Posts by Thinka

Hey drex I found this website, I also have a dead machine (actually more than one) that I'm trying to fix, but I also am more wary of laptops.

And whilst on the subject of diagnosis, does anyone know of any motherboard diagnostic cards that they would happily recommend? Or are these not needed if you have a screwdriver set and a list of BIOS beep codes??

Hey there, would you be able to explain things you did before the problem started, and a little bit more detail on how it happens? For instance was it after one evening traversing the web for something that you stumbled across a website that probably installed the stuff on your computer? And is it that once you start up your computer IE opens without your permission? Do you get popups with every website you access?? A little bit of this more practical info would be good I think.

Cheers

Nirvana

Die Another Day

They tell you what you WANT to hear about yourself, which makes you feel good.

Like an astrological placebo mind pill. Nice.

Indeed, indeed, a lot of the time there exists only a thin, and hazy line between the lazy man, and the frustrated & exasperated man.

Hello mate, first things first you're in the wrong forum, if you've got an XP machine then you should post in the XP forum. This way you stand a better chance of getting the help you want, as the people who can help will only be checking those forums.

As to your freezing problem, have you run an anti-virus scan to determine that it's not a bug? Apart from that I can't think of anything else sorry, maybe a bad build? If you can get your hands on one of those Machine Motherboard Diagnosis test things, that could be helpful too, they're quite cheap from eBay.

Hey there, your story is a bit amusing, even more so for me because I've experienced similar. Unfortunately I am yet to strip down the computer sooo I can't give you any help there.

My laptop was doing something similar, I couldn't open IE, I couldn't open My Computer, I couldn't open My Documents. When I double-clicked on the icons, it came up as if I had right-clicked and then gone to 'Properties'. My keyboard was also spitting random characters, not what key I pressed. Anyways what I remember doing is leaving the computer off for a few days, maybe a week, and then going back, and it behaved better. So I just took the chance, and copied all of my files onto my external HDD, and left it to be returned to when I have more time.

So to summarise I would suggest giving it time to get its head right so to speak, having an external drive ready, and gettin in touch with someone who can take computers apart & test parts (you can have a go urself, there's help on here or through google). Also, are the specs not good enuff to change your OS? If you don't wanna invest in XP, try a Linux Distro, Debian or Ubuntu, its free pretty much, and many people will tell you as i will, you won't regret it!

Hey agb, you might want to give some more information. Like how long has the problem been occuring, is it a new computer, or did you change something on your system, or did it just start happening randomly? Have you got IE 7?

And if it's not working I'm not sure how u're getting access to the internet, but you might want to try downloading Firefox from here
and see if you still get the problem.

Also if you recently changed hardware, undo the change and see if it helps. If you recently changed software, use System Restore, that might help. Don't know what other people reckon really. Also try Microsoft's Support Forums/Articles, I've gotten some good help from there many a time.

:-) People still forgetting to Search The Google ey? I definitely learnt that lesson here, and I have to say I'm much the better for it.

Yea, just took this test, and it's like all the other "personality tests" i've seen. It takes a "type" of person, and then tries to make specific deductions about areas in a person's life, but is still on the whole very vague, and general, and describes scenarios that are common to a fairly sizeable proportion of the world's population.

Rather like having a quack Sherlock Holmes tell you what he THINKS about you. The trouble is Sherlock Holmes didn't THINK, he KNEW, he was often near enough 100% SURE, and if he wasn't, he would say so.

Good Charlotte

Hahaha i thot that would be a tough one at first...

"300"!

No problem mate. ;o)

what is with that number?

Probably a joke. How about alphacms or omegacms?

Hey there, I think you're on the right track. The one thing I would point out is that code (source code) not only determines what the software does, in some cases it also determines HOW it does it. Hence a piece of software can be better than another, to be a bit more specific, a website can be safer than another, because of HOW it handles the personal data of others.

I guess what that means is that code cannot always be neutral, it depends on what it is for. Infact I don't think it can be neutral at all, because the code reflects the way of thinking of whoever's writing it, so it is at the very least partial.

I hope I haven't confused you, I would say it's a good idea to get more specific about the type of software you mean, and also to differentiate "software" from "programs" in your mind. Techies most often use the term interchangeably, but in my experience it can help to draw some sort of line between them. That might just be though.

Also you should definitely check out some of the blogs that are on daniweb by people like happygeek. There's bound to be some relevant articles.

Hope that helps.

A lot of people will tell you what I'm going to say - Google or Wikipedia it. Doing that can tell you much more than anyone person can here, plus it's quicker!

OK Cool, thanks.

Dell?

But I read on another thread on here that Dell hardware isn't very good when it comes to servers, and that their support system is even worse? I was thinking IBM to be honest. Also is it only Microsoft that do server software, or is that just the most popular, and probably the best option if you have Windows PCs on the network (which I do)?

Hello all. I'm trying to find a GOOD server for a small business of about 10 people (i.e. 10 - 11 machines, desktops and notebooks) and growing. The only server that I've been able to find is IBM system x3xxx. Could anyone please point me in the direction of any Cisco, Oracle, or other brands - I'd be most grateful.

Also what are people's opinions on easy-to-use servers that are safe, and reliable? And also does anyone know any good books on managing servers for people who are new to it?!
All help will be much appreciated, ta very much!!

I have had a look at some threads and stickies on here, and now I am slightly more worried than when I started looking round for options. I'll explain why in a bit.

My PC (which I bought second hand, and was assembled by an individual) won't start up. It was fine when I went away one weekend, and I got back, and it stopped working. To give a bit more info, when I turn on the power, the red LED on the motherboard (an Asus P428X) comes on & stays on, and a green light on the front of the case which marks out a cylinder (and which I'm guessing represents the hard drive) flickers. The lights on the keyboard also flicker. Nothing comes up on the monitor though, and there's no whirring of the hard drive or grinding noise of the floppy drive.

I haven't changed any components recently, the last thing that was changed was that I bought some RAM over 2 months ago and the machine still worked fine till now. So my simple question is, what things do I have to check/tweak/test to find out what has gone wrong? Also & this might not be important, for a while now, whenever I turn on the computer from the wall (and even now when it's not starting up), I hear a sound like you get from a television when it's just been turned on, before the picture comes up. I have only heard this …

Oh no, my fault, the code was in a folder that was inside the htdocs folder. I took it out of the folder and it worked...

And now I've written the link properly with the folder and it's worked... must have been doing something silly before. Cheers!

That too doesn't work mate. Could there be something wrong with my XAMPP installation because in the XAMPP "Welcome" localhost website, I tried the phpMyAdmin link and it says:
"MySQL said:

#2003 - The server is not responding "

But the Status page shows:

"MySQL database ACTIVATED

PHP ACTIVATED

HTTPS (SSL) ACTIVATED

Common Gateway Interface (CGI) ACTIVATED

Server Side Includes (SSI) ACTIVATED

SMTP Service DEACTIVATED

FTP Service ACTIVATED "

It's a weird one right?

Hello, I've got the same small problem. I've installed XAMPP and I've got everything running apart from Mercury. This is the first time I've tried to parse php scripts on my own server, normally I use my uni's server.

Anyways, I read in a Sam's book that I'm meant to put documents in the 'htdocs' folder, and I've done that, and in my browsers I can't "see" my pages. Even something as simple as a phpinfo script doesn't work. IE acts like your standard Windows Explorer window, and Firefox also shows the folders, but when it comes to parsing, in Firefox the page is blank, and in IE if I double click on the file, it opens it up in my editor.

Reading around it is apparent that the problem is in some configuration somewhere, but where?! I thought XAMPP was good cos I wouldn't have problems like this?

******
Edit
When I open up my own scripts in Firefox, it basically shows me the code, but with no formatting etc. And when I try to open the phpinfo script it is just a blank page. I begin all these scripts with a 'file' protocol, this is correct right? I tried using "http://localhost" but that gave me an error 404 - "Object not found!".

A Walk To Remember

Hi, hey yeah I did that and the difference was only slight. I also tried to put this msg up that day, but I think something was wrong with the daniweb server... oh well... Anyways I run the vmware toolbox everytime I startup, and yeah, hope it makes some difference, but even if it does, it's not a problem.
It's ok though, I'm quite happy with my installation, really is a useful piece of kit Ubuntu. will definitely look into getting a laptop or some other with just that OS installed.
Cheers

Now I've Googled this, but didn't get anything that seemed useful, so I'm coming to Google No. 2 :-p. Does anyone know of a Firefox Extension that can obtain the bibliography information of a page? So for instance, if I was viewing a W3C Recommendation that I linked from the w3.org website, is there a piece of software that'll have/catch all the usual "referencing" fields and put it in Bibtex format? Would be quite handy methinks.

Hey, I know this is an old thread, but I've just got a quick question. The website says "If you decide to install it, backup your Registry first. " How do you do this please?

Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for everything. I am writing this from my Ubuntu setup on VMWare. I configured it so that it uses the same network connection as the host computer. I get a bit of a lag effect with the mouse pointer, and it's not super fast(which I suppose has got to be expected, although I did allocate 512MB of RAM), but apart from that I'm pleased with it so far.

I'm only just doing this now because I had to get some extra hard disk space, as I previously allocated 2GB to it, which wasn't enough.
Thanks again!

Hey, that's a really good website, thank you sir, it's much appreciated.

Hey, yeah it's G4 Tower, definitely not any of the other ones.

Harry Potter and his Multi-million dollar industry

Hey joe, the guy says as far as he knows, it is a "PowerPc G4" Apple computer. He reckons it's older than an iMac and it's not a PowerMac... I haven't seen it yet so unfortunately I can't elaborate on that. Is the above not enough information to know what kind of wireless card it requires?

Oh yea, it's an OS X 10.3.9.

My friend's old G4 needs a wireless card, and he would like to know where he can get a good one (preferably online) for a decent price? The Mac Shop he's been to are charging him something ridiculous apparently.

The specs of the machine:
Processor: 800 MHz G4
Memory: 256 MB SDRAM
Bus Speed: 133 MHz

Anyone with a useful link/tip is very much appreciated, thanks.

Those instructions are only for your BIOS. They could be very different on his computer.

True actually... Still it might just be lucky and be the same. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

To fmar26 - the point is, change the boot priority of your machine in the BIOS setup and that could solve the problem.

• 1 cd (you can order it if you dont want to download, its cheap - you want version 7.04 feisty fawn)

Why not 6.06 LTS??? See I downloaded this because I thot it would be better (older so more stable, more support for it, plus the 'LTS' thing) and it was just kinda weird. I was getting random shapes on the screen, and for most of the time (about 40 minutes) a black screen with thin purple vertical stripes. In the end I got tired of waiting and exited (I was using a virtual machine). D'u reckon this happened just because it was a 6.06? My friend used 7.04 and didn't have any problems. Also for a 7.04 do I NEED to have about 5 GB free space? I'll have enough ram for it (about 512 MB).

Hey there, sounds like the same problem I had. What you want to check is the Boot priority in the BIOS Menu. When the system starts up, press/hold down delete... then the blue BIOS setup screen should come up. Arrow across to the Boot Menu. Then open up the option 'Boot Priority'. Check that 'CD-ROM' drive is at the top, if not, make it so (Press the '+' button I believe). Then Save and Exit (which again I believe is F10). Then try booting from CD again.

Just to give an update:
I'm at the stage where I need to configure the package manager. And none of the mirrors seem to work, (it says Bad archive mirror
The specified Debian archive mirror is either not available, or does not have a valide Release file on it. Please try a different mirror).

Now I have tried all the UK mirrors and some european ones, and still I get the same msg. This tells me that maybe I've done something wrong, but I'm not sure what? I select http as the protocol for downloads, and I've tried both leaving the proxy information blank, and putting in some information into the fields (I am using a University network) and I still get the same message.

Any suggestions please?

mm apparently you didn't believe me.

I know and please accept my sincerest apologies - what can I say, I don't trust computers very much! Anyways I got Debian running fine - still working on learning the commands to tell it to do stuff, but I think I'll be fine, thanks to you both.

I'm positive that Virtual PC supports Linux.

:-s You were right, I'm sorry for what must have seemed like blasphemy to your eyes :-p. The base system is being installed as I type.

My only worry is the virtual hard disk, I'm so paranoid that it's going to do something silly and wipe off some data that I've got on my physical hard disk. I hope it really is an irrational fear that isn't realised...

Wow... I figured out the problem. I loaded up the BIOS menu when I started up the Virtual Machine, and I looked at the Boot Order, and saw that my Floppy Disk Drive was first, (which it shouldn't be cos I never use it) so I changed it to my CD drive... and now it's booting up.

I'm worried though, it says that if it partitions my disk, it will erase everything on the disk even though it's a "Virtual Hard Disk". Does this mean I need to back up what's on my disk before I continue booting?

Hi there, ok, I have installed vmware, and I get this message (the same one I used to get with Virtual PC) "Non-system disk or disk error
Replace and strike any key when ready".

Do you know what this means please, and how I can fix it? I've had a look at the help files, but they don't "help" much to be honest.

I believe Virtual PC does not support Linux OSs... I looked in the help files, and apart from Windows OSs, it says something called "OS/2..." can be guest operating systems. Now that's a bummer. Are u sure that vmware would support Debian Sturm?

Hey thanks for replying, I intend to install Debian. The 3D graphics issue shouldn't be a problem for me as I only want to use linux for some programming.

Will check out vmware, thanks.

After talking to a friend, I'm thinking of running Virtual PC instead of partitioning my drive. Anybody know of pros and cons regarding both methods?

I've just been looking at one of the other threads actually, and it's got some helpful stuff to start me off. I'll post some other questions if necessary. Thanks for looking.

Hello everyone. So I've been reading the threads in this forum for a while now and haven't really found what I'm looking for.
Basically I need to install a Linux-based system (onto my Windows PC) for work purposes. According to someone who's used the software etc, that I'm going to use, I should only need about 5 GB.

Now I know I need to partition my hard drive, but I don't know how to go about that. Anyone that can point me to any links, I'd be much obliged.
Also, my PC actually has two internal drives. One of them is the one that all the software and system files are on, and the other is just like an extra that I put games & movies on. Do I want to use the 1st one or does it not matter?

And also I've been reading about a variation of Linux systems, is it entirely up to me which one I use, up to my PC, or a trial & error thing (because some might not work?)

I think I should stop there and get those things sorted first before I get into too much stuff. All help is very much appreciated, thanks!

Oh by the way I've got Windows XP Pro, SP2, 30 GB on C drive (Drive no. 1), 80 GB on D drive (No. 2), 512 MB Ram, 2.40 Ghz Intel processor.

Indeed, we live and learn don't we? :-)

Hey thanks, I used to have PowerDVD but it messed me about so I uninstalled it. Anyways someone recommended the K-Lite Codec to me, and I installed it, and it's solved BOTH my problems.

Cheers!