Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 March 10

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March 10

How to automate running of a sequence of command line programs?

In Windows 8.1, I need to automate the processing of a large number of files using various programs. This involves copying files to some directory, running an exe file there incuding clicking on ok. on all messages, running another program on the output files, sending those output files to another directory, and running another program there, and then sending the output file to a directory. And then the process repeats itself with the next batch of files that need to be processed this way. I can formally describe the entire process unambiguously, so in principle it should be possible for the entire task to be automized. So, is there a simple way construct a program that will automatically do what I want to do? Count Iblis (talk) 02:53, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

May be AutoIt or Sikuli [1], but there are many macro programs that could do this, and you could also use a more general purpose scripting or programming language. It will depend significantly on your competence and experience with these as well as how robust you want it to be. Also, have looked in to whether the program with the okay dialog can be asked to not give the ok dialog? Or even better, pass it via some other method so it could be intepreted/parsed more easily. (Presuming it doesn't already do that.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:58, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll look into these programs. When processing tiff files I can get the message "Unknown field with tag 50341 (0xc4a5) encountered" which I have to respond to manually. I don't know about a way for the program to skip these automantically or to remove these fields from the tiff files. Count Iblis (talk) 17:25, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

External USB drive doesn't display in File Explorer

I have a Seagate srd0sd0 external USB drive. It works absolutely fine in one computer. But when I connect it to another computer, it does not display in Windows File Explorer. I can see it in Device Manager, and Device Manager claims it is working properly, but it refuses to display in File Explorer. I've rebooted my computer and the external drive multiple times. I've tried two different USB ports. The computer doesn't have a problem recognizing USB thumb drives. There's something weird going on with this particular external drive and this particular computer. The computer that it works with is running Windows 10 and the computer that it doesn't work with is running Windows 8.1, but I don't think that's causing the problem. I'm really not too sure what to try next. Any ideas? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 02:58, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Aha! I went into Disk Management and manually assigned it a drive letter. Now I see it in File Explorer. Weird. I've never had to do this with a USB drive. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 04:40, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If you have more than one hard drive, the USB may have been assigned a conflicting drive letter. --  Gadget850 ^talk 10:43, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Alternative PDF viewers with a good search function for Windows?

I'm looking for a good alternative to Adobe Reader on Windows, which for some reason has become quite slow in recent versions. One feature that's important to me is finding and listing all occurrences of a string in the document. Any suggestions? --134.242.92.2 (talk) 14:59, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I've had luck with Foxit Reader, though my only experience searching is just typing something in the search bar and hitting "next" repeatedly. They probably have some sort of advanced search, I just haven't needed it. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:06, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Ok, just fiddled with it a bit, and yes, there's an option to have it display every instance of a string (provided there's OCR). It was CTRL+Shift+F instead of CTRL+F. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:10, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Firefox (PDF.js) and Chrome ([2]) both have their own built-in PDF viewers, both of which are pretty good. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Why are domain prices not all more or less the same?

GoDaddy, Namecheap, Hover go from less than $10 to something above $10. GoDaddy is the cheapest. I mean here just buying the domain, not a plan with hosting included. How can a domain registar offer a value added service and how can it screw up if they are too cheap? Is there anything more than having and managing a db with names tied to IPs? Llaanngg (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If anything, this is evidence of an inefficient market. Two competitors can charge different prices for a commodity product. The differentiations they can provide might include bundled service, customer support, and so on; ultimately, the price driver is most probably the success (or lack therein) of their advertisement strategy to attract new customers. Nimur (talk) 16:11, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

If they charge too little they can go out of business and customers may lose access to their content. So that's an argument to avoid "bargain basement" deals. StuRat (talk) 16:12, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

ICANN ensures this cannot happen for a top level domain, using legal and technical mechanisms. RFC3375 and many others. Nimur (talk) 16:33, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm a bit skeptical. They can use insurance so that, if one company goes under, the money is there to pay for another to take over the servers. However, if you have a major downturn (another internet bubble collapse), the insurance company itself may go under. Then you can go to reinsurance, but again, the reinsurance company can go under in really bad times. StuRat (talk) 16:49, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

As of this year, if a top-level registrar fails, the technical data is guaranteed to continue to be hosted by a different registrar: for example, Afilias or Verisign. These other registrars automatically already have the technical data (e.g. the database is automatically redundant - that's how domain name service works). They are contractually obligated to continue to host for (e.g.) 12 months. This is how the technical and business arrangements are designed. For example, read ICANN's 2013 Registrar Accreditation and Public Interest Commitment arrangements. This part of the internet is not as "wild-west" as it might seem to ta casual observer: a lot of care and thought has been put into coming up with good answers to "what-if" questions. The Internet Protocol and the other technologies that underpin our commercial internet were designed to route around nuclear attacks on data-centers: by comparison, routing around any individual business that folds up shop is actually quite easy from a technical standpoint. And if you are thinking of opening up a new registrar - and you don't have enough money in the bank to guarantee continued operation - ICANN will find out when they visit your corporate headquarters to audit you, your finances, and your datacenter. Nimur (talk) 17:25, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

I found a very thorough archived report at ICANN: .ORG Reassignment (2002). This is a pretty fascinating deep-dive into the business principles and market forces that drive domain-name registration and delegation to franchisees. Because the report is very old, (and because this DNS divestment was sort of a one-time public policy change), all the financial numbers are available: operating costs, revenues, franchise fees, total registrants, number of employees needed, and cost estimates from many competing applicants... of course, if you want to flash-forward to a current year business report, or for the much more lucrative .com top-level domain, you can expect to pay a lot of money for an up-to-date business research service report. Nimur (talk) 16:17, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

There are reasons to this, besides what Nimur said above. Think about this: some registars will try to sell additional services (email, hosting service), some will charge you more the 2nd year, some will register the domain as theirs, (with the excuse to grant you privacy), some would stall any transfer to other registars, some will welcome flight by night services (illegal downloads, prescription medicine and the like),some are just re-sellers and have to charge more..

All in all, there is plenty of options to follow a different business strategy. Just consider about a similar case: how can a heavily regulated industry like banking not offer the same services at the same price? People bet on different horses. Noopolo (talk) 02:01, 11 March 2015 (UTC)