Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with copy

Ads where a word is worth 1000 pictures

Shepherd — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 12:59:36 -0800

Great text-driven (print) ads from 2009? I'm currently working on a project that involves championing the text component of advertising: finding ads where the text is front and centre as opposed to the visual, and language is used intelligently and playfully to sell an idea or concept. I've got a few things lined up, from local businesses to national campaigns, but I'd like to see more ads, most likely print/billboard ads (but TV/Web is also a possibility) where the written word (i.e. visually present, a clever script read with no words on-screen won't cut it) is the star, and does its job remarkably well. Ideas?

Are locker keys magical?

amicamentis — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 11:53:01 -0800

Can one make a copy of a public locker key? Inspired by this question last week, I started thinking about good places to steal bags from. An obvious place was from the luggage lockers at train terminals. It seems like a thief could put in some money, get the key, make a copy (if he had a complicit locksmith buddy), and then wait for someone to use the locker after him. He waits for this guy to leave and then uses the fake key to open the locker.

Is this uncommon only because locker keys are somehow uncopyable? Does it have something to do with the orange blocky thing at the end? Is it because it's under surveillance and too risky? Is there not enough of a payoff?

I know some museums that won't allow you to take in backpacks and instead provide lockers; these seem like easy targets for finding tourists' bags with cameras or wallets.

Thanks for any help!

Trouble calculating regular averages in Excel

Midnight Rambler — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:40:29 -0800

In Excel, how do I calculate the average of every 300 data points in a large data set? I have ~12000 data points in Excel. I want to take the average of every 300 points (ie. Average(A1:A300), Average(A3001:A6001)). If I write the first formula out, or even write the first few iterations, then drag and fill to complete the rest, it doesn't follow my pattern. It just takes the average starting from the next row in the data (not the row 300 down). As far as my Excel knowledge takes me I'll have to write the formula out 40 times each time I want to analyze a different data set.

Is there a quicker way for Excel to do this?

How does HuffPo append URLs to copied text?

eyeballkid — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:05:39 -0800

I noticed today that text copied from articles on The Huffington Post appends the article URL when pasted and I'm wondering how it's done. Here's an example of copying and pasting text from the current front page story of the G20 meeting:

The three leaders, in their dramatic joint statement that overshadowed the G-20 economic summit here, hoped the disclosure would increase pressure on the global community to impose new sanctions on Iran if it refuses to stop its nuclear program.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/25/obama-iran-has-secret-nuc_n_299556.html

The "Read more at:..." portion never appeared on the page.

Repro steps:

1) Copy any random paragraph from a HuffPo story.
2) Paste elsewhere.

I'm using FireFox 3.5.3 on Windows 7. I don't see this behavior when copying from other sites.

How do I safely move my iTunes library to a different HD?

valleys — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:50:47 -0800

How do I safely move my iTunes library from one hard drive to another? I've read numerous horror stories on here from people encountering all kinds of problems when moving iTunes libraries around, so would like to get advice on how to plan and execute it correctly!

I have about 50gb of files on my 110gb internal HD, which is pretty much out of free space.

I have a 500gb external HD (that I currently use mainly for backups of all my digital photos) that I would like to move the iTunes library to, then delete it from my internal HD to free up space for work on the internal drive, and have much more space for new music on the external drive.

This is on Windows XP SP3. iTunes version 8.1 (I think - not there at the moment, but I haven't installed the latest update that it asked me if I wanted...)

And yes, I have another backup (Mozy) in addition to the external drive.

So, how do I move that 50gb of files without confusing iTunes or risking losing anything?

Logo No Go?

weapons-grade pandemonium — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 18:09:23 -0800

Paging the MeFi Counterfeit Brigade. Two logos are suspiciously similar. How likely is it that the more recent design was copied? The new City of Kelowna logo, for which they spent $80,000 (consultation, research, design, etc.) is about to be adopted when, whoops! an astonishingly similar logo (designed two years previously) surfaces. What are the odds that this is a coincidence, especially considering that the first one was published on logolounge.com (scroll down)? Is there a computer design program that would spit out similar Spirograph designs with similar color combinations? Can/should the city copyright a design that is so similar, even though the original may not have a formal coypright? Give me your best sleuthing analysis.

Alternatives to the program Synergy (keyboard and mouse over network)?

wastelands — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:15:24 -0800

Alternatives to the program Synergy (keyboard and mouse over network)? When I first got Synergy, I loved it. It was like magic.

But I've left the honeymoon phase and discovered some really frustrating bugs. On my Windows machines, the copy/paste will often by very delayed, or I'll have to move the cursor from A to B to A to B machines to get it to paste. Also the cursor frequently gets "stuck" for a few seconds between machines.

I came to find out that Synergy is not being maintained at all. It's a 3-year old build! WTF?

Can anyone recommend programs that work at least as good as Synergy, preferably those that are open source and multi-platform?

Thanks!

make Word more clever for me please

cincinnatus c — Wed, 06 May 2009 05:11:04 -0800

Help needed with footnotes in Word. (I know Word is terrible with footnotes and gives everyone grief, but these are straightforward things I'm wanting.) There have been loads of questions about footnotes in Word, but I don't think mine has been asked. I am editing a document which has a reference section at the end of each chapter. It's quite straightforward, but there are a couple of things I'd like to do that MUST be possible because they seem so routine, and if I could find how to do these things it would make my life much easier.

Oh, this is Word 2003, by the way.

1. a) The place where each reference should be in the text is marked ***. I would love to be able to do a straight find/replace, swapping each *** for a footnote reference. But, while footnote reference is available in the find box, it's not in the replace box. Is there a way round this?

b) If that's not possible, I guess I have to find every ***, manually delete it, then insert the references individually. OK. What would make this easier would be if after I inserted the reference Word didn't jump down to the footnote area, because then I wouldn't have to scroll back up to the main text, click anywhere, and only then be able to click 'find next ***'. How can I stop Word jumping down there?

2. While I'm swapping those ***s for references I'm leaving the footnotes empty for the time being. When I've finished added all of them to a section, I have to copy the footnote text from another document. This is unformatted, except for paragraph breaks between each footnote. How can I copy and paste this all at once so Word knows that a paragraph break means 'this is the next footnote'? At the moment, I'm having to copy/paste these one-by-one and it is painful.

Thank you for your help.

How can I make our copy shop "greener"?

nothingsconstant — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 17:11:53 -0800

How can I make our copy shop "greener"? We already use 100% post-consumer paper and turn our 1-sided recycled paper into bound notebooks. What other cool things could we do to make our paper store more sustainable and environmentally friendly?

Yes No Maybe is all I need to hear from you

clearly — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 11:04:11 -0800

MusicFilter: I recently discovered Cut Copy and think that their new album is fantastic. Do you have any suggestions for similar upbeat feel-good electronic music?

Cheap copy shop in Manhattan?

limon — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:21:15 -0800

Can you recommend a copy shop in Manhattan (preferably, but not necessarily, around Columbia or in Harlem) where I could print several hundred pages and have them adequately bound (on a plastic spiral, etc. -- nothing fancy) without paying too much?

Lost security dongle

TigerCrane — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 10:42:53 -0800

I've lost my security dongle! How can I get another one? I just bought some very expensive software, and I lost the security dongle right away!

I checked the documentation, and it seems that I have to buy another copy of the software!

Since I just bought it, I'm considering calling the company and telling them that I didn't recieve the dongle. Do you think this would work?

Also, can I use a friend's dongle? Are they interchangable?

What song is being sampled in this song?

Paul KC — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 15:45:17 -0800

What vocals are being sampled in this song? Here is a preview from Amazon. Just click the "Preview All" button and the sampled vocals begin immediately and last for about 15 seconds.

illustrating plagiarism

FidelDonson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:37:47 -0800

Illustrating plagiarism I am making a website about academic plagiarism and need to find some lighthearted ideas for the site illustrations that will sit well with the target users: young university students.

Fx i could juxtapose a real iphone with a cheap knockoff. Or the actual campbell soup with Warhols painting.

Now i just need some more ideas for interesting combinations.

Making Firefox Copy and Paste HTML Code?

WCityMike — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:25:47 -0800

Is there a Firefox extension — preferably a Firefox 2 extension — that will alter Firefox's copying behavior so that, when you copy something, it is copied to the clipboard (or pasted from the clipboard) as its HTML, instead of plain text? For example, if I were to copy this text:

I usually use Google as my search engine.

to the clipboard, it would be pasted as:

I usually use Google as my search engine.

Is there a Firefox extension that would result in the pasting instead being:

I usually use <A HREF="http://www.google.com">Google<A> as my search engine.

I know there are a few Windows-only Firefox extensions out there. Ideally this'd be a crossplatform extension: I use a Windows Firefox on a thumb drive and a Mac Firefox at home, and would like this functionality in both places.

If I get the option of being really picky, this would preferably replace the functionality of copy/paste as opposed to requiring me to learn a new keystroke ...

How can I get a digital copy of my own DNA?

hoverboards don't work on water — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 12:49:51 -0800

How can I get a digital copy of my own DNA? How much will it cost? Is the cost likely to become reasonable any time soon? This is allegedly a copy of the human genome, but not of any specific individual as far as I can tell. However, Craig Venter has had his complete DNA sequenced, so I'm wondering how feasible it is to get this done for myself.

I am anticipating that it would currently cost millions of dollars. But is there any kind of biosciencey Moore's law in operation that might eventually bring this cost down to, say, under $1000?

Copy/Paste with File Time Intact

muckster — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:21:32 -0800

How do I copy a large number of files in Windows XP without changing the date created/modified? I'm embarrassed to ask this because I'm sure the answer is something as simple as "hold down F3" or xcopy /m but I can't seem to figure this out or find an answer online that's not selling something.

I'm trying to make a backup of my mp3 archives, and I'd like to keep all file data intact on the new hard drive so my Winamp media library won't get confused. I've used the clone function in Acronis TrueImage for this before , but I get freakishly anxious about accidentally reversing the drive letters and would rather do it in explorer or a command line. Can't be so difficult, can it?

Thank you.

An educated egg-dicator (for computers)

Plug Dub In — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 08:01:05 -0800

Mac OS X: External drive is dying, many corrupt files randomly strewn about it. What Mac utility can copy all the non-corrupt files to a new disk and provide a list of the files it couldn't copy? Copying certain files gives an error -36. These files do not open in any application. Disk Utility says everything's just fine. It's lying. It's also unable to image the disk. DiskWarrior is no help either.

I'm imagining something that would crawl through the disk file by file, copying what it can and making a note of what it can't.

I've got a somewhat recent backup, so I'm not really freaking out, but I'd like to keep the most recent files possible. Thanks much, hive mind.

MBP: I cloned my old HD to a new (larger) one, and OS X only sees the older (smaller) space.

dhammala — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 16:29:43 -0800

The disk in my MBP was upgraded from 100GB to 250GB. They used a hardware disk to disk copier that just cloned the drive, bit for bit. Now, I want to grow my 100GB partition to fill up the new space, however Disk Utility only sees the drive as 100GB. I know there are some $100 utilities out there, but I am a geek and want to do it for free. We have tried to boot into Linux, use tools like gParted (which see the full drive, but only let us create a 128MB partition), rEFIt (to sync the partition maps), etc. but to no avail.

How do I reset the partition map so that it sees the full drive?

What does copywriting pay?

jimmyjimjim — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 03:50:33 -0800

What does copywriting pay? A computer consulting firm wants to hire me to write founder bios, customer service email templates, redo the copy on their website, etc. Also maybe some light technical writing. As far as experience, I've done all that (unpaid) for a startup of my own, which was very successful. I'm also a very experienced popular writer (articles and books). But never did this sort of copywriting for pay. What's typical renumeration?

Excel copy cell CRASH. (why?)

lucasks — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 22:53:39 -0800

Excel for Mac freezes on copy (command-c)! Help. Earlier today I had my PowerBook G4 hooked up to a bigger monitor. Later, when working in Excel I tried to make a chart, when I did so the chart wizard window appeared off screen. Not being able to resolve this issue, and not being able to get Excel to let me quit, I killed it. Upon restart everything seems to work fine but if I try to copy a cell I get the whirly beach ball of death EVERY SINGLE TIME. Behavior is consistant over multiple restarts of both Excel and the Powerbook. Any ideas? I really need Excel to work.

Autocopying files in the nanny state of corporate IT

Kid Charlemagne — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:32:38 -0800

My group at work needs access to a file which I maintain and vice versa. We'd like to keep the files on our own laptops so we can edit them whenever, but maintain a regularly updated copy on a server share to which we all have access. Now the sticky parts: We would like to keep these file in regular directory structures rather than put them into briefcase.

It would be best if this was automatic, either at a given time, or whenever I edit the file or when we dock our laptops.

And the kicker - getting a piece of software that isn't on the special approved software list that was handed down to our IT deparment by the Gods is virtually impossible. So this pretty much has to be done from within Windows XP.

Copying files - duplicate filnames

Busy Old Fool — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 04:30:41 -0800

I want to copy files, ignoring & logging it if the target directory contains files with the same name. (Ubuntu 7.04) I have a large number of CD-Rs & DVD-Rs containing files (mostly mp3s, but I don't think that's particularly relevant to the problem at hand) organised which I would like to copy to my hard disk, on a Ubuntu 7.04 system.

For each disc, I want to issue a single command (via command line or GUI, it doesn't matter) and have all the files recursively copied to the hard disk, retaining the directory structure. If a file with the same name already exists in the same directory in the target filesystem I would like it to be skipped and for this to be logged. I don't want the copying process to be interrupted with overwrite/ignore-type messages.

Ideally, the identical filename situation would *not* be logged if the files were also identical in size (or even better, if they had the same hash). Also in a perfect world, the log would contain not only the names of skipped files, but also their size.

The --update argument to cp automates the 'identical filename' issue, but it is concerned with whether one file is more recent than another and that is not important to me.

I've looked at Unison File Synchronizer, but can't see a way to get it to do what I want.

Thanks!

Medical Journal Advertising; need recs for someone to design our ad!

Bob Dobbs — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 23:30:16 -0800

Medical Journal Advertising: need recommendations on firms or independant designers to create our advertisment. Hello all,

We are starting up a consulting business targeted at physicians in a specific medical sub-specialty. We know the market and know the medical journals we want to advertise in.

We have kind of been thrust into this unexpectedly so we need some help with advertising.

We need recommendations for an advertising designer (either independant or corporate) to design the advertisment itself for us to submit to the journals for print. We are small on a tight budget, and the ad would likely never take up more than 1/4 to 1/2 page in a journal. We don't need anything particularly fancy but smart, professional, and clean is a must.

If they can develop a logo for us that would be a plus as well.

We would like to go with a smaller independant firm or individual if possible.

Advertising is new to us so we thought we would ask for some recommendations for good people to help us with the ads. Thanks in advance.

How do I get my skirt replicated?

nursegracer — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 14:39:25 -0800

How does one go about getting a tailor to clone one's favorite item of clothing? I sew, but not very well. I have an absolutely amazing skirt made by Illig several years ago, and every time I wear it I get tons of compliments. I want another one, before this one wears out (although it is rather tough).

It is a thick, stretchy plaid material. It is extremely long (hits my toes and I'm 5'10"). It has interesting details like cargo pockets and weird cinching ties and grommets down the side.

Due to these details, I think it might be decently hard to have someone make an exact replica. I also have no clue where to find this kind of fabric (it doesn't need to be the same plaid) because I've never found something this thick and this stretchy. Also, grommets...do tailors do that?

So, on to the questions:
1. Can I just hand the skirt over to a tailor and say, "Make me one of these, please"? How much might it cost?
2. Do I have to provide the material, or can the tailor sort it out? I have no clue how many yards I would need, although I'll venture 4 or 5.
3. Are there good alternatives to tailors to do this? Like some clothing-copiers online that would do it for me?
4. Will my skirt be safe? I'm almost too worried about losing it to give it to someone for a while, especially if I have to send it. However, I'm not sure pictures would do it justice.

TIA, and if anyone has any Philadelphia-centric recommendations, I would appreciate them greatly. I will be following this post closely, so please feel free to ask for clarifications.