Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 June 10

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June 10

yahoo messenger archive decoding

there are several programs on the internet that offer to magically decode yahoo .dat archives. The problem with this is that i dont want to trust too well some program whose source i dont know in this case. Is it easy in most languages to decode these? does anyone know a basic algorithm for decoding? thanks!

63.26.255.89 (talk) 02:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Editing subtitles in .srt files

I want to know whether there is any coding that I can put in a .srt subtitle file that specifies it's colour and font (for example,pink and Comic Sans MS). I know that I can manually specify the font for each line by using standard HTML coding ( like, <font face="Comic Sans MS"> text </font>), but I'd like to know if there is anything that I can put at, say the beginning of the file, that applies the said font to all the lines in the subtitle. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance! 117.194.227.30 (talk) 05:18, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

have you tried placing it like so? Riffraffselbow (talk) 07:07, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

 <font=Futura>
 Juliet: Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Robot Romeo
 Robot Romeo: Bleep Bloop!
 Juliet: Man, this guy is a terrible writer
 </font>

Yeah. I tried it like that. But, there are lines of coding specifying the time and the serial number in between. I've noticed that if I type the <font=Futura> at the beginning and the </font> at the end of the whole file, with even the timings (00:00:00,266 --> 00:00:07,138, for example) in between, then Media Player Classic, and all my other players cease to recognise the file as a subtitle file... This has forced me to painstakingly copy-paste the font-style code at the beginning of each and every subtitle line.... It's a seemingly endless task.. You forgot to take into account the fact that "Robot Romeo: Bleep Bloop!" should come some time after Juliet speaks.... 117.194.226.128 (talk) 08:25, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Do you have access to a scripting language like Perl or Python? Mac and Linux machines tend to come with them pre-installed. Scripting languages are great for otherwise mind-numbingly repetitive textual tasks. Paul (Stansifer) 18:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't. I use Windows XP.... :( Pity... I had to modify more than 1000 lines of text wholly by hand..... I think I'm dying... 117.194.227.198 (talk) 07:29, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Windows XP does of course come with VBScript. While perhaps not as versatile as Perl or Python and Windows specific it could handle something like this I'm sure. Windows 7 (and both Server 2008) also comes with Windows PowerShell#Scripting which includes scripting which could I suspect handle something like this as well, and it's also available for Windows XP & Vista. Of course you could install Python, Perl, JavaScript or something if you want as well. Nil Einne (talk) 12:56, 13 June 2010 (UTC)

HTTP referrers and site tracking

Is it correct that HTTP referrers only track when you click on links? Disregarding cookies, it possible for a site to track visits and departures if someone uses the address bar? Like if you visit Site A > Site B > Site C by typing the addresses in the URL bar, is it possible for Site B to know about A or C? 24.6.21.207 (talk) 05:46, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

AFAIK, no browser will send a referrer when you type something in the address bar (nor when you visit a bookmark or whatever). They have no reason to, there's no reason to think you were referred to the address by the address you are currently at, it could be completely unrelated and probably often is (when I decide to visit http://www.nzherald.co.nz after visiting wikipedia it's usually because I want to check the news not because of something I saw on the reference desk and similar if I go to en.wikipedia.org look at it and then add WP:RDS it's not because I was referred to the RD from the main page but because I visited the main page then decided to visit the RDS).

Note that sites are totally dependent on browsers in this regard, they can only 'track' referrers (if they do) because browser send them. So if you don't want sites to get referrers just disable them in your browser (or if your browser doesn't support that get a different browser and/or tool that will strip it for you). Be aware of course this will break some downloads and other things. You could perhaps find a browser or tool which will prevent cross-site referrers but allow intra-URL ones which will probably reduce the problem but is unlikely* to eliminate them.

*If it's strict and thinks of www.microsoft.com as different from www2.microsoft.com then obviously it won't help in these cases. But if it's not strict and thinks of them as the same then it will also treat evilspy.cjb.net as the same as yourboyfriend.cjb.net even though these could be different servers run by completely unrelated people. Even worse if it stupid and treats www.google.co.nz the same as www.nzherald.co.nz. And of course if the server redirects you to an IP then it will never work. Our article does mention just sending the base URL often works.

Nil Einne (talk) 10:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

getting error mesg with new interface

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 5.1; Trident/4.0; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.2; .NET CLR 3.0.4506.2152; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; MS-RTC LM 8) Timestamp: Thu, 10 Jun 2010 08:44:34 UTC

Message: 'wgCollapsibleNavForceNewVersion' is undefined Line: 4 Char: 15 Code: 0 URI: http://bits.wikimedia.org/w/extensions/UsabilityInitiative/Vector/Vector.combined.min.js?281a —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.115.3.118 (talk) 08:45, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Google

Resolved

What is http://google.ca main page theme about? I can't find it from hovering over the logo like you usually do for their fancy logos. 82.43.89.11 (talk) 09:09, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Judging by the fact that the little "change background image" link in the bottom asks you to sign in, it may just be a campaign for iGoogle. But I don't know. {{Sonia|ping|enlist}} 09:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

This blog post by Marissa Mayer says that they are indeed showing off Google's personalisation features. --Kateshortforbob _talk 10:10, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Does anyone know how to switch it off and get it back to the boring plain old white that we used to have? I personally prefer the plain old white page because it doesn't have java script occasionally crashing the page etc. 'Remove background image' just puts back the hideous one they supply you with. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:37, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

It should be gone again by tomorrow, if you don't mind waiting. If not, you can use the secure site https://www.google.com or click the "Go to Google.com" link which should appear under the search bar of your country-specific Google page. Both of these will mean that your results won't be specific to your country though. (I'm beginning to find it annoying too, and I don't even have a "Remove background link", even though I have an account., oh, now I do, of course...) --Kateshortforbob _talk 12:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Nope, clicking on the 'Go to Google.com' link just takes me to Google.com with the same background stuff on it. Also, how do we know this will be gone by tomorrow? I personally doubt it will be, because it's linked to my Picasaweb page (i.e. I am given the opportunity to replace the original white page with a photograph from my own Picasaweb account). I wish Google would stop bringing out new features and not giving people the option to opt out of them until there's been an uproar and publicity and so on. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Testing out poorly-thought-out new features on non-logged in users - well, thank goodness Wikipedia never does anything like that ! Gandalf61 (talk) 13:31, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The Official Google Blog says that it's a 24-hour demonstration of the new feature. Lifehacker has instructions for switching back to plain white. (Note that the ability to set a background, as you see in Picasaweb, is permanent. Turning it on for everyone is a 24-hour phenomenon.) -- Coneslayer (talk) 13:35, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The Google.com link works for me but I have read reports that there is a bug in international versions which is causing the remove background image to not work, although no reliable source for that. Mayer's blog post says

To provide you with an extra bit of inspiration, we‘ve collaborated with several well-known artists, sculptors and photographers to create a gallery of background images you can use to personalize your Google homepage. Included in the collection are photographs of the works of Dale Chihuly, Jeff Koons, Tom Otterness, Polly Apfelbaum, Kengo Kuma (隈研吾), Kwon, Ki-soo (권기수) and Tord Boontje, as well as some incredible photos from Yann Arthus-Bertrand and National Geographic. We’ll be featuring these images as backgrounds on the Google homepage over the next 24 hours.

This page works for Google UK for me. Changing en-GB to the appropriate ISO 639-1 code is getting me the localised pages for other languages. Does that work for you? --Kateshortforbob _talk 13:41, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Incidentally, the White theme looks really weird to me - the text is shadowed and almost illegible (not that I really need to read it).--Kateshortforbob _talk 13:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm finding that it doesn't matter what picture I set it too (incidentally I can't find the white one in the list that LifeHacker mentions), as every time I go back to the homepage there is always another picture. Considering the extremely small amount of time one would normally spend on a Google homepage before using it for what it's supposed to be used for, having a button that changes the background image for that session only seems like a really pointless thing. --KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 14:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks everyone. It seems to be gone now anyway 82.43.89.11 (talk) 20:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Program to help with world cup sweepstakes

I am tasked with doing a sweepstakes in work for the World Cup and am wondering is there any online program that would let me input the staff members names and also teams playing in the world cup to randomly assign a team to a name, there will be 4 seperate draws, I could write up a programe to do this but was checking to see if there was one around to save me the hassle of wriring one thanks. Mo ainm~Talk 12:00, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

The random.org list randomizer does what I think you want. If not, they have a lot of other services. Paul (Stansifer) 15:12, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

iPhone

My IPhone used to 'ping' when ever an email reached my AppleMacPro lap top; it no longer does that, does anyone know why please?--Artjo (talk) 16:02, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you are asking, but I have a few ideas. You could have turned notifications for email off, the account may not be set for push, and instead be set to check for updates every x minutes (or manually), you may have turned the phone to vibrate or mute, or you aren't getting a reliable data connection. Caltsar (talk) 18:16, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, but, PUSH is ON HOURLY, NOTIFICATIONS is ON, SOUND and VIBRATE is ON and I have 100% connection!--Artjo (talk) 05:30, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Weird hidden text in webpage, not in source, but apparent after copying and pasting?

At this eBay listing, there is an item description that reads:

DESCRIPTION

The Bolle face shield has a blue brow guard that protects the top of the head and a polycarbonate lens to protects against impact from flying particles. It’s easy to adjust the headgear and to change the polycarbonate visor.

The Bolle face shield provides: simplicity, comfort and security.

Face shield - polycarbonate flip-up Dimensions face shield - 220mm x 390mm Weight - 254 g

However, if you copy and paste it, there's an extra line:

DESCRIPTION Replacement visors for Bolle BL20 Browguard

The Bolle face shield has a blue brow guard that protects the top of the head and a polycarbonate lens to protects against impact from flying particles. It’s easy to adjust the headgear and to change the polycarbonate visor.

The Bolle face shield provides: simplicity, comfort and security.

Face shield - polycarbonate flip-up Dimensions face shield - 220mm x 390mm Weight - 254 g

The line is not present in the source, so I don't understand where it's coming from?? 92.25.100.105 (talk) 18:22, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I see the line in the source:

<DIV class=tabpanelcontent style="DISPLAY: none">Replacement visors for Bolle BL20 Browguard</DIV>

Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:51, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That's really strange... I don't find it via Firefox 3.7 but when I use IE 8, it opens the source in Notepad++ and there it's visible. 92.25.100.105 (talk) 20:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I saw it using Firefox 3.6.3. Comet Tuttle (talk) 21:43, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Maybe it's done through JavaScript as outlined in this article: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100601/0047399633.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.157.75.7 (talk) 19:01, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I see it using Chrome in the source but it's not there in the copy and paste. In I.E the text doesn't display but it does in the copy and paste. I doubt it's done in the way outlined above, I think it's just browser differences. I can't understand why Firefox and I.E would show it though.66.133.196.152 (talk) 09:51, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

How to check what other people can see of my Facebook profile?

Is there a website which will present to me what other people can see of my profile, dependent on their relationship (friend, friend of friend, public), exactly as they see it? (It could conceivably show me the information only available to friends by letting me befriend a special account, if Facebook allows such practises.) --92.25.100.105 (talk) 18:26, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Navigate to the Privacy Settings page. Select the "Customize settings" link towards the bottom of the "Sharing on Facebook" section. Click the "Preview My Profile" button that is located in top right side of the page. When you have reached this preview mode, you will automatically see how your profile looks to most people on Facebook. To view how your profile looks to a specific friend, just type his or her name in the open field. Mo ainm~Talk 18:49, 10 June 2010 (UTC)