Ask MetaFilter questions in the computers & internet category

How to get robots to send texts?

Chairboy — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 11:13:38 -0800

Interactive art filter - how to get cute robots to send sms messages? Asking this question for a friend. He's designing an interactive art installation that uses small mobile robots which are infrared tracked by a Wii to trigger events in Pure Data. The next step is to find a way to get Pure Data to send text messages to participants in the project , probably using Frontline SMS. We are both a little tech savvy but not really coders - does this sound workable/do-able? what would be the best way to proceed here?

Hosting a public LAN Party; What legal issues should I be aware of?

ilumos — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:53:31 -0800

Hosting a public LAN Party; What legal issues should I be aware of? Hi MeFi,

Myself and friends have been hosting private LAN parties for the past 3 years and with 20 or so atendees we've outgrown our normal venue.

What do we need to be aware of when hiring out a new venue with regard to public liability, insurance and the legality of sleeping overnight in the (public) venue?

I've done some research into other LAN parties, most of which have both rules and legal waivers, and some with insurance.

We hope it to be a successful event, but before we start approaching prospective venues we want to have an idea of the legal implications.

This is for a 48 hour UK based LAN on the south coast with hopefully 30+ attendees, and we'll be charging for entry to cover our costs.

Any information is greatly appreciated,

Many thanks!

Help me join my friends in their Age of Empires game.

wolfr — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 10:52:39 -0800

How do I beat the Boot Camp assistant? Mac/Boot Camp problem. I am the sole Mac user at a friend's weekend, which mostly consists of gaming together. Earlier this week I installed Windows 7 using Boot Camp on my iMac (Snow Leopard) without any significant problems.

Yesterday I tried to do the same for my Macbook Pro, yet Boot Camp assistant told me it couldn't partition the drives. It suggested I backed up my information, erased the hard disk, reinstalled Mac OSX, then tried running Boot Camp assistant again to partition the hard drives.

I tried to avoid this situation by doing the following (a Google search yielded these possible solutions):

(1) Verifying disk permissions and repairing them using Disk Utility
(2) Running iDefrag to defragment the hard drive

None of these helped.

I have:

(1) A disk image of Snow Leopard on my HD, but no physical disc
(2) A physical Windows 7 disc
(3) A 500Gb external USB HD that is a Time Machine backup of my current system

I am at a loss how to continue fixing my problem without a physical Snow Leopard DVD. It's too late to run out to the shop now for DVDs. My physical DVDs are in my hometown, 2,5 hours away.

Can I somehow bypass the Boot Camp Assistant, create the partition manually? I think Windows has to run on an NFTS formatted hard drive (partition?), but that doesn't appear to be an option in Disk Utility.

Thanks!

defragging security mac

ebesan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:45:33 -0800

Recently had my mac (V 10.4.11) defragged; by another person. Question- I am (too late) concerned about security. What steps can I now take to go thru and secure everything? Change all passwords, ok. Anything else? Where are the weak points?

complex scene triggering in Ableton Live

moonmilk — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 22:06:20 -0800

I'm making a sort of a jukebox using Ableton Live, and I have some fairly complex and specific needs for launching scenes. I thought I had the entire thing solved a few months ago, but now I can't figure out what I was thinking! Each song has several scenes, all the same length. Each scene is the same tune, but with increasingly complex orchestration.

This is the desired interaction: when you put in a coin, the first scene of a song starts playing. If you put in another coin while the song is still playing, it triggers the next scene in the song, unless you're already at the last scene, in which case it retriggers that scene. The effect is that the more money you put in, the fancier the song gets.

When the song ends (i.e. the longest clip in the current scene ends), prime the first scene of a different song but don't start playing it.

I built a little Arduino-based box that sends a midi note every time you put in a coin, so I'll be using that note to trigger the scene changes.

I thought I had figured out how to do this using only follow actions, but now I'm stuck- I'm not sure it's even possible. Please help me figure out how to get the effect I'm looking for. I can change the structure of the Live Set; I could use the python API or write a helper program in pure data or processing if I have to; the coin box could get smarter and send more complex messages.

Dual Booting For Dummies

mannequito — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 21:14:17 -0800

Two-part question regarding a potential XP/Ubuntu dual-boot setup: a)Do I still worry about viruses if I'm not accessing the internet from the XP half? b) From reading online it seems that I'll be able to access files from the XP half while in Ubuntu, but will the opposite be true? I've actually never owned a Windows machine so apologies if I seem over paranoid about viruses. I'm just finally considering this in order to be able to record music and use my computer for djing.

And, in case the second question is confusing, what I mean is that as I understand it, anything I put on the computer in Windows will be accessible on the other operating system. But since I would be using Ubuntu for any downloading I'd like to know if that will be readily accessible in XP or if it would require copying it to an external harddrive, booting into Windows, and recopying it?

thanks everyone.

Random slideshow?

Go Banana — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:37:16 -0800

Is there a way to randomize the order in which slides appear in a (very large) iPhoto slideshow? Help is failing me. I'd like a bunch of photos (about 500) that are currently in an order I don't like to run in random order as a party backdrop. Thank you, brilliant and computer-savvy Mefites!

Would linux breathe new life into my old powerbook?

jlowen — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:21:21 -0800

I want to have a fast capable NAS/file server/upnp device very similar to the QNAP TS-110 TurboNAS. I have an old 12" Powerbook G4 aluminum MAC OS x laptop. Would it be possible to install a barebones linux installation on the Powerbook to have access to many of the same features of the QNAP device? My Powerbook is a 1.3ghz with 800mb memory, with OS X 10.5 (leopard) installed. I want to use it to stream movies to my PS3 using upnp. I have tried software like Nullsoft's medialink and the PS3 media server, but the laptop does not seem capable of serving up media files to the ps3 without serious stuttering and lagging. (Even with both devices using ethernet cables - A problem my new shiny macbook pro does not have)

I was considering purchasing a QNAP TS-110 but it seems that my powerbook has twice the power and should in theory make a dandy media server. Would it be possible to learn and install a linux variation on the powerbook to recreate the same core features of the NAS device and turn the old decrepit powerbook into a capable media/file server? Note: I need only serve the file from the powerbook to be played on other hardware.

Is there a particular linux distribution I should use? Or would it be better to upgrade to a dedicated NAS?

My roommate has been watching what I do online- help!

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 19:17:43 -0800

My roommate has been watching what I do online- help! We are (were?) pretty good friends despite only knowing each other about a year.

As part of an argument, he made an angry reference to my blog, and quoted it. I have never told ANYONE about my blog, NO identifying details are connected to it, and until he said that I didn't know anyone but me had ever looked at it (I mostly just write gibberish there, sometimes I rant about things but again, with NO identifying details).

I asked him how he knew about it and he said "I know everything that goes through my network."

I know he was telling the truth because I had made some of my posts from school, and he pointed out which ones I had made from home.

I know absolutely nothing about computers. I know how to turn it on and use Firefox, and that's it. As far as what kind of network we have, all I know is that it's wireless and he has his own server.

Now I'm completely freaked out. I have no idea as to exactly what he can see. Can he read every email I send? Can he see every website that I go to?

Is there any way to block him from seeing what I do? Is there any way *I* can see what *he* does?

Moving out is not an option for several months.

I'm not afraid of him and he's not usually this weird, I just hate the idea that someone can completely spy on me like this.

Law-abiding civilian wants to kinda remove personal info from a laptop

salvia — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:41:33 -0800

What are the basic steps to remove personal information off of a hard drive? (XP Home, SP3) I'm trading up a work computer for a newer one. I'd like to make sure to erase things like my frequent flier password, browsing history and downloaded docs, emailed files, and documents I created myself.

I realize many people would find it easiest just to reformat the hard drive, but I'd rather not do that myself, as I don't know what I'm doing or have the disks, plus that'd look more suspicious than leaving behind a few non-work files. I'm not concerned anyone is going to run file recovery software or investigate me, and I don't have any confidential client data that I need to protect. I don't use this for much besides work, and I never save bank passwords, and they're probably going to reformat the computer right away, so I'm not that worried.

I just don't want someone to open a folder and accidentally stumble across some doc I forgot about ("FindingANewJob.doc") or some cached NSFW pic or pdf download that I clicked on in Metafilter, or some embarrassing google search term, or a personal essay a friend emailed me on Outlook that I edited over the weekend. I'm looking for a middle ground between the Department of Defense seven-wipe wiping standard and/or total reformat, and just leaving behind entire folders full of potentially-personal things.

What's a reasonable way for me to clean files and browsing history off of the computer? Is there a good checklist of folders to empty out? Is there a way to know which folders have exclusively system files and which have user-created documents? If you delete a file, then empty the Recycling Bin, is that pretty good or is there one step further you need to take to keep someone from accidentally encountering TMI?

If it matters, I am one of three users on the machine, and I don't know if I have full admin privileges, but I can add and remove programs.

I realize this is a pretty common question, and I've found some decent eHow articles, but I trust AskMe more than my googling skills. Thanks a bunch for any advice you can offer.

Help a British Ex-Pat Access Overseas Content (BBC, iTV, premier league football, etc...)

ghostpony — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 14:10:32 -0800

My father is a British ex-pat who is craving some good old fashion football/cricket/BBC. Please share some advice about best way to access this content while in the states. My father is a British ex-pat who has lived in the states for some 20 odd years. After many years of paying through the nose for pay per view football matches and the occasional cricket test match he gave up.

Can you give us some advice about the best way to access this content? He is interested in watching Premier League matches, cricket, rugby, and most everything the BBC puts out. He is particularly interested in live-streaming matches, but would take what he can get.

Also news to me Hulu has a UK only site that features content from Channel 4, ITV, and other UK only channels, and so access to that would be welcome.

Do you have any advice? Where do we start?

i want i want i want my calendar size...

sandra_s — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:25:27 -0800

What would be the 3 most popular widescreen resolutions to offer wallpaper at? I offer a download-able calendar (fetish pin-up style) each year. For 2010 it was designed/formatted for widescreen monitors.

It exists in 1920 x 1200 resolution. and fits nicely on a 28" monitor. However I realize thats kinda big.

I was thinking of offering it at 1680 x 1050 for 22" widescreen monitors.

Anyone have any suggestions on what sizes they would prefer if they were looking for wallpaper, or what they think is the most popular sizes of widescreen monitors?

Thanks in advance.

P.S. I prefer to offer them in a native size, rather than having users download the big one and letting their OS resize it because this is a really popular download each year of the adult and tends to be a bandwidth hog. That and instead of offering 1 image to cover 12 months, this is 1 image per month.

Quark Problems

aburd — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:58:21 -0800

My mom is a graphic designer and uses Quark. She just switched from a PowerPC based Macbook Pro to an Intel based MacBook Pro. Using the new Macbook Pro, she can't seem to open the Quark files she created using the old MacBook pro. It produces an error saying something about the processor. Is there a nice program for converting such files? I don't know much about Quark or design software but please let me know if I am skipping some obvious detail. I want to get her this software for Christmas so I can't be too obvious but I can probably get some details out of her without being too obvious.

Need help with Laser Printer recommendation AND forums where I can get good Laser Printer recommendations...

olddogeyes — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 10:26:00 -0800

Need help with Laser Printer recommendation AND forums where I can get good Laser Printer recommendations... I have a two part question:

1. I am in need of some recommendations on options (brands/models) for a new laser printer. What forums/message boards exist where I can post a message similar to my question below in hopes of getting more recommendations?

2. Here is what I am looking for in a new printer -- can you make any suggestions or recommendations? 1) Must work in a Windows environment - Could either be a stand-alone network printer (must work with Win XP, Vista and v7) or I could share it off of a computer (Vista). We don't have any Macs. 2) Must do both color and monochrome (black and white). 3) Needs to be able to duplex (print on both sides of paper -- usually by a mechanism that turns the paper over). 4) Looking for lowest cost of printing for black -- wouldn't need to print in color that often. 5) Probably will NOT print photos or other special media (like slides, etc). Will only be printing from Word, Excel, Adobe Acrobat and Web Browsers. 6) Would like a printer that prints at least 8-10 pages per minute in both color and monochrome. 7) Would like for it to have a manual feed capability so I can print envelopes. 8) Finally, it does NOT need to be multi-function. I have a great stand-alone sheet feed scanner and don't need to send or receive faxes on it. 9) Won't consider a Brother brand product - but will consider any other.

Thanks in advance for your help in either recommending a "laser printer" forum/message board or an actual printer model.

Augmented reality geocaching on Google Street View

rtraviscrocker — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:35:59 -0800

Can you superimpose your own created layers (kml) onto Google Street View for purposes of combining geocaching with augmented reality (would be nice to have floating icons appear during a GPS enabled scavenger hunt)

Help me logon to my email!!

dmbfan93 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:37:19 -0800

Please help me fix an internet/computer problem....I keep getting the message "Invalid Security Certificate" when I try to logon to my email accounts. I'm trying to logon to both my gmail account and my msn account and this morning I get the message "google.com uses an invalid security certificate"? This is just occuring, I was able to login last night. Does this have anything to do with a windows update that installed on my computer last night?

I try to logon to my MSN account and the exact same thing is occuring. The following message I get:

# This could be a problem with the server's configuration, or it could be someone trying to impersonate the server.

# If you have connected to this server successfully in the past, the error may be temporary, and you can try again later.

Please help me fix this!

Download Adobe Presenter Flash Files

mathiu — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 03:29:05 -0800

I'd like to download a particular "Adobe Presenter" (Flash) document to show it to a group of students without having access to the Internet. How do I download these Flash files to replay them on my computer? I have tried a couple of Flash downloaders but I don't arrive at downloading "Adobe Presenter" Flash documents. I have the authorization to get the presentation offline but I don't have access to the "mother-file".

Here is an example of the type of presentation I'm looking at. (same link as in the title).

(Preferably macish, but both Windows and Mac solutions are appreciated)

A hardware solution for recording PC output MUST exist somewhere in the world.

khelvan — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:50:16 -0800

How can I record the output of one PC, up to resolutions of 1900x1200, via another PC or another piece of hardware? I am trying to find a way that I can record the output of one PC with another PC, in HD/at resolutions up to 1900x1200 (or more), and none of the solutions I have tried so far work. Software screencasting solutions won't help me as I am trying to record things such as operating system installations for tutorials; no software can be running. Basically I want to use the second of my two video card outputs for the recording device. I don't necessarily need to record audio output as well, though that would be a big bonus.

I would like to be able to capture the output from several different computers, which currently all use DVI. I've tried a combination of the Hauppauge HD PVR and various cables/converters to try and convert my DVI output to component video so that the Hauppauge can record, but nothing I've tried so far has worked to convert the signal.

I am not tied to this solution, if there is some sort of capture card available that will allow me to quickly and painlessly capture the signal, I'll happily put aside/return the Hauppauge.

Is there some simple solution out there that I have overlooked? This situation is beginning to be frustrating, so I hope that someone out there can help.

Thank you very much!

Commercial font licence advice needed

primer_dimer — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 02:24:40 -0800

Is it ok to use free-for-commercial-use fonts in a pdf-generating webapp? Firstly, You Are Not (My|A) Lawyer. I'm just hoping that someone can give me a clue on whether or not my proposed use of free fonts is ok. Short version: is it ok for me to generate and (effectively) sell PDF files which use a free font?

Background: I am writing a webapp that will (among other things) generate gift certificates. The user picks a template and enters some details (name, ammount, etc). The app then generates a PDF file which the user can download and print.

Question: is it ok to use fonts with a free-for-commercial-use licence for this? I've taken a quick look at a few free font licences, and they seem to disallow distributing the font. Since my app would have to embed the fonts in the PDF, does that count as distribution?

I've also seen some references to "Derivative work" but the wording seems to say that this only covers binary data from which the original font could be recovered... is this right?

I'm hoping that some of the creative types on mefi might be able to give me an insight into all this, since reading the various EULAs and licences is of no help whatsoever, and I want to do the Right Thing by respecting other people's work.

How to make periodic reminders from RSS/evernote?

insperatum — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:45:57 -0800

How can I make periodic, spaced reminders of items from an rss feed (or even straight from evernote) so that I know I will not forget them? I got an evernote account recently, and I'm loving how easy it is to add notes from anywhere (including my G1 =D). That said, what it seems to lack is the feature of reminding you of notes every so often (a feature which reQall does very nicely).

So what I'm looking for is some way of automatically reminding myself of my evernotes, perhaps from the rss feed which it lets me create. Something which would, for example, email me (or better yet feed me) a note reminder every, say, 4,16,64,etc days after note creation would be fantastic. Of course, something which would be able to import my evernotes straight into SuperMemo or some other spaced repetition software would be even better, though that may be a bit ambitious. Any suggestions whatsoever would be very useful though, since I'm at a complete loss.

While I'm here, do any of you guys have other systems for taking and remembering notes? It's just beginning to hit me that how quickly I forget all the little facts that I learn throughout the day, and so I'm trying to build an easy way of being able to say "Right, this little fact is important. Make sure I don't forget it until I tell you otherwise."

Many thanks,
Luke

Slow typing in Excel 2008 and unexplained network traffic

lbergstr — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:06:18 -0800

Why would Excel 2008 cause a lot of network traffic while typing in a cell? After using Excel 2008 for a few months, recently I've experienced sluggishness when typing in cells. These are really serious slowdowns, the display can take 5 seconds to catch up to my typing. It comes and goes; haven't been able to discern a pattern here.

However I use MenuMeters and during slowdowns, I've noticed that network traffic spikes when I'm typing in Excel - say 150KB down, 33KB up.

I'm not editing a document on a network drive, or even an external drive. Happens whether or not I have any external drives connected.

I'm connected to a local network via wifi, and through that to the Internet - but our external connection tops out around 25KB down.

Any ideas?

Using Excel 2008 SP1 on 10.5.8.

Can't watch a specific channel on my computer!

mhz — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 17:17:06 -0800

Why can't my USB TV tuner find channel 11? I have a Hauppauge USB TV tuber (950Q, I think), and I can't get WPIX in New York. I have no idea if it's ever worked, as I've never tried it before. I've scanned repeatedly, but still nothing. This is using EyeTV, on the Mac, and I'm in Brooklyn. All other over-the-air networks work perfectly.

A couple of notes:

It's not an antenna issue; the same antenna finds 11 just fine when connected to the cheap DTV converter I have.

I tried adding it manually with the frequencies I found online, and nothing.

I've tried using a file I downloaded from TitanTV with the frequency, and nothing.

My brother just called me, and he's using Windows (Vista or 7, I'm not sure) with Media Center, and an ATI USB TV Wonder, and he's having the same problem. Neither of us ever noticed this before, because the Giants weren't on WPIX before.

Any suggestions? Again, this issue does not appear to be the antenna, and it's appearing with two different brands of USB tuners, on two different operating systems.

To buy or not to buy?

timdicator — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 15:15:00 -0800

Is this laptop a good buy for the money? Does anyone have any personal experience with it? Office Max is offering an HP Paviollion for $379.99 tomorrow. Since I don't have time to do a lot of test driving, help me figure out if it's a good buy.

Make it speak English!

crazylegs — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:35:47 -0800

Just downloaded Play65 but it isn't in English! Help! I want to play backgammon online for money. I just downloaded some online backgammon software called 'Play65'. When I open it on my computer it is written in a language I don't recognize, possibly Hebrew? How do I make it into English?

Pimp my database!

H. Roark — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 14:07:45 -0800

Oracle / Storage geeks: What are the alternatives to exadata for high-performance I/O with a rac system? We are getting pretty close to buying an exadata setup and I'm trying to find viable alternatives that are cost-effective and deliver similar performance. We need to be running RAC for load balancing and fault tolerance, so I believe direct attached storage like SSD-arrays is not an option. Buying a dedicated SAN seems to be lower performance and higher cost than exadata. For benchmarking the exadata system we are looking at (1/4 rack) delivers 4.5GB/sec sustained I/O to disk. Our current SAN (which is overly shared) gives us approx 150MB/sec and our 4-nic dnfs systems to a netapp runs at approx 350MB/sec.

So assuming we need at least 3GB/sec and it cant be direct-attached what are other good options out there?

Lets just ignore the other features of exadata that make it fast like smart-scan. Thanks!