Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2020 December 22

= December 22 =

computer headset recs?
I've been offered my choice of a holiday gift from a family member, tacitly in the US$ 50-ish range though I can probably work something out if I want to go higher. I'd like a headset for my computer and phone for (a) listening to music in noisy environments and (b) making 2-way voice calls. My computer doesn't have bluetooth (it has 3.5mm analog). My phone has 3.5mm and bluetooth, but the 3.5mm has noisy sound at low volumes, and it's sort of conceivable that I'll bite the bullet and get a phone without 3.5mm someday. So BT support could be nice.

I do have a Jabra wired noise cancelling headphone already so maybe I can live with just headset mic, but I have a cheap earbud type one and it has low audio volume from the mic. I'm not too worried about hi fi audio playback either way, since I'm a fairly non-critical listener these days. I am very bothered by outside noise (people's conversations etc) when listening to music or just sitting around, so noise cancellation and good acoustically sealed earcups are a big plus.

I see this which looks decent. Its cost is higher than ideal but not out of the question. But I notice that the microphone is apparently built into an earcup rather than being on a mic boom. Does that matter? I figured the boom gets you closer to the mic so it would have better sound. I see a lot of criticism of Logitech headsets on the grounds that the mic booms are fragile and break easily, so I probably want to avoid that brand. It's not clear whether other brands' models could also have that issue.

General advice and suggestions (particularly cheaper models) are much appreciated--thanks. 2602:24A:DE47:BB20:50DE:F402:42A6:A17D (talk) 00:25, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I have a HyperX Cloud Alpha that I'm pretty happy with. That's wired, but they offer wireless headsets as well. I got mine used from eBay. --47.152.93.24 (talk) 19:54, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

Copyright of Zoom Earth
Are the satellite images from Zoom Earth (https://zoom.earth) copyrighted? -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 02:03, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I took a look at the site. The satellite image quality is much much worse than Google Maps. I wonder how Zoom Earth can be useful. 172.97.139.62 (talk) 02:53, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * At the bottom of the page it says in small print "© Zoom Earth". That means it is copyrighted.--Shantavira|feed me 10:58, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * What about the screenshot my friend uploaded? (File:Zone of Disturbed Weather 04.png)-322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 18:38, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Clipping off the bottom line where it says "© Zoom Earth" does not change the copyright status of the image. --Lambiam 21:34, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * What do I do about it? Tried to F9 delete, but it got reverted. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 21:39, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't know about this particular case, but the "© Zoom Earth" doesn't mean that the image is copyrighted -- it means that someone is claiming that it's copyrighted. It's far from unknown for someone to take PD content, slap a © on it, and trust that no-one's going to investigate further. HenryFlower 08:52, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, no copyright notice is necessary for a work to be in actuality copyrighted. So unless you have access to a known-PD source for it, the default assumption is that it is copyrighted unless proven otherwise. Elizium23 (talk) 08:57, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * However, I do have an image of the same storm, but from NASA, which is PD. Should I just upload the NASA version and resolve the issue? -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 18:28, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * I'll just do it. -322UbnBr2 (Talk &#124; Contributions &#124; Actions) 18:05, 26 December 2020 (UTC)

XML display issue
Dear Wikipedians:

The following two URLs:

http://www.programthinkmirror.com/forum5/0.xml

https://www.programthinkmirror.com/forum5/0.xml

differ only by a single letter 's', yet have radically different layout (to put it mildly).

I wonder what's going on, and how to fix the garbled output of the second one.

172.97.139.62 (talk) 05:02, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , if you want to load a website over HTTPS (the second url), you will need to use HTTPS for all the stylesheets. If you right click and inspect element, you can see a lot of error messages in the console saying things like "Mixed Content: The page at 'https://www.programthinkmirror.com/forum5/0.xml' was loaded over HTTPS, but requested an insecure stylesheet 'http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css'. This request has been blocked; the content must be served over HTTPS." You need to change all the stylesheets to "//www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" so that it will change depending on whether or not it is on HTTPS. ―sportzpikachu  my talk contribs  05:43, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Got it Sportzpickachu! Thanks so much for all your help! And I especially like how you were able to leave an alarm bell message in my IP address alarm inbox. That's normally very hard to do! 172.97.139.62 (talk) 15:36, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Problems editing articles
Hello, for a couple of months I have noticed that I find it difficult to copy and paste paragraphs or sentences that I formulate to improve an article or create one. Before editing an article or creating one, I first create a sketch in Microsoft Word and then transfer it to the article in question by copying and pasting with the mouse. But when I do the latter, it sticks or takes a long time to do. At first, I suspected it was a Google Chrome problem and therefore started using Opera. At first everything was perfect but the last two days I have also had the same problem with this browser. This leads me to think that it may be something else. Does anyone know why this happens and how to fix it? Thank you. --Muwatallis II (talk) 14:22, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , are you pasting as plain text: Ctrl? Microsoft Word edits in rich text, and unless you specify to remove formatting when pasting, it will attempt to preserve it. Elizium23 (talk) 14:41, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi. I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is "edit this page" from Wikipedia. Because for example if I want to transfer a paragraph from one article to another using mouse copy and paste, I have the same problem. It sticks or takes too long. This only happens to me on Wikipedia. It didn't happen before. --Muwatallis II (talk) 15:27, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * , are you using the WP:Visual editor? Elizium23 (talk) 15:31, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * No. I use the other one. --Muwatallis II (talk) 15:44, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * So you copy and paste wikitext code back and forth? What version of Microsoft Word do you use? Is it local or on Office 365? What version of Windows are you using? What is the character count of the text you are trying to paste in? is it a couple of paragraphs or hundreds of kilobytes? Elizium23 (talk) 15:46, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * If the wikitext code, and that's when the problem occurs, on several occasions the copy / paste option is pasted or takes a long time to display. I use Windows 10 (recently updated to version 1909, before the update I already had the problem). It can be a paragraph or a complete article, the latter when I transfer the information from the sandbox to the article I am going to create. Before I could do it without problems, but now even with a simple word or sentence I have that problem. I do not mention the Word thing because I think it is unnecessary, since outside of wikitext I do not have that problem. --Muwatallis II (talk) 17:01, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Does this delay happen in updating the edit box with wikitext, or in viewing the formatted text? If the latter, only with "Publish changes", or is there also a considerable delay with "Show preview"? --Lambiam 21:07, 22 December 2020 (UTC)

Two (very) technical questions
a. Due to an unknown reason, I've found a few days ago, a PDF file, saved long ago on my computer, blocked, with an announcement requiring password. I've already opened it many times before, with no such problem. What's going on ? what's the reason to this ? What password ? (never required to define one) What's needed to solve this malfunction ?

b. Another, unrelated problem, is being unable to access a formal, governmental website - it says: the requested URL was rejected... What's the reason to this - which doesn't occur with other websites ? Never encountered this rejection before with this site, which is completely unexpected.

Thank you for any clarification / guidance, בנצי (talk) 20:53, 22 December 2020 (UTC)
 * a. Do you have Acrobat? Then this may (perhaps, depending on the type of password security) help.
 * b. Do you know where this message originates from (your browser – the ISP – ...)? Are the three dots following "rejected" part of the message? If not, what else does the message say?
 * --Lambiam
 * a. The guidance you cited requires opening the document for removing the security, while my need is opening it actually.
 * b. This part isn't relevant anymore, since it's o.k. now. I suppose it was a temporary problem, on the side of the agency. Thank you, בנצי (talk) 09:48, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Removing a password-protection without knowing the password is tricky (that's the point of the password), and something you should only attempt if you're the owner the PDF. Depending on the encryption level, a site like this may be able to unlock it. However, if it's strongly encrypted then the only way to unlock it would be to brute-force the password - that is, try every password possible until you've cracked it. Doing that manually would take longer than anyone's lifespan, but depending on the complexity of the password a computer may be able to crack it relatively quickly. Condimentary (talk) 12:54, 23 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I think the bigger question with the PDF is why it's suddenly requiring a password. PDFs can't just decide to password-protect themselves. It's possible that there is some malware behind that activity. Matt Deres (talk) 04:57, 25 December 2020 (UTC)

Kitkat SMS limit
I just installed MobiKin to manage the files on my cell phone (including the SIM card). Now when I try to delete SMS messages, it asks me to change my SMS app to MobiKin. As a reason it tells me that Android 4.4 KITKAT introduced a new function, system wide limited content SMS treatment. Now any program that wants to import or delete SMS must be set as the default SMS application. (That is, if I translated the Chinese message correctly, “随着Android 4.4 KITKAT引入了一项新功能 – 系统范围内都短信处理. 现在任何程序要还､导入或删除短信，必须设置成默认的短信应用. ” – for some reason, it installed itself in Chinese, despite the Windows system setting.) Does that sound right, and should I proceed? ◅ Sebastian 22:51, 22 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I know nothing about MobiKin but that sounds fishy to me and since nobody else has responded my suggestion would be to delete the app and install it again, making sure you are installing the correct app. There are many lookalike apps that try to fool you and it sounds to me as though that could be the issue. Alternatively ask the question on a more specialist forum.--Shantavira|feed me 19:33, 23 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you. The program otherwise does what I got it for, so I decided it was fishy only up to a point: After all, I've seen that from the best-known companies that they use such dirty tricks as cutting corners for their development work while encouraging users to install their program as default. So I'm using MobiKin for exporting files, and then the built-in function in the Messaging app that came with the phone (I don't even know its name) for deleting them. ◅ Sebastian 10:18, 24 December 2020 (UTC)