Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2009 August 1

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August 1

Amazon.co.uk, wish-list, Amazon's privacy policy

I just googled my own name (yeah, I'm bored, I've had a beer or three, my wife has longer holidays than I have and visits her parents, I'm alone etc.). As far as I know, I'm the only person on our planet with my exact name, and whaddayaknow: On page five or six of the search, amazon.co.uk kindly provides a wish-list for {My Name}. WTF is going on??? I've bought many books, both from amazon.com and amazon.co.uk. The list was relevant, I might indeed have liked to read the books that were suggested. I hate to admit it, but I don't always read all the fine print when I register on a reputable site. Skim through it -- yes, spend half an hour reading every detail -- no. What have I missed, and is there any way I could disable this blatant breach of my privacy? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 01:31, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I think they make their wish lists public by default, the idea being (I guess) that you might want to send it to friends/family that don't already have amazon accounts. Still, not very friendly. They should at least ask first. I don't have an amazon.co.uk account, but on my amazon.com account, if you log in and click on the wish list in question, it should have a little box on the left-hand side of the window, with things like "This list is public. This is your default list.", etc. If you look down a little ways, there should be a button that says "Make this list private". IMO, they don't really make it easy to find. Indeterminate (talk) 01:59, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. I found it. Personalisation → Wish list → Combo-box "This list will be viewable by:". Default is "Anyone who searches for me.". Still furious! --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

On a side note as I read this...Google your email. watch what happens. That should pre occupy your paranoia :P 142.176.13.22 (talk) 02:35, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

You certainly managed to stir my paranoia, but... you're kidding, no? Which email sevice are you referring to? Do you have a source? I just googled my previous email address, which I've used for many years, but recently abandoned because of spam. The only thing that turned up was "Do you mean" {similar-address}@{emailservice}.com. I've heard stories about very unpleasant stuff turning up when people google their own national identification number. I'm reluctant to do that experiment, however, because google stores my searches. Might do it using tor (anonymity network), though, would that be safe? --NorwegianBlue ^talk 09:06, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I think NorwegianBlue might be getting different results than me. a Google search for my designated spam email has no hits, and a search for a different email I use only returns my (old) blog posts I signed with it. Not a huge return or any sites that seemed to have leak it. Freedomlinux (talk) 14:21, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Every had to put your email to "join" a site to get access to something you needed from it? Ever did the same, to comment or answer a question on a strange forum? Ever given an answer on Yahoo Answers, good enough for some fake forum to scrape it? (the ones who scrape via RSS get the email ID, not the Nickname). In the old days you'd get one email address from your ISP, made up as some version of your real name and no choice about it. (Or you used your own, figuring it's more professional for work emails than being called fghjklj@somemail.com).

Happy hunting. Maybe get one of these useful shiny hats first. - KoolerStill (talk) 09:26, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

As stated, I've had a huge spam problem which forced me to transfer all my mail from one account to another (fake emails that appeared to come from me, with autoreplies drowning my inbox). Nevertheless, there were no ghits for my old address. BTW, after the spam problem, I've taken the following strategy: I have a couple of domain names with associated email addresses that I can redirect. When I need to register somewhere, I use an address that I create for that site only. If the address is compromised, I'll know who did it, and the problem is easily corrected. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 10:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

If it makes you feel any better, Norwegian Blue, I googled my SSN and the first thing that shows up is some person's facebook profile. Apparently they assigned the nine-digit number to someone. Meh. Well, it is kind of futile to hide your information from Google anyways. Kushal (talk) 23:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's something that might be of interest to you, Norwegian Blue. http://www.cs.yale.edu/homes/jf/WPES07-Felipe.pdf Kushal (talk) 21:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Currently-working robot certificate authorities?

Hey all,

All the CAs linked from robot certificate authority seem to be down/abandoned/otherwise not working, as do all those I can find via the first few pages of a Google search. Does anyone know of any that are still active?

Thanks, --Aseld ^talk 01:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Finding compatible graphics card for Acer Aspire

I have an Acer Aspire 5738Z (http://www.acer.co.uk/acer-v2/seu30e.do?kcond61e.c2att101=56845&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&link=ln400e&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&acond125e=56845&sp=page18e&ctx1g.c2att92=122&ctx2.c2att1=17&ctx1.att21k=1&CRC=3755713286) which has a JV50 motherboard and is currently using integrated graphics. I would like to upgrade the graphics. How do I find which graphics cards are compatible? ----Seans Potato Business 07:13, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

You're not going to find any. Only a limited number of very premium laptops have an upgradeable videocard, due to size, heat and power issues, as well as proprietary connections and components. That said, this machine seems to have quite a powerful video system, so I'm curious why you feel the need to upgrade it. If it's performance issues, proper system maintenance would probably make the most difference. --M^ask? 09:03, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

From Sisoft Sandra, I have deterined:

PEG Slot J6B2 (6h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J6B1 (7h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Used

PCI Express Slot J6D1 (8h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J8B3 (9h) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Used

PCI Express Slot J8D1 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot J7B1 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

PCI Express Slot 6 (Ah) : PCIe 32-bit +5V +3.3V Full-Length Available

- doesn't this mean that I have a PCI-e slot available?

My laptop is available with at least two options with respect to graphics and I have the lesser of those two options (integrated Intel 4500M with 64 MB dedicated VRAM, as opposed to NVIDIA GeForce G105M with 512 MB dedicated DDR2). I'm guessing you thought I had the latter? ----Seans Potato Business 12:27, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Sandra reports what the PCI bridge controller reports to it; those are logical ports, which on an integrated laptop chipset don't always correspond with physical pinouts on the southbridge (some are instead on-die pci connections to other integrated peripherals. Moreover, those ports that are pinned out of the southbridge package aren't necessary connected to any physical header, and in laptops and small form factor systems (which don't have room for the PCI headers, never mind actual PCI cards) most are just terminated by the system builder to pullups. The only way to know what is actually mapped to a physical PCI header is to check the underside. Acer laptops have all their removable components accessible via panels on the bottom, which are labeled with (moderately) clear icons. My own Acer, a travelmate, only has panels for memory and the hard disk, although I've seen others that have one for the WiFi card as well. I've personally never seen an Acer (I've only seen mid-range ones, not the Ferrari ones) that had a removable graphics adapter. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:42, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, I checked the Quick Start Guide for that model laptop, from Acer's UK support site. It shows a picture of the underside panels, and it only has battery, hd, and memory. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 12:53, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

windows downloads

I was told to download Windows NT4.0 service pack 3 from the microsoft website, but searching the site, it seems they only have service packs 2, 4 and 6. Does anyone know where I can find this service pack 3?

88.108.248.67 (talk) 10:58, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Later Service Packs will include SP3 as well as other cumulative fixes. Is there a reason you specifically need NT4.0 SP3? That's almost a fifteen year old operating system; are you having some type of compatibility problem? Nimur (talk) 13:19, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

bash scripting - testing if wget succeeds

I am writing a bash script that uses wget to download some files. I'd like my script to behave differently if wget fails (specifically, if it gets a 404). Other than testing if the file exists after wget terminates, is there a way to do this? I tried the wget manpage but didn't see anything. Also: is there a good scripting tutorial out there? 87.194.213.98 (talk) 13:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Try:

wget http://foo.com/blah
if [ $? == 0 ]; then
  echo WGET succeeded
else
  echo WGET failed
fi

This works because wget sets a 0 result code (that's $?) if it "succeeds", and 1 if it "fails". For the couple of sites I tested, a 404 does count as failure, but that may not be the case for every one. wget doesn't return more detailed information - this post explains why. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 14:15, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

That's brilliant, thanks very much. 87.194.213.98 (talk) 14:40, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

FYI, you can also use the command itself in the if statement:

if wget http://foo.com/blah; then
  echo WGET succeeded
else
  echo WGET failed
fi

--Sean 16:39, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Garageband for Windows

Is there anything that comes close to rivaling Apple's Garageband on a Windows platform? I sat down for 15 minutes at an Apple store with a mac hooked up to a USB piano keyboard and I composed a version of Pachelbel's Canon with 7 layers of instruments that took me completely by surprise. I couldn't believe that it was also notating each part on a score. It was so shockingly easy that it was an eerie experience. I'd considering jumping platforms to an Apple just for that piece of software. Is there a Windows equivalent? Sappysap (talk) 19:14, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

While I have never used the program, I think Adobe Audition could come close to what you want. Maybe you could get a trial version and see for yourself (and let us know what you think of it)? Thanks. Kushal (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

These [1] [2] may be of interest. There are of course a lot of professional apps for Windows, which may be harder to use but have existed for a long while [3] Nil Einne (talk) 19:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

It sounds like Mixcraft might be what you are looking for. Give it a shot -- there's a seven day demo. The beauty of Garageband is it is quick, easy, and lets you come up with nice sounding stuff easily. Most of the other MIDI/sample based programs on all systems are tremendously complicated and designed for use by people who spend their entire job using such programs. --98.217.14.211 (talk) 23:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Wheeled mouse moves cursor extremely slowly

I have a wheel mouse I would like to use. When I plug it in it works OK, but the cursor requires about ten times or more as much movement on the mouse mat to move the cursor the same distance on the screen as my other non-wheel mice do. And yes, I have tried increasing the speed of the cursor in the mouse settings. I use Windows XP. The brand name of the mouse is Serif. 78.146.251.127 (talk) 22:00, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean a scroll wheel mouse?

Have you checked the sensitivity - maybe it's a very insensitive mouse.

Did changing the mouse sensitivity settings have any effect?83.100.250.79 (talk) 16:16, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Analog stick bearing

Eh...this only fits under computing tangentially, but it still deals with hardware. Kind of.

Anyway, a heavy console video game player should know this problem well, especially since the release of the fifth-generation consoles. This problem has to do with analog sticks. As you probably know, the analog stick is centered in a neutral position, and by applying some pressure you move it to trigger a response from the video game. A new analog stick is perfectly centered, but after several years of use (or a couple years of heavy use), the bearings (I guess) on the analog stick start to wear out, and the neutral position of the stick expands. For example, the GameCube is nearly 8 years old. My first two controllers, both bought at the same time I got it, are now nigh-unusable. As the bearings have worn out, the analog stick can be moved around quite a bit without actually triggering...whatever the stick triggers to register movement. Thus, when the stick is pushed as far left as possible, the video game will only register a slight left (i.e., only getting a walk from the game when you're trying to run). Buying a new controller is a bit of a kludge, and really can't effectively be done anymore to alleviate this problem with older consoles (Nintendo 64, PlayStation, etc.).

So, finally to the point: surely there must be a way to repair the bearings (or whatever) of analog sticks. Is there?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 22:40, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

I can think of two problems that an analog joystick much have:

• The springs that push the stick back to the neutral position are, through wear, losing their resilience. The symptom of this is that the joystick doesn't settle at quite the correct centre, but at some centre-ish place instead. The fix is to replace the springs with new ones.
• The potentiometer has developed wear which affects its operation in its central area. The symptom of this is that small motions from zero aren't noticed, meaning that fine control is lost. The fix is to replace the potentiometer.

Either way, it's a component swap-out, with the associated desolder and resolder. Whether either procedure is cost-effective, when compared with replacing the whole controller, is doubtful. -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 22:51, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Augh! Then it seems there's never a simple way. Is there any sort of service that can do this for hardware noobs like me?--The Ninth Bright Shiner 00:16, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Your local TV or radio repair place could certainly do it, but it's maybe 30 minutes of labour (including opening and closing the thing, ordering the part if they don't have it, and writing the bill out for you), so I'd be surprised if it is cost-effective (in places where labour is cheap and electrical components relatively expensive, this might not be true). -- Finlay McWalter • Talk 00:57, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Then I must certainly ask about this at RadioShack or the like next time I'm at the mall. Thank you!--The Ninth Bright Shiner 20:07, 2 August 2009 (UTC)