Updating Windows 7 (K2 #28)

I am trying to use Windows Update but I keep getting the following error code: 80072EFE. I tried to solve the problem in different ways, such as running PC Cleaner and SystemCare 4, and even reinstalling Windows 7 (without formatting drive C). However, I keep getting the error. Can you kindly advise?

-- Tashi Dubjur, College of Science and Technology (CST)

Dear Tashi,

Operating systems such as Windows 7 are complex creatures, and the issue of the type that you encountered is quite common. I’ve also run into similarly annoying error messages. In my experience, the key to solving such problems is by searching online for solutions. Why? Well, there are millions of other Windows users around the world, and typically a few of them have already run into the same problem. Luckily, you are not alone! Other users will often share their solutions, usually in an online forum. You can find online discussions by typing the exact error message text into the Google search bar.

With all of this in mind, I've searched for your specific problem. I typed "error code 80072EFE" in the Google search bar, and got many relevant results. Try it! The top result was for a discussion that had more than one hundred posts. According to the discussion, many users found that a Kaspersky utility that removes a nasty virus was able to solve the problem. So read the discussions, see what solutions people have found, and try them out.

Website of the Week

Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.com)

Students have started their winter vacations, but that does not mean that learning must stop. About five years ago, Salman Khan, a young Bangladeshi-American with a gift for making the complicated appear simple, created and uploaded a few short video clips containing math tutorials to YouTube. His original motivation was to help his remotely-located cousins with maths. The videos became popular. Very popular. So popular, in fact, that eventually Khan left his job, founded “Khan Academy”, and the rest, as they say, is history. KhanAcademy.org now contains over 2700 short video clips covering math, physics, chemistry, history and more. Everything is free. Check it out and you’ll discover that there's more to the Internet than Facebook.

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Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

Who Updates Wikipedia? Part II (K2 #27)

Question of the Week (Cont'd)
I recently noticed that there's a new article in Wikipedia on the Royal Wedding, but it contains many errors. Who is responsible for these errors?
-- Sonam P., MoE

Dear Sonam,

In the last column I talked about Wikipedia and explained how errors find their way into articles. As promised, this week I describe how to update Wikipedia articles. But first, a refresher: Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.com) is one of the Internet's most popular websites. It is a fantastic, free, online encyclopedia with millions of articles. Wikipedia articles can be created, edited and updated by anyone with an Internet connection.

How to earn Wikipedia karma points
Articles related to Bhutan in Wikipedia are still scarce. Here's how you can help. Go to en.wikipedia.org, and look for the search bar near the top-right. Search for a topic on which you are knowledgeable. It can be your gewog's name, favourite Bhutanese film, local flora and fauna, your high school, your favorite member of parliament, etc. If an article about the topic does not exist, you can start one. If an article already exists, read it. There is a good chance that you can improve the article. Log into your account (or create an account if one does not exist), edit the article, preview and save. That's it! You have selflessly contributed to world knowledge.

Many visitors to Wikipedia are just "readers", that is, people who read articles. However, you can also write, edit and update articles. Suppose that you read a Wikipedia article and spot an error. You can easily fix it! Here's how: look for the "Edit" tab near the top-right area of the screen. Click on it, and you'll be taken to an online editor which contains the text of the article. Find the error, correct it, then click "Show preview", and if you like what you see - click "Save page". That's it. The entire world will now see the improved article! Once you edited an article, you officially become a "Wikipedian" - someone who writes and edits Wikipedia articles. There are almost 16 million Wikipedians around the world, including some in Bhutan.

Tip 1: I recommend opening a (free) account in Wikipedia before editing articles. To create an account, go to en.wikipedia.org and click on "Log in / create account" at the top-right of the page. Using a Wikipedia account improves your online privacy. If you edit an article without logging in, your IP address will be publicly displayed in the page's revision history. This means that you can be traced back. If you edit an article while logged in, only the username that you chose for your account will be displayed.

Tip 2: To learn more about editing articles, go to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Editing. For creating new articles, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creating_new_pages

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Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

The law of one-way adjustments

When petrol prices go up, RSTA hikes the taxi fares. When petrol prices go down, taxi fares remain unchanged. Is there a scientific explanation for this phenomenon, or is it just one of nature's mysteries?

Today: information session on PhD-level studies @ ISB

A quick reminder about tomorrow's open information session on the Fellow Programme in Management at the top-ranked Indian School of Business.

When & where: Wed, Nov 16 @ BCCI Hall, Thimphu (free event).
To reserve your seat: send your name and organization by SMS to 17583975 or email galit@rigsum-it.com.

Feel free to join and post on our Facebook event page.

Who Updates Wikipedia? Part I (K2 #26)

Question of the Week

I recently noticed that there's a new article in Wikipedia on the Royal Wedding, but it contains many errors. Who is responsible for these errors?
-- Sonam P., MoE

Dear Sonam,

Many Internet users in Bhutan are not familiar with Wikipedia, so this is a great opportunity to let readers know about a terrific online resource. Wikipedia - accessible at www.wikipedia.org - is an online encyclopedia. It contains millions of articles about every conceivable domain of human knowledge. The Wikipedia website is one of the most popular websites in the world, currently up there in the top 5, together with the more familiar Google, Yahoo!, Facebook and YouTube. Like Facebook, surfing Wikipedia can become addictive, but it is unlikely to be blocked at your office!

Wikipedia tips

• Wikipedia is available in many languages. To access the English version, go directly to en.wikipedia.org. Use the search bar on the top right to find articles.
• "Simple English" Wikipedia, written in basic English, is accessible at simple.wikipedia.org. It can be useful to school students or anyone struggling with English

Traditional printed encyclopedias, the most famous one being Encyclopedia Britannica, used to be housed in libraries, because they were too expensive for most people to have at home. At libraries, they populated long shelves, and required heavy-lifting. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is completely free and accessible from any Internet-connected computer. For the first time in history, people now have cheap and easy access to an incredible amount of knowledge and information.

While Encyclopedia Britannica was written by reputable experts, Wikipedia entries are written, edited and updated by anyone who wants to help. It is a collaborative effort by Internet volunteers. This means that information is usually very up-to-date. For example, a few minutes after Muammar Gaddafi was killed, the Wikipedia entry about him already contained his date of death: a volunteer edited this piece of information. But since anyone can update Wikipedia, it also means that information can be incorrect. This does not mean that there isn't plenty of useful and correct information on Wikipedia, but it does require critical reading.

As to Wikipedia's royal wedding article (http://goo.gl/FQqka), it was mostly created and updated by non-Bhutanese volunteer editors, many of whom lack the knowledge that Bhutanese have. For example, the royal wedding article currently designates Dasho Kinley Dorji as "Bhutan's Minister of Information", which is obviously wrong; he is the Secretary of MoIC. Of course, by the time your read this, someone might have already corrected this error. From my experience, there are many errors in other entries about Bhutan as well. In the next column I'll share some tips on editing Wikipedia articles. Until then, check out articles about Bhutan and see how many other mistakes you can find!

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Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

Spotted in Thimphu

What's with the MoE Website?

The official website of the Ministry of Education, www.education.gov.bt, is dead. And it's been dead for the last few weeks. We first tweeted about this a few days ago.  My guess is that it went down about 3 or 4 weeks ago. That's a pretty long time for a website of that importance to be unavailable. In the online world, it's almost infinity. It's down for so long, in fact, that the website does not even come up in Google search results. Try looking for "ministry of education, bhutan" or any other query related to education in Bhutan. The ministry's official web site is just not there. It's gone.