Oh no! More boring computer problems! Oh no!

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apples be breaking down so much!

― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 9 May 2004 12:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

break it up break it up break down

― ken c (ken c), Sunday, 9 May 2004 13:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hey Sean, remember at Henry's Hunan you said that if I had a special Airport [thing] that came with all the newest Macs, I wouldn't need a really expensive official Apple Airport [thing], and that I could actually get wireless internet with an ugly but inexpensive [thing]? Well...what were you talking about again?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 19:50 (9 years ago) Permalink

Ah. Okay. Basically Airport is Apple's name for WiFi or 802.11 wireless networking, so it should be completely compatible with WiFi solutions that are available from other manufacturers like Linksys or D-Link or whatever. If you wanted to set up a wireless home network but you can find an access point or Cable/DSL wireless router available for less money than the Airport base station, don't feel that you have to buy the pretty Apple-branded version.

Airport Extreme is the new version of Airport, and it's the same as 802.11g (from what I can tell). The Airport Extreme base station is $199 - 249 depending on whether you get the modem and antenna port; since you can get other 802.11g routers for as low as $100, you may want to check that shit out instead.

If you've got the basic version of Airport (ie no Extreme) then you probably have 802.11b on your notebook, so getting the Extreme or 11g version of the wireless router won't be all that important unless you're planning to upgrade your notebook down the road. Since cable and DSL connections are already slower than even the 802.11b (basic Airport) setup, you're not going to be gaining anything by overspending here. And getting an 802.11b router may be a bit cheaper than 11g...but probably not by much.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 20:33 (9 years ago) Permalink

ok...and why would I want the Airport modem and antenna thing? I don't really get what those are for.

thanks, btw!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 20:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

I don't know whether this link will work but here's a cheaper and probably rock-solid option:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0001D3K8A/qid=1084397463/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1_etk-electronics/103-9923206-1101432?v=glance&s=electronics&n=172282

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 20:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

This isn't a question, but I succeeded in not only networking my new powerbook to my old PC (only took me 1.5 hours to get it going) BUT also got slsk/nicotine running on the same new powerbook. Whoot! Who's your daddy?

― Aaron W (Aaron W), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 20:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

Sean, what if I already have a router? Aren't there little "bridge" doo-dahs that are, like, half that price?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 20:59 (9 years ago) Permalink

What you need, my friend, is an access point...but unfortunately they're nearly as much as the full-on wireless routers. The good thing with an access point is you just plug it into your router and away you go. (Well, yeah, configure your WEP settings so bastards don't break into your network, etc.)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:03 (9 years ago) Permalink

Amazon sez the Linksys 11g access point is $80, and the 11b access point is $60:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00007KDVJ/qid=1084399427/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl23/103-9923206-1101432?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00005854B/qid=1084399475/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i2_xgl23/103-9923206-1101432?v=glance&s=electronics&n=507846

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:04 (9 years ago) Permalink

Do you know if you have a router? What are the telltale signs?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, for one thing you're being routed.

I saw a D-Link access point (b, not g) at my local supermarket for $40 (after rebate) or maybe it was $30?

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:19 (9 years ago) Permalink

what?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:27 (9 years ago) Permalink

I know!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:44 (9 years ago) Permalink

What?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:48 (9 years ago) Permalink

I know!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 21:49 (9 years ago) Permalink

Typical configuration on the way in from the net:

The Internet <--> cable or DSL modem <--> optional: router <--> your computer

If you're plugging your computer directly into your modem, you don't have a router. If you have a box with multiple Ethernet ports on it between your modem and your computer, you probably have a router.

The new DSL/cable broadband sharing routers are great because it logs onto the net for you (especially if you have DSL connection that requires PPPoE authentication, because it means you don't have to use that dumb and unreliable software client that DSL providers stick you with) and then uses network address translation to change your IP #s in your inner network. This means that people can't waltz directly into your computer from the outside world, they have to hack a bit first (this one is especially true if you're on a cable modem connection, where a direct connection of your computer into your modem might well result in your computer showing up in the networks of other people plugged into cable modems in your neighborhood).

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Wednesday, 12 May 2004 22:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

I do not have a router.

When I try and unpack dmg files of games and stuff, I get a failure message that says "invalid checksum". What does that mean?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 May 2004 01:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

no wait, they are img files.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Thursday, 13 May 2004 01:01 (9 years ago) Permalink

The nice thing about the sirport is that it can act as a firewall, router and a print server for your whole wired and unwired network. There are still other products that do t all this for cheaper but none of them look like a UFO.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 13 May 2004 10:26 (9 years ago) Permalink

That's the great thing about Apple products though: pretty basic parts put into a case designed to look like a white shiny mushroom = profit blitzkrieg.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:22 (9 years ago) Permalink

By the way, "invalid checksum" probably means the file was corrupted somewhere along the way, and that error message is telling you that the error checking mechanism built into the to decompression application is telling you that not all the numbers are adding up. If the decompressed files seem fine, don't worry about it.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 13 May 2004 13:24 (9 years ago) Permalink

'That's the great thing about Apple products though: pretty basic parts put into a case designed to look like a white shiny mushroom = profit blitzkrieg.'

Plus out of the box, 'It just works' functionality.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 13 May 2004 14:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

Except when it doesn't. ;)

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 13 May 2004 14:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

Specifically with the Airport Extreme base station, anyhow, a lot of users were claiming that it requires regular restarts. I know that's something that a lot of non-Apple wireless devices also require, too; I just think that the legendary Apple "it just works" thing is definitely much less true today than it used to be.

― Sean Carruthers (SeanC), Thursday, 13 May 2004 14:13 (9 years ago) Permalink

No experience of 802.11, but bluetooth was a charm beyond belief. There are plenty of minor irritants in OS X, line not being able to restrict swap file size.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 13 May 2004 14:53 (9 years ago) Permalink

I have a boring computer question! I have a brand new Powerbook with lots of free memory and a cable modem...so why is Safari soooooooooooooooooooo sloooooooow?

― Antmusic78 (Antmusic78), Friday, 14 May 2004 12:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

Repair your permissions! (Use Disk Utility.)

― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 14 May 2004 16:10 (9 years ago) Permalink

Hmmm...I was just going to say, I'm also having this problem. Switched to Firefox and it's still ridiculously slow.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 02:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

I was hoping this would be you!

Sadly you've denied me the pleasure of giving you useless advice.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:30 (9 years ago) Permalink

I have. How?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:34 (9 years ago) Permalink

Because I already gave the proper advice! Otherwise I would have told you to slip a little cocaine into the keyboard or something.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

Because I have seen your haircut, and I know you have access to cocaine.

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:35 (9 years ago) Permalink

Are you okay?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:36 (9 years ago) Permalink

Oh I see, that was a joke at my haircut's expense? You're saying I have a "cocaine haircut"?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

That only someone so self-deluded that they were probably on cocaine would have a haircut like the one on my head?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:38 (9 years ago) Permalink

Is that what you're saying?

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

Because really I'm very sober and humble, I'm just afraid of going bald.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:40 (9 years ago) Permalink

Okay, well I'm pleased that's settled.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

And posted to ILX for posterity.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:41 (9 years ago) Permalink

Okay, now I have a novel to get back to. Good night.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:42 (9 years ago) Permalink

Enjoy "Less Than Zero"!

― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 04:45 (9 years ago) Permalink

My start menu (win98se) is wreaking havoc! Whenever I access it for programs, documents or bookmarks, it freezes explorer+taskbar, though whatever other apps I have running are not interrupted. Even if I avoid using the start menu in a session, when I shut down, I'm given the "Program not yet shut down -- End/Wait" prompt. I haven't seen anything out of the ordinary on the program manager, and I've run a virus scan twice: nothing up.

But the most troubling thing is that Zonealarm has alerted me that Explorer and WMPlayer is trying to access the internet, and once, some program called abetterinternet.com or somesuch tried to connect to the internet, too. I'll have to run adaware/spyware blaster, but what in heck is going on??

― Leee's a Simpson (Leee), Friday, 28 May 2004 20:37 (9 years ago) Permalink

It was "The Black Dahlia", Chris.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Friday, 28 May 2004 20:39 (9 years ago) Permalink

For OS X general maintenance, I highly recommend this article:

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/11/21/maintenance.html

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 28 May 2004 22:29 (9 years ago) Permalink

ooohhh a better internet!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 28 May 2004 22:54 (9 years ago) Permalink

Bah on you Macists, answer my question!

― Leee's a Simpson (Leee), Friday, 28 May 2004 22:57 (9 years ago) Permalink

I give you Bellucci pubic hair and this is my thanks?

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 28 May 2004 23:00 (9 years ago) Permalink

I'm on a computer whose resolution is poopy so I couldn't make it out.

― Leee's a Simpson (Leee), Friday, 28 May 2004 23:02 (9 years ago) Permalink

Well, you know, you're not on a Mac, so...

― Girolamo Savonarola, Friday, 28 May 2004 23:06 (9 years ago) Permalink

Skipping 1458 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

I never had any crashing problems with Windows 7, so I guess the problem is that antivirus companies haven't yet managed to adjust their products well enough to Windows 8, and/or that Windows 8 simply isn't very good at working with third-party applications. Most of the other apps on my computer have continued to work fine, though, without any need to update or patch them, so I guess it's more of a case of the former. I wonder how long it'll take them to make their antivirus software fully compatible with 8? (I guess they aren't in a terrible hurry to fix problems in product they give out for free...)

― Tuomas, Thursday, 7 February 2013 09:37 (4 months ago) Permalink

Why did the BBC news page just shrink in Chrome? Not in any other browser, and fiddling with Chrome's settings via 'zoom' doesn't help (just makes the font bigger on the settings page :/)

― ljubljana, Sunday, 10 February 2013 15:46 (4 months ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

why can i suddenly not save textedit files? it's TEXTEDIT, nothing ever goes wrong in textedit, there's nothing TO go wrong. anyway i open up my macbook and start working on some documents and they are fine and then for absolutely no reason and out of nowhere suddenly it won't let me save as i work - no explanation, just a box that says this file cannot be saved. and then autosave goes a bit nuts yelling at me that it can't work and the problem needs to be resolved.

this has happened before intermittently but i've always managed to get it working again, but this weekend it KEEPS HAPPENING even when the problem seems to go away for a while. i've tried repairing permissions and deleting the "autosave information" folders in my library and it keeps coming back and i NEED IT TO NOT DO THIS and HELP PLEASE

― flamenco drop (lex pretend), Sunday, 31 March 2013 09:11 (2 months ago) Permalink

Finally going to have to buy a new computer ... have been thinking about it for a while but my computer crashed yesterday and wouldn't start without a system recovery (meaning I've lost everything on it).

Any recommendations?

My (fairly random) budget was £500. But I can go up without too much stress if need be.

Want to be able to email, write documents, store some (but not loads) of music and compile/burn CDs.

I'm thinking of also buying a camera so I'll want to be able to do some photo stuff but not really sure what.

Would prefer not a laptop. Had a potter around PC World and there seemed to be some okay computers around £350-£500 but couldn't really distinguish between them. Bonus points for neatness/compactness but not essential.

Any ideas?

― djh, Monday, 1 April 2013 18:33 (2 months ago) Permalink

did you already do the system recovery? your data could still be retrievable if you boot from a CD.

― Philip Nunez, Monday, 1 April 2013 18:35 (2 months ago) Permalink

I've already done the system recovery (admittedly, in a slight panic).

― djh, Monday, 1 April 2013 18:42 (2 months ago) Permalink

i dunno if a mac mini is under £500, but i would get that in lieu of thinking about the tons of PC options out there,
or I might just get a new hard drive instead, if the machine is otherwise OK.

― Philip Nunez, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:26 (2 months ago) Permalink

Thanks Philip.

The machine is seven or so years old - it's slow, noisy and has been throwing up error messages for a while.

Quite a few people have been suggesting getting a Mac - I used to be "brand loyal" but moved over to a PC after my last Mac froze on a daily basis.

― djh, Monday, 1 April 2013 19:38 (2 months ago) Permalink

Anyone know if any PCs have a function similar to Apple's "Time Machine" - which, if I'm understanding this - automatically backs up your computer contents?

― djh, Tuesday, 2 April 2013 19:07 (2 months ago) Permalink

3 weeks pass...

OH god help me ILX I am going totally crazy here in Kyrgyz Republic using a WiFi connection from my hotel on a MacBook Pro using Safari. I can surf the web- sorta- as in I can see cnn.com, ILX (duh), and various google queries work, but . . . .

I can't get Gmail to load - like, at all- as in, I never get to see the page where I could enter my account info- I just search for it and nothing ever loads

I can't get my university employer email server site to load (J0hns H0pkins Un1versity)

I can't get Facebook to load

BUT I CAN STILL USE THE WEB. What. The. Fuck. I am assured that, unlike China where I have been for the past eleven days, there is no government censorship or firewalls or other monkeying around with web use. So it's not something external. Is it my computer? Some kind of network setting? Some kind of browser setting? Some Flash issue? I have already resent DNS settings in Network Preferences as per the suggestions of some forums. I haven't seen my inbox in three days and while yeah I am on sabbatical it's still a big no- no in my line of work to have no way to see my inbox, let alone wanting to be in touch with my bf while I am clear across the world in Central Asia, etc.

Help me ILX! You're my only hope!

― the tune was space, Saturday, 27 April 2013 15:40 (1 month ago) Permalink

You mentioned resetting dns, but have you tried changing it to someone else? Google (8.8.8.8 & 8.8.4.4) or opendns (208.67.222.222 & 208.67.220.220) might help. I've defo had similar problems as a result of crappy isp dns servers before..

(Or, could it be related to crappy hotel wifi having problems with ssl..?)

― sktsh, Saturday, 27 April 2013 16:27 (1 month ago) Permalink

1 month passes...

anyone have any truck with eyetracking software? Specifically, Tobii software? I've got a boring question about calibration.

― ljubljana, Tuesday, 11 June 2013 16:00 (1 week ago) Permalink

so the Dell Inspiron 17R that we bought last winter abruptly died last night - won't load Windows 8. Don't have the Windows 8 install disc (I don't think they gave us one, either that or we lost it). When you turn it on you get the Dell logo and then nothing. F12 takes me to the boot menu, but since I don't have anything else to boot the system from that doesn't matter. Already ran the diagnostics and there's nothing wrong with the hardware. any ideas? I imagine I'll be spending most of tonight on the phone with Dell customer service...

― Bathory Tub Blues (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 12 June 2013 20:22 (1 week ago) Permalink

I'm trying to print a single page pdf but my printer keeps doing it in thin strips over six or seven pages. What's going on?

― Fanois och Alexander (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 June 2013 17:09 (6 days ago) Permalink

When that happens to us, it is because we have a label printer as default that has narrow page widths

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 14 June 2013 17:11 (6 days ago) Permalink

oddly it was set to envelope, which I've never used before, but it's doing the same on A4 setting. Print preview looks fine and it knows it's only supposed to be printing one page, so...

― Fanois och Alexander (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 June 2013 17:20 (6 days ago) Permalink

are you printing from web browser or acrobat?

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 14 June 2013 17:24 (6 days ago) Permalink

it's doing the same thing both in browser and in acrobat.

― Fanois och Alexander (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 June 2013 17:34 (6 days ago) Permalink

hmm... That's a puzzler. Does it do this on other documents or just this one?

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 14 June 2013 17:41 (6 days ago) Permalink

everything else is fine! it's a printable ticket from ticketmaster so i figure they're to blame. i guess i'll go to the gig with a wad of paper (barcodes luckily intact) and be angry if there's any trouble.

― Fanois och Alexander (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 June 2013 17:59 (6 days ago) Permalink

Oh if that's all I'd just take a screenshot and print that

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 14 June 2013 18:04 (6 days ago) Permalink

erm, I did that and I'm having the same problem. I'm so confused. This makes no sense. The image is cursed :'(.

― Fanois och Alexander (Merdeyeux), Friday, 14 June 2013 18:51 (6 days ago) Permalink

i've heard legends of printers refusing to print money through some counterfeit prevention scheme but tickets?

― Philip Nunez, Friday, 14 June 2013 22:21 (6 days ago) Permalink

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