A thread for boring computer questions.

I've been using a freeware DOS music program for several years called Impulse Tracker. It's just about the only thing I enjoy using and I love it to bits. So when my dad bought me a new computer for a graduation cum birthday present expressly to make music on, i was overjoyed. Sadly I have had this computer for a year and i haven't been able to make a track since! The program runs very slowly and the sound is really hissy and horrible. On some other music programs, the computer comes up with an error about latency, which i assume links to this. Also I can't record anything from my CD player or microphone, no matter how much i fuck around with the sound settings. These problems also sometimes happen when I play DVDs - the sound is really hissy and granular ad often i have to turn the speakers right up to hear anything. What's going on?!!

i am still interested in learning whether it's possible to re-mount a removable drive that's still plugged in without taking the cable out and reinserting it. windows xp

Dog latin, are your speakers plugged into the correct port, is the internal volume on the computer turned up. Try plugging the sound out from your computer through an amp. It sounds like the on the hiss front is caused by too low sound levels amplified up really far. It may ofcourse be a duff soundcard.

why trn over slrn. I ask this because slrn is availible through fink and trn isn't and will be harder to install.

It's a bit like Ed's malfunctioning, isn't it?

Stereo playback quality is far more important than lots of inputs (I won't be using it for multi-track recording) or 5.1 capability. An S/PDIF I/O would be nice, as would some bundled analysis/DSP software (Cool Edit, Sound Forge, etc). Are the ones with breakout boxes the only ones guaranteed to be low noise?

I'm hoping to pay less than £100 but I may be out of luck unless I import from a US online retailer or score on eBay. Creative Audigy, M-Audio Audiophile, Echo Mia...

Soundkartenkatalog has a good selection to browse.

Watch out for customs duty and VAT on importing stuff from the US.

By 'import', I probably meant 'ship to friend in US and get them to stick it in their luggage next time they visit'.

I know SoundBlaster have a rotten rep (though why I'm not sure), but the Audigy 2 is only £99 at Maplins. Elsewhere I've found a good stripped-down card in Terratec's EWX24/96 (£119 from Digital Village) which is bundled with WaveLab Lite and GigaSampler LE.

(Also, it was probably last August when you mentioned, which says something about how memorable that term was)

ed, yeh it's all plugged in corretically and I run my sound through a stereo amp anyway. the hiss only happens when there's sound playing and only when i do certain things like play DVDs. So when people are talking it sounds like "Yeahscchhhhhh I knowhhhhh..." and there's a quiet digital crackle. It sounds even worse when I play it through Impulse Tracker.
I'm surprised by how few outputs there are on the soundcard - there are three sockets - SPK, LIN and MIC. I can't work out whether LIN is line out or line in so I just use SPK.
I never know the specs on my computer but it's running Windows ME with summat called C-Media Wave Device as the mixer. what other info might you need?

Try and track the signal path within the computer when doing these tasks, it can be a pain because its all virtual. I know much more about doing it in macs than in pc's i'm afraid. I do hope its not hardware.

Graham, yes, you need to get the cd player to pass the audio to the computer digitally and have the computer interpret it, this is a pc question isn't it, I don't know how to do this but there are ways. I remeber reading something about it on http://www.usb-audio.com/

Yes if you are using XP/2k go to the the CD Drive in Device Manager, goto properties and tick Enable Digital CD audio for this CD-ROM device, this will allow programmes access to CD audio data across the IDE cable.

No other cable will be needed.

Yeh, the CD player PLAYS but I can't get the computer to record either from mic or CD. I've checked all the levels on everything and theoretically it should work but it just doesn't. I think the shop sold me a crap soundcard (even though I did explain I wanted the computer to do music on - wankas!).

Thoth all the way. Halime as a second choice.

Or for that matter an X11 that'll compile for OS X. knode is not doing it for me.

Why not use the pre-compiled one from Apple?

downside is it's slow (although you could probably fiddle with the settings to speed things up at the expense of quality)

upsides: free, slim program, have a lot of control over the encoding process. most importantly, this setup is not clipping the ends off of my music files, as many many other progs do

1) The "background-color:white" property for a center <div> is not understood by the browser. I don't know how to fix it! Something with <layer> tags? I have tried, and no luck. Is there a hack?
2) When there is a lot of content in the center <div>, the browser scrunches it all up so that it prints over itself ! What to do?

Daria: apologies if this is patronisingly obvious and that was an example of a much more general case, but what if you specify the colour as a hex code, i.e. background-color: #FFFFFF? But Netscape 4.x is really not good with CSS; I've seen that scrunching problem many times and apart from doing a drastically simplified NS stylesheet - no messing with floating or "position:"s either absolute or relative and half my paddings and margins removed, ugh! - I never found a way round it. I have had problems like the first too but can't remember how or whether I fixed it.

Quick hacky way to do extra styles for IE without bothering with any JS or server-side client checking: the line of CSS "@IMPORT url(ie-styles.css);" will work in IE but not in Netscape - I don't remember which way other browsers behave - so you can put your basic styles in one stylesheet and add an import line in it for the IE stuff.

Unfortunately if you're doing anything very fancy with DHTML and CSS I have a nasty feeling you may have to do a cutdown version for Netscape users. Having said that, I too did some work for a university campus with a lot of stubborn NS4.x users and didn't actually have to do anything too drastic apart from the trick above.

Disclaimer: I don't know too much DHTML myself, and for my previous jobs it's been fine to settle for less than perfection in order to meet deadlines. I was also lucky enough to be the most knowledgeable about HTML of anyone there, frightening though that is considering my ineptitude, so if I said something wouldn't work then nobody else would contradict me. There are some fancy pieces of DHTML out there that work fine in Netscape, so maybe I just don't know enough. But from the CSS end Netscape is definitely a mess, even newer versions than 4.

**

Dog Latin: Impulse Tracker doesn't like Windows very much, unfortunately. IT3 has now reached beta stage, but it's taken a very long time to get that far, so who knows if it'll ever really happen? Besides, I am rather suspicious of it because Pulse is no longer on the coding team. I have a feeling that the finished product, if it arrives, will turn out different enough in feel to IT that I won't get used to it but still be a long way behind a lot of its current rivals (from Buzz and Psycle in the based-on-trackers arena to all the expensive professional stuff out there). My disappointment with Sk@le (basically Fasttracker 2 remade for Windows) and Renoise makes me wary.

About IT: use the MPU401 drivers if they work at all! Try it S19 and hope it will autodetect; if not, look for the settings in control panel and try specifying them manually. I think this is the closest IT can come to using your modern soundcard to full effect. Unfortunately this doesn't always seem to work even with cards that should be MPU401-compatible. It works now and autodetects on my SB Live but I remember last time I tried it didn't. I have no idea why this might have changed. Unfortunately I can't get any further because of memory and graphics mode problems. I used to get around that with a boot disk but with XP I'm not sure there's anything I can do. I'll try later.

IT's sound drivers are out of date and your modern soundcard's backwards compatibility with cards that existed when it was written is probably a bit dodgy. This could mean that the driver autodetect selects isn't the best - try choosing some others, if you haven't done so - or that you have to use a driver much worse than your card is capable of. On my SB Live the SB Pro driver works but isn't the one autodetect selects and the SB16 and SB AWE (both better soundcards than the Pro) drivers won't work at all, so by default I'd end up using the SB2 drivers. I had a Soundblaster 2 a decade ago. I don't want my computer to sound like that now.

What kind of soundcard do you have? My motherboard has onboard sound but I found it too noisy to use. I don't think it's that the chip itself is that bad, though it's obviously fairly cheap; it's more that it picks up so much interference from other board activity. If you're using a sound chip built into your motherboard I recommend not doing so. If you're using a separate soundcard, try rearranging your card slots so that the soundcard is in the furthest slot from the main section of the motherboard and not immediately next to any other cards.

One last thing: I believe Modplug tracker will read and write (not 100% identically to IT but it sounds fine most of the time) .IT files and can be set up so that the command codes and keyboard layout are as IT's was. I can't stand Modplug personally, so I can't confirm that, nor do I particularly recommend it. I just thought it might be worth a look since it was designed for Windows and will use your card's Windows sound drivers.

**

Apologies for such a long post when I suspect none of this will be any help to either of you. I may write boring and badly phrased posts like the above but I'm not really much good at techy things.

 [page content would be here] 

<div id="bodytext" style="background-color:white;position:absolute;visibility:visible;width:700px;left:165px;top:
144px;"> [page content would be here] </div>\

Netscape 4.x won't read background-color and is scrunching content. Argh! But don't trouble too much about it, I can always bother my techie brother, he might know. :)

P.S. yeh, I thought of shifting to Buzz or ModPlug but they're just not quite the same, y'know?

At least, those are the things I'm currently blaming, but even before XP completely stuffed my ability to use IT (it nearly worked in 98 if I didn't mind reinitialising my sound drivers - ctrl-I, I think - every few minutes when a weird buzzing noise would start) I'd stopped getting any tracks finished, so maybe I've just lost whatever inspiration I ever had.

If you can tweak Modplug to use the same layout and commands as IT then it should be far less of a leap since it's really just a plain tracker and no new commands to learn but the interface certainly put me off, you're right that it doesn't feel the same.

I give up on the DHTML thing but I would suspect that Netscape doesn't like the absolute positioning in pixels. If you could rewrite it in tables that should work, as long as you don't have too many tables nesting in convoluted ways inside each other.

The Mac OS X can connect to ftp servers, as can most web browsers.

For Mac OS X, in the finder from the Go menu choose Connect to server. It the box at the bottom type in ftp://serveraddress.here/(path is you like)/ and click connect. If you have a login put in your login and password. Or for anonynous put in login anonymous, password: your email address. The ftp server will then mount on your desktop.

I want to know if I should get a TOWER or a PIZZA BOX STYLE er... box! What do people recommend eh?

However if you must be contrary and buy a pc, get a tower, you've got space for extra drives if you need them. You ought to be able to put a pc together from parts.

Anyway, he's just a heathen with a heretical email address.

Mac OS X all the benefits of Unix with a useable interface, good design and free entry into a club off insufferable slobs.

Dog latin, it sounds like something is up with your pc. Give us some specifications. That freerip that someone recommended somewhere up there seems pretty quick although it is adware and you should find version 1 (google found it just like that) as version 2 installs spyware.

i've messed up the My Music shell folder. i tried to move it to another partition, but just dragged it over there, not using the right click "move here" thing - (i'm not sure whether things would have been ok had i done that or not) all the files are intact, it's just that i've lost the link to the folder in the start menu. i've tried doing it manually in the registry, but the path i enter always disappears. maybe there's another key i should be editing (i'm mainly looking at HKCU\software\microsoft\windows\current version\explorer\shell folders)

i've moved it back to C:\ with no luck. it takes about 45 mins to move the folder, so i can't practically just drag it all over the place to see what happens. i guess i should move the files out and then dink around with the folder.

anyways, ideas appreciated

I've just installed Debian linux on virtual PC so I can run pySLSK. Its all installed find

I've type in xinit it start up Xwindows. It gives the error:

Fatal server error:
no screens found

Its found the emulated graphics card fine but gives that error.

any ideas?

(This is now the thread where Ed updates about his adventures trying to get Debianlinux and pySOulseek working)

Also is there a util that allows me to tell what ip address a DHCP server has assigned Debian?

I just switched to XP and have a stupid system tray problem. I thought I'd posted it on this thread but I don't see it, so if I'm being repetitive, forgive me. I don't have a connection icon in my system tray when I'm connected to the internet. I've gone to Network Connections, right clicked on my connection for properties, and selected "show icon in notification area when connected". An icon then appears. I also have it set to "always show" on my system tray but the icon disappears right after I log off, and then deselects itself in Network connections when I dial up again. It seems like it may be a prob with XP and my ISP software...annoying.

select the 'taskbar' tab if it's not already

uncheck "group similar taskbar buttons"

if the reason you want to always have the icon is so you have something to click on to connect/disconnect, then i suggest putting a network icon in your quicklaunch. also, if you are on a broadband connection, there is a way to get an icon which will connect with one click, rather than popping up the "dial" dialog box. right click the start menu - properties, hit customize button. advanced tab. in the scroll down menu, look for network connections - select "display as connect to menu". the dialup icons in this menu will still bring up a "dial" box, but the broadband connections will just connect automatically when you click them, and you can right click --> disconnect them. so you can copy this shortcut to your desktop or quicklaunch. you could remove the menu from the start menu after you copied that shortcut, if you don't want it.

enough blabbering out of me ;-)

Thanks for the explanation of the taskbar "always show" not showing...that makes sense in a microsoft-being-ridiculous kinda way.

Yes Graham, it is a G4. Thanks for the advice, I almost missed it. :)

i'm tempted to say ipconfig but that's a dos command. i'm sure there's something very similar for linux. ifconfig perhaps? can't check without rebooting...

oh, btw, /var/log/XFree86.0.log (or something similar, slocate is your friend here) has lots of details about xfree86 startup problems. have spent ages recently pondering this whilst trying to get tvout to work

andy

How do I configure x access from outside, to get ssh -X working. ssh works now, but I can't start any x apps.

thanks, caitlin.

thanks for all this nannying.

So I've been looking online at sites where you can choose the spec for your own computer, building it as you go. It seems that I could get a decent machine for £600 odd, rather than the £900-1000 it would cost bought as a regular package. First of all, a) is this a good idea and b) can anyone recommend reliable and cheap sites for building a computer?

(NB I have no desire or ability to literally build it myself - I just want a bespoke build that someone else then puts together for me)

Thanks!

dali@edvpcdeb:~$ xterm &
[1] 266
xterm Xt error: Can't open display:
dali@edvpcdeb:~$ xcalc &
[2] 267
[1] Exit 1 xterm
dali@edvpcdeb:~$ Error: Can't open display:

[2]+ Exit 1 xcalc
dali@edvpcdeb:~$ gimp &
[1] 268
dali@edvpcdeb:~$
Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display:

[1]+ Exit 1 gimp
dali@edvpcdeb:~$

thanks in advance

See also Morgan computers who sell dead stock and seconds PC. thir shop is on new oxford st but you can google up their website as well.

in the apple world the apple store do refurb computers on wednesday mornings which can be good deals. Shaye also do refurb macs.

As for build to order the best deals are often from local computer stores but try and get a recommendations as I knew a fat bastard cowboy cunt who set one of these places up.

(I'm assuming from what you've said in the past that your ssh client is on an OS X machine that's got X11 installed on it; I've seen those sorts of errors when trying ssh on an OS X machine without X11)

this is what my ssh_config looks like on the apple box, I just uncomented the forwardX11 value

# Host *
# ForwardAgent no
ForwardX11 yes
# RhostsAuthentication no
# RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# RSAAuthentication yes
# PasswordAuthentication yes
# BatchMode no
# CheckHostIP yes
# StrictHostKeyChecking ask
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/identity
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_rsa
# IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_dsa
# Port 22
# Protocol 2,1
# Cipher 3des
# Ciphers aes128-cbc,3des-cbc,blowfish-cbc,cast128-cbc,arcfour,aes192-cbc,aes$
# EscapeChar ~

I've perused the man page but I'm not sure quite what I ought to change.

For completeness I'll include the sshd_config from the debian machine:

# Package generated configuration file
# See the sshd(8) manpage for defails

# What ports, IPs and protocols we listen for
Port 22
# Use these options to restrict which interfaces/protocols sshd will bind to
#ListenAddress ::
#ListenAddress 0.0.0.0
Protocol 2
# HostKeys for protocol version 2
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_rsa_key
HostKey /etc/ssh/ssh_host_dsa_key
#Privilege Separation is turned on for security
UsePrivilegeSeparation yes

# ...but breaks Pam auth via kbdint, so we have to turn it off
# Use PAM authentication via keyboard-interactive so PAM modules can
# properly interface with the user (off due to PrivSep)
PAMAuthenticationViaKbdInt no
# Lifetime and size of ephemeral version 1 server key
KeyRegenerationInterval 3600
ServerKeyBits 768

# Logging
SyslogFacility AUTH
LogLevel INFO

# Authentication:
LoginGraceTime 600
PermitRootLogin yes
StrictModes yes

RSAAuthentication yes
PubkeyAuthentication yes
#AuthorizedKeysFile %h/.ssh/authorized_keys

# rhosts authentication should not be used
RhostsAuthentication no
# Don't read the user's ~/.rhosts and ~/.shosts files
IgnoreRhosts yes
# For this to work you will also need host keys in /etc/ssh_known_hosts
RhostsRSAAuthentication no
# similar for protocol version 2
HostbasedAuthentication no
# Uncomment if you don't trust ~/.ssh/known_hosts for RhostsRSAAuthentication
#IgnoreUserKnownHosts yes

# To enable empty passwords, change to yes (NOT RECOMMENDED)
PermitEmptyPasswords no

# Uncomment to disable s/key passwords
#ChallengeResponseAuthentication no

# To disable tunneled clear text passwords, change to no here!
PasswordAuthentication yes

# To change Kerberos options
#KerberosAuthentication no
#KerberosOrLocalPasswd yes
#AFSTokenPassing no
#KerberosTicketCleanup no
# Kerberos TGT Passing does only work with the AFS kaserver
#KerberosTgtPassing yes

X11Forwarding yes
X11DisplayOffset 10
PrintMotd no
#PrintLastLog no
KeepAlive yes
#UseLogin no
AllowTcpForwarding yes

#MaxStartups 10:30:60
#Banner /etc/issue.net
#ReverseMappingCheck yes

Subsystem sftp /usr/lib/sftp-server

Caitlin you are such an absolute star for guiding me through this.

Is $DISPLAY set in the shell that you're starting ssh from? If you're starting it from an xterm already running under X11, though, I don't see why it shouldn't be.

To view its current value (I think in any shell) you type:
echo $DISPLAY

To set it, in sh or bash type:
DISPLAY=:0.0
export DISPLAY

(note that when setting it you *don't* type the $ signs. ':0.0' is its current value on my computer.)

If your shell is tcsh, I *think* you type:
set DISPLAY=:0.0

but I'm not entirely sure, because I never use tcsh.

Thanks for spending so much time sorting me out. now to try and get wxPython an pysoulseek working.

thanks again

NFS ones: with the 'mount' command; and by adding them to the file /etc/fstab. SMB ones, I don't know much about.

I'm dashing off home right now, but I'll tell you more on Monday if noone else has by then.

The fstab file format is dead simple: one line per filesystem, with the following fields: device (or network share), mountpoint, filesystem type, options, dump number and fsck number. For network shares, set the last two to zero. All the listed filesystems will be mounted on boot, unless noauto is included in the options column. If you put user or users in the options column, non-root users will be able to mount that filesystem.

Any questions?

i really like the look of arial in cleartype. however, my monitor displays poorly with cleartype on. are there tt fonts that simulate the cleartype ones? i don't even know if that question makes sense. The cleartype arial looks close to the font used in ableton live, which i tried to identify - there are some fonts in the program folders with (i think) an .fon extension. i saw some font converters on the web, but they warned of quality loss so that doesn't seem like such a great idea.

where are the best places to browse fonts?

windows doesn't seem able to use any old font as a system font either. are there any ways to force other fonts into windows?

is that right? (this is all theoretical - i prob couldn't figure out what the hell was going on with a programming language, nor do i want to pay for it, nor is this important ;-)

Also, are there any webmail sites that can also check your webmail on another host? Like my mac.com email cant be accessed from all browsers for some reason

PS - I got my laptop to actually LOAD for the first time in MONTHS the other day. I "renamed" some "devices"!

OK I just changed lots of 1's and 0's about and did DEVICEHIGH stuff HOW MUCH DO YOU ALL PH333333R ME NOW?

No I had nothing better to do :(

I admit now it will load all I can do is play Dopewars.

Phil - there's a Google mirror somewhere where I expect you'll be able to search on http proxy or http tunnels - I've lost all my URLS. However the majority of them are blocked even in my dodgy local council so I expect CHINA will have them blocked as well. If you search ILX you should be able to pull it up. Oh I'm no help. If it's any consolation I'm blocked from practically everything here as well... try getting a Yahoo account - they've got a POP3 thing enabled but I doubt that helps you with yr webmail.

however, my monitor displays poorly with cleartype on.
I haven't seen a monitor yet where it actually improved things. All it's ever done for me is hurt my eyes squinting at the results.

my mum and dad have an imac, a g3 one (its about 3 yrs old), aqnd they want to back up all their docs etc, tyo install mac os 9. so they buy a cd writer, an iomega external one, one of those big purple things, and try and burn all their stuff onto cd. the software it comes with is called hotburn and is shit. it generally seems to be going ok, and in theory the disc has been burned, but then doesnt play in the internal cd drive. apparently those internal cd drives are pretty tempramental. so maybe it just doesnt like it. but i want to burn music onto cd. first i try to burn a copy of a cd ive already got, thru hotburn. again, the internal cd doesnt rtecognise the disc as having anything on it. but neither does any other hifi or anyhting we have. which it should, rihght? i mean, it should be able to be played as a cd. i def. burned it as a 'music cd'. so i found toast somewhere and tried tha. but that refused to recvognise the existence of the iomega writer.

even itunes doesnt seem to like the iomega thing. sure, its ugly, but whats with all the hate?

so, can anyone think why the cds we are burning are not being recoginsed by anything. there is stuff on them, because the cd writer recognises them and can play them, whther theyre data oir music, but not anything else.

whats the solution?

If your mac has firewire, take the iomega drive back to the shop and I'll lend you my yamaha drive.

I thin, ambrose your problem lies with the fact that the version of toast you have does not support the iomega drive and that later versions of toast need OS 9. You kind of have a circular problem, you might not be able to get this drive working at all.

Find out how much stuff is irreplaceable, stuffit into a .sit file and mail it or upload it somewhere.

will tell you how to swap it over

Cleartype is designed for TFT displays, using subpixel anti aliasing.

http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=67909965&m=2030990365&r=2610982565#2610982565

Try the cleartype adjuster in this thread.

one
two
three

if they don't work go to http://www.cwonline.co.uk/ and search for tv tuner

What if I wanted to save money by just getting a video in without the tuner? And would the PC thing be possible in any way?

Chris, in theory yes, and I think its a doddle with XP.

Depends entirely upon the software controllers on the Windows side of things. It's all 802.11b, so there's no technical reason why you couldn't. I imagine a Windows-user here will have more to say.

(I've used a couple of other places too but now they're either a lot more expensive than Scan or don't stock the brands/models I was hoping for. Maybe I have to choose between good returns policy, competitive pricing and wide stock with good availability. But in the meantime, I'd be very grateful for any recommendations. Thanks!)

http://www.dabs.com

Also, does PySoulSeek work?

Also, it says I need to right click and save on Gabba.net butbutbut Mac mice only have ONE BUTTON (WTF?!) how do I download the shizzing new Dizzy Rascal track from Gabba?

pYSoulSeek is apparently a bit tricky and Graham reported than it had stopped working for him entirely.

To right click on a Mac, sometimes holding it down longer works (always a bit confused by this) but if that fails then Ctrl+click will do it.

Ctrl+click works but I don't know how to download tracks from Gabba. It just ended up downloading some weird .asp file.

Ed, wake up.

First install the dev tools cd that came with your mac, get any updates from http://www.apple.com/developer

You need to get apple X11, and the X11 SDK availible from http://www.apple.com/macisx/x11

then you need to get fink from http://fink.sourceforge.net and install as instructed.

then you need to install the pysoulseek package in fink from the unstable tree

Launch the fink commander app and choose preferences fron the Fink Commander menu, check use unstable. Then from the commands menu choose selfupdate-cvs. Then choose update-all from the commands menu. Then select the pysoulseek package from the packages list and choose the Install command. Say yes to installing any other packages it may require, this may take a while.

Then open up the X11 application choose terminal from the application menu type in pysoulseek and press return, if that doesn't work type

cd /sw/src/pysl.......... the dots indicate the name of the pyslsk directory you can just type in pysls after the src and press tab, it will complete the name

in that folder type

python2.3 ./pyslsk

and press return

Unfortunately, since the death of Audiogalaxy, there has been no Mac client that's great for obscurer stuff. Nothing as good as SoulSeek, anyway. It's the worst thing about Macs.

Right, I figured out how to download off Gabba but now I've lost the the "this is downloading; this is how much is downloaded thus far" box. Grr.

Unfortunately using pysoulseek means you have to leave the pretty and set of to the ugly dark side of OS X's unix core

iSwipe is about to introduce OpenFT support for non-registered users. Does anyone know about OpenFT - would it be really great if everyone used it? It seems to be in very early stages of development and thus generally requires the kind of tomfoolery Ed details above to get it up and running.

I feel like such an idiot. Thank you to everyone who's helped.

I wish I could find a reviews and recommendations site for people like me who will buy recentish hardware but have no intention of overclocking it and then expecting it to run ice-cold for endless LAN parties and suchlike. They're all aimed at the hardcore gaming and overclocking crew, which leaves me with no idea how much cooling is the minimum to run safely and what PSU I'll need if I don't plan to fit six extra fans all going full-tilt and sapping the 12V line.

go to Run (command prompt)

type msconfig

go to the startup tab

uncheck all the offending programs (anything that looks suspect)

when you close msconfig, it will prompt you to reboot. say yes. when windows comes back up, you'll get a message saying something along the lines of "windows is in selective startup mode" or something (i think - haven't done it in a while)

then you should be able to delete the files

you might have to go back into msconfig and move it back to normal startup

you could head for the registry, but be careful. save a copy of the branch you are going to edit, and all the usual warnings about fubar-ing your computer, etc...

have a look at this key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

this should contain the startup programs.

what version of windows are you using?

Command + H hides an application and all its windows
Command + ~ cycles windows in a great many applications

Yeah, I know - but I usually have at least 3 apps open. I want something that will quickly clear the desktop of all windows, just like 'Minimize all windows' does in Windows.

I no longer have any MP3centric jukebox-style software on my PC, so I was just going to do my usual method of prepping the WAVs individually in CoolEdit and saving to MP3 at reasonably high quality VBR, with the file name taking the form 'Artist - Title.mp3'. Do I need to bother with ID tags and the like?

Sorry for being so niave, but how do I look at this key, can you expound?

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run

"what version of windows are you using?" I'm using XP.

I tried to start my computer up in safe
mode, hoping I could then access the file and delete it without the
programme using it, but astonishingly - and this was also the verdict of
people working in the shop where I got my computer - my computer's cursor
freezes mid-way through the safe mode start up process: at the point where I
a message directs 'to begin, click your user name'. The last thing I've tried was
to press control, alt, delete, and I went to the processes tab to see what
was running, and saw that the file was not declared - it has stealthily
buried itself!

"are you sure that it was actually running though? it may have re-checked itself for next time - i don't think the selective startup is a permanent thing, just one time. did it not let you delete them, or did you just see the progs re-checked and think you were outfoxed?"
Indeed I did try to delete it but it wouldn't, again stating it was currently being used etc.

the structure on the left works just like windows explorer, by navigating folders and subfolders. so just follow the path from hkey... to ...Run by clicking on the appropriate folder icons.

be careful in there. worth mentioning is there's no "save changes" when you're in registry editor. everything is being changed as you type, delete, whatever.

just in case, i'd make a copy of the branch you're thinking of editing. make sure it's highlighted on the tree to the left, then click file-->export, and make sure the radio button for 'selected branch' is on. you can save it anywhere, say on your desktop. you could back up the whole thing, but it might take a while.

'TRULY nasty indeed ... pass this along to the affected person ...

The VIRUS which starts the proxy is that EXE file in question and it's a
cutie. What it's DOING is hiding inside Norton's code space AND inside the
EXPLORER.EXE program as well. Fortunately, you can stop this nonsense but
it takes a little trick.

First step, OPEN an MS-DOS (console) session. LEAVE IT OPEN ...

Now bring up the task manager and STOP EXPLORER.EXE ...

The traybar will vanish (this is why you have the MSDOS session open) ...
this is what you WANT to happen here.

Now go to the MSDOS window, type in EXPLORER and hit return.

This will bring BACK the traybar. Some icons may be missing, but the
programs that were running there will STILL be running, Microsoft doesn't
do a very good "restart" notify and that works in our favor here.

You SHOULD be able to go and delete that file now. Reboot, then clear out
the rest of the trash and unless it's being fed from another program
somewhere (should have been detected by AV) then it should be gone for good
now'.

Thanks ron for your help, too!

ahhhhh! selfupdate-cvs! of course. this is the thing that's been bloody well eluding me for days. i went so far as to compile python2.3 by hand and do a bunch of other stupidly unnecessary things which led me to think darwin was well and totally hooped. sourceforge has been behaving badly lately which i suspected was the reason i could not find the proper packages through fink, but it turns out it was just this one simple thing.

i'm doing my package dependencies right now. hopefully i'll up on soulseek this evening!

thanks ed, i owe you a beer!

run fast. if that fails, use fire.

"fat bastard cowboy cunt"...FAT SAM!!!!!!!!!

-- ambrose (ambrosewhit...), May 6th, 2003.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

indeed I hope he's in prison now getting buggered by an even fatter more unpleasant baby strangler, that would be justice.
-- Ed (dal...), May 6th, 2003.

haha!

you won't believe it

reincarnated as
FAT SAMS BUSINESS

Will, does this mean you'll get your money back?

What i want to know is how does he get away with it?????

One slight issue with the iMic, the gain circuits are quite clumsy and can only be adjusted in wuite large steps, so you get better results if you have a deck and a mixer and can fine tune the gain on a mixer.

(Cozen, you probably know this, but do it through an amp or a mixer set to phono input rather than direct from deck to computer as the direct phono out has weird frequency balance to compensate for weirdness about how loud you can store different frequencies on vinyl -- there is probably some cunning downloadable EQ preset somewhere to fix it but even so the sound quality will be better if you use an amp, and you won't have to wait)

I feel like I live on this thread, I do read some of the others but it seems despite my lack of clue I am a proper nerd, unable to think about anything else. (And thanks, Sean, for answering my last question -- I had been thinking I'd wait till I actually bought something and got it working before saying so but I've been putting it off.)

The second part to this problem is: ever since updating my Norton Internet Security from 02 to 03 (downloaded update from net) I've been getting a fairly infrequent and random message popping up from Norton, saying "Cannot read subscription Data. You may need Administrative Privileges". So, I wrote to Symantec, and they replied with a URL link on this very matter; however, whilst following their troubleshooting solution (and things were going swinmmingly for several steps), my progress was frustrated at the following point (in bold):-

If you have a missing security tab, follow these steps, then start over with step 1 of the previous section.
1. Right-click the Start button and then click Explore.
2. Click Tools and then click Folder Options.
3. Click the View tab.
4. Scroll down to, and clear "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)." I DON'T APPEAR TO HAVE THIS.
5. Click Apply and then click OK.
6. Start over with step 1 of the previous section.

Then, whilst I knew I couldn't advance any further through the process, I skipped ahead and read the final steps of the solution given to me by Symantec: it seems that the process of getting rid of the "Cannot read subscription Data. ... " pop-up culminates in me having to startup my computer in Safe Mode; even if I did have "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" to clear in my list of options, I wouldn't be able then to complete the process by starting in Safe Mode, before editing the registry etc.

So, most importantly, can anyone suggest how to fix my frozen cursor problem, 'cos I imagine there might be other sceanrios in the future, other than this Norton pop-up problem, which will reuire me to boot-up in safe mode.

Also, does anyone know why I don't appear to have the "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" Just an idea - it might not be related, but I recently blocked Netbios ports 135-139, in order to stop some adware problems (it worked). I know these ports have something to do with file-sharing, but blocking them wouldn't have got rid of "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" would it?

Ed, did you get that e-mail I sent wrt to forwarding it to Suzy? Can you ask Suzy to reply even if it's just to say "I don't know how I can help you with this you suXor!"

Also...If Ed is still here- My girlfriend's burner won't re-write, erase or read a CD-RW once we have initially burned some files onto it. Help! What is wrong? It's an internal ibook cdrw drive.

Repeat the mantra and you will discover you only believe it to have been broken. Because Macs never break down.

< / schadenfreude >

I am trying to install my new iPOD but whenever I plug it in it just flashes 'Do not disconnect' forever and (presumably as a result), when I try to run the iPod software updater both the 'Update' and 'Restore' options are greyed out. The iPod appears in my iTunes panel, and it lets me move tracks onto it (I unchecked the 'automatically update iPod with new tracks' option), but still the display on the iPOD just flashes 'Do not disconnect'. Dragging iPod to the Trash tells me I can't as it's in use. So I have to disconnect it. Then it tells me off for not putting the device away properly.

But all the tracks I loaded onto it are then there on my iPod and play fine! But I don't want to be disobeying the 'Do not disconnect' message every time. WHAT'S GOING ON? Someone help me.

Also, I might be saying something you already know here or is less useful but if you set your importing configuration to ACC encoder then you can play .acc files on it which take up a lot less capacity. This is probably unuseful, mister importer.

Maybe I'll go the AAC way. I guess I like the idea of being able to share my tracks with PC owning friends though.

In other news, I found out that you shouldn't reboot Windows while your iPod is still connected, because then it'll scandisk the iPod very VERY SLOWLY for something like two hours before you can disconnect it again.

My CD drive still thinks everything disc I put in is a CD-RW and stutters a lot when I try to access it, but I think it's going to need to be repaired. Bleh.

I want to enter in names for each item in the table I'm working on. A lot of them start with articles, and I want them to be sorted by name, but I want them to be presented without putting the articles at the end of each name. How can I do this? Is there some sort of function that I can add to the varchar type to not count leading articles when sorting, but still present them when in a list?

Thanks!

can iChat do group chats on rendezvous?

Thanks!

Here's the deal: the company I work for often produces PowerPoint presentations for clients but we're now getting to the stage where our clients know their way around PowerPoint and we need to take it to the next level. I'm suggesting we go down the DVD route and take the movie clips, slides and soundtracks, and edit them in FCP and then burn a DVD which the presenter can navigate using the chapters.

What format does FCP/DVDSP use for editing the video? When we use video crews, normally we end up with a video tape that is turned into an MPEG and embedded into the .ppt - what format(s) can I get from the crew that I can then use in FCP/DVDSP? If the crew uses a purely analogue tape process, how can I get this into FCP in high enough quality for it to look like proper footage in the result?

Most of our clients use PowerPoint and some of the final product will need to include PowerPoint-like functionality. I've heard that Keynote can read PC .ppt files and export a movie file. I'm thinking that there must be ways of manipulating the DVD controls so that a series of DVD chapters can be navigated in the same click-run-click-run way. Can anyone verify this?

Keynote will do what you say but interactivity will be removed, but you can put that back in in DVDSP if you need it. The best thing to do would be to encode each slide's animations as a movie and then make each slide a 'chapter' on the DVD then people can jump around slides using the forward and back buttons on the DVD player, or access them through a menu or other controls you build into the DVD with DVDSP.

I guess what I'll do with Keynote is to import the client's .ppt, tidy it up (Keynote's transitions look way nicer than PowerPoint's) and then export as a straight movie. I can then edit in video segments with FCP and then put in chapter markers/scripts with DVDSP. In film DVD bonus features, you sometimes get galleries of images where you have to press a button to advance to the next image - I'm guessing that I can set up something similar in DVDSP to mimic the slideshow of PowerPoint.

ok i think i figured it out: an 80g disk is actually 80 billion bytes. but a gigabyte is actually 1,048,576 bytes. so, 80,000,000,000 / 1,048,576 = 76.293 GB as seen by the computer. ITS A FUCKING SCAM!!

for one thing, your orig math is goofy. you are "missing" 3.14, not 4. we already turned that down by one, so now it's 2.14. consider that your estimations of 3 and 4 gig respectively might be both low. now we could be down to 1 gig.

um ok i see yeh ron yr right i thk. hm. time fr new HD space.

Check again. I bet the amount your computer's missing, is in fact, 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375105820974944592307816406286208998628034825342117067982148086513282306647093844609550582231725359408128481117450284102701938521105559644622948954930381964428810975665933446128475648233786783165271201909145648566923460348610454326648213393607260249141273724587006606315588174881520920962829254091715364367892590360011330530548820466521384146951941511609433057270365759591953092186117381932611793105118548074462379962749567351885752724 8912279381830119491298336733624406566430GB.

i.e. it's gone maths mad.

Erm.

Upgrading to XP may not solve the problem, but you can usually upgrade to XP without wiping your drive or your files. If you decide to do it, though, it's always prudent to back up anything you don't want to lose, especially items in the "My Documents" folder or on your desktop.

w. media player but seemingly no realplayer.

why am i so dense?

But yes, that would work. It was my initial suggestion, but I decided that changing preferences would (ideally) be the better route to go.

My computer is an AMD running Windows 98, and I have cable internet through Comcast. Plenty of memory and processor speed. Any ideas? This scares me, as my home computer connection is crucial to my work/livelihood. It's been happening frequently (and I just bought this computer). Thanks for any help/ideas.

Does anyone know how to get around not-having-administrator status in Windows XP? I need to install AOLIM badly as well as turning on my animated images in IE that somehow got turned off. I cannot see Pee Wee dance. It makes me sad. HELP!

I mean, it's really really gay. I thought I was being dumb and not understanding, but NOW I DO and it's a load of RUBBISH.

apt-get may be better but WHAT IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE 'getting' FROM!

And source code! It never compiles! Or if it DOES it then doesn't WORK! Computers are GAY GAY GAY!

Ah, "reclaiming" the word 'gay' makes my ire a lot easier to express.

Hahhahahahahaha help.

As far as compiling goes, what's the debian equivalent of fink? Compiling straight seems to work OK for me but I think it very much depends on how well the ./configure script works for each source tarball. This depends on how one's compilers etc. are installed, I suppose, seeing as Apple set mine up I can't help you there.

Installing from interweb - someone else did the install for me and I don't know which flavour of Debian I have blah blah... odd window manager as well.

When I first started the xterms wouldn't come up for some reason... ARGH!

Also ./configure isn't that hot. I was so gutted after spending all of Judge John Deed compiling mame and STILL it didn't want to work!

Sarah, why not install the woody version of debian? It's meant to be guaranteed to work, (well that's what they say, in their dreams I say).

Failing that, what is this "nicotine client" for slsk and how does one find/use it?

see here

star: what errors are you getting from xmame? i've compiled it recently and it went ok (this was either mandrake or suse or both though)

andy

I cannot access ANY webpages whatsoever WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF ILX. WTF is going on here?

I just installed Win XP on my D: drive (I have 2 HDDs). Win 98 is still on C:

I figured my old settings from Win 98 would be xferred automatically to XP, or it'd ask me if I wanted them xferred, but that wasn't the case.

So how can I transfer all my old settings from Win 98 (which is still on my C: drive) to the new OS?

Thanks again!

Suddenly, and for no reason I can discern, my PC (Windows 98, IE6) has somehow grown itself a firewall preventing me from using MSN Messenger. I haven't downloaded anything for ages, although I do use slsk on a regular basis. Is there a possibility that I've inadvertently let something in?

All I want to do is lose the firewall, if indeed it exists, so I can use messenger again. I've tried the Help function but it doesn't even recognise the word "firewall", amazingly!

Anyone?

I have 64 RAM on a G3 Powerbook from '99. I believe I should add some more memory? How much should I add and how do I go about this? (There were specs originally when I bought the computer about how much how I could add, but this was a while ago and Apple seems to have severed all ties to this nostalgia item.)

Access it and Yahoo and whatever else through Trillian.

1) unlock the keyboard by twisting the screw between the F4 and F5 90 degrees, with a small flat bladed screwdriver.

2) Pull back the two catches between esc and F1 and F8 and F9 and fold back the keyboard over the track pad.

3) Remove the two cross head screws that are in the middle of the exposed areas and lift out the metal plate that they fixed in position.

4) Slot the memory module in, angling it at first then lowering it into position.

5) refit the metal plate and keyboard

done

Andy: I believe I got up to the point where I would type xmame [name of rom here], it would give me some gumph about CPU numbers and then exit. It's a bit of a bugger, you might say. I can't remember more precise details as this was a while ago on The Beast. I'm going to take it round to my broadband enabled pals, I reckon, and see if that helps at all. Hurrah for getting a free ethernet card with the laptop and people with dorky home networks! :) I believe I was pointed at a debian build but this was only after I'd spent, literally, hours, downloading and building from source so I might give that a go when I'm on faster connection.

I want to get into a particular chat room, and it uses javascript. Every time I try and get there, my computer freezes up and won't let me in. Do I need to download anything? or enable javascript or something? If so, any ideas how I do this?

Eternally grateful, and sorry to be so dumb etc etc :)

Also a link to the chat rooms would be helpful.

I don't actually know the link to the chat room, because it's accessed only via an icon on a message board which you click - it doesn't seem to show any properties when I right-click on it (it just says 'javascript'). You need to register with the message board (I've been a member there for about three years) and make sure you are logged on (which I am), but I still can't get into chat which is baffling.

Do you get a grey box where the chat window should be?

I don't even get as far as the chat window - sometimes a red sort-of "No Entry" sign flashes up briefly on the screen, as though it's some kind of restricted site (but I've listed the site as trusted and not restricted in my security settings), other times I don't get any warnings - I just can't connect to it, and sometimes the screen just freezes.

They used to have their MB chat room on MSN and I could get into that one just fine. They recently changed to this new one, but it obviously doesn't like me :(

You can get one from Suns java resource site.

http://www.java.com/en/index.jsp

Also I have a new question. How can you help your computer handle video files which have a lag problem between the audio and the video? It seems to depend on the source to an extent (i.e. all files from one site will have the problem, whatever the size of the files) but is there something I can do to minimise such problems? Like, what are the best free-ish programs for showing video? (Again, pretty old computer, Windows 98).

The problems I've had like this in the past do vary depending on what program I use to view. With these files, in Windows Media Player, the audio is consistently behind the video. In Winamp, they shift about, sometimes ahead, then behind, then nearly spot on. I was just wondering if there was a program that sacrifices a little bit of quality in exchange for more stability.

At what point should I throw in with all these upgrades and shell out for a new 'puter?

Will OSX hurt my computer? Perhaps I shouldn't go higher than 9?

Equipment: PowerbookG4 running OSX 10.2.6
Phone: Sony Erikson T68i
Bluetooth
Software: ISync 1.3

Scenario:
Open iSync
plug Bluetooth into USB port
Make phone "Discoverable"
point blue light at the infrared port on the pwerbook
The phone shows up as a Device in iSync
THEN
iSync tells me it can find no devices, therefore can't sync

ARRRGGGHHH.

The objective: To put the contacts from my address book and the iCal calendar INTO my phone.

please help me before i am a whimpering mass of un-tech supported frustration o pleeezee yes i have tried "help"! per-lease! purty pleeezeee!

they have to be paired to work

System Preferences->Bluetooth, use the setup thingummy

(NB rhetorical question)

What CPU do you have?

try Media Player Classic

or BSPlayer

now, I do not have any of the really VALUABLE data from the drive backed up, naturally. I took it to a laptops place in town and they took out the drive and were about to read it but asked me if I had a password on windows and I said I did and they said they could not, then, recover anything from it because of the way windows XP is. well, they said they couldn't recover anything from program folders or from the windows folder. he plugged it in, anyway, but said it wasn't even being recognised. then he told me to come back this week, when his boss would be back from holiday and should be able to access it w/ some linux-based software?

is any of this bullshit?

it should be recognisable w/ perseverence because my computer could tell it was a 30GB drive, even though it is corrupted?

a friend said it's possible [but not 100%ly so] to just format the drive and use some data retrieval progs?

:''' (

Even if there's is an XP password you can just put it as a slave disk in another PC with XP and take ownership of the files.

If the drive can be formatted you can get data off it, do not format the drive.

"but said it wasn't even being recognised" is the big problem, it might be this guy doesnt know how to install a HDD properly but this sounds bad to me.

Depending on the value of the data there is always these people

http://www.ontrack.com/

my friend that said it could be formatted and have data retrieved from also said that the password/windows XP should not be a prob and the files should be available if it was plugged in as a slave drive.

I will find out, tomorrow, when I take it back to the shop.

yeah, I am not bothered about simpsons episodes/mp3s/whatever but all of my photographs from SPECIAL times and a ton of drawings that I NEED. that I should have had back-ups of.

thanx all the same.

This might just be how the files were encoded.

The question: mput and mget aren't recognized by this ftp, it seems. So I've tried using the put and get request with a wildcard, and it responds "local: unable to open". "put C:\(pathnamestuff)\*.jpg" doesn't work, just * without the .jpg doesn't work...might there be some other way to convince the ftp to up/download multiple files? (please I really hope so...)

At least everything's working fine with uploading single files. I just have a lot of stuff to upload right now.

(Actually I'm running 10.8)

BUT I can't find anything under System Preferences that says Bluetooth..
In the iSyncb Window, the phone appears as a device
The computer appears as a linked device in the phone

Ideas?

Thanks :-)

Do you mean 10.1.8 or 10.2.8?

sorry typing moving faster than brain

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=120275

and what Sean said. Anywhere in the room should be good enough for bluetooth.

the drive spins, says it is updating, and then:

Can't synchronize contacts to OrbitT68i: device is not available
Can't synchronize calendars and To Do items to OrbitT68i: device is not available

i am staring at the phone as if it is a turd in the zen rock garden of computing.

Some mysteries remain:
It had me enter a passcode for the phone and computer and when it did this the first time it said I wouldnn't have to remember it, that it need only be entered once. However everytime I sync, both the computer and the phone ask for the passcode. A minor thing, but puzzling.

I successfully synced with iCal, to the phone, Fabulous!

New problem:
For some reason, even though I tell iSync to update all contacts, it doesn't. Now I am stuck with how to get iSync to grad all my contacts from the Address Book.

Thanks for listening to me scream :-)

How the hell do I get rid of these parasites as my Explorer has to close and I lose the stuff I'm writing regularly when it appears?

Any ideas, anyone?

http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

xpost

main.c: At top level:
main.c:351: warning: `okpassshortopts' defined but not used
make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-main] Error 2
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 2
### execution of failed, exit code 2
Failed: compiling dpkg-1.10.9-200 failed

Any idea what is going wrong or how I can fix it? I have deleted and reinstalled /sw several times now. Or can I just copy /sw from someone else who has it working?

did you try poking around the slsk boards to see if anyone else had the same problem?

Causistry, I'm working on yours.

Try running

sudo apt-get update

then sudo apt-get upgrade

then sudo fink selfupdate-rsync

Ed, thanks! I'll give it a whirl.

http://forums.macosxhints.com/

"sudo apt-get update" transcript ended with this:

Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/local/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/stable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/stable/crypto/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

I wasn't sure whether this was an error I should worry about or not, so I continued on with the other steps, but the fink selfupdate ended the same way it had before.

try sudo fink index

Err file: local/main Packages
File not found
Ign file: local/main Release
Err file: stable/main Packages
File not found
Ign file: stable/main Release
Err file: stable/crypto Packages
File not found
Ign file: stable/crypto Release
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/release/main Packages
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/release/main Release
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/release/crypto Packages
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/release/crypto Release
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/current/main Packages
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/current/main Release
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/current/crypto Packages
Hit http://us.dl.sourceforge.net 10.3/current/crypto Release
Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/local/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/stable/main/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Failed to fetch file:/sw/fink/dists/stable/crypto/binary-darwin-powerpc/Packages File not found
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Some index files failed to download, they have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

(Same as before.)

if just fink try sudo apt-get upgrade

In file included from /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Headers/CFBase.h:14,
from /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreFoundation.framework/Headers/CoreFoundation.h:5,
from main.c:43:
/usr/include/AvailabilityMacros.h:101:6: #error MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MAX_ALLOWED must be >= MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED
main.c:44: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
main.c: In function `setforce':
main.c:335: warning: signed and unsigned type in conditional expression
main.c: At top level:
main.c:373: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:374: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:377: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:384: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:385: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:424: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:425: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:426: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:427: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:428: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:429: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:430: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:431: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:432: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:433: warning: cast discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:561: warning: function declaration isn't a prototype
main.c: In function `finkinit':
main.c:583: warning: unsigned int format, long unsigned int arg (arg 4)
main.c:611: warning: passing arg 1 of `free' discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c:612: warning: passing arg 1 of `free' discards qualifiers from pointer target type
main.c: At top level:
main.c:351: warning: `okpassshortopts' defined but not used
make[2]: *** [main.o] Error 1
make[1]: *** [all-main] Error 2
make: *** [all-recursive] Error 2
### execution of failed, exit code 2
Failed: compiling dpkg-1.10.9-200 failed

also, I don't know if you've seen this, but this page helps: www.captnswing.net/howto/nicotine

fink selfupdate-rsync

then sudo gcc_select 3.3

Ed: OK, I will try that. Thank you greatly for your help, by the way!

sudo gcc_select 3.3

You may need to install a more recent version of the Developer Tools to be able
to do so.

You could try erasing your /sw directory (sudo rm -r /sw) and starting again.

I still haven't had a chance to try Andy's mame roms cd so cannot report back on further xmame "fun" :)

Starting off with dpkg not even installed isn't good, although I must say I prefer apt-get if I know exactly where the package I want is.

I have my laptop hard drive [w/ corrupted OS on] connected as the secondary master on my flatmate's PC. it picks it up in the BIOS and recognises its size, etc., but how on earth do I get it to, like, have an icon in 'My Computer'? it seems like it should appear automatically. the device manager says there's a prob with the secondary IDE controller but I don't know what to do about a prob w/o explanation and googling anything about it seems impossible as there are so many pages about so many ways of installing so many IDE devices.

: (

: (

thanks anyway.

Yes, my apologies, friends. I'll cut to the quick - finally downloaded and installed everything, I'm in x11 but nicotine won't connect to the server. I'm almost there! Just give me a little push over the finish line! Could it be that the server is just down? I'm fairly new to slsk so maybe this is the case.

and are you connecting to server.slsknet.org:2240 ?

"Nicotine supports "psyco", an inline optimizer for python
code, you can get it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/psyco/
Cannot set locale
You do not have Python Vorbis bindings installed.
Others will not be able to see the lengths and the bitrates
of Ogg Vorbis files that you share. You can get the from
http://www.andrewchatham.com/pyogg/.
If you're using Debian, install the python-pyvorbis package.

Nicotine supports a country code blocker but that
requires a (GPL'ed) library called GeoIP. You can find it here:
C library: http://www.maxmind.com/app/c
Python bindings: http://www.maxmind.com/app/python
(the python bindings require the C library)"

STILL...I'm up, baby! No looking back!

Now I need to figure out what now. Thanks, all.