Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

So I've had this Windows 7 Asus laptop for a while now. She's had some issues, but everything's been okay for the most part. Today she decided to inform me that my copy of Windows, which I purchased at Best Buy, is illegitmate. I've had this computer for months and this hasn't coincided with any updates like most situations I've read about online. It just kind of happened out of the blue. So what's next?

Follow the instructions the computer gives you.
 
So I've had this Windows 7 Asus laptop for a while now. She's had some issues, but everything's been okay for the most part. Today she decided to inform me that my copy of Windows, which I purchased at Best Buy, is illegitmate. I've had this computer for months and this hasn't coincided with any updates like most situations I've read about online. It just kind of happened out of the blue. So what's next?

You have the installation disks and registration code, right? It's not illegitimate then.
I'd notify Microsoft that they are in error, and try to get it resolved. Possibly, Best Buy resold registration code for accident, at which point they probably are bound to give you a new OS.
 
The scroll wheel on my mouse is sticking. Any way to make that work smoothly again?

Open the mouse up for a cleaning. There should be some little screws on the bottom of the mouse you can remove... though sometimes they're hidden. Looking at the two mice in front of me, for example, only one has screws visible on the bottom... the other mouse has them hidden (IIRC) on the inside underneath the batteries. Take a look...
 
What did you do in the days of mechanical mice? Buy a new mouse every time it got dirty? If you've had it for years and it's never been cleaned before there's going to be hair and finger oils and all kinds of gnarly stuff wrapped around the scroll wheel which could be interfering with it's performance. It's worth taking apart and cleaning before you spring for a new mouse.
 
What did you do in the days of mechanical mice? Buy a new mouse every time it got dirty? If you've had it for years and it's never been cleaned before there's going to be hair and finger oils and all kinds of gnarly stuff wrapped around the scroll wheel which could be interfering with it's performance. It's worth taking apart and cleaning before you spring for a new mouse.

I've taken them apart, it's not dirt problems, mouse wheels just fail after a while.
 
Probably get a new mouse. I just got a new mouse after the scroll wheel on my old one started acting up. This happens every couple years with my mouse on a pretty consistent basis.

That's what I ended up doing last time I had one fail. But I have a hard time finding mice I like. :sad:
 
That's what I ended up doing last time I had one fail. But I have a hard time finding mice I like. :sad:

I recommend when you find a good one to buy a second one for when the first one gets worn out.
 
So I've had this Windows 7 Asus laptop for a while now. She's had some issues, but everything's been okay for the most part. Today she decided to inform me that my copy of Windows, which I purchased at Best Buy, is illegitmate. I've had this computer for months and this hasn't coincided with any updates like most situations I've read about online. It just kind of happened out of the blue. So what's next?

Sounds like something that happened to me a while back. Turned out to be a very well disguised virus. If it asks for personal information of any kind, alarm bells should be ringing very loudly.
 
Some of the larger ones by Microsoft are nice, I find.

They fit my hand quite well. Good response of the scroll wheel and such.
 
Funny you are talking about mice, I had a mouse question.

Is there any way to clean it (near the optic) without taking it apart? I just got done taking mine apart, but I'm lazy, and would like to avoid doing that in the future. I had been putting off taking my mouse apart for months. Even though it was affecting performance in my games (sometimes it wouldn't register when I moved the mouse, or it would be jerky movement). Can you spray air in there to clear it, or is it best just to take it apart?

Not only do I have to remove 4 screws to get the cover off, but I have to remove 2 more to remove the electronic board and the optic attached to it. Then I can clean underneath that optic. I cleaned the mouse wheel too. The only issues I had with that, were sometimes it would have unintended movements like a minute after I used it. I never understood why that happens. It's always did that as far as I remember.

Yeah I know it's not much work, but I'm a horrible procrastinator when it comes to work around the house.
 
For all you java programmers out there, I have a question.

I've recently written a class involving a while(true) loop involving Thread.sleep. My emulator issued a heads-up to me, stating that I've used a Thread.sleep in a loop. Some googling has informed me that it may cause performance issues if I use a Thread.sleep during a loop. The program compiles and all; the emulator is merely introducing a tip to me that doesn't influence whether the program can run or not.

My question is: is it truly a problem if I use a Thread.sleep in a loop? Or can I reasonably ignore this warning?
 
Funny you are talking about mice, I had a mouse question.

Is there any way to clean it (near the optic) without taking it apart? I just got done taking mine apart, but I'm lazy, and would like to avoid doing that in the future. I had been putting off taking my mouse apart for months. Even though it was affecting performance in my games (sometimes it wouldn't register when I moved the mouse, or it would be jerky movement). Can you spray air in there to clear it, or is it best just to take it apart?

Not only do I have to remove 4 screws to get the cover off, but I have to remove 2 more to remove the electronic board and the optic attached to it. Then I can clean underneath that optic. I cleaned the mouse wheel too. The only issues I had with that, were sometimes it would have unintended movements like a minute after I used it. I never understood why that happens. It's always did that as far as I remember.

Yeah I know it's not much work, but I'm a horrible procrastinator when it comes to work around the house.

Just use a cotton swap to clean the mouse, and vacuum your house on a weekly basis so that your mouse doesn't accumulate much gunk.

I've honestly never had a problem with needing to clean the optic area of a mouse.
 
For all you java programmers out there, I have a question.

I've recently written a class involving a while(true) loop involving Thread.sleep. My emulator issued a heads-up to me, stating that I've used a Thread.sleep in a loop. Some googling has informed me that it may cause performance issues if I use a Thread.sleep during a loop. The program compiles and all; the emulator is merely introducing a tip to me that doesn't influence whether the program can run or not.

My question is: is it truly a problem if I use a Thread.sleep in a loop? Or can I reasonably ignore this warning?

As long as you have proper logic to make sure it doesn't loop forever if you don't want it to, it's not a problem. It just means you might have a good amount of idle time in the loop - which might actually be what you want. And, you might even want the loop with Thread.sleep to keep going forever.

As a non-made-up example, I use Thread.sleep within an infinite loop in the portion of my Civ3 editor that displays the map. Its purpose is to keep the CPU from being hammered by the infinite loop. I have the infinite loop to execute every 1/60th of a second. It displays the map if need be, and then sleeps for the remainder of the 60th of a second, instead of immediately seeing if it needs to draw the map again. My Java editor does give me a warning about it now that I check, but in this case, it's just what I want.
 
Question: I have a WMV video file. I making subtitles for the WMV video file. The subtitles are in the ASS (lol) format. I'd like to hardcode the subtitles in when they finished. Is there a way to do that (free software only) without transcoding the WMV to another format first?
 
Question: I have a WMV video file. I making subtitles for the WMV video file. The subtitles are in the ASS (lol) format. I'd like to hardcode the subtitles in when they finished. Is there a way to do that (free software only) without transcoding the WMV to another format first?

I got it. This freeware program'll do it. The 5.10 version. Didn't try beta. Its quite simple to use, too. A keeper.

http://www.videohelp.com/tools/XviD4PSP
 
Something funny happened. I have 2.0 speakers. The right one is attached to the power and the computer and the left one is attached by a wire to the right speaker. I didnt pull the wires and nothing went "bang" recently but suddenly the left speaker volume dropped. Its still there but quieter. And when I plug in my headphones to the speaker (the jack is in the right side) the volume is out on the left side but the headphones are fine otherwise. I already unplugged it all and plugged it back in but that did not help. No wires feel loose that I can tell. Any suggestions or should I just write off these speakers? Ive had them for a few years. Which is how long they usually last (I dont get real expensive speakers)
 
if all the jacks are tight all the way back to the the PC, and there's no controls on the speakers to adjust, then next would be to look in the PC volume controls and see if there's a balance setting that for some reason got out of whack. If that doesn't help, then try a different set of speakers. Borrow a set if you don't own any others. If those work right, then something in your old speakers has broken down.
 
I lost my volume control button in the lower right of my taskbar. Anyone knows how I can get it back? I'm using Win7
 
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