A thread for boring computer questions.

i think some of the locations are psuedo directories and don't actually exist. first they came for the file extensions but i said nothing...

battery - ebay?

location.. depends where and what you're trying to write to!
system folders will put up some kind of fight. elevate whatever program you're using by shift > run as different user (then admin creds as normal.

as ever, you want real pain go look at the mac threads lol

So my building, which is owned by my school, provides wireless to my apartment via a wireless router in the hallway. The connection speed SUCKS and I can't help but think it's at least partly due to the low signal. Any way to boost my computer's receptivity to the signal and thereby improve the connection?

How's your bars looking?

It could well just be a dirty signal, but if you've got reasonable signal strength it's worth at least exploring your options.

I usually have near full bars. What's a dirty signal?

Your signal could be strong but full of interference, say for example if it's bouncing around a hallway and feeding its own echo into itself. A bit like how telly used to look back before digital, if you were behind a load of trees and copped bad ghosting.

Yeah that's likely the problem. So is there something I can do about it? I can't really alter the box in the hall, so I'm wondering if there's something I can hook up in my apartment / to my computer.

I'm really not sure to be honest. It could be one of a number of factors.

Do you run a load of torrents?

Nope. Think I'm generally a low bandwidth user except when I'm streaming NBA. But I have problems when I'm not streaming anything.

Mmm. Is your connection all standard (i.e. did you bugger around with anything)? Also, do you know if other people have a slow connection?

this is a super lazy qn but im going ahead anyway:

is there a magical, free, mac programme i cd d/l that would convert dvds (or like VOB files as they appear) into mp4 format... or some other format imovie can work with?

http://handbrake.fr/

here is email i sent last week to friend who asked me this qn:

First install VLC. You'll never use this program, but Handbrake needs it to work.

Here's the link for VLC: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-macosx.html

Choose the first option, i.e. 32/64 bits Package for Intel-based Macs, 1.1.5

Now install Handbrake: http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php

Handbrake has lots of settings which you may want to play with, but the defaults will get you started.

quick work! thanking you. assuming it all goes well obvs. who never uses vlc? i use vlc on the daily. or was that sarcasm?

i mean he didn't need it for his purposes. handbrake depends on it to decrypt though.

this is awesome, thanks

went to a class on computer editing ten years ago

good to put it into practice

are you making an la plays itself type thing about films set in cambridge?

that is my guess

I want to set up a google map from which I can click the placeholder and it opens a page with a webcam. So far all I've been able to do is it opens a popup with the link in which you then click to get to the page. Is there a way to miss out the popup window and just go straight to the page I want?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=207430463810573307469.0004a0d34ce5be74f9e6a&ll=55.241552,-2.010498&spn=4.285308,8.723145&z=7&iwloc=0004a0e334c1ffccd1675

Can someone give me some do's and don'ts wrt how to treat your laptop battery? Like, when do you unplug your machine, do you drain the battery before recharging, do you ever run on battery if you have ac available, etc. Thanks.

This video is only going to be up for another few days but might answer yr battery questions: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3823781102547889249#

(Essentially it depends on the type of battery in your laptop...chances are it's lithium-based, which means it prefers NOT to be discharged if you want to get more life out of it.)

More here: http://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

thanks, that vid was helpful (+ your pic should go on TRYPOHPOBIA)

Ha - didn't realize that What the Tech? was at the end of that!

What's the best way to dispose of an old computer?

I've got a 2004 HP laptop that is unbearably slow and only has half a gig of RAM. I've reformatted with linux supposedly suitable for low power laptops, but it kept freezing up, so I reinstalled a fresh windows XP - is this enough to overwrite previous information? What's the best way to dispose of it ethically and convenience-wise?

http://www.computeraid.org/ <- something like this?

hey mac dudes,

so i have been charged with "sorting out" the missus' bloated and creaking macbook (2008 unibody) which she has just used out the box for 3 years and never backed up/used time machine/updated to snow leopard/whatever else. now i'm not unnerdy but nor am i a mac man so i guess i just kinda need someone to help clarify my fog of thoughts as to what to do and in what order etc.

the only nonregular thing about her setup is she is a photographer and so has shitloads of big raw files etc.

so i was thinking:

1. tidy up her mac as best as poss, run onyx and all that
2. buy 2x500gb ext drives
3. put a superduper clone on each
4. then just leave time machine running on the mb but not backed up onto the ext?
5. manually update them myself once a month until she learns for herself / i get her to buy the full version of superduper for smart update
6. install snow leopard and redo the cloning again
7. ummmmmm i dunno anymore

i guess my main sticking points are

1. not understanding time machine properly and whether that really needs backing up or what
2. whether it's worth doing separate backups of her itunes and all her photo stuff in addition to the disk clones
3. do i need to partition something somewhere?
4. whether there's a smarter way i could be using the two externals here

there's also an ancient imac g4 with stuff on as well that i don't want to think about but probably should

any help much appreciated, and apologies if i'm sounding like a fucktard here

http://blog.macsales.com/9102-secret-firmware-lets-late-08-macbooks-use-8gb

oh also i'm probably just confusing myself further but has anyone ever done this? i checked the boot roms and the macbook in question is eligible.

Time machine needs an external drive to back up to. It's also pretty good. I'd hook up the drive and let Time Machine do its thing and forget SuperDuper.

After it has a whole backup (which can take many many hours during which you shouldn't put mac to sleep or disconnect drive) upgrade to SL. Lion can probably wait, it has a lot of big changes and might break stuff.

(Also is she cool with upgrades? This can make ppl mad...)

Does it already have max supported memory?

isnt it something of a ballache to boot from a time machine backup though? will need to check if she's still got all her install cds.

yeah i wasnt going to bother with lion precisely cos of the difference it looks like it'd make to her workflow - snow leopard is just more of an efficiency upgrade right? in any case i couldnt go straight to lion without sl first if i'm not mistaken.

can still double memory up to the supported 4GB but i was just wondering about that one loophole since the comments are largely positive and it looks relatively painless.

Yeah, if you want a bootable drive as well maybe use the second one for that? Ball ache to keep that up to date as well, though.

I'm always a bit wary of firmware hacks, but if you need the 8gb it might be worth it.

dunno, i can never really gauge what to expect with memory upgrades. i was just thinking "if you're spending then spend" basically. probably not worth it though.

if i bought superduper a bootable drive would only be a ballache once right? smart update after that. shame there's no firewire on this thing :(

not really sure why i'm mistrusting time machine a little here.

should also say the other reason i was thinking about upgrading to snow leopard at all is having a go at putting it on the imac g4 since it's near useless under tiger as it is

Snow leopard is x86 only, sry.

Are the externally always connected, or does laptop go on the road? Problem is remembering to reconnect the backup disk and eject it properly every time, so that's not an issue if it lives on a desk.

nuts. is there anything useful i can do with that old beast?

laptop will be on the road and tbh even at home she rarely sits in front of a desk, so the exts will most likely be kept in a cupboard in the meantime or something idk. pure backup purposes.

os9 will run like a demon on it i bet.

The g4 iMacs are the best-looking Macs Apple's ever done imo. Too nice to get rid of. You could make it a iTunes machine, maybe?

Is there such a thing as a free file converter that can turn, say, an .avi into an iPad friendly file? I see a bunch are available for about 30 bucks, but they all have tons of features I don't need.

http://handbrake.fr/

Can someone help me troubleshoot a display/possibly videocard related problem? I have a Dell XPS M1530 laptop. Sorry for length of description but I want to provide absolutely everything I know.

- About 6 months ago, my computer started to act up at a frequency that it never had. I ran into the blue screen of death a few times, I had to do hard resets several times, etc.
- About 3 months ago, after another blue screen of death/hard reset, I noticed performance problems in Photoshop that weren't there previously - hard to explain, but it just seemed like I had downgraded to a 2005 videocard or something.
- I went to nvidia's website and updated the driver for the videocard, which didn't seem to make much difference.
- I dealt with it, like the dog with sunglasses.
- Starting two weeks ago, I ran into issues where the whole screen would just freeze, out of nowhere. The mouse pointer wouldn't move. I'd let it sit for an hour, come back, nothing. Each time I had to do a hard reset, and then things would be fine again for a while.
- I traveled home, taking my laptop with me. The Display wouldn't work during the entire trip. I'd turn the computer on, the disc would spin up, but the screen was black. Again, I'd let it sit for hours, come back, but no dice. This happened several times, until I just gave up trying.
- When I got home, I tried again. Mysteriously, everything was fine. The display came back up, I could use it.
- Then the other day, when I turned my computer on, it had a solid dark gray screen instead of a black screen with text. I stared at it in wonder as it gradually faded into the image below like a polaroid picture:

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash4/302480_10150329811980959_638030958_8133527_725471091_n.jpg

- It took about 2 minutes for it gradually fade into the white screen with a solid black vertical bar.
- I turned off the computer and sacrificed an orphan
- When I turned it back on, the display looked just like the image above, without any gradual fading. It just instantly looked like that.
- I turned it off and got really pissed off.
- This morning, I turn the computer on, and it's ok again. I'm using it right now. Everything looks fine.

Based off of all this, is it a...

1) loose display cable? (I thought this might be the case, but in browsing a few tech forums people seemed to suggest that if it faded to the image above, rather than instantly appearing like that, it could be a problem with screen itself?
2) shitty videocard?
3) messed up screen?

or of course,

4) the mysterious "other"

If you've open and closed the lid between turning it off and turning it back on again, a loose display cable seems probable. Do you have a spare monitor that you can plug into it?
Another cause might be overheating, due to a cooling fan wearing out. Check if there's airflow going into/coming out of the vents, particularly on the underside.

man, it might be BOTH of those things...it's true that one thing that seemed to help was closing the lid and then opening it back up again. I suppose I should open it up and check all the display cable connections.

Overheating has been a problem since I got the computer. It always feels warm on the bottom, and sometimes it gets downright HOT. I

a Microsoft Outlook question!

on my works laptop i have to archive my emails every now and again.

Yesterday i decided to create a load of folders in my normal in box, to tidy things up, and moved loads of emails to these folders. Now the archive thing doesn't work! I tried putting everything back to how it was, and deleting those folders but it still won't archive anymore.

help!

ah

is it because its looking at the date i moved them to the folders, rather than the received date?

Just use the web app if you can - wash your hands of the office client

this might stupid but is there anyway to improve video streaming on a mac? except your broadband connection and i guess ram, what else affects this?

What browser?

chrome. but if other browsers would be better i'm willing to try that

Oh, I don't know then, soz