Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 January 4

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

January 4

Domain name "taken hostage"

A couple of years ago, I had a domain name, say, example.com. Unfortunately, my web hosting provider forgot to renew the domain name, so it lost it. By the time I realised what had happened, someone else (who seems impossible to identify), had registred it. Today, I got a mail from a company, maybe http://dnidomainsonline.com/, offering me to buy the domain back for a lot of money. Is this legal? What can I do? --Andreas Rejbrand (talk) 00:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

See cybersquatting. 00:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

A description of what happens when a domain isn't renewed by its owner is here. The grace periods vary by the country of registry - this page lists some of the times. There are plenty of companies that pick up expired names and sell advertising on them. They probably don't make very much from that, so they try to sell the domain on. If the domain name isn't very interesting then they're probably making very little off the advertising, and selling to you is a wild chance for them to make something. I've heard of people who've mailed these kind of folks and said "Meh, we're already operating successfully from our new domain foobar.com, so the old domain isn't worth much to us. We'll give you $100 for it, no more." They don't have better offer than you, so if you pay them enough for the to be out ahead, they'll probably take it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

And if they don't, mail them back in six months and offer then 90% of what you did the last time. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 01:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I had someone do the exact same thing to me. I wasn't willing to pay the price they requested. So, I waited a few months, checked on my hosting company's web site, and the domain was then available. So, instead of paying $250 to them, I paid $15 to my hosting provider. They have to pay their registrar to have that domain. If they think you won't buy, they'll decide it's not worth it and let it go. I never replied to any of their e-mails or letters, so they figured I wasn't interested in the domain name.

If you don't feel like waiting, you can ask one of ICANN's dispute-resolution providers to arbitrate the issue: [1]. ICANN has policies on domain-name squatting: [2]. However, whether you have a legitimate claim also depends on whether you hold a trademark on the name used in the address.—Best Dog Ever (talk) 01:17, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Domain name dispute arbitration isn't free (this article gives prices); they'll surely be asking for less than the prevailing arbitration fee, or will settle for less. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 01:23, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

SATA cable capacity

I bought a new computer which has a 6Gb/s SATA 3.0 connector. Neither the hard drive nor the motherboard came with any SATA cables, but I've dug one out from a very old computer. As the cable is probably pre 3.0, is it possible it won't be able to carry the full 6Gb/s capacity? Should I get a new one? --86.157.209.191 (talk) 16:10, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

They’re pretty cheap. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:20, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Do you know the answer to the question about the capacity? --86.157.209.191 (talk) 00:15, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The SATA International Organisation's document "The Path from 3Gb/s to SATA 6Gb/s" says of SATA3 "By allowing SATA 6Gb/s systems the ability to utilize the same connectors and cables as SATA 3Gb/s systems..."; so the cabling is the same. But it also notes "In the transition to SATA 6Gb/s, it will be important to use high-quality cabling. Problems may be related to the use of cables made from marginal materials that perform at the edges of SATA 3Gb/s tolerances, which could become a failure point...". So as long as the existing cables you've got are of decent quality, you'll be okay. There's no need to buy new cables unless your existing ones are ultra nasty, and there's certainly no need to buy expensive gold plated cables made from oxygen free copper hand-knitted by yetis. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:39, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

If your talking about a normal hard drive, as opposed to an SSD or hybrid drive then there's double reason not to bother. Some HDs can saturate a 1.5 Gb/s link in some cases now, but they're still far from saturating a 3 Gb/s one. Nil Einne (talk) 12:07, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Thanks all. --86.157.209.191 (talk) 12:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

IRC refdesk command

!rfd or something, I forget. Please do tell. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 17:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Found it: !rdq

Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Is there any linux distro without GNU?

Is there any linux distro without GNU?189.115.201.228 (talk) 19:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Android is one example. ¦ Reisio (talk) 23:21, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

That depends. Android certainly contains code under the GNU GPL (e.g. the Linux Kernel). I don't know if it contains any code which is published by the FSF directly, but I would not be surprised if it did. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:53, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I was not talking about GNU GPL when I said GNU, I was talking about GNU components distros usually linux use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.78.188.225 (talk) 00:30, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Every desktop or server Linux distribution that I'm aware of ships with the GNU C Library, Bash (Unix shell), and the GNU Core Utilities package, all part of the GNU project. The nearest you'd get to a GNU-less Linux build would be an embedded appliance build for things like routers: a system like that could replace glibc with uClibc and bash and coreutils with BusyBox. A Linux system really needs a startup process like init; even the old sys-v-alike init for Linux, while GNU hosted, wasn't part of the GNU project, and many distributions have replaced it; I don't know what an embedded distributions use for this. Building such a system will still take the GNU Compiler Collection and GNU Binutils; in theory these could be replaced with the Clang/LLVM toolchain, but I don't know that anyone does that. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 01:14, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Looking at my router's distro (OpenWRT), it uses BusyBox to provide init. I don't think there's any GNU Project software in the default distribution, though GNU software (GCC and binutils) is used in producing it. --Carnildo (talk) 03:21, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Although on reading the uClibc article it says it "has incorporated code from glibc" (which the changelog suggests covers threads, locales, and random numbers). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 11:37, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

GNU/Linux_naming_controversy#Composition of Linux-based systems claims that Android qualifies, and also mentions some Linux-based embedded systems. -- BenRG (talk) 01:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)