Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[Turner]

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/using-windows-vista-system-restore/

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Does anyone know a free webhost that'll let me set up MediaWiki (or a really really good wiki farm)? I found several by google, but I'm not sure which one to pick.

thank you.

 

[Zelig]

Does anyone know a free webhost that'll let me set up MediaWiki (or a really really good wiki farm)? I found several by google, but I'm not sure which one to pick.

thank you.

You get what you pay for when it comes to web hosting.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Yeah...(10chars)

 

[ParadigmShifter]

How can I detect what driver I need for an onboard sound card? It's stopped working after I reinstalled XP. Every time I search teh interweb it sends me to driver detective but if I download that I immediately get warned it is adware so I haven't installed that.

 

[GVBN]

Check your motherboard manufacturer's site for drivers. Or at least for information on what onboard sound your mobo has

 

[Macha]

Does anyone know a free webhost that'll let me set up MediaWiki (or a really really good wiki farm)? I found several by google, but I'm not sure which one to pick.

thank you.

http://freehostia.com will do it, but they have terrible reliability and help and support. For free hosts, the three(features, reliability and H&S) are mutually exclusive.

EDIT: btw, you will probably need to go with mediawiki 1.6 for a free host (last supported version that's compatible with PHP 4)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

http://freehostia.com will do it, but they have terrible reliability and help and support. For free hosts, the three(features, reliability and H&S) are mutually exclusive.

EDIT: btw, you will probably need to go with mediawiki 1.6 for a free host (last supported version that's compatible with PHP 4)

thank you.

 

[Mulholland]

So....I've had XP service pack 3 waiting as an update for about 2 months now. I'm afraid to install this as it tells me to back up my system before proceeding. My system is stable and I have no problems with it. How many problems could SP3 cause? If my system is OK should I even bother?

 

[GoodGame]

What could cause a hard drive to stutter on access?

I'm guessing: BIOS conflict for one, and the obvious faulty wiring or mechanical failure.

 

[Turner]

What could cause a hard drive to stutter on access?

I'm guessing: BIOS conflict for one, and the obvious faulty wiring or mechanical failure.

If it's never done it, I would guess mechanical failure. Even if it is constant I would think poor manufacturing rather than a bios conflict. But it could be....

So....I've had XP service pack 3 waiting as an update for about 2 months now. I'm afraid to install this as it tells me to back up my system before proceeding. My system is stable and I have no problems with it. How many problems could SP3 cause? If my system is OK should I even bother?

I run SP2 on my main machine, and SP3 on my laptop. Off the top of my head, the issues that I remember with SP3 are the inability to uninstall IE7 (my work has webapps that don't play well with 7 or 8) and also taking away the address bar that I love. I replaced the address bar and don't access my work from that laptop, so I don't really see much reason not to upgrade. OTOH, if you're stable, why upset a good thing?

 

[lndm]

What could cause a hard drive to stutter on access?

Re-trying to read a block that failed the first time. Often this is normal if the drive is brand new, or old, but less so in between.

A drive might try, say, five times and then declare the block unreadable. With simple drives (floppies and old HDDs) you would try again at another time (temperature dependent problem or whatever).

However these days with SMART on HDDs, they have a spare cache of unused area on the drive and when there is a read difficulty, they can mark the block as faulty and if the data can be read after a few tries, can move it to the new spare spot.

This can mean that it's time to backup your data and go shopping, but I've seen HDDs go for years after a couple of bad blocks.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Here's one:

If you took the cassette out of an early computer and popped it into a cassette player, what would happen?

 

[Turner]

Depends. On my Atari, you'd hear a bunch of screeching from the data. Not sure about other systems, I just had the atari.

It's really not as interesting as you'd think it would be.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thank you.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Okay, I'm arguing with two noobs who say Linux sucks because it "killed" their computers. They won't give any more details. Why would Linux "kill" one?

They're also saying that Windows is perfect, theres no need to improve it. I countered that by saying that Linux is based on Unix, which was one of the first OSes, and that if nobody improved anything, we'd be stuck in command-line.

 

[Cutlass]

Just tell them they're too stupid to discus computers with. There really is no good way to answer crap like that.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

What he said. They're fanboi's and nothing you say will change their mind.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

thank you.

 

[lndm]

If you took the cassette out of an early computer and popped it into a cassette player, what would happen?

Do you remember the sound a dial-up modem would make when connecting with your ISP?

I countered that by saying that Linux is based on Unix, which was one of the first OSes

You might point out how named IP addresses use slashes rather than back-slashes, and note that we are all using *nix