Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 March 13

= March 13 =

Can you temporarily change your PC's country?
When you buy a PC you choose where the PC is located so that the websites you access will be shown according to where you are (such as showing google.com if you choose the United States and showing google.co.uk if you choose the UK as your country). After choosing the correct country for your PC is it possible to temporarily change your country to a different one when browsing? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.65.135.44 (talk) 06:58, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Websites that give you content based on your country are probably using geolocation based on your IP address, in which case there would be no way (that I'm aware of) to make them think you were somewhere else. AndrewWTaylor (talk) 09:37, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Many sites will let you change the language/localization they display, though. You mention Google: you can easily go to a different country's version of Google, like http://google.fr, where you will be offered the choice to view and search in that country's langauge(s). —Noiratsi (talk) 10:23, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I use a VPN (Virtual private network) called Hotspot Shield. Sleigh (talk) 03:01, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Mac disk obstruction
I use two external disks alternately for Time Machine backups. I intend to retire one of them, having just bought a bigger one (in a smaller case, heh). So I tried to copy over the folder  and got this error:
 * The backup can’t be copied because the backup volume doesn’t have ownership enabled.

What does that mean? I see nothing remarkable in the Finder's Info window. —Tamfang (talk) 08:05, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It means the Mac doesn't see you as the owner with permissions to write to the disk. If your account on the Mac has administrator privileges, you can override this by telling the computer to "ignore ownership"—select the external drive > Get Info > Sharing & Permissions, then tick the "Ignore ownership on this volume" checkbox. See also PH13800 in the Apple Knowledge Base. --Canley (talk) 12:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * That's for Mavericks, and I'm still on Snow Leopard; I see no such checkbox. I am listed explicitly as having Read & Write privilege for both disks. —Tamfang (talk) 00:36, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The "Ignore ownership" check box is also in Snow Leopard (I just checked on a Mac mini running 10.6.8). Not sure why it's not showing up for you. --Canley (talk) 01:47, 16 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I erased the new disk and "Ignore ownership" appeared in its info window. Not gonna try that with the old backup volume, tho. —Tamfang (talk) 17:52, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

TYPING SOFTWARE
Could you recommend a free typing software for windows7 OS. Thank you.175.157.58.27 (talk) 09:34, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * TypingWeb is a web-based tutor. Tux Typing is for kids. Both are free.--Shantavira|feed me 10:41, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I've seen a lot of quite mature aged people having fun with Tux, AND learning! HiLo48 (talk) 02:54, 16 March 2014 (UTC)

Editing Google Calendar without signing in?
The owner of a Google Doc has the option of sharing the Google Doc and allow anyone with that link to make edits to the document without signing in and hence, requiring a Google account.

Is the same possible with Google Calendar? Can the owner of a Google Calendar share the calendar with others and allow others to edit and add events to the calendar without signing in and hence, without requiring a Google account? Thanks. 69.27.229.11 (talk) 14:14, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Breadth first graph search in VBA
Hi, I am trying to write a Breadth-first search algorithm for learning the structure of a directed graph in VBA. The graph has the following properties: All undiscovered edges necessarily lead away from the vertex visited (but can loop back on itself). The graph is also very sparse.

The article Breadth-first search shows some pseudo code for finding an node in the graph, whilst having prior knowledge of the graph. But I am getting confused about how to adapt this to an unknown graph structure. It seems like it queues the first node then immediately de-queues it. How would you adapt that algorithm to an exploration? I’m not looking for anything fancy or efficient, just some basic pseudo code that I could adapt into VBA (bearing in mind VBA is a bit rubbish).

My attempts so far have included adding the edges and verticies into lists, but I am then losing a lot of the structure of the graph in doing so. Ultimately I am trying to get the graph into an adjacency matrix. (I accidently edited soem otehr questions before this one, but should be fixed now)

Thanks! 80.254.147.164 (talk) 14:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * If all you want to do is to get it into an adjacency matrix, would it not be a lot simpler to iterate from the first to the last node and add the related nodes directly into the matrix one column=node at the time? I am here assuming that all nodes are ordered and easily accessible in some enumerated structure. Star Lord -   星王 (talk) 16:44, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

Is there any way to make Google not have the stupid new bold look?
A setting or a browser add-on? I can't believe that most of the 2010s will look like this. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 16:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC)
 * I immediately went to the Google Search product forums as soon as I saw the (awful) change, and as far as I can tell, the only "advice" they're giving is to submit feedback (bottom of any search results screen). There are no concrete answers or user-created solutions that I have found yet. -- 140.202.10.134 (talk) 19:06, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * They only just changed the look (I can't really tell what's different except the underlines from the links, maybe it's my AdBlock) so it might take a couple days for developers to make a plugin. Dismas |(talk) 19:47, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * It's always been possible to use custom stylesheets in your own web browser. You can find tutorials on the web,, such as http://www.lostsaloon.com/technology/using-a-custom-stylesheet-in-a-web-browser/. In recent years though there are browser addons that take a modular approach to custom styles. Take a look at http://userstyles.org/, which has extensions for Chrome and Firefox into which you can add snippets and themes. —Noiratsi (talk) 20:55, 13 March 2014 (UTC)

Is Tor anonymous on a secure router?
When more than one person has the password, of course. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:45, 13 March 2014 (UTC)


 * You can read about weaknesses of Tor. If that is too technical for you, your take-away message can be that Tor does make it more difficult to associate network-traffic with an individual or host-machine, but it does not make the process impossible.  An excellent counter-example is the 2013 investigation, arrest, and indictment of Ross Ulbricht, charged with narcotics conspiracy, computer hacking, and money laundering, deliberately perpetrated using Tor.  The FBI press release describes the FBI's successful tracing of the Tor traffic; the successful interdiction of bitcoin; and the subsequent arrest of Ulbricht.  If you draw enough ire from highly-capable opponents, there is very little that you can expect to do to keep yourself anonymous, irrespective of your choice of technology.  As an added note: Mr. Ulbricht was arrested in California but will be prosecuted in New York; so in addition to being incarcerated by the FBI in probably-solitary confinement while the trial proceeds, he will also be thousands of miles from friends and family, held in the custody of the FBI, an institution with the authority to both arrest, incarcerate, and to prosecute him - a legal uniqueness in the United States).  In many philosophical respects, this condition of incarceration is a profound form of anonymity.
 * Short answer: no, Tor is a very poor way to remain anonymous. It is an excellent technology-toy for people who want to believe they are acting anonymously.  Nimur (talk) 03:33, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * What if they followed this, which addresses some of the issues in the article, never did crimes, and don't even care if the NSA knows they use Tor (this being a free country)? Would it be a black box, or could their subtenant still find out what kind of porn they watch? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:06, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * (ec) Super cute use of 3-time-repetition. "arrest, incarcenate [sic], and prosecute." Except that all three of those are obvious executive branch actions. There are some serious questions if the FBI got lucky in finding out all these references to what they found in the search warrant, or if they had some help, much in the way the Allies breaking the German enigma code got lucky. Fortunate for Nimur, handsome polemics remain unbroken. Shadowjams (talk) 05:07, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * I believe he is referring to that the Police Dept usually does the first thing, the Dept of Corrections the second, and the DA's Office the third. Also, sentencing has to be done by the judicial branch. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 05:17, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for agreeing with everything I said. Shadowjams (talk) 06:14, 14 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Though I'd say it's okay (unless someone shows me convincing reason(s) otherwise), his point is that this is more concentration of power than is usual. You're the one that brought up the 3 branches of govt for some reason. Also note that there is separation of power (judge and jury) during trialing and sentencing even though both are obvious judicial branch actions. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:20, 16 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about people eavesdropping on each other's traffic on a shared access point? In that case, the eavesdropper can tell that you're using Tor, approximately how much data you're transferring in each direction, and possibly which machine names you connect to unless you're careful with the configuration. -- BenRG (talk) 22:16, 14 March 2014 (UTC)


 * A few months ago, at the end of the last semester an episode took place at Harvard. A student with an Asiatic name was not ready to take a term exam and he decided to cancel it altogether. He posted a bomb threat via Tor with the result that the campus was locked down. It took the school official perhaps less than 24 hours to discover who he was. The consequences you can imagine. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 15:55, 15 March 2014 (UTC)

Could some of those failures be because they used IE/Firefox/Chrome/etc instead of a default Tor Browser Bundle? Torifying a regular browser seems like a minefield of jargony potential IT mistakes. Anyway, maybe you just want to read about a few things out of curiosity without the NSA possibly making a file on you. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:20, 16 March 2014 (UTC)