Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[Zelig]

I'm not sure what messages you refer to? You don't need a SIM card to activate either, you can just use wifi or itunes. An iPhone SE without a SIM is basically identical to a 6th-gen iPod Touch in functionality.

I'm going to Japan in a few months and plan on picking up a data SIM at the airport for my phone, free/public wifi coverage is less common than here.

 

[warpus]

I am renting a pocket wifi thingy instead of getting a SIM card

and as far as I can tell the only way to activate an iPhone SE without a SIM card is the phone activation "trick". I haven't tried it, didn't have to, but apple really wants you to have a SIM card in there before you activate. For some reason.

Where are you going to in Japan, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Zelig]

Not sure yet. Flying in and out of Tokyo with my snowboarding gear in Jan/Feb. Two and a half weeks to travel around and snowboard.

 

[warpus]

Cool. I have a 16 page long (and growing) travel doc, with assorted info and tips. I can share that with you when I come back, if you want. I won't be snowboarding at all, but I'll be spending a lot of time in similar places as you I'm sure.

 

[Zelig]

Yeah, send it on when you get back.

 

[GenMarshall]

This may be a stupid question, but I feel it's the only place I can ask (it's a bit related to adding skill set to my resume for getting my foot in the door in IT). Are there any suggested materials and resources that I can use for preparation for an A+ certification exam?

 

[shadowplay]

I have a question about what falls under the general definition of "hacking." These aren't CFC accounts in question.

If person A deliberately and knowingly shares their password with person B, and person B signs on with person A's information to access an area they aren't meant to have access to, does this qualify, even loosely, as "hacking"?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm having an aggravating problem with Firefox. It keeps crashing.

The message I got was something called a "breakpoint" and happened when I tried to access CFC and other forum (I didn't try any other sites).

I'm using a laptop with Windows 8.1, Firefox was just updated.

Currently I'm using IE and not too happy about that...

This is not a problem for my Windows XP laptop.

Any suggestions?

 

[Quintillus]

I have a question about what falls under the general definition of "hacking." These aren't CFC accounts in question.

If person A deliberately and knowingly shares their password with person B, and person B signs on with person A's information to access an area they aren't meant to have access to, does this qualify, even loosely, as "hacking"?

No, that isn't hacking. A breach of trust (assuming person A didn't give person B their credentials for the purpose of allowing person B to access that area), but not hacking. Person B didn't break into anything, or socially engineer anything, to gain access.

It would be the equivalent of person A giving person B their house keys so person B could water their plants while they were on vacation, and person B also looking at person A's tax documents in their desk drawer while they were plant-sitting. Person B didn't break and enter to gain access to person A's house, but they did breach the trust of person A (assuming person A didn't call them and say, "hey, can you check my return for last year so I can get back to my accountant about my IRS audit?").

I'm having an aggravating problem with Firefox. It keeps crashing.

The message I got was something called a "breakpoint" and happened when I tried to access CFC and other forum (I didn't try any other sites).

I'm using a laptop with Windows 8.1, Firefox was just updated.

Currently I'm using IE and not too happy about that...

This is not a problem for my Windows XP laptop.

Any suggestions?

It sounds like the web developer tools may have been accidentally enabled, which can happen. Is there a second Firefox window that appears, or is there an area of the main Firefox window that isn't dedicated to showing the site, but that breakpoint information?

The shortcut to toggle these tools is Ctrl+Shift+I. If they're displaying inadvertantly, that will close it; it can also accidentally (or intentionally) open it; I've accidentally opened them before when trying to italicize something. They should remain unopened upon restarting the browser as well.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

It sounds like the web developer tools may have been accidentally enabled, which can happen. Is there a second Firefox window that appears, or is there an area of the main Firefox window that isn't dedicated to showing the site, but that breakpoint information?

The shortcut to toggle these tools is Ctrl+Shift+I. If they're displaying inadvertantly, that will close it; it can also accidentally (or intentionally) open it; I've accidentally opened them before when trying to italicize something. They should remain unopened upon restarting the browser as well.

It's a small box that pops up in the middle of the screen.

Internet Explorer won't work on that computer, either, now. I did manage to get Chrome working yesterday, but I'm not confident it's going to stay working.

Right now I'm using my XP, and Firefox has just updated.

 

[Quintillus]

That sounds odd. Old versions of IE used to occasionally pop up an error message if there was a JavaScript error on a page, but I'm not sure they've done that since IE6 - maybe 7, but I think it was gone by 8. Definitely by whichever version 8.1 comes with.

Although I think it's often jumped to as a suggestion too quickly, it sounds odd enough I'd probably be looking at running a MalwareBytes scan just to make sure there isn't anything fishy running. At first it sounded like some accidental configuration of Firefox, but if IE is having issues as well, it points at a potential software issue outside the browser. Although, without knowing more about how IE won't work (won't load any sites? or pops up a similar error? just on CFC, or all sites?), it's hard to diagnose what the main problem really is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

That sounds odd. Old versions of IE used to occasionally pop up an error message if there was a JavaScript error on a page, but I'm not sure they've done that since IE6 - maybe 7, but I think it was gone by 8. Definitely by whichever version 8.1 comes with.

Although I think it's often jumped to as a suggestion too quickly, it sounds odd enough I'd probably be looking at running a MalwareBytes scan just to make sure there isn't anything fishy running. At first it sounded like some accidental configuration of Firefox, but if IE is having issues as well, it points at a potential software issue outside the browser. Although, without knowing more about how IE won't work (won't load any sites? or pops up a similar error? just on CFC, or all sites?), it's hard to diagnose what the main problem really is.

The browsers keep crashing, period. I keep getting messages I don't understand (they're probably quite clear to someone who knows about this stuff).

I did check to see which version of IE I was using; it's IE 11.

 

[IglooDame]

This may be a stupid question, but I feel it's the only place I can ask (it's a bit related to adding skill set to my resume for getting my foot in the door in IT). Are there any suggested materials and resources that I can use for preparation for an A+ certification exam?

Not a stupid question. Have you searched through Youtube? I've seen lots of good stuff there, alongside videos for every other task one would ever want to do but don't have a clue how to start (like home maintenance stuff, for me).

 

[Samson]

If I have a list of things like this:

Person |Clothing | Colour
Alice | Top | White
Alice |Skirt |Yellow
Bob |Top |Blue
Bob |Trousers |Gray

And I want to change it into a table like this:

| Top |Skirt |Trousers
Alice |White |Yellow |NULL
Bob |Blue |NULL |Gray

Is there a tool designed for the job? I frequently have to do things like this, and I end up writing a bit of code for each task, but it must be a common situation that someone has made code to do. For reference the actual data I am using will result in a table that is 3,130 by 133,187 with 35,216,478 data points, so about 8% full (92% NULL).

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Easy one. I am now using my first-ever Windows (10) machine.

For many years, I downloaded a photo a day from a blog. I opened it in (Mac) Graphic Converter and annotated the place and date in what I think is called the meta-data. So now I download the photos each day and open them in the (Windows) program "photo." There is no obvious way to note the information on the file now. Further, there seems to be no way to read the data I entered on the photos while using the Mac.

How can I proceed?

 

[warpus]

Is there a tool designed for the job?

If your data sits in a database it would be easy enough to write a series of SQL statements to produce the report you want.

 

[Birdjaguar]

If I have a list of things like this:

Is there a tool designed for the job? I frequently have to do things like this, and I end up writing a bit of code for each task, but it must be a common situation that someone has made code to do. For reference the actual data I am using will result in a table that is 3,130 by 133,187 with 35,216,478 data points, so about 8% full (92% NULL).

Even if your data is in a table (in Excel or similar program) you can export it to any database program to produce the reports you like. In fact, I suspect that if you used Excel and listed your data on a tab, you could generate lookup tables on other tabs to slice and dice your data anyway you want.

 

[Quintillus]

Easy one. I am now using my first-ever Windows (10) machine.

For many years, I downloaded a photo a day from a blog. I opened it in (Mac) Graphic Converter and annotated the place and date in what I think is called the meta-data. So now I download the photos each day and open them in the (Windows) program "photo." There is no obvious way to note the information on the file now. Further, there seems to be no way to read the data I entered on the photos while using the Mac.

How can I proceed?

I've used Windows Live Photo Gallery (part of the Windows Essential suite - download from Microsoft here) for this in the past. It's been awhile since I used it on XP, but it appears to support Windows 10, and it's more full-featured than the version that comes built-in with Windows 10 (at least if it's like the 8.1 version I have).

Google Picasa also supports this, but it appears Google retired support for it, including downloads for it, earlier this year, in favor of Google+ Photos. A shame if you ask me, since Picasa was a good standalone application. It looks like you can still download it from FileHippo though. I've used it a bit and it's pretty similar.

It looks like Microsoft is planning to remove the Windows Essentials downloads on January 10th themselves, so if you try it and like it, follow Scott Hanselman's post for how to download an offline copy to re-install in the future should the need arise.

 

[Paul in Saudi]

Thank you.

 

[shadowplay]

For the last couple of hours, my laptop has been randomly putting itself to sleep. It's happened about 5 times in the last 2 hours, while I'm sitting here in front of it, although not while I'm actually typing or moving the cursor. I checked my power settings, nothing changed there that I can see, and it's set not to go to sleep on it's own for at least an hour.

What would be causing this behaviour?