A thread for boring computer questions.

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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)

Ever since the CPU fiasco, in my start up disk options, there are in addition to 8.6, 9.2, and 10, a new option that says network. I think this might be why my computer took so long to start up last time? So, I was going to take my puter to the Apple store, to try out their pc card, but I wanted to fix the start up so it didn't take too long. I went to the choice and chose start up from 10.2 and it was supposed to shut down and restart from 10.2 and save that preference. It shut down all right, but it never came back on! After checking all the cords, panicking, making a few phone calls, trying to start it up with all these key commands, I finally inserted a pin in the back of the computer and it started again -- on 10.2 but the weird network thing is still in the options. I usually keep my puter on sleep -- should I be shutting it down more often? Should I try again to see if it turns off and back on?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

don't choose network, it's for booting settings from OS X server, it's fine that it's there, just don't use it.

it's extremely weird that you have both 8.6 and 9.2 startup options.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I just practiced a restart and it shut down but didn't start up again. Computer wouldn't respond to on button, so I booted it up by the pin-at-the-back trick again. Should I have an apple genius look at it?

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 30 January 2004 18:59 (twenty-one years ago)

No problem, Julia. Glad it worked for you.

― bert (bert), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Question: I've obviously contracted some virus/bot etc. on my home laptop. Every time I start IE after a restart, the home page is overridden to some stupid search page and there are like 5 spam bookmarks in my list. If I change the homepage and delete the bookmarks, they come back after a restart.

I ran AdAware and Spybot a bunch of times...AdAware has begun finding 'possible broswer hijack' and deletes it, but it keeps happening. Any advice?

― Jordan (Jordan), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Try geeta first.

alternatively boot up holding down s and u

when you get the prompt type in fsck -y

Might be a disk error (I'd delete the 8.6 system folder as well)

Jordan, you'll need to get dirty in the register, can't really tell you what to look for. In the mean time replace your browser with opera or mozilla firebird.

― Ed (dali), Friday, 30 January 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

Hello- Here's a new one. I moved my entire iTunes music folder onto an external HD. The files all show up on iTunes fine...BUT all my playlists have gone. Is there somewhere that the playlist information is kept, or have I lost these for good?

Thanks!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 00:55 (twenty-one years ago)

On top of that - there's no way of moving MP3s from an iPod TO iTunes is there? I'm sure someone has asked that before...

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 00:58 (twenty-one years ago)

yes, there are lots of little utils for doing this, such as ipod2itunes. see ipoding.com for more.

― Ed (dali), Sunday, 1 February 2004 01:10 (twenty-one years ago)

See also http://www.malcolmadams.com/itunes/index.php for some really handy scripts. (Though the one for iPod -> iTunes transferring has a problem where it can't handle mp3s with colons in the title, album, or artist, because that's what Apple uses for its filepath. Since I use colons a lot, for my classical stuff especially, it's really really annoying.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 February 2004 10:18 (twenty-one years ago)

adam: I had a similar experience recently, you may be screwed

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 1 February 2004 17:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Screwed and Chopped.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Sunday, 1 February 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Considering Macs never go wrong, there's an awful lot of questions on this bitch about them.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:08 (twenty-one years ago)

Ooh I have one.

What is likely to be happening when I turn on my PC (and the monitor) but the screen remains blank - ie. it's a slightly lighter colour than when it's off but no start-up process/message/interface/ANYTHING is visible?

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:28 (twenty-one years ago)

I'll take that as a 'you're fucked' then.

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 February 2004 15:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Considering Macs never go wrong, there's an awful lot of questions on this bitch about them.

Exactly how many times is Barry going to say this?

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:10 (twenty-one years ago)

As many as necessary. As many times as Mac bores drone on about their superiority. It's not interesting to hear that your car is better than my car, so why do you thing it works that way with computers? Boasting about Macs seems to be the last bastion of socially acceptable dick-swinging.

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:18 (twenty-one years ago)

Christ Mark - they come to this thread to get advice and answers for a few questions, if you don't want to read it, stay off the thread! How many times have you lambasted people for doing the same thing YOU'RE doing but on the idiotic thread where i says?? YEAH! I think it's idiotic! I'm not going to post there! You think this is idiotic! So don't post here! In fact, GO AWAY. Out out out.

― Surprisingly Grumpy Today! (starry), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:19 (twenty-one years ago)

why don't you just feel sorry for them, barry?

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

(that'll larn him, eh readers??)

(cheer up barry :))

― Sarah (starry), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Oooh, defensive ;)

― Markelby (Mark C), Monday, 2 February 2004 17:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Hi. I downloaded Mozilla firebird on my WinXP machine. It was working great initially. I then downloaded some customized toolbar thing, which didn't seem to install properly so I closed all of the Mozilla browsers. That seems to have fucked everything up.

I haven't been able to open Mozilla since. (Error message: Error launching browser window. No XBL binding for browser) I looked around on a Mozilla forum, which suggested deleting chrome.rdf. I did so--no difference. I deleted the Mozilla folder and re-unzipped the zip file I'd originally downloaded. When that didn't help, I deleted all the Mozilla stuff and downloaded it anew. It still won't open. Is this a lost cause?

(Interestingly, the IE6 browser window is showing the Mozilla icon instead of the usual IE icon in the address bar. But not consistently.)

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Monday, 2 February 2004 21:36 (twenty-one years ago)

mac question: can I repair the permissions of a FW drive? is this a bad thing to do for any reason? one of my drives seems a little funky...

― s1ocki (slutsky), Monday, 2 February 2004 21:49 (twenty-one years ago)

slocki, you can only repair permissions for a boot disk

Julia, did you try uninstalling moziall with add/remove programs?

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 01:26 (twenty-one years ago)

if your drive is funky, run a repair disk in disk first aid

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 01:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Mozilla wasn't listed in add/remove programs. It was something that was just unzipped and run rather than going through an installation process. Since it wasn't in add/remove, I just deleted all of the folders--I didn't know what else to do.

― JuliaA (j_bdules), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 04:24 (twenty-one years ago)

Obvious question: is everything plugged in properly? Try unplugging then replugging all the connectors, in case one's come slightly loose.

Does *anything* happen to the monitor at all? If something's seriously wrong, I wouldn't be surprised if the monitor gives some kind of "eep, something's fucked" warning, even if it's just the power light flashing or something like that.

Does the computer make any noise? Some machines will beep in certain ways if something's seriously up when they try to start.

― caitlin (caitlin), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 11:14 (twenty-one years ago)

No it doesn't do anything. Except glow faintly. I THINK it just suddenly went like that while Matt was using it, come to think of it. I reckon maybe it IS the connections somewhere, I haven't had time to look at it again yet.

Thanks!

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

Is the light on the monitor

a. steady green?
b. amber?
c. flashing green?
d. other?

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 12:32 (twenty-one years ago)

d. Steady grey/blue.

― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 13:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Tell me, will PC 133 or 100 RAM work in a PC 66 slot. And how do I work what RAM my MB takes anyway. I looked up the mb chipset and I think I got it right but I'm not 100% sure. (currently the machine has 2 16Mb SIMMs installed, there is an empty DIMM slot next door)

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 19:34 (twenty-one years ago)

PC100 RAM should be ok. If it's that old you may be limited by the BIOS as to how large a DIMM you can throw on there (maybe no bigger than 128 MB). What kind of mobo is it?

― Bryan (Bryan), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:29 (twenty-one years ago)

@d@m, http://www.kennettnet.co.uk/software/podutil.php gets files off of your ipod.

― anthony kyle monday (akmonday), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Just go to CEX for hardware questions Ed, it's best to test it with the actual bits and bobs itself I reckons.

RIGHT. I am starting again on the Mame Project. On dialup. I bet I have to download something again... I might be here for a while...

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Jordan, you'll need to get dirty in the register, can't really tell you what to look for.

-- Ed (dal...), January 30th, 2004.

Um, to get even less computer savvy, how exactly do I go about this?

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

I do have a problem actually. I have a file manager programme for X (I trust shiftingcopyingpasting files et al more where I can SEE what's going where!) - however it doesn't let me do it, so I think I have to be root. However, I can't log into X from the Gnome login screen as root. Hm. Once IN X I can be root in the full display and in xterms but er... apparently NOT with the file manager jobby. Any ideas?

Of course I might be off the mark with this one and it's just shagged :)

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:20 (twenty-one years ago)

root doesn't need to use a filemangler

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:22 (twenty-one years ago)

What's that supposed to mean? I *don't* need to be root to run the file manager?

ARGH. I appear to have specially downloaded what I now assume is an xmame front end:

http://ftp.debian.org/debian/pool/non-free/x/xmame/xmame-x_0.74.1-1_i386.deb

If I can't find a .deb of REAL ACTUAL xmame soon I am going to scream.

― Sarah (starry), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:29 (twenty-one years ago)

Don't download deb's by hand fool

http://packages.debian.org/

^ search by text

then

apt-get install packagename

― Jon Williams (ex machina), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:30 (twenty-one years ago)

Ed and Jon have a great 'good cop-bad cop' thing going on in this thread.

― N. (nickdastoor), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 21:32 (twenty-one years ago)

sarah, try emelFM as a file manager.

MOBO info will have to wait on me flipping the lid on the PC again. I did look up the chipset once already but info was far from conclusive.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 3 February 2004 23:15 (twenty-one years ago)

You need to run ... um ... I think it's called gdm-configurator. Something like that, anyway. Or, you might be able to select 'configure' from the login screen, depending on how it's set up.

Anyway, do that, as root, and it lets you enable root login from the login screen.

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Er yes Jon, apt-get wouldn't FIND the package which is WHY I downloaded it *without* using apt, and then ran dpkg -i yadayada. I am now stuck in UTTER dependency HELL. Once I think I have the correct mame packages it's now faffing about with sound packages - I don't even have a sodding SOUND CARD!!

Yeah Will, this is what you get when someone a little TOO obsessed with security sets it up for you innit :)

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:10 (twenty-one years ago)

HI DERE. WHAT'S DEBIAN PLZ?

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:17 (twenty-one years ago)

Debian is a type of GNU/Linux. (As opposed to Linux. Some people consider this distinction important.)

― caitlin (caitlin), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:19 (twenty-one years ago)

A distribution of linux, look at http://www.debian.org. I guess it is a good thing if you know what you are doing and have broadband and don't give up easily and are strong enough not to give in to the first thought of suicide (and there will be LOTS)...

― Sarah (starry), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:21 (twenty-one years ago)

HEHE - SORRY ABOUT POSTING THE SAME QUESTION ON TWO BOARDS. I AM A TROLL.

― Markelby (Mark C), Wednesday, 4 February 2004 11:24 (twenty-one years ago)

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