Recent Posts

326

Living Room / Re: Non-tech, off-the-wall topic: Gasoline/Petrol, does grade matter?

« Last post by techidave on June 20, 2011, 11:19 PM »

Ask a racer if Premium grade performs  better than the standard stuff.  I am confident he will tell you it will.

we lived in Dallas, TX for 5 years.  down there they use reformulated gasoline or as I call it, recycled gas.     They use it to supposedly combat smog.  The part they don't tell you is your car gets poorer mileage, harder to start, and runs crappier as a general rule. They mechanics down there will tell you to use a higher grade of gasoline.  I do believe most larger cities have gone to this.  I know that Kansas City was talking about it a couple of years ago, so I assume they have went to it.

On our trips home to Kansas, roughly a day's drive, my car started running better on the second tank of fuel through it.

There have been many gimmicks "invented" over the years to increase gas mileage.  95% of them didn't work or were very dangerous to use.  I believe you would be better off getting a vehicle that was designed for better MPG.

By the way, in my opinion, I disagree with your dad and with your experiment.  But everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

Dave

327

Living Room / Recommend a projector to me

« Last post by techidave on June 18, 2011, 06:55 AM »

I am looking for a projector for a friend.  The requirements are pretty simple. 

Whether its  a DLP or LCD, I have no preference.  It must be able to work with a netbook (also to purchase).  It doesn't need anything fancy but one requirement would be it would have to sync to the netbook or other type of computer automatically without any manual intervention.

Several years ago our school had an Optoma projector, the model escapes me that would sync up without any intervention from the user.

Our school uses some Infocus, NEC, and Eiki projectors but they all require some monkeying around with.

So what do my fellow DC'ers recommend??

thanks
dave

328

Living Room / Re: New DVD Rewinding Service

« Last post by techidave on June 17, 2011, 06:39 PM »

Hey guys, I can top all those "good deals"!  Sandy beach front property with crystal clear water that would make any Jamacian envious.  And cheap too!

Did I mention it was cheap?

329

Living Room / Re: General Poll: What should there be more of on DonationCoder?

« Last post by techidave on June 11, 2011, 06:08 AM »

I really think we should look into making the site more mobile friendly. I'm afraid I mean the forums in particular. I see myself use my mobile phone more and more at home instead of the PC. I guess a tablet will replace that once I get one.

-phitsc (June 10, 2011, 04:54 PM)

+1   

330

General Software Discussion / additional mouse option for synaptics driver

« Last post by techidave on May 27, 2011, 09:16 PM »

not sure if this exists so here goes.   

The macbooks mouse drivers have an option if you place 2 fingers on the touchpad, it will acts like the right click on a windows machine.

Does anything exist out there for a pc?  I am running Windows 7 Home Premuim at the moment.  But soon to be Win 7 Pro.

thanks!

331

Living Room / Re: Audio Equipment -- (Spinoff thread)

« Last post by techidave on May 22, 2011, 06:19 AM »

I vote for the Mackie mixer.  My experience with their 14 and 16 channel mixers have been positive.  While the SM-58 set the standards, I think it is falling behind these days.  My vote goes for Audio Technica microphones.  My experience comes from a school and church setting.  And not that much recording either.

I totally agree that there are not enough inputs.

332

General Software Discussion / Re: Easier way of learning HTML

« Last post by techidave on May 19, 2011, 07:38 AM »

I saw that too 40hz.  And I thought, what the heck let's give it a try first.  Viola!

333

General Software Discussion / Re: Easier way of learning HTML

« Last post by techidave on May 19, 2011, 05:44 AM »

Download a copy of the excellent (and free!) 350-page The Web Book and work your way thought it. Info and download links can be found here.

Excellent guide. 

Update: I just noticed they've introduced a fee to download the PDF since I got my copy. the online version is still available at no charge. I'm sure there are also websites that still have the PDF free for download if it's a problem for people on a really tight budget. Send the author your thanks with a small contribution once your finances improve if you go that route. 

-40hz (May 18, 2011, 12:09 PM)

I just downloaded it off of that site without first paying a fee.  I didn't even have to give my email address.   

334

Living Room / Re: need recommendation for an onlne computer store

« Last post by techidave on May 14, 2011, 02:13 PM »

yeah, thanks for the links.  Some I have heard of and some I haven't.  I just knew you guys would come through with a lot of good places to shop.

I wholeheartedly understand about doing business with the family.  I also understand some of the concerns that wraith raised. 

Just so everyones knows, i am employed by a K-12 public school here in the good ol' USA.  I am not really looking to get into networking so much.  Since I am the Lone Ranger at school, I do all the admin stuff.  But I have a 3rd party company that helps me with the servers and stuff.  I don't have the time or knowledge to do everything.

Since I live in a small community of 250 people that is about an hour's drive away from any cities of any size (20,000), I thought maybe it is time for me test the waters and see if I couldn't do some more moonlighting on the side.  Time will tell.

But I do not want to be so busy that I don't have time for the family.   

335

Living Room / Re: need recommendation for an onlne computer store

« Last post by techidave on May 13, 2011, 10:19 PM »

thanks guys for the recommendations.  I have used both zip zoom fly and geeks in the past.  kind of forget about them.

haven't hear of excaliberpc though.

a guy can spend alot of time looking at the different sites trying to get the best deal.  i have also used pricewatch.com but am kind of leary about alot of those companies.  I don't do much on ebay either

336

Living Room / need recommendation for an onlne computer store

« Last post by techidave on May 13, 2011, 05:34 PM »

Looking for some recommendations for a quality place to purchase computers, parts, etc., here in the United States.  I am familiar with Newegg and Tiger Direct, but was looking for other places that have quality products, good sales dept.

I was just thinking about expanding my horizons as a school tech to the public sector and was looking for a good place to get hooked up with.  I realize that on price alone, i probably cannot compete with Walmart but alot of people are telling me they want service more than price.  Sooooo, maybe its time that I jumped on the band wagon!   

337

Living Room / Re: amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by techidave on May 06, 2011, 06:12 PM »

I had a friend today suggested Chrome OS.

338

General Software Discussion / Re: Google Docs Sync

« Last post by techidave on May 06, 2011, 03:16 PM »

very interesting.  I must take a closer look at this cloud connect.   

339

Living Room / Re: amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by techidave on May 02, 2011, 05:50 PM »

would the win 7 starter OS be ok for a novice user?

340

Living Room / Re: amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by techidave on May 02, 2011, 05:49 PM »

I think that 2 gb would be best also, but I haven't found one yet that is very inexpensive.  Of course, I haven't look to see how hard it is to add one or the price of an extra stick yet.

341

Living Room / amount of RAM in a netbook

« Last post by techidave on May 02, 2011, 02:32 PM »

I have noticed that most of the netbooks only have 1 gig of memory in them.  Is this enough for basic web surfing and email?  I figured since most of them have a "starter" OS on them, this is where the difference is.

please advise,
Dave

342

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt office 2003 file

« Last post by techidave on May 01, 2011, 02:19 PM »

email is not involved at all.  the files are stored on our server.  the files have not left our network and have only been used with PPT 2003.

There are graphics involved.

343

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt office 2003 file

« Last post by techidave on May 01, 2011, 06:44 AM »

Not all of my machines had kb2464588 installed on them and they still had trouble.  Microsoft did release a patch, kb2543241 which I installed.  I did go to windows update to see if it would download this patch for me... NOPE.    But the hoops you have to go to just to get the patch was incredible.  Fill out a form, wait for the email with the link, clicked on the link and it didn't work.  I had to copy and paste in order to get to that page.  Download the file, extract it, oh and it is password protected!    

I don't understand how the 2464588 patch got installed as my users do not have admin rights to install anything.

I will find out on Monday if the patch works.

344

General Software Discussion / Re: corrupt office 2003 file

« Last post by techidave on April 29, 2011, 08:54 PM »

I will check it out.  thanks shades

BTW, LibreOffice must be a OO offshoot that I haven't heard of before. 

345

General Software Discussion / corrupt office 2003 file

« Last post by techidave on April 29, 2011, 07:35 PM »

at my school, we are running office 2003 sp3 on win xp pro sp 3 desktops.  Our students are having increasing problems trying to open files, especially powerpoint. 

we get the following error message:
Powerpoint was unable to display some of the test, images, or objects on slides in the file, “(the name of their file)”, because they have become corrupted.  Affected slides have been replaced by blank slides in the presentation and it is not possible to recover the lost information.  To ensure that the file can be opened in previous versions of Powerpoint, use the Save As command (File menu) and save the file with either the same or a new name. 

it is corrupt beyond reopening or recovering anything.  We cannot open the file to use the save as command.  I have tried manually renaming the file, nope that didn't work.  I also tried changing the extension from ppt to pptx, nada here also.  I have tried opening the file in powerpoint 2007, nothing that way either.

does anyone have any ideas on the whys of  this but better yet a solution??  I wasn't too far behind on my office updates, I couldn't find much when I google either.  I am currently reghosting a couple of computers with ALL the latest updates to windows and office in hopes that this might fix it. 

open for suggestions 

346

General Software Discussion / Re: [SORTED] Intelligent comparision of folder contents

« Last post by techidave on April 25, 2011, 07:04 PM »

I use ViceVersa Free for this type of thing.  Not sure if it will do quite what you want but perhaps the paid version will.

ViceVersaFree

347

Living Room / Re: Karen Kenworthy RIP

« Last post by techidave on April 25, 2011, 07:00 PM »

I was wondering why none of her programs had been updated for a while.  May she rest peace!

Here is the Obituary

348

Living Room / Re: what is the benefit of this old style network

« Last post by techidave on April 24, 2011, 07:53 AM »

40hz... your rationale could be righter than you know.  The secreatry told me once that the guy who set this up came in one time and said, "and why did we do it this way"?

makes you wonder, huh.

I haven't been involved in networks all that long.  Only since 2002 and that has been only in school settings (small ones).  but not this small and I hadn't seen anything like this before.

I will let you all know what I find out.

349

Living Room / Re: what is the benefit of this old style network

« Last post by techidave on April 24, 2011, 07:30 AM »

The business is a small manufacturing type... they do welding.  They do run quick books for billing and inventory purposes. And I do believe it is run from the server but not sure about that.  They do have some CAD programs but I do not know if they are server based or not.

With only 3 machines, I wouldn't think it would get hit too hard.  The secretaries machine is used most of the day while the other 2 are just hit and miss.  It has a 10/100 switch and also a newer looking gigabit rack mount switch.  I do not know what feeds what.

I may just have to dive into it one of these days and see what is what.

350

Living Room / Re: what is the benefit of this old style network

« Last post by techidave on April 24, 2011, 06:35 AM »

So was this more commonly done on smaller networks?  Perhaps to reduce the use of a firewall?  Which I don't think I have seen one of these.