Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 April 1

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April 1

Skinning a cat

How many ways are there to skin a cat? --Carnildo (talk) 09:50, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Most pet stores offer a variety of pet costumes, particularly around Halloween. Note that small (or medium, depending on the cat) dog costumes work as well. This is the computing desk, so I guess I suggest you search for pet costumes on amazon.com. Or do you mean cat (Unix), Cat state or .cat? 38.111.64.107 (talk) 14:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Precisely 32 ways according to B-9 --TrogWoolley (talk) 16:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

It depends on how evil you are. Pokajanje|Talk 19:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

One could find out the surface area of an average house cat. Then one could find out the angular resolution of the human eye. These would yield a maximum resolvable number of pixels (or approximations of same) from, say, one meter of viewing distance. Multiply that by the number of resolvable different colours (surely a web search will find that for you), and hey presto, there is your answer. 88.112.41.6 (talk) 20:51, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

How do I find my original spawning point on Minecraft PE v0.6.1?

Hi,

On Minecraft, I would like to find my original spawning point so that I can build a pathway to my house for guests; the only problem is that I can't remember where I spawned in the first place! Is there any way I can know where that point is? Please help me! Jorjamay122 (talk) 12:01, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Use a compass. Or use a level editor. --Mr.98 (talk) 13:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

For the future, you should craft a map ASASP. RunningUranium (talk) 00:39, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

How can I reverse sinification

I use CyberLink Power DVD8 player on my laptop. I purchased The Hobbit on DVD, started playing it, went to the program menu to see if I could change the volume setting, and lo and behold, the menu popped up in Chinese characters. Now, even with a different disk, it is still all in Chinese. I tried pressing every option to see if a "change language" menu would pop up. I have looked on the web, but the only thing I can think of at this point is seeing if I can un- and reinstall it. Any suggestions as to where I can look for a solution? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Just a thought, perhaps that DVD has the wrong DVD region code, causing the player to think you're in China ? Try playing a different DVD, and see if the problem goes away. If it does have region code 6, this might indicate that it's a counterfeit DVD, made in China. If so, return it and demand a refund, after telling them it's counterfeit. Even if they don't normally allow a return of an opened DVD, they are legally obligated to, in the case of selling you a counterfeit product. (You might not think a reputable store would ever sell counterfeit DVDs, but they buy from a supplier who buys from another who buys from another, etc., and nobody may know where the original came from.) StuRat (talk) 16:49, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

That was my first guess, and I do suspect something about the disk, which is the shoddiest and cheapest looking commercial release I have ever seen, caused the problem, since you have to go through a series of submenus to change the language, and I certainly did nothing like that intentionally. I simply right clicked on the program to get the menu and it was in Chinese. The program menu has remained Chinese with other disks since. I can play The Hobbit with VLC player--the DVD menu itself is in English. I am not really happy with any of the player programs, but I did link the "resume" function of CyberLink which is the only reason I use it. μηδείς (talk) 17:08, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, if you can't figure anything else out, I'd go ahead and reinstall it. And return that crappy DVD (after watching it for free on VLC, to compensate you for your trouble). StuRat (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I suspect that the sinification was not entirely occidental. :-) StuRat (talk) 18:06, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Good one. μηδείς (talk) 18:13, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Medeis, I think it's pretty obvious that your fastest and most efficient way out of this predicament is going to be to learn Chinese. --Trovatore (talk) 18:16, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

If only I could cut and paste the characters off the menu I'd use google translate. μηδείς (talk) 18:31, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Look for 語言 in the first menu (this means 'language') and 英語 ('English') to choose the actual language. If it is in simplified characters, it will be 语言 and 英语 respectively. Failing that, take a cropped screenshot of the menu and then OCR it. This should produce an editable (and therefore copypasteable) document for you. Good luck! KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 20:03, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, I will try looking for the characters, that should work. I tried doing a screen shot, but when I open the snip tool the menu closes. This is a similar page to what I expect to see, but fiddling hasn't worked. Could you give me the symbols to expect for "user interface" and "user defined", KageTora? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:33, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

'User Interface' is 用戶界面 or 用户界面, and 'User Defined' would be something along the lines of 用戶定義 or 用户定义. Hope this helps. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 11:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Instead of the snip tool, why not try the older method ? Hit the Print Screen button on your keyboard then go into MS Paint and do an Edit + Paste. StuRat (talk) 22:26, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Wow, actually, I didn't know how to do that, but I see print screen works! (I am used to Macs.) I'll upload a screen shot if it gets to that. μηδείς (talk) 23:34, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

You learn something new every day (and forget something old to make room for it.) StuRat (talk) 22:19, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

How Find A Persons E-Mail Address

If I have 1 e-mail. Address from someone. How do I find all their other. E-mail accounts is there a way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.125.251.254 (talk) 23:38, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Through one of those people search sites like Spokeo perhaps? PCHS-NJROTC ^(Messages) 23:52, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried a People Search or White Pages? 65.24.105.132 (talk) 23:40, 1 April 2013 (UTC) (moved from the humanities reference desk by User:PCHS-NJROTC).

How about e-mailing the person, and asking for other e-mail addresses? --Trovatore (talk) 01:55, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

How about dying in a fireleaving them alone. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:10, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Please Assume Good Faith. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Not possible in this case. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:09, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no automatic, foolproof way to determine what e-mail addresses a given person has, if that is what you are asking. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Alexa statistics

Alexa gives reach and pageviews as a percentage. How do I convert that into an actual number? I don't need highly accurate results, just a ballpark. SpinningSpark 23:47, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

This site [1] partly answers my question by back-calculating global page-views from Wikipedia statistics. Still, some more direct numbers would be appreciated. SpinningSpark 00:06, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

The article Web analytics shows some of the problems with talking about 'actual' page views as opposed to just comparing sites. Dmcq (talk) 10:56, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

If a site claims to have 30,000 users, what is the best method of assessing the honesty of that claim? SpinningSpark 14:24, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Depends what they mean by users. If they just say users without any qualification then it is fairly meaningless, but possibly they say something like people who have bought products in the last year or contributors to a discussion board. It might just mean pageviews for an information site where they have to be careful to exclude robots and probes for weaknesses. Also they have to be careful about whether repeats are counted as one use or multiple uses. For sites giving advertising you have to be careful they aren't trying to take your money by faking views of the advertisement, searching for something like pay-per-click auditing will get you more about that problem. Dmcq (talk) 15:08, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok there might be all sorts of problems and quaifications, but that is no nearer to getting me some actual numbers to look at, however dubious. SpinningSpark 18:38, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Without qualifying what type user you might as well just use the figures you calculated above. Why are you unhappy with them if you are happy with something however dubious? After all users can easily vary by a factor of a hundred or even a thousand depending on what you mean. That is what I mean by 'depends on what they mean by users'. Dmcq (talk) 09:06, 3 April 2013 (UTC)