GoRedwings19's Computer Help Hotline

Since today's changes, I can't access head-case with my computer. Safari now says it can't find the server, and Firefox only gives a white page that won't let me do anything except refresh. I've cleared, reset and rebooted for nada. I'm on my phone now, but it only works sometimes as well. Any ideas? I can't be the only one, unless this is part of Nate's revenge plan.

I was looking into purchasing a new Graphics Card for my Computer. I bought a new monitor (Vizio VX32L - 32" LCD HDTV) and I would like to upgrade the graphics card now.. Any ideas on any products that are out now?

So I've got a little streak on my LCD monitor that I can't seem to get off. I think I was trying to wipe off a bit of dust and streaked grease on it or something. I've tried wiping it with a clean cotton shirt, but it doesn't seem to want to remove itself. What cleaning solution is a safe and effective way to clean my LCD. Thanks!

I've got a student in the family who wants to carry a laptop to class. Given the distance between classes, she finds it easier to chill and study between classes at some of the more convenient study areas which have wireless capability. Unfortunately, her present laptop is a desktop replacement and far from "portable". So, can anyone recommend a very inexpensive ultra portable unit she could carry around campus? All it will be used for is papers and research on the internet. It won't carry a lot of large files nor does it need to be a performance dynamo. Small...cheap....wireless. That's about it. Any help appreciated.

Kick drum You got any you find amusing?

We just installed our cable internets at our apartment today and I picked up a wireless router. Now my roomate's laptop isn't able to do WPA Soooo, we're using WEP 128 bit right now. Now we're in a pretty nice building and when I use my wireless browser program to look for SSIDs I see about 15-20. Most are locked, one or two aren't. Which obviously means there are tons of wifi users in this building. How paranoid should I be about people cracking our WEP? For what it's worth I only get on the internet about an hour at night, and he probably does the same. Neither of us leave our laptops running all the time; I might overnight or during the day if I'm downloading s…

So with the L3000s sold, I finally have the funds to replace my laptop, and I'm thinking of going Mac this time, as I've never used an Apple computer before and am curious. My question is about hard drive compatibility. Currently I have a 300gig PATA hard drive in an external closure connected to my PC via USB. I am wondering if I need to format the HD to be compatible with OS X. If so, that will be a significant problem because all of my lossless music is stored on that drive.

Well, our wireless router may have kicked the bucket. One of the lower ended netgears I believe. Looking for something reasonably priced that won't break down on me in a year, and gets the job done. Thanks guys

I had been using a CSS for ad blocking, but the one I've been using kills non-advertisement as well on occasions (like smileys on this site) so I stopped using it. Any other options for good ad blocking on Safari, or should I just suck it up and hope the new Safari will do a better job of it?

I'm constantly having problems emailing back my Dad. I'm the only one in our family that seems to have this problem. Here's an example... Reporting-MTA: dns; comcast.net Arrival-Date: 25 Aug 2007 3:00:41 +0000 Final-Recipient: rfc822; (dad's address) Action: failed Status: 4.4.7 Unable to contact host for 2 days, Diagnostic-Code: smtp; Persistent Transient Failure: Delivery time expired Last-Attempt-Date: 25 Aug 2007 3:00:41 +0000 He can email me fine, but it's like 70% chance my response won't make it. I've tried sending a new message as well as responding to his email. He's on DSL... not sure what company. I'm on Comcast using Thunderbird.

Well, as the title says, my PC is kaput. It has passed on! The PC is no more! It has ceased to be! Now, I have the fun task of trying to retrieve any pertinent data I hadn't backed up. Oh joy.

so you guys know of one around $50? oh just needs to do analog cable

I am looking to buy some RAM/. Any suggestions for a reliable source? PC2700 CL2.5 NP DDR SDRAM SODIMM Memory Thanks!

I've been wanting to do this for a while. Sometimes my computer just starts acting wonky, and I know a format and full windows reinstall is forthcoming. about the only thing I really need on it is my music and some pictures (if you call random internet lolcat pictures I downloaded stuff I "need"). But anywho, today I got home from work, and I'd start up my computer, and it would get all the way to the windows desktop, then reboot. It repeated this in an endless loop. Luckily, I always keep an external hard drive with all my drivers, FLACs, and pictures on it. I also keep my Windows CDs in a safe place. Just a friendly reminder to always be prepared! computer is run…

If you're not familiar with the D/Dock this question isn't for you, but I'm wondering if there are any practical reasons why I can't put a PCI soundcard in there. It's a half-length so virtually every card up to the Lynx should fit. H

I have a flat panel display using a DVI connector with a nvidia 6 series card. I moved my computer and when I plugged it back in as soon as windows booted up past the welcome screen the monitor lost siad "no signal". I booted it in safe mode and reinstalled the drivers and it booted fine but now the desktop is stretched out past edge of the monitor. If I move the mouse to the far right the screen scrolls to the right to reveal the rest of the desktop. Sorry if that isn't understandable I'll try to explain it better if this cannot be understood. The problem is that 1) my monitor is no longer in native resolution (1440 x 900) becaue it's being stretched and looks bad. S…

I upgraded my motherboard recently. Backed up everything that was on my C drive (Windows boot drive, main drive) then proceeded to reinstall Windows XP. My setup is 2 PATA hardrives sharing the same ribbon cable on one channel. A DVDRW drive on another channel. 2x SATA drives using a RAID card. After installing the RAID card drivers those hardrives worked fine. My main C drive works fine. But I can't get the second slave PATA drive to show up in Windows. I've tried Admin Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management, which usually works fine. But this time it's not even showing up as a hidden drive. The second PATA drive is set to cable select (I beli…

I was just given a Dell Dimension 4600 computer and I fucked up. I wanted to reinstall XP but didn't have the OS disk from dell. I had the bright idea to use my OS disk from my compaq computer. It seemed to work until I realized that the compaq disk doesn't have the drivers for the video card, sound card and most importantly the ethernet or modem! I can't even go online to download the drivers because I can't use the ethernet port. Plus I have to activate it in 30 days. If any of you have a dell dimension computer would you please for the love of god mail me a copy of your OEM XP Home disk? It's no illegal since I have a legitimate key on the side of my computer. I ca…

For those that have used a touchpad that available for a desktop computer, is this a good idea or lame idea? I need something that will work while resting on my thigh. I use my computer while I'm in an arm chair with the keyboard on my knees and my mouse on my thigh. The trackball isn't that great of a set up. It's awkward and when it falls off of my lap the ball falls out and roles into the nearest open suer grate and I have to fish it out with a piece of chewed gum on a stick. Are there many differences between brands of touchpads? Which one should I get? What's the best value for performance? It seems you guys know your computer stuff. Thanks, aaron.

I've pretty much had enough of my PSC 1315 HP All-in-one printer. It's not a bad printer in itself, it's just a pain in the ass. Feeds papers wrong, ocassionally refuses to scan, ocassionally refuses to print, drains ink, simply refuses to cancel prints unless the drivers are reinstalled, check cartidge warnings, check paper warnings...it's just too much to handle. So, in your opinion, who do you feel makes the better printers. Canon, Epson, Lexmark, Brother...? Before I've had Canon, and all I can remember is that Canon ink is cheap as hell.

Hi, i'm not computer literate, i mean i could use the thing, but i'm not a fan of all the little details that go into these things. for the last 3 years i've relied on Norton Internet Security (rebuying it every august or whenever a new one comes out). well, now it tells me that my computer is under attack. i do a "live update" and install the things. then it tells me that a trojan horse is has gotten in, and somehow it can't fix it (after having me go through a series of steps). one , i want to get rid of the trojan horse two, i want to get rid of norton.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html Pretty cool stuff I could really see something like this being the direction that computing goes in the relatively near future.

PNY? Centron? KByte? Some unknown brand? Should I buy two sets of two different ones and try them both out? Background: I already bought some Centron, but can buy 4G of PNY for reasonably cheap. Should I? Or is it a move sideways? What are there often sales of? Kingston? Crucial? Are those the two best at this point? I don't need best (not for this computer), I need "Honda" -- cheap (or rather, reasonably priced considering its quality, not Kia cheap) yet reliable. For the one I build myself, then I'll want "BMW" performance.

I have a really old 1.1ghz computer with 512mb of really old slow ram. I'm getting irked at my computers sluggish speeds when oppening web browsers and files and even transfering things to my portable player. I don't however have the resources to get a whole new computer. I can get a stick of 512mb of ram thats clocked at 633mhz for 39.99 at circuit city. Will I notice any differnce in my computers preformance or will I just have to save for a new computer? Thanks for any help, aaron.

Any suggestions on a good card reader? Needs to be multi-format (CF, SD (SDHC if possible), xD, MMC).