Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Question: What happens if you take a sledgehammer to a hard drive while it's in use? Would the little pieces fly out and hit you in the eye? Would the computer give a BSOD?

 

[lndm]

You'd just love to try that, wouldn't you. Maybe you should! Be a mythbuster.

Why don't you simply disconnect a drive while you're doing something and see for yourself?

There's a chance that a hammer may cause some voltages to be applied to places they oughtn't so there might be some wider damage. Due to the case being made of a soft metal I'd think the shrapnel would be contained.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Well, I would, but I don't have a hard drive to spare....

Somebody at school must have been annoyed by all the Access Denied messages on the schoolboard network. Because I accidentally clicked on a blocked link and saw the Access Denied message changed to "The site http://www.something.com has been blocked by incompetent system administrators who think that anything fun should be banned. Seig Heil!"

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

I have OpenOffice 3.0, and I was wondering why checking for updates fails. Also, why isn't the spellchecker working? (I type wrong words intentionally and it doesn't underline them, and the F7 spellcheck says nothing is wrong)

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

For the updates, I'm guessing a weird firewall setting blocks it.

The spellchecker? I don't know much about OpenOffice spellchecker, but my guess there may be a missing dictionary or something.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Question: Is it video card or graphic card?

 

[Cutlass]

Question: Is it video card or graphic card?

The terms don't matter and are interchangeable.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

A video card, also known as a graphics accelerator card, display adapter, or graphics card,

Hey, Wiki comes through again.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

I know theyre interchangable but which to use ?

 

[Cutlass]

Whichever you like. Anyone will know what you mean.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

thats what interchangeable means Aimee, that any one will work.

 

[lndm]

I'd have to say that 'video adapter' is the 'proper' term.

I use 'graphics card' a lot myself, but technically it is improper for a couple of reasons. Firstly, calling it a 'card' is architecture specific. It assumes that both people know and are talking about a specific machine. These days we just assume that everyone's talking PCs and this assumption saves us.

Secondly, 'graphics' is a specific kind of video adapter. It's like someone asking you how you got here today and instead of saying "by car", you say "by Toyota". Again, the assumption that we all have graphics adapters just happens to save us, because we all do.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Thanks every one.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Is this tutorial right? Would it work with other distros? Except for reinstalls of Windows I ahven't installed OS.

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_linux_vista_installed_first.htm

Also if you have a 500 gig HDD with about 162 gigs used, how big should the Linux partition be?

Thankies.

 

[lndm]

if you have a 500 gig HDD with about 162 gigs used, how big should the Linux partition be?

Except for putting a couple of dozen gig aside for either of those OSes to swim around in, the bulk of the space will be for your personal stuff. The choice of where to put it comes down to ease of access, data integrity and ease of moving it around next install.

 

[LucyDuke]

Why do you guys always use HDD instead of HD? Is there some kind of ambiguity with HD?

 

[lndm]

High Density.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

or Hard Disk Drive which is technically more correct.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

High Density.

Also High Definition.