GoRedwings19's Computer Help Hotline

Is there some way to monitor auction sites or forums such that when a particular product went on sale, you would receive an email or would otherwise be notified? For example, let's say I was in the market for another North Star. I could subscribe to the FS forums on HF, HC, etc. and get daily updates. Same with the 'bay. Not sure about the 'gon. But I'm wondering if there is some sort of service or feed or robot or spider or whateverthefuck that would monitor certain sites and notify me asap when something was posted for sale. Is this remotely feasible, or am I just being an assfacehole?

Here's my situation. I am using my iMac as my transport, feeding either my DAC1 or (more frequently) my HR Balanced Desktop w/DAC. I use iTunes to manage my collection. Most of my collection is 256 AAC due to the fact that I used to do a lot of portable listening and I like to have my whole collection on my iPod. But recent meets have finally hammered into my head that it all starts with the source. So, I think I need to start reripping lossless. But here's the rub, I also want to keep the lossy rips for my iPod. So here are my questions: 1) Is there a way to split up the iTunes db such that I could easily flip between my lossy and lossless collections, or do I need to…

Stupid question guys: Yesterday a friend on a flash sale bought a new PC based on I9 12900K with a 3080 graphics card. Ok, his old PC is a 7700K/1070 so just for the graphics card it's worth the change We tested it (mode stock, non overclock) and I have the feeling that, except for getting a better score in Benchmarks, for "normal" use (web, mails, youtube, some games...) there really wasn't much difference compared to my 9900K/3080: yes, yes, my 9900K takes a second longer to load some applications, it gets a few FPS less in some games... single core tasks it does seem somewhat superior (such as DCS in VR) but in general, I did not notice a "radical" change.…

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I'm looking for ideas for a PC (non-Mac) laptop that can go to school daily, can do homework that is online-based (meaning Google docs, etc.), and can be a decent gaming machine for Steam-based games. It doesn't really need an optical drive and it should be light enough to carry daily. Probably 14.6-17" screen. The budget needs to be reasonable, but I don't want to be too limiting so I can get a good idea of the options. Thanks in advance for any input and specific models you can recommend.

So just finished up replacing the old Belkin wireless router with an Airport Extreme. Nice upgrade in terms of speed, range and stability. I do have one slight incompatibility. The Belkin had WPA security and the Airport can use WPA2, which I prefer. My Netgear wireless printserver (WGPS606) worked fine on WPA but will not do WPA2 security. Since everything else works fine with WPA2, I do not want to downgrade the security protocol. So I am looking for recommendations for wireless print servers that do WPA2. Note, I cannot hook the printer up to the Airport as they are located in different parts of the house.

Does anyone know of any 802.11n extenders/repeaters? Right now my access point is in the HT/Game room which is in the basement and adjacent to the garage. My bedroom is above the garage and coverage is pretty spotty. The problem is the wall between the basement and the garage it's at least a foot thick solid concrete. Apparently the wireless doesn't like going through that. So I'd like to get some sort of 802.11n extender/repeater/bridge that I could put on the first floor which would give a huge boost to the signal I'd get in my bedroom.

Dad's in Tulsa with a new Mac and I'm in Nashville. Is there a way I can troubleshoot/control his desktop from here without buying software? Really need to figure this out quick.

ordered some well reviewed g skill 8gb dual channel ram for my thinkpad. computer however is less responsive (slower start up times, slower times while opening programs, lag while typing etc) than it was with the 2gb stick that was in there earlier. the timings that the bios is running are 7-7-7-20 but the timings on the ram are 9-9-9-24. would bios forcing tighter timings on the ram be causing this issue? i cant think of anything else that would cause the system to slow down as opposed to get smoother with more ram. suggestions are welcome. figured i would ask here before i send this back and get ram that matches timings in bios. Forgot to mention that I ram Memte…

I'm trying to get my squeezebox (v1) to play my personal Last.FM radio and it seems that the only way to do that is to get the stream url somehow. I've tried most methods that I've seen on the interwebz (squeezebox forums included) with no luck. If anyone sees a solution, I would love to know. EDIT: I know this can be done somehow since a foobar plug-in does it very well.

My 4 year old HP Pavilion DM4 is starting to die. It's had too many bluescreens recently and the OS can't detect the DVD player (the BIOS does). So it's probably time for a replacement. Could you please suggest laptops, matching the following criteria, that you would recommend. Important: $500 to $750 tops 8M memory Either has SSD or can add one 1T disk Not important: Screen size (I mostly use a monitor) Weight (I don't travel much with it) Battery life (I mostly plug in) Thanks in advance for all your input.

I'm thinking of buying a new laptop with 4 gb of RAM installed. It comes with windows vista but I'm planning on installing XP pro 32bit edition. I've read that XP has trouble with more than 3 GB of ram. Will I encounter a problem with this if I decide to do it? Here's a link to the computer if it will answer any questions. Gateway - Laptop with Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Pacific Blue - T-6836 Thanks!

I think it dissapeared around the time I installed service pack 3. Does anyone know the name/location of the exe that launches the search command? Thanks, Biggie.

Well I have the iMac up and running. Right now its primary duty will be to run squeezecenter for the abode as well as some web browsing. I have to say I am really impressed by the build quality and the quality of the OS. This is the first Apple computer product I have bought since my first PC in 1981 so I have not really paid a lot of attention to MAC software. It has the standard Mac apps as well as iWork 08. I will probably also put aperture on their to see how I like it for working with images. Other than that I am in the dark so tell me what other killer apps I should get to put my PC's to shame.

Codeweavers says cheap gas = free software tomorrow - The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW) Press Releases - CODEWEAVERS' SOFTWARE FREE FOR DOWNLOAD THANKS TO GEORGE W. BUSH AND FALLING GAS PRICES Giveaway Triggered in CodeWeaver's Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge; "We take full responsibility for global economic collapse," s

I used to use Delicious, until without announcement they switched to a new system and I lost around 20% of my bookmarks. I've now mostly moved everything over to Google Bookmarks. The tagging isn't as seamless as it was on the old Delicious.

Finally got fed up with my monster 17'' CRT + Pentium 4 setup. My thinking is to get a more or less future proof system with a i7 3770 cpu paired with a GTX660 ti gpu. One of the local guys recommend getting an Intel DH77EB board. Not to mention Intel announcing leaving the standard form factor mobo scene I initially found the board to be very erm... pedestrian? What's your take on Intel mobos? Sure, they lack the bling of other makers but supposedly they are very reliable. I'm not sure I'f I'll miss SLI/X-fire or extreme overclocking very much. Thank you!

Dell lost a lawsuit and is required to pay consumers that purchased a Dell product from April 1, 2005 to April 13 2009 and meet experienced any of the following below: A problem with a Dell financing offer A problem with a Dell rebate A problem with Dell financing A problem with a Dell repair, warranty or servicing Here is the link with the story and there is a PDF you can download to fill out a form. Does Dell Owe You Money? - PC World There is of course no guarantees that you could get paid out, but it's worth a shot. Good luck if you do file it

try it... go to: C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\ and open the "hosts" file with notepad. Add the line: 127.0.0.1 pagead2.googlesyndication.com and save the file. Clear your cache out and enjoy ad-less head-fi! Feel free to find out all the other ad hosts on the net and block them, too, and share this information with whoever you can, but don't post it on head-fi ). Oh, and you didn't hear about this from me.

Hi All, I finally upgraded my laptop and it has 802.11g support, so it's time to upgrade my ancient Linksys BEFW11S4 router. I'm blindingly happy with it. It hasn't given me a single problem in the years that I've owned it. So I'm inclined to go with the latest Linksys version of this router, the Linksys WRT54G2, which goes for $44.89 at Amazon. I know that Linksys is not the favorite with many people here. Can the many network- and wireless-wise people here either validate my choice or suggest alternatives (or both)? Thanks in advance for your advice. Regard, -ken

Does anyone know where I can get an old powermac g5 that still has the ibm chips and not the intel chips? The place where my mom works uses the old powermacs and they dont want to upgrade to the newer macs since they dont sync well with the older version of illustrator (not sure about this) and they dont want to buy the newer illustrator since it costs like $1000. If anyone knows, it would be very awesome

Need some help from you guys. My wife's Yahoo! account appears to have been compromised, though I'm not sure. Here's what's happening: her Yahoo! contacts are all getting spammed by email purportedly from her. She's received lots of emails from friends alerting her and a ton of bouncebacks to her Yahoo! address. I checked her sent mail folder and there is nothing unusual there. Further, her contact list has not been deleted. We've changed her password, but I'm trying to see what else we should do and also see what the root cause is here. I know this happens all the time and could use some advice about how to proceed. Thanks gang.

I suddenly find myself inundated in projects, all with different final deadlines, and all with multiple progress points. For instance, I have a project I want to complete by May 1, but in order to do that I'll need to complete part A of it by March 30th, and part B by April 14th, and send out part C by March 21st, etc. There is obviously lots of project software out there, but most seems geared toward groups, or has too many features. I am looking for simple - no need for discussion boards, bug tracking, user management, etc. Does anyone know or use something that works well?

i need to send my macBook pro to Apple for repair. i have never backed up my system, but would really like to save about fifty very important garageband files plus at least 500 word files -- don't really care about the other stuff. recommendations and advice would be greatly appreciated on the "best bang for the buck" external HD that will work seamlessly with my mac/time machine and is it easy to back-up those files and restore them especially those garageband files? if possible, i'd like to keep my outlay under $150.

Alright, so my sister had the brilliant idea of getting my mother a cheap tablet and a magnifying app to assist with reading and spontaneously reading things like medicine labels. So what's the best cheap tablet for this? Kindle Fire? Anyone know of a magnifying app that deshakes? My mother does, indeed, have the tremors.