Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread II

I've just posted a link in the youtube thread in the tavern and, between loading the page, making my post, quoting someone else's post to figure out what I did wrong, and then editing my post, my laptop has slowed down a lot. It's whining much more loudly than usual. In the last few months I've noticed that my browser usually slows down when loading pages with embedded videos, but this is the first time I could definitely say that it's the videos that are responsible.

This was not always the case. I don't know if it's due to a problem with my laptop or the change in size of embedded videos that took place (presumably the reason there are now 2 youtube buttons attached to this post reply box).

Is their any settings I could change on my browser (Mozilla Firefox) or Windows that would improve the situation.
 
Would buying a Surface RT at this point be a bad idea? I wouldn't mind getting one, but I notice they aren't selling very well and the reviews haven't been so great. I'm worried they'll drop the price after I buy one. Thoughts?

An RT has what advantage over another tablet?
 
Would buying a Surface RT at this point be a bad idea? I wouldn't mind getting one, but I notice they aren't selling very well and the reviews haven't been so great. I'm worried they'll drop the price after I buy one. Thoughts?

Of course they'll drop in price, any tech items you purchase will drop in price very quickly.

They've been on sale for $100 off, you should be able to snag one at that price, and/or use a credit card so you get a couple months of price protection.

I'm guessing we'll see a hardware refresh around the September/October timeframe.

An RT has what advantage over another tablet?

Depends which tablet you're comparing to.

It's hands-down the best mobile tv/movie watching device. Otherwise it has different advantages depending on whether you're comparing it to an iOS/android/Win8/WinRT tablet.
 
I have an .WRI file for an old old old game. I've tried several word processors but so far all of them came out garbled or just won't load period. Does anyone know of a program that properly works them? (I maybe just dig out the old Windows 3.1 disc see if I can pull the program off there...)
 
Occasionally when playing Starcraft 2 my screen fills with vertical lines and makes a static noise, then my computer crashes. It's not common and hasn't happened when doing normal web stuff, Starcraft is the only game I play so I have no idea if it's specifically causing it or if it's an overload sort of thing.

Any idea on what could cause this?
 
Would buying a Surface RT at this point be a bad idea? I wouldn't mind getting one, but I notice they aren't selling very well and the reviews haven't been so great. I'm worried they'll drop the price after I buy one. Thoughts?

And as of now you get a free touch cover with purchase, which you should be buying anyway, so it's an effective ~$100 sale.

I probably still wouldn't buy one unless you happen to be at TechEd, mid-generation isn't a great time for tablets.
 
And as of now you get a free touch cover with purchase, which you should be buying anyway, so it's an effective ~$100 sale.

I probably still wouldn't buy one unless you happen to be at TechEd, mid-generation isn't a great time for tablets.

Yeah, I think I'm going to wait. I can see this being a purchase I end up regretting at this point.
 
I have an .WRI file for an old old old game. I've tried several word processors but so far all of them came out garbled or just won't load period. Does anyone know of a program that properly works them? (I maybe just dig out the old Windows 3.1 disc see if I can pull the program off there...)

Yes. .WRI is the Windows Write format. In Windows 95, Windows Write was replaced with Word Pad. The Windows XP version of Word Pad reads a sampling of Oregon Trail II .WRI files I have on my hard drive just fine.

It's possible they may have removed support in later versions of Word Pad, though.
 
Well it seems this particular WRI file has images in it, because when I open it up in WordPad there was a lot of gibberish characters partway through. I opened it in the word processor from Softmaker Office 2008 and while the pictures displayed, everything was all smushed together onto one page and overlapping. OpenOffice was able to pull the ASCII from it but not actually open it.

Actually I've attached it. If anyone could get it working, please tell me what program?
 
Well it seems this particular WRI file has images in it, because when I open it up in WordPad there was a lot of gibberish characters partway through. I opened it in the word processor from Softmaker Office 2008 and while the pictures displayed, everything was all smushed together onto one page and overlapping. OpenOffice was able to pull the ASCII from it but not actually open it.

Actually I've attached it. If anyone could get it working, please tell me what program?

I'm getting the same thing with that file. But there's still hope. Wikipedia says that Word Pad's support for .wri was reduced with XP SP2 for unspecified security purposes. So it might work just fine with an older version of Windows. Such as Windows 95, which I'm trying right now (not sure if CFC will load well in Netscape, though). I think I also have a Sim Farm CD around somewhere...

Edit: Got it working with Word Pad in Windows 95. Sure enough, it's pictures, as well as some formatting, that's causing the gibberish. I can save it as .rtf and .doc... now the challenge is getting it back uploaded with Netscape.

Edit 2: Uploads don't seem to work in IE5, and being logged in doesn't in Netscape 4.8. I'll try some other stuff tomorrow to upload the .rtf and.doc versions - for now it's sleep time. On the plus side, it's possible to post on CFC from Windows 95 with IE5.
 
Thank you!
 
I've just posted a link in the youtube thread in the tavern and, between loading the page, making my post, quoting someone else's post to figure out what I did wrong, and then editing my post, my laptop has slowed down a lot. It's whining much more loudly than usual. In the last few months I've noticed that my browser usually slows down when loading pages with embedded videos, but this is the first time I could definitely say that it's the videos that are responsible.

This was not always the case. I don't know if it's due to a problem with my laptop or the change in size of embedded videos that took place (presumably the reason there are now 2 youtube buttons attached to this post reply box).

Is their any settings I could change on my browser (Mozilla Firefox) or Windows that would improve the situation.

I have disabled adobe plugins for my browser (chrome). It means that I have to click twice on a video to play it.

When a page loads that has an embedded video I see a greyed out square with an icon of a broken puzzle piece - the disabled plugin icon. If I click anywhere in the box, the video player will be activated, but the video won't play because I have auto-play disabled as well. Then I click a second time to start the video playback.

No idea if that would help you or not, but it's worth a shot.
 
Thank you!

Question here: Are there any practical benefits to 64-bit operating system besides the fact that you can have more memory than 4 gigabytes?
 
Theoretically it's 4 GB, but really you only get 3-something to use.
 
There's an address limit of 4GB in total.

Hardware requires some address space for itself, including motherboard and graphics card; video RAM may take a sizable chunk out of that limit.

Under Windows, what's left is strictly divided between OS and applications. Default settings can leave applications a little starved on RAM. Limiting the OS instead can cause its own issues.
 
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