Techy Thread *no requesting or giving out cracks* *no Windows activation stuff please*

[Toad in the Hole]

In Opera, does anyone know why I get a question mark inside a diamond replacing characters outside of the normal character set?  Includes accented characters etc.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Can someone recommend a good program for converting FLAC files to mp3 while preserving tag information? I want to put the files on my ipod but obviously I can't do that seeing as FLAC isn't supported.

[Eis Nein]

MediaMonkey so converts FLAC to mp3 and syncs with mp3 players.

[Robot DeNiro]

Whenever I start up my PC, before windows loads I get a black screen with a load of techy looking words and numbers on it, it says something like "CPU is unworkable" and I have to press F1 to continue to start XP.

I had this a while ago, it's a scary error message isn't it?  I think I had to go into the BIOS to change the CPU settings.  For some reason the BIOS thought that the machine had the wrong sort of chip inside it - Pentium 2 instead of Pentium 3, or the wrong speed (350 instead of 500) or something.

[mook]

Whenever I start up my PC, before windows loads I get a black screen with a load of techy looking words and numbers on it, it says something like "CPU is unworkable" and I have to press F1 to continue to start XP.

I had this a while ago, it's a scary error message isn't it?  I think I had to go into the BIOS to change the CPU settings.  For some reason the BIOS thought that the machine had the wrong sort of chip inside it - Pentium 2 instead of Pentium 3, or the wrong speed (350 instead of 500) or something.

I've had a bit more of a google and it turns out it is something to do with my A-bit motherboard not recognising the speed of my cpu as you said. All in all it looks a bit too much hassle for someone with my lack of techy ability to be able to change confidently, so I'll stick to hitting F1 I think.


Ta anyway.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

Neil, just out of curiosity, what is the ratio of browser users on this site?  On my site it's about 60% IE, 30% Firefox, 10% others.  I was wondering if CaB reflects that.

[rudi]

This should be a simple one for you non-morons out there (ie not me).

The clock on my computer runs fast (about 4-5 mins a week).

How do I solve this?

Thanks in advance...

[Marv Orange]

This should be a simple one for you non-morons out there (ie not me).

The clock on my computer runs fast (about 4-5 mins a week).

How do I solve this?

Thanks in advance...

Double click clock in the system tray > Internet Time Tab >  check the the 'Automatically synchronize with an Internet time server' box.

[Milo]

Double-click the clock, go to the Internet Time tab and tell it to synchronise. It'll check itself and adjust every week or so then.

EDIT: heh, beaten to it.

[ColaCoca]

Are you running XP?

If so, double click the clock, select the Internet Time tab, tick the 'Automatically synchronise..... blah, blah' box and enter a time server.  This one works OK for me time-a.nist.gov

This might work if you're lucky.

[ColaCoca]

EDIT: heh, beaten to it.

Me too!  Haven't you lot got anything better to do?  I haven't.

[rudi]

You're all very lovely.

Thanks folks.
x

[rudi]

Are you running XP?

If so, double click the clock, select the Internet Time tab, tick the 'Automatically synchronise..... blah, blah' box and enter a time server.  This one works OK for me time-a.nist.gov

This might work if you're lucky.

Hmm, but having a look, it appears that's all already in place, yet it really does wander a fair bit.

Back to square one, it appears...

[ColaCoca]

What happens if you click update now?  If it doesn't synchronize successfully try a different time server.

[rudi]

What happens if you click update now?  If it doesn't synchronize successfully try a different time server.

Dunno as I've already adjusted the time manually.

I'll try that in a week or so and get back to you.

Thanks for your concern though.
x

[InfiniteFury]

Heh - didn't think it'd be too long before I was back in here, that'll learn me to be so cocky :-)

I did a fresh install of Windows XP this morning, got every Windows security fix installed so I've got Service Pack 2 on of course.

Anyway, during the initial installation process, I was asked to create an NTFS partition which I duly did but the maximim size was (IIRC) 138GB.

Now my 250GB drive only shows up as being 138GB. I did a fresh install once before and had the same problem but a maintenance down the road picked this up and freed up the space - I'm just buggered if I can remember what it was.

Anyone know off-hand please?

[Milo]

If you right-click My Computer and go to Manage you can go to the Disk Management section. This will definitely let you create a new partition on the free space of the disk and *possibly* let you increase the size of the current partition to take up the free space.

[InfiniteFury]

Hmmm interesting, thanks for that Milo.

In actual fact I think I'm going to bung games and apps and what have you on the first partition and bung the rest into a second partition for my music apps and audio processing - I think that's generally advised anyway.

[Hypnotoad.]

I thought this was a pre-SP2 thing to be honest, I'm sure when I had this issue before, it went away when I upgraded to SP2

If you do as Milo says, check the details under disk management. If its showing the 100gb or so free space, right click the partition and click "Extend"

It won't let you do this if the disk is not "dynamic"

To upgrade your disk to dynamic, in disk manager again, right click the disk itself to the left of the partition, and select convert to dynamic

The extend option should then appear

[Hypnotoad.]

Come to think of it, I seem to remember the SP2/250gb issue trashed a drive of mine once

I had data on it, rebuilt my PC to Windows XP (seperate system disk), upgraded to SP2 so the 250gb disk was ok, but all the data had become corrupted during Windows changing its view of it from 130 whatever up to 250gb

The answer was to load XP using a slipstreamed SP2 installation CD, google that for more information, although my data was shagged by that point. The problem was having the 250gb partition in place during installation, and XP getting confused

I reckon if you used an SP2 slipstreamed CD from the off, it would probably recognise the disk ok during installation and let you create a 250gb partition

[The Man With Brass Eyes]

Alternatively, try Firefox Portable which is a version designed to run off a USB memory drive.

Thanks.  Actually, that might be a plan.  I suppose you can run it off a CD.

Should you need to secretly install Firefox at work when they only allow iE - neofox theme will create the illusion of iE6:



Could anyone shed any light why (larger) companies won't allow employees to run, say Firefox instead of iE?  It can't be to do with licensing can it, as they're both free.

[Pseudopath]

Could anyone shed any light why (larger) companies won't allow employees to run, say Firefox instead of iE?  It can't be to do with licensing can it, as they're both free.

I don't think they've got anything against Firefox per se (although a lot of supposed IT Consultants I've met don't even know what it is...goons), but for auditing purposes it's much easier for larger companies to have a standardised set of applications and prevent users from installing third-party applications. It's also possible for the server administrator to configure and lock down Internet Explorer from the central server.

Although Internet Explorer is demonstrably less-secure than Firefox, most companies with their heads screwed on have decent firewalls and patch management procedures in place and as a result avoid the pitfalls encountered by home users.

Add the fact that there are still many popular websites which don't display properly in Firefox and you can see why support departments would be reluctant to take the plunge.

[Marv Orange]

Could anyone shed any light why (larger) companies won't allow employees to run, say Firefox instead of iE?  It can't be to do with licensing can it, as they're both free.

EDIT: ^^ what he said


It comes standard with windows, so I doubt IT providers (the guys who support and provide the pcs) can be arsed rolling out a new browser to users if they don't have to.

Also the majority of computer users in the office are numb nuts so it'll probably cause more problems as they are probably more familiar with using IE.

On top of all this IT providers don't like the end user fucking around with the build they put on the PC, there is usually a condition that non standard applications cannot be installed, and if they are they wont be supported. As it could lead to more problems and conflicts.

[waste of chops]

Could anyone shed any light why (larger) companies won't allow employees to run, say Firefox instead of iE?  It can't be to do with licensing can it, as they're both free.

Maybe they're paranoid about staff installing their own software and (potentially) fucking things up, or maybe the IT staff don't want anyone to know that their shitty corporate intranet site only works with one specific point release of IE6 so they'll do anything in their power to stop them looking like twats.

[Pseudopath]

maybe the IT staff don't want anyone to know that their shitty corporate intranet site only works with one specific point release of IE6 so they'll do anything in their power to stop them looking like twats.

Ha ha! Too true, too true!

[mothman]

Our Intranet has a auto-login initial page which detects who you are and then redirects you to the main Intranet page with whatever level of access your department and position require. But that auto-login page doesn't work with Firefox. Beyond that, we don't have a problem with people using it since it's such a stable and secure browser; my lackey and I both use IE for the Intranet and Firefox for the Internet, whereas the remainder of our technologically-incompetent staff just use IE and bugger up their PCs in all sorts of ways. I spend my days removing MSN/Yahoo/Google toolbars whose handy pop-up blockers stop the time-recording system working properly. Meanwhile, the version of IE that comes with XP SP-2 has a pop-up blocker that stops our professional-subscriptions websites from launching from the Intranet. . .

[Marv Orange]

When I play a HDTV file in VLC, there is almost constant tearing of the image. Does anyone know a player that this doesn't happen with.

[Toad in the Hole]

firefoxfirefoxfirefoxfirefox

*whispers* What about Opera...?

[Go With The Flow]

firefoxfirefoxfirefoxfirefox

*whispers* What about Opera...?

Spoiler alert

*tumbleweed*

[close]

[Hypnotoad.]

firefoxfirefoxfirefoxfirefox

*whispers* What about Opera...?

Indeed, best browser there is

And for the record, we don't allow users to have Firefox because IE is compatible with more websites (especially conferenceing type applications and supplier e-commerce stuff, all out of our control) and having two applications doing the same job is not practical when you consider security patching, bug fixes etc, and yes Firefox does have security updates too

Am surprised people still have so many problems with the Microsoft Platform, XP SP2 with IE6 is as stable as anything -comparable- out there