Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 April 28

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April 28

What do we call this character?

The character in question appears between the words in the blockquote:

words‎words‎words

What do we call it? I thought it was a zero-width space, but when I copy/pasted it into a URL (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/‎) I was given the invalid title page, so apparently it's an invalid character. Nyttend (talk) 14:09, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

If your and my respective cuts and pastes preserved it okay, it's unicode U+200E, the left-to-right mark -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:15, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

How odd — I encountered it while copy/pasting a few subcategory names into Notepad from Commons:Category:Streets in Bloomington, Indiana. If you copy the name of a street and the number of files in the category (everything from the left bracket before the plus or multiplication sign until the parenthesis after the number of files) and go character by character through the result, you'll find one of these characters immediately following at least some of the category names; I tested it with Adams and Grant Sts, and I expect that there are more. Nyttend (talk) 14:23, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

It's in the original HTML sent by the server - I imagine Mediawiki puts it there for cases where a category name contains R->L characters, and they want to make sure the (1 C, 25 F) thing gets laid out consistently. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:01, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Stickers on laptop: remove or not?

And why do they put stickers on laptops at all? XPPaul (talk) 22:38, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Assuming you mean stickers that tell you about the manufacturer, specs, etc., they do that as advertising, mainly. As for removing them, that's a personal preference, but beware that they may not remove easily, leaving behind an ugly sticky spot. Anything which removes the slime may also damage a plastic case. StuRat (talk) 22:48, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Advertising what for? If you have already bought the laptop... If it's for others to see, they could have put them on a more visible spot... XPPaul (talk) 22:53, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, there's a limit to what consumers will tolerate, and making your laptop look like an Indy car would put it over that limit. (Although Apple manages to put their logo in a highly visible location, but not in sticker form.) StuRat (talk) 23:05, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

What stickers? Mine has four. There are two on the front, pretty ones from Intel and Microsoft, telling me what processor and what version of Windows I have. They are pure marketing and could be removed. (But see Stu's warning above re sticky mess.) One on the back contains the serial number (often abbreviated to S/N or similar). This is critical if you ever want warranty service from the manufacturer or its representative, so don't remove that. The other has the national contact phone number of the supplier, for when I want service. Think I'll leave that too. HiLo48 (talk) 22:55, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Right, I meant the stickers on the palm-rest. Those on the back are useful and non-obstrusive. XPPaul (talk) 22:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Well you can remove those, too, and if your laptop is ever stolen it might well put the thief at a disadvantage — what you don't want to do is lose the information... if you want it. :p
Most of them come off alright, and if you didn't know one of the best ways to remove excess adhesive left by a sticker is with the sticker you just removed. The last Windows sticker (IIRC) I removed, though, had an awful gel adhesive that was truly a pain to remove... but it did come off eventually. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the disadvantage for a thief if he doesn't know the s/n of a laptop. Quite in contrary: if the thief let's the s/n there, there's a low chance of recovering the laptop. XPPaul (talk) 23:18, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Found that a little hard to parse. ¦ Reisio (talk) 08:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

For those who remove the sticker and are left with a stick spot, Orange Power's Sticky Spot & Goo Dissolver is very good at removing residue from stickers. I don't know if it's available outside Australia, but I expect that there are similar products on the market. A Google search for "sticky spot remover" finds a few. (I hate the unnecessary stickers that so many companies insist on putting on things these days, so I usually remove them. the aforementioned product is very good at cleaning up the residue.) Mitch Ames (talk) 01:23, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

WD40 does the job well too85.211.154.241 (talk) 06:07, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

...except that it leaves your laptop smelling like an oil refinery. Wintergreen oil leaves it smelling nice, but it might damage some plastics, so test a spot with a Q-tip first. StuRat (talk) 06:20, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the customer will think How privileged and delighted I am to be using Windows X [where X=Vista or whatever] and how I enjoy this subtle but continuous reminder that I am part of the worldwide community of Windows X users!

I've never quite felt this way myself, but I'd guess that many do, judging by the way they like to tell the world of their delight to buy from, and advertise, "TOMMY HILFIGER" or "DKNY" or "STÜSSY" or whatever.

Even within electronics, there's nothing new about this. Thirty years ago a Sony cassette recorder would announce that it was "SONY" and "STEREO" and (if I remember right) a "TAPECORDER" (or some similar odd Sony coinage that never caught on) and had "DOLBY B NOISE REDUCTION" (or something like that). All presumed terrifically exciting to the adolescent male, I suppose.

My own labels stay on as I can't be bothered to remove them, let alone replace them with labels that name what it is that I've replaced Windows with.

When I bought the computer I'm typing on now, from the online store of one of the best known oligopolists, there were various options (e.g. hard disk capacity), but OS wasn't among them. Any OS I wanted, as long as it was Windows 7. I was allowed to write a message; I therefore wrote "No OS, thanks." Reply: This was not an option. My counter-request: "OK, Windows 7, but no Windows sticky label, thanks." Reply: This was not an option. My guess is that the seal on the top is part of a package deal between the "maker" (i.e. marketer) and Microsoft. -- Hoary (talk) 06:34, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

My understanding is that the 'intel' stickers (at least) are on the computer because the laptop/computer making company are given a financial incentive by Intel to do so. Apple, apparently, refused the incentive and didn't want the sticker on their machines (http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal-tech/smart-phones/229215275). ny156uk (talk) 07:50, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Buy a Mac, they are sticker free.85.211.154.241 (talk) 09:42, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

The mac it self is one giant sticker. Vespine (talk) 01:46, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Apple want people to believe their products are made by Apple, not a collection of various technologies, not reall any different then most computers these days. They don't put Samsung stickers on their iPhones and iPads either even though the processors inside are made by Samsung (admittedly they were designed by apple, but using technology licensed from ARM). Vespine (talk) 01:55, 30 April 2012 (UTC)

Mac screen not framed in window

I think I must have inadvertently changed my screen viewing options but for the life of me I can't figure out how to get back to regular viewing (I've searched in system preferences everywhere). The problem is this: Until today the dock t the bottom of my imac screen, and the menu bar at the top were always visible. Now, they disappear and only appear when I move my mouse pointer to those areas. Meanwhile, it appears that the entire screen size has magnified, such that icons that were near the top or bottom of the screen and near the edges are now partially or wholly off the screen, and when I move my mouse pointer up the entire screen shifts within the frame. Any help?--108.54.17.230 (talk) 23:15, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know about Macs, specifically, but that behavior sounds like what happens when you (or some application you used) set the screen resolution beyond what your monitor or graphics card supports. Try lowering the screen resolution. StuRat (talk) 23:22, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

I also don't know about Macs, specifically, but I'll answer anyway too. That behavior looks like a universal access feature for seeing impaired, a 'zoom' feature. To turn it off, under System Preferences, go to Universal Access and look for zoom. This feature zooms in on a portion of your screen at greatly increased magnification with a keyboard shortcut. Some people love this, but I find it slightly disorienting.XPPaul (talk) 23:35, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the answers. Neither is the issue though. In universal access, zoom is set to off. When I lowered the screen resolution, everything became huge, and the icons on my screen, where the usually are, were now all overlapping, so it can't be that either.--108.54.17.230 (talk) 23:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

Sound like you raised the resolution. Go the other way. StuRat (talk) 23:58, 28 April 2012 (UTC)

No, when you lower the screen resolution everything gets bigger. Try it. I went from 2560 x 1,440 to 1920 x 1200 in the test. By the way, learning from the menus displayed, I checked what the "native screen resolution" for my 27" imac is, using a google search, and the current resolution is the "native".--108.54.17.230 (talk) 00:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

I've also seen this happen when swapping monitors or graphics cards, if the resolution was set to a value the first monitor or graphic card supports, but beyond what the new monitor or card supports. (The graphics card issue could happen without your knowledge, if the premium graphics card goes bad/get's jostled loose and your computer automatically reverts to it's default on-board graphics.) StuRat (talk) 00:02, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

That might be it. I can tell you this occurred suddenly today, working normally this morning. But it's alwats possible I hit some weird combination of commands while typing earlier. It seems more like a "full screen mode", like your browser does where all the menu bars are hidden and only become visible when you page over them.--108.54.17.230 (talk) 00:08, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Try system preferences -> Dock. There's an option there for "Automatically show and hide the dock". There might be a similar option for the menu bar, but I'm not sure where that is. RudolfRed (talk) 01:39, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried rebooting? You might also try the "detect displays" in the Display section of System Preferences — it might be confused as to what kind of monitor you have (which would be pretty unusual). For good measure, you can also try zapping the PRAM. But what you describe does sound like Zoom mode (ctrl+mouse wheel or ctrl+two fingered trackpad), though that ought to have shown up in Universal Access if that was what going on. --Mr.98 (talk) 02:58, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

This site (http://lixlpixel.org/mac-keyboard-shortcuts/) lists some of the short-cuts for changing the 'zoom' - I know i've accidentally knocked universal-access zoom on and struggled to remove it. The combo I think you need is 'Option + command + asterisk (*)'. The Command key is what some people refler to as the Apple key (it used to have an apple logo on the key much like the Windows key does). ny156uk (talk) 07:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)