User talk:AlistairMcMillan/Archive2

This is an archive of past discussions with User:AlistairMcMillan. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Welcome

Hello Alistair, welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like the place and decide to join the community. Drop us a note at Wikipedia:New user log so we can meet you and help you get started. If you need editing help, visit Wikipedia:How to edit a page. For format questions, visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Wikipedia:Help or add a question to the Village pump. And of course, feel free to talk with me or ask questions on my talk page. Enjoy! --Alex S 19:43, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Glasgow Herald

Can you explain how Glasgow Herald was emptied and the content moved to a page started three days later by you? Darkaddress 15:58, Apr 3, 2004 (UTC)

Hi Alistair, just referring to the point made by Darkaddress - if you wish to move a page, can you click the link "Move this page" in the left-hand bar? This way, a Redirect page is created to the new page, making sure that people do not get lost or confused because of blank pages, and ensures that the Page history is copied over. I hope that you enjoy contributing to Wikipedia! Marknew 20:49, 3 Apr 2004 (UTC)

THANK YOU!

So very much for working on the Presidential Cabinets. Beautiful work. THANK YOU! jengod 01:14, Sep 2, 2004 (UTC)

Reply to your question

Here is some info on the origins of dotnet WRT java

[[1]] Sdaconsulting 00:10, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Journaling in Mac OS X

Thanks for the info regarding journaling in Mac OS X Server in Talk:Comparison of operating systems. I had seen a couple of sources suggest that the journaling feature would work with any filesystem, but I also saw some posts from BSD developers expressing skepticism that journaling could be done in the VFS without lots of help from the filesystem, and I couldn't find any actual Apple product pages willing to claim support for it on anything but HFS+, so that's why I summed up my findings as "maybe" :) . FWIW, I ran into the problem while researching for Comparison of file systems, where it's more on-topic. (Actually I ran into a couple of these "theory vs. practice" problems, most amusingly when I noticed that ReiserFS claims a maximum file size of 1EB when it only allows volumes as large as 16TB.. their FAQ seems to only grudgingly acknowledge the existence of other practical limits on file size[2]. And I'm suspicious that the NTFS claim of 16EB limits for both files and volumes might be just a tad on the optimistic/theoretical side.) Saucepan 20:48, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Resource fork

Umm... Alistair... Did you bother to read the article you were editing? Any four-byte value qualifies as a resource identifier, and 'ditl' and 'snd ' are NOT capitalised. - Cymydog Naakka 20:13, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Oops, actually 'DITL' was capitalised. Sorry. Fixed. 'snd ', however, isn't. - Cymydog Naakka 20:22, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Dick Zimmer

I think we're confusing two different Dick Zimmers here -- one's an Ohio Democrat and the other is a New Jersey Republican. Acsenray 15:30, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd prefer Dick Zimmer (Ohio politician) and Dick Zimmer (New Jersey politician). That would give them room to change offices. Acsenray 17:27, 20 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Robert Szeleney

I know you don't have anything to do with the edit war. Neither do I. I'm perfectly neutral. We simply have a difference of opinion. I don't think it matters who the guy works for, nor does it matter that he is planning to sell his OS one day. When he does sell it, that will be notable. Now, my opinion might make me a fucking idiot in your books, but it's what it is. In any case, I didn't revert your edits. I edited what you added. Isn't that how it works here?Dr Zen 22:55, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Why are his sales plans notable? Why are you shilling for him? It's obvious why his team's doing it but I can't understand what you're getting out of it.Dr Zen 23:11, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Mate, the thing is, encyclopaedias can have a paragraph or ten pages about a person. It depends what they've done. Szeleney has made a hobby OS and now he's trying to sell it. That's of some interest but it doesn't merit his fucking life story! Dude, this is perilously close to my writing a page for myself in which I tell you that I'm trying to sell a novel. Are you not getting that? The guy is nobody much at present. Don't waste your time or energy stressing out over this thing. Move on and put yourself to better use. The page as I had it was a good compromise. It has some detail and the links that you put in. Let's leave it at that.Dr Zen 00:03, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Wikistalking

Are you wikistalking me, Al? Great stuff. All the pages I work on will be all the better for it.Dr Zen 01:56, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Okay, I was only teasing. Trying to take some of the heat out of it. We're trying to row in the same direction after all.Dr Zen 02:04, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Bias

I'd like your opinion at Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration. Thanks. Chameleon 12:13, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

AFP

Yes, I know. I made note of that in the AppleTalk article's talk page. -- tooki 04:16, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I responded to the Power Mac name thing in my talk page. I also looked at the list of articles you worked on, and your interests -- good stuff! :) Computer history is also one of my areas of interest, and Mac history is (being a Mac geek) of course one of the areas I know best. cheers! -- tooki 17:28, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See response in my talk page. -- tooki 03:03, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Well obviously you can prefer any version you like! :) But the article should promote the correct form. -- tooki 03:40, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Redirects (&c)

Please stop adding redirects.

I have. But, I'm very new here, and thought this was helpful as the more redirects the better. Maybe, I'm wrong.

Also, I'll respond to your comments about legacy windows at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion/Legacy_Microsoft_Windows.

-Joe Llywelyn Griffith Blakesley 12:40, 2004 Nov 27 (UTC)

The Humungous Image Tagging Project

Hi. You've helped with the Wikipedia:WikiProject Wiki Syntax, so I thought it worth alerting you to the latest and greatest of Wikipedia fixing project, User:Yann/Untagged Images, which is seeking to put copyright tags on all of the untagged images. There are probably, oh, thirty thousand or so to do (he said, reaching into the air for a large figure). But hey: they're images ... you'll get to see lots of random pretty pictures. That must be better than looking for at at and the the, non? You know you'll love it. best wishes --Tagishsimon (talk)

Article Licensing

Hi, I've started a drive to get users to multi-license all of their contributions that they've made to either (1) all U.S. state, county, and city articles or (2) all articles, using the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (CC-by-sa) v1.0 and v2.0 Licenses or into the public domain if they prefer. The CC-by-sa license is a true free documentation license that is similar to Wikipedia's license, the GFDL, but it allows other projects, such as WikiTravel, to use our articles. Since you are among the top 1000 Wikipedians by edits, I was wondering if you would be willing to multi-license all of your contributions or at minimum those on the geographic articles. Over 90% of people asked have agreed. For More Information:

Multi-Licensing FAQ - Lots of questions answered
Multi-Licensing Guide
Free the Rambot Articles Project

To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

Option 1

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions, with the exception of my user pages, as described below:

OR

Option 2

I agree to [[Wikipedia:Multi-licensing|multi-license]] all my contributions to any [[U.S. state]], county, or city article as described below:

Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace "{{DualLicenseWithCC-BySA-Dual}}" with "{{MultiLicensePD}}". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. – Ram-Man ^{(comment) (talk)}[[]] 15:08, Dec 9, 2004 (UTC)

Internet Explorer

While I agree that mentioning Mark Maifret should be happening in the article, I seriously question whether the paragraph:

Critics have claimed that security fixes take too long to be released after discovery of the problems, and that the problems are not always completely fixed. After Microsoft released patches to close 20 holes in their general operating system in February 2003, Marc Maifrett of eEye Digital Security stated that "If it really took them that long technically to make (and test) the fix, then they have other problems. That's not a way to run a software company." [3] Microsoft attributes these delays to thorough testing to ensure that bug fixes do not lead to problems elsewhere.

Should even be in the article at all. Shouldn't that be in the Microsoft article? It's a pretty general comment about all of the patches they released for their general operating system, not just Internet Explorer, and the article is about Internet Explorer after all. Could we move it to either Microsoft or Microsoft Windows? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:57, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmmm... I know what you mean. I was thinking that we need to make it directly relevant to Internet Explorer. Maybe we could rephrase it a bit? As it stands it seems to me a bit incongrous in the article. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:26, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK, but still think about rephrasing it a bit so it doesn't hang around like a bad smell :-) Ta bu shi da yu 10:31, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

OK, sounds fair to me. Anything that makes the article better I'll support you on. - Ta bu shi da yu 10:34, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Erica Durance

I noticed you removed my contribution to the page. And I stress contribution. It was relevant so I don't see what was wrong with it.

Windows XP Service Pack 2

From Secunia. List of ALL security flaws found in Internet Explorer since the release of Service Pack 2.

UNAFFECTED means systems with SP2 installed are unaffected
PATCHED means machine with SP2 were affected but Microsoft released a patch
AFFECTED means machines with SP2 are affected and Microsoft has yet to issue a patch

1) http://secunia.com/advisories/12304/ 2004-08-16

"Currently known attack vectors do not work on Windows XP systems with SP2 applied."

UNAFFECTED

2) http://secunia.com/advisories/12321/ 2004-08-19

"The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP1/SP2."

PATCHED

3) http://secunia.com/advisories/12528/ 2004-09-14

"...note that Windows XP Service Pack 2 is NOT vulnerable..."

UNAFFECTED

4) http://secunia.com/advisories/12581/ 2004-09-18

http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/11186 lists IE SP2 as affected

AFFECTED

5) http://secunia.com/advisories/12765/ 2004-10-09

No affected version list.

???

6) http://secunia.com/advisories/12806/ 2004-10-12

Microsft list XP SP2 as affected

PATCHED

7) http://secunia.com/advisories/12889/ 2004-10-20

"This will also bypass the "Local Computer" zone lockdown security feature in SP2"

AFFECTED

8) http://secunia.com/advisories/13015/ 2004-10-29

"Systems running Windows XP with SP2 installed are not affected."

UNAFFECTED

9) http://secunia.com/advisories/12959/ 2004-11-02

"The vulnerability does not affect systems running Windows XP with SP2..."

UNAFFECTED

10) http://secunia.com/advisories/13124/ 2004-11-09

"The vulnerability does not affect systems running Windows XP with SP2 installed."

UNAFFECTED

11) http://secunia.com/advisories/13156/ 2004-11-10

"The problem has been confirmed in version 6.0 on a system running Windows XP with SP2 installed."

AFFECTED

12) http://secunia.com/advisories/13203/ 2004-11-17

"The vulnerabilities have been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2."

AFFECTED

13) http://secunia.com/advisories/13208/ 2004-11-17

"Microsoft Windows XP SP2 is reportedly not affected."

UNAFFECTED

14) http://secunia.com/advisories/13317/ 2004-11-26

"The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP2."

AFFECTED

15) http://secunia.com/advisories/13251/ 2004-12-08

"The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP1/SP2."

AFFECTED

16) http://secunia.com/advisories/13396/ 2004-12-08

"The weakness does not affect systems running Windows XP with SP2 installed."

UNAFFECTED

17) http://secunia.com/advisories/13404/ 2004-12-09

"The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows 2000 SP4 / XP SP2"

AFFECTED

18) http://secunia.com/advisories/13482/ 2004-12-16

"The vulnerability has been confirmed on a fully patched system with Internet Explorer 6.0 and Microsoft Windows XP SP1/SP2."

AFFECTED

Final tally:

18 flaws discovered since the release of SP2 for XP.
7 flaws do not affect machines with SP2 installed.
1 flaw that is unclear whether it affects machines with SP2
10 flaws did affect machines with SP2 installed (however Microsoft have patched 2).

AlistairMcMillan 05:16, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Err I only count 7 flaws on that list that affect SP2 --Beachy 19:58, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject computers

Interested? I just started it. Do you know anyone else who'd be interested? - Ta bu shi da yu 10:35, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Do you know Btrieve? That's my current personal focus article. But what would be absolutely fantastic would be some creative help on how to organise the project. I reckon you know a fair amount about computers (well, you seem to) so you could help me in Strategy and Goals. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:19, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Google rankings

Hi, I wanted to understand this some more. I can understand that if we have an article A, and 4 redirects A0-A3, and 1/4 of each of the articles that refer to A do so via redir A0 (repeat), then the ranking is split 4 ways (among A0-A3). What happens if all the links go direct to A, though - does it have any effect then? Thanks... Noel (talk) 07:16, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Well, links to redirects don't bother me so much, because, as you point out, a 'bot can fix them. The far bigger problem is people who link to a disambiguation page, and never bother to click on their links to see if they really link to the thing they intended to link to. A 'bot can't fix those. Noel (talk) 14:02, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

N.Y.P.D Rodman's Neck Firing Range

Frank McGee was not that man you linked him to. Supercool Dude

I took a shot at some cleanup on NYPD Rodman's Neck Firing Range. It might still need some more --RoySmith 02:11, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Recent edits to cats

Would you mind explaining your recent edits to pages like Tommy McAvoy and Ian McDiarmid. At first I thought it was vandalism, but on second thought it looks like you had a purpose in mind. However I can't work out what it was. AlistairMcMillan 21:14, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Simply makes the alphabetical ordering correct. I hope. Bornintheguz 21:25, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I didn't screw anything up, did I? I redirected my duplicate disambig page. I created it because I wanted to start an article on Rush Sr., which I've now done. Everyking 05:27, 7 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Arran

Lately you've been "improving" pages which make reference to Arran. The trouble is, you haven't been looking closely enough. I've just repaired an error you introduced at Arable_land, hopefully while leaving your intention clear. The thing is, the original poster hadn't confused Scotland and Ireland, he'd made a simple typo as between Aran and Arran (there's the Gaelic for you; and there's even more scope for confusion as between Aran island and the Aran islands further south, which I've carefully left ambiguous).

Anyway, would you care to go over your other recent corrections and see if you've installed any other misunderstandings like this?

At the risk of teaching you to suck eggs, you've moved some single central references to the points of the links, which will make it harder to maintain each of them (as we're now seeing - I'm not trotting after everywhere you've been), and also means that the individual places have more detail level distraction. I think it's working against the spirit of a proper reference site, but I'll leave you to think about the proper level to aim at. I'm sure you already know the deep copy problems you're bringing in here.

I hope that isn't too much in your face. PML (half Scottish and half Irish, so aware of some of these issues).

greetings

Hi. I found you via the UNIX article. I checked your userpage and it states you like Computer Science. I have some wikiprojects, not related to Wikipedia or Wikimedia, that may be of interest to you. If you like the idea of joining another one wiki, just check my userpage. You will not receive any more notices. Thank you, NSK 22:07, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

False Friends Disambig

How do I make a disambiguation page for a topic?

Supercool Dude 04:26, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry but I need specific info as to what to click on to start the Disambiguation page for the term called False Friends. There appear to be multiple meanings.

Supercool Dude 15:42, 14 Jan 2005 (UTC)

UK Edits

Alistair, I do not appreciate immature, bordering-on-rude, little messages. I have been making edits for around a year now and had never seen the point of setting up a User ID. Your cheeky comments the other day, suggesting that as an anonymous user, my edits were somehow less "worthy", prompted me to set up this ID. In answer to your accusation that 'Considered' is a "sockpuppet", I cannot comment as I have no idea what you mean, however I resent the suggestion that my conduct has been less than honourable. Please stop acting like an immature little child and credit others with more maturity than you obviously credit yourself.

And on the subject of whether or not the UK is a country, I actually don't have a particularly strong opinion either way. My issue, however, is one of "NEUTRALITY". Do you understand the concept of NPOV? Whether you (or I) consider the UK as being a country is really beside the point.

If you wish to contact me again, please at least try to maintain an "adult composure" ... I do not appreciate snide, little suggestions from an apparently intelligent individual who should know better.

BHO's

Alistair, I have had a good look around on the net regarding BHO's, and although they appear to manifest as spyware in some cases, I can't see how they can silently install themselves from websites. The only examples I have found of malware in the form of BHO's have been DLL's that have installed as part of other, downloaded software. Do you have any examples of BHO's self-installing from websites? Beachy 20:30, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Alkivar

I challenged the apparent BeOS developer, who just deleted my challenge from his talk page within minutes. He claims to have developed StyledEdit, which was in fact developed by Hiroshi Lockheimer.... He's not in the credits, from PR2 to R5.1

Ah well. Clueless newbies to an OS, eh?

Kiand 01:18, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Alkivar&curid=763687&action=history

Apparently BeOS is based off MINIX, the Hobbit BeBox could run BeOS, and 4 uncredited students rewrote StyledEdit in DR7. Riiiight. If he changes to 1994 again, feel very, VERY justified in going back to 1990. Kiand 01:53, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Far Eastern Air Transport

Alistair, I would have to agree with the suggestion that it would be best to merge the two articles into Far Eastern Air Transport Corporation for different reasons.

As an Australian, Far Eastern Air Transport would mean the subject of Airline legal battles etc. between Qantas, Singapore, Air New Zealand, China Air, etc. Air transport is a common news item here. Also I think the full title looks professional. I'd also immediately support if you could amend.--Daeron 06:35, 3 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jubal Early

I tweaked a number of the mods you made to links for Jubal Early, but since I got only the ones in my watchlist, you may wish to duplicate this elsewhere. Histories of the Civil War almost never refer to the guy using his middle name. They sometimes say Jubal A. Early. The reason his page got named that [prior to your disambiguation, which was a good thing] was that some guy kept nuking edits to the original page and he started branching out and duplicating older versions with the longer name.

big_hal 15:40, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)