Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 April 13

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April 13

can't copy WMA files

I'm trying to copy files from one computer to another over my Windows home network. All types of files seem to be working except *.WMA files. When I try to copy them, it says that I need to be an administrator. I am an admin. When I've gotten this type of message before (about admin), I tell it to do it anyway and it works. Other types of files, including *.WMV, work. What could be the problem? Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:09, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

PS - and I can play back the WMA files over the network - I just can't save them to my computer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Could probably reboot into safe mode as a one-off solution. ¦ Reisio (talk) 03:55, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I want to do it repeatedly. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:12, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It might be worthwhile to look at the "Properties" of one of those files, to see if something is setting them to an elevated level of security. Where did your WMA files come from in the first place? Looie496 (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

These particular ones were recorded by my daughter using a microphone. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

They were marked "read only", but taking that off didn't help. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:58, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=##windows would be my first stop, although this time of day is probably not the best. ¦ Reisio (talk) 05:39, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

This seems a little odd for files your daughter recorded herself, but one of the things that is special about the WMA format is that it supports DRM. If your files have DRM activated, then clicking on Properties->Details should show a line that says "Protected Yes". (I'm really just guessing here, I'm afraid.) Looie496 (talk) 05:40, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

She recorded them for a language class she is taking. I'll have to check on the "protected" and if I can copy within the same folder (she is using her computer right now). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 14:44, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you able to copy them within their current directory? If so, maybe rename the copy to .txt or something. Or, create a zip file containing the copied wma file, then copy the zip file. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 06:59, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The properties/details say not protected. It did make a copy of the file in the same folder with no problem. Then I tried copying the copy over the network from her computer to my computer and it worked! Then I tried copying the original file, but it still had the same problem. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 16:35, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Very strange. But at least now you have a workaround. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:50, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, not exactly. I'm trying to do two things with my daughter's files: (1) keep them synchronized between my computer, her computer, and her thumb drive (which she takes to school) - so when she works on a file, she is working on the latest version of it and it gets copied to the other computers. (2) Get a current copy of all of her files to my computer so they get backed up (online, etc). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 20:31, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

... Because I can't copy or rename them on her computer from my computer. I have to be on her computer to do it. The idea is that I can sync the files from my computer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:31, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Yahoo! loading problems

For quite some time now, I've been getting connection problems every time I load up Yahoo!. Basically, the website will either not load, or will load very slowly, and when it does load, it doesn't load properly. At first, it was only the main portal that didn't load, but now, even Yahoo! Answers isn't loading. At first, I thought it was a problem with my browser or computer, so I cleared my cookies, and although it does load a bit it still doesn't load properly. I've also tried other connections and other computers, and the same problem occurs. Is there a problem with the website? For reference, I use Yahoo! Philippines. Narutolovehinata5 ^tccsdnew 04:14, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried computers using other ISPs? Or just calling your ISP. ¦ Reisio (talk) 04:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

How to download a video from YouTube?

I want to download a video (based on Mass-Energy Equivalence) from YouTube, but I have no downloading software installed in my computer. Then, how can I download that video from YouTube? 106.216.108.36 (talk) 06:22, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

http://downloadhelper.net/ ¦ Reisio (talk) 06:53, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

request to send me the email addresses

Hello, I want the email addresses of all the companies mentioned in the link under.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_of_Bangladesh

Can you provide me the email addresses? It would be very helpful for me

I hope that you will be kind enough to provide me the email addresses. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by Naimash (talk • contribs) 13:08, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure thing. ¦ Reisio (talk) 13:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I expect Reisio is busy following links from the list to each company's website (at the end of each article) to glean a list of e-mail addresses to save you the time and effort, but you might get the list more quickly by doing this yourself. Dbfirs 15:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

How do I compare two LibreOffice Writer documents?

I have two .odt files saved from LibreOffice-Writer 3.5 under Windows7.
The LibreOffice function:
Edit->Compare documents
marks big blocks of text as changed while, in fact the files are almost identical (the difference is only a few characters or some font effect bold italic etc.)
Is there some no cost solution that will help me spot exactly what has changd?
-- 46.15.140.5 (talk) 14:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I doubt there is (that is also as “user friendly” as LibreOffice). Use a markup language next time, such as LaTeX, and it’ll be quite simple. ¦ Reisio (talk) 14:52, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

If you just want to see what text has changed (and therefore disregard formatting changes), you could try converting the files to .txt and comparing the two text files. This shows you how to do it in Linux, but I think only the first program (odt2txt) works under Windows. For the comparison part you'll need something like windiff.exe. - Cucumber Mike (talk) 15:51, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

• There is a utility called DeltaXML ODT Compare that is designed to do that job. You can download it at http://extensions.openoffice.org/en/project/DeltaXMLODTCompare, but whether it will work for you is more than I can say. Looie496 (talk) 16:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

True Manhattan distance ?

I wasn't sure whether to post this Q here or at the Math Desk. I posted there, but here's a link: Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Mathematics#True_Manhattan_distance_.3F. I have some psuedocode for an efficient way to find this, and I'm wondering if I should post to that article or somewhere else. StuRat (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The usual algorithms for shortest path are already here. (Otherwise I fear WP:OR applies...) --Tardis (talk) 17:13, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Bitcoin

I've read the Bitcoin article, and have read news reports on it, but I still don't understand what it is. Can somebody give me a simple explanation in words of one syllable? RNealK (talk) 18:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Home made crowd sourced scrip with no real worth (no real store will take it). It is backed by math no one in the crowd knows. Is that monosyllabic enough? If not, we have simple:bitcoin. Nimur (talk) 18:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

cash you can't spend. 178.48.114.143 (talk) 18:32, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

The goal was to create a "virtual" currency, a currency that would exist only online but could still be used to buy and sell things. The people who created it disliked the fact that existing currencies could be manipulated by entities like the Federal Reserve and Bank of England. They wanted to create a currency that would be totally immune to manipulation and therefore extremely stable in value. Basically they yearn for the good old days of the gold standard, and want to reproduce that situation, but with "virtual gold". They thought if they could do that they would get a currency that is extremely stable and reliable, which would therefore drive out other currencies. The actual result, though, is that their currency has been extremely unstable, with the "exchange rate" spiking or plummeting over the course of days. Looie496 (talk) 18:38, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

To do justice to the original question, though, we need to distinguish between these two sub-questions: "what is bitcoin?" ...And "how does the bitcoin technology ecosystem work?" The first question is straightforward: it is a currency intended to use technology to eliminate dependence on a central authority (motivated by a political agenda, as Looie496 explained). The latter question requires some technical detail, because bitcoin relies on some complicated work to guarantee consistency without depending on a central authority. Nimur (talk) 18:45, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not surprised that a poorly traded asset is also highly volatile. That's like penny stocks.

I don't know whether no store will take it. Apparently, some online stores claim to take, or at least, they claim to be stores. Anyway, it's a non-governmental currency that anyone is allowed to print (or mine digitally), but apparently takes time to be generated, so no risk of hyperinflation here. There is no way of knowing whether someone somewhere can generate it in great amounts, so it could be a complete rip-off. Indeed, although some users might be serious about it (due to anarchistic ideological reasons), bitcoin is said to be plagues with scams and other illegal schemes.

As any currency, it has no real value per se, and its only as much worth as the products and services people are willing to hand you in exchange. OsmanRF34 (talk) 18:55, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not entirely a fair assessment. Actual real legal currency has actual real legal value - even if it is, economically, value induced by fiat. Legal tender means that the government will back you up when you try to exchange currency for goods and services - this is the upside of fiat currency that anarcho-bitcoin radicals fail to understand. If your landlord comes around demanding rent, and you pay in U.S. dollars or your local legal tender, your local, state, and federal governments will defend you - militantly, if necessary - if your landlord tries to forcefully evict you. If you pay in bitcoins, and your landlord comes around demanding rent in legal currency, you may find yourself on the opposite side of the fiat. Nimur (talk) 19:06, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

"Legal tender" status of money is widely misunderstood, and this is another example of that. What you contract with someone in, whether it be exchanges of dollars, euros, goods, or just promises (you'll mow my lawn if I paint your fence), that's all contract law. The courts will indeed help you enforce a contract if you specify you're going to pay it in bitcoins or whatever other medium of exchange. Legal tender, at least in the U.S., works in most cases as a default (of course you can't pay your taxes or a fine in bitconis), and practically speaking it's rarely relevant. Shadowjams (talk) 20:00, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree that not being legal tender makes bitcoins a quite different kind of currency, more akin to collectible articles of unknown value than to the dollar or yen. But what's the relationship between fiat currency to legal tender? If we had gold backed currencies, they would also be legal tender. I am not fan of the golden standard, but under this aspect, it would provide the same legal enforcement (and additionally, you would be able to convert it to gold at a fixed rate). OsmanRF34 (talk) 19:46, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Currency backed by bullion is also fiat currency, despite the superficial appearance of "inherent value" in certain soft metals. Somebody (e.g., the government) is decreeing and enforcing a conversion-ratio between bullion and currency-units. Furthermore, the choice of which type of bullion in reserve is also made and enforced by decree. In this sense, it is even more invasive monetary policy compared to a modern fractional-reserve-banking system (wherein the only "decree" is a nationalized interest-rate that applies to certain transactions), because a bullion-reserve-backed-currency does not permit the market to revalue the price of bullion. Nimur (talk) 20:05, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

(ec) One should be careful, though, with that sort of example. (For now, I'll leave aside all the special legal bric-a-brac that complicates residential landlord-tenant contracts.) With something like a rental agreement, payments and amounts are almost always denominated in dollars (or whatever the appropriate local currency is, I'm going to use 'dollars' for the rest of this post for convenience's sake)—you must pay in dollars because that's what you explicitly agreed to do. Legal tender is legal tender for settling financial obligations only. In principle, there's nothing to prevent you signing a rental agreement that specifies some other in kind or currency exchange: pounds sterling, ounces of gold, shares of IBM stock, paintings by Salvador Dali, time on your sailboat, Bitcoins, or just about anything else. Generally speaking, breaches of such a contract by either party are just as open to redress in court – backed, as necessary, by government-controlled force – as breaches involving agreements denominated solely in dollars. Equitable remedies in such cases will often be granted in dollars as a convenient measure of value (when the contract terms originally specified some other reasonably fungible good), but courts can and do demand specific performance when appropriate.

As well, your statement of the applicability of legal tender is a bit overbroad. In the United States, for instance, there is no federal – and often no state or local – requirement that any business accept U.S. dollars offered for goods and services; the actual situation is much more nuanced. (See the relevant sections of legal tender and invitation to treat, to begin with.) Your local convenience store can refuse to accept high-denomination banknotes out of a fear of counterfeits—even though the U.S. hundred says "This note is legal tender" right next to Ben Franklin's face. For that matter, your local convenience store could insist on pricing and payment exclusively in euros, Bitcoins, or jelly beans, though it probably wouldn't be a successful business move. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 20:18, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

All fair points. To enlighten myself, I read what the U.S. Treasury website has to say on the topic of "legal tender." According to the Treasury website's interpretation of Section 31 U.S.C. 5103, there is a distinction between a general business transaction (where any payment arrangement can be made), and debts tendered to a creditor - where U.S. dollars are legally acceptable. I am not a lawyer, and most of the legal-ese I read recreationally are CFRs, which are written more specifically than United States Code; so I defer on interpretation of these nuances to the more appropriate legal experts. Nimur (talk) 20:26, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everybody. It's used quite a bit on Silk Road, isn't it? RNealK (talk) 01:27, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Silk Road marketplace has an annual transaction volume of 14 million USD worth of bitcoins. The world economy has a GDP of 70 trillion USD, at least 14 of which is actually in USD. --140.180.240.67 (talk) 06:48, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

According to Silk Road (marketplace), yes, bitcoin is used a lot there, since it claims to provide anonymity. This might be useful since "Most sellers on the site (...) offer products such as heroin, LSD, and cannabis." I doubt however that bitcoin is as anonymous as cash. And I wouldn't compare the 14 million to the world economy, but to the US$321.6 billion turn-around of illegal drug trade OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:32, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Power indicator on my computer disappeared

I'm using an HP Pavilion dv6 laptop running Windows 7 and recently the power indicator for my battery disappeared. Changing my power options doesn't cause it to reappear and if I go to "Turn system icons on or off" the power icon is set to off, but it is the only option that can't be toggled. Does anybody have any idea what's up? My computer ran through an update the other day and I'm assuming that's what got rid of it. Ryan Vesey 21:54, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Instal Linux on it. Then, the operating system wont just do things that mystify you. You should own your computer not Microsoft.--Aspro (talk) 22:24, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Installing Linux is not a catch-all solution to all problems that appear in a PC running Windows. OsmanRF34 (talk) 00:53, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

That's nuts. The exact same thing happened to me yesterday on my Toshiba laptop. It's back now after I restarted the thing. You didn't happen to download something that came with an attachment called Delta Search Babylon or the like did you? I think that's what happened to me. It's some type of malware that takes over your internet and also, apparently, part of your computer. It's gone now, thankfully, but I can only surmise that it caused the problem. Go Phightins! 22:59, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

It's surprising I didn't think of restarting, that restored it immediately. Interestingly, right after posting the above question, I went and downloaded some malware like an idiot so I've been getting rid of that. I should be all good now. Ryan Vesey 01:01, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

That makes Aspro's suggestion above even funnier. That should serve as a lesson for all Linux enthusiast: "Do not replace Windows for Linux, when a re-start will suffice." OsmanRF34 (talk) 13:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I might as well say: why depend on a monolithic OS that you have to power down and restart in the first place? As the OP mentions, he then had to sort out a malware problem. Linux 2 Microsoft 0. If you find sorting out these peccadilloes is better that getting your computer to work as a reliable tool, then I too find that both funny but sad. --Aspro (talk) 19:29, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Also see the Virtual MCSE, which probably would have solved this problem. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:35, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

I definitely prefer Linux to Microsoft, but saying "Just install Linux" is no way to troubleshoot! Maybe he prefers Windows, maybe he is required to, or whatever other reasons, but that's terrible advice. It's like responding to "Hey, I want to paint my car blue, but the paint doesn't stick. Help?" with "What on earth are you doing green is objectively superior to blue paint it green instead." Unless someone is using Windows 3.1 voluntarily, I think it makes more sense to address their problem than to tell them to switch their personal preferences. BlueBattery (talk) 02:11, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Understand where you coming from BB. This is where I'm coming from: Trouble shoot or effective trouble shoot? Life is sort. The are only 24 hours in a day. Less than 9,000 in a year. When Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee perished in the 1st Apollo capsule fire, NASA choose not to just 'trouble shoot', then sit back and wait for the next disaster to happen – instead they had the whole capsule redesigned [1]. If the OP 'needs' as you say to run Microsoft then do it in a VM. I've noticed too, that Microsoft have removed their claim that the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) is less with Windows because the maintenance costs are lower. When motor cars first hit the roads, one had to take out the big ends every 500 miles and recast (then scrape) the the white metal bearings and change plugs, contact breakers etc.. Today, a car has a warranty for oodles of miles and most people can afford them. I really can't see the fascination of wanting to keep keep fiddling with a traction engine to keep it as you main means of transport. So I don't have a problem with suggesting to others that they be better off in the long term, to cut their losses now and move on to more reliable software.Aspro (talk) 18:04, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Back to answering the OP's question... I had something similar happen where some standard notification icons just disappeared. When I eventually found the control, it was greyed-out. I had to delve around in the registry to get them to come back. IIRC, I found help on Microsoft's site. Thuis is maybe not the exact page I used, but this sounds relevant: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/945011/en-us Astronaut (talk) 17:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

It could be that Windows has decided to hide the icon. Assuming you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7, then :-

• To the right of the taskbar icons is two uparrows. Click on this, and a list of icons appears.
• If the power icon is there, then it has been set to autohide.
• To fix this :- click on "customize" on the list that has just appeared.
• A dialog box listing all the icons will appear.
• Select the drop-down menu to the right of the Power icon, and change to "Show icon and notifications".
• Ok the dialogbox, and the power icon should be back in the taskbar.

CS Miller (talk) 20:36, 18 April 2013 (UTC)