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

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 January 2004 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 January 2004 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 25 January 2004 00:58 (twenty-one years ago)

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?

― Mary (Mary), Sunday, 25 January 2004 01:13 (twenty-one years ago)

Did you try mPlayer, nordic?

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 25 January 2004 06:39 (twenty-one years ago)

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 (lyra), Sunday, 25 January 2004 07:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 25 January 2004 08:22 (twenty-one years ago)

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?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 25 January 2004 17:05 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 25 January 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

mplayer's goyish?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 25 January 2004 17:08 (twenty-one years ago)

mplayer os x

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 25 January 2004 18:27 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 25 January 2004 20:10 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 25 January 2004 21:02 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks ed!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 25 January 2004 21:11 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

― RJG (RJG), Sunday, 25 January 2004 21:14 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Leee Majors (Leee), Monday, 26 January 2004 00:43 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:13 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

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 (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:26 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:27 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:35 (twenty-one years ago)

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.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

explorer 6

― Chris V (Chris V), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:42 (twenty-one years ago)

iBook 833, 384MB. So.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:48 (twenty-one years ago)

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

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:53 (twenty-one years ago)

How do I find this out?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

click on the movie in the playlist and lick the i button.

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:07 (twenty-one years ago)

err.. click the i button

― Ed (dali), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Aw, and the i button was getting all excited, too.

File format: AVI
Video format: 24PM, 916.5 kbps, 480 x 360, 30.0 fps
Audio format: mp3, 128 kbps, 44.1 kHz, Stereo
Length: 1:32:00

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 28 January 2004 21:48 (twenty-one years ago)

My computer was asleep. When I pressed a key to wake it up the screen came on all black with little white writing on it: "latest stock backtrace cpu..." I forced it to quit and started it up again -- osx took a really long time to load but seems to be ok now. What is the meaning of this?

― Mary (Mary), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:23 (twenty-one years ago)

The OS X taking a long time to reload is standard for a hard reboot like that, it does the disk checking malarky without giving you the opportunity stop it, which is a good thing.

I thought it might be a firmware issue, but it doesn't appear to be. If it happens again it may be a problem. It may be a problem with a programme that was running when you put it to sleep. Make a note of it and get back to me if it happens again. You can just turn the display off by pressing the F1 key enough times.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:36 (twenty-one years ago)

some old PCI cards had problems with sleep and I've seen the screen you mention with that combination of hardware, but not for several months now. I've also seen some things on macosxhints about firewire (maybe firewire CD burners?) which got fixed in later versions of 10.2 if you are on 10.3 ignore, obv

― Jaunty Alan (Alan), Thursday, 29 January 2004 10:53 (twenty-one years ago)

Every so often, my eMac takes ages and ages to boot up. It worried me at first, but now I like to think of it as it having a serious tidy.

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 29 January 2004 11:42 (twenty-one years ago)

can anyone recommend a good free download manager in the interim b4 broadband while i'm on dial-up? are these things generally considered desirable or helpful?

― prima fassy (bob), Thursday, 29 January 2004 12:19 (twenty-one years ago)

what will happen if I put a copy-protected cd in my slot-loading powerbook? will something terrible happen? can I get around the copy protection? I really want to rip Spiritualized: Complete Works Vol. 1 for entirely legal reasons! I wanna stick it on the ipod & listen to it on the plane!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

nothing bad will happen, it can't install anything without your permission, the worst that will happen is that it won't play, try inspecting the cd with the terminal.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

how would I do that?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I really love that aspect of these exchanges:

Someone: I have a problem!
Ed: You should kerflingle the flangle.
Someone: ::nods:: OK. And, uh, now I have a new problem! I need to kerflingle my flangle. How do I do this?

It's really beautiful. It's like a form of seduction (or, from Ed's point of view maybe, like a mama bird trying to tell her babies that it's OK, they can fly!).

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:53 (twenty-one years ago)

(NB on the PC this CD can do what it likes)

open up the terminal, found in the utilities folder. do cd /Volumes/[cd name here]

do ls -al

look for aif or wav files and move them somwhere usful

eg cp [filename] ~/Music

oh and kerflingle the flangle, Causistry, does your divx problem persist with other files, it may just be a dodgy encoding.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:55 (twenty-one years ago)

thanks ed you are the greatest.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 29 January 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

I tried a different file last night, which was doing weird artifacting no matter which player I used, but MPlayer still had the sync/slide issues described above. It's no big deal I suppose -- I can put up with the artifacting, as for the most part I'm downloading digital copies of things I've watched a zillion times and only have on 14-year-old VHS tapes, you know?

And s1ocki OTM.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

problem with DivX (and XviD and 3ivx) is that they are a jumbled mess compared to mp3, some encoders work well with some decoders, others not so well. It's a pain in the arse.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

if you have a choice, go for an SVCD or VCD download, the quality is lower but its more reliable.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 29 January 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Now that I am discovered the joys of Acquisition, I am bumping against the limits of my hard drive. It orginally had 4 gb -- I'm not sure what OSX did to it -- but after dling 100 songs I am left with 500 mb and little space to maneuver. Should I replace my hard drive? If so, how many gb should I get? (Would I then have to reinstall everything?) Are there any obvious applications or anything I can throw away to free up space? I already deleted imovie.

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:16 (twenty-one years ago)

replacing the internal hard drive is a tedious expensive hassle. Much better to get an external hard drive and a firewire card (did you get one of those for a CDR) or an iPod.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:19 (twenty-one years ago)

I just wanted to thank bert (I think that was your name?) for the FTP recommendation many many posts back. It's straightforward and I don't end up yelling at it! It does the secure blahblah transfers and transfers multiple files! I am overjoyed! Woooooohoo.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Friday, 30 January 2004 16:34 (twenty-one years ago)

I am still on the fence re the cdr drive plus firewire pc card. I think I have a pc II card slot, while most of what they are selling is pc 1 cards. Will the 1 cards work in my II slot?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:06 (twenty-one years ago)

the pc1 pc II distinction no longer really exists. There are just PC cards. Best thing to do, take computer down to JandR or wherever, try cards out find the cheapest one that works.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:11 (twenty-one years ago)

i still can't get wmv files to play from netscape. :(

― Chris V (Chris V), Friday, 30 January 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

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