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September 6

iPhone 16 pre-orders

When did iPhone 16 pre-orders open, how many days later did the first shipments start and arrived? I need this to compare with iPhone 17 shipping times. 151.49.117.69 (talk) 17:18, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Pre orders started 16 September 2024 and availability started 20 September 2024 (I assume availability means when shipping started) —Matrix _{ping me}^{when u reply} (t? - c) 20:19, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you mean 13 september when preorders are started... 151.49.117.69 (talk) 20:50, 6 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 8

Maximum connection limit for IIS on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC

What is the limit? The article and the Microsoft documentation seem to be giving me conflicting answers. I am using the latest version of IIS. Félix An (talk) 14:22, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

According to microsoft, it is 10. 68.187.174.155 (talk) 20:54, 8 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 9

HTML terminology

I'm trying to give feedback about the website of Current Affairs but I don't know how to put it into technical words.

An article on the site.

There's a sitewide issue with linked text. Every time I interact with certain links the text awkwardly wiggles.

Example one: right-clicking the author's name Nathan J. Robinson makes the linked text smaller and then if one doesn't click anything and then moves the mouse repeatedly on the link and off the link the font looks different and it gets larger and smaller again and the entire rest of the text moves slighly up and down.

Example two: the first link after the drop capital. It doesn't even need to be clicked. Simply hovering over the link with a mouse then removing the mouse and then hovering again makes the sentence visually stretch and the link go from small caps to italic to non-italic.

Example three: all the rest of the links do some sort of a dance.

To summarise: what is this jiggle and morphing the links do called?

Or is this all just a problem at my end? My system: Desktop, Windows 10, Firefox browser, (Chrome tested, mostly the the same issues there as well). Aloysius Jr (talk) 23:55, 9 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a problem. It's link hover animation. (Or, at least, search for that and you'll get lots of good hits to dive into.) --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 03:43, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This is CSS (styling code) acting on the HTML (content code) rather than the HTML itself, though I'd say the behavior is unpredictable enough that if it bothers you it's worth a feedback even if they intended it to behave in such an unpredictable way. - Purplewowies (talk) 07:54, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you both. Aloysius Jr (talk) 11:57, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 11

Old-style numerals in Wikipedia article titles

I just noticed that Wikipedia article titles now have old-style numerals (where some digits have descenders). (See the article on MP3 for an example.) Is that a recent change? Is there a way to turn that off? --134.242.92.97 (talk) 14:53, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The MP3 at the top of that article just looks like block characters to me, but that's because I'm using the old MonoBook skin. If I log out, I see the descender. If you create an account, you can set that stuff up on your account preferences; I don't think there's any way for IP users to change that. Matt Deres (talk) 18:50, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It is a property of the typeface. You probably see Linux Libertine. (BTW, section titles use the same typeface.) ‑‑Lambiam 20:46, 12 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, they are text figures or old-style figures and are a property of the font. See http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/154242/what-is-the-name-for-numbers-fonts-that-contain-descender-and-ascender cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 20:30, 13 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 15

Crash of Microsoft Windows 98

In 1998, Bill Gates presented Windows 98. Chris Capossela connected a scanner to PC, causing Windows to crash. What scanner model was used in that presentation? Logitech PageScan 12GB? 151.49.138.194 (talk) 10:25, 15 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 16

Double-Click Not Opening Queries or Forms from Navigation Pane with MS Access

I upgraded the Solid State Device (SSD) that is the C: drive in a Windows 11 machine. Upgrading the C: drive requires that almost everything be reinstalled, so that I am essentially using a new computer. This means that my options and preferences have been set back to default values, and I have to set them again. But my question has to do with Access. I can't open queries or forms from the navigation pane (the left-hand menu) by double-clicking on them. This is annoying. What do I need to change in my Options or anything else so that double-clicking things in the navigation pane will open them? Robert McClenon (talk) 02:56, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rotating and saving a video reduces file size by half

On commons:Commons:Graphic_Lab/Video_and_sound_workshop#Rotate_video_without_losing_quality, KEmel49 (talk · contribs) reported "This video was originally uploaded upside down. I tried to rotate this 180⁰, The file was rotated to current rotation but loses file size to almost half of what it was before."

I had also noticed this when rotating File:Canalul_Mila_35_video_02.webm using ezgif.com. I suspected that it might be because the original was saved at an overly low compression for performance reasons.

Could someone familiar with video compression, especially webm please advise us?

Thanks, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 14:12, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, an original recording using basic compression would need a significantly larger file size to achieve the same level of visual quality.

We also tend to have better compression algorithms (and more performance in our computers) to reduce file sizes as time move on. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I checked out the videos you mentioned, yes they have basically minimal compression. A simple HEVC Handbrake encode can probably bring that 30s 1080p video file down to some 20MB or less.

Would you like me to do that for you? 海盐沙冰 (talk) 14:50, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much, @海盐沙冰.

I'm fine as it is with the current situation, and just wished to be sure that my advice was sound and I didn't lose anything important by halving the file size.

I'll leave @KEmel49: to reply if they wish to apply the handbrake.

Cheers, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 15:13, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Brought the second file's size down to 9.5MB (-80%). It's great to have a powerful CPU around to do heavy-duty compression things like these. :)

Just uploaded them to commons here. Didn't overwrite original ones so to not break anything. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 16:19, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much, cmɢʟee τaʟκ (please add {{ping|cmglee}} to your reply) 19:13, 16 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 17

Help me finish my article about computer startup sounds

Could someone please help me finish this article: Draft:Startup sound? I'm too busy to write it. It could use some information about the history of the famous Mac startup sound too. Félix An (talk) 11:10, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Noted. Thanks for starting the article. 海盐沙冰 (talk) 11:13, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your help! Félix An (talk) 23:49, 17 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 18

Did-you-mean-this in computing

Special:Search/Nagamie (for a town in Papua New Guinea) begins with a note: "Showing results for natalie. No results found for Nagamie". This is common behaviour in computerised searching, as we all know; the computer wonders if you made a typo, guesses what you meant, and presents results for that. (Sometimes it's even broader; if you look in my library catalogue for a less common term, it will present results for that term and the term it expects, which is annoying.) Do we have an article that covers the basic concept underlying this process? I'm curious how it works, but I don't know what to call it. Nyttend (talk) 20:19, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

That's a tricky one for me - The closest article I can find on Wikipedia is Search suggest drop-down list. But to my understanding the underlying mechanism is, at the most basic level, just a combination of autocomplete and autocorrection, assisted with the knowledge of what content is available (e.g., knowing all the articles in existence).

These 3 sources [1] [2] [3] suggests that the Did you mean (it's really called that) function is indeed based on (e.g., developed by modifying / augmenting) a spellchecker.

MediaWiki - the software underlying Wikipedia, has a page on Cirrus Search - the software responsible for the search function we love^{[citation needed]} and use; it provides a very thorough (if not too technical) review of the nitty gritties of its workings 海盐沙冰 _{/ irisChronomia / Talk} 20:52, 18 September 2025 (UTC) / edited 20 minutes later at 21:12, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It's finding candidates based on their edit distance to the term you entered. For something like a search engine, it may also be weighting the choices based on their popularity in queries and in its database. A big challenge is finding the nearest neighbours (by edit distance) given it has a gigantic index and needs to work at astonishing scale, while resolving queries very quickly. -- Finlay McWalter··–·Talk 20:51, 18 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Approximate string matching? Full of hazards due to the cultural complexity of the idea of "similarity" between strings. For instance "Unit" is closer to "Turkmenistan" than "United States" by Levenshtein distance. Card Zero (talk) 06:00, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

September 19

Sources for IBM 7340-3 and 7955 Hypertape

I'd like to update IBM 7340 with information on the 7340-3 used on the System/360 and the 7955 Tractor used on the 7950 Harvest. Does anybody have reliable sources, preferably online? I can't find A22-6828, IBM 7340 Hypertape Drive Model 3 with IBM System/360, in bitsavers and don't have a copy. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:31, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On video file compression in Wikimedia Commons

So I was thinking about encoding random (ie. new/frequently used) videos uploaded to WM Commons that are less compressed, and uploading them to supersede initial less compressed ones. Since I have some CPU power standing idle around me, I wanted to use it for something good.

Question - Is this even necessary? I see that WMCommons automatically transcode basically all videos into VP9 with different resolutions (and the compression seems “good enough”). When readers view the video through Wikipedia (on the max resolution), are they loading the original files or transcoded ones?

Question 2 - Compatibility for new codecs: I know AV1 - Opus to have great compression efficiency, but not well supported by older devices. Is WMCommon’s auto transcode to VP9 enough for us to safely assume that uploading AV1 would be a non-issue?

Bonus Question - How about distributed encoding? Like Wikipedians sharing CPU time to encode the most accessed videos with the slowest preset, just to improve WP’s bandwidth consumption by a negligible amount? 海盐沙冰 _{/ irisChronomia / Talk} 10:53, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Also credits to @Cmglee’s Sep16 post for inspiring me to do this. 海盐沙冰 _{/ irisChronomia / Talk} 10:59, 19 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]