Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 January 31

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January 31

time error

I have installed windows Xp sp2 when ever i adjust the exact (pakistani) time on my computer .It automatically changes after( first boot) some time and remains one hour behind .But one hour below it remains same .for example if at 7:00 a.m of pakistane time ,i adjust it 7:00 ,it changes one hour behind .but if i adjust it 6:00 a.m in place of 7:00 a.m it remains as it is .Sorry for my wrong English . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Khubab (talk • contribs) 02:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Windows will automatically adjust the time based on Network Time Protocol. It sounds like you need to modify your timezone setting so that Windows will adjust the computer to the correct timezone. To do so, double click on the clock in the system try, select the "Time Zone" tab, and use the drop-down box to select the correct timezone. You may also need to disable daylight savings time (a checkbox at the bottom of the page). Alternatively, you can use the "Internet time" tab to disable Windows automatic time adjustment. – 74  02:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

must be those damn indians hijacking your computer and changing it to their time --76.173.201.40 (talk) 05:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Software cracks

Are there cracks for all kind of softwares that is sold and have the trial version, whch mekans, that if i have a 30 days trial version of a software i can get it extended by entering a crack code for it? is it available for all kind of softwares? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 61.95.140.188 (talk) 07:35, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, yes. But for legal reasons, such circumvention of copyright protection is generally frowned upon by most software companies. My best bet is to try open-source software instead, like Gimp, especially if you can't afford the more expensive Photoshop. Blake Gripling (talk) 07:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

If you don't know how to find it on your own, you'd do best to not seek it out. All you're going to end up with is malware. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 07:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Most trial software comes in either two forms; a basic scaled down exe that only has some of the functionality of the full program or the full exe which has all the functionality but will not work without a serial code. For the latter you simply need to search for the correct serial code and it will work, but the other type will require you to get a full version first, either already cracked or then enter the serial code. As for if cracks are available "for all kind of softwares" that largely depends on the popularity of the software; the less known and used it is the less likely there will be a crack for it. SN0WKITT3N 11:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Try using a sandbox program like Sandboxie. Install it in the sandbox. When the trial period is over, delete your sandbox and install again. Repeat for as long as you want. --wj32 ^t/c 22:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

That may not work for software that 'phones home' over the Internet. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

How big is an ordinary portable harddisk??

How big is an ordinary portable harddisk?? What is the average size specification for a 160 GB external harddisk? Because I just found this amazing external hdd by samsung-- it's called "S1 Mini" and it's as small as a friggin credit card!! and it can hold 120 gigs!! They also have "S2 Portable" they come in 160, 250, 320 and 500 GB's and they are all 82x111x17mm (a bit bigger than the S1 Mini's) I suppose this is quite small by conventional standards, but I'd like to know exactly by how much. I tried searching on the internet, but collecting a few samples wasn't enough for me. So, my question is, how big is an average external harddisk?? for those of you who already own one, what its the exact size (both physical volume and digital capacity)???Johnnyboi7 (talk) 08:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Hard drives come in a few standard sizes: The most common are the 3.5 inch (101.6 mm × 25.4 mm × 146 mm) and the 2.5 inch (69.85 mm × 9.5–15 mm × 100 mm). The Samsung S1 mini is a 1.8in (54 mm × 8 mm × 71 mm). The largest available sizes are 2000GB for 3.5 inch, 500GB for 2.5 inch and 250GB for 1.8 inch. Note the above measurements are for the harddrive itself. Add a cm or so for the enclosure. 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:12, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

how big is an average external harddisk?? I really don't know. for those of you who already own one, what its the exact size (both physical volume and digital capacity)??? I've got two: each is about 13x8x2cm, and one holds "30GB" and the other "160GB" (NB these are sellers' gigabytes, significantly less than users' gigabytes); the technical terms for the pair are "ancient" and "cheap" respectively. I think that if I had one as small as a friggin credit card [and that can] hold 120 gigs I'd probably mislay the frigging thing and then I'd certainly feel frigging stupid. So I'm happy with my cheap, boring external hard drives. -- Hoary (talk) 11:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Just as an indication of things, an internal laptop harddrive is pretty small indeed, and those can hold quite a bit (I just installed a 320GB one into my laptop and it is a small thing—credit card dimensions, although thicker). The difference between an external and internal hard drive size is just how clever the engineers are in putting it all together. The toughest thing, I'd imagine, would be making sure a tiny tiny hard drive was cooled adequately. Of course, flash drives are now getting comparable to that, and they are even smaller. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 13:59, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Then there's the tiny hard drives made by Cornice that are used inside some iPods. They are about the size of a box of matches, yet store 160GB. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

There are some Compact Flash-style hard drives that hold 32GB+. Very usefull for some aplications, but pointless for others. If you mean "harddisk" in the most generic sense there are thumbdrives and memory cards in all sorts of configurations and sizes. 63.80.111.2 (talk) 17:38, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

https and Wireless Hotspots

If a Website is https and we are in a wireless hotspot, and we decide to visit a financial site like paypal, is our details secure? Or are we supposed to use VPN? --33rogers (talk) 10:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

A VPN connection would theoretically provide an extra layer of protection, but as long as you are only accessing secure https sites your data will be encrypted and reasonably secure. – 74  12:47, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Be aware that some sites only use HTTPS for login transactions (so the password isn't sent plaintext), and then switch back to HTTP for the regular transactions (like GMail), making them vulnerable to the man-in-the-middle attacks associated with fears about wifi hotspots. If the site stays in HTTPS mode the whole time, though, then you're fine, as the browser is encrypting/decrypting the information (not just the server). --98.217.14.211 (talk) 17:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

For Gmail there is an option (Settings -> General -> Browser connection) to have it always use HTTPS. But some other sites, most notably Facebook, unfortunately don't provide such an option (Facebook uses HTTPS for login, but not for the rest of the site; I don't get this, as my Facebook account has much more personal information than my bank account).

I also want to say that, if you don't have access to a VPN, if you have access to an SSH account, you can use SSH's dynamic port forwarding to easily forward all of your Internet applications over the secure SSH connection. All common SSH clients and servers support this. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 01:11, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

domain names with the f-word in it

I just searched to see if one I was interested in is available (its not sexual or anything, its grammatically like fuckedcompany). It's available, but do you think I'll be able to register it without any problems?

Well considering all sorts of other curse words are present in .com domain names, they don't seem to be too picky about it. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:04, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know how aggressive content-control software can be but I guess it's possible that some computers, ISP's, or even entire countries could block surfers trying to reach the domain. PrimeHunter (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah - you shouldn't have problems registering it. What people will think about the site and how it'll get blocked will be entirely predictable though! SteveBaker (talk) 15:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I remember reading a blog a while ago about some guy who was trying to register fuck.com but was always being denied. Then apparently they allowed the name but he was too slow to get it.

A domain name like that would be worth a small fortune to porn site owners. Most likely the domain registrar was in negotiation with some sleaze-bag and the price negotiations were going on behind the scenes. Once the deal was agreed - nobody else would have had a chance. You can read the saga about another domain name in our article Sex.com - now imagine that your example probably went through the same grief behind the scenes. Someone just going to a domain registrar hoping it would "become available" for $100 has no chance whatever. You'd have to be paying millions for a name like that - and such amounts of money don't change hands without lots of haggling! 72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:17, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Companies regularly register domain names that are offensive to themselves, if only to keep them away from people who would use the name against them. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Colour Selector in Windows 7

Does anyone know if Microsoft Corp. has upgraded the Colour Selector in Windows 7? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Not as far as I can see - the GUI is definitely the same. I guess it could change between Beta 1 and release, but I doubt it — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 14:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you. A new GUI would be nice, though. It has not changed significantly since Windows 3.1... --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 14:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Resolved

What's Google's problem

Does anybody know what is causing this? When I try to see why Wikipedia is such a dangerous site all I get is a 502 Server Error. It's seems to be the same no matter what I search for, almost all sites, including Google, will "harm my computer". This was not happening earlier but is visible on different computers indicating that it's not my computer that is the problem. CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 14:50, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I don't know, but I've been trying to figure it out for the last 15 minutes myself. Looks like Google has a really bad bug. Every site on every search is marked with "this site may harm your computer", and it gives you a malware warning page when you try to go there. Antandrus (talk) 14:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, something is wrong. I bet it'll be fixed within the day. Unless it's a general cultural disclaimer: Warning: The Internet May Make You Stupid. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 14:55, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

shy of relief. i thought my comp screwed again.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.36.6 (talk) 14:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Just to join in the relief at finding this is Google-side and not my computer. Thanks! 79.66.89.178 (talk) 15:05, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I bet they're regretting laying off their weekend techs. Maybe someone will write a knol about the problem ... except that you won't be able to read about it without harming your computer. Bet Yahoo search gets lots of new users today. Antandrus (talk) 15:07, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I just realised that the problem makes Google usless right now. Unless you know the site already or have something like Site Advisor there is no way of knowing which, if any, of the "This site may harm your computer." notices are correct. If you don't know the site then what's the chances that you are going to look at something that Google is warning you about? CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:09, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

why don't they just TURN IT OFF - turn it off turn it off turn it off!!! they're losing credibility by the second —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.120.227.157 (talk) 15:13, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Google is effectively down. Every site is marked as "harmful", and you can't click through if you try. It is astonishing they haven't fixed it by now. Antandrus (talk) 15:16, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Looks fixed from this end...RxS (talk) 15:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yep. Fixed now. And no doubt just because I complained about it! CambridgeBayWeather Have a gorilla 15:21, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

There is a story about it on Slashdot so I guess it was pretty widespread. SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It was apparently caused by a misplaced '/' which matched all domains.[1] It took one character to bring down Google. PrimeHunter (talk) 18:03, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Probably 20% of all software bugs come down to a single character. Here is one I've been particularly upset by in the past:

if ( this_is_should_always_be_false ) ;

{

this_seems_to_happen_when_it_shouldnt () ;

}

But a plus that should be a minus - two variable names that differ only by one character (Xcoordinate, Ycoordinate) getting swapped over...this kind of thing is all too common! Big errors involving lots of code are often easier to find - but programmers can become 'blind' to tiny, tiny typo's. In the example above, you don't even see that extra semicolon on the first line...your brain somehow skips over it. Anyway - I bet someone at Google got seriously "talked to" over that one! Hopefully their management recognise that "bugs happen" and realise that their procedures for testing code before they "release it into the wild" are what's really at fault here.

72.183.123.248 (talk) 23:11, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

In this case it wasn't code, it was data. Of course, similar considerations apply. --Anonymous, 06:08 UTC, February 1, 2009.

Hello World!

It seems like that computer language creators are born with a copy of thesaurus in hand. I don't know why there can be so many verbs for English-based computer languages to describe even a simple act of putting words on the screen or paper. In addition to syntactical differences, e.g., semi-colon, parenthesis, capital or lowercase, indent ..., the verb for printing can be print, echo, display, write, message, output, show, type, alert, ?, . (a dot) ... etc. and some variations of the above verbs.

Some specialized languages, such as Logo or Forth, are fundamentally different from other general-purpose languages. Some GUI languages may have more overhead. Some languages are created for fun. But most high-level languages, especially commercial ones, are not that different from each other. Isn't print a good verb that we all understand? -- Toytoy (talk) 15:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I can't explain all of them - but for example - when the C language (which uses both 'printf' and 'write') was developed, there were very few CRT-based terminals ("glass teletypes") - almost everyone talked to the computer via a teletype or a DECwriter - both of which print the computer's responses on paper. Hence "print" was a good choice. Subsequently, printing terminals have almost completely vanished - so "print" is archaic. Some language designers seek to fix that (hence "display" and "show") and others say "well, we've all used 'print' for so long, that the meaning of the word has changed to 'send data to the user'" - so they stick with "print". "type" is another anachronistic one - since what a teletype does is "type". "write" comes about because (at least in C and C++) it tends to be used mostly in the context of sending data to disk drives and other peripherals...which we all call "writing" because there just doesn't seem to be another common English word ("inscribe" maybe?!) for placing data onto magnetic media, etc. I believe that "alert" actually does have a genuinely different meaning - alerting a user to a problem rather than merely displaying information that'll generally be ignored...but I don't know which language you are referring to so I can't be sure. You missed a common one '<<' (from the C++ stream I/O package). That one comes about because of the way it's implemented by overriding one of the arithmetic operators ('<<' means shift-left). They had to pick one of the standard C++ operators and '<<' is the only one that really looks right for sending something from the object on the right into the I/O stream on the left. SteveBaker (talk) 15:43, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

To me, you can "print" just as well on a screen as on paper, so that term seems to apply to both. StuRat (talk) 01:34, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, yes - to me too - but back when these things were new, it wasn't clear what words to use to describe that. You wouldn't say that your DVD player "prints" things to your TV screen would you? But in the end, it's just a word. The computer doesn't care what word you use and we programmers are adaptable enough that we can get used to almost anything given time ("grep" means "searching through files looking for patterns"...we got used to that OK!) SteveBaker (talk) 05:48, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

And the P in "grep" stands for print, ultimately relating to the p command in QED (text editor), and there we are again. --Anonymous, 06:11 UTC, February 1, 2009.

Yeah - grep was originally there to give you a 'command-line' version of a command used in that editor. I didn't think it was QED but rather ed (text editor) because QED doesn't support true regular expressions as ed does. So you'd type /hello world/ to search for the next occurrance of "hello world" (which could be any regular expression) you could append a 'p' to the command to tell the editor to print the resulting line and you could preceed any command with a 'g' to tell it to do the command globally throughout the document. Hence entering g/hello world/p into the text editor would do what grep "hello world" does. Hence Globally: find a Regular Expression then Print it. Both QED and ed were designed to work with printing terminals though - so 'print' made sense. However, QED became 'ed' which became 'em' which became 'ex' which had a 'visual-mode' for glass terminals - which became 'vi' which became 'vim'...which is the editor I still use the most today - 43 year old technology, still going strong! In 'vim' you can still type a ':' to get out of visual mode, then type g/hello world/p and it greps the file for you! SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

You're forgetting "draw" for computer graphics! I'd say the DVD player draws the video to the screen. A terminal also draws text, but that text is echoed or printed by the shell/program. Or maybe technically the program echoes to the terminal, the terminal draws to the window, and the windowing system draws the window to the screen. .froth. (talk) 18:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Currently, I am working on a weekend WWW project of my own. I find myself forced to switch among six or seven languages or markup languages: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Perl, SQL, regular expressions ... Sometimes I find it not the most pleasing experience to change the language. In addition to the "Thesaurus" problems, I find the syntax issues especially annoying. Many of these languages are created during the past 20 years. They are created to do mostly the same kinds of jobs: server-side (PHP), client-side (JS), CGI and offline data processing (Perl, Python, Ruby, ...), extraction of tabular data (SQL), matching of patterns (regex) and maybe AND, OR, NOT, proximity search (the full-text search of some SQL databases), tree-like structured data retrieval (XML database). They look very different to each other.

I think certain rules, like using indent to designate code blocks (Python) are created to force programmers to adhere to the rules. They may be very artificial (e.g., XML's requirement to close all tags: <br />, <img />), but they help to reduce syntax errors and typos. Many other syntactic requirements, such as if you can use /* ... */ or # or * or REM in this language to add remarks are pretty trivial to me. I wonder if these language-specific rules actually make programmers' lives more miserable.

It's like having dozens of cars. Some of them have doors while some others are entered from any of the windows. Some car's steering wheels are placed on the roof, in the trunk, on your seat back, inside the glove compartment, some doesn't even have a steering wheel, some have more than one ... . -- Toytoy (talk) 07:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Well, I've been a working programmer for a VERY long time and I've used an insane number of languages over the years. These days, I have it down to C++ and JavaScript...plus markup languages XML and MediaWiki...and shell scripting in 'bash'. HTML and CSS are essentially just sloppy XML. PHP and JavaScript are sufficiently similar to each other and to the basic syntax to C++ that it doesn't bother me to have to use PHP for a few simple applications. Bash works under Windows/Cygwin and Linux so I can forget the god-awful DOS scripting crap. Perl, Python, Java are all great languages - but they don't seem very useful to me because C++ does the job perfectly well - and usually, better. I can (and do) sometimes have to work in a wide variety of other languages because of the need to work with some other system - but that's fairly rare.

The trick to efficiency is NOT to pick up on all the latest whizz-bang tools just because you can. Instead get very good indeed at using the small set that you like. Sure, there are some jobs that Python can do in half the number of lines of code that C++ takes - but then there are things you can't really do at all in Python. Rather than switch back and forth all the time, I happily absorb the 'hit' for staying with C++ because in the end the total time to implement any given thing is vastly less.

Your car analogy is close to the truth. Cars are indeed all a bit different (not as drastically as you say) - my MINI Cooper has a stick-shift, my wife's Mazda is an automatic. The turn signals work 'weirdly' on the MINI but conventionally on the Mazda. Things like headlamps, wipers, seat positioning, A/C and radio controls are wildly different between the two cars. The only things they really share are the steering wheel and the brake and gas pedals. Even those work a bit differently because the Mazda has 'kick down' and the MINI has brakes that hold for three seconds for hill starts - and the MINI has switchable power steering modes that are unlike the 'feel' of the Mazda's steering. But I can drive both cars easily and without thinking because my brain has "MINI-mode" and "Mazda-mode". Since I'm British and I have to drive in both the UK and the USA - I also have "Left-hand-drive" and "Right-hand-drive" modes and I can comfortably drive my 1963 Mini (which has the steering wheel on the right) on Texas roads - which is yet a third 'mode' (and another complete set of car controls to get used to).

We humans can keep those things in separate 'partitions' somehow. Programming is much the same deal. When I'm working on C++ code I automatically say "int i ; float f ;" and when I'm in JavaScript mode I don't even have to think about typing "var i ; var f ;" instead. However, when I get into a new car - or have to learn a new language - it takes a while to get that 'muscle memory' back.

SteveBaker (talk) 14:02, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Authentication handling for Excel hyperlinks

Hi,

At work, I'm trying to put together a formula or some code that will access data in Excel format on one of our secure websites, pull some data from it based on a URL I've generated with user input (it has a date portion that is variable). If I just create a bog standard hyperlink in a cell and then click it, I'm prompted for my LAN ID and then the remote xls file opens. However, if I put the same URL in a cell reference like so:

='https://www.somesite.com/blah/blah/[somefile.xls]'A1

It cannot pull the data (assuming I haven't already authenticated to the server) from the remote source. My workaround for this has been to use a FollowHyperLink function in VBA when the command button (which drives all this) is clicked. It's a bit cludgy, but it works. However, I was wondering if there is some way I can authenticate more quietly, perhaps by passing credentials somehow, perhaps using the Windows API in some way? Any help is greatly received.--Rixxin (talk) 17:28, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The http protocol supports passing along authentication in the URL. For example: http://username:password@www.example.org/ It isn't recommended, since the password and username are in cleartext and might get recorded in history files, caches, etc. It also no longer works in some browsers -- or pops up warnings -- due to recent misuse of this feature in phishing. But it is worth a try, I think. --Mdwyer (talk) 18:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Good idea, but that's not working in IE6 (mandatory work browser) probably due to the security measures you mentioned. The fundamental difference seems to be that an authentication request is returned when opening the entire file, but just referencing a range within the file doesn't. Le sigh.--Rixxin (talk) 17:58, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Encrypting single files

I am presiding over a student association and would like to protect membership details. Membership records are kept in a simple spreadsheet file and are kept on my hard-disk, the hard-disk of my secretary, and on my USB-drive. There will also be occasions when the secretary must e-mail me the spreadsheet file. Thus, I would like to find an open-source program that can be used with Windows (and ideally also with Linux) that is capable of compressing a single file simply. I'm new to encryption so I don't know what's possible but I don't really want to create a virtual partition just for this one file... besides which, I'm not sure that would protect the file during e-mailing. Thanks. ----Seans Potato Business 18:24, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

TrueCrypt is a free program that is able to encrypt entire hard drives or just single files. Good luck. E smith2000 (talk) 20:00, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Alternatively, you could just use a password-protected ZIP (file format). This has the advantage of being a fairly ubiquitous format that virtually anyone on any system will be able to open with the password. Disadvantage: a persistent attacker will probably be able to circumvent the encryption. Its use is therefore discouraged if this is a contingency you strenuously wish to avoid. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 22:15, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

ZIP and 7z are both common archive formats created by open-source programs that support AES encryption based on a password. AES is pretty good encryption so I don't think that should be a problem if your archiver uses it and you have a good password. Alternately, GnuPG has an option (gpg -c on the command line) that allows it to use password-based encryption; and there are many graphical distributions of GnuPG for Windows and Linux. --76.167.241.45 (talk) 01:03, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Who would like to get their hands on your file? How much money are they willing to spend? If they are not too serious, I also concur with the recommendation about TrueCrypt. 121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:08, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Try dsCrypt or any of the other tiny encryption programs from Dariusz SN0WKITT3N 11:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, it is alwase important to consiter how imporant is the data realy. You need to balance security with convience. A password protected zip is easy to use, but less secure then other methods. Also, having the data exist in multible locations is not a good idea, for a number of reasons. First of all it is an issue of keeping all copies up to date. Secondly, each new place it is stored is a new point of failure. Perhapse a single shared resource somewhere? You can share a password protected/encrypted directory over your internal network. If the data is super important then I releay sugest not keeping it on something that is notorious for getting lost. :) 63.80.111.2 (talk) 17:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

With a sufficiently long key, it could take longer than the expected age of the universe to break a file encrypted with TrueCrypt or GPG. The problem is keeping your keys secure, but if you're going to be working with the spreadsheet (necessarily in unencrypted form) on both computers anywasy then you might as well just store the keyfile somewhere on both hard drives; in that case the encryption would only be useful if the flash drive were compromised in transit. .froth. (talk) 18:30, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Weird problem with PDF file from customer

My father told me yesterday he had had a weird problem with a PDF file from a customer. A customer of my father's company had sent him an e-mail with a PDF file attached, claiming it contained information about their deal. When he opened it, it contained an advertisement about a Finnish interior decoration company. My father then went to another person's workstation and opened it again, and it did the same thing. This again happened on a third person's workstation. My father then called in his company's IT support person and asked him to look at it. This time the PDF file contained the correct information about the customer deal. What the heck had happened? I have heard of Microsoft Word files containing version history of a previous customer's deals, but aren't PDF files supposed to essentially be snapshots of printable papers? My father thinks it had something to do with the filename resembling another filename on his computer system, but computers don't actually understand names, they operate on a purely factual "is or is not" basis. Does anyone have any idea what had happened? Please keep in mind that I have only heard this second hand and have not seen the files myself (I wouldn't have been allowed to, anyway). JIP | Talk 20:29, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thought: maybe the company's IT department has software to strip attachments and scan for viruses, and the PDF in question was named something descriptive like "file.pdf", which was overwritten by a different "file.pdf" before your father opened it from the "attachment store". The IT person pulled the correct version off the "attachment archive" and everything was fixed. – 74  21:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've gotta put this down to "user error" - PDF's aren't like WORD documents...they are essentially PostScript files. I'm betting that your father picked the wrong file a couple of times - but got it right when showing it to the IT guys. The fact that he had another file with a very similar name explains it perfectly. If he doubts that then he should show the IT guy what happens on his own PC. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:57, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've noticed something similar which may shed some light on this: When I first open up a Word document, it shows me the previous file I was editing first, then the current file pops up. Sometimes the delay is a few seconds. It sounds like they are doing something quite inefficient, in loading the "default" file (last one edited) first, then replacing it with the current file. If PDF does the same thing, and if some error occurs in loading the current file, then it might just leave the last file viewed up instead. Could this Finnish ad have been the last thing viewed ? StuRat (talk) 01:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

MS Word Spell Check

Hello! I know MS Word has spell checks for languages Spanish, English, and French, but are additional spell checks available for download somewhere for other languages? Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 21:19, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Is this what you are looking for. BigDunc^Talk 21:32, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you!--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

PC Games...and Vista

This subject has probably been beat to death, but I'm going to bring it up anyway. Last night I bought a new comp. Its spec's are as follows: 4 GB RAM, 452GB HDD, Windows Vista Home Premium Service Pack 1, Intel Pentium Dual CPU E2220 @ 2.4 GHz, and an Intel G33/G31 Express chipset family with 256MB of memory. I installed Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty 2, neither of which will work, and UT2004 and Battlefield Vietnam, both of which do work (although I cant get voices or music in BFV, with the exception of menu and loading music; can't play songs ingame). When I start Battlefield 2, the banner comes up, the screen goes black, and then crashes to desktop. When I start CoD2, the banner comes up, disappears, and then I get a message saying "DirectX has encountered an unrecoverable error." Also, when I try to run CoD2, a window pops up saying that this game has known compatibility issues. Thanks in advance.--AtTheAbyss (talk) 22:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Well, take CoD2 for example. It was released for the PC in June 2006. Vista was still in development in June and the final version wasn't released for game programmers to test with until October/November 2006 and it wouldn't really hit the streets until sometime in 2007. So that's an unfortunate case when the game developers would not have been able to test their software on Vista (because it wasn't finished yet) and yet the Vista programmers were so close to completion that they would not have had time to fix problems relating to very recent games. Hence it's likely that neither set of people had a reasonable chance of making it work. It's debatable whether the CoD authors would have cared anyway - they planned to sell most of their product over Xmas'06 and shortly after - and there were no Vista PC's around then anyway. So the cost of developing it to work on Vista wouldn't have had a big enough payback to be worth the considerable cost. The game was obviously developed for DirectX9 - and Vista uses DirectX 10, I don't know whether there is a DirectX 9 compatibility pack you can download for Vista - if there is then that might get CoD2 working - but there are not guarantees. Your best chance is to check the Activision website and see if there are any patches for CoD2 that you can download to make it work. Battlefield 2 was released in November 2006 - so it has the same problem. UT2004 was developed two or three years before Vista - so the UT developers OBVIOUSLY couldn't test against Vista - but there was enough of a window for the Vista developers to have tested UT2004 to make sure Vista would run it. Battlefield Vietnam is another 2004 game - so again, it couldn't possibly have been tested on Vista - and perhaps it was not a sufficiently popular game to have made it onto the Vista team's "must work" backwards compatibility list.

I guess the message is "Vista is crap" (which we all knew already) - you should probably stick to games that are modern enough to have "Vista capable" stickers on the boxes. Certainly games from the Xmas 2006 lineup are a poor choice because of that unfortunate overlap of game and Vista development windows. Try to find patches - either for Vista or for the games at their respective web sites - you may get lucky. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

I've, uh, played Battlefield 2 in Vista, so I can confirm that at least works. I've also played several other slightly older games, but none of the others listed. Are all your drivers up-to-date, AtTheAbyss? -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 01:09, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

The standard suggestions for running older games on Vista are: 1) play about with compatibility modes (r-click the game icon -> 'Properties' -> 'Compatibility') and 2) either 'Run as administrator' (r-click -> 'Run as administrator') or install to C:\Games instead of C:\Program Files to get around Vista's User Account Control - a lot of games made for XP assume they have administrator access rights, which they don't with UAC. I wouldn't advise disabling UAC though, unless you want to go back to the Windows XP malware free-for-all. Using this method, I've gotten really old games working on Vista, such as Total Annihilation and Homeworld. Apart from this, make sure all your drivers are up-to-date and the games are patched up to their latest versions. By the way, what graphics card does your new PC have? If it is just that Intel G33/31 (meaning that you probably have an Intel GMA 3100), that may be your problem right there, since that really isn't up to much. You can probably get a GeForce 7 or maybe 8 Series working on that hardware. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 02:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm not sure if my drivers are up to date. I just got this computer last night. BTW, I just installed the original Call of Duty and it works just fine. I used to have an ATI Radeon 8500ST or something like that, but I accidentally broke a piece off of it. Maybe if I can find the right adhesive I can reattach it and use it. I know it works with all my games. --AtTheAbyss (talk) 02:58, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, it's definitely your GPU. It's essentially useless for gaming. You're not going to have any luck glueing the piece of your graphics card back on; you'd probably have to solder it and stuff, and that would likely be excessively difficult depending on how you broke it and how it's made up. -- Consumed Crustacean (talk) 03:05, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Plus the Radeon 8500s date from the AGP era. Your hardware almost certainly uses PCI Express. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 03:36, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Strange. I can play Call of Duty 2 on my Vista laptop with no compatibility issues, except for some lag because of a less-than-stellar processor. bibliomaniac15 03:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Ah, probably MS compatibility updates. Considering how popular the CoD series is, it wouldn't surprise me if CoD2 was on the list at some point. Abyss; hit Windows Update (Start -> Control Panel -> System and Maintenance -> Windows Update) and make sure you've got every update available. Then see if there's any improvement. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 19:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverse-engineering EULAs

Say ACME Software Company makes Great Program. When I download Great Program, there is no EULA presented to me; I can just download it. Great Program's EULA prohibits reverse-engineering. I could reverse-engineer the setup program to make it install the program even if I decline to the EULA. For example, I could make the "Cancel" button go forward a page, or change "Accept" to "Decline". Is this illegal? Have I agreed to the EULA then? --wj32 ^t/c 22:33, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

It would be hard to argue that you hadn't read the terms of the EULA during your reverse-engineering of the install program. If your argument held water then you could close your eyes during installation - cover your ears and yell "Not Listening!" while clicking at random on the screen until you hit the 'AGREE' button at random. You could then argue that you didn't agree to the EULA. Anyway - none of that crap would stand up for a moment in court. If you're going to steal the hard work of others, you might as well come right out and say it - because morally - that's what you're doing and you know it. 72.183.123.248 (talk) 22:53, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

What exactly am I doing? I'm asking a question here on the Reference desk. Calm down for a moment and please don't make unverified or untrue claims about people. See WP:ATTACK. --wj32 ^t/c 01:20, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

None of that crap would stand up for a moment in court, indeed. .froth. (talk) 17:42, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Quick answer to both your questions: yes.

Simply speaking, your question can be answered under Contract law. In the scenario you describe here, you are basically asking, "If I am clever enough to modify a contract in such a way that I never actually see the terms of that contract with my own two eyeballs, can I still be bound by the terms of that contract?"

The quick glib answer is "yes". For example, Under the Uniform Commercial Code ambiguities are resolved by industry custom. In the case of software sales, it is a well-established custom that the use of software constitutes agreement with the terms under which that software is licensed.

In some jurisdictions you may be deemed a "user" of that software merely by downloading it. Therefore, that is the point you would be considered "in agreement" with the license terms. The EULA and nag screens at that point are really just a courtesy so you can't claim ignorance if push comes to shove and you really end up in litigation.

From a legal standpoint, this use of industry custom makes sense. It's what prevents you from going into a restaurant and getting a free meal by claiming you thought it was free, since they didn't charge up-front just like every other retail business.

From a **practical** standpoint, let's be real, no one ever reads those annoying things anyway, except perhaps the first lawyer who wrote it. Even if you did waste the time necessary to prevent the EULA from popping up, your cleverness could be considered a form of trespass and subject to both civil and criminal penalties.

The EULA is really just like those little toy locks on someone's personal diary. It's not there to keep dishonest people from breaking in ... it's there to remind honest people to stay honest and play by the rules by respecting the interests of the software maker, regardless of how easily those interests may be thwarted or ignored by "clever" people. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 22:58, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the answer. --wj32 ^t/c 01:22, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Even if you did waste the time necessary to prevent the EULA from popping up, your cleverness could be considered a form of trespass and subject to both civil and criminal penalties. Hmm I definitely disagree. Anything's fair game on your own computer; if you want to just extract files from the installer binary with winrar instead of using the included extraction code that makes you accept the EULA, then there's absolutely no law that can stop you. It's ridiculous to suppose that's some kind of criminal trespass.

Just make sure that the installer archive isn't encrypted or otherwise protected by a copy protection mechanism, because distributing methods of defeating it would put you in trouble with the DMCA. But an EULA is not a copy protection mechanism and there's no law forbidding you from bypassing it.

Also regarding the interests of the software maker, should we just "respect Microsoft's wishes" and not install Linux on our machines that come with Windows? I know they'd appreciate that. I'm sure software makers would love controlling their customers' computers so their products are impossible to pirate. There are plenty of wishes that software makers have that conflict with reasonable rights for consumers.

Also I'm not impressed by your moral argument; there's no law against it and I can do it so why shouldn't I if I want to? We're not talking about abortion here, we're talking about corporations maximizing profits at the cost of the general good. .froth. (talk) 18:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

The thing is, why would someone even bother to do all the reverse-engineering when you could simply click Accept and install the program? --wj32 ^t/c 07:15, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Well you brought it up; I guess the issue is using the software without agreeing to the EULA, which doesn't bind you by clauses that forbid you from disassembling or whatever .froth. (talk) 18:08, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

JQuery equivalent to PHP preg_match

Is there a JQuery method for seeing if a string matches a regular expression. I know of filter and replace, but both those methods change the string or html code. I'm looking for something that will tell if a given input matches customized regural expressions, like PHP's preg_match method. As in $("input").val().______($regexp) and returns true or false or the number of matches, but takes no action. Thanks24.181.20.108 (talk) 23:08, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Try the standard Javascript match method of the String object, or the test method of the RegEx object [[2] [3]]. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 23:10, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Brand new to JQuery. How exactly do you call the javascript method on a JQuery object? Is there some weird nested function requirement? Like, I know you can't do $("input").val().test()... so is it something like $("input").val().function(){this.test()}; [note to be used in an if statement, so I'm trying to get a boolean out of a JQuery match] Thanks again24.181.20.108 (talk) 23:42, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

The trick with jQuery is to remember that it's just JavaScript with some handy built-in shortcuts for working with browser programming. Whenever you use $(), or methods attached to it, you have to remember what your method is returning, and what you are allowed to pass into the parenthesis. So for example, if you are using jQuery.trim(mystring) .. this can be re-written as $.trim(mystring). If you take a look at the documentation, it tells you that $.trim() takes a string as an argument, and returns a string as the result. At that point you know that you can use all of the JavaScript methods that apply to Strings. For example ...

   var upstring = $.trim(mystring).toUpperCase();

Probably the best way to get sorted out is to use visual jQuery [4] while you are coding, and pay close attention to what function you are trying to use and what it returns. If you don't find what you are looking for in jQuery, then just look in a JavaScript reference (microsoft has one that's pretty well written). dr.ef.tymac (talk) 23:54, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Flash drive appearing Device Manager, not Windows Explorer

I have a USB flash disc which won't show up under the list of drives in My Computer. I've restarted, replugged it in, reinstalled drivers etc. and I still can't get it to appear. Even though it does appear in Computer Management>System Tools>Device Manager>Disc Drives as "USB2.0 USB Device." It did work before, but I couldn't get it formatted into NTFS - that's even after I changed the policies to "optimise for performance" to make NTFS appear in the drop down list of filing systems.My name is anetta (talk) 23:41, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

In my experience, Windows has a habit of assigning removable drives a drive letter already in use by mapped network drives. If you have any mapped network drives near the top of the alphabet, unmapping them and reconnecting the flash drive might let you access it. If you don't have any mapped drives then it's obviously some other problem. – 74  00:23, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

I've got no network drives.My name is anetta (talk) 02:26, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Does it show in Computer Management>Storage>Disc Management?121.72.165.189 (talk) 11:06, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

No, nor Disk Defrag or Removable Storage.My name is anetta (talk) 13:39, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Is this "Points System" possible?

Hi, I am trying to create a new operating system, and I was wondering if it was possible to make the system described here? Would that be possbile? Or it would be too easy to hack/trick the system? Hacktolive (talk) 23:51, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Sure it's possible, and yes it would be possible to "game" the points system just as it's possible to "game" entire world economic systems. The bottom line is you'd probably be better off pitching your idea to existing open source communities and learning about what's already been done. Your entire "points" system will be irrelevant if you do not have a community of people already participating and gaining points.

This idea is actually already in place on several websites. See for example perlmonks and StackOverflow.com. dr.ef.tymac (talk) 00:00, 1 February 2009 (UTC)