Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with computers

Best system for an online, ongoing office "discussion"

ecorrocio — Thu, 02 May 2013 08:53:39 -0800

Scenario: Office employees need to be able to log into a system and post opinions/comments on a daily basis for a period of 10 days. These need to be threaded and in response to a prompting question or two each time. Employees should be able to read thru other comments and look back thru older threads. I know there's a gazillion forum systems, and blog alternatives. Do you have a recommendation on which particular system would be best? I do not need a lot of features beyond what's described above. Most blog features would not be used. Not a public (ie. Facebook) type system. Bonus points for: ~ Clean, easy, pleasing, spare interface. ~ Back end tracking by user. ~ Easy install. Thanks!

Need alternative solution to 'send article text'

mattholomew — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 12:31:39 -0800

Help! The Pocket 'read it later' app removed my favorite feature, the option to 'send article text'. This would pull all of the text of an article into an email so the recipient didn't need to follow a link to a web page. This was a lifesaver for my parents who for various reasons couldn't handle trying to follow the link. They are really only comfortable with using email. Now that Pocket has removed this, are there any alternatives available? Some sort of bookmarklet, perhaps? A different app? An ITTT formula?

light laptop to bring to my son

Postroad — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 09:48:04 -0800

My son, in Israel, will soon begin graduate school while also keeping his job. He will need a fairly light laptop, 17 inch screen, for school and home use, but we want to buy it here, where it is a lot less expensive, and he does not want to spend a lot and so has asked that we not get a Mac (Air) or any Mac. What PC laptop is likely to be both fairly lightweight and also a decent computer that will be relatively trouble free and a decent machine?

Use of The City as a metaphor for the Internet/Web

0bvious — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 09:19:31 -0800

I am looking for examinations of the Internet and World Wide Web that use the structure and/or history of the city as a metaphor. I'm afraid I have no original example of this phenomenon to kick things off. I have this image in my head of 'the city' that always goes back to Plato and his Republic. Plato's city was a physical, social construction, as well as a philosophical metaphor, at one and the same time. It feels that many have talked about the Internet in similar, overlapping, terms.

(It need not be 'the city as metaphor', rather any social, physical space that humans build and live in will suffice. Also, metonymy rather than metaphor would be great.)

Writings that explore the political history of the city, it's technological expansion, that consider the city as a nexus for theories of human civilisation, of emergence perhaps, of structure, social and political control and, perhaps most importantly, of space vs place - all as a way to think about similar phenomena taking place online. The Internet as emerging network with similarities to the city; the World Wide Web considered as spatio-social metaphor?

etc. etc.

Any ideas?

Help me not get scammed buying a computer used

BlahLaLa — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 12:33:23 -0800

After my previous question, I'm considering buying a used Mac laptop via Craigslist. Help me not get scammed? When it comes to computers, I basically know nothing about nothing. But I'd like to buy my kid a mac laptop for his birthday. I definitely can't afford new. My local Craigslist (Los Angeles) has a jillion listings...but...other than "hey, that's in my price range" I don't know what the next step is.

What do I look for? What should I look out for? What questions should I ask the seller? How can I get a machine that works, and that will work for my kid (internet browsing, Minecraft, etc.).

Bonus level: when it comes to playing Minecraft, how old a computer is too old? What specs am I looking for?

Chrome, you are getting on my nerves.

Sternmeyer — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:29:27 -0800

Why has Chrome decided to suddenly space out my bookmarks and context menus so much? How do I return to the proper spacing? This is driving me absolutely crazy and I am seriously considering a return to Firefox because it is just that annoying. My wife's bookmarks and context menus look like this. My bookmarks and context menus look like this. Mine looks awful and I have to do a lot of scrolling now, even on a 1080p display.

I'm certain my menus didn't look like this yesterday. I haven't installed any new extensions in weeks. How the hell did I do this to my browser, and how do I fix it? I thought maybe it was from ctrl+scrolling to zoom in but I'm not sure.

what's this maths puzzle doing in my craft cupboard?

superfish — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 22:42:02 -0800

So, I am making a quilt and have a puzzle. I am kind of copying this one. It is seven by seven squares. I have six squares each of seven colours, and seven squares of one colour. Obviously the final colour needs to be in every row, and the other colours need to be in all-but-one row each. I don't want any of the same colours directly next to each other, or directly diagonal to each other.

I have been spending the afternoon with a pen and trial and error, but is there a better way? And what about in the future, when I have 18 colours and 400 squares?

Computer people, would this be easy to write a program for? Or does something like this already exist? I am sure I'm not the only quilty person who would say a big thank you.

Can a terrorist murder me with my car's computer?

Daily Alice — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:15:34 -0800

Can "hackers" use the power of the internet to control anything that has a computer in it? I recently read a thriller in which a hacker-terrorist wreaks all kinds of mayhem from his keyboard. He crashes a plane, wrecks a Disneyland ride, and attempts to murder someone by trapping her in a car and revving up the engine to make it explode, or something. In all these cases he not only takes over control of the computers but disables all manual controls - like in the car, the victim tries to manually open the door lock but it doesn't work because "the computer" has control. When reading this it struck me as incredibly implausible - but how implausible is it? Are we talking, yes it could happen but it's really unlikely because of x, y, and z - or is the idea more along the lines of faster-than-light travel and magic powers?

Which HP docking station can I purchase?

apip — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 21:01:52 -0800

Calling all HP docking station experts! Which one of the cheaper models works with my laptop (Elitebook 8460p)? And why are there so many different models? I'm trying to purchase an HP docking station (or port replicator -- whatever) off of eBay for my work laptop (elitebook 8460p), but there's far too many varieties of docks (and price ranges). I can't find a reliable source for compatible docking stations for my laptop. When I do find a dock that's a good price, I'll only find a couple of results for compatibility with my laptop -- there's seriously a ton of different HP dock models.

Thanks

Suggest Electronica Suggestive of Electronics

dephlogisticated — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 20:40:43 -0800

I like songs that evoke images of circuitry, complexity, and digital processes. What are some songs and artists that convey this feeling? Examples:
Remind Me (Someone Else's Remix) by Röyksopp
Default by Atoms For Peace
In Motion from the soundtrack for The Social Network

What are some other songs of this type? Preferably uptempo. Bonus points if the tone is vaguely sinister.

How can i play HD video without it horribly stuttering?

emptythought — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:15:58 -0800

Any HD video files i try to play stutter horribly on my new computer, and just generally play inconsistently and in a not-smooth fashion. I've tried almost everything... I have years of experience building and supporting computers, Windows/Mac(even classic!)/etc. i work in IT. I've googled the crap out of this every time i get a wild hair for weeks now, and tried almost everything i could find. Every video playing app, different codecs, VLC, using media player classic set up various ways or on the "default ffdshow" mode which some people said was the fastest for them. no dice. I've also asked every meatspace and online friend i have who would be knowledgeable about this type of thing. Lots of suggestions, nothing helped.

The computer itself is extremely fast. core i5 2500k, 8gb of fast ram, dual geforce gtx 460 1gb cards in SLI, vertex 4 ssd, etc. High end stuff. I really can't see anything being a problem there, and there's nothing else i've ever tried to do with it that it couldn't handle smoothly.

It's also worth noting that it gets even worse with higher resolution or larger files. A 1080p version of "Brave" caused it to stutter so intensely that the sound started to skip and crackle. It can usually handle SD/DVD resolution video fine, but even that sometimes stutters.

This is compounded by the fact that my several year old Mac blasts right through most, if not all of these files with absolute smoothness. And even the ones that it doesn't, it just needs 30 seconds or so to throw them in to RAM from it's slow HDD and start caching to play smoothly. So it's not related to the files.

Completely at my wits end with this, and I've basically burned google down looking for solutions. Any thoughts?

I am looking for an Internet-free laptop to use for writing.

thecolor12 — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:14:12 -0800

I can't think properly while online. Nor can I think properly if the Internet is a few clicks away. So I am looking for a laptop that can run Open Office, Adobe, and MS Word, has a USB port for swapping files on and off. It must not be capable of connecting to the Internet, at least not wirelessly. Alternately, I'd be interested in ways to permanently disable the wireless on my old unibody MacBook Pro, model 1.1. Then I could buy a second laptop for Internet purposes. The goal is two laptops--one that's capable of online work and one that is not.

System/software to project answers in realtime, and save for later?

korej — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 12:48:26 -0800

Our university has milestone birthday this year, and therefore a gala. We’re looking for some sort of solution for people to visit one of a number of computer stations in the ballroom, and answer random questions (What’s your favorite memory? Who was your favorite professor, etc). The answers would be projected up onto a large screen, or a number of screens, around the room and update as people enter new answers. We’d also like the answers to be archived for us to do something with later. I’m sure there’s any number of ways to do this, but I’m not sure where to start looking, or even what additional questions I need to be asking. Thanks for any assistance/guidance.

About file dates and what they mean...

kbanas — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:38:47 -0800

In Windows 7 or 8 (and maybe before that) if I view the properties of a document, I get all sorts of meta information. I'm interested in the Date created element and a Content created element.... I think I understand the difference, but I would like to understand it better, so I can answer a question someone has asked me about this.

Could you please explain to me how these attributes are set, and what specific actions (if any) can cause them to change?

If a document has content created and date created elements that differ, it must be because it is a copy of the original document, right? I can think of no other way that could happen.

Summer (Winter?) of Code

carolinaherrera — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 17:37:30 -0800

I'm hoping to find short (2 month-ish to 6 month-ish) full-time, in-person programs that teach practical computer programming skills (Ruby, Python, iOS, PHP, R, Matlab, etc.) I'm hoping to find short full-time, in-person programs that teach practical computer programming skills (Ruby, Python, iOS, PHP, R, Matlab, etc.)

Other details:
- No need to earn a degree, no financial aid needed
- 2 month-ish to 6 month-ish, could be longer or shorter if the right course
- Anywhere in the US or the rest of the world
- Looking for IN-PERSON, skills-based learning. Not Coursera or Udacity unless there is a strong community in-person meetup component.
- No need for computer science theory, etc.; just how to do web or mobile programming itself

Bonuses:
- Programs especially for women
- Project-based learning
- Programs that you know someone who went there/heard good reviews, etc.

Also, programs that teach you how to use R, Matlab, or other statistical packages if you know of any.

Examples: http://www.codefellows.org, https://www.hackerschool.com

Thank you!

Can I search for a computer by selecting the components that are in it?

Fister Roboto — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 17:08:37 -0800

I have specific computer parts I'd like in a computer. I'm considering buying the individual parts and having one built, but I wonder if there's some way to select the options I want to have in my computer on a website and have that generate computers for sale with those parts. Does anyone know of anything like this? Thanks.

Is my laptop going to kill me?

DMelanogaster — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 13:49:23 -0800

I got a shock from my laptop the other day and now I'm afraid to use it... It was plugged in and I touched it and I got a pretty bad shock. My husband carefully (holding it between two rubber-soled sneakers) unplugged it and shut it down.

Then he booted it up the next day and didn't get a shock. He says that the place where the plug goes in, in the laptop, seems to be loose, and maybe that's why there is some sort of short that happens. He believes that this is the kind of situation where fixing it would require replacement of the motherboard, which would not be worth it (the laptop is a few months past its three-year warranty -- it's a Toshiba Satellite).

I really like this laptop! Could the shock have been lethal? could another shock from it BE lethal?

What should I do?

What do I need to know about kids + safe & responsible computing?

BlahLaLa — Sat, 02 Mar 2013 11:07:53 -0800

Mr. BlahLaLa and I are considering buying Kid BlahLaLa a laptop for his 10th birthday. (We want him to be able to play Minecraft and browse the internet.) We're a Mac family but I'm pretty sure this computer will have to be non-Mac because they're so much cheaper, which in turn opens up a whole world of internet security questions that I usually don't think about on my mac. Plus the whole idea of "Now I'm giving my kid a computer, what do I need to think about?" type of stuff. 1: What does a mostly non-computer savvy parent (me) need to know about buying a Windows machine these days? Do you need additional virus protection? Does the Windows security keep up with viruses these days?

2: What do I, as a parent, need to know about keeping my kid secure online? He knows not to give out personal information, download files, etc. He's shown himself to be a responsible, thoughtful kid (which is why we're even considering the computer in the first place)...but he's still a kid. He can be tricked, he can show poor judgement just like all the other kids, etc. In short, he's a great kid but he's still ten years old. What should I be thinking about in terms of keeping him safe?

3: And on the side of personal responsibility, what are some good "Now you've got a computer, son" rules to implement? I know that he will understand that I will always have access to this computer, that nothing he puts on it can be considered private, etc. But I could use some guidance in this area.

4: And lastly, if you have any hardware recommendations. (I got a few in my last, related question but could use some more.)

And I saw this question, but it's already a year old.

What should a creative yet technical person study?

mayurasana — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 14:45:55 -0800

What kind of academic path (from the undergraduate level and beyond) prepares one for developing or working on interesting, innovative projects like Steve Mann's EyeTap (or Google Glass), or other cool interdisciplinary digital projects (e.g. medical cybernetics, space elevators, wearable computing, smart home devices)? I apologize in advance for unfocused interests. Too many things interest me. I need your help in narrowing things down.

I spend my free time learning about various technical, trying to make my life and home more efficient, pursuing personal creative projects, and I have finally purchased an Arduino so I can put some life into ideas I've been dreaming up. (I cannot wait for it to arrive!) And I am in awe of all the projects people at MIT's Media Lab work on, wishing I had the skillset and knowledgebase to to work on my own little projects. (Likely not MIT caliber, mind you, but they're interesting ideas to me.)

I constantly consider switching undergraduate disciplines (from health sciences) and it is finally time to bite the bullet. But I'd like to have a better idea of where to go or how to inform my decisions.

What should I study in the initial, undergraduate stage of my career path? Engineering? But what kind of engineering (electrical, computer, software, systems, something else)? Or would an undergrad in computer science inclusive of courses om machine learning and artificial intelligence be more helpful? A couple of people have recommend "systems design" or "systems engineering" to me, but I don’t fully understand how that helps me get on the path I’m after. Apparently it is a very creative discipline of engineering? Is it?

I've read up on these disciplines on many, many sites, but I still don't know what to do. Engineering of some variety appeals to me so I could earn a small income while doing an internship at school, but if it's not the best option given my interests, I'll comfortably reconsider.

I imagine I’ll want to pursue graduate studies to gain access and knowledge about the kinds of projects I'm really interested in, but my focus right now is to figure out which undergrad discipline to start with.

Help me, hivemind!

Best Home Web Streaming Setup

nickhb — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 12:40:54 -0800

I'd like to create a great streaming setup for my living room. Exact requirements inside I'd like to be able to do the following things in my living room:
-Watch blu-ray discs and DVDs
-Watch Netflix
-Watch Hulu plus
-Watch Amazon streaming (If possible)
-Listen to Pandora (large, full screen interface if possible)
-Stream Video files from my desktop
-Stream iTunes music and video from my desktop or iOS device (essentially airplay)
-watch and record live cable tv (nice bonus, not required. I watch most of my tv after the fact anyway)

My main option I've been considering is building a home theater PC running windows 7 and XMBC with a USB tv tuner, which can do most but not all of the above. The setup I had in mind would cost about $400. I can wire anything in the living room to my home network by ethernet.

However, I'm sure there are other ways, devices, or combinations of devices that can do the above. What do you guys think?

What's the latest word in bluetooth keyboards?

schmod — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 16:25:34 -0800

My Mac's 10-year-old bluetooth keyboard is acting up, and I'm pretty sure that it's death is imminent. I'd like to find a replacement, but Apple long ago stopped making full-sized wireless keyboards -- what are some good alternatives that exist in 2013? I'm quite attached to my Apple A1016 -- in particular, I like that it

Has a full-sized layout. The numpad is nice, but big arrow keys and dedicated Home/End/PgUp/PgDn keys are actually a bigger deal to me.
Is wireless, and physically unobtrusive on my desk. It's small enough to tuck out of the way when I need to use my tiny desk for other things.
Non-chicklet keys. This isn't a dealbreaker, as I've gotten used to typing on a MacBook, but I nevertheless do prefer the feel of a "real" keyboard.
Looks nice. This is silly and superficial, but most 3rd-party keyboards that I've seen are butt-ugly.
Didn't cost an arm and a leg. Sorry, but I'm not paying more than $100 for a keyboard.

For whatever it's worth, I use the keyboard with my Macbook, a big external monitor, and a Magic Trackpad.

All of this adds up to the conclusion that I should just find another A1016 on eBay or Craigslist — however, this is my 2nd A1016 that's died in the exact same manner, and it's known to not play well with modern Bluetooth devices. I'm not sure I want to dump any more money down the drain on this outdated device. Also, used keyboards = ick.

Truth be told, chicklet keys aside, I'd probably buy Apple's current full-sized keyboard if it came in a wireless version.

What are my other options? Are they any good? Is there really no market for full-sized bluetooth keyboards?

Interesting blogs about weird technology?

GenericUser — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 02:17:58 -0800

I'm looking for blogs that cover old and/or niche technology, in the vein of Something Awful's "Obsolete technology" thread or JWZ' "retrocomputing" tag. Suggestions?

Outdated web design

readygo — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 15:53:05 -0800

I used to have a lot of fun doing some web design a few years back, and wanted to have some fun with it again. I took an html class in school but found the work a bit tedious, so I was happy when I discovered Dreamweaver ultra developer (5?). Obviously that's a pretty dated way of making web pages now. I'm just wondering what people use now to make websites, ones that have all the great flash features, embedded music that plays when you visit a website (that you can turn off as well), and everything else that makes a page come to life. Again, I really liked Dreamweaver because it would do all the work for you, just click on what you want and insert (although it also had html view so you can edit whatever you want if you have the skills, which I don't, really).

I'm wondering what the standard is now that people use (not really in a skilled commercial sense, I don't really know or understand all the developer jargon). Is there a product out there like Dreamweaver that's updated so you can insert all the flash stuff you want (I've tinkered around with a version of flash I had a while back but don't have much experience with it). I would assume that most of the stuff you see on websites now is made through some sort of flash program, or some other program perhaps?

Just want to pop back into it as a hobby and my own enjoyment. I feel clueless as to what products are out there, and what the go-to products/websites/possible tutorials are. I also was wondering how social media sites make communicating/posting so easy, where users can search the website for people using key terms like their names, interests, etc. Also how they set it up so users can join, create their own page with all their information, link to their interests and other people profiles. There must be some sort of template for that to happen I would guess. I have no idea on that subject either.

Thanks!

R Statistical Computing for Semi-Dummies?

Keter — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 09:54:33 -0800

StatFilter: Would anybody be able to recommend a good introduction to the statistical computing language "R" that a reasonably quantitatively-adept psychologist might be able to work through on his own? Something like a step-by-step book or textbook with exercises would be great to help me become more fluent in R. (My colleagues at work who use R are primarily computer scientists who either first learned MatLab or are brilliant autodidacts when it comes to learning different scripting languages, and thus don't have any suggestions; Googling has mostly proferred a somewhat obscurely structured guide from the R authors and lots of invocations to just learn on my own, somehow...). I've become familiar with how to do many individually useful tasks in data structuring and analysis, but I feel a bit like a very high-functioning tourist who has learned a lot of phrases to get around but who would be lost and mugged in an alleyway if I strayed off the beaten path.

Help me strip my laptop down to an ancient email checking machine

geegollygosh — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 19:32:12 -0800

I have a six year old hp pavillion laptop. It is slow and often infuriating. However, I don't use it for anything too demanding so I figure there are better things I could spend my money on than a shiny new computer. Help me figure out how to make my computer spend it's energy doing what I need it to do and nothing more. more specifically it is a pavillion dv6000, I think 512mb of RAM, a very small hard drive (~30gb I think), windows xp. I defragment and do that space-cleaning thing on the control panel regularly. I've tried to uninstall the programs I don't use.

What I use it for:
-general web surfing-- metafilter, facebook, gmail etc
-netflix and hulu
-very basic office stuff-- open office, acrobat reader
-at the moment I have about 10gbs of music on it but have moved all my documents and photos etc to an external hard drive/online storage. Would it make any difference if I removed the music?

Questions--
-How can I make sure it's only running the programs and processes that need to be running?
-What is the best browser for this situation-- currently use Chrome.
-What is the best (free) antivirus program for my ancient computer-- currently have Avast.
-I have trouble with audio stuttering sometimes-- anything specific I can do about that?
-What else can I do?

(I realize it will have to be replaced soon, I just don't see the need to do it until it bursts into flames or something.)