Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Computing/2014 September 24

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September 24

White list at Gmail?

Some people send me emails via a form in my personal website. The mails goes right into my Gmail box. The problem is, sometimes such mails land in the Spam box... Anything you would suggest me of doing? I couldn't find a "Web address white list" or anything like that at Gmail... What would you suggest?

Thank you guys!, Ben. Ben-Natan (talk) 02:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Gmail has a very nifty feature for this sort of thing. Say your e-mail address is ben@gmail.com. If you set up your website to refer people to ben+website@gmail.com, those e-mails will still reach your inbox (anything following the plus is in a way ignored by Gmail), and you can then create a filter on your Gmail account so that any e-mails addressed to ben+website@gmail.com are never sent to spam, and perhaps even have a label added to them automatically for easy recognition. Organics ^talk 08:29, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Changes to BT Mail layout

Hi, I was wondering if someone could help with a query about the new BT Mail. I was upgraded to the new version of BT Mail overnight, and there no longer seems to be a next/previous button allowing you to scroll through emails. Checking my inbox this morning was a painfully slow process, and I have read on various forums that there are a lot of issues with the upgrade. Does anyone know of a way to restore the old version of BT Mail, or at least to add the next/previous function so checking my emails will become quicker? Thanks, 86.178.188.232 (talk) 11:57, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

RAM upgrade

Excuse my ignorance of computer terminology I have a laptop that I want to upgrade. It is the "Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430". The computer is unmodified, and is as it was straight out of the store. It came with 4 gigs of ram installed, but I want 8. There is a second memory slot, so I was thinking of getting another 4 gigs in there, or simply replace the existing 4 gig with an 8 gig slot. I haven't been able to get a price estimate. Approximately how much would this cost, assuming I'm going to be buying normal ram from a store? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Radioactivemutant (talk • contribs) 18:12, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

$67.34 :)—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 24, 2014; 18:20 (UTC)

"What links here" for the web in general

Is there a way to find pages which link to a specific page on the Internet in general? What if I know the site where the traffic is coming from, is there a way to search that site specifically for all instances of a link to a specific page? Dismas|^(talk) 18:34, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

I'm sure there are online tools for that, but myself, I'd just use google. Say, you need to see who is linking to www.somesite.duh from www.someothersite.yea. Just type this into the google search box:

site:someothersite.yea +"somesite.duh"

There might be some false positives, but it should give you a general idea. Here's another example. To find out who is linking to the English Wikipedia article on Bernardino da Ucria (just a random article I got to after clicking Special:Random) from outside of Wikipedia's domain, do this.

Hope it helps.—Ëzhiki (Igels Hérissonovich Ïzhakoff-Amursky) • (yo?); September 24, 2014; 18:52 (UTC)

Better yet, use Google's 'link:' syntax, as described here [1]. E.g. here is a list of pages that are not part of wikipedia.org that link to this desk, by entering /link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Computing -site:wikipedia.org / [2]. See here for a nice overview of some of the less well known aspects of google syntax [3]. SemanticMantis (talk) 21:19, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Thank you both. I'll give these ideas a shot tomorrow. Dismas|^(talk) 01:49, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

How to pirate at university

Every time I start Vuze to download some files, my internet stops working for several minutes. How do I get around this restriction from the university? 194.82.100.150 (talk) 23:51, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

What happens after several minutes? Does it stop every time you start a download? If so, that's probably on purpose and breaking a university's rules generally isn't a good idea, if you're there for career reasons. A low-tech solution would be to drive or walk somewhere with more liberal Wifi. Most university cities have decent speeds. Or plan ahead during the day which stolen intellectual property you want to enjoy later in your room. If you suddenly think of something you want to see and are already in bed, try to find it on a streaming site. Those are usually allowed. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:42, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

After about half an hour the internet starts working again. Yeah, every time. I've streamed some movies but sometimes the internet it too slow, especially in HD. I'm wondering if there are solutions like proxies to use Vuze or other torrent applications. 194.82.100.150 (talk) 01:09, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

A virtual private network could give you some degree of IP anonymity, but the university may likely be watching for that, like the bank manager looking for Homer Simpson in the house next to the house with no numbers. I'll let someone else advise you on the technical bits (for liability and knowledge reasons), but if I can read this, so can your school. Or a vengeful, starving movie producer.

Streaming HD can be a bit tricky (except in South Korea), but shouldn't be something a little buffering can't solve within a sandwich's time. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

I looked into your university's regulations. You're not allowed to infect the system with any sort of malware (as P2P often does), nor "take deliberate action to circumvent any precautions taken or prescribed by the institution to prevent this." Also says you can't break several named laws, including copyright ones. Also, if you want to download porn, you need approval from your designated authority. "However, the consumption of cold water in the IT suites is tolerated." InedibleHulk (talk) 02:37, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

"Using such software will result in your internet access being blocked....

Here's the deal: you don't own the whole network - ever - so you have to play by the rules that are set down by whomever does own the network. Those rules can be benign, or annoying, or they might amount to downright censorship. Perhaps the policies are unethical, or enforced by incompetent minions! Doesn't matter! You still don't control somebody else's network - you don't own their computers, routers, and switches - and even if you depend on them for your connection to the outside world, you can't force them to change their behaviors to suit your whim.

If you're a really sharp tack, you'll head to your university's computer science department to learn about the internet - this amazingly robust piece of technology was designed to enable communication over untrustworthy and uncooperative networks. In fact, the technology that we call internet protocol, and many of the application layers that rest on top of it, especially the peer to peer network applications you use for pirating - all evolved out of technologies that militaries designed to be completely impervious to catastrophic hardware failures, malicious eavesdroppers, technologically-proficient "hackers," and nuclear explosions that destroy data-centers. Rest assured: there does exist a solution to circumvent the policies in place! (It's probably a really bad idea to actively violate your school's policy, though - especially if you value the rewards that come from following the rules and playing nicely with others).

Nimur (talk) 02:51, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for all your responses. As using torrenting applications like Vuze or uTorrent is caught, is there another method of downloading files? Any websites where I can directly download files? 194.82.100.150 (talk) 21:52, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

We will not help you find websites that promote open piracy of content. If you would like to know why, you can read Wikipedia policy and guidelines regarding linking to copyrighted work.

We will gladly help you find links to legitimate sources of free information, including entertainment. Wikimedia Commons contains a large archive of public-domain and freely-licensed film, music, and imagery. Wikipedia and WikiBooks contain the world's largest free repository of free content of encyclopedic merit. Project Gutenberg hosts free literature and written content that you can download and use for nearly any purpose. Internet Archive provides an extensive listing of free downloadable music. Perhaps you would like to own an MP3 copy of the Siegfried Idyll?

Wikipedia volunteers spend time to create and distribute free content because we value sharing. We do not promote infringing on intellectual property rights of others, because not everybody wants to share their content at zero cost. We respect that choice.

If you still choose to pursue flagrant copyright violation, you should look elsewhere for advice.

Nimur (talk) 22:28, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Archive.org has a ton of free movies and music, and they're not as boring as the words "archive" and "public domain" convey, either. Not all of them. Direct download, too, in various forms.

Personally, I do encourage piracy, but not as a Wikipedian, I suppose. InedibleHulk (talk) 22:47, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

What I download may not necessarily be copyrighted. Vuze and uTorrent, while banned by the university, are often used to share free material. Same with any websites that allow direct download of files. I think MediaFire is one such site? I don't think it allows me to search their website for files that are hosted though. A website that allows that would be great, if you know of any. 194.82.100.150 (talk) 02:56, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Fair point. Putlocker/Sockshare/Firedrive hosts a combination of free and owned stuff for streaming, and lets unregistered users download things under a gigabyte. You can do a Google site search ("site:whatever.com") for whichever perfectly legal video. There are various tools (of various sketchiness) to download YouTube and Dailymotion videos, which are also often free. I'll let you look for those yourself. InedibleHulk (talk) 18:32, 27 September 2014 (UTC)