Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with expansion

Using a large music collection with a smaller-capacity DAP without a computer in between.

JMOZ — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 07:51:16 -0800

I'm hoping to use a portable harddrive with a USB storage device (Digital Audio Player, as it turns out) without a computer in between. Does such a product exist? Preferably at a non-exorbitant price? My old 20GB ipod has kicked the bucket. It was nearly full, and I had other music that wasn't on it. I've found the flash digital audio player (DAP) I want to replace it (Cowon S9 for anyone who's interested), but there's a catch-

It doesn't have any option to expand the storage, and the maximum size available is 16GB. What I'm hoping exists is a solution allowing me to do this:

1. Store additional music (~32GB+) on a harddrive
2. Have 16GB on the DAP.
3. When traveling, hook the DAP up to the harddrive (which obviously had an LCD/external controls) and transfer different music to the mp3 player. (I'd like to be able to choose which folders to transfer).

The mp3 player in question will work like a USB storage device (think thumbdrive if you like).

I've found plenty of solutions that will work with SD or CF (Many of which were highlighted in this previous question (albeit 3 years ago)), but nothing for USB. Obviously, USB 2.0 is going to be important here so it doesn't take forever to transfer files.

Does my magic device exist? Or is there a REVERSE USB-SD adapter so I could plug a USB device into an SD slot and use one of the myriad devices intended for photographers? It seems like with the USB On The Go protocols, it should be possible for a Hard Drive (with the proper controller) to serve as a host. (or an update of the USB bridge which seems to have died out somewhere along the line?)

Obvious alternatives include waiting for the possible eventual release of the 32GB Cowon S9, buying a different DAP, or just committing to using my computer to switch-out music, but what I'm asking for here doesn't sound too incredibly unlikely. Anyone have suggestions?

Life's Too Short, And So Is My Novel

carrot — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 03:51:25 -0800

How do I expand my novel without adding useless verbiage? My first novel draft (yay!) is crappy, but still much, much better than I expected, and was tremendous fun to write. The draft has just about 50.000 words, though.

This would be a problem for publication; more importantly, it seems that something is missing in it, stylistically. A friend who has read the manuscript is of the same opinion: it's good, but too short. However, we both can't figure out what should be added.
On the surface, it seems to be fully functional: it has a coherent, suspenseful plot with lots and lots of action, it has minute descriptions, it has reflection, absurdity, comedy, love, and death. It has references to Joseph Conrad. It has disco music. It has science. It has LSD. It has monkeys. It's just...too short.

I've always been a very concise writer. In academic writing (especially in Philosophy), this seems to be a Really Good Thing. So, I had difficulties with reaching word-count goals, but at the same time I got a lot of positive feedback for my non-blathery style in academic philosophy. However, now that I want to write fiction, I find this "quality" of mine to be somewhat problematic. Sadly, this is a recurring issue across genres. Last night, I finished a too-short short story. It's coherent, surprising, dense, imaginative (not trying to boast here, just explaining that I really don't know what is missing). The damn thing has a mere 1487 words!

In my novel, a certain breathlessness is intentional - that's the way my fist-person narrator is. So just adding minute descriptions or blown-up dialogue at random is not an option. Yeah, sure, I could do that, but I want every word in this story to be there for a reason. And I can't find those reasons.

Of course, I tried to find some expert opinions on this. "Stein on Writing" was a disappointment in this regard. All of his revision tips are based on the assumption that you, blathering hack that you are, have, of course, written too much: "Take the worst scene - and cut it. Then, take the second worst scene - and cut it, too ..." - Yeah, thanks. Brilliant.

Are there any revision/writing methods out there which have helped you to expand a fictional text, without adding random, redundant blather? Are there others out there who have this problem? I'm at my wits end!

(Sockpuppet account by experienced MeFite for quasi-anonymization, don't want acquaintances to read me boasting about my prose, but I want to be able to reply in the thread. Not used to skirt weekly question limit. I hope this is ok.)

Can older macs be made Airport Extreme Capable?

Anonymous — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:47:52 -0800

Inherited an Airport Extreme Basestation with Gigabit ethernet and would like to enable a B&W 400mhz G3 and 400mhz G4 AGP to use this wireless network at the faster speeds. Is this possible? (this is anon because it's a gift to people who know me and read Askme) I know the G4 is Airport capable, but can it use an Airport Extreme Card at the Extreme speeds? Apple sells refurbished Airport Extreme cards on their site and was wondering...

Would A PCI card work better? If so, which? Or can these older macs successfully use a USB 2.0 wireless adapter?

On the wireless network they would be accessing a printer, other computers and the internet.

PC card reader broken - Can anything be done?

likedoomsday — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 13:51:16 -0800

My (secondhand) Sony Vaio PCG-V505DC2 laptop's PC Card slot isn't recognizing any cards put in it (I've tried three, all of which I know work). I know it's not a driver problem because all of the cards worked until recently, when they started working only intermittently before stopping working at all. Can this be fixed in any kind of cost-effective way, preferably by myself? When they're plugged in, nothing happens; the "power" light on the ones that have them doesn't activate.

I'm not terribly afraid of opening the laptop and doing some very basic fiddling, but I'm not good enough at soldering to do anything really involved. Sony wanted something on the order of $150 just to look at it, which is out of the question. Is there anything that can be done?

The laptop is running Windows XP Professional, has a 2.0 GHz processor, 40 GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, though I doubt it's particularly relevant.

Can I expand upon my motherboard's limited internal pin connections?

kowalski — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 07:15:42 -0800

Does anyone make a PCI expansion card to add internal pin connectors for such things as USB1+/- and 1394? I have an old ASUS P4T-E motherboard. I picked up one of these nifty Silverstone front card reader / combo devices while doing some other upgrades (new power supply, new video card). Unfortunately, my motherboard doesn't have pin connectors for most of the device's ponytail of cables. Yes, I know, know thy mainboard. Anyway.

Having seen and used IDE expansion cards in the past, my immediate reaction was to look for a card that offered bare pin connectors of the sort I'm looking for. But I can't seem to find anything that really resembles this, except for USB 2.0 cards that apparently have an internal connector (which is the one thing I don't necessarily need, though it would be nice to have the extra speed).

The cables I'd most want to hook up have 4+1 pin plugs (with the pin plugs marked VCC, USB 1-, USB 1+, GND and then a separate plug marked Ground). There are also 9 pin 1394 plugs, but these aren't as important to me. Does anyone make an expansion card with these odd 4+1 pin connectors? Or will this device be largely reduced to serving the role of drive bay cover until I give up and purchase a new chipset and motherboard?

Apple G4 + wireless card = ???

docgonzo — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:31:53 -0800

Help me get my aged G4 onto my home wireless network. It's a G4/500 AGP -- still a perfectly serviceable machine, running OSX 10.3.

It has an open PCI expansion slot and I'd like to stick a wireless card in. Might this D-Link or this Linksys card work?

The techs at the local compumart were uniformly unhelpful -- "Apple?" -- and it appears the only Apple solution would be an AirPort card, which are hard to find and costly.

Math problem

Kwantsar — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 11:04:42 -0800

A crystal consists of 100,000,000 layers of atoms such that there is 1 atom in the first layer, 3 in the second, 6 in the third, 10 in the fourth, 15 in the fifth, and so forth. Exactly how many atoms are there in the entire crystal? Computer-aided solutions are not helpful (post them anyway, If you want to show off, I don't really give a damn). There's gotta be a way to solve this by hand (without using super-fancy-math-shit), right? What is it?