Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 February 28

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February 28

File transfer from Drive C to Drive D—is that OK?

(1)Will it be OK for me to transfer all the files from drive c to drive d or will my computer not work properly if i do that?

There are important files in drive C, such as those of Windows and Microsoft which I think should remain, but I think since the drive C is running out of space, my computer seems to work so slow and so I thought perhaps transferring all the files from it to drive D would speed up the computer performance since drive D has lots of space available. What do you think about this? Am I making a good conclusion? I am hesitant to do this simply because I am afraid that my computer might break down if files are not where they ought to stay.

(2)Will there really be a difference if Windows and Microsoft files are saved in Drive C or Drive D or it doesn't matter where it's saved. Please answer these questions.. Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.148.167 (talk) 07:21, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Your computer will be fine, but Windows won't be.

The advice depends on the situation. You could reinstall everything. Or you could stick in a bigger hard drive and reinstall everything on that. Or you could buy a new hard drive, format that, and then use Clonezilla to copy everything from C: of the older one to C: of the newer one, etc. Or you can pay money for a shrinkwrapped box containing some alternative to Clonezilla that has no advantage over it, and use this instead of Clonezilla. Or you could move on from Windows. -- Hoary (talk) 07:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't like the two editorializing pieces here, especially the "move on from Windows" alternative, which I believe we have all decided not to do here on RD/C. Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

You can move all of the files that you have created or downloaded, but you should leave all of the Windows files and software (unless you reinstall). I have done exactly this for exactly your reasons. Increasing the size of your page file (pagefile.sys) might speed things up. I'm not sure whether creating pagefile.sys on the D drive is an advantage or not. I tried it and it didn't seem to make any difference. Perhaps a Windows expert can advise here? Are your C & D drives just partitions of the same physical drive? Dbfirs 08:11, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If the D: is a different disk (of equal or greater speed) then yes there's a (slight) performance benefit to putting the pagefile on that disk instead of C: where the main Windows installation is. If it's just a different partition of the same physical disk there's no performance difference except that you can free up some disk space by moving it to the other drive. ZX81 ^talk 09:56, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If the computer is running slowly it could be because a lot of things are loading at start up. For my computer I only have the anti-virus loading at start-up. The freeware StartUp Control Panel by Mike Lin is one way to control what runs at start-up. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 15:01, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It's possible to just go to the "startup" folder "Start">"All programs">"startup" and just press delete for the programs. (Note having programs in startup doesn't necessaryily make it slow - but does if you start running out of ram (memory)).

What's making the computer go slow may not be the hard disk - in fact I don't think it will be (on probability). However you can move just about anything from C: to D: - as noted above the only thing that is really difficult to move is windows itself - for the others (ie all programs that appear in "Set program access and defaults" as installed on your system) - you can move to D: , however just copying across may or may not work - the failsafe way to do it would be to uninstall, an then reinstall onto D: (You can move stuff like MS Office as well)

(Try defragmenting if you haven't already) The program "Disk Cleanup" also could be worth running too - it's a windows program.

To get an idea of what might be making the computer go slow the following would be useful - programs that appear in the startup folder, installed programs, memory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.102.67.84 (talk) 21:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

320GB Hard Disk Drive space—inaccurate?

I wished to ask why my the sticker on my ASUS K40IJ laptop says that it has a disk capacity of 320 GB, but the total GB actually sums up only to 282.5 GB (74.5 for drive C and 208 GB for drive D). I was really confident that I would be able to store many files in my computer. That's one of the reasons why I purchased this product. Perhaps the reason why it's like that is simply because some other files are stored in other drives, but which one? I am hoping for a reply. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.202.148.167 (talk) 08:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

See Hard_disk_drive#Capacity_measurements, specifically the 'Formatted disk overhead' section "the operating system's file system internal usage is another, although minor, reason why a computer hard drive or storage device's capacity may show its capacity as different from its theoretical capacity" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 11:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Not really inaccurate, but more to do with marketing. You might think 320GB is 343,597,383,680 bytes (ie. 320 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024), but it is very likely to be only 320,000,000,000 bytes which is only 298GB. Astronaut (talk) 12:10, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Obligatory xkcd link --Tango (talk) 05:13, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

If you're using Windows, you can look at disk partitions in the Administrative Tools in the control panel. That'll show you if your 320gb disk is divided up into smaller partitions. A lot of OEMs add a small recovery partition that take up a bit of space. Indeterminate (talk) 15:03, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

In Vista that's Control panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer management -> Storage -> Disk management. My 4GB SD memory card shows as only 3.75GB when formatted because formatting writes timing bytes between sectors. You could plug in an external hard drive (either direct USB or via a network) to store your large files. 1000GB drives are now quite inexpensive. Dbfirs 16:49, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

How do I change the user agent on iPhone?

How can I change the user agent of my mobile browser (Safari) so that it identifies to Facebook, Wikipedia, etc. as a normal browser like Firefox, Chrome, regular Safari on my laptop? Basically I hate hate hate mobile versions of pages and I can't seem to keep certain sites from constantly reverting to the mobile page no matter what I do. Nota bene: I am a computer idiot so talk down to me. I only know how to even ask this question because of someone else on this page. I Googled looking for information but couldn't find anything, probably because I don't really know what I am looking for. love, Saudade7 09:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't think it's terribly easy. In OS X it's much easier, but the only thing I can find for the iPhone OS is this guy's solution. It looks like it might work, but you'll need a rooted phone, comfortableness with a hex editor, and willingness to probably make a terrible mess of your system. :) Indeterminate (talk) 15:00, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Again for someone technically minded, this could be achieved by operating a simple http proxy that rewrote the user-agent field of outgoing requests, and having the iPhone use that proxy rather than direct connect (I know you can set safari's http-proxy setting on a per-wifi-connection basis, I don't know about for its 3G connection). For someone with the modest technical capacity to do so, that's not a tough task. But I can't find an off-the-shelf proxy that someone who feels themselves a "computer idiot" could realistically do this task with, I'm afraid. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:47, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh No! I am too stupid to slay this particular monster! Cursed be the gods! I barely understood the technical aspects of what either of you were saying, that's the mess I'm in! C'est la vie, I do really very much appreciate your attempts to help me though Indeterminate and Finlay McWalter. Thanks so very much, love, Saudade7 01:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

IRC funding

How exactly are networks like rizon, quakenet funded? Who pays for their server costs? --Drogonov 10:08, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It's not clear - this might help http://www.b2irc.net/files/charter.pdf - (as an example of an IRC channel) - it looks like they use an entirely voluntary model, with servers providing help as 'sponsors' - ie mostly charitably (though it mentions a small amount of advertising).

I would guess that since text chat is miniscule in bandwidth terms compared to the average mp3 or youtube video that it's no big deal for a server provider to do some hosting.

eg http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/ mentions popular nets having 10,000 users + , if they send 100bytes of text every day that's only 1Mb - it's a lot of typing to get it to 10Mb/day total! (So I'd guess you could practically set one up with an old computer and standard internet connection if you are prepared to pay the electricity bills for having it on 24hrs)

This seems to confirm it http://www.mirc.co.uk/help/costs.html - ie like P2P sharing (and a lot less bandwidth) - you only really pay the internet service provider.

The latest news on http://www.quakenet.org/ says that demon.uk is no longer a sponsor after been taken over by cable & wireless - I get the impression that this is a small scale 'close to the ground' type of thing that inviduals or smaller companies rather than big corps. would support freely. It doesn't look like they cost a lot.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:30, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Insidious MSN messenger startup

I sometimes use this multi-user Windows XP machine. I don't use MSN messenger so I have clicked the "Do not launch at windows startup" and removed the entry from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run in the registry. Yet, several times I have had MSN messenger launch when I have logged in and had to go back through the hiding process again. How can I convince MSN messenger to be gone from my user and stay gone no matter what the other users might do. Astronaut (talk) 11:32, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Hypervisor

Is there any lightweight linux or any other platform, by which I can run a virtual machine? The platform should be very lightweight, low on system resources and no other capabilities than running virtual machines.

Have you investigated all the products mentioned in our Hypervisor article? Comet Tuttle (talk) 15:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I don't know which one would be a minimal hypervisor from that article. 218.248.80.62 (talk) 16:43, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It might be worth just trying a few out (it's a PC system right?) Did you want to pay - only Xen seems free that I could see.87.102.67.84 (talk) 22:35, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Have you seen the list Comparison of platform virtual machines which might help narrow your choice.87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:12, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Page orientation in Microsoft Word

In Microsoft Word, there are two different ways to orient a page: portrait and landscape. Thus, with a typical 8.5 x 11 inch paper, the portrait orientation sets the paper length (up and down) at the 11 inches and the paper width (across) as the 8.5 inches. With landscape setting, the reverse is true: the landscape orientation sets the paper length (up and down) at the 8.5 inches and the paper width (across) as the 11 inches. So, with portrait orientation, the page is longer than it is wide. With landscape orientation, the page is wider than it is long. My question is this. I want to create a document of several pages, in which I need to place a lot of text as well as several different charts and graphs. Some of the charts and graphs are better suited (formatted) for portrait orientation, and some of them are better suited (formatted) for landscape. Within the same document, is it possible to "switch" back and forth between different orientations for different pages? If so, how? Or must the entire document be set as one orientation or the other, without a mixture of both? Thank you in advance. (64.252.68.102 (talk) 15:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC))

I found the answer in Word 2007 by mousing over the "Orientation" icon in the Page Layout tab, then pressing F1 as suggested in the tooltip. There is a Help section called "Use portrait and landscape orientation in the same document". It says that first you select the pages or paragraphs you want to change; then on the Page Layout tab, in the Page Setup group, click "Margins"; then click Custom Margins; then on the Margins tab, click Portrait or Landscape; then in the "Apply to" list, click "Selected text". Word will automatically put section breaks before and after the text you selected for this change. By the way, another workaround that seems simpler to me, if your landscape pages are for graphics only, is to just leave the whole document in Portrait, paste the graphics as needed, and rotate them using the little green rotation handle that pokes out of the picture. Hold the Shift key while rotating to be sure it's an exact 90 degree rotation. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

(ec):Yes, it is possible to "switch" back and forth between different orientations for different pages. You would need to put a 'section break' wherever you want to change orientations(among other things), this allows the setup of that section to be set differently to the rest of the document. In Word 2007 select Page Layout, Breaks, Section Breaks then type of break you want. If you want to change back to you normal orientation you need another section break ie. one at the start and end of each section. (or as Comet Tuttle says above. More than one way to do it!) --220.101.28.25 (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I just realized a big problem. When I am "switching" back and forth ... I assume that Word, by necessity, will leave a lot of extra blank white space when changing orientations from one page to another. So, my document will not really flow very smoothly at all. It will look like this: text ... a lot of dead blank white space ... my chart ... a lot more dead blank white space ... more text ... a lot more dead blank white space ... another chart ... etc. Is that what will happen? Thank you. (64.252.68.102 (talk) 16:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC))

Also, I like the idea of the simpler alternative way to do this ... by simply rotating a graphic by 90 degrees on a portrait page. So, is a chart/table considered a "graphic", with which this alternative method may be used? Or is a chart/table something that is different than a graphic? Thanks. (64.252.68.102 (talk) 16:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC))

I've just tried this with Word 2000, and there is no blank space. I can change from a full page of portrait text to a full landscape graphic, and back to normal portrait text with no gaps. Just make your table fill the page. I can't imagine that this has been lost in more recent versions of Word. I used only section breaks. You can create a Word table to fit any space you wish. It is not a graphic. Dbfirs 16:59, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, Dbfirs ... but I don't understand. Are you saying that I need to make each chart/table fill an entire page? (What if they are smaller charts that don't need such large space as a full page?) ... Or are you saying that, within the same page, Word will toggle between landscape and portrait, as needed? Thanks! (64.252.68.102 (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2010 (UTC))

!! I think what the question is saying that they can't get text to flow across two pages when the orientation changes from portrait to landscape (and neither can I) - because a page break is used to change orientation..87.102.67.84 (talk) 19:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It isn't normal practice to allow text to flow from a portrait page onto a landscape page, though Word 2000 will do this (I've just tried it). Usually, the only reason for changing from portrait to landscape within a document is to allow a wide table which would be too compressed on a portrait page. If this is not necessary, then why use landscape at all? Now I don't understand. Dbfirs 20:14, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I've just realised that you want a DTP-style table (say down the LHS, but read sideways) with text flowing in the remaining space to the right. Really, software such as Publisher is designed for this, but you can achieve the same effect in Word by saving the table as an image (sideways), then inserting it into the document and formatting it with layout left or right (not in line). A slightly messy alternative is to create the table down the side with rotated text, then insert a text box beside it with text flowing from text boxes on adjacent pages, but this would be more difficult to get right. Dbfirs 20:28, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

yes, I was just going to point out that it's a desktop publishing type of request - and maybe word is not the easiest way (though it can be done) - one example is to have a table which fills a whole page (and landscape too) and have text wrap (literally skip) around the whole page - I think there are better ways than importing the table as a graphic - eg getting the table as an OLE object (possibly withing a 'frame') allows you to attach that table to a page, - and the text will then flow round (after selecting flowing text in an option) (as you type) (this might have been the original request)- unfortunately I'm using openoffice at the moment so can't give exact instructions for word - though I'm sure it will do a similar thing. Maybe someone else can give the specifics for word.87.102.67.84 (talk) 20:39, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

... agreed ... "Insert -> Object ->Spreadsheet" does this, and you can then format the object as for image above. The only problem is that you still need to rotate all the text to get a landscape spreadsheet, which is why I would find it easier to turn it into an image, but experiment to see which works best for you. The big advantage of inserting as an object is that a double-click allows editing as a spreadsheet. Office 2000 doesn't seem to allow rotation of the spreadsheet object, but perhaps your version of Office does, in which case, this is your best option. If you don't like spreadsheets, then you can insert a table as an object by inserting a second document as an object where the second document is just a table. The text can then be made to flow round this. Dbfirs 21:57, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all for all of the input and feedback above. This was very helpful. Thanks ... much appreciated! (64.252.68.102 (talk) 14:11, 2 March 2010 (UTC))

Youtube insights for other people's videos

Is there a way to see the insight statistics for videos that other people (not me) uploaded? --Belchman (talk) 19:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

No, the information is only available to the uploader of the video (or access to the uploaders account) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.44.55.204 (talk) 22:06, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Getting imagemap codes from archived websites

Hi! I tried using the image map to access other language sites for AirUK at http://web.archive.org/web/19961029013136/www.airuk.co.uk/index.html - The image map does not properly direct people to the other language sites.

Am I able to use the source code of the main site or of any image map codes to try to find the URLs that the image map is trying to point me to? I really want to find the URLs of the other language sites to see if web.archive.org archived them. Thanks WhisperToMe (talk) 21:53, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

The URLS aren't in the source file, it uses

<a href="Flag.map" target="_top"><img ismap src="Flagbar2.gif" border=0 height=27 width=278></a>

for clicking on the country flag image - ie this should redirect to http://www.airuk.co.uk/Flag.map which I couldn't find - that might be because it was sending data about where you clicked to a server which would then convert the coordinates into a new URL - this server program probably wasn't archived.87.102.67.84 (talk) 00:23, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Correction : http://web.archive.org/web/*/%20http://www.airuk.co.uk/Flag.map

What it looks like is that they archive the html result of the ...Flag.map page as it appears when it isn't sent any coordinates - hence it's just archive the error message.

In fact

Server side image maps -- Like any functionality on the web, if it needs to contact the originating server in order to work, it will fail when archived.[1]

Looks fairly impossible to solve, (unless you can find the old webmaster or site designer, and contact them.) Sorry.87.102.67.84 (talk) 00:37, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

KLM acquired AirUK, so I hope that KLM would be able to answer my inquiry. Thank you very much! WhisperToMe (talk) 07:58, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

HTML card file

I've seen several sites where a card file appears to be displayed with visible tabs for every card but the cards overlayed as in a real card file. When you click on the tab for a particular card it is displayed while the previous card is hidden. How is this accomplished using HTML? 71.100.5.197 (talk) 22:27, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

It isn't just HTML. It is a combination of HTML and JavaScript (likely with CSS tossed in). -- kainaw™ 22:33, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Are there reference templates and examples for a simple card file I can use? 71.100.5.197 (talk) 22:38, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Find one you like and go to "View Source" in your web browser. -- kainaw™ 23:05, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

If you just want a card file to use yourself, then the old windows Microsoft Cardfile is downloadable here http://northshorepc.com/download/cardfile.zip or available as an add-on from the instalation disk in older versions of Windows. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 23:07, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

For stuff like this it's often a wise idea to use a pre-existing web interface library, rather than cook your own (that should take care of all those evil JavaScript and browser incompatibility problems or weird browsers you don't own). jQuery is a popular choice - see this documentation (which includes an example about a third of the way down the page). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 23:09, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

How do websites that don't advertise make money?

Like this one for example http://www.nutritiondata.com/ I did see a link to an article about how free websites make money recently, but I cannot remember where I saw it. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 23:02, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

? There are actually ads on that site.. (lots) Most site have ads nowadays - often added by the host. They even have a sub section for advertisers which links to http://www.condenastdigital.com/nutrition.html and explains the whys and how of advertising ! 87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Also note that web hosting is very cheap. So some people will simply sponsor it as a public service or to have platform to distribute their message. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 23:34, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

I did not notice any ads. Looking more closely I see they have unobtrusive brief text links to other websites, which I suppose are the ads. Does anyone know where to find the article I mentioned above? 89.242.47.252 (talk) 23:37, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Ahem, e-commerce. --194.197.235.240 (talk) 23:40, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

There is also a big animated image ad on the right hand side (Adblock hid it from me until I disabled it - perhaps you are unknowingly hiding ads?). If you don't want to advertise, there are three main options. Ask for donations (works for Wikipedia!), sell something (merchandise or an actual product) or fund it out of your own pocket. --Tango (talk) 23:41, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

See Ad serving and Website monetization. As for the article - there are many like that - you'd need to give more info.87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:46, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

For a website without ads there's Affiliate marketing though really in those cases the whole website is one big ad : though they do provide a valuble service in many cases - people actaully do need to buy things anyway ... :) . Maybe that's what you were thinking of - eg a review site might operate without any ads - but make money on clicks to the sellers website coming from hyperlinks on the review website.87.102.67.84 (talk) 23:50, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

And for some sites, the users are the revenue. I know a dot-com guy whose business model is basically: make a site (any site!), try to get thousands of users, sell the site to someone else, who will then either try to direct it into another pre-existing site (thereby basically buying users), or "point" the user-base at something they'd like (e.g. add specialized, targeted advertising that would appeal to the particular demographic). Which, in the end, devolves into ads or selling a product—but depending on what "stage" you see a site, it might be aimed at just increasing its size and impact, with the goal of being sold off to someone who will then have the hard job of actually monetizing the content. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:11, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Not the most ethical of business practices... --Tango (talk) 00:20, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Not necessarily. A user-base is a commodity like any other, in a way. Nobody is being force to be a user, nobody is forced to buy the site... --Mr.98 (talk) 01:07, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

When a user visits your site, they expect to find a particular thing. That's why they went there. If you suddenly change it away from what they want to something designed just to turn their visit into money, that is rather deceptive. --Tango (talk) 05:01, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Um, it's annoying, but it's not deceptive. If the user has not paid for anything I'm not sure that any kind of contract has been entered into. I'm really not sure what your argument is here. Do you think Facebook cares about your visits other than the fact that they are visits? They've tried to find a way to get you to visit their site, put in your info, and return again. Not because they like you or your expectations—because they want to make money off of it. As a user you are free to walk away at any time in such a situation. If they do things that radically offend your sensibilities, by all means, don't frequent them. But there's nothing unethical or deceptive about such things—that's just how business works. --Mr.98 (talk) 21:14, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Here is another example of an ad-free site http://www.techsupportalert.com/ although in the FAQ it says it is supported by donations and t-shirts. I am using Firefox with AdblockPlus running so that must be why I did not see the adverts. 89.242.47.252 (talk) 00:43, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

You are assuming that all websites DO make money - yet right here, Wikipedia is one of the top ten most visited web sites on the planet - and there is not one teeny-tiny scrap of advertising anywhere on it. You can host a pretty decent/complex website for under $10 a month (I do that) and there is really no need for advertising to fund it. SteveBaker (talk) 03:12, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

No I'm not. 89.243.202.10 (talk) 17:51, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia unfortunately does have some advertising for a time, see Category:Spam pages for speedy deletion or Category:Articles with a promotional tone. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:26, 2 March 2010 (UTC)