Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 May 1

= May 1 =

Alcohol abuse and my netbook
A terrible thing happened: I spilled some delicious Corsendonk Christmas beer on my netbook, a Toshiba NB 505. (Trout me for it.) Now my space bar is stuck. I've figured out how to get the whole keyboard off, but that doesn't allow me to clean under the bar. On this netbook, do those keys pop off like on a regular keyboard? Even my previous laptop allowed that--and what I mean is that I could put it back on afterward. With this thing I don't know if they pop off and back on. I'll take any advice y'all have to offer. Thanks! Drmies (talk) 14:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That should teach you a lesson, if drinking, do not type. Anyway, I've never seen a key that wouldn't pop when pulled. but don't do it from the side, just pull two points along the bar. Otherwise a vacuum cleaner or a compressed air can can be of use here. OsmanRF34 (talk) 14:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * On spacebars (and some larger keys), there is a stiff piece of wire connecting the outside edges of the key together - the ends of the wire are attached to hooks on the underside of the key, and there are pivots on the PCB, attached near the middle of the wire. Slide the wire to the one side to unhook it from that end, and then slide to the other side to unhook it from the other end of the key. CS Miller (talk) 15:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Right, it's not exactly like other keys. For more detailed information, this is one of the rare cases when youtube is a better source than wikipedia. Try searching for "how to remove the spacebar" there. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Never done this before on a Toshiba NB 505 but look at this - it roughly follows what has worked for me in the past. By about 3 minutes in, it shows you how to get the keyboard out. A simple agitated wash in a bowlful of weak detergent (20 mins minimum) and a very good rinse off on distilled or de- mineralized water followed by a couple of days to dry off in a warm airing cupboard  may be all you need. If the laptop   has been in use for a while you might like to refer to this on how to get rid of all the accumulated crud. You have nothing to loose by taking the latter route first because it will be a good learning exercise, an further rub it  in, that from now on  you must  be more responsible when handling  alcohol. The exercise may come in useful for when your niece spills  Florida Orange juices on her keyboard.  Keyboards are not connoisseurs. Icky liquid is all the same to them, what ever the liquid's provenance.Aspro (talk) 16:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I watched that video yesterday, very helpful, and removed the keyboard though I stopped short of pulling that connector off, hoping I could deal with the one key individually. I'll try again to see if I can snap the one key off, and if that doesn't work I'm cleaning the whole keyboard. Thank you all for your help! Drmies (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * And, if the space bar just never works again no matter what you do, there's always an external keyboard. You can get a light and small keyboard that won't make your laptop all that much less portable. StuRat (talk) 19:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I managed to pry off the space bar, cleaned the metal connections, and it's clicking perfectly. Thank you all so much! Drmies (talk) 15:18, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

Windows Media Player not updating metadata properly?
I borrowed a copy of Pixies' album "Surfer Rosa" from a friend. This is all very fine and good, and it even came with the tracks from their debut EP Come on Pilgrim. I decided, however, to split the albums into two using Windows Explorer, feeling it would be more organised to keep the albums separate than as one whole. I edited the metadata as is standard for Windows Explorer on Windows 7, but when I opened Windows Media Player I found that it was frustratingly refusing the accept that the two albums were now separate entities. What can I do to change this behaviour, or am I stuck? -- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  16:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, now WMP is just claiming that the files don't exist altogether and actually offered to remove my entire library??? What the hell is going on? -- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  16:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
 * It's also refusing to delete said files, or play them. Jesus Christ I hate this program. -- Editor510  drop us a line, mate  16:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * VLC; GNU/Linux ¦ Reisio (talk) 17:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Did you remove the old entries from the library and re-add them? If their file path is even slightly different from what it once was, it will no longer find the file and needs to be re-added. -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

GPS-traces or elevations for European Highways
I investigates hybrid vehicles of different kinds and would like to calculate battery usage on different routes. It would be very useful to be able to get the elevation profiles and slopes of major highways in Europe such as E45 or E62. I am sure very many people have recorded such GPS-traces, some of them can be found on but they only seem to be publicized in chronological order with no way to find a trace of a specific road. Do you know how/where to find this type of information? An other way would be to use the google maps API and do something like: or  but the terms of use for google map data seems to be rather confusing at best regarding this type of use and it would probably require some programming to extract it as a text file table or similar from the API, the simulations will then be done in Matlab or Python. Do you know any web service that provides GPS-traces or orher sources of altiude-profiles of Highways? Gr8xoz (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * There's a rough manual way you can do this in Google Earth:
 * add->path, then click at various points along the route
 * in the "places" section in the left bar, where the new path you created is shown, right-click on it and click "elevation profile" in the context menu that pops up.
 * It's very detailed (it's not just the altitudes at the points you clicked, but at all those on the line between those points). But I don't know how to save that profile (bar taking a screenshot) or how to export it (looking at the KML file you get if you export the path, the Z coords are all 0, which I take to mean an offset from the prevailing ground level at that lat/long). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:08, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * Beyond that, I'd ask at the OpenStreetMap forum. They do have actual GPS traces, but really you don't want them - OSM weaves a tapestry of traces into a coherent mesh, and what you want is to be able to extract the altitudes for a given road or set of roads. OSM too has an API (here) - folks at the forum there should be able to advise you on how to proceed with it. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 20:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * The problem with OSM in this application as far as I understand is that the map itself is only 2D (With a few exceptions ) while the original traces often have altitude. This google Summer of Code project seems to be an attempt to get the data I need by combining OSM routes with NASA radar measurements  but it does not seem to have any server online, maybe I could install my own but it seems to be a lot of work.
 * Gr8xoz (talk) 21:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Microsoft Word 2007 Problem
At my place of work, Microsoft Word 2007 seems to be having a problem. For example, when trying to make a hyperlink, you would normally press Enter after creating one; it would turn blue and become clickable, correct? In my case, it becomes something that looks like this:

{HYPERLINK "mailto:fakeaddress@somemail.com"}

Other hyperlinks do the same thing, such as:

{HYPERLINK \1 "MEETING"} {HYPERLINK \1 "DATE"} {HYPERLINK \1 "ACTION_ITEMS"}

Page numbers appear as:

{ PAGE \* MERGEFORMAT }

Can anyone help me return Word to normal operation? -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * I think you have "show field codes" turned on. info -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:20, 1 May 2013 (UTC)


 * That was it! Thank you! -- 143.85.199.242 (talk) 22:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)