Ancient Geek-Computer myths and facts

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  • Wet KipperWet Kipper Shipmate
    edited January 2020
    what's an ISO ?
    I could borrow a USB connected DVD drive from someone else, I'm sure. I'm just not sure that these older pieces of software will run properly on a Windows 10 machine - or if Adobe are so fixed on that new subscription model that they won't allow the older stuff to get re-registered again even if I was able to re-install them

    also, am pretty sure I registered them and set up an Adobe ID using an older email address which is no longer active and I don't have access to any more
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    ISO is a single file containing an entire optical disk's contents. It can be mounted in Windows to appear as a virtual DVD behaving exactly like a physical disk.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    The older stuff should run on W10 and Adobe continue to honour the terms you originally bought under
  • file under "worth a punt"
  • ... which, if it works, is worth a pint. :)

    No further news on my Win 10 Pro Upgrade no-internet connection problem, I'm afraid. Didn't have time to check out more options, but may have to delete parts of the relevant registry (of course after having backed it up safely!). Which is another suggestion I found on the net; indeed, the loss of connectivity after a Win 10 update or upgrade seems not unheard of!
  • Wesley--
    Wesley J wrote: »
    Not quite sure what's going on there, GK.

    I've just done a search of ¨blahblah" on DDG and FF, and this is the link: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=blahblah&t=ffsb&ia=videos. I bookmarked it, and the bookmark was called "blahblah at DuckDuckGo" and again led to the link above.

    So it seems to work for me - if indeed I am answering your question! I am afraid no problem on my side here. - Perhaps try and manually give the bookmark a new name? In FF, rightclick --> Properties --> Name.

    Thanks, Wes. However, it's the URL that's the fundamental problem.

    I've made some progress. The basic problem is that when I bookmark a DuckDuckGo list of returned results, the search terms aren't added to the bookmark URL. So the URL just points to DuckDuckGo itself.

    I did some poking around. I had both DDG and DDG HTML in my search engine list, and had the HTML as the default. I disabled the HTML, and made regular DDG the default. I also restarted FFox without add-ons, then with.

    The problem is mostly gone. Still not sure about the occasional reoccurrences, or why DDG HTML would be a problem. I'll keep tinkering, but I'm glad things are better.

  • Houston, we have a problem!

    We missed the alleged deadline for free update to W10 (from 7 Professional), but have been looking at using it anyway as it still appears to be avaliable for usse. Having gone through everything else, in-house tech officer has realised that (because they were bought through my previous workplace), the Knotweed and I's laptops both have the exact same product key. There isn't a product key sticker on them, and both machines give the same result when a piece of useful software is used to find it out. Probably because the previous workplace/supplier had a bulk licence...

    The Howtogeek page suggests that an update may not work without the product key, leaving us facing considerable expense in updating, either in buying W10 or in buying new laptops

    Any bright ideas?
  • AlisdairAlisdair Shipmate Posts: 12
    Houston, we have a problem!

    ... Any bright ideas?

    1. Clone the hard drive to a backup one; run the update; see what happens. If all is good, carry on; if it all turns to custard and bricks the drive/system then install the other hard drive and be thankful you've dodged a bullet.

    2. Pony up the money and move on - life is too short.

    3. Repent from proprietary operating systems and learn to us Linux (Mint is a good choice, but you have to be willing and able to let go some familiar software - not a big deal for some, but a deal breaker for others).

  • Something here might work.
  • Well, it all seems to have worked without needing the product key... which turned up when, quite randomly, I took the battery off the laptop and... there it was, under the battery!
  • That's what I noted too when upgrading 3 machines from Win 7 (Ultimate/Pro) to Win 10 (Pro) - the upgrade was free, neither the old nor a new key was needed. Which is nice.
  • I am getting frustrated trying to figure out how to open a ".pages" file. Apparently, it is possible to open in another format but I sure can't figure it out. This is a simple document that I sent to someone to be filled out. She filled it out and sent it back as an iCloud document and I couldn't open that either.

    Please, help me save face here! :) If I ask her to send it in another format, it will be the fourth time that she has sent it to me. I need to have it printed out this morning. Thanks for any help!
  • A work-around has been found but I am still wondering what I could have done.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    The leader of a course I'm doing has emailed me a drop box with some information.

    In non technical terms please what is a drop box? How does it work?

    (yes, I know I should ask them but I feel like the technopeasant I am as everyone else is younger and more tech savvy Your average 5 year old is more tech savvy than I am).
  • If you sign up for Dropbox, then it is like having a mailbox out at the road for rural delivery. You can put an envelope in it for the mail carrier to pick up. And you can go get your mail out of it too. It's like having your own little piece of the internet reserved for you to put things in. You can leave them there just as you wish and when you tell someone it is there, they can go get it.
    It works well for all sorts of files that would be impractical to send by email. So, you may get a link to follow to go to Dropbox and when you sign in, you can go look at the item that was left there. You can download it right from there and do what you wish with it.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Thanks Lily Pad. What I was hoping was that I could play the contents off-line. At the moment it's on my desk top computer and is password protected, but I was wondering it I got it sent to my tablet (which has a different email address) whether I would be able to play it off-line as I won't have wi-fi on holiday.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Depending on the size of the file, you could just email it to yourself on the tablet.

    If what you have been sent is just a Dropbox link, then you could simply paste it in to the browser on your tablet and download it onto your tablet. (Also Dropbox has free apps for Mac OSX, iOS, Kindle, Windows (inc. phone and tablet) and Android).
  • Yes, you download it from the Dropbox and then it is on your tablet always. And you don't need to have wifi or whatever to get that link again. It will be on the tablet.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    On my tablet (iPad) in the Dropbox app you have to mark documents to be available offline for them to be downloaded, otherwise it just views them online. This is to cope with the more limited storage capacity of the iPad compared to the laptop.
  • HuiaHuia Shipmate
    Thanks Lily Pad and Bro James. Now I have a better idea of what's possible I can go to the library where the have a teaching hour for technopeasants tomorrow. Some staff are better at this than others so knowing that what I want to do is actual
  • Hi. If anyone has a moment to look over what I want/need to do and tell me if it's possible wise, that would be great.

    SITUATION (tl;dr): Internal hard drive on Dell laptop needs to be replaced, per Dell. It's under warranty, and tech will come first of the week to put in a new hard drive.

    I need to have everything backed up and ready before then. I recently got a new external hard drive, because my old external was full. I can backup to the new external just fine.

    CORE ISSUE: My new external has 2 terabytes of memory. (I got a really good deal.) I'd like to clone my entire internal HD over to the new external. (I have lots of programs that would be a pain to replace and reinstall. Went through a lesser version of this a year ago.)

    Currently, the new ext HD has no partitions. (I barely know what those are, other than more or less putting walls up, so that you can keep things separate, almost like separate hard drives.)

    Could I set up a partition for the cloned drive; one for my normal daily backup; and one that's bootable, in case of problems with the laptop? (Possibly 1 more small one, in case I need it in the future.)

    I've looked at various "how-to"s online. Some seem contradictory, IIRC. Even my new ext HD's manual is a bit contradictory about whether I need to format the thing before using it. I was able to do a normal backup to it just fine. But I tried to do something else (maybe save a system image?), and it told me I have to format the new ext HD first. If I have to format it, I'll need to remove the backup that's there, and some things that came with the hard drive. I should be able to put those on the internal drive, then copy them back over to the external after formatting.

    Is this doable? Laughable? Both?


    Specs:

    Dell Inspiron 5566, internal disk 930 GB.
    Windows 10
    Current internal drive: Toshiba
    Previous external drive: Seagate
    NEW 2 TB external drive: Silicon Power 2.5" portable

    I tried to put a balanced amount of information. Sorry if it's too much/little.

    At the very least, I need to do a good backup ***this weekend***. If possible, I'd like to do the cloning and partitioning.

    Thoughts? Opinions?

    Many, many thanks for reading this far! ;)
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Bootable USB partitions must be FAT32 - bizarre, I know - but the UEFI standard doesn't support booting from NTFS partitions. This means that you would have to limit the bootable partition to 32GB.

    Personally I'd back up data and take the pain of application reinstall. In a commercial environment I'd have an enterprise backup solution but that's way out of home league.
  • Karl--

    Thx. :) AIUI, the bootable partition would be like a recovery disk, and only have really basic stuff, so I wouldn't think that would take anywhere near 32 GB?
  • I want to connect a simple external webcam to my computer. However I'd like to digitally zoom it in closer. Any ideas please?
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    edited March 2020
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Karl--

    Thx. :) AIUI, the bootable partition would be like a recovery disk, and only have really basic stuff, so I wouldn't think that would take anywhere near 32 GB?

    Ah. Slight misunderstanding then. It's doable, yes.
  • Great, Karl. Thank you!
  • My church, Southwark Cathedral, is starting this afternoon to livestream services (which are NOT open to the public) but accessing them means joining Fxxxbxxx - something which I have always refused to do. Is it possible to join using an alias ??
  • jedijudyjedijudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Hi Melangell!! I have several friends who have FB accounts using aliases. So, it is definitely something that's doable.

    I also have an FB sockpuppet because of...stuff. Only used on rare occasions.
  • Thank you, jedijudy!
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Melangell wrote: »
    My church, Southwark Cathedral, is starting this afternoon to livestream services (which are NOT open to the public) but accessing them means joining Fxxxbxxx - something which I have always refused to do. Is it possible to join using an alias ??

    I understand you don't need an account, you can just watch without joining anything.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Does anyone know if it is possible to change the colours and contrast on Google maps? My partner is trying to exercise daily around his local streets but he finds the Google maps on screen difficult to see, the colours are all very pale and the contrast is poor. Can it be changed?
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Golden Key wrote: »
    Karl--

    Thx. :) AIUI, the bootable partition would be like a recovery disk, and only have really basic stuff, so I wouldn't think that would take anywhere near 32 GB?

    Ah. Slight misunderstanding then. It's doable, yes.

    I'm not sure about UEFI, but this article indicates that it's possible to boot W10 from an NTFS formatted USB.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Sparrow wrote: »
    Does anyone know if it is possible to change the colours and contrast on Google maps? My partner is trying to exercise daily around his local streets but he finds the Google maps on screen difficult to see, the colours are all very pale and the contrast is poor. Can it be changed?

    Not that I can see.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Does anyone know if it’s possible, and if so how, to add text to a Facebook, livestream?
  • Sparrow wrote: »
    Does anyone know if it is possible to change the colours and contrast on Google maps? My partner is trying to exercise daily around his local streets but he finds the Google maps on screen difficult to see, the colours are all very pale and the contrast is poor. Can it be changed?

    you may be able to play around with the "accessibility" options on the settings for the device as a whole, rather than specifically for Google maps, but it might make it look odd for doing everything else.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    I have a kindergarten cell phone question.

    I got my first smart phone about three years ago, an iPhone 5s. I'm ready to upgrade (wait for it!) to a refurbished iPhone 7s. I've been served by Cricket and they've been fine. However they seem to be saying if I upgrade, I'll have to pay a $99 fee on top of the new phone. I Don't Like That. So I've been looking at some other discount servers since I don't have the credit for ATT or Verizon and Sprint doesn't have good coverage at my address.

    My question is: where is my phone data like contacts, notes and pictures, and texting history? Are they on the Cricket SIM card or somewhere in my phone? Will have have to start from scratch if I change companies? or phones? Is there some way to transfer the data to the new phone and company?

    Thanks bunches! :blush:
  • That's all in your phone and you should be able to "beam" it straight from one phone to the other, no matter what carrier you go with.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Yay! Thanks, mt!
  • AlisdairAlisdair Shipmate Posts: 12
    Sparrow wrote: »
    Does anyone know if it is possible to change the colours and contrast on Google maps? My partner is trying to exercise daily around his local streets but he finds the Google maps on screen difficult to see, the colours are all very pale and the contrast is poor. Can it be changed?

    Tell him to have a look at OSM+ (Open Street Map). It has a wide range of features, including display adjustments.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    I'm looking for a good (and preferably free) program for cataloguing my extensive collection of DVDs and CDs. Can anyone suggest something suitable?
  • ClimacusClimacus Shipmate
    How would you use it once catalogued?

    Sorry if this has been rejected, but do you have a database program on your computer? You could set up a simple* table with fields for what you need (type -- DVD, CD; name; year; etc...) and these days they make searching easy with no need for a query language.

    Or a spreadsheet could do it too if you only wanted a list you could search or filter.


    * I work with databases and have a Computing Science background so my simple may not be yours, but I think I'm right -- I helped a few friends do similar.
  • RicardusRicardus Shipmate
    Sparrow wrote: »
    I'm looking for a good (and preferably free) program for cataloguing my extensive collection of DVDs and CDs. Can anyone suggest something suitable?

    If you're not bothered about aesthetics, you could just use a spreadsheet. Put your field names (composer, title, genre etc) in the top row, and then put a filter on that row, so that you can sort and/or select by composer, title etc.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    Yes I have a database program and I use it. But the advantage of a specialised cataloguing program (like Book Collector which I have for my books) is that you just scan or enter the barcode or ISBN equivalent number and it finds all the details automatically. I would use Book Collector but it doesn't appear to do CDs or DVDs.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Are you thinking of something that returns the details you've previously entered, or something that uses an online service to return information?
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    I want something like Book Collector for books, it compiles a database on your PC, you scan the ISBN number on the back of the book using your phone and send the data to your PC, or enter the number direct manually. Then the program finds all the data online about the book, author, publication date, even the number of pages an an image of the title page. This is all saved in the file on your PC. Basically like an Access database but the programe does all the hard work for you.

    So I want something that can do the same for my CDs and DVDs.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Shipmate
    edited April 2020
  • You can find all that info in Amazon or similar. Can search by barcode.
  • SparrowSparrow Shipmate
    I went with Music Collector and Media Collector, from the same stable as Book Collector. The free version only takes up to 100 titles but the paid for version is only £25.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Not a computer, but a smartphone problem. It's not a common make, Gsmart, running a version of Android. And it has got itself into a state where it thinks it has no space for apps. It keeps suggesting I remove everything to make room, including my McAfee security software. I run the cleanup function in this, and the storage display shows space on the phone, and a lot of space on the SD card. But when I try to load anything, back it comes with no room. When I use the cleanup function, it shows a lot of both greyed out during the process, but then reverts to showing space graphically, and reporting space in Gb. I have stripped out practically everything, and then find I can't put anything back on, because it is full. Which it definitely isn't. I did manage to download an alternative cleaning app from the Play Store, but it did exactly the same as the McAfee.
    I am considering buying a new phone, and transferring essential files across via my computer. (I have copied most things off it already.) But I'd far rather have this one back working the way it used to.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Downloaded all that I could, and found out the reset option. Now I have to rebuild it. But there is space.
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