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December 30

Gfortran download (2nd attempt)

This is what I did. Google found me this website. From the list I chose "GFortranBinaries - GCC Wiki" link which led me to this page. There was a highlighted link: "MingW-w64" I clicked on that. That opened me this page. There was a button: "Download MinGW-W64" I clicked that and ended up on this page. There was a link highlighted there: "Download mingw-w64-v3.0.0.tar.bz2 (7.0 MB) " I clicked that. Then at the bottom of the page there was this security question: "Do you want to open or save mingW-W64-v3.0.0.tar.bz2 from hivelocity.d.sourceforge.net?" So, I saved it in downloads. So far nothing bad happened. I am doing it second time but the first time it wanted to open this file and I had no program to open it. I know there is a program on the web that can open bz2's. Before I go for it, I want to ask StuRat perhaps or someone else, familiar with this download if I am on the right track. Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks --AboutFace 22 (talk) 00:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Right track? By my count you've made at least half a dozen decisions in this project, and every single one has been wrong. Everything you do just gets you farther off track, and it's just wasting everybody's time to ask for advice about it. Looie496 (talk) 02:36, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Looie, could you be specific? You are big on generalities and you speak for other people for no reason. You were the one who insisted that I should use optimization on a task that do not allow it, which has no room for it. If you cannot say anything specific, just keep your mouth shut. Have you ever downloaded GFortran? What decisions did I make that are wrong? Be specific. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 03:31, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Put even more bluntly, the OP is repeatedly failing to demonstrate the basic competence that is prerequisite for the task he is (claiming to be) undertaking. The style of questions, the types of trouble, the total lack of self-directed troubleshooting, all indicate a profoundly novice level of knowledge - despite the OP's claims of expertise. More than a few of us following along can clearly see that this task is beyond the OP's current capability. Either the OP is intentionally wasting our time, or he needs to seriously rethink his endeavor.

Many others have volunteered specific help and instructional websites, but you seem to be struggling with first-steps - and even struggling to follow step-by-step tutorials. Do you need help finding introductory book on computing, or help locating an introductory programming class in your region? Numerical programming in FORTRAN is not a simple task, and you are still struggling with simple tasks. We can direct you to .bz2, and we can even provide instructions on how to install and use software to decompress this archive file format; but we will not hand-hold you through every keystroke. You'll probably have to pay good money for that!

In closing, I have downloaded and installed gfortran, and even compiled from source, on many many many operating systems in many troublesome environments. Nonetheless, downloading and installing it on Windows should take a user just a few moments. When we - anonymous volunteers on the internet, with nothing to gain or lose from your efforts - when we see that the OP needs a few days or weeks for this task, we quickly recognize something is awry, and it's more likely PEBKAC than FORTRAN. Nimur (talk) 03:46, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I think everyone is being too hard on About Face here. It's entirely possible to be an expert in Fortran yet never have downloaded anything before. This is because Fortran was often available at work, in a mainframe environment. Therefore, familiarity with downloading, decompression, web searches, etc., was not needed there, so we should help him out wherever we can.

As for his project, it may or may not work, but we should not discourage him from trying. Now, for the specific advice on how to decompress a tar/bz2 file, I use WinZip. It costs $30, but if you don't want to pay that, there's a free trial (30 days ?). They try to give you extra junk too, like AVG, but pick "customized download" and deselect all of that. I'm downloading Gfortran and WinZip on my new (Windows 7) PC now, to see if it all works smoothly here. I'll let you know how it goes.

So, keep at it, About Face, and you will become an expert in no time ! StuRat (talk) 14:42, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

UPDATE: I tried out what you were trying, About Face, and I was able to uncompress it with WinZip, but after that it seems to get rather complicated to install it. So, instead I found this YouTube video that walks us through a different download and install process: . They download a version of MinGW which has options to include Gfortran with it. I just used that method successfully. I do have a few comments and suggestions that differ a bit from the video, though:

1) You need to pick on the "Installation + Apply changes" pull-down menu once you select the packages to download. (If you pick all the other languages it takes quite some time.)

2) If you don't want to change the $PATH in the dangerous way he does it, I believe you can change it just for the current Command Prompt window (but I forget how, does anybody here know ?). Or you can compile right in C:\MinGW\bin, then move the executable elsewhere.

3) If you don't specify the output file name when you compile, it creates "a.exe", and you can then rename it.

4) Rather than pick a.exe from a window, if you type in "a" (or the new name) at the Command Prompt window, it will run there without that annoying problem of it closing the window once the program completes. I usually leave the name a.exe until I test it and decide to keep that version, then I give it a better name and maybe move it to another folder.

5) Here's a simple "Hello world !" test program for it (I named mine hello.f):

         program hello
         print *,"Hello world !"
         end

I stored that in the in C:\MinGW\bin directory, then typed "gfortran hello.f" , then typed "a", and I got the expected output. Once you are able to do that, then we are ready to try your code. There might be problems if it's written for an older Fortran version or another operating system, so let me know if you get errors.StuRat (talk) 16:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

StuRat, why did you learn to store your source-code and your compiled program in the compiler's bin directory? More to the point, why do you feel the need to spread that antipattern to others?

This is exactly why Looie496 expressed such frustration. The OP is so lost, he's following advice from somebody who doesn't know what they're doing, which leads to more confusion. The best solution here is for the OP to find a programming class taught by a reputable, experienced teacher, and learn the correct way to do things. At this stage of the game, you don't have the experience to distinguish between good advice and bad advice. Nimur (talk) 17:11, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting that he does that permanently, just as an initial test. Once he establishes that it can compile, he can set up proper directories, environment variables, etc. (It's important to test things with one change at a time, so, if there's an error, you know exactly where it occurred.) Also note that if he does accidentally delete anything from the compiler's bin directory, he just has to download it again to fix that, so it's not a serious risk. Globally changing the $PATH variable, on the other hand, is risky. StuRat (talk) 17:13, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

If you're the sort of person who is paranoid about putting extra items on your path, then you should use a fully qualified path name to specify the compiler; you should not be moving your working-directory into the compiler's bin directory. If you're the sort of person who is paranoid about putting extra items on your path, why are you permitting write-access to the compiler's bin directory in the first place? Probably because you don't know why you're following these rules. They're just arbitrary arcana, and you aren't using logic and critical thinking to understand them. That's called cargo cult programming, and it leads to very bad accidents. Nimur (talk) 17:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think fully qualified path names always work, because, while they will find the initial compiler, they won't find other things in that bin directory which that compiler needs to do it's job. StuRat (talk) 17:44, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

StuRat, you aren't sure which executable programs you want to run, but you don't want to add anything to your path to prevent yourself from running an unknown program. But, you will allow an ordinary user to have write privileges to a directory that allows the user to execute code. In other words, you have no idea why you're following these rules, but you repeat them - half-correctly - to other people. Nimur (talk) 17:52, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

A common solution is to have a script set up your build environment. The PATH is only modified for terminals that have run the script. You can also use the makefile - a set of declarations can add a prefix (possibly from an environment variable) to each of your build tools. This is useful when working on projects with multiple toolchains, such as something that requires a cross-complile. Katie R (talk) 18:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Yep, I've used those on larger projects, especially where there's a compile command followed by a link command. But gfortran does both with the single command, so when I just need to compile/link one program, it seems like overkill to use a makefile. StuRat (talk) 18:26, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have time now to read all new contributions but I only want to mention that I am really paranoid about software as one of the contributors guessed. I already ran into a trouble once with this download. I ended up with some Trojan or whatnot which eventually killed my OS to the point it could not start. I restored the OS from a system image. I will get back to this stuff on Jan 1. Happy New Year everyone. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 02:20, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

I can appreciate you being paranoid (I get like that when the Mother-in-law comes over to stay). Yet, if you could only beg-borrow-or-steel another machine and it solely load it with Linux, that would be cheaper in the long run that filling out a year's prescription of Xanax. Me thinks: you're torturing yourself (and us) for no good cause.--Aspro (talk) 14:59, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

Android -- setting status bar notification priority or grouping them

As in the title, is it possible? Ever since I updated to 4.3, the GOSMS status bar icon (for new SMS) often gets overwhelmed by the Twitter ones. I am rooted, so I don't mind flashing ROMs. I wouldn't even mind a paid app. What I'd like to do is either make some apps get priority for status bar space, or have the notifications grouped within a single icon, with possibly a small number indicating how many there are.

The abomination in question: http://i.imgur.com/SsOFDxQ.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.201.128.254 (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

December 31

Linux sound routing

Basically I want for my sounds from Rhythmbox/VLC to be routed towards Dota 2, and I also need to route my mic to Dota 2 voice chat too. Usually I use PulseAudio Volume Control and set Dota 2 sound input toward monitor of the speaker (?) but using that I couldn't use my mic for voice chat and it also routes my Dota 2 sounds to voice chat, which is a bad thing. I have even tried using JACK and qjackctl, but I simply doesn't understand it 119.2.49.170 (talk) 23:33, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

January 1

Noob looking for help with Javascript

First of all, Happy New Year everyone. I want to add the TimeAgo JavaScript to my website. But I'm a total noob. I see the website has a "Download" link. Okay, so I download the JavaScript code. What am I supposed to do with it now? Upload it somewhere on my own site? Thanks.--94.215.21.230 (talk) 10:59, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

From the link, it looks like the TimeAgo program uses the JQuery library, which you will need to download and install. The page you linked to provides examples of how to invoke the program from a web page: basically, JavaScript code is either added to an HTML file with the <script> tag, or it is included from an external file. W3Schools (at ) has a good introduction to JavaScript: if you've ever programmed before, you can pick it up in an afternoon. OldTimeNESter (talk) 20:55, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Htaccess rewrite rule in apache

I want to redirect: (1) http://mydomain.com/xyz to http://mydomain.com/mypage.php?url=xyz (2) http://mydomain.com/xyz/pqr to http://mydomain.com/mypage.php?url=xyz/pq (3) http://mydomain.com/xyz.jpg to http://mydomain.com/mypage.php?url=xyz.jpg

Only if the specified url doesn't exists. What can be htaccess rule or is there any other way? AmRit GhiMire 'Ranjit' (talk) 13:28, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Email = postcard?

According to electronic envelope: ". Just like the postcard, where any postal worker handling the mail can read its contents, any server operator and programs from governments can read your E-mail (also "email")."

I thought that the email servers would communicate through secure means with each other. OsmanRF34 (talk) 16:53, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Nope. That would require transport layer security, and the technology that we call email does not use it.

In principle, some email servers may choose to use secure transport sockets for some or all of the communication. But that type of security is not a technical requirement. In general, if you use email, you should assume that the message can be sent in plaintext across network links that you do not control.

This is why the technology Pretty Good Privacy, and its free software alternative GNU Privacy Guard, were created. These technologies allow you to provide encryption at the application layer. When you use such tools, you first encrypt your message securely, and then it is usually encoded in base 64 text and sent via email. That code text is still transmitted and received in "plain text," but because it was already encrypted, its plaintext form is meaningless unless the recipient has the key to decode and decrypt it back into the real plaintext message.

For comparison, technologies like Jabber do permit end-to-end transport layer security (provided that you correctly manage security settings and share the necessary keys securely). Conceivably, you could create a software application that looks and feels exactly like email, but is implemented under the hood by Jabber technology. The hard part would be getting an organization to adopt this technology. Email continues to exist - and will persist for many many years after better technologies can replace it - because unsecure communication is very convenient, and most organizations do not have the wherewithal to force a transition. Nimur (talk) 18:39, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

I work in IT for a international financial institution and we user TLS between servers, so the messages are encrypted over the network. HOWEVER I would like to add that it is actually a legal requirement that we be able to retrieve, recover and inspect company email in case of legal dispute or regulatory requirements. So we have to be able to read the email sent to and from our email servers. There are of course restrictions and approvals that need to take place before that happens, not anyone can just log on and do it, but we don't encrypt emails end to end not because we haven't bothered to 'adopt this technology', but because it is a legal requirement for us not to do so. Vespine (talk) 22:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

Even if connections between email servers always used SSL/TLS or another secure transport, each server would still see the plaintext of the email. The servers are the postal workers in this analogy. -- BenRG (talk) 23:02, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

January 2

Misplaced Pages's SSL certificate wierdness

Dear Wikipedians:

How come https://en.mobile.wikipedia.org would trigger a certificate warning. Whereas https://mobile.wikipedia.org and https://en.m.wikipedia.org would not.

I know that a wildcard certificate is used: *.wikipedia.org. My logic goes as follows:

1. If the wildcard is used in the same sense as the UNIX wildcard, then https://en.mobile.wikipedia.org should be allowed.
2. If the wildcard does not permit further dots inside its representation, then https://en.m.wikipedia.org should be disallowed, yet it is allowed.
3. If mobile is somehow excepted, then https://mobile.wikipedia.org should be disallowed, yet it is allowed.

Much appreciated if someone can elucidate this situation.

Thanks,

184.148.180.144 (talk) 20:23, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't have time right now to thoroughly dig into your interesting question, but take a look at Wildcard DNS record, wherein you'll be dismayed to discover that the meaning of wildcards is somewhat, er, wild. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:32, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with DNS. The wildcard in the common name does not permit dots. A certificate has an optional "Subject Alternative Name" field, which is where additional hostnames for which the certificate is valid can be added. This field lists *.m.wikipedia.org, which is why it's accepted. Unilynx (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Need low-level tool for sending HTTP requests

I'm looking for a tool for sending HTTP requests. Something that runs on Windows. Specifically, I'm looking for something that will let me send an HTTP 1.0 request without a host header. Every tool I've tried forces me to include a host header. I've tried Fiddler and several others. I even tried writing my own tool using .NET but the .NET Framework adds host header even if you remove it. Can anyone recommend anything? AnonComputerGuy (talk) 20:40, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Netcat -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:13, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

You'd build the request in e.g. foo.txt and then do nc 192.168.0.20 < foo.txt -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 21:25, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

But given that you seem to already be coding in .NET, I think you can solve this in that environment too. I imagine you're using .NET's http facilities (perhaps system.net.http.httpclient). Because it knows about HTTP, it's taking it upon itself to "fix" your request. You can avoid this if you avoid the httpclient library and use TCP directly (with e.g. system.net.sockets.tcpclient. You have to build the request yourself (but that sounds like what you want anyway) and handle the headers in the response anyway (which isn't very hard). -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 22:26, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

I presume you're doing this as part of some kind of debugging. Normally, of course, you really, really do always want the Host: header (and of course it causes no harm even if the webserver you're hitting isn't hosting multiple domains). —Steve Summit (talk) 23:22, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Using search engine

Apparently Google no longer thinks I should have full control over my searches. Is there any way to enforce that what is put between quotation marks is included in the search? For example I'm looking for a particular road safety video that was part of the "Think!" campaigns. Google thinks they know better and will also accept "think" but I inserted the exclamation point for a reason. --78.148.110.243 (talk) 21:30, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Google doesn't seem to actually index most punctuation and only cares about a select few (e.g. '@', '#'). Google's documentation can be found here: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433. 8.17.117.40 (talk) 21:42, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

Even if it's not indexed, they could still do the search. They would first need to retrieve everything indexed with "think" in it, then filter out those without the following exclamation mark. This would take quite a bit longer, of course, and they may refuse, due to the system load doing these type of searches would create. If the system load is the issue, it would be nice if they would allow you to do the filtering using your own PC, on the records they provide. StuRat (talk) 18:43, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Default settings in Word 2010

Whenever I create a brand new file in Word 2010, the following two settings are set as the default: (a) the font is set at Calibri; and (b) the paragraph setting has the item "Don't add space between paragraphs of the same style" with no check mark in front of it (and, hence, there is added space between paragraphs). Every time that I create a document, I change these two settings to: (a) Times New Roman font; and (b) a check mark added to the paragraph setting. Is there some way to set up as a default the settings that I want, rather than the pre-set Microsoft default settings? I looked around at "options", but that didn't seem to have the things I was looking for. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 23:47, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

You can apply style changes to the default stylesheet, as described here. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 00:08, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. I will check that out. Thanks a lot. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 17:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

January 4

Multi-factor authentication

This is the situation: we made a system for pharmacies that only needs a username and a password to gain access to very sensitive data. National standards, etc, now require the system to have a "two-factor authentication". For real proof of identity, you'd also need for instance a chipcard or an SMS. Both have disadvantages which I'd like to avoid. Also, I think these rules were made thinking of a system that is available via Internet for which obviously just a username and password do not provide enough security.

However, to gain access to our system you do need 2 factors. The first being able to guess a username and password; the second being that you need physical access to a PC in a pharmacy because you cannot reach the system via Internet. Even if you give someone your username and password, he'd have a hard time finding out what medication Ms. X is using. (Also, as soon as someone has access to a PC in a pharmacy, there's not much need to access a computer anyway because he could just look in the bags to see what medication people are taking.)

To make the case that we don't need extra security measures besides a username and password because the people having access to the system also must have managed to unlock the door, switch of the alarm, etc, I need an "offical" standard that acknowledges "physical access" being a "second factor" needed to gain access to a system. Does anyone know such a standard? 94.210.106.121 (talk) 02:11, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

When in doubt, I always consult the CFRs: the FDA has a CFR search engine. Title 21, Chapter II, 1311.100 through 1311.110 look relevant: it appears that there are actually very clear definitions for pharmacies (1300.03). "Two factor authentication" is required for certain activities, like servicing certain types of prescriptions. And, a security system only counts as "two factor authentication" (1311.105, for the purposes of these regulatory requirements) if it meets very specific standards defined in those regulations and their references. The CFR also references this National Institute of Standards and Technology publication: NIST SP 800-63-1 Electronic Authentication Guideline, so that also seems to be a relevant national standard (in the United States). Of course, I have no idea if you're subject to these or any other US regulations; interpreting that question is probably legal and medical advice... but it seems to me that a successful pharmacy business depends on very strict adherence to law and strict compliance with applicable regulations. Why don't you hire an attorney to help you navigate this issue? Nimur (talk) 05:29, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

One of the reasons for the rise in popularity of two-factor authentication is that, these days, there's just about no such thing as "not reachable via the Internet". Most computers are accessible remotely, either deliberately or by accident, and those that aren't may find themselves accessible tomorrow. So insisting on a separate, physical authentication factor really can improve security. (But, yes, at a cost in money and inconvenience. It's a sad truth in security that convenience and security are often mutually exclusive.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:55, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It's also worth remembering that looking in Ms. X's bag requires you to be present when Ms. X is picking up her medication. Beyond the possibility of breaking in when the store was closed which was mentioned, there's also the possibility of accessing the system at any time when staff are distracted to obtain the records not just of Ms. X, but Ms A, B, C, D, E, F, G,....

I presume any pharmacy who find someone repeatedly looking in customers bags is going to kick them out (not to mention I'm not sure how looking in their bags necessarily helps to obtain their home address, telephone number, medical conditions and what ever other private details are stored in the system).

If staff catch someone on the computer, they may call the police, but that's if they catch them (remembering you only need one successful attempt for all those details). And even then, the pharmacy staff probably can't detain them so you'd need to hope the police find them. And actually a little social engineering may mean people can easily get themselves out of such a situation without a call to the police, although they probably won't try it at the same pharmacy again.

There's also other risks like someone physically connecting something to the machine although these may still apply even with two factor and I assume there are additional requirements to reduce the risk from them.

All in all, although some may use physical access to a trusted computer as a form of 2 factor authentication, you may have less lucky convincing the regulators to accept that in a case where highly private information is involved.

P.S. Of course, all this assumes that the staff involved follow proper practice and don't do stupid stuff like leave their phone/smartcard/token/whatever next to the machine unattended. If they do, then there's little difference between the two in terms of physical access. (Remote access both that mentioned by scs and where they attached something to the system is still different.) But I don't know how much success you'll have in convincing the regulators that your system is just as good because people most behave poorly. You'll probably need a better system if you want to convince them of that.

P.P.S. It's perhaps also worth remembering that in a case like yours where physical access to a machine is ideally needed anyway, it may be intended that there's actually effectively 3 factor authentication at play.

P.P.P.S. Of course I'm assuming that such systems are as bad as most system I see reported and lack any data limit protections. If they aren't then maybe adversaries won't get so many people in one go presuming they don't find a way around them, but still likely more than people are comfortable with or that are plausible from looking in bags.

Nil Einne (talk) 18:24, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I can think of some flaws:

1) A hacker may be able to spoof their location to make it look like they are using a pharmacy PC.

2) The hacker may well use a worker at the pharmacy to insert a program that will extract large quantities of patient data. Let's say it's the God Hates Fags "church" and they want to know everyone who is taking AIDS meds, so they can burn their houses down.

3) The hacker might be able to gain control of the pharmacy PC remotely, without inside help, using the internet, then use that PC to access the database. StuRat (talk) 18:37, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Maybe I misunderstood, but my assumption from the OPs comments is we were referring to a situation where the database is stored on a local PC or network which theoretically isn't supposed to be internet accessible, so spoofing the location or pretending to be the pharmacy PC doesn't help. As scs highlighted, assuming the PC or network is never internet accessible is likely a mistake. But when that does happen, I'm not sure if it was intended to suggest that the physical PC requirement offered any protection. Nil Einne (talk) 19:04, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

As multi-factor authentication says in the lede, the factors are usually limited to "something you know", "something you have", and "something you are". Even if "somewhere you are" makes sense for authentication in your situation, it's not on that list, and you're unlikely to find a standard that includes it or lets you make up your own factors. But you may find a standard that doesn't require two-factor authentication for physically secure terminals. -- BenRG (talk) 20:19, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Monitoring and logging software

I'm looking for some suggestions on software to monitor and log what has been happening on our work computer running Windows XP. Once an hour we send out the weather by modem and it almost always goes OK. Sometimes though the computer will freeze up and a reboot is in order. So we are trying to identify the problem. It would need to log not only the keystrokes and mouse gestures but also other actions that the computer performed. I've been searching for software but all I can find is stuff that assumes I want to spy on the staff. Of course the cheapest solution would be best and keyloggers can be had for nothing but I had trouble finding anything that would show what buttons were clicked with the mouse. Software to record and automate mouse clicking is available but not really helpful. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 02:39, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

If you haven't tried it, you might be able to get useful information from the event logger that runs automatically (I think). See http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/snap_event_viewer.mspx?mfr=true. Looie496 (talk) 02:53, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Sorry I should have mentioned that I did look through the event viewer. It gives some information but not enough. I was able to tell from it that the last claimed occurrence of the computer freezing up was actually the user forgetting to send the weather out. If the computer had shut down and been rebooted there should have been a "The Event log service was started." entry. The last claimed problem before that is no longer in the log. CambridgeBayWeather (talk) 08:59, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

It seems to me that as long as you are dependent on somebody doing something every hour to send the weather report out, you are bound to have frequent failures. Can't this process be automated ? StuRat (talk) 20:37, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Detailed expertise on TCP active close?

With respect to Talk:Transmission_Control_Protocol#Choice_of_diagrams: Does anybody here know if there is an ACK expected on the transition from "Closing" to "Time Wait" when a TCP connection is being actively terminated? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 11:35, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Looking at RFC 793, page 23, Figure 6 "TCP Connection State Diagram", seems to me like the ACKs are expected (there is a second ACK between LAST-ACK and CLOSED). Seems to me that the picture in the RFC is the source for the .svg image, so reliable-source-wise there are grounds for having the ACKs. 88.112.50.121 (talk) 16:45, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree. That seems like an impeccable source to me. Thanks! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 19:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Mobile version of Wordpress website / Dudamobile / GoDaddy - Why do I need this?

Okay, this is I am sure the dumbest n00best question ever, but here goes - I'm going to try to be very clear : Recently I decided to have my own blog - an actual non-blogger blog, with hosting, so that I could keep the files on my computer and mess with the code etc. But I am sort of busy and lazy and not the best coder, so I decided on a hosting package from GoDaddy that was bundled with Wordpress. (Yes, I hate the elephant poaching, but I also want something that is not going ot disappear and that is cheap, and I, like alot of people, don't really know much about these things). So I made my little test-stage blog honeyrococo.com and am using a "responsive theme" from Wordpress, meaning that it is supposed to automatically resize depending on the device on which it is being viewed - laptop, montior, ipad, various phones, etc.

Now my first question then is - why did I need to activate the Dudamobile mobile site? There was a button I was require to push in order to make my mobile site "go live". I thought the Internet was just the Internet and that things would be available to phones if they were available on the Internet proper, no matter what. I assumed that some things would look crappy on the phone because the formatting was iffy, but I thought that anything that was on the Internet was also available to mobile devices. Are there whole areas of the Internet (Flash issues aside) that are just not available? (So that's Q1)

Q2 is - when I finally made my mobile site "go live" it looked great online. Even my friend in London (I'm in California) who saw it on his different phone said so. It looked just like the actual online version of the site. But then there was this tool I was subsequently supposed to use from Dudamobile and I thought I had to use it - it asked me all sort of stuff about my color scheme and layout and changed everything so now the layout doesn't even seem to work if you turn the phone. This despite the fact that the original theme was "responsive". Add to this that the new color scheme is problematic because you can only have one background color on the phone, and so I have to choose something light enough for text and dark enough not to be plain white. The mobile site also looks kind of ... empty.

Q3 : When the site first went "live" and my boyfriend could see it in London, it looked great on his phone and on mine here in Oakland, because it was just honeyrococo.com, but then I guess something somewhere in the system "updated" to now always refer it to something like mobile.honeyrococo.com which is where all the ugliness transpires. Is it not somehow possible to just have the honeyrococo.com responsive site load as honeyrococo.com on phones? Why do I need to have this intermediary "mobile" version? Is Dudamobile actually providing me a needed service? Or is it some kind of gatekeeper? Or worse, a parasite? Is it only there to make sites that aren't "responsive" look good? Is there anyway to get back to that Edenic moment of having just my normal site display on phones?

Thank you in advance for any help. I am sure that I am asking the dumbest most obvious question(s) of all. Saudade7 13:42, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Ugh. I can't tell you how to turn the gunky, mobile-"optimized" rendering off, but I can tell you that, yes, you're right, you shouldn't need it. (And don't worry, these are not dumb questions; IMO the only dumb thing here is the situation you've been put in, by experts who ought to know better.)

What you're up against is one of the great, eternal divides in web programming (and, for that matter, computing at large): generality versus specificity. One faction would argue that if HTML has no inherent screen size or resolution baked into it (which of course it doesn't), and if it has lots of mechanisms to support tailoring of a page's rendering based on the capabilities of the browser (which of course it does), then the obviously Right thing to do is to have one general-purpose version of your page that loads and works great on any browser, from the largest desktop to the tiniest smartphone screen. And your first experience proves that this is indeed possible.

BUT, there's this other faction that's just constitutionally incapable of accepting this situation. They come up with one little thing that looks bad on the biggest or the littlest screens, or that they want to do differently on the biggest or the littlest screens. (They might even be right; you obviously do want significantly different interaction styles on little touchscreens versus big screens with mice and keyboards.) But instead of rolling up their sleeves and figuring out a way of achieving their goal within the generic framework, they declare that for the "best possible", "optimized" user experience, we're all going to have to go with two wholly separate schemes, ponderously maintained in parallel. And you've seen the result.

Until you can figure out a way to turn the alternate gunk off, there might be a workaround: many "mobile optimized" schemes contain a little link somewhere to get back to the "desktop" version, for those die-hards who want to do it that way. See if you can find one of those lurking at the top or bottom of the page. (Or see if you can find a way to enable the mode-switching links, if they're available but off by default.) —Steve Summit (talk) 14:38, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

P.S. Even Misplaced Pages has a separate, mobile-optimized version, and I have to say it's not bad. Thankfully, it's not "ponderously maintained in parallel", at least not on the content side.

P.P.S. It's not just in computing, either; this tension between generality and specificity is pretty much universal. But as some evolutionary biologist said, "change favors the generalist". But the inverse is also true: in times of stability, the specialists are gonna win. 14:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks Steve Summit for the sympathy and the link suggestions. I was trying to just put the http://honeyrococo.com/?no_redirect=true thing somewhere and see if that worked, but I will look into these other things that you suggest. I'm really sort of clueless so I will go google about and see what I come up with. :-) Saudade7 16:17, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

I seem to have fixed it - rather unbelievably - by simply "turning off mobile site" - before I guess there was a redirect to the mobile site, but not there isn't? Actually not sure what I did but happier. Wouldn't have discovered that without your help and encouragement to go fight the power and sniff around some more. Thanks Again Steve. Saudade7 16:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Downloading in WinServ 2008.

Well, it is the time again for me to ask stupid questions :-) This is what happened. I reinstalled my old Windows Server 2008, ran all updates, etc and now I want to download Hyper V and quite possibly other software. I found a microsoft website that offers the downloads and ran into a small problem: I have to download first Microsoft Download manager. I actually has done it many times before but in other OS. Now my Firewall blocks the download "Security Alert: Your current security settings do not allow this file to be downloaded. " - this is what I get in a small pop-up. I am kind of afraid to turn the firewall off even for a single download so I tried to set up an exception. In "Windows Firewall" I clicked on "Change Settings." A window "Windows Firewall Settings" comes up. I added TCP port 25, called it "Inbound Port 25." and nothing happened. The download is stil blocked. What is wrong? What would be the other way to run safe downloads? Thanks, --AboutFace 22 (talk) 18:57, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Rather than not allowing any downloads, you can set it to prompt you each time. StuRat (talk) 20:25, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

You don't need Microsoft Download Manager. They may recommend it, but you can download their files without it.

Why do you think the message came from Windows Firewall? A quick web search suggests that the "Your current security settings..." message is from Internet Explorer and you need to change the settings there. And why do you want to unblock port 25? That's the SMTP port. It seems like you're trying things completely at random... -- BenRG (talk) 20:31, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Port 25 is SMTP port for some, inbound port for others. Well, anyhow I could not find so far how to prompt for the download every time (answering StuRat's suggestion). WinSer is a paculiar environment. Microsoft Download manager is NEEDED for downloading large files whereas it can download portions of a single file piecemeal and also it keeps track of all downloads which is very convenient. Thanks for contributions. I suggest to BenRG you either abstain from your inappropriate comments ("doing things at random") or stay clear off my posts. It is a WARNING!!! And it is the last one. --AboutFace 22 (talk) 20:47, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

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