Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 July 2

= July 2 =

Windows 7 Backup disks
Hi, sorry to be asking so many questions in such a little time, but I recently got a new laptop and want to ensure that it'll last me a while. It didn't come with any W7 back up disks, so if I were to follow the instructions from and, would I be set on recovery disks? I plan to make two, one with everything that's already preloaded on it, and another after I've installed some of my own programs on it (i.e. antivirus, word processing, browser, etc). Would this be a good idea or am I just being overly meticulous? Thanks in advance. 141.153.214.125 (talk) 05:13, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * If it was me, I would have only bought from a manufacturer who supplies the disks either by default or as an extra cost (~$10) option. In your situation, having already received my new PC, I would be tempted to call the manufacturers and demand they send me the relevant disks. It probably wouldn't get me anywhere, but it would emphasise the point that (some) customers think a means to reinstall the OS is pretty damn important.  After all, you don't buy a PC and then have to rush out to buy a power cord, why would they make you do something similar for the software installed on it.
 * A more practical answer might be to examine the instructions and manuals carefully, and to have a good look on the start menu (particularly those menu options you might never visit). What you are looking for is a means to create your own recovery disks.  Astronaut (talk) 09:48, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Many OEMs now have an application under All Programs to create the disks. Doing PC repairs, I find that most folks have no clue where their disks are anyway. At my last employer we stopped shipping hard copy manuals, just a startup guid; no one read the manuals and when they needed to, they couldn't find them. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:06, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

Non google / bing search engines by marketshare?
Hi, I'm sure this question has been asked before.

Nowadays, almost every damn "search engine" seems to be nothing more than a front-end of google or bing. Yahoo - gone. Altavista - gone. Lycos - gone. Can someone please point me to a list of the biggest non-google / bing search engines by marketshare? (Please do not include google / bing front ends, obviously!). Eliyohub (talk) 11:32, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * A quick search reveals a bit. See also Wolfram Alpha, as I didn't see it at first glance. --Ouro (blah blah) 05:25, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm guessing you also wish to exclude search engines which only work within their own site, like Wikipedia and IMDB ? StuRat (talk) 06:29, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Laptop battery with built-in DC socket
I have an Acer Aspire One "Happy" netbook, and am wondering if there is such a thing as a replacement battery, by Acer or otherwise, that has its own DC socket, that is, the laptop charger would plug into the back of the battery. Any ideas? Thanks.--Leon (talk) 12:47, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * This Google search on 'Acer Aspire One Happy charger' brings up a lot of links of palces to get chargers for the Acer Aspire One 'Happy'. Good luck. -- KägeTorä - (影虎) (TALK) 13:23, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, except I want a replacement battery with its own DC socket to connect to the mains. The reason I want such a device is that a common point of failure on laptops is the DC socket on the motherboard, so I'd like to circumvent this weakness by a more cheaply-replaceable device, such as battery, or even dummy battery, that accepted DC in.--Leon (talk) 14:11, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * That's a good idea you've got there, but note that, to plug the laptop in on the back, which is probably best, the battery would then need to extend to the back of the laptop. An alternative may be to have two or more batteries, and then charge each separately with it's own charging cradle, while out of the laptop.  This would involve swapping the batteries quite often, but has the additional advantage of not having your laptop attached to the wall by a cord, thus increasing it's portability.  (Of course, if you need to have it attached to the wall for some other reason, like an Internet connection, then this point is moot.) StuRat (talk) 14:25, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * In the case of my laptop, the battery is already so located! And to adapt it to fit a DC jack, purely in terms of space, would only require it to increase slightly in size.  But this is digression: does anyone know if such a device exists?--Leon (talk) 14:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Not a laptop, but I do have a portable DVD player with that arrangement. StuRat (talk) 16:10, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I'm curious as to why your edit history for this question lacks links to the section, unlike mine:

(cur | prev) 16:11, July 2, 2011 StuRat (talk | contribs) (77,754 bytes) (→Laptop battery with built-in DC socket) (undo) (cur | prev) 14:35, July 2, 2011 Star trooper man (talk | contribs) (77,593 bytes) (Laptop battery with built-in DC socket - r) (undo)
 * How do you reply ? And do you manually type in an edit summary ? StuRat (talk) 16:17, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Erm, I do manually type in edit summaries...don't most people? To reply, I click "edit" at the right of the section heading - is there another way?--Leon (talk) 18:03, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Clicking the "edit" next to the section heading pre-fills the edit summary with the section header between C-style comments. The comments cause a link to appear in the page history.  Remove the comment markers and you lose your link.   Astronaut (talk) 20:35, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, that's probably it, were you removing the "/*" and "*/" from the edit comment ? There is another way to edit, by picking "Edit" at the top of the page to edit the entire page at once.  I certainly wouldn't recommend this here, though, as edit conflicts are quite likely, and there will be no automated edit summary and thus no section link.   StuRat (talk) 22:18, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I was removing those marks - I'll stop now!--Leon (talk) 08:53, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks ! StuRat (talk) 09:17, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

Printing port from laptop computer.
My laptop was recently overhauled. Did manage to retain original hard drive, with corrupted files, back to factory specs. Now, unable to print wirelessly using desktop printer. Pretty sure it is a 'Port' issue, but not sure how to fix. Main computer, which I have always share uses a 'USB...Virtual Printer port for USB' ( for a HP Photosmart 3200 series) for it's printer port option. My 'New Laptop' does not have this port as an option. Have tried most every way I can think of to add and/or configure new port. I know this is an easy fix, just not enough experience to do it & really hate to call my computer guy!! Can I get some help?? Was printing fine prior to laptop changes. -User:Toby's Info  17:15, July 2, 2011(UTC)


 * Reformatted for readability. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:50, 2 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is the user manual. Looks like the printer would have a Bluetooth adapter in the front USB port. See page 29 of the user manual for Bluetooth setup. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 17:55, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'm a little confused. By "main computer" do you mean another (desktop?) PC with the printer physically connected by a USB cable?  This type of connection is described on p.30 (page 33 of the PDF) of the manual and note that the 'main computer' needs to be on and printer sharing enabled for the laptop to be able to use it.
 * Other than that, bluetooth is just one of the ways you can connect to the printer. In all cases you will need the drivers installed on your laptop - I wouldn't be surprised if these got damaged or deleted in the overhaul.  However, I notice the printer has a built-in print server - probably the best connection is by ethernet cable to the rest of your home network - see p.33 "4 Connect to a network".  Astronaut (talk) 20:28, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * OP stated "unable to print wirelessly", leading me to believe he is using Bluetooth. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 20:34, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Even more confused now, aren't you the OP? Oh, ... and what operating system are you using?  Astronaut (talk) 20:42, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The original post had a bunch of odd markup that I reformatted; I must have added my sig without thinking. Fixed. ---— Gadget850 (Ed)  talk 22:52, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh! Thanks for the explanation.  I guess we'll have to wait til Toby comes back with more information.  Astronaut (talk) 12:31, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

no "advanced search"
A couple of days ago google redesigned its main page. Formerly you could click on "advanced search" there. Now you can't. If I simply enter the letter "a", or any other search terms, then on the results page I can click on "advanced search". If I want to restrict the search to a certain domain, AFAIK I need "advanced search". What is considered to be the advantage of making it unavailable from the main page? Michael Hardy (talk) 19:54, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * At the top right of the page there's a circle thing, click it and a drop down menu appears with advanced search and other things. Here is a guide on all of googles advanced search options for using without going to the advanced search page. As for why they changed it, we can only guess googles motivation for redesigning the page but there seems to be a trend across all websites for making everything look more like an ipod often at the expense of functionality. AvrillirvA (talk) 20:02, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I found a post on the google blog giving their rationale for the changes here AvrillirvA (talk) 21:57, 2 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Note you don't need the advanced search to restrict the results to a certain domain. just add site:domain.name somewhere in the search. Similar with filetype (filetype:). You do need advanced for searching in a specific language or readling level I believe (and I think things like date). Nil Einne (talk) 23:19, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

So they've hidden it in a place where I would never have found it without inquiring here, and they consider that an improvement. Michael Hardy (talk) 19:24, 3 July 2011 (UTC)

What is wrong with my computer?
Hello. Can someone please tell me what is wrong with my computer and what I can do to fix it? Thanks. Here is the situation. Let's say that I do a Google search and 100 sites come up in a list. The list has all blue-colored links, so that when I click the link, I am taken directly to that particular site. Now, after I click that blue link, it changes color and becomes a purple-colored link. That helps me to keep track of which links (sites) I have already visited and which I have not. So, let's say that out of 100 sites, I only visit the first ten sites on the list today. Tomorrow, when I come back on the computer, I will see that the first ten sites are listed with purple links, and the sites numbered eleven onwards will still have blue links. So, this will remind me to start with link #11, knowing that I already visited the first ten links. The problem now is that I never get purple links any more. All links are always listed in blue, so I can't keep track of which sites I have (or have not) yet visited. Why is this? Does anyone know? And what can I do to fix this? The Google search was only one example. Another example is here on Wikipedia. Usually, the wiki-links are colored blue. When I click a wiki-link (and visit that article), the link changes from blue to purple. But, that does not work either, anymore. My links are always blue, never purple ... whether I am talking about Google search result links or wiki-links or anything else of that nature. Please help. Thanks! (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:57, 2 July 2011 (UTC))


 * Have you switched on private viewing? It may have been done to stop people finding out about what sites you have browsed using javascript to check the state of various links. It is a security feature. Dmcq (talk) 02:46, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Look in your browser settings for color settings, and check what colors are used for visited links and unvisited links.
 * Links will only stay purple for as long as they're in your browser's history. Check your browser settings to see if the history duration is set too low. Check for any security programs that might be deleting the history. Or check if anyone using the computer might be regularly deleting the history. Or, as Dmcq mentioned, the Private mode of your browser may prevent any history being stored and thus prevent links turning purple. --Bavi H (talk) 03:02, 3 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks to you both. However, I am not a computer "techie" person ... and I am not that savvy with all of this computer technical stuff.  So, I barely understood a word of your responses.  I have never (deliberately) made any changes to this computer, and no one at all (except me) has access to this computer.  The only changes that I ever see being made are when Microsoft says that they have an (automatic) update that they are going to install.  I don't know how or where to change any browser settings or any other settings (that you mentioned in the above responses).  If it matters, I access the internet with Internet Explorer (9, I think) ... and my home page is AOL ... and I have Windows 7.  So, can someone please tell me step-by-step exactly what I need to do to fix this problem?  Thanks.  Much appreciated.   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 14:30, 3 July 2011 (UTC))


 * It's not clear what is causing this problem or how to fix it. A web search turns up a bunch of other people with the same problem, but no clear solution . It may be a bug in IE9 that will eventually get fixed. The only suggestion in those threads that seemed to work was deleting the browsing history as explained here. -- BenRG (talk) 04:42, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I checked out that suggested link on "How to delete your browsing history in Internet Explorer 9".  Again, I am somewhat confused.  Would deleting your browsing history actually solve this problem?  Or exacerbate it?  I'd think that affirmatively deleting the browsing history just takes me right back to square one (all blue links, no purple links) ... no?  The history deleting would render my computer as if I had never visited any sites at all ... correct?  So, how does this help solve the problem?  (It seems to be a step backward, not forward.)  Please clarify.  Thanks!   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:17, 4 July 2011 (UTC))


 * I think the idea is that the file that holds the browsing history has been damaged somehow, preventing new entries from being added, and clearing it out and starting from scratch also removes the damage. You would lose all of your history by doing this, and whatever caused the damage in the first place could presumably happen again. It's not much of a solution, but it's the best I could find, sorry.


 * You could try switching to Firefox. When Firefox first came out it was designed to be a no-brainer work-alike replacement for Internet Explorer. They've diverged somewhat since then, but you should still have an easy enough time switching, and Firefox at least won't have this particular bug. -- BenRG (talk) 23:01, 4 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi. Thanks again.  Yes, I tried your suggestion above, about deleting the history.  That seemed to work.  For now, at least.  I will keep my fingers crossed.  Thanks for all the help!  Much appreciated!   (Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:21, 6 July 2011 (UTC))