Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computers

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Navelgazer — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:51:47 -0800

How do I either recover my Mac OS X password or else get around needing it? Several years ago, my then-girlfriend's father bought a family pack of OS_X Leopard, and gave one of them to me. A year later, she and I were broken up. About six months after that, my computer crashed, and the genius bar had to replace the hard drive and reinstall everything. This means that the update password was lost from memory, and I never knew it and can't easily find out what it might have been (ex's dad installed Leopard himself).

So now I've gone a year without updating and it's starting to drive me crazy. Not only can I not update OS_X, but I can't install any number of things I'd like to either.

Does anyone know how I can either recover what this password might have been, or work around it so that I don't need a password to update?

Much Thanks, and Happy Christmas/Hannuka/Kwanzaa/Solstice/Festivus/Holidays to you.

Looking for good system monitoring / task scheduling software

Nothing — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:09:28 -0800

Looking for good system monitoring / task scheduling software to run on Windows for server monitoring as well as running custom scripts for keeping track application specific metrics. Right now I am using a hand-rolled solution which runs scripts and updates logs / sends emails on output. It's nice because it is easy to add new custom tasks and metrics, but I am looking to migrate the functionality into something a little more robust, possibly with the ability to keep track of tasks running on multiple machines, etc.

Are computers liable for import duty?

SamSugar — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 00:59:57 -0800

I'm waiting to receive a used computer I bought from China (where it was made) and it is now "Inbound into Customs." This worries me as I was under the impression laptop fell under code 8471, and were import tax exempt. Is this right? If not what are the customs officials going to ask for? Also if duty is charged, will the value be based on the declared value or...?

Moving on from the helpdesk

khaibit — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:41:28 -0800

I graduated with a BA in Religious Studies, and am currently working in a tech support/helpdesk position. I would like to move into actual IT work. What's the best way to go about that?

Santa, Bring Me Multi-Processors

yerfatma — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:37:40 -0800

Looking for advice on upgrading a dual-OS Mac Pro Tower. (Apologies in advance for how disjointed this will be)

I have a Mac Pro Tower with 2 dual core 2.66GHz processors and 3 gigs of memory that I bought when I started freelancing in late 2007. Because of my workload since then, I've been mainly using it with a Bootcamp copy of XP. It's started to feel old and slow-- the worst bit is when it starts to grind for a couple of minutes (usually on wake up). I've used a combo of Moo0 System Monitor, Process Explorer and Task Manager in a haphazard attempt to run down the issue(s). Watching Moo0 recently, it seems like the hard drive is most often the burden/ bottleneck. Memory usage is fairly high, running around 65% when I'm in full-on work mode, but that's impossible to relieve under XP since it can only address 2 gigs anyway. Combine all this with the fact the accountant wants me to spend some cash before the end of the year and I'm ready to do something. But what?

I'd like to move to Windows 7 for the Windows side of things. I should be ok with wiping the XP Bootcamp install since all of my data is backed up elsewhere, but I'm wondering if I could buy an SSD drive, install it in the box and put Windows 7 on that. Well, clearly I could, but would I be able to easily boot into that? I use rEFIt now to boot into Windows/ Mac, but I don't know if that would find another OS that wasn't on the main drive. Obviously if I went to Windows 7 I could bump the memory (and I know I should be using even number/ equal pairs of memory, not 3 gigs, for better performance).

In sum: I want to improve this machine and I want to move to Windows 7. What's the best bang for my buck on the hardware and what's the least painful way to move to Windows 7?

Possibly the most specific -filter in recent memory

The Lurkers Support Me in Email — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:14:58 -0800

GUIDPartitionTableFilter: How can I non-destructively change a partition's filesystem type ID in OS X? For some reason (which I'll add at the end so I can get to the point) a partition on my external USB drive is mistakenly flagged as 'Microsoft Basic Data' and not 'Apple_HFS', as shown by diskutil:

$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk0

   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk0s1

   2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            402.5 GB   disk0s2

   3:       Microsoft Basic Data Boot Camp               97.1 GB    disk0s3

/dev/disk3


   #:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER

   0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *1.0 TB     disk3

   1:                        EFI                         209.7 MB   disk3s1

   2:       Microsoft Basic Data                         999.9 GB   disk3s2

            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Wrong!

When I plug the disk in or boot up, Snow Leopard complains about not being able to recognize the disk and asking if I want to initialize it. However, if I do mount_hfs /dev/disk3s2 /Volumes/Test the drive is mounted and I can access the filesystem just fine.

How can I change the type back to Apple_HFS? I've looked at the gpt and diskutil man pages but only found info pertaining to creating new partitions, not modifying existing ones.

How can I dial back the crazy eyes?

wexford_arts — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:30:51 -0800

How can I dial back the crazy eyes? I've noticed that many of the candid and posed photos of me over the last 10 years show me with very wide open eyes, with some white showing above the iris. While it's not totally surprising to find in some animated candid shots, I don't like the intense, crazy look in ID photos and the like.

I've worn contacts for about 25 years, have spent much of that time on computer work, and have recently started using drugstore magnifying glasses to make computer work easier.

So here's my questions.

1) Why am I seeing this now, when older pictures of me don't show this effect? I have been told by an optometrist that contacts and/or years of computer work have led to the extra widening of my eyes. Does this make sense? Would moving to glasses instead of contacts help?

2) How can I overcome this? I try to consciously relax my eyes when posing for pictures, but even so, my most recent ID card looks as if I'm contemplating turning the photographer into stew. I'm afraid that the old "close your eyes, then open them just before the picture is taken" trick will make things worse. Any other ideas?

My home built PC is DOA. Help!

COD — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 12:19:37 -0800

My new homebuilt PC is DOA (Dead on Assembly). Athlon dual core with an ASUS motherboard, GeForce 9500 and 2 GB of RAM. It is a barebones kit from Tiger Direct, so I shouldn't have any imcompatible parts. All parts are brand new except the DVD drive, which I had laying around. I have power to the motherboard as the LED on the motherboard does light. However, when I push the power button nothing happens, no fans, nothing at all. The power LED on the front panel is not lighting. I have double checked all the connections, and quadruple checked the 2 pin power switch connector.

Any ideas on what I should check? This is not my first PC build. I was careful, didn't have any static electricity issues, etc.

Is is possible to install an Athlon CPU improperly? I can't seem to get the damn CPU fan off so I have not double checked the CPU, but it sat right down in the socket and the locking bar closed easily, so I really doubt that is the problem.

What am I doing wrong with my PSU?

battlebison — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:36:45 -0800

PSU was missing from computer. Bought a new one, now it gives me one continuous BIOS beep when I turn it on. What have I done wrong and how do I fix this? From what I understand, one continuous beep means it isn't getting enough power. I have a 450W PSU brand new from NewEgg and this computer is fairly old, so I figured it would have been good enough! I forget the specs exactly, but I think it's a single core 3.8 GHz AMD processor and it has a GeForce 7800 GT as its graphics card. Everything else about it is very pedestrian.

There is the usual ATX power slot on the motherboard as well as what looks like a 4-pin slot near it. It looks like this:
[::]
[::::::::::]
There are two 4-pin connectors coming out of the PSU: one attached the main plug and one that just kind of hangs out on its own separate from any other cable. The computer will only get as far as turning on and beeping at me if I have either the main plug in on its own or it and the loose 4-pin plug. It doesn't do anything at all if I use the 4-pin plug attached to the main plug.

Does it matter that the plug coming from the PSU seems to be missing a pin? [:::::::.::]

Help me revive this old computer!

Thanks for reading this ridiculously long explanation of what is probably an easy problem.

Probable PC power supply issue - how to confirm and what to get?

mattholomew — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 09:13:33 -0800

Probable PC power supply issue - how to confirm and what to get? My home PC is a Acer-Aspire Desktop with Intel Core2 Quad Processor , item # Q6600-AM5630-U5209A. I am away from home presently and unable to look at it, however my wife said that it started shutting down randomly yesterday and now the light on the power button goes on but nothing happens - no boot screen, no spinning of drives, no fan, and DVD tray won't power on or open. Tried reconnecting all the cables to no avail. Other devices plugged into the same outlet work fine.

I'm assuming this is a power supply issue, however I've never bought a power supply before & I can't look at the unit. Can anyone confirm that my hunch is correct, and based on the item # could anyone tell me what sort of power supply I should buy?

Help me choose a technical or trade college for IT administration.

loquacious — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:23:24 -0800

Help me research technical schools/colleges for IT, CS and systems administration. I'm looking for a technical school/college along the lines of ITT or similar schools that are affordable and offer financial aid application assistance.

I want to learn and brush up on computer/IT administration with a focus on systems/server administration. Specifically Windows Server 2008, Macintosh OS X as well as a side course in Vista and Windows 7.

I'm interested both AA and BA programs.

Please feel free to also name programs to avoid like the plague.

(For the record, I have about a decade of real world IT work and I am returning to school as an independent adult.)

Help me bring back my wifi!

COBRA! — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 08:15:02 -0800

I'm having wifi troubles with my MacBook, and the lack of connectivity for the weekend gave me the shakes. Help me before the withdrawal gets worse! The gist: WPA2 Personal network, running on a Netgear router. Been up for a while, played nice with my MacBook (running Snow Leopard) and my wife's XP laptop. Over the weekend, the router rebooted during the setup of a new Roku, and my MacBook abruptly dropped the network; since then, I haven't been able to reconnect, just getting the standard "There was an error trying to join the network [SSID]. Please try again later."

My wife's XP machine still connects with no trouble.

As nearly as I can tell, it seems like my laptop sees the network, but can't recognize it as WPA2 Personal; when I try to connect, the SSID shows up in my saved networks as WPA2 Enterprise. Editing one of the Enterprise instances to Personal with the correct login information doesn't help, nor does manually adding a new Personal instance.

Other things I have tried:

- rebooting the router (multiple times)
- deleting the keychain storing network passwords
- deleting the plist storing network prefs
- deleting and re-adding the entire Airport connection in my network prefs
- reinstalling and updating Snow Leopard (update done with the MacBook connected by ethernet)

Any thoughts/suggestions/ideas?

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.

Help me upgrade my son's PC for Christmas

COD — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:11:21 -0800

I want to upgrade my son's PC for Christmas but I'm overwhelmed by the options and I figure somebody here can point me in the right direction a lot faster than I can figure it out myself. My son is getting by with an old 1.6 GHZ Celeron box with 1 GB RAM and a GeForce card, I think in the 4000 series. It's not new for sure. He uses the PC for general Web stuff and playing RTS types of games. He tend to do most of his graphically intensive FPS gaming on the Xbox. So the new computer does not need to be a quad core super gaming machine. My budget is $400 for a low-mid level gaming box that will last him 2 years as I assume I'll be buying him a laptop to take to college 2 years from now. His current box plays all his games fine, if not at high resolution.

The easy way out is to pick up a Dual Core box with 2-3 GB of RAM from the Dell Outlet store and add a better GPU to it. That will come in probably just a little over $400, which is fine.

However, his current PC has a decent case with a 350W power supply that is only about 2 years old, and I have a couple of 250 GB IDE drives laying around I could use, as well as the DVD drive in his current box. So I'm thinking I could put a new motherboard with a much better CPU and 2-4 GB of RAM into his current case, maybe upgrade the power supply if needed, add a GEForce 9500 level GPU or something along those lines, and come out with a much better computer than the Dell box, probably for less money.

However, I'm totally overwhelmed trying to pick and choose between all my options for upgrading his box. Does anybody here that has experience rolling your own PC want to recommend the components that would work, within the 400 budget?

Thanks.

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?

Printer for fashion company

ChloeMills — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:35:20 -0800

Need help figuring out best option for a printer for a fashion company. We currently use the basic Epson Large Format printers that cost between $300 - $500. However we keep having to replace them every year or so. I guess they have sponges that fill up and then you need get them professionally replaced.

I know at past companies we had one with replaceable sponges. However those seem to cost a lot more. How long are those meant to last. Does anyone have good suggestions for ones to use.

I'd say on average we print 30 pages a day, but during busy times it could be more than 100.

I don't know if laser, inkjet or dye printer is best.
We mostly printer on Matte Photo paper, plain copy paper and occasionally card stock. We rarely if ever print on Glossy photo paper.

Important factors for us:
-Longevity. It needs to last long a long time. It's a long and frustrating process when we have to buy new printers because we have to rematch all our color standards which takes a long time.
-Wide range of color. It's important that we can get a pretty wide range of color to match our fabric color standards.
-Color consistency is very important for the same reasons
-Cost - in the past we spent $400 on printers - so I have to show that a more expensive printer will be cost efficient.
-Switching paper - ease. We are constantly switching the size and type of paper we use. So that has to be fairly easy.

Any pointers, suggestions are greatly appreciated. I really don't know what our best option would be!

Seeking clicking mechanism or design...

pallen123 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:21:02 -0800

What kind of small toys or devices click when you rotate them forwards and backwards? Seeking mechanism or design... I’m trying to help a friend design a small toy and she needs a mechanism that will click in very small increments as she rotates a small (1 inch diameter) dial that turns 360 degrees on its axis. She needs the dial to click precisely as it turns clockwise and counterclockwise in smallish increments. I was thinking a fishing reel mechanism might work, but that just allows turning in one direction. Then I thought a ratchet wrench mechanism might work, but that also turns in just one direction (and I’m not sure how the inside of a ratchet wrench works either). Can anyone think of existing toys or devices that have a clicking mechanism that freely rotate? Novel solutions? Suggestions? Thank you!

What Bay Area stores carry the Dell Adamo?

Susan PG — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 09:32:58 -0800

Where can I see a Dell Adamo (not the new XPS, but the one that was released last year) in person, in the San Francisco Bay Area? Frys doesn't seem to carry it, and I don't know who else would. I'm considering buying one, and want to handle it and check out the keyboard, weight, etc., in person, before making a decision. Thanks for any help you can provide :-)

Will my brand new computer be faster if I uninstall everything?

kensington314 — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:16:01 -0800

I just got a brand new HP G61 320US with AMD Athlon II 2.0 Ghz processor and 3 GB RAM, running Windows 7. It is still in the box. I want it to run fast. Do I need to uninstall everything and then reinstall the basics? If so, what program should I use to do the uninstall? I have heard that new PCs come larded down with all kinds of garbage that takes up RAM and processor-effort. So to all you computerheads: do I need to wipe it clean? If so, does that include reinstalling the OS?

I've heard that PC Decrapifier (no joke) is a good tool for this. Yes/no?

Any advice is much appreciated.

Looking for an external hard drive

The Lurkers Support Me in Email — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:35:40 -0800

My external hard drive has been making some very odd noises for a while and I’m looking for a good replacement. Your input would be appreciated. I’ve been using an external enclosure for the last year or so, but shortly after I bought the drive it started taking a long time to spin up (10+ seconds) before making a loud click sound and finally starting to read/write, during which time the app accessing the drive beachballs. I think it would be a good idea to replace the enclosure with an actual external disk instead of the Super Nintendo-esque setup I've got now, but I'd like to run my criteria past the hive mind to get some advice first.

Key points:

I want something whisper-quiet. I live in a very small apartment and can't imagine how I used to put up with a noisy dual-GPU tower machine now that I have an iMac.

The current drive is 1TB, but I'm considering going with a 2TB drive for a bit of extra space. Depends on the severity of the price jump.

I want something reliable. My belief is that all consumer-grade hard disks are ticking timebombs that will all fail at some point, but I'd like to avoid buying another IBM Deathstar.

Physical size is irrelevant; I'll be sticking it behind my display and never looking at it again. Performance is also a non-issue as it will only be used for Time Machine backups and bulk data storage.

eSATA is unnecessary as my iMac doesn't have a connection, but it does have an unused FireWire port that I'd like to take advantage of (freeing up a USB port in the process).

I live in Canada and will probably be ordering from there, but I don't think there's much difference in cross-border product availability these days.

I can't stay logged in to any websites

peep — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:17:42 -0800

Suddenly today, I can't stay logged into anything - Google, Facebook, Metafilter, Twitter, Flickr, etc. I've run through a bunch of possibilities, but could the power cutting out last night have done something? I'm using Firefox, and I've already uninstalled and reinstalled it. Privacy settings allow cookies and I don't have it set to clear history when closing a window. And obviously I've tried many times to log into different sites, making sure I click "remember me." I've never had this problem before today. Last night the power went out for about 20 seconds and my computer shut down, but all was otherwise fine this morning. I've restarted and it's in regular (not safe) mode. Any ideas?

How difficult is it to become a Certified Mac Tech?

sammich — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:13:45 -0800

Any Apple Certified Macintosh Technicians in the house? How difficult was it for you to get certified? This question has been asked before but I want to expand on it.

I manage all the Macintosh computers at my work. I also setup my office location as a Apple Self Servicing center, which means, among other things, I am allowed to access Apple service resources (order parts, look up service manuals, etc) just like a regular Apple repair store can. But the difference between me and a real repair place is that I can't do official warranty repairs, because no one on my staff has been certified by Apple to do them. Fortunately one of the perks of being a self servicing center is free access to on-line training to become certified.

My primary duties at work are managing software installs and servers. I deal with about 150 Macs at work, almost half of them are laptops, and I guesstimate no more than 10% of those need some kind of warranty repair during the 3 years of Applecare. I'll do the occasional repair but only if it's out of warranty. I've always tinkered with taking apart computers but only for the occasional hobby.

Looking over the course topics, the software side is pretty elementary to me, but the hardware topics seems (naturally) extensive and complicated. The training courses cover the ins and outs of the guts of every Mac of the past 4-5 years. In my job I've typically only work on Mac towers (G5/Mac Pros) and PowerBooks and MacBook Pros (when I mean work on, I mean things like power supply removals, cracked LCD replacements, etc). I don't have much hands on experience with lower end hardware such as Minis and iMacs.

So my question is, how hard core should I brush up on Macs i'm unfamiliar with? If I replaced a drive in a Macbook Pro would it be safe to say that the MacBook Air would be just as easy if i just glanced over the instructions? During test time, will they quiz me on every model? Will they do something like give me an iMac and tell me to take it apart and reassemble? Do you think it's worth it for an IT guy like me to get certified? I don't plan to be a technician.It's more of a job convenience for me than anything else.

Feel free to PM me if you feel that you're bound by an Apple NDA or whatever.

How can I tell if someone is trying to hop onto my wireless signal?

invisible ink — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 20:46:16 -0800

I have a MacBook Pro running OS 10.6.1, and an Airport Extreme Base Station. Is there a user-friendly way to see if someone is trying to use my internet connection or hack into my network? I live in a large apartment building, and am curious to see if anyone has tried to hop onto my wireless signal. Thanks in advance:-)

How to create online video classes?

jabo — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:36:36 -0800

I need advice in setting up secure, online video classes. A student would pay for the class, and then be directed to a streaming video that they would be able to watch (not download) for a length of time (say a week).

I could use any advice, resources, warnings or general musings on how to accomplish this. Existing software or hosting solutions also welcome. I know html and css but only just getting my little toenail wet with php. Finally, this would be for a small business with limited resources (i.e. cash).

Help me move around without arrow keys!

phaedrus441 — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 16:54:51 -0800

How can I rebind the arrow keys to some other sequence (eg left becomes control-j, right becomes control-k, etc) so that I can quickly navigate around documents that I'm editing without needing to move my hand over to the arrow keys? I regulary use OS X and Windows versions off Word, as well as google docs. Bonus points if someone knows a portable way to do this so I can use computers at the lab.