Computing desk
< September 20	<< Aug \| September \| Oct >>	September 22 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Computing Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is an archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

September 21

Windows Firewall Blocks Google Earth

I've just started Google Earth, and a notification popped up from Windows Firewall, saying that "To protect your computer" it had "blocked some features of this program". Why would it suddenly do this? I've been using it for ever with no problems. Windows XP, SP3. Rojomoke (talk) 04:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Consider trying the official Google Earth Connection Issues Troubleshooter. Google Earth uses many active network connections; Windows Firewall does not know a priori that you want to allow the program to communicate to the outside world (specifically, to Google's servers). Why this warning has just started recently, and never showed up before, I can only speculate: you might have changed or re-set your Windows firewall settings; Google Earth might have changed or increased the number of network ports that it is communicating over (theoretically, Google Earth only uses Port 80); or (unlikely, but possible), a malicious program is running on your system and piggy-backing on Google Earth's network communication, and Windows Firewall detected this "funny" behavior. Nimur (talk) 07:04, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Faster wget

wget is very slow because it only uses one connection to the server. Is there any way to make wget use more than one connection, or any similar programs to wget that use multiple connections? The computer is Windows 7. I like wget because it can be scheduled from .bat files, which is important 82.44.55.25 (talk) 14:24, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you tried lynx (web browser). I know you can save preformatted text. I also know you can save all files/links from a page. I don't know if it can completely mimic wget. -- kainaw ™ 14:49, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Have you considered running multiple copies of wget in parallel? Marnanel (talk) 14:50, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

HTTrack can hit the server with many connections. Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Need Proxy

I need a read only proxy, ie one that DOES NOT support "HTTP POST". I only want to view pages on a site, but every proxy I have tried as been abused and the site has blocked it entirely so I can't view pages. I want a proxy where people can't have abused it because "HTTP POST" is not available

just find a very small proxy no one has used yet, the more you search, the more likely no one else has abused that service with that proxy yet. (since they probably didnt search as long, and deep, and hard as you). 84.153.251.213 (talk) 17:11, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Creating/modifying a keyboard layout on Windows 7 with very limited rights

I'm a user of "programmer dvorak", on top of which I have switched capslock <-> backspace, mapped ctrl to altgr, and esc to the extra key right of left shift on Finnish keyboards ("<>|" key). Now my university only has Windows 7 machines for non-CS students, and they don't let you to run/install any programs that aren't already installed. I don't have access to windows computers at home. How can I get my layout to work at the university? --62.142.167.85 (talk) 15:23, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What did the system administrator, or computer help desk, tell you when you asked them specifically about this issue? Comet Tuttle (talk) 16:20, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

An amazing point. I'm mailing them now. --62.142.167.85 (talk) 15:52, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why does Google chrome have have a totally different window from any other Windows applications.

I'd appreciate if you could answer this in one paragraph less than 4 lines long and not by simply saying "See Google chrome." Thanks. 20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:15, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On some platforms, particularly Windows, Chrome paints into the nonclient area (that's its window's title bar and the window frame). It does that so it can push the tab bar up there (to save a little space); and Chrome doesn't have a menu bar (it just has a drop down menu). Chrome also doesn't have a status bar at the bottom, which a lot of browsers do. I guess they made all three decisions so the web page would get the most screen space. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 17:31, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

So the "regular" looking blue title bar, minimize, maximize, and kill graphics is there underneath and the chrome application just painted over it with its own graphics? I wasn't sure if the Chrome code had its own widget code that could override the Windows windowing code. I'd like to make my own apps have unique "skins." 20.137.18.50 (talk) 17:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

On Windows there are several ways to paint into the "title bar"; I've not raked around in Chrome's source to see which it uses. Options include:

Create an undecorated window (off the top of my head I think that's WS_POPUP style), on which you then have to paint your own stuff. Getting this to have much the same colour scheme etc. as the rest of the windows involves interrogating the system colours interface.
Create a regular window, intercept or steal the non-client paint message, and paint just your own special stuff beside the system's stuff
Create a regular window, intercept or steal the non-client paint message, erase the non-client area and paint everything yourself

Various GUI platforms work slightly differently. I don't think the X Window System allows you to (sanely) paint on window frames. Looking at Chrome on Linux, it doesn't quite mimic the GTK UI perfectly, so I think it's doing option 1. -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note that in general option 3 is kinda daft (you'd have been easier just doing option 1) and option 2 makes sense only for programs that either display some status in their title bar or ones that add non-standard controls beside the min/max/close buttons (such programs sometimes draw slightly wrong buttons, so you can tell which one the system drew and which the app did - programs with an "iconify me to the notification area" button often do this). -- Finlay McWalter ☻ Talk 18:19, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

How to link to google searches

Which domain name should one use when posting a link to a google search in reply to a question at the desks? My google is set to .ch, and I always used to change the posted link to .com. Recently, however, I've noticed that when I myself hit that link, it somehow redirects me to google.ch's start site without any search specifications. Latest example: I googled "Trace Adkins" + "This Ain't No Love Song" + "Jamie Edmondson" and got this on google.ch. I changed the link to google.com (by only replacing "ch" with "com"), but the result redirects me to the start site of google.ch, which is useless to the OP. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:45, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think it gets redirected to the region you are in it goes to .ie when I follow the link. Mo ainm~Talk 17:47, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ah ok, then I'll stop changing stuff from google.ch to google.com. Thanks! ---Sluzzelin talk 17:48, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is the link you changed to .com that gets redirected to .ie the .ch remains at .ch Mo ainm~Talk 17:52, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, thanks. I now also received a reply at WT:RD. Sorry for cross-posting. I wasn't thinking much. ---Sluzzelin talk 17:57, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I tried the link, and it stayed at .ch, with 572 results. I tried substituting several other country codes (.fr, .hu, .es, .ru), and they all stayed at what I chose, with either 572 or 507 results. For .cn (China) and .jp (Japan), I was redirected to the main Google page for Hong Kong and Japan, respectively.

—Wavelength (talk) 19:00, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I use the advanced search page [1] by default, and it doesn't force me back to .pl, as does going straight to google.com. --Ouro (blah blah) 11:34, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, everyone, for sharing your test results and insights! ---Sluzzelin talk 16:32, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Website capture software working with a cached version

Hello. My favorite websites seem to be dropping like flies. A couple of weeks ago, my favorite quiz site dropped off the face of the earth and now one of my favorite blogs appears to be gone. Is there any webpage capture software that easily allows to capture the google cache of the links I provide? It would also help if I have the option to not download images. - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 18:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if such a site exists (especially given the massive amount of data Google caches), but there's the Internet Archive site, archive.org. --—Mitaphane _{Contribs | Talk} 19:01, 22 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't have to be a site. I'm perfectly happy to download software to achieve this. I know about the archive and unfortunately, it's of little use once the page you're looking for is already deleted. You need to make sure it's archived before you actually need to use the archive. - 87.211.75.45 (talk) 08:32, 23 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think you're confusing webcitation with internet archive. Internet archive automatically archives a variety of pages. You don't need to make sure something is archived before you actually need to use the archive. However internet archive has a minimum of 6 months but I think it's often 1 year+ before anything becomes available after archiving. Nil Einne (talk) 19:40, 11 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]