Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

Because I'm smart like that, I accidentally named a file with an illegal character. Now I'm unable to do anything with it, open or delete it or anything. How do I fix this?
 
Nah, whenever I try to do anything with it it says it couldn't find the file. Also in file properties the created/modified/accessed fields are blank. From the error messages, it seems like the filesystem is treating it as a folder (e.g. couldn't find it under /folderpath/invalidfilename).
 
Try running CHKDSK (through Windows Explorer) with the "Automatically fix file system errors" option. This action might delete the file.
 
Okay, so, my Android HTC First died on me, and now I'm using a hand-me-down Samsung Galaxy SII with Android 2.3. I installed adblock plus for android and I followed the instructions for this manual port 2020 thing, but I'm still seeing that damned "waiting for traffic" on that aforementioned port thingy, and I've done everything I can think of; and as always, googling it failed me and revealed nothing. So, how do I get it to work?
 
Try running CHKDSK (through Windows Explorer) with the "Automatically fix file system errors" option. This action might delete the file.

I'd just recently done a CHKDSK, so I wasn't in a hurry to do one again - but then I found an (admittedly expensive) program called DelinvFile. The trial did the job for me.
From the page, it also looks like I could've maybe used the command prompt to delete it with the 8.3 DOS naming format. Didn't think of that.
 
Okay, so, my Android HTC First died on me, and now I'm using a hand-me-down Samsung Galaxy SII with Android 2.3. I installed adblock plus for android and I followed the instructions for this manual port 2020 thing, but I'm still seeing that damned "waiting for traffic" on that aforementioned port thingy, and I've done everything I can think of; and as always, googling it failed me and revealed nothing. So, how do I get it to work?

You might want to try flashing a custom ROM on it anyway - because Android below 4.0 kind of sucks.

Cyanogenmod was supposedly very nice and stable for the SII.
 
I'm having Microsoft Access difficulties.

I was trying to make a database to hold recipes and such (it's for my mother). One of the forms (for recipes) had a subform linking to an ingredients table, but I haven't figured out how to properly link them up. If anybody could take a look at the file and point out what I should do next that'd be helpful.

Thanks in advance.
 
You could make a query that looks like this:



Then make a form based off that:




I wouldn't bother though personally. I'd use excel or something more usable. You don't need a database for this, and it doesn't need to be normalised either.
 
Well I tried the query thing, but the results aren't saving so I'm pretty sure I did something wrong. I used to be fairly decent with Microsoft Access....2000.

I might experiment a bit with onenote. Any suggested ways to organize with that?

Edit: Sort-of figured out what was wrong, something about a join key not being in a record set. Anyways I reuploaded the database if anyone wants to look again.
 
Is it weird to email software developers just to tell them that I like this software they made? I do that on a semi-regular basis because it just gives me a good feeling inside and doesn't take up that much time.

Do it!! As a web developer I love hearing feedback, because my main goal is to give users a solid user experience that allows them to accomplish whatever it is that they are using my software for. As such I need to hear both the positives and the negatives from the users themselves.

Usually I only hear the negatives, so positives make my day! Most users who have a good time with your software will not tell you.. so to go out of your way to do that, would be very well received!
 
Do it!! As a web developer I love hearing feedback, because my main goal is to give users a solid user experience that allows them to accomplish whatever it is that they are using my software for. As such I need to hear both the positives and the negatives from the users themselves.

Usually I only hear the negatives, so positives make my day! Most users who have a good time with your software will not tell you.. so to go out of your way to do that, would be very well received!

I agree with this. One of the best things my previous employer did was sent developers out to customer sites to help new users who were just starting to use the software in real life, as well as going out to get feedback from those who had been using it for a few months. It was incredibly valuable in terms of understanding what was really working well, what wasn't, and what the pain points were. And it was very gratifying to see it being used, effectively, in the real world, and getting the positive feedback as well as the more critical (fortunately, quality was a focus, so there was usually more positive than negative). Going out and helping the new users was actually my favorite part of the job. Many companies don't put developers in direct contact with the customers who are actually using the software, which I think is a mistake.

And positive feedback is important. When developing new software, one of the prime considerations is how to design it so it will be easy to use and effective at whatever it's supposed to do. And when you release it, you (hopefully) have what you expect will be a fairly good piece of software for that. But after having worked with it yourself for months, it can be hard to tell if it's actually good, or if you're just so used to it that it's second nature. So to hear from someone else who'd actually using it that it's serving them well really justifies the effort put into making it good in the first place.

My Civ3 utilities wouldn't have gotten anywhere near as far as they have without positive feedback from CFC users. If no one had been interested in them or using them (or if it had appeared that no one was interested or using them), there wouldn't have been any point for me to keep writing them, as they weren't the type of thing that would be worthwhile if I was the only one using them.
 
So, I'm setting up my pc again after moving and notice I've been using a dvi cable between the monitor and the pc. I've got hdmi outlets in both the pc and monitor and a hdmi-cable. hdmi sounds better than dvi so why not use that instead? The problem is that the monitor finds 'no cable connected' when I've connected them. I have a slight hunch that I've tried this before and something about the sound makes it not work. Is there anything more to it than just connecting the pc to the monitor with hdmi?

Edit: It kind of works now when it's connected to the graphics card rather than the motherboard. I've got two graphics cards and I have no idea if this setup takes advantage of both. The other problem is that while using hdmi it seems stuck on 1080p. With the dvi setup the screen fill up nicely.

edit2: Seems to be okay now, but it seems strange to connect the monitor to an arbitrary graphics card.
 
HDMI isn't really better than DVI, it has a smaller connection and HDMI can carry audio, but for any resolution of 1920x1200 or below, HDMI is pin-compatible with single-link DVI and will deliver an identical signal.

I generally avoid HDMI on principal because of it being proprietary and non-free, and being inferior in every other way to DisplayPort. So I do DVI for 1920x1200 or below, (mini) DisplayPort for higher resolutions.

If you connect a video output signal to your motherboard, it won't be taking advantage of either of your discrete video cards.
 
Windows 7 question: Can I turn off WiFi discovery (and then easily turn it on again)? I typically don't need WiFi and when I am travelling it will only pick up useless WiFi anyway. I have heard that WiFi takes a significant amount of energy, so turning it off might help in battery life. Or is this only relevant for phones, not laptops?
 
Leaving wifi on doesn't have much of an impact on either laptops or phones. Better reason for disabling wifi is to not allow tracking of your device (unless you run something like Pry-Fi).

Win8 has built-in easy wifi toggle (win+s, hit wifi icon, hit wifi toggle). Win7 depends on your laptop manufacturer, some include hardware wifi toggles and/or software with equivalent function. If your manufacturer didn't include such, you need to enable/disable the wireless adapter through network connections in the control panel. (Can shortcut on desktop, write console shortcuts for enable/disable, set up AHK scripts or whatever to do this more easily.)
 
How much power WiFi drains can vary a fair amount. On my laptop I could get up to 20% more battery life with it off versus on and not in use, depending on how much power I was consuming otherwise (nowadays the battery life is lower so the difference is less noticeable).

The hardware toggle is the easiest option on laptops that have it. If you don't have one, you will indeed need to disable/enable it either via network settings or Device Manager if you wish to conserve battery life that way.
 
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