Ask MetaFilter questions in the computers & internet category

Wireless possible, or no?

BlahLaLa — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:37:12 -0800

Did the Apple salesperson do me wrong? I bought an AirPort Express to go wireless with my Mac Mini but now I think I got screwed. Okay, it's embarrassing to admit this on Metafilter, where almost everyone seems to be very computer savvy, but I DON'T KNOW ABOUT COMPUTERS. I use 'em, but I don't know how they work.

I have an older Mac Mini. I've had it for two years, but it was used by someone else previously and I don't know precisely how old it is. I want to set up a wireless network in my home, and I called the Apple Store to see if that would be possible with my model. The phone rep talked me through looking at my computer. I have a new-enough OS. I do not have an AirPort card. I do have firewire. She said I can connect through firewire.

But the AirPort Express arrived, and when I looked at the documentation, it says I must have the AirPort card installed.

So...is that true about this alleged firewire? Can I connect wirelessly, or am I out of luck? If not, can I keep my Mac Mini wired to the modem, and hook up the AirPort Express so my husband can use his laptop elsewhere in the house?

If I need to return this thing: Have you had experience with the Apple Store? Are they going to easily accept the explanation that I only bought this because the salesperson said it would work with my computer?

Please speak to me as if I am your mentally challenged great aunt. I really need it step by step, spelled out.

Help me make my computer backup checklist

Elminster24 — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:21:00 -0800

BackupFilter: My new replacement laptop arrives tomorrow--help me make sure I don't forget anything critical in my backup process when I transfer everything to the new computer because I have to ship the old one back to Dell (hard drive as well). So here's the situation...I have a Dell XPS m1730 that is being replaced by Dell with an Alienware m17x since my graphics cards fried. The m1730 runs Vista 32-bit and the new one (which arrives tomorrow!!!) will come with Vista 64-bit and a Windows 7 upgrade disc. After doing a little research I've decided I'd like to try doing a clean install of Windows 7 on the new machine (versus just the upgrade option) and I have a laplink cable which will hopefully help facilitate data transfer from the old machine to the new one, although if I need to I can temporarily move things to my 1Tb external Lacie drive.

Now on to the question...

I'd consider myself pretty good with computers but I'm a bit paranoid when it comes to making sure I have a backup of everything I need to and that I've transferred things over the right way. Below are a list of key things that I plan on backing up and the specifics that I think I've got covered in terms of how to transfer the data but I'd love some additional opinions to make sure I am not missing anything important that I wish I'll have later. The reason for this is that once I am completely finished, I need to do a complete HDD wipe and send the old machine (including the HDD) back to Dell to complete the exchange and thus will no longer have access to the machine or data. I considered making a disc image of the drive but I'm not sure how useful that would be for recovery purposes if I won't have a similarly configured machine available to load the image onto.

Also, just a general note...the vast majority of the software I have on there, unless specifically noted otherwise, was...*ahem* "acquired" via Bittorrent. So I will most likely have to redownload everything as I did not save the installers.

1. Web Development
Right now I build my websites in Dreamweaver and have several site profiles setup that I need to transfer...not quite sure how to do that. I also have a local server setup via XAMPP.

A. How do I backup my Dreamweaver sites properly so that all the site logins and file paths aren't completely messed up?

B. How do I properly transfer my XAMPP server which houses several several databases from Wordpress installs and multiple sites?

2. Design
I have Photoshop CS3 installed currently. Since I need to redownload it I'll most likely just grab CS4. However I have several brush packs, fonts, patterns, filters, etc. on the current machine. What is the best way to back this up?

3. Internet
I use Firefox 3.0.12 and have a TON of addons and themes. I successfully used FEBE to transfer my bookmarks, profile, addons, themes etc. between machines in the past but I'm worried that it won't work if I try to load the backup into a newer version of FF.

A. Anybody know if FEBE can load a backup from an older version of FF into a new one?

4. Media
I don't have any music I've purchased off of the ITMS or anything but I have a ton of MP3s and iTunes is music software of choice. My photos are stored in my documents and I use Picasa to manage them.

A. Do I need to do anything with my iPod and iTunes on my old machine like deauthorize or anything?

B. Is backing up photos as simple as copying them all and then putting them on the new machine and just importing them into Picasa again?

Aside from those four things, I think the rest of the files on there are fairly straightforward things to copy/transfer--mainly MS Office files and some user data/preferences from games like Savage 2 and Battlefield. Is there anything else I'm forgetting about here that is crucial? I feel like I'm forgetting some important things that I'm going to really be pissed about once I wipe the drive... And speaking of wiping the drive, I don't want anybody getting a refurbished machine with my old HDD in it and accessing my data. What is a FREE guaranteed way to completely wipe the drive?

I understand this is a pretty meaty AskMeFi question so if you're able to provide answers to all the parts you're a rockstar, and even if you can only provide some, I'll take any advice I can get on this as I only get one shot at this and need to do it right. Happy to answer any additional questions anybody has.

Best video codec for embedding into PowerPoint?

limon — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:51:55 -0800

I'd like to embed video clips in a PowerPoint presentation. It would need to play correctly on both Windows and OS X. What codec is ideal? My first attempt won't play on Macs.

Ascii-art app for OS X?

Wild_Eep — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:43:45 -0800

What is the name of this obscure Mac text editor that draws ASCII art boxes and lines by dragging them out? I last used this app about three years ago, on OS X.

It was a simple text editor, that had a unique feature. You could drag a rectangle and it would create a BBS-style ASCII box. It would also do straight lines. (It may have done more).

Freely downloadable, at no cost. Ran in English.

How can I get my laptop to boot up properly?

AngryTypingGuy — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:36:05 -0800

Was in the process of system restore but now I can't boot up my PC. How can I get it to start up correctly? I was in the middle of cleaning up (defrag, viruses, spyware, etc.) someone else's laptop when I ran into a problem. There was some spyware I was trying to get rid of using a few antispyware programs but none of them seemed to work. So I went to my last resort and used system restore.

The laptop was never able to boot up correctly. It got to the F8 screen and listed the alternative bootup options (Last Known Configuration, Safe Mode, etc.). I tried them all but none of them had any effect. A blue screen would appear for a second and then it would shut down and try starting up again. It just does this in an endless loop.

By the way, I don't have the Windows XP installation CD.

The only other thing I can get into is the BIOS setup utility.

Any other ideas to get it to startup correctly? I really hope I can get the laptop back to the owner without screwing it up any morewhen I took it.

Thanks for your help.

Why can I use PING but not HTTP on a yet-to-be-activated DSL account?

j0hnpaul — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 14:15:09 -0800

Why can I PING with my new DSL modem on an inactive account, but nothing else? Hi! My new modem arrived for Verizon DSL service, but my "service ready date" hasn't arrived yet, giving me some time to muse and experiment.

I noticed that when I set up the modem and connected my Mac via an Ethernet cable, my Network Diagnostics show that the computer is connected to the internet and the connection is working properly. I noticed I can also PING google.com, verizon.com, or any other website from the Terminal with zero packet loss.

On the other hand, everything useful about the internet is closed. I can't access anything in a web browser, and attempting to run the software Verizon sent me to "activate my account" or "troubleshoot my connection" fails. I surmise this is related to trying this before the "service ready date".

But the fact that PING works from the command line, and I'm able to send and receive data across the internet, makes me wonder how real the "service ready date" is. If it's possible to communicate with sites via PING, why not through HTTP? What's really going on?

Help me choose a host

Iteki — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:47:58 -0800

Help me choose a webhost for my small business. Details on the inside. Drowning slightly in the choices available to me. I have a teeny tiny business "doing sites" and will be hosting my clients under my own package. The sites are tiny enough (online brochures in principle) that a reseller account would be over the top.

On the "need to have" end of things I guess that means:
- multiple domains on one account
- handling of hosting and mail for those domains
- handy WP integration
- cheap but established (really max $20 a month I think)

and "nice to have" would be:
- easy ecommerce solution
- environmentally friendly/carbon neutral
- free wp templates

I am probably leaning towards Dreamhost based on their being so well established and correctly priced. I just heard of GreenReseller hosting today, so I have no real opinion on them, anyone know of them or similar companies?

What are other need/nice to haves I should consider?
Which company do you recommend for the most bang for my buck?

Bamboozled by Google

londongeezer — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:49:49 -0800

Why does Google Alerts add stuff like this to the end of the URLs it sends me every day by email: &ct=ga&cd=eOGlPN9EEgs&usg=AFNjCNGPR1lLrp7KJVpHt-2HktLYhtBMQg I guess Google has its reasons. So what I really mean is, why does Google do this when most of the time it breaks the link? The result is that, whenever I click on such a link, 90% of the time I get a "page not found" result and I then have to reload the page with the gibberish stripped away. I know that's not a huge chore, but it still seems daft. Can I put a stop to this? No illumination on wikipedia, from Google, or anywhere else that I could find.

I like pretty pictures to LOOK pretty!

miss lynnster — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:27:48 -0800

Most awesome, pretty and easy to figure out Flickr image gallery plug-in for Word Press? I'm having some photographers and artists provide content for my LA site, and I want to make sure they're displayed in the most graphically appealing and easy (to navigate as well as to set up) way. I'm not a programmer so I tend to like the plugins that have all sorts of cool features without me having to create them.

Up until now I've been using Picasna for Picasa, and I liked the Lightboxy gallery that it uses but I really am not thrilled with the way the image gallery shows up in the post before you click on it to view the images up close.

Thanks in advance for all of your advice. :)

How do you fix a fried laptop?

Bobby Bittman — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:20:31 -0800

How badly have I fried my laptop? I went to a friend's house last night to watch a perfectly legally downloaded movie, and planned to hook my laptop up to his TV with an S-Video cable. Well, something wasn't grounded - when I touched the S-Video cable to the jack on his TV, there was a spark and my laptop shut off.

Now it's a brick. No power lights, no response at all.

I'm going to find all of this out on Monday when I take it in to the repair shop, but I'm anxious: how badly have I damaged it? Is this the kind of thing that can be repaired? How much does it cost? And most importantly - is all my data recoverable?

If it matters, it's a 4-year-old Gateway laptop. All educated guesses welcome. Thank you!

Web template for cleaning business?

zeikka — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 06:39:17 -0800

Where can I find simple, yet professional and elegant web template/ Wordpress theme for cleaning business? I'm helping someone who's starting a small scale residential/ business cleaning service. I have domain and cheap hosting for her, but would like to find nice web template to use.

Wordpress theme would be ideal as I'm not very experience web designer or don't have experience with complex publishing system. Free would be great this as is very small scale.

YouTube doesn't work, except when it does.

mikoroshi — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:20:16 -0800

Why isn't YouTube working? For the past few months YouTube just doesn't work on our desktop.

Latest version of Flash is installed on latest version of Firefox, java is so tuned on it's making obscene suggestions to other scripts. I've tried turning NoScript and AdBlock off, no dice.

The most bizarre thing is, every 12th or 15th time we boot up, YouTube works....until the computer gets turned off again.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm at a loss.

do lolcatz speak 1337?

tamarack — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:34:44 -0800

do lolcatz speak 1337? or is there another term for this? similar to this question, but different. leet/1337 speak is when it's numerals + alpha, right? is there a (common) name for the lolcatz-speak? should i be using "1337" and i'm just being overly skeptical?

please, help me to get my geek on in an accurate manner.

How can I take a picture, organize and create a URL for each SKU in a mini-warehouse?

schindyguy — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:35:51 -0800

How can I take a picture, organize and create a URL for each SKU in a mini-warehouse? I have about 150 SKUs that I have organized into a master inventory list in excel. I added a column labeled "Picture URL" where I hope I can put a shareable/accessible URL for someone to view/download to another computer.

I was thinking a good way would be to use Evernote for the iPhone and then title each one the SKU of the item. But Evernote doesn't create a URL that I can use/paste into that field. It just lets me see the picture in a browser within their own system...in other words, I dont end up with http://evernote.com/sample-sku.jpg

I was hoping there was a mobile phone app solution (blackberry or iphone) because I dont care about the pic quality and thinking it would automate the uploading to the web portion...

The other option would be to use a digital camera, but then I would have to look at the picture and then rename the pictures with the correct sku name and then upload it on my server...probably the longest way.

Embedded x86 Linux

thewalrus — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:27:04 -0800

x86 embedded Linux filter: Please recommend a not-too-costly embedded x86 system that is fanless, has a full set of the usual external I/O ports and doesn't use a lot of power. Should be the size of a VHS tape or smaller. Probably Mini-ITX form factor or nano-ITX. Relatively low cost would be good. I'm looking for suggestions for a embedded x86 system to integrate into a product that will be produced in relatively low volumes, for a niche market. It should be relatively easy to make changes to and diagnose in the field so it needs to have a full set of ports, at least two USB (preferably four USB), VGA, one RS232, RJ45 ethernet. Having a minipci slot for a 802.11g card would be good too.

CPU power is not a factor so it can be the lowest power VIA or Intel Atom processor, but it needs to be fanless.

It may need to store a bit of data so it should have a mounting point for one 2.5" SATA SSD.

This will probably be in the mini-ITX form factor or one of VIA's nano-ITX type boards. I'm looking to buy the motherboard, case and power supply together as a package, and the power supply needs to accept 12V DC input. Any suggestions on vendors or sources?

Excel: Incrementing Formula Row Copied Across Columns

Conrad Cornelius o'Donald o'Dell — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:38:36 -0800

Excel question: I need a row number to automatically increment as I copy a formula horizontally across columns. Sample spreadsheet downloadable here, or viewable as a Google Doc here. Further details inside. To elaborate, the formula in question starts in Column T. In T2, the formula compares Node 1 to itself - hence the zero. In T2, it compares Node 1 to Node 2, in T3, Node 1 to Node 3, and so on. Column U does the same thing, except it compares Node 2 to Node 1, Node 2 to Node 2, Node 2 to Node 3, and so on. I want to copy out my formula so that all 50 nodes in the matrix are filled in, in this manner.

The formula increments properly when copied vertically. Take a look at the representative portion of the formula right after the ABS in cell T2: ($C$2-$C2). The formula stays "anchored" on Node 1 via the $C$2. The second part, $C2, increments as you copy it down, to $C3, $C4 and so on. (The same is true for the rest of the formula - it just goes ($D$2-$D2), ($E$2-$E2) and so on.)

Now take a look at Column U. The "anchor" changes from $C$2 to $C$3. That's because Node 2 is now the basis for comparison. In Column V, the anchor changes to $C$4, because Node 3 is the basis for comparison.

The thing is, the anchors in Columns U and V were updated by hand. That is to say, if you copy the formula in Column T one cell to the right, nothing increments. I realize that this is "proper" Excel behavior - when you copy formulas horizontally, generally only the column will increment. But I would really love a way to force the row number of the anchor to automatically increment as I copy the formula to the right. (Note that the anchor has to retain the $ before the row number because when I copy the formula down, that portion of the formula must stay fixed.)

Please let me know if you need any further clarifications. And if you have any suggestions, I would be very grateful. Thank you.

Seeking Wifi cable vendors ...

bhance — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 13:23:13 -0800

Help me find a good WiFi 'cable extender' vendor ... Point me in the direction of a good (cheap) vendor for WiFi 'extension' cables? They need to ship to the US.

I have several situations where I'm looking to extend the distance between a Wifi device and its antenna by adding a 5 or 10 foot extension cable where the antenna screws into the device.

I.e. I need a cable 'extender' for a Linksys WMP54GS PCI card, a Linksys WRT54G, and some various Netgear devices -- all of which seem to have different screw-type connectors and plastic antenna connector thingies.

(Bonus points if you have already done business with the company and would recommend them to others.)

breaking threaded text boxes

nanhey — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:39:44 -0800

IndesignCS3Filter: Is there a way to break threaded text boxes but keep the text that is currently in the frames where it is? is there anyway to do this? i've tried searching for a script but I don't think i'm using the right search terms. thanks!

Good examples of Social Sign In?

slactoid — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:43:45 -0800

Any good examples of "Social Sign In"? For the little web toys I make, I don't want to make full sign up forms, so I'm looking for any sites that are using Facebook / Twitter / Google / Yahoo / OpenID / etc for sign in. Something like what stack overflow is doing here: http://stackoverflow.com/users/login (only OpenID though).

Help me find the right netbook

Crotalus — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:38:42 -0800

Help me choose between these 11.6" netbooks! I sold my 10" netbook because I have an important program that runs poorly in 1024x600. I'm going to buy a machine with an 11.6" screen. Battery life is by far the most important consideration. This machine has an 8 hr battery and uses a SU1400 processor. This machine is rated at 8 hrs, $50 more, and uses a SU7300 processor. How much difference would there be between the two processors, and which one would be faster? Is it worth the $50? This machine is the battery life champ, and it is the cheapest. Am I correct in assuming that the other two would be substantially faster?

Dual head mac with KVM?

hardcode — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:07:40 -0800

So, finally after many years away from the world of Macs I'm about to take the plunge and buy one. The issue is that I want to use my current 2 monitors, PC USB keyboard and Microsoft (yes, ok, I hear you) USB mouse and a KVM switch

I have a dual head PC, driving 2 DVI monitors from one Nvidia GeForce 8400 GS, using a VGA to DVI adapter to drive 2 Xerox 19" monitors. This works fine.

I'd like to add a Mac Mini to this setup and have a KVM to switch between the two so I keep the desk area relatively clear.

So the plan so far is:

Buy a Mac Mini, which comes with a mini-DVI to DVI adapter

Buy the additional mini-DisplayPort to DVI adapter

Hook those 2 DVI outputs and my current PC DVI and VGA-acting-as-DVI outputs into a KVM (currently looking at the Aten CS1642 caution 900+K PDF)

Enjoy the best of both worlds!

So, the questions:

Does the mini-DVI and mini-DisplayPort idea work? That should drive 2 x DVI monitors correctly from the mac-Mini shouldn't it?

Can anyone suggest another KVM? The 1642 is rather expensive!

Any issues you can see?

Thanks for your time!

Advice for saving money on a Mac Pro?

empath — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:35:31 -0800

Advice for buying a Mac Pro without paying top price? I'm ready to buy one and I'm willing to drop a few grand on it, but I don't want to get ripped off and pay $4500 when I could get what I want for much less. I'm thinking the best plan is to get the least expensive one I can get from Apple, and then buy CPU upgrades and Memory/Hard Drive upgrades from a third party. Is that a good plan? Which upgrades are worth buying from apple? I don't qualify for a student discount -- are there any other ways to get discounts? I am friends with several Apple store employees -- is there anything they can do to get me a lower price?

Firefox zooming for maximum text bigness

Post-it Goat — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 15:35:23 -0800

Is there a firefox add-on that auto-zooms pages to fit the browser window? Lots of sites these days have a fixed width with a bunch of blank space to the left and right. I want them to scale up to fit the window. So, I guess what I mean is for each page to zoom in to one level before it would have to make horizontal scroll bars. Currently I do it by manually zooming them, but it would be cool to have something that does it automatically. I looked through the Firefox add-ons page but nothing jumped out at me. Thanks!

Spyware help

skinnydipp — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:44:22 -0800

I have been struck by Windows System Defender and I can't remove it, can you help? After googling instructions on how to remove, and downloading some anti spyware programs like malwarebytes and such..I am having no luck. Malwarebytes finds the infection but the computer shuts down before scanning is complete. It also will not let me install some of the other antispyware programs I want to try. It will not let the computer start in safe mode either. AND it will not let me run task manager. HELP?

Mama Gambino

Unred — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 11:32:35 -0800

My mother spends a good deal of her day playing Mafia Wars and has accumulated hundreds of people she doesn't know on Facebook through the game. She is definitely not street savvy or tech savvy in any way and I'm worried that she may be taken advantage of. I don't play Mafia Wars, but I just don't trust that its taken up such a large part of her life right now. Is it just a way for her to pass the time? Or do I need to be concerned?