Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 December 1

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December 1

Laptop screen light when unplugged, running vista and HP laptop

How do I get the same level of screen light when I unplug my laptop from the power to go on battery? Otherwise it's too harsh on the eyes.--4crassandchmp (talk) 01:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Change the power settings in control panel. F (talk) 03:26, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Many laptops have a means to adjust the brightness. On mine, I can hold the Fn key and press the up or down arrows to adjust it; but that change is only temporary and it reverts to the default set in the power settings at the next restart. Astronaut (talk) 03:32, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

For HP in particular, right-click on the battery icon in the tray in the bottom-right corner of the screen, click on "Power Options" and then "Create a Power Plan." That way, you can use that plan most of the time but still have the system-suggested plans that conserve battery life if you need to conserve power.--el Aprel (^facta-_facienda) 04:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Floppy disks

1. Why have floppy disks ultimately been retired?

2. How do 3 1/2 disks carry more data than 5 1/4 disks if they are smaller? jc iindyysgvxc (my contributions) 09:30, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

1. The average 3 ½-inch disk only holds 1.44 MB. They made an ED (extra-density) model that held 2.88 MB. But that's still far below the 4 GB common to USB flash drives. You can purchase a 4 GB model for as little as $10 on Newegg. Further, "floppies" are much slower than USB flash drives. They spin at 300 RPM with a transfer rate of 45 KBps. Compare that to 24 MBps for the fastest USB flash drives. Further, USB flash drives are easier to carry and more durable. I've never seen a USB flash drive become corrupt -- and I've washed them on accident.
2. The 3 ½-inch mini-disks had more sectors on the outer tracks than the inner ones. The 5 ¼-inch disks had the same number of sectors per track.
3. FYI: we called the 3 ½-inch models "mini-disks" and the 5 ¼-inch models "floppies" because the floppies flop around and the mini-disks are stiff.--Drknkn (talk) 09:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard the 3 ½-inch floppies referred to as mini disks before. I'm not saying I doubt it was used by you and whoever you hanged around or perhaps even most people where you live with but I think it's important to emphasise it was likely a rare name. I've never heard of it and yes I was around in the 5 ¼ world until now (and do remember getting Windows 95 on 3 ½ floppy disc). It isn't for example mentioned in our article nor can I find anything from a quick Google or Bing. Obviously it may seem a bit odd to refer to something stiff like a 3 ½-inch floppy disc as a floppy but the name stuck for various reasons and in fact in the post 5 ¼ floppy world if someone was referring to a floppy disc (or drive) without specifying the type they'd almost definitely mean the 3 ½ variety. Of course calling them mini disks may also result in confusion with Sony's MiniDisc although the data variety of that was an abject failure. (Also a minor nitpick, floppies were already mostly dead 3+ years ago or so when the most you'll get for $10 was perhaps a 1 GB. The point still stands even if we consider 1 GB or heck 128mb. I did come across a 32mb USB flash drive once which advertised the number of floppies it could take, that practice quickly died out) Nil Einne (talk) 12:20, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Curious anecdote: in South Africa the 5¼ inch discs were called floppies and the 3½ inch ones were called stiffies. I always wondered why (overseas) computer magazines insisted on calling stiffies floppies and creating unnecessary confusion. "3½ floppy" seemed so unintuitive. Zunaid●for your great great grand-daughter 12:42, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The word "stiffy" was already in use. --Sean 12:48, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

"Floppy" was never intended to refer to the case. It refers to the disk. In both the 5¼ and 3½ sizes, the disk is floppy. If you rip the hard case off a 3½, you will find a very floppy disk inside. -- kainaw™ 13:28, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Of course the even older 8 inch floppies were even floppier. I always used two hands to hold the disk flat while inserting one of those. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:49, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I guess it's time for the obligatory joke (from some Sierra adventure game although I've seen it doing the rounds elsewhere and so it may not have originated from there) about customers who think the instructions to remove the disc from the folder means they should remove the actual magentic disc from the plastic case rather then the paper/plastic folder they are contained in (we're referring to 5¼ primarily of course or perhaps older floppies) Nil Einne (talk) 07:11, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

1) Why have floppy disks ultimately been retired? - Nobody is buying them anymore. Money is king. When you want to store data for backup purposes, you use a CD or DVD-ROM - when you want to send data between computers, you use the Internet and for small amounts of handy, portable data, you use a thumb drive. Because you can download free stuff off of the Internet - we don't even have computer magazines with floppy disks taped to the front cover anymore. The Internet doomed the floppy - the eraseable/rewritable CD-ROM was the death knell - and the thumb-drive the final nail in the coffin. Why on earth would you want something as unreliable and low-capacity as a floppy?

I was on the team at Philips Research labs that produced the world's first ever CD-ROM drive (and the first ever CD-ROM - which was a demonstration of an interactive dictionary). The 5.25" floppy was still king and we were in serious competition with the floppy manufacturers. But 600Mbytes versus 1.2Mbytes really sealed the deal with software makers - I remember having a copy of a package called "Arts and Letters" that came on 40 3,5" floppy disks! Installing that was beyond ridiculous.

2) How do 3 1/2 disks carry more data than 5 1/4 disks if they are smaller? - The disk heads are smaller and the hard shell and the metal center spool improve head alignment allowing you to pack more tracks in per inch of media. The metal shutter helps to keep dust and fingerprints off of the disk - so you can pack more data in with less risk. It's just a natural technological advancement. You could (in theory) build a 5.25" floppy with much more capacity than a 3.5" one - but at the time that this technology became possible, there was more interest in going smaller and flatter to fit them into laptops than in getting more capacity when hard drives were becoming cheap.

What makes a 'floppy' floppy is that the flexible disk bends around the read/write head to get close mechanical contact - just like the tape in an audio or video cassette is pushed against and around the head. In a 'hard' drive, the platters are stiff and so the head has to be very carefully engineered to 'fly' very close to the media in order to get good contact. (If one track on a hard drive was as wide as a 4 lane highway - the head would be as big as a jumbo jet and would be flying about a foot above the road with it's wheels up! A human skin cell would be as big as a VW bug on the same scale!) But for cheap dismountable magnetic media, you can't engineer the tolerances that closely - so forcing the head to physically touch the disk (to the point of bending it) was the only way to get a good magnetic signal.

SteveBaker (talk) 04:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Just wanna say I freakin' love it when SteveBaker gets 20min free to come rattle off some killer stories like this. My RefDesk hero, bar none. 218.25.32.210 (talk) 07:36, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

IIRC, there wasn't much call for laptops back in the late '80s/early '90s when 3½'s mostly replaced 5¼'s. (At any rate a 3½ with the shell is thicker than a 5¼ was). I think the bigger issue was being "pocketable" - 3½'s were almost the perfect size to stash in a shirt pocket. Combined with the hard case and shutter, it was a lot easier and safer to cart around a 3½ for "sneakernet". BTW, where I was the 5¼'s were "disks" and the 3½'s were "diskettes" (portmanteau of disk and cassette, I figure). "Floppy" could refer to both, though. -- 128.104.112.95 (talk) 23:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't think the internet or CDs/DVDs did much to make floppy disks obsolete, as neither really provided the same capabilities as a floppy (a pocket-sized media that you could easily read from or write to on any computer). Thumb/pen/USB flash drives do pretty much do everything a floppy did, only better. One exception is that write-protect switches are rare on the newer devices, while they were universal on floppies. Another is that floppies may last for more read/write cycles. StuRat (talk) 06:54, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Disc drive not recognised

Hello,

My disc drive is no longer recognised in Windows XP; if I put a CD or DVD in there it doesn't show up in "My computer". I looked in the device manager and there's a yellow exclamation mark next to [slimtype dvdrw ssw-8015S] and says:

“ Windows cannot load the device driver for this hardware. The driver may be corrupted or missing. (Code 39)

Click Troubleshoot to start the troubleshooter for this device

”

I attempted to rollback the drivers and update them but that didn't work. I tried to find the drivers on the manufacturer's website but they weren't there. If I uninstall the corrupt drivers will windows automatically find suitable drivers for me, as suggested here? Or will I be worse off? Or do you have any other suitable solutions? Many Thanks Drogonov 12:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Uninstalling the drivers is unlikely to cause harm. However the problem you're having may not be caused by drivers so this may not help but of course it doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Nil Einne (talk) 12:23, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

You'll certainloy not be worse off, and IMO you'll absolutely need to clear out the borked configuration before you can startbto mend it. So yes, delete away and see what the new hardware wizard can do. --Tagishsimon (talk) 12:31, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Using a pendrive with a PDA?

I've bought a PDA that runs PalmOS, version 4 I think. It has a USB port. Would it be possible to plug a pendrive into it, and access the pendrive directly from the PDA? The socket on the PDA is small format so some conversion or adapter cable would be needed, which should not be too difficult to get. Thanks. 78.147.2.230 (talk) 12:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If the USB port is a USB On-The-Go port, then you can do it. F (talk) 23:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

To expand on that a little - the USB system has 'hosts' and 'slaves'. Generally, you can only connect a host to a slave - not a host to another host or a slave to another slave. Hence, you can plug your camera (a slave) into your PC (a host) - and you can plug a mouse (another slave) into your PC - but you can't plug the mouse into your camera because that's a slave-to-slave connection. Generally, it's very clear what devices are hosts (PC's, basically) and what are slaves (more or less everything that's not a PC) - but some of the more recent devices can intelligently switch from being a host to being a slave depending on what they're being connected up to - that is the "On-the-go" thing that User:F is talking about. A PDA is an example of a device that might be an on-the-go device. But it's far from certain. The fact that it has a small-format connector suggests that it probably isn't. SteveBaker (talk) 03:42, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Is this possible?

I was at my local best buy, and there was someone (who btw was not a best buy employee) who had hacked into the computer, and was able to freely use it. I doubt this person was in the store at the time.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you're telling us that this happened, it most likely is possible. ╟─TreasuryTag►inspectorate─╢ 14:18, 1 December 2009 (UTC

Ok but how?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 14:21, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

From my experience, stores often have very simple passwords like 1234 or the name of the store/location. The password is more of a discouragement than actual security as their staff need to easily be able to demo a computer to a customer without having to remember complicated passwords. ZX81 ^talk 14:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, if the floor model is open for users to play with, a user might be able to install some network-accessible tool, and later access the machine remotely. They may have used a root kit or installed some other security compromising software - there are a lot of possibilities if they ever had physical access to the machine. I can't see why anyone would want to hijack a floor-model computer - there is little or zero valuable personal information; the machine may be new, but it can't be very high-performance (compared to, say, a university research cluster); it's unlikely to have a great network connection; etc. It's probably an act of boredom of a young computer enthusiast. Nimur (talk) 14:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

But they are doing it remotely...Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 15:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Can this be done on a mac? Is it illegal?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 15:08, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

This can be done on any platform with a variety of tools (VNC seems to be one of the more popular ones). The legality is questionable when you don't have permission from the owner of the machine, though floor models are expected to be abused and some stores automatically reinstall the OS every night. I doubt any harm came from this situation. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 16:34, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Are floor models connected to the intenet? Are you sure this wasn't just a demonstration program? 75.41.110.200 (talk) 16:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

VNC is a popular tool for remote control, yes, as is Windows Remote Desktop for Windows machines (although the screen and keyboard and mouse get locked out during a WRD session); and there are several web-based services where people actually pay $10 per month or something to enable the remote control of their computers from elsewhere on the Internet. As for whether it's illegal, in the United States it's illegal, yes, if it's unauthorized; this link lists six parts of US federal law related to "computer intrusion". I believe that the crime is merely "accessing" a computer that you have not been given permission (explicit or implicit) to access. I imagine that what you saw might have been another Best Buy employee elsewhere in the store using VNC to control the other computers in the store, (a) because he now doesn't have to walk over to this computer to do something; and (b) because it's cool. It also might be a Best Buy IT guy at some other Best Buy location. Tempshill (talk) 16:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I doubt it was a best buy employee as the person was typing "I like porn" and etc, as if i was.Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 18:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like a very simple hack - you go to the store - act like you're going to buy a PC - ask the designated sales dweeb if you can try it out. When he gets distracted (eg by your friend who is in on the act who demands to be shown something else) - you swiftly download and install whatever junk you want (VNC is certainly a good candidate) - set it going, then walk out of the store while the salesdroid is still talking to your friend. Even if the machine isn't on the Internet - you could easily slip a thumb-drive into the USB port without anyone noticing and infect it with god-knows-what. But I wouldn't put it past an employee of the store to do that - it's a spectacularly boring job - some of them are smart kids who need a vacation job who are more than capable of such a simple hack - and certainly there are many reports of those "Geek Squad" guys being caught doing terrible things with customer's computers - I wouldn't trust one of them further than I could throw them! So this is altogether not a surprising thing. SteveBaker (talk) 03:33, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

There was of course other things if you don't require to be able to view the desktop. E.g. Back Orifice was famous back in the Windows 9x days. BO2k may work on Vista and Windows 7 [1]. Here in NZ, you wouldn't necessarily even have to ask someone anything. For example with Dick Smith (retailer), there are sometimes demo computers you can use on the shop floor which sometimes aren't locked. These do often seem to be protected and I'm not sure if they all access to most of the internet or there are restrictive policies on what sites you can access (you can usually use the store online catalog and I believe it's accessed via the internet so there must be some internet access and I think I've access my e-mail before). Nowadays these often seem to be locked more often then they used to be, so you may need to ask an employee although if you say you want to look at the catalog then they're not likely to hang around. They could of course set up a rather limited account to make it difficult to do something like this or a have a good external firewall but most probably don't bother (although it's not something I've tried). Having said many may be behind NAT devices making it somewhat difficult if you don't have access to the intranet. Nil Einne (talk) 07:00, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I looked and the was nothing unusual installed on the computer. I looked in all the folders desktop, applications, etc. Nothing there. How are they doing this with nothing there?Accdude92 (talk to me!) (sign) 18:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

A casual glance through a computer's folders won't tell you for sure what is and isn't installed there, particularly if the admin marks the folders as invisible and you're on a store's demo computer which is set to not show invisible files. Or the app could be installed in a folder you don't expect (like C:\WINDOWS\F-YOU) or the like. Tempshill (talk) 02:53, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Notification Settings For Facebook

Is it possible on Facebook to set it so that notifications of what everyone else is doing do not appear on my Facebook page for all to see? It would be nice to keep certain acquaintances separate, if you know what I mean (work vs people who post LOLcats, for example). --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 15:19, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's pretty easy to create a "friend list" that has more stringent privacy settings. E.g., you'd create a group of all "work" people, and then make it so that they couldn't see what is posted to your wall. But that's about as fine-grained as it gets with Facebook. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:44, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec) In the same vein, I'd like to be able to group my friends separately, too, so 'family' goes into one bucket, 'friends and work' into a separate bucket, and the two don't know about each other, separate Walls for me, etc. Tempshill (talk) 16:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understood your question correctly, but maybe Facebook purity will help you with annoying info some people post (like LOLcats :) Also there is option to hide users from main page - you can find the 'hide' button in top right corner of each message. Lukipuk (talk) 00:18, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, thanks for that. However, being a script, that would only be useful for people with the script, i.e. it would only stop me from seeing all the useless garbage that people post, and not everyone else who visits the page. Thanks anyway. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 02:07, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

People can either see your wall and post to it, or can't see your wall and can't post to it. The things they can see on your wall is either everything or nothing, it can't be only things from some people. If you don't want peopel seeing something on your wall, you have to block them from the wall altogether. 75.181.170.7 (talk) 19:55, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Right, so basically, what you're all saying is, you open a Facebook account, and LOLcats and everything else that is really important to everyone you know (but not to you) is visible to everyone else you know, including bosses and potential future employers, and there is no way whatsoever of using Facebook as a serious networking tool? Great. --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 00:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

[Clarification]: What I want is to be the only person who can write on my wall. I want to set it so that only things I put up (and no-one else) can be seen by anyone who visits. Is this at all possible? --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk) 02:10, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You could always create two accounts - one you tell your family & friends and where LOLcats are welcome; the other you keep exclusively for work and maintain a strict no LOLcats policy. Astronaut (talk) 14:12, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

To prevent other from posting on your wall, go to Settings > Privacy Settings. Click on Profile. Look for Posts by Friends and adjust to your needs. I think, however, that you may be confusing your Wall (visible to your friends) with your Feeds, which contain info about your friends, but are visible to only their friends not yours (unless you are mutual friends). The Profile settings page also allows you to view your profile through a friend's eyes, which may be helpful in letting you see the diff. between Feeds and Walls.--Nricardo (talk) 03:04, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Computer itself

How long does it last?

From what I gather is it lasts up to 10 years. Could it last up 2 more years after the 10 years?

Believe thats it for now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicaabruno (talk • contribs) 15:54, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Depending on a lot of factors, computers lifetimes have a huge range. If you are willing to repair or replace some parts (which may require a little bit of technical know-how), you can further extend the life of a computer "indefinitely", replacing any part that fails. Laptop computers are more difficult to repair, because many of their components are integrated tightly and are not "user serviceable". I have several computers that have lasted more than ten years, but not all of their internal parts are the same as the day they arrived. The system I am working on now is a hybrid consisting of parts ranging from 6 months to 8 years old. Nimur (talk) 16:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I found several unsourced references to an average lifespan of 3 to 5 years, but as long as you're willing to put up with "old" technology, you can certainly keep a computer running much longer than that. I own an old Apple II that still works well even 30 years after it was built, but my personal refresh cycle seems to be around 5 years. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 16:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

I suspect those "average lifespan" figures are time to replacement, not time to death. No computer I've bought since 1994 has ever died due to hardware failure (and the only one that died after 1990 was just a head crash; replacing the hard disk would have kept it serviceable). Several of them are still booted up infrequently (usually to recover some old file). After the first year, the fans and hard disks, being moving parts, are the primary sources of failure. A dead fan doesn't constitute a dead computer in most cases (especially with thermal controls in modern machines that shut down if they overheat), and a dead hard disk is a minor impediment to the technically inclined (assuming you use backups or data mirroring). —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:09, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanx for all of your answers to my question here. All of them are interesting.--Jessica A Bruno 20:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC) --Jessica A Bruno 20:47, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Failure rates for things with moving parts are dramatically higher than for things that don't move. That's why 206's Apple ][ and my own TRS-80 Model I are still running - they didn't need active cooling - so no fans, they didn't have hard disks (and often no floppy disks either) - so there are no moving parts to break and if you're lucky, they can last many decades. However, things that move will inevitably wear out eventually. A 10 year old PC can generally be kept going by replacing fans, power supplies and disk drives - while the technology gets outdated, it's generally possible to find replacements for things like that. I think though that it's important to mention the Ship of Theseus paradox: I have not bought a new PC in 16 years - however, every single part of my "16 year old PC" has been replaced at some time during those 16 years - and I have a very modern setup (64bit quad-core Linux system with nVidia 280 graphics and 16Gbytes of RAM). I'm on my third or fourth case - probably on my 5th or 6th motherboard and CPU - certainly on at least my 8th power supply - probably my 10th graphics card - I'm pretty sure this is my fourth keyboard and probably at least my 30th mouse! It's just possible that the power cord is 16 years old - but I'm quite sure that nothing else is! At no time have I gone out and bought a new PC though. In that sense, a PC could reasonably be said to last indefinitely. SteveBaker (talk) 03:21, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

So about the only thing left to replace is the operator. Hopefully you can be replaced by a younger and more efficient model. :-) StuRat (talk) 06:38, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Reminds me of my dad and the broom he'd had for 30 years, although he'd replaced the head 8 times and the handle 4--Jac16888^Talk 12:57, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanx for your answer, Steve. Interesting for sure.--Jessica A Bruno 23:15, 2 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jessicaabruno (talk • contribs)

From own experience. Bought P75 PC with Windows 95 back in December 1995 (<nostalgy>8 mb of RAM, 1,2 Gig disk</nostalgy>). The first things that went were either the CPU/mobo two-three years later or the monitor (which was a 14 inch 'multimedia' Goldstar with a pair of 'loudspeakers') - lasted only about four years. The LAST thing that went was the keyboard, which I was still using this Summer - it was perfectly fine fourteen years on, even the letters printed on the keys are not scraped off - and I always used the keyboard heavily as a gamer and translator. One small wire broke off inside, I could repair it in a few minutes but I don't have a soldering iron handy, and apart from that it is in top shape. I can actually hardly believe it. Kudoz to Mitsumi for a great, great product. --Ouro (blah blah) 09:14, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Broken Fan Frying Power Supply

Hello all. My computer is broken. A couple weeks ago the rear case fan started making grinding noises. I turned the computer off and cleaned the fan, and it stopped grinding until yesterday night. I shut off the computer, intending to fix it in the morning. However, after cleaning the fan a second time, the computer will not start at all. The rear case fan whirrs like a car trying to start, no lights come on at all. So I unplugged the fan, and now nothing works. I haven't tested the power supply (the most likely cause), but I would like to know if the grinding fan could have shorted something out, either on the power supply or the motherboard.

System Specs: Emachines T5010 Desktop 1GB RAM Windows XP Home SP3

Thanks.  Buffered Input Output 16:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The grinding noise is most likely dodgy bearings in the fan assembly. It's unlikely that the fan has caused a short; but it does sound as if your PSU is borked. Bad luck. --Tagishsimon (talk) 17:03, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Only if it was massively out of position. If you're getting no lights at all, it's more likely the ineffective fan caused the PSU to overheat and die. Alternatively, you might have done some damage during the cleaning. I'd highly recommend replacing the PSU; at this point it's a fire hazard, and the cost of replacement is low enough that it's not worth that risk. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, now a next question; if I plugged the SATA hard drive into my other desktop, would the BIOS try to boot from the Windows XP on that hard drive? The other tower is running Puppy Linux and for good reason; it cannot run XP (not enough memory).  Buffered Input Output 20:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

The system BIOS is usually configured to identify a particular port (a specific IDE or SATA port) as the boot disk. If you plug your drive into a second port and make sure your Linux disk is still set as the boot drive (which should be the case) you should have no problem. If you don't know how to check your system BIOS, I'd say just try plugging in the second drive, see if it boots the correct disk (it probably will), and if it doesn't, unplug it and check the internet for instructions for your specific BIOS. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:39, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

internet cold damage

I have a device similar to this for my internets. It lives in the porch which gets just as cold as outside during the winter, which is very cold like cold enough for frost and snow. Will it be ok, or might it break in the cold? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.66.170.111 (talk) 16:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Frequent temperature changes across the dew/frost point may result in water damage to the modem. There should be an operating temperature range printed on modem so if you go above or below that range, it would be best to move it. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 16:57, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It's also possible that it might suffer some damage due to uneven warping of the component materials (the plastic frame, the motherboard, etc.). Aside from that, barring extreme cold (below zero Fahrenheit) most solid state circuitry (such as that found in most DSL/cable modems) isn't particularly affected by low temperatures since they lack moving parts. Anything with fans or a hard drive is at greater risk. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 17:01, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

That's not true - lots of non-moving electronic components have minimum operating temperatures - I just surfed around and it seems that most Intel processors (for example) have a minimum operating temperature of 5 degC ([2])- and a minimum storage temperature of -10 degC. Most other silicon-based electronics will have similar restrictions. So it's highly likely that your modem will stop working when the temperature gets around freezing - and it could be permanently damaged in a cold snap. The electronics will be generating some heat while they are working hard - which may be what's saving you right now - but it seems very 'iffy' to me. Suppose there was a power outage during the night? The power goes off - the device stops keeping itself warm for a couple of hours - and you have a dead modem on your hands.

One classic trick for erasing a forgotten password stored on some kinds electronic device is to put it into a ziplok baggie and stick it into your freezer to take it down below it's minimum operating temperature (but NOT below minimum storage temp) - this will very often cause the onboard memory to forget whatever it was supposed to remember. (This is a trick used by car radio thieves to get around the password feature that some up-market car stereos have.) Clearly this is what you're doing with your modem - so it's highly likely that leaving it out there during cold weather is going to be a problem sooner or later. SteveBaker (talk) 03:06, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If you still have the manual kicking around, usually there is a page in the back (or very front) which lists the technical specification, including acceptable temperatures for operation and storage. (Usually phrased something like "4 °C to 50 °C, noncondensing"). If you don't have a manual, you might be able to find one online with a Google search. (Something like "<device name> <manufacturer> <model number> manual" usually does the trick.) -- 128.104.112.95 (talk) 23:29, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

CD drive disappears

On my laptop, I just tried to access the CD drive to play a CD-ROM-based game, and it didn't work. The disc was scratched, and , thinking that might have something to do with it, I tried with a different disk in much better condition. It seems that my CD drive does not appear in the "My Computer" section of the computer, nor can it be accessed using its usual path (E:\). I have not tried to access my CD drive for a couple of months, so don't know how long this problem has persisted. Does anybody know what could have caused this?

System specification

(I'm not sure which of these will be useful, if any, so I'm listing everything)

• OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (Service Pack 1)
• Hardware: Compaq Presario V6500 Notebook PC
• Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL-58 1.90 GHz
• RAM: 2.0 GB
• System type: 32-bit

Thank you in advance, Dendodge _T\^C 21:11, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Answered before, see original discussion. It didn't apply to his situation (there are many reasons it could go wrong), but you should try the steps from the links there first. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:36, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I just tried the links, and they didn't work. I guess I'll have to take my laptop into the nice repair shop in town. They're better equipped to fix it than I am. Dendodge _T\^C 23:45, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Using BitTorrent

I've read the article, and I've had a look around the BitTorrent website. But I still have several questions. 1) What proportion of downloads are illegal? 2) If I use BitTorrent and only download legal material, what are the chances of me being mistaken by lawyers etc (I've read about their blackmail-like deals - "pay us £300 now or we take you to court") for one of the illegal downloaders? It appears that it loads material onto my computer, called 'seeding', like a sort of super-"cookie"-from-hell, and presumably it would download things from my computer without me giving explicit permssion. 3) Does this mean that it looks around my computer and downloads anything it likes, including confiodential and private material? 4) Where is the material downloaded onto my computer put? 5) If its in a folder couldnt I just delete it if I wanted to? I like to keep my computer clean - I hate "cookies" - signing up for BitTorrent seems like agreeing to be infected witrh a disease. 89.242.99.195 (talk) 21:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

1. Exact numbers aren't known, and you'd need to specify whether you mean total number or percentage of global bandwidth consumed. There are a number of estimates on the latter, which I've seen ranging from 30%-90%.

2.

A. Nearly non-existent. A torrent is associated with a particular file (or files). Figuring out which IPs are in the swarm for a particular file is easy, so media companies should be able to easily identify which torrents are illegal and confine their warnings to the individuals in that particular swarm. They don't look at your IP directly and see if there is BitTorrent-like traffic emanating from it, they just ask the tracker and it tells them which IPs are seeding a particular file. The risk of being sued for legal use of BitTorrent is roughly equivalent to the risk of being sued because you gave someone a funny look.

B. BitTorrent is different from general file sharing programs, in that it is purely a file transfer protocol. Other file sharing programs combine indexing with transfer, so they can accidentally share files you didn't mean to share. BitTorrent only downloads and shares those files which you explicitly request (by loading a .torrent file). During the download and after it finishes, it shares those pieces of the file which you have already acquired to help everyone get the file faster, but it doesn't offer anything but that file.

3. As above, none of the standard BitTorrent clients will do this. That is a risk with file-sharing programs like Kazaa, but BitTorrent is a transfer protocol; file sharing is handled through websites which host the .torrent files.

4. Wherever you tell it to go. Some clients put everything in one directory (which you set in their configuration), others ask for a destination each time you start a download. The files may not show up immediately; until the client has acquired some data,

5. The .torrent file is usually put in a temporary folder; you need to keep it until the download is complete. Depending on the client, deletion of the .torrent after you stop seeding is either automatic or an optional behavior. .torrents are very small though, so even if you don't delete them, they shouldn't occupy a measuable amount of space. No legitimate BitTorrent client adds cookies of any sort, and while the client isn't running, it's no different than the calculator program your computer ships with; that is, it has no effect whatsoever. —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 22:29, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

(ec)

1. As it's decentralised, and most of the people running trackers won't benefit from keeping statistics (indeed, might incriminate themselves if they did so) that's probably anyone's guess. I'd say "the great majority", but that's just my guess.
2. There should be no change whatever, but many reports suggest the lawyers (and the companies they use to perform these kinds of analysis) aren't terribly accurate. Again it's really anyone's guess (not least because those companies aren't at all forthcoming about their methods). I don't understand what you mean about super-cookies-from-hell ; properly configured any p2p client should share only what you allow, and those reports you've heard on the internet about people's private docs being available over filesharing services are all because those people haven't carefully configured their clients.
3. It depends on your client; it's usually somewhere obvious like "my torrents", or the client makes you specify when you start a download.
4. Again, I don't understand what cookie you mean. Note that your activities on a p2p network can be tracked fairly easily by any member of that network you connect to, without cookies or whatever - p2p networks are intrinsically promiscuous.

In general p2p networks work by talking to dozens of utter strangers; you can't really expect any privacy for what goes on in a p2p network. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:33, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

PDFs

I have a PDF that contains both text and images. I want to get rid of the images while preserving the text. How can I do this for free? If it's pertinent, I use Ubuntu 9.10. Lucas Brown 22:59, 1 December 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lucas Brown 42 (talk • contribs)

Well, you could select the entire document and copy it into a simple text editor. Since the editor wouldn't support the images, they'd be discarded. There are some other tools that would do this programmatically, but I haven't used them in ages; I'd suggest a "man -k" and look for "pdf". —ShadowRanger ^(talk|stalk) 23:04, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

pdftk can get the text out of a PDF file... but it's really not much better/different than select all > copy > paste into Notepad or whatever. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:41, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

It should be noted that some PDF documents do not contain machine-readable text metadata. If your document lacks this data, you won't be able to "select all" as has been described above. For this case, you might want to read about optical character recognition. Nimur (talk) 23:50, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

If it's a properly structured document (and not the "just a whacking great image" type that Nimur describes) then Inkscape will let you edit the page and delete the images. But you won't regain the space they occupied (this isn't a word-processing document), and you'll generally find that each line of text (and often each word) is a separate text object, making reflowing the document hideously laborious. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:56, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

How to reconfigure my router

My router just stopped working for apparently no reason. I asked my ISP for help, they told me if the trouble's with my router I should refer to the maker of my router, which I did. I contacted Linksys, they told me that the warranty ran out on my model (WRT54G version 8), so it's no longer eligible for free tech support. They told me that they would give me steps on how to reconfigure my router, as long as I ponied up some cash first. So I'm like screw it, I'll look elsewhere where people can help me out without asking me to pay up for ONE-TIME help. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.139.29 (talk) 23:25, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Assuming you can remember the admin user and password, go to http://192.168.1.1/ and access the router's settings. There, you should have the ability to check the router's settings against those provided by your ISP, and/or reset the router. As you can obviously access the internet, visit your ISP's website to get the correct router settings from them. Astronaut (talk) 23:43, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

And if you can't remember the admin user and password, or you want to really reset everything back to default, there's a little reset button you can push (usually with a paperclip) that takes everything back to factory condition. Given that you (24.47.139.29) can't connect anyway, you don't lose much by trying this. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:59, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

First, are you sure that the router is the issue? That is, can you connect to the internet directly through the cable/DSL connection without it? I would check that first, to make sure the router is the issue. If you're sure it is the router, first make sure you've gone through the manual's troubleshooting procedures. In general, computer troubleshooting is just a process of eliminating possibilities (is the router the problem? does it work if you connect with an ethernet cable directly to it? can you reset the router?) until you find the part that is causing the problem. It may be the case that it's something you can't fix (e.g., hardware failure), but getting to that stage tells you a lot. --Mr.98 (talk) 23:52, 1 December 2009 (UTC)

Well, obviously I can connect without it or I wouldn't be here. The problem started out with me just not being able to connect wirelessly, but about a couple hours ago I also stopped being able to connect even with the cable, so right now I am connected to the internet directly through my modem. Anyway, I followed Astronaut's advice, my wireless network has magically disappeared, and now I cannot connect to 192.168.1.1, so I can't configure the settings on my router from there. And I did all of that before even finding out that I have a reset button, something that the geniuses at my ISP and Linksys never told me. I couldn't find my own manual that came with my router, all I have is the CD-ROM, so now I have to read the PDF and figure out where to go from here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.139.29 (talk) 00:24, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't assume anything is "obvious" to us (how do we know you are connected at your home computer and not just at a friend's?)... we know nothing other than what you tell us.

If you reset the router, it won't be named whatever it was named before, it will probably be named "linksys" and just be an open wireless network. You should probably try to connect to it via the cable, and then try 192.168.1.1. But yes... read the manual. They usually easy to find online if you don't have a hardcopy. The manual explains how to use the reset button (usually involves turning it off, waiting a little while, then holding it down for awhile, then waiting awhile). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:44, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Why would he need to "wait a while"? It simply needs to be off for a split second. Then, he can plug it back in and the reset will be complete.--Drknkn (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

"Resetting" the router refers to holding the reset button to erase all the settings back to the factory defaults. For a few routers I'm familiar with, you must leave the router on and hold the reset button for several seconds to properly start the factory reset. "Restarting" or "rebooting" the router can be done by turning the power switch off and on, or by unplugging the power cable and plugging it back in, and only takes a second. --Bavi H (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, if the router is off, then waiting does nothing because it's not doing anything while it's off. The memory is cleared almost instantly once the power is removed. And you look at the lights for clues to when you can do anything, whether you hold the reset button or plug it in. And you shouldn't waste any time waiting a magic number of seconds.--Drknkn (talk) 03:52, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(Just to clarify, I used the word "reset" to refer to the factory reset procedure and the word "restart" to mean turning the router off and on, two different things. I agree with you, to use the reset button, you should leave the power switch on, as I said above, but you must hold the reset button several seconds (refer to the router manual for a more precise number) to start the factory reset. This is to prevent accidental erasure. I also agree, to restart the router, you don't need to count out a large number of seconds before turning it back on. But you also don't want to flip it off and on as fast as possible. I usually ask people to turn the router off for "a second", like I wrote above, then turn it back on.) --Bavi H (talk) 05:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Also, unplugging anything is what is known as a hard reset.--Drknkn (talk) 04:05, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

(However you use the word "reset", it's important to make sure the other person understands you. If you ask someone to reset their router, and they find the button labelled "reset" and hold it, it will erase all the settings. So when talking about routers, I reserve the word "reset" for the reset button factory reset procedure. To restart the router, I usually ask someone to "turn your router off and on" or when there's no power switch to "unplug the power cable and plug it back in".) --Bavi H (talk) 05:48, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

I don't know the exact circuitry behind it, but my understanding is that hitting the "reset" button clears out some sort of ROM chip that contains all of the saved router config, and that the "waiting" (which the manuals usually instruct you to do with such things) is just to make sure that the stored memory has? cleared completely out of the ROM chip. Unplugging your router will not erase its settings, in any case (thank goodness—what a pain that would be), and usually you do have to hold down the "reset" button for a few seconds at least (manuals usually say 30 seconds, but I'm sure that is just for thoroughness' sake). --Mr.98 (talk) 21:50, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Reconnect the router to the modem. Now, which lights are glowing on the front of the router, and which aren't? Which lights are glowing on the modem? Also try unplugging your modem (not just the router) and then plugging it back in. That'll get your ISP's server's attention. What happens when you run ipconfig?--Drknkn (talk) 02:26, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I tried all that, minus disconnecting my modem, because disconnecting my router (for a previous problem) is what got me into this mess in the first place, so now I'm a bit paranoid about disconnecting my modem, and have something go wrong with that as well. Oh yeah, and my wireless network was called "linksys", I never gave it a name, so now there is no open network available. I try running ipconfig, some command prompt-like window shows up for a second then disappears. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.139.29 (talk) 03:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You first type cmd in the run box and then ipconfig inside cmd. I have a Linksys router. Whenever I connect my modem to the router, I have to unplug my modem and plug it back in again to get my ISP to recognize the new MAC address. The same goes when connect directly to the Internet. Also, maybe you should type the command like this: ipconfig /all > ipconfig.txt. Then open up the ipconfig.txt file and post the contents here. BTW: I am Network+ certified and I see nothing with our recommendations we've given you so far. But if you won't even plug the modem into the router, then there's no point in running the ipconfig command.--Drknkn (talk) 03:46, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Did all that, still nothing. And here's my ipconfig:

Windows IP Configuration

        Host Name . . . . . . . . . . . . : <redacted>
        Primary Dns Suffix  . . . . . . . : 
        Node Type . . . . . . . . . . . . : Hybrid
        IP Routing Enabled. . . . . . . . : No
        WINS Proxy Enabled. . . . . . . . : No


Ethernet adapter Local Area Connection:

        Connection-specific DNS Suffix  . : 
        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Broadcom 440x 10/100 Integrated Controller
        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-15-C5-B1-3C-BA
        Dhcp Enabled. . . . . . . . . . . : Yes
        Autoconfiguration Enabled . . . . : Yes
        IP Address. . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.101
        Subnet Mask . . . . . . . . . . . : 255.255.255.0
        Default Gateway . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
        DHCP Server . . . . . . . . . . . : 192.168.1.1
        DNS Servers . . . . . . . . . . . : 167.206.254.2
                                            167.206.254.1
        Lease Obtained. . . . . . . . . . : Tuesday, December 01, 2009 11:26:17 PM
        Lease Expires . . . . . . . . . . : Wednesday, December 02, 2009 11:26:17 PM


Ethernet adapter Wireless Network Connection:

        Media State . . . . . . . . . . . : Media disconnected
        Description . . . . . . . . . . . : Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection
        Physical Address. . . . . . . . . : 00-18-DE-21-EC-08

—Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.139.29 (talk) 05:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

If that's the output from ipconfig after you connect your modem to the router, then it looks like the router has assigned you a local IP address of 192.168.1.101, so the wired connection to the router should work. The default gateway (192.168.1.1) is your router. My guess is that you need to unplug your modem and plug it back in again, if you can't access the internet with the router connected. And you still can't connect to 192.168.1.1 through your browser? Try pinging it in cmd: ping 192.168.1.1. You should receive a reply instead of a "Request timed out" message.--Drknkn (talk) 05:41, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

And the lights that come on when I connect my router are the WLAN lights and one of the ethernet ports. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.47.139.29 (talk) 05:38, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

Wow, that worked. Thanks a lot, I really appreciate it! You helped a whole lot more than those idiots at tech support. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.189.90.68 (talk) 06:17, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

You're welcome. :) --Drknkn (talk) 06:28, 2 December 2009 (UTC)