Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 November 5

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November 5

Google Reader shared items

I find that Google Reader is consistently omitting my friends' shared items if they are from blogs I already subscribe to. To see these items, I have to switch to "all items", i.e. they are automatically being marked as read if I already subscribe to that blog. Is anyone else having this problem? How can I make it show all of my friends' shared items? --Anakata (talk) 00:13, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Strange as it may sound, my contacts and I probably do not have any common shared subscriptions on Google Reader. Kushal (talk) 00:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know what's going on, but my friends share stuff from feeds I already subscribe to all the time, and I can see them just fine. Perhaps not so helpful an answer :P 195.58.125.46 (talk) 19:24, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

yay a happy topic name

I just downloaded the "leaked" build of Windows 7. It is in the form of a .TPB.torrent file. How would I convert it out of .torrent? Then the .TPB extension... I have no idea what that is. flaminglawyer^c 01:28, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This appears to be a copyright violation and we don't links, nor do we provide related information. --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 01:33, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Oh. Wow. They should put warnings on stuff like that. Well that's deleted for me. flaminglawyer^c 01:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Could someone direct me to a legal download site for a Win7 beta? I heard (i think it was on neowin, but not sure) that Win7 was being released to developers/testers. flaminglawyer^c 01:45, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You are talking about Microsoft. Beta products go to licensed developers and testers. Purchase your developer license and they'll make sure you have a beta copy to test. -- kainaw™ 02:32, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Where could I purchase a "developer license?" A quick google search gives nothing relevant. flaminglawyer^c 02:40, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You call Microsoft. A friend of mine works there. I asked him what the cheapest developer license is and he said that if you get an upgrade from MSDN to MSDN Premium for $2,500, you get a 1-year license. -- kainaw™ 03:10, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

.torrent files are about thirty kilobytes, did you really think you'd downloaded an entire operating system in about two seconds? You don't seem interested anymore, but see Bittorrent to understand what a .torrent file is. The "TPB" stands for "The Pirate Bay", which is the site you downloaded the file from. (Frankly, the fact that you were surprised that you got a pirated file from a site called "The Pirate Bay" make me think I'm being trolled, but I don't mind. ) APL (talk) 05:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, if you had read the original post, I posted a link to the site where i got the .torrent file. The link was deleted by Gadget850, the second poster, because "we don't links, nor do we provide related information." The link was not to The Pirate Bay, as you can see, but was to some other random site. Which would explain me not knowing what the TPB extension was. flaminglawyer^c 01:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

rofl! You need a BitTorrent client like uTorrent to open the .torrent file. That client will actually download the file. BTW there's nothing wrong with talking about downloading illegal things on Wikipedia. We're not actually sharing the data. --wj32 ^t/c 09:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

And of course the other thing is that if you're downloading something from a 'dubious' source such as code pirates - you're also just BEGGING to have your machine infested with every kind of malware and other vermin. People who can crack the security on such things and are happy to flaunt the law like that are more than capable of writing some pretty vicious malware - and you have to suspect their motives. I certainly wouldn't even CONSIDER doing this - it's so obviously a bad idea. An entire beta OS is a great way to take over another persons machine because you can easily set up the OS defaults to turn off all of the security - and even have the malware pre-installed! If you want to paint a big "INFECT ME SIGN" on your PC, this is a great way to do it! SteveBaker (talk) 14:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

This is exactly the reason why I abstain from Linuxes and similar download OS-es. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 15:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

There is a difference there though - I wouldn't download Linux from a random nobody who I've never heard of - but downloading it (still for free) from places like SuSE, Ubuntu and RedHat who have a solid reputation is very safe indeed. SteveBaker (talk) 17:24, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

And remember, just because it is from torrent does not mean that you cannot run SHA hash functions before you install the OS. Kushal (talk) 21:11, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

So the moral of the story is don't download from torrents because they will kill your computer with a dagger made of molten lava. I get it. But I agree with SteveBaker on that Linux is pretty much always safe if you get from the right places. flaminglawyer^c 01:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. That's like saying you don't use Wikipedia because it's often inaccurate. There's something called common sense. You can usually tell if a torrent has a virus or not (virus scanner, torrent comments). And, I've never seen anyone load up an OS with malware and put that on a torrent site (and again, you can usually tell). --wj32 ^t/c 07:52, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Official torrents are almost perfectly safe. It is the unofficial torrents that are iffy. Ars Technica earlier issued a warning on supposedly leaked Windows 7 and asked readers to NOT download them as they turned out to be a customized Windows Vista SP1^link!. I don't know why I would download a massive, pre-beta software if I did not want to help with the development process, though. (I use pre-beta Firefox/Minefield on some computers, but I honestly believe that my error reports to Mozilla will not be tossed into a trash can.) Kushal (talk) 10:50, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

A lot of people want to see what it looks like and feels like and a screen shot/movie usually can't do justice. At this stage, I'm not convinced there is any point but definitely at a later stage I can understand why people would be interested. I've used betas of various products for a variety of reasons, but I rarely file bug reports. I don't even usually find any (or maybe I do but don't notice or I'm not sure and don't track it down). As for viruses, I have to agree with Wj32 here, despite the scare stories it's actually not that common. More importantly, you can verify the file against a SHA1 and MD5 hash. Of course you need to actually get the hash, but there are various trustworthy sites where it's provided (at least at the later stage). Having said that, I wouldn't recommend someone who can't even work out how to download a torrent do anything of this sort. I don't mean to be rude, but you have a lot to learn before you start trying a pre-beta OS from a torrent site. Nil Einne (talk) 13:49, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Well said, Nil. Kushal (talk) 10:56, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

The .torrent file itself includes an SHA1 checksum, which your BitTorrent will check the downloaded files against. (Indeed, it pretty much has to have one, since the data you download with BitTorrent comes from a bunch of random people sharing it — without the checksum, you'd have no guarantee of getting what you asked for.) So, as long as you trust whomever you got the .torrent file from, you can be sure that the files you download are the same ones the creator of the .torrent intended you to have. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 15:48, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

Download

Why the hell do many download sites demand that you create an account and then do something with a download partner? Young people like me cannot do that stuff. 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:18, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

In almost all cases those sites are just reproducing content elsewhere on the internet without any conditions. Search some more with the specific names of what you are trying to download and you can probably find the original. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 05:29, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You can download partners now? I can see that might be restricted for young people! The wonders of the internet never cease to amaze me. :) Dmcq (talk) 10:03, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Most sites want to get you to create an account for a least a couple of reasons: User-tracking (they track how you use/how much you use the site to further development), security (they tie your activity to an account e.g. if they need to identify you to authorities they stand a better chance), repeat-custom (if you went to the effort of signing up you might feel inclined to use their service again since you're already registered etc. Your best work around is www.tempinbox.com it's a throw-away email address (no passwords, no setup) and it lets you specify any email address (e.g. WhyWouldIDoThat@tempinbox.com) on the form and then just go to tempinbox.com and input that email address to access the mail. Signing up to sites you don't plan on re-using this way is pretty useful. There is NO security on tempinbox so anyone can access the email address you specify so don't use it for secure stuff/important things, it's just useful for throw-away logins you might need to get access to something in particular. 194.221.133.226 (talk) 10:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

He/she is referring to sites that make you sign up for a "free credit test" or something dubious like that. As I said, it's usually the case that such sites are not original generators of content—often they are just hosting files others have uploaded to RapidShare or something like that. It's a rather predatory racket. --98.217.8.46 (talk) 13:37, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I'd infer that the consensus is to advise you to stay away from those websites. Captain Obvious strikes again! Kushal (talk) 21:09, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Question

Are there any forums for the site [www.rom-freaks.net Rom Freaks]? 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Spam? Moreover, it is considered poor etiquete to delete someone else's text in a talk page. Kushal (talk) 10:42, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

Reporting

On GameFAQS and Yahoo Answers, whenever I report a comment that is off-topic, offensive, etc, I never, ever get a respose. Why is that? Those sites should be designed so that people have the right to take such comments off of their own topics. 121.219.2.201 (talk) 05:34, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The topics do not belong to the questioners. They belong to the website (read the legal junk). Yahoo Answers does have the ability to demote comments that are off topic or offensive. If a person is demoted enough, his or her account can be blocked. -- kainaw™ 13:39, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You don't get a response because they don't have the staff to deal with it. Sites like that rely on the fact that if 200 people say something is off-topic or offensive, then they will probably have someone look at it. But if there's just one person or a dozen who say so, that isn't enough signal to cope with the noise of people clicking things at random, and isn't worth their time. They no doubt have some sort of system somewhat like this set up, because there is just way too much information to process otherwise. And they certainly don't regard your individual flag as being important, and they certainly don't have time to get back to you personally. --140.247.243.184 (talk) 19:23, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

is there any open source webzine, ezine, online magazine software?

I have googled all day for webzine, ezine and/or online magazine open source software. If anybody can suggest some names and, probably, we can make a list on wikipedia? I would prefer php software, if possible. Thank you in advance Renich (talk) 06:49, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

• What do you want the software to do? I use a simple HTML editor and once I get another domain, I'll be able to use PHP too. I think you're better off getting the different coding bits from separate sources. The basics: web shop function (if you want readers to pay; make sure you have plenty of freebies, otherwise no one will invest), password function for readers to login, and mailing list software. - Mgm|^(talk) 20:19, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
• Drupal and Wordpress are the most popular solutions. You could also try Textpattern, Joomla, or ExpressionEngine. These all run on PHP with a MySQL database. Pretzels^Talk! 03:30, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Program Help

i finally got a new computer and its awesome, but someone keeps screwing with it and i come home from school to find a virus or spyware on my computer. I use a firewall and virus scanner and when i get home they have been turned off. I would like to write a program that will start a screensaver, then append a log file when the screen saver is deactivated. I'd like the program to be in either C#, C++, or Visual Basic. Also, i am curious as to whether or not this can be accomplished using an MS-DOS Batch File. Appreciate the help. PS-This is not homework. It may sound like it, but this is a serious question as i have no programming skills at all. 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 14:00, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

I don't know of such a thing - and I'm not sure it really helps. But why don't you put a new password on your account, and make sure you changed the password on the admin account - and keep both of those secret - remove the accounts for anyone else whom you do not 100% trust and for those you do trust, make sure that they set up passwords and keep them secret. Now set up the screen saver so that you have to type in your password to deactivate it. (Assuming you're running Windows - open up the control panel - click on the "Display" icon - then the "Screen Saver" tab - then check the box labelled "On resume, password protect"). If the screen saver pops up too often when you are working - then the need to repeatedly enter the password will get annoying - so increase the delay before the screen saver kicks in and get in the habit of typing Ctrl-Alt-Del and clicking "Lock Computer" whenever you walk away from the machine for any length of time. Then, nobody will be able to use your computer except you. SteveBaker (talk) 14:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

(Edit conflict.) Windows already has a log for such things (Start --> Run... --> eventvwr.msc). It keeps track of such actions and its log can be exported as a text file. Screen savers themselves (.scr files) often contain viruses since they are programs. You could also keep a log using a batch file. You wouldn't need anything fancier than that. To start a screen saver, you'd type the name of the screen saver followed by a /s. Also, Windows comes with a file written in VBScript for accessing the log via the command line. To start the Bezier screen saver, and keep a log, you'd type this into a file with a .bat extension:

ssbezier.scr /s
cscript C:\WINDOWS\system32\eventquery.vbs | sort > log.txt

The cscript command runs the .vbs file and the > outputs the results to a text file named log.txt. The | character allows a command to be run on the output, in this case sorting it. You can also search the output, and so on.--Account created to post on Reference Desk (talk) 14:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Ahh...that will work! thanks! 31306D696E6E69636B6D (talk) 17:42, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Another in need of help!

I have a confounding problem with my new computer with Windows Vista. I spelled out the details here [1]. If someone with some expertise would take a look and offer advice, that would be greatly appreciated. Handicapper (talk) 15:06, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Try right-clicking the taskbar and going to the Toolbars menu. I'm not sure will it work for Vista, but it works for XP or any older Window. Admiral Norton ^(talk) 16:01, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

What would I do when I get there? Handicapper (talk) 16:43, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Unless you really need Google Toolbar, I would suggest visiting the "Programs" thingy in the control panel and uninstalling it. Astronaut (talk) 17:27, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

That's the strange thing, I don't have Google Toolbar. Handicapper (talk) 18:12, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Have you recently deleted the file C:/DELL/E-Center/index.­html ? I also did this search and quickly found a forum page - you might find it useful. Astronaut (talk) 18:36, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Standalone data entry system

I made this data entry system - basically a web app. which runs on ASP.NET & MySQL. It's a few simple forms and some nice graphics to illustrate statistics etc. running on a web server. Now the powers that be is asking me to make a standalone version you can dump on a laptop (without internet) so people can do data entry on the fly.

So I'm thinking I'll just make a simple app. without all the fancy features - which allows you to enter data with a simple function which copies all the data onto the webserver once you hook up to the internet.

I only ever messed around with web sites, I have never made a standalone program before, so help me out here. The app. is so simple I suspect I can just write and compile it in Visual Studio - can't be too different from what I got now - but what database do I use? I can't very well use MySQL? It's going to be installed on 200+ laptops so this needs to be REAL simple and manegable. 194.239.246.106 (talk) 16:25, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

You could probably use SQLite for the data store. As you say, the majority of your code ought to be pretty easy to port, with the addition of some forms for the interface in place of the HTML. Of course, you'll then need some way of the standalone app "reporting" the data back to the central server, but that can be as simple as authenticating and then posting to an import script that dumps it straight into the master DB (with a bit of sanity checking, obviously). - IMSoP (talk) 19:32, 9 November 2008 (UTC)

Bluetooth Caller ID

Is there a free program out there that will pop a caller ID notification on my Vista computer from incoming calls to my cellphone. I have bluetooth capabilities on both. I have the LG enV. (the original) --omnipotence407 (talk) 19:31, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

Background change when locked

Hey,

Is there a program that let's you change your background when you 'lock windows' (windows button + l)? I'm talking about the background when it's locked. Not the desktop background. I'm using Vista by the way.

In advance, thanks! 93.184.122.12 (talk) 20:58, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

There are instructions on how to do it manually here, but it involves messing around with system files so be careful. — Matt Eason ^{(Talk • Contribs)} 21:14, 5 November 2008 (UTC)