Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2017 October 22

= October 22 =

Quick question about the website IOffer
Is it closing down? Because it was not working today. 64.114.70.78 (talk) 00:19, 22 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I was able to access it. That said, our article said it rated 16th out of 16 auction sites, and I'm not sure if that's high enough to survive. StuRat (talk) 04:20, 22 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Well that same article says eBay was ranked 14th out of 16th. I'm presuming we all agree eBay doesn't seem to be at any risk of dying anytime soon. Of course when you're a smaller website having a poor ranking also is potentially not a good sign, but the wide point is it's questionable if some random seller survey from 2011 really tells us much about a site's chance of surviving, compared to other things like market share and in particular whether they have a niche that it seems difficult for anyone to take away from them. Nil Einne (talk) 12:02, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * The economies of scale are on eBay's side. For a small site like this, if they don't rank well with customers, there's not much of a claim to fame for them, or a raison d'être: "Sure we're small, but we also suck, so give us your money now !". StuRat (talk) 21:12, 24 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Except I already acknowledged that and pointed out that the wider issues is that there are other things are likely to be far more important than a random seller survey from 2011. Whether or not something sucks depends very significantly on the context so it's silly to say something sucks based on one random seller survey in 2011. As I already effectively pointed out, if the site has a niche with a significant market share that is difficult for others to break into for whatever reason, there's a very good chance this would actually be a far better sign for the site than some site which was number 5 in some random seller survey in 2011 if that site basically has no niche, nor any market share, nor basically anything going for it other than coming 5th place in some random seller survey in 2011. A good example would be TradeMe which is irrelevant in the international context but has the NZ local marketplace locked up probably even stronger than eBay has the US and many places in Western Europe etc. (They also have a lot of what Craig's List serves in the US.) So whatever position they may occupy in random seller surveys in 2011, they actually have a big "claim to fame" as it were and so have been fairly resilient. (I'm not saying they perform poorly in random seller surveys from 2011, but rather looking at such things is only of limited utility in deciding if they will survie.)  Incidentally economies of scale as described by our article is only one of eBay's advantanges. Another, arguably more important one is the network effect [//hbr.org/2016/04/network-effects-arent-enough] [//books.google.co.nz/books?id=0c_lDpDdTMwC&lpg=PA91&ots=m7Skk6WSWY&pg=PA91] which isn't discussed (only linked) in the article you linked to. And as the article I linked to says, is normally treated as different from classical supply side economies of scale.  In other words, because eBay is so large many sellers feel they have little choice but to use it, no matter what disdavantages it may have, and buyers likewise look there because it's where they're most likely to find what they want at a decent price; or maybe neither party even really thinks about such things and just uses eBay because it's what people do. (And of course, your whole comment was as I've said several times now is based on some random seller survey from 2011, so the network effect seems much more significant than economies of scale to that point too.)  Note that none of this means that it isn't important for a site to keep its sellers happy. Obviously it is as far as practicable within the context of keeping buyers happy and making money (assuming it's a for profit site). Simply that it's only one factor with often more important ones in determining whether or not a site will likely to survive. It is obviously interconnected with these other factors, so it's ultimately impossible to work out precisely how big a factor it is. But even in so much as it does matter, one random seller survey from 2011 is only a minor data point in determining what sellers think of the site.  Nil Einne (talk) 08:27, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
 * P.S. I forgot to mention that 16 is very few sites. iOffer were evidentally replaced in that survey in 2012 and looking at all years it doesn't seem they ever made it back (where mentioned by participants in some years). Of course the list now  is quite different even from 2012 let alone 2011, albeit mostly because they cover fewer sites (the only new ones in 2017 from 2012 or 2011 are Facebook and Pinterest). The site who did the survey itself renamed from AuctionBytes to EcommerceBytes as of the 2012 survey.  Anyway I had a look at a few of the 2011 sites before my first reply, and it looked like many of them are still around. This doesn't mean they will be around for ever, but it does reflect the point that despite the dominance of certain sites, it's still possible for smaller sites to muddle along if they have some reason to. And that reason doesn't have to be because of brilliant seller ratings. Definitely there's no reason to think only 15 or fewer sites which some random Auction/Ecommerce site chose to rank are going to survive long term. I mean 6 years is already quite a while in internet terms anyway. It's 2/5 of the life of the site now.  An interesting point is that while researching this, various forum posts [//forum.purseblog.com/threads/does-ioffer-sell-anything-authentic.440662/]  [//www.blackhatworld.com/seo/how-does-ioffer-get-away-allowing-sales-of-counterfeit.950812/] [//www.preownedweddingdresses.com/blog/counterfeit-wedding-dress-makers] [//www.reddit.com/r/deals/comments/2pdol2/is_ioffer_a_legit_website/] [//www.aspkin.com/forums/ebay-discussion/6056-ioffer-com-buy-then-dispute-counterfeit.html] [//www.quora.com/How-does-iOffer-com-get-away-with-selling-knock-offs] //www.hotukdeals .com/discussions/ioffer-a-true-and-real-site-959497   [//www.fragrantica.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=48206] [//forums.nasioc.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1916209]  [//www.specktra.net/counterfeit-mac/20686-counterfeit-thailand-ioffer.html] [//forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1403678/ioffer-is-this-a-real-alternative-to-ebay] (mostly old). As well as our article's talk page and stuff like / [//www.securingindustry.com/clothing-and-accessories/sports-counterfeit-promotion-becomes-more-targeted-/s107/a3196/]  [//www.ft.com/content/76b67ba8-330c-11e6-bda0-04585c31b153?mhq5j=e6] [//addicted.es/en/content/7-counterfeit]. All combine to make me think they do have a niche of sorts, namely the sale of counterfeit/knock-off goods and also copyright violating media. (This suggests some of the other stuff is "fallen off the back of a truck or maybe ship" [//forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=144612191]. I would guess carton damaged stuff which is consider too damaged to be sold, stuff which failed QC etc; and were supposed to be destroyed sometimes ends up there.  This is quite a risky area to be involved in given the possibility of legal action of some sort, e.g.  although that's in Paris and despite the US's international reputation is a fearsome extremist defender of IP rights, some of the earlier refs mention problems actually going after sites like ioffer). And it's by no means something they have to themselves, Amazon and eBay and Chinese selling platforms like AliExpress and the millions of individual webstores, and one of the links also mentions Facebook, Twitter and I think Pinterest.  Still I think examples from many countries show that whatever the ethics there is often significant demand  for that sort of stuff. And so likewise a place where it's sold more openly and both buyers and sellers are clear on what's being offered. And although I'm not sure how much, if any, of the stuff is actually shipped from the US, people in the US and elsewhere can have an aversion to Chinese sites even if they're the same sellers, and with the same protections against scammers, so Ioffer may have an advantage over AliExpress etc albeit not eBay or Amazon. Plus when I had a quick look the site's feedback etc system seems better than AliExpress which always seems very clunky to me. (Plus eBay and even Amazon sort of have a love-hate relationship with that sort of stuff and so  despite it being not uncommon, crackdowns and site action are also not uncommon.)  Funnily enough, although iOffer seem to have something of a reputation per the links, especially as a US sites gorwing too much if they stay with their current niche may actually be worse for them in many ways if it makes them too much of a target. And likewise although they don't want to purposely annoy sellers and buyers, they may want to avoid those who don't know what they're getting in to. Of course they will still end up there, affecting the ratings/reviews plus the nature of such things tends to mean you're more likely to get dodgy sellers and buyers further contributing to such sites being popular for certain uses but not well liked by many. (Although I have some doubts many of the sellers of these goods read EcommerceBytes anyway.)  And to be clear, I'm not saying it's a niche that Ioffer ever wanted to have, but if it's really as pervasive as some of those forum posts suggest, it's hard to imagine, actually the lawsuits suggest it's impossible to imagine they don't have some idea what's going on. Note I'm not even suggesting it's most of their business. Despite it being what many people appear to associate with iOffer, it's possible it isn't for various reasons although I would imagine it does contribute both directly and indirectly.  Nil Einne (talk) 12:03, 26 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Wow, that is one epic response to my humorous aside. If only we could put your mammoth efforts to work for good instead of, well, this.  Care to add some of this info to the article ? StuRat (talk) 02:18, 28 October 2017 (UTC)

Command.com
In Ms-Dos is it possible to switch to a different "command.com" from another version AFTER Ms-Dos has already booted? For example, if I boot Ms-Dos 6.22 and have the "command.com" from Dr-Dos, can I switch over to it without having to reboot using a Dr-Dos boot disk? If so, how? Thanks for your time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 191.17.255.94 (talk) 15:48, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The command processor, or shell, is the user's interface to the operating system. It is responsible for parsing and carrying out user commands, including the loading and execution of other programs. The default shell that is provided with MS-DOS is found in the file called COMMAND.COM. The prompts and responses that it provides constitute the user's perception of MS-DOS. COMMAND.COM can be replaced with a different shell by adding a SHELL directive to the system-configuration file CONFIG.SYS. The product COMMAND-PLUS from ESP Systems is an example of such an alternative shell. (see ref.) A major reference is the book Advanced MS-DOS Programming by Ray Duncan, Microsoft Press 2nd. Ed. 1988. Blooteuth (talk) 16:11, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * How is it possible to have two COMMAND.COM files in the same DOS directory? Or have I misunderstood? Akld guy (talk) 21:16, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
 * It depends on whether you can execute the DR-DOS version of the shell as a standard executable from within COMMAND.COM: then, it would run on top of it, as it were. The startup code in IO.SYS that loads the shell will hang the system if the shell ever exits, but COMMAND.COM is just the parser: the DOS API is entirely contained in MS-DOS.SYS, so you could write a short assembly program to terminate COMMAND.COM via int 21h, function $4Ch and load the DR-DOS shell with function $4Bh. Note that you'd want to add the dynamic halt code at the end of your program as well, in case the DR-DOS shell exists unexpectedly. It's kludgey, but this kind of thing was common during the heady days of MS-DOS.OldTimeNESter (talk) 00:28, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
 * You might find this commented disassembly of IO.SYS informative: as you can see, the boot sequence just loads COMMAND.COM using the standard MS-DOS API. http://www.pagetable.com/?p=184. OldTimeNESter (talk) 00:33, 23 October 2017 (UTC)