Deleting Files for Dummies

Acrobat file menu

One of our staffers was reminiscing not long ago about his first programming class. The instructor asked the class members to write out an algorithm for some simple task, and he – perhaps because he was working as a bartender at night – submitted the algorithm for making a Singapore Sling. Ahhh, simpler times. Well, Techwalla (née eHow.com) likes the algorithm approach, but sometimes their hardwired format gets just a little stupid; a feature that is often exacerbated by contributors like Elizabeth Knoll when called on to answer simple questions such as "How to Delete a PDF File."

Knoll, as is required of any contributor in the Demand Media / Leaf stable, opened by "introducing" her topic:

"Portable Document Format (PDF) is a file format developed by the company Adobe to distribute platform-independent documents. These files may contain images, text and hyperlinks. Eventually it may become necessary to remove a PDF file from your computer. These files are deleted from your computer in the same manner as other files."

Umm, yeah: duh. We really like that "eventually..." business; and the filler about "images, text and hyperlinks"; although a complete introduction might mention that Adobe originally just put a wrapper around a PostScript file. But the key to this introduction is the last line: "the same manner as other files." We guess that's why Elizabeth wrote out seven – yes seven! – separate steps to delete a file in one version of Windows! Although to be fair, there are only six, while the seventh is to empty the recycle bin (say, Elizabeth; did you know that some people use IOS and a few even use Linux? no, you didn't). Yep, according to Knoll, it takes four steps just to find the darned thing, and that assumes you know where it is (more on that later). Then she needs two steps to delete the file and close out the file system. Oh, well, at least it was easy to write – though it would have been a lot easier to use the Windows "search" function to find the file, if you ask us.

Oh, and Elizabeth? Just an FYI: emptying the recycle bin does not "permanently delete" the file, it just makes it invisible to the file system tools, Trust us when we say that it's not that hard to recover a file after someone thought it had been "permanently deleted"!

More to the point, however, we think this question was a cry for help from some poor schmuck who downloaded a PDF file, say an IRS form, and now wants to delete it. In our experience (which we'll wager is far broader than Knoll's), downloaded files can be hellishly difficult to find. That is probably where Elizabeth should have focused  her effort: either finding the file with the search function, finding the file by finding your browser's download directory, or just looking at the PDF's properties on the Acrobat FILE menu.
But no, Elizabeth didn't want to think, she wanted to collect a fast $10 - $15 for writing half-assed instructions for deleting files in Windows 7... which is why she's picking up Dumbass of the Day award number eight.

copyright © 2016-2021 scmrak

DD - COMPUTERS