Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2008 July 5

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July 5

Japan mobile phone web markup language alphabet soup nightmare

I'm contemplating the construction of a simple website (in English and Japanese) for consumption via mobile phones in Japan. My head's swimming with markup languages. Au's EZweb uses (used?) HDML. Docomo's i-mode uses (used?) C-HTML (with Shift-JIS). Whatever HDML and XHTML 1.1 Basic are, they don't seem to be the same; yet I think I read somewhere that au uses the latter. And there are other companies and "standards" besides: this commercial page waffles on about how this or that company uses the advertiser's services to convert its cHTML (NTT DoCoMo/iMode) site to HDML (KDDI/au), MML (Vodafone [sic]), Edge and PMDX (DDI Pocket/Feel H" & H")[...].

So far, so horrible. Yet Wapedia is billed as a single site that caters for all mobile phones in Japan. A quick peek at the source of its top page shows no DOCTYPE declaration, but clearly it's some flavor of XHTML Transitional (with UTF-8 character encoding). I'd thought that Transitional went out with XHTML 1.0; is this "XHTML Mobile Profile"? Or is Wapedia sniffing the user-agent string and just giving something identifying itself as "Mozilla" the XHTML 1.0 Transitional that it thinks computer browsers like?

I think I can assume that all potential readers would have phones that are less than three years old. (Most would have phones that are much newer than that.) If I don't need proprietary e-moji and suchlike gimmickry, is there a one-fits-most solution? -- Hoary (talk) 02:03, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

PS this tells me that the http header specifies XHTML and UTF-8. This shows me that when visited by a bot it has a DOCTYPE declaration invoking this DTD ("XHTML Mobile 1.0") and again that it's UTF-8. How strange: when I look at the source again with a browser (this time Konqueror), again I see no DOCTYPE; instead, the page starts with the HTML tag. -- Hoary (talk) 05:11, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

I think they do a lot of user agent sniffing and transform the website according to each individual browser and its quirks, before sending it to the mobile phone. --antilived^{T | C | G} 05:28, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

What a bore. Ah well, my EZweb phone seems to understand both HTML and XHTML; I'll just have to experiment and then see if people using the other companies can see the results. -- Hoary (talk) 12:59, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

PPS I don't need forms (or any other kind of genuine participation by the bemused browser), but I would like to know what size/format of photos to dish up (my own, rather ageing phone manages to squash down fairly big ones, but quickly gives up with memory limits). And (deep breath) I'm thinking of supplying little videos too. -- Hoary (talk) 00:18, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Differences of software

What are the differences between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2008_June_25#music_and_programs and Max-MSP?68.148.164.166 (talk) 05:58, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Ubuntu Linux

How is it possible (if at all) to map a second drive onto Ubuntu Linux? I have a Vista machine which has two drives and my Ubuntu partition is only picking up one of them.

Thanks in advance.

--ChokinBako (talk) 12:16, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

What do you mean by drive: another physical harddrive or a partition? Does it show up on gparted or fdisk? (try sudo apt-get install gparted to install gparted or sudo fdisk -l to list all partitions in fdisk)? --antilived^{T | C | G} 12:29, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

It should automatically show up in Nautilus. In the sidebar in Nautilus (that is, the file-browser), see if there is any items that says something like "120 GB Drive" or something. Otherwise, open up GParted (install if necessary), and you can mount it from there. --Oskar 14:31, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Got it in your fstab? .froth. (talk) 03:21, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

DVB-T question

Just wondering, am I correct in thinking that there is a method which DVB-T broadcasters can assign fixed channel numbers to channels (i.e. so that all receivers will place them in the same order)? If so, how does it work in the cases of multiple multiplexes where they are managed by different companies? Thanks for any help. - ^Estoy_Aquí^{(t • c • e)} 13:01, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Although I can't find any reference for it in wikipedia I can tell you that each channel does (seem) to have a specific number attached to it eg in UK BBC1 is always 1, the auxillary BBC channels have numbers 301, 302 etc..

Digital Video Broadcasting explains that there are various bodies involved setting up the standards, I have no idea if the channel number is meta-data Digital_Video_Broadcasting#Encryption_and_metadata, or more fundamental

I'm not sure how different multiplexes could possibly interfere with this assignment? maybe I've not understood?87.102.86.73 (talk) 12:01, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Lost Windows XP admin password

I've fogotten my Windows XP admin password after a long vacation. How can I recover my data? I thought about demounting the HDD, connect it as an external HDD, backup the files and format it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mr.K. (talk • contribs) 17:52, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

There are many boot CDs that will reset the password for you, like ERD Commander or Hiren's Boot CD. You just set your BIOS to boot from a CD, insert the disk, and restart your PC. You can also try starting your computer in safe mode by pressing F8 during boot time and then logging into the Administrator account. Windows XP creates an account named Administrator by default. Often the password for that account is blank.--Hello. I'm new here, but I'm sure I can help out. (talk) 18:08, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

The easiest way is to boot windows into safe mode by pressing F8 while windows is starting (after the BIOS has loaded, but before the Windows XP logo comes up. Press it repeatedly), and select "Start in Safe Mode". Everything will look like crap, but you get access to an Administrator account which you can use to reset the password for any of the accounts. No need to download anything extra or booting from a different drive. Easy as pie! --Oskar 21:35, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Oh, sorry, I didn't see that Hello had already given this tip. How embarrassing :) --Oskar 21:45, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

If you don't want to use Safe Mode, you can also press Ctrl+Alt+Del twice on login screen and login as Administrator.

If you lost the Administrator password, but still have the Windows XP CD:

1. Boot from the install CD
2. Select to install Windows on the top of existing installation
3. When prompted, choose "repair install"
4. During the repair, press Shift+F10 (or Shift+F12 - I don't remember)
5. Type control userpasswords2 or lusrmgr.msc

--grawity 09:53, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

BartPE is a little more elegant than partially IPUing .froth. (talk) 03:20, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Bear in mind if you've encrypted any files with Windows Encrypting File System you won't be able to recover them unless you either remember your password or bruteforce it. If you have done so and want to recover your files I recommend you do not follow any of the above advice and instead look into it first since reseting your password could make your files virtually irrecoverable Nil Einne (talk) 17:08, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Remote Access

I have two computers connected to one router, both running Windows XP. One is a wired desktop, the other is a wireless laptop. What would be the easiest way to access the files on my desktop from the laptop? --Russoc4 (talk) 23:56, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Can you make the Desktop folder a shared folder ? If so, I think that should do it. StuRat (talk) 01:12, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Make sure in the network properties that the PCs have the same workgroup name. In windows explorer on the laptop under the tools menu, select "Map Network Drive." For the folder name put //desktopPCname/c$, but for "desktopPCname" put the name of the desktop PC. It will ask you for the administrator password of the desktop. The drive does NOT have to be shared, but you may have to disable some firewall SOFTWARE. You are protected from the outside because routers have HARDWARE firewalls. Well, I know mine does. You may want to double check that.--Wonderley (talk) 23:33, 7 July 2008 (UTC)