A thread for boring computer questions.

nordicskilla now . come and tell me how this thing works!

the main thing to remember with nicotine is that you need to Apple key and click to bring up the contextual menus

Mary, you turn on your firewall through the sharing system preference pane in OS X. You shouldn't need to worry about SOCKS unless you use a proxy server.

I solved my cable problem: My TV is now directly by my bed in a Japanese business hotel-stylee. The cables I just shoved behind my dresser. Bnw forget to bring OSX last night but maybe he will remember today. It's nice to have a non-crashing-all-the-time computer now.

(Also: I have a backlog of Cutie magazines that I really should stop holding on to.

I went and reinstalled the dev tools and then actually managed to install the damn thing smoothly and cleanly! Hurrah!

Now I need to figure out what now. Thanks, all.

I had to install dev tools twice when I upgraded to panther. Little glitches.

panther roxx!! i can't tell the difference!! cept exposé obv! do i look like a feeb yet?!!!1

Brushed metal Finder! In better news, it doesn't explode if you change networks without disconnecting all the servers you're hooked up to, hurrah!

haha 'brushed metal finder' isn't a new feature! bloody mac owners.

No, it's a virus. Anyway it's more than just brushed metal, it's redesigned.

Hey, OK, now I'm on slsk and my life would be complete EXCEPT I can't seem to browse certain people and they can't browse me. What's up with that?

I don't think I am happy with the idea of browsing people.

Well, ain't you the gentleman.

I picked out my external cdr drive today -- Lacie firewire only. Then I needed a firewire card. At the Apple store they had a firewire pc card with 3 firewire slots, but it was for Windows. I asked a genius and was told it might work for Mac, tho a non-genius told me I should go to Comp Usa and get a card for Mac.

Question: (I have USB 1.0) When I get this PC card, should I get it for firewire only? They also have one's for USB 2.0 and firewire together. Can you envision any circumstance in which I will need to use USB 2.0? Or shall firewire suffice? Also, how many ports do I need?

God, the Soho Apple store at 6 o'clock in evening is a frightening place. The lecture on image ready was overflowing, the sales clerks were either military men or surfers, and customer desperation was at a fever-pitch.

Also is there any way to convert WMA files to MP3s?

ok here's a dumb computer question, maybe ed knows the answer:

when I empty the trash, I often find that the finder shows that I have LESS space left on my hd, rather than more! why the heck is this?

by the way, who are you on slsk casuistry? I will add you to my very special list!

TV card question: I've had an ATI TV Wonder installed on my mobo for a while, but the durned thing isn't showing up in device manager -- and now I've read that in order to use the ATI Multimedia Center software, I need to have an ATI graphics card installed (I'm using an NVidia card instead). The site sez, "An ATI graphics card must be installed as the primary display adapter under Windows. This does not pertain to the ATI TV Wonder™"

I went so far as to install the MMC program anyway to see if ATI is kidding about the graphics card requirement, but it seems to quit on me w/o so much as an error message. Is the lack of the ATI graphics card at the root of this problem?

mary, any cardbus card will work.

slocki, Mac OS X takes a very relaxed attitude to polling. Polling is when the system ask the drive what's going on, it uses system resources. OS X only polls when is absolutely necessary. So your hard drive space display will only be updated when you do something like empty the trash of get info on drive. OS X also gobbles up hd space at a fair old whack for its own nefarious purposes so when the drive space display updates it takes into account what OS X has taken as well as what you have deleted.

ahh, of course, thanks ed.

I am "cafard".

I mentioned this on another thread, but I have problems with avi files. Basically, my Mac hates them. Quicktime doesn't play them (I have 6/Pro), am I missing a codec or something? I also want to convert them to mov/mpeg files so that I can burn CDs and watch on my DVD player, which has mpeg playback (maybe mov too but I've never tried). I have Avi2Mov for this purpose which CAN work though most avi files seem to playback with sound only and the conversion outputs mov files which do the same thing.

I hope some of that was clear.

my computer hates them too! why?!

try VLC, i had it on my comp already so maybe it comes w. the machines.

for playing .AVIs that is. (it even plays divx too = my collection of the entire seinfeld repertoire).

how do you use iDisk? do you have to pay for it?

I think iDisk is about $100 a year. Lyra recommended it on another thread. It seems like a pretty good deal.

Should I turn on my firewall? If yes: Should I leave any ports open? If yes: which ones?

Did you try mPlayer, nordic?

iDisk is part of .Mac, and I recommend it as a nice way to back up stuff. :-) Also, you can put up webpages at http://homepage.mac.com/yourusername. iPhoto will make nice little auto-generated slideshows with thumbnails & everything for you to post up there...so far I've used it to post vacation photos that I'm too lazy to hand html-code & put up on my main webpage.

Anyway. If you have .Mac, you can use "Backup" on your computer & tell it to copy out the files that you want saved to the iDisk once a week or so... I just back up my Documents folder & my email once a week so that when my disk dies a horrible death I won't lose too much.

And I had my first ever visit to an Apple store today; my ibook's power charger conked out & I got to go spend $75 on a new one. I have Applecare, so now I'm wondering if perhaps a new charger might have been covered under that, though...

lyra, probably. i hope you didn't spend money on another apple one.

ed, in versiontracker's OSX section, both mplayer and mplayerOSX are offered--do you have a preference? is there one in particular you are talking about?

Mplayer works great for playing (thanks ed, btw), but does it convert?

mplayer's goyish?

mplayer os x

sorry to keep bugging you with questions, ed, but do you mean this:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/16623

or this:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/14851

top one, i.e. this http://mplayerosx.sourceforge.net/

thanks ed!

it turns out that the prob w/ my laptop's hard drive is probably mechanical.

I will hold on to it--perhaps, in a few years, I will win the lottery or be rich of my own accord and I be able to get my photos back.

Does no one know a thing about my TV card issues?

anyone know why i try to open a wmv file in netscape i get a page with a bunch of crap on it.

and why can't i login to sites that require logins like ilx with explorer on an xp system.

MPlayer wouldn't sync up the sound with the video on the DivX'd AVIs I tried playing through it. I find that a particular old version of VLC works best with them (where a newer version doesn't do such a good job). I should check and see if there's an even newer version -- soon my harddrive will have nothing but different versions of VLC.

2nd question first: check security preferences allow you to accept cookies and make sure you login to both ilx.wh3rd.net and www.ilxor.com , browsers often don't like taking a cookie from a different domain from the one surfed two.

First question: check the application helpers are set up to handle .wmv files with Windows Media Player or whatever player you do.

Causistry, I had some sync problems with Mplayer, I put it down to aging processor, but it was way better than Quicktime with the DivX codec extension.

ed, where do i find info for the 2nd ques?

Ed: Yeah, I told it to "skip frames" if it had to, and then it was like I was watching "MST3K: The Slideshow". Which was amusing for 20 seconds.

I think ( not having XP here) its Internet Options, its in the Control Panels, if you're using IE it's under one of the menus.

Which browser by the way?

Causistry, which Mac do you have, and how much memory. DivX decoding is very memory and processor intensive.

explorer 6

Should be internet options under one of the menus, towards the right IIRC, if I was at work I could check this.

iBook 833, 384MB. So.

Hmm, what compression rating was the DivX because my Powerbook G3 500, 640Mb, does not do that poorly.

How do I find this out?