Quick [tech] Questions Thread

[Engels]

That's ghost's problem, tho, if I have understood him. He can't do incremental because its one single honkin file, which while it may have 'bits' inside it, the format is of one file. So incremental data backup is not going to work, unless he can somehow expand that one file, do a comparison of the inside of the file to an older one, and then only update those files, and then recompress/close/whatever. That seems unlikely.

I like the idea of the BluRay backup. My only caveat is that, like tape drives, involves fairly delicate physical media that's susceptible to wear and tear over time. I've gone through 3 BluRay players, nevermind recorders, in the last year.

[Lt.Dan]

So I'm considering installing Windows 7 on my PC.  I want to do an upgrade install on a new hard drive which seems to be possible although there is the potential for it go wrong.  I'm going from 32 bit Vista Home Premium to 64 bit Windows Home Premium.

Has anyone else tried this?

Aside from the possible/not-possible question, are there other things I should be aware of?

[Salamok]

an upgrade install on a new hard drive is the same as a full reinstall, it will just ask you for your vista media to prove you have a qualifying upgrade product.  W7 was the easiest OS install I ever did.

[Yegolev]

Agree, W7 was even slightly easier than Ubuntu.

[Hawkbit]

Newb question time.  How do these speakers attach to my PC?  My system has onboard sound, simple setup.  I've used stock cheapo 3.5mm jack speakers for the longest time and I'm looking to take it up a notch.  

Can they simply hook directly into the 3.5mm on my MB, or does it need other hardware?  Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Studiophile-AV-Powered-Speakers/dp/B000MUXJCO/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_1

[Chimpy]

Newb question time.  How do these speakers attach to my PC?  My system has onboard sound, simple setup.  I've used stock cheapo 3.5mm jack speakers for the longest time and I'm looking to take it up a notch.  

Can they simply hook directly into the 3.5mm on my MB, or does it need other hardware?  Thanks!

http://www.amazon.com/M-Audio-Studiophile-AV-Powered-Speakers/dp/B000MUXJCO/ref=dp_cp_ob_e_title_1

They will most likely have either an RCA connector on the back for left-right or a TRS jack of some size. All you will need is an adapter.

While I love me some M-Audio (and I love me some studio monitors), I have been very happy with my Alesis M1Acitve 320USB speakers which are about half the price. LINK

[Salamok]

You would think so, but the printer specs on the hp site shows OSX 10.4+ or 10.5+ under system requirements.  After my last experience trying to buy something for OSX 10.3 (a webcam) I have learned that 10.4 seems to be the magic line where all kinds of peripherals just started working with Mac.

Currently looking at either an officejet all in 1 or a deskjet printer but a little gunshy about the mac support.

After I finally end up tracking down a wireless printer that lists itself as compatable with OS 10.3.9/Win Vista and 30 minutes after ordering my Mom is telling me that they just switched from comcast to Direct TV/AT&T, the install tech convinced her that she needs to upgrade to 10.4 or her internet won't work 

Maybe I'll show up for Christmas wearing clown shoes so I won't feel left out.

[NiX]

I have two inboxes at work running on Outlook 2007: Personal and general. The general box started receiving in only plain text a week or two ago, but I can't figure out why. It's an IMAP account and I originally thought it was AVG, but I had everyone disable the email scanner with no luck. If they copy my personal email when sending to the general one, it's received with formatting in my personal box and plain text in the general.

I'm at a loss for what the hell is going on. Any ideas?

If it matters: We use Google for our email and Google Sync.

[Chimpy]

Did you go to your mail options in Outlook and see if it has "show plain text" checked?

I think there might be a contextual menu option that toggles that on as well but not sure.

[Engels]

I know there's a toggle to -send- in Html or plain text, but I'm not sure where the receive options are. I couldn't find them in my Office 2010.

[Morat20]

Stupid ATT, whose computers apparently are incapable of calculating distance. I spend the weekend moving furniture around, getting shit ready for U-verse, and being very happy at:

1) Ditching motherfucking Comcast.
2) Going from 3 Mb/s to 12 Mb/s for internet.
3) Saving 60+ bucks a month.

What I get, after the techs are gone, is told that am I not close enough (apparently I am just as far away, or possibly further, than I was two years ago. Their boxes are migrating, it appears). I think find that 3Mb/s is the best I can do, DSL-wise, because apparently despite living in the suburbs, to the phone company I apparently live in a shack in the woods. Hope is briefly raised at the suggestion -- from ATT -- that TV might be a no-go, but the range for a uverse phone+internet is much longer. I would only be saving about 10 bucks a month, and eat an installation fee, but that might waive the latter.

Only to find out that the engineer who came out flagged my entire neighborhood as 'out of range' (probably because, as he noted, he'd personally been out twice  this month to this pair of streets to tell people "Sorry" -- apparently we're the asshole streets, who don't get service) which means no one short of God himself can even put an order out for phone+internet, because as far as uverse is concerend, we're on Mars.

Fuck. I DON'T want comcast internet. I don't want to turn to that pile of evil and villiany, and mostly I don't want a variable pipe.

[Yegolev]

The outside installers told me that it's all guesswork until the cable is laid and measured.  They use a signal to measure so it's not literally physical distance but rather Magic Distance based on interference; first measure had me at 5500 feet, which was ludicrous unless the original installers buried a whole spool in my field.  Which makes me happy that I got it.  For a while there no one was sure, and in fact they laid a new cable for me which measured 550 feet.  Even better, they didn't hit my gas, water or power lines while crisscrossing them with the ditchwitch.

[Engels]

Currently on hold with Qwest. I feel your pain Morat. No, really, actually, at this very moment. I've spent more time on the phone with Qwest in the last week than I have with my entire extended family for the last two years.

[Morat20]

The outside installers told me that it's all guesswork until the cable is laid and measured.  They use a signal to measure so it's not literally physical distance but rather Magic Distance based on interference; first measure had me at 5500 feet, which was ludicrous unless the original installers buried a whole spool in my field.  Which makes me happy that I got it.  For a while there no one was sure, and in fact they laid a new cable for me which measured 550 feet.  Even better, they didn't hit my gas, water or power lines while crisscrossing them with the ditchwitch.

At this point, they can stick whole new neighberhood box in my front yard. Go for it. Screw property values. I want something faster than 3 mb/s and I don't want comcast. Is there some magic variant of "please" that will get them to come do SOMETHING? I don't live on a farm. I live within 2 blocks of a high school and a junior high, within two miles of a huge collection of refineries, in a city of 20,000+ less than 15 miles from downtown houston. Yes, it's an older neighborhood, which is why all the new fucking neighborhoods have u-verse and I don't. UPGRADE MY DAMN LINES.

I've spent my whole life avoiding cable internet, because I don't like variables speeds. I want a constant range, that I will always be at, because when you run a "it depends on what your neighbors are doing" pipe, I constantly suspect somehow I'm getting played. The fact that I'd totally believe comcast would drop my speed and blame my neighbors just for shits and giggles doesn't help. (Yes, I loathe Comcast. I loathe their shitty DVR's that break constantly. I loathe their piss-poor service, with it's constant pixellation and dropouts. I loathe their customer service, apparently run by drunken assholes. There is NOTHING good about them. Satan takes notes from them on how to make Hell worse).

Fuck, fuck, fuckity fuck.

[Lantyssa]

Dude, I haven't had any issues with Comcast's speed in a decade.  I'm at Beltway 8 and my bandwidth surrounded by "the bad part of town" is easily 5 Mb/s and not the limiting factor for the majority of my downloads.

[Trippy]

You can get variable speeds with DSL too it just happens at a different place. Nobody that I'm aware of sells consumer-grade (read cheap) bandwidth with guaranteed minimum bandwidth to a peering point.

[Morat20]

Dude, I haven't had any issues with Comcast's speed in a decade.  I'm at Beltway 8 and my bandwidth surrounded by "the bad part of town" is easily 5 Mb/s and not the limiting factor for the majority of my downloads.

That's just one of my many issues with comcast. Since my others all revolve around the shitty quality of their service (bad pictures, stuttering, constant outages) and their worse customer service, I can't think their internet service will magically be better.

Which is sort of the problem. ATT's been pretty solid, and the only reason I haven't switched to satellite for TV is that Comcast cleaned up it's act (coinicdentally when u-verse was rolled out in Houston0 JUST ENOUGH for me not to want to futz with satellite, but bundling TV with my phone and internet? Price savings is totally worth the hassle.

If I could get it.

[Chimpy]

You can get variable speeds with DSL too it just happens at a different place. Nobody that I'm aware of sells consumer-grade (read cheap) bandwidth with guaranteed minimum bandwidth to a peering point.

This.

It is all shared SOMEWHERE. It is just that your link to the DSLAM on DSL is on a dedicated pair. In cable, you share from your house to the CMTS.

As far as the distance thing goes, until a tech plunks a meter on your pair going back to the DSLAM, there is no way to know what speeds you will be able to get over your pair. And you have to remember that the distance number they use is Wire miles, not road miles. The cabinet could be a block away from you but you may be connected to it via a chain that goes 10 blocks out of the way to get there. The wireline infrastructure was installed, in many cases, 40+ years ago and was usually dictated by "get phone service to this address however is easiest" not "layout network in most efficient fashion for DSL".

[Yegolev]

I'm not advocating Comcast, not at all, but AT+T does QoS the shit out of you.  That's basically how they manage TV/voice/data.  Although I usually get 2-3x the speed I had on ADSL (with going from "3Gb" to "12Gb"), it is somewhat quirky.  I'm attributing this mostly to new technology.

The way that I got the line quality that I did was that they had to install a new line for my new address in 2002 (no previous house on the field), and I was connected to then-new equipment back at the CO.  Right now there should be fibre to my DSLAM, and I am not in a dense neighborhood, and it's mostly old and poor people.  My only advice on getting a modern line is to build a new house; I'm guessing AT+T isn't upgrading aggressively.  During the housing boom, there was no real need or available people since they were doing new installs.  Currently, AT+T is doing what every other large corp is doing: outsourcing and laying off people.  I don't know... good luck.

I feel like I have to say that Comcast is not ever getting any money from me again, for being absolute dicks back when they had no competition.

Edit to say that you might be able to get moved to a new cabinet if you complain about your existing service enough.

[Chimpy]

Edit to say that you might be able to get moved to a new cabinet if you complain about your existing service enough.

If there is another cabinet close enough. A fresh set of pairs to the existing cabinet would be more likely.

[Morat20]

Edit to say that you might be able to get moved to a new cabinet if you complain about your existing service enough.

If there is another cabinet close enough. A fresh set of pairs to the existing cabinet would be more likely.

Who the fuck knows? However, I can tell you this: My neighborhood has been listed as "in range" for two fucking years, despite me trying -- two years ago -- and being out of range. They've finally moved us to "out of range".

Which probably means nothing, but I can't help but wonder if the reason I'm still out of range had to do with "not being on the upgrade/booster list" because they firmly believed my area was set already.

So I can hope that now that my little area is properly listed as "fucked", upgrading the area might actually land on their 'to do' list.

I think Chimpy's right on the problem -- 30+ year old neighborhood, I bet the circuits aren't routed in even a semi-efficient manner.

[Chimpy]

Oh it is probably very efficient - for phones. Running one 25 pair cable and tapping it every couple of houses is infinitely more efficient than running 2pairs from the CO to each house in as short a distance as possible. And in many cases, the way it is routed (while maybe not great for DSL) may BE the shortest route they had available.

[Sky]

I have a ASUS RT-N12 wireless router. Two odd things.

1) Wireless seems flaky. Every few hours it will drop connection and I have to disable/enable the adapter on the pc to get a connection again. Wired connection is solid.

2) Wired speed is about 20% of the wireless speed?

This shit, still happening. I've been using the wire for stability in gaming, the wireless for downloading speed. Last thing I feel like dicking around with when I get home from dealing with tech shit all day is more tech shit. It's partly why I love my fucking woodpile and axe so much.

Anyway, per Chimpy: drivers are up to date and ipv6 is now off on the wireless adapter.

[Vision]

I'm using a new Mac Book Pro with 4gigs of ram, and the Nvidia 330M, i7 and was wondering what kind of frame-rate reduction I would take if I set up my 30inch HDTV as a second monitor? Id really only use it to play WoW on, which seems to run fine at really high settings. Really im just seeing if it's worth spending the $30 for the HDMI adaptor cable.

[Engels]

I suspect it would be fine. Remember, TVs have really low resolutions, so its not that big a deal. In fact, I suspect your laptop has a higher resolution than your TV.

[Vision]

I suspect it would be fine. Remember, TVs have really low resolutions, so its not that big a deal. In fact, I suspect your laptop has a higher resolution than your TV.

I suppose I just ignorantly assumed that since it had to project over a larger space, that it would eat up more processing power.
Reading that sentence I suppose I am retarded.

[Trippy]

I suspect it would be fine. Remember, TVs have really low resolutions, so its not that big a deal. In fact, I suspect your laptop has a higher resolution than your TV.

No they don't unless he has a 17" MacBook Pro. If it's a 1080p HDTV that's 1920 x 1080. 720p is 1280 x 720. 13" MacBook Pro is 1280 x 800 native, 15" is 1440 x 900, 17" is 1920 x 1200.

[Sheepherder]

Is your notebook capable of running 2x or greater FSAA in WoW?

[Vision]

I suspect it would be fine. Remember, TVs have really low resolutions, so its not that big a deal. In fact, I suspect your laptop has a higher resolution than your TV.

No they don't unless he has a 17" MacBook Pro. If it's a 1080p HDTV that's 1920 x 1080. 720p is 1280 x 720. 13" MacBook Pro is 1280 x 800 native, 15" is 1440 x 900, 17" is 1920 x 1200.

I actually do have the 17inch, and I'm pretty sure Im running 8xFSAA, I'm not sure what the UI option is for that in the video tab though.

[Trippy]

So that's easy then. If it runs fine on the laptop display it'll run essentially the same on a 1080p TV and with a higher frame rate on a 720p TV.

[Sheepherder]

Also, FSAA is for all intents and purposes downsampling a screen drawn at a higher resolution, so there's that too.

[Salamok]

Anyone have a preferred piece of equipment that can act as a wireless bridge?  I guess you need internet access to your direct tv box to order on demand items (unless you want to call every time).  BTW is it normal for the AT&T installers to not do any of this shit?  They pretty much just made the wireless router hot and hooked up the satellite then left, they did not configure the mail clients or make sure the satellite receiver had internet access for the aforementioned on demand ordering.

Personally I never let the cable guy touch my shit but leaving it all in the hands of my 70 year old parents with the comment that it is so easy an 11 year old could do it doesn't seem like the best customer service model available.

[Brolan]

I got an upgrade question.  I've got a computer that I would to play games at the highest graphic settings.  It does pretty well for a 2 and half year box, but I'm not sure what to upgrade first.  I only have $200 spare dollars right now.

Here is how it looks now:
AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+ Windsor 2.6GHz Socket AM2 89W Dual-Core
Crucial Ballistix 2GB (2 x 1GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400)
ASUS M2N-E AM2 NVIDIA nForce 570 Ultra MCP ATX AMD Motherboard
EVGA 320-P2-N815-AR GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320-bit GDDR3 PCI Express x16 Video Card
ENERMAX EG495AX-VE FMA 485W ATX12V Power Supply

What do you think?

[Sky]

I'd say a 1GB 460gtx but you're also hurting for RAM. If you expect to spend $200 to play games on the highest graphic settings, invest in some weed instead.

[Mrbloodworth]

lolz!