Computing desk
< June 3	<< May \| June \| Jul >>	June 5 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

June 4[edit]

Excel help[edit]

	A	B	C
1	30	apples	oranges
2	30	bananas	apples
3	40	peaches	lemons
4	50	apples	grapefruits
5	60	mangos	pears
6	70	plums	apples
7	70	apricots	apples

I'm looking for a way to count the unique values in column A corresponding to a given value in either column B or column C, using formulas. In the above example, if the value in question is apples (bolded for clarity), the result should be 3, because wherever apples occurs in either column B or column C, it corresponds to three unique column A values, namely "30", "50" and "70" (but not "40" or "60"). Could you help? --Theurgist (talk) 16:33, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

What you want to do is more like a database command, and I'm not sure if Excel can do those. In SQL, it would be something like:

SELECT UNIQUE MY_TABLE.A
  FROM MY_TABLE
  INTO TEMP_TABLE
 WHERE MY_TABLE.B = "apples"
    OR MY_TABLE.C = "apples";

SELECT COUNT(*)
  FROM TEMP_TABLE;

DROP TABLE TEMP_TABLE;

One option is to export a CSV file then import it into an SQL server. If you can write computer programs, you could also extract the info you need from the CSV file, using a program you write. StuRat (talk) 17:12, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you don't mind adding a few extra "working" columns (which you could hide if necessary), you could do it like this: in D1 enter the formula =IF(OR(B1="apples",C1="apples"),A1,""); in E1 =COUNTIF($D$1:$D$7,D1); in F1 =IF(D1="",0,1/E1); copy all these formulas down, and then the sum of the values in column F is the number you want. In reality you would presumably have more than 7 rows, so extend the range of the formulas accordingly. Also you would probably want to put "apples" in a special cell and refer to that in the formula rather than the literal value. This is probably a little more long-winded than it needs to be and could be compressed, but it does the job. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 21:51, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that works. --Theurgist (talk) 15:27, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

OEM Windows question[edit]

As you probably already know, my boss got permission from the company's management to give me a new PC for use for working from home, pre-installed with Windows 8, and I installed Fedora 20 on a second hard disk. The Windows 8 installation is an OEM one, and my boss was worried that adding a second hard drive would break the licence, because it would think it was no longer the same computer. Nothing of the sort happened, and both Windows and Linux work fine. But what will break the licence? Would upgrading its graphics adapter card do such a thing? And if it would, would it start working again if I reverted the change? JIP | Talk 16:39, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

The exact hardware changes that would trigger an activation or license problem are intentionally not made clear. See Microsoft's FAQ on activation and hardware changes. But, if you have trouble after a hardware change, a call to the Microsoft technical support hotline linked on that page will often be able to re-activate the license. Nimur (talk) 16:49, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Your company owns the computer that it has bought for you – not microsoft. --Aspro (talk) 22:32, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Win8 Problem.[edit]

Why is it that my Win8 PC will not connect to my wifi, when I change the wifi password on the phone I use - I have an android phone with tethering enabled. I had an older password, which I changed on the phone, but now my PC will not connect to it. My android tablet will, however, connect. The problem seems to be with the changed password, as my android tablet asks me for a new password, whereas the PC will not. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 16:58, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Trying having your PC "forget" the wi-fi network, then reconnect. Mingmingla (talk) 18:31, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Cheers. Genii don't come very often, but you are veritably one. KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (Chin Wag) 19:02, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Bitter pit[edit]

Bitter pit

I have carried out a major revision to this topic. The edited version is OK but when I press the read button there is a problem with some of the references. There is a rectangle around some of them and I can't remove them as they are not on the edit page. Tibby 261--- — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tibby261 (talk • contribs) 23:24, 4 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings and welcome to Wikipedia. We are always looking for new contributors, but getting started sometimes requires a bit of a learning curve, but once you learn the basics of editing, it's not that hard. You have a message on your talk page that contains several useful links to articles on the Wikipedia ways. I suggest that you start by looking at the How to edit a page and Wiki markup articles.

It appears that you performed your editing outside of the Wikipedia page editor and then pasted the results back into the page source. Because Wikipedia uses a variety of special syntax constructs to achieve the desired formatting, pasting the text as you have done has resulted in several formatting problems. A few quick pointers that may help you fix these problems:

Don't use leading spaces to indent text. Leading spaces have a special meaning. Let Wikipedia handle the formatting.
Use a blank line to separate paragraphs.
To create a section header, precede and follow the header text with two "="s, like: "== Control of Bitter Pit ==" (without the quotes).
Do not try to manually number your references. Anywhere you need a reference, insert the reference information inline preceded by "<ref>" and followed by by "</ref>" - something like "...known as "Stippen".<ref>Jaeger, G (1869)...</ref>".
You will also need to add a single line containing "{{Reflist}}" at the end of the article, preferably preceded by "== References ==" to give the section a header. Wikipedia will automatically number the references, insert superscripts, and replace "{{Reflist}}" with all of the numbered references.

Please give it a try. In my opinion, it's best to learn by doing, but if you need more assistance, a good place to ask is at Wikipedia:Teahouse. Good luck, and again, welcome. -- Tom N talk/contrib 00:56, 5 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]

If you want to have a go at editing the article, without fear of damaging it, then you can create any article starting with "user:Tibby261"; these are called user-space articles. As long as they vaguely in accordance with Wikipedia articles, you can put what ever you want in them. Here's user:Tibby261/bitter_pit, a blank page for you to get started on, copy the wikisource into the new article's page, edit it there, and when you're happy with it, copy the source back. However, you should check the history for the original since you copied it; see the "view history" to the top-right, or click [[1]]. Wishing you a productive wiki-career, CS Miller (talk) 08:37, 6 June 2014 (UTC)[reply]