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May 23

Non-applications of Machine learning

Reading through the Machine_learning#Applications list of applications of ML, I wonder if there are problems where you can't apply it. --Llaanngg (talk) 02:07, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

CAPTCHAs might be an example. StuRat (talk) 03:10, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What an inexplicable reply. Using machine learning to solve CAPTCHAs is an extremely common task. DTLHS (talk) 04:24, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The whole idea is to make them so they can't be solved by machines, so if they are easily solved by machines, that means they are no good. StuRat (talk) 04:28, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

StuRat, see [1] 2001:630:12:2428:7545:3F04:2666:1332 (talk) 05:57, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That gives us a cue in the right direction. Somehow there are patterns computers cannot process easily. But the case of Captchas is artificial. Are there non-artificial problems, not created intentionally by humans, that are resistant to ML treatment? --Llaanngg (talk) 12:34, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wouldn't the entire class of NP problems be resistant to machine learning? Humans cannot find a simple solution to those problems. Humans developed machine learning. So, machine learning shouldn't be able to find a simple solution to those problems. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Re: "Humans developed machine learning. So, machine learning shouldn't be able to find a simple solution to those problems." I disagree. Computers can solve problems by brute force that humans can't, because they can process records so much faster. It's problems that can't be solved by brute force alone, where you need human intelligence, perhaps in concert with computers, to solve the problem. StuRat (talk) 15:05, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The idea that computers can solve problems that humans cannot is a bit silly. A computer is a tool used by humans. Do you claim that humans cannot drive nails, but a hammer can? I believe the point is that an unsolvable problem cannot be solved by a computer because the computer is just a tool. If the computer solved the problem, the human that used the computer also solved it.

The human could only solve it if he had a billion years, because computers, at their best, do the same things as people, but much, much faster. For an example, computers can calculate prime numbers way larger than a person alone could. StuRat (talk) 04:07, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You are missing the point. The computer is a tool created by humans to do work. In the realm of "is this problem solvable or not", it doesn't matter if the work is done slowly by a human or quickly by a computer. Nobody is arguing about the ability of a computer to do many repetitive calculations very quickly. The argument is that if a human uses a tool to solve a problem, then the human solved the problem. Using the example above, would you refuse to pay a carpenter with the claim that his hammer and saw did all the work? Apparently you wish to tell a statistician that he doesn't deserve credit for his work because the computer did all the work. 209.149.114.20 (talk) 12:22, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The question is of course far too broad, and I think you might be misunderstanding what ML is. It's just a class of tools that are very powerful in very restricted contexts. They also happen to be very hip right now. Then again, as you can see from the topic list, sometimes the term is interpreted very broadly. One may wonder what is the "learning" that is relevant to both genetic algorithms and support vector machines - and one may wonder what the utility is gained by grouping these unrelated algorithms together, but I digress.

ML and its kin are great for certain tasks that involve making certain types of decisions and classifications. Lots of types of predictions cannot be addressed through ML. Consider proving a theorem. Now, we can and do use computers to help with that (Automated_theorem_proving), but it usually uses methods that are rather distinct from what we call ML. Logical inference has basically nothing to do with splitting data clouds with the best hyperplanes.

Even when deciding how to classify things, ML is often not best. Evolutionary algorithms use evolutionary ideas to solve problems about other things. But sometimes we want to use algorithms to solve problems associated with evolution and the resultant phylogeny. That leads us to Computational_phylogenetics, which is all about taxonomy, yet does not usually use any techniques from ML.

Then of course there's almost anything related to mathematical models or simulations. So e.g. none of the top climate models have anything to do with ML., and whole branches of physics,chemistry,biology that have to do with quantitative simulation have nothing to do with ML, and frankly very little, if anything, to gain from it.

In summary I stress that ML is ultimately a rather small class of techniques. While very powerful in the proper domain, there's zillions of things that are "resistant" to ML treatment. So I have given you some very broad and very active areas of research that have nothing to do with ML, and whose problems are not well treated by ML, but I am limited more by time spent than number of things that ML can't do. Finally, I'll add that even when ML "works", it seldom helps with understanding anything - like if I sorted out your bug collection for you that wouldn't help you understand what diptera is.

If you ever get a chance to see someone talk about their research that deploys ML in an applied context, ask them something related to how this method helps our understanding of the problem or solutions, and 9/10 times they either dismiss the question or uncomfortably squirm ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 14:00, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Love. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 20:54, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Open source software(s) sought

I sought a software(s) similar to "Windows 7 Logon Editor v2" (which consists of a default button), in order to change "mouse pointer" and "Files and Folders icons" Can someone help me with this please? -- Apostle (talk) 18:34, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Is this on Windows 7, or somewhere else ? StuRat (talk) 22:01, 23 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, my OS is Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1 so any Windows 7 software will work... A software(s) that helps me change all the mouse pointers and Files and Folders icons with ease... Default option is desirable. -- Apostle (talk) 04:50, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I believe native software on that O/S allows you to change them. Do you mean you want a larger library of choices ? StuRat (talk) 06:09, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I reviewed. Let me know if there's a larger library available in the PC...

Any idea how I could change all the folder icons in one go? Restore to default when desired in one go again?

Also, there is one Folder icon I worry i.e. e.g., when you insert an image/doc/any file into the normal folder, the folder automatically displays what's inside the folder (a few files or so) - what is this particular folder known as? -- Apostle (talk) 18:14, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Always make backups of all important files. You can use something like ResHack and look inside shell32.dll. [2] The Quixotic Potato (talk) 20:50, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Noted! -- Apostle (talk) 09:21, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 24

scammed?

I accidentally clicked on a popup; my screen turned blue, but I couldn't read the message because there was an overlay explaining that the computer was locked. It gave a number to call; it turned out to be Client Care Experts, a company in Florida with a professional-looking web page here.

The number might not really have been Client Care Experts, and they might have been faking the web page. Faked web pages are commonly used in various scams such as phishing. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They offered to restore the computer functionality for $250.00. I gave the credit card information but it was declined by the credit card company. The rep called a number; an automated voice came on asking if I accepted the charge and I said yes. They performed he service and I received, again, a professional-looking receipt.

Soon after I got a voice mail from the credit card company saying I should call them, and I did. I said I had talked to the merchant and that the transaction was valid. But later, I read some awful reviews online saying this company was a scammer.

[My antivirus is https://www.malwarebytes.org/ Malwarebytes]. If it intercepted the locked screen, is it likely it would recommend a specific company to turn to for help? I thought that might be possible.

Do you know anything about this company? Is there a way to determine if it was in fact a scam? --Halcatalyst (talk) 12:46, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The whole thing is a scam, from beginning to end. No legitimate company is going to "lock" your computer and charge you to fix it. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 12:51, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And it can actually be a criminal offence. Ruslik_Zero 12:57, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

This was unlikely that the computer was locked. More likely it is your web browser was locked. You could just invoke the task manager and close it. Ruslik_Zero 13:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If indeed anything was locked. That might have been as much of a lie as everything else. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:09, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

They also sold me Webroot Security Anywhere, an antivirus. When I tried to register an account with Webroot, it asked for the product key, I called Client Care Experts and they wouldn't give it to me; they said the license was owned by them and they would take care of any issues that arose. Is this a legitimate business practice? --Halcatalyst (talk) 13:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Halcatalyst: Dude, as soon I read all of the above it took me 10 seconds to be convinced it was a scam! 250 bucks!?!? Really? No one in the world would charge this amount of money. And after all that you bought a anti-virus from the same guys? Next time buy your anti-virus in a store, in a box, with the reg-key included in that box, from a real person who can advise you. One advise from me, be more careful what you buy and from who, the world can be a bad place... OXYGENE 7-13 (TALKPAGE) 15:08, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible your computer didn't really have malware before but once you've given up control or installed "antivirus" from a scammer, there's a very good chance you have malware now. Unfortunately given what you've said here, I can only recommend you seek the help of a real professional company probably to do a fresh install. If you don't want to keep anything, doing a fresh install isn't really that hard, but it does require a very basic level of technical competence so wouldn't be advisable here. The only good news is that credit card companies tend to have very generous terms. If it's been edit: about 60 days or less, you may still be able to get your money back even though they twice tried to warn you that you were being scammed and you ignored them both times. Nil Einne (talk) 16:50, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the reason your credit card was denied the first time is that this is a well-known scam, called ransomware. This is also why they called you to confirm it. And for $250 you could buy an entirely new PC (without the monitor, but you can still use your current one).

Beware that you are now likely on a "sucker list", so every scam artist in the world will be calling you or contacting you online to try to scam you some more. If there is anything the least bit questionable, please list it here, so we can advise you before you lose more money. StuRat (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not actually clear that this is really ransomware (which generally implies there's some attempt to prevent access long term). As Ruslik_Zero has said, it's easily possible the computer wasn't really locked but simply the browser hung, or may be not even that. In other words, this may be closer to a Technical support scam. (That article seems to refer to the telephone variety, but there have definitely been those popup windows claiming your computer has whatever errors, malware etc for a long time. Before those telephone things were common.) A search of the "company" the OP was allegedly dealing with suggests this is more likely. Nil Einne (talk) 22:34, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I did uninstall everything, including their homescreen icons. Hope that helps, at least. --Halcatalyst (talk) 19:02, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You probably didn't succeed in uninstalling the installed malware. You need a profesional. They have probably installed their own malware on your computer, and you need it uninstalled profesionally. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:11, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Trying to uninstall malware might be a fool's ~~errant~~ errand. The safe bet is to get rid of every program and reinstall them again. Llaanngg (talk) 21:35, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps an errant "fool's errand". StuRat (talk) 21:43, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yep. Llaanngg (talk) 22:05, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Or an arrant one's. —Tamfang (talk) 17:04, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of sucker lists, when chain letters were common – twenty years ago? – I collected the addresses of their senders and sent them whatever chain letters I subsequently received. Dunno if it had any effect, but it was fun. —Tamfang (talk) 17:04, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe I missed it in the text above, but you need to contact your credit card company. At the very least, you need to cancel your card and get a new one. There is also a small chance that you can reverse the charges, though that's doubtful. I hate to be rude about this, but there's no part of any of this that wasn't obviously a scam. You seriously need to wise up. Ask a computer savvy friend to set you up so that your user account doesn't have permission to install anything. Matt Deres (talk) 01:53, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

All important links have already been made. I see this a lot in my work as a Help Desk Manager. Usually the browser is just being aggressively overrun by very persistent popups. You didn't mention this explicitly, but it sounds like you granted remote access to your machine so they could "show you how you'd been attacked", which is as ironic as it sounds. Unfortunately, the damage that can be done after this point is total and the extent to which you can track it is negligible. Best practice is a restore point/backup (if you have one) and a malware scan, or a clean wipe with a thorough malware scan if you brought any files over...and in either case proceed as though your identity has possibly been stolen. Your bank is just the first phone call. While it's over reaction in most cases, the potential consequences (i.e. identify theft) are so severe that they can be life-ruining. Anything that every passed through that computer can be at risk. Take your computer completely offline until you've either restored or wiped. Find a different computer and start changing passwords. No joke. Jessemulert (talk) 04:42, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Why am I getting spam from myself?

Until recently, I don't believe any emails I sent myself were going to the spam folder. When they didn't arrive, I tried that and it worked.

Before I had my own computer, I sent messages to myself using Hotmail and Yahoo, among other email services, so I could read them wherever I was without always having to carry a disk, CD or flash drive. Even after I got my own computer, this kept me from having to save files there and back them up.

If I found online content (especially from sources only accessible at libraries, but also from any site I was reluctant to try at home) I wanted to read later (if time was a problem), I could copy and paste and send it from my Hotmail account to my Yahoo account. My old computer had a Yahoo button so I'm in the habit of using Yahoo at home. I sometimes send myself three or four of those emails in a day, and some are quite long, but this has never been a problem before.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:28, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The From: field in emails isn't checked. Anyone who knows how SMTP works can send a email appearing to come from anyone. It's about as secure as the return-to address on the outside of a snail-mail envelope. LongHairedFop (talk) 20:06, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Although anyone can claim to be bill.gates@hotmail.com, I thought that the origin of the email could not be faked. Whatever you send with this email would not come from the correct server, and thus would be marked as spam or filtered out. Right? --Llaanngg (talk) 21:41, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's not really clear what you mean by "origin of the email". However anything which isn't added, modified or tested by the final or trustworthy intermediate servers can obviously be faked. For example, if you are manually checking the "Received" headers, these can be partially faked. The first trustworthy intermediate server to receive your email will generally add its own "Received" header saying precisely what server it received the email from, but it would be easy to fool yourself with a naïve reading.

Traditionally there was really no way to automatically check any of the headers haven't been "spoofed" (including the from header). However nowadays the key standards to try and reduce spoofing are DomainKeys Identified Mail, Sender Policy Framework and DMARC. These make it difficult to spoof the from: header (and possibly other headers) but both the sender's email domain and the receiving mail server need to implement them. Also there are varying ways possibly spoofed senders may be dealt with, some may be more obvious to the end user than others. Note that possibly is a key word here, there are various things considered normal in the past which would cause an apparently spoofed email when the sender is actually the owner of the email account behind the from address. This is one reason why some may choose to either not use these systems or only do something which may be less obvious to the end user.

In terms of the OP, I don't quite understand what the problem is. If they are receiving spam emails which appear to be from themselves, it's possible these are spoofed or it's possible their account is compromised. If these are ending up in their spam folder, that makes the former more likely but only a careful looking at the headers is likely to tell for sure. If emails the OP sent themself are ending up in their spam folder then there are various reasons this may be happening. If these emails are actually being sent by third parties (like an email me this article service) with the "From" email appearing as their own email address then it's not particularly surprising, particularly with the earlier mentioned verification systems. It would probably be better for the service to mark the "from" as their own server and use reply-to or something similar to indicate who allegedly asked for this email to be sent. Allegedly is another key point, if all this is happening but the emails are still ending up in the spam folder, this may be because such third party services often do send a lot of emails often without any real opt-in or check of the person asking for it to be sent. So these emails are likely to be unwanted by some people receiving them.

Nil Einne (talk) 22:22, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If I'm understanding your question right, you're asking why e-mails sent to yourself through your Yahoo e-mail account are being marked as spam. My bet is this has to do with Yahoo changing their DMARC filtering policies. I have heard about this causing a lot of disruption, as it has led to Yahoo erroneously marking many messages as spam. All you can do is try adding your own address to your contact list (this may cause Yahoo to whitelist the messages) and complain to Yahoo. You also might consider trying more "modern" ways of syncing things between computers. You can use a "cloud" service like Google's offerings or Pocket to sling bookmarks and whatnot between systems. Or if you're privacy-conscious, run your own server. --71.110.8.102 (talk) 00:43, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't need to whitelist, because some of the emails are getting through. And I am the one sending the emails. I don't know why this has only happened in the past couple of the weeks. Google is something I don't intend to use except for searching. I don't like their email service and I certainly don't like the idea of being signed in when I do a search.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:48, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whitelists aren't just about allowing emails through. They can also be to stop emails being marked as spam. It's not really clear to me what you mean by "I am the one sending the emails". If you are using a Yahoo domain for example, then with modern means Yahoo may dictate that only their servers are allowed to send emails with a from: for that domain. As a customer of their service, you may be allowed to send emails with the from: being to the address belonging to you, but only if you use their servers. As I mentioned above a lot of traditional practices perfectly ordinary in the past are no longer considered advisable due to the various efforts to reduce spam. (Not something new but each service makes their own decisions and these decisions change over time.) Even if we knew precisely what you were complaining about we probably couldn't offer that much help other advising the attempted use of whitelists and filters or a different service or method of doing things, and we still don't really know what you're complaining about. Nil Einne (talk) 02:33, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's very simple. I sent several emails to myself (Yahoo) from Hotmail, something I frequently do when I go to one particular library, and during two of the past three weeks, some of them when to the spam folder. Last week I even had one go to the spam folder that I sent from a different address (AOL). None of the emails went to the wrong place yesterday. Anyway, what I normally do at that one library is put together all the emails I sent myself at an address I use only at that library (Lycos), and send part of the information back using Hotmail to send and Yahoo to receive.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:26, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

RSS Feed / time Sync app.

I have been searching around for an app that could sync all of the rss feeds I subscribe too and save the listening times so that I never lose my place in a podcast. I wanted to know if an app like this exists something that can be synced up on my desktop and on my galaxy s6 phone?

I am looking to listen to 35 minutes of a podcast on my phone then get on my computer and when I go to the app its already saved the time I stopped on my phone and begins playing at 35 minutes on my desktop. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CE9D:B960:E142:1063:C8BC:A85C (talk) 23:55, 24 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

→Podcast client --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 21:33, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

gpodder supports to sync a mobile device. It is up on the media player of the mobile how useful the solution is. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 21:37, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 25

old Unix checksum algorithm

I just brought this up at Talk:BSD checksum, but I doubt it'll get much attention there. I believe that the non-SysV algorithm implemented by the Unix/Linux sum(1) program goes all the way back to the earliest versions of Unix, V7 and perhaps earlier. So I believe that calling it the "BSD" checksum algorithm is rather misleading and wrong. Does anyone know how far back the algorithm really goes? I was tempted to propose renaming the article to "V7 checksum", but that might be almost as misleading if the same code was around in V6 and before.

I'm pretty sure the V7 sources are online somewhere, which would be one good data point for this question. —Steve Summit (talk) 22:02, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

V7 source at http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V7/usr/src/cmd/sum.c -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 22:31, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cool! That looks the same, and it compiles (even today) with only one warning, and... generates exactly the same results. Good. Thanks. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:03, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

V5 has an asm file which may be use same algorithm - http://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl?file=V5/usr/source/s2/sum.s -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 22:37, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Version five! My, oh, my. And it's in assembler. Whouda thunk. Perhaps I'll try booting up my old PDP-11 tonight and trying it out. —Steve Summit (talk) 23:03, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The same site has earlier versions, but I haven't looked to see if they have a sum.s or the like. This guy has an in-browser PDP-11 emulator, which at least runs V6; I daresay you run run as on the earlier sum.s versions inside that. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 23:07, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

HTTP proxy for fixing bad RSS feeds?

The news reader I use has a problem with some RSS feeds that I want to read. I think those feeds have XML issues. Is there a simple to use HTTP proxy that will allow me to fix the issues using a custom script? Such a tool can come handy in other situations. Suggestions? --134.242.92.97 (talk) 22:40, 25 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 26

proving that a recursive algorithm creates a balanced binary tree from a sorted array

Hello,

The following Python function receives an sorted array and returns a balanced binary tree. it creates the root as the middle value of the array, and then creates left and right subtrees by recursively applying the function on left and right sub-arrays:

(the method BinaryTree(rootValue) creates a binary tree root with rootValue as a value. left and right subtrees are initialized as None.)

def SortedArrayToBalancedTree(sortedArray):
   l = len(sortedArray)
   if l==0: return None
   mid = l/2
   t = BinaryTree(sortedArray[mid]) 
   t.left = SortedArrayToBalancedTree(sortedArray[:mid])
   t.right = SortedArrayToBalancedTree(sortedArray[mid+1:])
   return t

I intuitively understand how it works, but how can I prove that this algorithm actually yields a balanced tree?

Thanks! 31.154.135.123 (talk) 08:09, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

First prove what happens with a null array, and what happens with a single element array. Then show that if the function works making a balanced tree for length <n that it will work for length n also. A proof by induction then shows that it works for all lengths of input. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:52, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, but should the induction be on the size of the array or on the height of the tree? 31.154.135.123 (talk) 21:15, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That would be the size of the array, as that is the input. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:48, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

VB Class Interests

This is purely an opinion-seeking question... Background: VB classes in university are geared towards people who have no interest in learning to program. It is all mind-numbingly boring repetition with no relevance to the real world. Question: I have been tasked with taking over VB programming this fall. It is historically the most abhorred class in the curriculum. I know that most people who answer questions here know how to program. If you were stuck in a VB class, what (if anything) could the professor do to make the class bearable? I personally cannot even make it through the slides that have been used for the last five years without pleading for a quick and sudden death. 209.149.114.20 (talk) 15:41, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

You mean Visual Basic right? I'd structure the class so that smaller stand-alone assignments can be snapped together at the end. Here's [3] an interesting implementation of Zelda in VB, here [4] another random game tutorial. So I guess my suggestion is 1)small assignments that can be utilized later 1b) At some point you'll have to release working examples to not screw over people who messed up the first assignments 2) video games. 3)... 4) a less crappy VB class! Also maybe consider having them make Twitter bots like so: [5]. SemanticMantis (talk) 17:50, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, VB is Visual Basic. Thanks for the simple game link. I teach all other programming classes as a sequence of assignments that complete a larger project. I will see if I can simplify the game to their level. 209.149.114.20 (talk) 18:55, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend asking them to create malware or non-malicious jokeware (not necessarily destructive stuff and not necessarily virii, but just fun and creative ways to mess with a computer user, like taking a screenshot and setting that as the desktop background). I assure you that this will make some students far more interested than they would be if you would ask them to create a basic game. Another famous example is a message box where the OK button moves away when the mouse comes close to it. When they understand the basics they can create a server and a client that allows them to mess with their friends over a LAN, e.g. opening the DVD-tray, flipping the screen upside down, switching the mouse buttons etc. etc.. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 20:41, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Emulating Nokia

I've been thinking about old Nokia cellphone games, and the time I've spent playing them, I was looking for a way to play this games on computer too, but I've not found emulators or system images, there's an ARM emulator, but I wouldn't know how to make it play Symbian. There's this game called Space Impact, I've been looking for it, with no success, where can I find it? --186.155.48.247 (talk) 18:02, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here [6] is a video of a PC port of the game. We also have some info at Space_Impact#Clones_and_remakes. SemanticMantis (talk) 18:09, 26 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 27

Mediafire / Apache OpenOffice

Is there a way to read on-line text documents from Mediafire without having to download Apache OpenOffice first? It used to be possible but now it's not. If that's not possible anymore, are there any other file-hosting sites where you can do it? Thanks! --2.37.228.109 (talk) 08:21, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think there's some kind of confusion here. Are you trying to open a document hosted on Mediafire, and getting a download window from your browser? If so that probably means Mediafire's in-browser document viewer doesn't work in your browser. If you're not using an up-to-date browser, that's probably why. If that's not the issue, can you describe what you're doing and what's happening? --71.110.8.102 (talk) 21:05, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Software sought

Which software is highly praised for creating and converting .png files and others to .ico or vice versa? -- Apostle (talk) 18:20, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Many people use @icon sushi The Quixotic Potato (talk) 20:38, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks.

-- Apostle (talk) 09:20, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you're a programmer and are hoping to do this stuff programmatically:

libpng, available at libpng.org, is the official reference library for PNG file I/O. It can read PNG files and gives you binary data (rather, pointers to rows of 32-bit integers that are RGB pixels). You can stuff those into your favorite intermediate pixel format, and/or use your system library (like ImageIO on OS X, or System.Drawing on Windows) for further I/O work; or you can write your .ico header data and then blast the rest of the .ico file as bitmap data.

Nimur (talk) 00:05, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Noted!

-- Apostle (talk) 09:20, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

File types option on Windows 7 Ultimate

File types option is available on Windows XP (found inside the Folder Options in Control Panel as a tab) but not on Windows 7 Ultimate. Whereis it in/How do I find it in Windows 7 Ultimate? -- Apostle (talk) 18:24, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In Windows 7, you can search for "default programs" in the Start Menu search box and click the appropriate search result. [7]

While searching is faster, you can also find the appropriate window in the Control Panel: go to "Programs -> Default Programs -> Set Your Default Programs". [8] The Quixotic Potato (talk) 20:36, 27 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've viewed it, I couldn't find the Advanced option i.e. available on Win XP in the File Types tab - I believe this allows you to change a particular program's icon in one go... Any idea where I could find this option in Win 7? -- Apostle (talk) 09:12, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/12383/change-a-file-types-icon-in-windows-7/ The Quixotic Potato (talk) 13:04, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Russell.mo: And if you want to know how this information is stored you can look here. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 13:19, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I love NirSoft, that website contains loads of useful software, maybe this is interesting to you. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

FileTypeManager software is helpful...if only the bottom pane functioned as the top one, it would've been better! Thank you.

One last thing, if you don't mind, I'm concerned about a second type of folder icon which gives a glance view of what is inside a folder - Try inserting a file into a blank folder, than you'll understand what I mean... I'm trying to change it to this without trying to affect the second type. In fact, it is affecting the second type... What do you suggest I do?

Note:

I used "FileTypeMan": Click on the "Description" column, select a row than press the alphabet "F", a ""Folder"" row comes up - go up and find the "file folder" in the description column too. Now, when you double click and enter on any, also of the "Default icon" field containing a "button", both direct you to an icon that doesn't match with the "iconsextract" icon number...

Apostle (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

May 28

Non-local online ads

I was planning to ask whether it's possible to disable the "sent from my I-phone" bit in emails, since I'm always seeing it (I don't have an I-phone, so I'm clueless), but a quick Google search led me to this opinion page from The Riverfront Times of metro St Louis, Missouri. Question answered. But while reading the webpage, I was greeted with an ad from a small car dealership located about half an hour's drive away from me — and I'm something like eight hours' drive away from St Louis. Surely this paper isn't routinely running ads from Ohio car dealerships, so two questions.

What "services" offer advertising that's geolocated to the reader? This wasn't a simple Google text ad; it featured a big picture of one of the salesmen out on the lot.
When your organisation is firmly tied to a specific location, why would you run such ads? Virtually all your readers are locals who will care about local businesses; the local residents getting the wrong geolocation (due to out-of-town ISPs providing IPs that aren't based in St Louis) probably outnumber folks like me who don't care about St Louis ads, and presumably they have to pay a pile of money to some other company to run these ads, money they wouldn't have to pay outsiders if they just ran local ads.

Nyttend (talk) 03:23, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To put it briefly: the editors of many webpages neither know, nor care, what advertisements you see next to their page. They get paid the same amount, no matter what advertisement actually renders on your screen (... and they usually get paid even if the crufty advertisement fails to render at all, due to some undiagnosed technical malfunction - because real, actual, commercially-available web analytics in today's marketplace are even more crufty and broken than the ad-servers they're supposedly tracking). Commercial websites contract with advertising networks and marketing affiliates - glossing over the technical details, the newspaper simply gets paid to have "some" advertisement show up next to their original content. The advertisement company may directly host the ad; or (as is very common) it may re-sell the right to advertise to other affiliates who provide other advertisements. Some of those advertisement affiliates may use geolocation based on the viewer - so that's why the advertisement's locale does not necessarily match the content's locale.

In the old days, websites had no advertisements; and then, in the next phase of that ancient history, advertisers directly contacted web hosts to sponsor the content. Web hosts would host the actual ad or embed the content in to the page. Today, this process is a lot more "robotic," and the advertisement banners that you see are typically never going to have been looked at by anyone involved with producing the page content.

Wikipedia has articles on online advertising, ad exchange, and ad serving, if you want to read about the technology. This stuff is spam on steroids - there's a lot of automation, and surprisingly little human oversight. There's a lot of marketing hype about how much money there is in "internet advertising" and "targeted marketing," but there never seems to be enough money to hire a programmer to make technical stuff work quite right - like good geolocation, or effectively automatically matching content- to advertisement- demographics.

I suspect many large "piles of money" are wasted. Fundamentally, this is an inefficient market due to a massive information asymmetry - there seems to exist an immense knowledge gap between the people who know how advertising works, and the people who actually pay for advertising. That persistent asymmetry - which is clearly exacerbated by the people who are profiting from it - sustains an incredibly widespread and prevalent case of market failure.

Nimur (talk) 05:39, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was thoroughly unaware of how most of this works. I just assumed that most online ads were done by means of advertisers contracting with ad-hosting websites for specific placement for a specific period of time; newspapers already do this with printed ads, so it wouldn't be too hard to do it with online ads. I had no idea that there was a gap as big as you describe. Nyttend (talk) 00:40, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Help Finding Universal Remote Codes

I have bought a 10-in-1 Universal remote control & I'm can't find any codes for my DVD player or any for my TV that work. The DVD player is a ASDA own brand DVD (doesn't say anywhere on it/ in manual if its a Sony or any other manufacture), the only details I've got for it are:
Model No: DVD TL01,
Spec Code: 592/101,
and some unlabeled number, 104723810004506
And if needed, the Universal remote is a cheap one from one of the pound shops, the manufacture is Signalex. Any help ? 194.74.238.137 (talk) 11:23, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't find it. It may be a good idea to call or email ASDA. The Quixotic Potato (talk) 13:30, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Ive been up/(down)?graded

Just been auto upgraded to W10.Didnt specifically ask for this so, If I dont like it, can I reverse to W7? Also have they taken anything out of W7 to get W10?--178.106.99.31 (talk) 16:48, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi IP, you can go back to Windows 7 by following these steps, though in my opinion 10 is mostly an improvement -- samtar ^{talk or stalk} 16:50, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wots the improvements then?--178.106.99.31 (talk) 23:26, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Here are a few articles detailing the differences between 7 and 10: [9], [10], [11]. Also, Wikipedia's article on Windows 10 has a section about removed features. There's also an article about new features. clpo13_(talk) 23:35, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Microsoft windows gadgets clock Folder

I can’t insert a ".png" file inside it, its asking me for administrator’s permission. What should I do? I’m the only user using my PC…

Note: insert "clock" in the "Search" bar after entering inside the OS/"C:" Folder.

Apostle (talk) 20:24, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

(A) Why do you want to? (B) What version of Windows are you using? (C) What happens if you click on the "Continue" button? Do you get prompted for an admin username and password? Tevildo (talk) 21:12, 28 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia pages updated since last visit

On my PC, this "updated since list visit" tag in a given page's history has always been a green rectangle highlight around the letters, very easy to see. Until sometime within the last 24 hours. Now it's just green letters with no highlighting. Not so easy to see.. I don't think I changed anything affecting my screen. Did something change within Wikipedia's default screen settings? Does anyone see this same phenomenon, or is it just me? Thank you. :) ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:24, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Accessing local file from web browser

Hi. According to the discussion here, I can get the Chrome browser to enable cookies for local files if I access the file via "the local IP address (127.0.0.1)". But how do I do this? Let's say I have a local file "C:\blahblah\something.htm", what do I actually type into the Chrome address bar to reach it via this "127.0.0.1"? (By the way, the other supposed workaround mentioned in that thread, the "--enable-file-cookies" flag, does not work, so that is not an option.) Using Windows 10 by the way, if it matters. 86.171.43.59 (talk) 01:30, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm assuming that just typing in "C:\blahblah\something.htm" didn't work. Try "file:///c:\blah\blah\something.htm," according to this Google forum post. Works on Firefox, too, and sort of on Internet Explorer (I tested on a folder instead of an html document, so it just opened the folder in a new non-IE window). I'm not seeing why you would need to type in the local IP address. I could see needing to do so if you were trying to remote access a file, but that'd require other stuff beyond simply knowing the IP address (if their system is that unprotected, you don't want to remote access it). Ian.thomson (talk) 01:36, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please read my question, and read the page that I linked to. It explains why I need to use "127.0.0.1". 86.171.43.59 (talk) 01:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 289: / Line 289: @@
 Hi. According to the discussion [http://stackoverflow.com/questions/335244/why-does-chrome-ignore-local-jquery-cookies here], I can get the Chrome browser to enable cookies for local files if I access the file via "the local IP address (127.0.0.1)". But how do I do this? Let's say I have a local file "C:\blahblah\something.htm", what do I actually type into the Chrome address bar to reach it via this "127.0.0.1"? (By the way, the other supposed workaround mentioned in that thread, the "--enable-file-cookies" flag, does not work, so that is not an option.) Using Windows 10 by the way, if it matters. [[Special:Contributions/86.171.43.59|86.171.43.59]] ([[User talk:86.171.43.59|talk]]) 01:30, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
 :I'm assuming that just typing in "C:\blahblah\something.htm" didn't work.  Try "file:///c:\blah\blah\something.htm," according to [https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/chrome/928thoTc8Ws this Google forum post].  Works on Firefox, too, and sort of on Internet Explorer (I tested on a folder instead of an html document, so it just opened the folder in a new non-IE window).  I'm not seeing why you would need to type in the local IP address.  I could see needing to do so if you were trying to remote access a file, but that'd require other stuff beyond simply knowing the IP address (if their system is that unprotected, you don't want to remote access it).  [[User:Ian.thomson|Ian.thomson]] ([[User talk:Ian.thomson|talk]]) 01:36, 29 May 2016 (UTC)
+::Please read my question, and read the page that I linked to. It explains why I need to use "127.0.0.1". [[Special:Contributions/86.171.43.59|86.171.43.59]] ([[User talk:86.171.43.59|talk]]) 01:38, 29 May 2016 (UTC)