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51
Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"
« on: September 01, 2015, 03:49 AM »
^I like my DVDs; they're not electronic and have no moving parts and are not likely to suddenly go DOA and lose all my backup data.
But I also like the mini-pc; unitized & modular, little to go wrong, portable, relatively inexpensive (not counting peripherals) and easy to replace with a functional up-to-date unit (unless it no longer handles an older OS).

52
"It’s not just Windows 10, Windows 7 and 8 are also tracking you – here’s how to stop them"
quote:
So, what can you do to stop it?

First, you can avoid installing these four updates altogether. If they have already been installed, they can be uninstalled from within the Control Panel (here’s a guide), or advanced users can type the following four commands using an elevated command prompt:

    wusa /uninstall /kb:3068708 /quiet /norestart
    wusa /uninstall /kb:3022345 /quiet /norestart
    wusa /uninstall /kb:3075249 /quiet /norestart
    wusa /uninstall /kb:3080149 /quiet /norestart

[edit (my note): I can bring up a Command Prompt, but don't know what prefix to use with the above uninstall commands.]

Once the updates are uninstalled, use the Windows Update mechanism to “hide” them (here’s a guide) so that your operating system doesn’t try to reinstall them.
end quote (more at the page).

edit: my vintage 486 keyboard has no Windows key with which to call up the uninstall a program window that shows the four unwanted Windows updates on my Windows 7 Pro OS.
So far, I am still trying to bring up that uninstall window without success.

How about a nice DC coding snack macro to do it all automatically for Win 7, 8, and/or 10? :D

53
Living Room / Re: Interesting "stuff"
« on: August 30, 2015, 11:41 PM »
Fanless Mini PC HTPC Intel Pentium J2850 Quad Core 2.41GHz Micro PC Barebone - ebay $150 USD w/$50 s&h
My comment: It's a Pentium, quad-core, 2.41GHz.
One (empty) ram slot (probably doubles the total cost including a separately purchased 4GB ram stick).
Spec sheet beneath picture gives more details:
-supports Win 7 & 8, up to 256GB SSD HD, & etc.
I wonder if this means it will not accept my external 200GB EIDE HD, or 500GB & 750GB SATA HDs?

edit: 'Compatible with Win 7 & 8' implies 'incompatible w/Win 10 & etc'.

Even though it is a "small" PC, put in as much RAM as you can afford (8GByte or 16GByte) as that will extend its useful product life significantly. The problem is that your EIDE hard disk cannot be connected to this main board at all. Actually, EIDE isn't supported on any new mother boards for several years now.

Your SATA hard disks could be connected and would work if these didn't have too much storage capacity for the onboard SATA controller. Also, it is highly likely your SATA hard disks are 3,5" models. This model requires a lot more power to operate than the 2.5" model. In other words, your hard disks are too big in size (both physically and in capacity) and too power consuming. The power supply that comes with this device isn't able to cope with those power requirements.

Low power devices always sacrifice (a lot of) capability to get those low power numbers.

You should buy the biggest SSD hard disk this board supports, again to extend the product's life.

If you do all of this, you will be very pleasantly surprised about this device for a long time to come. However, it won't be cheap to buy. It will be quite cheap to run.

Or buy a cheap PC case with power supply, transfer your old main board into this case, including your EIDE hard disk. Sell it / donate it / use it as a NAS server (you should get decent power supply if you do this).

Add new main board with new processor and DDR3/DDR4 RAM to your old PC case. A decent Asus main board with decent Intel i5 processor and 8GByte of DDR3 RAM will set you back around 300 USD here in Paraguay. And in the U.S. hardware is cheaper anyway. You can still use your SATA hard disks on this new main board, the onboard SATA controller can slow down to SATA 1 speeds if your SATA hard disks are SATA 1 models (which is very likely in an old PC as yours is).
 
If you can do the labor and hunting for deals on computer parts yourself, building is usually the cheapest option to buy, but not necessarily cheapest to run. And if not, you'll pay for the labor someone else did in getting parts and assembling them for you.

While I do understand why someone buys an off-the-shelf PC for home use, you won't see me do that. I (still) like to build my own machines from scratch. Mainly because I don't want to be stuck with a sub-par PC that someone else deemed good enough. And that is even more true for laptops, if you talk about sub-par computing (but that is a rant for another day).


Do you know if the mini-pc would support an external DVD burner?

54
General Software Discussion / Re: 'create Restore Point' question
« on: August 30, 2015, 02:57 AM »
MY pc crashed with a BSOD tonight during an action scene while playing a movie on a DVD with VLC media player.
Sounds like some of you guys really think I should pull my CPU cooling fan & fins and give them a fresh cleaning & silvering, so I'm thinking about it.
I've been feeling kind of like the flu lately; it's not, it's just fatigue, but I'm not at my most focused, so I may not get to it right away.
I seem to remember a yt vid suggesting the use of coffee filters for a lint-free cleaning rag substitute.
Or I could use a bunch of q-tips.
I could also use naptha (lighter fluid) instead of 70% rubbing alcohol.

55
General Software Discussion / Re: 'create Restore Point' question
« on: August 29, 2015, 11:58 PM »
Go here and make sure it can and is using the HTML5 player, instead of using the default flash based player: https://www.youtube.com/html5
I've revisited https://www.youtube.com/html5 several times in the same browsers, and it looks like it is reverting to 'default player' each time I visit, even though I reselect it each time.
I'm not sure it is staying with the preferred HTML5 setting.

edit: Maybe it's resetting to 'default' because I use a proxie and don't log in to youtube.
My PaleMoon also uses the Self-Destructing Cookies add-on, preventing permanent yt settings.
But my other browsers don't kill cookies (they're very benevolent).  :-*

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