Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 January 25

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.

January 25

Origins of wizards

What's the etymology of the name for software wizards? I can't find any sources with Google, and our article on the subject doesn't help me either. Nyttend (talk) 02:00, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

You might find our article on expert systems helpful. I would guess that the term "wizard" predates its use in software, meaning any (human) individual who is a subject-matter expert. The rise of expert systems and knowledge-based systems was motivated by a desire to encapsulate the human knowledge of such experts in software form - a sort of special-purpose, domain-specific artificial intelligence. In the early 1970s and 1980s, these sorts of ideas were really impressive, novel concepts - an expert system computer software could provide information to the user in full English sentences! It could guide the user through very complex tasks! It'd almost be like having a real human present to do the hand-holding. I'd guess that this is the source of the terminology - software that fulfils the role of the office 'wiz'. The Wiktionary entry, wikt:wizard has an etymology, but not for the specific meaning of a talented, non-magical individual. Nimur (talk) 02:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

According to the OED, the meaning "wise man", etc, is the original, from which the magician meaning is derived. Warofdreams talk 15:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It might be from British WW2 slang perhaps. 89.242.40.192 (talk) 12:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Telephone calls management

I have a telephone address book in excel.I want to have a program which records the calls made by me and sorts the address book entries in such a way that the most frequently dialed numbers are always at the top.Is there any idea? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.199.164.48 (talk) 02:11, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Do you use your computer to make phone calls? If not, you'll need some way to synchronize your telephone system with your computer. A lot of smart phones can do this sort of thing. I'm not aware of any smart-phone synch software which can analyze voice call logs, but it seems like it might be a feature in at least some systems. Nimur (talk) 02:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

In addition to Nimur's idea, you might be able to enter in data from your phone bill every month if they itemize your calls. If you can get your data into the computer in a uniform way, then we could help you work with that data to itemize your list. But ultimately you're going to have to get the data into the computer. Shadowjams (talk) 02:51, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Upgrading Graphics Card in Laptop

Hi there, can anyone point me in the direction of where to go to find a list of graphics cards that would fit a HP G60 laptop computer, as I am thinking of upgrading to a better one than the one that came with it. Alos, in the UK, how much are these things usually? --KageTora - (影虎) (A word...?) 09:45, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Laptops and notebook computers rarely have modular graphics cards. It looks like the HP G60 is no exception. So, it's probably not possible to upgrade the graphics without replacing the entire motherboard (e.g. essentially replacing the entire computer). Nimur (talk) 09:52, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

windows 7

Resolved

lemme start from the begining.

I installed xp on my pc but i installed it on drive D: So D was my local disk. On Drive c i put movies and my own stuff. Then i installed windows 7 on my pc just last night. I installed it on that same drive D; and it created a windows old folder on that drive. Now i later deleted it after installing windows 7. Now windows 7 has renamed drive D to local disc C: and the initial drive C has disappeared all my movies and music are all gone. In fact that partition has vanished. So what can i do to get my old drive c: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.49.88.34 (talk) 11:20, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If the partition has been deleted and then overwritten with the new operating system, there's no way to recover the data. The "C:\Windows.old" folder might have contained your files, but it's unlikely since your files and Windows XP weren't on the same drive letter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.83 (talk) 11:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Try going into Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management and then click on Storage/Disk Management. With any luck the partition is still there and you just need to Right-Click it and "Change Drive Letter" (and add a drive letter) and then you'll be able to access it. Either way you'll be able to see the partition table though so that'll explain what has happened. ZX81 ^talk 13:29, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It is rather alarming that Windows 7 would decide that by deleting the old OS, you no longer want what is on another partition. Were there any extra questions like "Are you sure you want to remove/overwrite this partition?" Astronaut (talk) 18:43, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks man. Got it and you are a genius. Totally awesome..i rechanged the name of the drive and got my stuff back. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 41.191.226.2 (talk) 16:36, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Cannot delete video file

Resolved

Whenever i try to delete a particular mp4 video file the dialog box says "this action cannot be completed as the file is open in another program ".As there are no programs running is there a way to delete the file? Shraktu (talk) 12:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

First, you should make sure there really are no processes accessing the file. You can use Process Explorer[1] to do this, just press CTRL+F and enter a portion of the file name. Depending on which process is holding the file, you can just kill it from Process Explorer and proceed to delete the file.All this assuming you're running Windows decltype (talk) 12:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I've tried that and also tried after restarting the computer but still can't delete the file. Is there any other way?Shraktu (talk) 12:42, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I've noticed that sometimes OSes try to "preview" media files and whatever process is involved in previewing it (e.g. as a thumbnail or icon or whatever) sometimes seems to crash or hang mid-way, leaving the file open. In such a case deleting it through DOS is probably the best way, after rebooting. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:39, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Try this —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kv7sW9bIr8 (talk • contribs) 17:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I think Mr. 98's answer is your culprit. If you let the image preview settle for a moment I think you'll find you're able to delete them. Shadowjams (talk) 20:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ,that software suggested by Kv7sW9bIr8 above totally worked.

Does intel atom architecture have special virtualization accelerating instructions?

Resolved

Some Intel architectures have special instructions/optimizations that greatly accelerate virtualization tasks; is the intel Atom architecture one of them? (this is not homework). Thanks! 84.153.196.92 (talk) 13:31, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It depends on exactly which Atom processor you're looking at... see Intel's list of processors supporting VT. -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the links! Unfortunately, my processor (n280) is one of the ones that doesn't. Oh well.. 82.113.106.95 (talk) 14:14, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

For some background, the Atom was designed to be an ultra-low-power laptop/mobile processor. The inclusion of virtualization on some new models suggests that Intel aims to target the same ultra-low-power technology towards the server market. Here is a blog reporting on Microsoft Research's efforts toward that goal. Nimur (talk) 17:17, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Approximately how many megabytes is the Internet as of Today?

--20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:34, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but it's like asking "how long is a piece of string?". There are many websites which give different results based on what you click on, what time of day it is, what a particular Lava Lamp is up to, so the answer is essentially "infinitely big". --Sean 16:46, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

How about this: what is the estimated cumulative size of the storage capacity of all the computing devices which comprise the Internet? That would at least be an upper bound.20.137.18.50 (talk) 16:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Except, of course, that not all internet content is ever stored anywhere - how do you want to count the size of dynamic content? Total hard-drive space is not actually an upper-bound for that. Nimur (talk) 16:58, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough, not including dynamic content.20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:01, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Google estimates that the portions of the internet they index are 5 trillion megabytes in size. This was in 2005, but is probably as accurate as any modern guess, and almost certainly much larger now. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 17:10, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If I may ask, "5 trillion megabytes" thats 5 million million megabytes? 5 x 10¹⁸ bytes? Which could easily be x 4 by now, 20x10¹⁸ bytes, 20 exabytes? Is that correct?--220.101.28.25 (talk) 18:08, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If the source is Google, the notation is most likely short scale. That would put a reasonable estimate in the 20 x 10¹⁵ byte range. What would be an interesting side question is how much unique data is out there, which would count the latest software-giant's bloat-ware product, the Wikipedia mirrors, and all the illegal Avatar videos once each. -- Tom N (tcncv) talk/contrib 00:59, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

As per the first response above, that's a damned long piece of string! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 01:15, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Theres a lot of different Net Statistics here, unfortuntely way out of date (2003) 220.101.28.25 (talk) 01:30, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Google earth images

when were the satalite photos taken?Accdude92 (talk to me!) 17:07, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

They're taken, and updated, on a continuing basis. There are plenty of places where the image is 5 years old or older, but sometimes they update much more frequently. I don't believe that they say when any specific image was taken. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:12, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Would the year they copyrighted the images be some of guide? Chevymontecarlo (talk) 17:13, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Maybe, maybe not. A typical screen of Google Earth shows a fusion of several images (sometimes many) - they're very skilled at blending images together. So that alone means there's a range of dates possible for a given screen. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 17:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I was surprised to see that the answer to this pretty obvious question was not in our very long Google Earth article, according to my skimming. Comet Tuttle (talk) 17:37, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If you use the Google Earth client (not the web-based version), there is an option to enable overlays that explicitly render boxes and text around each source image. This makes it clear when they are mixing/blending images - you can see multiple images used to generate same viewable area. Nimur (talk) 17:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Piggy back question

To add on a new question to this one, is anyone aware of exactly what sources Google and Microsoft and the others use? Obviously they are pulling from GEOS satellites, and probably some commercial ones too, but does anyone have any more detailed information on their sources?

On that note too, I know there are recent (usually within 24 hours) satellite images of North America available here from the MODIS system, but the resolution is only good enough to make out cities (250m resolution). Is anyone aware of any relatively recent (within a weeks) imagery sources with better resolution? Shadowjams (talk) 20:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

At least some Google imagery comes from GeoEye. -- Coneslayer (talk) 20:21, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't directly know but the images for Haiti have been updated within the past week. I was looking at the Presidential Palace and the relief efforts for the earthquake with Google Earth last night. Dismas|^(talk) 20:24, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

That's kind of what I'm getting at. The news media often gets updated images when there's some disaster, but in a few cases I know these images come from NASA or some other government source, because either they retasked the satellite for it, or it was a part of the normal image flow. I'm wondering if there's a public source for what must be thousands of images taken each day (obviously many of these aren't public). [I'll check out geoeye too, thanks.] Shadowjams (talk) 20:35, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not just satellite images either. A lot of it comes from airplanes. APL (talk) 21:09, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

When all else fails, they use Landsat images (ref). You'll mostly only find those now in remote places where the commercial imagery providers haven't found it profitable to collect and process images. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 21:32, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

This Google posting discusses, in brief, some of the sources for Google Earth images. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 01:03, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It may also be noted that the high-resolution images provided for places like big cities are taken from airplanes, not satellites. Last time I looked at Manhattan there was an obvious joint in Midtown between images taken from east and west of the island (the skyscrapers slant opposite ways); presumably the planes were not allowed to fly up the middle. --Anonymous, 00:03 UTC, January 30, 2010.

downforeveryoneorjustme

Since downforeveryoneorjustme.com seems to be down, what other similar services are there? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.91.83 (talk) 19:30, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

googling downforeveryoneorjustme brings up some candidates, http://isthatsitedown.com/ is one --194.197.235.240 (talk) 19:44, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Use optical drive on one PC to install software on another PC

Resolved

I've got a desktop with an optical drive, and a notebook without one. I've got some software on disc that I want to install on the notebook. Is there a way to connect the notebook to the PC, so it can use the optical drive on that? Both run WinXP. DuncanHill (talk) 20:55, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

If the software does not use copy protection to verify that you have an original disc in the drive, and if both your systems are on a network, then you could turn on file sharing on your desktop, insert your disc, share it (double-click My Computer, right-click the optical drive, choose "Properties", then click the "Sharing" tab and share accordingly), then find the drive from your notebook. You'll be able to open it; run the "autoplay" file to begin. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:05, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

Or, Duncan, were you thinking of physically plugging the desktop drive cable directly into the notebook? Unfortunately the interface(connector) on desktop PC drives is usually(always?) incompatible with notebooks, as the notebook connestors are far smaller and different type (in my experience) than 'standard' size drives esp. Parallel ATA. If it was a SATA (Serial ATA) drive then it might be possible. 220.101.28.25 (talk) 01:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Side Question. Do laptops or notebooks nowdays use SATA internally? 220.101.28.25 (talk) 01:01, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

• I was hoping there was some way of doing it with a USB cable between the two. Hey ho, looks like I'll have to find a friend with an external optical drive and borrow that. DuncanHill (talk) 17:06, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

Actually USB should be possible, thought perhaps quite slow compared to a more direct connection. I assume your notebook has no Ethernet or other networking connection connection? Also, how large are the software files? It may be possible to copy to, and then install the software from a USB Flash drive.--220.101.28.25 (talk) 18:09, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

It's got an ethernet connexion. The biggest of the programs needs 1.5GB disc space when installed. DuncanHill (talk) 18:16, 26 January 2010 (UTC)

In that case you could do as Comet Tuttle suggested via a network, or quoting Ethernet crossover cable; "An Ethernet crossover cable is a type of Ethernet cable used to connect computing devices together directly where they would normally be connected via a network switch, hub or router, such as directly connecting two personal computers via their Network adapters." NOTE you CANNOT connect the notebook directly to the PC with a 'standard' Ethernet cable.

If you don't have to copy a lot of files (which could be tiresome this way), then as suggested before a USB Flash drive may be the way to go, and 2+ Gb drives are possibly cheaper than a crossover cable. Of course if you can borrow an external optical drive then try that.Sorry took so long to get back, FYI it's 3 AM Here!--220.101.28.25 (talk) 16:05, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

It may help if you can tell what brand/model of Notebook computer you have, or is it actually more of a laptop? I have asked an RD question below Do laptops or notebooks nowdays use SATA internally? which may answer whether you can plug your PC HDD into the other computer 220.101.28.25 (talk) 17:38, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Comment - use the network sharing as described above using an ethernet cable - I've done this many times and it works - note right click on the optical drive icon in "mycomputer" select properties, - then the sharing tab..

(I've yet to see an ethernet cable that wasn't the right type..)

Well, the TX & RX wires are swapped in a crossover cable, and they are usually a different colour from "straight through" cables. But they cant't be used in the same application. To connect two PCs directly via Ethernet it must be a crossover cable. 220.101.28.25 (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Alternatively you can use wifi if you have it on both instead of the ethernet.

You will need to create a home-network first - this is simple - search for "set up a home or small office network" in windows help - and run the wizard - the only bit to remember is to give both computers the same network name - run the same wizard on both computers.

(edit conflict)

As per responses to my RD question, it seems that your notebook could well be SATA interface, in which case as long as you can access the drive or drive connector inside it then the possibility of connecting the Desktop PC Optical drive directly to the notebook to install the software holds up. --220.101.28.25 (talk) 21:26, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

• Thanks for all the suggestions. I've been able to do it by copy/pasting the disc onto a micro-SD card in my dongle, then loading it from there. If anyone's interested the notebook is a Zoostorm Freedom. The 1.5GB program only actually takes up 380 MB on the disc, so didn't even need to buy a bigger memory card. Many thanks again. DuncanHill (talk) 21:18, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for letting us know it worked out in the end and how you did it!. 220.101.28.25 (talk) 21:29, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Interesting, it has a Solid State' 8GB NAND HDD, and is variously described as a 'Netbook' or a ' Mini Laptop' 220.101.28.25 (talk) 21:39, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Um, it's got a 160 GB hard-drive Toshiba MK1655GSX. DuncanHill (talk) 21:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh, sorry!. I Googled 'Zoostorm Freedom' and had a look at 2-3 reviews which all mentioned an 8 GB SSD. I was silly to assume that that is what you had too. 8 Gb is far too small anyway. Looked up the HDD and Yes, it is a SATA drive as I thought. 220.101.28.25 (talk) 04:56, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

I think they've used the Freedom name for several models, mine's the 1GB Ram, 160GB HD version, cheaper than and just as much memory and storage as the desktop I bought a few years ago. DuncanHill (talk) 12:51, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

These are the reviews I looked at, Zoostorm-Freedom-Netbook, review-of-zoostorm-freedom, expertreviews zoostorm netbook, if you're interested 220.101.28.25 (talk) 15:50, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

This is the one I've got [2] DuncanHill (talk) 15:58, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

undent
Yes, looks like it's much better value. Seems the SSD ones are aimed a bit more at kids. Probably more resistant to shock. Can't imagine using a current 'PC' with so little storage! I started with a 6.8 GB HDD, in 1998! (now I have 1 TB to go in and 500 GB external) Suppose an External HDD to dump data to would be the way to go with these 'notebooks' as well! Anyway I think we've played your Question out, if you want any more discussion maybe my talk page page would be more appropriate? Any more PC questions don't hesitate to post them. See ya round! --220.101.28.25 (talk) 08:33, 29 January 2010 (UTC)