Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computer

What games have I missed?

plungerjoke — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 19:30:03 -0800

Just purchased a new desktop computer after years of having a severely underpowered laptop. What games have I missed? The new computer only has 256mb of onboard video memory, so new games are kind of out of the question. I'm thinking about upgrading the video card and power supply at some point, but, in the meantime, what games (with reasonable system requirements) did I miss while in laptop purgatory?

I like all different sorts of games, but originality is what most often draws me in. Also, Civilization type games tend to lose my interest quickly.

Thanks!

PS--My apologies if this is in the wrong category.

Computer Swapping?

StrikeTheViol — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:37:08 -0800

Swapping my laptop for a desktop and monitor instead of selling? My plans have changed, and my laptop and furniture are not working together well and causing me pain. Now that my career plans have changed, I find I have little reason to keep my Sony VAIO AW-series laptop, purchased earlier this year, for its intended purpose, and the laptop, while fitting well with my college's furniture and my old wheelchair, is causing me neck strain and back pain at home. Considering I'll be home at least till September, and then perhaps at another school, I wonder if there's any way to get my hands on a desktop and adjustable monitor without having to sell (and then likely buy) on eBay. Any tips, hive?

CompEngr EXP

Rubbstone — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 12:49:45 -0800

What was the best experience you've had as a Computer Engineer or Computer Scientist? Bonus: experiences owning you own shop and working as a consultant. I'm researching working as a computer engineer. Any other resources you have about the profession and what it entails would also be helpful.

6 GB of mixed-speed RAM better or worse than 4 GB of matched pair faster RAM?

suburbanrobot — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 08:55:27 -0800

I just picked up 4 GB of DDR2 800 RAM to upgrade my computer. It already has 2 GB of DDR2 533. Should I get rid of the old RAM and just use the new, or should I install all of it? Santa was good to me this year and I received two 2 GB sticks of DDR2 800 of RAM for Christmas. My current desktop already has two 1 GB sticks of DDR2 533 RAM. My motherboard has 4 slots for RAM and I'm running Win 7 x64, so if I'm not mistaken I could actually install the new sticks in addition to the old ones and have 6 GB of RAM total.

However, I seem to remember something about how installing faster RAM in addition to slower RAM will slow all of the memory down. Will this drag on my system performance? If so, would the trade-off be worth installing all 6 gigs anyway?

Help me pick a new best friend for the next 4 years

amethysts — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 16:16:33 -0800

Finding a new laptop is making my head spin. I'm finding a lot of advice for "gamers" and "people who only do email and Word docs" or "people who need a mobile video editing suite" but I'm in the middle of the spectrum - the heaviest duty stuff I use is graphics programs like Flash and Photoshop and I don't do video games. I'm finding lot of bad reviews and stuff that says "Great all around except for the graphics". How am I going to make sure I find a laptop that does everything I need and lasts for years and years? I have a 4 year old Gateway M320 (80gb hdd and 512mb ram) which is still doing OK but gets really slow on Flash, Photoshop, Firefox, etc. and is needed elsewhere in the family. Once all the Adobe stuff is gone it will be perfect for that purpose.

I remember hearing at various times that the following brands make absolutely shit products and should be avoided:
Asus, Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, HP, Gateway, Mac
The following brands are ones that I can get a discount on through my school:
Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, HP
The following brands are ones that I've had good experiences with in the past:
Gateway (2005-present), Lenovo (formerly IBM I guess) 2002-2005

This one is my front-runner so far, Lenovo Thinkpad SL510. It gets positive reviews but the bad ones seem really bad.

These are its main features, which I've been using as a baseline, and seem to be everything I need, but I really don't know:
* Core 2 Duo T5870 / 2 GHz
* Centrino
* RAM 4 GB
* HDD 250 GB
* DVD-Writer
* GMA 4500MHD
* Gigabit Ethernet
* WLAN : 802.11 a/b/g/n (draft)
* Bluetooth 2.1
* Windows 7 Home Premium
* 15.6" Widescreen TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA )
* camera
* matte black
* TopSeller
* Microsoft Office Ready

I will be using it for graphics programs like Photoshop and Flash, MS Office, internet, trillian, Itunes, etc., preferably all at the same time.

Also as much as I would like to get a Mac my budget is limited to around $700.

So here's my questions:
Am I on the right path?
Does the one I'm looking at seem like it'll be a good match?
Are there ones that I should be looking at but aren't due to outdated biases?
How do I know I'm making the right decision?

Connect Two!

davidmsc — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:50:05 -0800

Two computers at work: my desktop, and a DVR-capture computer in another workcenter. I can "ping" the DVR computer from my desktop using the ipconfig command with no problem. Accessing it from my browser, however, does not work. Tried both Firefox and MS IE. Using the same IP address (http://xxx.xxx.x.xxx) in both instances, but no luck connecting via browser. Our internet guy claims that there's no firewall issues. So what's the problem - why can't I connect to the DVR computer from my desktop? Much obliged for any assist, MeFites!

Your script is my command!

Drasher — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:09:18 -0800

[Software Development filter] I am working on a project that uses a PC (Windows) and a dedicated microprocessor to perform a specific task. I want to create a scripting language that will allow the user to write their own sequences for the tool. The front-end of the software is being created using MS Visual Basic (Visual Studio) 2008. There is a "processing" back-end being created with the same development package, but using C++ to create a DLL. The DLL uses USB to communicate with a PIC (PIC24FJ256GB110) microprocessor that will control elements of the tool (heater, flow controllers, valves, solenoids, and relays) and gather data from other elements (pressure sensors, temperature sensors, liquid sensors, gas chromatograph).

I want the end user to have the ability to write a script and have the tool process the commands.
The script will have a simple language and limited number of commands.

For example:
10 DELAY XXX ms/sec/min
20 TURN ON PUMP_1
30 TURN OFF VALVE_3
40 FLOW_CONTROLLER PURGE
50 FLOW_CONTROLLER 100 ml/min
60 IF PRESSURE_SENSOR_1 > 100 THEN GOTO [line number]
and so on...

I have searched for and found a couple of "tiny basic" interpreters written in C that look like they could be modified and wedged into service. These interpreters use integers only, I might need floating point capability (pressure value comparisons, etc.) One interpreter requires line numbers the other uses labels for GOTOs and GOSUBs. I don't know if I should use line numbers (requires renumbering at some point) or labels (preprocess a symbol table).

I have a feeling that the end users are not very computer savvy so the scripting would have to be easy to understand and provide adequate error messages.

Do you (or someone you know) have an idea of a better path?
Should I try lex & yacc?
Should I just suck it up and try starting an interpreter from scratch?

Any and all replies are welcome.
AskMe has pulled me out from a jam before, PLEASE do it again!

More technology plz!

sarahj — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:44:57 -0800

How can I help my parents hook up their computer to their TV? My parents have a nice wall-mounted big screen Pioneer lcd tv and my dad's dream is to have their Dell desktop system in the same room wirelessly networked to it, for music-playing, presumably netflix and online video viewing, and general happiness. I've googled this in as many different verb-noun combinations I can come up with and I'm still not sure what I'm looking for. Is this possible?

My dad mentioned something called RocketFish, and I saw some BluRay players that potentially had wireless networking capabilities but I wasn't sure if that capability was usually used for some other purpose. I'd like to help him on this for a Christmas gift - what would I need to buy and do in order to do this?

Thanks so much! I can definitely provide more information if it's needed.

Wirless network utilization keeps dropping to zero - any ideas?

alrightokay — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 14:50:35 -0800

My google skills have failed me. My wireless network utilization is very low, or keeps dropping to zero. Other computers on the same network are just fine - what gives? I have a new Sony Vaio and I recently installed windows 7. About a month after the install I starting having internet connections issues - pages timed out, video loads poorly, etc. A virus scan in safe mode turned up nothing. Did an adware scan too - also clean except for a few cookies.

My GF's computer, which is on the same wireless network, is not having any issues at all.

Ctrl+Alt+Del > Task Manager > Network shows that my Wireless network utilization goes from 0% to a 3.2% to .2% - all very low and frequently dropping to zero - not sure if this is normal.

I pinged www.google.com and I got some poor results too: 4 packets sent, 3 received, 1 lost. Apprx round trip time avg was 43ms - but the result is not consistent - sometimes it's as low as 20ms but other times the "Request timed out."

Does anyone know what might be causing the problem?

Keyboard for my HTPC setup?

petah — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:17:11 -0800

Recommendations for a good HTPC (home theater PC) keyboard? I've got an old laptop I've hooked up to my television, and I'd like to be able to browse the web and operate my computer from the couch.

I was wondering if there were any dedicated keyboard/mouse combos for this task?

Why is Windows XP freezing and refusing to shut down?

ZsigE — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 17:20:52 -0800

Windows XP freezes, audio has disappeared and returned, system hangs on shutdown...my PC has suddenly taken a turn for the worse, and nothing I've tried seems to be helping. So...help? I'm running XP Home on a self-built PC (Asus M2A-VM HDMI motherboard, AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000 dual core processor, ATI Radeon HD 3600 graphics), which has been running happily for just over a year. Today it started behaving oddly - Firefox hung while I was opening a new tab, followed by the entire PC freezing so completely that I had to hold down the power button to switch it off. On reboot, my sound had disappeared - subsequent reboots showed that all my audio devices had vanished.

Shutdowns no longer work (I get to the "Windows is shutting down" screen and then it sits there apparently indefinitely). The PC dual-boots Ubuntu, so I tried that - the sound was fine, so it's not a hardware problem, and I can shut down from there with no problems. When I went back into Windows, my audio devices had mysteriously returned, but shutdowns were still broken, and it still hung intermittently.

I dug out the motherboard install CD and reinstalled the chipset, audio and LAN drivers. I then went to Asus's website to look for updated versions - found reasonably new audio drivers, which then crashed halfway through installation. So none of that seems to be helping.

Subsequent hangs seem to have come on gradually - Firefox stops responding, followed by whatever I click on. In one case, I saw Firefox die, then the Start menu, then the whole taskbar, then Google Desktop, then Launchy, then the keyboard (Num Lock stopped switching its LED on and off). Ctrl-Alt-Del added the usual icon to the system tray, but the window didn't appear.

Basically, I'm stumped. I've seen fewer crashes in Firefox since disabling all its extensions, but I doubt that was the initial cause. Any ideas as to which avenues I could try next?

Preparing mac for a 4-year old - all ideas wanted!

dabitch — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 13:41:46 -0800

Making mac kid friendly - Easy stuff [for someone only aged 4] on G4 mac laptop. How do I keep her internet childsafe in the best way (or should I leave it out?)? Do you know good/fun programs or games I should invest in? What did you do? I'm gifting my older Mac laptop to my daughter for Xmas. I want her to be able to handle it herself, and with the kids keyboard and the sturdy small usb mouse I found, I have the physical covered. I think? Now for the software! I want her to be able to upload her images to the web (she has a homepage). Should I simply use flickr (since iPhoto now comes with that neat upload button)? What games and programs are there for a 4-year old that I should get? How do I make the internet kid-safe, or should I leave the internet and images upload for later in life? At her pre-school she often uses their sturdy old computer which only has approved simple teaching games on it, and has proven with it that she has respect for computers and is very good at turning all periphials (it has speakers and such) on and off in the right order. I think she's ready for her own at home - I just don't know what to fill it with. All ideas welcome!

How can I stop my PC from rattling like Marley?

headspace — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 09:27:47 -0800

My PC is rattling. It stops when I hit it. This is not a long-term solution. It starts whining/rattling when I boot it in the morning. I thump it, and it stops. It's a tower case, with the MOBO on the right side, and the drives arrayed down the front. (1 IDE hard drive, 1 SATA hard drive, 1 DVD burner, 1 Lightscribe DVD burner, 1 3 1/2 floppy drive.)

The sound seems to be coming from the top of the case, toward the middle- where there shouldn't be anything except motherboard.

Until today, it only made this sound on boot up. Now it's doing it intermittently as I work. The fans are in working order and there are no cords getting thumped by fan blades.

If the hard drives were going bad, would they stop whining if I thumped the case? Have I missed a loose screw somewhere? What other parts could be making this sound?

(I have backed everything up. I cannot afford a Mac.)

Best ideas for computer training at a non-profit?

playmobil — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 08:41:54 -0800

I'm looking for ideas on how best to implement computer training for a 70-person non-profit. In charge of finding best practices for computer training at the local government non-profit where I work as the sole help desk/trainer. I am part of a three-person IT staff (boss, programmer, me) which is heavily Microsoft-software-based on PCs. Most, if not all, of the users have at least a basic competency in the software they need to use to get their jobs done. The apps are pretty basic: 2007 versions of the Office suite, Microsoft Dynamics.

I've explored having something like lynda.com available to all the staff but I was wondering how computer training is provided where you work? Does anyone have any experience with having awesome training experiences at your job?

We could provide limited offsite classroom training but I'm not sure how effective that would be long term. We don't have a large budget for outside classes anyway.

I am aware of the most obvious methods, i.e. internal classes, bring in an expert, cheat sheets, but I am mostly looking for examples of methods or processes I might not have considered.

NTLDR is missing?

SamuelBowman — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:40:45 -0800

Tried to fix external drive, now laptop gives a "NTLDR is missing" error on boot and will not go any further. I am using Windows Vista on a Dell Inspiron 6400. I was trying to fix a missing external hard drive with TestDisk, using a walkthrough found here, and I am now getting the message "NTLDR is missing, press any key to restart" when I try to boot up. Pressing a key only repeats this message on screen. This is both with and without the drive plugged in.

How can I fix this? Thanks - this is quite upsetting!

Help me undestand this Cacti graph re: cooling & thermal sensors

xmutex — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 08:28:16 -0800

Trying to figure out if I'm cool with my computer's cooling. What does this Cacti graph mean? OK here's the graph of the thermal sensors on my standard ATX machine on a weekly readout. It has four hard drives in it. Prior to week five, it had a rear outtake fan and where the side grate is, a cone/funnel (like this dude).

Between weeks 5 and 7, the computer had a rear outtake fan plus a side intake fan in place of the funnel. However, the side fan was pretty loud and annoying so last night I took that out, and what you see past week 7 is just the rear outtake fan and an unplugged side fan on the side grate.

How do the numbers look? What's the best way to interpret this Cacti graph? Thanks!

What are these plastic rails on my hard drive called?

billybunny — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 11:43:26 -0800

What are these rails which snap into the side of a hard drive and allow it to slide into a bay called? And also, where can I get some more? My computer's case has absolutely no identifying information, and hell if I can remember who the manufacturer was 5 years after I bought the thing. I tried going into a computer store to get some more, but I couldn't even figure out what I was trying to buy, let alone if they'd have any of them!

What to do with a broken iMac G5?

crios — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 09:36:47 -0800

My mom has an iMac G5, 1.8 Ghz w/ superdrive and 2GB of RAM (I think). It's been a problem since they first got it with a logic board replacement and multiple power supply replacements (all free thankfully). Recently it started giving kernel panics on start up with the fans sounding like jet engines. It's a little over 4 years old and even though it's given us hardware problems, it has been a good computer and my mom likes it. What should we do with it now? I've tried all the troubelshooting suggestions (rest PRAM, remove peripherals, startup off of disk, etc...) and nothing is working. She's ready to throw in the towel with this one and get a new one. I'm thinking a mac mini, all we'll need to buy is a monitor.

My question is, what do we do with this iMac. I've tried rebooting off of the install disk and it's still panicking so it seems to be pretty broken. Should we try to sell it on ebay? Does anybody know any organizations in the Chicagoland area that would be interested in it? My other question is, what should we do about the hard drive. Since I can't even start up off of a disk I can't even format the HD. I don't think there is anything really sensitive on it but still I think it's probably a good idea to erase it before giving it away.

Any and all suggestions are appreciated.

The pope is angered by your attack on...

zvs — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:03:03 -0800

Name that game: You're a feudal lord trying to conquer neighboring territories on a sort of RISK-style board. Make the wrong move and you'll enrage the pope. I played this around 1994 and Google is apparently completely unable to help. If you can name that title, I'll be your best friend forever.

Crash Course

weapons-grade pandemonium — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 20:47:54 -0800

PC crash. How to progress from here? It's a two year-old HP Pavilion m8327c running Vista. Had some FireFox crashes in the last few days. Today the display started flickering, the whites turning to vertical yellow lines, pixelated colors, etc. Ran System Restore and got up again for a while, then display started disintegrating again. Started in safe mode, but things seemed to get worse. Eventually even System Restore didn't work. Have run HijackThis and Adaware regularly, and NOD32 is up to date. Never had problems with viruses. Computer is very dusty; I plan to blow it out tomorrow. Unplugged now, and I'm working from my old computer.

What is the most likely cause? What is the best way to proceed from here? My son has a pretty rad computer we can use to transfer files, etc. TIA.

Help me find the manual for my bike computer.

Barry B. Palindromer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 17:21:04 -0800

What bike computer is this? I recently purchased a bike at a garage sale. I'm really happy with the bike; the change from my clunker of a mountain bike to this sleek road bike makes a ton of difference in my commute. It came with a bike computer, and I can't figure out how to change from metric to imperial, or how to make sure the wheel measurements are correct. So I'd like to find out what make and model it is, hopefully that will help me find a manual somewhere.

My computer hates Amazon.com

Smalltown Girl — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 09:30:19 -0800

My PC hates Amazon.com. Why? My 5-year-old Dell (running Windows XP) has decided it hates Amazon.com. Just that site. Here's what happens when I visit Amazon.com:
I get a "Security Warning" box that reads, "The current webpage is trying to open a site in your Trusted sites list. Do you want to allow this? current site: http://www.amazon.com. Trusted site: res://ieframe.dll."
It then gives me 2 options -- click YES box or click NO box. It then gives the warning that I'll die and go to hell if I trust this site.
When I click either box, I have to do so three (3!) times. Then I get to continue shopping on amazon.
It only happens on this site. Only started doing this a couple of months ago.
I am computer-able but not computer-brilliant. What can I do? (I hate to give up Amazon.com completely.)

Sturdy Headphones?

gabrielbenjamin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:49:52 -0800

Can anyone recommend a DURABLE pair of headphones, primarily for computer use? Just broke a pair of cup-over-the-ear headphones after a weak, cheap plastic hinge broke. I'm so sick of this--every pair I buy lasts maybe two years before some crappy plastic part snaps off. It's not like I'm hard on the things: I just put them on, wear them for a few hours, and take them off. I'd like to find a pair of decently comfortable headphones that will last a good long time. Price is not necessarily the biggest factor--e.g. $100 is insane for a pair that will last the typical two years, but if it'll last 10 years it's a good investment.

Can anybody help me out?

Why does fullscreen make old programs look funny on my Windows 7 computer?

Pope Guilty — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:37:52 -0800

When I run some programs in full screen under Windows 7, they either crash or have odd colour effects. When I run Diablo 1 on Windows 7, some of the colours in the game are replaced by bright, flourescent oranges and greens and cyans and the like- and not in any apparent order, just big jumbles of them. The same thing happens when I play Alone in the Dark under DOSBox, though only at full screen- when I play at the default window size, the colors look fine. FCE Ultra, the NES emulator, simply crashes, which it didn't in XP. Messing about with compatibility settings doesn't seem to fix it. The really fucked thing is that when I take screen shots, everything looks proper and normal.

I'm on a Dell Inspiron 1545- 1366x768 screen, dual-core 2.0GHz processor, 3GB RAM.

EIEIOmega

rleamon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:04:20 -0800

My Iomega external hard drive died... Any chance of getting it going again? Or getting the drive(s) out and into another case? It's an Iomega HDD2H, 640GB, silver case, and I'm pretty sure it's two 320GB drives in a RAID 0 configuration. (Specs are hard to come by for this, sadly.) The case has four screws attaching the outer enclosure that mainly serves to provide feet, but the inner enclosure holding the ddrives defied my initial attempts to open it -- no apparent screws or other modes of ingress. I found a suggestion to try another external power supply with it and happened to have an exact twin that came with another drive -- but no go.

I'd rather rescue the data somehow and have a hard time believing the drives themselves are the problem; it seems more like a power issue. But even if I could get the drives out, what are the chances I could use another RAID enclosure (which I happen to have) and retrieve the data?

Lastly, yes, it's out of warranty, and Iomega quoted a minimum $900 to get the data back. Yikes!