Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 December 4

= December 4 =

Date and Time in 'Pages'
Can anyone tell me how to set up automatic updating of 'date & time' on AppleMac's 'Pages' please?85.211.141.203 (talk) 06:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * What do you mean by "automatic" updates? If you are using the new Pages 5.0, you can insert a Date and Time field, which can be updated throughout the entire document by clicking "Update."  More details are in the Help section on Add the page number, page count, or date.  Nimur (talk) 16:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for this. What I mean by 'automatic' is simply that when ever I open a letter template for example, the date shown is automatically the current date not the previous one when ever the template had been opened. I cannot find "Update" anywhere, and the Apple help page does not provide and answer to my question.85.211.134.214 (talk) 09:04, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I do not think that Pages (or any other well-designed word-processing software) will do that: essentially, you want the software to automatically modify and save the document every time it is opened. That precludes the user from choosing not to save the document; it prevents a "read only" use-case.  Most users do not want software that forces them to save the document every time it is viewed.
 * You might find that the file system provides the data you are looking for, though. You can query the file's last access-time - even if the access was a read-only access.  On a Mac, you can use the Finder to determine the last time the file was opened by pressing ⌘I.  Nimur (talk) 16:27, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks again for this, but it is interesting to note that my Mac 'Numbers' pages does automatically show the correct date every day that I open it, trouble is I can't remember how I set it up !! 85.211.207.34 (talk) 06:53, 6 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I think I have misunderstood your question... you essentially want the current time to show up in the document - like a clock inside your page. I do not know if that is possible in Pages.  In Numbers, you can use the TODAY function to get the current day, which has utility for certain calculations and formulas.  Nimur (talk) 00:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Best Practices for Converting Text Data Field to Numeric
I have inherited an MS Access 2007 database. In this database, the CustomerType field is a string with values such as "University", "Government", and so on. I would like to replace these values with numbers and have a lookup table containing the decode text, since this helps ensure data integrity. However, there are dozens of queries, forms, and reports that may or may not reference this field, as well as quite a bit of VBA code. Are there best practices for doing this type of conversion? In particular, is there any way (short of reviewing every database object and line of code) to minimize the probability that the conversion will make part of the database non-functional, or lead to data errors down the line? Thanks! OldTimeNESter (talk) 17:49, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If possible I would advise creating a new field to contain the numeric value, and leaving the old field in place. Otherwise there is no way to verify that your old code will work other than testing it. Looie496 (talk) 15:49, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

What size flash drive to make disc image?
My father has a laptop running Windows 8 that he wants to upgrade to 8.1. I want to make a disk image of it on an external flash drive first. I already have a 1.5T drive myself, but when you go to create the image it says all files on the external drive will be lost.

When I simply backed up all his files manually, it used about 47 G. When I look at his C drive it says he's using just under 80g total.

What size flash drive would I need to make sure it would be large enough to hold the file, but no more expansive than necessary? Walmart says they have a 64 G hard drive for $45. I am wondering if that's reasonable and sufficient, or will he need a bigger one?

Thanks. μηδείς (talk) 19:55, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * You shouldn't have to lose the contents on the destination if you're just making an image file - restoring an image file to a disc will wipe it. A tool like imagex creates a single file from a disc, and it can be stored on your 1.5TB drive.  K ati e R  (talk) 20:08, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. I am using whatever tool exists in Windows 8.0, and it specifically warns that all data on the target drive for the backup image will be lost, not the reinstalling that image will overwrite the laptop hard drive. Perhaps you are saying that imagex works differently form the built-in windows tool?  In any case, I would rather have this on his own separate flash drive so he has 24 hour access, which he would not to my 1.5T drive.  Worse comes to worst I will simply have hime return the 64M drive as too small, but I am trying to avoid the need for that, assuming I can figure out how much sapce the disk image will take ahead of time. μηδείς (talk) 20:47, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * In order to create the disk image I first had to partition his hard drive and burn the image there. It was only 20G, so I simply tried clicking and dragging to to my 1.5T drive as you said, and this seems to have worked fine without any warning flags. Thanks! μηδείς (talk) 22:57, 4 December 2013 (UTC)


 * I'm glad it worked for you - I didn't realize 8 had imaging support built in! It probably uses imagex internally, it's the command-line tool that's shipped with Windows for several generations now. Glad it worked out for you - hopefully he won't need the image file at all in the end. :-) My 8 -> 8.1 upgrade ran no problem, although it involved far too many vague progress bars. K ati e R  (talk) 18:56, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

Open-ended game classification
How would you exactly classify the gameplay of Utopia: The Creation of a Nation? It is in a way open-ended, meaning that there is no final ending condition that must be reached, the only way the game forcibly ends is when the player loses, when the entire colony is destroyed. But still: Having an exact classification would help to better improve the article, particularly the bit where it links to open-ended (gameplay) (redirecting to nonlinear gameplay. J I P  &#124; Talk 20:05, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It's not a "sandbox" game, because it provides a challenge, the player is not free to do whatever he/she pleases, ignoring the current state of the game.
 * It's not a "non-linear storyline" game, as there isn't actually a "storyline". It's a city-building game, not an adventure game that follows a plot.
 * It's not a "free roaming" game, as the player has a colony to maintain, and must keep the colonists safe and happy. Also there is an alien race that threatens the colony, but destroying the alien race is not the aim of the game, it only makes the game much easier if the player manages to do so.


 * It seems like the problem is with open-ended (gameplay) redirecting to nonlinear gameplay; they aren't synonymous terms. Open ended could mean linear, but without fixed victory conditions. Other simulation games like Simcity are similarly open-ended. There is a kind of nonlinearity in that you choose what to build and when. In that sense there are multiple paths to success, or to at least avoid failure. --Mark viking (talk) 22:01, 4 December 2013 (UTC)