Recent Posts

3526

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 03:54 PM »

thankfully i've not needed a boot manager other than the menu that automatically appears after installing the 2nd xp OS. if the secondary windows xp had installed how it should in the first place then i would have been perfectly happy with how things currently are.

i shall have to see how things go when messing around with video and then i will know if this has been worth the trouble.

as for buying another pc, well, this machine was meant to be my 'ultimate' machine so i could get rid of the other so so machines i've still got connected via lan (they aren't turned on though).

i have to admit that the bottom line is that i mess around far too much on the computer and don't actually do the things i should be doing on it. if i only did 'work' on it then i'm sure i wouldn't have found myself in this situation at all as i'd only have a limited set of programs installed.

using vmware has certainly helped me out and i'd definitely recommend it to all.

3527

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 03:21 PM »

some great points there, db90h, i shall certainly be trying the virtual drives method and may try unmapping also but it seems unnecessary as things are working okay - i was concerned that i would run into problems because the last time i tried dual booting it was with windows 98 (may also have been win2k) and things did become a little confused.

i'm lucky enough to have vmware installed (one of the first prizes/donations i received from DonationCoder and greatly appreciated it is too) so i understand your comments on using virtual operating systems.

my main reason for going the dual boot way instead of a virtual OS was that i'm intending to use a single operating system for video editing. i tend to install a million and one things on my main system and this always seems to cause trouble with programs like adobe premiere. unfortunately i don't think we've reached the point of a virtual system being able to cope well with video encoding/editing - i'm sure within the next few years, as you say, virtualisation will be able to cope with anything as our machines become quicker.

(when i say problems with adobe premiere, they aren't consistant problems, i just know that things aren't quite right - maybe my clean OS install will not help at all and it's more of a hardware issue - i just know that at present this machine isn't working perfectly and i'm not prepared to accept it any longer.)

if i could keep my main xp install working without all these annoying little quirks then i wouldn't even dream of dual booting but it seems that sometimes you just need to keep things 'clean'.

thanks again, db90h. you've certainly given me something to play around with.

3528

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 02:10 PM »

whoops, i thought i better check around the back of the machine - yep, it's got ps2 connections, so all is well for the moment - i can use paragon drive backup by the looks of it.

db90h, thanks for the reassurance about the system restore and dual booting issue - i must say everything appears to have worked fine so far.

3529

General Software Discussion / Re: utorrent and azureus high cpu activity

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 02:06 PM »

i'll have to investigate when i get the time...

3530

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 01:37 PM »

encountered another potential problem now - i don't have ps2 connection on my motherboard and 'paragon drive backup' doesn't detech my usb mouse or keyboard when booting from the recovery cd so it's pretty useless if i have a big system crash.

can anyone recommend a drive backup program that will work with raid drives and detech usb keyboard and mouse when using its version of a recovery boot cd?

thanks.

3531

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 09:58 AM »

tweakui will hide the drives but the hidden drives aren't really hidden from the operating system - just hidden within windows explorer.

3532

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 09:41 AM »

on a more sensible and serious note...

now i've got dual booting up and running - is this going to create weird problems with things like system restore and drive indexing?

this is how i've got the drives set at the moment but it doesn't have to remain this way if there is advice to change it:

three physical hard drives but two of them are in raid 0 - the raid drive is split into 3 partitions, these are currently drive C, E and F. the other hard drive is currently drive D.

C and E are the drives with windows xp installed but i'm planning to put xp onto drive F also.

i'm wondering, as these partitions/drives are all visible to one another are they going to interfere with things i'm not aware of.

will my operating system on C become confused by the system restore files that the operating system on drive E uses. likewise, will the E drive OS get upset about drive C's system restore. and even worse, how is each operating system going to keep tabs on the other drives when using system restore.

should i just disable system restore?

i remember in the past when using some kind of boot manager (xosl, i think) i could hide partitions from each other - i don't think xp can do this on it's own but i don't really want to spend the next 12 hours trying to get another boot manager to work - unless it's simple to do.

as always, your thoughts are greatly appreciated...

3533

Living Room / Re: xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 09:22 AM »

mouser, i had forgotten about such things but you have reminded me of how annoyed i used to get too. i obviously don't encounter illogical pc problems at the rate you still do - wish i could define why that is exactly - maybe i just expect the worse nowadays. i tend to chuckle with a twisted grin on my face instead of shouting - well, i do shout but it's that muted whisper kind of shouting where your neck aches from the strain of holding the noise back.

i did once punch a pc tower off the table and then kicked it around the room until the case sides came off - thankfully, it worked perfectly too when i plugged it back in.

anyone heard of 'computer anger management' classes - might be some money to be made there - i'm sure there would be plenty of customers.

3534

Living Room / xp dual boot raid 0 insanity cool down

« Last post by nudone on February 19, 2006, 06:43 AM »

you may remember i went out and spent 3 months wages on new pc around christmas time. i asked several questions at the time as i had a specific setup in mind for the new machine - dual booting, etc.

well, since that time i pretty much just installed a single xp pro on the raid 0 drives and then carried on installing programs as you normally would - nearly two months have passed since the machine was first run so now it's beginning to display little quirks that i'm beginning to get sick and tired of.

general use of the computer tends to work fine - but some programs tend to hog one of the cores on the cpu in an abnormal way (i know it's abnormal because they don't do it every time) and eventually the machine grinds to a halt until i log off and back on again. so, i decided it was time to risk the dual boot setup on the raid 0 drives - reassurance from Carol gave me good reason to believe it wasn't that difficult to do.

i think i've spent the last 12 hours (time has become meaningless to me at the moment) attempting to get a 2nd install of xp onto the computer. i've finally got it to work but i can't understand how ridiculously troublesome it was to do.

i'm writing this as a means of calming myself - i was ready to put a hammer to the computer as that appears to be the only language it wants to listen to but thankfully, as i said, it's working now.

during the process i've discovered that:

i need two identical floppies to install the nvidia raid drivers - i have to put one floppy in which then fails and the swap it with a second floppy which then install the drivers. i've checked each floppy in two computers and they are completely error free.

i have to use a very old disk with sp1 integrated into xp pro for the install to work - if i use one of a number of other cds i have made with different flavours of hotfixes and service packs integrated into them the install fails at different points. these aren't random points during the install either, oh no - they are moments specific to each cd. i've also checked these cds on another computer and they are error free and install windows perfectly fine.

one cd install will detect usb straight away but failed after that (can't remember the reason now) and another takes about 5 minutes to detect my usb keyboard and mouse after the setup procedure is finished - luckily i found this out at a low point when i was ready to slit my wrists and couldn't be bothered to reset the machine.

i shall spare you any more tiresome details.

i wouldn't complain but i just can't understand how temperamental a computer can be - talk about being moody.

i'd like Dr. Gregory House (from the tv show House, M.D.) to get himself and his team to analyse my machine - they always manage to resolve an exotic decease type situation, i'm sure they could tell me why my pc behaves like a psychopath.

anyway, oh joy, it's now working. i must remind myself that it is now working. on to the next system malfunction. i can't wait.

3535

General Software Discussion / Re: video editing software

« Last post by nudone on February 18, 2006, 04:39 AM »

virtualdub or virtualdub mpeg or even virtualdubmod - i don't think plain old virtualdub likes mpeg.

or for cutting the commercials out of tv shows from an mpeg file try videoredo plus http://www.videoredo.com it's not cheap, about $50, but the trial version will let you do a 30 minute show.

3536

Official Announcements / Re: Revitalizing the Reviews - Everyone Read in Please

« Last post by nudone on February 18, 2006, 03:28 AM »

welcome Den, i look forward to seeing any of your contributions.

3537

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: TopDesk

« Last post by nudone on February 18, 2006, 03:23 AM »

topdesk = fantastic.

3538

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: TopDesk

« Last post by nudone on February 18, 2006, 03:11 AM »

sadly, i've sort of grown tired of Entbloess. it still looks cool but i just find the traditional task switching methods work better for me.

i've just realised i haven't tried topdesk - madness. will now try...

3539

General Software Discussion / Re: utorrent and azureus high cpu activity

« Last post by nudone on February 17, 2006, 02:16 AM »

interesting. no definite answer but at least i'm not the only person experiencing high cpu use. i shall now go away into a dark corner and meditate on whether to use these torrent things - bitcomet is perhaps the path to take.

3540

General Software Discussion / utorrent and azureus high cpu activity

« Last post by nudone on February 16, 2006, 05:16 PM »

this is me being lazy but i'll ask all the same...

i've just started using azureus and utorrent (they seem to be popular things to talk about at the moment around the blogs) but i'm wondering if it's normal for the cpu activity from these torrent managers to be at 50% all the time - that just seems crazy to me.

i was just trying to get some noam chomsky videos but i'm not going to bother if it means 50% cpu activity constantly as they download.

can someone please confirm if that's normal or is my machine just freaking out.

3541

Living Room / Re: I may get a new (used) laptop!

« Last post by nudone on February 16, 2006, 05:08 PM »

it's all above my head, superboyac, but what you're doing sounds cool to me. given the choice of jazz or classical i'd go for jazz - so i'm expecting to discover it at some point in the future.

maybe i'll have to look into the other piano vst devices.

3542

Living Room / Re: Coffee vs. Tea

« Last post by nudone on February 16, 2006, 02:58 PM »

wish i could try it myself but it sounds too complicated.

3543

Living Room / Re: I may get a new (used) laptop!

« Last post by nudone on February 16, 2006, 02:56 PM »

unfortunately, i can't really say anything interesting about vst instruments as i never seem to have much time to use the ones i've got. for me, making music is always on the 'to do' list and has been that way for about the past 20 years. even though the rise of cubase means it's even more convenient to have a go at knocking something together i still haven't completed anything.

i rushed out and bought steinberg the grand when it came out a few years ago - i ended up selling it a few months back because i never used it - i haven't rushed out to buy the grand 2 - yet.

what's the sort of music that you are doing, superboyac? my intention is still to do something heavily electronic based - sort of boards of canada at their most retro and rythmic - i grew up on vangelis and tangerine dream and tubeway army (numan) so vst instruments are made for what i'm aiming at.

3544

Living Room / Re: I may get a new (used) laptop!

« Last post by nudone on February 16, 2006, 01:33 PM »

let us know how you get on with the vst instuments - you may still need a decent soundcard to avoid latency - i found that it depends on the instrument.

other than that, it looks like a great deal - 2 gig of ram adn a 256 meg graphics card can't be bad (plus the rest).

3545

Living Room / Re: Cody Clothes

« Last post by nudone on February 14, 2006, 02:08 AM »

well, i wouldn't have believed it without seeing it. brilliant.

3546

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: AllSnap

« Last post by nudone on February 13, 2006, 09:51 AM »

i'm glad i'm amongst people who appreciate snapping - nice review too, jgpaiva. i'm wondering if those of you here also have 'align to grid' enabled for the desktop icons (i know a few of you don't have icons on the desktop). i know it's a trivial question but my work collegues set up all our school pcs (about 1000 machines) so that 'align to grid' is off - it drives me up the wall. talk about not appreciating the aesthetics of icon equidistance. what fools.

anyway, allsnap, great little program - just wish it did a few more tidy things.

3547

General Software Discussion / Re: Need fresh ideas and a name please people!

« Last post by nudone on February 13, 2006, 09:42 AM »

i love treeview organized hierarchical notes.. but maybe just to be different you could think up some alternative organization that would make it unique.

that would be more interesting for sure.

3548

Living Room / Re: Laser Turntable plays Records like a cd player!

« Last post by nudone on February 13, 2006, 08:21 AM »

vegas, mark me down, i'll have one when you win. i'll return the favour if i win.

didn't i read that vinyl is making a comeback - if it does, then i don't think it would be too much to expect these types of laser turntables to come down in price. hey, true audiophiles rubbish CD players and say vinyl is superior so we just need the average music lover to start saying the same thing. the record companies should back the idea anyway, as they can sell everyone vinyl copies of the CDs they already own.

around and around we go.

3549

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Synergy: Sharing your keyboard and mouse

« Last post by nudone on February 13, 2006, 02:53 AM »

thanks for the extra info, taichimaster.

3550

Mini-Reviews by Members / Re: Synergy: Sharing your keyboard and mouse

« Last post by nudone on February 13, 2006, 02:03 AM »

excellent. i just wish i could think of a good reason to use more than the one computer so that i could give synergy a try.

taichimaster, i don't suppose you could mention how quickly 'synergy' could be set up, i.e. can the configuration be saved and ported between other machines?