Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2010 October 3

= October 3 =

vids
i need a program that will download vids from sites like metacafe ect. but will preserve the quality. i have the free firefox one but it only works on youtube ( i think)? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kj650 (talk • contribs) 06:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Stop thinking and know (and keep in mind that there are going to be some sites with videos/streams that you won't be able to easily download, despite it being wholly technically possible). ¦ Reisio (talk) 07:38, 4 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Try Flashgot. It works with most video sites. I just tried it with metacafe and it worked fine. APL (talk) 07:57, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Looking up unicode character names from glyphs
I've just seen a series of peculiar glyphs used on a messageboard. Is there a site somewhere with an input box which I can paste a glyph into, which will tell me its unicode name so I can get some idea why it exists? Wurstgeist (talk) 13:11, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/search.htm -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:20, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * But it's worth just searching Wikipedia for it; there are articles for many of the commoner characters (e.g. 京). Failing that, search Google for "京 unicode" and you end up with pages like this. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 13:40, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you kindly. That didn't work for most of the characters (some of them turned into ordinary characters, some returned "not found") but it gave me the clue that what was going on was some heavy abuse of combining characters. Still not sure which ones. Probably all of them. :) 86.21.204.137 (talk) 13:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Sometimes I've found myself pasting the mysterious characters into a python shell like this:
 * >>> u'天下の台所'
 *  u'\u5929\u4e0b\u306e\u53f0\u6240'
 * So those characters are U+5929, U+4e0b, U+306e, U+53f0, U+6240, which we can then look up in the unicode character reference. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:26, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I use this Firefox addon. Algebraist 14:29, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks - that's very useful. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 14:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, that did a really good job. COMBINING OGONEK (NON-SPACING OGONEK), COMBINING INVERTED BREVE BELOW (NON-SPACING INVERTED BREVE BELOW), COMBINING ALMOST EQUAL TO ABOVE, etc., etc. Wurstgeist (talk) 15:39, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * I wouldn't be surprised if you're talking about some strange smiley or something, but it's worth noting that if there's a mismatch between the input character set and the character encoding the page is being sent with, characters can render enitrely different from how the author may have intended them to. ¦ Reisio (talk) 18:54, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * It looks like this question has already been answered, but for future reference, when I want to look up a single Unicode character I've found unicode-search.net to be helpful. —Bkell (talk) 14:35, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

Hard drive
I have lots of internal hard drives, some with Serial ATA and some with Parallel ATA connections. Some also differ in size and physical shape. I want to use them without opening up my computer and restarting it each time. I looked into hard drive enclosures and docking stations but it seems as though there's no "all in one" solution that will work with all my drives, and I don't want 30 different enclosures. Is there a specific name for just the cables without casing which would work with all the drives that I can look up? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 17:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * You want them easily interchangeable? An external drive docking station would probably be a good bet. Search your favorite computer supplier for "Hard Drive Docking." If you want to go a cheaper route you could run extension cables outside of the case, but I don't think you'll be able to swap those without powering down the computer first. You'll also probably need different ones for Parallel ATA and SATA, although you might get lucky and find one that does both. There are some external enclosures that do both, but you have to switch cables. Shadowjams (talk) 21:21, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * I looked into docking stations already but they specify sizes, and because of the different physical shapes of my drives (some are old and very bulky) I didn't think they would fit into docking stations designed for standard size drives. Basically what I want is a usb docking station, but without the casing; ie just the usb cable and wires to connect to the drive. Is that kind of thing manufactured? Does it have a specific name which I can search for? 82.44.55.25 (talk) 22:58, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of USB units that can connect to both PATA and SATA, eg - won't that do what you need? Unilynx (talk) 22:59, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes, thanks :) 82.44.55.25 (talk) 23:06, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Copyrights
can i copy and past wikipedia is it a copywrite low? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 113.11.9.68 (talk) 19:28, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
 * See Copyrights 82.44.55.25 (talk) 19:38, 3 October 2010 (UTC)


 * The text of Wikipedia is licensed under the Creative Commons WP:CC-BY-SA license (if you look at the bottom of the page, it says this in the small print). This means (approximately) that you can copy text as long as you cite Wikipedia.  (Also, you can publish modified versions, as long as you make your modifications available under CC-BY-SA, also.  This clause doesn't come up very often.)


 * Note that, depending on the setting, copyright law might not be the only constraint. For example, in academic settings, citations are necessary and plagiarism is unacceptable, even for works in the public domain.  It's also often inadvisable to do long quotations of Wikipedia, even properly marked and cited, because encyclopedias are tertiary sources, which means that you're getting a "pre-digested" summary of the topic.  Paul (Stansifer) 12:10, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * You also need to be aware that any photos or other media files may be licensed differently to the text. If you intend to use them you need to check the reuse requirements for each one separately and comply with that. --jjron (talk) 08:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)