A thread for boring computer questions.

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Why that last 0, Eyeball?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 15 November 2003 04:53 (twenty-one years ago)

OS X gobbles about half a gig for swapfile space, cd cache space etc., more if you have more RAM than that. If you have OS 9 then some of your space will be used by virtual memory. How are you counting your disc space by the way?

― Ed (dali), Saturday, 15 November 2003 09:33 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh also I put 4Gig movie of Ned in the shower on your computer, I hope you don't mind.

Erm.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 15 November 2003 20:08 (twenty-one years ago)

my volume control somehow put the balance both on "wave" and "cd player" all the way to the right, so i put it back on the center but the thing is, everytime another mp3 or track starts it goes back to the left and i have to fix it again. i cant find any save settings on something on the volume control and this is really buggin me so can anyone tell me how to fix the balance for good?

― Chupa-Cabras (vicc13), Saturday, 15 November 2003 20:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Vic! You're back!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 15 November 2003 21:05 (twenty-one years ago)

dood i never was away, i just became a lurker

― Chupa-Cabras (vicc13), Saturday, 15 November 2003 21:12 (twenty-one years ago)

When I'm on the internet via DSL, I sometimes get "kicked off" ie. my DSL connection is still there but I can't get through to any sites. When I restart the pc there's no problem, so it must be something to do with the system (I unfortunately use WIndows ME). Has anyone else had this problem, and is it worth installing Windows XP? Can I do this without wiping out all my files and starting again? Help!!

― Gatinha (rwillmsen), Wednesday, 26 November 2003 16:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I had that problem for a bit but that was the driver for the network card on my PC; ultimately it meant swapping out for a new card, but since that was a gigabit card (and a flaky one at that) it's quite likely not the same problem you're having. But you may want to find out what network card you have and see if there's a driver update for it anyhow. You can find that out in the Control Panel, under "System". (If that brings up the window that lists the hardware itself, select "Network adapters" but if not, you may have to click the "hardware" tab and then "device manager". I can't remember which setup ME has).

Upgrading to XP may not solve the problem, but you can usually upgrade to XP without wiping your drive or your files. If you decide to do it, though, it's always prudent to back up anything you don't want to lose, especially items in the "My Documents" folder or on your desktop.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 26 November 2003 16:21 (twenty-one years ago)

how do i listen to a .pls file? from www.subcity.org

― raphael diligent (Cozen), Thursday, 27 November 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

on a windows machine

w. media player but seemingly no realplayer.

― raphael diligent (Cozen), Thursday, 27 November 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Apparently WinAmp will play PLS files. http://www.winamp.com

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 27 November 2003 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

ok this is probably the dumbest question on this thread yet, but the internet has me scratching my head. with my nascent ability to actually download mp3s and even burn them (?!?!?!), i find myself in a dilemma.
i am using explorer 5.2 on mac os 10.3.1, and i dont get what happens when i click on a link for an mp3, and it sort of loads itself in the browser window, then plays in some weird little strip that oesnt seem to be related to any application except explorer. ok so when this happens it sucks. i dont seem to have properly downloaded and cant save it properly to my harddrive. so thats scenario a).
the reason i dont understand it is because most of the time (situation b), when i click on a link that ends .mp3, then it goes to the download manager and seems to properly download it and a can save it and listen to it on itunes. (this happened when i tryied to listen to an mp3 from 1471, and that mix that someone put on ilm)..so whats happening here?
why does situation a) arise, and how do i make sure situation b) prevails?

why am i so dense?

― ambrose (ambrose), Monday, 8 December 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

The strip is a Quicktime plugin. Make certain that iTunes are set as the default Internet music application. I think that setting is in the iTunes preferences, IIRC.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 8 December 2003 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Or, to avoid situation a, hold down CTRL as you click on the link and choose to download link to disk (or just right click if you have a two-button mouse)

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 8 December 2003 18:52 (twenty-one years ago)

N., seems kinda unnecessary if he can set the computer to set everything to be diverted to iTunes automatically.

But yes, that would work. It was my initial suggestion, but I decided that changing preferences would (ideally) be the better route to go.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 8 December 2003 18:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Sure.

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 8 December 2003 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

check all the mime types for mpeg files and make sure they are set to save as the default action

― ron (ron), Tuesday, 9 December 2003 15:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I just bought a used PC from a friend. When I'm surfing the web, sometimes something will happen where, when I click a link or try to go to a new URL, IE will immediately go to the "This Page Cannot Be Displayed" page. It just goes there immediately, not after timing out or anything. This is true for all IE windows open at the time. I wait a few minutes, then things go back to normal. But even as I can't access any web pages, other applications are able to send/receive data through my internet connection, like normal.

My computer is an AMD running Windows 98, and I have cable internet through Comcast. Plenty of memory and processor speed. Any ideas? This scares me, as my home computer connection is crucial to my work/livelihood. It's been happening frequently (and I just bought this computer). Thanks for any help/ideas.

― Aaron A., Wednesday, 17 December 2003 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

i'll bump this once because it keeps happening and it really sucks! btw, I just downloaded the latest version of IE (6.0), if that might have something to do with it.

― Aaron A., Wednesday, 17 December 2003 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Sometimes it does that when the computer can't find an Internet connection; I think that page also features a "detect proxy settings" link or something like that, so you may want to click on that to see if it can find your connection. It's kinda hard to say what it may be...could be a fubar'd network card, could be spotty service from your provider, or it could even be a virus. If you're getting data via your other apps though, it's more likely that you need to set your proxy or decontaminate the system.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 17 December 2003 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

I get this sometimes but 'Refresh' always cures it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 17 December 2003 21:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, just pulled the Ethernet cable out of my other machine; it's "Detect Network Settings" and it's halfway down the page.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 17 December 2003 21:46 (twenty-one years ago)

two weeks pass...

I just bought a new computer off a friend. AMD thunderbird processor 1.4 Ghz, 256 MB PC2700 RAM. My problem is, it feels like I have about 64 MB RAM. I keep a bunch of windows open and a few apps running, and my old computer with 128MB would tolerate my habits just fine. This 256MB machine can't seem to handle it. Is there such thing as bad memory, or could there be something else tying up all my resources that I'm not aware of? Thanks for any help.

― Aaron A., Monday, 5 January 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

oh, thanks Sean and N. for the help above -- I never saw it. That problem somehow magically resolved itself, though.

― Aaron A., Monday, 5 January 2004 20:54 (twenty-one years ago)

Ohhhh there's bad memory of it all right, and a lot of it. One question is whether or not you've switched operating systems: if you're with WinXP now, it takes up a lot more resources than, say, Win98. You can find out whether your resources are being used up (and by what) by right-clicking on the taskbar and selecting "Task Manager", then choosing the performance tab. It'll let you know how much memory your system is currently using, and whether it's actually just your CPU cycles being gobbled up by rogue apps.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Monday, 5 January 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Win 98 on both machines. Maybe it's just cheap memory. I downloaded a freeware Task Manager, and it indicates I'm using just over 100MB of memory with just one Explorer window open. I don't seem to be running any extra junk or spyware or anything. I think I'll just pull whatever memory's in there and invest in higher quality. Thanks.

― Aaron A., Monday, 5 January 2004 21:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Ok, now I have a question:

Does anyone know how to get around not-having-administrator status in Windows XP? I need to install AOLIM badly as well as turning on my animated images in IE that somehow got turned off. I cannot see Pee Wee dance. It makes me sad. HELP!

― dean gulberry (deangulberry), Monday, 5 January 2004 21:26 (twenty-one years ago)

</div>

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 04:16 (twenty-one years ago)

100MB seems like a lot for Win98 with only one IE window open; does it break down what's taking up what portion of the memory?

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 05:56 (twenty-one years ago)

Seeing as its a new computer it may be worth your while doing a clean install of windows. Who knows what nasties may lurk in the depths. BTW Win98 and Win98SE are no longer supported by M$, they may remove patches from their support area at some point so do it soon.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 06:58 (twenty-one years ago)

This may or may not be boring. But dselect. It's rubbish, right? You have to scroll through endless lists of craply described packages to try and find the one you want and if it's not there you take a wild guess as to which tarball you can download and then it doesn't work ANYWAY because debian is rubbish!

I mean, it's really really gay. I thought I was being dumb and not understanding, but NOW I DO and it's a load of RUBBISH.

apt-get may be better but WHAT IF YOU DO NOT KNOW WHERE YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE 'getting' FROM!

And source code! It never compiles! Or if it DOES it then doesn't WORK! Computers are GAY GAY GAY!

Ah, "reclaiming" the word 'gay' makes my ire a lot easier to express.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 10:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Hahaha I have just said this elsewhere on the interweb and it turns out I was talking to a friend of the bloke who WROTE dselect.

Hahhahahahahaha help.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

apt-get rules, if you don't know what sources to use, get a generic sources.list from the debian website, or use dselect to set the sources then use apt-get. Use the debian package database, also on the debian website, to decide which package to install. (PS are you installing from cd or internet?)

As far as compiling goes, what's the debian equivalent of fink? Compiling straight seems to work OK for me but I think it very much depends on how well the ./configure script works for each source tarball. This depends on how one's compilers etc. are installed, I suppose, seeing as Apple set mine up I can't help you there.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 12:53 (twenty-one years ago)

what exactly IS fink?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:23 (twenty-one years ago)

apt-get is nice, but I LOVE gentoo's emerge.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Well the bloody C compiler was screwed when I first had it (gcc) but I think I've finally managed to prod it into working again. Vaguely. I got stuck in dependency hell. Dselect/apt-get tells you what you need but straight installs?! ARRRGGRHHH.

Installing from interweb - someone else did the install for me and I don't know which flavour of Debian I have blah blah... odd window manager as well.

When I first started the xterms wouldn't come up for some reason... ARGH!

Also ./configure isn't that hot. I was so gutted after spending all of Judge John Deed compiling mame and STILL it didn't want to work!

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

s1ocki, fink is debian's package management tools ported to mac os x plus a few extras to make compiling a doddle. It's also part of a wider project to port open source software to mac os x. see http://fink.sf.net for further details.

Sarah, why not install the woody version of debian? It's meant to be guaranteed to work, (well that's what they say, in their dreams I say).

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 16:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, I'm sorry to keep flogging the same old donkey, but can anyone point out a layman's guide to running VPC+Windows+Slsk on OSX? Does it eat up a lot of space/memory? Is it dangerous? How is it done?

Failing that, what is this "nicotine client" for slsk and how does one find/use it?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 19:58 (twenty-one years ago)

don't bother with the vpc shit, run nicotine, it's better in the long run.

see here

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 6 January 2004 20:09 (twenty-one years ago)

SHEESH. So I buy a 512MB PC2100 RAM module today, snap it in, and my computer seems to recognize it... So I test it by opening the same # of windows and apps that usually gives my computer problems and whaddya know, the same problems arise. I click on Show Desktop and get a 'not enough memory' error. So the memory made no difference! What could be the problem here?

― Aaron A., Wednesday, 7 January 2004 05:48 (twenty-one years ago)

adam the nicotine client install doesn't actually look too hard (it just seems to take a long time, most of which is spent waiting) and i think i'm going to give it a shot this week. will report back. also i have a good how-to bookmarked somewhere which i can send to you if you email me.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 06:10 (twenty-one years ago)

aaron: is the new memory showing up as 512M? have you tried memtest86 on it (comes as a bootable floppy image)? try mozilla firebird instead 8)

star: what errors are you getting from xmame? i've compiled it recently and it went ok (this was either mandrake or suse or both though)

andy

― koogs (koogs), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

Okay, so...

I cannot access ANY webpages whatsoever WITH THE SOLE EXCEPTION OF ILX. WTF is going on here?

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Friday, 9 January 2004 18:15 (twenty-one years ago)

*sheepishly* me again...

I just installed Win XP on my D: drive (I have 2 HDDs). Win 98 is still on C:

I figured my old settings from Win 98 would be xferred automatically to XP, or it'd ask me if I wanted them xferred, but that wasn't the case.

So how can I transfer all my old settings from Win 98 (which is still on my C: drive) to the new OS?

Thanks again!

― Aaron A., Friday, 9 January 2004 21:21 (twenty-one years ago)

try the transfer files and settings wizard. if you can't find the shortcut for it, search in the help &support center

― ron (ron), Saturday, 10 January 2004 01:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Is there a way to totally block internet access without a password on a computer? (This is to stop me using the internet, by the way, but not the other person who uses the computer). Just changing the password to the ISP account isn't any good. I really need to password protect access to both modems (dial up and broadband). Is that possible? (Old computer, Windows 98).

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Sunday, 11 January 2004 14:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Firewall question:

Suddenly, and for no reason I can discern, my PC (Windows 98, IE6) has somehow grown itself a firewall preventing me from using MSN Messenger. I haven't downloaded anything for ages, although I do use slsk on a regular basis. Is there a possibility that I've inadvertently let something in?

All I want to do is lose the firewall, if indeed it exists, so I can use messenger again. I've tried the Help function but it doesn't even recognise the word "firewall", amazingly!

Anyone?

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 11 January 2004 22:34 (twenty-one years ago)

has your ISP blocked it?

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 11 January 2004 22:39 (twenty-one years ago)

AOL? I should fucking well hope not!

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Sunday, 11 January 2004 22:42 (twenty-one years ago)

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