journal article in Computers and Security that talks a bit about risk compensation in context of computer security [1]. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:35, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

When I am using someone's Windows PC I am super careful not to visit dodgy sites or to download and run anything. When I am at home running Slackware on a system that I can easily restore to last night's backup, I am less careful. When I am running Tails, or Tiny Core, both of which which lose all changes when I reboot (and I have not entered and will not enter any personal info or passwords during that session), I freely download and run anything that seems interesting. You could say that this means that my using Tails "leads to less security", but the simple fact is that when running Tails no malware can harm me, and I behave appropriately. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:07, 16 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to drown you in a load of scholarly articles, but you can easily go to scholar.google.com and search for "mac users are less secure" and find more than you want to know about. To summarize, a quote from my brother, "I don't have to worry about viruses or hackers because I only use a Mac and an iPhone." 47.49.128.58 (talk) 15:25, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As we discussed in February and March of this year - exactly what type of threat are you trying to secure your system against?

If your threat model is unrealistic, or incomplete, your security response will be equally unrealistic or incomplete.

I really find the thought-experiment about "hacking a vending machine" to be very instructive. If you fixate on cyber-security to the exclusion of physical security, you're probably overlooking the most obvious and important set of threats.

Nimur (talk) 17:14, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most computer users are taught that it is somehow their job to decide whether attachments and other links are safe to click on or not. If, instead, computers were programmed to simply categorize media into "safe" (words or images to display) versus "unsafe" (programs or other active content to execute), and only implement one-click openability on the former, users could click on links with abandon, but they'd actually be more safe, not less. (In other words, while it's certainly true that the provision of a safety system can cause people to worry less about security, this is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it's arguably the whole point of safety systems. It is therefore not necessarily a reason to not deploy safety systems!) (But yes, returning to my earlier point, and before 1,267 people jump down my throat to lecture me, I do realize that some media, such as Flash and even Microsoft Word documentation, is not always so easy to discriminate across my "safe" versus "unsafe" dichotomy.) —Steve Summit (talk) 18:19, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I'm going to jump down your throat for this. The difference between good guys and bad guys is not mathematically formalizable, so computers can't check for it. The distinction between "executable" and "nonexecutable" data is irrelevant. In-browser Javascript is Turing-complete but sandboxed, so theoretically as safe as "nonexecutable" text and images. In practice both are unsafe because of bugs in the implementations. Javascript may be more unsafe because of greater complexity, but there's no clear line. And phishing in its most basic form requires no exploitable bugs or executable code.

OSes could do much more than they do to protect people. Every program I run should not have read access to all of my personal files, much less write access. But some should, and I have to decide which ones. We know from smartphones and general UI experience that if you ask for permission to break a security barrier, many people will click "allow" without even reading the message. Those people need to be less stupid. -- BenRG (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not going to get into a long argument here, but we know from general experience that people are this stupid. If you believe that additional restrictions can't/shouldn't be built into computer systems, if you believe that the only solution is to keep trying to educate the poor users not to do "stupid" things, then the computer security problem is going to continue to get worse and worse -- and it's already unimaginably bad. (I'm not saying that you, Ben, believe these things, but plenty of people seem to.) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:02, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

For me, the most astonishing misunderstanding is the completely incorrect assertion that malware must have user-visible symptoms. Some malware will flood your UI with pop-ups... but such an infestation is easy to identify, and therefore an appropriate response can be taken. But there is a much more sinister threat. Great malware exists that never shows the user an annoying pop-up advertisement; never slows down the CPU or network in a meaningful way; never even appears in the technical data dumps, system logs, or power-user interfaces. These are the silent keyloggers and traffic sniffers and rootkits and illicit backdoors. A great piece of malware is one that you never even know is installed - it will just persist forever and the user won't even think about trying to clean it up. These invisible artful engineering marvels are only really appreciated by systems-programmers. This is the stuff that keeps me up at night - now that my AC power adapter has firmware - and a digital communication channel to the operating system - is that firmware exploitable? Can a thus-exploited AC-adapter-microcontroller get on to the main computer's system bus and sniff other traffic? How would I even know, unless I had the ability to deeply inspect the electronics schematics and the software implementations? Nimur (talk) 20:22, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Once a month Windows Update downloads and runs a new version of Microsoft's Malicious Software Removal Tool. It's tailored to malware that's actually present in the wild, so by construction that malware can't evade detection by it. The malware could block Windows Update, but that's noticeable. -- BenRG (talk) 21:06, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You can give people control of their own computers or not. If you do, some of them are going to break security barriers willy nilly. If you don't, because some software legitimately needs to break those barriers, a central authority has to decide which software gets that permission. This applies to every computer user, not just the irresponsible ones, unless the central authority also decides which users are responsible. The alternative is to give people control of their lives and try to educate them to not mess up their lives. Do you disagree with that? -- BenRG (talk) 20:56, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You didn't get into the human side of it. The human user will not care about "safe" and "unsafe". If the link says something like "Click here to see Obama getting a blowjob from Hillary!" then it wouldn't matter how unsafe the computer labeled the link. The human would click it. Even if clicking it caused it to say "Hey Idiot! This is completely unsafe! Don't click it again you complete moron!", the human would click again and again and again. In the end, humans are the primary threat, not unsafe links or attachments. 47.49.128.58 (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Not going to get into a long argument here, but when I said "only implement one-click openability on the former", I didn't say what I'd like to see done with the latter. (Hint: it is not "protect them with an 'are you sure?' prompt".) —Steve Summit (talk) 20:02, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

To answer the question in the subject line (if not the following paragraph), antivirus software is very complicated (modern scanners have built-in emulators for x86 and various bytecode languages, for example), it has access to all of your files and all of your data on all web sites (so it can scan them) and to the OS kernel, and it's not written by the world's smartest people. That means it opens an enormous attack surface when it's installed. This paper describes some exploits for Sophos antivirus that could be triggered without any user action (because Sophos scans things before you even get the option to open them) and led to full system takeover. Those bugs have been fixed, but the situation is probably the same now for every antivirus product because they are still very complicated and under active development. -- BenRG (talk) 19:38, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"it's not written by the world's smartest people" Why would AV developers be below average? I don't associate them with low IQs.Denidi (talk) 22:29, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most (or all?) complex software has flaws. Even those with high IQs are seldom able to ensure that every possible attack route has been blocked. It's a race between AV software developers and malware writers, and sometimes the bad guys win. Dbfirs 08:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

But would competent hackers tend to the other side ? There are certainly good paid honest jobs in the security industry, developing AVs and all. --Denidi (talk) 15:08, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See White hat (computer security). Dbfirs 16:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, why would defensive security experts be less competent than criminal security experts? Imagining how a system can be hacked is essential, both to defend it or to attack it. The difference is ethics and personality, not competence.--Denidi (talk) 18:45, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See, human engineering. Make the stupid user to click something you want him to do to compromise his system and own it. As a user, always think: Why should I click this? Malware protecting software is as intelligent as it has been made. Never foreget the user's human factor. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:08, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

December 17

PayPal problem

In PayPal, after I had mistyped the amount of deposit needed to confirm my bank account to remove limit on withdrawals, my linked bank account suddenly disappeared. When I try to re-attach my bank account, I repeatedly receive "Sorry, we are not able to process your request. Please try again later" after I fill the "Link bank account" form. I've already emailed PayPal, but received an unhelpful automated reply. Any ideas how to fix that? Thanks. 93.174.25.12 (talk) 12:08, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I don't want a to alarm you unnecessarily, but the first thing that I would do is to run a good anti-virus and anti-malware scanner on the computer where the problem occurred. Alternatively, see if you can carry through the process on another computer. I'm not too familiar with PayPal so perhaps someone else here has other suggestions? Dbfirs 18:47, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe PayPal anti-fraud algorithm concluded that someone was testing the system. Somehow they have to exclude people who cannot verify their bank account. --Scicurious (talk) 19:07, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, perhaps they've locked the account, but shouldn't they have sent an e-mail to inform the OP of this? Dbfirs 08:48, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I have so many phishing emails attempting to get into my PayPal account that I have closed it completely.92.26.97.12 (talk) 08:17, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Reading e-books on Linux

I recently bought an e-book about ASP.NET MVC to read at home so I could learn how it differs from ASP.NET Web Forms. It turned out that the download link didn't give me the actual e-book but instead a proprietary urllink.acsm file that Adobe Digital Editions could use to download the actual e-book. Well, Adobe Digital Editions isn't available for Linux. I had to install Wine and use Winetricks to download and install Adobe Digital Editions 1.7. This version must be hopelessly obsolete by modern standards but none of the newer versions would even start up under Wine.

Adobe Digital Editions 1.7 started up nicely under Wine, and I dragged and dropped the urllink.acsm file to its window. It downloaded the actual e-book, which I could read at my leisure.

Can I somehow read this e-book without Adobe Digital Editions, for example under Calibre, a native Linux e-book reader? I didn't find an EPUB file that the e-book would be stored in (as the webstore claimed), but I found a password-protected PDF several megabytes in size. Is this the e-book? Evince couldn't open it without the correct password, which I don't even know. Is there a way to get rid of this DRM nonsense so I could read the e-book freely?

I am of course not going to redistribute this e-book, that would be software piracy. This is only so that I could freely use the content I bought fully legally and paid good money for, for my own use. JIP | Talk 18:41, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Use Windows.--Scicurious (talk) 19:06, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I suggest you give feedback to the book publisher, and to the website you purchased the book from, saying that you find the limitations on reading the book a problem, and if these conditions were not made clear up front, you may be able to ask for a refund.-gadfium 21:09, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What publishing house is this, if I might ask? I know DRMs just from library books. I even got the impression that publishers had abandoned completely the idea, since lots of users (also Windows based) have problems with it.--Denidi (talk) 22:57, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The e-book was published by Wrox, and the distributor I downloaded it from was a Finnish e-book store called AdLibris. JIP | Talk 15:24, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A couple of thoughts, in no particular order. Your friend when it comes to DRM is apprentice alf, whose tools can deal with the "Adobe Adept, Barnes & Noble, Amazon and eReader DRM schemes". Otherwise you're probably stuffed. If at all possible, I'd follow gadfium's policy, then give this store a very wide berth in future. On the other hand (while I'm not at all defending the bone-headed store and/or publisher), it seems that all you are intended to be able to do with this document is read it on a computer, rather than transferring it to an ereader, or whatever else you might want to do with it. You can read it on your computer, so you have all they intended to give you; the question then is whether you were led to believe that you would get more. Henry ^Flower 17:02, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

if your books are using Adobe Digital Editions then you should be able to remove the DRM. At least on Windows, one you've set up Calibre with the appropriate plugins the presuming you can open the book, you just have to import it in to Calibre, everything else should happen automatically. Nil Einne (talk) 07:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I am not sure this is legal everywhere.--Denidi (talk) 18:54, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

On the contrary, the vast majority of fiction ebooks from most major distributors & publishers still have DRM. There are some specialist distributors who promise all their books are without DRM [2], as well as stuff like Humble. Similarly there are some specialist publishers who may promise their books have no DRM and some of those self publish who likewise may choose not to use DRM [3]. (I think pretty much all the major distributors like Amazon, Kobo, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Barnes & Noble, do allow people to publish without DRM, so it's dependent mostly on the publisher or author except for those distributors which promise their books have no DRM.)

Note that I suspect most people are reading them on non-Windows tablets or ereaders, so problems on Windows get much less attention then they used. For tablets at least, most people probably just use the distributor provided app and don't notice they DRM. Ereaders can be a little more complicated (particularly when old versions of the DRM are killed and there are no more firmware updates).

Funnily enough, as much as it means anything, Adobe's ADEPT DRM is actually one of the better ones here. In the sense that it's open for anyone willing to comply with the requirements to use it. Unlike Amazon or Apple's DRM where you're basically completely locked in to their ecosystem. (Kobo, Barnes & Noble and Google are somewhat inbetween. They provide Adobe DRM ebooks but their apps and devices use their own DRM.)

I'm not so sure about text books but my impression is it's often the same.

The only area where DRM has been mostly abandoned is music files. (Although the move now is to subscription based music services which still have it in some ways.)

Nil Einne (talk) 07:06, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, you are right. I hastened to the conclusion of a world with DRM-free books just based on my own experience. --Denidi (talk) 18:52, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Errors: Relative, mixed or absolute cell reference in spreadsheets

What leads to more errors: referring to cells with an absolute location ($B$3), mixed ($B3 or B$3) or relative? That is in a spreadsheet that's being working on, data is being added, it's being processed.--Scicurious (talk) 19:03, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The distinctions between "absolute" and "relative" references (are those even the right terms?) are complicated. I don't know if I've ever seen the distinctions described completely and understandably; I've kind of worked them out for myself.

About all I can say is that if you've got a spreadsheet where the distinctions matter, you're going to have lots of problems if you ever use an "absolute" reference when you needed a relative one, or vice versa. I can't imagine distilling out a simple rule saying that one or the other form is somehow more (or less) error-prone; that sounds like it would inevitably end up being endlessly misleading advice.

If you or your users are having trouble with this, I would suggest either (a) learning more about the distinctions so that you can remember and use them reliably, or (b) restricting yourself to the simple, regular, homogeneous spreadsheet layouts which don't end up needing "absolute" references at all, meaning that you can always and safely use the "relative" ones. —Steve Summit (talk) 19:34, 17 December 2015 (UTC) [tweaked 13:57, 18 December 2015 (UTC)][reply]

Those are indeed the correct terms, and they have been in use at least since the early days of Lotus 1-2-3. Example here. --LarryMac | Talk 18:08, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! I was skeptical because when you create them and when they're sitting there working, both styles are pretty "absolute" in my book. The difference shows up only -- and as the nicely vintage reference you cited clearly explains -- when formulas containing references are copied to new locations. —Steve Summit (talk) 18:39, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

My experience is that absolute and relative references have more to do with copy/paste operations than anything else. If it is a relative reference, it changes as you paste. If it is an absolute reference, it doesn't change. So, you choose the one that does what you want. 209.149.113.52 (talk) 15:46, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, from my (now vague) memory of early spreadsheets, one used to ask "absolute of relative?" when asked to copy, and another used "duplicate" for an absolute copy and "replicate" for a relative copy. These days the default is relative, and you only need to use absolute for special situations of data that appears only once in the sheet but is used many times. Dbfirs 08:39, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How to deal with wired.meraki.com

On a library computer with Firefox, I have been told the problem is one of updating the version of Firefox. The problem seems to have been at least partly solved.

But on those sites where it hasn't, the screen is white with the words "Connecting to wired.meraki.com" or something similar (probably ads, since the various sites are almost never related to the content I want) for the longest time before the actual content finally shows up. On a library computer with only Internet Explorer, on one of the same sites, there is no such explanation but the screen stays white for a long time.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:46, 17 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Update: it was happening today with Firefox. I kept seeing the circle go round and round, stop, and then start up again, with "not responding" at the top of the screen. I was trying to do other stuff too, but nothing would happen. I clicked on the red X in the upper right corner, and when I restarted, all was well, but that's not always an option.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:29, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That website is designed only for Cisco Meraki appliances. Any DNS request addressed to that website gets intercepted, and redirected via a local network. It sounds as if your library computers are not set up properly, or fail to use the correct routing, or perhaps there is just extreme local congestion. Dbfirs 23:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The meraki site is only one example, of course. But why can't the correct content come first and then the ads later, if there's going to be a problem?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:21, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

December 18

Windows 10 drivers

If you have Windows 10 drivers for a device, does that mean that you will never need new drivers as Windows 10 is updated? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:37, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Usually not, but it is not possible to 100% sure. Ruslik_Zero 13:47, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The hardware might need or might get a new driver released. This has nothing to do with Windows 10. A new Windows version could break the backwards compatibility with drivers of version pasts, I doubt this could happen with updates within the same version. So, even when Windows moves to Windows 13, your drivers will probably run OK. Windows has also “compatibility mode” options that make the applications believe tehy are running on the old Windows still. --3dcaddy (talk) 18:41, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I thought all versions of Windows were to be W10 from now on. I had a good Canon scanner, but when one of the new versions of Windows came out several years ago, there were no drivers for it, so it wouldn't work. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's impossible to know what the future will bring, but I think "Windows 10 is the last version of Windows" is essentially a branding statement, not a technical one. It's unlikely that Microsoft will suddenly become more averse to major incompatible kernel changes just because they said (some years ago at that point) that every future version of Windows would be called "Windows 10". Most likely they'll change their minds and announce Windows Frobnitz, or effectively fork Windows 10 by not distributing the breaking change to incompatible systems, or something like that. -- BenRG (talk) 04:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Can't see my 5GHz network

I have a laptop running Windows 7 with a wireless-N adapter (Intel Wireless-N 7260) and a dual-band wireless-N router. The 5GHz network is enabled on the router and set to broadcast SSID. Why can't I see it in the list of networks available for connection? Do all wirelsss-N adapters support the 5GHz band? ―Mandruss ☎ 14:05, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

No. All wireless N adapters do not support 5GHZ. Many do not. I have five different adapters in my house. Three do support 5ghz and use it. Two do not and don't even see it. 209.149.113.52 (talk) 14:32, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, after a little more online digging, it appears I probably have the single-band version of 7260. Nuts. Stuck with 2.4 for now. ―Mandruss ☎ 14:54, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Check to enable the 5 GHz. Some use different SSID. If there are walls between, You might be out of range for connecting the 5 GHz accesspoint. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 14:39, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

One wireless adapter, two networks

Could one run-of-the-mill wireless adapter connect to two wifi networks at the same time? Mine does not support this, but I wonder where the limitation comes from. --3dcaddy (talk) 18:33, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Both Linux and Windows have virtual WiFi projects that claim to allow you to connect to multiple wifi networks with one wireless device. I haven't used either one. The Windows one is here. 209.149.113.52 (talk) 19:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

That's from 23 August 2005. It seems kind of a big deal. But, from a technical perspective, what makes multiple connections so difficult in 802.11 wireless networking?--3dcaddy (talk) 19:45, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It could be that nobody sees a market for it and therefore nobody produces one. I'm just one person but I can't think of a reason that you'd need to be able to do this. At least not on a scale that would make it profitable to produce the software/devices. Dismas|^(talk) 20:54, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps the most difficult part is that any two "wifi networks" are actually separated at the physical layer (not the network layer). Most modern wifi hardware can not simultaneously transmit- and- receive- on multiple channels - the radio circuits that you can actually build and buy at reasonable price-points simply are not designed that way. This is because wireless radio PHYs are tuned circuits and have frequency-selectivity. To support multiple channels, you'd need redundant hardware transceiver circuits; or, a single wide-band transceiver with significantly higher-performance. If you want a truly simultaneous network connection, you need a simultaneous physical connection.

If you had unlimited engineering time and money, you could design an ultra-wide-band receiver/transmitter, and attach it to an ultra-wide-band digitizer; and attach it to an ultra-fast specialized controller or computer that could manage multiple instances of the network layer incarnated in these multiple physical instances of the physical layer. This work is not easy or cheap. A handful of the better recent WiFi hardware can do simultaneous dual-band (at 2.4GHz and 5 GHz); and perhaps there are some commercial systems that can manage simultaneous full duplex on multiple channels within a single band; but these features are not common. These features are more likely to be found on commercial-grade access points - like a Cisco AeroNet - than on consumer-grade end-points.

Because the hardware support for this kind of feature is rare, the software to support it is even more rare; and free software incarnations are essentially non-existent. The end result is that you can't easily get simultaneous WiFi network connections.

Nimur (talk) 21:03, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Dual boot?

Can I put an XP partition on my computer fitted with windows 7 and boot into it when required?. There are some programs that dont work in W7. Help.--178.110.28.209 (talk) 23:16, 18 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you could see if the Windows XP Mode is what you need instead.--Denidi (talk) 00:13, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Instructables to the rescue! This is instructions to do exactly what you want! SteveBaker (talk) 02:24, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

When Your computer is fast enough, thing to install and run Windows in a virtual machine. You will be able to recover, restore and backup completely and easly. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 14:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

December 19

Word font change

I was working on a Word document for a client using tracked changes. When they sent it back with their responses to my comments/changes, the font got too small for me to read clearly for some reason. I can select the main document and increase the font, but that doesn't help with their comments. Clarityfiend (talk) 05:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If you can't find a way to change the font size at which their changes are displayed, you might try enlarging the entire screen. On Windows, try WINDOWS++ to increase zoom level. (Note that the Windows key is typically marked with the flying Windows logo, not the word, and that you must press both together.) There are also options to just enlarge the document, if you prefer that. StuRat (talk) 06:32, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

See if any of this helps. ―Mandruss ☎ 10:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

From one of the linked suggestions: ctrl-alt-shift-S, then changing the balloon text font worked. So obvious! Thanks. Clarityfiend (talk) 01:23, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Making Ubuntu-Firefox interface to be more Windows-Firefox like?

The reason I need this is when I use Ubuntu's Firefox's Bookmarks' menu everything looks very compressed (it's especially uncomfortable in my case as I have many folders and bookmarks).

Anything you could suggest me of doing about it? Ben-Yeudith (talk) 11:55, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Change the theme and fonts. Ubuntu might be able to apper very similar to Windows. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 14:33, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The only difference I noted was Settings moved form Extras to Edit in the conventional menu. Also the user profile can be migrated by copying the files and folders of the Firefox user settings to the new computer or user. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:14, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Linux

Why does Linux have such a tiny market share on desktop pcs despite literally being given away for free? Supposedly it's the best OS around but in 30+ years it still can't hold a candle to Bill Gates. Why is that? Why has the year of the Linux desktop ever come? Is Linux just a bad OS for common folk? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.37.237.15 (talk) 18:36, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the license, further changes and contributions to the source needs to returned to or published and making it avail for the community. Many bugs were fixed by interests, many develtopment is done as well. It would take a huge investment to revinvent the whole operating system. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 20:01, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

The common folk never install an OS; they buy a computer with an OS preinstalled. So your question boils down to why so few consumer PCs come with Linux preinstalled. I don't know the answer, but I suspect it has to do with support costs. Inevitably some fraction of buyers will try to install a third-party printer or game or office suite that doesn't support Linux and will complain to the computer vendor about it. The cost of handling that sort of thing might exceed the cost of OEM Windows licenses. -- BenRG (talk) 21:28, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd believe it. Dell has been known to sell laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled, but they're marketed more towards developers than the average consumer. ([4]) clpo13_(talk) 21:56, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

As of November 2015, when I last called, Dell is not selling any computers that do not have Windows. Every offering must come with Windows. I escalated by request and pestered sales people on the phone, through email, and through chat. There was absolutely no way around it. Even when going to their Linux offerings site which includes a number to sales, the sales people claimed that those offerings are not active and the page is there to allow historical purchases easy access to Dell support. So, I think it is important to emphasize the "has been known" part of "has been known to sell laptops". 209.149.113.52 (talk) 14:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Vendor lock-in and first mover advantage. Also Linux hasn't quite hit 30 yet; it dates back to 1991. (The GNU Project was founded in 1983 and insert here long discussion about the difference between GNU and Linux and what name you should use for a system using the Linux kernel and GNU userspace.) --71.119.131.184 (talk) 04:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Our article, Usage share of operating systems, provides much discussion on the topic.

Purchase price of software is only one of many factors that drive market-share. Linux distributions are frequently available at zero cost, but consumers may value other important details, and may be willing to spend well above the zero price point. Among these factors are perceived and actual software quality; compatibility with hardware and application software; estimated maintenance and other total cost of ownership considerations; and so on. Nimur (talk) 04:43, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

traceroute

when u do a trace route u see many different companies in the hops. can they see your internet traffic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.37.237.15 (talk) 18:37, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If they have to route your traffic, they can "see" it somehow. However, if your traffic is encrypted, they will only make sense of the metadata. That is, where it comes from, where is going to. Notice, however, that most emails are not encrypted, so, they can see and read them, in the same way a postman can read a postcard. --Denidi (talk) 19:00, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

They need to capture cyper key exchanges or brute force decode or recalculate the key in another way. When the route changes to other providers, they see Your computers packets no longer. But YOur ISP sees all Your internet fraffic. He can not change the route to You. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 19:57, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Most emails are not themselves encrypted, but they are usually sent over encrypted (SSL/TLS) connections these days, so they are only visible to whoever runs the mail servers, not other network providers like Level 3 that may show up in traceroute. -- BenRG (talk) 21:41, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How to stop Twitter sending me messages on my iPhone?

Please how to stop Twitter to send me messages on my iPhone? These messages sound like I receive a text message, it looks like I receive a text message, so I slide the message just like I do when I receive a text message in order to read it, but it doesn't open the Messages app. It opens the Twitter app and it appears to be a tweet from some journal or some company or some political party or such. I don't want them to use my text message warning sounds or my iPhone ringtones for their tweets. I don't want Twitter to use my iPhone's sounds and ringtones in any way. Twitter didn't get intrusive for years, it was just silent and invisible except when I did open the Twitter app myself. Why has it become so intrusive since a few weeks? Have I changed a setting by mistake? Or is it that Twitter got themselves such new intrusive behavior? Thanks in advance for your answers. Akseli9 (talk) 20:11, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Disable notifications for the Twitter app. (The Twitter app has supported notifications for a very long time. Possibly since it was first introduced.) Nil Einne (talk) 08:04, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. I did that, from the Notifications Center within iPhone's Settings (didn't find anything to change in Twitter's Preferences anyway). Akseli9 (talk) 08:48, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Games for learning leadership skills

In Superbetter, Jane McGonigal writes on p. 112ff: "Multiplayer and massively multiplayer video games can teach important skills [...] People who frequently play games that require them to organize groups and lead others in like-minded efforts, such as Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, are rated by others as • better leaders • more effective motivators [...]". Do people here share that impression, and which games would you recommmend other than the two mentioned? I am particularly interested in knowing if there are some that are less fantasy war themed, but focus more on construction, economic simulation and real world issues. I-just-ask-questions-at-Wikipedia (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I play Electronic Arts' Tiberium Alliances, which has alliances of up to 50 people, in coalitions of several alliances, each battling other coalitions to get to the center and take down the Fortress first. To be in the leadership requires lots of organizational skills, diplomacy, and flexibility, as old enemies frequently become allies. The leaders also need to learn to delegate authority, as personally controlling every action in a coalition of hundreds of players isn't possible. Thus, each alliance has a Commander-in-Chief, Second-in-Command, officers, etc., each assigned different roles and tasks. I can go into more detail, if you are interested. (One very specific thing I've learned there is that it's best to put a person's name in the title of e-mails if you expect a response from them. Otherwise, they might just assume it's a general message that doesn't concern them and never open it.) Note that this is a "freemium" game, and I pay about $5 a month to stay competitive (some others spend far more). StuRat (talk) 04:35, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the tip and the good explanation of the organizational structure. I found the article Command & Conquer: Tiberium Alliances, which already has more detail, but thank you for the offer. This isn't quite the genre I've been looking for, but it's interesting. I also just asked two questions about that game on its talk page; if you have the time, it would be nice if you could answer them. I-just-ask-questions-at-Wikipedia (talk) 06:29, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Answered there. StuRat (talk) 08:22, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

"syntaxicity"

hello, is there any objective measure of how much syntax a language has. I mean that thing of which Lisp obviously has pretty little, C just the right amount and Perl too much. Asmrulz (talk) 23:22, 19 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Well, one could form syntax descriptions of each candidate language using a meta-language like Backus–Naur Form - then compare the number of rules - or the number of tokens used in writing the rules. I'm not aware of any studies that did that - but it is at least possible in principle. SteveBaker (talk) 06:50, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

December 20

Finger print open source software

Hello,

I hope you all are well.

I'm searching for a reliable software that I can use via a touchscreen laptop monitor. A phone to PC, PC to phone synchronization facility/functionality is advantageous/desirable. Can someone help me please?

Space Ghost (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Your question is fairly confusion. I don't think any touch screen monitors have the ability to read fingerprints as part of the touch function. They may have a seperate fingerprint sensor but that doesn't mean the touchscreen itself can read fingerprints. It's also fairly unclear what you want the finger print detection function for and how this related to the synchronization facility/functionality. Actually it's fairly unclear what you want the software to do point blank. Nil Einne (talk) 08:02, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I saw it on television.

I was actually thinking of a system for MS Office login, and or, say for a customer's ID purpose. So far to date I've come across a 'Blood pressure checker' for diabetes on a smart phone. The sync I'm talking about is for 'read only' and or 'editing' purpose while you are in the go on a phone, under a present customer's permission, then of course you sync the data from phone to PC with the computer thereafter whenever... I don't know what I'll use, could be a Laptop or could be a phone.

Space Ghost (talk) 18:42, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Open source AI

I'm searching for a reliable software, something like Jarvis from Iron Man movie. Can you help me please?

Regards.

Space Ghost (talk) 07:38, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Such things to not yet exist - Iron Man is a work of fiction. SteveBaker (talk) 16:10, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

How lame. This world is boring...

Btw, thank you all (Wikipedians) for making my life interesting and a smart one... Regards.

Space Ghost (talk) 18:44, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There is Siri, which is real, or take a look at another fictional AI program like Her (film) or Ex Machina (film). --Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 19:30, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

There are things like Siri and home automation is gaining ground lately but the communication between the two technologies isn't there yet. So, currently, there are a lot of the pieces that you might be after but those pieces don't all work together like Jarvis. Dismas|^(talk) 03:33, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Are less people using laptops due to smartphones?

In the same way that laptops took away market share of desktops, could it be that smartphones/tablets are doing the same with laptops?--Jubilujj 2015 (talk) 19:26, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Define use. Do you define use as physically touching a laptop at least once in a 365 day period? The answer is no, the amount of people who use a laptop has not drop. If you ask instead "Have the usage of laptops dropped because of smartphones" then the answer is yes because usage is defined as the number of seconds in a 365 days period in which a laptop is utilized for the purpose it was designed for. 175.45.116.66 (talk) 22:43, 20 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Do you have a source for any of those assertions? 82.44.55.214 (talk) 01:25, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

smartphone-more-popular-than-laptop-ofcom-2015 175.45.116.66 (talk) 02:24, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

desktop-suffers-drastic-decline-mobile-soars 175.45.116.66 (talk) 02:29, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

People are using their laptops less because of smartphones and tablets, but it's not true that fewer people are using laptops. Apologies for the pedantry. I know this isn't the language desk. Dbfirs 08:02, 21 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I resisted the urge to correct the title to say "fewer people", despite "less people" sounding like some kind of insult (something like "I'd like to thank all the little people"). StuRat (talk) 08:15, 21 December 2015 (UTC) [reply]

December 21

@@ Line 220: / Line 220: @@
 :The common folk never install an OS; they buy a computer with an OS preinstalled. So your question boils down to why so few consumer PCs come with Linux preinstalled. I don't know the answer, but I suspect it has to do with support costs. Inevitably some fraction of buyers will try to install a third-party printer or game or office suite that doesn't support Linux and will complain to the computer vendor about it. The cost of handling that sort of thing might exceed the cost of OEM Windows licenses. -- [[User:BenRG|BenRG]] ([[User talk:BenRG|talk]]) 21:28, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
 ::I'd believe it. Dell has been known to sell laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled, but they're marketed more towards developers than the average consumer. ([https://insights.ubuntu.com/2015/04/09/designed-for-developers-dell-launches-two-new-ubuntu-based-systems/]) [[User:Clpo13|clpo13]]<sub>([[User_talk:Clpo13|talk]])</sub> 21:56, 19 December 2015 (UTC)
+:::As of November 2015, when I last called, Dell is not selling any computers that do not have Windows. Every offering must come with Windows. I escalated by request and pestered sales people on the phone, through email, and through chat. There was absolutely no way around it. Even when going to their Linux offerings site which includes a number to sales, the sales people claimed that those offerings are not active and the page is there to allow historical purchases easy access to Dell support. So, I think it is important to emphasize the "has been known" part of "has been known to sell laptops". [[Special:Contributions/209.149.113.52|209.149.113.52]] ([[User talk:209.149.113.52|talk]]) 14:03, 21 December 2015 (UTC)
 :[[Vendor lock-in]] and [[first mover advantage]]. Also Linux hasn't quite hit 30 yet; it dates back to 1991. (The [[GNU]] Project was founded in 1983 and insert here long discussion about the difference between GNU and Linux and what name you should use for a system using the Linux kernel and GNU userspace.) --[[Special:Contributions/71.119.131.184|71.119.131.184]] ([[User talk:71.119.131.184|talk]]) 04:28, 20 December 2015 (UTC)
 :Our article, [[Usage share of operating systems]], provides much discussion on the topic.