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April 17

I want to upload some files to common but first I need to print them out as small images in Word to easily identify them.

As many as I can to a page so that I can identify where I was when I took them - it's an archaeological site where I took many similar photos. I can of course print them out now but one to a page would use my my ink! Thanks. Doug Weller talk 18:59, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@Doug Weller So you want to upload files to commons, but you say you need to print them? Why print them? I'm not understanding. thetechie@enwiki: ~/talk/ $ 19:01, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

@TheTechie I want to print several on a page so I can compare with other photos I've found on the web and Commons to see if I have better ones than those and try to identify the archaeological features by comparing mine with images that already identify the features. Doug Weller talk 19:11, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

In Word you simply need to create four separate frames on one page and paste one photo in each. Shantavira|^{feed me} 19:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. That’s something I didn’t know I could do. Very useful. Doug Weller talk 20:26, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

April 20

Replacing LVM drives with larger drives on Linux

My question here is rather complicated.

My current computer has three internal SATA drive bays, all of which are filled. Two of them have a 6 TB drive each, running the EXT4 file system and combined with LVM into a single logical 12 TB volume. One of the partitions on the logical drive alone spans 11 TB, i.e. more than one of the physical drives. The remaining drive bay has a 1 TB drive running the NTFS file system with Windows 10 installed, which I rarely if ever use.

I am running out of space on the LVM EXT4 drives in a couple of years. I'd like to replace them with larger ones, but how do I go about this? I'd like a similar set-up as I currently have but with bigger drives, such as two 16 TB drives combined into one 32 TB logical volume. I don't have enough drive bays to connect four physical drives at once, and I think to be able to use a LVM volume at all, I need to have both of the physical drives it consists of connected at the same time. Is it somehow possible to put the old drives into some sort of USB cases and connect them as external drives via my computer's USB ports or something? JIP | Talk 16:23, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

I've used SABRENT 2.5" drive enclosures with great success. They are about £10 (or 13.7 USD/11.24 EUR) from Amazon. SABRENT also do multi-disk docking station and 3.5" cases, but obviously that is a little more expensive. I've no connection with either Amazon or SABRENT other than as a satisfied customer. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 18:05, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

What I did both times I upgraded my LVM was remove the drives completely. Put in new drives. Upgrade to the latest version of Redhat, which is what I was using on the server. Connected the old drives using a USB adapter. There are many options. The one I use plugs into the SATA connector on the drive and has both power and USB coming out of it. It is not enclosed. The drive sits on my desk and hums. Once connected, I used pvscan to check the drives to make sure they were OK. They were. My plan was to swap the drives back if not. Then, I used vgs to see the volume ID on the old drives. Then, with lvs, I could see the mounting point for the logical volumne and mount it to a directory on my new drives. I pulled over the files I wanted to keep where I wanted them (and a lot went into a temporary "old junk" directory). When finished, I unmounted and unplugged the old drives and put them in my file cabinet in case I ever need them in the future. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 16:02, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Good Open Source CMS with Open Source Themes/Templates?

I'm still writing HTML and CSS by hand (and by Python script), but a friend is "just trying to build a website", and is shopping around for a content management system. They are aplenty, and most are Open Source. But it seems to be quite hard to find decent free themes and templates - a far as I can tell not because they don't exist, but because the internet is flooded with commercial subscription offers (of various and often dubious quality). Are there some good community sites to find good free stuff? --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:16, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

You haven't specified for which CMS. I would recommend Wordpress. Free themes can be found over at https://wordpress.org/themes/ Polygnotus (talk) 08:27, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Well, the availability of good themes one of the criteria to choosing a CMS. He has settled on Joomla now, and has found out how to hack it himself to some degree. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: You can use Google Trends to get an idea of the relative popularity of Wordpress vs Joomla. Or you can look at something like w3techs. I would not recommend learning or using Joomla in 2024. Note that this contains 12,118 free themes. Polygnotus (talk) 15:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I'll pass it on! --Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:15, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Interesting detail on the Google Trends page: The vast majority of frequent Joomla queries is German (7 of the top 10, with the others hard to determine). It may be much more popular on this side of the pond.--Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:22, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

@Stephan Schulz: Here are the results for Germany. But if you go further back in time you see that around 2011 Wordpress overtook Joomla in Germany. Joomla used to be pretty popular in Germany, 14 years ago. Polygnotus (talk) 15:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

April 21

Photoshop

Hi, what is Photoshop? HovigTheEditor 17:50, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not only a community Q&A site but also an encyclopedia. See Photoshop and your question will be answered.  --Lambiam 18:58, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks. HovigTheEditor 19:07, 21 April 2024 (UTC)

Resolved

April 26

Tik Tok

I don't use or care about Tik Tok but for some reason I thought it was like a cross between Youtube and Twitter, where people could post and view videos using either an app or a web browser. But some of the stuff in the news about banning it depicts it as accessed purely by an app, not a browser. Is that correct? Thanks. 2601:644:8501:AAF0:0:0:0:6CE6 (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

About two years ago I uploaded a few videos to TikTok on a desktop web browser and it worked just fine. I haven't opened TikTok since then, so it might've changed. —Panamitsu (talk) 21:31, 26 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has an article about TikTok that should tell you all you need to know. Shantavira|^{feed me} 13:51, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, it should, it's a pity. Is TikTok mainly used as the app version rather than the browser version? Does the browser version lack the tools for video recording and adding sound effects and music? Do web users face other annoyances such as all their videos being automatically cropped and letterboxed? Is there an issue around compatibility with Apple? When our article says "app", does it sometimes really mean "the app and the web version" and sometimes not?

I don't know of good references to cite for any of these questions, but searching around gave me hints.  Card Zero  (talk) 23:36, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

I have never used TikTok but it sounds like the web version lacked a mobile version originally [1]. It was only perhaps on 2021 or 2022 that they began to introduce a decent PWA with mobile support and bring the UI etc over to their PWA plus also supporting larger screens with a decent UI [2] [3]. Also although I don't have a source for this, while some like the Chrome Unboxed writer might like TikTok on a larger screen device, TikTok somewhat akin to Instagram is extremely mobile centric with their weird aspect ratio etc intended to be viewed on mobile devices. (Somewhat similar to Instagram.) Note that while the screenshots might have been in landscape, I can't help wondering if they mostly watch TikTok with the screen portrait even on their ChromeBook, something which might be possible there and with some laptops but definitely difficult on many desktops. In any case, mobile targeted seems to fit with the demographic they've had success with. And while plenty of people hate the often fairly app centric mobile ecosystem where everything seems to want to be an app, and I mean an actual app rather than a PWA, even if the app is only a glorified web front-end; I'm not sure this the case for most of their audience who might prefer an actual app. (Also decent video apps are often a little better than just glorified web frontends.) In other words while TikTok web might be a real thing including possibly a decent PWA, there's a good chance this is something only a tiny portion of their audience use. Also while TikTok might potentially have a decent PWA nowadays I suspect it's still the case that content creation features on the web are still much more limited [4]. And AFAIK TikTok is still a place where a lot of the popular content is just something someone quickly shot on their phone and did some basic editing via the TikTok app. Not a place like Youtube etc where a lot of the popular content nowadays may be edited to a high degree in Adobe Premier or other professional video editing programs, often even by professional editors. So the probably more limited creation features on the web is probably a big deal for many creators. (To be clear, both exist on both platforms, we're talking matters of degrees. Remember also that TikTok videos tend to be short, so while there may be major creators who do such editing elsewhere, there might not be enough of them producing enough content. Plus even if they were it might get repetitive or boring if that's all people see. One thing many media sources do report on is TikTok's algorithms being extremely effective at serving people content they enjoy. This BBC article on TikTok in India is possibly illustrative of wider trends in TikTok content [5].) Nil Einne (talk) 06:22, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

April 30

Cursor hovering over the thumbnail at YouTube

On my YouTube subscription list, if the cursor hovers over the thumbnail of a video, the video starts playing (without audio) inside the thumbnail. When I click on the video, it then starts playing at the point where the thumbnail got to. That means if I don't notice that the cursor is hovering over a video, when I open it, it might start 15 minutes in, and I have to stop and restart the video to watch from the beginning. This has got to be one of the most useless and annoying features I've ever seen on a website. Is there any way to turn it off? Can I go to Settings and click something so it stops doing that? —Mahāgaja · talk 11:36, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes. Go into your settings (click on your icon), go into Playback and Performance, turn off Video Previews. It will turn it off for 30-60 days. Then, it tends to turn back on. I believe that it turns back on because Youtube counts those previews as views, increasing viewership counts. Similarly, I turn off the shorts. They turn off for 30 days and turn back on again. I also turn off autoplay. That stays off for longer, usually, but turns back on eventually. Again, having it autoplay increases view counts. 12.116.29.106 (talk) 12:01, 30 April 2024 (UTC)

Thanks! I turned off video previews. I had no option for turning off shorts, but they annoy me less now that they're segregated into their own section of the subscription page rather than being lumped in with the full-length videos, like they used to be. I've had autoplay switched off for years and it's never turned back on. —Mahāgaja · talk 12:12, 30 April 2024 (UTC)