Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 May 3

= May 3 =

follow up to wireless broadband security
Hi, I asked the question above on wireless broadband security, and I added a follow-up that I think no one looked at, because it came after the question had been more or less covered already. So I hope no one minds if I add that question again: I'm still not entirely clear: if I have wireless broadband, but I'm not connected to a LAN or anything (just a USB wireless modem stuck in a laptop) and I live in a block of flats, and there's no doubt that the neighbours are in range - can they steal my bandwidth without a password? What do they need to do this? If anyone can give me a website to read more, I would be very grateful. I clicked on the link that someone gave me above, but it was long, and primarily on a different topic. I'm wondering if there's something that just deals with wireless broadband security, or if anyone just knows the exact answer. The poster who mentioned being able to get heaps of other people's signals didn't say if they could actually use those accounts, as opposed to getting the signal. thanks in advance. 203.221.127.183 (talk) 05:57, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * If you're not using the card to connect yourself to any network, just turn it off. The OS or the card vendor should provide a menu option to do that. EdJohnston (talk) 16:34, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming that by wireless broadband, you're talking about one of those USB devices you get from the wireless phone carrier to provide internet access? If so, no there's no way someone close to you could attach to your network using the same methods you can get into a 802.11 wireless network (the Wi-Fi networks mentioned earlier).  Wi-Fi networks are made to broadcast to the local area, making it easy for unscrupulous people to break in.  Wireless broadband from wireless carriers are not. --  JSBillings  17:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Mac
If Macintosh is more respected/liked/whatever than Windows, why isn't it as successful? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 12:04, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Original research warning: Content may be untrue! IMHO, Macs are more respected, liked, and "whatever" because they are less "successful". Does that make any sense? (Please come back if it does not.) Kushal (talk) 12:26, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, much of the small business and consumer market is driven by price. By letting anyone copy the design, millions of "IBM compatible" PCs in anonymous beige boxes were sold at low prices.  Meanwhile Apple didn't release their design so small manufacturers couldn't produce "Apple compatible" computers at all.  If you wanted an Apple computer, you had to pay high Apple prices for it.  Even today, Apple's prices are considered high compare to Windows PCs.
 * I consider myself an average consumer and I considered buying a Mac recently. The Mac looked nice but in the end I went for a Windows PC.  The reasons for my choice were: I could get a top of the range Windows laptop for the same price as a mid-range Mac, with my limited financial resources there is less cheap (or free) Mac software, I wouldn't easily be able to use the software I already had, and I'm more familiar with the inner workings of Windows.
 * Astronaut (talk) 13:21, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, there are a lot of factors involved, such that it's hard to answer definitively. They're mainly historical, though: Windows is today more successful than the Mac because it has a larger installed base and therefore incumbency and network effects. So it's sort of circular; most people use Windows because most other people use Windows.
 * The question is, how did it get there? The answer is a complex intermingling of hardware platforms, operating systems, marketing, etc. that could take a book to sort out, and would still be controversial. In the 1980s IBM PC compatibles dominated the business microcomputer market, whereas the Apple II and Apple Macintosh machines dominated the educational market; the Apple machines also did better than the PC in the home market, though there they had competition from the Commodore 64 and Amiga, among others. Starting in the late 1980s and continuing into the early 1990s, the PC began displacing other machines in the home market as well. One reason was the availability of cheap commodity-hardware PC clones, compared to Apple's relatively expensive proprietary hardware. Another was the confluence of home and business use: people who used business software, for which the PC platform (MS-DOS and later Windows) had long dominated, increasingly wanted a home computer that could run the same software. And yet another was that Apple from circa 1991 to 1997 had a lot of direction and management problems, putting them in a deep hole they're only now recovering from. --Delirium (talk) 13:22, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * To add to the above, more applications are available for the PC platform. People who write programs as third party applications are able to do so and distribute their work easily. It is my understanding that it is not as easy to release products that work on Apple computers. Also, the market for video games rests mainly in the PC's court. Until recently, I hadn't seen any games that were of significant consequence released for Apple computers. Any avid video gamer up until now had to go with PC because it was the only available platform. As for how it got that way, read Delirium's comment above. Leeboyge (talk) 21:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You might be interested in reading In the Beginning...was the Command Line (if you have not done so already). Hope that helps. Kushal (talk) 13:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Apple's OS might not be as successful as MS Windows, but Apple hardware is quickly increasing in market share. Plus, Apple has one of the most popular smart phones and leads the market in digital distribution.  I think it's unfair to call that unsuccessful.   --  JSBillings  14:07, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * If James Joyce is considered one of the most important writers in the English language, how come most people in the United States haven't read him? If Betamax was of higher quality than VHS, how come we used the latter for decades? (Just because something is considered better/important/whatever doesn't mean its actual adoption will be perfect, is all I mean.) --98.217.8.46 (talk) 14:45, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It dates back to the late '70s/early '80s. At that time, the mainframe market was dominated by IBM (to the point that IBM was being investigated by the US goverment for abusing their monopoly position), and desktop computers were just starting to appear.  The original IBM PC was one of the worst desktops on the market, but it had the IBM brand on it, so it gained a considerable market share among businesses.  Later, IBM clones were able to take advantage of this by advertising them as being "IBM compatible", and IBM-compatible computers became the most common type.


 * IBM needed an operating system for their desktop computers, and since desktops weren't a core part of their business plan, they outsourced it to a company called "Micro-Soft", who provided MS-DOS, a knockoff of CP/M. Because the IBM PC and most IBM compatibles used MS-DOS, this gave Microsoft an effective monopoly on operating systems on this hardware.  When Windows 95 and Windows NT replaced MS-DOS, it meant that Windows became the dominant operating system. --Carnildo (talk) 20:21, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * "The original IBM PC was one of the worst desktops on the market" -- citation needed. -- LarryMac  | Talk  20:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Is Mac really more respected/liked/whatever then Windows? Sure some people love it, but a lot of people think it is a POS or don't care about it at all. Note just because you don't hear so much criticism of Mac OS doesn't mean there isn't any or that it's respected. It may just be that most people don't care and can't even make an informed opinion of because it's thankfully something they never have to use in their lives. Nil Einne (talk) 14:14, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Youtube down?
For the last few minutes, I have been unable to access youtube. Can you access youtube? Do you think it is something serious or just a localized issue? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 13:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Works fine for me. Are you on a public computer? Seraphim&hearts;   Whipp 13:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * No, I am not. So it must be a local issue. Thank you for answering, Seraphim. Kushal (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Glad to help :). Seraphim&hearts;   Whipp 13:41, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This exact same thing is happening to me! How can I fix it? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 13:47, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah. See this. Seraphim&hearts;   Whipp 13:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * What a relief, its working again! Kushal (talk) 14:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A useful site for this sort of question. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 20:10, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

largest tv
whats the largest tv on earth? and how many inches? --119.95.130.172 (talk) 13:54, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

Depends on what you define as "tv". Rear projection televisions can be 100 inches1. I hope that helps. Kushal (talk) 18:13, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 100 inch is quite small. In Beijing there is a screen 250m x 30m which covers the ceiling of s shopping mall.  Google it for some impressive picturs of fish on it.  Panasonic had a 150 inch TV at trade shows in January this year.  I think my 24 inch is too big! --TrogWoolley (talk) 18:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * With a video splitter, you can make a television just about any size you like by joining many smaller televisions together. So, again, it depends on what you mean by "tv". --  k a i n a w &trade; 18:51, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You said it, Kainaw! Kushal (talk) 16:05, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Mine is 61 inches and that is satisfactory. But I think the biggest TV unveiled for consumers was the 150 inch one mentioned above. I think it cost around $10,000. Useight (talk) 20:19, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Frank's 2000" TV. -- BenRG (talk) 23:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You'll want to see our Eidophor article; this was a method of projecting very large, very bright TV images.


 * Atlant (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Printing software crashes when it encounters my files?
Okay, here's the problem. I have hundreds of pictures of a soccer league, and my job is to get them ready for print. Now the edits are generally nothing major, such as lightening, cropping, using templates to make sports duos. For the editing I use Photoshop 9 CS2. When I first get the files, I renamed them based on the kid's name and what they ordered (ex. John Smith 2 3x5 1 8x10 1duo.jpg), and move them into a folder named after the team they're on (U2A).

The problem is, when I send them to the printers and they try to print it, the printing software crashes "Client host disconnected from source" or something along those lines. When I say crash, I mean that error pops up, and the program closes. It still prints, however. Now, this happens often with the files i manipulated, but some of the files i make or work with print just fine. The printer is a Fuji Frontier 550, and I think the software is "Pics Pro" (it's the fuji stock printing software). The files are in JPEG format. Now it seems to just be the technique I'm editing them with which is messing with it, but I'm open to any suggestions. I just want to get this done. 71.115.166.102 (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The way you edit the files sould not be a problem, as long as they are valid JPG files (not corrupted). I assume you are using windows, so I think you should do: -Go to windows update and install all the latest updates/drivers, sometimes it may be a bug in windows itself, and even if not, windows update sometimes provide the users updated drivers. -Try to get the latest drivers from the manufacturer -If all this still doesn't work, you can try to do a fresh windows install and see if the problem continues (this sould solve the problem, if it doesn't, it means there is a bug/problem with windows, the drivers, or the printer itself) -You can alternatively try a Linux Live CD, ubuntu, for example (you can get the CD here), and see if you can print the files... When I use windows, I have some problems with my HP printer drivers, but when I use ubuntu, it's wonderfull (only talking about the printing part!), I don't even need to install drivers, I just plug in the printer, and it is ready in a couple of seconds... of course this may not be that easy for your printer... SF007 (talk) 21:17, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Here we go again with the reinstall Windows as the option of first resort. Before taking such a drastic step, have you considered perhaps the printer's software doesn't like filenames with spaces or long filenames?  Heve you tried opening the problematic files in a differnt image editing program (perhaps on a different PC)?  Reinstalling the OS or switching to a different OS should be the option of last resort.  Astronaut (talk) 11:30, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think Linux users will reinstall their operating system with their left hand while feeding the cat, mowing the lawn, and grading the end-of-semester exams with the other hand. It would be awesome if reinstalling the operating system in Windows did not involve formatting *everything* by default. I assume that if reinstalling the OS would mean that all your documents, and applications remained intact after the reinstallation, you would not oppose it so much. Lets wait for Windows 8. Microsoft is trying to show that it wants to adhere to standards (think IE 8). Hopefully, things will change for the better. Kushal (talk) 16:10, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * It doesn't. You have to hit F or something similar to actually format the drive (in XP, at least). 206.126.163.20 (talk) 00:48, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I have used multiple computers, computers which yield no problems with anybody else's files. I've used about four computers, three of which were running XP, the final running Vista. I was always editing in CS2. Other people use two of the computers for the same purpose, but have no problems with their files. They use the same file-name format as I do (I learned it from them). It has to be something I do.71.115.166.102 (talk) 02:39, 5 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Are you adding an ICM profiel that the printer doesn't like? Is there any reason you don't just use Photoshop to print? Nil Einne (talk) 13:57, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

is it possible to have Internet everywhere in the world?
I would like to know if there is some service that allows any civilian in the world to have an active internet connection anywhere in the world (like a GPS device), with a Satellite connection or something... And I know there is something like an embargo from the USA on some countries, so a product like that purchased in the USA would be illegal to use there, but would it still be functional? I have searched the web, but haven't found any real info... thanks. SF007 (talk) 19:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Sounds like you want Satellite Internet access. Algebraist 19:59, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * yeah, that's what I meant, from that info I figured it out, seem's it's still not possible **everywhere** in the world... thanks. SF007 (talk) 20:27, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * You won't get it near the poles, or in caves, or in places where the wind exceeds 200 km/h! But with enough money you could install an optical fibre cable to wherever you want it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:00, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

utest.com: scam?
Is uTest.com a scam? 217.168.3.246 (talk) 19:46, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Never heard of it before. Kushal (talk) 20:39, 3 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Probably not. It is mentioned here for example, and it looks nothing like a scam. -- Meni Rosenfeld (talk) 20:49, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, perhaps they are just badly organized or the business is terribly low...217.168.1.251 (talk) 01:04, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You can never be sure of current events. For example, do you remember when Psystar Corporation seemed to be changing addresses like crazy? Suddenly, many people believed Psystar did not exist at all. Kushal (talk) 01:09, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Google
I dislike Google's new feature: when you enter a phrase with quotes and if there are no results, it just shows the quoteless results. How can I turn this feature off? Interactive Fiction Expert/Talk to me 23:20, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Your observation that "it just shows the quoteless results" is not accurate. It displays a warning icon and a message indicating that the search returned no results.  The unquoted results are displayed below the warning message.  I do not know of any way to turn it off. --  k a i n a w &trade; 00:58, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think you can turn it off. Google says it did not find the results you wanted and tried its best to come up with the results that seemed most relevant. Kushal (talk) 15:29, 4 May 2008 (UTC)


 * A possible workaround is to append something like -madeupwordthatgetsnohits1234dfsdsdtgdc to your query; it shouldn't affect the results (assuming the word you pick doesn't get any hits, which this one of course will as soon as Google next indexes this page), but it confuses Google enough that it won't automatically remove the quotes even if there are no hits. —Ilmari Karonen (talk) 04:20, 5 May 2008 (UTC)
 * does not give any results ... so far. Kushal (talk) 03:56, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
 * However since the reference desk is indexed it does now Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 8 May 2008 (UTC)


 * You could also try adding a trivial word like a or the to get much the same effect, so long as your target pages contain any reasonable English text. A silly but more reliable workaround is to use the OR operator: "foo bar" OR "foo bar".  --Tardis (talk) 20:10, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Safe alternative to scanf?
I was wondering whether there is a safe alternative to scanf for reading words in the C standard library. I am trying to read words from standard input (or any other stream for that matter), like this

But of course this is very dangerous because there is no way to tell it how long the buffer is, so it is liable to overflow. Is there a way to tell it how long the buffer is? I know that fgets has the ability to stop after a certain length, but it reads lines (up to a newline) instead of words (up to a whitespace) like I want. --131.215.220.165 (talk) 23:32, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I suspect most C programmers would just go ahead and read the whole line, then loop over the words. There's no shortage of functions to help you there: strtok, strspn, strcspn, strchr, etc. Another alternative is scanf with a field width specifier: scanf("%255s", word) is fine if there are at least 256 bytes allocated. (One extra is for the '\0' terminator.)
 * To make the length adjustable by changing a single macro, you need some preprocessor trickery:

char word[WORD_LEN+1]; ... scanf("%" WORD_LEN_STR "s", word)
 * 1) define WORD_LEN 255
 * 2) define Xstr(x) #x
 * 3) define Str(x) Xstr(x)
 * 4) define WORD_LEN_STR Str(WORD_LEN)
 * The result, although it avoids crashes and exploits, is not what you're probably aiming for. A long word gets truncated, and the last part of it is left in the input buffer to be taken as another word by the next scanf. --tcsetattr (talk / contribs) 00:32, 4 May 2008 (UTC)