Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2016 February 1

= February 1 =

Recording videos
In Windows 8.1, how can one record on video what's happening on one's own computer screen? Does one need any external devices for this? 2601:646:8E01:9089:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 02:36, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * It appears that Screencam will do it. See Comparison of screencasting software for more options. Bubba73 You talkin' to me? 02:40, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks! 2601:646:8E01:9089:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 03:42, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I would hope that at one point there will be a single keyboard button to do this, using a built-in function, just as Screen Print now grabs a single frame. StuRat (talk) 05:28, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Probably not in the near future, because not all computers have the needed software. 2601:646:8E01:9089:F88D:DE34:7772:8E5B (talk) 07:41, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Windows 10 actually comes with this by default although it's primarily targeted at games. Note that without some support of hardware support, x264 realtime encoding is fairly demanding. Screencam style capturing won't work well if you have something with significant motion but in any case, if you're comparing to screenshots those are normally simple images so video recording is most similar. Nil Einne (talk) 14:11, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

How frequent brief charging affects phone battery life
I have a Samsung Galaxy S3 and a wonky charger. I think some of the pins might be missing or it's just a fraction too small. Sometimes it will flicker back and forth from charging and not charging, maybe even hundreds of times in a night. I feel like this is frying my battery, by essentially charging it in 1 second intervals dozens of times rather than one consistent charge. I thought I read somewhere that what kills the battery is charging it many times such as this. Detrimental or just tedious? NIRVANA2764 (talk) 03:18, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * This behaviour may affect the battery since it ideally should be charged with a CC-CV profile which isn't properly possible if it's been disconnected so often. However I would be more concerned about the affect on the phone. It's fairly unlikely it's designed for the charging to be connected and disconnected hundreds of times a day. Worst case you damage something causing the protection mechanism to stop overcharging to fail and risk a fire from the lithium ion battery. This may not be that likely, but I'm not sure how well the phone will have been tested for charging to be disconnected and reconned hundreds of times a day over long period. There's even greater concern if there is indeed an intermited connection. If it's on the phone side you definitely risk damaging something on the phone, permanently. If the intermited connection is on the power plug side, or inside the charger, there is a risk of fire or electric shock. (There's also a possibility the charger won't cope with such frequent disconnections and reconnects causing damage which could cause these or simply an unreliable supply to the phone which may result in the aforementioned possibilities.) I strongly suggest you throw out the charger. If you don't already have another USB charger, I suspect you're not using your phone to type this but a computer of some sort with a USB socket. If I'm correct, I suggest you connect your phone to your computer for charging until you get a new one USB charger (or just use your computer all the time). Of course if the problem is with the micro USB cable, you'll need to buy a new one (and perhaps in that case the USB charger itself is fine). Nil Einne (talk) 12:22, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * "more concerned about the affect on the phone"? Isn't the phone getting enough love? Scicurious (talk) 14:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Are you certain it is the connector and not the phone's behavior. I have a phone (Sony) that, when fully charged, will stop charging. Then, a minute later, when it has used a fraction of a percent of power, it will start charging again. It is fully charged, so it stops charging. Then, a minute later, it starts charging again. I can't leave it on the charger overnight because it keeps making the "HEY EVERYONE! I'M CHARGING!" tone every minute. Sony says this is by design to conserve electricity by making it annoying to leave charged phones on a charger. I initially thought the charger and/or the phone was broken until I did enough research to figure out that this was by design. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 15:10, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Occam's razor. Don't attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. The simplest explanation is that Sony's UX design process is useless. You have strongly deterred me from buying a Sony phone though! 94.12.81.251 (talk) 15:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I had an old phone that developed spotty charging behaviour, and I found it was just caused by dirt on the charger contacts. Try cleaning both the charger pins and the socket on the phone with a damp cotton bud. It might take a few buds to clear all the muck. 94.12.81.251 (talk) 16:03, 2 February 2016 (UTC)

N-trig Duo digitizer drivers?
Since N-trig was acquired by Microsoft, the drivers for their DuoSense digitizer have practically disappeared from the Internet. I have a Dell Latitude XT convertible tablet running Windows 8.1 that has this digitizer. Is it possible to find the Windows 8/.1 drivers somewhere? I have looked but cannot find them. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DmitryKsWikis (talk • contribs)
 * Have you tried Windows 7 drivers? Ruslik_ Zero 20:34, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * You can look at this. Ruslik_ Zero 20:37, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Printing cheaply
What brand causes less problems when refilling the cartridges? Are they all - inkjet or laser - chipped? Can any one of them be easily refilled at home all by yourself? Can inkjet reach the quality of laser? Is it worth still to buy inkjet, that is, is there any advantage for printing with ink instead of laser nowadays? Laser became quite cheap with the years. --Scicurious (talk) 15:08, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * If you are OK with black and white laser is cheap, but color laser printers are still a bit pricey. Inkjets are almost always color, but the quality and speed isn't quite as good as lasers (but the best ones are close). You might want to look into Epson's EcoTank Printers. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:39, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * First and foremost: Inkjet quality will never reach laser quality. For inkjet, the business model of selling a printer at a heavy loss and charging a fortune for ink refills has gone bust. Over the last five years, the companies involved in production of inkjet (and even laser) printers has shrunk. You are now down to Epson, HP, and Canon. They are losing money on inkjet printers as well. So, Epson has a new business model they are trying. They have an "EcoTank" printer. Instead of selling it at a loss, they sell it for a profit. So, they make the money up front. Then, it comes with 2 years of ink in the well. When it is empty, you refill the well with any ink you like. No cartridges. No secret chips. If you are willing to pay more for the printer, the ink becomes very cheap. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 15:27, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * "now down to Epson, HP, and Canon"? There is also Brother,unless you have a good reason to discard it entirely. --Scicurious (talk) 18:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You are correct. I have a Brother printer. I was looking at it as I tried to remember the main printer manufacturers and, apparently, my mind decided that since I saw it sitting there, I must not need to type it. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 19:00, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I disagree "inkjet quality will never reach laser quality". This may be true for documents since the nature if inkjets means particularly with normal paper they have difficulty achieving the sharpness of lasers, but it definitely isn't true for photos and similar. Particularly when special media is used. Nil Einne (talk) 13:56, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I refill HP Laserjet cartridges, including colour, and ignore the chip by using override. The filling can be very messy though because HP don't make it easy, so you need to melt a hole.   D b f i r s   17:19, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I have two printers, a black-and-white laser printer I use for the bulk of my printing, and a color inkjet for the rare times when a print really needs to be in color. StuRat (talk) 19:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * "now down to Epson, HP, and Canon"? There is also Brother, - And Samsung. My mom got a multifunction laser for Christmas, good machine for the price. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  19:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You didn't really mention what sort of printing frequency you're expecting. I bought a cheap multifunction Canon inkjet (with rebates it cost about NZD9 or something). I print infrequently enough that the ink hasn't run out yet, but I bought cheap catridges from a local store for future use. If I had wanted to print more, I probably would have gotten catridges from AliExpress/Ebay or perhaps refillable catridges from AliExpress/Ebay + ink. Given the low price of the printer, if it does clog well I'll probably try to clear it by removing the heads and if that doesn't work I'll replace it. Perhaps not the most environmentally friendly option, but it's not my fault if manufacturers want to adopt such a silly business model. If I had wanted to print even more, perhaps I may have converted the print to use Continuous Ink Supply System. (Well I'm not sure how well the printer I got supports CISS, never looked in to it because wasn't interested.) In some countries there are even Continuous Ink Supply System printers sold locally by major manufacturers, partially because many vendors (including some sellers) will convert other printers to CISS for low prices. From my experience, with Canon at least (also I think Epson, not sure about HP) it's fairly easy to buy generic chipped catridges even for relatively new printers. (It does raise the cost of the catridge of course but a refilliable catridge with autoresetting chip or a chip resetter are expensive enough that you need to be printing enough to be worth it.) Nil Einne (talk) 13:54, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I thought that was proprietary software on the chip, making it illegal to duplicate (this being the entire point, so the manufacturer can overcharge for ink). StuRat (talk) 16:30, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * There is no need to duplicate the software, the manufacturer of copied chips just has to read what signals it transmits to the printer and then write new software to duplicate the signals. Some HP printers allow the user to override the toner out signals and thus to reuse old chips with a refilled toner.    D b f i r s   20:32, 2 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Although StuRat's comment reminded I planned to mention some manufacturers had tried to use the DCMA to prevent such practices. Fortunately this seemed to fail Lexmark International, Inc. v. Static Control Components, Inc. although there could be patent issues. In any case I live in a country without the DMCA act like laws and if you can find catridges sold by large local sellers unless your a big business yourself such issuess shouldn't really concern you. You should always make sure you can get generic catridges before buying the printer anyway, if you can't the reasons don't concern you. (Although if your printer is fairly common and you can get them from AliExpress/Ebay but not locally this may be a sign there are such issues.) Nil Einne (talk) 05:33, 3 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Dont use ink. Use toner. Calculate the toner costs per page. See the price of Your number of pages to print. Divide the printers price by the estimated lifetime of the printer in page prints and add it to the page costs. The result shows why I do not recommend ink. -- Hans Haase (有问题吗) 02:15, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Where can I find good desktop themes and backgrounds for Windows 10?
Does anyone know of any decent websites that have nice desktop themes and backgrounds (for Windows 10)? For free, by the way. I have been to the "official" Microsoft website (here: ) and they have very boring and bland ones. I was expecting a lot of really nice ones from them, but was disappointed. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:17, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * One of the first links in Google search is this. Ruslik_ Zero 20:31, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks. Yeah, I had seen that.  I guess I wasn't impressed. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:04, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:07, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Finding a hex color code
I'm trying to find the hex color code for a color named "Pantone 186" and getting more answers than I wanted: #F5002F, #CE1126 , #D20124 , and #C60C30 , maybe more, not including websafe colors. Questions:
 * Why is there disagreement on this?
 * Is any one source more authoritative?
 * If not, how would one go about choosing which color code to use in a Wikipedia article? &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  19:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * Pantone color space is proprietary: so you can't get a straight answer for the exact same reason that you can never know the official formula for Coca Cola... Steve Baker explained this in December 2015:
 * "Suppose I managed to figure out the exact formula for Coca-Cola. (Doesn't manage how I did it, but do suppose that it's exact, down to as many decimal places as in whatever master copy the Coca-Cola Corporation has stashed away in whatever uber-secure vault they've hypothetically got for theirs.) Quite aside from anything which trade secret or any other IP law might say, if I go public with my formula, Coca-Cola will simply say, "No, that is not the official formula". Now, you might say they're lying, but you can never prove it, because they will never ever show you their copy of the formula. And, in an important sense, my formula is indeed not official, and if I made some and put it in a bottle, it would never be The Real Thing®.
 * Nimur (talk) 19:50, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * While I'd love to claim responsibility for such a perceptive statement, it was actually Steve Summit who said that. However, what I think is the same to within as many decimal places as Mr Summit maintains - so while the above is not official, it does taste the same. :-) SteveBaker (talk) 15:54, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * If Pantone had thought carefully enough about this, they'd have defined their RGB colors to more digits of precision than a real computer can display. Then they could reasonably say that their definition of the color is "exact" and "authoritative" while all actual uses of it are imprecise approximations.  However, they didn't say that...so, meh.  But it seems kinda silly to be using Pantone color numbers for online applications where you have a very high likelyhood that what the end-user actually experiences will be substantially different from the print/paint/dye version of the Pantone color with the same name.  If corporations seriously imagine that their copyright/trademark depends on the precise rendition of the colors within it - they are sadly mistaken.  It's good for companies to define which sRGB colors should be used for their logos and other stylistic stuff online - but that's only to ensure a uniform appearance across pages and within their multitudinous business groups.  The idea that you'll come to associate "AT&T Blue" with AT&T (the company) is just silly.  There are only 224 colors available in-browser - and that's considerably less than the number of companies that would claim to have a special color for themselves.
 * The idea behind Pantone is that if (let's say) you're making a booth at a business convention and you want the paint on the booth to match the one T-shirts you're staff are wearing - then using the same Pantone color when you order the paint and the t-shirt fabric dye will give you the best possible match - even if you buy the paint and the dye from different companies. But expecting to get the same color on a computer screen as you had on the paint and the t-shirt is probably impossible - even if the monitors are carefully calibrated and the room lighting carefully arranged.  Similar problems occur if you try to print that color on an inkjet printer.  Fundamentally, there are colors that can be made into paint, that cannot be made using Red, Green and Blue light on a computer screen or Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black on an inket printer.  The nature of combining primary colors has fundamental limitations in that regard. SteveBaker (talk) 16:16, 5 February 2016 (UTC)


 * You can purchase the spot color chart from Pantone. It looks like a long rectangular thing with swing-out cards, each with 5-6 colors on them. It lists the name of the color, the index, the CMYK values, and the RGB hex code. The chart runs around $100 - which is why people probably don't like to publish it after they spent their hard-earned money on it. 199.15.144.250 (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * So what is the hex code shown on a pantone.com page such as this? A mere approximation of what is on the chart? Sadly, they don't seem to have a page for 186—just multiple variations such as 186 C—or I'd be more than happy to call that authoritative. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:09, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * ""The RGB color values printed in the PANTONE® COLOR BRIDGE™ coated are Pantone's official release of RGB values that conform to the sRGB specification." In other words, they are the best possible rendition of Pantone into sRGB.  Nimur (talk) 20:24, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * That implies that what you see on the web page is (deliberately) less than best? &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:29, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * But take a real deep breath, and use some caution in choosing your words... because those RGB values aren't the same color as the Pantone color. It doesn't matter how much optical theory you study; how profoundly you understand visible-light spectroscopy; how thoroughly you understand computer graphics and display pixel hardware; how many times you've read Maxwell's treatise on the theory of color vision,...
 * Pantone claims that it is able to create new colors - and Pantone succeeds at getting lots of money from its clients for those claims. For example, Minion Yellow is claimed to be a new Yellow color.  Even if you are able to provide a rendition of Minion Yellow in sRGB (hint... try R=251. G=242, B=117), you aren't actually using "Minion Yellow" unless you're paying the license fee.
 * So - those three numbers in sRGB space - in fact any scientific procedure you concoct for reproducing the color - aren't the color, per Pantone's business model. You'll have a better chance at understanding this essay, What Colour are your bits?, an article on the confusing concept of intellectual property, and how it is hard for scientifically-minded people to appreciate it.
 * Nimur (talk) 20:33, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * The Pantone color is an exact thing, typically set up with carefully controlled pigments in paint, ink and dyes. But computer monitors, TV's and phones vary quite widely in how they reproduce color...aside from anything else, you can adjust the brightness, and perhaps the black-level, contrast and hue - sometimes the 'color temperature' and 'gamma' too.  Displays that use cathode ray, LCD or MEMS approaches will vary in color and/or brightness as they age - so a new monitor and and otherwise identical old one may not display the same exact colors for the same exact RGB inputs.  Monitors made by different companies will also display color slightly differently.  Fiddling with any of those things results in a color that isn't the same as it is on some other monitor.  So what RGB value should you shove into the monitor to get the exact pantone color?  Who knows?  It's different for every monitor.


 * So it should come as no surprise that there are small (or even not-so-small) variations in the RGB values quoted from multiple sources.


 * Worse still - a computer monitor can't display all of the colors that humans can perceive - and neither can the inks and dyes that underlie the Pantone system. So there are guaranteed to be pantone colors that computers and TV' simply cannot display AT ALL.  In those cases, one generally attempts to find the most perceptably similar color that can be displayed - and that is an artistic compromise in many cases.


 * SteveBaker (talk) 20:32, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * I understand that the rendering and perception of any code will vary depending on all the factors you mention, as well as the time of day, the weather, and how long you've been up. Even so, if the University of Cincinnati says their red is Pantone 186, and I want to show that red in their infobox, it seems to me the most logical arbitrary choice is the hex code that Pantone says is their 186. Maybe someone reading this who has one of those charts would care to cough up that code. Failing that, of the four choices above, which would you say best approximates the color sample in UC's trademarks document? Poll! &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  20:46, 1 February 2016 (UTC)


 * There is no single correct mapping from print color systems like Pantone to emissive color systems like sRGB. It depends at least on the illuminant. It probably also depends on the paper type, which is indicated by a suffix to the Pantone number. The suffixes are listed here. In general I suppose your best bet is to use the official values from pantone.com for a particular paper-type suffix; which suffix you use depends on why you need an sRGB equivalent for the color to begin with. But if your goal is to copy the University of Cincinnati's colors, I think you should sample the sRGB colors from that PDF or their web site, and forget about Pantone. -- BenRG (talk) 20:54, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Yep - I agree. They should be happy to accept the color that they, themselves use on their website - and if they don't like your choice - then at least you have solid reasons for what you did.  But there isn't a 1:1 mapping between Pantone and RGB and all efforts to make it so are doomed.  The last few companies I've worked for specified BOTH the Pantone AND the RGB values that they approve for logos and other important company colors - and that way, they are at least consistent across all of their digital media.  They also specify things like font choices and other stuff like how staff photos are posed that helps to keep the company image consistent. SteveBaker (talk) 21:02, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I note that the home page red is quite different from the PDF document's red, but I could go with the home page. How do you sample an sRGB color? &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  21:06, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Various image viewers and editors will show you the web-syntax sRGB color of a pixel if you click on it. IrfanView says the red in this image (used at the upper left of their home page) is #E00122. PNG images can contain color-correction information that makes the interpretation of these values more complicated, but this one doesn't, so use #E00122. If they don't like it it's their fault.
 * The PDF may not be a good source. If it were supposed to be sRGB-accurate, it would probably list explicit sRGB color values. -- BenRG (talk) 21:33, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Ok, that's . How about the red at the bottom of the page? &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  21:35, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * It's the same (found with Chrome's web inspector, but you could also take a screenshot and then use a program like IrfanView). And this page says #E00122 is correct. -- BenRG (talk) 21:45, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * LOL. If I had found that page I could have saved all of you a lot of trouble. #E00122 it is. Thanks all. &#8213; Mandruss  &#9742;  21:47, 1 February 2016 (UTC)
 * I just have a hard time taking it as definitive when a college website can't spell "hexadecimal" correctly! SteveBaker (talk) 16:19, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
 * Well, at least one random user get educated. Thank you :) -- Edgars2007  (talk/contribs) 21:21, 4 February 2016 (UTC)