Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 April 18

= April 18 =

Computer virus
Can the computer virus "Heur.AdvML.B" make it so that your computer stops recognizing its own hard drive? Last night my computer crashed without warning -- one moment it was working just fine, and the next it was displaying a full-screen command prompt with "No boot device detected" across the top of it and wouldn't reboot -- and once I got this sorted (which required doing a full system refresh), reinstalled Norton (which was wiped out along with all my other apps) and did a full system scan, Norton removed 2 instances of this virus. My question is, could the virus have crashed my computer, or was it something else? 2601:646:8E01:7E0B:79FF:A293:5AC3:5B3D (talk) 04:56, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * According to this, that's not a virus, it's a particular virus detection method used by Symantec. So from what you've told us, we have no way of knowing what malware your Norton AV found, nor what it might have done to your computer.  The fact that a reinstall fixed things means that it was a software problem, rather than a hardware fault, so there's a reasonable chance it was the virus.  Rojomoke (talk) 10:55, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I had a similar problem, and it turned out the data cable to the hard drive wasn't plugged in all the way, and occasionally lost the connection. The power cable to the hard drive could also be the problem. StuRat (talk) 22:06, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Other email services or clients that support Gmail-style multiple labelling
I'm a big fan of the Gmail interface, but I don't trust Google. Is there any alternative email service I can use that has similar features, in particular filing emails under multiple categories/tags/labels? Seems like everything else sticks rigidly to the "folder" convention, and won't let me add one message to several "folders". I'd rather pay a subscription than use something ad-supported, btw. Bonus points if it supports encryption, though I do realise that's probably a lost cause in terms of getting other people to sign up. More likely that Whatsapp branches out to email I think. --79.27.124.29 (talk) 13:19, 18 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I use Thunderbird (and I use it to pull mail from gmail). I can copy a message to multiple folders, which I use often to copy an email from one server to another. For example, I can copy an email from my work account and paste it in my gmail account. For what you are asking, I use tags. I can make up my own tags and tag a message however I like. Then, I can filter my view based on the tags. I've found that gmail folders show up in Thunderbird as tags. For example, if a message is in the gmail Work and the gmail Important folder, it will show up in Thunderbird with the tags Work and Important. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 13:50, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Another single-character question
What is the  character, and how is it different from the   character? I hoped to find a Unicode documentation page mentioning this character, but all I got were pages showing me how to make exotic emoticons, e.g. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) and pages discussing the proper use of parentheses.

Nyttend backup (talk) 16:22, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * That's full-width left parenthesis for asian fonts where all characters are expected to have the same width. Dragons flight (talk) 17:34, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * http://unicodelookup.com is a handy tool for looking up the names of unicode characters. I wish it linked to standards documents, but those are usually pretty easy to google for once you've got the name and the code for the character. ApLundell (talk) 16:49, 19 April 2017 (UTC)

"Hand-held PC" behaves with a "phone" type technology
Which entitled enquoted one exists that behaves like a "phone" and a "PC" (2-in-1), so that integration is easier when required... Refer a nice product please. 43.245.120.228 (talk) 19:32, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Lenovo MIIX-320 with LTE and a USB port in case you want to add a USR5639 modem. Nimur (talk) 23:37, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Best paid professionals
Who are the best paid professionals within IT/computing/computer science? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.252.179.120 (talk) 20:04, 18 April 2017 (UTC)


 * High paid IT professionals make around $120k in the United States. Then, there is a large gap between that and business owners with an IT background. If you IMPLEMENT a new idea well, you can make a lot more than $120k. 71.85.51.150 (talk) 00:00, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I believe they are asking which IT specialties pay the most. StuRat (talk) 02:34, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Easy - management. I've worked in the military, education, grocery stores, software development companies, and the health care industry. Throughout all of them, the IT managers make the most money. IT staff is generally paid very little. 209.149.113.5 (talk) 11:22, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * What position? For sure: founders of companies, CEOs of listed companies, other managers.
 * What field? I have seen speculation in several directions: Computer forensics, security, hackers, scientific computing, avionics software, microchip programmers,
 * What else? Having patents or copyright of software might increase your stake. Hofhof (talk) 11:45, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I think what you're looking for is a "salary survey", or a "Salary guide". Here's one that looks plausible :, but there are many more.  Google for "Salary survey" and you'll find some of them. ApLundell (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * ApLundell (talk) 16:46, 19 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I think there's a bit of an ill-posed problem here. Two totally different answers emerge from the related questions:
 * Which individual people, who work in the general areas of interest to the OP, earn the highest salary?
 * Which category of people, who work in the general areas of interest to the OP, earn the highest salaries, per some statistical metric (median, mode, and so forth)?
 * These are totally different questions. The former will lead you to outliers - people like the famous CEOs of wildly successful technology start-ups.  They, and their professional careers, are categorically abnormal.  It would seem, generally, that the answer to this question is dominated by IT professionals who chose to start large corporate conglomerates designing and selling system utility software that appealed to other large corporations.
 * Measured statistically, if we include the entire set of all people who attempt to become famous CEOs of wildly successful technology startups, we will probably find a lower mean, median, and mode salary. (Well, it really depends on how you measure your statistics: the Department of Labor publishes some interesting data, another research paper, Returns for Entrepreneurs vs. Employees shows a much more muddled picture).  The key here is, you can't cherry-pick the successful professionals: if you have any integrity, you have to average the total salaries of all the failures - and even the failed years during which a later-successful business-earner could have been earning differently if they worked a regular job.
 * What we really end up coming back to, inevitably, is what can we use as a statistical predictor of income? Well, we can use education level or specialization: higher education is a good statistical predictor for high income later in life.  We can also use score on standardized test - whether we find this concept morally repugnant and/or otherwise ethically troublesome, standardized testing does do a really good job at predicting future income.
 * So - there you have it: the highest-paid professionals in information-technology are statistically the smartest ones. And what do the smartest ones do, in the statistical aggregate?  They solve which-ever problem is most urgently in need of a solution.  If the problem is medical, they become medical doctors.  If the problem is mathematical, they become theorists.  If the problem is about making good business decisions, they become business entrepreneurs.  If they are born in 1850, they become steam engine engineers or electricity pioneers.  If they are born in 1950, they probably study aeronautics and electronics; and if they will be born in 2050, we have yet to see what pressing problems the next era of great thinkers will choose to solve.
 * If the most pressing problem facing our world is non-monetary, we might have a real problem with the way our society rewards progress; and hopefully, our smartest people are working on ways to fix problems in a fashion that is independent from monetary compensation.
 * Nimur (talk) 19:22, 19 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Bill Gates31.109.117.25 (talk) 00:21, 20 April 2017 (UTC)