Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 August 17

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August 17

terabyte thumb drives

When I look at thumb drives on ebay I see sizes up to 1 terabyte, but prices of the terabyte drives vary wildly. I see a Kingston drive for $3000 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/1TB-Kingston-Predator-HyperX-USB-3-0-Memory-Stick-Flash-Back-Up-Drive-/300860018410?pt=UK_Computing_FlashDrives_SM&hash=item460ca78eea#ht_2435wt_1164) and another drive (not sure of the brand) for $150 (http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-1-Terabyte-1000-GB-USB-2-0-Thumb-Drive-Flash-Drive-1-TB-2-0-USB-Memory-Drive-/130967942058?pt=US_USB_Flash_Drives&hash=item1e7e4c33aa#ht_683wt_1164). Why is there such a difference in price? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daselectronics (talk • contribs) 04:58, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Because the second one is probably a scam. Nothing is given to prove the claim that they are terabyte (never mind the fact that a terabyte is actually 1024GB), and nobody ever purchased one of the available sticks. If they had, the person would no doubt have had their product "lost in the post", and find that "no refunds are available". The Kingston one is more likely to be real, and the price looks right for that reason. The actual production cost would be cheaper, but there is no competition for this end of the market, so prices are seriously inflated.  drewmunn  talk  08:57, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I'm not certain how they intend on selling one for $3K when they're available at Amazon for half that price. Dismas|^(talk) 09:29, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Because it's not hyper-inflated by an eBay user. Rule 101: don't buy from eBay.  drewmunn  talk  10:28, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Actually plenty of memory storage product suppliers use decimal bytes, I think because they devote the the rest for wear levelling (well this has been the only explaination I've ever seen offered). Kingston doesn't seem to explain what they mean by 1TB, their next lowest is 512GB which may suggest they mean binary bytes but not necessarily, they may be using some strange hybrid as some vendors use for example 1TB meaning 1024 decimal GB. However I do agree the product is obviously fake. Nil Einne (talk) 11:43, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear, you're saying that the $150 model is fake. Right? Because the device does exist. Dismas|^(talk) 12:08, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes, the cheaper one's fake, the Kingston one on eBay is around 200% it's already-overinflated sales value.  drewmunn  talk  12:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Yes sorry if I was unclear. My point about Kingston is that there's a fair chance they're using decimal bytes as well even if they are also most likely using 1024 decimal GB=1TB. So it's silly to assume the other product is fake just because they say 1TB=1000GB (there are plenty of reasons to think it is fake, this is hardly one of them). I presume one of the reasons why Kingston and other memory product vendors have started to use 1TB=1024 decimal GB is because there's no need to keep increasing percentage of the disk devoted to wear levelling which I presume is where the extra space is going and why they use decimal GB (and decimal MB before that, remember that any memory product would ultimately be in chips with binary bytes unlike with HDs). Nil Einne (talk) 12:50, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I know it's common to market it in that manner, but in those circumstances, it's never listed as 1000 bytes, that's hidden deep in legal print. It's usually done predominantly to make their storage look larger without actually adding in the extra storage required. My point was more that no right-minded seller would put foremost the fact that they're measuring in decimal rather than binary. It's a bit like saying "Car! Now with no wheels!"  drewmunn  talk  12:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that's really true, plenty of HD retailers advertise 1TB HDs as 1000GB ones. Also as I indicated there' a fair chance the 1TB Kingston is neither binary nor decimal but some weird combination of both as happened with FDs etc. Nil Einne (talk) 12:41, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

(EC) BTW, it's generally not possible to sell on eBay with "lost in post" and "no refunds available". The vendor can say whatever they want, in most cases, if the item was purchased with PayPal (and in most countries eBay still requires PayPal to be offered) the seller needs proof of delivery, if they lack that they will find the money will be given back to the buyer if there are any complaints about the item not received (if they'e disappeared and withdrawn all their money, PayPal will take the hit) no matter what the item listing or negotiations with the buyer said (very occasionally PayPal may take the hit anyway if they believe the seller has acted in good faith but this is very rare). There are many complaints of sellers about the policy and most nonscam bulk HK/China sellers of cheap products no longer even bother to claim no refunds, in fact making it clear a refund will be offered after a certain time period if the item doesn't arrive. Any smart scam seller of small scale products doesn't bother with trying 'no delivery', that's only worth it when selling laptops and similar expensive stuff and preferably when you can convince the seller to bank in the money (or at least are planning to sell a bunch of high value items and quickly disappear). Instead as with most memory storage product scams, the 1TB USB stick will be delivered but won't be 1TB, in fact the listing says something strange about only 5GB at a time and feedback confirms it's fake. In reality a seller will probably still win an "item not as described" complaint, but such complaints are harder to win particularly since you're generally dealing with outsourced support who are mostly working from a script, still with preseverance and knowing what to say I think you'll win. (Again you can see the many complaints from legitimate sellers about such complaints.) Of course the seller is entitled to ask you to return the item (at your expense) and then it becomes your responsibility to provide proof of delivery if the seller claims they never received the item which they probably will if they don't think you have proof of delivery. More importantly, most people don't seem to bother to or don't know how to test the stick properly so when it says 1TB they think it is (some products will fail when you try to write but I think some will succeed, they just won't store the 1TB. Nil Einne (talk) 12:21, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

PayPal are getting better at resolving issues, but there are quite a lot of scammers who work to ensure you never get as far as reporting such an issue. If they play you around long enough, you'll either give up, or forget after a while. They also figure that you'll not know enough to claim against any incorrectly labelled goods, as you said.  drewmunn  talk  12:44, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Drewmunn and others are probably right. The $150 drive seems to be a scam drive. I searched for "fake flash on ebay" and found all sorts of eye opening reports. One describes these drives as "low capacity flash drives (and memory cards) that have been "hacked" so that they appear to have much more capacity than is physically present on the drive". This seems confirmed by details in the ebay item description. Maximum transfer amount 5 (GB) gigabytes of data transfer at a time." This is a strange statement for a real drive, but would make sense as a disclaimer for a scam drive. So, it's not a question of 1024GB vs 1000GB, but perhaps 1000GB vs 8GB. This also seems to explain alot of other wild price variations for 256GB and 512GB thumb drives as well. Shouldn't ebay stop these scams or warn the buyers? Daselectronics (talk) 17:38, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Just as a side-note, the small transfer limit isn't actually that unusual, it's a technical limitation of the FAT32 disk formatting system (although the limit is actually 4GB - 1B), which is used on most external media to ensure cross-compatibility.  drewmunn  talk  18:03, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

The fakes are real! (Oxymoron?) I just downloaded a copy of h2testw from heise.de and used it to check out a 32GB memory card I bought a few weeks ago. It took a while to run, but it came back and confirmed only "7.6 GByte OK" and "23.5 GByte DATA LOST". (The test wrote a series of 1GB files, so the 4GB FAT32 file limit was not a factor.) I'm past that seller's two week return policy, so my $23 is probably lost. I'll stay away from the $150 drive though. Daselectronics (talk) 21:25, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't exactly understand what that's meant to mean (having not used that tool myself, I don't know what the outcome should be), but if it's not as advertised, you should be able to get a refund. Seller-imposed returns are not the limit of your rights; I don't know how the US work, but we have distance selling regulations in the UK, and can report "item not as advertised" to eBay in the case of hobby sellers, who will initiate a case under false advertising. In that case, you should be able to recover your money easily enough.  drewmunn  talk  21:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. I filed a copmplaint with Paypal, and they refunded my money. I didn't even have to return the card because it was a counterfeit ADATA card. They seemed to be very familiar with this problem. 63.235.156.35 (talk) 13:57, 21 August 2013 (UTC)

Steps using V - Look up and H - look up functions in MS Excel . Explain with example

Steps using V - Look up and H - look up functions in MS Excel . Explain with example — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.91.215.55 (talk) 08:55, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

Imagine you have two columns of data (perhaps name and phone number) in range B2:C99 . Then if you have a name in A2 (say "Joe Hill") you can put =VLOOKUP(A2,B2:C99,2,FALSE) into cell A3 and get the resulting phone number for Joe Hill. Note that if there is no match you will get an error value. The A2 is what you are looking for. The B2:C99 is where you are looking - in fact you are looking in the first column of the range, the 2 says to return the data found in the second column of the range in the row that matches the found data. The false makes it use an exact match. -- 82.44.187.221 (talk) 14:51, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Laptop washing

My laptop is full of dust. I tried to clean it, but the latch to open it broke. Is there some other trick to get the dust out? The vents have become near airtight, just blowing air in there doesn't do anything. --11:16, 17 August 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.175.225.92 (talk)

try a vacuum cleaner. a shop-vac might be to strong. you might be able to use your mouth, but dust in lungs can't be good. 70.114.248.114 (talk) 18:05, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

I don't think you should wash it, if that's your plan. Look at this article for some tips on cleaning the dust. You'll have to get inside and then use some fine-tools (like paintbrushes, cloths etc. - you don't want to damage the parts!) If you can't get inside and you have to blow through the vents then I guess you can try what 70.114.* suggested with using a vacuum cleaner. Good luck! --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 18:36, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

if you do open it to clean it, take the battery out first. don't use water. and don't touch any circuits with finger tips, due to possible static digarge and breaking fragile pieces. use latex gloves if possible, but not dish washing glove (for example) cause they reduce dexterity. i haven't priced them lately, but they sell anti-static mats (probably at some computer stores.) its a rubber mat a few feet square, witch you set the computer on. there's also a wrist band with a metal cord running from the wrist to the mat. i would advise buying one if it's cheap. hope that helps, 70.114.248.114 (talk) 19:10, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

• WikiHow's How to Clean a Laptop page may be helpful. :) ~XapApp(Talk·Contribs) 01:14, 18 August 2013 (UTC)

"there's also a wrist band with a metal cord running from the wrist to the mat"

I second that if you plan on doing more than slightly occasional work on electronics at all. Antistatic wrist strap Probably saved at least of couple of computers in my lifetime.

Jdphenix (talk) 03:24, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

I second the idea of using a vacuum on it, without opening it up. Blowing air in might cause dust to lodge in bad places and opening it up can cause all sorts of problems. If the vents are matted with something like hair, you might want to use a pin to dig it out, but don't stick it too far in. And, if you can't get enough dust out and it overheats, you might want to add some external cooling method, like placing it on a metal plate or pointing a fan at it. Using it in a cool room also helps. StuRat (talk) 06:59, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Why can't vacuuming it not cause dust to lodge in bad places? --Wirbelwind(ヴィルヴェルヴィント) 00:07, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

It certainly seems less likely. Either the dust will stay where it is, or, if the vacuum causes it to break loose, it should continue into the vacuum cleaner. I suppose you could imagine an eddy current which redirects it elsewhere, but actually blowing the dust further in seems far more likely to cause it to get jammed into a tight spot. StuRat (talk) 07:33, 22 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, all. I hadn't thought about using a vacuum. I don't have a vacuum at hand here right now but it'll probably work to a degree. --81.175.225.92 (talk) 16:47, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Google serach didn't help - Microsoft Word 2007/2010

What Hotkey uses to insert simple fraction boxes? (while or while not using Word Equation?) Much thanks. Ben-Natan (talk) 12:17, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

It should be as simple as using a slash '/' in the equation, then typing a space after when you're done. So

 1/2 

will render what you expect in the formula editor. Note you have to use parentheses to maintain order of operations, so

 a+b/c+d 

is different from

 (a+b)/(c+d)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jdphenix (talk • contribs) 03:28, 19 August 2013 (UTC) 

Thank you so much man ! I owe u a beer ! Ben-Natan (talk) 09:43, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Firefox

how do i backup my bookmarks and history in Firefox (v 8.0)? thank you, 70.114.248.114 (talk) 18:17, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

See this thread. Also, if this is about you upgrading from 8 to 23 (current), then I believe your bookmarks and history might get deleted; not 100% sure - so it's definitely a good idea to back them up before making such a big jump. --.Yellow1996.^(ЬMИED¡) 18:32, 17 August 2013 (UTC)

that worked, thanks. 70.114.248.114 (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2013 (UTC)