Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2013 December 7

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December 7

Can a website know what folder did I save its content to or upload contents from?

And also, are there other informations transmitted?--chaoxiandelunzi (talk) 00:41, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure not. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 07:29, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes. With some Javascript and/or flash programs it's trivial to see most of that information. Even without that, a normal http POST command doesn't have to send that information, but it would be possible to have it included. Your only protection is in what your browser builds in. I don't know the specifics, but Bubba's almost certainly wrong in such a blanket statement. Shadowjams (talk) 12:05, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I stand corrected. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 02:01, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Gmail tab in Safari is stuck at 27 email notifications

I'm running OS X 10.9 with Safari 7.0. For some reason, the tab that I have Gmail in says I have 27 unread emails which it has said for days no matter how many unread emails I actually have. One of the interesting things is that when I change to that tab, the title bar of the window has the correct count. It's just the tab. I've tried clearing the cache and the recommendations at this link. Any ideas as to how to fix this so that it updates? Dismas|^(talk) 01:07, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Have you tried logging out of gmail and logging back in? RudolfRed (talk) 03:00, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

If I log out, clear the cache, and then log back in, the tab updates (now 20) but then if I quit and reopen Safari, it reverts right back to 27. Dismas|^(talk) 03:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Red lens on the back of laptop harddisk

My laptop HDD (WD5000BEVT) failed so I replaced it. I wonder what this red lens thing on the back is for. It isn't present on the new drive (entirely different series/model). --78.148.106.99 (talk) 03:36, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I can't say for sure, but it looks to me like a water damage indicator. I've not seen one before on a hard drive, but the indicators on some phones look very similar to that. I notice it appears red in colour - if it is a moisture indicator, this is usually what happens when they are triggered. I also notice from the picture that some of the metal appears to have oxidised - was the drive ever exposed to water prior to failure? If so, the fact that the "lens" is red would suggest it is indeed a moisture indicator. AJCham 03:35, 10 December 2013 (UTC)

Google search not showing wikipedia

My Google Search for "William Hastie" gives all results for William H. Hastie whereas I am looking for William Hastie. However "William Hastie" has been viewed more (1019 times) than "William H. Hastie" (960 times) in the last 30 days. Is there any way to increase Search Engine Ranking for "William Hastie"?— Preceding unsigned comment added by Solomon7968 (talk • contribs) 08:08, 7 December 2013‎

Bear in mind it's possible plenty of the people visiting William Hastie actually wanted William H. Hastie. I'm not totally convinced we have our primary topics right, although having William H. Hastie at the current location appears correct as the H. seems to be used by most sources. Anyway, William H. Hastie appears to be a lot more talked about than William Hastie including with places named after him etc, including with some which mention him without the H. So the only way to change the search rankings would be to get people to stop talking about William H. Hastie (not realisticly possible) or to get people to talk much more about William Hastie (difficult, none of the stuff he did appears to be that significant). That or get the search engines to change their algorithms to care a lot less about what people are actually talking about and linking to and want to find when searching. If you just want to filter out plenty of the other stuff try '"william hastie" -"william h. hastie"'. Perhaps also throw -"william henry hastie" and not sure if it's necessary but -"william h hastie". Nil Einne (talk) 11:06, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the post is about getting Google to find the Wikipedia article William Hastie, and not about using Google to find other information about that William Hastie. The article is the first Google hit for me on William Hastie theologian so the article is indexed by Google. It just doesn't place in searches on "William Hastie" alone. We are making an encyclopedia and not doing search engine optimization. Don't make artificial edits in attempts to place an article higher in Google. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure but my point is the only real way to get the William Hastie article to rank higher would be if stuff on the internet changes, e.g. if people start talking about the person covered in our William Hastie article and therefore linking to that article a lot more or if people stop talking about the William H. Hastie (or if the internet search engines purposely damage their algorithms). Well okay I didn't mention other stupid possibilities like people talking about William H. Hastie but linking to our article on the person we cover in William Hastie or spambots talking random crap and linking to William Hastie (which doesn't work that well anyway) but I took it as a given they weren't under consideration as they are just silly. (The others may not be really plausible, but if people really were to stop talking about someone or start talking about someone else, it's questionable if either are 'bad' per se.)

The search string '"william hastie" -"william h. hastie"' is enough to ensure you find our article on William Hastie, at least last time I checked (before my first post). Adding theologian may work as well, but it seems to me easily possible someone searching for the person may not know they are a theologian hence my suggestion. The william h hastie thing should be an obvious choice once you find 'william hastie' or '"william hastie"' is not finding what you want but stuff on William H. Hastie. (The Henry was added in the even the -h example isn't sufficient in some circusmtancess.)

There remains of course the issue (which the RD isn't the place to deal with) that our primary topic for William Hastie may be a mistake. If we were to redirect William Hastie to William H. Hastie, we could provide a diambig note to direct people to our disambig page. This would have the advantage that most people arriving at our article on William Hastie, which as I've said I suspect ended up at the wrong page. would likely end up at the right place. And those people searching on internet search engines like Google who end up on William H. Hastie but are looking for some other William Hastie would also have an easy way to find what they're looking for.

We could of course make a disambig notice in William H. Hastie regardless of whether William Hastie directs there, but I'm not sure how much support there is for adding a disambig note when internally it would seem unnecessary (as people should not come to William H. Hastie unless they are looking for William H. Hastie, I'm presuming that none of the others are William H. Hastie but didn't check).

Nil Einne (talk) 16:32, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

P.S. I could be I'm mistaken about the significance of William Hastie (and therefore the correct primary topic, although it's still possible William Hastie redirecting to the disambig page may make more sense even if not really helping with our search engine dilemma). I had a quick look at the 'what links here' to look for incorrect links thinking there might be a few, but what I found instead are a large number of links that appear correct. It looks like William Hastie's legacy in India or perhaps South Asia may be fairly great. This may explain the OP's interest as I believe they are from there. In that case, and considering the ongoing rise of India or perhaps the wider South Asia region, it may be the problem will eventually sort itself out in the manner I mentioned, namely with more people talking about William Hastie. P.P.S. I see now that William Hastie is linked from Template:Swami Vivekananda which I think is the cause of many of the links. P.P.P.S. I forgot to mention, I'm still not sure why there's a link to William Heste in our William H. Hastie article. Nil Einne (talk) 16:41, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

I just tried Microsoft Bing and it gave me both: William Hastie and William H. Hastie. AboutFace_222601:7:7680:626:CC14:6991:8170:36EF (talk) 18:16, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Google returns what it "thinks" you want, and results depend on where you search from. The Scottish theologian is the second result for me here in the UK on a "William Hastie" search. Dbfirs 10:06, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

Can I prohibit some program's access to certain directories?

I guess some software I have might collect my personal informations by browsing through my hard disk. I am using Windows now.--Wg127 (talk) 14:18, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Some people use sandboxing programs like Sandboxie, others use a whole virtual install inside a virtualisation system like VirtualBox. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:51, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

If you place your mouse cursor on a folder icon in Windows Explorer and do a right click you will see an item on the dropdown menu: Share With. Then there will be a subdirectory, one of the items will be "Nobody." I think it is all you need. AboutFace_222601:7:7680:626:CC14:6991:8170:36EF (talk) 18:11, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

That is all you need assuming you have well-behaved programs. If you suspect (as I believe the OP does) that some program may be deliberately attempting to harvest personal information, asking them politely not to share things just isn't going to cut it. I would second the virtual machine option, ensuring that any options which expose the real operating system to the virtual one (e.g. clipboard sharing) are switched off (I can't comment on the sandboxing programs, having never used them). Equisetum (talk | contributions) 20:51, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Equipment identification

Could anyone identify the equipment in this image? I think it is for processing images, though I'm not sure. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:25, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

It may be a microfilm reader. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:35, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Compare it, for example, to the Realist Vantage VI reader shown in this ebay auction - they're certainly not the same model, but they have similar features in common, including the microfiche tray, and the lens that shines up into the angled hood. Your one seems to also have spigots for spools, allowing microfilm as well as fiche to be used. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 14:47, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks. That makes sense. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:05, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

How times have changed. These can still be found in many libraries. Pre-internet, newspapers were archived and made available on microfilm. They still make them, but are increasingly rare. Many libraries are seeking to eliminate them as demand is declining for microfilm and -fiche. _{Yay question in my immediate area of expertise! That doesn't happen often.} Mingmingla (talk) 18:27, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Note the knobs on the ends of the spools: besides preventing the microfilm from coming off, they enable you to scroll through the film even without using the electrically powered scrolling that's present on many such devices. These are still important in some settings; I've been using my library's microfilms a ton lately, since our digital subscriptions to old newspapers provide single articles but are useless for the page layouts that I need when attempting to get the date for a front page that appears in a photograph. Nyttend (talk) 20:36, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

• Interesting. The museum where I was has pretty much abandoned their microfilm room, choosing instead to redigitalise their collection using computers. I've never had the chance to use such a machine yet :-(. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:00, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Choosing the web construction software.

Hello there,

I posted recently "Hiring a programmer for a job," "Setting up a website," etc. I will try to formulate my goal. I need to set up a website where I will explain how my patent works. That will require perhaps 3-5 maybe more pages of hand typed text with some formulas (about 8-10). I have to explain the background, then how everything works, etc.

Well, somebody, perhaps StuRat or SteveBaker suggested to use WordPress or Apache. I just looked into both. The WordPress requires MySQL. I once tried to handle it but found it obscure, besides they were intrusive, trying to contact me to get something from me I don't even remember what. I think somebody acquired a copyright for it or so. I set up Microsoft Sql Server instead. It has worked for me for many years. Now, my question is: can I use Sql Server with WordPress instead of MySql?

In fact I don't think I need a database of any kind. I can explain everything in simple terms in just a few web pages. Is it possible with WordPress?

Thanks, AboutFace_222601:7:7680:626:CC14:6991:8170:36EF (talk) 20:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

PDFs in IE10, Windows 8

So I bought a computer yesterday (with a CD drive, mind you!), and it's my first time attempting to use Windows 8; I've used IE 10 before, but only in a work context in which I can't customise anything. To my disappointment, whenever I try to download a PDF, it brings it up in a separate Acrobat Reader window, although I'd like it to load in a separate tab. What do we call the ability to view a PDF in one's browser? I've tried looking for help resources, but I'm having trouble because I don't even know what to call it. This was possible in basic IE8 in Windows 7 (see Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2012 August 29), and the Windows 7 computer I use at work is able to open them in IE10 with some sort of plugin, but a Google search for <acrobat plugin ie10> returns only results for Windows 7, plus occasional things (example) discussing complete failure to load, rather than the file loading in the wrong way. Any idea what terms, other than "plugin", would be good search terms? Or perhaps any ideas on how to help me directly, since I find Windows 8 very annoyingly confusing? Thanks! Nyttend (talk) 20:44, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

If you go to the Adobe's site for Adobe Reader, it will generally detect your current OS [1] although I would recommend you disable any option to install additional products like McAfee unless you're absolutely sure you want those as well. Adobe Reader should work with most common browsers although with some you may need to disable the built in PDF reader. There are plenty of other PDF readers many of which will work with most browsers. I'm not sure about Metro/Windows Store IE10 however. And with IE11, at least on Windows x64, you may get warnings for PDF readers like Adobe Reader which lack 64 bit support [2]. P.S. Adobe no longer uses the name Acrobat for the Reader, in fact they haven't for a long time, since version 6.0 released in July 2003. They only use it for the products which create, manage and edit PDFs. P.P.S. I strongly suspect you do not have any Adobe Reader product, let alone Adobe Acrobat installed. Most likely all you have is the (Metro/Windows Store) Microsoft Reader app which can open PDFs and that's installed by default with most common Windows 8 configs. Nil Einne (talk) 21:46, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for correcting my misidentification! I've installed absolutely nothing since buying this computer, except for the programs that were suggested at startup, as well as a free program to restore the start menu, which the Staples salesman suggested. I was able to read the files in a weird way, so I assumed it was the latest edition of Adobe Reader. I've been using the Acrobat Professional 9.0 since buying it several years ago (just haven't installed it yet) because I need to be able to create and modify PDFs beyond what the reader can do; I didn't remember difficulties with previous versions of Windows, so I took it to be the result of using a new Windows edition. Nyttend (talk) 22:10, 7 December 2013 (UTC)