Computing desk
< July 17	<< Jun \| July \| Aug >>	Current desk >

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.

July 18

Keylogger and copy paste

If one copy pastes "bunny", does a keylogger know that the word was "bunny" or just that a copy paste of 5 letters happened? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 05:16, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Depending on the keylogger - it can know "bunny". The article refers to it as clipboard logging. 196.213.35.147 (talk) 06:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, yes. Thank you. I did not see that at the keystroke logging article. Cheers. Anna Frodesiak (talk) 08:00, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

why are there so many gpu card brands?

If you want to buy a GTX 1080-based graphics card, for example, there are dozens of brands to choose from, including NVidia's own. Similarly for (say) Radeon 680. But they all have the same chip inside. There don't seem to be any significant functional differences unless you count unusual features like water cooling. I hope nobody cares much about cosmetic differences, since the card will normally be out of sight inside a computer anyway. Is there a reason to not just get the chip manufacturer's board? I'd hope that if anyone can get it right, they can. Thanks. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 06:18, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GPU manufacturers typically don't produce video cards themselves, but rather sell chips to add-in board partners who would either do a reference or custom design. It's part of their business model from what I can tell. As for different variants of the same thing, would it be a proper analogy to compare that to other consumer brands, say different detergent brands (or variants of the same soap) from Unilever? Even a high-end part like a 1080Ti may have "entry-level" or base configurations as not everyone would want or need an overclock or water cooling. Blake Gripling (talk) 07:36, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know about AMD but NVidia definitely does sell cards under its own brand (no idea if the manufacture is outsourced). They sell them directly to consumers on shop.nvidia.com, at decent prices too. So I'm wondering what the attraction is for a similar card under another brand. Yes there are fancy configurations with features like water cooling for overclocking, but (unless I'm missing something, which is part of my question) most of them appear to be simply clones. They're not cheaper and there aren't any added features that I can discern from looking at product pages on newegg. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 18:11, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

What is the attraction of the Nvidia branded cards? Ultimately if the cards are a similar price, there is no reason to think the Nvidia branded cards are superior to some other decent brand card so it comes down to price and whatever other features and also store preferences. Note that water cooling for overclocking is a very fancy feature. Far more common are different HSFs, minor RAM or GPU clock speed boosts (sometimes called OC editions etc), different warranty periods, different bundled games, different combos of output ports (for a long time, the output options are limited by the GPU so you can generally achieve the same with adapters, but you might not want to), different lengths (to do with HSF design, but also in some cases PCB design). Nil Einne (talk) 19:34, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

To give an example of what I'm referring to, this seems to be Nvidia's 1080 [1]. It costs $549. I'll just assume shipping is free in the US but I don't know. But you can get this MSI branded one [2] for $499 from New Egg. And with the possibility of $20 rebate and a $20 Steam code currently. Shipping is I think definitely free for certain New Egg customers within the US. And it also is an OC edition i.e. has a very minor speed boost I think of the GPU. The Nvidia branded one is listed as a Founders Edition. A quick search finds this is just a fancy name Nvidia gives for their reference design [3]. Note however that despite what that site says, although reference designs have improved a fair amount and it sounds like Nvidia is really trying to upsell theirs e.g. with their vapour chamber, it's doubtful that they're always the best depending on your specific demands. I assume that MSI one doesn't have a vapour chamber, the HSF at least doesn't look the same. But the HSF actually compares I don't know. For $10 more you can get a dual fan variant [4] and also with a very slightly more clock boost albeit without the Steam code offer currently I think (but still the rebate). For $5 more you can get a triple fan variant [5] and with another minor clock boost and the Steam code. And even ignoring the Steam code and rebate, still $35 less than the Nvidia branded one. Again how the HSF performance varies I don't know, but I wouldn't be completely surprised if it's better in some instances. (The Nvidia one is blower style so it will also likely depend on case cooling.) And that's just a very quick look at one store. (I actually saw a Zotac dual fan which was cheaper but I think without the Steam code or rebate.) P.S. On the founders vs other designs, see e.g. [6], some of the comments there seem reasonably balanced. Nil Einne (talk) 20:09, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I'm doubtful it's true no one cares about cosmetic features. If this were true, all those manufacturers adding lights etc are complete idiots. But if you think they are, remember so is Nvidia since it's clear their founder edition HSF is not simply designed to be functional but also look good. How big a factor this is, how many people are influenced despite no one ever seeing their card except for brief moments, and how many people have a transparent case or something else which means the card is visible, I have no idea. Nil Einne (talk) 20:24, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

P.P.S. At least for the 1080 and New Egg, it looks to me like the Founders Edition has largely failed to get much saturation in the wider market. They seem very rare. How much of this is because of whatever extra Nvidia charges for use of their reference design, how much because manufacturers think or know they can do better and how much something else I can't be certain. But I suspect though "something else" is a reasonably big factor. One thing somewhat hinted at in some of the sources, but also in the other person's reply above and for that matter in your question is it's true that in reality the advantages of different brands (and in case it's still not clear, this includes Nvidia) are very limited. So to try and keep up, manufacturers simply don't want to just use a reference design no matter if it is better or as good as their design simply because unless they are the cheapest, and to some extent even if they are, there's no guarantee anyone is going to buy there's over some other. So instead they produce something slightly different. Or not just one variant but multiple variants. Largely cosmetic but also with some functional differences like genuine differences in the HSF such as more fans, more heatpipes etc. In reality, even these don't add that much. Frankly I would suggest noise should be the biggest factor for most people, but this is very hard to reliably measure since it depends on many things including the case it's put in. So for minor differences, it's hard to actually know even if you bother to research, which one is better. Ultimately manufacturers are hoping they will produce enough variants and price them right to attract enough customers in a market place which is saturated with basically the same thing. Those with a poorer reputation (fairly or not) will generally be forced to price theirs lower to compete. Of course if there was enough consumer demand for the reference design, it likely would be more common despite the manufacturers not pushing it, but it seems there probably isn't. Possibly it doesn't help that people assume, likely for no good reason, that if they're going to buy the Founder's Edition they might as well get an Nvidia branded one and I think NewEgg doesn't sell them at least themselves. It could also be that the Founder's Edition is popular among miners, maybe the HSF design works well for their purposes. Nil Einne (talk) 20:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Some people prefer Nvidia because having an Nvidia-brand card makes it more likely that the sofware they are using was tested with that specific card. This is more of an issue with high-end CAD than with gaming. Related:[7] --Guy Macon (talk) 21:51, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

That may be true, but your link doesn't seem to provide any evidence for it. It seems to be mostly different AMD vs different Nvidia, and actually doesn't even clearly say who's card it is. (The only one clearly shown for Nvidia is a Gigabyte but that's a GeForce anyway.) It doesn't seem to discuss Nvidia-branded Nvidia Quadro vs a Dell or PNY Nvidia Quadro i.e. what my responses or the question is about. I don't know that much about the workstation or CAD space so I guess it makes sense there. (Although I admit I'm a bit surprised as I would have thought often the card used in development and testing often just comes with the workstation so may be Dell etc. Or is this testing by Nvidia?) But anyway, I strongly suspect it doesn't make any sense in the gaming world. Ignoring the minor differences are unlikely to be relevant to the game, I'm fairly sure a large percentage of cards used in play testing are not Nvidia branded ones. They often may not even be reference design ones all the time. Nil Einne (talk) 16:51, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks all of you. Several good and informative points were made. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:23, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thus the word "related". --Guy Macon (talk) 08:18, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well I guess my main point is that I don't see much relevance to this thread. I think we all know AMD and Nvidia, and models within AMD and Nvidia can be very different cards, it doesn't seem to be of significance to this thread. The point on Nvidia branded vs Dell or PNY branded Nvidia cards in workstations is relevant, but the ref, not so much..... One thing that seems to be somewhat relevant is that in the workstation space, besides testing with the specific software, it may also be important that the specific card is tested with the type of computer to ensure all should work together without issue when a few hours or even one hour lost time for a single employee if something goes wrong may be more than any extra you spend. If you look at the manual for the computer (or simply ask the rep), you may find a list of specific cards that have been qualified to work with that specific computer, probably with specific model numbers etc. You get this on desktops too, also with other components like RAM sticks, but few gamers pay attention to it. Nil Einne (talk) 10:33, 21 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Android feature

Some of "Symphony"'s androids possess a feature which enables the user to lock by touching a touchscreen button and unlock by double touching the screen - a gesture feature of some sort that I'm fully unaware of. Question is, what it is called and, which other (company) androids and tablets possess this facility? 119.30.47.48 (talk) 07:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

LG calls it the "knock" feature: tap twice to turn on the screen, tap twice on an empty spot of the home screen to turn off the screen. You can also set up a "knock code" to where you have to tap in a specific pattern to unlock the screen. Random character sequence (talk) 17:19, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Android screen

How do I know which android(s) and tab(s) possess what type of screen, e.g., LCD, amouled, and so on, without reading the specification? 119.30.47.48 (talk) 07:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why can not you read the specification? Ruslik_Zero 09:16, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Androids

1) What to look for when buying an android phone?

2) Which android is currently enlisted as possessing all the sensors available to date? 119.30.47.48 (talk) 07:55, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Galaxy S9? Ruslik_Zero 09:17, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Gaming languages/software

Supposing I wanted to in the future go on to make a few simple computer games, the sorts of things that might be used in mobile apps or websites, moving blocks around to match colours, running around a board to catch tokens without crashing, shooting at targets moving across the screen, that sort of thing, and incorporating some nice bright, cartoony art work as a major part of the appeal, what would be the best programming languages and/or development software to learn to use first?

86.31.40.202 (talk) 20:52, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Unity3D is popular with beginning game devs. There was even a game Code Hero under development, whose purpose was to teach kids to program their own games in Unity3D, but it never shipped. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:28, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Pygame may be good for you if you are a complete beginner to programming, games you make with it not be able to be used in websites or mobile apps, but it would give you an understanding as to how games are programmed. Unity3D can be a bit daunting if you've never programmed before but there is an enormous amount of reference material for it, plus Unity supports porting games to websites and apps out of the box. You could also consider something like Processing.js, but I am unsure as to how much of the library there is devoted to making games like the other two I mentioned. Maksimsum (talk) 23:30, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Besides Unity, there are a bunch of simpler gaming development engines like GameMaker Studio and Clickteam Fusion targeted at people with very limited coding experience especially if aren't that interested at learning to code at the moment, and often 2D games. Both of these have been used to make popular commercial games.

See e.g. [8], Category:GameMaker: Studio games, [9] or Spelunky and Cook, Serve, Delicious! for examples for GMS. [10] [11] [12] or Five Nights at Freddy's (all of them I believe) and Not a Hero as examples. Although I believe The Escapists is a counter example which was originally developed in CF2.5 (or its predecessor MMF) but the developers (or maybe it was when Team17 got involved) eventually found this too limiting [13] [14] (see also our article).

While these have output modules for mobile and have been used for mobile games and also HTML5, they did AFAIK origin in the pre-mobile world, like Unity3D. This site lists [15] more examples of such tools. Some of them like GameSalad (company), Construct 2 and maybe Buildbox may be more popular in the mobile or other world, although my knowledge of that is limited. It may also be worth checking out List of game engines. There are also specialised tools like Adventure Game Studio and RPG Maker although none of these seem to really fit with what you're designing. (I mean even specialised tools can be used for games that aren't that similar to what people imagine from them, e.g. To the Moon, but there are still strong limits.)

Given the market place, the licencing cost of these tools tends to be small for someone in the developed world. All of the 3 main ones (including Unity) have also been in various Humble Bundles in the past including asset packs and general code examples. However you're obviously semi stuck on whatever engine you choose for the game unless you want to do a lot of porting work. In some ways more so with the simpler tools where a lot of the code may be in their proprietary format, but even if a fair amount of your code is e.g. in C# with Unity, I think it can still be quite difficult. Asset pack licencing may also be limited to whatever engine you've chosen if you're going down that route.

Nil Einne (talk) 10:53, 20 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Usenet

Can on simply, and for free, get on it and use it? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:25, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

For text newsgroups sign up at www.eternal-september.org. For binaries you probably have to go to a paid provider. Stay away from google groups. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:27, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. What's on binaries? Why stay away from google groups? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:31, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Binaries on usenet are supposedly mostly porn, warez, movie rips, that sort of thing. Google Groups has a terrible user interface, its gateways into usenet messes up the flow of discussions by people using normal newsreaders, so its users are thought of something like how AOL users used to be. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:39, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Understood about binaries. That's not for me.

Okay, I registered at www.eternal-september.org. I see hierarchies. I'm guessing those are the places. They are not clickable. How does one get into them? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:43, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I'm guessing I need one of these: Comparison of Usenet newsreaders. Is there an absolutely simple and small and free one? Anna Frodesiak (talk) 22:44, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The traditional ones were text based and those are the only ones I've used. From that list you might try slrn or tin. Thunderbird is also supposed to be pretty good and it does both news and email. Remember that a lot of this software predates the web. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 22:57, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will try those. Many thanks. You've been very helpful indeed. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 23:01, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

When I used usenet newsgroups a lot, I used Forté Agent. But then the newsgroups got so bad that I quit using them. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:35, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Bubba73, what do you mean got so bad? Do they talk rubbish or something? I do not even know what goes on there. Is it actually news? They're not talking about rude things, are they? It's not like a text version of that dreadful 4chan, is it? Best, Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I started using usenet newsgroups in 1991 and continued for many years. I follwed probably 8-10 of them. But then there got to be a lot of messages from trolls, advertisements, and irrelevant stuff. I gave up on them about 5 years ago. Maybe I should see how they are now, because they were a lot of fun and often very useful. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:46, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I'm curious now. Many thanks, Bubba73. :) Anna Frodesiak (talk) 03:48, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

If you use Emacs or want to go on yet another journey, Gnus is probably the best of the text-based usenet readers. There will be more of a learning curve, but you might even end up reorganizing your life around Org-mode (see emacslife.com for hints and tips). By Thunderbird I should have said Mozilla Thunderbird, which is a GUI program, though you've probably figured that out by now. That might be easiest. I see there is also List of Usenet newsreaders which includes nn and rn and some others in the text-based section. You could try those too. Eternal September explains where the name of your new news server came from. 173.228.123.166 (talk) 23:12, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

In my opinion NASA's WinVN is the best newsreader for Windows. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:46, 18 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I think our OP suffers from a fundamental misunderstanding of what Usenet actually is. One does not "get access to usenet." There is not any "central Usenet server" that hosts all the Usenet content. Rather, one can use the suite of technologies and notational conventions, commonly called usenet, to communicate with communities of other users who are also using the exact same stuff. This works in much the same way that one can use the suite of technologies that we call "e-mail" to communicate with others. There is no central place that handles all email; there is no central usenet server (not even the ones that were listed earlier in this discussion) - in actuality, there are numerous independently operated systems that sometimes coordinate and cooperate to share content. Usenet newsgroups are inherently decentralized. Some servers host clones of the most popular content; many servers choose to synchronize their content amongst each other - but none of those servers host the authoritative copy. You are "using usenet" any time you use nntp. Almost nobody actually does this anymore, because it has been largely superseded by other protocols - not the least of which are http, smtp, and - especially on modern, small form-factor computers - domain- and application- specific protocols wrapped in tls/ssl. Notably, the communities of people who still use nntp in this decade have become small, fragmented, and esoteric. Nimur (talk) 00:05, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

One important difference is that (ignoring mailing lists) Email is one-to-one, while USENET is one-to-many. In that respect it is like a decentralized uncensorable version on Twitter. --Guy Macon (talk) 04:01, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Why would you choose to exclude mailing lists? Most of the email traffic in the world today occurs on mailing lists. Here are some interesting statistics from Pew Research Center: Email and (Social) Network Size (2006); Email Rules The Workplace (2014); ... and so on. Email need not be exchanged between single individual senders and recipients - that's only one mode of operation. By golly, just think of the linux kernel mailing list - one that simply happens to be readable by the public - as a counterexample! Individual emails are sent to, and read by, tens of thousands of participants - and that's just direct recipients! In a corporate environment, such email lists are frequent. Nimur (talk) 22:52, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Mailing lists are a successful example of adapting a one-to-one communication method for one-to-many use, using additional software not included in standard email implementations. I configure my router through a one-to-one web page, but that in an example of adapting a one-to-many communication method to one-to-one. Neither example negates the main/original purpose of the respective communication methods. --Guy Macon (talk) 23:37, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I've read everything here a couple of times. Understood. Thank you all so much! Anna Frodesiak (talk) 04:43, 19 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

At one point, usenet was the place to go for discussion. Mailing lists were also around, of course, but not as easy to find (in part because there was no Google around at the time to search on). With the usenet groups, you could just browse the list and try whichever ones suited your fancy. Two things ended up killing the discussion groups. One was the September that never ended. I was part of that cohort, but got in the "old-fashioned" way. The other was the explosion of binaries-based groups. When I started paying for my own internet in the mid-90s, usenet access was standard, but as usenet became the safest place to post porn and movie/music rips, the bandwidth and server space required for it made it more trouble than it was worth for many ISPs. It is also the case that the usenet interface is not much different than it was 20 years ago; since the discussion groups don't control the newsreaders there's not really any way to make the experience "richer" or specialized in the same way that a web-based forum could do easily. Matt Deres (talk) 03:28, 22 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Back when this started happening, there were individual binary posts that were larger than all of the text posts for that week. And when ISPs started dropping binary newsgroups, the idiots started posting binaries in text groups.

The best thing that came out of USENET was the killfile.

Plonk

[Usenet: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for cheap booze, or `plonker' for someone behaving stupidly (latter is lit. equivalent to Yiddish `schmuck')] The sound a newbie makes as he falls to the bottom of a kill file. While it originated in the newsgroup talk.bizarre, this term (usually written "*plonk*") is now (1994) widespread on Usenet.