A thread for boring computer questions.

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it turns out that the prob w/ my laptop's hard drive is probably mechanical.

I will hold on to it--perhaps, in a few years, I will win the lottery or be rich of my own accord and I be able to get my photos back.

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 25 January 2004 21:14 (twenty years ago) link

Does no one know a thing about my TV card issues?

― Leee Majors (Leee), Monday, 26 January 2004 00:43 (twenty years ago) link

anyone know why i try to open a wmv file in netscape i get a page with a bunch of crap on it.

and why can't i login to sites that require logins like ilx with explorer on an xp system.

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:13 (twenty years ago) link

MPlayer wouldn't sync up the sound with the video on the DivX'd AVIs I tried playing through it. I find that a particular old version of VLC works best with them (where a newer version doesn't do such a good job). I should check and see if there's an even newer version -- soon my harddrive will have nothing but different versions of VLC.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:22 (twenty years ago) link

2nd question first: check security preferences allow you to accept cookies and make sure you login to both ilx.wh3rd.net and www.ilxor.com , browsers often don't like taking a cookie from a different domain from the one surfed two.

First question: check the application helpers are set up to handle .wmv files with Windows Media Player or whatever player you do.

Causistry, I had some sync problems with Mplayer, I put it down to aging processor, but it was way better than Quicktime with the DivX codec extension.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:26 (twenty years ago) link

ed, where do i find info for the 2nd ques?

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:27 (twenty years ago) link

Ed: Yeah, I told it to "skip frames" if it had to, and then it was like I was watching "MST3K: The Slideshow". Which was amusing for 20 seconds.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:35 (twenty years ago) link

I think ( not having XP here) its Internet Options, its in the Control Panels, if you're using IE it's under one of the menus.

Which browser by the way?

Causistry, which Mac do you have, and how much memory. DivX decoding is very memory and processor intensive.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:36 (twenty years ago) link

explorer 6

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:38 (twenty years ago) link

Should be internet options under one of the menus, towards the right IIRC, if I was at work I could check this.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:42 (twenty years ago) link

iBook 833, 384MB. So.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:48 (twenty years ago) link

Hmm, what compression rating was the DivX because my Powerbook G3 500, 640Mb, does not do that poorly.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:53 (twenty years ago) link

How do I find this out?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:55 (twenty years ago) link

click on the movie in the playlist and lick the i button.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:07 (twenty years ago) link

err.. click the i button

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:08 (twenty years ago) link

Aw, and the i button was getting all excited, too.

File format: AVI
Video format: 24PM, 916.5 kbps, 480 x 360, 30.0 fps
Audio format: mp3, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Stereo
Length: 1:32:00

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:48 (twenty years ago) link

My computer was asleep. When I pressed a key to wake it up the screen came on all black with little white writing on it: "latest stock backtrace cpu..." I forced it to quit and started it up again -- osx took a really long time to load but seems to be ok now. What is the meaning of this?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:23 (twenty years ago) link

The OS X taking a long time to reload is standard for a hard reboot like that, it does the disk checking malarky without giving you the opportunity stop it, which is a good thing.

I thought it might be a firmware issue, but it doesn't appear to be. If it happens again it may be a problem. It may be a problem with a programme that was running when you put it to sleep. Make a note of it and get back to me if it happens again. You can just turn the display off by pressing the F1 key enough times.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:36 (twenty years ago) link

some old PCI cards had problems with sleep and I've seen the screen you mention with that combination of hardware, but not for several months now. I've also seen some things on macosxhints about firewire (maybe firewire CD burners?) which got fixed in later versions of 10.2 if you are on 10.3 ignore, obv

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:53 (twenty years ago) link

Every so often, my eMac takes ages and ages to boot up. It worried me at first, but now I like to think of it as it having a serious tidy.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 11:42 (twenty years ago) link

can anyone recommend a good free download manager in the interim b4 broadband while i'm on dial-up? are these things generally considered desirable or helpful?

― prima fassy (bob), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:19 (twenty years ago) link

what will happen if I put a copy-protected cd in my slot-loading powerbook? will something terrible happen? can I get around the copy protection? I really want to rip Spiritualized: Complete Works Vol. 1 for entirely legal reasons! I wanna stick it on the ipod & listen to it on the plane!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:44 (twenty years ago) link

nothing bad will happen, it can't install anything without your permission, the worst that will happen is that it won't play, try inspecting the cd with the terminal.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

how would I do that?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

I really love that aspect of these exchanges:

Someone: I have a problem!
Ed: You should kerflingle the flangle.
Someone: ::nods:: OK. And, uh, now I have a new problem! I need to kerflingle my flangle. How do I do this?

It's really beautiful. It's like a form of seduction (or, from Ed's point of view maybe, like a mama bird trying to tell her babies that it's OK, they can fly!).

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:53 (twenty years ago) link

(NB on the PC this CD can do what it likes)

open up the terminal, found in the utilities folder. do cd /Volumes/[cd name here]

do ls -al

look for aif or wav files and move them somwhere usful

eg cp [filename] ~/Music

oh and kerflingle the flangle, Causistry, does your divx problem persist with other files, it may just be a dodgy encoding.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:55 (twenty years ago) link

thanks ed you are the greatest.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:57 (twenty years ago) link

I tried a different file last night, which was doing weird artifacting no matter which player I used, but MPlayer still had the sync/slide issues described above. It's no big deal I suppose -- I can put up with the artifacting, as for the most part I'm downloading digital copies of things I've watched a zillion times and only have on 14-year-old VHS tapes, you know?

And s1ocki OTM.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:39 (twenty years ago) link

problem with DivX (and XviD and 3ivx) is that they are a jumbled mess compared to mp3, some encoders work well with some decoders, others not so well. It's a pain in the arse.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:41 (twenty years ago) link

if you have a choice, go for an SVCD or VCD download, the quality is lower but its more reliable.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:43 (twenty years ago) link

Now that I am discovered the joys of Acquisition, I am bumping against the limits of my hard drive. It orginally had 4 gb -- I'm not sure what OSX did to it -- but after dling 100 songs I am left with 500 mb and little space to maneuver. Should I replace my hard drive? If so, how many gb should I get? (Would I then have to reinstall everything?) Are there any obvious applications or anything I can throw away to free up space? I already deleted imovie.

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:16 (twenty years ago) link

replacing the internal hard drive is a tedious expensive hassle. Much better to get an external hard drive and a firewire card (did you get one of those for a CDR) or an iPod.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:19 (twenty years ago) link

I just wanted to thank bert (I think that was your name?) for the FTP recommendation many many posts back. It's straightforward and I don't end up yelling at it! It does the secure blahblah transfers and transfers multiple files! I am overjoyed! Woooooohoo.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:34 (twenty years ago) link

I am still on the fence re the cdr drive plus firewire pc card. I think I have a pc II card slot, while most of what they are selling is pc 1 cards. Will the 1 cards work in my II slot?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:06 (twenty years ago) link

the pc1 pc II distinction no longer really exists. There are just PC cards. Best thing to do, take computer down to JandR or wherever, try cards out find the cheapest one that works.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:11 (twenty years ago) link

i still can't get wmv files to play from netscape. :(

― Chris V (Chris V), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:19 (twenty years ago) link

Ever since the CPU fiasco, in my start up disk options, there are in addition to 8.6, 9.2, and 10, a new option that says network. I think this might be why my computer took so long to start up last time? So, I was going to take my puter to the Apple store, to try out their pc card, but I wanted to fix the start up so it didn't take too long. I went to the choice and chose start up from 10.2 and it was supposed to shut down and restart from 10.2 and save that preference. It shut down all right, but it never came back on! After checking all the cords, panicking, making a few phone calls, trying to start it up with all these key commands, I finally inserted a pin in the back of the computer and it started again -- on 10.2 but the weird network thing is still in the options. I usually keep my puter on sleep -- should I be shutting it down more often? Should I try again to see if it turns off and back on?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:47 (twenty years ago) link

don't choose network, it's for booting settings from OS X server, it's fine that it's there, just don't use it.

it's extremely weird that you have both 8.6 and 9.2 startup options.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:54 (twenty years ago) link

I just practiced a restart and it shut down but didn't start up again. Computer wouldn't respond to on button, so I booted it up by the pin-at-the-back trick again. Should I have an apple genius look at it?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:59 (twenty years ago) link

No problem, Julia. Glad it worked for you.

― bert (bert), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:00 (twenty years ago) link

Question: I've obviously contracted some virus/bot etc. on my home laptop. Every time I start IE after a restart, the home page is overridden to some stupid search page and there are like 5 spam bookmarks in my list. If I change the homepage and delete the bookmarks, they come back after a restart.

I ran AdAware and Spybot a bunch of times...AdAware has begun finding 'possible broswer hijack' and deletes it, but it keeps happening. Any advice?

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:04 (twenty years ago) link

Try geeta first.

alternatively boot up holding down s and u

when you get the prompt type in fsck -y

Might be a disk error (I'd delete the 8.6 system folder as well)

Jordan, you'll need to get dirty in the register, can't really tell you what to look for. In the mean time replace your browser with opera or mozilla firebird.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:06 (twenty years ago) link

Hello- Here's a new one. I moved my entire iTunes music folder onto an external HD. The files all show up on iTunes fine...BUT all my playlists have gone. Is there somewhere that the playlist information is kept, or have I lost these for good?

Thanks!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 00:55 (twenty years ago) link

On top of that - there's no way of moving MP3s from an iPod TO iTunes is there? I'm sure someone has asked that before...

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 00:58 (twenty years ago) link

yes, there are lots of little utils for doing this, such as ipod2itunes. see ipoding.com for more.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 1 February 2004 01:10 (twenty years ago) link

See also http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php for some really handy scripts. (Though the one for iPod -> iTunes transferring has a problem where it can't handle mp3s with colons in the title, album, or artist, because that's what Apple uses for its filepath. Since I use colons a lot, for my classical stuff especially, it's really really annoying.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 February 2004 10:18 (twenty years ago) link

adam: I had a similar experience recently, you may be screwed

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 1 February 2004 17:47 (twenty years ago) link

Screwed and Chopped.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 22:00 (twenty years ago) link

Considering Macs never go wrong, there's an awful lot of questions on this bitch about them.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:08 (twenty years ago) link

Ooh I have one.

What is likely to be happening when I turn on my PC (and the monitor) but the screen remains blank - ie. it's a slightly lighter colour than when it's off but no start-up process/message/interface/ANYTHING is visible?

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:28 (twenty years ago) link

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