Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 April 7

= April 7 =

Why would this store sell a Toshiba 10" 32GB tablet for only $2.70? And what dirt can you find about this store?
You see, I have a sinking feeling about this. Am I being lured into a trap? Or are they trying to liquidate their stock?

www.buydigitalproduct.com/toshiba-excite-at305t32-10-1-inch-32-gb-tablet-computer-wi-fi-nvidia-tegra-3-1-20-ghz?language=en&currency=USD $2.70 for THAT kind of tablet makes me wonder about its legitimacy.]

www.buydigitalproduct.com/index.php?route=information/contact This is where I find the store's supposed contact information. The next link proves that Google Maps doesn't know about "Jerry Dove Drive."]

Google Maps won't find Jerry Dove Drive anywhere in that town!

This WHOIS lookup doesn't provide this store site owner's info because some kind of infoguard keeps it hidden. Is this normal of any online store? Or would legit online stores allow their info to be made public on a WHOIS lookup?

I need help knowing more about this store before I enter sensitive details to buy this tablet for supposedly $2.70. Why do you think they'd price it THIS low? Hopefully you can help me figure out how genuine all this is. Thanks! --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F9AF:6350:3C80:67FE (talk) 02:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have a link which lists that price ? I'm guessing they meant $270.00 for a used one, and messed up the decimal places.  And I sure wouldn't send sensitive info to anyone you can't verify like this. StuRat (talk) 03:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * www.buydigitalproduct.com/toshiba-excite-at305t32-10-1-inch-32-gb-tablet-computer-wi-fi-nvidia-tegra-3-1-20-ghz?language=en&currency=USD This link] shows "Price: $476.99 $2.70 Ex Tax: $2.70." What does it show to you? I'll put up a screenshot in case you don't see what I see. --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F9AF:6350:3C80:67FE (talk) 03:32, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I get the same site as Nil. StuRat (talk) 14:53, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Can't speak for StuRat but for me your link redirects to which has no price and just directs you to Amazon to buy it for around $255. Actually this applies to pretty much any link to buydigitalproduct.com.
 * In any case I've never heard of prices that low excluding mistakes even in a liquidation sale. Perhaps $50-100. As always, if it sounds too good to be true and the site has several question marks (like the business behind it doesn't even seem to exist), there's no reason to think it's anything but what it seems i.e. a scam.
 * I don't know how much the shipping costs but if you want to throw away $15 or whatever the total ends up being I guess go ahead. But you may want to ensure the site is using a reputable payment processor and you only enter your credit card details there, otherwise you need to keep a close eye on your bill and hope your credit card provider doesn't make too many problems refunding you for fradulent transactions even though you entered your details in to a website which was an obvious scam.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 03:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * SCREENSHOT OF MY VIEW. Why does it redirect to someplace else for you? Anyway, I found it on the Froogle shopping search. See the listing that says "$2.70 from Buy Digital Products?" That led me to the page I've been trying to show you. I get a gut-feeling that a "came from Froogle" cookie instructs the site NOT to redirect to that Juni place, but to show me what I had intended to see. But what do you make of this? --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F9AF:6350:3C80:67FE (talk) 04:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * By the way User:Nil Einne, I would've used a debit card. How different are fraud protections on a debit card if attempting to buy this tablet turns me into a fraud victim? --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F9AF:6350:3C80:67FE (talk) 04:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No, visiting the site through Froogle doesn't change anything. Presuming the site still shows the same page for you even when you refresh, the more likely possibility is it uses geolocation although this doesn't really explain StuRat's result presuming they had the same thing (but perhaps it's more specific than just the US). Alternatively or in addition, perhaps it's based on browser type or similar.
 * I obviously can't speak for your specific credit or debit card, but debit cards often do have lesser legal and perhaps policy based protections. See e.g..
 * Perhaps a key point when it comes to giving your number to a site almost certain to be a scam is that with a credit card is you can often refuse to pay for transactions which are in dispute. So while you may lose access to your credit card, at least you hopefully don't lose thousands of dollars temporarily. If some misuses your debit card, the money is gone from your account and you're often SOL until the matter is resolve even if you're sure to win. (If you only have a small amount in your account, you may get the same protection if your account is pushed in to overdraft or you may not.)
 * Either way even if you don't mind whatever loss for some small transaction for a site which is obviously a scam seeking such details, and even if you're sure you will be protected from fraudulent transactions you didn't authorise even though you voluntarily handed over you number to such a site, I don't think it's ever a good idea to do so, whether it's a credit or debit card.
 * (Of course as I mentioned earlier, even if the site is dodgy, provided you are sure you only hand over such details to a reputable payment processor your only concern should be the transaction itself. This is something a lot of people seem to miss.)
 * Nil Einne (talk) 05:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I get the same negative result, and no, we do not need to see a screen shot. I've also removed all the live links to the commercial site. The URLs are still there so anyone who cares can still see the pages in question. WP:EL says we should not provide advertising links and even if this is an honest inquiry, that's what these links are. If the junustore is legit, we should not be linking to it and if its is not legit, even more so. As for the broader question, it could be an error, since corrected. Otherwise our article Internet fraud discusses many types of scams.--agr (talk) 04:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Does a "Time Machine" for Wikipedia exist?
There's currently this Wikipedia art project in progress, where they're going to print out wikipedia at a snapshot and arrange it into an encyclopedia to physically visualise the scope of the wikipedia project, updates would be delivered real time by an old 'neverending print roll' type printer.

Which gave me an idea - is there a current way to browse wikipedia at a default date? so you could search for articles at a current point in time and for it to come up instead of going through the history tab? I think this would make for an interesting educational and fun tool in the future to show how understanding changes.

I don't know if you've ever thumbed through old encyclopedias, but it's a fun and enlightening experience - it'd be nice to do the same virtually.

Wikipedia has been around since January 2001, as an example, the world trade center didn't even warrant a mention until October. Little things like that.

Does this exist now? I had a look at the special pages and I couldn't see anything particularly relevant.

If it does not - where would be the best place to put in a 'feature request'? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Posty (talk • contribs) 03:47, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * There is the Internet Archive. It lets you browse a variety of sites at the time they were indexed. You could also just download a database dump of Wikipedia from this site and just set up your own outdated mirror.&mdash;Best Dog Ever (talk) 04:29, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/TimeTraveller doesn't work for me. WikiProject User scripts/Scripts/TimeTraveller.js was last edited in 2009 so maybe it needs maintenance. PrimeHunter (talk) 04:37, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'm not sure it's actually correct that the World Trade Center "didn't even warrant a mention until October" of 2001. Notice that on that old-version page both the "next revision" and "previous revision" links actually point to the same version. And if you go to the article history and hit "oldest", you will see that the entry corresponding to that version shows the size reduced by tens of thousands of bytes from a previous version that isn't there. Compare, say, the article on the current baseball season which was created last year; if you look at its oldest version, the "previous revision" link is grayed out, and the revision history shows a positive increase in size with the first version. I think there must have been some technical change in October 2001 which is causing the early history of the WTC page to be missing. --50.100.193.30 (talk) 11:22, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes the early page histories are sometimes problematic. There's brief mention of this problem at Help:Page history and Wikipedia:Usemod article histories but Wikipedia's oldest articles probably has the most info.
 * As mentioned there, because of the software at the time, the history wasn't always reliably preserved nor was it always imported. The importation of old history has improved over time and a backup of some of the history feared lost has been found but I think some is still missing. And perhaps more importantly, a fair amount of the old history has AFAIK not been imported. (And for stuff imported or moved between earlier versions of the software, it didn't always work properly.)
 * In particular, for the stuff in the backups that didn't survive to the versions of the database used for imports, I'm not even sure if it's in directly browseable condition or you'd need to download the (fairly small) archive and view it yourself. And it's perhaps worth noting that while stuff until August 17, 2001 is supposed to be preserved in some fashion, it's not clear to me where this leaves the history from there until UseModWiki was replaced in ?'early 2002' ? (There are obviously copies of later versions of UseModWiki versions, e.g. the Nostalgia wikipedia [//nostalgia.wikipedia.org/wiki/HomePage] but perhaps these have been imported in to some other form or are simply preserved as front end HTML and the diff_log and rclog may be lost unless someone finds a backup? The email [//lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-December/063088.html] is somewhat unclear to me as one the one hand it seems to be announcing the discovery of backups but on the other hand it later mentions how it was discovered that the history which was thought often deleted by the software, was actually preserved in one form so it was present in these backups.)
 * BTW, the Sep11 wiki was AFAIK started to deal with stuff considered unsuitable for wikipedia at the time [//wayback.archive.org/web/20060618085920/http://sep11.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page] and the attacks were I think something of a catalyst as the first major current event dealt with by wikipedia. While I don't know what was accepted on wikipedia and what was pushed to the September 11 wiki, it seems unlikely the article on the WTC was created in October. (I'm presuming the OP is referring to the NYC WTC.)
 * Nil Einne (talk) 12:46, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Until a few years ago, such a project would have been impossible." Around 2005 I worked for a company that specialised in "short run, mono, multi-volume" print jobs.  These were mainly regulatory drug applications, running to 400+ volumes, 12 copies.  I considered at the time printing WP and donating it to the BL (of course WP was smaller then). A print run like this would have taken abut two weeks.  All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 11:46, 8 April 2014 (UTC).


 * But, would you keep it up to date? - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 08:40, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually it wouldn't be that bad. As I have shown, less than 40% of edits are to  articles. We could also use a loose-leaf system.  But it might be better just to issue a new edition every month. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC).


 * "Wikipedia. Redefining TL;DR since 2001."
 * I used to be a reader, but then I got a pedia to the knee ...and that's the featured articles only. You can only imagine the height of all WP articles combined. I'd guess it would be about the Eiffel tower or the Burj Khalifa, not 10000 times 1'7", mainly because featured articles are longer than average. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 10:28, 11 April 2014 (UTC)

Python
I have a text file which stores a single tweet per line. Each tweet is separated from the next tweet by a blank line. I wrote the following bit of code in Python to read the text file, store the tweets in a list variable, and print all the tweets which start with an "R" (retweets). However, everytime I run this, the code runs okay for a part of the text file and then stops abruptly and gives me a "list index out of range error". Can anyone point out to me where I'm going wrong?

Thanks in advance. =) La   Al qu im  is ta  14:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * If you could upload hindistream2.txt to a site like pastebin, so we could try it ourselves, that would be helpful. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Although surely the problem is that some line tokenises to an empty array, so tok[0] is out of range. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 15:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Could that error be trapped and handled properly ? StuRat (talk) 15:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * @Finlay: Thanks! All I needed to do was insert a line if tok!=[] to debug it. :) La   Al qu im  is ta  17:03, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Unrelatedly, you should double the backslashes in the file path, or insert r before the open quote (making it a raw string), or replace the backslashes with forward slashes. Your example happens to work in Python 2 because \U, \L, and so on are not valid escape sequences, but it will fail in Python 3 where \U is a Unicode escape, and it will fail in Python 2 (probably with an unhelpful error message) as soon as you try to open tamilstream.txt or whatever. -- BenRG (talk) 20:48, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * , I am wondering why you have a blank line between each pair of tweets. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:28, 9 April 2014 (UTC).


 * It's because some tweets have a \n character of their own, and I would want to separate each tweet. If the additional \n to separate tweets wasn't written into the file, I'd have trouble reading it, and would mistake the second line of a multiline tweet for a new tweet. La   Al qu im  is ta  06:07, 10 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Ah, so it's not a single tweet per line then! All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 06:27, 10 April 2014 (UTC).

New Google maps
I use google maps which has recently ?updated automatically so that I have a different map presentation. There are a cluster of icons and buttons in the lower left corner and a black square in the lower right corner. They all offer an invitation to click by a change of cursor but they are all inactive. I cannot find any way to bird's eye view or street view. I have followed "The Tour" intended to explain the new format but it is almost incomprehensible offering no answer to my needs. I can zoom in and out and that's about it. What can I do to either go back to the old format (if that's possible) or to properly install the new version. With thanks in anticipation. Richard Avery (talk) 15:38, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Do you have Java enabled ? If so, maybe try a reboot to make the icons pickable. StuRat (talk) 15:44, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * I haven't seen this new version, but the old Google Maps requires JavaScript enabled, not Java. --50.100.193.30 (talk) 08:45, 9 April 2014 (UTC)


 * No icon of the little man to click and drag? Towards the bottom right, near the zoom in and out control, is the icon that looks like a question mark talk bubble for help.  Maybe it's behind the black square, but maybe for you it's in the cluster of icons on the left side that I don't have.   The very last option in the help pop up menu is "Return to classic Google maps." However, it does sound like you don't have some sort of plug in running right.  If you went back to the old style, it may not work either.  A few work arounds you have try that can tell us what to try next is.  Install another browser that you don't have.  (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, IE, Safari)  Try it again and it should load any plug ins it needs.  If that works, your browsers plug ins should be reinstalled.  Until the fix is found, you could also install Google Earth on your PC for free.  Try it, you'll like it.  Wonderley (talk) 05:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)


 * OK, thanks both, that all sounds embarrassingly obvious, I'll work though that. Richard Avery (talk) 06:07, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Upgrading my Linux computer to a new dual-boot computer
I am running Fedora 17 Linux on a computer that is already more than half a decade old. My workplace offered to give me a more powerful computer for home use, but the thing is, it runs Windows 8, and the company wants to keep it that way, so I can use it for work as well. Now the computer has two HD bays but is only using one of them, so I agreed with my boss that I can install the drive from my old computer to it as well.

Here's how this is supposed to go: I install my old computer's HD to the vacant bay in the new computer and connect both drives. I then upgrade the Linux installation from Fedora 17 to Fedora 20, installing a dual-boot system in the process. When the computer powers up, it gives me a choice of OS to load. If I leave it alone for a few seconds, it loads Linux, but if I choose so, it loads Windows instead. The whole Linux installation and the boot loader are on my old HD. The new computer's existing Windows HD must be left absolutely intact. I would also very much like to keep all my personal files on the old Linux HD, luckily they are all on a separate partition from the system and boot  partitions.

Is this thing possible? If so, then how? J I P &#124; Talk 18:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * A common way to get around those kinds of problems is to boot the computer from a USB memory stick. If you have the BIOS set up to attempt to boot from USB first - then from the Windows drive second - then merely unplugging your USB stick will return the machine to "normal" instantly.   What goes onto the USB stick is something like GNU GRUB that you can set up either to unconditionally use your Linux drive - or to come up with a menu that offers you the choice of booting into Windows or into Linux.  I'm not 100% sure what settings you need - but I'm fairly sure it's possible, Grub is a very flexible piece of software, designed to solve exactly this kind of problem.  SteveBaker (talk) 19:45, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I assume by "return to normal" you don't mean "it's suddenly displaying your Windows desktop", which was how I first read it. Presumably, you would shut the machine down, pull out the USB, and restart, in that order, correct?
 * Anyway, the problem with booting from USB is that it takes a loooong time. If you're one of those folks who likes to brag about their uptime, maybe you don't care -- start the boot, go out to lunch, and then leave it powered up for the next year.  But if you do care, you'll probably want to configure your BIOS to boot from your old drive instead.  It should be possible to have GRUB on the old drive, and allow booting into Windows as one of the options.  You'll likely have to fiddle with it a bit, and I don't guarantee it'll work. --Trovatore (talk) 20:07, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * A Windows 8 machine will (almost certainly?) have Unified Extensible Firmware Interface rather than a BIOS, so in addition to changing the boot order, it'll probably be necessary to set it into "compatibility mode" (or whatever it's called) so it will an boot unsigned loader like GRUB. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 21:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Cripes, always something new you gotta keep track of ... when did that start? I don't remember having to do anything special about it when I put my latest laptop into a dual-boot config, about two years ago. --Trovatore (talk) 22:01, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's my understanding (second hand, having never done it myself) that machines which ship with Windows 8 must have UEFI, which is preconfigured with MicroSoft's cryptographic public key, the private counterpart of which is used to sign Windows 8's bootloader. The most recent version of Ubuntu, and presumably Fedora, also has a signed bootloader. Without that, one needs to turn off the check in UEFI, which makes it work like a legacy BIOS. I honestly don't know if an OEM Windows 8 will boot in that circumstance. An alternative to doing this, which involves commercial software that again I've no experience of, is discussed in this article.  Were I in JIP's position, I would not dual boot - I would install VirtualBox on the Windows machine and install Linux in that. -- Finlay McWalterᚠTalk 22:20, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I have checked that Fedora is UEFI compatible since version 18, which is too late for my current version but early enough for the version I'm planning to install. So that should be no problem. This will be my first time ever using a UEFI based PC instead of a BIOS based one though, so I'm not at all sure how the dual boot is going to work. Still, I have enough experience and familiarity with Linux that I'm going to stick with it, no matter what. I don't see running VirtualBox as an option, the computer should be able to run Linux natively. J I P  &#124; Talk 17:40, 10 April 2014 (UTC)


 * It's probably time to buy a new drive anyway, put your old drive in a USB enclosure and use it for back-up. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 11:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC).


 * That would be easier than trying to upgrade the Linux installation and replace the bootloader, I could just install an all-new copy of Fedora 20 on a fresh new HD and then copy all my personal files across. But how do I go about putting the old drive in a USB enclosure? I know my way around USB, IDE and SATA cables, but I couldn't solder anything or make my own cables or anything like that to save my life, even if I had the full instructions in front of me. Are there any ready-made USB enclosures that I could just plug my old drive's SATA cable into available? J I P  &#124; Talk 18:04, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * You can buy plug-in enclosures that fit your hard drive. For example, if you've got a 3.5 inch ATA hard drive, this enclosure is available at NewEgg.  You can find enclosures for nearly every type of drive.  Nimur (talk) 15:35, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

RegEx
What difference will the extra square brackets make in the code, if any? La  Al qu im  is ta  21:12, 7 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Please take a look at the syntax section of our regular expression article. In the first example, the square brackets define a set of possible matching characters ('h', 't', 'p', ':', '/', any "word" character, or literally '*'), only one of which needs to match a single character in the string being tested to trigger a substitution. The second example is likely closer to what you want, matching a sequence of characters.  Note that "\w" matches any "word" character - typically upper and lower alphabetic characters, digits, and the underscore. The combination "\w*" matches zero or more such characters.  I suggest that you try one of the online regular expression testers like http://www.freeformatter.com/regex-tester.html to see how they behave.  --  Tom N  talk/contrib 23:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

So if I wanted the regular expression to match only a URL (nothing before that, nothing after that), then my code should look something like this?

What is the difference between writing the any-character-except-a-space part as [^ ] and as [^\s]? Much thanks. La  Al qu im  is ta  10:21, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I believe "\s" includes \f\n\r\t\v, but it may depend on the implementation and switches. Certainly \t, in everything I've used. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 11:54, 8 April 2014 (UTC).


 * Those two regexes you gave are wildly different. I'm pretty sure you don't have a good grasp on regex La Alquimista. your first example is a single character, required... your second is a leading whitespace character, maybe.... your earlier question is even more confused. what exactly are you trying to do? Shadowjams (talk)

@Shadowjams: Heh heh. You're right. I'm very new to regex, and need it only for part of my code, so I'm unwilling to teach myself all the nitty gritties right away. What I want to do is take a line of text and delete any urls (starting with http:// or https://) from it. La  Al qu im  is ta  09:24, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Find a second-hand copy of "Mastering Regular Expressions" by Friedl. While I didn't get the "wow" feeling some O'Reilly books gave me (maybe because I'm older) it does cover a lot of ground, and is a useful reference.  All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 23:37, 9 April 2014 (UTC).