Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 December 7

= December 7 =

What's a cell phone SIM card worth ?
There appears to be gold contacts on them. I realize it's very little gold. So, is it even worth a penny ? Would it be worth recycling them ? StuRat (talk) 07:17, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I suppose there are several valuable materials in the SIM card, in the phone, and in any other consumer electronics. The question is whether collecting, transporting, and recycling them is worth the time and energy input. The answer to this question is generally no, unless the government forces you to do it. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:59, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * See here . There's gold in them there cards - just not a lot of it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:11, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

A quick way to create a world map from data
I would like to make a world map from data.

The data looks like this (I can make an excel table, if it needed):
 * US - 1
 * Germany - 3
 * Egypt - 2

Are were some quick and simple way to do it?

The output map should have Wikipedia-compatible license or no restrictions of usage (I would like to upload the map to Wikipedia)

Thanks! --Volucer (talk) 10:07, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * You could use this blank SVG map. For each country code, map your data point to an RGB color and add a line near the top of the SVG file like this:

.mx { fill: #ff0000; }
 * That colors Mexico red. Then just copy the legend from the C02 responsibility map. --Sean 14:42, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Google evaluating results
While looking for some clarification as to the correct name being Tanquary Fiord or Tanquary Fjord I checked with Google to get a rough idea. For Tanquary Fiord I get 16,800 results and Tanquary Fjord sends me to the Fiord spelling. If I click on "Search instead for Tanquary Fjord" I get 865,000 results, somewhat less than the 1,000,000+ I got yesterday. So given that there are more results for Fjord why does Google want me to look at the Fiord results. Is it evaluating the results and see the fiord spelling as having better links? CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:46, 7 December 2012 (UTC)
 * I think its about your language settings or location. The Fiord results can be more "relevant" for the users with your location/language --Blacknight87 (talk) 13:56, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I prefer to use Google Ngram viewer for checks like this. Google's results are personalized for you based on search history, and the number of articles is a pretty loose estimate. The NGram viewer digs through a huge corpus of texts over hundreds of years, and can provide a chart of how common a phrase was over time. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 14:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 13:45, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Switch on computer
Is it possible to have a computer switch on at a specific time automatically? For instance I have a remote computer which I might want to switch off overnight. I can switch off either manually (logging in via ssh) or with a cron job. But are there any computers that can switch on on their own, perhaps with a specific hardware/bios!? Not looking for any external devices here (power cable timers,...). bamse (talk) 20:51, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * If you have another computer on the same network you might be able to wake the off one with Wake-on-LAN (although I've had difficulty in practice getting that to work on some machines). 87.114.106.165 (talk) 21:01, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * Some BIOSes also have provisions for scheduled wake up. ¦ Reisio (talk) 21:03, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * I would say MOST BIOSes have scheduled wake up. It would only really work in the situation where you want the system to boot up at the same time every day - you don't want to have to reboot to BIOS and set a new time very often, and you can't update it through software. Well, you could if you were crazy I guess - Intel's Integrator Toolkit could be automated to generate a new BIOS file with the wakeup time configured by default, then the file could be flashed automatically. But don't do that. It is just a bad but amusing idea. 209.131.76.183 (talk) 12:45, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * ACPI has a facility to schedule wakeup times without having to re-flashing your bios. This is useful in cases like DVR-type devices where you want to wake the computer slightly before recording . You just need to have a program that twiddles the appropriate APCI function calls to trigger to load the new wakeup times, and a BIOS which supports it decently. -- 205.175.124.30 (talk) 19:56, 10 December 2012 (UTC)


 * For Mac OS X, you can schedule your computer to turn on at a scheduled time: http://support.apple.com/kb/PH3954. This article describes something similar for Windows, if you have BIOS support (as mentioned upthread).  http://lifehacker.com/5831504/how-can-i-start-and-shut-down-my-computer-automatically-every-morning.  RudolfRed (talk) 23:05, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * And, for computers without the ability to turn themselves on, putting them in hibernate/sleep mode instead of turning them off may be the best you can do. This saves some power, but not as much as turning them off, and your scheduled processes should still run. StuRat (talk) 23:14, 7 December 2012 (UTC)


 * True hibernate i.e. S4 or 'suspend to disk' would use no more power while off then a computer turned off from the OS or from the power button on the computer (i.e. G2/S5), i.e. the way probably 99.9% of the world turns off their computers (for the other 0.1% who turn off at the power sockets i.e. G3 there will be some increased usage). 'Sleep' is a fairly imprecise term which could include, suspend to disk, S3 or suspend to RAM (which will use more power) or lesser modes which use even more power. See Advanced Configuration and Power Interface for details. Nil Einne (talk) 05:18, 8 December 2012 (UTC)