Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 January 27

= January 27 =

Please help me find a laptop that's meant to withstand the rigors of travel, and a lot more abuse than this current one.
My Dell Inspiron 1720 had to have various parts replaced because of normal wear-and-tear incurred from daily travel. Fortunately, it has a fine warranty but what could help better is if I got a laptop that didn't need as much maintenance in the first place.

I've reviewed Dell's line of laptops but none seem nor are advertised for its durabilities.

Therefore, what line of laptops can I find that is no more than 17" (since AFAIK, there are no backpacks that hold longer than 17" laptops), can withstand more shakes, wear, tear, and other rigors of being taken anywhere, and overall put up with more abuse than this laptop can? Whatever those lines of laptops are, please link their article(s) and/or product links. Thanks in advance. --70.133.222.93 (talk) 00:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We have articles on Rugged computers, and the Panasonic Toughbook. Nimur (talk) 01:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * My dad's work uses the Toughbook in their pickup trucks when needing to have a computer in the field, by all accounts it's an excellent, durable laptop 65.29.47.55 (talk) 08:55, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Dell actually DO have a model designed to be durable: Dell Latitude ATG.  ZX81    talk  01:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

ASUS computers are also known for being durable (but not rugged laptops, which are a special type of laptops). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.24.238.251 (talk) 12:47, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I would recommend the Stealth Warrior 1000 Rugged Notebook. I haven't personally used this notebook, so I can't speak to its actual survivability, but its specifications look quite impressive. Plus, you don't need a backpack with this particular notebook because it is comes in a briefcase form-factor. Rocketshiporion ♫ 06:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I can't help wondering though whether a US$7995.00 laptop is really what the OP is looking for. Nil Einne (talk) 19:32, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Most Open Android Carrier and Manufacturer
I'm going to be getting a new phone soon and I'm looking at the Droid 2 Global. It used to seem to me that Verizon was far more open than AT&T, but now I don't know. I'm seeing Motorola, Samsung, Verizon, and T-Mobile locking down their new Android devices and I want to which carrier and which manufacturer is the most open. The Nexus S looks cool but I need a keyboard. Also is there anyway I could get my hands on an unbranded Droid 2 Global? --Melab±1 &#9742; 01:23, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You'd probably have to pay more for unbranded, and to a less reputable seller. If you want a device that's more open by default, you might watch out for the successor to the Nokia N900, which is due this year. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

But I'm looking for an Android phone. --Melab±1 &#9742; 06:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Then you are unnecessarily hampering yourself from the outset. The reason Android is a decent choice is because it's mostly open source, which is because it is Linux-based.  MeeGo (what the Nokia N900 successor is meant to use, and the successor of Maemo, what the N900 did use) is also Linux-based, only in a more traditional sense.  MeeGo uses, for example, RPMs for packages, which (while I find personally inferior to some other forms of package management in Linux land) is an incredibly long used package management system for ordinary Linux distributions, and is even the go-to system for the Linux Standard Base (if you care about such standards).  I think of it rather as Android being a fancy pants mobile OS that is in fact a Linux distribution, albeit an odd one; and as MeeGo being a Linux distribution modified or posing as a fancy pants mobile OS.  I'm sure there will be devices using MeeGo with root disabled by default, of course, but any proper successor to the N900 will likely not be. ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:59, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay. But does anyone know if it possible to get a generic, carrier-unbranded Motorola DROID 2 Global. --Melab±1 &#9742; 03:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

job graphic web designer
i completed 3year copa from georgian college and diploma graphic web designer and i have 2 year exprince in graphic web designer i am an indian in haryana state i take a job in manitoba please advice me and help —Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.241.182.73 (talk) 01:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Personal information removed. The reference desk answers factual questions; it is not a job agency.  I'm sure that Manitoba has a governmental department for employment.  --Tardis (talk) 02:16, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Is apple superior to XP2?
I heard that apple OS doesnt allow any virus or malware to enter the system. Is it true? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 1.23.1.239 (talk) 12:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * There are some. See Computer_virus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.24.238.251 (talk) 13:01, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * No. That is not true in any way. Every operating system ever made has the possibility of a virus or malware problem. -- k a i n a w &trade; 13:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * An OS running from read-only memory wouldn't 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * You are assuming that every OS put on read-only memory has been free of virus/malware problems. That is entirely not true. There are many instances of ROM-OS stamps having an infection at the factory. At the hospital I work at, we had a shipment of mobile BP/Temp monitors come in that had a virus on them. These things have no writable media of any kind - only a network attachment to send the measurements to a main server. -- k a i n a w &trade; 14:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The general view in the past is that almost all viruses have been designed for the Windows platform simply because it was by far the most common platform. Apple's market share appears to have grown in recent times, which many expect to lead to more viruses for Apples. HiLo48 (talk) 13:45, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm not a security expert, but it also seems to me that there are some features that have been built into OS X for a long time that have only been recently included in Windows systems, like not having the administrator account be a user account, for example, and not having something as buggy and hackable as Internet Explorer be a key component of the OS. I'm certainly not arguing for the impregnability of a Mac, but I do think that in terms of its market share, your average Mac is probably more secure by default than your average Windows machine, in part because some very large number of Windows machines are still running XP (I'm led to understand that Windows 7 has included some of these basic features). My understanding is that OSX out of the box is probably more inherently secure than XP is out of the box — is that correct? ("More secure" does not mean "unimpeachably secure," of course.) --Mr.98 (talk) 14:22, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * The main issue (as mentioned below) is cultural, not technical. The culture of Windows users doesn't allow Microsoft to easily manage security because users don't like being told they can't do something like opening an executable attachment to an email that promises to have nude pics of whomever the hot actress of the day is. The culture of Mac users allows Apple to more easily tell Mac users what they can and can't do. The culture of Linux users generally has the users being more sensitive to security themselves - but allows the user to be drastically more insecure than either Windows or Mac (Hey - run EVERYTHING as root! What's the worst that could happen?) -- k a i n a w &trade; 14:48, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I just don't think I buy that. My Mac doesn't tell me what I can and can't do. It just requires me to input an admin password before it allows programs to install. I can open up executables and attachments just fine, though they can't get access to my system internals without me saying "sure, go ahead!" first. The most it does along these lines is make it very hard to see the Unix-y system files without using Terminal (they don't appear in the default file browser), but I'm not sure that's a "culture" thing. Now, perhaps from the point of view of a programmer there are things that are harder to do on a Mac than on Windows, I don't know. But I don't think it's an issue with user culture.
 * If I were going to attribute a "culture" to it, it's the fact that the Windows upgrade cycle is essentially broken — you still have massive numbers of users using OS software that is quite buggy (e.g. XP), in part because it is a decade old now. The "culture" in question is that a lot of people didn't want to upgrade to Vista for ages, and the idea that "XP works is good enough for me" really took root in a way to encourage people to keep using broken software. Now, I certainly get a bit irritated when I have to upgrade my OS every year or two (if I want new software to work with it) and shell out bucks to do it — who wouldn't? — but I suspect it leads more Mac users to have more up to date OSes at any given time. But this is just a theory. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:54, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * While it's true that malware exists for Mac OS the situation is wildly better than on Windows. When I happen to use the computer of non-tech-savvy people who use Windows it is always riddled with malware.  If they use a Mac, that's generally not the case.  On Linux/Unix, of course, it's never the case, but that's as much a cultural issue as a technical and market size issue.  --Sean 13:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * You linked to an image that's an obvious joke, showing a web browser with so many toolbars that there's almost no room for the web page. Is the real-life malware you mention also browser toolbars (presumably fewer than that)? It's a touchy question whether these toolbars count as malware. A lot of seemingly legitimate freeware/shareware products have started installing unrelated toolbars by default (unless you uncheck the checkbox), and some seemingly legitimate software companies, like Google, have been paying to have their toolbars delivered with third-party products. I think this is a terrible trend, but I imagine it will blow over, like web rings and RealPlayer and all those other once-popular Internet fads. Regardless, it's not clear to me how an operating system could "defend against" these browser toolbars, since they are software products that the user requested be installed by clicking through that page of the wizard without unchecking the checkbox. How do you distinguish an unwanted software product from a wanted one? -- BenRG (talk) 22:53, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

One could argue it's easier to fleece Apple users by charging them twice as much for something (knowing they will pay it), than by bothering to forcibly access their personal information. Neither Mac OS or Windows have a particularly good security track record as compared to, for example, most Unix distributions, though they can be, like any OS, made much more secure through personal effort (or expense). ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:03, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

what do you mean by ROM(random access memory) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.91.74.163 (talk) 16:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ROM is Read Only Memory; Random Access Memory is RAM. -- LarryMac | Talk  16:27, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

The Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux security debate is a rather hot topic, but the fact is that all operating systems have malware. There is less malware *in the wild* on OS X than on Windows, and whether that's attributed to better security or market share doesn't really matter. You are also comparing an unspecified version of OS X (I'm assuming 10.5 or 10.6 since Apple tends to have a faster upgrade cycle) to Windows XP SP2. SP2 was released in 2004 and is no longer supported. XP SP2 is likely to be more insecure than the latest version of OS X. A more fair Windows vs. Mac comparison would be to compare Windows 7 to OS X 10.6. Due to many security enhancements, this would bring it to the same modern level as OS X, and it does seem to be the case from the research I can find that Windows 7 has less malware exploiting vulnerabilities than Windows XP. Ultimately, any modern operating system is going to be quite secure, but all operating systems are vulnerable to the user being tricked into opening something they aren't supposed to. Certain web browsers and email clients with fraud protection can help mitigate this risk, but nothing is 100%. That said, there is malware that exploits flaws in the operating system in XP, but on OS X everything I've seen has been packaged with legitimate looking software (usually pirated), so you could argue that OS X is superior to XP in that regard... but that's really no suprise when you consider the releases you're comparing. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * XP can be updated for free online to XP SP3, which is still supported. 92.15.12.148 (talk) 17:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the point is that the questioner seemed to be asking specifically about SP2. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 19:52, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually I was going to raise a similar point to the OP's question but it more or less fits here. What the heck is XP2? Do you mean Windows XP SP2? Windows Vista? Windows XP x64? Nil Einne (talk) 19:33, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Technically, it's not exactly true that "every operating system ever made has the possibility of a virus or malware problem". It's true for every modern operating system, including Windows, Mac OS, Linux and others, because they are complex enough to offer various ways of programming. But operating systems existed before modern times. Now-obsolete systems such as classic AmigaOS or Atari TOS did have viruses, but there are even earlier operating systems, built directly into the ROM of the computers. This was in the time of the Commodore 64 and the ZX Spectrum and their various competitors. Back then, the operating system was fully contained in memory instead of being loaded from a hard drive - indeed, disk drives were a luxury at the time. While it is technically possible to write a virus for such an operating system, it's pretty damned hard to get it to run without the user noticing. And even these machines are considered new by old computer hackers who were already programming before I was born. Some of these computers predate the concepts of magnetic mass storage, or microprocessors. But none of this has any real bearing on the issue at hand, it's just something I wanted to say. In the end, all modern operating systems are suspectible to viruses. J I P &#124; Talk 20:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't agree with that at all. There were certainly primitive viruses written for the Apple II and C64.  Such computer OSs (including the portions in ROM) always used things like low-memory pointers that the OS would point to in order to accommodate future expansion, and it was all well-documented (either by the manufacturers or by third parties, like the iconic book Beneath Apple DOS), so if anything it was easier to write a virus for those systems than for Windows.  I'd say that old computers didn't have the virus problem of today because (a) they weren't connected to the Internet; (b) viruses and personal computers were both new and there were few users; (c) there were no professional virus writers at the time, because, in turn, there wasn't the financial incentive that exists today; (d) the script kiddies of the time didn't have prepackaged virus creator software; (e) on these old computers, users had to reboot the system to play many games, which often were distributed as boot disks, which meant at least some percentage of the user's software was practically immune to viruses.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:31, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to throw this out there about the XP vs. Vista and 7, Vista sucks in my opinion, and Windows 7 is nice except you CAN'T use it on anything short of a new computer. XP could be installed on computers which once ran 2000, ME, NT, 98, and even 95, but Vista and 7 won't run well on anything older than 2005. Which sucks if you're someone like me that likes to install new operating systems on old machines. Just one more reason why individuals and businesses are keeping XP instead of moving on to Vista and 7. It's also bad business for M$ in my opinion considering that most people will choose to buy new computers instead of buying an upgrade, and the OEMs for new computers sell at a fraction of the cost of the retail versions used for upgrades. PCHS-NJROTC (Messages) 00:29, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Firesheep
I was getting a little bored, so I was reading some Tech Blog and saw something about Firesheep. I got interested, and decided to downloaded it and see if I could use it as described on my home router. I installed it correctly, but can't seem to "capture" anything. Even when I have interface as "Microsoft" it doesn't pick up my own computer. What's the deal? Hubydane (talk) 16:25, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Firesheep works on unsecured, unencrypted networks, of the kind that one typically finds in public, casual use places like cafes and hotels. Most people run encrypted wireless at home or in their office - I imagine you do too.  So you'd have to emulate the cafe environment by turning off the authentication and encryption features of your wireless router (which has obvious implications for your own security).  Secondly it relies on your wireless card/adapter (and its driver) featuring promiscuous mode; most do, but apparently some do not. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 20:58, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

nokia price range
I want to know nokia price range with model number —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.225.96.217 (talk) 18:26, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Here on Wikipedia, we have a list of Nokia products. CNET, a popular review site, has a thorough listing of Nokia products.  You can sort and compare by price and features.  Nimur (talk) 19:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We are going to need more than that to help you. Bluefist talk 19:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

ASP.NET problem with MaskedEditValidators
I had a rather puzzling problem at work today. Our ASP.NET web application has a page where the user can input dates (as in calendar, not as in fruit or as in companionship). We have our own custom-built control for that, extending  with a dynamically-created   and. The problem is, there are quite many validation logics on the page, and some of these date text boxes need to take part in several of them - which one is used depends on what button the user clicked on. I thought that this was simply a matter of setting the validation group property of these controls (which is then passed on to the ) - but no, it appears that if I set it during the postback caused by the button, the validation logic code within the   is completely ignored. I would have to set it statically during the page load event for it to have any effect, but then comes the problem that it isn't known in advance what validation logic the control is supposed to take part in. Depending on what the user wants to do, it should either be validated or ignored. I tried various solutions, but none worked, so I ended up duplicating the validation of the date in a separate. Is there an easier way to do this? J I P &#124; Talk 20:09, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I do not use ASP, but I have seen this type of problem. My solution is to place a call to all required validations in the onload script for the page. So, when the page loads, it validates all of the fields just as if each of the fields had just been updated. -- k a i n a w &trade; 20:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

MechWarrior
are they going to make or remake mechwarriors 1.2.3 and 4? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.112.154 (talk) 20:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * See this for news from the publisher. -- k a i n a w &trade; 20:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Gold used in electronics
The connecters on the old ISA and PCI cards in desktop computers are made out of gold, correct??Also, does anyone know what karat gold is used? 166.137.11.115 (talk) 21:21, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * They are plated gold, not solid gold. However, the purity of gold used for plating is close to 100% (see our article for details).  In the parlance of "karats", that would be "24 karat," but this is not the usual terminology for gold-plating.  The actual amount of gold is tiny.  Nimur (talk) 21:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * So then it would have no value at one of those places that buy gold because it is gold plated? 71.52.188.74 (talk) 21:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That's right &mdash; to reclaim gold from electronics takes various acids which you then have to dispose of, and the "cash for gold" people aren't equipped to do any of that. Our Computer recycling article is unfortunately very sparse on common questions like "How much gold is present in a typical PC?".  Comet Tuttle (talk) 22:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thank you. 184.0.235.103 (talk) 22:37, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * We have an (unsourced, not very informative) article digger gold about this subject, which discusses this subject a bit. This article (which is from 1984) gives some weights and discusses the chemistry a bit - since then the price of gold has more than tripled (ref: Gold as an investment), but as depositional techniques have improved, there's probably less gold. As the article notes, the chemicals used to recover the gold are fairly nasty (meaning the process will be quite expensive, in terms of equipment and materials). Moreover, discarded electronics are WEEE, which means each essentially represents a liability to its commercial owner and processor, due to the cost of disposing of what's now considered to be toxic waste. At least with the regulatory regimes that pertain in developed countries, both with regard to disposing of WEEE and using those nasty acids, it seems you won't be turning anything like a profit. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 23:18, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Disposal would be cheap; I would just take it to the county run recycling center, but I haven't a clue where I could obtain the stuff. 184.0.235.103 (talk) 23:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Such centres are usually free only for individuals (they essentially factor the cost into your local taxes). Businesses have to pay (either they pay the municipality, or they're forbidden from using the municipal facility and have to pay a licenced disposal contractor). When you show up with a container load of acid-melted electronics, they're not going to believe it's all your personal stuff. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 00:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

what's Windows 7 Starter price?
I'm thinking of buying a netbook but I'm not interested in Microsoft's pre-installed Windows 7 Starter, I'd rather use Linux. Since nowadays it seems that it's almost impossible to buy a netbook without Microsoft's OSs preinstalled, I'd like to know how much money I'd be wasting by buying the license of a software that I'm not going to use. Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 22:19, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * It's essentially impossible to know how much the netbook's builder paid Microsoft; system builders buy licences in bulk from Microsoft at steep (but confidential) discounts. In turn they get money from Microsoft, and vendors of pre-installed software, for carrying their trialware. People such as yourself see the full retail price of Windows (which is £100 or more) and think that if they could get a laptop without Windows, they'd save that entire price - but with the discounts, they're surely very wrong. Maybe an an OEM-supported preinstalled no-disks Home Premium install might cost a big maker like Dell perhaps £15 (but then take off whatever Dell would make from the trialware); but we don't (and can't) really know.  Starter must surely be a chunk less still. The Windows refund article discusses various amounts people have obtained, and it varies wildly - I don't think this is terribly representative of the actual price (it's mostly "stop bothering us" money). Linux (or clean) laptops (such as exist) don't seem to cost much if anything less than a roughly equivalent Windows one; a few years ago, when Linux and XP were competing in the early netbook market, the machines cost the same.  TL;DR: confidential, probably not much. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 22:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * "People such as yourself see the full retail price of Windows (which is £100 or more) and think that if they could get a laptop without Windows, they'd save that entire price - but with the discounts, they're surely very wrong." It's hilarious to see you jump into conclusions of what I think and what I don't think without having a clue about who I am, haha. --Belchman (talk) 00:34, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * That's not what I meant. When I said "People such as yourself" I meant "people who are shopping for a linux laptop, like you". Frankly, I resent spending half an hour giving you a detailed answer to your question if your only response is such abuse. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 00:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * If you don't use the licence on that computer you can still use it on another computer by installing Windows and using the product key from the netbook. 184.0.235.103 (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Not legally you can't I'm afraid. OEM Windows licences are sold for computer it comes with and aren't transferrable (the transfer rules and who you get your support from are the big differences between OEM and retail licences). Also if it's already been activated before you receive it then you wouldn't be able to activate it on new hardware anyway it wouldn't match the original configuration.  ZX81    talk  00:12, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Well, that's a possibility... but I honestly doubt I will ever use Windows 7 Starter in any computer. Thanks anyway. --Belchman (talk) 00:36, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Note that if you read the Windows refund article you should be aware you can try to get the manufacturer to refund you the Windows purchase price. As you are required to accept the Microsoft EULA, you can refuse although the manufacturer may be entitled to require you to return the whole PC and/or charge you something for getting the refund (i.e. reducing the refund). This depends on how much effort you are willing to go to and the consumer protection laws of where you live and also the policies of whoever you buy it from (which are most likely not publicly revealed). Nil Einne (talk) 11:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. --Belchman (talk) 14:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)
 * OEM Windows licences are sold for computer it comes with and aren't transferrable - that depends on the jurisdiction. There was a landmark case in Germany in 2000 that made it clear that you can resell or reuse licenses from other computers, even if it is an OEM version. See this German language article for a discussion. There are some caveats. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Generic XML Configuration editor?
I'm looking to find if there's any existing general-purpose "configuration editor" software that can suck in an XML file of some specific format and allow a user to edit it with standard windows controls. (Check boxes, sliders, etc.)

Gconf-editor is along the idea of what I'm looking for, but it's specific to Gnome. (And I'm really hoping for something that runs on Windows.) Has anyone taken this idea and run with it and made a general purpose GUI configuration editor?

(There are a huge number of "xml editors" but most of them seem to be based on the assumption that I am creating a document of some sort. I'm looking for something specifically geared towards XML files used as configuration files.)

Thanks. APL (talk) 22:24, 27 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I think the reason the XML editors assume you're creating a document is that XML is a format for marked-up text. It's not designed for configuration files and doesn't work very well for that. People use it for configuration files anyway, because people are idiots, but everyone has their own idea of how to kluge a workable configuration file format on top of XML. It would be hard to write an editor that exposes everybody's XML-configuration hacks in a consistent way. -- BenRG (talk) 23:05, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I completely agree with everything you said, so maybe I should specify that I'm not at all married to the XML format. I mentioned it because I think that's what Gconf-editor uses. An generic configuration GUI that uses any other format would also suit my purposes.
 * My hope was that someone, somewhere, perhaps in a doomed attempt to push some standardization, had made a handy tool, so that those of us writing software with no user interfaces (or minimal user interfaces) could still offer a graphical configuration screen, without writing their own tool every time. APL (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I disagree with BenRG's assertion that it is idiotic to use XML as the data format for one's configuration files. Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:00, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I suppose it's not idiotic now, since it's a good idea to do what everyone else is doing, but whoever first decided to store hierarchical data as hierarchically marked up whitespace wasn't thinking very clearly. APL, that's a perfectly reasonable question and I hope the answer is yes, but I don't personally know of a tool like that. -- BenRG (talk) 06:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure how well it will work for your application, but Notepad++ has support for XML. And, you can write your own language configurations for it... ~  Matthewrbowker  Say hi! 19:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)