Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2015 February 8

= February 8 =

Git repository question
I've started taking a class for which my teacher has set up a Git repository. On the first day of class, I accidentally made a commit to the master. I'd like to fix my error by going back to the last edit before my commit (which would therefore be my teacher's last commit before class started) and then do a pull from that point. I'm thinking this would pull in all of his changes since the beginning of class and stop giving me errors about conflicting commits. Will this work as I want it to and how do I do that? Thanks, Dismas |(talk) 11:37, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm assuming you've committed to your local master, but not pushed the changes to the repository? If so, git reset --hard origin/master will reset your local repo to the remote origin.--Phil Holmes (talk) 11:56, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Yes, I had not done a push. So, I tried what you gave me.  I got "HEAD is now at XXXXX [ed: where XXXXX is a number] Updated Copy_Into to use a clearer formulation of the loop."  Then I tried "git pull" and it told me I was up to date which I was not getting before.  So, I think I'm all set.  Thanks!  Dismas |(talk) 12:01, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Firefox dejo de reproducir videos en vivo de globovision.com
Hola, Firefox dejo de reproducir videos en vivo de globovision.com

Todo lo que veo es una ventana negra y a pesar de que dice "playing" no se ve nada.

Alguien sabe como solucionar este problema?

Gracias, AK — Preceding unsigned comment added by A8v (talk • contribs) 12:38, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Google Translate:Hello, Firefox stop playing video live globovision.com All I see is a black window and despite saying "playing" is not seen nothing. Anyone know how to fix this? Rojomoke (talk) 13:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Try a reboot ? StuRat (talk) 16:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

Gmail account (almost) broken
I have a gmail account and can sign on and view my inbox. I can also switch to my (nearly empty) spam folder. However, I am unable to send messages or switch to my Trash folder. In the first case, a box shows up at the top of the screen saying "Sending" and in the second, saying "Loading," but nothing ever happens beyond that. The account had been working fine for several years. I normally use Chrome, but ran one test on IE just in case that made a difference, and it did not. More testing: using a different gmail account on the same computer works fine and using the broken gmail account on a different computer, also with Chrome, also works fine. Also, logging onto a different Windows account on the same computer, everything works. So if there are no better ideas, I can rebuild the computer account, but I'd rather not if there is an alternative. Matchups 15:07, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Are you using Gmail via web brower, POP3 oder IMAP? -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 15:11, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Via web browser, in all of the tests.Matchups 15:20, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Did you flush the browser cache and cookies by STRG+SHIFT+DEL? Hint: by doing so, you will be logged of from Wikipedia and other sessions. Just login again. If clearing the caches would not work, I don't think G has a mailbox limit. But you can download mails by using Mozilla Thunderbird over POP3. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 21:44, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Weird behavior from updating to Notepad++
I just updated to Notepad++ 6.7.4 (I think), and when I relaunched it "Freedom of expression is like the air we breathe, we don't feel it" started to get typed in a new tab. Is this normal or is this a virus? — Melab±1 &#9742; 18:17, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * No worries. This is the Je suis Charlie edition. --  Gadget850talk 18:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * This is not a computer virus (it does not meet the definition); but I would certainly call it malware or even a trojan horse (software) - software that maliciously steals your user-interface without your approval, that was installed alongside a "useful" software application. The author of Notepad++ has created this malware on purpose to spread a political message.
 * Notepad++ is GPLed free software. You can download source and modify it if you wish to remove this undesired behavior.  Or you can just grab the 6.7.3 version, which did not include this malware-like behavior.  Keep the source handy: you may want it in case you need to modify it in the future!  Alternately, you may diff source between 6.7.3 and 6.7.4 to study how to write malware that steals control of a user's interface on a popular operating system.  It appears that this is the only change!
 * Whether we agree or disagree with any specific political messages about "freedom", it is generally accepted that good software does not take control of your computer in an undesireable way. This is even more true of free software - it is in fact a core tenet of the free software ideology: as Richard Stallman has repeatedly emphasized, freedom means you have control over your software, not the other way around.  I think it's incredibly ironic that the author has released GPLed software that intentionally, literally, visually takes control of your computer to write a message about how important freedom is.  Contrast this to a different text editor, say, vim - which has included an unobtrusive political message for many years - uganda.txt.  At no time does vim try to steal your terminal and force you to read this message.  If you disagree with the contents of that text file, you can ignore that file or even delete it.  It will never pop up on your screen and start "typing itself out."  You may find that vim has many other advantages over Notepad++, but that is a topic for another time.
 * Nimur (talk) 05:49, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * More info: http://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/hacking-npp-site.html --  Gadget850talk 11:43, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Eh, last I checked emacs still ships with a screed against the CDA in its documentation. This is more in your face, but not really unprecedented. Horselover Frost (talk &middot; edits) 03:39, 11 February 2015 (UTC)

Private email (sounds like an oxymoron)
How can I get a private email? I have gmail right now, but feel uncomfortable knowing that Larry Page and Sergey Brim are reading my emails. The problem is specially Sergey, since Larry does not appear to be much of a talker.

Should I create my own mail server or what?--Senteni (talk) 19:02, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Among the things you will need are an IMAP server, an SMTP server, and a registered domain name with an MX record. In principle, all of these can point to the same machine, which could even be your personal computer.  You'll also need to spend a lot of time administering the server to keep spam out (which is pretty easy nowadays); and also to ensure that your outbound mails don't get blacklisted by popular spam filtering software (which is much harder).  Many popular email services will blacklist mail that you send as "spam" anyway - simply because they choose to blacklist any anonymous SMTP server - and there is nothing you can do to stop them.   Nimur (talk) 19:46, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * So, basically, creating an email server is a lot of work, right? But what if I buy a hosting plan that includes my own email, can that be private towards the hosting company? Or is this the same problem as gmail, but maybe worse, since I would be trusting a less well-known company, that has less eyes upon it?


 * What do people who need a certain amount of privacy do? For example, lawyers, accountants and the like? How to establish a safe communication channel with clients? Senteni (talk) 21:29, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Email encryption --Aspro (talk) 21:55, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If you want to set up your own email server, Ars Technica did a good multi-part series on how.
 * When you buy a domain name, it often includes an email account, but it's generally not hosted on your server. There are companies that specialize in email accounts to meet specific privacy requirements, like HIPPA requirements for doctors in the US. See . Gmail can be HIPPA compliant if you use Google Apps (which means you need your own domain and need to pay Google) and you fill out some extra forms. But even without the extra forms, paid Google Apps doesn't have ads in Gmail, so it's more "private" than a regular free Gmail account. If you just Google "secure email" you can find other companies like Hushmail. The problem with using a smaller company is that it's harder to tell how legit they are and there might be a higher risk of downtime depending on their support levels and how many locations they have servers. Mr.Z-man 21:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Aspro is right. The only way to have truly "private" email is through end-to-end strong encryption.
 * Even if you own your own server and keep it in your basement guarded by dragons, your emails will still be vulnerable because they have to be transmitted through at least one or two intermediary steps before reaching the other party's email server. (Which, in this day and age, is probably gmail.com anyway!)
 * In theory, anybody who operates those intermediary points on the network could be reading your email. The email system has evolved from a system invented in the early 70s when people didn't worry as much about computer security, because there just weren't that many people on the net. APL (talk) 23:26, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * In theory, the post office still works, and is relatively secure, at least as far as message content goes. You'll need to waste paper, buy a stamp, reveal some physical addresses and wait a while, but freedom isn't free. Google is temptingly so. But paper comes with a flammability feature, at no extra charge. InedibleHulk (talk) 23:35, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Actually because of that anthrax send by terrorists by mail days, not even post office mail is private, usa search your real life mails to.201.78.186.91 (talk) 17:07, 13 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Encryption will protect the content, but there's still the issue of snoops knowing everyone you email and everyone who emails you. I suppose you could have your email forwarded several times to make it a bit more difficult to track, but certainly not impossible. StuRat (talk) 06:19, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * "Europe won’t save you: Why e-mail is probably safer in the US" is an article that's over a year old and certainly outdated in places (the Posteo is now in English as well as German) but is still of interest. -- Hoary (talk) 10:33, 10 February 2015 (UTC)

How can I find out what's taking up all the space on this computer?
My friend has a Windows 8 HP laptop, it holds 21.5 GB of memory. That's really freaking small, I know, but I can't even figure out why it only has like 300MB of free space left. It looks brand new, no videos, no music, no documents, she seems to have installed Steam but there are no games installed (she mentioned hoping to install The Sims 3 but didn't have enough space; that's why she asked me to free up some space).

Is it normal for the laptop to be almost entirely full before she's even installed anything? How can I free up space? 50.54.55.153 (talk) 22:43, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * That is a pretty small drive by today's standards. Is it SSD? Is it the only drive? WinDirStat may be of help. --  Gadget850talk 23:09, 8 February 2015 (UTC)
 * It's probably one of HP's mini laptops, or tablet/laptop hybrids.  They're mostly designed to be iPad competitors for web-browsing and email and such, and have very little storage.
 * this one for example, has only 32GB. Which after a windows install is probably very little. APL (talk) 23:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * If by memory you mean HDD, then 21 GB for a Windows installation is not much. It's your HDD which is way too small. --Noopolo (talk) 23:23, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * According to Microsoft, 64-bit Windows 8 requires 20 GB of hard dive space. It sounds more like a netbook than a full-featured laptop. Mr.Z-man 23:32, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * It's possible that steam partially downloaded The Sims 3. So your computer has a bunch of Sims3 installation files filling up it's very tiny hard-drive. Try right-clicking on The Sims in Steam and deleting local files. See if that gives you back some space.
 * You could probably expand the thing's storage capacity a bit by installing the largest SD card you can find, if it has a slot for one. You could then configure steam to download games onto that card.  But, ...really, if they've given it that little space, don't get your hopes up for Sims 3.  It probably won't run very well. APL (talk) 23:39, 8 February 2015 (UTC)


 * Is it possible that your disk partition only contains a portion of the total disk space ? StuRat (talk) 06:23, 9 February 2015 (UTC)


 * To clarify, if you see something like "Hard Disk (C:) 21.5GB" inside My Computer (or "Computer" as it's called in Windows 7 and later), that's the partition size. If you see "Hard Disk 0 21.5GB" inside Disk Management, that's the size of the physical HDD, the drive itself. If it's substantially more than that (say, 37.5GB or more), there will be either
 * a big empty space where you can make another partition and move stuff there,
 * or expand the partition using a utility like gParted (backup first!)
 * or
 * a partition without a drive letter. In the latter case, you can right-click and "assign a drive letter".
 * Other things you can try, even if your physical HDD size is 21.5GB:
 * Search C: for large files. Some programs have their own TEMP folders, and there can be huge files left. You should check the "show hidden files" option, and/or uncheck the "hide system files" option first.
 * Chkdsk the partition for errors. Some errors occupy much space, too. (This has become rare in NTFS but it can happen.)
 * Reset the System Restore (make a backup first). Steam and other services handling huge EXE files can add up. (Basically, System Restore makes an in-partition backup of all EXE and DLL files, which doesn't mix well with Steam.)
 * - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 09:14, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Downgrading to Windows 7 or XP might be the way to go if you're stuck with 21GB; these OSes are smaller and have most features of 8.1; in fact, many find the new features of 8 / 8.1 undesirable. XP would run great on the machine if you can get the drivers, and 7 would run quite well, too. - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 10:57, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * XP is an unsupported OS and is a dumb idea for an internet connected computer. 7 install size isn't much smaller than 8.1. Further for such a low speced computer, it could easily have only 1GB of RAM. Running Windows 7 on 1GB RAM isn't a fun experience. 8.1 is not excellent but it's a fair amount better. Even if it has 2GB, the CPU is probably somewhat low speced and likewise the GPU. Again 8.1 will give a fair better user experience with such a low speced computer (it's clearly designed with 8/8.1 in mind, particularly if it has 2GB RAM but such low sized storage). Probably the first thing to do would be to see if the computer has a microSD slot. I suspect it does considering how small the eMMC apparently is (and with such a small size, I'm sure it's an eMMC if it's in the past 2 or 3 years). In that case, considering adding a 32GB or mpre microSD card if you need more space. Note that although you may think running stuff on an SDcard will be slow, remember that eMMCs aren't necessarily better. (In fact, I suspect even a UHS-I card or may be even a class 10 will often be theoretically faster. Theoretically because although the card may be faster, it doesn't mean the system is capable of accessing it at that speed.) Alternatively look for a non Windows OS (may be not a simple option if you want Sims 3) or wait until Windows 10 (Windows 10 will have a method to reduce OS disk space usage). I'm not convinced Sims 3 is going to be fun to play on that computer, but if it is, your best bet is probably sticking with 8.1 and getting it working there. Nil Einne (talk) 12:08, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * XP is a security hole. Advising a different OS for a relatively new system is not the best option.
 * Checking my lab system

, the install sizes for Windows with updates an no other apps:
 * Windows 7 Professional x64: 18.2G
 * Windows 8 Professional x64: 18.8G
 * Windows 8.1 Professional x64: 14.3G
 * Windows 710 Technical Preview x64: 25.7G
 * We need feedback from the OP. --  Gadget850talk 12:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
 * XP Professional: 2.3G ¡Pwned! (hurt me / more pain) 06:54, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * (although that's without the post-SP3 updates; it's not meant for internet anyway, so only useful for single/LAN play and not for Steam)


 * Crunchbang Linux, for example, would be inside 5GB. -- Hoary (talk) 10:41, 10 February 2015 (UTC)
 * Ah, Linux. Where "Ya gotta Chk dat Dsk" becomes "Go fsck yourself". - ¡Ouch! (hurt me / more pain) 11:49, 11 February 2015 (UTC)