GoRedwings19's Computer Help Hotline

So, my wife needs a new laptop. Currently, she (and I) both use Windows-based laptops for home & work, so that is the OS with which she is familiar. However, she has had iPhones since v6 (now on vX 256GB), and also uses an iPad for most casual tasks (web-browsing, e-book reading, etc.). The Windows laptop is used only on-occasion for more mundane tasks. Predominant PC use-cases include iTunes library base/backup, and creating/sharing documents for the local Rotary club (MS Word & Excel files). So, she needs an HD capacity bigger than her phone, as well as the latest Microsoft Office suite. Given her leanings toward other Apple products, she is considerin…

Right now I use E6420 2.13GHZ OC'd to 3.4GHZ XFX GeForce 8800GTS 640MB 4x1GB Corsair C4 (comb-styled heatsink) ram. Chasis: Antec P182SE Stock cooling for everything I guess.. Windows XP 32-bit My main concern is that my videocard is very hot, so I always have to keep the 2 fans on my case on HIGH mode, which makes it very loud. Is there any way I can fix this? I don't care about the cost as long as it isn't outrageous.. so I'm willing to change to watercooling, heat-sinks, etc if it makes a significant difference. Thank you for your time I hope I will be able to quietly listen to music on my desktop one day.. Nenso

Sorry if I'm late to the party on this one, but just found this little hint: Use fine-grain volume control in 10.5 | Mac OS X Hints | Macworld

Ok macophiles, I've got an OS X question for you. The laptop that I'm currently using is a Powerbook G4 w/ 1GHz processor and a piddly 256Mb of RAM. It's using OS X 10.3x9 which I believe is "Panther" or some such nonsense. Basically what I'm trying to do is upspec the laptop to the point where it can use the Duet. I've got a 1Gb RAM stick, but it was unstable when I first installed it. So my thought is to try upgrading the OS to Tiger (10.4.11, I think) and I'm wondering what I have to do to do this? Can I just download the upgrade from Apple? Can I purchase a used copy? Other thoughts or suggestions appreciated. I'm trying to limit my investment here since it's…

This makes me sad... rather sad. On the bright side, I should be able to get an almost-free iPad2 w/3G soon. http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/20/atandt-agrees-to-buy-t-mobile-from-deutsche-telekom/ **BRENT**

Ok, I have a 10 year old nephew with a laptop. This was purchased by his IBC mother (my sister) at a pawn shop for cheap, and, of course, without the original XP media. Need I say more? But, I'm stuck getting XP back on it. The machine is not up for Vista, nor Win7 (pity, because I have a spare Vista upgrade), and Linux (Ubutu, etc) just is not an option for the spawn of IBC. So, how do I get a reasonable version of XP?

Hello Head-case. I would like to build my own website to put on my Resume and show off my fotos and skeematics better than Flickr, and a stack of loose papers on the edge of my desk. I'm not really sure where to start. What I'm looking for: I want the website to be pretty simple No horizontal scrolling, simple/easy to read fonts with high contrasts, basically paper on the internet. A few pages for photography (street, sports) A page for DIY stuff MAYBE a blog I have a domain name in mind, that is not owned yet, so that is good. I know I need to buy it and 1and1.com looks like a good place to do this, but I'm not really sure where to go from there. …

My Mac is slow as shit, and no I don't know what happened. It is very possible that the Little Monkey pressed some buttons. What can I do to run a checkup or some such shit--other thanDisk Utility--so that this thing gets back to normal?

PC w/ XP SP2 (Media Center Edition) 2 GB RAM Fan on previous video card crapped out. I had been using onboard coax out with ASIO4ALL through foobar. New Visiontek ATI Raedon HD 3870 512 video card... With onboard HD sound meant to go through HDMI cable to HDMI ready monitor, receiver or HDTV. Now that my new video card is installed, I'm getting no audio through the onboard digital out. My DAC won't lock on a signal, and as a result, I'm left with no audio here at work. Is it as simple as unistalling the new audio drivers for the video card so it goes back to the onboard sound? Or is there more I need to do?

My laptop is on its last dying breaths right now and it seems that I need a new laptop asap. Something under $500, 14" max screen size and should be able to run Adobe Illustrator decently. I would prefer to buy new/refurb so I could get the warranty. I've been looking at the lenovo outlet site and slickdeals. But is there anywhere else to look or does anyone have any suggestions?

Has anyone used these things successfully? If you have any thoughts or experiences, post them up. Planning to get one for my wife's new camera.

I am currently using an AirPort Extreme but I know I am on limited time here. Our house is two stories at around 3500 Sq. Ft. with cinder block outside walls which limit signal strength in the garage and outside. Thinking that a mesh system should be the way to go so looking for opinions as well as any recommendations. I like the software interface on the AE and have really had no problems with the system but unfortunately Apple has parked the bus on this one.

My wife is coordinating the hospital's integration of a new research physician and department. The researcher requires movable storage medium for physically moving large research data from one system to another and up until now the only storage vehicle approved by the hospital has been the Kangaroo thumb drives which employ 256 bit AES encryption. The physician's tech coordinator says that the WD Passport's 256 bit Smart Ware encryption is more than adequate. The technology department at the hospital is currently overwhelmed right now in dealing with some new regulations and not making a decision as to the adequacy of the WD Smart Ware encryption (aka they don't have t…

Rather than resurrect a subthread in "what did you do today" or "ye mac thread", I thought I'd start a new one. What is the math software of choice to do DSP, modeling, etc.? I wouldn't mind paying a little bit, but of course I would prefer free, since I'm only a hobbyist at this point. I actually do need it at work (not really, my assessment), but CSC is so cheap they won't spring for anything the customer doesn't put in the contract as 'required'. Shelly posted that she hated the way Mathematica does licensing, and after investigating it, I concur that my infrequent use of it will not justify paying $155/year or $20/month. I might actually be in the Matlab …

I am looking to buy My wife a laptop for Christmas,I usually buy Dell but am thinking Mac this time. she just uses it to surf the net,email, facebook.She will be using it at home.

We have a original Drobo DAS that I picked up from Dan a long time ago and is still going but it's gotten a bit flaky with windows 10 sleep for some reason and Drobo stopped doing software updates 5 years ago I think. Anyway I'm thinking of replacing it and I'm wondering what the current state of the art is? I'm thinking of just getting the new Drobo USB 3.0 but I was wondering if anyone else knows of something better. Right now I'm still thinking DAS because I want to keep the Backblaze backup going etc. Maybe it makes more sense to move one drive local to the machine use that for the data and backup and then go to a dedicated NAS for the backup and slimserver?

I'd like to create a database of the rear album "art" of my Blue Note LPs, often containing many historical facts about the music or musicians. So the scanner needs to be at least 12x12. Attached an image below for what an average rear cover would look like. Any recommendations?

So, either what's the best "value" keyboard that I should get, or how much should I consider spending, if they're all the same? Basically, I need to get an add-on for a laptop that I've been using more frequently, and everything I have is PS2. $10? $25? Should I get this? Or should I just get the cheapest thing I can find with full-size keys (currently, the price to beat appears to be US$10)? Or should I get one of those roll-away ones? I'm asking for experience from people who've gotten keyboards for their laptops as well as advice on price-setting.

So last night I tried to replace both the LCD and the battery to my iPod 5.5g. I probably should have done one at a time to minimize troubleshooting, but hell, I'm an optimist. So after reconnecting everything, I try to turn it on. No joy. But I can hear the HD whirring, so I think it's getting juice. Black screen, though. So obviously it could be a bad LCD that I received. But I also get strange errors when trying to connect to iTunes. It tells me the iPod needs to be restored, but then claims the iPod is busy when it attempts to do so. And that's bullshit. I've tried resetting the damn thing every way I know how to no avail. My next troubleshooting s…

I think I am going to my dad a new basic desktop computer. His computer is about a million years old but he is way too cheap and stubborn to replace it. I think I may get him a Dell Inspiron 3000. It has a reasonable processor (Intel Quad Core 4th gen i5 3.2GHz), is not too expensive, has 8GB RAM, and I can always upgrade to an SSD if needed. He doesn't do much on it (just listens to music, some basic spreadsheets, and browses the web). I can get it with Window 7 or 8. I am leaning towards 7 because 8 is pretty different than he is used to using (XP). Is there any reason to go with Windows 8? For example, is Windows going to stop supporting 7 or is Windows 8…

Since it's possible this topic is helpful to someone else, I've decided to start a new thread, instead of posting the question at the venerable Mac thread. I'm about upgrading a mid 2010 13"MBP adding more memory (actually changing both chips for larger ones), replacing the optic drive for a 256 SSD one, and changing the stock HDD for a WD 1TB unit. This MB has become my main computer until I'm sure I really want/need a 27"iMac (mostly a 6 weeks delivery term sucks). Still I'm a OSX rookie and I can't find the folders which should be transferred from this old-to-be system HDD into the new system SSD drive. They're supposed to be in the root user directory but they…

Hi all, So I'm going to jump on the Squeezebox train, and looking for advice on the best way to do it right, from the get-go. Right now, my computer audio situation is languishing in the 90s, as I am a big Sony/ATRAC fanboi. I have a bunch of stuff ripped to Sonicstage which I will most likely keep in the immediate future for portable use only. As for the Squeezebox thing, I want to rip my entire CD collection (350+ last count) into a lossless format and store it on an external HD or NAS/RAID setup. I'll be using a 1 year old Dell desktop, running Windows XP. I plan to hook everything up via ethernet. I suppose my main question concerns library management: Wh…

My dad's computer started acting funny this morning. I don't know much about Windows. When he logged back in this morning the following things were missing: His desktop picture, his shortcuts in the taskbar were missing, his programs when you click the start button were gone, and Microsoft office longer seems to be registered. He did have antimalwarebytes delete 2 pups that were in the registry key. We also had someone changing the DSL today but he said he didn't touch the computer. I doubt it was the latter. Do you know what could be the problem and how to fix it? I don't have Windows 7 disks to reinstall everything and also my dad won't let me do that since he…

Wondering if anyone might be able to give me some insight into a minor issue I'm having with the USB audio on my Gateway FX laptop running Windows 7. I've never had much of an issue with the Pico and USB audio, generally it's been plug and play without glitches. I get occasional noise from one thing or another, mostly at work where I haven't done much in the line of special setup and there's a ton of interference. When I got the laptop though part of my intention was to use it in conjunction with my Pico for music playback allowing me a system I can more easily move around the house so I'd like to get the best out of it I can. Generally the sound is fine but I get the …

A new job has me searching for a Mac solution for playing around with music gear. They want to submit some budget numbers tomorrow. Argh! Not really enough time to research shit. I'm torn between a faster Mac laptop than I have and a DIY Linux music server, and just popping for a Mac Pro desktop. I currently have an iTouch, iPad, and entry level MacBook, and a fairly new and fast Dell Windows 7 desktop. My needs are: I've got to be able to play with and evaluate virtually any digital media device. I won't be looking at bad-ass listening room servers (ie Sooloos) or professional audio editing stuff, but may be playing with most anything other hardware and sof…