Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 July 9

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July 9

Symantec Endpoint Protection vs. Norton Antivirus

Is it true that Symantec Endpoint Protection allows unlimited virus definition updates for free (until such time the product is no longer supported), while the regular version of Norton Antivirus will only allow virus definition updates during a set subscription period? 98.116.68.104 (talk) 03:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

No, the software agreement you buy is for a set period of time (i.e. 1 year, 2 or 3 years, etc.) so you're not eligible for updates/definitions after that agreement ends, unless you renew it. They key advantage/difference of SEP is that you can manage all the workstations/settings from the central server. Also you can configure it so only the server downloads the definitions and then pushes it out to the clients (internal traffic, instead of everyone downloading via the Internet).  ZX81  ^talk 06:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Layer 2 Routing Protocols & classification

What are Layer 2 routing protocols and please give a detailed information of its functionaries. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chakri802 (talk • contribs) 06:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The "layer" refers to the OSI model; layer 2 refers to the network link layer. Use caution calling that layer's functionality "routing," because a router is usually a term reserved for a Layer 3 device. However, as this Cisco article from 1998 explains, the line has become blurry as hardware now implements advanced features. A detailed explanation is provided in that article. Nimur (talk) 07:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

LAN Troubleshootng

How to troubleshoot a LAN. Give details of scenarios that often occur and how to resolve those. i need a complete knowledge over a LAN

Perhaps you need to hire a network engineer? Why don't you begin by reading our article on local area networks and come back with a more specific question. Nimur (talk) 07:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I suppose the OP doesn't have a concrete problem, he just want to learn to deal with LAN problems, a link to a LAN Troubleshooting Guide would be the most appropriate. OsmanRF34 (talk) 12:52, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Like this? Frontline-Troubleshooting-Guide from Fluke Networks (115 pages). Note. It requires you to give details about yourself to access the download,- First Name: Last Name: Company: Email: Phone: Job Role: Network Nodes: (?) Zip Code: Country: --220 of ^Borg 09:14, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Ongoing problems with css and firebug

I've been using Firebug for inspecting CSS styles for a while, and it usually does things right, but often enough it somehow manages to not only get it wrong, but contradict itself. Now I have two different things both using an "h3" heading, and showing different font-sizes. I know that that can happen easily enough with different classes and so forth, but they have the same classes, and more significantly, they have the same applied style, as stated by Firebug (font-size 1em). But when I look at the "computed" style panel, it says 15px for one, and 11px for the other. (If you have Firebug, that means the information when I use the right pane in Firebug, and click the leftmost tab, "Style", is different from the information when I use the right pane and the second tab from the left, "Computed". The left tab tells you how the styles were applied, the second one just tells you what is there.) So I'm getting two different answers from the same program. What's going on? And are there any sure ways of fixing it? I don't want to have to do ad hoc styles and classes every time, because this is exactly what CSS was meant to address. Thanks for your help, IBE (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Have you tried reporting your bug here? It's a cool extension, but it does have its bugs. But haven't found anything even comparable yet.. Unilynx (talk) 16:34, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

You should post example code exhibiting the problem for issues like this. --Sean 17:00, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

When one specifies anything, including font-sizes, in ems, one has to know how big an em is. It's my understanding, borne out by some experiment, that the size of an em in the current block is determined by the font-size of its parent (which in turn is inherited up the object tree). So two objects that both specify font-size:2em but which are embedded in different contexts, which have different prevailing font-sizes of their own, will manifest as being different sizes. See the source of this example. So an em is in effect a relative measure (relative to the characteristics of the containing block(s). For this reason I'm personally reluctant to specify font-size in ems (or %, which has a similar context dependence), as moving an object to somewhere else in the tree may change the size of its font, without any change to the CSS. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 19:34, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I think that might be it - I'll do some more sleuthing and check it out. I didn't post source code because it's a big JS file, with lots of writing to the document, and I don't know what the offending portion might be. The relevant code is not overly long, but I wasn't sure what else might be interfering with it, especially when the (apparent) error on Firebug's part looked so blatant. That's usually a sign that I've overlooked something, or it's a well-known bug. I suspect the former, thanks to Finlay's astute observation. An em after all, is just that - the width of a, er, um, em. IBE (talk) 05:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

cable modem

I have a very old cable modem (Scientific Atlanta 2100) which is not in use for anything. I noted that when connected to a computer via the ethernet cable it still serves several configuration pages with images. How easy would it be to replace these pages with whatever I want, in effect repurposing the modem into a tiny web server? I am also interested in figuring out a way to control the LED lights on the front from a computer; being able to turn them on or off independently irrespective of their original purpose. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 15:15, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I can see how it might be fun to try to figure out bizarre things like this for oneself, but it's hard to see any redeeming merit in cluttering up the Reference Desks with them. Looie496 (talk) 15:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

"The Wikipedia reference desk works like a library reference desk. Users leave questions on the reference desk and Wikipedia volunteers work to help you find the information you need." [1] This is a question about a computer-related subject, on the computing desk. 92.233.64.26 (talk) 16:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

This seems to be a pretty valid question to me. More inane questions were already asked an answered here in the RD. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

What are you are talking about is firmware hacking. It can be done — there are dedicated projects to hacking wifi router firmware, like Tomato, among many others, I'm not sure about cable modems — but it's not an easy thing to do, and you'd have to dig up, or figure out, a heck of a lot of detailed stuff about how that particular modem stores information and serves up its content. It's not the worst project idea in the world — you'd learn a lot about firmware hacking in the process, and that's a useful computer skill — but it's one that ranks pretty high up on the technical skill requirement. You'd be better off soliciting advice from a dedicated firmware hacking board if you really want to pursue this. --Mr.98 (talk) 22:55, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I've no experience whatsoever in this, but from a bunch articles I read a while back I got this- a JTAG interface is present on most circuit boards with microcontrollers. You can somehow connect a computer to the JTAG pins and read/reprogram the firmware. Best of luck! Do post back with your results. Staticd (talk) 06:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

When will this get updated?

Why isn't full data available since Jan 2010? To conserve computing resources? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I see numbers from May 2012. What do you see that hasn't been updated since Jan 2010? RudolfRed (talk) 02:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

All the empty columns (which are filled in until Jan 2010.) Scroll down. --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 06:16, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Considering the top has a notice that reads "This report has been regenerated after recovery from recent major data collection bug. Thank you for your patience.", the data from those months may be lost forever. That's just a guess based on how I read it though. Dismas|^(talk) 06:20, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Probably not, the table was just like that since last year (at least), (without months that hadn't happen yet, of course) - before there was a bug notice. I saw it afterwards during the data recovery and the blankout was complete (not partial) and I think to well before Jan 2010. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:54, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

y'know, if you feel compelled to give an answer in circumstances like these, the best is "I don't know". This isn't the "make a guess desk". --jpgordon^{::==( o )} 17:49, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I guess you’re right. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

See User talk:Erik Zachte#Stats dump update? Nil Einne (talk) 10:52, 11 July 2012 (UTC)