Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

[GoodGame]

I believe it restarts AA ....AZ, then BA....BZ,... for the drives.

I think Windows has a hard limit on partitions of about 4 per HDD, but a commercial application might allow more partitions.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionRules

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah, I read about the 3 primary partitions + 1 extended thing, but I was wondering if that changed if you used a different OS or filesystem.

Anyways here's something completely different:
About ergonomics, the diagrams show the people with their feet flat on the floor or slightly tilted. However due to some medical issues (my knee is arthritis and sometimes swells up), I like to prop my feet up on this ottoman thing while I use the computer, and my knees are sort of stretched out. Is this bad?

I googled it and got stuff on pregnancy and I'm not pregnant

 

[Samson]

Yeah, I read about the 3 primary partitions + 1 extended thing, but I was wondering if that changed if you used a different OS or filesystem.

Anyways here's something completely different:
About ergonomics, the diagrams show the people with their feet flat on the floor or slightly tilted. However due to some medical issues (my knee is arthritis and sometimes swells up), I like to prop my feet up on this ottoman thing while I use the computer, and my knees are sort of stretched out. Is this bad?

I googled it and got stuff on pregnancy and I'm not pregnant

The simple answer, the most comfortable is probably the best for you.

The long answer has to be given by someone who knows what they are talking about and can actually see your knee. Asking for this level for medical advice here is not a good sign.

 

[GoodGame]

Yeah, I read about the 3 primary partitions + 1 extended thing, but I was wondering if that changed if you used a different OS or filesystem.

Anyways here's something completely different:
About ergonomics, the diagrams show the people with their feet flat on the floor or slightly tilted. However due to some medical issues (my knee is arthritis and sometimes swells up), I like to prop my feet up on this ottoman thing while I use the computer, and my knees are sort of stretched out. Is this bad?

I was told that if you have an adjustable office chair, the best sitting position is to have your hips at a higher elevation than your knees, but the knees should be flexed, with feet extended only a little in front of the knees. The front of the chair should have a slight tilt up.


Knee-sitting used to be a trend, but I think it fell out of popularity because it was too extreme variant of the above:

Bad for the knees maybe?
Also it doesn't have the hips tilted up, but down.


Recumbent might be best. I want this:

I kind of do sit recumbent with legs kicked out. I put my mini-hutch on the floor, underneath my desk and use it as a foot riser. My chair is kind of a bucket, with a hip swivel so I can kick back like the above.

 

[Padma]

I believe it restarts AA ....AZ, then BA....BZ,... for the drives.

I think Windows has a hard limit on partitions of about 4 per HDD, but a commercial application might allow more partitions.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionRules

it's not OS-dependent. I think it is a BIOS limitation. You can have 4 primary partitions on a hard drive. The way around it is to have up to 3 normal primary partitions, and an Extended partition. The extended partition is a primary partition, but it can be further broken up into internal, non-primary partitions.

I am aware of one person who at one time had over a hundred partitions on his drive, as he tested a wide assortment of OSes.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks. I wasn't sure if the limit was Windows-specific or not.

Has anybody ever put a junction directory inside a shared network folder? If so, what was the result? (Google didn't really help.)

Also, is BitTorrent feasible for sending some large files to another person (or a bunch of files that would make a large size)? I mean create a torrent, hook it up to one of the public trackers, and email the other person the torrent file? It's nothing real private so that's not really a problem.

Another question: I don't know why this happens but sometimes the icons glitch up and something like, for instance the shortcut arrow overlay, turns into a miniature hard drive icon (sometimes they can be quite hilarious). Usually it goes away if I use the batch file I use to delete the icon cache. But why does this happen?

 

[J-man]

Does any one know a free (and small) program which enables me too cut off a part of a mp3?

 

[shadowplay]

Does any one know a free (and small) program which enables me too cut off a part of a mp3?

Audacity should serve your needs: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I second Audacity. Its one of the cases I recommend a beta over the stable version as 1.3 is pretty good. Can't remember if you need to get a seperate copy of lame_enc.dll though in 1.3 to get it as an MP3.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I was mucking around and I created a subst drive (if you don't know, it's mounting a folder as a drive). Anyways I can't rename the volume... I looked up various solutions such as modifying the registry default volume labels but it didn't seem to work. Is there any way or am I left stuck with two "Data" drives?

I found a semi-workaround for this. The folder I wanted to mount was a shared folder (I usually use Dropbox for sharing, but these were large files and I usually wouldn't need them if I'm off the LAN anyways).

So anyways I mapped the shared folder from my own computer as a network drive. And now I'm able to rename it.

(It's drive P.... I don't think anyone would ever guess what it is! )

 

[J-man]

Audacity should serve your needs: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I second Audacity. Its one of the cases I recommend a beta over the stable version as 1.3 is pretty good. Can't remember if you need to get a seperate copy of lame_enc.dll though in 1.3 to get it as an MP3.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Hi. I've been practicing scanning magazines and I ran into a specific issue:

If you are scanning something with glossy paper on a flatbed, what options would you use to reduce the glare? I tried googling this but I got stuff on halogen lamps....?

EDIT: Here's a few notes: The pictures don't glare up to a noticable extent. However, black text on a white background is particularly bad and can be difficult to read.

It doesn't happen on matte paper or "dry" paper (I don't know the word for this, but it's the kind that's a little rough and I always thought of it as "dry").

 

[Cutlass]

If you aren't doing it, try using a black surface behind what you are scanning. That seems to improve things for me. I use a piece of black construction paper.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well I use black construction paper to prevent bleed-through. I put it between pages.

Anyways I found something. If you put down something heavy (I used a coffee-table book) on top so the surface is pressed against the glass there's no glare. I wonder why that is.

 

[Cutlass]

if it's a magazine that you haven't cut apart, it's probably not lying flat on the scanner.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

No, I don't debind them.

 

[Cutlass]

Then you have to use weight to flatten them. I always cut them apart when I was scanning.

 

[GoodGame]

I don't recommend abusing a home scanner like that.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well I don't really think it's abuse if you're just using a book as it's not excessively heavy.

Actually I remember now for one of the first scans I did I used construction paper and a textbook on top to keep it flat and a box to hold up the other end.

Need to figure out what to do if it's a larger magazine than fits on the flatbed.
Actually my friend wanted to scan newspaper article but she told me it was too big for the flatbed. And I told her to scan it in several overlapping parts and then use Microsoft ICE to stitch it. Wonder how well it would work for a magazine.

 

[Narnia]

Is there a good way to photograph/scan x-ray pictures? I had surgery a while ago and the doctor gave me a copy of the xrays. The problem is they are on that old transparent x-ray paper and I can't figure out how to scan them (sticking them in a scanner doesn't work because you can't see any details). Any ideas?
Thanks