User George Duckett came across a weird thing while performing a simple ping:

He performed a simple ping request but missed a ‘dot’.  I assume he meant to ping 192.168.0.72 but instead ended up typing 192.168.072.  What’s really amazing though (as pictured below) was that it worked!!! but not to 192.168.0.72 it sent the ping request to 192.168.0.58 :

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I’m currently taking a college course called “The Evolution of Computing and Its Impacts on History”. Right now we’re learning about the very early days of computing machines – the Jacquard  loom, the Babbage engines, and other non-electronic early computers. Our first assignment was to write about our personal computing history – our first computer, experiences with computers that influenced or changed our lives, etc. In my personal computing history, I mentioned my experiences with Super User and how this community has helped me to learn more about computers. Now I’d like to know more about your experiences with computers.

How did you come to love technology? Do you remember your first computer? What about the first time you used the internet? Submit your computer history as a blog post, or if you don’t have an account on the blog yet, send it in via email or as a Google Doc and we’ll get you set up. I’ll be posting my own essay soon as an example, but there’s no set format. Just tell us about your experiences with computers! If you have any questions, leave them in the comments.

It’s that time of year: school starts soon for many college students in the US and elsewhere, and many are looking for the perfect laptop to take with them. From typing papers to entertainment, a computer is practically mandatory at most universities these days.

Choosing the right computer – especially one which will hopefully last you through four years – is a difficult process. Take it from personal experience though that it is achievable: I did it myself, and so can you. Here are some tips from a college student, computer nerd, and Super User on how to choose the right college laptop for you. This is the first part in a series of articles about computers and college. Even if you aren’t a Super User yourself, this information will hopefully be helpful in making a decision.

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Who in their right mind would ever want to mess up their computer?  Don’t we already have enough problems to fix as it is?  Well, that didn’t stop pHelics from asking this:

How to mess up a PC running Windows 7?

Ok, so for my PC class I have to find 3 hacks that would mess up the lab’s PC. Me and my partner are going to mess up the PC and then another team will try to fix it. The system on it is Windows 7. Anything that would stop the normal use or render the PC useless works. The conditions:

• Can’t open the case
• Can’t use the registry settings (due to how big it is, it would take the other team a long time to fix)
• Needs to be fixable (meaning, nothing that would mess that bad so it would require an reinstall) within 15-30 minutes (by my teacher, preferably not by the other team
• Can use the administrative tools
• No downloads (PC is not even connected to a network)

That’s actually an honorable question, and can be useful for the training of other learning Super Users, so if you’re looking some ideas here’s a brief summary of some of our favorites of this questions and some suggestions of our own:

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In my previous post on 64-bit systems I was somewhat dismissive of applications being able to use PAE and other technologies to allow a 32-bit operating system to use more than 4GiB of memory.  We’ve since asked:

If my operating system is 64 bit can my 32 bit applications use 64 bit memory (> 3.5GB)?

And the answer is, in truth, yes.  Yes, you can.  But it’ll cost you and, probably, make your life difficult.  It’ll also make people wonder why you wanted to try it in the first place too, what with all these new-fangled 64-bit processors and operating systems flying about using whatever memory they need to do whatever they like.

There are many technologies for achieving this, these include PAE, PSE, PSE-36, AWE (Windows), mmap (Unix/Linux) and they all have one thing in common: they require special support to use properly. In some cases forcing the issue means things can and will break, horribly.

TL;DR Version: All these technologies are there for developers. They provide no immediate solution for end users.

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On April 28^th, Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty Narwhal) will be released. 11.04 is slated to be the first Ubuntu release that will use Unity, in place of GNOME, as the default desktop shell.

What is Unity?

Unity is a shell interface for the GNOME desktop environment developed for Ubuntu. Ubuntu 11.04 will still be based on GNOME 3 – the underlying infrastructure, applications, etc will not change; Unity just defines what your desktop looks like (similar to Windows Explorer). Unity was originally designed for netbooks, but over the last few months has shown that it is suitable for desktops as well. Unity puts major emphasis on screen space; every pixel is utilized.

Unity is much more then just a few menu/window tweaks though. Unity is part of a larger project called Ayatana, which adds things like:

• Notifications
• The Messaging Menu
• Application Indicators
• The Sound Menu
• Redesigned Scrollbars

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An acquaintance of mine, Chris John, will be traveling out to Nicaragua on the 5th of June for 3 weeks.  He is taking a stack of laptops with him, and his aim is to teach children the basics of using office tools – word processing, spreadsheets, presentations etc.

He has some laptops already, but he has room to take 5 more.

If you have an old laptop you no longer want it would be great to see it put to good use rather than it being consigned to the rubbish tip or the bottom of the bedroom cupboard. Chris is resident in the UK, so obviously this is only really applicable to fellow UK residents.

The trip is being arranged in association with the Peace and Hope Trust.

If you would like to send your laptop to Nicaragua with Chris please:

• Make sure it’s in good working order
• It has a clean installation of an operating system which is capable of running OpenOffice (even better if you can install OpenOffice as well)
• Contact me directly to check there is still room for it in the luggage and that your laptop is suitable.

Thanks one and all.

In this post we ask two related questions about downgrading.

Can I legally downgrade from Win 7 64 bits to Win 7 32 bits?

and

Winows 7 Professional downgrade rights to Vista and XP

Granted these are quite distinctly different intentions of end results, but they do share a lot of similar ramifications regarding what you are allowed to do within the scope of your Windows licence.

Downgrading 64-bit to 32-bit.

This not actually a real downgrade as it is simply changing the bit-ness of your operating system but people think of it as a downgrade as it is almost a step backwards in terms of compatibility.  If you have more than 3GB of memory then you should almost never consider this as an option as, for reasons I have already stated, you will be effectively crippling your computer.

I’m going to start again by using the Microsoft End User License Terms search tool and present in all versions of the EULA is the following section:

2.  INSTALLATION AND USE RIGHTS.

d.  Alternative Versions. The software may include more than one version, such as 32-bit and 64-bit. You may use only one version at one time.

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Recently, Eonil asked the question about keyboard combinations in Mac OS X that let him stop programs in a terminal window:

What’s different between Ctrl+Z and Ctrl+C in Unix command line?

I’m using Mac OS X Terminal. And I use Ctrl+Z or Ctrl+C to stop some programs. But I realized that I don’t know exactly what they’re doing. What are they and what’s the difference between them?

This received quite a bit of interest, and while Mark’s answer is spot-on, we thought we’d take a closer look at what signals are, what they are used for and how you (as a user) might be using them.

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Yes, this is a question that gets asked. Apparently some people like to hold on to their old computers rather than recycle them or donate them to charity. Agnel Kurian asked on Super User:

How do I preserve an unused computer?

I have a netbook that I am not using but would like to preserve for posterity. What precautions do I need to take to ensure that the machine does not undergo any deterioration? The machine will remain switched off most of the time.

This question some good practical responses, so we at the Super User Blog thought we’d combine them into one definitive answer for your edification.

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