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I'll take that as a 'you're fucked' then.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:35 (twenty years ago) link

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

Exactly how many times is Barry going to say this?

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:10 (twenty years ago) link

As many as necessary. As many times as Mac bores drone on about their superiority. It's not interesting to hear that your car is better than my car, so why do you thing it works that way with computers? Boasting about Macs seems to be the last bastion of socially acceptable dick-swinging.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:18 (twenty years ago) link

Christ Mark - they come to this thread to get advice and answers for a few questions, if you don't want to read it, stay off the thread! How many times have you lambasted people for doing the same thing YOU'RE doing but on the idiotic thread where i says?? YEAH! I think it's idiotic! I'm not going to post there! You think this is idiotic! So don't post here! In fact, GO AWAY. Out out out.

― Surprisingly Grumpy Today! (starry), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:19 (twenty years ago) link

why don't you just feel sorry for them, barry?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

(that'll larn him, eh readers??)

(cheer up barry :))

― Sarah (starry), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:20 (twenty years ago) link

Oooh, defensive ;)

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:21 (twenty years ago) link

Hi. I downloaded Mozilla firebird on my WinXP machine. It was working great initially. I then downloaded some customized toolbar thing, which didn't seem to install properly so I closed all of the Mozilla browsers. That seems to have fucked everything up.

I haven't been able to open Mozilla since. (Error message: Error launching browser window. No XBL binding for browser) I looked around on a Mozilla forum, which suggested deleting chrome.rdf. I did so--no difference. I deleted the Mozilla folder and re-unzipped the zip file I'd originally downloaded. When that didn't help, I deleted all the Mozilla stuff and downloaded it anew. It still won't open. Is this a lost cause?

(Interestingly, the IE6 browser window is showing the Mozilla icon instead of the usual IE icon in the address bar. But not consistently.)

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Monday, 2 February 2004 21:36 (twenty years ago) link

mac question: can I repair the permissions of a FW drive? is this a bad thing to do for any reason? one of my drives seems a little funky...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 2 February 2004 21:49 (twenty years ago) link

slocki, you can only repair permissions for a boot disk

Julia, did you try uninstalling moziall with add/remove programs?

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 01:26 (twenty years ago) link

if your drive is funky, run a repair disk in disk first aid

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 01:27 (twenty years ago) link

Mozilla wasn't listed in add/remove programs. It was something that was just unzipped and run rather than going through an installation process. Since it wasn't in add/remove, I just deleted all of the folders--I didn't know what else to do.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 04:24 (twenty years ago) link

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?

Obvious question: is everything plugged in properly? Try unplugging then replugging all the connectors, in case one's come slightly loose.

Does *anything* happen to the monitor at all? If something's seriously wrong, I wouldn't be surprised if the monitor gives some kind of "eep, something's fucked" warning, even if it's just the power light flashing or something like that.

Does the computer make any noise? Some machines will beep in certain ways if something's seriously up when they try to start.

― caitlin (caitlin), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 11:14 (twenty years ago) link

No it doesn't do anything. Except glow faintly. I THINK it just suddenly went like that while Matt was using it, come to think of it. I reckon maybe it IS the connections somewhere, I haven't had time to look at it again yet.

Thanks!

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 11:19 (twenty years ago) link

Is the light on the monitor

a. steady green?
b. amber?
c. flashing green?
d. other?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 12:32 (twenty years ago) link

d. Steady grey/blue.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 13:05 (twenty years ago) link

Tell me, will PC 133 or 100 RAM work in a PC 66 slot. And how do I work what RAM my MB takes anyway. I looked up the mb chipset and I think I got it right but I'm not 100% sure. (currently the machine has 2 16Mb SIMMs installed, there is an empty DIMM slot next door)

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago) link

PC100 RAM should be ok. If it's that old you may be limited by the BIOS as to how large a DIMM you can throw on there (maybe no bigger than 128 MB). What kind of mobo is it?

― Bryan (Bryan), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:29 (twenty years ago) link

@d@m, http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/software/podutil.php gets files off of your ipod.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:36 (twenty years ago) link

Just go to CEX for hardware questions Ed, it's best to test it with the actual bits and bobs itself I reckons.

RIGHT. I am starting again on the Mame Project. On dialup. I bet I have to download something again... I might be here for a while...

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:38 (twenty years ago) link

Jordan, you'll need to get dirty in the register, can't really tell you what to look for.

-- Ed (dal...), January 30th, 2004.

Um, to get even less computer savvy, how exactly do I go about this?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:47 (twenty years ago) link

I do have a problem actually. I have a file manager programme for X (I trust shiftingcopyingpasting files et al more where I can SEE what's going where!) - however it doesn't let me do it, so I think I have to be root. However, I can't log into X from the Gnome login screen as root. Hm. Once IN X I can be root in the full display and in xterms but er... apparently NOT with the file manager jobby. Any ideas?

Of course I might be off the mark with this one and it's just shagged :)

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:20 (twenty years ago) link

root doesn't need to use a filemangler

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:22 (twenty years ago) link

What's that supposed to mean? I *don't* need to be root to run the file manager?

ARGH. I appear to have specially downloaded what I now assume is an xmame front end:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/x/xmame/xmame-x_0.74.1-1_i386.deb

If I can't find a .deb of REAL ACTUAL xmame soon I am going to scream.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:29 (twenty years ago) link

Don't download deb's by hand fool

http://packages.debian.org/

^ search by text

then

apt-get install packagename

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:30 (twenty years ago) link

Ed and Jon have a great 'good cop-bad cop' thing going on in this thread.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link

sarah, try emelFM as a file manager.

MOBO info will have to wait on me flipping the lid on the PC again. I did look up the chipset once already but info was far from conclusive.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 23:15 (twenty years ago) link

You need to run ... um ... I think it's called gdm-configurator. Something like that, anyway. Or, you might be able to select 'configure' from the login screen, depending on how it's set up.

Anyway, do that, as root, and it lets you enable root login from the login screen.

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:05 (twenty years ago) link

Er yes Jon, apt-get wouldn't FIND the package which is WHY I downloaded it *without* using apt, and then ran dpkg -i yadayada. I am now stuck in UTTER dependency HELL. Once I think I have the correct mame packages it's now faffing about with sound packages - I don't even have a sodding SOUND CARD!!

Yeah Will, this is what you get when someone a little TOO obsessed with security sets it up for you innit :)

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:10 (twenty years ago) link

HI DERE. WHAT'S DEBIAN PLZ?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:17 (twenty years ago) link

Debian is a type of GNU/Linux. (As opposed to Linux. Some people consider this distinction important.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:19 (twenty years ago) link

A distribution of linux, look at http://www.debian.org. I guess it is a good thing if you know what you are doing and have broadband and don't give up easily and are strong enough not to give in to the first thought of suicide (and there will be LOTS)...

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:21 (twenty years ago) link

HEHE - SORRY ABOUT POSTING THE SAME QUESTION ON TWO BOARDS. I AM A TROLL.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:24 (twenty years ago) link

Is it bad that I have my computer, TV, and cable all plugged into the same surge protector? Last night while I was watching TV and on the computer the power went out for like a second, the TV went off but came right on but my computer of course went down. Today when my computer froze I hit the power cord to try and off and on it, but it wouldn't work, and there was no power to my TV either. I fiddled with the plug-in in the wall and stuff came back on. I bought a new surge protector today, but am I overloading it by plugging all this stuff into it?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 02:25 (twenty years ago) link

shouldn't be, when the computer froze did ctrl+Apple+Power not work?

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 February 2004 06:55 (twenty years ago) link

No, none of the keystroke tricks have been working on the freezes lately. Computer is unresponsive.

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 07:17 (twenty years ago) link

When I shut my computer down, the circle thing spins around for a good while, finally the the screen turns light gray for about a second, before sighing and really shutting down to black. Is this acceptable behavior?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 5 February 2004 22:07 (twenty years ago) link

quite normal, best not to shut down, os x prefers it if you don't, just put the computer to sleep if you have to leave it

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 5 February 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link

Unixy based OSes always require a bit of shut down time to clean up the file systems & such. It should be ok, unless it takes an hour or something. If you have a laptop, you can shut the lid on it & walk away after it gets to the circle spinning stage... it will hum to itself & then finish & turn itself off.

― lyra (lyra), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:00 (twenty years ago) link

Ed, are you too busy calculating the molecular weight of carbon dioxide to appreciate that not shutting down a computer IS USING UP PRECIOUS PRECIOUS ENERGY RESOURCES??!??!

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 6 February 2004 17:15 (twenty years ago) link

An area of wales the size of a rainforest is destroyed every day by computers that are left on.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 6 February 2004 18:42 (twenty years ago) link

What's that in football pitches?

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Friday, 6 February 2004 18:53 (twenty years ago) link

My computer is doing fine in sleep mode. Should I continue on with my plan to intall PC card and attach CD burner, or should I take its pervious problems seriously and bring it to Tekserve for a check-up before embarking on any sweeping changes?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 6 February 2004 22:59 (twenty years ago) link

Hello - I have a large mpeg (1gb) that needs to be chopped in half. Quicktime doesn't seem to be able to do this. Is there another app that will perform this task?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 7 February 2004 01:55 (twenty years ago) link

Hmmm, if you have access to something like Strata Videoshop, that should be able to. Otherwise, you might want to check http://www.downloads.com & see if anyone has any shareware programs that will do it.

― lyra (lyra), Saturday, 7 February 2004 05:29 (twenty years ago) link

Have you tried Quicktime Pro?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 7 February 2004 18:28 (twenty years ago) link

>"What's that in football pitches? "

Around 0.02 asteroids worth of football pitches.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Saturday, 7 February 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link

putting a computer to sleep is preferable to turing it off, it helps them last longe, reducing the need to replace and thereby saving manufacturing energy usage, but leaving a computer on on is of course not terribly energy saving of course.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 8 February 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link

So... now Nicotine comes up with nothing but a grey window. Any suggestions?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 15 February 2004 04:03 (twenty years ago) link

How long can printers be expected to last? I have had mine for about 4.5 years -- it is an Epson Stylus Color 740. Recently, its printing out everything light and blurry -- one line will be readable but the next will be blurry. I thought it was just the ink but I have changed it and same problem. I applied all the fix-its in the printer utility -- to no avail. I think the problem might be printer alignment? Anything I can do to fix this, or is this simply old age? Do people bother taking their printers to be repaired, or do they just throw them out?

― Mary (Mary), Wednesday, 18 February 2004 04:23 (twenty years ago) link

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