Boring computer questions in the Sandbox

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Whenever I upload large files my comp fails halfway through, what could be causing this? It works fine for little files on YouSendIt I turn off my firewall and it still fucks up, I did download google pack recently and it may have ad aware stuff or similar, could it be something like this? What are the possibilities? I thought File Factory was broken itself but all the other programmes I've tried are failing halfway through, intensely annoying!

Ronan (Ronan), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Do you have the windows firewall on? (xpost to Affectian)

Johnney B has zeros off the line (stigoftdumpilx), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 23:19 (seventeen years ago) link

can anyone recommend a tool for manipulating DivX/XviD videos to, for instance correct audio/video sync problems?

I'm not an expert here but a program called Virtualdub is supposed to be good for correcting audio / video sync. It's been a couple of years since I used it though, something better may have come along in the meantime.

Virtualdub is good (esp. for freeware), but it can't re-sync audio to video, AFAICT. I use Vdub in conjunction with a cr@ck3d version of C001 3d!t Pr0 -- the latter to extract a wav file from the video, then the former to re-encode.

Donkey Kong New York (Lee), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 23:39 (seventeen years ago) link

Johnney, no that's turned off on both computers. I think it might be something to do with having XP home on the laptop and XP Pro on the main pc. It doesn't matter too much as I can do everything I wanted using my laptop (drag the 20gb of files onto my main pc) it's just a bit annoying I can't mess with my laptop from my pc.

Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 7 December 2006 01:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Mmmm, it could well be some sort of home/pro conflict.

Also, have you got guest access enabled on one but not the other?

Forest Pines (ForestPines), Thursday, 7 December 2006 09:06 (seventeen years ago) link

That is a Home vs. Pro conflict. I run into it all the time between my laptop (pro) and home desktop (home) - a pain. Here's some other Home/Pro info.

jaq (jaq), Thursday, 7 December 2006 09:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Just got a new laptop, and am charging it, but the manual doesn't say for how long to do this? It's Fujitsu Siemens, and the QUICKSTART PICTORIAL GUIDE seems to suggest you just charge it for a few minutes then steam straight in? Windows is installed on it already so am I to assume that the shop did the whole charge for 20 hours thing? Or should I charge it for this kind of time before use?

Ronan (Ronan), Thursday, 7 December 2006 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Ronan, the laptop should have a "Battery charging" light (look for a small battery icon w/ a lightning bolt in it, usually next to the power indicator). If the light isn't on, then it's done charging. You can also check in Windows to see how much power the battery has: Control Panel > Power Options > Power Metere (or somesuch) will show how fully charged your battery is.

Donkey Kong New York (Lee), Thursday, 7 December 2006 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Thanks for the advice, pretty shitty of Microsoft not to allow and Home and Pro to 'talk'. Would it be easy to change the XP on my laptop to Pro without having to remove all my files and programs?

Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 7 December 2006 21:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Have just installed apache/php/mysql on home pc. Installed mysqli extension, enabled extension in php.ini, restarted apache, but cannot see any php mysql functions or otherwise get the extension to work at all. What obvious step am I missing...

ledge (ledge), Friday, 8 December 2006 12:28 (seventeen years ago) link

did you do this bit?

Copy the libmysql.dll to the PHP installation directory

Blaze the Violet Flame (nu_onimo), Friday, 8 December 2006 12:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah that's there.

ledge (ledge), Friday, 8 December 2006 12:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Restart mysqld?

Blaze the Violet Flame (nu_onimo), Friday, 8 December 2006 12:44 (seventeen years ago) link

Nah - it's not that I can't connect to mysql, I can't even see the php functions that would let me do that.

ledge (ledge), Friday, 8 December 2006 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Would it be easy to change the XP on my laptop to Pro without having to remove all my files and programs?

Well, the communication is there, it's just one-way only which sucks some, but not as bad as having to sneakernet everything. You can buy an upgrade disk; whether the install messes with your existing stuff is a good question. It might, but I really don't know as I've only upgraded new machines that only had the operating system installed. It's around $200.

jaq (jaq), Friday, 8 December 2006 13:10 (seventeen years ago) link

I dunno if I was missing some service restart or other, but a reboot fixed the mysql prob. Plus my phpmyadmin was apparently outdated, had to get the latest version.

ledge (ledge), Friday, 8 December 2006 16:54 (seventeen years ago) link

anyone know why i can't upload files? is it windows firewall? if i make firefox trust the upload site will it let me? yousendit works fine but all the large file uploaders fail halfway through

Ronan (Ronan), Friday, 8 December 2006 17:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Ronan, if you still have the problem when you've got Windows firewall turned off, that's not the problem. Does your connection account with your ISP have any kind of limits on it? Is your laptop going into powersave mode? That can shut down the internal ethernet card.

jaq (jaq), Friday, 8 December 2006 23:47 (seventeen years ago) link

could be ISP....i'll check that out....tho as I say Yousendits still working fine, I guess the large file could be too much.

it didn't work with firewalls turned off either....and I was at the laptop the whole time...

Ronan (Ronan), Saturday, 9 December 2006 00:02 (seventeen years ago) link

don't know if it'll help you or not, ronan, but i was having problems YSIing large files, both uploading and downloading; upgrading my router firmware fixed the problem. YMMV, naturally.

grimly fiendish (simon), Saturday, 9 December 2006 00:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I really hope this has happened to someone else, it's driving me potty.

I live in a flat in an apartment block. I've had BT broadband since July this year. It's been fine from then onwards, getting about 400k/s download speeds on average. The internet did, and still does, usually cut out about 3 times a day for a few minutes, which was annoying but compared to the nightmare service I've had from UKonline and Onetel in the past it wasn't so bad.

A week ago, the d/l dropped to 15k/s, barely dialup speeds. Upload speeds also dropped from 200k/s to 20k/s. An initial mail to BT customer services got the response of 'empty your recycle bin' and it'll all be ok. Of course, it wasn't. A few days later and I've just received a call from BT. I was told to empty the 'Prefetch' folder, which I did. It changed nothing.

At first she asked me the download speed so I said 15k/s which is what I've been getting from the Firefox download manager DTA. After emptying this folder I was asked to do a speedtest again, so I did the one on http://www.thinkbroadband.com which gave my speeds as:
Speed Down 130.81 Kbps ( 0.1 Mbps )
Speed Up 186.53 Kbps ( 0.2 Mbps )

But if I'm only downloading at 13k/s (which I still am) why is this program saying 130kbps? Are kbps different from k/s? BT woman assumed this meant it was all ok now but it's not.

Her next step was to say that I need to plug into the MASTER BT socket, with the big box and all. We don't have one in this flat, there are just two BT sockets on the wall and one in the bedroom. Do any flats anywhere have the BT box things in them? I know my parent's house does but I've never lived in a flat with one. BT woman refused to believe I didn't have one and stated that THIS and nothing else is the problem - even though I was happily receiving proper broadband until 7 days ago! Eventually I was fobbed off with 'Ok I'll pass your info onto the engineers team..' ie. THE BT FUCKUP VOID NEVER TO BE HEARD OF AGAIN.

Can anyone help here? Has this happened to anyone else?

Affectian (Affectian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:36 (seventeen years ago) link

Are kbps different from k/s?

Yes. Kilobits versus kilobyes - 130kbit/s = 16.25 k/s

Forest Pines (ForestPines), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 17:21 (seventeen years ago) link

Could somebody give me a quick tutorial on data recovery when there hasn't been a crash? My daughter was working on a story last night in Appleworks and saved the document several times. No application crashes, no problems shutting down, but when she started up this morning and opened the document, all of yesterday's work was missing and the file shows Last Modified as two days ago. I've never had to deal with anything like this on my own computer, never had any interest in working at the Terminal level, so I don't know where to go from here.

I Am Curious (George) (Slight Return) (Rock Hardy), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 20:16 (seventeen years ago) link

right, so, i have an AVI file which is 0.99GB. i need it to be under 100MB. how do i re-compress or re-save it so it is smaller? i have xilisoft software but it appears not to want to do this.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Eeek, Cumpw that is not good, I'm not sure how to get the file back. What version of Mac OS are we looking at here?

Lex, that is a big ask of any compression, now I know this is probably a fools errand but what codec is the file encoded in, what resolution and how long (time wise is it?)

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:15 (seventeen years ago) link

it's just under 5mins long. the codec is DV Video Decoder, the size is 720x576, bitrate 1536kbps, format PCM.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:21 (seventeen years ago) link

i don't know what any of that means, i just clicked on properties!

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:21 (seventeen years ago) link

right you have a good chance of squashing this, you're on a PC right

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:33 (seventeen years ago) link

yep

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:41 (seventeen years ago) link

As long as your intended target has a PC this should work

See if Windows Media Encoder is installed, if it isn't download it from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:42 (seventeen years ago) link

which one should i download? i don't think it's installed but i don't know how to check...

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:45 (seventeen years ago) link

You should be able to encode it to WM9 using that. Go for WM9 Advanced profile and a 2Mbps (2048Kbps) bit rate and you should be fine.

Alternatively you can use VLC from Videolan.org and in the open file dialogue box choose Advanced output and select either h264 or mp4v (with mp4a for the video) from the transcode options. Use 2048 for video and 192 for audio in terms of bit-rate.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:48 (seventeen years ago) link

It will be in start menu, All programmes if installed.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:49 (seventeen years ago) link

what i mean is do i download Windows Media Encoder 9 Series or Windows Media Encoder x64 Edition 9 Series? my computer is windows xp professional 2002...

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:56 (seventeen years ago) link

the first one

sede vacante (blueski), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 10:57 (seventeen years ago) link

the windows one wouldn't install so i'm using the vlc one. but...

the open file dialogue box choose Advanced output and select either h264 or mp4v (with mp4a for the video) from the transcode options. Use 2048 for video and 192 for audio in terms of bit-rate.

there is no advanced output option in the open file box! and where are the transcode options?

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:07 (seventeen years ago) link

Use open file rather than quick open file, see the tick box at the bottom of the window

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:17 (seventeen years ago) link

ok. it's not doing anything though. i've ticked all those options and clicked ok and nothing's happening.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:20 (seventeen years ago) link

you also need to set the encapsulation method to MPEG 4 and set an output file name by clicking browse next to the file radio button.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:28 (seventeen years ago) link

ok this creates a weird file with nothing in it which won't open automatically or play though.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:33 (seventeen years ago) link

is there anything else i need to tick? it's not saving it as a file of any particular type, i really don't understand what i'm doing wrong

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:57 (seventeen years ago) link

what did it call the file?

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 11:58 (seventeen years ago) link

it didn't call it anything! i mean i typed in the name of the file ("climate change") and clicked on the location i wanted it in (my videos), but it didn't give me any file options to save it as - it just said * files (*)

so i clicked save, then did the transcoding options you suggested, then ok...and there is a file in my videos, but it's not right, it just says it's a file.

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 12:08 (seventeen years ago) link

you might need to add a filename extension, rename it as filename .mp4. Also how long ago did you start transcoding, it could take some time.

Ed (dali), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 12:09 (seventeen years ago) link

OH!!!! the problem was that i was immediately clicking through to my videos after pressing ok, and i kept stopping it by mistake. it's done now. thanks ed!

lexpretend (lexpretend), Tuesday, 19 December 2006 12:17 (seventeen years ago) link

is there a...

MAGICAL PROGRAMME that can convert scanned-in documents (ie articles) into... EDITABLE WORD-PROCESSOR-TYPE TEXT??????!!!!!!!!!???????

temporary enrique (temporary enrique), Thursday, 21 December 2006 15:16 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, Google 'OCR software'

Ed (dali), Thursday, 21 December 2006 15:30 (seventeen years ago) link

if i take a 192 kbps mp3, chop a blip off the end using cool edit pro2 then save it as 256kbps am i losing a LOT of quality? it'll say in winamp that it's 256kbps but does it actually go down to something like 180kbps or does it stay the same (and only reduce if i save it at a lower bitrate than the original mp3)? what's the best way of doing this to retain quality?

Affectian (Affectian), Thursday, 21 December 2006 18:54 (seventeen years ago) link

There are programs that can cut up mp3s blockwise without reencoding

jw (ex machina), Thursday, 21 December 2006 19:12 (seventeen years ago) link

Does anyone know if the release of FireFox version 2.0.0.1 will fix the jumpy browser problem? I've tried various things, but nothing seems to work.

molly mummenschanz (molly d), Thursday, 21 December 2006 19:21 (seventeen years ago) link

ughhhh nooooooo

how do i fix my office suite? i have 2004 for mac? i tried downloading update but it did not install and i have the system requirements covered as far as i know.

te,he (tehresa), Monday, 31 August 2009 23:41 (fourteen years ago) link

i AGREE. i hate when people send you docx. rude.

spite n ease (harbl), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:20 (fourteen years ago) link

get with the times grandpas

max max max max, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:22 (fourteen years ago) link

why would ms completely change the format though, it's like they don't even care about user-friendliness at all

spite n ease (harbl), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:23 (fourteen years ago) link

yeah i mean even some windows machines won't read these docs (like the one at my old job).
wish gates would write another nasty letter.

te,he (tehresa), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:25 (fourteen years ago) link

docx keeps my babby in diapers and meatloaf on the table so plz keep this on the sandbox k. no reposts.

jergins, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:31 (fourteen years ago) link

jergins is steve ballmer?

spite n ease (harbl), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 00:34 (fourteen years ago) link

You could try using OpenOffice to convert them. It's available for the Mac OS.

The new x formats are XML coded for lols - this is what the newest injunction/lawsuit against MS is about btw, them trying to appropriate and close another open protocol viz IE handling of html and Access's weird variant of sql.

jaq, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 15:30 (fourteen years ago) link

jergins up to his old tricks eh

max max max max, Tuesday, 1 September 2009 15:42 (fourteen years ago) link

yeah i use open office. it sucks but at least it's not ms office.

spite n ease (harbl), Tuesday, 1 September 2009 16:08 (fourteen years ago) link

two years pass...

How the fucking fuck do I get my gmail contacts onto my new iPhone? This is going to drive me batty. Googling kept turning up the same "solution" that doesn't work for shit.

GAH I hate technology. Except for ILX. Love you boo.

quincie, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 12:47 (twelve years ago) link

i have had a nightmare month with various laptop, desktop, hard drive and car radio issues,

Solved most of them by breaking the shit out of the item in question.

I mean, 'solved' tbf

daramaracas.jpg (p much resigned to deems), Tuesday, 29 November 2011 12:54 (twelve years ago) link

My latest solution is to put an apple sticker on my Dell so that it will act like a Mac. Also to rub the iphone up against the Dell screen to help the gmail contacts get in there via direct contact.

quincie, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 13:05 (twelve years ago) link

Would live an answer. All of my Gmail conacts are on my iPhone bc I previously had an Android, which syncs beautifully w Gmail, and when I got iPhone, they transferred. I think??

Sandbox Jesse, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 14:51 (twelve years ago) link

But they're all out of date bc they don't sync :(

Sandbox Jesse, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 14:51 (twelve years ago) link

update: I have now shown the iphone who is BOSS

quincie, Tuesday, 29 November 2011 17:44 (twelve years ago) link

riphone

daramaracas.jpg (p much resigned to deems), Tuesday, 29 November 2011 17:58 (twelve years ago) link

the internet cannot tell me how i run a .rom

can ilx?

daramaracas.jpg (p much resigned to deems), Wednesday, 30 November 2011 01:01 (twelve years ago) link

quincie, what did you do?

Sandbox Jesse, Wednesday, 30 November 2011 04:18 (twelve years ago) link

I had turned on iCloud for contacts and then followed the instructions for using Exchange to pull them from my google account, which did not work. So I went into itunes and tried to pull them that way, which did not work either, at least I turned *off* iCloud and then used itunes to import, then switched back to iCloud. Haven't yet tested whether or not the contacts will synch between iphone and google :(

quincie, Wednesday, 30 November 2011 14:53 (twelve years ago) link

how do i fix my backspace key - it is stuck. i have a dell. laptop.

sarahel, Thursday, 8 December 2011 21:46 (twelve years ago) link

does anyone actually LIKE Perforce

OH NOES, Monday, 12 December 2011 20:33 (twelve years ago) link

hi can anyone recommend an easy and free bit of software that will rip my dvd's to avi format?

Fozzielad, Saturday, 17 December 2011 01:00 (twelve years ago) link

I don't have data on my phone. how can I load the kindle app onto it? It's a blackberry.

calstars, Sunday, 18 December 2011 21:35 (twelve years ago) link

Download it to computer and sync w cable?

Stevie :-D, Sunday, 18 December 2011 21:50 (twelve years ago) link

also fozzielad everyone seems to love HandBrake

Stevie :-D, Sunday, 18 December 2011 21:52 (twelve years ago) link

cheers x

Fozzielad, Sunday, 18 December 2011 21:55 (twelve years ago) link

Oh, thanks for your response, quincie. My bookmark for this thread got muffed up.

I thought I had a another boring question, but I think it's sorted. But I'll ask anyway: Malware Bytes: C/D? Is free good enough, or upgrade to Pro?

Sandbox Jesse, Tuesday, 27 December 2011 17:08 (twelve years ago) link

I have a bunch of manilla folders in my bookmarks toolbar on Firefox. (Categories like humor, music, news etc.) I would like to replace the folders with icons (images I find or make). As it is I have to hover over the manilla folders to discover what they are as I can't seem to memorize them by position. How can I do this? I use the Smartest Bookmarks Bar addon fwiw. Can't seem to figure this out via Google search.

wrinklepause, Friday, 30 December 2011 02:44 (twelve years ago) link

Ok, help. fucking help. I have this insane malware on my laptop now called Win 7 -- it's a fake antivirus thing that seems to have completely fucked up my computer. I get tons of popup windows, all my start menu options are gone, many programs won't open, etc.

I ran a special tool that disables the processes associated with the program. It actually worked, and then I ran adaware, which removed two "trojans" after a long scan, and I thought everything was fine. But it's still there and the next time I booted it was the same problem again.

To make things worse, I can't find my windows discs. HELP

Hurting, Sunday, 1 January 2012 23:15 (twelve years ago) link

Mrs. Redd's relative got this same virus yesterday, I think she just took her computer to Staples and let them fix it. I think you can also use some other software to get rid of it, but you might have to also manually delete stuff from the registry

I'm in the sandbox with the tombstone HOOS (James Redd), Monday, 2 January 2012 00:50 (twelve years ago) link

my moms opened a fedex email and had the same thing happen. she had to take it in to fix it too

kamb, Monday, 2 January 2012 01:50 (twelve years ago) link

my moms opened a fedex email and had the same thing happen. she had to take it in to fix it too

kamb, Monday, 2 January 2012 01:50 (twelve years ago) link

Yeah, exactly the fedex announcement. Although it was in the spam filter

I'm in the sandbox with the tombstone HOOS (James Redd), Monday, 2 January 2012 01:53 (twelve years ago) link

I think I fixed it -- first you have to get this thing called RKill (just google it) which stops all the processes. You need the file with a disguised extension (it's .com or .something else instead of .exe) so the virus doesn't block it. Then after it stopped everything, I made sure McAfee antivirus was fully updated (this took a long time for some reason -- I think the malware might have made screwed something up). Finally, I ran a full scan using mcafee, which found like 20 different infected files. Then I restarted and had to run one more scan, and finally a lot of my files were back, although things are still a little screwed up, e.g. netflix/silverlight wouldn't work even after I reinstalled the browser and silverlight.

Hurting, Monday, 2 January 2012 03:03 (twelve years ago) link


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