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8451

General Software Discussion / Re: mp3 Audio OUTPUT volume normalizer? Any such thing?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 08:02 PM »

Well I let MP3Gain do it's thing and am going through several of my songs. It did a nice job. Volume seems relatively consistent. Techno, loud rock, and quiet music all feel about the same volume. I think overall it feels a bit quiet, but since my primary computer isn't working, I'm not hearing it from my good speakers. I'm listening to it from built-in speakers on my monitor that crackle if the volume is up too loud. I'm sure it would sound much better on my good speakers and subwoofer.

I didn't play around with any settings and I wasn't really sure what I was doing. It was easy for me, but the process of scanning and saving changes to all my files took several hours.

Looking in the settings, apparently it's designed to run as a background process with "Idle" priority, so that's probably why it took so long. I could have made it use more priority which most likely would have resulted in a faster scan time.

8452

General Software Discussion / Re: Monster Cables- The World should know!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 07:48 PM »

Fine, you want (monster) quality cables without paying the 800% markup.  www.MONOPRICE.com  That's all one needs to know. No one in the WORLD could tell the difference. NO ONE.

-vegas (March 29, 2008, 05:57 PM)

Thanks! I just got 480p cables for my Wii for < $6.50 including shipping! Going to the store to buy them would have cost me at least $15 or $20!

8453

General Software Discussion / Re: Magix (Xara) rant...

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 07:35 PM »

I'm surprised you don't know this!

In Xara the term Extrude is a short form of Extra Rude.
So, for example, one click on the extrude-tool icon and the program
pops up a requester bearing an insult and then draws a vector image
on your screen representing a vulgar gesture. (What's really
impressive about this is the speed with which it can insult you!)

-cranioscopical (March 29, 2008, 06:01 PM)

I bet you love Balderdash, don't you?

8454

Living Room / Re: Computer will not start!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 07:30 PM »

Some motherboards fail to boot without memory installed - you will just get beeps. A graphics card is useful if you want to see any error messages  .

-Carol Haynes (March 29, 2008, 07:04 PM)

The screen doesn't ever show anything when this happens. The PC turns on, runs through a couple numbers on the display on the motherboard, then beeps and shuts off.

8455

General Software Discussion / Re: Monster Cables- The World should know!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 01:34 PM »

This topic is kind of funny because just in the past week or two was a Law and Order show where some guy who owned a winery was labeling his wine as being really old but it was actually very young. One of the ways the police became suspicious of it was to bring in a wine connoisseur and he "tasted" the difference. Said it was too sour, had a particular flavor, etc.

I've never had a drop of alcohol, so I don't know if that's realistic, but all these anecdotes about water, wine, popcorn, etc. lead me to believe it's just as much bull honky as these examples.

I just found this reference in a news story about a new wine scandal:  "Citing the Giscours affair, several French wine commentators noted that when one property is accused of fraud, suspicion quickly falls on the entire region. They recalled the scandals of 1972 and 1973 in which one of the most famous exporters, the Cruse firm, was found guilty of offenses similar to those with which Giscours is charged. In the aftermath, the entire Bordeaux market collapsed. Chateaus were shuttered or sold, and the wine business did not recover until the end of the decade."  It is from an article in the NY Times.  Here's the headline:  " Bordeaux Winemaker Is Charged With Fraud Over Contents of Its Products"

-oldfart (March 29, 2008, 10:16 AM)

8456

Living Room / Re: Google

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 02:04 AM »

What happened to Google?

OH NOES! Mah internets R gone!

8457

Living Room / Re: Made the JUMP! --- X-STATIC About it!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 02:01 AM »

Hehe, after reading the title, I thought you made the JUMP to Vista

-Lashiec (March 28, 2008, 08:48 PM)

or OS X-Static!

or LinuX-Static...

or something

8458

Living Room / Re: Who else is sick of difficult word verifications on the web?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 01:59 AM »

A few interesting links:

PWNtcha - captcha decoder

-PhilB66 (March 28, 2008, 08:57 PM)

I just saw "Goatse" for the first time from that link! Where's the emoticon for stabbing out my eyes?

8459

General Software Discussion / Re: are email clients sofware a dead industry ?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 01:48 AM »

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

I used to pity people who used browser-based e-mail. I always had client-based e-mail. Then I got Gmail, and now I pity people who use anything but Gmail (except for offline access like what cthorpe mentioned).

Seriously, the ease of archiving and searching from Gmail is the greatest thing to happen to e-mail since e-mail was invented.

8460

General Software Discussion / Re: Cause of Vista crashes

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 01:43 AM »

allen: drivers have to be signed, generally... especially for x64 systems.

-f0dder (March 28, 2008, 07:00 PM)

Yeah, I think that's his complaint. He's saying that laptop drivers have to be issued by the laptop manufacturers, so they have to be re-signed, which means he has to run old drivers until his laptop manufacturer gets around to updating their version of the driver.

I would have expected ATI to be worse than nvidia, though.

-f0dder (March 28, 2008, 07:00 PM)

I was thinking the same thing. ATI's drivers have had quite a poor reputation the past few years. Strange to see nVidia acting up so badly. Although, when I think of when I had Vista on my PC, the default ATI drivers that were installed using Windows Update crashed my system a couple times.

8461

Living Room / Re: Computer will not start!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 29, 2008, 01:37 AM »

So, which is your PSU?

-Lashiec (March 28, 2008, 08:59 PM)

My PSU is an Antec SP-350

Couple of thoughts:

1) Check all the capacitors on the motherboard - if any are starting to bulge that could be your problem ...

2) How old is the machine? When did you last change the NVRAM battery on the mobo - losing NVRAM can cause odd problems.

3) If you remove everything from the system except the graphics card, one memory stick and a floppy do you still have the same issue? If so it would suggest PSU

-Carol Haynes (March 28, 2008, 09:27 PM)

1) I checked the capacitors, they look fine.

2) Built the PC myself in May 2006 from all new parts. I did pop out the battery and pop it back in, hoping it would reset the NVRAM. Maybe that was a bad idea, but it's started up since I last popped it out. And actually I vaguely remember buying another one of these batteries because I thought mine had died last year. So it should be newer than the mobo.

3) I already tried removing everything but the CPU and PSU. Is there a reason why you're suggesting these specific items? I could try the video card and 1 stick of RAM but I don't have a floppy drive.

For all of the below, the symptom was that the computer would not power on.

1)
Problem: DVI port on graphics card died.
Solution: Don't use DVI. Only use the other port.

2)
Problem: Motherboard...
Solution: Replace it with the same model.

3)
Problem: A few actually -- Same computer with the DVI problem above. CPU fan came loose too.
Solution: Replace video card & CPU fan. Still didn't work. Replace power supply. Worked.

There are lots of points of failure, and you really need the right tools (physical ones that is) to diagnose them. I don't have those tools, so I just took it into the shop to get fixed.

Not sure if that helps or not...

-Renegade (March 28, 2008, 09:02 PM)

Maybe I should also mention that as of now, nothing but the power cable and the keyboard and mouse are connected to the input panel. No monitor, speakers, or anything else.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. I think the POST code should provide some sort of clue what's going on, but I can't decipher it. It also emits a beep code, but the beeps don't match up anything I found at the Abit website and I've since unplugged the PC speaker because I got tired of hearing it beep several times with each attempt, so I don't remember it exactly. I think it was 1 long, 4 short.

8462

General Software Discussion / Re: mp3 Audio OUTPUT volume normalizer? Any such thing?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 11:09 PM »

MP3Gain says it doesn't alter the quality of the music file. It just changes the volume, it doesn't re-encode the file. I downloaded it and have been just performing an initial scan of the changes that need to be made to my music to normalize them. It's been going for hours and only at 60%...

8463

General Software Discussion / Re: How often do you reinstall Windows?

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 04:06 PM »

I usually do it about once a year, but now that I think about it I think that's because I usually upgraded something that often. Something like a new hard drive, where I wanted to reorganize everything.

Sometimes, though, on my secondary computer (this one I'm typing on actually, since I can't get my primary computer to start) when it gets filled with crap I just format and reinstall. But I think it was late 2006 since I last did it on this machine.

@PPLandry: System Restore does stuff for you? Any time I try to restore to a restore point, it takes forever to reboot and it just tells me that it was unsuccessful. System Restore has always been worthless to me because it always tells me after the fact of doing it that it couldn't do it.

8464

Living Room / Re: Kodak (Complaint)

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:58 PM »

Thanks again Phil!

8465

General Software Discussion / Re: Cause of Vista crashes

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:56 PM »

I didn't read any of the linked articles, but my guess is that the chart just shows what programs/drivers/services were running when Vista crashed (or caused the crash). It makes sense that most of them would be Microsoft applications or drivers, or video drivers, since those are probably the primary things the average Vista user will be running at any given time.

My quick little guess here is obviously not studied or thought out well enough to have any significant meaning, but hey, it makes me feel smart by thinking I've got it all figured out!

8466

Living Room / Computer will not start!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:52 PM »

Turning off my computer is a gamble these days, and the risk is higher and higher every time. For Spring Break I took it with me to visit my family and I haven't been able to get it to start since coming back home on Easter. I turn it on and it beeps at me a few times and then shuts off.

So here are the details:

I have an Abit AX8 K8T890 motherboard. It has two LED digits that show what it's doing when it starts up. The numbers and codes and their meaning can be found here: Award BIOS POST Codes.

When the computer is off, the digits show 0.0. When I turn it on it starts going through some numbers at the bottom of the codes list on that site I linked. It goes through a couple really fast, but I manage to see 8.3. then it flashes FF then just 2. for about a second. Then it goes to 8.3. then 8.b. and that's where it stays until it beeps a few times, flashes FF and sits on 2. for half a second then goes back to 0.0.

So the strange thing is that it seems to shut itself down during the bootup process when it goes to F.F. then 2. for a second before resuming the POST codes. In fact, even the fans and hard drives and anything that was making noise goes silent (unpowered) while it is showing the 2.

There's also a red LED on the motherboard that lights up when the system is on, and it turns off during that second.

So I'm wondering exactly what the post code means. Since 8.b. means "AGP voltage ready" does it mean that it shuts down on 8.b. because that's where it failed, or did it successfully complete 8.b. and get stuck on the next part of the POST? The next part would logically be "8.C. - 3VDUAL voltage ready" if it goes in order.

So I guess my question is, is it failing at 8.b. or at 8.c.?

To me, 8.b. doesn't make much sense because my motherboard doesn't have an AGP slot. So unless it's talking about some other kind of AGP, that doesn't make any sense at all for that to be failing.

But if it's 8.c., and the 3V DUAL voltage is failing, I guess that could make sense. If it's a power issue that could explain why it seems to have a temporary power failure in the middle of booting up, and could also explain why it only happens when I shut the computer down.

Eventually I've been able to get it to start by trying lots of times and wiggling wires around inside, but I'm not sure if I just got lucky when it started or if the wire wiggling made any difference. This time, though, I haven't been able to get it started since I began trying on Tuesday.

As for troubleshooting: I've cleared the CMOS, I've removed everything but CPU and PSU (and mobo of course) and it still has the problem. I just got the PSU last year when the last one failed. One concern I have, but I'm not sure how much of an issue it is, is that this PSU is only 350 watt and my old one was 400w or 450w. This problem has been happening sporadically over several months and I'm not really sure when it began. It is possible it began when I got this PSU but I can't say for sure.

When it first started up, I'd usually only see the problem happen if the power went out. i.e. If there was a complete interruption of power. I'd usually just have to unplug and replug the power cord and flick the power switch to get it to start up again. But lately (as in the past few months) if the power goes out or I turn off the surge protector due to going on an extended trip, it will take hours to get up again. This last time, days, and it's still not up.

Any tips?

8467

Living Room / Re: Made the JUMP! --- X-STATIC About it!

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 11:23 AM »

Congratulations! Best of wishes in your new start!

8468

Living Room / Re: Kodak (Complaint)

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 11:17 AM »

Thanks Phil! Those pages are very useful for names. I wonder what address I can send the letter(s) to. I'll look around a some more.

8469

Living Room / Re: When a Brain Scientist Suffers a Stroke

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 11:10 AM »

The euphoria and feeling of being one with the universe is probably very unlikely to happen to someone who is healthy.

-Deozaan (March 27, 2008, 11:38 AM)

I can't second that. After some years I'm now able to experience this feeling of 'oneness' and inner peace quite often, it's more a way of being for me now instead of a rare event - and I don't need drugs (not even legal ones). It's not euphoria, but it surely feels good!

-brotherS (March 28, 2008, 06:02 AM)

I can't help but feel that there is a difference in what we're talking about.

When I talk about a feeling of "oneness" with my surroundings, I am not talking about living in harmony, being content and happy. I mean literally not being able to distinguish your own identity or physical body with those things around you. Like Dr. Taylor describing how she wasn't sure where the boundaries of her arm and the wall were. She literally felt as one with everything around herself because she couldn't distinguish or individualize herself from the objects and energy and space around herself.

I might be misunderstanding you, BrotherS, but when you say you have feelings of "oneness" and inner peace, it sounds to me more like you're just describing your ability to reduce your anger to zero and fears to nearly zero. Being happy and at peace with your life is not the same thing as the oneness I'm trying to describe; nor do I think it's the same thing Dr. Taylor was describing either.

8470

Living Room / Re: 1s y0ur $0n a c0#pu73r h3x0r??

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:35 AM »

Even still, (and as you can attest) it's done so cleverly that it actually comes off as believable! Not that we would believe what he's saying has any truth to it, but we might believe that he believes what he's saying.

It's a really well done piece.

8471

Living Room / Re: Kodak (Complaint)

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:23 AM »

Deozaan, i had been following this thread for some time and i feel very upset that the company has been dragging its feet for so long over this problem. but today i had the perfect opportunity to show my disapproval as i directed a colleague, who had been planning to buy a digital camera, to this thread and advised him to think carefully before committing to Kodak. he agreed that this is very sloppy for a internationally known brand and as a result, he opted to buy a BenQ camera. just a way of showing my support.

-lanux128 (March 28, 2008, 02:40 AM)

Glad to see that this may have helped someone else avoid similar circumstances.

A letter typed neatly and addressed to as many of Kodak's management team, as well as their corporate officers, as you can identify, stands a much better chance of getting the attention of someone who can and will actually do something about your case.  Even better, if you took any pictures of the condition the camera as it was upon its return from that so-called repair shop, make sure to attach them to the letter. 

It has worked for me too many times to be just a fluke!

Jim

-J-Mac (March 27, 2008, 09:50 PM)

Does anyone have any useful advice on how to get the names and addresses of management/corporate offices? The website is practically useless as far as I can tell.

My Kodak camera is my first and only digital camera I've ever owned. I didn't have any way of photographing it in the state it was in. The dirty fingerprint smudges and other minor things are gone, but there's no getting rid of that huge scratch across the surface of the device and of course the crud behind the glass.

8472

Living Room / Re: 1s y0ur $0n a c0#pu73r h3x0r??

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 03:08 AM »

I'm pretty sure this is satire.

8473

Living Room / Re: When a Brain Scientist Suffers a Stroke

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 12:21 AM »

mmm, me too (for brief moments)
if "separated from yourself as an individual" means seperate from the head chatter
and "whole with all around you" means being very aware of everything and feeling like part of it
combined with a feeling of joy (which I reckon at least partly comes from the sense of relief of seperating from all that ... stuff ... that goes on - in my head at least)

I'm not too impressed with "normality" as I know it and
I think/hope/believe there is (can be) a balance there - between left and right

-tomos (March 27, 2008, 02:17 PM)

I had a kind of strange, hard to describe, almost out-of-body or near-death like experience in August 2004. I didn't really feel joy, but I felt peaceful. Actually looking back on it now (and reading what I wrote about it afterward) there are a lot of similarities between what happened to me and what happened to Dr. Taylor. Not in the cause of the experience, but in how the experience played out. Periods of time where I felt separated from my body and one with all around me interrupted sporadically with a voice in my head reminding me that it was me inside that body.

Heck, I'll just paste what I wrote about it here:

Life and Death

I often wondered if I had died that night. The experience was so unreal that I was not sure. But then again, if I had died, why hadn't I had some sort of grand experience of the heavens opening up or some such thing? Why hadn't I found a new appreciation for life and the grand scheme of things? I had seen no angels. I had seen nothing. It was like a night without stars.

That whole day I had been miserable. I was certainly not at my peak health. Usually I just ride out my illnesses, but finally by that night I had had enough and decided to take a trip to the store to get medicine. When I returned I went through my preparations for sleep, including using the bathroom. I lay in bed and waited for sleep to overtake me. Now, sleep rarely comes quickly to me, and that night was no exception. As time passed by I began to feel sleepy, but before I fell asleep a new sensation came over me. I have tried many times to describe this sensation to myself. I tried even while I was experiencing it and could not quite put my finger on it. It was something inside. It was something deeply wrong. It felt as though my blood was rushing through my veins while at the same time my heart kept its regular, slow pace. My chest felt constricted, yet at the same time it felt fine. Whatever was wrong with me, it did not hurt. I was not in pain. Yet the intensity of it grew and grew until I tensed up all my muscles. I released after a few seconds. It was almost like a seizure, except that it was voluntary. I was in control of my muscles. I tensed up on purpose. This seemed to help, at least temporarily. Again and again the intensity increased and I tensed my muscles. Would I ever be able to fall asleep with this going on?

This repeated and repeated and repeated. I cannot say for sure how long this went on before I lost consciousness. I also cannot say for sure whether or not I had fallen asleep, blacked out, or died. Or was there any difference between the three? I just remember everything being still. It was as if the world had been paused. It was as if my mind had been paused. I was still aware, but there were no thoughts. Suddenly a single thought broke through the stillness: Breathe.

I began to breathe again. My eyes cracked open and I was suddenly reminded of my existence. "Oh yeah," I remembered, "I am me. This is where I am." It was as if while my mind was on hold. I had forgotten myself. This is hard to describe. It was as if "I" had no meaning to me. Before I started breathing again I had not been aware of myself. I had simply been an observer, yet I was not a single entity at all.

I stopped breathing again. My mind paused. I was in the third person, just watching the stillness of the dark room. Aware of the figure laying on the bed in below me, yet unconcerned or unaware that it was myself. I was looking past myself, or was I looking at all? I simply knew that there was a small, dark room. A figure laying very still on the bed. A computer on the desk in the closet. I did not need to look around. Everything was before me. I knew every inch of that room without having to move any eyes around. It was as if I was everything in the room at once. I was one with the room and all its contents.

Out of nowhere the thought came again: Breathe. I felt my chest move up and down. I was once again the person laying on the bed. My eyes opened slowly. I remembered again that I was a person, that I was myself. I became aware of my surroundings from my body's point of view. From my eyes. I was in my head again. I was in my body again. My lips were dry and my face was burning. I licked my dry lips. I breathed. I was cold, but not aware enough to do anything about it. My body urged me to use the bathroom. I did. And doing so I wondered where all the fluid was coming from. I didn't drink this much water. Where was it coming from? I knew then that I must have been becoming dehydrated, but at the time I did nothing about it. I simply flushed the toilet and went back to bed.

I stopped breathing and became an all-aware entity at least three or four more times. How long this took me, I cannot say. How long had I gone without air? How long did I regain consciousness and continue breathing? It seemed as though I had always been the third-person observer. As if being in this body was a brand new experience, and I had only had a short time with this body. As if being mortal was a new experience to me. I felt that I had existed for eternities before I was thrust into this carbon shell of flesh, and that after I left this body, I would exist for eternities thereafter.

Eventually I woke up the next day and stayed awake. I was confused and shaken. What had happened that night? I was not sure. I still am not sure. That whole next day I felt different. I felt detached. I felt that slight wrongness that you feel when you've spun around and made yourself dizzy. Something was different. Nothing mattered. I was at peace. I had no desire to do good nor evil. I simply was--I existed--and that was enough for me.

8474

DC Gamer Club / Re: DonationCoder map - Sauerbraten FPS fun

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 12:05 AM »

My computer won't start.

8475

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

« Last post by Deozaan on March 28, 2008, 12:03 AM »

Non sequitor: When's superboyac gonna get his radio show back?

He was the best!    (Isn't it time to put together a 24-hour Sirius/XM channel for guys like him, and these dudes?)

-zridling (March 26, 2008, 02:26 AM)

When is DC going to get the podcast going again? I miss those...