Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 August 16

= August 16 =

Google's purchase of Motorola
Florian Mueller (FOSS Patents) thinks that Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility is more than just about defending Android and some commenters on sites like Facebook and CNET on saying things like "no more locked bootlaoders, plz" and "googlephone yeah" (misspelling intentional). The articles I have been reading have brought up the question of whether this will distance other Android device manufacturers like Samsung and HTC now that Google might become a manufacturer of Android devices and take advantage of being the owner of Android. Also, some analysts are saying this might be a big mistake on Google's part. Isn't this similar, though, to what Nokia had going with Symbian? Nokia owned Symbian and manufactured Symbian devices, while also licensing it to other manufacturers? Did that lead to Nokia's flop or was that something else? --Melab±1 &#9742; 01:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Nokia's recent losses are generally attributed to Symbian being out-of-date, hard to use, and lacking in features compared to Android or iOS. Many different morals can be drawn from the history of Symbian, which is complex with changes of ownership, multiple versions, fragmentation of the platform, different licensing models, etc.  It was initially created by Psion, who didn't make smartphones, and licenced much like Windows Mobile; in the early 2000s different companies, principally Ericsson and Nokia, developed separate versions with different UIs and apps; it was owned by a separate (but largely Nokia-owned) company for a while, then open-sourced, then more recently Nokia has taken it over and done an impressive but too-late overhaul. Possibly, the frequent changes in Symbian's organisation impeded attempts to modernize it, and the fragmentation prevented wider uptake (compare Windows Mobile, which is much more unified across platforms).
 * It's probably true that few other companies used Symbian because it was so closely associated with Nokia, and the fragmentation of the platform meant that other companies' phones wouldn't necessarily run Nokia applications. You could compare Palm and its Palm OS, which it spun off, tried to license, and later re-purchased with similar confusion.  Android is much newer, and Google has so far had quite a firm control on it (while the OS is open-source, Google has developed important proprietary applications); the frequent updates to Android also discourage differentiation by making it much harder for companies to keep up to date.  Android's principal goal so far is to sell users to advertisers, not to sell phones.  What will happen to Motorola and Android in the future is a matter for speculation, and the Reference Desk is not for speculation about future events. --Colapeninsula (talk) 11:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * What (known) hurdles must this pass in order to be finalized? --Melab±1 &#9742; 16:35, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Have you read our article on mergers and acquisitions? There are several legal and regulatory stages in the process.  The relevant law is very complicated; many parties are involved, including shareholders and board members of both companies; the Federal government, usually represented by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and other government agencies.  You can read the official press release, (the official official press release, filed with the Government), at the SEC website: DEX991 Exhibit 99.1 GOOGLE TO ACQUIRE MOTOROLA MOBILITY and read other EDGAR filings to see all the relevant and public-record materials related to this acquisition.  The associated document, Form 8-K, informs you of the legal-ese: Form 8-K for the Google acquisition of Motorola.  Nimur (talk) 18:11, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

need help
i used brake cleaner on my keyboard and all my keys are stuck together I am using on screen keyboard to type this please help me ????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.83.112.39 (talk) 05:20, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Are you sure that this really happened? If it did then I think you need a new keyboard.    D b f i r s  


 * When you get your new keyboard, be sure to read the cleaning instructions.--Shantavira|feed me 07:09, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

Brake cleaner can contain both acetone and toluene - both of which will dissolve most plastics. Toluene is especially nasty, I would actually advise against using brake cleaner indoors at all due to the dangers of inhaling it. On your keyboard it will have probably partially dissolved the plastic on the keys, which then fused as the plastic resolidified when the solvents evaporated. As suggested above there is probably not much more you can do at this point except buy a new keyboard (and some keyboard cleaning wipes!) Equisetum (talk &#124; email &#124; contributions) 10:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Break out the dremel with mini-saw attachment. And only use that type of cleaner for the break key. (P.S. GIFs or it didn't happen.) Rich Farmbrough, 11:34, 16 August 2011 (UTC).


 * Is it just me, but are we getting a lot of these 'PC broken in bizarre way' queries recently? All from either the same IP, or same subset. -- KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, maybe someone's just learning? That's good, right? KageTora, I had taken the liberty of closing your 'small' tag. Anyway, for my part, I just wash the keyboard in the sink/under the shower. This may be advanced maths for some, but once you get the hang of it it's easy. First you unplug the keyboard from the computer and disassemble it carefully, place the screws in order so that they all return to their original holes. If this is a wireless keyboard remove the batteries as well. Only clean the plastic components (use washing-up liquid and warm water). When doing the dismantling remember the order of all components, because that might be tricky. Be careful not to wash any of the electrical parts, as this might be disastrous for them. Then put it all back together in order. --Ouro (blah blah) 14:16, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not just learning. It's a set of increasingly unlikely and ridiculous computer questions. See here for more examples. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:08, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * C/f and SPI  Chzz  ►  16:14, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Cheers - I hadn't realised this had already been logged. KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:45, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

omanual file format
This question was originally posted on the English Wikipedia Helpdesk, and I moved it here.  Chzz  ► 15:55, 16 August 2011 (UTC)

omanual - freeware need (container)or Program to open it.

hello My Name is Nathan L King I'm trying to find more Info on a new file ext.(?). I down lodead a omanual from internet archive.org on several ifixits to repair Sony Playstation 3's,Canon cameras and there in a omanual format witch is a xml and something else. I'm not sure how to do what im recomending so im just doing something in hopes it gets to the right person to get things asked the right people. I use your en.wikipedia all the time and try to use freeware in the hope that someday will be able to DONATE someday. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.135.163.250 (talk) 15:49, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * See XML.--Shantavira|feed me 07:42, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Can you be more specific about where you got it from? There's a lot of stuff on the internet archive. Emeraldemon (talk) 19:06, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

Laptop battery - left plugged in and running
Does it hurt a laptop battery to have it plugged in and on most of the time (24 hours most days). My wife insists that this hurts the life and rechargability of the battery. I just had to replace one, so is that right? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 22:32, 16 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OR, but I leave mine plugged in and on for 24 hours a day, and I've had it over three years and no problem with it (HP G60 - except that it gets very hot, but apparently this laptop is well known for that anyway). Also, I never thought rechargability would be a problem, because I leave it plugged in and on all the time - I would never use it on battery anyway. -- KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 22:36, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * If you never use it on battery, how do you know running it plugged in all of the time doesn't hurt the battery? Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 04:25, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, to be honest, on the rare occasion that I have to take it on the train and need to do work while I'm there, and haven't been lucky enough to find a seat with a power socket, I have been able to use it with no problem, for anything upto two hours, after which I've switched it off, still with lots of battery left. -- KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 16:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * I have a laptop plugged in and running 24x7 except when there's a power cut. When this happens, the battery appears to function as normal.--Phil Holmes (talk) 15:40, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * OR again -- My laptop instructions advised against this practice, but I ignored the advice and have had it plugged in (with the battery in place) almost continuously for four years. I have used the battery power occasionally, but the life has gradually reduced to less than half an hour.  Charging circuits and battery life-expectancy vary between models, but I think the detriment to the battery is probably marginal and mine would probably have been near to the end of its useful life even if I had followed instructions.    D b f i r s   20:48, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Security implications of a poor-man's proxy?
As part of my endless effort to subvert university IT (don't ask, long story, lots of existing posts on here about it over the course of a few years now), one thing I'd been playing with was creating what I am calling a poor-man's proxy.

Essentially it is a PHP script that scrapes content from another server and displays it as its own. So if you went to http://edserver.edu/program/events/, it would really display content from http://myserver.org/events/. This is accomplished by some mod_rewrite rules that send all queries to http://edserver.edu/program/ to a PHP script that then scrapes the end off of the URL (in this case, events/) and then plops that onto the end of the source URL (in this case, http://myserver.org).

It's a pretty simple script, in the end, and the site does not require any complicated user interactions (no form submissions).

The IT people are mulling this over. I think they'll be most concerned with the potential security issues. I'm hard pressed to think of any that are serious — the PHP script does not allow any modification of the .edu server whatsoever. There are no passwords being sent anywhere or anything like that. There is no user interaction at all other than static browsing. Worst-case scenario, the security on the .org server is compromised, and the .edu server displays false information for awhile? That seems rather minor. The PHP script just accesses the source (.org) server through regular HTTP requests — it doesn't have FTP access or anything special.

Am I missing anything obvious? Or unobvious? What's the worst you could imagine doing in such a situation? --Mr.98 (talk) 23:13, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * What if the server you're scraping from contained malicious code i.e. something that took advantage of a browser vunerability then you'd effectively be passing it on. Depending on the security of the local network it's possible that edserver.edu is completely trusted since it's assumed to be internal. Or perhaps all web filtering is normal performed at the gateway and in this case it's been bypassed (again assuming the .edu server is internal) so unless they're running antivirus on all the client machines it wouldn't necessary need a browser vunerability, it could just rely on user error (because they assume it's a local server so if it says to run something then that sounds okay).  ZX81    talk  23:37, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * What if PHP has a bug involving a particular type of malformed URL, and when edserver.edu goes to fetch the URL, the bug triggers, and the geniuses who wrote this exploit put some executable code in the malformed URL which, because of the spectacularly bad nature of the bug, then gets executed by edserver.edu? Comet Tuttle (talk) 23:51, 16 August 2011 (UTC)


 * These two seem like rather obscure possibilities that don't increase the security too much from hosting a PHP-laden site in general. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Why not just send the URL suffix as an HTTP argument, and load the PHP page directly? For example, http://edserver.edu/program?url=/events/, which will load the URL "program" (your PHP script); and supplies "/events/" as the argument.  Here's the PHP manual for GET variables (everything in the URL after the ? symbol).  Use the syntax <tt>$_GET["url"]</tt> to refer to "/events/" in this example.  Then, implement the screen-scraping in PHP.  You can specify a mod-rewrite in Apache so that it looks like you're not using a "?" ; but this is purely cosmetic; and it requires the assistance of whomever manages your Apache configuration.  Nimur (talk) 00:12, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * I know it's entirely cosmetic, but it's to preserve old links (and because cosmetics matter). It doesn't require that much assistance — they just need to enable local .htaccess files, and mod_rewrite does the rest. (The script I've written generates its own .htaccess files, which makes it even easier.) But that wouldn't affect the security situation. --Mr.98 (talk) 00:22, 17 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The following assumes that the server starts in a secure configuration; proper file-permissions; no untrusted access; etc.
 * <tt>mod_rewrite</tt> uses regular expressions, so make sure your regexps are well-formed. Some regexps are able to hang during processing; I don't know if mod_rewrite will behave well (your Apache.conf or platform-equivalent should have a HTTP request timeout, so this isn't a "security risk" in most cases).  Your rewrite may collide or alias another valid URL; which will confuse users if they hit "reload."  In my assessment, none of these are a significant security risk; in that, they probably won't result in privilege escalation, data leaks, or other compromises to the system; but they are security risks insofar as "they might make otherwise perfectly good PHP code behave strangely."  That sums up the risk from the <tt>mod_rewrite</tt> directive.  This says nothing of your screenscraping (or the rest of the PHP script) - make sure that code is free of security risks.  Pay careful attention to string-sanitizing when you are including/delivering content from a server that you don't control.  Nimur (talk) 01:08, 17 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Good points. (The nice thing here is that I do technically control both servers, which reduces the danger to the "one of them gets hacked", which is really no different than any one of them getting hacked, except there are two of them.) My mod_rewrite expressions are pretty simple, just:
 * <IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
 * RewriteEngine On
 * RewriteBase $base/
 * RewriteRule ^index\.php$ - [L]
 * RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
 * RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
 * RewriteRule . $base/index.php [L]
 * </IfModule>
 * Which were just taken from some tutorial on the internet somewhere. I'm no reg_ex guru (at all) but the simplicity of it ("go to index no matter what") seems to make it appear a bit safer than otherwise, but I don't know. The $base gets filled in by PHP (it is the .edu domain). --Mr.98 (talk) 01:53, 17 August 2011 (UTC)