Topics

1

General Software Discussion / Programming software for schools

« on: August 17, 2020, 08:13 AM »

Our computer teacher is wanting his students to learn a programming language.  We need to know a good,easy, and preferably free software.  They may want to try their hand at creating 3D printer files, I'm not sure how hard that would be.

We would run this on Windows 10.

Any recommendations?  This would be primarily for high school age students, grades 9-12.

TIA,
Dave

2

Living Room / external hard drive backups

« on: July 09, 2017, 09:44 AM »

I am looking to back up my home computer using multiple external hard drives.  At the moment I have around 80 gb that I want to backup.  I am looking at the WD My Passport or a WD My Book.

I have Win 10 Pro 64 bit.  Should I use the default Win 10 Backup and Restore or another program?  Or the software that comes with the drive be good enough?

Is cloud storage safe to use?  Are my cloud files at risk of becoming infected if a file becomes infected on my computer? 

3

General Software Discussion / Adobe Acrobat - is there an alternative?

« on: April 09, 2017, 06:19 AM »

My school is wanting to purchase Adobe Acrobat Pro.  They will only use it for creating, editing, and signing pdfs.  Is Acrobat the best piece of software for our needs?

Will probably only have 1 user at a time but would need more than 1 license and less than 5.  Windows version mostly with maybe 1 Mac,

I have looked at Foxit, Nitro, and some others.  With our Adobe educational pricing, their website pricing is not any cheaper than Adobe is.

4

Living Room / computer not recognizing scanner

« on: November 02, 2016, 08:35 PM »

I have a Epson Perfection V500 Photo scanner that I cannot get the computer to recognize.  I have tried it on 3 different model of computers, 2 different USB cable and all I get is "Unknown Device".  I have tried different USB ports too. 
I have tried different OSs, win 7 and 10 64 bit.  It was working on a win 10 computer that was upgraded from Win 7.  But unfortunately that computer bit the dust.

I have downloaded the latest drivers from the Epson site and also have used the Cd that came with the scanner. 

We also have a Epson Perefection V600 Photo Scanner with the same issues.

I can plug other USB devices like a mouse and it works fine.

any ideas?

5

General Software Discussion / Ransomware - stopping it before it encrypts

« on: June 24, 2016, 06:30 AM »

while looking for a program that will stop ransomware from doing its dirtywork.  Or at least notify when it does find something.  I stumbled across this program CryptoMonitor

Has anyone used this or a similar program?

thanks
dave

6

Living Room / sort and filter

« on: January 14, 2016, 09:51 AM »

I am looking for a way to sort and filter items in a spreadsheet or maybe in a database.  What I am wanting to do is keep track of songs sung in church, how many times it was sung and what date(s) they were sung.  I will have a date in a row with the songs under it.  Then 7 days later will be another list of songs under the date.  Maybe something like this:

Jan 1
song a
song b
song c
jan8
song a
song d
song e
song c
and so on

now I can do this in a pivot table function in Excel 2010.  But I do not know how to keep jan1 and jan8 from showing.  Then I would have to delete those rows.

I am not familiar with databases at all.  I am looking for suggestions how I can make this work easliy.

Ideas?

Dave

7

General Software Discussion / restart switch

« on: December 20, 2015, 02:07 PM »

Is it possible to restart multiple IP network switches at once or by schedule?

Yes, I can restart them one by one using the web browser but that is time consuming.

Not having much luck searching Google.

open for suggestions?  Possible to do with coding snack?

8

General Software Discussion / Label making software

« on: August 18, 2015, 10:35 PM »

I have some office staff that do not like to make labels with Excel / Word.  Is there a free program that someone can recommend that would be simpler?  I found a demo several years back that was simple and worked really well.

I am think along the lines of address labels and perhaps any other type of labels.

9

General Software Discussion / scrolling webpage window in powerpoint 2010

« on: August 11, 2015, 08:13 AM »

I am preparing a presentation using PowerPoint 2010 for some school training.  I would like to be able to show a webpage or a screenshot of some kind that scrolls the web page.  I have found software that will do a "scrolling webpage". but after inserting it in to Powerpoint by using a copy and paste or inserting from file.  Then neither method will give the desired look.

I found these instructions but it is way to many steps to have to do.  Powerpoint instructions

Is there a way to do this by using a screenshot program?

Or

Would a screenshot recorder have a way?

thanks in advance,

Dave

10

Living Room / My computer is haunted?

« on: March 20, 2015, 08:44 PM »

Today out of the blue I had random keys appearing anywhere there was a place to type anything.  I have USB keyboard and mouse.  Changed all of them out for a different known working ones, but it still did it.  I shut down several times to no avail.  Booted into safe mode and it still did it.

After googling the problem, I found everyone was recommending the keyboard repeat rate.  even though I set it slower without success.

I finally tried a PS/2 keyboard and now it works just like it should.

The big question is why did it start in the first place?
I had not installed anything before this.

I'm stumped 

11

General Software Discussion / finding all the sites pinterest uses

« on: February 26, 2015, 07:41 PM »

At one of my schools they would like to have Pinterest unblocked.  It is in our social networking category but allowing pinterest.com doesn't do it.

I have googled this quite a while and am unable to find it.

12

Post New Requests Here / sound to signal copying is done

« on: February 21, 2015, 10:09 PM »

Looking for a program that can play a sound when copying a file is finished.  Would like for it to work with Windows Explorer, but would also consider another program.  I do not know if this can be done with a snack or not.

13

General Software Discussion / create playlist from cd/dvd

« on: February 08, 2015, 10:40 PM »

Looking for a way to either print a playlist or make a copy to save to that directory.  I am on Win 7.  Right now I am using WMP to rip them to my hard drive (backup copy).

I found some plug ins that are supposed to do this but they were created quite some time ago.

any recommendations?

14

General Software Discussion / Convert to MSI package

« on: December 22, 2014, 07:49 AM »

Can anyone recommend a simple exe to msi converter software?  Free if possible.  I am wanting to push out adobe reader to my windows machines.

15

Living Room / Windows 7 and 8 shortcuts

« on: December 11, 2014, 09:46 AM »

Looking for a quick way to make a desktop icon for certain things like shutdown or restart?  check this out: Library

16

General Software Discussion / Best Linux Distro for Windows HDD recovery

« on: December 02, 2014, 11:31 AM »

I have been trying out some Linux rescue disks like BootMed, Avira Rescue Disk, UBCD for windows hard drive recovery.  I am considering installing Linux on a old computer just for this purpose.  Is there a certain distro that comes with lots of recovery tools built into the OS?

appreciate the help

Dave

17

General Software Discussion / online charting or mind mapping that intregates with google drive

« on: November 12, 2014, 01:10 PM »

I am looking for some kind of app be it desktop, online or what that does flowcharting, mind mapping, or diagramming, whatever you want to call it.

 I know a lot can be done with spreadsheets but I have no idea how to start.

all I want is boxes with names and phone numbers inside of them. I don't want lines connecting the boxes.  Just to be able to drag a shape, edit the text and add the next one.  I would like to see something that auto arranges.  Auto arrange by inserting a new box in between 2 existing and then it automatically moves the others to allow the new one to be in place just like the others.  Same thing when I would change the page margins or paper size.

It doesn't need a chromebook app to work, preferrably in the cloud and integrates with google drive.

I have looked at Mindmeister, Mindmup, Mindmaps, Gliffy, Lucidchart.  Lucidchart is the closest but it doesn't auto arrange.

Free would be wonderfull.

I am open to suggestions.

dave

18

General Software Discussion / screenshots when not logged into computer

« on: August 17, 2014, 01:44 PM »

This has probably been around the block a time or two, so here goes another round.

I am needing to make a tutorial on how to log into a domain on win 7 and also to change users.  I have googled this but apparently do not have the right keywords to find what I want.

It can either be a "screenshot utility" or one that makes a movie. Whatever it is, it needs to be able to record when no one is logged into the computer. 

lookin for advice 

19

General Software Discussion / Product Key finder needed

« on: June 27, 2014, 10:16 PM »

Looking for a product key finder for Office2013 and Quicken Deluxe 2013. My research has not turned up anything.  Does anything exist?

20

Living Room / Nexus 7 and wireless charging

« on: June 14, 2014, 06:28 AM »

I was looking at the Nexus 7 in WalMart yesterday.  They said it had wireless charging.  I had not heard of that before.
Does it really work?  Can I still charge it via a wired connection?

21

Living Room / using OpenDNS or other free dns servers

« on: June 11, 2014, 05:57 AM »

I would like to use a "safe dns service" like OpenDNS, SafeDNS or Comodo Secure DNS.  I am in the United States.

they state for the best service is to add their ip addresses to my router.  Usually they come with some kind of dashboard.  If the service is in the router, how will the dashboard work?

by using their ip's without an account, will I still get safe browsing against the porn sites and other similar sites? 

thanks,
dave

22

Living Room / are wireless projectors just a bandwidth hog?

« on: April 05, 2014, 05:50 PM »

is anyone using wireless projectors in the classroom.  They have come down in price quite a bit.  But, I was wondering what wifi projection will do to my wifi network that has ipads and laptops on it.  Almost all of the rooms have an access point in them.

I am looking at Epson EX5220 to use in our school. Epson

Does wireless projection take a lot of bandwidth?

Looking for some feedback here. 

Thanks
Dave

23

Living Room / Imaging to a new SSD drive from SATA drive question

« on: December 21, 2013, 11:17 AM »

I believe this has been touched on before here about those services or programs you don't want running on a SSD drive with win 7.  As I understand you don't want profs like the defragmenter running on it as it will cause the drive to wear out early.

If I create a ghost image from a SATA drive with win 7, and ghost it back to the SSD, then does windows automatically see the SSD and "turn off" the necessary stuff?

24

General Software Discussion / a program similar to DropFolder

« on: December 14, 2013, 03:32 PM »

I ran across this program DropFolders that uses Handbrake, along with Adobe Air to automatically convert videos to another type of video format.  One of the problems that I have is taking a video file over 1 gb and converting it to .mp4 takes a very long time as in hours and then there is a chance that the program will lock up on me and not finish.  The nice thing about this program is it can watch MULTIPLE source folder and then after the conversion is done, place it in MULTIPLE destination folders.

Yes the program has not been updated in over 3 years.  Has anyone stumbled across another program similar to this that will watch multiple folders?  I have searched and only found some that watch a single folder.

If this program would work and work faster it would save me a lot of work.  Some of my teachers are wanting to video their class and then upload it to our media server where the students could access it.  So math teacher would upload a video to a folder called source/math and the program would do its thing, converting it to .mp4 and place it in a folder called destination/math.

Hoping that someone here can help.

thanks
dave

25

General Software Discussion / software to edit pdfs

« on: November 15, 2013, 04:01 PM »

With so much of the world wanting people to edit their pdfs and them email them back, it has sent us searching for an inexpensive way to do this at our school.

All kinds of forms require this, why they cannot make it editable before they send it out is beyond me.

I am looking to do this for around 20 people, so free or inexpensive would be nice.

We use Windows 7 Pro, Office 2010 Pro if that helps any.

perhaps there is an online site that might let you do it.

thanks in advance for the suggestions,
dave