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

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April 30

MSN Question

Is there a way to re-add an email address you recently deleted by accident? Note : Not having the email address does not give me the option of asking the person whose email address it is what the email address is because I can't contact them by email, otherwise this would be a pointless question.--KageTora (영호 (影虎)) (talk) 07:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

If you sent or received an e-mail from this address, you may still have it in an old e-mail, possible in the trash bin/recycle folder. StuRat (talk) 09:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

computer /network security

1.how to detect ,prevent and remove from infected computers the following vuruses,bacteria,trojan,worm,trap door,logic bomb,spyware,adware and password sniffers.

2.with reguard to computer security what are the definitions ,advantages and disadvantages of the following a)physical biometric accesss control methods,behavioural besed biometric access control,intrusion detection sysytems,one time passwords,and passphrases.

i have problems with above issues am just operating a small network and want some information on the above thank u am Mbabs —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mbabaali1 (talk • contribs) 07:14, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Despite your claim that you're operating a small network, these look very much like homework questions to me. You should probably start at computer security and go from there. If there are specific things you don't understand, we can probably point you in the right direction, but we're not going to do the work for you. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:08, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Installing software on an MSI netbook with Suse Linux

Whenever I use Yast on my MSI Wind netbook to install something, it complains

Cannot access installation media

Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 SP1 10 1-0.

Check that the directory is accessible.

When I check 'show details' it says

File /suse/i586.gcc-4.1.2_20070115-0.11.i586.rpm not found on media dir:///usr/share/lang

And indeed in /usr/share/lang/suse/i586 I only see two files, both beginning with 'aspell'. DirkvdM (talk) 07:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Opera Mini on PC?

Can I run the Opera Mini browser on my desktop PC? Whether it be Windows, Mac, or Linux? The reason is that I read that Opera Mini utilizes this proxy server to compress and reformat web pages. But presumably this functionality might also be useful to desktop users too. So I was wondering if there is a way to run it directly on my PC. Thanks, --71.106.173.110 (talk) 07:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is possible, albeit under a J2ME emulator such as the Nokia Series 40 SDK. I often use it for previewing applications and/or games that I downloaded prior to installing them on my phone. You can get it at forum.nokia.com, although you have to be registered (which is free of charge). Blake Gripling (talk) 08:47, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I recommend using MicroEmulator, it seems to be fastest for me. --grawity 06:41, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

What is the name for this technique or design pattern?

I am trying to remember the name of a design pattern/technique of emulating calls to a client from a server. This technique involves the client making a call to the server, which is not replied to immediately. When the server has data to send it replies to the call with this data. The client responds by making another call, passing the response to the call as a parameter, and this call then waits for the next time the server needs to call the client. I think it is something similar to "reverse callback", and it is used a lot in AJAX. Its one of those terms that is on the tip of my tounge and I will kick myself for not knowing when I hear it! -- Q Chris (talk) 09:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Inversion of control? Jay (talk) 14:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is certainly not what I would normally think of as IOC, I am pretty sure I have heard a more specific term. -- Q Chris (talk) 15:18, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

We have the article "Reverse Ajax". Is that what you're looking for? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 19:56, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, this might have been what I was thinking of, though I thought there was a more general term to describe doing this independent of architecture. -- Q Chris (talk) 09:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

See also server push and Comet. chocolateboy (talk) 21:38, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Arranging Ubuntu for ease of later upgrades

[As this got no responses.]

Some time in the next few weeks, I'll get a little computer from Dell that will have Ubuntu 8.04 ("customized by Dell") installed ("preinstalled"). Ubuntu 9 is already out, and I daresay Ubuntu 10 is in the works. Before I start fiddling with Ubuntu to make it more like what I want, I'd like to do any juggling around that will make it easier to upgrade to 9, 10 and beyond. I'm rather out of date with (K)ubuntu. I imagine that /home will not be in its own partition. If my assumption's right, would it help later upgrades to retain the changes already made by Dell and myself if I were to put /home in its own, newly created partition? If yes it would, then I suppose I could boot off a Knoppix or similar CD, fiddle with the partitions, copy /home to a new partition and delete the original -- but would the system then recognize the new "/home", or what other tweaks would be needed? Other tips welcome too. -- Hoary (talk) 14:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Ubuntu is on a six month release schedule. 8.04 (2008Apr) is a long term support release, which means it will be supported until 2009Sep. 8.10 Intrepid and 9.04 Jaunty have since been released. Separating your /home partition will make it easier to do clean installs, but you can upgrade within the OS from 8.04 to 8.10 (then to 9.04, if you wish.) I like separating by /boot partition as well, but I have not seen anything which demonstrates this as a best practice. Taggart.BBS (talk) 19:01, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Then I'd like to separate my home partition. I don't expect to have much of a problem creating a new partition, plonking a copy of /home in it, and then deleting the original /home (although even this assumption may be ignorant and mistaken). However, I've no particular reason to think that the result would work (that the system would know where /home was, and that the content of /home would still be correct). Would it, and if not then what other preparatory work would be needed? (Or is there some utility that automates all of this?) -- Hoary (talk) 00:18, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

You need to edit /etc/fstab to get that partition mounted on /home automatically. See this for better info. -- 93.106.43.155 (talk) 09:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Splendid; thank you! -- Hoary (talk) 09:25, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Webbased email

What web-based email is good for me if I don't care about that 8 GB of Gmail, but do care about price, stability, reliability and privacy?--80.58.205.37 (talk) 16:22, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

GMail is free, stable, reliable, and as private as web-based email will get. What are you looking for that GMail does not provide? -- kainaw™ 17:35, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I have some doubts about its privacy. Google scans it to serve ads. --80.58.205.37 (talk) 17:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But that's an automated process. I mean, of course it's possible that they violate their users' privacy despite their promises to the contrary, but there's absolutely no guarantee that another web-based e-mail service provider wouldn't do the very same thing, or worse. Google, at least, is an established service provider with a pretty good track record of not being evil, and getting caught on something like this would be a terrible blow to their credibility and, depending on the case, would probably be illegal. That doesn't guarantee that they can't do it anyway, of course -- but frankly, it's a hell of a lot more than most, if not all, other free web-based e-mail providers have going for them. I mean, if this is a major concern for you (and it's not an unreasonable concern in itself, I think), then this may be a "can't have your cake and eat it too" situation. -- Captain Disdain (talk) 19:04, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

It is an automated process. Highly specific and efficient computer programs do this. If you were exchanging child pornography the advertisement-minded computer program would neither know nor care. It would ask you if you wanted to buy Spongebob toys. Mac Davis (talk) 18:16, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Another way to look at it... Free services need to turn a profit. Google makes it clear that they turn a profit by context-sensitive ads. If a service doesn't explain how they turn a profit, it is possible that they do it by selling the secrets in your emails to other people. -- kainaw™ 19:51, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't use Gmail and thus write from ignorance. Still: Given the choice, I'd rather be served with ads for products that are of no interest to me than with ads for products that are of interest: there'd be less likelihood that the former would trigger purchases. I have about as little interest in Barbie dolls as I have in anything that I can actually put a name to; thus ads for Barbie dolls would be safely lost on me. If I had no worries whatever about my correspondents' perceptions of me, I might get an account such as barbiedolllover0501@gmail.com, but even without that I might sometimes give myself a signature including Barbie-relevant strings. And I could set up a throwaway account at hotmail.com to and from which I'd once a month send a great wodge of Barbie-related text (copied from Barbie). How does that sound? -- Hoary (talk) 00:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

I do not have absolute trust in Google, but I agree that you can't get more privacy from any third party based email. If your mail is sitting on someone else's servers, you're pretty much dependent on their honesty. If it helps, a big company like Google is probably less likely to have some bored server admin browsing emails just because he can.

If you're determined to have more privacy, you're going to have to set up your own email server. This is a project, even if you do it through a collocation service that will hand-hold you all the way. You can put Horde on the server and have web-mail that way.

But, and here is the key issue, email is intrinsically insecure. Email has no built-in encryption, and little built-in security. Any email you send is vulnerable at many points along its journey from sender to recipient. If you're sending emails that are interesting enough for people to bother, there are a lot of ways your email could fall into the wrong hands. The way to prevent this is through encryption such as PGP. APL (talk) 22:36, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Take a look at Comparison of webmail providers

One thing to note if privacy/security is a big concern is that although you're looking primarily for webmail, it might be worth choosing one that allows sending/receiving via SMTP & IMAP as it'll allow you to use a mail application with a plugin for GPG or similar. IMAP access also makes other things easier (for me personally, offline access is very important)- Cheers, davidprior ^t/_c 21:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

run application in background

Please help! tell me how to run a java application in background using windows? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Avitashpurohit (talk • contribs) 18:54, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean as a background process? You can do this with Process Explorer; run the program, right click your java application from the list, go to Set priority and select either below normal or idle 8I.24.07.715 ^talk 19:20, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

How does a website earn money for its owner?

I heard that websites try to get high page views (or web requests?) to earn money. How does this work? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:34, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Well presumably they get better ad money if their site has high pageviews as it is then more likely the ads will be seen.  GARDEN  19:37, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

But what if a website doesn't have ads? ARe there other ways to earn money with high page views? 117.0.51.228 (talk) 19:40, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Some websites, like Homestar Runner, gain revenue through merchandise sales. Others, like the Wikimedia Foundation, rely on donations from visitors. These are not directly tied to pageviews, but both revenues are based on how popular a website is. —Akrabbim^talk 19:45, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, some ads are less obvious than others. Affiliate links can be a good source of income if the website owner knows what (s)he's doing, and like merchandise sales, affiliate link sites need a lot of visitors to make any real income. 168.9.120.8 (talk) 12:17, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Depending on the website and ideology, Donations can be a superior good source of income. Mac Davis (talk) 18:08, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Closed-source project hosting website

Does anyone know of some good free (free as in offers their service for free) project hosting websites for closed source projects that don't own the code and also that enable people to sell software like other proprietary projects? --Melab±1 ☎ 19:38, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Googling for "free subversion hosting" or "free cvs hosting" gets some results, though the free plans tend to be very limited in size (200 MB or so). Buyer beware. --Sean 15:38, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Titles of external links in MediaWiki

Hello, I run my own mediawiki server. Is it possible to make external links to automatically parse the title from linked pages instead of assigning the links numbers like [1], [2], and [3]? thanks. 85.186.103.89 (talk) 21:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

No. --Sean 15:50, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a bot that does this. The source is available here. chocolateboy (talk) 23:08, 7 May 2009 (UTC)