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

= May 7 =

wrong .doc association
Please pardon a basic question. It's a Windows question, and I'm not a Windows user. On my dad's computer, when he clicks on a .doc file, Windows tries to open it with Adobe Acrobat Reader, which can't. I know I need to tweak the extension/opening-program association, but I don't know how to do it. My web search has turned up only this page, which talks about "Associate a file type or protocol with program" on the Start menu, which isn't there on the computer in question. The computer in question is Windows XP. (Sorry I can't give you the exact XP version, but I don't even know how to discover it.) —Steve Summit (talk) 01:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Try right-clicking on any Word .doc, then pick "Open With > Choose Program..." from the contextual menu. Select Microsoft Word and check the box with "Always use the selected program to open this kind of file". The other way is to go to the Tools menu on the My Computer window, select "Tools > Folder Options" then the "File Types" tab, scroll down to "DOC" and press the Change button, then select Microsoft Word. --Canley (talk) 01:51, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Wow! That was quick.  And it worked!  Thanks much.  —Steve Summit (talk) 02:09, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I've used this before for a similar problem. → Σ  τ  c . 02:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

git configuration in ubuntu
Good evening everybody!

I am a new user of ubuntu and git,and now I want to download some source code form a remote repositry,so I should make some configuration.

but I can't find the file of '~/.netrc' and '~/.gitconfig',can somebody tell me the exactly path of this two file in ubuntu or tell me where to find articles about the configuration of git in ubuntu ?

Thank you very much!

ZhishangYang (talk) 12:27, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * You don't need either of those files (only if you needed to store special config details, in which case you'd create them yourself). You simply need to have git (sudo apt-get install git if you don't have it) and then you can just use it.  For example, to clone the source tree for git itself, you just say git clone https://github.com/git/git.git   Git (software) and the git manual page (which will be installed when you install git itself) are between them pretty comprehensive in pointing you at documentation - but if you're just cloning a repository to read code, you probably don't need any configuration at all.  -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 12:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

-

Thank you for your patient and kindly support!

I have already install git in ubuntu.If directly download the source code using the command as you inform,the problem occurs like this: - root@Presario-V3700-Notebook-PC:~# git clone https://--- Cloning into **... error: server certificate verification failed. CAfile: /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt CRLfile: none while accessing https://---/**.git/info/refs

fatal: HTTP request failed

--

The source repository is private and the owner have already provided the download instruction as follow: -- Please edit your ~/.netrc as follows (using your own login/password pair):

(private information) login ... password ...

then edit ~/.gitconfig as follows:

[http] sslVerify = false [user] name = email = Finally checkout the code for the following command:

git clone .....

The problem is that I can't find the file of '~/.netrc' and '~/.gitconfig'!

You suggest to create them manually,but can you tell me the exactly path they should place ?

Further explanation about '~/.netrc' and '~/.gitconfig' and how to create them will be grateful!

Another question is how can I visit the 'git manual page' as your inform?

Looking forward to your early reply!

ZhishangYang (talk) 03:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)


 * ~/.netrc is the full path. ~/ just means "my home directory", so if your account is "zyang" that would be /home/zyang/.netrc    .  But most programs understand the ~/ thing natively.  To read the git manual, just enter man git in the command line. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 07:57, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

Thank you very much!

By following your instruction,I have make the right configuration.

Thank's against for your selfless support!

Yours sincerely,

Zhishang ZhishangYang (talk) 13:48, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sorting photos by edit date in Windows 7
When I sort photos (jpegs) by date in Windows 7 explorer windows, or Photoshop's "Open" window, they are always sorted in order of the date-stamp in the photographer's camera, even when this is accidentally set to the year 2030 (or with the clock set correctly but the photo taken a few months ago) and even after I've edited them in Photoshop and saved them under different names they are still sorted by the original date instead of today's date. This never happened in XP, and is becoming a real headache and I haven't been able to find this issue discussed in the Windows support forums. Any suggestions please?--Shantavira|feed me 13:53, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * If you right click on the column headers in Windows Explorer it pops up a menu which lets you check some more options. These create additional columns, which you can then sort by.  As well as "date" you'll find "date created", "date modified", "media created", "date acquired", and many more. Try some of these. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:07, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * Wow, hundreds of options in fact! Thanks.--Shantavira|feed me 15:01, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Disabling Norton Identity Protection
Hello. How do I disable Norton Identity Protection in Google Chrome only when I visit WebCT? Since I installed the new version of Norton 360, my browser crashes when I load Blackboard. Thanks in advance. --Mayfare (talk) 14:23, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * I honestly can't recommend you keep Norton; if it were me I'd uninstall it (download ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe first, since it's basically a virus that can't be uninstalled normally) and replace it with something else. For a paid solution NOD32 is good, for free Avast! is. ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Excel help (again)
Seems like I am always seeking help with Excel spreadsheet problems. (The program's "help" is not very useful.) Anyway, I am making a spreadsheet for a mailing list, and one column will be e-mail address. The default for Excel is that whenever you enter something that is e-mail format (e.g., name@domain.com), it automatically turns it into a hyperlink. This gets annoying during data entry because whenever I go to that box, it pops open my e-mail. I know how to disengage the hyperlink one-by-one after an item is entered. Is there anyway to format the page, or even the column, to not make hyperlinks in the first place? → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 20:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * This is one of Microsoft's 'helpful' features, known as 'auto correct'. Here are some instructions for turning it off, specifically for Excel 2003, but with a bit of lateral thinking you should be able to apply it to all versions. Since auto correct can be useful in some situations (lik corecting comon mispelings) you can either choose to disable it completely or to just turn off certain aspects. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:08, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks, that worked. (By the way, Excel 2007 no longer has a "tools" menu, the route to finding the auto correct settings is more convoluted now.)   → Michael J Ⓣ Ⓒ Ⓜ 21:45, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I thought it might be - that's why I chickened out and just told you to work it out yourself! Glad you found the solution though. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 21:55, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Transparent images in Firefox
Whenever I try to copy a transparent image in Firefox, the background becomes black and makes the picture unusable. Is there a way to fix this so that it still has the normal white background? --108.206.4.199 (talk) 22:48, 7 May 2012 (UTC)


 * The problem probably lies in whatever program or document you're viewing the copied image in, rather than in Firefox or the image. What are you viewing the copied image with? -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I had the same issue the other day but I use chrome and opened the image in photoshop. I even tried to copy and paste it straight in. Don't have any suggestions sorry.. Vespine (talk) 00:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Do you mean you saved the original image file and opened it in Photoshop (rather then going through the complicating step of copying the image to the clipboard after it has been rendered by the browser) Nil Einne (talk) 02:25, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * By copy to the clipboard, I simply meant right click the image and select "copy image", then paste it into photoshop, it's not a complicating step. But I did also try to save it to a file first, both had the same result. Vespine (talk) 23:04, 8 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Saving the images works on my case, it's just that FF seems to muck the transparency up whenever you transfer things to the clipboard. Might be due to the way the latter works, too. Blake Gripling (talk) 00:28, 9 May 2012 (UTC)
 * I don't know in particular how Chrome works when it comes to copying images to the clipboard (I'm presuming this is Windows not that I know for any browser), but I disagree it's not a complicating step. It's fairly likely that copying the image copies the image after it's been partially rendered by the browser. Information such as PNG transparency could easily be lost. Saving the image from the browser would normally save the original file, so no information should be lost (of course the tool you're importing it to needs to be capable of processing the information in the first place). At the very least you can be fairly sure of what's going on which you can't be with copying the image unless you properly understand how Chrome's copy function works. (And actually you also need to be sure of what precisely the receiving tool is importing, with Photoshop, you should be able to import what you want but with some tools it may get complicated.) The Firefox example of the OP seems to demonstrate this. Nil Einne (talk) 03:31, 10 May 2012 (UTC)