A thread for boring computer questions.

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Sterling: as far as lower priced notebooks go, Acers seem to be well thought of. If you're going for battery life over processing power (with built in wireless networking) a Centrino powered notebook would be ideal, something like their TraveMate 290. As far as pointing devices are concerned you should probably just go try some. Dell notebooks were available and may still be (I haven't looked for a while) with both. There are lots of choices as far as configurations go unless you're just buying off the shelf. Or you could just buy an Apple like Tom suggests.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not thinking laptop for actually travelling so much as occasional moving and generally a smaller footprint for a cramped apartment. Going to PC is partly for price ratio but partly coz I want to be able to play kewl gamez and generally be all compatible and run slsk etc. like a normal person.

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

Probably incredibly easy, but:

Is there anyway to find the serial number of a piece of hardware (my DVD combo drive) without taking it out and looking at it or having the brochure?

― Atila the Honeybun (Atila the Honeybun), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:39 (twenty-one years ago)

You might wanna think about a Shuttle minisystem then, Sterling. Throw in as slutty a processor and videocard as you can get and some drives and you're off to the races with a small portable but powerful system. Something like this.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, come on, even I eventually managed to get slsk working.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 19 February 2004 18:57 (twenty-one years ago)

yeah but its not just that but the general benifit of using what everyone else does and having like *everything* available.

anyway new question: i've been on the mac all-bundled-together wagon so long [like my whole life] that i don't know anything about getting PCs. Like will i rilly save money/get more bang/buck if I build my own system like say from a Shuttle? Or will the monitor/periphials costs and hassle bring the price out about the same? If I buy a Shuttle basebox, many don't seem to come with chips? Is it hard to put a chip in a motherboard? (Or do they come with chips?). Should I stick with pentiums or is an atholon a better deal? etc?

― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Thursday, 19 February 2004 21:47 (twenty-one years ago)

You can buy Shuttle systems and ones like them bundled with everything you need or you can buy a barebones one like in the link above and put it together. IMO it's not hard to physically put it together so long as you have compatible parts (a store will help out with that or else you can read online manuals - getting the right RAM is slightly tricky). Most things only go in one way. Driver installations with Windows XP are mostly pretty easy. I'd get a Pentium IV or an Athlon 64 CPU. You'd probably save a bundle putting it together yourself and Shuttle or a similar company might even give some tech support.

― Bryan (Bryan), Thursday, 19 February 2004 21:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Mary, I had the same printer. It was a hand-me-down, and never was that great, but a few months ago, it got especially bad. I had either the blurry lines, or blank spots. I just bought a new one.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Thursday, 19 February 2004 22:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Could the permissioning error also be causing my computer to go to sleep and not wake up occasionally? This seems to happen mainly if I take it out of my bag and plug it in BEFORE opening it and waking it back up.

What are you plugging in? Just electrical power, or some USB stuff?

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 19 February 2004 22:12 (twenty-one years ago)

elvis do you know the answer to my "is there any posisble risk in running disk repair on a fw drive?" qn?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 19 February 2004 22:14 (twenty-one years ago)

elvis do you know the answer to my "is there any posisble risk in running disk repair on a fw drive?" qn?

DiskTools will only work on a boot drive. If you don't have a current Norton/TechTool/DiskWarrior handy, then just reformat it.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Thursday, 19 February 2004 22:29 (twenty-one years ago)

disktools = disk utility?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Thursday, 19 February 2004 22:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Just electrical power, or some USB stuff?

Just the electrical thing--I don't take any USB stuff with me when I take the laptop. So basically what happens is I unplug the speakers (jacked into the headphone port), the USB cable for my digicam, and the ethernet, then I unplug the power, close up the computer, and tote the computer and the power cord. If I plug in the power cord BEFORE I open up the laptop, it won't wake up. This has not happened if I open the computer first, and THEN plug it in, but I don't always remember that.

What I've been doing is just taking out the battery and then putting the battery back in to force restart but I feel this is possibly a bad idea.

― Allyzay, Friday, 20 February 2004 06:41 (twenty-one years ago)

Can anyone direct me to a good book about setting up a home network using a wireless router and laptops with wireless cards. Especially interested in file sharing. I've got the router to let the two laptops share internet remotely, but I can't get the thing to act as a network hub, even though it purports to. Windows help always says ask the lan administrator. Uh, that would be me, you stupid motherfuckers. Ugh, that would be me again...

Serious help appreciated!

― Skottie, Friday, 20 February 2004 07:02 (twenty-one years ago)

confusing help./....

start>run> type cmd, type ipconfig.
This should tell you the ip address of the computer and default gateway(router)
If these settings are not there set dhcp from your routers config page. see manual.

right click folders to share them and find them by typing in \\computer name\sharename.
find computer name from sysytem tab in control panel.

― Willdabeast, Friday, 20 February 2004 08:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Grr the shelf life on all my electonics is expiring. That's what I get for sticking around too long in the same place. Kinko's charges 50 cents to print 1 sheet; 45 cents a minute to use computer. (They have a 30 cent version, put it couldn't print my pdf.) On the bright side, I learned how to take a picture of my folder and burn it to CD.

― Mary (Mary), Friday, 20 February 2004 08:59 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.whatsmyip.org

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Friday, 20 February 2004 09:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Thanks, Wildabeast!

― Skottie, Friday, 20 February 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

fuckin apple piece of shit.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 20 February 2004 18:32 (twenty-one years ago)

I just want you to work.

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 20 February 2004 18:33 (twenty-one years ago)

This Nicotine thing is simultaneously the greatest thing ever and the absolute bane of my existence.

So now, X-11 sometimes won't start, and when it does, Nicotine only opens up for about 10-15 seconds before crashing on me. What is going on? Should I reinstall?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 20 February 2004 19:06 (twenty-one years ago)

I figured out the thing to delete when it went all greyscreen. That was annoying.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 20 February 2004 19:33 (twenty-one years ago)

what was it casuistry?

adam i'm sorry i don't know the answer to that! try the slsk for mac message boards!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:06 (twenty-one years ago)

adam what version are you running? The newest code I've seen is 1.0.7rc1. Mine was doing the same thing (albeit on Linux) and after I went to the new code release it's been working fine. Maybe that will help...

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:12 (twenty-one years ago)

I am not running the most current version, that's for sure.

Where can these updates be found? Are they easy to install?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:14 (twenty-one years ago)

disktools = disk utility?

Yes it is. I was thinking of 10.3 which combined DiskUtility and DiskCopy into the single "DiskTools" app.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Where can these updates be found? Are they easy to install?

I've never touched OSX so I can't say, unfortunately.

― Dale the Titled (cprek), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:31 (twenty-one years ago)

you can download form the nicotine site, just unpack it , navigate to the directory in the terminal then type python2.3 ./pyslsk

― Ed (dali), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

If I plug in the power cord BEFORE I open up the laptop, it won't wake up.

Try this:

1. In the Energy Savings panel, under the "Sleep" set the "Put computer to sleep when it is inactive for" slider to any time you choose. Just something different than what's there.

2. Deselect the checkbox "Put the display to sleep when the computer is inactive for:"

This will force the computer to use the top slider to put the display to sleep at the same time the computer goes to sleep. The upshot of all this is that is forces the power manager to update itself.

What I've been doing is just taking out the battery and then putting the battery back in to force restart but I feel this is possibly a bad idea.

Holding down the power key for 15 seconds should do this and is MUCH better than taking the battery out.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Totally don't remember. rm -rf .nicotine or something. Scope around.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:49 (twenty-one years ago)

So now, X-11 sometimes won't start, and when it does, Nicotine only opens up for about 10-15 seconds before crashing on me. What is going on? Should I reinstall?

Have you run a fink selfupdate/update-now yet? The python code for OS X has gone through several updates over the past couple of months.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Also the Mac Soulseek board has a lot of these questions answered already.

― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Friday, 20 February 2004 20:52 (twenty-one years ago)

What the hell kind of name is nicotine??

― Markelby (Mark C), Friday, 20 February 2004 23:25 (twenty-one years ago)

how do I get the pictures I uploaded to photobox.co.uk to show up here?

― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 20 February 2004 23:39 (twenty-one years ago)

Is there anyway to block those doubleclick and valueclick cookies on a browser like Opera?

― Leee Majors (Leee), Friday, 20 February 2004 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Of course, without mucking up all my other settings.

― Leee Majors (Leee), Friday, 20 February 2004 23:49 (twenty-one years ago)

in preferences, you have settings for each server/domain's cookies (under privacy) - so i think you can go in there and uncheck everything for the offending servers (?)

― ron (ron), Saturday, 21 February 2004 02:23 (twenty-one years ago)

what does one do when you run out of letters to map drives to in windows? Can you map drives to proper names? It's about to become an issue here at work.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:34 (twenty-one years ago)

Ed - does this help?

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Oh, it's a bit old. this?

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Not really, most of the software we use can't cope with UNC names.

― Ed (dali), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:52 (twenty-one years ago)

I just thought I might get lucky. What version of Windows is it anyway (not that it will make a difference to me, but it might help someone else)?

― N. (nickdastoor), Monday, 23 February 2004 23:53 (twenty-one years ago)

2000 and XP

All I want is Unix/OS X style mounting, oh and to reprogramme things so the slashes go the right way, I'm bored of always typing the wrong slashes for paths

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

ed - appleworks just crashed on me. I was trying to save a .doc (that is very important) to disc and it quit. and now I can't find the .doc. is there anyway I can recover this?! : (

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:14 (twenty-one years ago)

: ( : ( : ( : | : ( : ( : ( : (

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:15 (twenty-one years ago)

I found it!!!!!!!! auto-save. wow I'm pretty happy.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:19 (twenty-one years ago)

stable doors and horses, never save anything direct to floppy, save it to hard drive first then copy it to floppy. YOu did have it saved somewhere else, didn't you?

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:20 (twenty-one years ago)

just out of interest a floppy disk, wtf? why? etc.

― Ed (dali), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:22 (twenty-one years ago)

he didn't say floppy, did he?

― RJG (RJG), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:23 (twenty-one years ago)

oh by disc I meant 'to my hard-disk'. ew floppy disc.

everything is cool now. I had no idea the mac had an auto-save function. makes sense tho.

― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 24 February 2004 00:24 (twenty-one years ago)

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