Topics

51

Living Room / Which was your favourite out of the Christmas gifts you received in 2008?

« on: January 24, 2009, 08:01 AM »

Now the dust has settled after the foot-stomping, fun-filled board game bonanza, let's review the situation.

Of the tangible gifts that you received during the gift-giving season which one was your favourite?

Just to stir the pot a little, was there a gift that made you cringe?

sigh

Personally, I had my hopes raised when I noticed my wife buying a nice, working, scale model of a catapult. 
I pictured dogs lying stunned all around the house as my aim improved. 
Alas my dreams were shattered when I discovered that it was for her eight-year-old nephew. 
Apparently it was considered an unsafe toy for the likes of me.

52

Living Room / In-car GPS

« on: December 13, 2008, 01:33 PM »

Okay, I admit it, I have NO sense of direction.
Put me down at the south pole and I'd try to go south to get home.

I can't tell N from E from W from S.   
My wife always knows where she is on the compass but she can't tell left from right.
Makes for some interesting driving experiences.

Anyone here using an in-car GPS?
If so, care to share your experiences?
When it talks to you is it intelligble?
If you talk to it, does it understand and respond?
Can you actually see and decode the screen while you're travelling (seems a tad dangerous to me)?
What would be desirable features?
Is it any better at folding maps than my wife is? (I think she was an accordion player in another life!)

53

Living Room / Repeated drive corruption

« on: December 13, 2008, 10:28 AM »

In my current system I have 4 x WD 500 GB SATA 7200 drives.

Here's my problem:

• File corruption on 2nd drive. 
• System freeze
• Chkdsk fixes on restart
• Repeat above
• WD tools say 2nd drive is A-OK
• MFT went bad on 2nd drive
• Chkdsk bails out
• Reformat drive
• Repopulate with fresh files
• WD tools say drive is A-OK
• File corruption on 2nd drive. 
• Gently whisper naughty words.

So, since data is far more important to me than even the hint of a dodgy drive, I'll replace the 2nd drive.

Can anyone suggest what the heck might be happening, though?
(In the past I've had WD drives fail immediately after WD tools say they're fine, so I haven't much faith in the A-OK reports.)

Thanks in advance!



Any useful experiences to share?
Advice, other than the obvious step of junking the drive?
I really wouldn't like to see this happen again when I put in the new drive.

54

Living Room / Gift-giving season cometh. What computer hardware/peripheral would you like?

« on: December 02, 2008, 01:18 PM »

No, no, no!  I'm not offering to give it to you!

I'm just interested to see members' wish lists.

And, if you can remember, what would you have liked one year ago?

55

General Software Discussion / Conflicting results from Chkdsk -- Why?

« on: September 28, 2008, 10:08 AM »

Background:

• This is a system running XP Pro SP3, with NTFS formatted drives
• A few days back I had some trouble with corrupted files on my boot drive. (That was caused, I think, by some tomfoolery with an eSATA drive.)
• The system couldn't even start Windows.
• I reformatted the boot drive and replaced everything from a known good backup.
• The system has been perfectly fine since.

My problem is:

• Yesterday, I thought I'd check to see how things stand. (You know how it is... poke into something in a idle moment, spend the next month wishing you'd left well-enough alone.)
• As a first step, I ran chkdsk on the boot drive from inside Windows (so chkdsk was in read-only mode).
• Chkdsk found an error and would have recovered file xxx to folder yyy etc.
• I set chkdsk to run with '/F' on reboot.
• On boot, Chkdsk ran its '/F' scan on the boot drive and found... nothing wrong.

And the question is...

Can someone tell me why the disparity occurs between results from chkdsk on the two runs?

What next steps would be sensible? (Leave the forum, never to return is not an option  )

Thanks for looking at this!

56

General Software Discussion / How to change hundreds of shortcuts... in a hurry

« on: August 17, 2008, 03:22 PM »

Background:
On one machine, I'd built up a comprehensive system of shortcuts pointing to a repository of documents.
I had renamed all of these shortcuts, and grouped them in ways that make sense to me.
All of the shortcuts (.lnk files) reside in one folder, or sub-folders thereof
Now I have moved the whole thing to another destination on a different machine.

Question:
Can anyone tell me a fast way to change the <drive>\<folder> portion of the
<drive>\<folder>\<filename> structure in a couple of hundred of these things?


So, suppose they all point to         G:\Library      (e.g. G:\Library\RefDoc1)
I want to cause them to point to      Q:\NewLibrary   (e.g. Q:\NewLibrary\RefDoc1)


Thanks for taking the time to read this!

57

Living Room / Dual operating systems 32- and 64-bit. Need advice on possible XP memory issues

« on: July 25, 2008, 10:11 AM »

Here's a long one but I'd really appreciate some help from the hardware experts, please.

Two-part Problem:

• Principal system significantly screwed up (p/s shot, 2 HDD dead)
• Lack of time

Three-part Solution:

• Use backup system
• Commission local supplier to assemble replacement system
• Sort out dead system some fine day

New System spec:

• Storage: 4 x 500GB HDD SATA, 2 x Optical SATA
• Case: Antec 300 or 900, p/s Antec 850W
• Video: Dual DVI card (don't do serious video, don't do intensive media)
• Chip: Intel Quad QX 9450/R 45nm 12mb l2 cache,1333 fsb
• Mobo: ASUS P5E3 Premium/WiFi-AP @n http://ca.asus.com/p...2069&modelmenu=1

Only the chip and the (mobo are really relevant to my question.)

Other Background:

• Must use a Windows system -- it will be XP Pro. VISTA is not an option.
• Have some legacy stuff that might well run afoul of driver problems in a 64-bit Windows
• Want more that 3.25GB RAM available

So, conflicting objectives.  More RAM = 64-bit O/S = driver conflicts 

Now, brilliantly, it has been suggested to me that a solution is to install a rack hard drive to swap
in and out to boot with different operating systems. Use 32-bit XP O/S when drivers dictate. Use
64-bit XP O/S to get some real work done.

Great!  But here FINALLY, is the nub of my question.
If I populate this mobo with 8GB DDR3 RAM, so that I can romp along in 64-bit XP Pro, will having
that much RAM in some way screw up the operation of 32-bit XP Pro?  Or will most of the RAM
simply be ignored by 32-bit XP -- can't use it, but does no harm?

Does anybody here know for sure, from personal experience?
(Try getting a straight answer from ASUS!)

My current ASUS mobo has 4GB DDR2 RAM, and XP 32-bit sees 3.25GB and just doesn't care about the
rest (nor do I).  ASUS itself recommends <3GB RAM for a 32-bit O/S. 

Thank you for the time you spent reading this!

58

General Software Discussion / Advice on fixing a boot problem with XP Pro

« on: July 07, 2008, 09:16 PM »

The problem:

My wife's machine had Acronis True Image Home 10 on it.
I didn't like it and uninstalled it (it seemed only to cover the first HD, didn't want to talk to the second HD)
Now a reboot gets me
"Acronis Loader fatal error"

If I then hit enter, we roll on merrily into XP

Questions:

Can I get rid of this Acronis hang-over?

TIA

off topic

On one occasion I put TIA at the end of a message to my ISP, the only satellite provider available to me, sadly.
The reply that came back began with

Dear TIA...

                                                             
Their tech support is about what you'd expect from that 

[Edit To answer myself, I found an Acronis .iso that does exactly what I need]

The solution is here, in case it could ever help anyone else.

Please use the following ISO image to create a special CD:
here
Once the CD is written, boot the computer from it and confirm that you want to fix the master boot record.

59

Living Room / U.K. growing more peculiar by the day. What's happening in your area?

« on: June 20, 2008, 07:29 PM »

Council bans 'brainstorming' and replaces the term with 'thought showers'... for fear of offending epileptics.
... in genteel Tunbridge Wells, the expression brainstorming has been banned. And in future, meetings to generate new ideas will be referred to as 'thought showers'.

Full report here

Apparently is no consideration is given to the feelings of incontinent intellectuals.

and...

An 81-year-old pensioner was ordered to remove his flat cap in a bar - because it was deemed a security risk.
Harvey Talbot was having a quiet afternoon pint in his regular pub when he was told he had to take off the cap.
Staff said the bemused former driver, who suffers from mobility problems, could use it to hide his face if he committed a crime.
And when the pensioner complained, he was told the Yates' bar was only following police advice.

Full report here

Imagine the harm this guy could do if he hit someone with his Zimmer!

What's being done in your area to keep you safe from harm?

60

Find And Run Robot / How to modify/extend the trigger keyword of a plugin?

« on: June 13, 2008, 05:34 PM »

Can you help me out?
I'd like to 'modify' some plugins so that their behaviour suits me better.

As an example, I'd like to override the 'plist' (show printers) plugin,
so that when I enter 'plist' I actually get 'plist +sall'.

What's the best way? 

61

FARR Plugins and Aliases / [bug report] Plist Plugin

« on: June 09, 2008, 10:38 PM »

With 2.05.01 plist doesn't function well.
Shows only 1 entry here, vs. 10 previously.
Calling an explicit printer e.g. plist Canon shows only the first Canon entry.

62

General Software Discussion / HP Smart Web Printing

« on: May 18, 2008, 10:28 PM »

Here is something from HP that aims to make printing (and collection) information from the Web a little easier.

It claims that you can choose and then combine and keep stuff from a variety of web pages, all in one if one wants to, and then both print it and edit it (if desired). It also claims to fix automatically the 'where the heck is the right margin' problem that can occur when printing web pages.

It's free.

63

Living Room / DoCo mascot's ugly side revealed

« on: April 23, 2008, 01:05 PM »

Kick out the ass,
   don't go to war,
      throw in a 'd',
         and it's pretty obvious that the name is a thinly-veiled reference to the dark side of our avian Jekyll.

Pictured here on Hallowe'en. You can run and you can Hyde.

64

Living Room / Most useless

« on: April 10, 2008, 08:36 AM »

Picking up on a comment from here

Can we try a three-part question here?

2)  What is the most useless gift you ever received?

3)  What is the most useless computer-related item you ever acquired?

65

Living Room / So there IS a twilight zone!

« on: April 10, 2008, 07:21 AM »

Research Reveals Internet "Black Holes"

Apparently, internet traffic can land in black holes sometimes, and just... vanish.  Despite the fact that everything seems hunky dory!


here

Anyway, as I was sayi..^       !

66

Living Room / International fame for DonationCoder?

« on: March 31, 2008, 11:03 PM »

Did anyone read a report in the 'Computer Affairs' section of the U.K. Press where it mentions DonationCoder?  Is it true that mouser is being considered for inclusion in 'a select group of global entrepreneurs and innovators' who will be invited to attend Prince Charles' international web-reach seminar this summer?

                   

67

Living Room / So how long IS too long for a thread.

« on: March 25, 2008, 02:10 PM »

Recent material that's appeared, for example here and here has made me wonder about two things.

1) How long is considered to be too long for a thread?

2) What helps to keep a thread alive and interesting?

Or are the answers entirely subjective?

(Watch for my companion thread entitled "How long is a piece of string?")

Seriously though, what do people consider to be common elements that help to create and keep readers' interest?

68

Clipboard Help+Spell / TableClips:Field 'Index' not found

« on: February 01, 2008, 10:19 PM »

I'm getting this quite a bit lately (v1.19.02)

Perhaps not surprisingly, if I then click on the 'Presets' menu I see the attached violation.

This usually self-corrects with a reboot... any ideas where I might look for a cure?

Thanks

69

General Software Discussion / Inadvertent Googling in Spanish

« on: January 13, 2008, 08:02 PM »

Hi everyone.

I just noticed  that my Google searches take me to Google España.
Also, if I explicitly enter http://www.google.com/ that's converted to http://www.google.es/.

The same thing happens with both Firefox and IE, other search engines don't do this.

Anyone know why this happens?

TIA

70

Living Room / How Santa Gets Around To So Many

« on: December 15, 2007, 10:06 AM »

How does this  guy get around to so many places?

Spoiler

More info
and
Over here

71

Living Room / Shed to Sled

« on: December 09, 2007, 06:08 PM »

Any would-be Santas among us?

Might be less fun than anticipated!  More here: Santa Boot Camp.

What Christmas traditions and activities do you observe and enjoy?

(Let's take 'pigging out' as a given and exclude it from the list. )

72

Living Room / Committee work

« on: December 06, 2007, 10:29 AM »

From today's INQUIRER headlines
INQ page

Boggers form corporate bog council.

If that goes the way of most such committees
First there'll be a sitting...
Then a report...
Then the matter will be dropped.

73

Living Room / A whole new meaning for "system crash"

« on: December 03, 2007, 10:08 PM »

BMW is looking to make another leap forward with the introduction of Internet Protocol (IP) networking in future automobiles.
The company is using off-the-shelf Ethernet components to replace the vast array of networking systems included in today's automobiles
(CAN, LIN, MOST, Flexray, etc.).

More here

Spoiler

http://www.dailytech...cles/article9884.htm

Why am I in this ditch?  Well, it's like this officer. The kids were each watching their separate movie choices when, suddenly,
the stability control system bogged down.

74

Living Room / Maintain control in your presentations

« on: November 30, 2007, 08:58 AM »

Ever had to deal with a rambunctious client?
Never mind the laser pointer, try the Photonic Disruptor!
http://www.wired.com...e/15-12/st_dangerous

A useful low-tech technique is to look the trouble-maker in the eye, opine that "the one-legged chicken doesn't scratch up the barnyard", and then move on.
(I've used this one several times at boardroom level -- it's worked for me!)

75

Living Room / Pop Quiz

« on: November 28, 2007, 06:51 PM »

Several interesting answers to kids' questions. For example, with reference to one's sister, "Why can't we just cook her?"

And for those who want only the answer to this one:

Spoiler

You cannot just cook and eat your sister, because your father is trying to civilise you. You would find it existentially upsetting. Even if you were uncivilised, like the 70-plus species of mammal that are known cannibals, it would not be your sibling you would kill and eat. For instance, male lions and female chimpanzees kill and eat the offspring of rivals, not infants who are closely related to them genetically. In a cave I was excavating recently, I discovered the ancient remains of butchered babies and toddlers, so I know that early humans certainly sometimes ate other humans. It was not always their enemies. Before farming was developed to provide regular meals, if a member of your family died, it would have made nutritional sense not to waste anything, and you would not want to attract dangerous meat-eating animals to your camp or allow your enemies a chance of a good feed off your deceased loved one. So in those circumstances you would have been obliged to eat your little sister, as part of a solemn, dutiful ritual. Nowadays, you don’t need to do that, unless times get very, very tough.

http://www.telegraph...r_117.xml&page=2