Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 August 12

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August 12

"Temporarily" installing software

I'm looking for a way to only "temporarily" install a software on Windows 7 64-bit. The case is that I'm going to need to install a program which I'll really only need to use once, so I'd rather not have it install on my system and then uninstall it, as that will likely change some registry gobbledygook I don't want it to. I'd opt for using a virtual machine like VirtualBox, but all my previous operating system ISOs were on my (currently inaccessible) older computer. Preferably I'd like to install the program inside the virtual machine, let it do what it needs to, and then just delete the virtual hard disk. So, does anyone have an alternative solution to my query? Thank you and cordially, 141.153.215.55 (talk) 03:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Ideally it should come with an uninstall script that will clear up all the registry entries when you remove it. This can be accessed under Add/Remove programs. If you don't trust that it will have this (or that it will work), do a system checkpoint before the install, then roll back to that point after the run. Note that any data file created might also be wiped out, so make a backup copy if you want to save it. StuRat (talk) 04:36, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Either use Sandboxie, System Restore, or Windows XP Mode. 118.96.159.34 (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Sandboxie is probably the easiest way. Just make an empty sandbox and run the program's installer in that sandbox, and to "uninstall" it, delete the sandbox (after extracting any files you want to keep). It's compatible with most applications, though not all. -- BenRG (talk) 10:46, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Mouseover pop-up CHN-ENG translator for Internet Explorer?

Moved from Language Desk by Falconus^{p t c} 03:14, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Hi everyone, I use the Perapera-kun add-on for CHN-ENG translation in Firefox. It lets you hover your mouse over hanzi to see the meaning. However, some sites in China don't work with Firefox (for example, certain online banks) and I was wondering if anyone knew of an add-on for IE with similar mouseover translation functionality. I haven't been able to find one... Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Masked Booby (talk • contribs) 01:58, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

cropping jpg images

I've got an image with the .jpg file extension on a Linux machine. I thought maybe using ooffice to view it I could do some cropping. Hasn't worked so far. My other option my be finding something on some MS Windows machine in a university library and downloading the thing there. What should I do? Michael Hardy (talk) 04:31, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Pretty much any image editor would allow you to crop a JPG. In Windows, Microsoft Paint works just fine. StuRat (talk) 04:34, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

A lot of Linux distributions include GIMP, which can do it. Looie496 (talk) 04:49, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

You could try an online image editor like this AvrillirvA (talk) 09:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I do basic image editing in Linux using F-Spot Tinfoilcat (talk) 09:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Note that the jpeg format uses lossy compression. By cropping in a general purpose image editor, you will decode and re-encode, thereby adding new artefacts to those that were created the first time the image was jpeg-encoded. To avoid unnecessary loss of quality, use a specialized cropping program that understands the jpeg format. Jpegtran is the grand-daddy, JpegCrop is a user-friendly windows interface. --95.34.139.175 (talk) 20:18, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Google forces its localized domain on me

Why is it that when I attempt to change Google.ca back to Google.com, it just refuses to go to the US based domain? But when I'm the US, I'm perfectly capable of accessing the Canadian domain without the main one getting in my way? Yet funnily enough, I can access Google.fr, Google.co.uk, Google.de and so on from Canada with no issue, yet it has serious beef with me trying to access Google.com. Even when I sign into my Google account, I don't seem to have much of a say in my preference of which domain I want. Why is that? 70.29.252.46 (talk) 09:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

See this article. 118.96.159.34 (talk) 11:17, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

One of the problem is .com isn't really a US domain but a generic domain and when someone links to google.com they aren't necessarily intending to link to the US site in particular. I wonder whether www.google.us (which does work) also always takes you to the US site Nil Einne (talk) 12:40, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I would've never guessed to do that. Thanks. 70.29.252.46 (talk) 15:47, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Google problem

This morning, Google started acting weird on my Fedora 12 Linux system using FireFox 3.6. When I make a search that returns multiple pages of results, and browse to some page past the first one and click on a result, then when I click "Back" Google throws me back to the first page. If I click "Back" again then I get to the right page. This seems to happen every time. It does not happen on my work computer, which uses Windows 7 and FireFox 5. What the heck is going on here? JIP | Talk 15:03, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Are you using the HTTPS everywhere extension? -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 15:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

No. JIP | Talk 15:27, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Also Google regularly inflicts random page tests and changes on random connections. (And they kind of suck at JS :p) ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

This stopped when Google thought I had searched too much for one day and asked me to fill a CAPTCHA. Then after I closed the browser window and did another Google search it started again. JIP | Talk 20:04, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

Screen Quality with Video Question/Concern

Hi, I just bought a new Dell XPS 17 laptop with a 17 inch 900p screen, I have another laptop that is 6 years old and runs 1280 x 800 with a 15 inch screen. Watching the same 720p and 1080p video on both side by side, I think the quality on the old laptop is better, the new one seems a little less sharp and slightly lower quality (the old screen is less reflective). Am I imagining it? Is it the difference in reflectivity? It is that the old screen is smaller? Or is there something I can do to fix this? Thanks for any help:-) 71.195.84.120 (talk) 17:10, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The reflectivity or brightness are about the only things it could be -- the pixel size on the two systems is virtually identical. Looie496 (talk) 17:26, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

This is off topic, kind of, but I noticed that the results are near identical, if not slightly better, on the new screen with several other hd videos. Going back to the orginal ones I tested, I noticed that they are of a slightly smaller filesize, is it possible that the videos themselves are of varying quality and that the defects are more apparent on the newer display due to size and higher resolution?

The 900 -vs- 800 is not to big a diff, though they are the same vertical size, but width wise its 1600 to 1280; although the 1600 is on a wider screen. I'm not saying that you are wrong, just that I don't really know much about this and am not sure how to determine how big a difference there is/should be. Thank you:-) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.195.84.120 (talk) 17:41, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

720p is 1280x720. The old laptop can show it 1:1 without scaling, but your new laptop is apparently scaling it to 1600x900, and thus making the image fuzzier. 80.186.103.202 (talk) 17:51, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Is native resolution the problem? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:38, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

One other factor could be the refresh rate. If the new computer has a slower refresh rate, images could look choppy during movement, especially when looking out the corner of the eye. StuRat (talk) 19:45, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers :-) After using it for a bit, I'm starting to notice that a lot of hd videos play better, thuogh some still don't...I have two other questions. Would a lower res video play better on the smaller older screen or the newer, since the newer screen would require stretching it out and such? Second, I debated a lot between the 900p and 1080p screens and went with 900 because I think it would be easier to read off of (I have 10,000's of ebooks) and figured that at 17 inches and arms length away, the videos wouldn't look to diff on it; that and most of the video I have is 720p. That being said, I'm curious if I made the right choice? Honestly, I just want to get rid of (or justify) the nagging voice in my head that keeps telling me I could have got something better (I get a new computer every six years or so, so I'm going to have this one for a while) Any thoughts would be much appreciated; yes, I know, I'm probably over thinking this. Thank you :-) 209.252.235.206 (talk) 06:44, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

I'd say a larger screen with a higher resolution is the best choice. You generally want to display a video at it's native resolution to avoid any up-scaling or down-scaling of the image, which can distort the image, make it blurry, or introduce lag. With a large screen at high res, you do have the option to make the image window smaller than the entire screen. Unfortunately, some inferior video software doesn't seem to have the option to display at 100% resolution, and just goes with the current window size, whatever that happens to be. As for e-books, if they allow you to set the font, then again the largest resolution would let you use a larger font, which should have more resolution for each letter, making them clearer. StuRat (talk) 07:28, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

flickr

Hello. Are there any web archives or mirrors (accessible to the public) that have old pictures from flickr? I remember there was this beautiful landscape that a certain user had, CC-BY license, which is just the perfect resolution for my new computer screen, but which the user has taken down (waybackmachine has been rather unhelpful; flickr "doesn't allow frames", whatev that means). I have tried contacting the user, but he has been unresponsive. Thanks. 203.117.33.23 (talk) 18:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

And where was this top secret image? ¦ Reisio (talk) 19:54, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

I assume you know about archive.org? Comet Tuttle (talk) 20:20, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Wayback Machine is part of Archive.org. So I think that's covered. --Tagishsimon (talk) 20:23, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

PS2 .STR Audio Files

I've got some audio tracks from a PS2 game copied to my hard drive, and I was wondering if there was a program out there that can play these tracks... and if possible convert them to .wav or .mp3

thanks 157.157.39.8 (talk) 20:11, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Where's the security weakness?

I'm running XP Mode only for a scanner, so while I run Virtual PC I don't run it for more than a few minutes. I use a flash drive to store the resulting images, and "XP" has access to only the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM drive. I have Firewall up but don't want to patch the "XP". I'm guessing then that any security weakness that would affect me would be in Virtual PC. Is that correct? 66.108.223.179 (talk) 23:25, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

Virtual PC could have bugs allowing the virtualised XP access to its host machine, but the likelyhood of malware targetting such a vulnerability would probably be small. However, if the XP machine were to pick up any malware that tries to spread itself further over the network, that malware is now on the wrong side of any router firewall you may have. It may still try to infect other machines on your network, including the hosting Windows 7 installation, if those are not properly secured. Unilynx (talk) 10:01, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

The question seems confusing. The statement is first made 'has access to only the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM drive' but then the question goes on to discuss the firewall. The firewall would be irrelevent if the XP doesn't have access to any network (whether a host only one, a bridged one or a NAT one). If it does have access to a network, this is quite a different matter from if the XP is restricted to the virtual HD and DVD-ROM as it is potentially a big security risk as Unilynx points out. If any partitions on the host OS are shared and read-write allowed and the username/password is stored (or they are mounted) then any malware will clearly have access to these. (There is also a minor? risk of the malware attempting to bruteforce any network shares.) And of course even if there are no read-write network shares, the malware may still be able to take advantage of other network services including any security vunerabilities. I can't recall if Virtual PC has shared folders or shared clipboard and stuff of that sort but if it does, this is another security risk. (Just to be clear, any VM has access to the CPU and memory and in most cases to some extent display device and mouse/keyboard, generally the way a VM is designed it should not carry in risks to the host OS but there is always the risk of security vunerabilities. The risk of anything else the VM has access to including sound device, parallel ports, serial ports, USB ports, floppy disks, etc needs to be considered. As these are optional, along with one of the biggests risks that we discusses i.e. network, it doesn't make sense to say the VM only has access to the virtual HD and physical DVD-ROM if you've given it access to these.) Nil Einne (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2011 (UTC)