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November 7
SMS email server
Is there a way to create a "virtual" email server, on an Android phone, such that
- an email client can access the SMS messages as if they were plain text emails,
- sending an email to the address (e.g.) +447777777@localhost would send an SMS message to the given number?
The crux of the matter is that I would like an email client that would handle SMS messages in a very similar way to how it handles email, potentially with a combined inbox. What I propose seems plausible enough, but I see no evidence of it being done.--Leon (talk) 17:44, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- Most, if not all, SMS services have an email-to-SMS gateway. For example, if you want to send a txt to a Verizon user with phone number 123-456-7890, you send an email to 1234567890@vtext.com. You could have the recipient in your address book with that email address. You see it as outgoing email. They see it as an SMS message. I don't believe there is a standard for replying to those sort of text messages. So, they may very well not come back as emails. But, half the work is done: email to text. You just need text to email. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:06, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- I tested it. I emailed my own Verizon number. Then, I replied to the txt from my phone and it showed up in my email as a reply. So, in that case, I can use my standard email account to send/receive text messages. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:09, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
- Interesting...does anyone know of the gateway for Three UK? I have found old websites with a gateway, but they don't work.--Leon (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Did you try the phone number at three.co.uk? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, and it went undelivered, and I received a message to that effect in my email.
- Did you try the phone number at three.co.uk? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Interesting...does anyone know of the gateway for Three UK? I have found old websites with a gateway, but they don't work.--Leon (talk) 17:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
Converting Wikimapia distance lines into KML files (for Template:Attached KML or so)
Is it possible to convert a WikiMapia distance measurement URL (such as http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=-15.774134&lon=-47.916291&z=17&m=b&v=2&gz=0;-479177713;-157770563;29611;0;0;1032;0;58439) into a Template:Attached KML file (like Template:Attached KML/Overseas Highway)? The syntax looks vaguely similar but I don't know if they actually mean the same thing. Jo-Jo Eumerus (talk, contributions) 17:50, 7 November 2017 (UTC)
November 8
Fast Combining Of Bitmaps In Memory
I am helping a friend work on a project of his and have encountered a snag and was hoping someone might have some helpful insight. I have a pointer that points to a bunch of bytes describing an image (The bytes come in quads: Alpha/Red/Green/Blue), this pointer is pulled out of memory and must be the final destination for the result. What I need to do is blend in a bunch of other images with the first one so that if you were laying them over top of each other, the transparencies would reinforce (If you had 3 images that were slightly transparent, when all blended with the image from memory, they would make that image more transparent than any of the inputs, in proportion to how transparent they were) and the colours would combine based upon their intensity. To do this one time is quick enough, but the end goal is to have the images to be blended in change and use a fresh version of the base image every frame of the application (which is, roughly, 40FPS), however, this method of doing things is not nearly fast enough and causes everything to lurch to a halt. So, is there any way to blend the images in that enables me to do it quickly and, if the data structures have to change, quickly dump everything back into the original pointer format (which must remain as is)?24.3.61.185 (talk) 00:17, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Really if you have a recent CPU you should be able to do millions of operations like this in 25 ms. Sof if it grinds to a halt maybe you are using something that does not run on the hardware. Perhaps you will need to change languages to something that actually compiles to machine code. Modern Intel/AMD processors can use the the "PADDB xmm1, xmm2/m128" instruction to add sets of bytes to go even faster. The transparency would also add. It may also be possible to get your video card to overlay transparencies. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:37, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'm using C++, it does compile to machine code, it is on a modern CPU. The problem is, probably, that it is not using the GPU since it is a bit of a hack, something I was hoping to get around or find a library I could use to do it, since I'm not overly acquainted with this area, I was hoping for some pointing in the direction of what someone might try using (which would be rather helpful, but that's on me for not saying more, I suppose). At any rate, you are making some assumptions about the number of operations; it is easy to get into millions of operations when dealing with images (and processing this isn't the only thing my cpu is doing per frame - in short, thank you for the suggestions that would apply if your assumptions about my project panned out and I was doing it in a noncompiled language on a twenty year old computer using really small images).24.3.61.185 (talk) 03:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- You may have to turn optimization on, and tell the compiler for what CPU you are compiling. You may be able to see the codes output from the compiler to see if it is making efficient Do you know the exact formula that you want to use to combine for each byte value, and how the transparency interacts? I suspect you may want to multiply (255-α)/255 times the RGB code and sum for all layers. But you could just add, and it could be quick if that's what you want to do. What should happen if the intensity saturates (ie ≥255)? In assembler, you can use PADDUSB-sse instruction to add an sse register byte by byte into memory, stopping at 255. [1] Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:42, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Are you doing the compete job one element at a time or are you doing it by blending in one picture at a time? It may be worth doing a loop which does the job for a thousand elements at a time which would use the first level cache efficiently. Dmcq (talk) 13:33, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- I have a set of nested loops that, in order, loop through the images, then the y coordinates, then the x; what would be a better way to structure this? The innermost loop does the blend on each of the four channels for the pixel. The blending equation takes two bytes (the byte for the current value of the image in memory, the byte for the current image being blended into the image in memory) and gives out a byte (the new value for the image in memory). Since the blend equation gets called a lot, I made a pointer p that, given bytes b1 and b2, has p(256 * b1 + b2) point to the value of the blend equation for those bytes. Doing a few calculations, my ideal situation, I realized, would require processing several billion pixels a second, which seems unlikely to happen without framerate issues, but, currently, I'm noticing severe frame rate issues with only a few images being blended in. For example, 1 image blended keeps me at 40 frames, 2 images at 38, 3 at around 27, 4 at 20, and 5 at 11; this seems way too steep of a fall off (I expected a more linear drop in frames), but I don't have access to all of the source for what I am working with (which is why I am stuck doing it this way). If I rewrite the for loop to use openmp to parallelize it over multiple cores, I get a framerate drop off of, roughly, the drop from blending 1 less image (which, again, isn't what I expected). From what I'm seeing with lag using a small number of images, I feel like there has to be a way to get more performance that doesn't require learning CUDA/OpenCL for a single use. (I can work at a resolution of 640x480, at 5 images that's around 70 million pixels, ideally, I would be happy if I could get 10-15 images blended without lag...). Out of curiousity, since most of the images to be blended can be assumed to be radial gradients that are to be fixed at various points of the memory sourced image, and since such images don't lose a lot from a rescaling, do you think if I downscaled all the images by a factor of four on each axis (so 1 / 16th), then blended them, then rescaled the memory image back up to full size before sending it on its way that I would see a decent increase in performance? (I'm guessing so, but I'm also guessing that this could still hit some walls).24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Assuming that pixels with increasing x are contiguous then the easiest (!) change might be loop over y: loop over the images; loop over x; do a pixel. If you can do a number of pixels at a time in that inner loop over x that would also be good. Another option would be loop over y: loop over x: loop over the images: do a pixel. Dmcq (talk) 18:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you:-) Just for my own sake of learning, why would you do y then images rather than images than y for the loop?24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Because doing it that way you won't have lines of your source and target being thrown out of the cache and then reloaded for the next image. If you have a few images doing it an image at a time triples the L3 cache or DRAM accesses. Dmcq (talk) 19:04, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thank you:-) Just for my own sake of learning, why would you do y then images rather than images than y for the loop?24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- You say that this is a one-time thing and that you are "blending" images. I would write an imagemagick command that loads both images, resizes them to the same size (resize, crop, whatever) and then "blends" them. There are many options for blending. Finally, output the result. You won't likely write a process that is faster than what imagemagick already does. As a test, I loaded two extremely large photos and used the imagemagick utility composite: composite -blend 50 DC0142.jpg DC0143.jpg blended.jpg. I got the two photos blended together in far less than a second - not even half a second. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:41, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- That would be a really good suggestion, but by "one time thing", I mean that I will only need to do what I am doing this way one time, thus, learning GPU parallel stuff would be a real bummer, not that I only need the images to be combined one time. For those curious, my friend coded a game, years ago, but lost the source code. He used static lights that were all blended into an overlay, but he always wanted to add dynamic and moving lights into it. I found that I could get the game to execute a call from a dll each frame and pass the overlay into it (and that I could inject the data for the dynamic lights into each scene (coordinates, what they attach to, etc.)). So, all that was left was to blend them in, which, sadly, caused a massive performance hit and forced us to be stuck doing everything on the CPU without any ability to tweak any of the major structure of the game code, thus, this hack solution.24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- It appears that you want to dynamically shade the display. You need to do that using vector operations, not for loops. That is why you need to do it in the video card, not the CPU. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Yes, but I don't know how to take over the game's display, but I can hijack a bitmap from the game and work with that, so I'm stuck with the CPU at the moment.24.3.61.185 (talk) 19:19, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- It appears that you want to dynamically shade the display. You need to do that using vector operations, not for loops. That is why you need to do it in the video card, not the CPU. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:55, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- That would be a really good suggestion, but by "one time thing", I mean that I will only need to do what I am doing this way one time, thus, learning GPU parallel stuff would be a real bummer, not that I only need the images to be combined one time. For those curious, my friend coded a game, years ago, but lost the source code. He used static lights that were all blended into an overlay, but he always wanted to add dynamic and moving lights into it. I found that I could get the game to execute a call from a dll each frame and pass the overlay into it (and that I could inject the data for the dynamic lights into each scene (coordinates, what they attach to, etc.)). So, all that was left was to blend them in, which, sadly, caused a massive performance hit and forced us to be stuck doing everything on the CPU without any ability to tweak any of the major structure of the game code, thus, this hack solution.24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:47, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- What is the blending equation? Your array of bytes p(256 * b1 + b2) will take up 65K and so cause problems in the L1 data cache. Dmcq (talk) 18:50, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- The blending equation is (a + b) / (1 + ab), with a and b being the value of the byte divided by 255.0. I was doing it in the loop, but it went smoother removed - it works out to 3 casts, 2 adds, a multiply, and a divide per channel with 4 channels. *Since the overlay is just solid colour with constant alpha, a quick operation on the alpha channel of the final output puts the alpha to where it needs to be, but allows me to do the repeated blending without using a different equation (it ran smoother doing it that way).24.3.61.185 (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- That's interesting, that's the same formula for tan or tanh of a sum. If one converted to arctan and added and then converted back that would give the same result. Doing that of course wouldn't be sensible - but a lookup table of 256 approximations to arctan could be used and then you just add the values and then you might be able to do some sort of scale and lookup at the end to get the tan of adding the values for the various images. Dmcq (talk) 23:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- What I said there would for a dingle use involve three memory accesses but wouldn't hurt the L1 cache much. It might be better to simply do the arithmetic and be done with it. If you wnat to avoid going to float and back again it can be multiplied out as (0xFF*0xFF*0x100)*(a+b))/((0xFF*0xFF)+a*b), the compiler can figure out what those constants are. In fact it might give better rounding to have 0xfe8000 as the constant on top to round up slightly but not go over 0xFF, 0xFF*0xFF is 0xFE01 Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'm going to run some tests, today, and see what gives the best results - I have bytes coming in that I have to work, so I'm wondering if it might not be faster to do a lookup with tangents (I can preapply the atanh to all of the images that are going to be used for the dynamic lights (the static lights are generated when the scene loads, though, not pulled from files, which is a little unfortunate). Thank you for all of the help, I'll reply back to see how everything went:-) Thank you so very much, this has been a very helpful experience:-)24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:50, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- What I said there would for a dingle use involve three memory accesses but wouldn't hurt the L1 cache much. It might be better to simply do the arithmetic and be done with it. If you wnat to avoid going to float and back again it can be multiplied out as (0xFF*0xFF*0x100)*(a+b))/((0xFF*0xFF)+a*b), the compiler can figure out what those constants are. In fact it might give better rounding to have 0xfe8000 as the constant on top to round up slightly but not go over 0xFF, 0xFF*0xFF is 0xFE01 Dmcq (talk) 16:07, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- That's interesting, that's the same formula for tan or tanh of a sum. If one converted to arctan and added and then converted back that would give the same result. Doing that of course wouldn't be sensible - but a lookup table of 256 approximations to arctan could be used and then you just add the values and then you might be able to do some sort of scale and lookup at the end to get the tan of adding the values for the various images. Dmcq (talk) 23:46, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- The blending equation is (a + b) / (1 + ab), with a and b being the value of the byte divided by 255.0. I was doing it in the loop, but it went smoother removed - it works out to 3 casts, 2 adds, a multiply, and a divide per channel with 4 channels. *Since the overlay is just solid colour with constant alpha, a quick operation on the alpha channel of the final output puts the alpha to where it needs to be, but allows me to do the repeated blending without using a different equation (it ran smoother doing it that way).24.3.61.185 (talk) 19:23, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- Assuming that pixels with increasing x are contiguous then the easiest (!) change might be loop over y: loop over the images; loop over x; do a pixel. If you can do a number of pixels at a time in that inner loop over x that would also be good. Another option would be loop over y: loop over x: loop over the images: do a pixel. Dmcq (talk) 18:22, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- I have a set of nested loops that, in order, loop through the images, then the y coordinates, then the x; what would be a better way to structure this? The innermost loop does the blend on each of the four channels for the pixel. The blending equation takes two bytes (the byte for the current value of the image in memory, the byte for the current image being blended into the image in memory) and gives out a byte (the new value for the image in memory). Since the blend equation gets called a lot, I made a pointer p that, given bytes b1 and b2, has p(256 * b1 + b2) point to the value of the blend equation for those bytes. Doing a few calculations, my ideal situation, I realized, would require processing several billion pixels a second, which seems unlikely to happen without framerate issues, but, currently, I'm noticing severe frame rate issues with only a few images being blended in. For example, 1 image blended keeps me at 40 frames, 2 images at 38, 3 at around 27, 4 at 20, and 5 at 11; this seems way too steep of a fall off (I expected a more linear drop in frames), but I don't have access to all of the source for what I am working with (which is why I am stuck doing it this way). If I rewrite the for loop to use openmp to parallelize it over multiple cores, I get a framerate drop off of, roughly, the drop from blending 1 less image (which, again, isn't what I expected). From what I'm seeing with lag using a small number of images, I feel like there has to be a way to get more performance that doesn't require learning CUDA/OpenCL for a single use. (I can work at a resolution of 640x480, at 5 images that's around 70 million pixels, ideally, I would be happy if I could get 10-15 images blended without lag...). Out of curiousity, since most of the images to be blended can be assumed to be radial gradients that are to be fixed at various points of the memory sourced image, and since such images don't lose a lot from a rescaling, do you think if I downscaled all the images by a factor of four on each axis (so 1 / 16th), then blended them, then rescaled the memory image back up to full size before sending it on its way that I would see a decent increase in performance? (I'm guessing so, but I'm also guessing that this could still hit some walls).24.3.61.185 (talk) 18:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- I'm using C++, it does compile to machine code, it is on a modern CPU. The problem is, probably, that it is not using the GPU since it is a bit of a hack, something I was hoping to get around or find a library I could use to do it, since I'm not overly acquainted with this area, I was hoping for some pointing in the direction of what someone might try using (which would be rather helpful, but that's on me for not saying more, I suppose). At any rate, you are making some assumptions about the number of operations; it is easy to get into millions of operations when dealing with images (and processing this isn't the only thing my cpu is doing per frame - in short, thank you for the suggestions that would apply if your assumptions about my project panned out and I was doing it in a noncompiled language on a twenty year old computer using really small images).24.3.61.185 (talk) 03:03, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
- This seems to be a question for a special RAMDAC which supports Sprite (computer graphics). --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 19:49, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
Having problem implementing equation 7 in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration
[Question moved to WP:RD/Math.] Tevildo (talk) 19:54, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
November 9
boot manager file
My computer displays the following message:
BOOTMGR is missing
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart
What do I do?
Note: I've search the internet I can find the Boot manager file downloading link. My OS is "Windows 7 Ultimate" 32-bit. I'm using my android phone right now, please give me a direct downloading link for the auto pendrive booting option if ita available.
P. S. This is very important.
119.30.47.177 (talk) 11:02, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- See [2]. If you do not have the original Win7 installation files (installation/recovery DVD, thumbdrive,...), we will not give you a download link (we do not link to copyright violations).
- Before attempting anything though, you should backup your data if you have not already done so and are able to do so (meaning: you know how to do it, someone in your family/friends knows how to do it, or you are ready to pay up for it). Reinstalling the OS has a good chance to wipe a good portion of your files.
- Also, saying "this is very important" will not get you faster or better answers. TigraanClick here to contact me 12:15, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- I am not sure why we can not give a link ... from Microsoft itself. Though an installation key is necessary. Ruslik_Zero 20:19, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- You may have to use another computer to make a boot DVD or CD or USB stick. Don't expect that you can use an android phone to make these! Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:26, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- You can get DVD writing software for Android - you'll need a USB DVD writer, a powered USB hub (if the writer isn't powered), and a USB-on-the-go lead. Or ask a friend to download & burn it for you. LongHairedFop (talk) 15:42, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
Boot manager file 2
Sorry about this post, my phone is not allowing me to message in the previous post. I possess the original CD, problem is its broken... I said its important because I use it as T.V., therefore I'm stuck. My android phone is not of good quality... Anyway, I possess functional USB ports and the phone is the only way I could download boot manager file into a pendrive... Please help me. 119.30.47.87 (talk) 15:03, 9 November 2017 (UTC)
- It has been a a few years since I fiddled with boot system of windows. But I think there is no way for downloading a boot manager file from internet. Your only option is, find out your product key, and then make a recovery disk. Then repair your system using that recovery disk. —usernamekiran(talk) 11:59, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
Well there's nothing stopping you just downloading the file, however unless it's coming from Microsoft and is intended for your version of Windows, it's probably not a good idea. Of course there's no point downloading the file onto your phone if you have no way to get it onto the computer. More to the point, there's a very good chance just replacing the file isn't going to fix the problem. These sort of errors can arise for various reasons, very often it isn't just because the bootmgr file itself is missing or corrupt. Depending on precisely what's wrong, even a repair install may not be able to resolve the problem. (For example, if the whole Windows partition is corrupt.)
In any case, trying to do any of this with just a phone is almost definitely an exercise in frustration. I mean if your phone was rooted, you could possibly get low enough access to a USB stick that you'd be able to write a bootable partition on it. Or alternatively a bit easier, if your computer had an EFI (probably not if it's running Windows 7), you can generally get away with just copying any EFI bootable tool to the root of a FAT16/32 (probably FAT12 too) formatted stick. (Although you'd still need to find a way to get the files etc.)
But these sort of things are really scraping the barrel and would only make sense if you're somehow mostly physically cut off from the rest of the world (but still have internet access) and you only have your phone and a non working computer, or if you know what you're doing and just want to do it to show you can. Your best solution is to get help, whether paid or that of a friend or family.
November 10
using two laptops in tandem
I have a HP laptop. The OS is Linux Ubuntu. I am doing some programming in C++. What I need is to have another, identical laptop to work alongside (in tandem) in such a way that the second laptop could be used by someone else who might hopefully help me to resolve a difficult problem with the code. How can it be done? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:27, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
I want to give additional details as to what I need. I need both laptops be loaded with the same software, which is of course, trivial. I want the other person to open my C++ code in his laptop, which is again trivial. I want both of us to go down the code which is very long with my explaining the logic of it. Let's say this hypothetical friend will find a bug and makes a correction, I want my code in my laptop reflect that correction and if we do test runs I want the output std::cout to be reflected on both laptops. Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 17:57, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- Etherpad is a highly customizable Open Source online editor providing collaborative editing in really real-time.
Thank you. It is very helpful. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:04, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- If you are comfortable with (X)Emacs's idiosyncrasies, then you can use
M-x make-frame-on-deviceto open a window on a second machine. Both can then be used to simultaneously edit the same document. However, I've never got this to worth with XAuth. LongHairedFop (talk) 17:36, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- If you are comfortable with (X)Emacs's idiosyncrasies, then you can use
- I thing You need a revision/version controlled editing software like Wikipedia haves it in the revision history to work from different computers on the same project. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 12:45, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Who were the Dalton gang, and what did they do?
In Reflections on Trusting Trust by Ken Thompson, he makes reference to a group known as the "Dalton gang": I would like to criticize the press in its handling of the 'hackers,' the 414 gang, the Dalton gang, etc. The acts performed by these kids are vandalism at best and probably trespass and theft at worst.
We have an article on the Dalton Gang, but that article is about Old West Outlaws, not an 80s hacking group. My Google-fu is not helping me. 192.88.255.9 (talk) 17:50, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
- The "Dalton Gang" was a couple 13 year olds (and possibly one older kid who was showing off some scripts he found) at Dalton School in New York. They got into a computer. The point is valid. They didn't "hack." They were what is now called "script kiddies." 209.149.113.5 (talk) 19:53, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
November 11
Capital letters in non-Latin, non-Cyrillic passwords
Many alphabets not developed in Europe lack the concept of letter case, which of course is useful for passwords by doubling the number of letter-character options; for example, English has 52 letter "options" when composing a password, while Hebrew has only 37 even if you use niqqud. How has this lack been addressed in non-Latin, non-Cyrillic alphabetical computing environments — is it ignored in all situations, simply resulting in fewer possible passwords, or have some programmers devised alternate mechanisms for complicating passwords that aren't generally employed in Latin or Cyrillic computing environments? Nyttend (talk) 13:16, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- I cannot answer the question directly, but I will note that there are multiple languages covered by Unicode that do not use an alphabet or a syllabary, most notably Standard Chinese. In that language at least, character input methods such as Shuangpin involve typing a roman transliteration (Pinyin). I presume, based on unreliable sources such as this thread, that the computer systems take the Pinyin input as the password, not the Unicode code points of the characters themselves. This may also be of interest. TigraanClick here to contact me 13:55, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know about more modern systems, but Windows XP had no problem with Unicode characters in user passwords. Once my computer somehow booted with the English keyboard setup and I had to look up Alt codes for some of the characters in my password (a real pain before the age of ubiquitous smartphones and Internet connections). 93.142.69.105 (talk) 20:56, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
- Hmm, that's interesting. I'd thought about Chinese, but I ignored it because I figured that it was on the opposite end of the spectrum: you can use any Unicode-compatible character you want, so the number of permutations for a given number of glyphs is immensely larger than with the same number of glyphs in any alphabetical system. I didn't count on Latin inputs for anything that doesn't display as Latin. Nyttend (talk) 02:57, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- I don't know about more modern systems, but Windows XP had no problem with Unicode characters in user passwords. Once my computer somehow booted with the English keyboard setup and I had to look up Alt codes for some of the characters in my password (a real pain before the age of ubiquitous smartphones and Internet connections). 93.142.69.105 (talk) 20:56, 11 November 2017 (UTC)
November 12
Google Books problem
Hello everybody, I am wondering how come I don't get any proper results for this since I've put the relevant term in quotes, but I don't get any corresponding hits...--Herfrid (talk) 17:16, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- Why do you think that any "proper" results exist? Ruslik_Zero 18:08, 12 November 2017 (UTC)
- Clicking on your link I get "About 234,000 results".--Shantavira|feed me 10:32, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- None of those results look relevant though. (They are often to do with 'government as employer', or sometimes church or university. And they are nearly all from before Google even existed.) Well at least the first 10 aren't for me, which makes me think none are. As RuslikZero said, the most likely explanation is simply that non exist and Google is trying to be helpful so doesn't treat the quotes as meaning it must only return stuff with the exact phrase Google as employer (as it does nowadays). I would note in most contexts 'google as an employer' would be a more likely phrase anyway although it still doesn't find anything. Nil Einne (talk)
- I currently get 229,000 on both "google as employer" and "as employer". Maybe many users start a search with "google" thinking it's a command to use Google, and Google therefore ignores it. But that is just speculation. To google has become a verb: wikt:google#Verb 2. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- But the phrase still works on a normal Google search. (I get 16 without an and 72 with.) However I guess you're right, this result is somewhat different. If you try "microsoft as employer" it will expand the search to more than Google Books (and say so). If you try "mosque as employer" it will ignore the quotes, and say so. But if you try "google is an american company" it will find some results,some of which seem to match Google. Well most lack useful snippets and and I only looked at about 3 which had a similar phrase and 1 which did not seem to mention Google at all, I don't think all matched the exact phrase as some had stuff like multinational or Google, Inc although I'm not convinced this is unique to Google since it's the sort of thing which happens with generally Google searches all the time. and it's a bit surprising that "google is evil" doesn't seem to find anything, and even more surprising that "google was founded" which makes me think in some cases it's perhaps not finding things even though it should. (And actually "use google to find" also possible didn't work.) And weirdly "google dominates" ignores the quotes and says so but then weirdly the second result seems to have "google dominates not only", although at least the first few results do look like they have Google. (Well this is what happened the first time, the second time it did the expand search to more than Books but still keep the quotes thing. You can probably see somewhat similar results to mine by trying Google dominates without the quotes.) So possibly there is something special about the way Google is treated sometimes so I'm not sure that either phrase is really not present anywhere in Google Books results. Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- I currently get 229,000 on both "google as employer" and "as employer". Maybe many users start a search with "google" thinking it's a command to use Google, and Google therefore ignores it. But that is just speculation. To google has become a verb: wikt:google#Verb 2. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:00, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- None of those results look relevant though. (They are often to do with 'government as employer', or sometimes church or university. And they are nearly all from before Google even existed.) Well at least the first 10 aren't for me, which makes me think none are. As RuslikZero said, the most likely explanation is simply that non exist and Google is trying to be helpful so doesn't treat the quotes as meaning it must only return stuff with the exact phrase Google as employer (as it does nowadays). I would note in most contexts 'google as an employer' would be a more likely phrase anyway although it still doesn't find anything. Nil Einne (talk)
- Try putting a + before google as in +google as an employer. Dmcq (talk) 14:10, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- That hasn't worked for a very long time [3]. Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- Sorry I see it is a search within Google Books not a general search. Yes I guess there aren't many books which have the text 'google as an employer' in them so it is just trying as best it can. Try Google Scholar instead if the normal google results just aren't up to what you want. Dmcq (talk) 12:08, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks everybody so far! @Nil Einne: I'm sorry, but some of your comments I didn't quite get: What exactly do you mean by "and says so" here? And what about the phrase "but then weirdly the second result seems to have "google dominates not only", although at least the first few results do look like they have Google" — what are "first few results" and "have Google" exactly referring to if only, as you say, the second one contains the negated form? I'm afraid, your post is a bit confusing there...--Herfrid (talk) 16:40, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- "and says so" - I mean Google tells you that it has done so. When it's a simple case of ignoring the quotes because no results are found, Google will generally tell you in the form 'No results found for "i like kittens but not cats who woof". Results for i like kittens but not cats who woof (without quotes):' (in English, if your Google is in German it will probably say something similar in German)
- "but then weirdly the second result seems to have "google dominates not only", although at least the first few results do look like they have Google" - The second result for me for the Google Books search 'google dominates' (without quotes) has the phrase "google dominates not only" (longer obviously, I didn't see much point copying the whole thing although perhaps I should have copied at least one word before). This shows up in the snippet view. Which mean it actually does have the phrase "google dominates". So although Google Books suggests there are no results for "google dominates", it seems it does actually have at least one, it just isn't being picked up for some reason. The other first few results besides the second one may not have the exact phrase "google dominates" but for me the first few results do seem to have google somewhere in the book meaning in this case google isn't being ignored in the search. This compares to a number of other searches where google just seems to be ignored, as it doesn't look like it's in any of the results or at least not the first few. As indicated, I'm not sure about your search, or even "Google as an employer" but there are some examples I found where I personally think it very unlikely there are no results including for the exact phrase (and definitely something close). In other words, they do exist, the search just isn't finding them. I do not (as I suspect most people when doing quick tests like this) look at the results beyond the first few in most cases so am not sure all 40 results have Google somewhere in the book.
- Nil Einne (talk) 17:29, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- Thanks everybody so far! @Nil Einne: I'm sorry, but some of your comments I didn't quite get: What exactly do you mean by "and says so" here? And what about the phrase "but then weirdly the second result seems to have "google dominates not only", although at least the first few results do look like they have Google" — what are "first few results" and "have Google" exactly referring to if only, as you say, the second one contains the negated form? I'm afraid, your post is a bit confusing there...--Herfrid (talk) 16:40, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
November 13
Reinstalling Windows 7
How does one reinstall Windows 7 from a backup DVD (which one had previously made from the Windows 7 already installed on the hard drive) to a brand-new, completely blank hard drive? Is it a matter of "just insert the DVD and follow the directions", or does one have to memorize the steps? (Note: My hard drive has NOT failed yet -- I had a new one installed just a few months ago -- I am asking this in order to be able to reinstall Windows 7 on my own when this second hard drive, inevitably, will also fail a few years from now.) 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:EA04 (talk) 10:26, 13 November 2017 (UTC)
- Take a look here: https://www.wikihow.com/Install-Windows-7-(Beginners) . You probably do not have to remember the steps, as there are menus, but you can decide beforehand which disk you want to install etc. Another good thing is to make sure you have your license key. If it is not handy, say on a disk sticker, look it up from your working installation and record it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 01:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- You mean look it up from Control Panel > System, as I just did? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:EA04 (talk) 02:04, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think that works, I use Belarc Advisor to retrieve the license key. It is encrypted in the registry. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:31, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
How exactly DO you do this? Where does it show the license key?Never mind, I just found the product key -- my only question is, how can I tell whether this is my key or the manufacturer's, and does it actually matter when installing from a DVD which I make myself? (The OS on my computer was NOT an original installation -- it was a reinstallation onto a replacement HD made by the Geek Squad from a DVD-ROM which was marked "Intended for installation of Windows 7 using OEM tools".) 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:EA04 (talk) 02:22, 15 November 2017 (UTC)- You install the program, run it, and then it makes a file called:C:/Program%20Files%20(x86)/Belarc/BelarcAdvisor/System/tmp/(your-pc-name).html and displays it in a browser window. Section #licenses has the keys. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:29, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
- I don't think that works, I use Belarc Advisor to retrieve the license key. It is encrypted in the registry. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:31, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- You mean look it up from Control Panel > System, as I just did? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:0:0:0:EA04 (talk) 02:04, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
November 14
Why is colour scanning more expensive than b+w?
If I use a commercial scanning company, they charge more for oclour than for black-and-white. Is this just profiteering? Surely it's the same piece of equipment and it costs just as much/ little to use. Amisom (talk) 07:32, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- This is a philosophy of pricing. Today CCDs and CMOS picture sensors include color, but storing the color information is up to 3 times the amount of memory. Only high speed equipment uses separate RGB channels. Mass scanning of documents may require a more expensive high speed machine. Printing the scan in color really increases the costs of ink or toner. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 12:41, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
Automated download of Google Drive files
Hi, I've been sent a long list of musical training files in Google Drive, over 50 links in the format https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5IxHKz1ru_qZDItWEl6VGUyUFk/view
If I visit that page I can download an MP3, however is there a tool that will let me download the MP3s en messe or do I really need to click on every single link and download its file individually? Thanks for your time and help — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.19.236.182 (talk) 07:33, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- The downthemall add-on for firefox should do it. Other download managers are available. HenryFlower 09:34, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- But random download managers won't necessarily download the files successfully since they aren't simple file links. The manager will need to understand Google Drive enough to know how to get the file instead of just getting the htm file that the link serves. (This includes your browser, if you right click or whatever to force download the above link, you'll just get a htm file.) Even worse if you need to be logged in to Google Drive to download the files although the comments of the OP make me think you shouldn't have to. For example, Free Download Manager 3.9.7 build 1638 (the latest Lite version [4]) will just download a HTML file with the above link. Jdownloader 2 unsurprisingly does get the MP3 file and would be one option. Nil Einne (talk) 09:47, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
What level of permission
What level of permission do you have to get for an image to be counted as having been released into the public domain? I found a facebook post where someone had uploaded a set of photos to a museum’s page and said that they were free to be used. Does this mean they are now suitable for upload to Wikipedia? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tesandjo (talk • contribs) 12:12, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- @Tesandjo: I would ask at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions, but here is some preliminary analysis.
- You need the person who holds copyright to the photographs (assuming there is a single such person) to unequivocally state that they release the photographs in the public domain. While a Facebook post is probably a suitable place to make such a statement, the situation you describe might fail on multiple counts:
- Does the person really hold the copyrights?
- Does the statement unequivocally release under a PD (or at least Wikipedia-compatible CC license)? "Anyone, you can reuse the photographs" is probably not enough (you could argue that "anyone" refers actually only to the people in a particular FB group, or that that permission is intended to be revokable, etc.)
- This sounds like a tricky question, so I encourage you to seek clarification (cf. above, at Wikipedia:Media copyright questions). TigraanClick here to contact me 15:30, 14 November 2017 (UTC)
- Part of the reason this is tricky is because in English the phrase "free to use" could mean "no charge to use", or it could mean "no restrictions on use". ApLundell (talk) 18:39, 14 November 2017 (UTC)