It's always a fun read (Random Questions you want answered) in the "Everything Else" sub-forum, so why not for our sadly-less-frequently-visited Tech-sub-forum?
My best friend's hard drive went kablooey a few days ago, and she asked me if I could replace it for her. "Sure!" I said, then realized it was her laptop - I've built her desktop systems for years, but I have never messed with laptops much at all, beyond installing operating systems/drivers/etc.
Here's a link to her laptop specifications:
http://www.samsung.com/us/computer/p...
I'm planning to install this drive:
http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Moment...
Bad choice? Good choice? Better options? She doesn't want an SSD, and desires at least 500 GB of space. I usually go with Seagate for my drives, but I have no experience with them for laptop drives. Is the procedure akin to wizardry in a laptop, or is it similar to the generally friendly and straight-forward procedure of replacing a desktop hard drive?
It's really easy. 4 Screws on the bottom of the computer next to the symbol of the 3 disks overlapping eachother. Should take you 10 minutes max.
I've had mixed experience with Seagate, but also Western Digital. The 10 Seagate Enterprise and Personal class drives I bought only lasted 1-2 years. They honor warranty, but it's still a pain.
Seagate used to get top reviews for read/write so I used them for awhile. Then I went back to Western Digital. I've also got Samsung, OCZ, and Intel drives.
I think you're good with whatever one you want. Bad drives are hit and miss.
I've totally been thinking about making this thread for ages. Thanks for putting it up :]
I have a friend who just bought a win 8 laptop. She needs to let her 2 sons use it, but she wants to be able to lock it down so that they cannot down load anything. She really doesn't trust the older one as he has downloaded crap in the past.
They need to be able to access blackboard and research sites but that's about it.
Any good guides to locking down the computers out there?
Thanks
I've totally been thinking about making this thread for ages. Thanks for putting it up :]
+1
Bad choice? Good choice? Better options?
Well, it's hard to tell much about hard drive brands because each of us buys so few, relatively speaking, but Backblaze posted some results eight or ten months ago from a very large sample they took of a bunch of different drive types. In their testing, Seagates were absolutely terrible, Western Digitals were okay, and Hitachis were some of the most reliable. This was down in the cheap seats; as they put it, at any given time, they were buying the absolute cheapest mechanisms they could find.
So, we don't know about the higher end lines, but from my experience over the years, I've come to see Seagate as the sharpest of sharp operators in that business, with all the negative connotations that implies, so just-good-enough-to-avoid-censure would be exactly what I'd expect from that company. I'd probably buy WD or Hitachi.
This is, of course, assuming that that laptop is using the standard form factor. They usually do, these days, so that drive will probably work fine.
Note also that the original drive that came with it is 750 gigs, and the one you chose there is only 500; make sure she knows you're buying a smaller one.
As far as how difficult it is to replace; that totally depends on the laptop. Usually, drives are pretty easy. On Thinkpads, for instance, they usually have little ports you can open to upgrade both RAM and the hard drive. If a Mac laptop has replaceable parts at all, it will be a PITA to get to. Samsung? I dunno Samsung, sorry.
I have a friend who just bought a win 8 laptop.
For a single laptop I would explore this built in feature of Windows:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/w...
For multiple devices including tablets, phones, and web enabled consoles I would consider purchasing a gateway filter. I've used the iBoss devices for a few classroom environments and the ability to set up logins with different filtering profiles, excluded devices, and a default white-list for everything else made for a pretty flexible setup in situations where kids, adults, and visitors have different accessibility requirements.
I've finally gotten fed up with iTunes. What software do people use to listen to music these days?
(I'm interested in both Windows and Mac options, with Windows being the priority. I'm open to using different programs on different OSes.)
I've finally gotten fed up with iTunes. What software do people use to listen to music these days?
(I'm interested in both Windows and Mac options, with Windows being the priority. I'm open to using different programs on different OSes.)
I've uploaded all of my personal music to Google Play Music. They don't have a desktop app but the web player works just fine. They also have iOS and Android apps and can cast to Chromecast.
Rdio and Spotify are also free to use (with ads) on desktop. I've used both and prefer Spotify - both for its Windows app and its music selection. Rdio has curious gaps for music I like. Spotify just added a family discount option, so I may re-up my sub again soon
If you're asking about uploading your own music files to your device, I can't really help there. (Does anyone still do that?) I think Spotify on pc has a local sync feature, but I've not played with it. No Mac knowledge here either...
If you're asking about uploading your own music files to your device, I can't really help there. (Does anyone still do that?) I think Spotify on pc has a local sync feature, but I've not played with it. No Mac knowledge here either...
I'm looking for something to play (and organize) locally-stored music on my PC.
PaladinTom wrote:If you're asking about uploading your own music files to your device, I can't really help there. (Does anyone still do that?) I think Spotify on pc has a local sync feature, but I've not played with it. No Mac knowledge here either...
I'm looking for something to play (and organize) locally-stored music on my PC.
Oh! Been a while, but I loved MediaMonkey and good ol' WinAmp.
Yeah, I use Foobar. It's an incredibly efficient player, and the plugin library is pretty large. I typically use it with the WASAPI component, which gives you bitperfect output under Windows, and then stream FLAC over S/PDIF to a receiver. It's basically identical to a CD player at that point, but better. And running over S/PDIF, it can use the receiver's room correction algorithms as well.
It's also an incredibly powerful tool for format conversions and mass tagging of files. Converting my entire FLAC library to MP3 for my Sansa player only took a couple of hours; it's smart enough to know how many processors you have, and will run as many parallel jobs as your machine can support. You still need to get LAME for the actual encoding, but Foobar will drive the parallel conversion process, and will organize and tag the resulting files correctly.
It's one of the most useful audio tools I know.
It also happens to be a damn good player; the default UI is pretty Spartan, but I like that. It's extensible enough that you can make it look and work almost any way you can imagine, but I like the straightforward defaults.
Oh, another neat Foobar feature: if you highlight tracks from an album with poor tagging, it's amazingly good at figuring out what album they're from, and fixing the tags for you. (it does FreeDB lookups.) With only one track, its guessing is pretty spotty, but if you give it several, there's a good chance it'll be able to figure out what they're from.
I'll give Foobar 2000 (great name!) a try, then. Thanks!
I use Windows Media Player and wish Microsoft would burn it to the ground and start afresh for Windows 10.
It got a little better when I made my own 'favourite albums' screen by giving whole albums five stars and sorting the album view by rating.
I might give foobar a shot when I have the time to tinker. I've tried winamp multiple times and never liked it.
I might give foobar a shot when I have the time to tinker. I've tried winamp multiple times and never liked it.
Winamp was great for me back in the day when I was anal about organizing everything into folders and using Mp3Tag to name every file appropriately. I had a folder.jpg for every album and tons of m3u playlist files. It got too overwhelming to maintain.
I tried Foobar a while ago. It seemed like it takes a lot of tinkering to get working the way you want. Maybe I'm a heathen, but I really like the three-column browser that itunes uses. This is about all I like about itunes, but I couldn't find a simple way to get foobar to set up something like that. I probably didn't look hard enough.
There was an old plugin called the 'Columns UI' that might be what you want, Chaz. I'm not sure it's being actively maintained, but I believe the interface is stable enough that the old version is still working.
It's still being linked from the Foobar Components page.
It used to be part of the default distro, but was taken out; I'm not sure why. IIRC, it could be made quite like iTunes.
Alternately, there are some Foobar skins on customize.org.
And another, unrelated question: I've played with the Windows 10 preview for a while and now want to reinstall 7. Can I just install 7 over 10, or will I need to wipe the entire drive or otherwise do something more involved than simply running the installer?
I'd wipe the drive, just to be certain.
I'd wipe the drive, just to be certain.
Can I just install 7 over 10, or will I need to wipe the entire drive
When you install two copies of Windows on the same drive you are given the chance to rename the old copy "Windows.old" at the installer. I have not had an issue running multiple Windows installs on the same drive. I do it commonly for people that need a clean install but don't want to loose their documents and pictures. After the install, I copy and paste them to the newer install.
You may be given the option to boot to either Windows install once you're done. If so, it's not difficult to set the one you want to boot permanently on start up. Right click computer, properties, advanced system settings, start-up and recovery settings.
The biggest issue you face is having Windows seek for drivers in the W10 folder when you want a W7 driver. I would just be sure to install the driver's manually and not let Windows seek them out.
Make a new folder called W7 Drivers and pull them off the net before installing W7. Then when the install is done you just got to execute them.
Bumping from the cobwebs with an annoying hardware problem: my mouse is not playing well with my PC. Sometimes, when I wake the PC from sleep, the mouse isn't as responsive as I'm used to, and it misses button and wheel scroll clicks. Tonight, I didn't feel like rebooting the damn machine, so I popped the mouse in and out of the USB port, and that seemed to fix it. Wondering what the source of the problem is, if it's something new I installed (like my joystick for X-Wing/TIE Fighter, which didn't have any extra software, was just USB plug-and-play), if it's the stupid Logitech Gaming Software that always crashes on me (the mouse is a Logitech G500, FYI, never had any issues before, hoping this isn't a "getting old" problem), or something I wouldn't have thought to consider. If anyone has suggestions, I'm listening.
1. Start by uninstalling the Logitech software. Or try updating it or downloading latest/greatest from the web.
2. Plug your mouse into a DIFFERENT usb port. Sounds dumb, but it may do the trick.
3. Completely uninstall the drivers for the mouse while it is plugged in. Then unplug it. Then plug it back in again and let Windows do it's thing.
Is there a way to edit gmail email filters in the mobile app (android)? I looked in the obvious places and couldn't see the option.
If no, how slack is that?
Has anyone else had a problem with wifi not connecting on their Samsung Galaxy (Note 2) since the last android update?
Update: booted in recovery mode and flushed the app cache. It's connected to the wifi first try after rebooting, but the problem is intermittent so I'll drop in another update if it appears to fix the problem.
Another Update: No, it has not worked. I still have the same problem and that problem is making me want to "update" my phone with a bloody brick.
A bit overdue, but I wanted to pop in and say thanks for the comments and to report that my friend changed her mind and decided to do the SSD thing; her new system is working like a champ and much faster with the new 250 GB Samsung SSD I installed. It had one mighty temper tantrum and blue screen on the first boot after the initial install, but after a trip to the BIOS to restore defaults and reboot it's behaved without incident. (I've often seen that blue screen anyway on other machines, after windows installs cca. 1,846 updates on a new build with an older install disc.)
Random question I wondered about at work today while working on laptops - if a Windows system is connected via a wired connection, and also connected to a wireless network, how does it prioritize its data pulls? Does it default to the wired connection, or does it search for the fastest connection? First one that connects? (likely the wired in nearly every case, I would imagine.)
On another random tangent, I recently picked up a used Dell Precision M4400 - an older laptop, but one still fairly powerful, with discrete graphics, 2.66ghz C2D, capable of running my beloved Fallout 3/NV at a semi-respectable level at lower settings. Anyway, it was a scratch & dent special for a good deal - brakes are good, tires fair. Err, I mean, the screen is good, battery fair. - but the fan will periodically rev-up to alarmingly loud levels if there's anything mildly stressful going on - Netflix, games, etc. Sometimes it won't stop racing until I reboot the thing, even if I exit the stressful application. Should I start off seeking BIOS/software solutions, or just bite the bullet and replace the CPU fan? (less than $20). It's a slightly odd beast, as it has 8 Gigs of RAM, yet it has Windows 7 32-bit installed. *facepalm*. I think that Windows 7 keys are compatible with either 32-bit/64-bit variants in the same family? I am considering hitting Magical JellyBean to extract the valid key, and then .......find a Windows 7 64-bit install .iso/disc somewhere, and then use the genuine key, so it can have full access to the RAM. Any complications with that plan? Or is it not really worth the bother, given the age of the system?
Re: interfaces. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2526067
Re: Fans. I would check/replace the thermal paste first. Replacing a tire doesn't stop the car from revving too fast. 
My ISP sent a tech out less than a week ago to adjust my cable signal levels, and he got everything set up properly, including putting some sort of attenuator on the back of my cable modem. It was their suggestion, since my levels were outside of specifications; however, I hadn't noticed any effects on my service.
Now, only days later, the levels are out of spec again:
It seems that only the return path is out of spec, and my connection doesn't seem to be suffering in any way I've noticed. Should I be setting up another appointment for a tech (PITA to make sure I'm home) or is this not something I should concern myself with?
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