Author Topic: A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own (Read 300647 times)

Ham · « **Reply #175 on:** 12 April, 2015, 08:53:43 am »

Temptation, thy name is Aquarius

http://www.bq.com/gb/ubuntu.html#aquaris-e4-5

Or would be if you didn't have to HDMI connect it to turn it into a reeeel 'puter

OK, I'm still tempted.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #176 on:** 12 April, 2015, 08:59:08 am »

I wonder why that web page doesn't show the original cover of "Electric Ladyland"

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #177 on:** 13 April, 2015, 03:53:14 pm »

Lapdancer making funny noises again. CoreTemp says 58 degrees. Unlikely to be the fan.

Arses

barakta · « **Reply #178 on:** 14 April, 2015, 06:11:15 pm »

I just read "Iceweasel" as "pissweasel"... That's about the level given it's been relegated to "2nd backup browser" for lots of fail reasons...

Stupid laptop which keeps refusing to boot is now happily booting and working all innocent like having had several months in the "Broken laptop filing cabinet drawer of shame"...

BrianI · « **Reply #179 on:** 14 April, 2015, 06:48:19 pm »

'Puter related woes!

My old Samsung NC10 Netbook (which is running Xubuntu 14.04.2) is suffering from what I think is a dodgy cable from the motherboard to the screen. Depending on the angle I tilt the screen at, the screen goes all white! Waggle it back and forth, and it comes back again.

Desktop PC (a somewhat oldish hodge podge of bits, Intel Core2 Duo E5200, Socket 775 mobo, 4gb ram, some flavour of nvidia PCI-E Gforce graphics card) is also playing up. High pitched whines (motherboard capacitors on way out? PSU on way out?) from it's innards somewhere, and every 20 minutes or so the machine hangs up completely! Not sure what is at fault, and sounds like it is terminal.

Been a while since I purchased computer parts, question is, have things moved on so much that it'll be easier just to replace the current system with an osless desktop base unit and transfer hard drive across?

Biggsy · « **Reply #180 on:** 14 April, 2015, 07:31:34 pm »

Quote from: BrianI on 14 April, 2015, 06:48:19 pm

Been a while since I purchased computer parts, question is, have things moved on so much that it'll be easier just to replace the current system with an osless desktop base unit and transfer hard drive across?

Not entirely.

If mobo does need replacing (first stick fingers in all fans to eliminate fan noise), I think the sensible options are:

1. Replace mobo with a second-hand similar model (for CPU compatibility), and the graphics card for a brand new one, and maybe the PSU if suspect.

2. Get a new up-to-date mobo and CPU and graphics card (and PSU and case if old ones incompatible or faulty), if you enjoy building up your own specification.

3. Get a whole new ready-built computer unit.

Wombat · « **Reply #181 on:** 15 April, 2015, 08:18:53 am »

Quote from: BrianI on 14 April, 2015, 06:48:19 pm

'Puter related woes!

My old Samsung NC10 Netbook (which is running Xubuntu 14.04.2) is suffering from what I think is a dodgy cable from the motherboard to the screen. Depending on the angle I tilt the screen at, the screen goes all white! Waggle it back and forth, and it comes back again.

Desktop PC (a somewhat oldish hodge podge of bits, Intel Core2 Duo E5200, Socket 775 mobo, 4gb ram, some flavour of nvidia PCI-E Gforce graphics card) is also playing up. High pitched whines (motherboard capacitors on way out? PSU on way out?) from it's innards somewhere, and every 20 minutes or so the machine hangs up completely! Not sure what is at fault, and sounds like it is terminal.

Been a while since I purchased computer parts, question is, have things moved on so much that it'll be easier just to replace the current system with an osless desktop base unit and transfer hard drive across?

We've got an old Samsung NC10 going spare.... Works fine, got Winders on it at the mo, but i'm sure you would soon sort that.

Gattopardo · « **Reply #182 on:** 15 April, 2015, 05:17:01 pm »

Quote from: Wombat on 15 April, 2015, 08:18:53 am

Quote from: BrianI on 14 April, 2015, 06:48:19 pm
'Puter related woes!

My old Samsung NC10 Netbook (which is running Xubuntu 14.04.2) is suffering from what I think is a dodgy cable from the motherboard to the screen. Depending on the angle I tilt the screen at, the screen goes all white! Waggle it back and forth, and it comes back again.

Desktop PC (a somewhat oldish hodge podge of bits, Intel Core2 Duo E5200, Socket 775 mobo, 4gb ram, some flavour of nvidia PCI-E Gforce graphics card) is also playing up. High pitched whines (motherboard capacitors on way out? PSU on way out?) from it's innards somewhere, and every 20 minutes or so the machine hangs up completely! Not sure what is at fault, and sounds like it is terminal.

Been a while since I purchased computer parts, question is, have things moved on so much that it'll be easier just to replace the current system with an osless desktop base unit and transfer hard drive across?

We've got an old Samsung NC10 going spare.... Works fine, got Winders on it at the mo, but i'm sure you would soon sort that.

Um hackintosh potential.

Gattopardo · « **Reply #183 on:** 15 April, 2015, 05:18:49 pm »

Quote from: BrianI on 14 April, 2015, 06:48:19 pm

'Puter related woes!

My old Samsung NC10 Netbook (which is running Xubuntu 14.04.2) is suffering from what I think is a dodgy cable from the motherboard to the screen. Depending on the angle I tilt the screen at, the screen goes all white! Waggle it back and forth, and it comes back again.

Desktop PC (a somewhat oldish hodge podge of bits, Intel Core2 Duo E5200, Socket 775 mobo, 4gb ram, some flavour of nvidia PCI-E Gforce graphics card) is also playing up. High pitched whines (motherboard capacitors on way out? PSU on way out?) from it's innards somewhere, and every 20 minutes or so the machine hangs up completely! Not sure what is at fault, and sounds like it is terminal.

Been a while since I purchased computer parts, question is, have things moved on so much that it'll be easier just to replace the current system with an osless desktop base unit and transfer hard drive across?

Er can remember how local you are to London as I'm sure I have a spare power supply that could help and a quick replacement of heat transfer paste and clean and light lube of the fan will help the nc10.

BrianI · « **Reply #184 on:** 18 April, 2015, 06:57:09 pm »

Quote from: Biggsy on 14 April, 2015, 07:31:34 pm

3. Get a whole new ready-built computer unit.

That's what I did as an "anniversary of new job" treat to myself!

I went with an Overclockers UK "Primo Pro AX" Configurable AMD A Series APU Office PC, with a few customisations:
specs:
Case: Raijintek Arcadia Mid Tower USB 3.0 Case - Black
- Power Supply: BeQuiet System Power 7 350W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply
- CPU: AMD A8-6600K 3.90GHz (Socket FM2) APU Richland Quad Core Processor
- Motherboard: Gigabyte F2A58M-HD2 AMD A58 Chipset Micro ATX Motherboard
- Cooler: AMD Approved Cooler
- RAM: Kingston HyperX 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-14900C9 1866MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Gold (HX318C9BGK2/8-OC)
- Primary Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD
- Graphics Card: Onboard AMD HD Graphics
- Sound: High Definition 7.1 Onboard Sound Card
- Optical Drive: OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
- Networking: Gigabit LAN

£301

OS will be Linux Mint 17.1 KDE edition

OK, so I could have saved a bit by building my own, but can't be bothered with that nowadays.

SHould be a a good rig for my photo editing / panorama stitching - quad core @ 3.9GHz!

I remember my first PC way back in 1997 had a Cyrix PR233Mhz cpu, http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/6x86/Cyrix-6x86MX-PR233%20%2875MHz%202.9V%29.html How things have moved on since then!

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #185 on:** 18 April, 2015, 07:34:57 pm »

I asked you to use that picture on the new box, so why did you apply it to the lapdancer as well, eh? EH??

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #186 on:** 18 April, 2015, 11:07:36 pm »

Similar spec to my new one, Brian. The difference between two cores plodding along at 1GHz with 4GB of RAM and four cores at high revs and 16GB is this: quite astonishing.

Pingu · « **Reply #187 on:** 20 April, 2015, 09:24:06 pm »

Made a flowchart with M$ Word 2003*. That's two hours of my life I won't get back.

*Don't ask

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #188 on:** 21 April, 2015, 01:24:22 am »

I have successfully persuaded the two Win 8.1 boxen at Larrington Towers to retain their own desktop and sign-in screen pictures using some feature buried in the Playmobil side of the user interface to turn off the syncing which I was never asked about in the first place. Can you do this from the Control Panel? I think not.

For the record, Microsith, the monitor on the desktop machine dates from the late Cretaceous and has a 4:3 aspect ratio so no, it isn't a fucking touchscreen.

woollypigs · « **Reply #189 on:** 21 April, 2015, 10:50:19 pm »

Learned how to use "screen -r" today. Sadly Finch don't want to connect to IRC but only ICQ on the remote laptop/server. So the point of learning screen is a bit mute.

David Martin · « **Reply #190 on:** 22 April, 2015, 12:37:28 pm »

Screen is one of those really useful tools.

Afasoas · « **Reply #191 on:** 23 April, 2015, 08:09:27 pm »

Writing my first C# in anger today. A widget to automatically enable extra monitors and set them to their native resolution on the Windows Server 2008 workstations. From Windows 7 onwards there is a nice command line utility to do it, but Server 2k8 is takes after Vista so that means using a native C library and a small plethora of unmanaged objects.

Still, it hopefully means no more late nights/weekends when we re-image the fleet of developer PCs.

David Martin · « **Reply #192 on:** 23 April, 2015, 10:53:52 pm »

Uploading my image library to Box. This could take some time as it is half a terabyte.

Via sFTP where each file is a separate command so it is pretty resilient to moving from home to work etc.

woollypigs · « **Reply #193 on:** 01 May, 2015, 09:18:19 pm »

Just got a SPAM today telling me that my hearth attack is only hours away, with the date 9 Apr 2015 8.35am ...

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #194 on:** 04 May, 2015, 03:28:08 pm »

Found a previously-unsuspected feature in mp3tag yesterday, which is that clicking at the top of the very leftmost column with the little file type icons¹ in it will "sort" the files into an order that's random enough for my purposes. This is approximately a gazillion times quicker than any other method I've found.

Now if I could just find a way of telling the media player on the NAS and/or AV receiver to start a playlist where it left off the previous time². And/or to understand the concept of "play counts".

Though why it thinks iTunes is the default player for mp3s is a mystery as it's not installed on that Babbage-Engine any more.
I can hack it manually, obv, but that's sub-optimal.

Pickled Onion · « **Reply #195 on:** 04 May, 2015, 05:52:59 pm »

I have paid for a DVD. With money. I'm told I am "Supporting the movie industry".

All I want to do is watch it on my lappie, perhaps avoiding the titles and/or logos that apparently it's "not permitted" to skip.

But no, some stupid, brain-dead anti-piracy thing means that about half way through watching the film (that I've paid for. With money. Supporting the movie industry) it starts jumping from scene to scene. So fucking clever. Do you really think that will stop someone pirating it? Or will it just piss off people who have paid money thinking they were supporting the movie industry? Perhaps next time I'll just download it.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #196 on:** 04 May, 2015, 06:09:17 pm »

Some films are meant to do that. Are you sure you haven't bought the Director's Über-Poncey Cut by accident?

Ruthie · « **Reply #197 on:** 04 May, 2015, 08:12:14 pm »

It seems my posh laptop isn't keen on my excellent coffee

Afasoas · « **Reply #198 on:** 05 May, 2015, 12:02:21 pm »

I really can't wait for the movie industry to catch up and offer reasonably priced "paid for downloads" which are DRM-free.

For instance, it's 10 squidlets to "rent" some fillums from Amazon. You imagine without the effort of producing a optical disk, producing a case for it, distributing it etc. etc. that for 10 squidlets you would get to KEEP the film.

bah.

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #199 on:** 05 May, 2015, 12:34:06 pm »

Moreover you can buy the complete Matrix Trilogy, for e.g., from Sainsbury's on Blu-Ray for a tenner...

Author Topic: A random thread for small computing things that don't really warrant a thread of their own (Read 300647 times)

Afasoas

Afasoas