If you have a single (or some more) question regarding any of the tech topics of this board and feel that it wouldn't justify creating an own thread just for that, feel free to post it in here.
If you know the answer to any of the questions in this thread, please help us out here! I am sure it's going to be appreciated.
I am creating this thread since there's ben popping up too many threads lately with single questions asking for help that aren't really set out to create too much interest.
what is causing certain video files to be always "in use" under XP, preventing me from moving/renaming/deleting them? (without using the command prompt anyway, which is a pain in the arse with long-named files in obscure directories) is there some useless microsoft process doing that that i can just terminate?
Can I make it so whenever I turn my bluetooth shit on that windows will automatically make it the default stereo for music?
>>241
Usually you have to edit the registry to change something like that. Not worth the risk if you don't know what you're doing.
Alternately, you could just find where that icon is stored, and overwrite it. Long ago I used Microangelo to edit icons stored in DLL libraries or executables.
>>243
If renaming and then deleting doesn't work, then this might.
Caveat: I haven't tested it.
http://www.softwarepatch.com/software/moveonboot.html
>>240
Re-encode the file maybe.
Try Audacity, it's free, but it would even be worth paying $60 for it.
ok two things:
> Audacity p5b windows xp
My LCD monitor won't turn on. A while before, it wouldn't turn off, but now it won't turn on. I'd give more details if I had them. :(
>>249
yeah, i tried googling as in no.2, got no worthwhile results...but there was an updated driver available for the sound hardware that fixed the problem. so that's all fine. i think.
i'm also pretty much not willing to learn scheme just to process some images, but as it turns out i have this "Microsoft Office Picture Manager" which evidently came with some version of office or other. up until now i disregarded entirely thinking it was something worthless, but it actually does exactly what i need! which is nice.
did you check all the wires? just a basic question.
Or, is the button maybe broken? Try prodding it with a pencil or something.
>>246
Scratch that, discovered this one, works great, don't abuse it:
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/
I remember recently reading about a tool that will automatically download the required dependencies of a configure process that failed a dependency check. I don't remember the name but it was called apt-??? and it depended upon apt-get. Does anybody know what I am referring to?
I downloaded some mp3's, but they're in mojibake, and I don't know the actual artist name. I'm curious to find out, but is there anyway to fix it?
>>255
Try installing support for different languages OR just google the lyrics.
Could you mean apt-file? I don't know if it auto downloads packages or not though.
http://www.debuntu.org/how-to-find-missing-packages-with-apt-file
Ok, here's the problem, I tried to boot up my PC today and, despite my BIOS settings not having "Boot From CD" as a priority, it's trying to boot from fucking CD, and I don't even have one in the drive. I'm so damned frustrated, I saved my BIOS settings, checked them after I tried to boot again, but the same thing happens.
Boot From CD:
Boot From CD:
DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER
...please help, somebody?
I have some .CPS files (created with Corel Photo House), is there any way to open or convert them without the original software? because i have no idea where the disc is, i haven't used it for about eight years.
I just can't really play any video files other than .avi very well.
(I'm watching anime)
On everything the audio just zooms ahead while I have to sit and line it up back in place.
Do I have the wrong codecs, the wrong players, is my computer just that sucky?
And I guess I have a second unrelated question.
I got a hold of a used ipod, all I got with it was the usb cord.
Well I charged it, installed itunes, and when I plugged it in it wanted to update it.
I ran the update but suddenly it asked me to plug it into the wall, I couldn't so I unplugged it and set it aside.
Sometime later I finally bought a damn AC plug for it and it still wouldn't work!
Am I screwed and have to get it repaired or what?
>>260
Download CCCP, it's the best codec pack around IMO. Try flashing the iPod and reinstalling the firmware.
>>261
I have CCCP and it still lags, might be my computer just sucks...
and the ipod doesn't connect to the computer anymore...
Hi, does anyone know if there's a realplayer compatible media player for linux that provides a firefox plugin, so I can watch embedded video streams?
>>263
mplayer can play realmedia, can't it?
I'm experiencing steadily dropping bitrates whenever I try to listen to BBC streaming radio on their website; it usually starts out around 100-110kbps, then levels out at about 67 for a while, but still slowly decreasing after this point; once it dips below 64 it starts to gets unlistenable. if I stop and reconnect to the stream it'll start over at 110ish again.
anyone know what causes this?
use vlc player it plays everything >_> no annoying codecs to worry about at all
Fuck you and your shitty player. MPlayer FTW.
I just started having this problem since yesterday, when I turn on my laptop the only thing that comes up is just my document folder and nothing else(no desktop or icons or start menu). Now I been fixing it by going into the window folder and starting explorer from there but is there anything I could do so I could have explorer starts up when the laptop is turn on without going into the window folder?
>>265
Are you sure you are really seeing the bitrate drop? I don't know how the BBC does things, but it seems more likely they would use a constant bitrate (yeah, or variable bitrate, just not consistently dropping). The "drop" could be because it buffers up data and the player reports a higher initial value.
As for the actual problem, it could be anything; high load on server, home router acting up, etc. If you're listening through a browser, you could try plugging the stream directly into VLC or something and see if that makes any difference. At least it might give a "second opinion" on what's going on.
It happens because its an RTP stream, and it's not getting packet statistics- so it's lowering the bitstream/quality to use less bandwidth.
The statistics replies are usually on a separate channel - e.g. if the stream is coming in on port 50000, then the statistics might go back on port 50001 - but many firewalls and address translators mess this up.
Hi, does anyone know if 128x4 and 64x8 (ddr400) ram types are interchangeable? Would 128x8 work in a mobo that (currently) uses 64x8? =/.
Hi everyone, The portable hard drive I always use for my school work and installing temporary games stop working today. At first I thought it was the wires that was having trouble so I used an different wire but it still having trouble so does anyone have any ideas what happen? I just got the hard drive this year and have stuff on it that I need for school so I hope it's recoverable and able to be fixed.
put it in the fridge for a night inside a Tupperware box, then in the morning take it out, connect the cables and get everything off it before it heats back up
sure or not? It sounds weird...
magnets increase in strength when you cool them down
>>275
You sure it will work? I wont be messing up anything in the process?
>>276
It sometimes works, and it shouldn't hurt anything if you do it properly, but in my experience users who refer to cables as "wires" will always find a way to fuck things up.
I moved in to college a week or so ago, and noticed that the college network blocks torrent trackers and the such. I would ask my RCC but I'm too lazy, but apparently there is in fact a way to get around this. Does anyone have any idea? Thanks.
>>278
depends exactly what it blocks. ports or specific urls/ip addresses?
my college blocked everything except http traffic on port 80 via their own cache servers, and you had to use some slow as hell tunneling shit to get absolutely anything else working.
BUT if they are only blocking the urls of torrent trackers there are like a million ways around that, im sure someone less hung over than i am can be arsed to explain
oh and while i'm here, i a question: i recently bought a cheap usb hub, my computer won't boot with it installed (only the first couple of lines of post stuff appear, it doesnt even get as far as the ram test) but if its plugged in at any time after this it works fine and causes no problems. why?
because your bios is old as FUCK
get a new computer NAOW
srysly, i have a computer that cant use usb hubs, and its about 14 years old and doesn't even have on board usb (it uses plug in cards)
could be something else though, but your description perfectly matches the problem i had with my old computer
>>280
YOU
may be right
but i'm too fuckin' poor to buy a new computer
i suppose i shall have to resume the quite frankly massive inconvenience plugging the usb hub in only after it has booted.
it costs like... 50$ to buy a new motherboard, should get you going again
My connection drops a lot when a page is loading (and show that the page is loading, but nothing would happen). for example, sometimes when I click on a link, the page will show as loading, but it would never actually load.
How do I fix this?
Does anybody have a working solution to that lol.hta script?
I miss my internets.
is there a decent freeware firewall for windows available? (one that isn't bundled with adware, toolbars, shitty anti-spyware or other crap). i'm not such a fan of zone alarm anymore. or should i just bite the bullet and turn on the windows firewall? i always assumed that since it came with xp-sp2 it would probably be restrictive, annoying and not very configurable, but i've never actually used the thing.
I clearly did a stupid thing by installing a fuckton of fonts on my Vista laptop. Now whenever I want to use the Text tool in Photoshop CS3, Photoshop just freezes and stops responding.
What's a good solution/workaround, or, what have I done wrong here?
My font list is at about 2000+. It that a bit excessive for Photoshop to handle?
>>286
I got fonts in numbers something like that but my Photoshop is still ok on my Vista anyway but do note that my PC has 4g DDR2 RAM installed on it so....Maybe it's your plugins messing around.
It's fine now. I had to wipe all the fonts I installed from the pack. Turns out my font count was 10,000+. Whoops. I'll just install the ones I really want. Thanks for the help anyway!
When using some programs and games, certain block of text in the program is very small and there is no setting in the program to fix it.
I know it's not supposed to be like this, but there's nothing in the program to increase the font size.
Perfect Dark for reference: http://img152.imageshack.us/img152/678/43761553ct4.jpg
>>289
I solved this by changing my regional settings from Japanese to English, but now I can't run Japanese program with applocale and Windows has troubles displaying Asian characters.
is there any way to do something like this using htaccess..
make the directory index a script in one directory with the path passed to it as an argument.
e.g.:
htaccess is placed in dir "blah" along with a script say "list.cgi"
for the address blah/cocks/hello/ whats actually loaded is blah/list.cgi?path=cocks/hello
Ok I was wondering, ok my c drive is getting full, each time I uninstall a program it seem it take up more space in the drive. Why is this happening? Also as I was going through my folders on the c drive I found that there is this folder called Temp in the window folder and it has more than 10 gigs in it. Can I safely delete it to free space or will I end up messing up the computer like deleting System 32?
> Also as I was going through my folders on the c drive I found that there is this folder called Temp in the window folder and it has more than 10 gigs in it. Can I safely delete it to free space or will I end up messing up the computer like deleting System 32?
don't delete the folder, but it should be safe to delete everything in it that windows will let you delete. any files that are in use should be locked so you can't delete them.
So it's alright to delete stuff inside the folder then? Ok thanks Anon.
How do I increased my laptop's virtual memory?
So I recently obtained a new computer as a present. It's a laptop. Anyways, when I turned it on, it won't work. It mentions something about PXE and 'media test failure' and 'exit PXE rom' when I boot it up. Also, it said something about 'insert new boot media'.
You can tell that I'm a huge computer noob, so...help, please.
Your first step would be to go into the BIOS and see what the primary boot device is. Should be the hard drive.
If that's legit, try reinstalling Windows or give Ubuntu or some other gay Linux shit a shot.
If that doesn't work, get yourself a gift receipt and exchange it/get the manufacturer to repair it.
>>293
Am a different anon here but having the same problem, so I could delete everything in that folder and the stuff that can't be delete will remain untouched and safe?
Ok, so I just got back from /b/ over at 4chan and there was a small CP flood over there. My question is...is there a way to securely erase my cache? I (of course) didn't click on any of the pictures, or even go into the thread, but it still gets saved to your browser cache, right? And is there anything else I need to do?
>>296 Try pouring some cold water on the laptop especially on the keyboard. This works most of the times.
I've got a problem with my IP address. My modem is connected to my router and my router is connected to the other computers including my own and they all share the same IP address. How would I assign different IPs to the computers (2).
I'm on a static IP plan with my ISP as that's all they provide.
>>301
If you want unique IPs for each box, you need to to purchase a subnet block (usually a /29) from your ISP then reconfigure your router. Having an ISP that doesn't suck and some networking knowledge is a start.
Total noob/dumb question here:
I have Firefox clear my cache and cookies automatically every time I close Firefox. I also use CCleaner; which I have set to clean everything 7 times over. My question is, since I have Firefox clearing my cache every time I close it, does CCleaner still clean the cache and cookies from FF too? Or should I turn the function off in FF so CCleaner can clean everything 7 times.
Hope all of that made sense....
I have a tv hardware question here(It would really help if anyone who answers was a Chicagoan like me), anyway I got a new HDTV along with a antenna for local HDTV and digital channels. Anyway about a month ago one of the station finally went HD after moving in a new building(for the Chicago users it's channel 2). But for some reason my tv can't get the HD/digital signal. Is something wrong or somthing that I could do to fix it?
Does anyone know of a good open source BT tracker (not software, an actual tracker) that's reliable? I'd like to create a few torrents for an open source project, and would rather not track them on TPB.
TIA.
>>305
software: http://erdgeist.org/arts/software/opentracker/
public tracker: http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/about/
>>306
Thank you, that is exactly what I was looking for.
let me see if i can explain this right...
i've got 2 160 gb hdds in my computer. i recently backed up my info from my old setup on one hdd, and i copied all of the info from that hdd to the hdd i'm using now. my question is, is there a way to back up the new info that i've got on my main hd to the other one? i dont want to backup everything, just the stuff i've downloaded recently on my main hdd (e.g. music, pictures, ect...)
hope all that made sense...
iTerm fixed all of the problems in >>311 but one. I still can't use the home and end keys (or stuff like Ctrl+Arrow, Ctrl+Shift+Arrow) on my PC-104 properly in any os x app besides iTerm >_<.
I think what I really need is a windows/linux to os x transition cheat-sheet. Anybody know of a good one?
This just started happening the other day...
Every time I play music on my computer, (it doesn't matter what media player I use) and click on something else on my computer (pictures, or actually click out of my media player) I always here what sounds small skips in the song. The more I click on something, the worse it gets. It doesn't happen when I'm on the Net; I can click all over the place and nothing happens. I also just reformatted a few weeks back, so nothing is really taking up system resources. I've scanned for spyware, and viruses, but nothing comes up. Anyone have any ideas?
I keep gettin popups even though I'm not on websites that usually bring up popups.
I also get popups when I'm not using the internet(it just opens firefox by itself and starts poppin up ads from interplus click or something.)
I tried Spybot, Adaware, RegistryFix,AVG Antivirus, and everything. Does anyone know what I can do to get rid of it? Is it spyware? Or a Virus?
wondering if someone could help me here...every once in a while, this error message pops up in windows. it usually happens when i click on a song. i know when its about to happen, cause the system lags for a bit, finally plays the song, then the message pops up.
if i push ctrl+alt+del, and go into the task manager, it says that the "my music" folder isn't responding. anyway, this has been happening for a long time now (pretty much since I got my computer a while back) and it still happens even after I re-format and even put XP Pro on my machine.
here's a picture of the error message if it helps: http://tinyurl.com/3t8pq4
>>315 It's probably explorer trying to pull the metadata out of the mp3 and failing horribly (bad plugin/extension maybe?)
Is anyone experienced with repairing AVI files? If so, how would I do that.
strange question here...
when i watch a video on my web browser the sound is very muddled and distorted. but when i open a new tab and do something else, the sound gets better. and as soon as i switch back, it gets bad again. also, when i scroll a webpage down, it makes the same sound. any thoughts? thanks!
>>314
Sounds like your browser's hijacked. Unfortunately I'm not sure what to do about that. I'm actually on a hijacked browser myself at a friends house right now...
Eurofag here. I'm looking for a virtual server hosting provider in the US which accepts paypal payment. Any recommendations?
Not really sure what the issue is, but about 4 images I've downloaded through torrents recently have been corrupted. I've never had this issue before, and it all seems to have started after this install of windows... I'm even downloading torrents that I'd already downloaded before and finding the images corrupted, or something. Anyone know what's up?
OS: Windows XP SP 1, FS: fat32
I would like to play music (mp3) on a drive that's connected via wifi to my PSP on my PSP. What would be the best way to do this? on a related note, how hard would it be to do the same with images?
i'm having a problem with usb hubs - devices plugged into the hub before the system is powered on arent recognised. but after unplugging and plugging them back in they work fine. this happens on my desktop with two separate hubs, yet i dont experience the issue on my laptop with the same hubs. anyone know what the problem is?
>>323
Ive found TVersity to work well for all of my streaming needs. After setting it up and navigating to your media server, click the RSS button at the top of the screen. this will save it as a feed with which you can access via the psp. As for pictures, navigate to the server and click a pic to d/l it. I was doing this earlier before coming here to post. psp sucks unless you are tech savvy.
>>320
I remember looking at openhosting.com, looked reasonable and they do accept PayPal.
quick question, im a noob to the computer world, well the hardware aspect of it at least, so does anybody know a good website with really understandable wording that could tell me what every piece does prosseser, graphics card etc. does and whats the best one on the market is? Ive read a lot of magazines on the topic but they were really confusing and i could only get the base info out of them.
Thanks
Processor does math.
Graphics card does pictures.
There is no 'best one on the market' for computer parts just like there is no 'best one on the market' for automobiles.
>>327 did a pretty good job of summarizing it.
There are alot of standards, types and derivatives of most computer parts (SATA vs. ATA; DIMM vs. 184pinDDR2SDRAM vs. 240pin DDR2SDRAM; ect). It is also quite unrealistic to expect to get 'the best one on the market' unless you have a shitload of discretionary money, and assuming you did, it would be best to pay an IT guy to do it for you. If not, buy or P2P a "Computer Hardware for Dummys" type of book.
What exactly do you want to do? If you want to build a computer, it's best to buy a junker in the classifieds in your local paper, and upgrade it, plus it's alot cheaper.
>>328
Whoops, wrong tripcode, but I guess the ID points it out.
Okay, so I'm trying to fix this guy's vista laptop. First off, one day he just can't seem to boot it up. eventually, he gets it to the login screen, but it won't go pas it. I get it from there and notice the same thing. I run vista's own system checking doohickeys - recovers from some severe filesystem errors. Basically, now, the laptop SEEMS to be fixed. It loads up really fast, no glitches anywhere, BUT... the password he used to use doesn't work anymore... no password works.
there's no other users. I can't just over-install vista to get a new password because you can't do that unless you've already logged in. Desperate, I downloaded OPHCrack or whatever, to crack what the password is... error.
Is he fucked? The only thing I can think of is to download a live-dvd linux, and try and save his files that way before he wipes it. either that, or just send it back to Dell. thoughts?
NM, turns out the guy had changed his pass without telling anyone. yeesh
Is there a way to easily change the default names assigned to drive letters in vista?
eg. i used to have a USB 4-in-1 card reader which I always had plugged in, and all its slots showed up as "removable disk" so i renamed them to "SD Reader", "CF Reader" etc for ease of identification.
i thought that would only apply to this specific hardware but apparently not - i now have an internal card reader installed, so having removed the external one, i now find that any usb flash drive i plug in which is assigned one of the letters formerly occupied by the card reader will be called "SD Reader" or similar if the drive doesnt have its own name. and renaming would then only change the name of the drive itself, not the drive letter.
its now slightly worse in that i have installed a dvd drive which windows refuses to let me rename at all, but it's showing up as "DVD-RW Drive (G:) SD Reader". so uh yeah. any way to change these back to the default without having to remove the dvd drive and replacing the card reader?
actually nevermind, worked it out. i just searched the registry for one of the changed names, deleted the "DefaultLabel" key under the respective drive letters. works. yay.
>>334
your post contains neither a single question, nor help. i think you're in the wrong thread.
How can you prove that someone is spamming you via Yahoo chat?
Hey guys, I have a really annoying problem on my home network. When ever my little brother is playing a MMO and I'm watching videos on YouTube or something similar it lags him really bad. He uses windows xp and I have a MacBook running OS X 10.5. When ever him and our mom are online and shes doing something similar theres no problem. When him and a friend play this game there are no problems. They've had as many as three people on our network playing the game at the same time. It only lags when I'm on. I've tried turning EVERYTHING off. He only lags when I'M downloading or streaming a video or something. What should I do? Is OS X just a bandwidth hog? Honestly I think hes lying but just in case I'm wrong does anyone know what might be going on???
My question is how to get my C: directory to show up as a subfolder menu within the my Quick Launch toolbar in Vista (yeah, yeah, I know...) after clicking the ">>" icon. I've tried several things, but each attempt usually ended up as a link to the directory as opposed to a menu and would just open in a different window. I've tried googling some potential solutions, but they all say the same thing and none of them work. I know this is possible (somehow), as I've done it prior to reinstalling (again, somehow); I just don't remember what I did, or if I did anything special to begin with. I thought it might be some kind of hidden option that I haven't tinkered with yet. Any suggestions?
Does anyone know how to set up a vanilla LaTeX distribution to properly typeset Japanese documents made in PLatex2e? Or would it be better to just switch to PLatex2e entirely for Japanese documents? In that case, is there a decent English tutorial for using PLatex2e?
>>339
If you're on Windows, you could try MiKTeX. It downloads packages when you need them.
>>340
I'm already using MiKTeX. The problem is that the packages written for PLatex2e seem to be either partially incompatible with MiKTeX's LaTeX implementation, or impossible to find the right version of. I am still quite inexperienced with LaTeX, and for now I'd be happy even just to know what kind of packages and fonts are best to use for setting Japanese text. Later on I'd like e.g. support for vertical writing as well --- not sure if that's easily done in LaTeX.
If I'm setting up a home server with Debian, and I need to have a static IP address, what values do I plug in to my /etc/network/interfaces file and how do I find them? For example, what values should I use for address, netmask, network, gateway and broadcast?
Are there any guides or manuals that explain this? I haven't found one. They all explain how to format them, but I have no clue what values to use or how to find them.
