A thread for boring computer questions.

I've been using a computer-to-computer network to copy documents between my home mac (brought into the office) and the work XP. I set up a network, enable windows sharing, then connect up using the 'add network place' wizard.

Unfortunately, I take the mac home, and when I come the next day, the IP address has changed, so the shortcut I made and the connection established the day before has changed. Is there any way to make the IP address used by the Mac for windows sharing static, so the same shortcuts work etc?

can someone extract the direct link to the video from this mess:

embed src="http://update.videoegg.com/flash/proxy.swf?jsver=1.4"; FlashVars="jsver=1.4&allowFlash9Fullscreen=true&MMdoctitle=John Waller <yirmon> - Flash Player Installation&MMplayerType=PlugIn&MMredirectURL=http://www.bebo.com/Profile.jsp?MemberId=953595184&adVars=site=bebo&area=userhomepages&vl=gb&va=null&vg=null&pa=24&pg=m&channel=entertainment&wmode=window&autoPlay=false&file=http://download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/G6/AM/11730441094esAaZtZ1dYeAqRsiLEF&rootUrl=http://update.videoegg.com/flash/player&swfpath=http://update.videoegg.com/flash/proxy.swf?jsver=1.4"; quality="high" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" scale="noscale" wmode="window" width="355" height="299" name="VE_Player" align="middle" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer";></embed>

It isn't there, the video is prolly flv, this code only embeds the flash flv player. If you can give a link to the page the video is on, i can prolly ferret out the location of the flv fle.

This is probably it it. Copy and paste to your title bar

download.videoegg.com/gid329/cid1124/G6/AM/11730441094esAaZtZ1dYeAqRsiLEF_high.flv?showAd=true

The Boyler, can you use the computer name with UNC (i.e. \\theMacsNetworkName\c) instead of the IP address? n.b. I don't work with Macs ever, but that is what you'd do in Windows.

does anyone know of a good freeware program that will allow me to change windows' dvd region once the limit has been reached?

The facts:

Last night, as I was innocently typing a reply to ILE in my fumble-fingered way, my display jumped to a much larger font size (looks about 14 pt to me). It seemed to coincide with my fingers slipping to hit a multi-key combination that may have included Shift, Crtl or possibly even Alt. I really have no clear idea what keys got mashed.

Further facts:

I use (boo, hiss) Internitwit Explorer under WinXP. The problem doesn't appear to affect the font size within the reply entry box (titled: Add a Comment).

The question:

I am not legally blind and I do not need this size of font. It is irksome. Can anyone assist me in returning my ILE display to a proper (default) font size? Something like a good, solid 11 point. I would be ever so grateful for the assistance.

IE: View -> Text Size - > Medium

ctrl + scroll wheel is what yr after. if you don't have a scroll wheel on yr mouse i'm not quite sure where else you change it...

Yoink! Ctrl- scroll wheel worked a treat! I salute you!

(ctrl and + or - do the same thing. am guessing these are the keys you hit)

started typing something yesterday then stopped and had a think with finger still on the shift key. pc went into sticky keys mode. much confusion ensued. sorted now but for a while there...

Is there a service like tinyurl that allows you to specify the text of the tinyurl portion? For example, if I wanted to link to the new Companies Act I could use tinyurl.com/companiesact.

What if two people wanted to link to the Companies Act?

Sucks to be the other person?

That is a crazy suggestion which would quite clearly never happen.

czn:

http://icanhaz.com/

The worst kind of boring computer question on the planet... the boring networking question.

So, here's my situation: yesterday around 1pm, my Internet stopped working at home. Nothing seemed to make this happen, it was pretty much random. I've got an ADSL connection, through Canada's Bell Sympatico, and the modem's a "Speedstream 6250." When I look at it, there are 6 total lights: Power, Ethernet, Wireless, DSL, Internet, and another one whose name I forget (I can't check now because I'm sitting in the front of the house stealing the weakest imaginable connection from a neighbour... i'm afraid if I get up, I'll lose it). The first three lights are lit up, but the DSL light is not. It blinks a couple of times every minute or so, but never stays lit up. From my research, I've learned that this is due to it being unable to connect via the hpone line. I've tried a new cable, a different phone jack, tried unplugging everything and replugging everything, but it's not working.

Here's where it gets more complicated... when we signed up for Internet, we were at a different place with a land line. Then we moved, called Bell, and they switched everythng to the new place, but we're now with Voice over IP for phone (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS BTW). So, I can't call Bell support, except from my cell phone which has no minutes or from a pay phone which I did and it didn't help b/c I couldn't give the guy my specifics like modem serial numbers and shit... so what the fuck do I do? The guy was saying "if your phone is down, your internet won't work" and I was like "DUDE VoIP = THE OTHER WAY AROUND". But I guess there's no way for me to know if, like, my house line has been snipped or something... or, for that matter, who to clal to fix that. Or how to call them since I have no phone.

SOS. SOS. SOS. SOS. SOS.

You can have DSL without use of a land line in the US? So you have the line but they block you using it for voice calls? That's interesting - you can't do that in the UK. Sorry - this doesn't help you. I'm not sure what would help you. Borrowing someone's mobile phone, I suppose.

Is your phone busted? Have you reset the phone?

I think he's saying that he doesn't know if his landline is busted because he can't make voice calls on it anyway - he only uses VoIP.

Yeah, and that's why I'm asking about the actual handset. At work we rely on voip, and sometimes my PC loses its connection. The only way to fix it is to reset the voip phone.

(i'm assuming it goes wall outlet -> voip phone -> PC)

Ah, right - got you.

The Bell.ca site's pretty worthless for troubleshooting info. It does say to turn the modem off for at least 30 seconds and make sure there's no other electronic equipment within 12" of the modem. I was trying to find out if you should still have a dialtone, even if you don't have a land line (this is a law in California, you have to be able to dial 911). You can chat with their support on-line, fwiw.

Another thing you can do to check if it's the wiring inside your house that's bad - find the connection box for the phone line on the outside of your house. It will have a phone jack in it - get a long phone cord and plug the modem into that. If you get connectivity, the problem is most likely in your house wiring. If you're in a apartment, this is a serious challenge btw; it's not so difficult if your in a house with a single phone line.

You can have DSL without use of a land line in the US?

-- Alba, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 10:54 (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Okay got it, it's called naked DSL.

(I too am not in the US)

sorry I didn't respond sooner, but he connection was really weak from my neighbours so I couldn't get on long enough to post and I jsut got tired of trying.

You can have DSL without a landline in Canada, too, apparently... because I did for about 9 months, until the other day when my Internet broke :(

The way the VoIP works on my end is that it's a box that connects to the all-in-one modem/router, so if the problem was only with the voip box, it wouldn't affect the overall workings of the DSL line. It goes wall -> modem/router -> then to the voip or to the xbox or to the computer.

I haven't yet been able to find an outdoor phone jack, although I did find what appeared to be some sort of cut line, although I think it may have just been a cable line? It's definitely strange, though, and I have no idea why it's cut... does anyone know what an outdoor phone wire would look like? Or the cross-section of one, for that matter?

Agreed that bell.ca's support site is garbage. In between having to steal a connection last night and that site being mostly useless anyway, I got nowhere with it. I did try the no-equipment-near-it thing and the powercycling too, but no dice. I will see if I can get a live chat with one of them, but so far they've been useless on all fronts. I got finished with their level 1 tech last night, and their level 2 tech was supposed to call 30m later, and never did.

I'm in need of help:

Vista won't let be uninstall some programs. Certain programs have to be installed by right-clicking the installation program, and selecting "install as an administrator", or words to that effect. If I want to uninstall one of these programs by using the add/remove programs in the Control Panel, it won't let me because I'm not an administrator.

For those who love closure, I *might* have solved my problem, after another long, drawn out conversation with bell's support team. Apparently, my account is not a "naked" or "dryloop" account, so this is why it's not working. I'm not sure how that makes a lot of sense, because I (thought I) didn't have a dial tone for the past 11 months and it's worked fine. So I need to call their accounts group or whatever, and turn ym regular DSL account into a dryloop DSL account. Which costs nothing. Except a shitload of my time, apparently. And then, if that doesn't work, I have to start over.

nate,

please contact your administrator.

will m. - for future ref - an outdoor copper phone line (in the US and probably also in Canada) is a 4-wire (green & red, black & yellow) unshielded but typically with a drain (uncoated silver wire) in a gray poly oversheath. If you're on a fiber optic run, it's hard to say what the wire will look like, generally they're coated with orange kevlar-type stuff.

Ok so I've had this problem for over a year now, and it's finally starting to driving me crazy. I got a Titanium Powerbook 17" about 4 years ago way before the switch to Intel processors. A couple of years later, I upgraded it's original 512 Mhz to 1 G. I'm not sure exactly when, but it was around the time that I upgraded to 10.3 and 10.4 that my fans would go on after about 5 minutes of working on the machine, and would never go off unless I shut it down or put it to sleep. When I set my processor speed to Reduced in System Preferences however, my computer becomes extremely slow, even opening ILX takes about 3 seconds on a stable cable connection. I've used about 4 different programs to verify my disc and fix permissions, which doesn't seem to do jack shit. Since I cannot afford another machine right now, what should I do, should I downgrade? Thanks.

starting to drive ... obv

You upgraded the CPU in a powerbook? Bad, bad mojo. Put the original CPU back in if you still have it.

Heat variance tolerance is very slender in all lappies; it's even tighter in Powerbooks. Installing a CPU a PB wasn't designed to take will probably shorten the life of everything else in the PB, not just give you noisy fan issues.

Were there ever 512MHz processors? I think maybe Jena means 512MB RAM.

Yeah, maybe not. The PB can not only deal with 1G of RAM fine, it will probably run cooler with it (less disk paging).

I think maybe Jena means 512MB RAM.

that's what i meant, sorry

No point slowing processor down. Have you looked in Activity Monitor to see what % of the CPU is actually being used when the fan's going crazy? If it's *not* high, then it suggests that it's a fan control issue, rather than your Mac actually getting overloaded with work. If the load *is* high even when you're doing nothing, then look at what processes in the list are using all the CPU's resources.

If you are comfy taking the PB apart, then you might try that and see if you have some kind of obstruction blocking the airflow. You might have a dustball or something. I've taken apart a couple of PBs, and it's definitely harder than taking apart a PC, so you might want to have a geeky pal along for the ride.

when i buy a new harddrive, no external. can i write the stuff thats on my old one to the new one?

do i have to make copies on cd's first and then write them to the new one? i found this rather cheap samsung HD with 400 GB, and ive decided i need it to fulfill my digital collector needs

Every OS in the universe should allow you to copy stuff directly from one hard drive to another, even vista.

I once solved a fan problem by taking my pc apart and hoovering its insides. There was hell of dust.

Yeah I don't feel comfortable opening my computer up like that, but my situation is pretty desperate. Even when I only open Firefox, it'll bounce in the dock about 8 times, then the fans come on and keep going.

Anyone know how I uninstall an Ubuntu guest that I'm running through VMWare?

isn't the whole guest just a directory that you can nuke? or a disk image that you can similarly delete?

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/105077

Just delete the virtual hardisk and start again.

NAS and HD media streaming

it's not really there yet, is it?

basically what i want is:

* a huge hard drive which mounts wirelessly via 802.11n, is attached via HDMI to my TV, and has a nice interface for playback.