Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2011 July 22

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July 22

restoring read-only files to read-write

Somehow, I don't know how, all my files in a few folders were made into read-only. Is there a way I can make them all read-write again? (I wonder if it happened due to some combination "shortcut" keys I accidentally typed (being a poor typist)?) The OS is Vista. --Halcatalyst (talk) 01:02, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You should be able to change it in the folder/file properties. Right-click on a folder or file, then go to properties. Down the bottom is a tick-box option for read-only. - Akamad (talk) 01:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

That was easy! Thank you very much. --Halcatalyst (talk) 02:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Radio on the ipad

Hi. Is it possible to listen to BBC Radio 4 on the ipad? Googling left me utterly confused. Thanks, Robinh (talk) 01:25, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

It is. Just open the web browser, go to the Radio 4 website (bbc.co.uk/radio4) and click on the play live. Hope this helps. Rcsprinter (talk) 12:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

hi. nope, does not work; when i try, it says I need to download flash, which does not work on the iPad. any other ideas? Robinh (talk) 04:15, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

See here http://faq.external.bbc.co.uk/questions/radio/online_radiohowto/?src=interstitial for non-flash Radio access to BBC Radio. ny156uk (talk) 06:53, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

or get the bbc iplayer app for Ipad (sorry that's probably a simpler solution - it's free too, at least here in the UK). ny156uk (talk) 06:55, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for this. Unfortunately I seem to be hitting brick walls (I'm based in NZ, which seems to make a difference). There doesn't seem to be an ipad app that works for radio, and the BBC FAQ doesn't seem to help. Does any refdesker not in the UK have access to Radio 4 on an ipad? Cheers, Robinh (talk) 08:09, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Are security requirements considered to be a Non-functional requirement

It is certainly on the list in the article, but many elements seem to me to be functional requirements. For example audit, non-repudiation, single sign on, etc. -- Q Chris (talk) 12:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

The difference is purely semantic. Various authors of systems-engineering textbooks will use different terminology to describe system design. Nimur (talk) 16:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Security requirements are usually categorized as non-functional requirements. However, depending on the requirement, sometimes specific features, behaviors, and/or design choices are mandated. You can make a good argument that requirements like that are not non-functional. The bottom-line is: categorizing requirements is just a practice for organizing and managing them; it does not affect the substantive criteria that define what an acceptable solution is. The important thing is you have a complete, correct, and well-expressed set of requirements. There is some value in organizing requirements into categories, but beyond a certain point, finding the single "correct" category to put a requirement in may become an unproductive exercise, especially if it involves hair-splitting. --98.114.98.196 (talk) 14:22, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Facebook down?

I keep getting "Account temporarily unavailable Your account is currently unavailable due to a site issue. We expect this to be resolved shortly. Please try again in a few minutes." Anyone else having problems? DuncanHill (talk) 13:29, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Nope. But it has been a few minutes since you posted this. --Mr.98 (talk) 14:05, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I find the site http://www.downforeveryoneorjustme.com/ to be quite useful at times like that. ny156uk (talk) 06:52, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that would work in this case. DuncanHill isn't claiming that Facebook is offline entirely, just that they're having some sort of malfunction. DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.Com would connect to facebook dot com, retrieve their page that says "Account temporarily unavailable..." and say "Yup! This web page is still online! It's still serving content!". It's not smart enough to know that the content is just a page explaining that facebook isn't working. APL (talk) 10:16, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, sorry I didn't get back sooner. Well, it resolved itself after a few minutes. What was puzzling me was that although I've occasionally have Facebook go down entirely, I've never had the "Account temporarily unavailable" message before. DuncanHill (talk) 16:06, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

what's the best computing language to learn?

Hi folks :) is C++ the best all-purpose computer language to learn if one is interested in a career in comp/sci or programming, or has Java or C-sharp taken over? It's been emotional (talk) 18:22, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

You should learn several programming languages if you intend to become a professional software engineer. After you have learned three or four different types of languages, you should take a break, far from any computers (I recommend a camping trip without any electricity or network connection). And, you should sit alone in the woods, and say, "Am I a Systems Programmer? C : Java;" Nimur (talk) 18:32, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

C/C++ is the most all-purpose language in that if you know the basics of C/C++, you can quickly pick up all the other popular languages. As an example: Technically, I learned assembly first, but my first normal language was C, then C++. In the military, I needed to know COBOL. I picked it up while flipping through a COBOL manual in the truck on the way to the programming office. Then, in college, I needed to know Java. I flipped through a Java textbook and picked it up in a couple hours. A harder one was ADA. I needed it for an Air Force contract. It took me a weekend to pick it up. You don't become an expert programmer in a couple hours, but you "get" the syntax because it is very similar to C/C++. Then, you can quickly look at how it is different from C/C++ and go from there. I see it as starting at the trunk of the programming tree and going out on the branches. If you first learn the tip of a branch, it takes a lot more effort to figure out how to work at the tip of another branch. -- kainaw™ 18:48, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, very helpful advice. Nimur, is it a compromise if I just find some place like the one on your userpage? I'm not good at surviving without electricity, although I could probably make do without a network (read: Wikipedia) for a while, just to get some work done :) It's been emotional (talk) 18:59, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I always suggest that people start by learning a simple, clean, powerful language like Racket or Python. Industry-oriented languages have a lot of cruft that can get in the way of the really important stuff. If the only language you know is some big, heavy thing like Java or C++, you'll tend to focus too much on trivial decisions instead of on getting a good overall design. Picking up new languages is easy, but learning how to think about computation is hard and very important, so learn with as clean and simple a language as possible, not one that was designed to trade programmer effort for faster execution time. Paul (Stansifer) 23:46, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that's good sound advice. Also you should always try scripting the use of other tools first when solving a problem, it's normally far faster at getting an adequate solution and shows up any real problems much quicker than rolling your own. Dmcq (talk) 15:38, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Norton Anti-Virus

Resolved

I have realised (somewhat to my shock) that over half of my laptop's internal hard drive is given over to Norton's "Virus Defs" folder.

I'm keen to free up that space on the computer. So my question is this: if I move that folder to an external hard drive, how can I make Norton "map" to the new location and find its Virus Defs there? And, of course, force it to update its Virus Defs at the new location, also, whenever it updates? AndyJones (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Either your laptop has a very small hard drive, or you should replace Norton. I'd probably replace Norton regardless, it's awful. ¦ Reisio (talk) 02:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Well I'm personally using Norton Internet Security 2011 and I don't have any problems with it. I don't know if perhaps your experiences are based on versions from about 5+ years ago (which truely were bloated/terrible), but the last few releases haven't caused me any issues or noticeable slowdown, it just works. To the original poster, the definition files should be around 200Mb in total, at least that's what I get based on definitions released a few hours ago. My version is only keeps the latest definitions though so depending on which version of Norton you have it may be storing the previous 2-3 different defintions and thus 3 times that disk space. If you have considerably more space being used than that being used though then it might be worth uninstalling and reinstalling it to see if that fixes the problem. As far as I know though it isn't possible to move the definitions to another drive, probably because they're treated as critical files and therefore must/should be available at all times and as such the C: is the only place for them, but another person may know otherwise!  ZX81  ^talk 02:26, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Seems to only get worse as time goes by IME. 2011 still needs a "removal tool" to uninstall it after you "uninstall" it, right? :p ¦ Reisio (talk) 07:27, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

To put my question into context, the VirusDefs "properties" dialog tells me it has a "size on disk" of 34.8GB, and contains 15,426 files in 781 folders. The answers above suggest it shouldn't look like that, at all. Is there any merit in just removing the folder (onto a backup disk rather than just deleting), then sending Norton off to do a live update (which would presumably restore the current set only)? AndyJones (talk) 11:43, 23 July 2011 (UTC)

Thank you to those who replied. Problem resolved by using the Norton removal tool. AndyJones (talk) 13:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)