Author Topic: A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own (Read 298997 times)

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2075 on:** 01 June, 2022, 12:17:04 pm »

Just when I thought I'd got my all-New! IMPROVED!!1! Truck & Trailer mod for American Truck Simulator fit for public consumption They go and release a bunch of Lode King & Prestige trailers. Hah, my life is but a box of worm gears

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2076 on:** 14 June, 2022, 11:47:44 am »

Google engineer suspended for violating confidentiality policies over 'sentient' AI. The Rise of the Machines is nigh!

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2077 on:** 15 June, 2022, 01:07:29 am »

Just when I thought I'd got my all-New! IMPROVED!!1! Truck & Trailer mod for Euro Truck Simulator 2 fit for public consumption an as-yet-unidentified Mercedes pops up hauling a double trailer in Poland, where it ent supposed to be. Hah, my life is still a box of worm gears

cycleman · « **Reply #2078 on:** 15 June, 2022, 11:05:43 am »

Truck driver using Google maps? 😉

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2079 on:** 15 June, 2022, 02:33:18 pm »

Or rank buffoonery on my part. Now I have to check a Several of hundreds of other files. A job for Command-Line-Fu

woollypigs · « **Reply #2080 on:** 15 June, 2022, 02:51:35 pm »

While visiting my folks over the weekend. Me and the old man were trying to figure out how to play the digital copies he had of old classical concerts recorded from TV onto VHS. On and via either the USB, re-writeable DVD, HDD recorder or the TV, heck we even tried out a screen share app his TV had from his laptop, chromecast etc. Of course various items didn't take the video version that the app he had on his laptop could convert to and from. So I told him what about trying out Handbreak, but it wouldn't run on win11 without a runtime update. But the newest version of either didn't like each other so we had to downgrade the .net to get Handbreak to work. This resulted it to spit out a video that we could play on some, but not others, where something didn't want to pull the sound from the file to pass through his surround sound come DAP radio thingamajig. Then it was time to eat and I left him to install a media server on his old win10 laptop as we didn't have time to faff around with that. So hopefully one of his gadgets can play the tv shows, so they can enjoy the music in either the kitchen, conservatory, bedroom or living room as the thingamajig can pipe the sound out to all these rooms.

TheLurker · « **Reply #2081 on:** 15 June, 2022, 08:21:04 pm »

This has been around for a loooong time now, but I hadn't tripped over it until today.

Warning. Time sink.

Read this... http://silent.org.pl/home/2022/06/13/the-floppotron-3-0/

Then go here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGfkPCZYfFw then here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCXRerqaJI and... well you know how to search youtube. There are lots.

This is my favourite - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL5NlEwDoPs

Jaded · « **Reply #2082 on:** 15 June, 2022, 08:34:42 pm »

^ utterly barking!

hellymedic · « **Reply #2083 on:** 16 June, 2022, 01:24:00 pm »

The man in my life has several man caves, many of which contain a computer or two.
The man thinks the HP wired mouse is the best mouse for his needs and requests I buy another (#7 we think) from Mr Sainsbury's House of Toothy Comestibles.
Said mouse is listed on the website.
I click on 'Add'.
Button temporarily changes colour but does not actually add the mouse.
I reload the page. Same problem.
I approach mouse from another angle. No go.
Seems I can order a shedload of Toothy Comestibles.
But no mouse!

ETA No HP X500 mouse.
I could order a Logitech wired mouse for the same price, with no trouble but that's not the mouse he wants.

It seems the HP X500 mouse has a bug…

I might phone them up if I can be arsed...

hellymedic · « **Reply #2084 on:** 16 June, 2022, 05:12:29 pm »

So I phoned Custard Services.
Lady could not find said mouse at all, only HP Everyday Printer Paper.
Which is not a mouse!
I found the item number for said mouse but lady finds nothing under that code.

I can only conclude this item is not currently stocked.

Ho hum.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2085 on:** 18 June, 2022, 01:17:17 pm »

Audible! We don't mind your e-mail messages about offers'n'shit. We do mind them when they're from audible.de. Just stop it

Sergeant Pluck · « **Reply #2086 on:** 18 June, 2022, 03:12:38 pm »

USB connnectors - which way is up?

I have one of these and I want to get a 90 degree lead to fit it. It is going to sit under the stem, the other way up to what is shown in this photo. The label will face down - do I need an “up" or “down" lead?

Ham · « **Reply #2087 on:** 20 June, 2022, 08:26:18 am »

This might help.

In other news, I've been mucking around with the WiFi at Ham Hall, one of the motivations for the upgrade was an issue with my weather station, a 2.4Ghz capable device which had an odd issue. It would connect and hold a stable connection in the study, but move 7m rearwards into the kitchen and the internet link (and thus, upload of data) was flaky to the point of non-functioning. I put it down to an AP/device issue, which I thought would be sorted on upgrade. It wasn't.

OK, back in the study, connected instantly. Back in the kitchen, total fail. (leaving aside the contortions to make certain there was only the standard single wall intervening) Back in the study, plug into a battery pack. Fine. Move to the kitchen. Solid. Hmm. OK, do some swap around with leads to leave the pack on charge while delivering to the station. come back in the morning. Zero.

In a moment of lucidity - could it possibly be a dodgy micro USB lead? Answer: yes. Lead swapped - solid.

Jurek · « **Reply #2088 on:** 20 June, 2022, 05:33:22 pm »

The Magic Mouse for my 2012 iMac has just died after being proffered some new batteries.
Luckily, on my shelves, I had a brand spanking new Magic Mouse which I bought for use with my MacBook Air, before I realised how good the touchpad on the MacBook Air actually is.
Peace and harmony have been restored to all things Mac in this house.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2089 on:** 24 June, 2022, 01:59:12 am »

I finally got the current iteration of The Ongoing Project out the door six weeks later than planned because duff hardware and knowing my luck They will unleash another game update:

Smack in the middle of Le Tour, or
Smack in the middle of LEL, or
Smack in the middle of my holibobs in Abroad, wherein dwell teh FOREIGNS

Bah!

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2090 on:** 13 July, 2022, 08:04:02 am »

Internet of Shit about to become a good deal shitter as Hive to pull the plug on smart home gadgets by 2025.

Quote

At Hive, we've got big plans to make... homes greener, so we've made the tough decision to discontinue our smart security and leak detection products. As a smart tech brand in the middle of a climate crisis, we know the focus needs to change and will instead be developing smart home tech that'll help get us closer to achieving Net Zero.

One disgruntled contributor to El Reg's BTL section wondered just how dumping thousands of tonnes of worthless electronic tat in landfill will help with that Net Zero goal.

Kim · « **Reply #2091 on:** 13 July, 2022, 12:47:50 pm »

Nice bit of greenwash for the "we can't be arsed".

Beardy · « **Reply #2092 on:** 13 July, 2022, 01:35:07 pm »

If only tech savvy people could have predicted this and warned of Using Other Peoples Computers to control your IoT at home…

Kim · « **Reply #2093 on:** 13 July, 2022, 01:41:18 pm »

To be fair, most people with IoS smart things I know seem to be in the "Yes, I know it'll be landfill in 3-5 years, but computers are hard and oohshiny / useful accessibility" camp.

Some people are fanatical about open standards to avoid these problems, and will be fine. Many won't go near anything smarter than a digital timer, and will also be fine. The "$comapny shut down a server and now my light switches don't work" people are the internet equivalent of those who look angry about things in local papers. Some of them probably still have AOL accounts.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2094 on:** 13 July, 2022, 04:42:35 pm »

(Whispers) I know at least two fairly tech-savvy people who use still AOL accounts for their personal Babbage-Post. Probably from inertia, mind.

<== Still! Uses! Yahoo! For! Most! Of! His!

Kim · « **Reply #2095 on:** 13 July, 2022, 05:01:44 pm »

Yes, well, tech-savvy people who can't be arsed don't really expect to be able to moan at anyone when the inevitable happens.

Feanor · « **Reply #2096 on:** 14 July, 2022, 07:24:09 pm »

So Junior #2, the theoretical physicist, has a need for a Linux laptop for his work, with Ubuntu on it.
Fine. Mrs F has an old Dell XPS which can be re-purposed.
An ISO is downloaded, and Rufus is used to make a bootable USB stick. This all works as expected.

The installer gets so far, then fails to find a hard drive to install on.
This is slightly complicated by the fact the laptop has 2 drives: a smaller SSD, and a bigger HDD.

As usual, google will produce lots of hits, and as usual for Linux installs, they are all wrong or out of date.

Three things needed fixing:

-Go into BIOS and set the SATA controllers to AHCI not RAID - Google found this just fine.
-Add boot parameters to GRUB for 'nvme_load=yes' - where this goes is well at odds with any of the instructions.

Even then, the installer could not see the drives.
But it did come up in 'Live' mode directly off the USB stick.
Within the Live mode session, tools like gparted could see the disks just fine.
They did not have a normal partition table, and were showing as having a raid structure on them.
I set up a normal partition structure on the drives (just an empty partition table, all space unallocated), and on re-booting then they showed up in the installer.

I'm a little irritated the installer did not show the drives just as bare metal and allow me to partition as required.
It got all squeamish about the old raid ones and zeros on the platters.
Screw that! I want to obliterate the ones and zeros.
Just show me the bare metal drives! Ignore what's currently on it!

pcolbeck · « **Reply #2097 on:** 16 July, 2022, 07:59:30 pm »

Need to speed up your network? Cisco just launched a new switch which can have up to 288 400Gbps Ethernet ports! That's a proper beast of a switch.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2098 on:** 21 July, 2022, 10:15:49 am »

Space Karen performs tyre-screeching handbrake turn, flogs off Bitcoin.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #2099 on:** 24 August, 2022, 07:24:05 pm »

No, you clot, it would be an order of magnitude quicker to copy those files from $NAS to external USB drive attached to laptop if you disconnected said drive and plugged it into a machine with a recognisable amount of computing power and a decent network speed