Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 March 21

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March 21

Sneaky phishing email

I recently received an email, supposedly from my dental insurance company, telling me that my recently processed claim was ready for review. The links were all obvious phishing sites and I would usually just ignore these sorts of things, but what worries me is that they got my insurance company correct and they timed it impeccably with me filing an actual dental claim. Now for the former, that's probably easy to find out or possibly just guess. As for the latter, it could just be entirely coincidental; however, if it weren't, what point in the chain would someone be able to find that out and get a spoof email out that quickly? Makes me really doubt these companies' security policies... -- MacAddct  1984 ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I know what you mean. BTW, the  symbol don't work on windows. – i123Pie _bio^contribs 07:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Interesting. Happened to me as well, now at my dorm, I can see the apple logo. I could not see it on Windows XP SP2. I wonder if Ubuntu can see it. Kushal 12:55, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Back in the windows computer, all I get is a question mark like "?" Kushal 22:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Could just be an example of synchronicity, or not - maybe your dentists computer records are infected - maybe you should mention this to them.87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Of course, when most companies do have a data spill, they just cover it up and deny, unless they are publicly exposed. They're not stupid.Gzuckier (talk) 19:21, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Private torrents (not trackers)

I'm very annoyed at how utorrent honors the "Private" flag on torrents.. if I want to use peer exchange and DHT, how dare my client tell me I can't? But I love everything else about utorrent.. is there some tool to remove that flag from .torrent files, or a patch for utorrent.exe? Preferably the latter since I assume that messing with the torrent file would mess with hashes and whatnot. :D\=< (talk) 05:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

A summary google search shows that a certain client might be a makeshift solution. Kushal 19:36, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

BitComet is banned on any good tracker because it sucks bandwidth, lies about ratios, and maximizes its own download speeds at the expense of the rest of the swarm :D\=< (talk) 03:18, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I remember a certain tracker (that used to be named EasyTree) saying they would ban clients for which such hacks were known to exist. I haven't followed this controversy, but would be surprised this has not happened yet. (And, since it came up, BitComet, BitLord, and whatever uses that code base, should be hacked to erase user client drives. Hopefully someone will get on that right away.) / edg ☺ ☭ 03:25, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

What if you customized BitComet so that it says it is utorrent but it is actually BitComet? I mean, in the same way that Firefox and Opera used to say that they are IE. Is that possible? Kushal 00:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

2-way file pointer

Is there any way to create a 'FILE *' in C so that you can both read and write from that file? I need to use string data with a library that gets all its data with file pointers, all within a single process. I want to write the string data to the file and then have the library read it to process it. I understand there might be a chance of 'deadlock' with this - nonetheless, is there a way to do it?

I think you're thinking of a race condition rather than deadlock. But yes, you can open a file for reading and writing with fopen. -- BenRG (talk) 11:45, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Within a single-threaded process, of course you can open a file for reading and writing. Open() it in mode O_RDWR then use lseek() to move around in the file. With multiple threads, it gets more complex because you may need to use something like record locking to manage multiple writers to the file.

Atlant (talk) 12:26, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Is there any way to then elide the 'physical' file associated with the file pointer and just use the pointer as a kind of two-way pipe? I understand that that might be OS-dependent, but something like the inverse of mmap? That is, uses fwrite and fread automatically use memory instead of disk. Hmm, the more I write the more unlikely it seems, but I ask anyway.

Couldn't you just use a named pipe? You can fopen it twice - once for write for your own code to write to, and again for read (that's the FILE* you pass to the library functions). Make sure the writing code calls fflush on the handle (otherwisen data you write won't necessarily end up at the reader). -- Solidview (talk) 16:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Barring that, it's time to get heavy. fopen, fread, fwrite etc. are all library calls that are imported from the C rtl. If you define them in your own code then code present at link time will resolve to your versions not the library versions (if the library is a DLL/SO then you'll need to create your own DLL/SO that defines these functions and make sure its in the LD_LIBRARY_PATH before the libc.so). With that done you can get fread, fwrite etc. to do anything you want. -- Solidview (talk) 16:06, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

...and if the rest of your code needs to use the real fread etc. functions, then you can get pointers to them with dlopen/dlsym and call them yourself. -- Solidview (talk) (user:Finlay McWalter, on an untrusted computer) 16:09, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

migrate e-mail

Anyone know about migrating an e-mail account from outlook express (XP) to 'windows mail' (Vista) - typed in the account name on vista and pressed 'add' but something seems amiss - no email - doesn't seem to be taking any notice? any clues?87.102.16.238 (talk) 12:25, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If its POP, you need to have Mail point to the required file in which Outlook Express saves emails. Windows Mail is the article we have about Windows Mail. It seems it is not developed anymore as it "has been succeeded by Windows Live Mail".

If it were an Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) email account, you would not have to do that.

If you are interested in free software, Mozilla (the makers of Mozilla Firefox) also make a an email client called Mozilla Thunderbird. Mozilla Thunderbird can import emails from Outlook XP too.

Cheers, Kushal 17:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Ho! free software only gets tiny adverts. Buy me I'm free! Thanks.87.102.16.238 (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

CorrectionI meant 'windows live mail' when I wrote 'windows mail'. What's the migration proceedure here?87.102.16.238 (talk) 17:52, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

OBJECTION! :D\=< (talk) 19:20, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Kippers.87.102.16.238 (talk) 20:24, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

When you are in the program "Windows Live Mail," there should be an option under file or tools or something for Import/Export. Give it a shot. Kushal 04:34, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

By the way, can you still use Outlook Express to see all your previous emails? is outlook express on the same computer as windows live mail? I think it is funny why windows live mail would not prompt you to import your previous emails and settings at first startup. Kushal 19:26, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Windows live is on a new computer - no prompt..87.102.16.238 (talk) 14:58, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

You need to locate the specific files on the old computer (if after reading this, you still don't know how AND are unable to Google how, please leave a note here).

If you backed up your emails regularly, I think you can just use the latest back up file you have.

then copy them to the new computer. point Windows live mail or Mozilla Thunderbird to the file by selecting 'import' (may be labeled differently).

or you can go to this website Background sound says, "Say thank you to Google, Kushal!" :P and give that a try.

and by the way, it is a good habit to back up your emails. Maybe you would yearn for the good old days of spam and bac'n one day when the world gets rid of the spam problem. (just kidding) Kushal 22:28, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

cheap Vista laptop

Hello i want to buy a laptop for personal use ,as windows vista compatible under $700.Please dont tell me to seach. thanx

So you want us to search for you? This is one editor who won't bother with that .... --LarryMac | Talk 16:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

They could be asking for reccomendations? I got a good Dell one with Home Premium for 1000€ in August. I'd say by now the US equivalent would be below 700$. So you could try there. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 16:43, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

If you want a Vista "capable" machine, make sure you do not install Windows Vista on it. Just my USD 0.02 Kushal 17:00, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Very good advice. :D\=< (talk) 17:10, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully, I can be more helpful than some. I would recommend checking BestBuy.com or OfficeDepot.com. They usually have computers good enough to run Vista. crassic!^[talk] 23:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I forgot Newegg.com, as well. crassic!^[talk] 01:01, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

You want a laptop with 1 gigabyte of RAM, and a processor speed over 1.8 GHz. That should last you a while, and is pretty general purpose. What do you have in mind on what you want to use the laptop for? Take your pick of screen size. I've purchased several laptops at Tiger Direct and government warehouses. Mac Davis (talk) 00:42, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

best method, if you can wait a few months; go to the nearest law school and post a notice before graduation. lots of law students are graduating to fancy well paying jobs and aren't interested in moving their old stuff. friends of mine have retrieved things like brand new HP inkjets in the sealed box, never opened, from the trash outside the law school after graduation, so there's a good chance somebody wouldn't mind selling their equipment to you rather than shlep it across country.Gzuckier (talk) 19:19, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

SVG colour matrix

Does anyone know where I can get an simple-ish explanation of how to use the "colour matrix" filter on SVGs (or even just give one here)? (Specifically the mode called "matrix"). If anyone could point me to one speifically for the Inkscape use of it that would be ideal (though I suspect all programs lay it out in the same way). Thanks in advance. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 16:32, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Does this help? It has some examples. Personally I don't think this is the sort of thing one should try to do by hand; Inkscape will do this sort of this automatically when rendering gradients and things like that, I imagine. --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 18:35, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Excel formula problem

I often use a lot of formulas in excel workbooks.These formulas use references to formulas on other workbooks.The problem is when i copy my workbooks to other computers or other locations the formulas still refer to the same locations.Is not there any way so that the formulas refer to the same relative location in relation to the original workbook? Thank You

Could you give us an example of one of the formula? And could you specify what version of Excel you are using, and on what Operating System (Windows or Mac)? --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:19, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think so. You could always take the other books with you, that should work. George D. Watson (Dendodge).Talk^Help 20:36, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

They've got to be in the exact same filepath though.. maybe keep all your workbooks in C:\excel so you can easily recreate the path on your destination machines. I suspect they've made the behavior smarter in newer versions of Excel; you should upgrade :D\=< (talk) 05:10, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

One more goofy CSS question

Imagine I have the following HTML:

<ul>
	<li>Item 1</li>
	<li>Item 2</li>
	<li>Item 3</li>
	<li>Item 4</li>
</ul>

Is there a way, using CSS, that could make the output render like so:

• Item 1 • Item 2 • Item 3 • Item 4 •

The only way I can think of takes advantage of the :before and :after pseudoclasses which, from what I can tell, aren't understood by IE at all. Which in this case would be a negative. Any other ideas? I doubt it can be done but thought I'd ask anyway. I'm not opposed to altering the HTML a bit to make it work, though my current method involves inserting a lot of bullets manually, and that looks really bad when the page is rendered without stylesheets. Thanks! --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 20:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Put this style on the ul:

white-space: nowrap;

..seems like you've been working on quite a project; link us when you're done! :D\=< (talk) 22:23, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that'll work, since the break between list items isn't caused by wrapping. You'll need apply display: inline to the list items and the bullet will need to be a background-image, since changing display on list items gets rid of their marker. You'll also need to set the padding-left on the list items so they don't collide with your image. I think the only way to get your end-of-line bullet to show reliably in all browsers is to add an empty list item at the end (<li></li>). The upside is it'll get rid of your double bullets when rendered without stylesheets; the downside is you get a semantically useless bullet point hanging around at the end of your list. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk &#149; Contribs)} 01:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

It seems you need a combination of the two.. white-space: nowrap; on the list tag, display:inline; on the <li>s. You can also display:table-cell; on the <li>s and display:table; on the <ul> to make it an inline level element instead of block-level so you can position it more easily if your containers are screwy :D\=< (talk) 02:27, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I will give those a shot! (I'm actually working on about three projects right now, which is why I've been asking so many apparently unrelated questions!) --Captain Ref Desk (talk) 19:50, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Start up

How can I change my computer to not load the Welcome Center dialog box everytime I start up my computer that just slows down when I start and messes things up sometimes?

:Not entirely sure how to remove the Welcome screen, but I know how you can speed up your start up.

1. Start menu -> "Run" -> type msconfig

2. Click the "Startup" tab. Underneath, you will find any process or program that loads during your startup.

3. Disable any startup items you deem unnecessary at startup.

4. Restart your computer.

Hope this helps some. crassic!^[talk] 22:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure there is a tick box (in the bottom left corner?) of the Welcome Centre window that says "Open Welcome Centre every time Windows starts" or something similar. If you have this, try unchecking it.

...Or, go to Control Panel >Welcome Centre and untick the "Run at startup" (ah - that's what it says) in the bottom left corner. --Kateshortforbob 00:24, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, wow. I was thinking of a completely wrong thing. Scratch that! crassic!^[talk] 01:02, 22 March 2008 (UTC)