Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2007 June 7

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June 7

Database icon

Looks like three watch batteries to me...

Why is the usual icon for a database three cylinders stacked on top of each other? An example of this icon is the Crystal Clear database icon (it is also the logo for WikiProject Databases) seen at the right. Thanks, --Transfinite (Talk / Contribs) 04:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

One random website [1] explains it as a silo of data, which certainly seems plausible. -wizzard2k ^(C•T•D) 05:34, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Tee hee, silo of data? Is that kind of like a murder of crows or a parliament of owls? Anchoress 06:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

File:Ramac.jpg

The IBM 350 RAMAC was introduced in 1956 and was the world's first disk drive. This unit is being restored at the Computer History Museum 50 years later. (From Early IBM disk storage article).

It might also be a stylized representation of hard disk drive disks. Original incarnations of mass-storage would have such cylinders and might have been drawn schematically. Nimur 08:03, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Capacious hard drives still have multiple platters stacked up (although not quite as many as the RAMAC); four or five platters is still common. More platters leads to faster transfer rates and fewer "seeks". Whenever you see a family of drives that offers capacities that are multiples of each other, you're (usually) seeing the use of multiple platters. For example, if a drive is offered as 125 GB, 250 GB, 375 GB, and 500 GB, you can bet that first one is a one-platter drive and the last one is the same mechanism with four platters (or, at least, four times as many active storage surfaces).

Atlant 11:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Silos of data are not unusual, for instance a tape silo is one such method. Also, I'm sure the word "silo" is synonymous with storage in general (not just for grain or nukes). When I looked at that picture, the first thing that came into mind was a hard disk, which consist of cylinders stacked on one another. — Kjammer  ⌂ 08:49, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The typical flowchart icon for disk storage is a cylinder.

The 1960-1965 era Litton computers I used when I was in the Marines had a cylinder for database storage. It was not a stack of platters. It was a metal cylinder about 4 feet long and 2 feet wide. It sat on its side and rotated at high speed. A read/write head could move side to side along the cylinder. It could store about 20 kb, which isn't anything today. However, that was a hell of a lot of data back then. --Kainaw ^(talk) 13:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

That would have been drum memory. My first boss used to spin tales (no pun intended) of programs written specifically to take into account the latency. And since we're reaching into our pasts, the system I used when I first got to college was an IBM 7000 series (model not recalled); for storage, it used disk packs, probably the IBM 1311, which indeed, looked like the quintessential database icon. --LarryMac | Talk 15:38, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I have fond memories of reading The Art of Computer Programming chapter on external sorting (Vol 3, if anyone's curious), where it is all about what sort will minimize seek time on disks and drums and the optimal merge to ensure that rewinds (!) for magnetic tape storage are at a minimum. Those algorithms are obviously still pretty useful in case you have to do a sort that can't fit into main memory, but it's still adorably anachronistic :). As for the database symbol, I've always assumed that it was some sort of allusion to RAID drives (or generally storing huge amounts of information over several discs). I mean, isn't that sort-of the intuitive point about what a database is, a massive collection of information stored in big-ass facilities? --Oskar 00:49, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

To me, they look a lot like the steel dust covers of the large reel-to-reel tape spools that used to be used in data archives... 195.137.96.79 05:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Access Yahoo mails from Outlook

Hi,

Is there any way so that one can access the yahoo mails through Outlook. example:

Yahoo ID: xyz@yahoo.co.in

Now we want that the user should be able to access his/her Yahoo mails through Outlook. Actually, I want to know how to configure Outlook to get Yahoo mails in it.

Thanks

This Microsoft Office online page might have the info you are looking for [2] — Kjammer  ⌂ 08:53, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Dear Indian dude, You cant. You must pay for it. However, Gmail users can access gmail mails in outlook. Try Gmail instead. However, gmail does not offer .co.in addresses. They offer only .com addresses. -Anandha

YPops! might be the trick. Splintercellguy 21:40, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

PDF to SVG

Is there really a good way to convert PDF to SVG without visiting PS (can't afford to lose transparency etc) in the process? (Using only free (speech) software, of course.) I am hardly the first one to want this, but I just can't find a good solution. Is there any? In particular, I was thinking about how great it would be to be able to use Asymptote (gallery) for making plots and other things for Wikipedia. While Asymptote excels in many ways (and I strongly recommend it for all your LaTeX reports), it doesn't output SVG, so conversion is necessary. —Bromskloss 12:48, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Xara? -- Phoeba Wright^OBJECTION! 13:15, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I used Texterity's online page to convert Image:Wfm thaad diagram.svg, although it required nontrivial cleanup in Inkscape afterward. -- Finlay McWalter | Talk 18:48, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Is Google planning to conquer the world?

??

• If you mean in terms of an organized form of governance, probably not. It is easier to just make a lot of money by selling people services than it is to actually make domestic and foreign policy. If you mean in terms of knowing as much as they can about the world — including individuals who live in it — and using that to turn a profit, then probably yes, to some degree. --24.147.86.187 15:24, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

From a software standpoint, Google is trying less to conquer the world than other companies that put all of their effort into enslaving the world into using a specific operating system, a specific document format, or a specific web browser. Google simply tries to improve on what others are already doing. They were not the first search engine. They were not the first mapping service. They were not the first web mail service. As for profit, they need to turn a profit or they cannot stay in business. Now, if some billionaire benefactor were to give all his money (and investments) to Google, they would likely be less money hungry, unlike other companies that would gobble up the cash and beg for more. --Kainaw ^(talk) 16:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I think Google already has pretty hefty investments as it is. I don't think they are any more or less money hungry than most companies, though they put more of their attention on the "long term" than most software companies (i.e. develop services that don't yet have obvious revenue related to them). What disturbs me personally the most about Google is that they are highly interested in networking all sorts of data in ways which hasn't been done before and at a scale which hasn't been done before, all the while encouraging people to start hooking their individuals lives up to the network in various ways (shared documents, common e-mail, even Google Desktop could be read more sinisterly as a form of this). Like those on board Battlestar Galactica, it's the networking that bugs me — it creates the possibility for all sorts of information economies that could go against privacy, for example, and even if we believe the current incarnation of Google's management to be benign there is not a guarantee that this would necessarily last into the future. But when you compare it to Microsoft, as you imply, it looks pretty standard for a mega software business, though Google still tries to project a "small startup" sort of attitude. (And in my opinion, there is nothing that Google specifically is doing that others would not have at some point thought to do and, as you note, have already done — Google is an improver as much as an innovator, if not more. But I do think that stronger oversight to information collecting practices in general should probably be considered pretty seriously.) --24.147.86.187 22:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Zecco.com

What's the catch behind the 0 commission online broker, zecco.com? Really bad spreads? 172.190.118.153 18:20, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

The site is offline right now, so I can't really check, but I'm going to hazard a guess that ads are their super-secret formula for success. --Oskar 00:39, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

There are not significant advertisements on the site, hence the asking of this question. Anything else possible? 172.194.245.197 02:58, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Look at their website for what they say.[3] They also appear to be using crowdsourcing to predict how the company should invest.[4] The company has low overheads and the prospect of becoming a big stockbroker, so it probably worth an investment to its backers. It also has a low advertising budget, relying mainly on the blogsphere. However, some of the answers given at answers.com make me wonder if they are astroturfing. --h2g2bob (talk) 06:29, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Computer Malfunction

My computer has a problem. Everytime I type a letter, a number pops up with it. Or when I'm typing a number a letter will pop up with it! But it only happens sometimes for long periods of times. It is so annohying. Cause afterward I have to go back and detele all the extra letters and numbers. It takes forever, just to write emails. Then I constanly have misspled words. What's wrong with me computer? And how do I fix it?

              Thanks

Messed up keyboard? Root⁴(one) 22:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like you need a new keyboard. Probably something is causing the contacts under the keys to activate other contacts for other keys. Keyboards are cheap to replace. However, if you have a laptop, you might have to use an external keyboard until you get the existing keyboard fixed. Also, sometimes the laptop keyboard cable can be slightly off, which can create spurious keyboard events. --JSBillings 22:05, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I should mention that one of the prime causes of this failure in keyboards is because "someone" poured a sugary beverage on the keyboard. --JSBillings 22:09, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

This is probably not the problem, but make sure that you are not accidentally hitting the numlock key. -- Diletante 22:08, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Call me cynical, but maybe someone has been messing about with AutoCorrect for a laugh? Sticking keys, a damaged keyboard, a bad connector, a dodgy driver and a prank virus all spring to mind aswell, on top of what JSBillings and Diletante say. CaptainVindaloo ^{t c e} 22:16, 7 June 2007 (UTC)