Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 January 8

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January 8

Suggestion regarding configurability

Hi all, just looking to see if this has been thought of, and especially, if it has ever been tried. My usual problem with computers is I want to configure them my own way, but the market says things should be done in some generic, usually irritating, way. My own solution would be to have a full, detailed configuration file, that the user can edit at will, controlling all sorts of things like the placement of buttons etc, and even the window size. For the casual user, there would be a default that could be restored at will, and for people like me, it would be easy to back up the configuration file, and switch to that at any time. Sample files and their key specs could also be posted all over the internet, so you could find people who think like you, and copy things from them. For me, the biggest nuisance it would solve is having to resize windows whenever I have too many things open. I could switch between two or three configurations at the click of a mouse, rather than having to drag things around. Has this been suggested/tried? IBE (talk) 00:47, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I don't think most people would be happy editing configuration files. After all, one letter wrong or misplaced quotation mark, and the whole things fails. I'd prefer if all applications had a similar mechanism for changing all their settings, and had an option to save those settings permanently (as a hidden configuration file). StuRat (talk) 00:58, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Most people wouldn't edit them. They would copy them, and could even download them as read-only, to make sure no one else edited them either. IBE (talk) 01:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Sounds like you should try a Unix system. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:25, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I'm a Unix/Linux fan, and have been for some time, but of late it really hasn't been a bed of roses. My last attempted install failed, so I've been struggling with Fedora 4 (you read that right) for some time. It was probably obsolescent when I got it (around 2005), and it has struggled since. I also need Xcode, and the latest I've read says you can't do that with emulators. Linux never seemed configurable in the method I've described, since I've never heard of specific subfiles for configuring the gui, eg. with OpenOffice. Obviously configurable overall, if you are prepared to learn C/ Unix programming directly, but that would be rather too time consuming. IBE (talk) 03:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Well you should of course try using a modern distro. You do not need Xcode, but you could run it in a VM. Most software on Unix systems is, as you may know, configurable, usually via plain text files, that are stored in the user’s home directory. This includes configuration files for the GUI toolkits (which control UI appearance). They don’t provide configuration options that the authors didn’t make available, but they do expose all that were made available. I think it’s the closest you’ll come out of any OS family. There’s no harm going farther and creating your own even further standardized/unified approach, however. :) ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:43, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Does this help? - Cucumber Mike (talk) 13:13, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Certainly along the right lines - good to know it has been thought of. I sort of get the feeling Linux is still a boffins' community, and I'm a little clueless at times, but I shall definitely try to keep in touch with Linux/Unix. The problem like I say is that my last install failed (disk errors I think), so I'm at a loss at the moment. There will come a time ... IBE (talk) 01:47, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Wikipedia opening sentences in Google

When I do Google searches in the last hour, I often see the opening sentence or two sentences of an English Wikipedia article to the right of the search results, with a "Wikipedia" link to the article. For example in searches on Barack Obama, Egypt, Mars. On Football I surprisingly get Football Focus (a BBC show) although it's not among the three Wikipedia articles in the page 1 search results and I'm not in the UK. I haven't seen this Google feature before. Do others see it? It would be pretty cool to get this prominence in Google. PrimeHunter (talk) 01:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I’m seeing it. Google does do testing on random users, but this sounds more like it’s already gone live for everyone. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:28, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

A point on Football Focus - Adrian Chiles is not in the "cast", having left quite a while ago after a disagreement with the BBC. Semiable (talk) 21:07, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Adding and removing programs in Windows 8

How can I add and remove programs in Windows 8? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 08:37, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

First search engine result: http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/add-or-remove-programs-in-windows-8.html ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:44, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Flowplayer

How do I install Flowplayer? No matter what I try, after I've unzipped the installation files, I can't find a way to do any further installation. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 08:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It’s a web “application”, not a desktop application, you don’t double-click anything and install it. What you do is place all its files in a place that’s accessible by the web page you’re working on, reconfigure if necessary any of the paths referred to in the source code, and ensure you’ve actually provided some media for it to play. The “HTML5” version of the player may require additional reconfiguration of your web server in order to work as expected, but the Flash version will likely work out of the box. You may wish to visit the Flowplayer forums for any additional assistance. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm confused, then, I bring up a flowplayer video and get sound, but no picture. How do I know where to put the files? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 22:18, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If it’s media that came with the Flowplayer demo, then likely your software for playback is malfunctioning (the browser, most likely, but your graphics hardware and/or its driver could also be at fault, etc.). If it’s your own media, you may need to make sure the video was encoded in the particular format subset required (most likely h.264). ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:29, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It's video I found on a website. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 00:48, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Try re-encoding it as H.264 MP4 with something like WinFF or HandBrake. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:21, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

But wouldn't that require me to download the videos instead of just viewing them from the website where I find them? 216.93.234.239 (talk) 02:19, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

If you want to view them on the website where you found them, I doubt you want Flowplayer. Perhaps you should explain what the original problem is. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:26, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

The original problem is that there are videos on this website that say, in the lower left hand of the video, that they are encoded in Flowplayer. When I try to view them, I get a blank screen and the sound of the video. 216.93.234.239 (talk) 07:57, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Without paying for Flowplayer, the player by default displays a notice at the lower left hand corner saying it’s Flowplayer. Flowplayer can play audio alone as well as video with audio, and without a particular configuration it might show a place where you might think video should be even if there isn’t any. So if the audio makes sense on its own, there might be no video. Otherwise, you may be experiencing one of the aforementioned issues with the “HTML5” version. If you view the page source (typically CTRL+u) you’ll quite possibly be able to find a direct link to the media that you can download. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:32, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

App to compare cellphone plans/cards ?

Per my Q over at the Math Desk: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Mathematics/2013_January_3#Cell_phone_pre-paid_card_optimization, are there any apps out there to calculate the cheapest cell phone plan/card based on your usage patterns ? StuRat (talk) 09:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

very very annoying .swf flash issue!

I have a couple flash games that i love to play. However, it seems that the adobe stand alone flash player likes to store my save data in different places, depending on whether or not i have an internet connection. Because of this, when i came home from college to a house with only dialup, it decided that i "dont have an internet connection" (too slow) and started looking for my save file info in the "offline" folder. The result of this is that my game completely stops to function at the point where adobe flash looks for savegame data. It will work again if i clean my complete browser history in firefox and then wait for some random interval of up to a few days, but then it gets wrecked again when my internet situation changes. Its also very annoying because doing a clear like this erases all my savegame data, so i start all over again!!! I thought the issue was just adobe being programmed in a crummy way, so i went with a different standalone called "Swiff Player".... Only to find out that this player seems to have similar symptoms.

Is there any flash player i can get that doesnt do something stupid like save my files in various hard to find folders based on whether or not i have an internet connection? Is there any fix at all for this? I am very annoyed! Thanks in advance for any solution! :)

172.129.171.165 (talk) 11:51, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You could start whatever player you’d like to use with its ability to connect to the network always disabled. There are various ways to accomplish this. ¦ Reisio (talk) 16:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

A very nice solution, and i dont even have to figure out where my savegame data is being saved. How might i go about doing this? 172.129.15.162 (talk) 17:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If nothing else, couldn't you always disconnect from the Internet when playing those games ? StuRat (talk) 21:19, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You could try one of these: http://seriousbit.com/netbalancer/ http://bandwidthcontroller.com/trafficShaperXp.html. You could also, for example, create a new profile in Firefox and install into it this extension and configure it to start that profile in offline mode always, then assemble shortcuts of the form firefox -P profileNameHere path/to/file.swf. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Visual basics and c#

Can you get these two for free?EatIcecream2 (talk) 18:39, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

see Microsoft Visual Studio Express -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Or even Mono (software). ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

How do you make a flash pop-up?

Not ordinary pop-ups, but flash pop-ups?EatIcecream2 (talk) 18:41, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

A pop-up is a pop-up, if its content is a Flash object, then I s’pose it’d be a “Flash pop-up”. I won’t personally tell you how to create an actual pop-up window without you providing a good reason, but take a look at http://www.google.com/search?q=list+of+lightbox (you can make these be super annoying, too, anyways! :p). The least awful way to embed a Flash object is right here. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:45, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Tell me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!EatIcecream2 (talk) 17:04, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

Some specific notebook keys doenst work.

Some specific keys of the notebook I am repairing (install windows 7 and repair the keys) aren't working, the keys are 7, g, h, y. They will not work, even on dos, so its not an windows problem. Also, those keys works if I use a USB keyboard. I removed the cable and reconnected it, but the keys still not work. What can be done now? Only, buying a key notbook keyboard will solve the problem? 187.58.185.117 (talk) 15:42, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You can try to clean the contacts of the keyboard connector. If this does not work, you should check if the motherboard actually works by attaching a different keyboard. If it works you should replace the keyboard, if not, the problem is in the motherboard. Ruslik_Zero 19:34, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

And just continuing to use it with a portable USB keyboard isn't a terrible option. Sure, it's a bit less portable, but still not bad, especially if the keyboard fits in the same case you use to carry your notepad. StuRat (talk) 21:16, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

If by “DOS” you mean the Windows command prompt, that’s not a good enough way to rule that out, as it is not actually DOS with Windows on top anymore, but Windows (NT) with an emulated DOS command prompt. If it were me, the first thing I’d do is boot up the live OS available at http://www.sysresccd.org/ and see if the keys work from there. You might also want to check the vendor’s website for a BIOS update. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

It seems quite unlikely to me that some of the keys would stop working from anything other than a hardware problem on the keyboard or cable. If the driver went bad, the more likely result would be no keyboard function at all. StuRat (talk) 22:06, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Not likely, yes, especially if they don’t work on more than one OS. The BIOS can still affect such things, however. ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes by dos I really mean DOS (using hirens boot cd), I also tried with another mini xp (using hirens boot). Also, yes, I tried with usb keyboard before posting here (this is on the question text) and they keys (7, g, h, y) works in a normal way.

I cant just use say "I will use a usb keyboard anyway" because its not my pc, i am fixing it to someone else.187.58.185.117 (talk) 10:43, 9 January 2013 (UTC)

You might be able to get a new/refurbished keyboard. Try the manufacturer or simply searching for someone who has one to sell (there's a reasonable trade in old laptop spares on eBay for example). Astronaut (talk) 16:12, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

keyboards get gunked up, even if nobody poured soda on them. i've had pretty good luck resurrecting dead keys on my laptop by prying off the keycap, cleaning out the accumulated gunk (which, despite the key not working, is just around the underneath of the keycap outside of the rubber boot around the center post, not going into the electrical/mechanics of the actual keyboard at all), and snapping the keycap back on. the catch is that unlike standalone keyboards, the keycaps on laptops typically have a slightly complex linkage, but I've been able to replace them just by inspection of the parts to see how they fit together, arranging them in what looks right, and snapping them on. so far, i've got a 100% batting average, on 3 or 4 keys. it's at least worth a try, if the alternative is giving up anyway. Gzuckier (talk) 03:38, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

What determines the symbols available under "special characters" in the edit box?

In linguistics, an asterisk before a sentence indicates the sentence is considered ungrammatical. But the symbol used in textbooks is usually bigger than the asterisk we see here with normal type (*example) and set on the same line as text, rather than slightly above it as my example is. Looking for a "better" asterisk for this purpose, I opened the "special characters" field you see when you edit a page and looked under "symbols" for a bigger, lower lying asterisk. But one is not offered. I have two questions. First, what actually determines what symbols are available there? Is it a pre-determined set according to some general computer code, or is it an edited set of option? Second, is there some other way to get a larger and lower hanging asterisk? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 21:24, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

Symbols below the edit box are determined by MediaWiki:Edittools. Here are a bunch of other Unicode asterisks: [1]. For example, "U+2731 HEAVY ASTERISK" can be made with ✱ which gives ✱. Details of how characters appear or whether they appear at all are often browser dependant. You can also change size, font or placement of a normal asterisk but remember that it may look different to other people. Maybe the simple <tt>*</tt> suits you: *. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:49, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

See also Unicode input. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:52, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

*test &#x2731 test &#x2731 &#x2731 test Hm, I seem to have some sort of problem figuring out the markup. Can you give me the exact heavy asterisk code between nowiki fids? Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 22:02, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

You’ve left out the semicolon at the end; it’s ✱ ¦ Reisio (talk) 22:05, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

test ✱ test - yup, there we go. Thanks! μηδείς (talk) 01:38, 9 January 2013 (UTC)