Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 December 14

= December 14 =

Search for a wireless router
I am not a small business owner, but I am interested by the more numerous and stronger security features generally included with the aforementioned devices. Namely, I am very concerned about my network being exploited or hacked; DoS, brute-force attack, ARP poisoning, etc. Threats that I doubt my otherwise well-configurated Cisco E1200-CA could do much against, even with DD-WRT and WPA2.

At the same time, I am also searching for a device with the regular qualities (good data transfer speeds, SPI & NAT, VPN, QoS) of a home network wireless router. My network is composed of three computers, two tablets, one smartphone, and two streaming media devices. Moreover, it is possible that it will increase in size in the future.

Based on this (assuming I included enough relevant information), which models would you recommend? My budget should hover around 200-250+ USD. Matt714 (talk) 03:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * In my modest understanding of network security you have two points of entry for an attacker to try; through your wireless (parked outside in a van), or through your ISP/modem/router. To guard against wifi attacks, WPA2 is not perfect, but with a 64 character password it can be enough of a disincentive for attacker to move on to the next target.
 * Additionally, you can turn off your wifi and hardwire your network with cat5 eliminating an entire point of entry.
 * To guard against attacks through the internet your best bet is a series of firewalls. You should be able to access both your modem and your router and enable firewalls on both. additionally you can enable at least 1 firewall on your main operating system. For a fourth layer of firewall you can install a dedicated gateway computer to further filter incoming and outgoing connections. Firewalls are an effective deterrent because unless the attacker has a high interest in your system specifically, they will move on to the next victim.
 * In addition to firewalls and strong WiFi passwords, encryption is your next best friend, depending on what you are most concerned about you can encrypt your entire drive at the cost of performance, or use 'offline' backups, removing your sensitive data completely from the world wide web.
 * here is a link to your router's owners manual http://www.neighbourhoodwireless.ca/wp-content/uploads/Cisco_e1200.pdf
 * also be sure to disable WPS on your e1200 and any WPA2 router https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11i-2004#Security_flaws
 * 13:09, 15 December 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fractal618 (talk • contribs)
 * google for monowall -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 19:51, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

OS of handheld devices running the arm_v8
As I understand the new arm_v8 is a far cry from the common arm_v7 microchip that can be found in common Android smartphones. It is more like the microchip that can be found in a PC. Would this change mean that it will be easier to run one Gnu/Linux distribution on a smartphone instead of a new Android for arm_v8?--Noopolo (talk) 18:07, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't think there is such a big difference between the command sets of v7 and v8, but v8 allows the running of different operating systems on the same processor with complete isolation between them. I'll wait for an expert to say whether this will allow both Android and Linux to run on a smartphone. You might be interested in this site if you don't already know about it.   D b f i r s   21:13, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * There were some qtopia Linux based mobile phones, mainly in Japan. Maemo is the main one that is currently being used. CS Miller (talk) 10:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Indeed, I was trying rather to understand why a microchip can run this or that OS (given enough power), than to actually install it.Noopolo (talk) 18:06, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Each design of microchip CPU has its own set of Machine code (or Assembly language for easy programming). Processors in the same series tend to have very similar instruction sets (of machine code -- the sets of ones and zeros that tell the processor what to do).  An operating system needs to be written (usually in assembly language) for a particular processor (or family of processors).  The instruction sets of ARM chips are very different from the sets used in traditional PC processors, so an operating system needs to be re-written when it is transferred to a different type of processor.  This tends to be a much harder task than just translating the instruction manual into a different language, and usually the system will be re-written from scratch, rather than trying to translate the instruction for one processor into the instruction for a different processor.  ARM processors use a "reduced instruction set" so their "native language" is more different from Intel Core (microarchitecture) (for example) than Chinese is different from English.  You might also be interested to read our articles on Fat binary, Instruction set simulator and Microcode.  My knowledge of computer architecture is seriously out of date, but I wonder if, sometime in the future, processors will all be designed with the same universal instruction set and having inbuilt microcode to cope with structural differences in architecture.    D b f i r s   22:10, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Operating systems have been written almost entirely in C, with small amounts of assembly language, for decades now. It's not that hard to port the Linux kernel if you have a C compiler for the target architecture, and it was ported to ARM long ago. Android is Linux (i.e., it uses the Linux kernel). I don't think there's anything in ARMv8 that makes Linux work any better on ARM. It seems to have some new hardware virtualization support that might make it better suited for something like Xen. -- BenRG (talk) 07:30, 17 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I presume you know Android already uses a modified Linux kernel. While there has been some controversy relating to the modifications as per our article Android (operating system), I don't think these really prevent the inclusion of GNU or other components which would make up a more typical Linux distribution. Or more generally, I don't think many would suggest the primary reason why you tablets and mobile phones don't generally come with GNU/Linux as being because the physical hardware is too limiting but because most typical GNU/Linux distributions are not what most people want on their smart phones and because Google decided not to use the GNU and other stuff but mostly make their own (and everyone else who was trying failed). There have been and are several attempts to make good GNU/Linux based distros for such mobile devices, but as Microsoft's efforts have shown, it isn't necessarily an easy thing to do with a variety of reasons including incumbent advantage which Android and iOS well have by now, and the differences between mobile device and desktop UI expectations.
 * It doesn't help that many Android devices are fairly locked down meaning even for those that are interested, it's not necessarily that easy. And while the core of Android may be open source, many devices have a fair amount of proprietary stuff including the hardware drivers. While much of the hardware is similar, someone still needs to get it all working for your specific device, as CyanogenMod and similar efforts to port new or stock versions of Android to devices have shown.
 * For example, I don't see any suggestion at Ubuntu for Android that the efforts failed because the hardware couldn't handle it. Rather it sounds a lot like they failed because Canonical couldn't really convince anyone making Android devices to get sufficiently involved for their liking. Even the newer Ubuntu Touch which is intended to be standalone only requires the ARMv7 based ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore (although does require PAE.
 * It's perhaps also interesting that in terms of alternative Linux based smart phone OSes, Firefox OS which AFAIK also isn't GNU based (definitely it's primarily intended that apps etc use HTML5) has I think had more success (although it's still very early days for them) than most other competing efforts, probably helped by them pushing it in to the emerging market scene which is seeing a lot of growth and likely has fewer issues of incumbency (which isn't to say it isn't a big factor, particularly on the hardware maker side). (I'm not considering Amazon or others using Android without the Google stuff.) See also.
 * Meanwhile Chromebooks seem to have had a fair amount of success recently possibly the largest Linux marketshare on laptops (couldn't find good statistics, many e.g. Usage share of operating systems don't differentiate ChromeOS but there are bold predictions about its future ). And while ChromeOS is evidentally GNU/Linux, it doesn't AFAIK really provided much access to these components and is primarily based around the browser based apps. Point being not that there's necessarily something wrong with GNU or other components. Rather that what makes an OS successful is fairly complicated and includes getting the ecosystem right, and having the strength to get your devices made and out there and of course being the right price.
 * Nil Einne (talk) 14:55, 17 December 2014 (UTC)

Attachments with Outlook Being Zipped
I am using Windows 7 on a desktop machine and Outlook 2010. When I attach a large Word document to an outgoing email, Outlook is zipping the attachment before sending it. What option do I need to change so that I can send the attachment in native Word rather than zipped? Some of the recipients may not have a ZIP program. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:32, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Unzip is a default feature of windows since WinXP. --Hans Haase (talk) 20:43, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * 7zip is an alternative. Linux systems also are able to open zip files. --Hans Haase (talk) 20:54, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I still don't want to send the ZIP file but the Word document. Where is the option that tells Outlook to ZIP the attachments, so that I can turn it off?  Robert McClenon (talk) 20:55, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * The thing is, outlook it self does not have a native auto zip feature, so that means you have some "other" application doing the zipping. You'll need to find what that application is and disable it or change its settings. I think your best bet is that it's an outlook "add in" which you can find in "file>options>add-ins". If it's not an add-in then you'll have to figure out where it is, are there any extra ribbons at the top of your outlook other than the default "home, send/receive, folder and view"? Vespine (talk) 23:28, 14 December 2014 (UTC)
 * Possibly you may have WinZip Courier installed. If so, Outlook may include a WinZip Courier menu item or ribbon tab. On my machine (with Outlook 2007), the WinZip Courier Options invoked from Outlook don't have an obvious option to enable or disable it (only configure some compression options). However I can enable/disable it from Windows 7 Start menu, All Programs, WinZip Courier, Configure WinZip Courier, Attachment options, which brings up a slight different options dialog, including a check box "Zip files before attaching to message". 175.45.116.61 (talk) 00:13, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * A zipped email is faster on slow internet connections due a less amount of data. ZIPped files contain checksums that show you a successful transfer of the file. If your email receiver is a bot, use a batch job to extract the stripped attachment. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 19:50, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

Software comparison
Hello peeps,

I would like to know, what software(s) out beats the following softwares, or high in demand:


 * 1) AutoCad 2014.
 * 2) Pinnacle 17.
 * 3) Adobe Photoshop CS8.
 * 4) Dreamweaver 8.

(Russell.mo (talk) 22:30, 14 December 2014 (UTC))
 * Can you rephrase your question? You can find alternative software at http://www.alternativeto.net/ which has user based reviews and ratings for many applications and websites. Does Alternativeto.net help answer your question? Fractal618 (talk) 12:44, 15 December 2014 (UTC)
 * No.
 * I spoke to someone and asked, 'what softwares do I require to modify a (2)'video(s)' (old movies/New movies/of my own), (1) to creature 'architectural' work such as creating a building, car, plane, or any model(s) in a computer first, (3)modify an image which can at least come across as hand made, (4) a software that will create a Webpage. They mentioned the aforementioned software names including SQL, Oracle/MS Excel/Access and UNIX to go along with the Web page making software. I would like to know if there is anything better than what's mentioned so far or in demand that I can buy for to learn and use. So far I have Adobe Photoshop 7, SQL 2012, Oracle 8, MS Excel & Access - I'm willing to change them all, to acquire best results. -- (Russell.mo (talk) 06:37, 16 December 2014 (UTC))


 * The response above is what you want. Go to http://www.alternativeto.net and type in the program that you want an alternative to. I do not do CAD or edit videos. Instead of Photoshop, I use GIMP. I do web pages in a text editor, not a WYSIWYG editor because, contrary to popular opinion, it is much much much easier to type in the HTML tag you want instead of struggling to find the correct option or plugin to do what you want. 209.149.115.79 (talk) 13:20, 16 December 2014 (UTC)
 * I agree with you on the HTML. I have not tested the GIMP yet - I don't think I'll if it is not a popular/easier software with lots of tools in it. Whatever software I start learning (soon come), it will stay with me for a long time; probably for at least 20+ years...
 * I've checked the specified website, didn't find the expected results on archetecture and movie maker...
 * Pinnacle 17 & AutoCAD 2014 is out on the market. Got AP CS8; not installed yet. Can't find Adobe Dreamweaver 8. Someone told me to buy SQL, UNIX and Oracle. I bought SQL and Oracle 8, suddenly the guy disappeared. I wonder if I've wasted my money every time I see this two/three CDs.
 * (Russell.mo (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2014 (UTC))