Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 November 20

= November 20 =

How do I get Google's account services to keep track of my tabs & bookmarks online?
I hope and pray that K-State's ITAC department will recover all the data in my failed hard drive. Their turnaround time is 5 business days (as opposed to the rip-off Geek Squad's 3 weeks) so if they don't get to it before Thanksgiving, I'll have it back Monday.

In the meantime, so that I don't lose the hundreds of bookmarks stored, and the 60 tabs I had open, how do I get Google to save, through my Gmail account, the whole package of them both? (Hope it's free.) Thanks. --70.179.174.101 (talk) 01:30, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Once again... --70.179.174.101 (talk) 19:32, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * If you use Google Chrome, there is Chrome Sync. However, this will not save your browser tabs. Xmarks is cross-browser, and will sync bookmarks and tabs. -- Kateshortforbob talk  15:22, 21 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Chrome can save the tabs as well. Go into the preferences\basic, making sure that the tabs you want to save are open. Then where it says "on startup" click on "use current pages". Now if you have to reinstall Chrome just run the sync without setting anything up and the tabs will come back. I only had three tabs but it opened them on the laptop after I saved/sync them from the desktop. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:56, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's handy! Thanks, CambridgeBayWeather - I didn't know that -- Kateshortforbob talk  14:04, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
 * And I forgot. After you check the "use current pages" you need to make sure that it has synced. Also wouldn't Firefox sync work as well? I've got it running but never had a major crash. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 12:59, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

RGB color values—linear or not?
If I open an image in an image editor, I can sample the RGB value of any given pixel. Are RGB values you see in image editors linear RGB values, or are they non-linearly coded? If the latter, applying a linear function to remap pixel values (e.g. making each RGB coordinate values 10% larger) will result in non-uniform scaling of luminance—something that seems like the wrong result to have. Does anyone know whether the commonly used RGB values in computer graphics and digital photography are linear or not? --173.49.18.110 (talk) 05:21, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The RGB values you see in most image editors are nominally sRGB, which is roughly linear in perceived brightness. There are other, more esoteric color spaces that are linear in absolute brightness measures like watts per square meter. Both kinds of linearity are useful in different circumstances. -- BenRG (talk) 06:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Ancient Egyptian game on the Amiga found
Way back in March 2011 I asked about ancient Egyptian game on the Amiga. I have now found this game by running E-UAE and looking around my Amiga's hard drive. It turns out that it really is called "Pharaoh's Curse", but it's a different game than the one Wikipedia has an article about. It was written by an Egyptian person called Mahed Farag in AMOS BASIC and released as ShareWare. I'm not sure if Mahed Farag handles registrations for the game any more. J I P &#124; Talk 06:47, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Lego NXT and i2c/rs485 camera
117.230.120.102 (talk) 07:13, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * 1) ) I want to interface a camera to Lego_Mindstorms_NXTbrick (possibly colour). It has i2c interface only. But searching for i2c cameras in Google and electronics part stores turns up cameras that can be controlled via i2c but acutal o/p is in some other format/protocol/pins. Can some one direct me to a camera that takes commands and gives data in pure i2c. It doesn't  have to be fast or high resolution. I'm intending to take picture once in 10s or so only.
 * 2) ) Is there a nxt compatible camera sensor available?. My only other choice seems to be to mount a Bluetooth camera to the nxt.There is mindsnsors site . But it doesn't seem to give raw pixel output. (From their site : No, the image taken by NXTCam can not be transferred over to NXT. You can however transfer them to PC using USB)
 * 3) ) Alternately can someone point me to some hobby tutorial site where they have interfaced a camera. (I'm hoping that this tutorial  will allow me to interface an i2c camera once i obtain it. )

why do jvm/clr need bytecode?
why do jvm/clr need bytecode? couldn't they compile from human readable language to assembler? thx — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.9.125.64 (talk) 11:52, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * In essence, bytecode (and CLR) are designed to be more efficient that the original human-readable source code when they are compiled or interpreted into machine code. Thus you get a performance boost. It is also worth noting that multiple languages can be converted into bytecode or CRL: with CRL you have the .NET family, and with bytecode you have options such as JRuby, if you are thus inclined. So the JVM and .NET can, in a sense, work with multiple human-readable languages so long as they have been compiled into the intermediate language they understand. - Bilby (talk) 12:09, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the question goes the other way: Not "why don't they interpret the high-level language directly", but rather "why do they compile to bytecode, not directly to a machine-specific assembly (and, implicitly, machine code)?". There are a number of advantages to bytecode, including portability and security. A bytecode program is portable between different architectures as long as the corresponding virtual machine has been implemented on the host architecture. Secondly, bytecode more easily allows the run-time system to limit what any program can do (thus allowing for better sandboxing). No bytecode program can access or change a resource that the virtual machine does not offer an interface to (of course this includes unintended interfaces (i.e. bugs in the VM)).--Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:21, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * The original Java bytecode was designed only to run compiled Java Programming Language code; while it's possible to compile a few other languages for it (and later changes have added a bit more flexibility) it's not intended as a general purpose intermediate code, and there are plenty of languages (e.g. C) that cannot generally be compiled to Java bytecode. The Oak/Java system was initially intended for network mobile code (which, curiously, it rarely does any more) - that means it needed a) architecture neutrality b) managed operation (for security) and c) verifiability. That last thing is a big issue - most valid-looking (operationally perfectly sound) JVM programs will be rejected by the verifier, and its role in preventing non-compliant casts and access to private members is important for Java's security (but it what thwarts the JVM's use as a general purpose VM).  In contrast the CLR was designed from the outset to support multiple languages (the whole Microsoft Visual Foo suite of things), but doesn't care so much about security partitioning inside a virtual machine, and in practice binary portability isn't its big selling point. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:38, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Where "most" means "the set of bytecode sequences the verifier will permit is very much smaller than the general set of bytecode sequences"; the Java Language compiler is obviously constructed to only emit sequences in the smaller, verifiable set. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:42, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Search engine log file download
I have been working on a search engine algorithm. To test it well, I need real search engine usage. So, I need log files (deidentified) of real search engines. I have the AOL dump released a while back. Have any other similar log files been released? -- k a i n a w &trade; 15:39, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Try using a search engine to find content on the internet. 88.152.82.235 (talk) 16:03, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * The AOL data release is the most obvious example; hopefully, there are no others. It was a huge mistake. Although the users were only identified with random numbers, a great deal of personal information can be recovered. There were even cases in which a single search provides too much personal information, so it wouldn't even be safe if the information about which searches came from the same user was thrown out. If you're looking for common searches, the annual Google Zeitgeist will give you some information. Paul (Stansifer) 18:25, 20 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I know that the AOL dump had issues. I was hoping that someone released some info along the lines of "At timestamp 1321831529 user 65842 selected search item 965482." I've been researching convergence of search engine usage over time, which could be due to many reasons, but I'm just looking at finding good measures for the convergence and need real data to test the measures with. Fake data can only get you a little way to understanding the topic. -- k a i n a w &trade; 23:27, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

How do I tab outlines on the Mobile Google Docs?
I cannot seem to use the tab key to make outline indentions with the smartphone. There is no tab key on the default android keyboard. I downloaded the "hacker's keyboard" app. Their tab key didn't work. What is another way to make this happen from a mobile device? Thanks, --70.179.174.101 (talk) 19:12, 20 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Historically, the tab character code has been treated in a platform- and application-dependent way. It is possible that your software keyboard is sending a non-ASCII code when you press the tab key.  It is possible that the application does receive an ASCII tab character but is programmed to use this to alter keyboard focus rather than to insert a whitespace tab character.  You may be able to use the device's copy-and-paste facility to copy a tab character from another place, and paste it into your document, circumventing any application or system keyboard interpretation logic.  Nimur (talk) 15:52, 21 November 2011 (UTC)