Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 December 30

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

December 30

Blackberry PIN

If I know someone's PIN on their Blackberry, is there a way from that I can find out which model of Blackberry they have? Thanks 81.157.54.103 (talk) 00:42, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

This link and this link may be of use to you. I hope this helps. JW..[ T..C ] 01:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, It was of help. :) 81.157.54.103 (talk) 13:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Connecting an XBOX 360 to the internet (XBOX live)

Hello... My cousin gave me a broken XBOX which I am in the process of sending to Microsoft to repair the three rings of death. When I get it back, I would like to play my XBOX online. What will I need? I don't know much about 'puters or XBOX for that matter, so here is all the info I have... I will gladly answer/research any questions about my set-up and I appreciate everyone who is able to help me out or contribute to this query. I have wireless internet throughout my apartment. As in, my landlord has an open internet connection and allows us (me, my roommate and other tenants) to use the connection. It is password protected, but I have the password. I purchased a wireless-G USB adapter for my computer to connect to the net. I do not pay for the internet so I do not know what HER connection speed is, but its relatively fast. Will I just need to buy the XBOX wireless router? Will I need some other contraption? Or can I do this a cheaper way - if so, where can I buy this online? Will I have to pay for my own internet source?? I'm sorry if I am missing any bullet points, but if there is any information I have not provided, I will be glad to research. Thanks!!!--24.187.98.157 (talk) 01:01, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, I know I will need to buy an XBOX live card to connect. --24.187.98.157 (talk) 01:06, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

In addition to that Xbox Live card — it's US$50 per year in the US — you'll need to connect the Xbox to the Internet, either by wire or by wireless. Our article Xbox 360 accessories#Wireless Network Adapter mentions the Microsoft-manufactured adapter that is your easiest solution. You plug it into the Xbox's Ethernet port and configure it with your landlord's password, and you are go. Unfortunately it's US$100 or so which is really expensive. (That article has footnotes to a couple alternatives.) A cheaper alternative is to run an Ethernet cable from your 360 to your PC and, depending on the PC's Windows version, you can set up the PC to "Share Internet connection". The only disadvantage to this is the hassle of configuring your PC; and you need the PC to be on in order to play on Xbox Live. Comet Tuttle (talk) 02:00, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Think of your xbox360 as a computer. To have your computer access the internet you either plug a cable in or go wireless with an adapter. same for the 360. In order to play games on xbox live you need to pay for a subscription. If you do not you will still be connected to the internet to get 360 updates and record your acheivements. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.176.13.22 (talk) 01:39, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Wireless networking using a USB adapter

In order to get the internet upstairs with the minimum amount of hassle, I am considering getting a USB Wireless adapter similar to this one. The wireless signal from the IEEE 802.11n access point is particularly weak in the bedroom, so rather than hide the USB adapter in a fixed location behind the PC (a desktop), I would like the flexibility to place the adapter elsewhere in the room. Is it possible to use it with a USB extension cable like this one and is there a maximum length of extension beyond which the network connection won't work? Astronaut (talk) 01:56, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you are plugging into a USB2 port, the distance at which it is supposed to work without any slowdown or signal loss is 7m. Obviously, it can go longer. I saw a page a while back in which a guy claimed to have a usb connection from his basement to his attic without any problem and estimated it to be 120m of twisting and turning around his house. He claimed that he didn't use a repeater (you are supposed to be able to get 30m with 5 repeaters and 6 cables). -- kainaw™ 02:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

If you want the least amount of hassle, consider getting a wireless PCI card that you put inside your computer. USB wireless devices are notoriously buggy. Plus, with a PCB in your computer, you can screw off the antenna that would stick out of the back of the PC and screw on a coax cable that you can connect to an antenna in another room. You could screw it onto a Pringles can and point it at the router, for example. If you have to get one of those USB devices, then at least get one with an antenna that you can screw off. You could then hook up a coax cable to an antenna that way.--Drknkn (talk) 08:06, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

We already have a PCI card with an external antenna at the end of a coax cable. It was useless with the old 802.11g access point (dropping the connection every few seconds), and it is just as useless with the new 802.11n access point. The weak signal upstairs was one reason for upgrading to the new access point (the other was the good deal from the ISP). That said, the Pringles can sounds interesting. I remember readin an online article about it somewhere a couple of year ago but have forgotten the details. Do you have a link to a suitable design I could try? Astronaut (talk) 11:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Cantenna. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:20, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

There's also WokFi that does away the with the coax cable/connector stuff. What I did to improve wireless quality in my house is to connect a directional yagi antenna to my router (40NZD, 9dbi, made by TP-Link) and point it to the centre of my house (since the router is at a corner). Seems to work well. --antilived^{T | C | G} 23:22, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

To answer the original question, yes you can use the USB extension cable with a USB network adapter. The first wireless USB adapter I owned several years ago actually came with such a cable, which allowed me to experiment with the position and orientation of the adapter to get the best reception from my (then) G router located about 20 meters away. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 18:20, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd go with a PCI card. USB adapter reliability is very poor right now in the market, and I'd wait a bit until manufacturers improve. I have one and it disconnects (by itself) randomly. My PCI based laptop works fine, so its not a router issue. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:51, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

E-mailing tips

Is there any way to send e-mail to many receipents, at the same time nobody knows it is sent to others also.The recipient should be at 'TO' field. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.138.47 (talk) 05:06, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Blind carbon copy may be of interest to you. I hope this helps. JW..[ T..C ] 05:52, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

But do experiment first with yourself and a trusted recipient or two. Some email clients do Bcc in such a way that it's fairly obvious it's a mass mailing, like sending the mail but leaving the "To:" header blank. Franamax (talk) 07:53, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Well if you don't put anything in the To: field then it should be blank... Note that BCC is primarily intended to hide the addresses of recipients, it may also hide the fact that the email was BCCed to the To: and CC: recepients but it's not guaranteed. It's not intended to hide the fact a BCC was sent to the people who are BCCed and is evidentally not even guaranteed to hide the addresses of other people who are BCCed to people who are BCCed (although from my experience it usually does). It's possible some servers may put the BCC recepient into the To: field but this isn't 1 of the ways that is specified as acceptable in the RFC, and I'm not aware of any servers which do this (I'm sure there are some but I don't think they're common). Also look in the article for more. Anyway in reply to the original question, you should also be aware to avoid them being used for spam, some SMTP servers may limit the number of simulataneous recipients. On the same point, you'll want to make sure you have the permission to e-mail each recepient otherwise you might find yourself in trouble with your SMTP service provider and/or the law Nil Einne (talk) 11:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Usually the sender of a BCC'd mailing that is legit puts their own address in the "to" field. E-mails with empty "to" fields often get treated as spam, incidentally. And I really don't think you have to "have the permission to e-mail" each recipient—if you are not a hard-core spammer, you are not going to run into any trouble, legal or otherwise. Even if you are a spammer, the chances of getting prosecuted are tiny. --Mr.98 (talk) 19:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

See Mail merge. manya (talk) 10:36, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

If you are using Microsoft Word and Outlook, you can create a 'mail merge' document in Word and send it by email. Each individual will get a personalised email. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.194.10 (talk) 21:24, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't be so sure. I have reported people who I received spam from before. I know in at least on case the person must have received some sort of a warning from their ISP, since they complained to me when they found out. Nowadays I've signed up for so many things that I usually don't bother since I don't know if I ever signed up for something unless it's obviously spam, e.g. to a message board. However there are almost definitely many other people who do keep track of what they sign up for (or don't sign up for anything) who will report you if they feel your mail service provider or whatever may do something. And if you aren't a hard-core spammer, then there's a good chance they will.

Spam is rather detested and many ISP and mail services providers particularly in the developed world take a rather hard line. Even those which may not care that much themselves, which is likely a minority know that if they get a reputation for not properly dealing with spam they're liable to be blacklisted, some of the blacklists are known for their controversy hardline tactics. E.g. the Spam and Open Relay Blocking System and the non defunct Spam Prevention Early Warning System although I guess the Anonymous Postmaster Early Warning System is similar and DNSBL has some more generic info.

Note a key point here. As with so many things, those who aren't hard core spammers but are simply foolish with their policies are probably at far greater risk of having bad things happening (may be not getting prosecuted but getting a bad reputation & losing their mail service or at least getting warnings). Hard core spammers already know how to get around such things (or rather consider it part of their business) and clearly don't care about their reputation. Also if you're spamming people locally you're likely at a greater risk.

In particular, do not assume that having had contact with someone before means it's okay to spam them (and spam would likely count as any largely unrelated message, particularly if your intending to advertise something), unless they clearly signed up for something it may not be so (as the person who I complained about found out).

And as I hinted at, even if you don't get any warnings etc, many people do detest spammers so it could do rather bad things for your reputation if you come across as one. Also although as I've said prosecutions are probably not that likely, you should take care. Here in NZ for example there's a law requiring much of what I've said and many people do threaten to report those who don't follow it and there have been a small number of prosecutions. Just before the law was starting, I received many e-mails from the businesses who wanted to make sure they obeyed the law. As with many things their focus for those who spam accidentally would probably be education so you most likely won't get prosecuted unless you're a real spammer but receiving a warning from a government department is surely not something many people want... You can see more info on the NZ law here [1]. The OP may be from Nepal who do have some sort of cyberlaw [2] but I'm not sure whether it specifically bans spam or what their enforcement is like.

Obviously if you're just planning to send chain letters to a bunch of your friends, things are fairly different but you should be aware many people find those sort of things annoying too. P.S. Although I concentrated on mail service providers, the websites that are spammed can be at risk as well since some people do block anyone who hosts websites that are spammed.

Nil Einne (talk) 09:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Torrents

OK, I'm new to this so please bear with me =P I just downloaded a "torrent" for a video from some website. Now I have a small file with the .torrents extension. But how do I get the actual thing from that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.129.234.196 (talk) 09:45, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You open it with a program like μTorrent.--Drknkn (talk) 10:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

And then you wait for it to download the actual file(s). -- kainaw™ 15:14, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Lost product Key Windows XP Pro

Hi I have found an old copy of Win WP Pro that I had but the product key is missing, is there any way I can find it again, is it stored on the disk anywhere? Thanks. BigDunc 13:46, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

If Windows XP copy in question is installed on the computer, then the answer is yes. The key is stored in the registry, but it is encrypted. Use one of these to find and decrypt the key.

If the copy is not installed, call Microsoft's main support number and ask for a replacement key. They will determine if the copy you have is genuine, then after you pay a small fee the replacement key will be sent. In the US, I believe this number is 1-800-Microsoft; in the UK, it's 0844 800 2400 (5p per minute, 6p "set-up fee"); for other countries, check the website. Xenon54 / talk / 14:07, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

So the key is not stored on the disk? BigDunc 14:13, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't believe so, because the product key is not tied to a particular disc. Your hardware manufacturer (or Microsoft) ships out eleventy million identical Windows CD's, but each customer gets a unique product key. -- Coneslayer (talk) 14:25, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Ahem... you could always.... google for product Key crackers..... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.54.145 (talk) 10:46, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It's true, but they generally won't work with any the more modern service pack updates, Windows Update, etc. So unless you are doing something rather trivial with this (e.g. using it in a VM machine for something small) I wouldn't do that for your primary OS. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:41, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

You can copy the verified key from your old version into the new one. [3]. ηoian ‡orever ηew ‡rontiers 19:53, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

simultaneously wired and wireless

When I have my laptop at home, I plug it directly into an ethernet cable that goes into my wireless router (I find it is a lot faster using the wired connection than the wireless one), but I leave the wireless network on. The computer knows to use the ethernet as the main connection when it is plugged in. When I am plugged in, my router sends the information to 192.1.1.2 (or something like that), and on wireless it goes to 192.1.1.4.

Here's the odd bit. I was downloading a torrented file the other day, and my router was port forwarding to 192.1.1.4 (wireless), while the main torrent connection was operating out of the ethernet (192.1.1.2). I was sort of surprised by this, because rarely does the ethernet and the wireless connection operate simultaneously, yet it was doing a pretty good job of it.

My question: Is there any advantage or disadvantage to being able to use both connection types on the same machine simultaneously? --Mr.98 (talk) 17:59, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

It could be an advantage if they were going through separate routers. Back in the stone age, the fastest modem I could get was 1200bd. To get a fast connection, I made a box of four 1200bd modems. Each went to a separate phone line (Major drawback - had to get 4 phone numbers from the phone company. Got a good deal: $15 per extra line with no long distance on them). Then, I could dial in each modem separately and get 1200+1200+1200+1200bd. Then, I learned about Amdahl's law. However, you can see that having different sources of network traffic will speed up your connection. Running multiple connections to the same router limits you to the speed of the router. -- kainaw™ 18:37, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Quick SQL Question

Hi All,

I have a table with the following fields: Refnumber and PostingDate. My problem is that Refnumber has duplicates (1 dup per ref number) with a different PostingDate (difference is just a couple of seconds). What would be the easiest way of returning just the older (based of postdate) refnumbers?

Thanks in advance PrinzPH (talk) 19:33, 30 December 2009 (UTC) EDIT: What I meant to say was most recent, so I guess that means the latest based on postedate

select refnumber, max(postingdate) from yourtable group by refnumber. -- kainaw™ 19:39, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

You mean you want all refnumbers with the most recent postingdate? select refnumber from yourtable where postingdate = (select max(postingdate) from yourtable) -- depending on the flavor of SQL, you may need to use "in" instead of "=" and/or name the subquery. -- kainaw™ 19:50, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Kainaw! Happy New Year to all! :D PrinzPH (talk) 23:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Self install of a cable modem

I am changing my internet service from DSL to cable. The cable company has given me a "do it yourself kit" (basically a splitter and some cable) and also a cable modem. I already own a wireless box for a lap top and I will also have a desk top plugged in. The last time I had cable internet service I had the company come out and install it. So my question is : Will simply hooking everything together be the major part of the project, or will I need to perform any extensive actions within the operating systems of my two computers to get everything configured properly? Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks, 10draftsdeep (talk) 21:03, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Assuming your "wireless box" is actually a wireless router, all you need to do is place the cable modem in the same location in the connection chain your DSL modem was originally. So the LAN ethernet output from the cable modem plugs into the WAN ethernet input on your wireless router. You will then probably have to enter the correct username and password in your router's settings to access the cable connection. 61.189.63.130 (talk) 21:44, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

I've done this on both side of the Atlantic, and in both cases it has at most required an "ipconfig/release, ipconfig/renew" from the computer (or equivalently, a reboot of my wireless router). In some cases, a CD has come with the modem, but I've never had any use for it. It is often a good idea to connect the computer directly first, using a network cable and skipping the wireless box, and then if that works, insert the wireless box in between. Jørgen (talk) 16:08, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice! 10draftsdeep (talk) 15:02, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

****

Follow-Up: Last night I installed the modem to my desktop and everything was working fine...until I tried to get the wireless router working to supply service to my laptop. I could not get the wireless working, so I uninstalled the cable modem software and started over....now I cannot even get my desktop to recognize the modem even after reinstalling the software. Any ideas what i need to do next? I suppose the answer I will get is "call the cable company!" 10draftsdeep (talk) 14:41, 5 January 2010 (UTC)