A thread for boring computer questions.

Raid isn't a backup: what if some installer goes mental and deletes the Pictures folder? An iTunes installer wiped out music folders stored on external volumes, once.

Eek. Don't put your iTunes Music folder on your external drive, is what I'd say. I mean YMMV obv but I feel pretty safe since there's no apps or system files at all on there.

I do Time Machine backups on the Mac, sod-all on the Ubuntu (nothing important lives there anymore) and wholesale drag & drop all my video media across to a dedicated ext hdd.

But stet you're right - RAID 1 is protection against physical drive failure (i.e. what happened to s1ocks) but not anything else.

What if an installer went mental on your NAS and you didn't notice for a month? In that case you'd really need Time Machine, or something like it. But can you even make Time Machine happen between two external drives?

I'm pretty sure you can, because I'm pretty sure mine keeps trying to do it. If your ext hdd is big enough Time Machine tries to annexe it, but you can whack a hidden file in the root telling Time Machine to bugger off.

Yes but if the drive you want to back up isn't connected physically, but lives on the network..

Oh, I dunno then.

> sod-all on the Ubuntu

i'm using Dirvish for backup. it's slightly friendlier than raw rsync or rsnapshot without being the gui-fest that is TimeVault.

Oooh ta, I'll have a crack. Got sick of trying to find a package that worked.

package = GUI package

guys what are our thoughts on DROBO... sounds like, though a bit pricey, it could do what i want it to do?

had thought readynas was better(cheaper?) than drobo? I don't have either, though I have been messing round with Openfiler recently, seems good so far

for local/fw drives, I've been using G-Techs

the advantage of the synology boxes is really in the software and admin interface, really. you can create any number of volumes on the fly, create users with difft levels of access, quotas, etc., do UPnP, fileshare, FTP, etc - screenshots here:

http://www.techspot.com/review/169-synology-ds409p/page4.html

(that's a different, more expensive box but the software is basically the same across all their models)

i dont think i really to do much of that stuff, as cool as it sounds...

really need to

well the budget 2-bay synology is $200 so if the drobo or whatever is cheaper then, yeah! but i've found it's really nice to be able to get a file off of it when i'm, say, not at home. and it works reallly well as a torrent seedbox uh, media thing.

the four-bay drobo is about $100 more expensive... hrm

FOUR! daaaaaamn.

http://www.drobo.com/resources/drobocalculator.php

UPDATE

i didnt do anything and my drive is still uh.. 'sleeping'

but i found an old backup of my itunes library dating to one year ago on another drive, so at least i rescued a bunch of tunes

as you were

http://blog.nj.com/giants_scene/2008/02/paradeparade.JPG

http://limelighttalent.org/Images/index_bow_stage.jpg

i thohght abut getting a drobo but i heard the device itself is not too reliable

im hearing its slow which is not really good for my purpz

How can I get a battery for an old Thinkpad? IBM/Lenovo don't make 'em anymore, and I don't want to buy a third-party one and get gipped.

bloody windows 7. how come i can't perform administrator actions in my administrator account, yer know like simple fucking tasks such as saving a fucking file to a location?

i dunno, it was your idea.

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)