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

= October 27 =

Force a section to wrap in HTML
I have some code that looks something like this: &mdash;Best Dog Ever (talk) 05:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC) Thank you. Magog the Ogre (talk) 06:26, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * You could also use the CSS max-width on the cells property to specify a pixel width that causes the cells to wrap. You can't do it by character any easy way (with Javascript, there is always a way, but it is not worth it). If you set it to something like (1000px) you'll never notice it unless things go fubar. --Mr.98 (talk) 11:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Table cells auto-size to the width of the longest word. In your case, the URL is a word because it has no spaces/tabs in it. Even if you use something like auto-scrolling, the cell will size to the width of the word BEFORE turning on auto-scrolling. Since you say it is automatically created, I'd use a substring function in the script that makes it to limit the length of URLs. -- k a i n a w &trade; 20:09, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

mass uploading to internet
Hi, hope this is the right ref desk for my question about pan-uploading to the internet. In the program Midnight Man the main character arranges for his daughter to put a CD into her home laptop and upload the information to the internet so that the villains are exposed by its contents. It's screened in the newsroom and appears on TV news. All we see is the disk going in, then she clicks on "Upload". How is this possible in real life? or is it just totally fiction. Manytexts (talk) 05:33, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Movie and television computers often do not act like real-world computers. It's totally fiction in the sense that it doesn't literally work that way. This is one of many examples of the Viewer Friendly Interface — a fake computer operating system that makes it easy for the television viewer to see what is going on without explanation. Presumably more plausible ways of disseminating the information — which generally take a lot longer and are not necessarily successful — would derail from the plot.
 * That said, we do live in an age where making high resolution video and other such things massively public is easier than ever (e.g. YouTube). On the other hand, the very ubiquity of such stuff means that uploading random conspiracy theory documents makes you one but one of many such nuts doing it. Fortunately the evening news does not cover all such uploads... --Mr.98 (talk) 11:37, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * My favourite instance of such a thing is in the film Independence Day, where the protagonists upload a computer virus to the alien mothership's computer, despite not knowing anything about the processor architecture it is based on. J I P  &#124; Talk 18:55, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Except, that's not what happened in that movie at all. The virus was developed on a stolen alien computer which they'd had access to since 1947, then it was uploaded to the mother-ship using stolen alien communication equipment that had been hacked so that it could be partially controlled with a Macintosh computer.
 * Presumably, the aliens had very poor computer security, but that's not unbelievable if their race has no crime.
 * (I can't stand it. An entire movie full of ridiculous, impossible things, and everyone picks on this one detail that's actually fully explained if you pay attention!) APL (talk) 07:12, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well if I did miss this, then I am glad other people did so as well. =) J I P  &#124; Talk 20:05, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Many operating systems prompt you for actions upon connecting/inserting/utilizing devices. There wouldn't ordinarily be a preconfigured option for 'Upload' there (though many companies associated with OSes promote their own online storage systems [ SkyDrive, iDisk, Ubuntu One] and might have/in the future have something like that,) but it'd be relatively easy for someone familiar with computers (or just motivated/patient/informed, etc.) to configure such a shortcut. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Ah, that makes sense. I guess it's still dreamware unless you've got special access from the storage system or can get into it (which won't be me). Thanks so much for your answers. Manytexts (talk) 18:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

Unless you have a storage site and a preconfigured shortcut in your new device popup, yeah. ¦ Reisio (talk) 01:03, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * True, thanks Reisio. Manytexts (talk) 07:28, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

What is the backwards E?
It appears with Internet Explorer at the library sometimes in place of the arrow or hand when I move my mouse. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 13:32, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Screenshot? ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:08, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Do you mean the I-beam cursor, that looks a bit like this:

---      |       |       |      ---


 * If so, see Cursor (computers). 93.95.251.162 (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC) Martin.
 * I've known about this one for as long as I've been using a mouse. This is a relatively recent development. I was all set to send a screen shot, but doing anything to the screen was going to make me lose it, and it hasn't come back in such a way I could get one of those. It's a capital letter about the size of several lines of text. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 19:44, 27 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Does it appear only on a certain site? For instance, this Amiga retro gaming wiki changes the mouse pointer in a delightfully retro way.  Card Zero  (talk) 22:39, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * It sounds like it's too big for a standard cursor, but the system administrator at your library can select or define almost any cursor they want, so it sounds like they made a mistake, or they set it up for one purpose and forgot to reset the default afterwards. Or could it be an escapee from another application that defines its own cursor shapes? Maybe you should ask the library staff to correct it.--Shantavira|feed me 07:25, 28 October 2011 (UTC)


 * "Ask the library staff" has been suggested many many many times. He apparently refuses to do so. -- k a i n a w &trade; 13:34, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I didn't see it yesterday afternoon, so maybe it was only on the one computer. I could ask, but I doubt that will help. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 18:49, 28 October 2011 (UTC)
 * And it's not a situation where the cursor always looks like that. What I think might happen is I'll ask someone what it is and it won't appear for a long time, or it'll be gone by the time the person shows up to look at it. This is why I was thinking about a screen shot. Vchimpanzee ·  talk  ·  contributions  · 18:57, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

processors
How many processors can motherboards use? Can I use the processor from my old computer to make my new computer faster? I am not talking about cores. 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Theoretically an infinite number, but realistically only however many they were designed to use. You could use the processor from your old computer (again theoretically), but if you're asking I dare say you haven't the expertise to pull it off.  What you could do more simply is network together the two computers and have software pretend they are one whenever possible ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:28, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I don't understand that answer. A motherboard only has a fixed number of processor slots (usually one), and can only use processors that are compatible with those slots.  The odds of being able to use a randomly chosen processor in a randomly chosen motherboard are not very high. Looie496 (talk) 17:41, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Two other things you should note: (1) Taking advantage of multiple cores is still an ongoing research problem. For almost all day-to-day tasks, anything more than one or two cores provides no noticeable speedup. (2) A multi-core processor is nothing but multiple processors on the same chip. "Core" and "processor" are frequently used interchangeably. Paul (Stansifer) 17:48, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Here is a simpler answer. Consumer motherboards always have exactly 1 socket for a processor.  Higher-end 'server' motherboards may have sockets for 2 or 4, but they are expensive; and the processors in these sockets all have to be identical.  You can't use your processor from your old computer to make your new computer faster, sorry &mdash; no motherboard does this, and your new computer is going to have a much faster processor than the old one, anyway.  Comet Tuttle (talk) 18:02, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

7zip
Which is better for long term archiving of html, text and images; rar or 7zip 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * 7z (the format) compresses more than RAR; 7-Zip is open source and licensed to remain so indefinitely (which means it will always be free and anyone will always be able to improve/maintain it), WinRAR is closed source and unlikely to ever be otherwise. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:25, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Realistically, they are both about equal. I would choose 7zip because somebody in the future will not have to buy WinRar to extract the data.  If you are dealing with archiving large amounts of data on a server, you might want to consider Tar.gz. TheGrimme (talk) 17:52, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * RARLAB provides a free open-source RAR decompresser (unrar), so you probably don't need to worry about long-term decompressibility. Still, you're probably better off with 7-Zip. -- BenRG (talk) 20:09, 27 October 2011 (UTC)

I like 7zip more than RAR, but RAR does have recovery volumes, something which 7zip currently does not. This means that if damaged, RAR files have a slightly better chance at being repaired and salvaging the data contained inside them. You could of course use something like parchive to help recover damaged 7zip volumes 82.43.90.142 (talk) 19:27, 29 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Ora make back-ups of the archives, which is even better --151.75.107.247 (talk) 22:28, 2 November 2011 (UTC)

motherboard
What is the best motherboard I should look for when buying a computer? 79.143.177.201 (talk) 15:22, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * One you can afford to pay for and/or endure using. Unless you're assembling this computer from individual parts, you won't need to be concerned much with the specific mobo included. ¦ Reisio (talk) 15:31, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * For some people the number and type of expansion slots is important; for other people the memory capacity is important. But people in those groups generally know what their needs are. Looie496 (talk) 17:38, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * As my erudite RD colleagues have pointed out, most users have no need to know the technical details of their motherboard(MB). Unless you have some specialised application for your PC, such as producing 3D animations or 'high level' gaming (sometimes using 2 video cards), then almost any MB will, very likely, be more than enough for 'general use' such as gaming, web browsing, text editing, e-mailing, spreadsheets, database etc.


 * Picking a motherboard beyond what Looie496 pointed out: "type of expansion slots ... memory capacity is important", would be a rather complex issue, though computer magazines pcauthority.com & online sites tomshardware.com, cnet.com, motherboards.org & mbreview.com do reviews of them which may steer you in the right direction. If you need/want to use older cards then you might need some PCI slots rather than all PCI-Express(PCI-E). The vast majority of current video cards require a similar PCI-E slot, not the near/obsolete AGP slot.
 * On the subject of slot numbers, commercially produced 'general purpose' home PCs assembled by major manufacturers seem to have very limited expansions slots both for expansion cards and memory, (presumably) to reduce initial purchase costs. This is likely to be compensated for by the computer having adequate memory installed, and all of the usual interface connections already available on the MB. 220.101.30  talk \edits (aka 220.101) 15:00, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

iPhone playlists revert
I edit my iPhone's playlists on my iPhone, but whenever I connect my iPhone to my computer, any of the playlists I have on the iPhone revert to some previous version. (Say "Random" used to have songs X, Y, and Z but I edited it on my iPhone to have A, B, and C...when I connect my iPhone to the computer, then "Random" changes to have songs X, Y, and Z again.) It doesn't do this with the "Purchased" playlist that is automatically built, and I have my iPhone/iTunes settings set for me to "manually manage music and videos" and I have automatic music syncing turned off. How do I stop it from reverting my playlists whenever I connect my iPhone to my computer? I have an iPhone 4 running 4.2.10 and iTunes 10.4.0.80 for Windows 7. Thanks in advance, Ks0stm  (T•C•G•E) 18:12, 27 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Have you tried disabling synching? TheGrimme (talk) 14:06, 28 October 2011 (UTC)