Content deleted Content added

Inline

Revision as of 06:26, 5 October 2021

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

Shortcut

WP:RD/C

Want a faster answer?

Main page: Help searching Wikipedia

How can I get my question answered?

Select the section of the desk that best fits the general topic of your question (see the navigation column to the right).
Post your question to only one section, providing a short header that gives the topic of your question.
Type '~~~~' (that is, four tilde characters) at the end – this signs and dates your contribution so we know who wrote what and when.
Don't post personal contact information – it will be removed. Any answers will be provided here.
Please be as specific as possible, and include all relevant context – the usefulness of answers may depend on the context.
Note:
- We don't answer (and may remove) questions that require medical diagnosis or legal advice.
- We don't answer requests for opinions, predictions or debate.
- We don't do your homework for you, though we'll help you past the stuck point.
- We don't conduct original research or provide a free source of ideas, but we'll help you find information you need.

Ready? Ask a new question!

How do I answer a question?

Main page: Wikipedia:Reference desk/Guidelines

The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.

September 25

September 29

Desktop site / mobile site

What does the "desktop site" option in a mobile web browser actually set? I assume it sends some signal to the server. It's not setting the user-agent string (which is how Wikipedia decides which version of pages to serve). I'm trying to figure out how to get my mobile browser to show desktop versions by default, because the mobile "enhanced" experience is typically terrible, lacking navigational content or sidebar links, and I'm sick of selecting the menu option for desktop every time I open a new tab. Card Zero (talk) 09:54, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The first answer to this stackoverflow question says it is user-agent only, but the second, more recent answer says it has to do with viewport meta tags. This page probably contains the information you want somewhere but I am way out of my depth. Tigraan^{Click here for my talk page ("private" contact)} 10:08, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikimedia looks at the user agent to determine if you get redirected to the mobile site. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:13, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MobileFrontend sets a cookie named stopMobileRedirect. https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/extensions/MobileFrontend/+/1f862168f73b51fa0593e3c7d1d51ee305d2d7fd/includes/MobileContext.php#494 Unfortunately this whole part isn't too well documented. —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 10:09, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I assume that just relates to user-agent (as you say above). I'm talking about all the other sites on the web, which are using some mysterious means beyond my control to decide to serve me the mobile version. For instance w3.org, visited on a mobile browser, even with my user-agent string saying that I'm using a desktop machine, increases the size of the text by about 50%. This is a benign example, since at least none of the content is missing, but it's still unnecessary since I'm not partially sighted or looking at my phone from three feet away, and the text wraps in ugly ways. How are they doing the detection? It might just be down to some viewport metric, which I think the browser deliberately misreports (Javascript claims the width and height of the viewport in pixels is half the actual available number). Card Zero (talk) 10:32, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes that is likely just the viewport + media queries in CSS changing the styling. "Javascript claims the width and height of the viewport in pixels is half the actual available number" probably not, it's reporting in device independent pixels and likely you have a high density screen, so you need to take into account the density factor as well. (a 2x HiDPI screen of 640x480 will report as 320x240 device independent pixels to JS, with a 2x density). —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 11:18, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chrome (in fact I'm using Kiwi) has a flag called "Request desktop site for tablets on Android", but it does nothing for me because it "Requests a desktop site, if the screen size is large enough". Evidently my 1600x700 screen is being considered as an 800x350 screen, whether I like it or not, and so it's not "large enough". One possibility is to write my own extension, but I can't find the "desktop site" setting in the API. I suppose the extension could do something with the viewport, but I'm not sure what. In fact is pixel density an attribute somewhere in the DOM that I can change? Maybe I could just make an extension to set it to 1x for every page. (Not that I have any experience of creating browser extensions, but it's definitely worth it to save a small amount of menu-selection effort for every new tab. Or more fun this way at least.) Card Zero (talk) 14:28, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's increasingly common that websites do not serve you a different version based on what device they think you are using. Instead they use Responsive Web design so the browser automatically adjust what it's shows based on the view port size. You can test this on any site by adjusting the browser window size or zoom level on a desktop browser after the page has loaded. While it is theoretically possible a site may download something else when you do so AFAIK this is rare with the exception of different images sizes etc. You can disable the network adapter to confirm. Nil Einne (talk) 22:39, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Difference between OLED and LCD Switch kickstands

Hello! So I'm wondering, what makes the OLED Switch's kickstand so much better compared to the LCD Switch's kickstand. I think it has something to do with the size, however I wonder if there's more to it, mainly what makes the LCD Switch's kickstand so bad at doing the one thing it was designed for, keeping the Switch propped up. Also, do we know how the OLED Switch's kickstand works yet, because I'm wondering how it managed to stay in specific positions without falling down. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 18:10, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This list of problems with the Switch says that the old stand is deliberately made from cheap and flimsy plastic so that it can snap off (and slot back on) if you crush it against the dock. This review from the sources on the switch page says the new stand will be "wide" and "adjustable". This super-sturdy third-party stand is undoubtedly more stable, but perhaps over-compensating for the flimsiness problem.

On the same Video Games Chronicle site I found an unboxing video which lets you see the stand in still close-up images, between 6 and 7 minutes into the video. It's as wide as the Switch. It's not obvious how the hinges work but they must stick in position somehow. I'd be guessing if I said "friction", but what's the question here, how else could it work? I suppose it may or may not have preset positions. Card Zero (talk) 18:56, 29 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

That makes sense, although I do wish they would've made it sturdier (possibly by having stands on both sides) so that it doesn't snap off when you're trying to actually use it as a kickstand. ― Blaze The Wolf^Talk_{Blaze Wolf#6545} 13:01, 30 September 2021 (UTC)[reply]

October 2

Android file transfers

When I connected my old Android phone and my desk computer with an USB cable, each device opened a file transfer app (without my explicitly invoking it). That phone died and my new phone lacks that app. I'm looking to install one but have not found the right keywords; most of what comes up is for Wifi or Bluetooth, or copying to another phone. Recommendations? —Tamfang (talk) 19:12, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

FX file browser is free and very good, and has a bunch of storage tools on the menu: "connect to storage", "mount/eject" and "filesystems". Presumably one of those menu items lets you connect to an external computer. You may also find something useful on f-droid, where the apps have all the usual pros and cons of FOSS (not making a concerted effort to rip you off, well-intentioned, but often kinda crappy). Card Zero (talk) 20:47, 2 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

October 3

c a n.s i

I received a spam that contains a link to a subpage of http://c a n.s i. What does anyone know about this second-level domain? The top-level domain is Slovenia, but the domain appears to be a hatrack for spamvertised domains. If I do a Google search, I get an ad for its service in hanging domains off it, like bit.ly, and other than that, all of the hits have to do with Sacro-Iliac (SI) conditions. If I try to look at the advertisement for the domain, my anti-malware protection blocks my access and says that that domain is dangerous. I can and won't override. Maybe I have already learned as much as I want to learn about c a n.s i. Robert McClenon (talk) 02:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Well, well. Wikipedia has blacklisted it. So the fact that it is dangerous is as much as we need to know about it.

Robert McClenon (talk) 02:24, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

.si is the tld for Slovenia and there are lots of legit sites there, but it sounds like the one you found is not so legit. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:1598 (talk) 05:57, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The home page at http://can.si/ proclaims itself "The free & best URL shortener, tracking & cloaking — The best alternative to goo.gl / bit.ly & tinyurl". Wikipedia has blacklisted all url-shortening domains, also goo.gl and youtu.be, because otherwise they can be used to cloak any blacklisted domain. --Lambiam 22:20, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

What does underclocking do?

Recently, I set the CPU clock speed of one of my laptops to 5% (I did this through the Power & Sleep settings because I somehow made the mistake of thinking that this would conserve energy), and then, when I tried to increase it, the computer started getting hot, making loud noises, and would not go back up to full speed. What exactly did all of that do to the laptop?173.185.94.69 (talk) 18:18, 3 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

October 4

enum in C standard

What's the earliest C standard to include the enum type? 68.161.175.73 (talk) 00:19, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

enum is in the earliest C standard, the one created in 1989 by ANSI. (By the way, enum is not a type, it's a keyword used to declare what the standard calls "enumerated types" and their associated "enumeration constants". If you declare enum {A, B, C} x; enum {P, Q} y;, then x and y have two different enumerated types.)

Since the standard's purpose was to "codify existing practice", enum must have existed in some versions of C before the standard appeared, but I can't say which was the first to have it. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 07:47, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Huh, thanks, TIL. Didn't realize it was that early. 68.161.175.73 (talk) 08:41, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It wasn't in the original K&R, so I'd guess that one of the compiler manufacturers (IBM? DEC?) nabbed a good idea from Pascal which had it earlier. A lot of the pre-PC manufacturers offered enhancements to their various compilers, some of which were subsequently adopted into the standard forms. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 10:41, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The C++ Programming Language — Reference Manual, which calls C++ "C extended with classes, ...", does not mention enumeration types. Although it has no date, I believe it is from late 1984. So, presumably, they had then not yet been introduced in C. The ANSI committee that defined the standard was set up in 1983, and they took five years to define it. The minutes of the committee, if they have been preserved, may identify their origin. --Lambiam 11:17, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Schildt 1990, p. 798 states: "The ANSI standard adds the following keywords: const, enum, signed, void, volatile". Schildt 1990, p. 198: "An extension to the C language added by the ANSI C standard is enumeration". Microsoft Corporation 1990, p. 90 mentions enum as "similar to the enumerated type in QuickPascal". Blaha 1995, p. 32 has "Enumerations are a feature of ANSI C and C++". It therefore looks as though ANSI X3.159-1989 "Programming Language C" is the point at which enum was introduced.

Blaha, Stephen (1995). C++ for professional programming with PC and UNIX applications (1. print. ed.). London: Internat. Thomson Computer Press. ISBN 978-1-85032-801-8.
Microsoft Corporation (1990). C for Yourself (2.5 ed.). Microsoft Corporation.
Schildt, Herbert (1990). C, the complete reference (2nd ed.). Berkeley, Calif., U.S.A: Osborne McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-881538-6.

Martin of Sheffield (talk) 13:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Schildt is notoriously unreliable, but that's not to say that he wasn't right this time. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 20:15, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'd forgotten until now that the Rationale for the ANSI C standard is available online, and it does in fact say here that the keyword enum had been "added". However, it also says here that "The Committee has formalized enhancements of proven value which have become part of the various dialects of C." So this suggests that, as I said before, they took it from some existing version of C, but it does not say which one. --184.144.99.72 (talk) 20:36, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Schildt is notoriously unreliable" – you are arguing from the specific to the general here. The example you link to is C.D.W.Feather's critique of Schildt's "The Annotated Annotated C Standard" not a general case at all. It does perhaps warn one to look for supporting statementsBlaha and Microsoft provide. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 21:33, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

SMTP 554

I tried to report a spam to the Microsoft Abuse team and to Digitalocean abuse. I was using Outlook as my mail client, and Windows 10. I got an error message listing all of the addresses, and, for each them, reported 554 6.6.0 Error sending message for delivery.

I have looked up SMTP 554, and that says that the message is too big for the system. The message is not as long as other spam reports I have sent, or other emails that I have sent. Is there a reference that will more specifically tell what a 554 6.6.0 is? Is there something in an Internet header that might cause a 554? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:08, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See List of SMTP server return codes. 554 is "Transaction has failed" (See RFC4468), but 554 can have enhanced status codes attached, see RFC3463. There you will see (§3.7) "Message Content or Message Media Status". Within that X.6.0 is "Other or undefined media error" which translates to "Something about the content of a message caused it to be considered undeliverable and the problem cannot be well expressed with any of the other provided detail codes". Basically, the server is rejecting the message because of its content. This is probably not length (that would be a 5.3.4) but may indicate that there is something really nasty in the message (well it is spam) that MS and DA don't want on their server. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 07:32, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, User:Martin of Sheffield. Your parenthetical comment, "well it is spam", is well taken. I must have incorporated something from the ad itself, because what I was trying to send was mainly the Internet header, which is just a lot of ASCII gibberish, parts of which can be looked in whois. So there was probably some nasty character string or something. Oh well. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

PATH and PING Question

I would like to be able to issue the PING command within the command prompt (what was formerly a DOS box and is still sometimes called one) under Windows 10. The PING command isn't recognized. I think that I was previously able to do a Ping under Windows 10, although it might have only been Windows 7. I recall that enabling that was done by including a library in the PATH command, and that could in turn be included in a batch file that was run when Windows started up. So my first question is whether there still is a startup batch file, and, if so, where is it? My second question is whether there is still a library that enables the Ping command to be performed as an external command. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:43, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Troubleshooting the USB Receptacle

I am having repeated errors trying to read from a set of flash drives that I recently bought, and am wondering how to troubleshoot whether the problem is with the devices themselves, or with the USB slot on my desktop computer. Obviously I hope that the problem is just with the flash drives. Is there a way to troubleshoot the port on the computer, perhaps using a USB cord to a phone and driving data between the two machines? I can also try to read and write the flash drives on a laptop computer, so part of my question is whether there is a known failure mode where a failing port causes something to become flaky with the flash drive. Also, is there a test than can be run on a flash drive that is more intensive than the Windows Properties Tools command? And what is the relative probability of a USB receptacle developing a problem as opposed to a flash drive having a problem? Robert McClenon (talk) 21:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's possible you been scammed. There are plenty of flash drives out there that Windows will happily write 10 gigs to but not read it back because the actual capacity is like 2 gigs. See https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterfeit-usb-flash-drives-bought-from-ebay-with-h2testw/ The easiest way to check if it's a port problem is try plugging the flash drives into a different device. 41.165.67.114 (talk) 06:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

October 5

@@ Line 95: / Line 95: @@
 I am having repeated errors trying to read from a set of flash drives that I recently bought, and am wondering how to troubleshoot whether the problem is with the devices themselves, or with the USB slot on my desktop computer.  Obviously I hope that the problem is just with the flash drives.  Is there a way to troubleshoot the port on the computer, perhaps using a USB cord to a phone and driving data between the two machines?  I can also try to read and write the flash drives on a laptop computer, so part of my question is whether there is a known failure mode where a failing port causes something to become flaky with the flash drive.  Also, is there a test than can be run on a flash drive that is more intensive than the Windows Properties Tools command?   And what is the relative probability of a USB receptacle developing a problem as opposed to a flash drive having a problem?
 [[User:Robert McClenon|Robert McClenon]] ([[User talk:Robert McClenon|talk]]) 21:56, 4 October 2021 (UTC)
+: It's possible you been scammed. There are plenty of flash drives out there that Windows will happily write 10 gigs to but not read it back because the actual capacity is like 2 gigs. See https://www.raymond.cc/blog/test-and-detect-fake-or-counterfeit-usb-flash-drives-bought-from-ebay-with-h2testw/ The easiest way to check if it's a port problem is try plugging the flash drives into a different device. [[Special:Contributions/41.165.67.114|41.165.67.114]] ([[User talk:41.165.67.114|talk]]) 06:26, 5 October 2021 (UTC)
 = October 5 =