Wikipedia:Reference desk/Computing

Welcome to the computing section
of the Wikipedia reference desk.

skip to bottom

Select a section:

• Computing
• Entertainment
• Humanities
• Language
• Mathematics
• Science
• Miscellaneous
• Archives

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.

See also:

• Teahouse
• Help desk
• Village pump
• Help manual

June 16

Disk-spanning/external packages on NSIS installers?

Anyone know of a good plugin for NSIS which allows me to do disk-spanning (i.e. for large installers) or extract stuff from external files? I did manage to search for stuff like ExtractDLLEx and ZipDLL, but I'm not exactly sure on how to utilise it for an installer I'm cobbling up. Blake Gripling (talk) 08:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Web slideshow or image gallery

I am tasked with displaying about 80 images on a webpage. The images are from a 19th-century book. Many but not all of the images are similar in size due to some cropping and landscape versus portrait orientation. I want the user to be able to click on an image and open another window or tab to view a higher resolution version of the image. I also want the user to be able to control the advancement of the images if they want to, for example via Next/Previous buttons. I have found some JavaScript and jQuery code for slideshows on the web, but they are not meeting my needs. The biggest problem is the variable size of the images, which makes the rest of the page jump around as the slides change. I found one that addresses that but doesn't include control buttons and positions the slideshow oddly on the page. My attempts to modify the code I've found have been unsuccessful, mostly because I don't really know JavaScript/jQuery. Any suggestions? My main goals are displaying the images in order with the ability to access a higher resolution version, and I am open to doing this in a different way instead of via a slideshow. I suppose I could just put each high resolution image on its own webpage and have users click through them in order but that seems pretty clunky. I thought of making a page of clickable thumbnail images, but it is hard to see from a thumbnail whether or not you are interested in viewing the full image. I would know how to code both of those options -- I know HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript. Thanks for your help.--Dreamahighway (talk) 16:24, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

There are lots of web sites that allow you to build a gallery just like this, with no coding required. Seems far easier to me. I set one up at AOL for a wedding once. There is some concern that those images may be taken down at some point, though, when that web site goes under or just decides to delete old photos. So, be sure you make a backup copy of the web page. StuRat (talk)

Yes, I suppose that is true. But since this is for a work project, a digital exhibit about a set of rare books, ideally I'd like the image part to be embedded in the page along with the other information. Or at least to have the same look-and-feel as the rest of the project.--Dreamahighway (talk) 16:44, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Put the slideshow inside a DIV which to which you give a fixed size; make sure that size is bigger than the largest image. That way the rest of the page won't reflow when the slideshow resizes itself. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:15, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I tried this but it isn't working.--Dreamahighway (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Facebook notifications

I set up a Facebook account but don't really use it, due to privacy concerns. Now I keep getting emails telling me I have a "notification". I pick on the link in the email, but it doesn't take me to a notification, just the main page. How do I find my notifications ? StuRat (talk) 16:26, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

(I'm more of a Google+ person...but....) Click on the little picture of the Earth at the top-right of the menu bar. SteveBaker (talk) 16:40, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks, that worked. I sure hate links that promise to take you somewhere specific but then just dump you on the home page and expect you to do all the navigation. StuRat (talk) 05:18, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Resolved

And I hate systems that stick a blue-on-blue 30 pixel square picture of planet Earth on your menu bar and somehow expect you to realize that this means "Show me my notifications please"! SteveBaker (talk) 15:04, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I hate icons, too. I've finally gotten used to the overlapping 0 and 1 for the on/off switch on many devices, but it's still meaningless to anyone who doesn't already know what it does. And that's really bad, not being able to find the on/off button. StuRat (talk) 02:21, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

The one on my TV is basically a touchscreen button in the glass bezel. When the TV is on, it lights up that symbol in dim white but when it is off the mark is invisible. To turn it on you have to know to tap the glass to the right of the silk-screen labels for the volume and channel controls. Katie R (talk) 11:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Wow, what a horrid interface. I take it you had to read the manual or just remembered from the showroom how to turn it on the first time. If you ever sell it or donate it to charity, be sure to label that spot or they will have no clue how to turn it on. StuRat (talk) 17:43, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Be careful of clicking on links in an e-mail unless you're absolutely sure of the e-mail's authenticity. Otherwise, you could be a victim of a phishing scam. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 17:24, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Noted. StuRat (talk) 02:22, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Android contacts

In the messenger app Telegram, I'm part of a group. There is this one person in that group whose number I don't have. Unlike WhatsApp, only phone numbers you have already saved are shown to you in Telegram. However, I would still like to save the person as a contact in my Android phone book and have a link between the contact and Telegram. Android does it automatically with people with numbers. Is this possible with contacts without numbers too? Otherwise I don't understand the purpose of saving contacts without numbers. There is the option "Only display contacts that have phone numbers" in the phone book settings, which indicates that contacts without numbers must be somehow useful. --2.245.121.139 (talk) 17:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Can't contacts also have email addresses? If so, then seeing contacts without phone numbers is still useful because you can email them instead. Come to think of it - doesn't it keep Skype handles too? SteveBaker (talk) 19:27, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

4GB or 8GB Upgrade to use Mavericks?

Hey all. I'm currently using my old Macbook (5,1 - late 2008) and am interested in upgrading from 10.6.8 to the new (and free!) Mavericks. My book only has 2GB of RAM right now (which surprisingly has gotten me through a lot over the past...five~ years), and I've read that I'll be wanting at least 4GB of RAM before I make the update. I know the 5,1 officially only supports 4GB but can actually utilize up to 8GB. The 2GB has been fine up to this point (I built my own PC for games) and I'm not sure if the extra 4GB (and $50+) is worth it, though I'm cautious about how much RAM Mavericks will need to actually feel like an upgrade.

Has anyone upgraded? Any advice would be appreciated! Thanks! 74.69.117.101 (talk) 19:06, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

I have 4GB and it works fine if you are only doing a few things at once. But I usally have a web brower, mail, Excel, TeX, Xcode, a few terminals and XQuartz and it takes a while to change between them (longer than when I used Snow Leopard). Also it takes longer to boot than with Snow Leopard. I'm not sure whether more RAM would help, but it wouldn't hurt. I've not had any problem playing games on it though. Dja1979 (talk) 19:58, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

Dja1979, if any of your alleged performance regressions have factual, quantitative data to back them up, please consider submitting a bug-report at the Developer portal. In general, new versions of the operating system are designed and tested to meet or exceed the performance of prior versions. Nimur (talk) 00:46, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

As a general rule of thumb, any UNIX wants all the memory it can get. But I've run Mavericks with 4 GB, and never had trouble. I usually run a 20 tab Chrome, iTunes, Mail, several smaller apps, and my X11 with Emacs for development and writing. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:24, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

iDevice connectivity

I have several iPods/iPads/iPhones and now a MacBook Pro and am going to be in an area with metered and slow internet doing some science ed stuff. Am I right that with an AirPort Extreme I can connect and manage all these devices through the AirPort's wireless network without a connection to the internet? Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.120.208.98 (talk) 21:50, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

June 17

IP Address

When I edit Wikipedia, and when I type "what is my IP address" into Google, I get a response in the form:

2601:x:xxxx:xxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx:xxxx

But when I use whatsmyip.org and other IP address finders, I get a response in the form:

73.xx.xx.xxx

Why do I have two IP addresses? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:7:1980:777:5DEE:90A9:1180:F1A9 (talk) 07:41, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

The latter is an IPv4 address, the former an IPv6 address. IPv4 is the original version from the first public internet, which is suffering from address shortage, so the powers-that-be are moving us onto IPv6. CS Miller (talk) 09:53, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

And you'll notice that if you don't sign in with an account name, Wikipedia displays your IP address in the signature line of your posts here...and, interestingly, it uses the IPv6 version. The deal with IPv6 is that it is only slowly being adopted. If you have IPv6 (as you evidently do) then old IPv4 services don't work. For that reason, your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is providing you with an IPv4 address to go alongside the IPv6 address during this transition period. Evidently (and ironically!) the whatsmyip.org site is one of the many that has yet to transition.

There is actually an alarming problem here - the world is running out of IPv4 addresses, and when that happens, we can't hand out any more and some people won't be able to access those old IPv4 web sites and other services. You'd think that web sites and email services and such would be working hard to switch to IPv6 - but they aren't. This is likely to reach a crisis point if those sites don't take notice of the problem soon.

SteveBaker (talk) 15:01, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

delete photo from net

Abhinand1234 (talk) 13:38, 17 June 2014 (UTC)how to delete a unwanted photo of us from website or blog -

If you think they will listen you can ask the person who runs the blog to remove it. There are a few situation where you have legal options, such as if you own the rights to the image and you didn't give them permission to use it, but we can't give legal advice. If you think they will object to removing it then you should be aware of the Streisand effect, which could just make things worse. Katie R (talk) 13:51, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Of course the image may well stick around in Google's image cache for a considerable time - and you have no control of the number of people who already copied it and might re-post it. Also, people may be accessing cached copies of it for a while yet. Then there is http://archive.org/web/ - which periodically archives the entire "visible" Internet and keeps it forever - so people may be able to find the photo just by looking through old archives of the website/blog.

Bottom line is that being 100% sure that the photo is truly and completely gone is flat out impossible. So don't ever put stuff online that you don't want popping up weeks, months, years or decades from now - don't post anything you don't want your parent/significant-other/boss/kids to see (even if you don't have a significant-other, boss or kid yet!).

SteveBaker (talk) 14:36, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Also: Streisand effect Zzubnik (talk) 14:20, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Further Fedora questions

I have now taken the new computer my company gave me into use. I have managed to copy all my old Fedora 17 files to the new Fedora 20 system without problem. But I have some questions:

• As the computer only has two hard disk bays, and both of them are in use (one for Windows 8, the other for Fedora 20), I put my old Fedora 17 disk in a USB enclosure. The computer recognises it when it's the only USB disk plugged in, but not when there's any other USB disk plugged in (I have two more, which I use for backups). This happens even if they are not powered on. Why?
• When the computer recognises the above-mentioned disk, and I turn it on, Fedora tries to be helpful and automatically mounts it and displays its contents in a file browser window. I'd rather want to manage mounting file systems manually. How can I turn this automatic mounting off?
• I have a Creative Zen Vision W device which I use for storing photographs while on the go without access to computers. Fedora 17 used to be able to mount it as an MTP device, but Fedora 20 isn't. All I get is an error message saying the MTP device couldn't be mounted. I did some googling and found numerous bug reports about MTP not working in Fedora 20. Does it work? Can I do something to fix it?
• I was able to install Xine and libdvdcss with yum. I remember I also need xine-lib-extras-nonfree, but no such package exists for Fedora 20. I found something called "xine-lib-extras-freeworld", but when I tried to install it, I was told Xine was already installed. Do I need this? Are Xine and libdvdcss all I need to view commercial DVD content, which I bought fully legally, on Fedora 20 Linux?

JIP | Talk 18:34, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Companies using pre-computer technology

(1) Which notable companies are not using computers in 2014? (2) Which notable companies are using computers and also pre-computer technology (for example, typewriters, telex, telegrams, land mail, landline telephones, and paper files in filing cabinets) in 2014? (3) For each technology specified in parentheses in the previous question, which notable companies are using that technology? (4) Which notable companies have ceased using computers and have recommenced or expanded the use of pre-computer technology? (For this discussion, let us consider a company to be notable if any language version of Wikipedia has an article about it.)
—Wavelength (talk) 19:27, 17 June 2014 (UTC) and 22:24, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

I doubt there were any notable companies in 1994 that didn't use any computers, let alone 2014. Unless the ONLY thing they are notable for is not using computers, they're so cheap and ubiquitous, even companies in the poorest nations would have access to computers. What does "not using computers" mean anyway? There's no computers at the head office? They don't use online banking? They manually file their tax returns? They manually write out their employee's pay slips? I know people "used" to do this kind of stuff in the past, (I work for a bank and it completely floors me that banks used to keep hand written account records!) but it's SO much more efficient to use computers for the support and operations, even of companies that seemingly have nothing to do with computers, I doubt very much there are any medium to large organizations that use no computers at all. Vespine (talk) 22:45, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

There is an almost obsolete phrase "bankers' hours" which showed a misunderstanding of banking in the 1950's, but refers to the burden of handwritten account records. In the 1950's, banks were open 10 am to 2 pm Mondays through Fridays, and also 4 pm to 6 pm on Fridays. The bank employees actually worked from 9 am to 5 pm on Mondays through Thursdays, and from 9 am to 6:30 pm on Fridays. The remaining time, when the bank was closed to the public, was spent in manual recordkeeping. The introduction of large mainframe computers in the 1960's permitted an expansion of hours, while necessitating the use of night-shift computer personnel, and the use of modern Unix servers permits banks to be open 9 am to 5 pm, or longer at some banks, and on Saturdays. Manual record-keeping really was burdensome, and so of course the banks went to using the most modern computing. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Best I can think of is the Kremlin, but I doubt the have eliminated all computers.[1] Even many Amish use some levle of computer technology. --  Gadget850 ^talk 23:23, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

As for #2, I would expect pretty much every company to use both computers and land mail, land line phones, and paper files. In my experience, email, cell phones, and electronic files just aren't as reliable as the old fashioned versions, so keeping the old technology around makes sense.

I agree that land line phones are more reliable than cell phones. There are purposes for which postal mail is necessary, such as when certified mail is required. Robert McClenon (talk) 19:24, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Related to #1, a company that recently had a security breach and had many of their electronic credit card transactions stolen has gone back to the old credit card sliders to make carbon copies, at least until they can figure out a way to do it electronically in a secure manner. I forget which company it was (maybe Target) ? StuRat (talk) 02:09, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Advice has been given in regard to being prepared to do business without computers.

• Be Prepared to do Business without Computers - Business Technology, Gadgets, and IT Best Practices from Vantage Point Blog | Louisiana | Vantage Point

—Wavelength (talk) 04:46, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

The company is PF Chang's http://www.pcworld.com/article/2363440/pf-changs-turns-to-manual-card-processing-after-confirming-breach.html --agr (talk) 20:19, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

I'm sorry I only have vague recollections but there was a news item or maybe it was a segment on some History Channel program about 5 years ago now. The show visited some company who did their monthly accounting or payroll on some old (1950s?) piece of equipment. I remember them saying that it takes them extra time but they appreciate the nostalgia of it all. I believe it was a lumber company or some such thing with a rather small number of employees (less than 50?). Sorry I can't be more specific. That said, I don't believe they would meet the "notable" bar that you set. Dismas|^(talk) 08:14, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

According to one report (Ding, click clack -- typewriter is back—Quad-City Times, May 18, 2009), Merls Business Machines in Milan, Illinois, recently sold typewriters to Modern Woodmen of America and to Blackhawk Bank and Trust in Illinois. Another report (Typewriters experience a comeback - UPI.com—United Press International, Dec. 19, 2011) discusses a renewed interest in typewriters, but does not identify any companies buying or using them. There is a movie about the typewriter in the 21st century (http://typewritermovie.com).

—Wavelength (talk) 16:14, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Russian security agency now using typewriters to avoid electronic surveillance.[2] 192.249.63.59 (talk) 02:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Hexadecimal

I'm interested in learning more about the hexadecimal numeral system, how to use it, and some basic conversion examples to get me started. I already know that it is base 16, and that in addition to the numerals 1–9, there is also A–F — each representing its own distinct value (i.e. "A" in hexadecimal is equal to "10" in decimal, "B" = "11", "C" = "12"). And after the first "F", it resets to 11, 12, 13, and so on, until it returns to the alphabetized six values representing 10-15 (as in the basic decimal system. Then it follows up with an example. It reads as follows:

“ For example, the hexadecimal number 2AF3 is equal, in decimal, to (216 × 163) + (A16 × 162) + (F16 × 161) + (316 × 160),

(2 × 4096) + (10 × 256) + (15 × 16) + (3 × 1), or 10995.

”

I can't possibly be the only person who finds this part confusing. As someone who knows virtually nothing about hexadecimal, that example does not help to educate me about converting from the standard base 10 numeral system. It just presents an equation using conversions the reader is presumed to know. I think the lead section should be partially revised, so as to give a better introduction to the topic for the unenlightened masses (i.e. myself). Kurtis ^(talk) 23:35, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Um, you've copied the section from the article without the formatting, which is even more confusing. It actually says:

For example, the hexadecimal number 2AF3 is equal, in decimal, to (2₁₆ × 16³) + (A₁₆ × 16²) + (F₁₆ × 16¹) + (3₁₆ × 16⁰),
(2 × 4096) + (10 × 256) + (15 × 16) + (3 × 1), or 10995.

I'd agree that it could probably be better explained though. AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:49, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Looking into this further, the article used to read

For example, the hexadecimal number 2AF3 is equal, in decimal, to (2 × 16³) + (10 × 16²) + (15 × 16¹) + (3 × 16⁰), or 10995.

I'm not sure that this wasn't less confusing... AndyTheGrump (talk) 00:04, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

• Oh... sorry about the formatting error. Forgot that it used subscripted numbers as well. But thanks for correcting me. Hopefully we can find some better way to represent hexadecimal in action (i.e. proper conversion from base 10). Kurtis ^(talk) 01:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

It might help to start at the small digits, rather than the large digits, as the math is simpler for them. Also, using the subscript "HEX" instead of "16" might make it clearer. StuRat (talk) 02:13, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

The number $10995_{10}$ is equal to $1*10^{4}+0*10^{3}+9*10^{2}+9*10^{1}+5*10^{0}=10000+000000+00900+00090+00005$ is one way of looking at the decimal system, especially if you remember how to do long arithmetic. CS Miller (talk) 10:44, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I tried to edit the introduction of the hexadecimal article for clarity. If you have input, there is a discussion at the article talk page. Nimur (talk) 22:42, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

June 18

Adding memory to HP 250 G2

I have an HP 250 G2 with 4GB of memory. I bought an additional 4GB and would like to install it. I was unable to find any information on how to do that on the HP web site, so I looked on Google and YouTube for videos or instructions, also without success. There are many videos showing how to work with other HP laptops, but the internals of the HP 250 are different and it's not clear how to proceed. Ma^t_chups 00:18, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Maybe this video? -- BenRG (talk) 01:54, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Here is the service manual: [3]. Remove the battery and the L-shaped cover on the bottom. The RAM is under that cover and uses a simple spring-loaded clip and socket. The manual goes into detail for each step of the process. Katie R (talk) 12:57, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Comments in CSS vs. HTML

Can anyone tell me why the markup for comments in HTML and CSS are different? HTML was already well established by the time CSS came around, so why didn't the developers of CSS carry over the convention of using <!-- --> into their standard? Dismas|^(talk) 04:05, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

The standards organization who publish documentation that codifies the official form of CSS is the World Wide Web Consortium. You can read their archived discussions on their thought-processes, and cross-reference the official standard documentation for CSS comments syntax. Notably: "CSS also allows the SGML comment delimiters (<"!--" and "-->") in certain places defined by the grammar, but they do not delimit CSS comments. They are permitted so that style rules appearing in an HTML source document (in the STYLE element) may be hidden from pre-HTML 3.2 user agents."

Nimur (talk) 15:41, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Comment Syntax and Re: Comment syntax: a roaringly exciting archived discussion that raged for a few weeks in 2012... ultimately, the challenge comes down to ensuring compatibility with every conceivable possible standards-compliant user-agent, web-browser, and parser. Nimur (talk) 01:57, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Wow! Okay, so that just bogs me down in minutia that I don't understand. So, back to your summary... To ensure compatibility with all standards-compliant user-agents, etc. Those agents would have already been compatible with handling the <!-- --> syntax. So my question remains, why use a different syntax? I could understand if CSS also worked with something like C (since at the time there were likely more lines of code written in C than HTML) which already uses the /* comment syntax but it doesn't work with C. Dismas|^(talk) 02:10, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Javascript predated CSS and used a C-like syntax with C-style comments, so any CSS comment style would have been inconsistent with something. (Naturally, they chose to be inconsistent with both, by allowing /* */ comments but not //.) Since both languages need their own lexers anyway, using HTML-style comments probably wouldn't simplify the implementation. It might complicate it slightly since the comment-scanning code would be duplicated and HTML comment syntax is harder to match correctly. Also, using HTML comments would have precluded the hack that was used to hide inline Javascript and CSS from older browsers (as Nimur already mentioned).

In Javascript there's also the problem that < ! -- is a legal sequence of three operators in the language. (But then, / * is a legal sequence of two operators in C...) -- BenRG (talk) 03:03, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Google blackmail ?

I've noticed that when I search Google for one pizza chain, the map also includes other pizza chains nearby. I'm wondering if Google only does this for chains that haven't paid them not to do so, in which case they show other chains that have paid. This would be a more subtle way to shake down businesses for money, as outright refusing to show the chain's locations at all would also make Google less valuable and people would switch to other search engines. StuRat (talk) 16:33, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Anyone can add the location of their business on Googly maps. So I would say it is the keyword 'pizza' that ranks highest. Thus, all 'pizza' parlors, that have been entered, show up on a search. If someone visiting a new town fancies a pizza, they might just google (out of habit) their familiar local purveyor. If that chain does not have a local outlet then any other will probably do - when you are suffering a bad attack of the munchies. So it saves a second search. However, if they search on Bing, it may well spell-check the entry and recommend them to the nearest leaning tower in Pisa. Bing seems to delight in offering up anything that you're not looking for.--Aspro (talk) 17:32, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Well, in my case, the pizza chain I entered was found, so listing other pizza chains nearby seems like Google trying to get me to change my mind and go elsewhere, and I have to think they didn't get paid and are trying to get even. StuRat (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know one does not need to pay google anything to place anyone’s business on googly maps so in my view (and I'm willing to be corrected) this is a non sequitur. If you need a better map application for when you get the munchies, then try [4]. In the last few years it has become my main stay. But that doesn't charge either. So I don't think google will ever be able to monetizes business entries in the way that you suspect.--Aspro (talk) 18:30, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

Not sure you are getting the subtlety of what I'm saying. I agree that any business can get their business listed in Google maps for free. What I'm asking about is if they can then pay a premium to have their business listed alone, when the user types in the name of their business, as opposed to listing competitors as well. StuRat (talk) 14:21, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Redirecting a category on MediaWiki software

Just a heads-up, an editor is asking for assistance regarding a personal project using MediaWiki software. The original posting can be found here. Kurtis ^(talk) 20:29, 18 June 2014 (UTC)

June 19

IPCONFIG Question

I am using Windows 7. If I open a command prompt (so-called DOS box), and issue the ipconfig command, it displays my IP address as 10.22.163.105. It doesn't display a 71.*.*.* IP address. However, if I go to my Wikipedia talk page, log out, and post a test edit to my talk page, it attributes the edit to 71.191.8.90. 10.22.163.105 is a non-routable address. Is there a way to display the IP address that the world sees (short of editing Wikipedia logged out, which is usually deprecated anyway)? Robert McClenon (talk) 01:09, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The public IP address doesn't belong to the Windows machine but to some router between it and the public Internet, so you have to connect to that router or to some host on the other side to find out what it is. There are Web sites that will echo your public IP back to you, such as whatismyip.com (not an endorsement). You could also edit a Wikipedia page logged out, insert ~~~, press "Show preview" to see the IP, and then exit without saving the change. -- BenRG (talk) 04:01, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. 10.22.163.105 is, as you say, the non-routable address assigned to my computer by my Linksys router. IPCONFIG shows that the gateway address is 10.22.163.240, which is the non-routable address of the router itself. I can log on to the router. Is there a way that I can get the router to show me the address assigned to me by Verizon? Robert McClenon (talk) 20:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

It will be shown somewhere in the web interface (exactly where depends on the router). If it's running Linux and you can get a shell prompt, you can run ifconfig, which is similar to Windows' ipconfig. -- BenRG (talk) 01:55, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

@Robert McClenon: See network address translation.--Jasper Deng (talk) 20:22, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Percent encoding

So I'm playing around with percent encoding, and I find that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaran%C3%AB produces a page Guaranë. However, strip everything but the last character, resulting in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%AB, and you get «, a typographic figure known as a guillemet. Why doesn't %AB produce the same character both times? Nyttend (talk) 03:52, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

URLs are supposed to be UTF-8 encoded, and C3 AB is the UTF-8 encoding of U+00EB, "Latin small letter e with diaeresis". AB by itself is not valid UTF-8, and some software somewhere tried to guess what it was supposed to mean. It guessed Latin-1 (or more likely Windows-1252), in which AB stands for U+00AB, "Left-pointing double angle quotation mark". -- BenRG (talk) 04:08, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

128 GB USB 3.0 flash drives

Can anyone figure out why the SanDisk 128 GB USB 3.0 flash drive listed at the top of this page is 3x more expensive than the other 128 GB USB 3.0 flash drives? Based by the number of and substance of reviews, it apparently it's apparently a very popular drive . I don't understand why anyone would pay $143 for a 128GB drive when they can pay ~$50. What am I missing? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 13:32, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Because (like other high-end flash drives) it scores several times the read and write performance of cheaper drives in benchmarks. Sandisk and other large flash manufacturers make a range of flash products with a radically different range of speeds, and naturally charge much more for the faster ones. It's my understanding that the high-speed products feature multiple parallel blocks with parallel write and erase circuitry (essentially multiple devices on the same silicon), whereas the cheaper bulk ones have only a single channel. This makes most sense for uses where speed is vital, like SD cards in cameras; I'm not sure there are so many use cases where higher performance is worth paying lots more for on USB. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 13:50, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

By way of example, Sandisk's offerings for SD cards is here, where you can compare the performance of their most expensive kinds to the cheapest ones (well, they don't even list speeds for the cheap "standard" ones). See also Secure Digital#Speed class rating. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 13:57, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Finlay McWalter: Thanks, that explains it. I'm planning to use the drive so I can play a copy of my entire music collection in my car. My 'master' music collection is kept on a network drive on my home network. My plan is copy the music from the network drive to the USB drive. Read speed shouldn't be an issue when playing a song. Writing might be an issue when backing up my music collection to the USB drive, but as long as I can find a utility that only copies the delta's, it should be quick enough after the initial backup. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:36, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

rsync, or Robocopy on Windows. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 14:46, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

@Finlay McWalter: Do you have any opinion on RichCopy? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 16:05, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

No, I don't know anything about it. I use rsync exclusively. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 16:23, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

Cheap flash memory uses as many as 4 bits per cell (16 discrete voltage levels), impairing write durability and reliability in general.[5] If you've got another copy of the data though, maybe this is tolerable. Good memory these days uses 2 bits per cell. 1 bit per cell (SLC, single level cell) is almost extinct. 173.228.123.145 (talk) 15:21, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The price differential is a possible indication these could be among the cheap fake capacity flash drives coming out of China. Such drives have apparent capacities 32GB up to 1TB (sometimes more), but are actually low capacity drives (typically 4, 8, or 16 GB) that have been hacked so that they appear to have a much higher inflated capacity. Files will write without apparent errors, will look okay in folders, but any data written past the true capacity will be quietly lost and irretrievably corrupt when read back. Most of the fakes involve an assortment of generic and novelty styles, but convincing counterfeits of brand name drives such as Kingston, ADATA, SanDisk, and Toshiba also exist. Flash memory cards are also involved. If you purchase one, I recommend that you run a thorough test of the true capacity before trusting any valuable data to it. Fill it with data and then verify that you can actually read that data back intact by opening/viewing/playing the files, especially those at the end. The h2testw tool created by a German tech magazine "c't" (published by heise.de) is one of the more recommended tools for testing for fake capacity flash.

At the time I write this, the SanDisk drive you mention no longer appears. However, it's worth noting that several unusually low priced drives at the top of the list are sold by a third party rather than NewEgg, and the styles shown are among the common generics often involved in the fake capacity scam. Such fakes are common on eBay and many Chinese wholesale sites but also appear in other marketplaces such as Amazon and now apparently NewEgg. This scam has been ongoing for many years and shows little sign of letting up. Some resellers might not be aware that they are selling fakes, having themselves been scammed by the wholesalers. Google "SOS Fake Flash" for more info. 24.254.222.118 (talk) 17:45, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Correction: When I first clicked the OP's link above, the results were sorted by lowest price and the top two items were generic drives offered for $13.99 and $14.99. Those are the ones I suspect to be fakes. At the other end of the spectrum, I agree with Finlay McWalter's comments. Speed, reliability (including error correction), encryption, and other features affect price. 24.254.222.118 (talk) 20:39, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

IP address with new format

I'm a recent changes patroller, and I keep noticing a different kind of IP address sometimes, they look like this: 2001:5C0:1000:A:0:0:0:A67. What does this kind of address mean or what is it used for, and how is this different from a "standard" IP, like 106.414.1.1? Ben^Yes? 21:04, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

The former is IPv6, the latter is IPv4. This question was asked by an anon user about their own IP address a few days ago. CS Miller (talk) 21:11, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

OK, yeah I've heard of them, I just don't know what they were. Thanks! Ben^Yes? 21:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

For an explanation of why IPv6 is being implemented, see IPv4 address exhaustion. There are "only" 2**32 or 4 "binary billion" IPv4 addresses available, some of which have special purposes. There are 2**128 IPv6 addresses available, and 2**128 is BIG. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:21, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

(ec)That is an IPv6 address. The "normal" IP protocol is more than 30 years old and uses 32 bit addresses, normally written as 4 8-bit-bytes in decimal notation, separated by dots. IPv6 is the latest standard, and uses 128 bit addresses, written as 8 16-bit numbers in hexadecimal notation, separated by colons. One reason for IPv6 is that we have been running out of IPv4 addresses for a while now. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 21:17, 19 June 2014 (UTC)

I've actually never noticed IPv6 addresses until just recently, and at the time I thought it was just a funky username. :/ Kurtis ^(talk) 01:13, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

IPv6 is more than 15 years old itself... -- BenRG (talk) 01:56, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

IPv6 was enabled for all of Wikimedia's properties two years ago. At that time, if I remember rightly, we were seeing around 1% of IPv6 visitors. I wrote a little IRC bot today to monitor the en.wikipedia recent-changes feed, and of the last 1000 ip edits, 21 came from IPv6 addresses (but bear in mind that those numbers are so low that a single person editing or not could easily double or half the ratio). So its use here appears to have roughly doubled; I'd expect that it'll continue to increase over the next few years, as ISPs roll out IPv6 capable routers to households. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 18:30, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Google currently gives ~3.25-3.30%, with a weekly peak of ~3.7-3.8% on Saturdays, at their statistics page. To me at least, it seems to be resembling logistic growth if you look at the weekly peaks; it's pretty much exponential for the past 3 years and the present (more evidence: this and this are both consistent with logistic growth).--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:04, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Finlay McWalter: Also, I'm not sure I'm allowed to do a simple z-test here, but doing so with your result (2.1%) gives a (95%) confidence interval of 1.2% to 3.0%, so I'd probably say 3% is a reasonable estimate of current IPv6 usage given Google's statistics and yours. Then again, what we have here is original research, so we'll just have to wait for how it plays out. Hopefully all admins will know enough about it by the time it becomes as common to block IPv6 addresses as IPv4.--Jasper Deng (talk) 05:15, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I ran a longer run overnight, with about 10 times the sample size, and it came out to 3.2% IPv6. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 11:32, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I am revising the section heading from IP Address to IP address with new format, to distinguish this section from #IP Address (under "June 17") on this page. This is in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 12 (Section headings). The new heading facilitates recognition of the topic in links and watchlists and tables of contents.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:02, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

June 20

Bluetooth refuses to stay shut on Android 4.4.3

I updated my first gen Nexus 7 tablet to the latest version a couple of days ago and now I enabled Bluetooth on it for the first time since the update to use with headphones. Well now every time I attempt to shut off the Bluetooth function it turns itself back on automatically. Searching through the net to find people with the same problem doesn't appear to be of much help since it doesn't look like a common issue. Can anyone here help me out? 64.233.172.101 (talk) 12:17, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Eliminating excessive padding created under an image within a text block in HTML

Hi all, I'm creating a page in HTML and have an image embedded and aligned left. Even though I only have padding applied to the right side, it creates a gap underneath it which significantly intends a paragraph and makes it look awkward as shown in this image. Here's the code I'm using for reference.

<p><img src="image.jpg" style="PADDING-RIGHT: 10px" align="left" width="250"/></p> <p><span style="font-family: inherit;">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p> <p>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.</p>

Thanks!

I can't reproduce that with just the HTML you cite, and no CSS, on either Firefox or Chrome. Perhaps there is some CSS setting for the paragraph tags on your page? Some observations:

• The image doesn't need to be in a paragraph of its own
• Rather than paste html here, I'd recommend you make up a minimal working example on a site like JSFiddle. For example, I made up a basic one with your html at http://jsfiddle.net/3qhTj/1/

-- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Lightweight X11 Window Manager

I've been running X11 on OS-X with a slightly customised version of Blackbox for a long while, and have generally been happy with it. However, there seems to be a slight bug with focus and bringing windows to the front that is annoying. Also, I have not been able to hack it enough to have different root window images on different virtual screens - something I wanted for a long time. What I need is minimal fuzz, no waste of screen real estate, and focus-follows-mouse (or sloppy focus). Any suggestions on what to try? I can hack the blackbox source further, but I don't know much about X11 internals, so debugging the window-front error is out of the question. Thanks! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:26, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Openbox (which was once a Blackbox derivative) is pretty lightweight (it's used on lightweight Linux distributions like PuppyLinux); apparently it works on OS-X. For maximum use of the screen, some people swear by tiling managers like xmonad. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 19:37, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Doesn't quartz-wm, (the official un-official X11 window manager for OS X) support focus-follows-mouse?

defaults write org.x.X11 wm_ffm -bool true

...from the man page.

Nimur (talk) 22:45, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. But if I wanted Cocoa-like behaviour. I would just run Aquamacs and Apple's Terminal with Skim. I wan't a more classical look and feel - not M-C/M-V for copying. Openbox is running right now, so far without problems (after some config file hacking). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:23, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

can people who studied business computing claim that they are computer scientists?

Could it be a kind of specialization of CS? OsmanRF34 (talk) 20:36, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

The answer is no. Not all computing is computer science. Computer science is a well-defined academic discipline, and is more specific than information technology or computing. Please read computer science for a description of the discipline. It is misleading to claim to be a computer scientist unless one has that degree, or at least taken courses in that discipline. I wouldn't have claimed to be a computer scientist when I was doing scientific programming until I had earned an M.S. in computer science. Robert McClenon (talk) 21:34, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

I disagree on that last part. It certainly is possible to work in, and learn everything needed to do, computer science without having a degree. This is true in any field, although some are far more simple to pick up informally than others (and it's illegal to learn that way in some fields, like medicine). And computer science is a field where it changes so rapidly that recent experience may well trump a degree in the field obtained decades ago. StuRat (talk) 14:17, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

What if you have a degree in Computer Science? My degree says "computer science" but I don't believe I'm a computer scientist. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:51, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Being a good programmer has nothing to do with being a computer scientist. In fact, some highly respected CS researchers are often not crack coders (though most are pretty decent). From our article "A computer scientist specializes in the theory of computation" -- sure, that has changed over time, but it's not like e.g. lambda calculus has been supplanted. The tools may change quickly with newer technologies becoming cheap/ubiquitous, but all sciences have that issue. It's actually a common complaint that CS grads from prestigious schools have arcane knowledge of theory, but might be lacking in real-world hacker skills. I wouldn't say that the guy who fixes my car is an automotive engineer, and I wouldn't say the guy who makes my web page is a scientist. Sure, if some autodidact can expound on his new approach to P=NP, then he can call himself a computer scientist. But somebody who taught themselves how to program in several language is not. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:14, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

June 21

If you are using Tor

Could you be contributing as a proxy for all kind of activities: from internet trolling, (passing through illegal downloads, SPAM, online scams, and child pornography) up to organized criminality? OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:52, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Or avoiding digital stalking, or supporting whistleblowing. See Tor (anonymity network). It has legitimate and illegitimate uses. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

By that logic, using the internet is also "contributing as a proxy for all kind of activities: ...online scams, and child pornography." Now, if by "using Tor" we mean "hosting a Tor exit node", then you're probably right. But if "using Tor" just means routing your traffic through the extant Tor network, then it's not really contributing to anybody else's activities, not any more than me using the internet is contributing to child pornography. A more clear-cut illustration might be freenet. In that case, to use the service, you have to also host other encrypted bits of unknown origin and unknown content, and this activity is clearly supporting/contributing to the functioning of that network and all who use it for nefarious or righteous purposes. SemanticMantis (talk) 16:20, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Yes. Useful clarification. If you are hosting a Tor exit node, you are contributing to various legal and illegal activity. If you are routing your traffic through Tor, you are engaging in your own legal or illegal activity, such as avoiding digital stalking, whistleblowing, online scams, or child pornography. Robert McClenon (talk) 16:33, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

when I am online, no one is using my computer with my knowledge to do anything ilegal, so, my use of the internet is not helping them. But I got the impression that Tor would be a kind of p2p proxy service, and anyone using it would be a Tor relay smudging the traffic, althogh it's clear that concrete user are not exit nodes. OsmanRF34 (talk) 17:46, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Using Tor does not automatically make you a relay. (This is different from, say, Skype, which I believe can relay other users' calls, which could be discussions of illegal activity, through arbitrary clients.) -- BenRG (talk) 19:35, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's info about Tor here notes that all active members of the network are relays, and so relay whatever traffic is moving through the network, despite being unaware of its contents. EFF says here "it is statistically likely that an exit relay will at some point be used for illegal purposes". -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 17:54, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

If you read that page as saying that anyone who makes connections through Tor is also relaying other people's connections, then you misread it. Members of the Tor network are distinct from users of it. -- BenRG (talk) 19:35, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Creating shortcuts on Android

I'd like to make a shortcut on my Android internal SD card to my external SD card. How do I do that? The mount point is /storage/sdcard1 - I'd like to be able to do it from within Windows 7 (I have managed to make the internal SD card shared over Wifi) but I could also do it on the phone if that's not possible. ----Seans Potato Business 14:25, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I tried using a terminal emulator in Android to run the command 'ln -s /storage/sdcard1 shortcut_to_sdcard1' but the response was 'link failed Operation not permitted'. I tried prefixing with sudo and it responded 'sudo: not found'. I'll continue fumbling until I achieve something or get a response or give up. ----Seans Potato Business 15:11, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

My Android is rooted, btw. --Seans Potato Business 15:14, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

I used command 'su' to obtain a # prompt but this still produced the same 'link failed Operation not permitted'. --Seans Potato Business 15:16, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

If the SDcard is formatted FAT32 (which I think is the default for Android), you can't create a symlink on it - the underlying filesystem doesn't have such a concept, so the Linux filesystem driver returns the error you're seeing. You can't create a hardlink either. If you chose to reformat to a filesystem to ext2 (and your system supports that) then you can use symlinks there. A Windows shortcut (cf File shortcut#Microsoft Windows) is a different beast altogether - it's a special file that really only Windows Explorer honours; I'd be very surprised if anything in Android knows about them. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:28, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Incidentally, NTFS (not FAT32) does implements NTFS junction points and NTFS symbolic links. But Android does not (natively) support NTFS. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:36, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, the card is formatted in Fat32. What a hassle! I'll keep looking for solutions. --Seans Potato Business 16:12, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

@Seans Potato Business: I don't know much about fancy file formatting and whatnot, but I think I have a solution. Back when Google Play Music didn't let you store music on your external SD card, I was able to make a shortcut using ROM Toolbox. This is back from early 2013, but perhaps it still works. The video tutorial I used is here. ~SuperHamster Talk Contribs 23:28, 21 June 2014 (UTC)

Any way to add .HTML suffix to Blogger pages&posts?

thanks. Ben-Natan (talk) 23:30, 21 June 2014 (UTC)