Ask a Super User Moderator

2:36 AM

Just caught some spam called Ashisoft while going through the 10K new-answers-to-old-questions queue.

-1

A: Program for remove exact duplicate files while caching search results

Following loosely your solution, I've posted a full/native Windows solution (ok, it is cross-platform actually, because hashdeep runs also on *nixes). Also, I chose not to encapsulate the commands in .bat files because the commands are fairly simple, But I Need To Find Duplicate Files...

0

A: Music library deduplicator

Another Free Duplicate File Finder from Ashisoft is a free utility for finding duplicate files in a folder and all its sub folders.

-1

A: Remove duplicate files with advanced name search

One more free tool which got 5 star rating from cnet... Free Duplicate File Finder This free duplicate file scanner for the Windows Platform has the facility to deep scan various music formats such as: MP3, M4A, M4P, WMA, FLAC, OGG, APE, and more. It's interface is intuitive to use and it has ...

DragonLord

2:58 AM

A quick read of the linked page will reveal this is actually spam:

-1

A: Impossible to remove iMesh Search Bar from Firefox on Windows XP

Type into "about:config" into Firefox address bar and hit Enter on your keyboard, which will take you to the Firefox advanced settings. Type into search.imesh.net on the search bar, you can locate this site quickly. If you see that the string of “browser.newtab.url” is changed to search.imesh.ne...

Just give up, spammers.

Consider that the sheer number of articles about removing different kinds of malware on the Doofix blog is really meant for SEO

All they're doing is publishing as much content as they can to raise their search engine rankings. I am not so easily fooled.

Journeyman Geek

3:43 AM

@DragonLord: deleted, suspended, deleted.

The imesh guy uses a known pattern for spammers

DragonLord

@JourneymanGeek I really wish we ordinary users had access to this spam data

Just one more reason the ♦ means so much to me :/

I'm just doing what I can to fight spam—at least I have a penchant for finding spam others miss ;-)

in Root Access, Dec 25 '14 at 21:13, by fixer1234

I don't have an incognito window or sandboxed browser, but I'll have to check out virustotal (wasn't familiar with that). It sounds like flagging posts as spam isn't enough; they need to be flagged specifically to your attention (and what are the odds that you haven't already found it).

fixer1234

@JourneymanGeek - Are you on-board?

DragonLord

I have to leave in a few minutes

fixer1234

@DragonLord - I posted a message earlier concerning your Meta question.

DragonLord

@fixer1234 Yes, I noticed that

10 hours ago, by fixer1234

DragonLord recently posted a question on Meta (beat me to it), http://meta.superuser.com/questions/9099/please-dont-vote-to-close-excel-questio‌ns-as-off-topic, about someone trying to close Excel questions inappropriately. Apparently, this person doesn't frequent the Meta site.

10 hours ago, by fixer1234

These are continuing to bloat the close queue. This one today, http://superuser.com/questions/872033/excel-spreadsheet-data-harvesting, was one of many since DragonLord's question that finally triggered asking this here. Can a mod determine who is doing this and explain what is on-topic?

(cc @JourneymanGeek, gotta go)

roar

fixer1234

3:57 AM

Hope you don't mind my name-dropping.

@JourneymanGeek - What's the procedure for using this chat room. Often, there's no mod present. Just post a message for the next mod who drops in or flag down any mod and see if they happen to be online somewhere?

Journeyman Geek

@fixer1234: The former

I tend to have a computer logged in and on most of the time so... can't assume I'm on

sorry about that

ahh

I'll look into it

fixer1234

Just curious. Seems like people wander in and get into long discussions. Any post and run messages could get lost.

Journeyman Geek

@fixer1234: The excel thing is tricky

I need to sit down and review the posts, confirm its the same person, then contact him, either via the mod message system or here.

Here's the right way, but yanno, public shaming and all that ;p

That post did not exist, unless you're the person pinged ;p

fixer1234

I know there is plenty of room for opinion. I just seemed like a relatively new problem that's adding to the glut of questions in the close queue. Figured it was just a question of education if there's one misguided soul.

Journeyman Geek

Yeah

fixer1234

4:08 AM

Anyway, sounds like the matter is in good hands. I'll let you run.

Journeyman Geek

I'd also suggest a custom flag on such stuff

just one. If it absolutely needs mod attention quickly ;p

DragonLord

2:16 PM

Can a mod close these questions as duplicates of (or change the duplicate question to) this canonical question?

http://superuser.com/questions/538383/did-my-usb-drive-just-die
http://superuser.com/questions/871762/computer-cant-recognize-usb-flash-disk
http://superuser.com/questions/431073/usb-drive-is-empty-in-drive-management
http://superuser.com/questions/311111/how-do-i-fix-a-memorex-usb-8gb-flash-drive-that-shows-0-b-available
http://superuser.com/questions/819820/cannot-access-or-format-my-usb
http://superuser.com/questions/692929/cant-access-usb-drive-anymore
http://superuser.com/questions/746344/is-my-sony-usb-flash-drive-dead

This question came up eight times.

The issue is exactly the same in every case: The flash drive stops working and shows up as having "no media".

This is why I wrote the canonical question and answer in the first place.

DragonLord

2:38 PM

Uncovered even more dupes

List of duplicates: superuser.com/q/538383, superuser.com/q/871762, superuser.com/q/431073, superuser.com/q/311111, superuser.com/q/819820, superuser.com/q/692929, superuser.com/q/746344, superuser.com/q/373508, superuser.com/q/200910, superuser.com/q/73754, superuser.com/q/101190, superuser.com/q/327707, superuser.com/q/426218, superuser.com/q/445728, superuser.com/q/839177 — DragonLord 54 secs ago

Xavierjazz

Re: closing excel questions, I am probably the one who you are referencing, and it's true, I do not frequent meta. Thank you for sending me this thread. I guess I don't understand how questions about using formulas in excel are about hardware OR software. I have no wish to add to problems here, and from what I gather here, I have been wrong. So, I will desist. Best regards,

DragonLord

57 secs ago, by Xavierjazz

Re: closing excel questions, I am probably the one who you are referencing, and it's true, I do not frequent meta. Thank you for sending me this thread. I guess I don't understand how questions about using formulas in excel are about hardware OR software. I have no wish to add to problems here, and from what I gather here, I have been wrong. So, I will desist. Best regards,

Just notifying fellow community members about this. Thanks for letting us know.

Xavierjazz

Well, it showed up in my messages. I still don't understand how formulas are about hardware or software. I would appreciate some education. :)

Journeyman Geek

@Xavierjazz: Its about how to use software

If its a bad question there's other close reasons but in general those were in scope

Xavierjazz

Okay. Thanks.

Journeyman Geek

2:48 PM

@DragonLord: man, that's a LOT...

I'll probably take a look at it during lunchtime or something

(or just leave them as is unless they pop out ._.)

DragonLord

@JourneymanGeek That's the whole reason I wrote this canonical question in the first place.

1

Q: USB flash drive not working, Disk Management reports "No Media" with 0 bytes size and may behave as an empty disk drive

I have a USB flash drive which is no longer recognized by my computer. Windows Disk Management and DiskPart report No Media with no storage space (0 bytes) on the drive and I cannot partition or format the drive: Source If the drive appears in Windows Explorer, trying to access it returns an e...

Journeyman Geek

(since I am about to go to bed XD)

yeah, I didn't expect that many

fixer1234

6:09 PM

@DragonLord - Thanks for forwarding the update. re: flash drive question, it's like you have a giant magnet for finding needles in haystacks. Maybe this is something I should raise on Meta, but canonical Q&A is an important resource that needs better implementation.

We have some number of these, but there is no easy way to access them when you need them. Without an easy-access tab directly to an indexed set, they are kind of useless. You need to do a custom search and they are buried in a pool of community wiki questions that includes all kinds of other stuff.

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