Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with tech

What did landshark.com do?

prodevel — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:21:30 -0800

Landshark.com What the heck did they do? Just saw August the movie and I still don't know. They died in the dot com bubble. I'm really curious as to what their company did exactly. The movie wasn't much help. 7/10 on the movie. Didn't show enough excess like there was in SF back in 2000. Lack of Fooseball and/or upright video games and little mention of technology... Great acting, poor script. BTW Josh Hartnett is in it for the ladies.

TechFilter: Help me find a replacement fan for my Arctic Cooling heatsink.

judge.mentok.the.mindtaker — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 06:05:24 -0800

TechFilter: Help me find a replacement fan for my Arctic Cooling heatsink. I went for the Freezer 64 Pro AC heatsink for my AM2 mobo, and boy was it great, except for the somewhat incompatible mounting bracket for my AMB board. A combination of that, and someones wild dog in my room caused the heatsink to drop off the case. I've since rectified the mounting issues, but the fall has damaged the bearing in my fan, making it unbearably loud.

The AC heatsink/fan combos are mounted with like rubber grommets instead of screws, so I am not sure what the correct fan is to purchase to swap out with the existing one. I'd rather not have to buy a whole new heatsink. I've built my own PC's all my life, so some assembly required is OK.

How do I get my Samsung Juke phone to work with my computer?

champthom — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 13:51:51 -0800

How do I get my Samsung Juke phone to work with my computer? Two days ago, I bought a new phone, a Samsung u470 Juke. It has a 2GB mp3 player that I've been trying to get to work so I can put mp3s on it but I keep having this problem.

I installed the device drivers all right, but when I connect the phone via USB, I keep getting this message that the "MTP Device Failed" when Vista tries to install an MTP Device driver and when I look at the details, it says "This device cannot start. (Code 10)."

I tried restarting, uninstalling then reinstalling the device drivers, uninstalling the MTP device driver, but I still have no luck. I've looked elsewhere online for a solution but it usually ends up with the person just returning their device to the store for a new one. I contacted Samsung but they just e-mailed me back "How do I add mp3s to my Samsung u470 Juke phone?" from their FAQ, which does not answer my question.

So, how can I fix this problem and start putting mp3s on my cell phone?

How to stop torrents at work?

numlok — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:13:20 -0800

I'm sure this question will not make me the most popular student at the dance, but is there a way to identify (via IP) machines running BitTorrent clients within an internal network (ie. work)? My company has around 50 employees, and the old, "Please don't torrent at work" doesn't seem to be doing much good anymore. It brings our email and web browsing to a near standstill, and dropping by the "usual suspects" is not only tiresome, but doesn't seem to find all the sources of traffic any longer. Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

How do I rotate a coax feed?

MrMulan — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 05:29:20 -0800

Can a cable feed be rotated 90 degrees on a monitor if the signal comes in through coax? I need to hang a HDTV vertically and show a live feed. The monitor doesn't have an option to rotate the image. When done with VGA, the video card usually has the utility to rotate the image. Is there an equivalent for coax?

My boss wants it hung vertically for aesthetic reasons.

Visualizations from older MS media player loaded into version 11?

dancestoblue — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:13:38 -0800

Windows Media Player 11 -- I (foolishly, it seems) allowed MS to update to the newer media player. I hardly ever use these bloated monsters, but sometimes, at night, I enjoyed one of the visualizations, and I've used it for years. In the latest and greatest media player from MS, it is not available. Where can I get the 'old' visualizations, and how/where to I install said visualizations so I can once again use the only thing I care about their media player? Alternately, can I install an older MS media player on this machine once this new one has its hooks into my puter, and how do I install an older media player, and where do I get it? I'd rather use the latest, as I'm sure it's more up to date against whatever hacks someone may come up with; that said, I want my dang visualization back.

Missing Mouse

crazylegs — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 10:27:22 -0800

Help me find my lost mouse! Help me save my antedeluvian computer yet again! My mouse has disappeared completely. It's an IBM Thinkpad running Windows ME unfortunately. I've tried an external mouse with no luck. Any other ideas?
Problem part 2: If it can't be fixed, I have another IBM Thinkpad that works except that the backlight behind the screen is fried. How hard would it be to transfer the backlight from the 1st computer to the 2nd, thus making one usable, if not exactly good, computer?

Thanks to all cybersaviours...

Ticket system that runs off emails

c:\awesome — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:57:33 -0800

Is there a good ticket/support/bug management system that builds a queue out of incoming emails? e.g. user sends an email to support@software.com; the management system receives the email, adds the body to a queue where I can assign it, add updates, mark as done, and do all the other normal ticket system things with.

Help with Wifi!

newfers — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 17:42:59 -0800

How can I increase the range of my brand new Linksys WRT600N wireless router so that my wife's Dell Inspiron 1505 gets a better signal? My former router, a 3 year old Linksys model (WRT54G) seemed to send a much better signal, and I bought this new router thinking I'd see improvements a-plenty, but noooooo, and documentation is sorely lacking. Help! I really don't want to go back to the WRT54G, since surely this new router is more capable when set up properly, right? I am pretty much a novice when it comes to a lot of wireless technology. The WRT600N is a dual-band router, I know, so it can supposedly support 802.11g and 802.1n signals simultaneously without simply running at the lower speed for both.

My wife's laptop has an 802.11g card, whereas my MacBook Pro is a 802.11n capable machine. When my wife is online, she gets a poor signal from only 30 feet away!! Sometimes the connection will even drop.

I could just blindly mess with settings, but I'd rather ask for some help from the kind people of AskMefi... Also, if I change the encryption settings, which settings are likely to improve or degrade the signal? I'm keeping it on WEP right now, until advised otherwise (yes yes, I know it is a weak encryption! Sorry!)

Thanks in advance for any help you wonderful gurus can provide!

Help me be the perfect roadie!

unexpected — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 15:31:34 -0800

So I told my friend I'd be his band's light/sound guy, and I need some help figuring out the practicalities of it all... So one of my best friends has gotten together with his med school buddies and they're putting a show together. They'd like me to be their light/sound guy, and I was more than happy to volunteer.

This is all well and good, but I don't know what the heck I'm doing.

On the lights: They bought a bunch of basic lighting effects that work just by plugging them in (strobe light, flashers, fog machine, etc.). I gained "control" over these by plugging them into surge protectors, and turning the surge protectors on and off. I feel like an idiot with six surge protectors around me, figuring out which one is which, and turning them on and off.

Is there a master switchboard thingie that these lights can plug into? We (of course) have a minimal budget, but if the only thing you know is a high-end system, show that to me as well.

Is it possible automate the lights through this switchboard? I'm a tech guy- is it possible to script such a thing? or is their an open source package or something that interfaces with said switch board?

Sound: this is fairly straight-forward, we're just using garage band, and I'm monitoring for feedback etc. - however, if I wanted to make it more complicated, with me playing sounds, different effects, etc., what would I use (I really just want to tinker around with something).

I'm especially interested in homebrew solutions, but if you know of anything amazingly awesome and fantastic, that's useful too. I just don't know anything about this area, and I'm trying to dive in head first!

Why are more operating systems options appearing on my laptop?

sliderjc — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 03:28:07 -0800

Why do more operating system options keep appearing when I turn my computer on? I have installed ubuntu on my laptop, I also run windows on it, just in case I need something.
When the computer turns on, I have the choice whether to use windows or Ubuntu. Originally, there were only two choices, now more and more ubuntu options have been added, there are 5 now, what's going on?

Day's never finished...

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:47:23 -0800

Facing critical burnout - how do we keep our business on track without killing ourselves? We're two folks in our twenties who've been running a web hosting and development business for five years (and on the side for five years before that). We're the only two employees. We're also married - to each other. The marriage part is going gangbusters, the business part is wearing us down.

For the last 18mos. we've both been doing this fulltime, and for 12 of those 18mos. we've been struggling to keep up - 20 hour days, no weekends, and any help we have tried to bring on so far has been sub-par to say the least. We are exhausted. In addition to being front line support for the hosting side of the biz, we're also in the thick of several development projects - and I mean several. As in, ten. And the harder I try to get things organized and under control, the more unexpected situations crop up that leave me flying by the seat of my pants. More times than I can count I have wished for a mentor or a secretary or about ten more programmers, but in the immediate, I'm faced with a partner who's definitely showing the strain and I want things to be more manageable so we can start enjoying our accomplishments a little more and maybe not just feel like we're on an endless treadmill. Time off would be nice. I have no idea where to start.

It's Monday morning and I just pulled an all-nighter, not to finish a project, but to stay on top of support for the projects I finished in the last two weeks - which puts me behind in development for this week, and who knows what my inbox may bring? Our mail server has been spotty since Friday and my partner finally looked up after 3 days of trying to fix it and said "I don't care anymore." I hear that. It's hard to care when you feel like you're being bludgeoned from all sides.

Where do we go from here? We clearly need assistance, but our efforts so far have been discouraging. What can I do to help our business grow while allowing us to have a life in between?

I've created an email address for followup questions at sleepydrone AT gmail DOT com.

Is it my iBook battery or something more sinister?

kmtiszen — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 06:51:17 -0800

iBook G4 battery is out of juice. Computer won't start up... even when AC adapter is plugged in. Is there something else going on? I'm going to be purchasing a MacBook soon, but I'd first want to unload my old G4. It's about four-years-old and the battery, to my best knowledge, is pretty much kaput. I can't even get the computer to start up when the AC power adapter is plugged in. Is this a symptom of the battery's age or do you think there's some deeper issue here? Could the adapter port be mangled beyond repair?

I'd like to replace the battery before selling... it's still a great machine when it's up and running. But if it's not the battery, I'd rather not go through the hassle and just sell the silly thing for parts.

Any advice is really appreciated!

Thanks!

How do I create a wifi "hotspot" for our apartment complex?

lot49 — Sat, 31 May 2008 12:15:39 -0800

I've been asked to help create a wifi "hotspot" for the outdoor common area of our apartment complex... We will have a dedicated broadband connection (cable modem) for this purpose. I'm thinking that we do not want it to be "wide open" as it might get abused -- I could be wrong, I'm not sure. But I'm interested to hear from anyone who may have created their own hotspot, and perhaps additional information on various solutions that might allow us to require tenants to register for an account, etc. Are there any turnkey/"hotspot in a box" solutions out there that do not require us to have (lots of) additional equipment outside of the transmitter/router itself? In addition, any recommendations for an outdoor/weather-safe signal-providing device? Any help or leads in this direction would be most appreciated. Thanks! (BTW, I am tech-savvy, so feel free to answer in technical terms.)

Why does my laptop disconnect every 3 minutes?

sliderjc — Fri, 30 May 2008 09:49:33 -0800

Why does windows disconnect from my wireless network every 3 minutes? My windows xp installation disconnects every 3 minutes (to the second) but not my ubuntu installation on the same laptop. My housemates laptops don't do this, only mine. How can I fix this, i'm guessing it must be simple(ish) due to the precise amount of time it stays connected for.

Easiest way to get cellphone photos to the Web?

teracloth — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 22:23:48 -0800

There has to be some reputable service that accepts MMS messages from my cell phone and will post my photos to its Web site for free. Right? The best I can find so far is photobox.co.uk, but their privacy policy seems to say they'll give my phone number away if any third parties want to buy it:

"[We will screw you if] we are in negotiations with a third party for the sale or purchase of any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets."

My phone has Bluetooth, but I don't have any other Bluetooth things. I could do this through my friends. But I shouldn't have to. Should I?

How to set up a server room with a 10 TB rack?

ShawnStruck — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 07:40:21 -0800

Going to be moving into a new office space, where will will get to redesign some of the space for our needs. We will need to set of a 10TB server rack-- need to figure out how much space should we set aside for a server room. If you were starting to set up one from scratch, what would you start considering? What sort of things do we need to worry about-- room temparture, or airflow or both? Cooling racks? How big would the room need to be?

Death by a thousand windows

mammary16 — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:33:45 -0800

I have a very specific problem with the online system at my work. I have a contracting job that requires me to log on to my work's online system (through Internet Explorer) and listen to audio clips. I work from home.

The system was first developed for essays, but 2 years ago it was adapted to play audio. It is clearly inefficient with system resources. But I thought I'd ask about this problem, since it does really cut into my efficiency.

Many of my colleagues (maybe 5%) have the same problem I do:

When going between audio clips, a small Internet Explorer window appears in the bottom right of the screen. It usually just flashes and goes away. Sometimes, however, it stays permanently - so much so that I can't even close it (not by using task manager; not by right-clicking and choosing "close").

These windows really cripple my computer. Usually after I get two of these, the audio will just not load on my computer. Additionally, I can't open up other programs - or if I can, they open up very limited. Windows notepad, for example, will sometimes open, but the menus at the top will not load.

The system uses Java - although it doesn't work very well in versions of java past 1.50-11. Additionally, the system requires use of the *.ogg patch.

I've developed a weird solution that helps. My solution has been to open up about 25 internet explorer windows and log on to the system with one of them. Whenever I get a freeze (one of those little windows freezes) I close one of the IE windows and it seems to free up system resources for a while. This allows me to work much longer, because without those other windows, I reach a point - within a half hour - where I have no memory left to load any of the audio.

When I run out of IE windows (and this often means I'll have about 8 frozen little windows that refuse to close) I restart my computer. I usually have to do this about once every 8 hour shift.

Question: Is there anything I can do on my end to avoid this problem? As I said, some of my colleagues do not have this problem. I have Windows XP, running on a Lenovo Thinkpad T60. This problem has been with me since the beginning (2 years ago) and my computer has undergone many changes. I have a great deal of free hard drive space, and generally keep very few programs running (I've got a very clean computer). I've tried different upgrades of IE and many different versions of java, and of course my company has tried a variety of things. The general policy with tech support is not to be concerned about this.

That said, my company isn't Metafilter. Maybe you ragtag group of misfits have an idea.

IT would be nice to work at home

rhizome — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 13:57:54 -0800

I want to be an IT mercenary, how do I get started doing freelance/contract SysAdmin/Programming? I've decided I'd like a more flexible schedule and start making motions toward being self-employed and working from home. My skills are along the lines of "Senior Sysadmin" and while I am learning more programming techniques (design patterns and OO) most of my experience is in hardcore Linux and Windows admin.

Sysadmin functions seem to me to be in-house, but am I being too narrow here? I'm learning Ruby/Rails right now and have plenty of HTML/CSS/perl/PHP awareness, would that be better to focus on as far as contracts go? I don't have resume-level experience as a web programmer and I wouldn't want to have to start fresh on the ground floor at $10/hr. However, my sense is that web programming is much more amenable to remote work and freelancing than shell scripting, performance tweaking and monitoring.

I know about Metafilter Jobs and Craigslist gigs and those things, but the offerings can be a little slim for the level of work I'm talking about. Are there agencies who specialize in this kind of thing (rather than the typical headhunter staffing agencies)? Does it make sense to plan to take longer contracts rather than shorter ones? Is there even a choice there? I'm stuck!

Jobs for a Tech-Savvy Historian/Teacher

ocherdraco — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:38:06 -0800

What are some good places to work in NYC for a tech-savvy medievalist who also has experience teaching history and politics to middle and high schoolers? My best friend from college would like to move to New York, and as I live here already, I (rather selfishly) want to do everything I can to help him make that happen. Right now, as his first post-college job, he's in the middle of a year long teaching fellowship at a British school (and doing quite well with it). He's teaching history to 13-year-olds (last term it was WWI; this term it's the Middle East from the fall of the Ottoman Empire), and American Politics to 17-year-olds. So, he's looking at teaching jobs (at private schools, as he hasn't yet got credentials) and programs like the New York City Teaching Fellows and Teach for America.

But he's into many things besides teaching: at school (we went to an Ivy League college) he majored in medieval history, did tech support for other undergraduates, studied the similarities between the shift from oral culture to print and the shift from print to digital, and created websites and content management systems. He's the kind of person who comes up with ideas about how things work and then makes them work better based upon his ideas. He draws connections between things that are seemingly unconnected in such a way that both things seem more illuminated by the explanation.

At various points he's thought about studying law (a la Lawrence Lessig's Center for Internet and Society) or information studies (the field that has blossomed out of library sciences), and he's also thought about writing about the connections between history and current revolutions in technology for magazines in the vein of Wired.

Where in New York City would be a good place for him to work, besides the teaching possibilities mentioned above? I'd greatly appreciate any answers, and particularly those that are creative and non-obvious.

Home Mechanics

matthelm — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:53:13 -0800

Where can I find a site dedicated to modern or classic home mechanisms... I am looking for mechanisms built in the home that basically use no electricity. Buttons that open doors and cabinets, rotating devices, etc. Having hard time explaining....Before technology took over the kitchen there were systems built with wood pieces and springs to make such things as kitchens more "high tech"...press a button here and a drawer would open from under your cabinets etc. I am looking to remodel my condo and want to find such mechanisms and see if I can incorporate them into my design....any help in the right direction would help...

Is a job in Education sheltered from the market?

Anonymous — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 03:11:05 -0800

I have just been offered a staff position at a large University of California campus. Given that my current job is with a small (employees<15) consulting company in the technology field, and given the current national (and global) economic situation; is a UC job more likely to be stable in the next 5 years when compared to one in a small tech company? Also, what's it like to work at a UC? Is the UC system subsidized by the government enough at the state and federal level to make it as secure as a government job?
Will a big CA educational institution weather the inevitable financial storm comparatively better than other sectors?
What is it like to work for a big UC school?
The benefits are good, but is working for an academic institution as political and as slow moving as people say?
What have you experienced as a UC employee?

Why does my computer keep freezing?

chorltonmeateater — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 16:05:07 -0800

Why does my Windows XP machine freeze every half an hour? My computer has taken to freezing after about half an hour or so of use, forcing me to switch it off and on to get it working again. When the PC does this, it stops responding to anything I do with the mouse and keyboard, and the CPU fan starts whirring away, but I can't work out what process is causing this major CPU use, and so the freezing problem.

It started at about the same time that I started using a U3 USB stick and installed Acronis True Image 11, but I have removed/uninstalled both these pieces of software and still the problem occurs. Even a system restore roll-back to a point before the problem occurred has done nothing to help.

Any ideas on what might be causing this, or at least how I can begin to find what the culprit might be? I'm running Windows XP SP2 (intermittently, at least).

Best Lightweight Free OS?

slowtree — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 16:17:01 -0800

Best Linux Based OS? I have an old Gateway Solo 5300 laptop I would like to install a Light, Fast, Fun OS on. It only has 256 megs of ram a 600hz processor and 5 gigs hard drive space. Thinking something mostly for Firefox on the couch. I have dabbled with Ubuntu a bit but having issues installing it . Any user friendly out of the box (for the most part) suggestions? (currently has Win98 installed on it)

Make me tech-y

unknowncommand — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:49:28 -0800

I am a librarian. I'm interested in social technologies, HCI, information architecture, and critical theories of these. Essentially, how information is used by people to create community and meaning. I enjoy using social technology, and advocating its use within my profession and actual job. But I want better technology know-how, skills, awareness. Where do I start? Sorry to be so vague. I'm not even sure what questions to ask to point myself in the right direction. Maybe I just want to be able to make something? Program? Or perhaps that's not appropriate here, especially since I have no background in it.