Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 May 29

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May 29

Smartphone

what is the criteria for a phone to be a smartphone and is this phone a smartphone

• www.gsmarena.com/nokia_x2_01-3610.php 115.117.244.158 (talk) 07:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

See Smartphone and Nokia X2-01. From those, it is more properly called a feature phone. Dismas|^(talk) 08:07, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

kindle shopping

would it be possible for me to buy a kindle as a present for a friend, download a few books onto it and still have it so they can also buy books for it? would I need to create them a whole new amazon account for the purpose or something?

Kitutal (talk) 12:24, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes you need to create an amazon account for them, or else learn their password if they have one already. You could always just buy them the kindle then let them set up and then buy some books for them--Jac16888 ^Talk 13:36, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

great. but can I upload stuff off my computer onto one? Kitutal (talk) 15:48, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, but for some odd reason you can't create "collections" unless it's connected to an account--Jac16888 ^Talk 15:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

so if I have an e-book downloaded to my computer, I can get it onto a kindle as well? how? Kitutal (talk) 15:59, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Using the usb cable that comes with the kindle.--Jac16888 ^Talk 16:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

but I can't send stuff remotely in any way? :( Kitutal (talk) 16:09, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Not until you have an account set up, you can an email address (xxx@kindle.com) for it which delivers content straight to it. (this is all the wi-fi version I'm talking about btw, don't know about the 3g one, but I would imagine you can't access the 3g without setting up the account first)--Jac16888 ^Talk 16:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The Kindle User's Guide is available on-line here. Gandalf61 (talk) 16:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

While I can understand the frustration one might feel to not be able to arbitrarily put content on another person's device remotely without their participation, keep in mind that this is an obvious security feature. Imagine what mischief I could get up to if I could easily upload content to your Kindle remotely without your account information... people could stuff other people's devices with Janet Evanovich books, a fate worse than death... --Mr.98 (talk) 00:43, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

You can gift Kindle content to an email address [1] but it will be up to the user if they want to accept it as with most gifts of this sort. Nil Einne (talk) 01:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Incidentally, Amazon's customer support is staggeringly good (original research). Simply calling them and explaining what you want to do might be the most fruitful option. Matt Deres (talk) 15:24, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

If you don't have any specific books in mind that your friend wants, you could download free (non-DRMmed) e-books from e.g.Project Gutenberg (mostly old stuff, for which the copyright has expired, no NYT bestsellers) and put them on the Kindle using the USB cable. Also, I think Amazon has gift cards that the person you give them to can redeem for paid e-books, so you wouldn't have to fumble around with their account (in case they have one already.) 92.226.94.8 (talk) 23:57, 3 June 2012 (UTC)Oops, didn't notice this was archived. But anyway, a gift card is probably the most elegant solution92.226.94.8 (talk) 00:04, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Why learn those linux editors: emacs, vi, ex, vim

I'm new to Linux and want to know if you do have to know those Linux text-editors like emacs, vi, ex, vim and why. OsmanRF34 (talk) 22:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

No, it's possible to work without knowing any of those editors (although I personally am an emacs fan and think it's still the best editor around for many purposes). Looie496 (talk) 22:10, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're coming from a Windows-ish or Mac-ish background, you may find kate easier to learn. --Trovatore (talk) 22:51, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

The question is if it's useful or even essential. But thanks for the tip. OsmanRF34 (talk)

It's not essential, but absolutely, it's useful. There are things you can do easily in vi that you can't do as easily in kate or emacs, things you can do easily in emacs that you can't do as easily in kate or vi, and things you can do easily in kate that are at least harder to learn in vi or emacs. So ideally, it's nice to know all three. But if you just want to do some text editing and don't want to spend a lot of time learning how, then kate is your friend. --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

If you're ever going to work on multiple systems, or systems that you don't own, learn vi -- it's the ONE option that is always available everywhere. Yes, it's relativly primitive compared to the others, and you don't have to use it as your primary editor by any means, but consider the credibility hit (and embarassment factor!) of the alternative -- walking into a site to assist them, and NOT being able to use the most common, widely-available editor, which happens to be the only one they have on their platform ...

-- DaHorsesMouth (talk) 23:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

What Da Horse said exactly. vi can be a pain, but it's on everything. Sputnik probably had vi running on it somewhere. It's a pain but for quick config changes, or whatever, vi is invaluable. I see less use for the full-featured word processors like emacs. Shadowjams (talk) 07:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I certainly agree that it's worth learning vi; it's what I use much of the time. I'd like to know emacs but not enough to spend the time required (also, there's the witticism that emacs is a great operating system; too bad it doesn't come with a better text editor). But if the question is, do you have to know any of these to use Linux, the answer is, no, you don't have to. --Trovatore (talk) 08:28, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

From my own experience: I've been using Ubuntu for a year now on my laptop. I use it for web browsing, word processing and watching videos. I have never needed to use any of the text editors you mentioned, nor do I feel the need to learn about them. I occasionally use Gedit if I need to make a quick 'n' dirty note about something, or to fiddle around with a string before copying it into the terminal. But I suspect that if you're just using your computer, as opposed to programming it or editing HTML or something, that you'll get along fine without ever going anywhere near any of the programs you've listed. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 14:19, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I always keep a terminal window open, partly because I use vim many times a day, largely to write quick shell scripts ad hoc for various tasks such as resizing a whole bunch of images or choosing at random from a list of webcomics. — You needn't count vi, ex, vim separately; vim is a version (or clone) of vi, and if I remember right vi was originally a 'visual' interface to ex; if you hit a colon in vi(m) you get the ex command-line. —Tamfang (talk) 18:16, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

It really depends on what you plan on using your Linux machine for. If it's just everyday use, you probably will not need to learn a text editor. It's only if you plan on doing a lot of heavy text editing (if you want to develop software, or write shell scripts and the like) that you'll find having a grasp of those text editors helpful. - Akamad (talk) 22:37, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Honestly I would recommend knowing a text editor in any case; it's terribly useful. This is not limited to Linux — on any platform, you need to know a text editor. I get frustrated with people who insist on using Word for all their text, and then need to run Word when they use it, when (on Windows for example) they could just have used notepad or wordpad, and problem solved.

I thought the question was not "do I need to know a text editor", where the answer is "maybe you don't really have to but you really should, even if you use Windows", but rather "do I need to know a traditional Unix text editor if I'm going to use *nix", where the answer is "no, you don't really need to; other text editors will work too". --Trovatore (talk) 22:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Out-of-date Firefox plugins.

Have been having this error with Ffx 12 for about 10 days now...

Yellow banner at top of page says "Some plugins used by this page are out of date", with a button to click labelled Update Plugins. Doing so opens a new tab, titled Firefox Web Browser -- Plugin Check & Updates.

Apart from a cute fox with a magnifying glass, the primary text on the page says Plugin Finding Service Error / We've encountered an error. Please try your request again later. I have been hoping that others would also have this problem, would report it, and thus that *I* wouldn't have to do anything; but apparently that ain't gonna happen.

Any suggestions? Might the Finding Service Error be related to another message on the page, "For your safety Firefox has disabled your outdated version of Java. Please upgrade to the latest version"? Which came first, the chicken or the egg; the java or the plugin?

Thanks in advance, -- DaHorsesMouth (talk) 22:57, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/plugincheck/ -> http://www.java.com/en/download/inc/windows_new_xpi.jsp ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:24, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Rather than point me to pages I have already visited, do you have an actual suggestion? -- DaHorsesMouth (talk) 02:18, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Sure — did you try reading the pages? ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:37, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, smartass, exactly as I described it above. I'll describe it again just for you in case missed it: "Apart from a cute fox with a magnifying glass, the primary text on the page says Plugin Finding Service Error / We've encountered an error. Please try your request again later. "

Would you like me to post a screenshot?

I will admit to not knowing about the syntax [link] [arrow] [link]. If you could suggest exactly what that customarily means, I could learn something.

--DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

There seem to be several different possible things which may cause this error; a self-signed ssl certificate from mozilla [2], disabled javascript or adblocker addons which interfere with the page javascript [3], or a very slow internet connection [4]. Most of those pages appear to be quite old though, so your problem may be something new. The java issue is most likely not related AvrillirvA (talk) 11:09, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your opinion on the java issue, I was wondering if one problem was causing the other. Thanks! DaHorsesMouth (talk) 01:35, 1 June 2012 (UTC)