Computer Questions Not Worth Their Own Thread

[Genocidicbunny]

And collecting dust. its also good for that.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

The interesting thing, though, is the air intake is on the top of the case. I know it's the intake because if I put a small piece of paper on top, it doesn't blow away like it would with an exhaust fan.

 

[Sashie VII]

I have a movie in mkv version, 1.42GB. I'm trying to convert it to wmv, which would make it smaller. Unfortunately the programs I have so far either leave a watermark, or cannot slice something that large. Is there any free programs I can use?

Thanks in advance.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Use VirtualDub or Avidemux to make an AVI with compression. Don't bother with WMV, I find it crap quality.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

A silly question: I've sometimes seen videos of people running a computer with the HDD open to watch the inside. If you took off the piece that keeps the platters on the spindle, would it go flying off, assuming the arm didn't get in the way?

 

[Turner]

Not a good idea. There's a reason why you can only open and retrieve data from a hard drive in a clean room.

 

[Sashie VII]

Use VirtualDub or Avidemux to make an AVI with compression. Don't bother with WMV, I find it crap quality.

Thank you for your help, aimee, downloading that as I'm typing this.

EDIT: Unfortunately VirtualDub didn't recognize mkv format, so that didn't work.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

A silly question: I've sometimes seen videos of people running a computer with the HDD open to watch the inside. If you took off the piece that keeps the platters on the spindle, would it go flying off, assuming the arm didn't get in the way?

opening the cover would effectively destroy the hard drive. If you've ever taken one apart, you will notice they have some pretty thick filters. The reason is that even a single particle of dust can damage a platter pretty bad.

 

[Aramazd]

Use VirtualDub or Avidemux to make an AVI with compression. Don't bother with WMV, I find it crap quality.

Not particularly. WMV is an implementation of VC-1, which is used for Blu-Ray (AVC is better, but since were talking about AVI it's a non-issue). Of course bit rate is one of the most important factors in quality.

Thank you for your help, aimee, downloading that as I'm typing this.

EDIT: Unfortunately VirtualDub didn't recognize mkv format, so that didn't work.

Here is a google page.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

What exactly is an IBM Deathstar? All I know is it's a really sucky hard drive. Googling just brought up a lot of stuff about avoiding it or fixes, and for some reason I highly doubt that IBM called it a Deathstar.

 

[Aramazd]

It's not a sucky hard drive. It refers to the IBM Hard Drive brand "Deskstar". Several of the models that came out around 2000 had really high failure rates. IBM got sued and they sold their Hard Drive business to Hitachi.

Also: Google

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

thanks. I did google but I thought the Hitachi Deskstar in the first link was something else for some reason.

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Im getting "Windows can't check for Updates: Error code 80070002" when I try to look for windows updates. Ive tried the thing MS suggests, removing SoftwareDistr. folder, restarting the service. Doesnt work. Reboot didnt help either.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Try this (tinyurl'd as it would break otherwise);
http://tinyurl.com/cm3ksw

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

A question about Vista: In the new Start Menu, it has the Programs folder, and then subfolders open up a funny way, sorta "underneath" the folder. Is there a way to get it the old way, as in a submenu? A registry tweak or something I missed? I tried googling with different terms but didn't find anything. Thanks

 

[Genocidicbunny]

Try this (tinyurl'd as it would break otherwise);
http://tinyurl.com/cm3ksw

You know, thats sorta what I meant by "Tried the thing MS suggests"
Ive had this issue for several days, so linking me to the 3rd result on google aint gonna help much.

A question about Vista: In the new Start Menu, it has the Programs folder, and then subfolders open up a funny way, sorta "underneath" the folder. Is there a way to get it the old way, as in a submenu? A registry tweak or something I missed? I tried googling with different terms but didn't find anything. Thanks

Right click your taskbar, Start Menu Tab, select classic Start Menu.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Ah, darnit. I thought you meant just the MS Knowledgebase or whatever its called.

I did try the Classic Start Menu for a while but I got tired of it.

 

[lndm]

[rant] I got tired of the classic start menu in 1995.

The XP one was worse. The programs would open up over the top of the base menu so I'd click on the wrong thing. It was fixed by delaying the menu but I don't believe in menu delays and never tried to improve on it.

Secondly there's the dynamic list of last used programs. I'd prefer a static list but I already had my own system and never bothered.

The vista menu seems to be more of the same to me. I switch back to classic but not because I like it either.
[/rant]

 

[Genocidicbunny]

The dynamic most used programs is why I use the quick launch very heavily. I got into that habit back in '03 or '04 and havent looked back since.

 

[Zelig]

I'm not really sure why anybody would bother using stuff on the start menu most of the time, it's so much faster just to hit the windows key, type the first couple letters of your program, and hit enter.