Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 April 3

= April 3 =

Copyright rules for the UK
I'm somewhat familiar with the rules about copyright as applied in Wikipedia, but these of course reflect US law. I'm helping out with a small UK-based wiki, and wonder if anyone can point me to a document or site that would summarise the relevant law for the UK? I'm mainly concerned with images: I'm assuming I can freely use Wikimedia Commons images, and any that I have the copyright for (for instance photos I've taken myself) but I wonder if there's an equivalent for the various "fair use" provisions as used on Wikipedia. --rossb (talk) 13:40, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Very roughly, the equivalent to fair use is fair dealing. The UK Copyright Service has a fact-sheet here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 13:46, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * The UK law on fair dealing is generally considered significantly more restrictive then US fair use exceptions. A simple search should find many resources, e.g. 'fair dealing uk advice', , , , but I can't vouch for their usefulness or accuracy. Generally, theoretically you can freely use wikimedia commons images provided you obey the licences (which may require attribution and that you make the image available under the same licence) but bear in mind the commons doesn't vouch that all their copyright information is correct, in fact if you work in commons you'll find there are definitely plenty of stuff where the copyright information is dubious. See also Commons:Commons:Reusing content outside Wikimedia. Also the commons generally only considers the copyright status in the US and in the country of origin of the work, it may theoretically be possible that something is in the public domain in both of those but not the UK. Another consideration is the commons always considers accurate reproductions of public domain 2D artwork (e.g. photos of old paintings) to be in the public domain which is supported by legal precedent in the US but whether this applies to the UK remains unclear. To put it a different way, there are plenty of exceptions which may be of concern and it's something you (and the others involved in the wiki) would need to consider themselves. As this is obviously not legal advice and there is definitely plenty of other issues I've failed to consider, you may want to see if there is anyone who can offer appropriate legal advice for free. (I presume your wiki is a non-profit one.) Nil Einne (talk) 14:03, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * One important thing to consider is safe harbor; US wiki hosts like Wikia and WMF rely on this to limit their exposure to copyright-related legal problems. US law treats them as carriers (like the telephone company) and they're not held to be liable as long as they don't exercise editorial control over the content, and take care of their responsibilities to respond to copyright complaints (and don't deliberately set out to facilitate wholesale copyright infringement). I don't think the UK has a copyright safe harbour per se. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 15:22, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * We have copyright laws for specific countries, including: Copyright law of the United Kingdom. Shadowjams (talk) 19:18, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Windows XP - Documents and Settings Folder - Rename a User's Folder
Hi, I broke my laptop, so I'm using an old laptop, running XP. It was my dad's, so the username was his name; I changed the username of the account, but my documents are still stored under a folder of his name, in the Documents and Settings folder. For example, my desktop is located at C:\Documents and Settings\[his name]\Desktop instead of C:\Documents and Settings\[my name]\Desktop. I can't simply change the name of the folder in the Documents and Settings folder because it's a Windows system folder and it cannot be renamed. How do I change this, so it's my name instead of his? Thanks 134.83.1.243 (talk) 15:42, 3 April 2012 (UTC)
 * First create a new use (administrator) with your name. (control panel>user accounts>create new account)
 * Log off the old account.
 * Log in the new account.
 * From the new account you can (optionally) delete the old account.
 * Now you have a directory with the new account name.
 * Note if you delete the old account it offers to save the old account files. However this is not perfect - it will not keep old programs that were installed only for the old user -an example of a program that does this is google chrome. If you had files stored in "odd places" these will be lost too. So backup and make sure the new user account has all the files and programs you want before deleting the old. Also the new account will be a "fresh slate" so other tweaks such as screensaver etc may be needed.213.249.187.63 (talk) 16:09, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay, thank you very much!! 134.83.1.243 (talk) 01:54, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

USB Flash partitions
Hi all, I'm wondering whether it's possible to create several different partitions on a 16 GB Flash drive, with some of them encrypted and some not. Is it difficult to do? And will it work equally on Mac and Windows?

Thanks! &mdash; Sam 63.138.152.219 (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * While it is possible to partition a USB Flash disk, Windows will not (by default) mount additional partitions (or assign them drive letter). There are ways to get it work by tweaking the drive format but it's not a trivial process. I've no idea how this works with encrypted partitions or with Mac. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 17:04, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I think that TrueCrypt can have both encrypted and unencrypted volumes. It would still be one "partition" but it could look like more than one. RudolfRed (talk) 18:17, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * It sounds easier to just buy multiple smaller flash drives instead of trying to partition a large one. StuRat (talk) 18:19, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I've partitioned USB flash drives with multiple partitions on Windows. The entire device will initially be formatted as a single partition. The trick is to start up Disk Management, shrink the single partition, and then create more partition(s) from the newly-freed space. Vickreman.Chettiar  13:48, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Windows soft link for executables
It frequently occurs that I download executables from the internet (from reliable sources of course), but that due to their nature as simple utilities originally written for Linux, they do not come with installers. Thus I will put them and all of their documentation and dll's into their own folder. But when I go to run them in the command line (as they are designed to do), the folder I've placed them in is not in the Windows path. Is there a way to link to a program in a known path without including the whole path?

Two things I tried already:
 * Creating my own directory for batch files and putting a batch file to each executable, the file looking something like this: . But this didn't work because it doesn't properly pass the command line arguments along.
 * Creating my own directory for links and making a link with . This doesn't work because Windows just gets upset if you try to run it as a link as an executable (apparently).

Is the only way to do this to dump all of my exe's into a single directory and add it to the command line path? Magog the Ogre (talk) 20:21, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I think you can do what you want via batch files. Look up the START command.  I don't remember the exact syntax, but I've done what you're trying before and it worked.  Also you can pass all the parameters by using %*  RudolfRed (talk) 21:11, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * When you are talking about "path" above, I'm not sure if you're just talking about typing the entire path and file name of a file when executing it, or if you're also talking about the PATH environment variable. Do you know about the PATH environment variable? The PATH environment variable seems like a simpler solution than some of the things you're trying above, but I may be misunderstanding what you're trying to do?


 * To make it easy to run command line tools, I modified a shortcut to the Command Prompt in my Start Menu to use a shortcut key, and to have an additional parameter on the end:


 * %SystemRoot%\system32\cmd.exe /k c:\some-folder\my-prompt.cmd


 * The /k switch runs my-prompt.cmd then keeps the command window open afterwards, see cmd /?. In my-prompt.cmd, I set up the path variable for various utilities I use, as well as set up some other things:


 * @echo off


 * set path=%path%;c:\folder1
 * set path=%path%;c:\folder2
 * set path=%path%;c:\folder3


 * cd "c:\Documents and Settings\user\Desktop"
 * prompt $n$g


 * So now when I want to use the command prompt, I press my shortcut key, and the command prompt window opens with my path variable and working directory set the way I like.


 * You don't have to put all of your executables in one folder, but there is a limit to the path variable size. (It looks like it's 2048 characters in Windows XP SP2, per a quick search.) So you might put all of the smaller programs in one folder, and keep more complex programs in their own folders. --Bavi H (talk) 05:13, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * If you use TCC/LE (which is cmd.exe compatible and free even for commercial use) you can either define aliases or add the paths to {HKLM,HKCU}\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths (the latter also works when launching from Start→Run or command-line start). -- BenRG (talk) 17:03, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

Aluminum laptops
Are they really from aluminum, or is it something that looks like aluminum? — Preceding unsigned comment added by XPPaul (talk • contribs) 21:35, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Aluminum is a strong, lightweight material, and not too terribly expensive relative to the cost of a laptop, so they certainly could use the real stuff. Furthermore, since it's associated with weakness in the minds of many, as in aluminum foil, I doubt if they would want to fake it.  It they were going to fake something, they would fake steel, platinum, or gold. StuRat (talk) 21:45, 3 April 2012 (UTC)


 * "MacBook Pro is machined from a single piece of aluminum, an engineering breakthrough that replaced many parts with just one." Personally, I think of aluminum as a space-age material.  It is light-weight and sturdy.  It has a reputation, amongst material scientists and metallurgists, as an easy-to-machine, no-weird-surprises metal that is light-weight, sturdy, resilient to stress and strain.  It's easy to machine, because it's softer than steel, but it doesn't gum up machine-tools, making it more desirable than other "soft" metals (copper, gold) in structural and engineering applications.  I trust my life to my Citabria's aluminum spar, which certificates my aircraft to carry an extra 100 pounds of usable load.  I'm actually surprised to hear StuRat's (unreferenced) comment disparaging the reputation of aluminum.  Nimur (talk) 17:23, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Note that I said it actually is strong, but the general public thinks it's weak, due to their primary exposure being in the form of aluminum foil. (A material people now think of as stronger than steel is titanium, but, if it was commonly found in foil sheets, they would think of it as weak, too.) StuRat (talk) 17:51, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Titanium is weird stuff. Weird stuff.  I've seen an "aero-foam" titanium honeycomb structure that you'd swear was crafted from aluminum foil - until you slammed it into the ground and it didn't deform.  Here's an example of some of the commercially-available stuff: titanium honey-comb cores.  Titanium foil thickness as small as 1 mil.  Stronger than steel blocks.  Amazing stuff.  Nimur (talk) 18:09, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * I bet aluminum in that shape would be quite strong, too. StuRat (talk) 02:04, 7 April 2012 (UTC)