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[Suttonpubcrawl]

Is it possible for me to run an http server on my computer from behind a firewall which can serve pages to other people over the internet? I've tried but can't quite work out what settings I need to use for the server and the firewall.

[Shaun]

Yes, you just need to open a port on your firewall and use the same port for your HTTP server (usually 80). Regarding server settings what are you confused about?

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Well you see, that's what I did. I opened port 80 to my computer and it still wasn't working. This was on some slightly dodgy http server so I installed Apache and still had no luck. I'm using smoothwall as my firewall so I'm not sure if that's anything to do with it. I just kept getting a "connection refused" message when I tried testing it over the internet.

[Shaun]

Are you behind a NAT router (I notice you are using smoothwall so you probably either aren't or have your smoothwall box set up as a DMZ)? Can you access your web server through http://127.0.0.1?

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Can you see that? If you can... well the image tells you itself. If you can't then it's not working. I've connected to my university's network or something like that and suddenly it started working, I'm beginning to suspect the problem was that for some reason I couldn't see it myself over the internet. It was working properly on my home network.

[Shaun]

Yes, that works.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Thanks for the help! I'm very confused about why I can't see it myself, but then I'm very confused about the whole thing to be honest. I don't really know what I'm doing.

[greencalx]

What URL are you using to try and see it yourself?  If you're on the same machine, you should probably use something like http://localhost/mypage.html .  Then the browser talks directly to the server, and doesn't (shouldn't) go through the firewall.  If that works, but the IP address you used above doesn't, I suspect the firewall is swallowing your packets on the way out.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

To try and look at it I've been using both my IP on the local network and my IP on the internet. If I use my IP on the local network the server does work and the pages are visible to me, so I knew the http server was working. If I tried using my IP on the internet then for some reason it doesn't work for me but it does work for other people (that image above is being served by my computer). It must be something my firewall is doing but I'm not sure why it does it.

[Milo]

Presumably the firewall only forwards the port for requests that come from outside the network, so your requests don't get passed to the server properly. Or something.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Hi- Just a code query here:

I've just finished adding some links on my page to music tracks:
http://www.myspace.com/jackanderton

The links are in the contained scrollbox.

However- none are working.

The links themselves are absolutely fine- there's a link to one here:
http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=672&start=1200
It's working fine, as you can see. All the links from the page from the site where they're hosted are working too:
http://mp3artistsonline.com/artists/bands/1082/music.php

So I think it's because the links are automatically opening in the same window wheras they should be opening a new window. In BB links seem to open a new window everytime, however I'm not sure at all how to do this in HTML so any help would be much appreciated.

At the moment my code is just a simple 'a href' code.

So I probably have to add something extra to get the link to open in a new window so it actually works.Anyone know the code?

EDIT- If you right-click and select 'Open in a new window' the same thing happens. So I really don't know what's going on.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

For anyone curious about my http server and why it won't work for me but does for everyone else, I was talking to a friend who knows a lot about networking and he explained it. Apparently, port forwarding doesn't work in a loop, which is what I was happening when I was trying to look at it myself.

[gazzyk1ns]

Shoulders did you ever find out how to do that struck-through text? The "official" HTML tag for it these days is <del>.

Edit: Is your problem that you're replacing the ? after .php with an &, in the URLs?

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

No so thanks for that!

Oh and Thank you! It turned out it was because I'd typed in '&' where it should've been '?'. I could've been there a long time trying to figure that out.

They're all working now.

Gah, bloody ridiculous mistake to make.

[nomegusta]

Could someone help me with my Xbox 360 Live problems?

I'm using a Uni connection so I don't think I can just plug the Xbox straight into the connection socket as it can't obtain an IP (you've got to register anything that you plug straight in, I think). I've tried it with the old two network cards as well but still no luck - its not getting any connectivity whatsoever. Even though I've used it a thousand times, I still can't master XP and its home networks (I think thats what I have to do...)

It shouldn't be a problem because my Xbox used to work on Live off the same connection but I can't remember for the life of me how I got it set up.

[InfiniteFury]

http://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=7704

I don't know myself nomegusta but one of the guys in there will probably know so you might want to post in this thread.

I've got a lazy one - how do you turn off the background colour on the text of Windows icons? I hope that makes sense, Basically I've got a lovely desktop background which is ruined with these blocks of colour on it.

[Shaun]

http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-137

Windows XP

   * Open System Properties in Control Panel, choose the Advanced tab, and click Settings in the Performance section. Turn on the Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop option, and click Ok.
   * You can also try MicroAngelo (v5.5 or later), which allows you to change the text color, configure custom icons, and change other aspects of Windows.
   * Another utility of this type is WindowFX.

Windows 2000

   * Obtain and install the Transparent utility.
   * You can also try the "On Display" feature of MicroAngelo for lots of extra features.

Windows 95, 98, Me

   * Obtain and install the Disappear utility (4 kb). You'll need VB40032.DLL (381 kb) if you don't already have it.
   * You can also try the "On Display" feature of MicroAngelo for lots of extra features.

[Milo]

Data recovery tools. A mate of my dad accidentally deleted the digital photos of his baby's birth from his pc. I know there are tools which can scan the free space and recover files from them but I've no idea which ones are any good.

Any personal recommendations?

[mothman]

I used one a while ago, and it seemed OK. In fact, I think I might have been recommended it by someone in this thread; if there's a way to search this thread only for my posts, and there's one in there about data recovery, then maybe one of the responses soon after might help. . ?

EDIT: nope, haven't found anything yet; I'm sure it was here. . .

[Robot DeNiro]

Re: Data Recovery tools, I used one called File Scavenger recently when an external hard drive stopped working.  It recovered everything okay, but it did take a while.  I can't remember where I got it from unfortunately.

If the missing data was saved on the system drive then you should really stop using the PC  to minimise the chance of it being overwritten before you can recover it. Ideally take the hard drive out and put it in another computer, in case you end up installing the data recovery program over the data you want to recover.

[chav]

I've got a lazy one - how do you turn off the background colour on the text of Windows icons? I hope that makes sense, Basically I've got a lovely desktop background which is ruined with these blocks of colour on it.

The quick answer to this (assuming XP) is right-click on Desktop, choose Properties, go Appearance, Advanced, choose item Desktop, change the colour to something less striking. But note that you cannot make it transparent, you'll have to pick something that matches your wallpaper. To make it transparent you probably need some wacky bit of spyware masquerading as a Handy Windows Tool (personally, I'd get used to it)

[slim]

You can make the icon text transparent, but there's a common bug that stops it working.

Mine didn't work for ages, but does now. Lord knows how I fixed it though. It's built into XP too, no need for extra software. In fact, Horza details how on the last page:

* Open System Properties in Control Panel, choose the Advanced tab, and click Settings in the Performance section. Turn on the Use drop shadows for icon labels on the desktop option, and click Ok.

[Spiteface]

I've no idea if this has been asked before, but seeing as this thread is morethan 250 pages, it'd take too long to find the anwer anyway...

If I wanted to re-encode mp3s on my computer from a constant bitrate to a VBR, using the MP3s alrady on my comp, how much, if at all, would the sound quality audiably change?

I currently encode mp3s from my cd collection at 192 kbps, but I'm getting short on space, and music seems to be the bulk of my hard drive's contents i'm thinking using a VBR might help.

[gazzyk1ns]

Well it depends on what kind of quality you specify, presumably if you'll be downgrading them from about 192 then you'll be aiming for something which averages close to 128. So the answer is that there will probably be a noticeable degradation, especially with loud/complex music. If you use headphones then it's an even worse idea, as the artifacts will be more noticeable. VBR can be more efficient with space when encoding from the original CD but using it for space-saving transcoding doesn't really make much sense.

Are you really that desperate for space? The difference between a load of ~192s and ~128s will probably only buy you a few months of "comfort", and of course once you've transcoded you can never get the quality of the previous MP3 back. If you have the original CDs then you could delete your current MP3s and make new, smaller ones, but that's a lot of hassle. If it was me I'd either put aside some time to do a major backup>delete of files which were hardly accessed and taking up loads of space (e.g. TV Shows/films you've downloaded and will rarely watch again), and/or buy an 80GB HD for just over £30.

[weirdbeard]

I've no idea if this has been asked before, but seeing as this thread is morethan 250 pages, it'd take too long to find the anwer anyway...

If I wanted to re-encode mp3s on my computer from a constant bitrate to a VBR, using the MP3s alrady on my comp, how much, if at all, would the sound quality audiably change?

I currently encode mp3s from my cd collection at 192 kbps, but I'm getting short on space, and music seems to be the bulk of my hard drive's contents i'm thinking using a VBR might help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcode


"Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion from one (usually lossy) codec to another. It involves decoding/decompressing the original data to a raw intermediate format (i.e. PCM for audio or YUV for video), in a way that mimics standard playback of the lossy content, and then re-encoding this into the target format.

Transcoding can also refer to recompressing files to a lower bitrate without changing formats.

Compression artifacts are cumulative, therefore transcoding between lossy codecs causes a progressive loss of quality with each successive generation. For this reason, it is generally discouraged unless unavoidable. For instance, if an individual owns a digital audio player that does not support a particular format (i.e. Apple iPod and Ogg Vorbis), then the only way for the owner to use content encoded in that format is to transcode it to a supported format. It is better to retain a copy in a lossless format (such as TTA, FLAC or WavPack), then encode directly from the lossless source file to the lossy formats required."

[My Giddy Aunt]

I just tried installing the latest i-tunes (or upgrading to be more accurate) for xp.

It wont load up telling me its 'encountered a problem', the setup program says the same thing after its reinstalled.

Ive tried uninstalling and rebooting and reinstalling, and it doesnt work.
Ive also tried re-downloading the software and same problem.

Eek, can anyone sugges what i do?

Try uninstalling and re-installing quicktime on its own. That will work then.

[Milo]

Re: Data Recovery tools, I used one called File Scavenger recently when an external hard drive stopped working.

Cheers, I'll give that one a go.

Vaguely tech-related question this: Does anyone have a World of Warcraft guest pass they'd like to donate? It looks pretty good and I'd like to try it without spending twenty quid first.

If I like it I'll be more than happy to give the guest pass that comes with the retail version I'd buy back to the original donator.

[lactating man nips]

Ive had this happen a few times now, whilst working normally on my pc i somehow accidently activate a new shortcut mode which means when i press e for example, windows exlporer opens up. This is really annoying and means i cant type anything because everytime i use certain keys, events are triggered. Does anyone know how I activated this mode and more importantly how to deatcivate it because currently each time i do it i have to restart my system.

[Pseudopath]

Ive had this happen a few times now, whilst working normally on my pc i somehow accidently activate a new shortcut mode which means when i press e for example, windows exlporer opens up. This is really annoying and means i cant type anything because everytime i use certain keys, events are triggered. Does anyone know how I activated this mode and more importantly how to deatcivate it because currently each time i do it i have to restart my system.

Try tapping the Ctrl and Shift keys together twice (I use the ones at the bottom-left of the keyboard). I honestly don't know why it happens as these don't match any of Windows' built-in accessibility shortcuts.

[swarfmonkey]

Anybody know anything about laptops? The DVD-RW drive on mine has disappeared. It doesn't show up in my computer or device manager. Is it just the drive that's fucked? Or something worse? Are all laptop DVD drives the same, ie will a sony one fit in my fujitsu laptop?