Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 December 23

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December 23

Main differences between Git For Windows and Acquia Dev Tool?

Can someone please detail, in the simple way possible, what I didn't find in the net? What are the Main differences between Git for Windows and Acquia Dev Tool? Aren't both of them different packages of Unix-based tools? If these are not packages of different Unix-based tools, then how would you define them? and what are they besides that? 79.178.163.10 (talk) 07:17, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

That question is a bit hard to answer, because the built-in assumptions seem to be weird. It's a bit like "What is the main difference between e and -170011? Aren't both numbers?" The Acquia Dev Desktop is a collection of tools for developing Drupal websites, which conveniently integrates with Acquia's hosting services. Git for Windows is a port and package of git for Windows. Git is a distributed version control system, i.e. it allows you to keep track of changes to sets of files, and to reconcile changes made on different development branches. A version control system (and today frequently git) is part of most development environments. So both of your systems contain some tools from the Unix/Linux/Free software community, but they address different problems - Acquia is more specialised, but likely also has more functionality, and Git for Windows is more general, but just addresses one aspect of a typical development cycle. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:47, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Undo changes in dropbox

Hi, ive messed up a file on my computer, and its in the dropbox folder. Therefore, I assume, next time i log in, it will presumably update on dropbox, and that file will be messed up too. Can i undo the update by logging in to dropbox and finding the undo button? I know you can do this if you are working directly on the web, but what about dealing with updates that happen automatically from your filesystem? Thanks IBE (talk) 13:31, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

What if you rename the local file, delete it entirely, or otherwise attempt to disrupt the link between the version on Dropbox and the version on your hard drive? You can put it on a flash drive as a backup, if losing the file entirely would be worse than merely having the messed-up file. Nyttend (talk) 15:36, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

But surely that will update just the same, won't it?? I mean the dropbox file will update whatever changes I make, including deletions, I would think. 58.222.111.50 (talk) 19:34, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Just log in to your Dropbox account from another computer and download the important file, then copy it to your computer and all is as it should be. Dbfirs 19:47, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

If you go to "Recents" in the Dropbox web interface, and then click on the three dots to the right of the name of the file, you will see a menu that includes the option "Previous versions", from which you should be able to retrieve a copy of the file before you messed it up. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 16:07, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Thanks to you all - problem solved IBE (talk) 22:30, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

Familiar With Microsoft Word ?? Need a bit of assistance with "Sort ascending," or making it possible to read my Tables in chronological order.

• Question moved from Humanities Desk at questioner's request.

Anyone happen to be familiar with Microsoft Word ???

I am working on some documents where I make lots of different Tables with different sections, and I really need to be able to "attach" the option of reading each different section in a chronological, alphabetic, numerical order etc. I believe the English call it "Sort Ascending." You know, so that you can switch between viewing the sections as you please, in an orderly fashion. I am convinced that Microsoft Word must have this option/tool, considering how otherwise advanced it is. But I can't find the option in the toolbar above. It must be there though...

If it is somehow unclear what I mean, here's a random example from one of Wiki's articles. Here the Tables has three different sections which you can switch between reading in chronological order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers

Like I said, I need to be able to use Microsoft Word to include "Sort Ascending" in my tables. Krikkert7 (talk) 14:42, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

It's easy to use Microsoft's sort table function, but I assume that you want a symbol at the top of the column that when you click it produces this effect. For this you need a Word Macro. You don't have to use Visual Basic to write this, you can record the macro and assign it a shortcut key or button. The method for assigning to a button is given not here. If you are preparing a table for use in Wikipedia, then the procedure is much simpler, of course. Dbfirs 15:43, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The link you gave me, it is for Microsoft Excel... It works for Word also ? Krikkert7 (talk) 17:17, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake. I originally had a different link. This is the Word version, but this is simpler if you don't write Visual Basic. Dbfirs 17:32, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

We have a Computing reference desk, where this question would have attracted a more appropriate audience. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 19:17, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Jack of Oz. Yes, of course. My bad. I didn't even realize my mistake until you pointed it out to me now... Silly and unnecessary mistake. I do not know how to move the question to the Computer reference desk though. Krikkert7 (talk) 20:50, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Could any Word experts please contribute here? My "button macro" method works but the button seems to vanish after use. My version of Word is very old, so perhaps there is an easier method in modern versions? Dbfirs 15:28, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Firefox needs 500 MB, to show me a 100 KB file

Firefox needs 500 MB, to show me a 100 KB file. Why is it so heavy weight? --Bickeyboard (talk) 16:04, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

What plugins/extensions are running? Don't say "none" without looking. A fresh install usually has some plugins/extensions preinstalled. Then, are you certain that the 100KB file is *all* that is being loaded? Nothing else is being loaded in the background? 209.149.113.52 (talk) 16:13, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

1) There's the overhead from loading Firefox itself.

2) Space might be allocated in larger chunks than the file size.

3) I believe the "rendered" version may be significantly larger than the file which created it. For example, an HTML file with just text links may be quite small in the file, but rendering that to produce actual clickable links requires more space. Or a small pic can be enlarged or duplicated when displayed, also requiring more memory. StuRat (talk) 16:34, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I have 7 plugins, like DownThemAll, Adblock. Running Firefox in safe mode (hence no plugins) implies a smaller footprint, but not much less than 300 MB. --Bickeyboard (talk) 16:38, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Can you tell us what's in the file ? That may offer a clue as to why it takes more space to display. StuRat (talk) 16:40, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

I mean any file, even this web-page or some news. In general, it's about the distance between say opening a text editor + image viewer with the text and all images of a page OR using Firefox, which implies several hundred MB. AFAIR, in the past Firefox did not need so much RAM.Bickeyboard (talk) 16:46, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

There are some other browsers specifically designed to have a small footprint, especially on Linux. You might consider one of those. StuRat (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

There is no relationship between opening a file in a text browser and opening it in a web browser. The web browser renders the HTML+CSS+JavaScript in a graphical way. There is a lot of overhead involved in building the DOM tree with all the elements. Further, there is no reason for a program to avoid requesting all the memory it *might* use. We are long separated from the days when requested memory was actually in main memory. Now, requested memory is placed in some form of a backing store. When used, the data from the backing store is moved into main memory. When really used, it is moved from main memory into cache. When really really used, it is moved from cache into the internal cache. Since you aren't actually using more "main memory" when requesting 500MB of space, why not request it? It doesn't do any harm. It may even speed things up since you won't have ask for more allocated space later. Now - if you really really want a very very tiny memory use for a web page, look into using Lynx. It is surprising how many web pages are still functional with a text-only browser. 209.149.113.52 (talk) 17:25, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

Flush the cache →STRG+SHIFT+DEL. Is there an update downloading? What about addons? Remove unneccessary addons. --Hans Haase (有问题吗) 23:27, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

I don't get what this means. STRG? And could flushing the cache improve things? --Bickeyboard (talk) 14:27, 26 December 2015 (UTC)

Strg seems to be German for Ctrl. If you do press Ctrl+Shift+Del, be sure to deselect things that you don't want to erase (probably everything except Cache). I'm not sure it'll reduce the memory usage in any case. -- BenRG (talk) 04:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

You didn't say what operating system you're using or what memory-usage number you were looking at. When I started Firefox on Windows just now with no pages open, it had a "virtual size" of about 500 MB and about 140 MB of "private bytes" (according to Process Hacker). Virtual size is almost meaningless in terms of actual memory usage. Private bytes is a reasonable approximation to virtual memory usage, but some of that may be reserved disk space (in the page file) that never ends up in physical RAM. -- BenRG (talk) 04:26, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

I was running Linux, and I now I realize that the claimed RAM is not equal to the really-used-RAM. Bickeyboard (talk) 13:16, 27 December 2015 (UTC)

DNS success without answer

I am hoping someone can help me understand this. I am parsing incoming DNS responses. My RCODE is 0, so no error condition. My QR bit is 1, so it is a response. However, my Answer Count is 0, which seems like I didn't have success after all. Whenever this occurs, my Additional Count is greater than 0, usually but not always 1. What is this telling me? Tdjewell (talk) 17:10, 23 December 2015 (UTC)

From RFC 1034, paragraph 6.2.6, this indicates that the DNS server hasn't found an A record, but has found the servers for the TLD, which should be in the Additional section of the response. This is the response you'd expect if the RD bit isn't set in the query or the server doesn't support recursive queries. Tevildo (talk) 20:02, 25 December 2015 (UTC)