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March 26

How to "get rid of" Google Cloud?

A month ago or so, I advised my father to buy storage space at Google so that all photos on his Android phone are automatically backed up to the cloud. Google offers 100 GB of space for a very small monthly fee, and I use this myself and am very happy with it.

I think the service is called Google Drive, or maybe Google One. I find it hard to understand what things are actually called.

We did manage to set up a 100 GB subscription, and it works great!

But unfortunately, before we succeeded in setting this up, I think we accidentally started a free trial of something known as Google Cloud, which apparently is not the same thing as Google Drive/One/the consumer-friendly 100 GB photo cloud storage thing.

Today, he received an email from Google telling him that his Google Cloud trial was about to end:

Your free trial has ended.
Take action now to keep what you built.
Time has run out, and your free trial is over. After 30 days, your work may be deleted. Activate your full account now to keep what you built and gain full access to Google Cloud.

Then there was a big button named "Active your full account", and my father clicked this (which he really should not have done).

Apparently he did really activate something, because then he got a new mail:

Thanks for activating your full account.
You now have full access to Google Cloud products, including monthly usage of services in the Free Tier program.
You can set up budget alerts to track charges on your billing account.

Of course, my father has no idea what this is all about. Actually, the same goes for me. I have no idea what this is. All I can tell is that this is not the consumer-friendly photo cloud storage my father wants to use.

So, the question is how to get rid of this. Obviously, he does not want to pay a monthly fee for something he will not use. (Is there a monthly fee for Google Cloud? Even I have no idea.) But he also doesn't want to remove his credit card entirely from Google, since it is used to pay for the cheap monthly 100 GB photo storage thing.

Any advice?

--Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:49, 26 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Now it's not possible because the monthly plan is activated but for sure you can cancel the next month plan but for this you have to make the request to google cloud supporting team.. 14.139.242.13 (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Try this: https://cloud.google.com/billing/docs/how-to/close-or-reopen-billing-account manya (talk) 07:32, 4 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

March 28

UBASIC @

In UBASIC, in the line "130 IF ((3*L^2+L)\2)@K=(-N)@K", is @ mod? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

It is the remainder of integer division: 12345@678 = 141. I assume you have figured out that \ denotes integer division. I'm not sure though what happens when the operands can be negative. --Lambiam 13:10, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, yes I had figured out "\". Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 15:09, 28 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved

April 5

Popularity of the reference desk compared to other sites

I would think that because Wikipedia is one of the top 10 websites in the world by popularity, its reference desk would be extremely popular to ask questions. However, it doesn't get as much traffic as other areas of Wikipedia like the Main Page and certain articles. I would like to know why that is and are there any sites similar in functionality to the reference desk that are more popular and why. Interstellarity (talk) 15:37, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Quora and Stack Exchange are certainly two big contenders. CactiStaccingCrane (talk) 17:52, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@CactiStaccingCrane: Thank you for answering part of my question. I may be wrong about this, but maybe Reddit is popular, although it is a broader site. It doesn't look like you answered my question on why the reference desk doesn't get as much traffic as the rest of Wikipedia. I wasn't sure if you know or have an educated guess on what causes the discrepancy. I was just here to point that out. Interstellarity (talk) 21:08, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I would assume that it's because people view Wikipedia as an encyclopaedia and nothing else. They probably just don't realise that it has a reference desk, as it isn't exactly advertised that much. I, for one, did not realise that there is a reference desk until I had passed about 200 hours of editing articles. —Panamitsu (talk) 21:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) Because WP just isn't well-known for answering live questions: the other sites already mentioned are. Other dedicated sites like Tom's Hardware do a good job. The ref desks are almost a by-product of WP's main job, namely to provide encyclopaedic articles which tend to provide ready-written information. I'm not sure that a rash of inquiries such as found on Quora would necessarily improve WP's standing. Others may disagree. MinorProphet (talk) 21:28, 5 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

One big difference is that incorrect statements on the reference desk tend to be handled with references. On other forums, everyone has their own "facts" and throws them around without any verification. Imagine if I posted here that the reason the reference desk isn't as popular is because it tends to be limited to people with a college degree. Anywhere else, that would get copied and reposted and eventually become a new "fact." Here, there would be a quick request for a reference followed by references refuting the statement.

Another big difference is that it is very very difficult to locate old questions and answers here. On other forums, a question that is five years old pops up alongside questions asked in the last ten minutes. I find it difficult to find new questions on many forums. Because the longevity of easily available content is so short here, it appears search engines don't index it and don't direct users to it. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 11:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 6

Is it possible to change the Wikipedia keyboard shortcuts?

Wikipedia:Keyboard shortcuts lists a bunch of keyboard shortcuts, several of which I use all the time. I want to use alt+e (to open the source editor) but this just opens a menu on Google Chrome for me. I had a look and it doesn't seem to be possible to stop the menu from opening, so to me, it looks like I would have to change the Wikipedia keyboard shortcut, but I am not sure how, if it is possible. —Panamitsu (talk) 02:18, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Panamitsu I didn't find anything like this, but I did find a similar user script that lets you jump to pages using keyboard shortcuts. It's here. Note: I am not liable for the content of user-created scripts. You install this script at your own risk. thetechie@wikimedia: ~/talk/ $ 03:18, 6 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

There is also the reverse option of changing the shortcut Chrome uses. Though this will change it "globally" inside the browser. A Web search for "can you change shortcuts in chrome" appears to give plenty of useful guidance. Door number 3: You could have a WP:Userscript set all the shortcuts on WP to your liking, and even add more. This shouldn't be super complicated; if you want let me know and I might give it a stab myself. --Slowking Man (talk) 21:49, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 7

How to restore notes on Samsung S4? (no cloud)

I hope to restore a "note" on a Samsung S4. The file has been inaccessible since the phone crashed while trying to save the file. (The battery was at 4%. It's been the second time the phone crashed when the battery was low.) So, yes, the file is visible on the phone even though the icon for the file shows a blank page instead of the usual "note" icon. The phone was not connected to any cloud, neither is it using any backup to my knowledge.

The language on the S4 is not English, but I hope to get enough information here to be able to apply it to the phone. Thanks for any hint where to start looking. Ibn Battuta (talk) 21:35, 7 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Web search "how to backup android phone to pc". What you will be doing is connecting the phone to a "personal computer" via USB cable; follow the instructions for how to do that. This then gives you access to the phone's file system. The file is in there somewhere. Note: it's completely possible that the file is irretrievably corrupted and you can't recover it. This is what can happen when the metaphorical power cord is yanked while a computer device is in the middle of writing data to storage. This is one reason to not let a device battery get that low, another being that lithium-ion batteries really hate getting down to low charge and this can actually damage them and shorten their lifespan.

Also the Samsung Galaxy S4 has been out-of-support for years. Unless you've replaced the operating system with a custom up-to-date Android install, it is a very bad idea to use this device other than in "airplane mode", no connections to the Internet or cellular or anything. The ancient Android version that will be on there is wide-open with all kinds of long-discovered security holes and you are a sitting duck for drive-by malware infections. (Maybe you even have malware on it already. Maybe malware on your device had something to do with it locking up at low charge!) --Slowking Man (talk) 22:06, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 8

Why Windows 8 no start button

No start screen move right screen on corner it's hard to use Windows 7 users skip Windows 8 and upgrade Windows 8.1 because hard use
that's it reply here ⬇️ 2001:44C8:4286:21D8:C94A:392E:B1E3:E94E (talk) 09:27, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

In Windows 7, Microsoft's consumer experience improvement program stated that users were using the start button less, preferring the new taskbar instead. Feeling that the taskbar had more functionality, they opted to drop the start button in Windows 8 with tutorials demonstrating use of the taskbar. Shortly afterward, they made the start button optional and, later, put it back in the corner of the screen for users who still want to use it. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 11:13, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

A large question that I’ve been thinking of for a while.

Hello. This is a question that I’ve been thinking of for a while. Why do Google Maps satellite images of cities in Asia (such as India) and Africa (such as Nigeria and Egypt) have buildings that appear to be bizarrely looking flat when I zoom in? What satellite company is to blame? Why was that? What do the areas of such images that have bizarrely flat buildings cover, and when was the first time that happened? I’ve seen that in many African and Asian satellite pictures when I zoom in Google Maps. In European countries (the UK), Australia, and the United States and Canada have buildings that are perfectly fine. While in many parts of the world, the buildings in their cities are bizarrely flat when I zoom in for a close up in Google Maps. What satellite companies are to blame for this? Why does this happen? When did this first happen? Have you ever found this in Google Maps? I’ll check back in a day or two and any answers are highly appreciated. Thank you. —2.103.231.248 (talk) 11:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

When viewing satellite images on Google Maps, the source of the images is shown at the bottom of the map. For example, I zoomed onto Korhogo and the bottom of the screen states "Imagery (C)2024 Airbus Imagery (C) Airbus, CNES / Airbus, Maxar Technologies, MAP data (C)2024." That means that the images come from Airbus imagery. It doesn't come from Google. If you don't like the images or want to blame someone for bad images, Google is making it obvious who the images come from. 75.136.148.8 (talk) 11:43, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Most of the roofs wil be flat or only gently sloping. They don't have snow. And white reflects the sun better. NadVolum (talk) 16:39, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But why are the roofs often flat or gently sloping? 2.103.231.248 (talk) 18:40, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Because that's cheaper if you just have rain and don't have to cope with snow. NadVolum (talk) 19:57, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

What companies are to blame for the Indian satellite images? Try use Mumbai or Delhi, or New Delhi as examples 2.103.231.248 (talk) 20:24, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

If you follow what was said above you'll see Airbus at the bottom of the map. What do you see as wrong with the images? NadVolum (talk) 22:13, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I zoomed onto São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and the buildings are weirdly flat for no reason. Also I zoomed into Benghazi and Tripoli and the buildings appear what I call “poor quality images” with the buildings flat, even their roofs are flat. Are rapidly moving objects such as airplanes and other satellites to blame for this? Or any other reason? 2.103.231.248 (talk) 10:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Do you maybe mean the 3D-version of buildings that have been modelled for large parts of Europe? because with a quick look between Mumbai and Birmingham, the resolution of the photos are very similar. Tripoli is also of comparable resolution.Rmvandijk (talk) 11:31, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

No. When you go into 3D, the buildings are still flat. Where do such companies that imaged them launched their satellites from and what are the satellites’ names? What companies were to blame for this? Where are the companies from Where are these satellites that made the images launched and when?2.103.231.248 (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I read through the replies. The answer to "what companies are to blame" has been answered, yet you continue asking. It inhibits any interest in continuing to answer questions if you are not responding to the answers given. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 14:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I will not do this again! 2.103.231.248 (talk) 17:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

But where do the companies which made these flat building images launch their imaging satellites from? 2.103.231.248 (talk) 17:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I typed into Google "Who launched Airbus imaging satellites" and it responded:

Airbus has launched many Earth observation satellites, including:

THEOS-2

Launched in 2023 on a Vega rocket from Kourou, Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, this satellite provides 50cm imagery to Thailand

THEOS-1

Launched in 2008, this satellite continues to provide imagery beyond its 10-year operational lifetime

MetOp-SG

Built by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Toulouse for the European Space Agency (ESA) and EUMETSAT, these satellites provide more accurate data for climate monitoring and numerical models used in forecasting

HOTBIRD 13G

Launched by the Airbus BelugaST (A300-600ST) to Eutelsat at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida

Pléiades Neo

Two identical satellites with 30cm resolution that provide insights for institutional and commercial customers for the next 12 years

Aeolus

A wind sensing satellite built in Stevenage for the European Space Agency (ESA)

That is just one imaging satellite company. There are many others. You need to look at the bottom of the map when you want to know which company provided the image you are looking at. But, in the end, who launched the satellite is not important. If it was laucnhed from the U.S. or Europe or India, the satellite itself doesn't change. It still takes the same images. It appears that all of this is based on a complete misunderstanding that the satellite image does not have 3-D data to produce 3-D building images. It is a flat image. Google employs people and computer programs to add a 3-D effect to the flat images in specific locations - not everywhere. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 17:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Programme to create videos

I am searching for a programme that allows me to easily produce video presentations for my youtube channel. Some of my main themes are linguistics and philology, so the programme should be able to deal with letters, ligatures and symbols of all kinds. I previously made a few such videos using powerpoint, but that was very tedious, and the results remained mediocre. Has anyone some suggestions? 80.218.144.56 (talk) 16:56, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Good online reverse video search tool

Could someone recommend the best or at least powerful reverse video search tool either by still frame image or by video file itself? Brandmeister^talk 20:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Screencast editing - removing "aahs" and "uhhhms" and other pauses from a single clip

I'm looking for a specific kind of video editing editing software, that can be used to remove a lot of unwanted pauses (hundreds) in a single video clip - something similar to Audacity but for video. A program called Activepresenter seems to do this the best, but unfortunately it records only in 20 fps (OBS Studio records in 60fps on my computer) and is very buggy. Most video editing software seems to use quite a convoluted way of removing small parts of a video clip, like setting cursors and splitting clips in multiple parts. What I'm looking for is just simply mark a small part of the single clip I recorded with the mouse and press delete (as in Audacity when you want to cut a part of your sound) - as quickly as possible. What would you recommend? 83.252.182.138 (talk) 22:29, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I saw Cary Huang make something similar to this on YouTube a few years ago. Here is the GitHub repository. —Panamitsu (talk) 23:21, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

April 9

@@ Line 118: / Line 118: @@
 :::I will not do this again! [[Special:Contributions/2.103.231.248|2.103.231.248]] ([[User talk:2.103.231.248|talk]]) 17:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 ::::But where do the companies which made these flat building images launch their imaging satellites from? [[Special:Contributions/2.103.231.248|2.103.231.248]] ([[User talk:2.103.231.248|talk]]) 17:20, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
+:::::I typed into Google "Who launched Airbus imaging satellites" and it responded:
+:::::Airbus has launched many Earth observation satellites, including:
+:::::THEOS-2
+:::::Launched in 2023 on a Vega rocket from Kourou, Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, this satellite provides 50cm imagery to Thailand
+:::::THEOS-1
+:::::Launched in 2008, this satellite continues to provide imagery beyond its 10-year operational lifetime
+:::::MetOp-SG
+:::::Built by Airbus in Friedrichshafen and Toulouse for the European Space Agency (ESA) and EUMETSAT, these satellites provide more accurate data for climate monitoring and numerical models used in forecasting
+:::::HOTBIRD 13G
+:::::Launched by the Airbus BelugaST (A300-600ST) to Eutelsat at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral in Florida
+:::::Pléiades Neo
+:::::Two identical satellites with 30cm resolution that provide insights for institutional and commercial customers for the next 12 years
+:::::Aeolus
+:::::A wind sensing satellite built in Stevenage for the European Space Agency (ESA)
+:::::That is just one imaging satellite company. There are many others. You need to look at the bottom of the map when you want to know which company provided the image you are looking at. But, in the end, who launched the satellite is not important. If it was laucnhed from the U.S. or Europe or India, the satellite itself doesn't change. It still takes the same images. It appears that all of this is based on a complete misunderstanding that the satellite image does not have 3-D data to produce 3-D building images. It is a flat image. Google employs people and computer programs to add a 3-D effect to the flat images in specific locations - not everywhere. [[Special:Contributions/12.116.29.106|12.116.29.106]] ([[User talk:12.116.29.106|talk]]) 17:45, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
 == Programme to create videos ==