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February 2

USB RF RECIEVER FUNCTION

I have an older accessory and am tring to figure out its function. It is labeled a usb rf reciever. I believe it is some sort of syncronizing device for computers. It is made by Gyration and is a small box that has five indicator lights named status-number-caps-scroll-and conflict. On the top side it has a learn button. What is this objects function? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.124.100.199 (talk) 00:16, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Gyration makes wireless mice and keyboards. Sounds like you've got the little usb receiver doodad that you plug into a PC so you can use their keyboard. The number, caps, and scroll lights correspond with numlock, capslock, and scrolllock buttons on the keyboard. To mate a specific keyboard with the doodad you typically hold down the learn button on the doodad and the keyboard at once. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:34, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

A Google search led me to a pdf manual, which you might be for this particular device (the receiver is described on page 14). — daranz [ t ] 00:38, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Going back to Windows 7 after upgrading to Windows 8

So 24 hours ago I downloaded and installed Windows 8, and I already LOATHE it. I wish to go back to the Windows 7 that came preinstalled on my computer (I have the recovery disk). I googled for info, but it's been of little help, as it mostly seems to only provide info for pcs that are preinstalled with Windows 8. I didn't do a clean install, I only migrated my files and settings, so I was wondering if it's possible to downgrade to Win 7? I hope I'm not stuck with this massive mistake. :( 70.55.108.19 (talk) 05:13, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Presumably you hate the completely new user interface, designed for touch screen devices, like most people do. If so, before you give up on it, try this: http://classicshell.sf.net/. That will restore the Classic Windows look. StuRat (talk) 05:46, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Alternatively, if you're not willing to pay for Start8, there's this which copies the explorer.exe and a few other things from a Windows 7 CD to the computer, effectively disabling Metro and returning the start menu. ProtossPylon 05:51, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I just want my old OS back. I don't want to replicate certain aspects of it, I want the real thing back. I hate Windows 8. Biggest waste of money ever. I just contacted the manufacturer of my computer, and they told me a downgrade is only possible with a Win7 installation disk, and that I'd have to contact Microsoft for further information. My computer came equipped only with a recovery disk. I don't want to have to buy a copy of Win 7 when I already have a valid license key. 70.55.108.19 (talk) 06:00, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

The best thing I can suggest then is to back up all of your important stuff and do a fresh install of Windows 7. There's no way to safely downgrade, if I remember correctly. You could try installing Windows 7 on top of the Windows 8 partition and see if it works, but still, have a backup on hand. I hate Windows 8 just as much as you do, too, honestly. ProtossPylon 06:09, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

If you have all the registration keys and such, it should be possible to use Windows 8 to download Windows 7 from Microsoft to a new disk partition (expect this to take many hours), then wipe Windows 8 out of the current partition, and reinstall 7. However, all of your personalization might be lost, in this manner. Microsoft is not so concerned about preserving personalization when downgrading the O/S, as they assume everyone will love everything new they make. StuRat (talk) 06:11, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a recovery partition on my HDD, can I restore Win 7 from it or does installing Win 8 render it completely useless? 70.55.108.19 (talk) 01:32, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

There seems to be a general rule that every other Windows version is crap. Windows XP was decent, then Vista was crap. Windows 7 is decent, and now Windows 8 is crap. Perhaps we can convince MS to add a ".C" suffix to their crap versions of Windows, to make this more obvious ?  :-) StuRat (talk) 06:12, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Is it possible to reinstall it with factory settings? Like how it was when I bought it? This nightmare feels like a crappy marriage I'm desperate to get out of :( 70.55.108.19 (talk) 06:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, getting Windows 7 back as fresh install with factory settings should be possible, but getting your money back and saving any customization is probably not possible. I'd still suggest you try the free link I provided above, and at least see if Windows 8 is acceptable with the Classic Windows interface, before "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". It will be far simpler and quicker than going all the way back to Windows 7, and you won't lose your personalization. StuRat (talk) 08:18, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't care about getting my money back, I don't care about losing customization (as long as my files and programs are spared). This new OS makes my system lag and eats up my RAM even though there was promise of it being faster and lighter on the resources. I need to get rid of it. 70.55.108.19 (talk) 20:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Switch to a free Unix OS and you won’t ever be put into this position again. :) ¦ Reisio (talk) 20:52, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Who told you it used fewer resources ? Looking at the system requirements for Windows 7 [1] and Window 8 [2], they look identical. As for keeping your old programs, you would likely need to reinstall each of them after you wipe Windows 8 and reinstall Windows 7. If you have the install disks, this should be easy. If you have registration keys, or the programs are free, then you could download the programs and reinstall them after you reinstall Windows 7. StuRat (talk) 23:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Going by system requirements is a very limited way of gauging performance. Since you mentioned Windows Vista above, I would have thought this obvious. There was no difference in the system requirements, but it's well accepted that Windows 7 generally performed better and used less resources, particularly on a borderline system.

In fact it was one of the few clearcut advantages of Windows 7 of Windows 8, there were other changes often minor but the evidence I saw was that the reason why people hated Windows Vista but liked 7 was not so much because of the extra polish but simply because people had gotten over their hate of the changes by the time Windows 7 came out. And in particular, hardware vendors had gotten their act together and released drivers. Software developers had fixed any apps which didn't work on Windows Vista (usually because the app was flawed from the start). And those hardware and software people who hadn't, well frequently far fewer people cared about their stuff by the time 7 came out. The other big advantage Windows 7 had was beyond the improved performance, hardware had advanced significantly in the years as it always does and so there were far fewer machines which were borderline for Vista being sold, and far fewer people still using them. Therefore far fewer people were trying to run 7 on machines were they possibly shouldn't anyway, compared to Vista. In other words, while Vista may have been slightly crap, the big advantage 7 had was not so much that it was less crap but people were far less likely to think it was crap.

Anyway large number of reviews have shown that Windows 8 generally performs better in a number of areas http:// www.examiner.com/article/windows-8-versus-windows-7-performance-shootout [3] [4], particularly in boot up times and app start up times. I can't comment on why the OPs experience was different from most other people, except perhaps to note that claims like 'makes my system lag' are highly subjective and therefore easily influenced by factors other then actual system lag and similar 'eats up my RAM' is fairly complicated as it depends greatly on installed and running apps and settings and in particularly how you're counting (most modern OSes are designed to eat up you RAM all the time for caching purpose if nothing else).

Nil Einne (talk) 05:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

"clearcut advantages of Windows 7 of Windows 8" ? StuRat (talk) 08:25, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Sorry I meant clear cut advantages of Windows 7 over Windows Vista. Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a recovery partition on my HDD, is it possible to restore Win 7 from there or does having Win 8 installed render it completely useless? 70.55.108.19 (talk) 01:35, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Short answer, yes, it will restore Windows 7. You will probably need to check Google or your computer's manual for the key combination to access it (if it's a dell, I think the key is ctrl-f11 right after boot or something). Usually, they clear the entire main partition and then place a fresh install of Windows right where it was. ProtossPylon 07:13, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Easy way to find out. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

A recovery point normally doesn't store the entire O/S, so it won't be able to restore Windows 7. You'll need to reinstall Windows 7 after downloading it. StuRat (talk) 03:00, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

IME what people refer to as recovery partitions do, however. VARs’ solution to not wanting to press and include (re)install media. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:58, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

The Microsoft Word 2013 Equation Editor

Has there been any improvements/changes to the equation editor in Microsoft Word 2013 (compared to Word 2010)? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 16:27, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Do you mean the "Equation Editor" add-on, or just the native insert equation functionality? Seems there are two similar things here which are different - see [5] ---- _nonsense ferret 00:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I mean the new one (the 'native' one, first introduced in Word 2007). The old one (the OLE object) is very obsolete. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 08:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Nope. I haven't noticed any differences after several hours' use. 220.233.107.108 (talk) 00:37, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

OK, thanks. --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 15:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Resolved

Blue Ray that can actually browse the internet

I bought a Sony Blue Ray player a few years ago that said internet ready, and which the salesman assured me I could use to browse the internet. What it actually came with was access to YouTube, and about 20 pay channels that allowed video streaming, and no access to the web itself for general browsing.

At this point I am using a laptop through the hdmi port to browse the internet from the TV, but I don't like having to dedicate a computer to that use, have the computer on and open to the same page, etc.

We don't even have an article on blue ray players, and our article on blue ray in general says internet when it means access to limited pay content through an internet connection--the same with google searches, leading to things like "internet ready" players at Amazon, which seems to mean capable via wifi of accessing limited and usually pay channels.

Is there an information on a device that will actually play my discs and allow me full web access, not just to the channels they offer? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 22:05, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Sony PS3 is a device that would allow you to watch blu rays and surf the web. However, I personally find this quite a frustrating experience and compares to the experience of web surfing with smart tvs. I would anticipate any dedicated blu ray player giving similar results. I therefore have a media pc with a blu ray drive under my tv as it is only this that I have found meets all my media/surfing needs without too much hassle. ---- _nonsense ferret 22:21, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't even watch TV, just use my laptop to download, stream and watch discs. My interest is for my parents, who would occasionally like to see things on the internet. They wouldn't be editing wikipedia, for example. I had been thinking of getting them a Wii, since they like the bowling. But I don't think it allows plain web surfing. So the PS3 will allow full web surfing? What is frustrating about it? I'm also curious if it comes with the same sort of bowling game as Wii. μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

re bowling games - have a look at PlayStation Move - this is motion detecting similar to the wii controller and there are quite a few different games. re frustration - it is probably just a personal thing, i guess if you got a keyboard and mouse it might be a bit better, using the game controller or bluray remote always felt like a hassle to try to find a web page, and for me a very pale (and slow) imitation of using firefox with mouse and keyboard and all the plugins/addons and multiple tab/window capabilities. I am not sure it will necessarily be compatible with every site, but at least they seem to have a flash plugin. I tried to use the PS3 but never found it intuitive for surfing. If your parents are anything like my older relatives then I've seen an ipad (other tablets will be just as good I'm sure, and cheaper) be a really successful (addictive!) way to get complete computer novices surfing the web, and I've seen an inexpensive netbook be a good option for someone that has a little bit of familiarity with computing but only wants to get online for shopping etc. I've seen a smart tv fail really as it was too complicated to use a remote control to get a web page up (I struggled, and someone unfamiliar with computers just found it not worth trying. ---- _nonsense ferret 22:47, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, my father has two laptops and is happy surfing them. My mother is crotchety and rejects anything new you suggest to her, and will never learn to browse herself. But she was introduced to the Wii as a game at my sisters, and will accept that. They have enjoyed it when I have found movies or old episodes of What's My Line, which they could simply stream but which I have had to download, bring to their hose, and show them through my hdmi port. Looking on line I see there is an "internet channel" available for the Wii that supposedly allows you to browse. I'll have to see if we have information of that. I am curious if there is any good commentary or anyone can give an educated statement on whether there is any hidden catch with using a Wii to browse. I assume being able to search google and click on a link will be sufficient for our purposes. μηδείς (talk) 23:13, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

(ec) I agree. Not having a keyboard and mouse makes entering search terms extremely tedious. I suggest Medeis get them a cheap netbook and hook that up to the TV. That will provide the mouse (or equivalent) and keyboard which are otherwise absent, and, as a plus, they can unplug it and take it with them, say if they want to store a pic they find online and then show it to others. StuRat (talk) 23:19, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Looking at the Wii article, it implies that internet channel can be used with a USB keyboard. If that's the case, I would think a logitech keyboard with a mousepad attached to the Wii with the internet channel should let my dad browse from the couch through the Wii and watch videos, unless I am mistook? μηδείς (talk) 23:24, 2 February 2013 (UTC)

I haven't used a wii, but maybe [6] might be of assistance - and I guess you can always go the shop and try it, but take a list of different sorts of websites that they might use - some of the shopping ones/tv ones are the most complicated for web browsers to cope with. Bit of a leftfield suggestion maybe the raspberry pi could be a cheap and cheerful alternative :) ---- _nonsense ferret 00:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC) Oh yeah and the other thing I wanted to add is - surfing the web on a tv from a chair can be a bit painful - my eyesight is ok, but at about 6 feet away from a 40 inch screen at 1080P resolution I don't find it comfortable to view most sites without a lot of zooming in and out (although obviously it is fab for video) - bit of a strain on the eyes, and money no object i'd personally prefer a handheld tablet or netbook type thing. ---- _nonsense ferret 00:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I have a sony blueray that has a web browser on it. The webbrowser isn't very advanced, and I haven't tried it with flash or javascript, but if you have a specific question about those I can test it out later. It also has the youtube and pandora apps, among other things. I can answer more specific questions if you let me know. Shadowjams (talk) 02:54, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

That's interesting to see that Sony now offers a browser. No, the point would not be to use the TV for actual browsing-browsing, but to go on occasion to clips from the news, use HULU, check the weather, use FreeTV--basically stuff that would replace some of the functionality of cable with just enough searching to get us to a clickable content website. At this point I'd like to see a screenshot of how the internet channel at Wii looks, although our article doesn't provide one. μηδείς (talk) 03:37, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

My blueray has Hulu, but I think it only works with Hulu+. It has netflix, which is great if you have a subscription to netflix. It also has pandora, youtube, a few other pre-loaded things. You can hook a keyboard up to it too with usb... I'm not sure about a mouse. It's ok, probably not exactly what you want though. Shadowjams (talk) 06:17, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Hulu is decent on a window on your computer monitor, but the resolution is too low for a full-sized TV. It would look terrible. StuRat (talk) 03:55, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I have to respectfully disagree with this - the quality may be affected if you don't have much throughput on your internet connection, but I watch hulu on my tv using a media PC in fullscreen and the picture looks great to me. The only downside is adverts. ---- _nonsense ferret 15:02, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

According to the lede in our article: "Hulu provides video in Flash Video format, including many films and shows that are available in 288p, 360p, 480p, and in some cases, 720p HD." Now, you must admit that 288p is going to look like crap on a full-sized TV. I apparently have been unlucky enough to get that resolution. Even 720p isn't great, especially if it's been upconverted from a lower res and/or is displayed on a large, 1080p screen. StuRat (talk) 16:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, this link [7] by Ferret seems scary and helpful. The last thing I want is a standard def internet connection that can't be read! μηδείς (talk) 03:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

February 3

Static IP Address

I have a Rikomagic MK802 mini Android computer that plugs into my TV's HDMI port and turns my TV into something like an Android tablet. The device is connected to my home Wifi network. I also have another Android tablet that I use as a mouse/keyboard to control the MK802. They communicate via my home Wifi network.

The way I connect the two device is through this app where I enter the IP address of my MK802. However, each time I shutdown the MK802, it receives a slightly different IP address. For ex, one time it might be 192.168.0.4, but when I restart it becomes like 192.168.0.5. Is there a way for me to make the IP address static so that I can enter in the same IP thorugh my tablet each time, rather than finding its new IP address?

I have a time warner Ubee Modem/router if that matters.

Thanks! Acceptable (talk) 01:52, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't know about the Rikomagic device specifically, but standard Android allows you to set static IPs on per-network basis. You can long-press on a network on the Wi-Fi screen and select "modify network." From there, you can check "advanced options" and switch IP settings from DHCP to static. The settings there should be populated if you're already connected to the network, so you should be able to just save that in order to keep your current IP address. — daranz [ t ] 04:41, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

If you have administrative access to your cable modem, then it's probably better to set a fixed IP address for your device there (it will be in the DHCP settings). That way, your device still uses DHCP to get an address, and (unless Daranz's solution is per-network), the device will still work on other networks. If you use Daranz's solution, then pick a high address, I'd start at 192.168.0.254 and work down for other devices - otherwise the cablemodem's DHCP server might give the same address to another device. CS Miller (talk) 06:34, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Note that many routers only use a reduced range, usually starting higher up, e.g. 127 for a their DHCP assignments so it's often not necessary or even wise to start higher up. It also depends how assignments are carried out, not all devices hand out IPs sequentially. Also some devices use 254 for the router by default, so it's probably not the best idea to fix this to some other device if you don't already know it isn't used. Edit: Admittedly I just remembered the info the OP provided suggested it is given out sequentially and also that it does start at 2 or something similar. Nil Einne (talk) 09:29, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

How do I set the static IP via my modem control panel? There's a panel under "Gateway" that's called "DHCP static lease," is this the right place to assign a static IP? Also, sorry my knowledge of network is not so strong, but is there a reason why all routers seem to default to a dynamic IP address vs a static one? Is there some sort of advantage to this that I would be getting rid of when I switch my device to a static IP? Thanks! Acceptable (talk) 18:46, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Acceptable, that sounds like it's for the ADSL-side of the modem, not the LAN side. There should be a list of "attached devices" somewhere; this should show each device, by their MAC address. This is six hex-pairs, separated by colons, like 01:23:45:56:78:9a. There should be on this page, or somewhere else, a page that allows you to assign a fixed IP address to each MAC address. You might need to assign a nickname to the MAC, and then a IP to the nickname. You can see how to view your devices address (from the device) on [8], it appears to start 00:26 CS Miller (talk) 20:16, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

How many Korean Wikipedians are out there?

Any idea? meta:Editor Survey 2011 is not very helpful for countries below the Top 10. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 17:31, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

You could check the active users list, if it exists on the Korean Wikipedia. The English one is listed at Special:SpecialPages. I don't know what it is in Korean. ActiveUsers give all editors who did something in the last month. ListUsers is every account. RudolfRed (talk) 19:03, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Special:Statistics also has a numerical count of users who have made an edit in the last 30 days. Here's a link to kowiki's Special:Statistics in English — daranz [ t ] 19:29, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, this is quite helpful! --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 19:45, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

4G LTE vs Wifi; battery usage?

I have a Verizon, Android smartphone with 4G LTE. Does LTE use more battery than Wifi? If I am in a situation where I have an open Wifi network and good LtE connection, should I turn on Wifi in order to save battery when I want to use data?

Conversely, I heard that WiFI actually uses more battery when there is no open network and it is constantly scanning. Is this true? In a situation where I am walking down the street with no open Wifi networks, should I turn off Wifi in my phone settings in order to save battery? Acceptable (talk) 18:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

If LTE is sparse where you are your device may have to send more power to reach a remote cell site. A local WiFi should consume less power as you should not have to transmit so much to reach it. But sure turning off WiFi will save energy if there is no available networks. Also disabling hidden networks on your device will stop it polling for them when they are nowhere near. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:36, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Configuring firewall or RDP server

My ISP provided me with a Huawei HG655b "home gateway". I would now like to configure the device's built-in firewall to let me use port 3389. This is so that I can use xrdp to display a Linux desktop on my Windows PC using the remote desktop connection. Unfortunately, the Huawei device seems to only let me configure fixed port numbers for a few applications - http, DNS, SMTP and a few others - not RDP, not telnet/SSH (which I've just realised might have been the cause of a problem I had with telnet some months back). Can the Huawei be configured in some way, without resorting to turning off the firewall which I don't think is a good idea? Alternatively, could I configure xrdp so it would work with a different port, one that the firewall does let pass? Astronaut (talk) 19:06, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I found this: [9], which says you can set the port number in xrdp.ini file. RudolfRed (talk) 19:10, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

In general, is using a port number for something else a good/safe idea? For example, could I configure xrdp to use port 21 (normally FTP) without it messing up something else? Astronaut (talk) 21:02, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Sound files

In Mac OS X the computer has sound files that accompany certain functions such as emptying trash, duplicating files, or dropping files into trash. How could I locate these files on the computer? Thank you. Bus stop (talk) 19:49, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

In the Finder, type "audio", then select "Audio" from the "Kinds" menu that pops up. Then look through the results. Most are in /System/Library/Sounds/. You can also search for ".aiff". --Stephan Schulz (talk) 00:19, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I found a bunch of them. I actually haven't found the three I was looking for. I will keep looking. That was helpful. I now think I sort of know where to go rooting around for such files. Bus stop (talk) 03:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

3D scanning

I have a Canon EOS 500D and would like to try making 3D models for 3D printing using it in a Structured-light 3D scanner system. I found this pdf but it is either over my head or doesn't cover the software and camera connections for a DSLR. Is there any easy (and free) software out there to do this function? The mirrors, DLP projector, and calibration I will worry about once I figure out if my camera will work. 3D printing is getting popular in Hackerspaces and I don't think the one here in Edmonton has a printer yet. Making models of objects seems to be the first step and I am wondering if there is an easy way to make them with a DLSR to scan objects. I am using Win7 and I think Kinect software may work with my Canon DLSR but haven't found details on the hook-up and configuration anywhere.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:51, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

I recall seeing demos of Kinect being used for 3D scanning, yes. http://www.david-laserscanner.com/ is one free package that requires only a camera and a laser pointer. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:16, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. They use a webcam and a hand-held line laser (starting at €19.90). They also have their calibration grids free as printable files. Their wiki has lots of info. I should see if Ebay prices can make it even cheaper for me. I will keep looking for other software and do more research etc. I wonder if any of the file extensions are allowed on commons. We could have a nice database of open source 3D objects that way.--Canoe1967 (talk) 23:42, 3 February 2013 (UTC)

You may want to check out a more specialised community for more help. I've seen some discussion of 3D scanners on the RepRap forums. Nil Einne (talk) 06:01, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again. A local printer does 3D printing. I may pop by and see if they scan and possibly help with financing if they don't. Extrusion of filaments seems over-priced and they may pay me to make an extruder that recycles old plastics, etc.--Canoe1967 (talk) 19:03, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

February 4

Receiving and sending emails from one account

Is the following set up for my mail server possible? I have a mail (IMAP) account bamse@example.com which should receive e-mails directed to bamse@example.com and to admin@example.com so that I can read all mails in one place. However if I reply to an email, I would like it to look as if bamse or admin replied depending on where the original (incoming) email was sent to. Is this a task for the MUA or the MTA? If it matters, I am using postfix/dovecot/sylpheed. bamse (talk) 00:10, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The MUA; "From:" is just a field in the email headers. I have several email accounts that end up in one, and Thunderbird's "From" dropdown lets me set the sender (and, optionally, the sending SMTP) lets me select which account replies. Occasionally I mess up and reply from the wrong account (which confuses the recipient, but works okay regardless). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:30, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. But is there an automatic way without dropdown? bamse (talk) 20:49, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

May I install and use LibreOffice v4.0 alogside v3.5 under Windows7(64-bit) ?

I have noticed that many software packages automatically uninstalls older versions when you install a newer one (or sometimes the versions just crash and interfere with each other in unpleasant ways).
I would like to keep the old LibreOffice v3.5 on the same desktop and user account alongside the continuously updated latest edition of v.4… without them interfering with each other.
The PC in question has Windows7 Ultimate 64-bit and 16GB RAM.
(I will probably keep LibreOffice v3.5 until the new version reaches v4.5 and then presumably repeat the process with v5… alongside v4.5).
Is it possible to do this?
--89.9.203.15 (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

The version 4 installer definitely seeks out version 3.5 installs to remove, but if you simply temporarily move the version 3.5 install from the Program Files directory during the version 4 installation, and then move it back, neither installation seems the wiser. You’d probably want to backup the Start menu shortcuts between actions as well. Another approach would be using the portable version for 3.5 (there doesn’t seem to be one for version 4 yet). ¦ Reisio (talk) 05:14, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

That sounds promising Thank you! :-) But what exactly did you mean by: «[...] neither installation seems the wiser.»
Did you try to run:
LibreOffice 3.5\program\quickstart.exe alongside:
LibreOffice 4.0\program\quickstart.exe ?
Or:
LibreOffice 3.5\program\swriter.exe alongside:
LibreOffice 4.0\program\swriter.exe ?
Or did you just take a look at the installer or something?
(I want to avoid having to reinstall 3.5 so the 3.5-portable solution is not attractive).
--(OP)89.9.203.252 (talk) 18:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I ran soffice.exe (the generic multiple choice launcher) and then (from that launcher) the word processor for both. They reported the expected version information from the Help menu. I’m afraid that is the limit of my interest. :) If you backup the local data (not sure where LibreOffice for win32 keeps it), there should be no risk of having to reconfigure anything should it all go awry. People at http://webchat.freenode.net/?nick=monsieur89&channels=#libreoffice would probably have more information on any of it. ¦ Reisio (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank You!  :-)
--(OP)89.9.203.252 (talk) 02:42, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Windows programming questions

The following came up at work last week. In Windows C# or Managed C++, is it possible to know:

1. If the current process is running with administrator privileges, and
2. If the "Net.TCP Port Sharing Service" is running? JIP | Talk 05:18, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

stackoverflow.com is a good place for questions about c# ---- _nonsense ferret 13:04, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

and here is discussion about your question 1 - [10] ---- _nonsense ferret 13:06, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! Thanks to Stackoverflow, I was able to find the answer to question #1. Point #2 in the provided link is important - my purpose here is specifically to find out if the actual process has administrator privileges, not simply if the user who ran the process has them. Question #2 still remains unanswered, but I'll probably post a question to Stackoverflow later. JIP | Talk 18:53, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Windows 8

Is Windows 8 supposed to be buggy? Apps crash all the time. Clover345 (talk) 18:21, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Which apps? which version of Windows 8? - I've been using Windows 8 Pro for a few months without any particular problems. ---- _nonsense ferret 18:32, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Internet explorer crashes alot on It and sometimes Windows doesn't restart properly after a windows update, forcing me to manually turn it off and on again. I'm using windows 8 pro. 90.214.102.253 (talk) 18:51, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Well, I don't suppose your question was really a question - I have had an issue when I installed a third-party application to Windows 8, which automatically installed a browser add-on - this add-on managed to crash IE10 every time it opened until I removed it. That was pretty annoying, but I couldn't blame MS for that issue - worth checking whether it is any better when you run "iexplore -extoff" from the run dialog (WndsKey-R)

I've not had this problem re not restarting. I have noticed that it has restarted twice sometimes to install windows updates, which made me wonder why - but restart/startup time is a lot faster than Win7 so I'm happy with the upgrade. My computer sometimes does not go to sleep properly, but my best guess is that this is a hardware issue - at least that is how I'm trying to justify expenditure on a new MB/CPU :)

I am not much fond of IE - prefer firefox and its lovely ad blocker plugin :) Some security bloggers recommend having more than one browser and keeping one for 'safe' urls where you wish to remain logged in (like WP/FB etc) and another for unfamiliar links and sites - I think that is wise advice. ---- _nonsense ferret 19:42, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I've found startup/shutdown faster but restarts are slow. Apparently this is because there's something in Windows 8 that skips non essential startup processes so it boots faster but on restart, it just boots everything. 90.214.102.253 (talk) 19:48, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Notifications in Android

Could someone please clarify (or direct me to an appropriate article) how Android notifications work? I have an RSS reader, which is set to sync every couple hours and show a notification in the status bar when new articles are available. It all works marvelously well, until I reboot the phone. After that, I may not see a notification for days, but as soon as I explicitly launch the RSS reader the notifications start working just fine again. I've had similar problems with the notifications from other software as well. Any thoughts?—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 4, 2013; 20:26 (UTC)

An app has to be running for it to generate a notification. If it isn't generating notifications, it probably isn't running. Apps like RSS readers, which periodically poll for events, will often schedule an an "alarm" (like asking for a wakeup call). Others (which need to listen for some kind of event) run all the time in the background as a service. Either way, such an application will typically set itself up to be executed briefly when the system boots (it specifies that in its manifest, and has a handler which responds to the BOOT_COMPLETED event). During that handler it either creates the service or schedules the periodic alarm to wake itself up to do its periodic task. It looks like something is preventing that BOOT_COMPLETED message from starting apps in question. A virgin Android system should handle those properly. I'd guess that you have installed some kind of "boot manager" or "boot optimiser" which, in an attempt to make your device boot quicker and to avoid greedy programs autostarting and wasting memory on stuff you don't need, is also blocking the apps you do want to autostart, like your RSS reader. It's to that program you should turn your attention. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:12, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Nope, no boot optimizers or managers. Guess it's a developer's fault then. Thanks for such a detailed response!—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); February 4, 2013; 22:24 (UTC)

Programs like Elixir can show you what's running in the background. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:28, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Has math knowledge become less important in IT?

Since there are more libraries, software developers can rely on a black box approach to complex mathematic calculations and be more ignorant about math. OsmanRF34 (talk) 23:58, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

I think they are teaching it less at the school levels since the advent of calculators. I learned how to read a slide rule and calculate cube roots on paper. I doubt those are still taught. Since vernier calipers and micrometers became digital few can read the older ones any more either.--Canoe1967 (talk) 00:09, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Very little of mathematics involves calculation. There is a portion of computer science that is directly related to numerical calculation. But there is far more work in computing and programming that depend on actual mathematical knowledge - concepts like formal analysis of difficult problems; or formally proving correctness; or general intuition related to quantitative problems. More than ever, human knowledge of mathematics is very important, because calculation is so easily performed by the computer.

Perhaps you will find Dr. Professor Dijkstra's writings more convincing than my mere opinion: EWD732 (The Teachability of Mathematical Thinking); EWD1277; or nearly anything else in the archive. Nimur (talk) 00:20, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I think there are programmers and there are programmers - there seem to be great number of software development professionals who manage to carve out a career for themselves in the industry with very little apparent understanding of mathematics. There is an impression that this is compounded somewhat by Higher Education establishments which produce computer science graduates who are not required to do much maths, nor indeed much programming. I think the industry finds many of these somewhat unprepared for the day-to-day work required. That said, the production of business applications is becoming distinctly 'paint-by-numbers' in approach, aided by the high quality of development environments and frameworks available. There will always be a place for the most talented of coders however, the Dijkstras of this world (who arguably are computer scientists rather than programmers), which I would say have exactly the sort of analytical skills that give them a great capability and interest in matters mathematical, and perhaps tend to command the highest remuneration levels.---- _nonsense ferret 00:37, 5 February 2013 (UTC) If you have access to an academic library you might well be able to get a copy of this journal edition entitled "Why CS Students Need Math" [11] ---- _nonsense ferret 00:48, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

February 5

What can MS Word do that no free word processor can?

Looking at this, I see, for instance, that Word alone costs $109.99. I clicked "Learn more" and then looked at what the tabs had to say, but I don't see what feature set this application contains that absolutely cannot be found in any other free word processor such as Open Office Writer. In this comparison (which I can tell doesn't cover all features, LibreOffice writer has more Yeses than Word with the one exception I can see between those two in particular being exporting to WordPerfect format). But I don't see that itself being worth $109.99. What feature(s) does the latest version of Word have that no current free word processor has? 67.163.109.173 (talk) 03:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't think people buy it because they think it has more features. There is the perception, wrong IMHO, that software products put out by large companies are more reliable than free products. There is an analogy with Wikipedia (free) and non-free encyclopedias. StuRat (talk) 03:10, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Comparison of word processors has side-by-side feature listings. Microsoft's promotional website also lists key software features. One key feature that Microsoft Word can do is PDF reflow, or dynamic editing of content that was originally stored in a PDF document. I am not aware of any free software word-processor that can edit and re-layout PDF documents. Nimur (talk) 04:32, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Another (perceived) bonus is the network effect. Open Office/Libre Office/NeoOffice are about as compatible with Word as Word is with its previous release. But the small incompatibilities are perceived as failures of the competing product, while incompatibilities within the Word family are perceived as necessary results of progress. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 09:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Or put another way it is more compatible with Microsoft Word than any of the non Microsoft Word products are. And when you consider the enormous amount of time people spend learning to cope with Word's various quirks that is a big perceived advantage to them. They don't want to go though all that again. Divide your $109.99 by $ per hour - they know they wouldn't be proficient with another Word processor in that time. Dmcq (talk) 10:47, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

One thing that should be mentioned is that it's not only about features but also about how easy it is to use all those features - I use OpenOffice exclusively at home and support MS Word for a bunch of attorneys (who use every last feature of Word for contracts and stuff) at work, so I guess I have a fair basis for comparison - and I have to say that over time I have really come to hate OpenOffice because everything that goes beyond the most basic editing features is so incredibly convoluted and complicated. Sure, it's possible to have varying page headers in different sections of a document, and it's also possible to insert a single landscape page in an otherwise portrait document, but it's no fun to do so in OpenOffice - and that's not even getting into stuff like paragraph numbering and formatting tables of content (which is just painful to the point of being impossible in OO). In a simple feature comparison, OpenOffice will look as good as MS Word, and for standard home-use features it may even be more or less user friendly, but once you get into more complex editing stuff (with several users working on a document, numbering schemes having to be changed, tracking changes for formatting changes etc) , you really notice the differences in usability. As much as I love the idea of free/open software in general, OpenOffice is still one of the worst offenders in the "we don't care about user friendliness" category, at least as soon as you move beyond writing a simple letter -- Ferkelparade π 11:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Lawyers and word processors ... they certainly are exacting in their requirements, I pity you. My impression of Word is that it has accretions of loads of different ways of doing almost the same thing, all slightly different and incompatible and not quite doing what one wants. Whenever I use it I feel like I'm fighting it. I do think though OpenOffice needs to improve its macro language, not that Word is much fun, and it isn't up to scratch for multi user stuff. Dmcq (talk) 11:30, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

BTW I often use LibreOffice, which is OpenOffice but shifted around, for various things when I'm not worried about it being exactly the same. Its spreadsheet however is still nowhere as fast as Excel which is a big disadvantage - though they have being going in opposite directions in that respect recently. I have a couple of large spreadsheets where I've had to invest time to stop even Excel being sluggish so this is a big thing for me. Dmcq (talk) 13:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I personally feel that word processors have too many features these days. That is, they are bloatware. To take just one case, I am fine with only having a single dash. Having multiple, ever-so-slightly-different dashes just causes problems, IMHO. For example, if you want to do a search-and-replace on a phrase containing a dash, now you have to worry if the phrase will have exactly the same dash in each location. Now multiply the multiple dashes problem by a thousand, to account for all the similar issues, and you get a very cumbersome product to use. StuRat (talk) 16:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

While I agree that MS Office in particular is an egregious example of bloatware, I would disagree strongly that the fact of different dashes is an example of that. The differences between a hyphen, an en dash, and an em dash are old typographical distinctions. They are not extra "features" added by word processors — they vastly predate them, and the differences between them are not arbitrarily interchangeable. (We use them on Wikipedia too, you know — if you put two hyphens in, some poor bot will replace them with an em dash. If you use a hyphen where an en dash is appropriate, the same thing will eventually occur, though it is less obvious.) It is certainly true that most people do not know how to use them correctly and you will get quite a lot of difference in practice, but that's not really the word processor's fault (any more than people not knowing how to use commas is), and it is certainly not a bloated feature (I doubt there is any significant additional overhead in terms of memory or processing power). --Mr.98 (talk) 16:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Yeah what he said - Mr.98 beat me to it by a few seconds there :) I'd only add there is often a very useful feature - wildcard searching (more features is not necessarily more 'bloat') if you are unsure which hyphen or dash is the appropriate one, but in the middle of a word it should be a hyphen ---- _nonsense ferret 16:22, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

To me, this is an unnecessary distinction between dashes. Early word processors just supported one dash, and that worked just fine. I'm also using a wider def of "bloatware" to include "unneeded features which decrease user productivity, rather than increasing it". StuRat (talk) 16:19, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

sounds like you'd be happier with a typewriter, why not? nothing wrong with that. I'll personally stick with MS Word and its handling of multiple styles, tables, object imbedding, mathematical text rendering et al ---- _nonsense ferret 16:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

No, I haven't used a typewriter in decades. They decrease productivity, relative to word processors, as fixing mistakes and making changes is time-consuming. I tend to use very simple word processors, like Notepad. StuRat (talk) 16:40, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It's absolutely horrible for mathematical text. If you want to make decent documents with any serious amount of mathematics, you have one choice: LaTeX. --Trovatore (talk) 00:49, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I emphatically disagree; I have produced many fine looking mathematical documents in Microsoft Word, that were easy to update and maintain. TeX has a legacy community; many people prefer TeX; but it is not the only reasonable choice. If you summed up all the hours you spent to learn TeX, and instead spent those hours learning how to properly and correctly manage mathematical formatting in Microsoft Word, you probably would recognize how powerful a feature-rich word-processor can be for composing and publishing mathematical papers. The most common argument I hear in favor of TeX is that the author can focus on content and worry about format later; but this is a fairly silly critique. In a word-processor, you can easily disable and re-enable formatting as often or as infrequently as suits your needs. If you feel so inclined, you can edit a document in Word using a fixed-width font with word-wrap disabled; and apply a style template after the text entry is complete, automatically stylizing based on document context. And regarding equation entry: Microsoft Word can accept equations in TeX markup language. So the claim that word processors are "unable" to handle mathematical formatting is a faulty argument. If the concern is price, or if you have an aversion proprietary non-free software, those critiques at least hold water: but if the concern is that word processors are unsuitable for mathematical documents, that concern is easily addressed by learning the basic operation of the software. Incompetence is a flimsy defense, and not one that a respectable mathematician should hide behind! (See also, our discussion from a few months ago, in which I challenged anyone to identify the specific advantage of TeX over an alternative typesetting or word-processing program). Nimur (talk) 06:06, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Can you use TikZ and packages built on it like circuiTikZ and chemfig in Word? 67.163.109.173 (talk) 22:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm not familiar with those tools. Categorically, it can be done. You can use VBA in Word to run arbitrarily complex workflows and call out to external tools. Should it be done? That's an entirely different question. There are plenty of more ...parsimonious ways to embed technical graphics into a Word document, using tools that will be familiar to a wider audience, and will very likely be more robust and easier to maintain. And to preempt any "security risk" argument against VBA, remember that when you execute a TeX build, you are compiling program-code to render and lay out the document, which, as a workflow, is more susceptible to hidden malware than any modern, sandboxed Office tool! Nimur (talk) 06:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

circuiTikZ is for making electrical/electronic schematics and chemfig is for drawing 2d chemical structures. 20.137.2.50 (talk) 18:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Word's equation editor just flat-out sucks. You shouldn't have to do these things with the mouse. It should all be in text, as it is with TeX. --Trovatore (talk) 08:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

You don't have to use a mouse. In addition to the existing default keyboard shortcuts to enter equations, you can also customize your own keyboard shortcuts for any action that would otherwise use mouse clicks. At some point, you will have to concede: "I don't know how to do (task) in Word" is not strictly equivalent to "Word cannot do (task)." Nimur (talk) 16:10, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I tried to save a Word 2010 document with the latest format with a digital signature, and a different document that was encrypted with a password, in the latest format. OpenOffice wouldn't open them. Then I tried saving a password-protected document in the Word 2003 XML format, and OpenOffice wouldn't open it because I have removed Java from my computer. This kind of nonsense would tend to make serious business word processor users view the free word processors as jokes. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:28, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Are you making some sort of joke or something? Word can't import native OpenOffice formats at all. Also when I remove a disk from my computer it doesn't work properly, that's no way to design a computer by that argument. Dmcq (talk) 00:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Dmcq, that statement is incorrect. Since at least Microsoft Office 2007 SP2, you can open and save files in the OpenDocument Text (.odt) file format; here is a technical review of differences between OpenDocument and Word document formats. Nimur (talk) 06:22, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for that, yes that could help MS Office users I guess. Personally I'll stick to using LibreOffice for conversion. I must have a go at doing some conversions using Google documents as an intermediate and see what happens. Dmcq (talk) 22:34, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Can you import any graphical element into Word and place it at any arbitrary position? If yes, then you can produce whatever document you want with Word, typographically speaking. That doesn't mean that it, as a tool, is equally user-friendly as other tools, tough. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Touchpads, printers, and fingerprints

• 1) To begin with, I have long held the admittedly paranoid suspicion, seemingly peculiar to myself, that spy agencies and Synaptics (which seems to make all the laptop touchpads) are able to extract fingerprints from laptop touch pads and load them to a central database. Is there any way to prove this true or false? Has anyone tested?

• 2) If it isn't normally possible with existing software, could it be possible with a custom application?

• 3) Suppose somehow you've acquired a fingerprint pattern to play with. I'll assume there's some way to computer optimize it to be as light/dark as you want (ridges as thick or thin as you want). Can you sign a document like File:Rizana Letter Tamil.JPG by printing the fingerprint onto an inkjet and pressing the ink into the other paper while it's wet, or something simple like that?

• 4) I assume it must be possible with a proper 3D printer, but is it possible, using any common type of printer, to make a program that prints the fingerprint file, waits a moment for it to dry, drags the paper back up into the machine and prints over it again ... and again... and again... and eventually get an actual raised fingerprint that would leave convincing marks on water glasses and murder weapons? Could something like this fool the fingerprint scanner mentioned in [12]?

Wnt (talk) 05:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I added numbers to aid in responding:

1) It's a hardware issue with touch pads. They simply don't have the type of sensors in them which would be needed to record a fingerprint. Now, I suppose they might be able to make something which looks and acts like a touch pad, but also records a fingerprint, but I imagine such a device would cost thousands of dollars. So, I don't expect they're sneaking them into all laptops at that price.

2) As above, software isn't the problem. Having spyware send a fingerprint over the Internet covertly would be fairly trivial in comparison with providing the hardware to capture the fingerprint in the first place. StuRat (talk) 05:42, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

It is surprisingly difficult to disprove these things might be possible, but it is very easy to show that they would be (a) difficult, (b) expensive, and (c) impractical. If a highly capable attacker - like a government or a mafia or a well-organized malicious cabal of technology corporations - wanted to spend so much time and money to surveillance people, or to blackmail them, it would be easier to use more conventional criminal techniques, like bribery and extortion and intimidation. A frightened jury will agree that fingerprints match, whether they match or not! And if you run the legal-system, you can simply eliminate jury-trials, and evidence, and so on. The weak-link isn't the collection of fingerprints; expending lots of effort to surreptitiously collect fingerprints is an inefficient way to oppress a populace.

If you're not too paranoid to read the writings of the RAND Corporation, you may find this report very interesting: Influences on the Adoption of Multifactor Authentication - regarding the use of things like biometrics and fingerprints as part of ensemble information-security strategies. The PDF is available for free online. Or perhaps the more sinister-sounding, but altogether more interesting read, Using Biometrics to Achieve Identity Dominance in the Global War on Terrorism Nimur (talk) 06:13, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

The first reference seems pretty straightforward - organizations will adopt these biometric things when they are forced to; consumer resistance is feared to be a problem but has not proved so; (at that time) the Zeus (Trojan horse) was an example of a way around it; and (like all putative security measures) once such a thing is introduced it persists forever and ever. I'm afraid I must have missed the point of the second, which is mostly about trying to get the military to take fingerprints in various situations where it doesn't seem like they have any plausible right ("to collect biometric data from foreign seafarers stopped in international waters as a part of marine interception operations"). Wnt (talk) 14:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

MFT corrupted: run chkdsk /f or /r

Hi – I'm trying to image my laptop's 650GB hard drive as a back up using Macrium Reflect but have received the error 'MFT corrupted, run chkdsk /f'

Web searches also suggest that /r could work.

Could someone explain the potential consequences of these approaches (will I lose data?) and roughly how long a chkdsk takes? 80.1.143.5 (talk) 07:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

chkdsk doesn't make any changes the way I remember it. Format, partition, scandisk do, I think. Have you tried typing chkdsk/help at a dos prompt?--Canoe1967 (talk) 21:54, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

That's incorrect. The /f symbol means to fix errors so changes will be made. chkdsk does not make changes if the /f is not specified (or anything which implies it like /x) but nor does scandisk if you don't check the box to fix errors. Nil Einne (talk) 08:04, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

• Microsoft how-to page. Seems chkdsk/? has replaced chkdsk/help.--Canoe1967 (talk) 22:15, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

When did any MS-DOS command use /help? From what I recall MS-DOS 4 used /? and Win98SE uses /?. Oh and CHKDSK. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

chkdsk /f will probably tell you it can't operate on a live volume and that it scheduled itself to run on the next boot. It should only take a few minutes but I suppose it could take up to an hour in some cases. It probably won't lose any data, but I can't absolutely guarantee it; it really depends on the nature of the corruption. It won't lose any data that you can currently access, anyway. chkdsk /r should not be needed here since the backup utility didn't complain about bad sectors.

chkdsk without /f on a currently mounted volume tends to report spurious corruption simply because the OS is modifying the volume while chkdsk is reading it. It's possible your backup utility is confused in the same way, but probably not since backup software should be designed to handle that sort of thing. -- BenRG (talk) 19:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia edit error

When I made this edit: [13], the "¬" character was accidentally inserted at the start of the section title. How could this have happened ? I don't even have that character on my keyboard. StuRat (talk) 15:57, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Do you use WP:WikiEd? What browser do you use? Ruslik_Zero 18:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I was using Google Chrome. How can I tell if I'm using WikieEd ? StuRat (talk) 00:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

What keyboard layout do you have? ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

QWERTY U.S. (not international): Keyboard_layout#United_States. StuRat (talk) 00:27, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

If you had the "Math and logic" box selected below the edit box then you might have hit the symbol accidentally. ¬ means negation. PrimeHunter (talk) 03:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Silly that we have special character insertion toolbars both at the top and bottom of the edit box. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:39, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

That must be it. It's right by the down arrow on the scroll bar, so I might have hit it accidentally. StuRat (talk) 04:23, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Putting a Signature into a Document

Resolved

I took a photo of my signature at about 10mp with my Canon digital ELPH in order to be able to add it digitally to formal letters that I write. While viewing the photo, I used print screen to copy and then CTRL+V to put it into a PPT 2003 file, where I keep it. I then placed it into Word 2003, and I use Primo PDF to "print" Word documents into PDF files, and even though my signature appears very clear when I viewed it in both the PPT and the Word document, when I make the Word document into a PDF, the signature becomes very fuzzy. What is happening and how can I avoid it -- thanks! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 21:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

see page 11 and page 14 of primo pdf user guide you need to change the conversion settings to stop it from reducing the quality of (compressing or downsampling) images as part of the conversion process. This may however increase the side of the pdf files produced (swings and roundabouts) ---- _nonsense ferret 23:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

Wonderful -- thanx! DRosenbach ^{(Talk | Contribs)} 23:39, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

PDF actually has a facility to include digital signatures which include the date of the document and you can include a picture of your signature as one of the items in it. Dmcq (talk) 01:05, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

February 6

Restrictions on Keyboard Layouts?

Hello, so I was playing with MKLC and I tried to create a keyboard layout that allowed Table making characters and smileys such as "☺". I wanted to create a dead key pressing (AltGR+k) so for example AltGR+k+M would create '╞' after creating it and installing it when I press (AltGR+k) it sounds a beep, what I did wrong? 181.50.182.248 (talk) 03:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

blender versions

I have a slight problem that I have made a model in blender, and now when I try to open it, it loads as only the wire frame. If I remember right, this is because I am opening this in a different version number to what it was saved in, I am wondering if there is any way of fixing this, or of finding out what version was used to create the model and of downloading that one to replace what I have on here now? 86.15.83.223 (talk) 06:52, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Getting the version number is pretty easy — open up the .blend file in a text editor, and the first thing you'll see will be the version number, e.g. BLENDER_v249 or BLENDER-v259 (to just pick two .blend files I happen to have). As for fixing the problem, though, what you might try to do is import the models from the old file into the new version, rather than just trying to open the old file. I don't know if that will work, but it's an easy thing to try. Blender is, alas, notoriously buggy and troublesome (yay open source?) so I am not surprised that you're having this sort of difficulty... --Mr.98 (talk) 15:02, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

when did the readyboost limit increase?

on widnows 7 i can use almost the full 8 gb of this usb stick for readyboost, but on windows vista it only shows 4 gb maximum available for readyboost? when did the limit increase? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.120.48.242 (talk) 07:56, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Our ReadyBoost isn't entirely clear, but it suggests the answer is Vista SP1 when NTFS was first allowed. Nil Einne (talk) 08:00, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

vista sp1 is the computer that only lets me use 4 gb out of the 8. 91.120.48.242 (talk) 10:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Is the drive formated as NTFS? Nil Einne (talk) 11:08, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

One possibility is that it was a 32-bit version of Vista which would be limited to 4 GB of ram (actually addressable space) and 4gb of readyboost, see [14] Your version of Win7 must be 64 bit. ---- _nonsense ferret 14:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

No, the bits of the OS do not affect the address space of the disk format. The 4GB limit is classic FAT32. NTFS was introduced in a service pack for xp as Nil says. It doesn't matter whether it's a 32 or 64 bit processor though. Shadowjams (talk) 19:30, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

My comment wasn't that the addressable space limited the disk, but that there was something about the 32bit version of the O/S that might limit it based on the comment " the ReadyBoost limit are 4gb on PC that runs XP/Vista 32bit" - I agree this could be just because of FAT32, but there may have been another reason, the article isn't clear at all. ---- _nonsense ferret 19:54, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm reasonably sure that vista supported NTFS, regardless of 32 or 64 bit. Shadowjams (talk) 00:20, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

seems reasonable, maybe the limit was a hard coded one, like (i think) it was limited to only one key drive. I seem to remember Win7 was the one that first allowed more than one key drive to be used. It's been a while since I waved a (not)fond farewell to vista, definitely don't want to dig out the disks to try this out :)---- _nonsense ferret 01:19, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes the article says Windows 7 was the first to allow multiple drives. It isn't entirely clear on the 4GB point. It can be read to imply 4GB was first allowed on Windows 7, however I also wondered if this was simply confusion since I think NTFS was first added in SP1 (at least if it wasn't I don't see why SP1 is mentioned, unless FAT and/or FAT32 were added in SP1.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:31, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

I've upgraded from 32 bit vista to 32 bit win7, and I'm still stuck with 4 gig readyboost.Gzuckier (talk) 04:01, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Well again, is the stick formatted wih ExFAT or NTFS? Or is it formatted with FAT 16 or FAT32? In the later two case, the 4GB limit is to be expected. (Does ReadyBoost even support FAT12 BTW? Technically with 64KB cluster size you can have a drive formatted above the minimum for ReadyBoost and I'm reasonably sure Windows Vista and 7 supports FAT12 formatted USB sticks since I think I did it before. Of course even with 512KB clusters, you can't have FAT12 partitions greater then 4GB.) Nil Einne (talk) 01:35, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Mousebus

Am I missing something or do we not have any info on the old Mousebus? Dismas|^(talk) 13:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard of "mousebus", and neither it seems has Google. Do you mean Mouse (computing)#PS/2 interface and protocol, or some other mouse protocol? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:40, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

According to my professor, this pre-dated PS/2. Dismas|^(talk) 15:29, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Could be RS-232 ---- _nonsense ferret 15:47, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Before PS/2 mice, PCs (and some workstations) used RS232 (usually on a DB-9 connector), with one of two protocols very briefly described at Mouse (computing)#Serial interface and protocol; the Microsoft protocol is explained here. We don't have much detail about the other RS232 standard, the Mouse Systems 5 byte protocol. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:53, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Some computers used proprietary ports, for example the mouse on the Amstrad 1512. --TrogWoolley (talk) 16:15, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I found documentation for the 5-byte MouseSystems protocol here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I think your professor means one of the two parallel mouse interfaces used in early PCs (these required special ISA adapter cards). One was the InPort Bus mouse standard; the other was a card with a Intel 8255. There's a small amount of info listed in the VirtualBox driver. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:19, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

This forum discussion talks about the setup for the Microsoft "bus" mouse. Although it's on a DB-9, it's not RS232; there's an analog signal (not digital "mickey" events) for the X and Y directions, and a separate pin is used for each signal (so there's no digital protocol, and so very little in the way of electronics in the mouse itself). This is similar (but not the same) to the arrangement that used DB9 for joysticks and paddles on Atari and Commodore systems. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 16:36, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

What are the most inspiring uses of Wikipedia content?

I am looking for examples of Wikipedia content being reused to create something imaginative and new. I have one so far - Google Maps Wikipedia layer. Any other ideas? Please note that I am looking for remixes/reuses adding something new, so don't tell me about mirrors, forks or for-profit scams - I am aware of those, and they are not wbat I am asking about. I am also aware of GLAM and WiR stuff, but again, they are somewhat off topic here, as they are about Wikipedia working with others and making them contribute to Wikipedia, and not necessarily about others reusing Wikipedia content. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 15:32, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Please don't ask the same question on more than one desk. There is a reply to this question on the Humanities desk, so further answers should go there also. RudolfRed (talk) 22:17, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Blurry prints

Sometimes when I try to print things, especially online coupons, they come out quite blurry, making it difficult to read the fine print. They are even blurry in the preview, so I don't think it's my printer. Is there something wrong with these web sites, or my settings, or what ? Here's one example: [15]. I'm on Windows 7, using Google Chrome browser. StuRat (talk) 18:35, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

They are probably low resolution images, which when printed look grainy. Ruslik_Zero 19:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

But the site I listed specifically has the coupons there for the purpose of printing them, so I'd expect a clear image. StuRat (talk) 19:38, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

I tried printing a coupon with a pdf-printer. It's obviously a low-res raster image, as Ruslik_Zero suggested, which unsurprisingly comes out blurry. If they had bothered using a vector image format, the printout would have come out sharp. But they didn't. Nothing wrong with your setup, poor implementation by the creators of the website. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:11, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Sometimes the online ads/coupons for the store will allow you to mouse over or click on the coupon/product and see a bigger version. What I do with them is printscreen, cut out just the single coupon/ad I want, then paste them into some word processor (e.g. Microsoft Word). -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 21:12, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

Yea, I do that, too. But the "horrid" resolution only increases to "awful" when I click on it. When I pick on "PRINT COUPON" at the web site, it then improves to "bad". So, did they scan a printed coupon on a low res scanner, or what ? StuRat (talk) 21:24, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

They may have just assembled a digital coupon as a raster image. It may be ugly, but if it does the job, it’s conceivable they do not care about the rest. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Actually, it didn't do the job, in that I couldn't read the expiration date. I edited the image with Paint to make it clearer, then printed it again. StuRat (talk) 01:59, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

You could resolve the issue by moving to southern Indiana; I get the same coupons in my physical mailbox and don't need to bother printing them :-) Nyttend (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Or by seeking out real food. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:19, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Are they just as blurry ? I get non-blurry Wendy's coupons in the mail, but, unlike the web coupons, they can only be used once. Also, they used to be the same coupons, but now the mailed coupons are worse. At that web site is a coupon for free $2.49 chili-cheese fries with any purchase, like a $0.99 chicken sandwich. So, that's 72% off, giving me a meal for under $1 (well, $1.05 with tax). Not bad ! StuRat (talk) 04:54, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

No, since I don't print them. Didn't realise that they'd accept the printed ones more than once; I figured that they were only good for a day or two to prevent re-use. I still prefer going with Fazolis' do-a-survey-get-free-spaghetti, since with my university ID card I get spaghetti, drink, and breadsticks for $1.07 with tax. Unfortunately, Fazolis' isn't anywhere near where I was last night, but Wendy's is. Nyttend (talk) 19:00, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

February 7

which processor is better

which processer is better intel or amd. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.186.147.239 (talk) 00:55, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I'm afraid you would have to be a lot more specific than this to get the answer you require - here are links to some comparison sites [16], [17] - which is better depends on which ones you are comparing and what criteria you wish to compare, a particular task or tasks, or power usage, or longevity/coolness, ---- _nonsense ferret 01:15, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Historically, I dare say most would say with AMD you get more “bang for your buck” than with Intel, but there’s more to it than that. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:29, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't about better but Intel's chips are holier ;-) Dmcq (talk) 16:26, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Here's a speed comparison for the various current chips Dmcq (talk) 16:31, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Why do edit conflicts get reported

Why do edit conflicts get reported — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.198.250.56 (talk) 01:30, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Presumably because the person who experienced the edit conflict notice felt that despite a conflicting editor having already pointed out something they might have pointed out, their effort should still be presented; or that despite their effort, they are not prepared to alter their response based on what was added in the interim. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

And for information addressing edit conflicts on more than just talk pages, see also Help:Edit conflict. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:37, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

When I get an edit conflict, I want to quickly try to post again, before I get yet another edit conflict. This means I don't have time to read the conflicting post, which might make mine redundant. Therefore, I add "(ec)" so others will understand. StuRat (talk) 01:56, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Just for my own curiosity, is that at least in part motivated by the knowledge that historically browsers both crash, and also unreliably or not at all recover? ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:35, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and also because I want to finish my post and move on. For example, I might be posting between moves in an online game, and want to get back to the game by the time my turn comes up. Getting edit conflict after edit conflict doesn't help. StuRat (talk) 03:33, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Heh :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:50, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Will Windows XP Mode eventually be disabled?

Once Microsoft stops issuing security updates for Windows XP, what will become of Windows XP Mode? --anon. 71.183.139.124 (talk) 03:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

If you mean the Window XP operating system, then no, it will still be usable, it just won't receive any more updates. If you mean some type of Windows XP emulation on another operating system, then you need to tell us which O/S you meant. StuRat (talk) 03:36, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I mean this. --anon. 71.183.139.124 (talk) 05:10, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Windows XP Mode is a feature of some editions of Windows 7. The FAQ says (unsurprisingly) that support for the virtual XP ends at the same time as support for other versions of XP. However it seems extremely unlikely to me that it will actually stop working; Microsoft would take a ton of flak for that. -- BenRG (talk) 05:11, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

How would they force XP to stop working? They'd have to release additional software to instruct the system to stop working, and in many or most cases they'd have to get it onto computers without consent from the users, which they'd have to have installed without users' intentional coöperation in some cases, and that would amount to malware. The outlash would be far greater than it would be if they'd installed some odd sort of auto-destruct timer in the operating system, since furthering your ends by means of malware is generally illegal. Nyttend (talk) 14:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Maybe they could add something to Windows Genuine Advantage which would verify that each Windows installation is valid, using the internet, before it would boot. And, when Windows XP is not longer supported, any request from a Windows XP computer to verify authenticity would be refused, and the PC would then refuse to boot, since authenticity could not be proven. (I'm so evil, I really should work for Microsoft.) StuRat (talk) 16:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

In this brave new world where Apple can unilaterally revoke end users' rights to run iOS software, it's hard to know what to expect. But Microsoft, at least, is still scrutinized pretty closely for this kind of thing, and even if they weren't it would make no sense to disable XP Mode since it would just drive customers back to real XP, or failing that to Windows 2000 or 95. They wouldn't be using XP Mode if they didn't need it. -- BenRG (talk) 00:02, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

2MASS J04414489, undefined, Wsearch.php, etc.

I just discovered WP:5000 and have been amused to see pages near the top that are obviously getting lots of non-human traffic; a good example is index.html, which is probably produced by bots searching for http://en.wikipedia.org/index.html. I was confused by a few entries, however:

1. What's Wsearch.php, and what does it do? I have no experience with PHP, so I can't understand why a bot would search specifically for this command.
2. Searching Google for "2MASS J04414489" returns nothing except pages that discuss 2MASS J04414489+2301513, a small faraway star. Why would bots go for this so much, either with the full name or the truncated one? But how likely is it that an unrelated topic would have precisely the right arrangement of characters?
3. Undefined gets lots of hits; do lots of pages use /undefined as some sort of 404 error page?
4. com/fluendo/plugin/KateDec.class is also on the list, and unlike the .php thing, I have no clue at all what this does.

Thanks for your help! Nyttend (talk) 04:09, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Never mind on 2MASS; I followed WhatLinksHere and found that the WP:5000 talk page discusses it as a likely coding error for something that was supposed to retrieve the star's article. Nyttend (talk) 05:06, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

"Undefined" is probably another coding error: many programming languages permit variables to have undefined values. If a user asks a script to retrieve a Wikipedia page without specifying which page, the variable storing the name of the page to retrieve will have an undefined value, and a poorly-written script in a weakly-typed language will simply convert that undefined value into the name "undefined" and ask Wikipedia for that article (a well-written script will see that undefined value and ask the user which article they want). "null" (#2890) and "(null)" (not on the list) can be the result of similar mistakes in C and related languages. --Carnildo (talk) 00:56, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

special effects doubt

if i shoot a feature film with Canon EOS 7D or RED and do vfx, performing matte painting and compositing etc. (using after effects, nuke, pftrack), will the special effects be in coherence with the footage-without-special-effects when screened on theatres or should the vfx part be processed further to make it compatible for the big screen? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.120.141.254 (talk) 10:02, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Either they will be or they won’t; that is the name of the game in special effects. It is less a limitation of software than technician. That said, many people are quite willing to accept less than photo-realistic special effects, just as people are willing to accept stories about German or French people who all inexplicably speak in English (yet still use some words in their own language) :p. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:48, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Flipora.com

I was just wondering if the website Flipora.com is a spammer. I've recently received a couple of emails apparently from people in my address book along the lines of: "[contact's name] wants to follow you. Is [contact's name] your friend?" followed by a yes/No option. I asked one of the people concerned about it earlier, but they seemed unaware of it, so I thought I'd ask here. Thanks in advance. 31.54.151.30 (talk) 20:47, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

As useless as some sites might seem (LinkedIn also comes to mind), providing users the ability to send email requests for various reasons is not what I would technically call the clear action of spammers. Spammers can, however, easily abuse such services. In any event, virtually every email address will always receive unwanted mail, be it truly spam or not. :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:21, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Cat5e specs

I recently purchased some network cable from a Chinese supplier, and despite the markings, I believe it to be counterfeit Cat5e (if that is the proper term to use). Suspicious of its construction, I opened the sheathing and found that the wire pairs had only a few turns per foot instead of several turns per inch that I find in another cable I have on hand. I am looking for a standard or other reliable reference that specifies the minimum turns required to satisfy cat5e requirements. The reference in the Category 5 cable article is anecdotal. Does anyone have a better reference? Thank you. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 23:38, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Websters New World Telecom Dictionary says "3-4 twists per inch" for cat5e. EIA-568-B.2 simply says that the twist lengths should be picked so the cable complies with its specified signal characteristics (the standard specifies capacitance, resistance, loss, crosstalk, and propagation delay); it does specify pair colours and some mechanical parameters. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:38, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Would it be fair to say that a cable with 4-6 turns per foot would have a snowball's chance in hell of being spec compliant? (There's no shielding, no filler, or any other mitigating elements.) -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 00:54, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

What should I do with my Eee PC netbook that has Windows XP?

Hello, everyone. I have an ASUS Eee PC 904HA netbook (Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM expandable to 2 GB, 160 GB HDD, 8.9" 1024×600 LCD) with Windows XP Home, which is the OS the manufacturer installed on it. With the display on my primary computer (an HP Pavilion dv1049cl that I bought new around U.S. Thanksgiving in 2004) having recently quit (I'm now using it with an external display) and Microsoft ending support for Windows XP in 14 months, I'm wondering what to do with it. Currently, I use it to surf the Web (occasionally watching videos hosted on YouTube and the like). The only other things I do with other computers are keeping my calendar using Mozilla Sunbird and, once in a blue moon, word processing. (I've been using Microsoft Works for the latter but I'm trying to learn LibreOffice Writer.) I may also start using either QuickBooks Online or GnuCash (depending on which of the two we adopt at work).

Some people are still using Windows 2000, right? Will I be able to continue to use XP securely beyond April 2014? Will the netbook run Windows 7 well if I add RAM? I'm wary of learning Linux.

Thanks in advance. --anon. 71.183.136.48 (talk) 02:51, 8 February 2013 (UTC)