Author Topic: Tech question thread (Read 64754 times)

Russell Nash · **on:** June 05, 2008, 09:26:17 PM

I'm starting this thread as kind of a catch all. The idea is if you need recommendations on a piece of shareware or a little tech help, you can post a question here.

I would like to try to avoid the apple v. microcrap fights, but I'm a realist.

Russell Nash · **Reply #1 on:** June 05, 2008, 09:30:41 PM

Of course I started this thread, because I have a question.

I need an RSS aggregator. Apple has a bunch of this stuff in the next operating system. The problem is that if I upgrade one more time, my computer will just stop. So I need something for a G4 running OSX 10.3.9. Any recommendations?

eytanz · **Reply #2 on:** June 05, 2008, 09:40:19 PM

Quite possibly not what you want, but I simply use Google Reader as my RSS aggregator. I think this is exactly the kind of service that works just as well online only, and I don't have to be on my own computer to check on my feeds.

Troo · **Reply #3 on:** June 06, 2008, 10:00:47 AM

Same here. Google Reader is pretty useful, and comes as part of the whole iGoogle / gmail package. I've found iGoogle especially useful for keeping all my bookmarks accessible wherever I log in from, keeping my calendar info to hand wherever I am, and the wonderful mail/reader combo.

Russell Nash · **Reply #4 on:** June 06, 2008, 10:34:25 AM

I really only use a computer at home. I have it turn on and log in before I even get up. It then starts the programs I want and downloads my podcasts before I even get to it. Since most of my RSS stuff would be images, I wanted something that could also start up automatically and download the stuff while I'm still in the shower.

I will look at the google stuff though.

Listener · **Reply #5 on:** June 10, 2008, 09:18:28 PM

60% of the web department at my TV station uses Google Reader. It downloads pretty quickly, so if you start your browser and log into it, it will start d/ling your images.

I use Opera, and frequently I'll see "downloading 1765 of 1908 images" or somesuch -- many of them icons or ads, but a goodly chunk from Flickr or Cheezburger too.

Russell Nash · **Reply #6 on:** June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM

I'm procrastinating on the whole goolge thing because I don't like that it's not on my computer. It's a personal hang-up. It's not a logical complaint. All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

eytanz · **Reply #7 on:** June 11, 2008, 03:05:02 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM

All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

Why? Simple Microsoft hatred? Or is it a trust thing? Because - and I say this as the person who made the suggestion - Google has a far worse track record for privacy in recent years.

qwints · **Reply #8 on:** June 11, 2008, 04:37:37 PM

What's a good podcast catcher for Vista? I used juice on XP, but since I got a new laptop I've just been downloading manually. (Something besides DRM-crippled ITunes please)

Russell Nash · **Reply #9 on:** June 11, 2008, 05:00:53 PM

Quote from: eytanz on June 11, 2008, 03:05:02 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM
All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

Why? Simple Microsoft hatred? Or is it a trust thing? Because - and I say this as the person who made the suggestion - Google has a far worse track record for privacy in recent years.

1) I've never used anything by MS that actually worked without having to spend forever getting it set up. Whenever anything from MS gets near my machine I have to de-install the damn thing.

2) MS was far beyond the pointof ever being considered before I had even heard of google. Also note I didn't say I really trust google either.

Bdoomed · **Reply #10 on:** June 12, 2008, 04:48:11 AM

Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 05:00:53 PM

Quote from: eytanz on June 11, 2008, 03:05:02 PM
Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM
All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

Why? Simple Microsoft hatred? Or is it a trust thing? Because - and I say this as the person who made the suggestion - Google has a far worse track record for privacy in recent years.

1) I've never used anything by MS that actually worked without having to spend forever getting it set up. Whenever anything from MS gets near my machine I have to de-install the damn thing.

2) MS was far beyond the pointof ever being considered before I had even heard of google. Also note I didn't say I really trust google either.

such deep, profound hatred! (its called uninstall by the way

the google thing doesnt sound so bad, not much in the way of your privacy could be jeopardized by it...

CammoBlammo · **Reply #11 on:** June 12, 2008, 08:08:17 AM

Quote from: Bdoomed on June 12, 2008, 04:48:11 AM

Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 05:00:53 PM
Quote from: eytanz on June 11, 2008, 03:05:02 PM
Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM
All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

Why? Simple Microsoft hatred? Or is it a trust thing? Because - and I say this as the person who made the suggestion - Google has a far worse track record for privacy in recent years.

1) I've never used anything by MS that actually worked without having to spend forever getting it set up. Whenever anything from MS gets near my machine I have to de-install the damn thing.

2) MS was far beyond the pointof ever being considered before I had even heard of google. Also note I didn't say I really trust google either.
such deep, profound hatred! (its called uninstall by the way
the google thing doesnt sound so bad, not much in the way of your privacy could be jeopardized by it...

I think the concern is that your search habits, email, programming projects, chat and a heap more can be correlated. We know that Google already look at your mail in order to target advertising. The question is whether or not that information is used for more nefarious purposes. Their track record seems to be good, but there's no guarantee it always will be.

Granted, there's no such thing as perfect security, but why make it easy?

Troo · **Reply #12 on:** June 12, 2008, 03:21:06 PM

Quote from: qwints on June 11, 2008, 04:37:37 PM

What's a good podcast catcher for Vista? I used juice on XP, but since I got a new laptop I've just been downloading manually. (Something besides DRM-crippled ITunes please)

I downloaded Juice for Vista and it seems to work okay. It was a bit jittery to start with, but I think that was more to do with my unfamiliarity with the product than Juice being problematic.

Thaurismunths · **Reply #13 on:** June 18, 2008, 08:43:49 PM

NEW QUESTION
I have an old laptop, it's mostly dead. I'd like to harvest the hard drive and slip it in to an external case. The problem seems to be that I have no idea what I'm actually doing and have managed to order the wrong type of case twice now. It's something about the pin configuration that relates to the fact that my hard drive is easily accessible on my laptop, not hidden behind several panels.
Help?

eytanz · **Reply #14 on:** June 18, 2008, 08:50:30 PM

Quote from: Thaurismunths on June 18, 2008, 08:43:49 PM

NEW QUESTION
I have an old laptop, it's mostly dead. I'd like to harvest the hard drive and slip it in to an external case. The problem seems to be that I have no idea what I'm actually doing and have managed to order the wrong type of case twice now. It's something about the pin configuration that relates to the fact that my hard drive is easily accessible on my laptop, not hidden behind several panels.
Help?

You really, really need to supply more information before anyone could hazzard a guess as to what the problem is. For example, what is the make and model of your laptop? Was the HD built in, or an add-on? What cases have you ordered? It might be a good idea to take a picture of the HD and the pin configuration and post it, as well.

At the moment, all I can say is "yes, something is probably wrong".

Listener · **Reply #15 on:** June 18, 2008, 08:52:31 PM

Have you tried putting it in the freezer first? Believe it or not, putting my old ASUS external HD into the freezer for 45 minutes, then testing it, then another 45 minutes actually got it working well enough for me to retrieve my data before smashing the drive with a hammer and throwing it away.

eytanz · **Reply #16 on:** June 18, 2008, 08:53:53 PM

Quote from: Listener on June 18, 2008, 08:52:31 PM

Have you tried putting it in the freezer first? Believe it or not, putting my old ASUS external HD into the freezer for 45 minutes, then testing it, then another 45 minutes actually got it working well enough for me to retrieve my data before smashing the drive with a hammer and throwing it away.

I think (though I'm not sure, due to the vaguness of the original post) that the problem isn't that the HD isn't working, it's that he can't find a casing that it physically fits in.

Listener · **Reply #17 on:** June 18, 2008, 08:57:03 PM

Quote from: eytanz on June 18, 2008, 08:53:53 PM

Quote from: Listener on June 18, 2008, 08:52:31 PM
Have you tried putting it in the freezer first? Believe it or not, putting my old ASUS external HD into the freezer for 45 minutes, then testing it, then another 45 minutes actually got it working well enough for me to retrieve my data before smashing the drive with a hammer and throwing it away.

I think (though I'm not sure, due to the vaguness of the original post) that the problem isn't that the HD isn't working, it's that he can't find a casing that it physically fits in.

Oh.

They make docks now for HDs, and IDE to USB cables, I believe. I've definitely seen the docks.

Russell Nash · **Reply #18 on:** July 11, 2008, 06:21:55 PM

OSX question

I have photoshop for OS9 which I then upgraded to CS for OSX. Now I'm getting a new Mac without OS9. Has anyone been in the same situation and what did you do? I, of course, want PS on the new machine, but having just shelled out a small fortune for it I don't want to buy a new version of PS.

errant371 · **Reply #19 on:** July 11, 2008, 06:28:59 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on June 11, 2008, 02:52:48 PM

I'm procrastinating on the whole goolge thing because I don't like that it's not on my computer. It's a personal hang-up. It's not a logical complaint. All I know is that if it was MSN, I would shoot the person who suggested it.

Try this. I too am stuck with 10.3.9 and this will run on it. Has a number of neat features, including "letterbox" mode for those who like to use their widescreen monitors. Overall, I prefer it to Newsgator, and the Google/Safari/Opera RSS readers. I use Vienna daily and have no complaints about it at all.

errant371 · **Reply #20 on:** July 11, 2008, 06:33:02 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on July 11, 2008, 06:21:55 PM

OSX question

I have photoshop for OS9 which I then upgraded to CS for OSX. Now I'm getting a new Mac without OS9. Has anyone been in the same situation and what did you do? I, of course, want PS on the new machine, but having just shelled out a small fortune for it I don't want to buy a new version of PS.

You should be okay. CS until CS4 was Carboned, so it should run on OSX okay. It will boot slow (the programs that is, not the machine) since it has to emulate the old OS 9 environment.

'Course, don't take anything I say as written in stone. I did not buy the original CS, but rather CS3 and it runs tickety boo on my Intel iMac. I will ask around the graphic design department here and see what they have to say.

Russell Nash · **Reply #21 on:** July 11, 2008, 06:54:42 PM

Quote from: errant371 on July 11, 2008, 06:33:02 PM

Quote from: Russell Nash on July 11, 2008, 06:21:55 PM
OSX question

I have photoshop for OS9 which I then upgraded to CS for OSX. Now I'm getting a new Mac without OS9. Has anyone been in the same situation and what did you do? I, of course, want PS on the new machine, but having just shelled out a small fortune for it I don't want to buy a new version of PS.

You should be okay. CS until CS4 was Carboned, so it should run on OSX okay. It will boot slow (the programs that is, not the machine) since it has to emulate the old OS 9 environment.

'Course, don't take anything I say as written in stone. I did not buy the original CS, but rather CS3 and it runs tickety boo on my Intel iMac. I will ask around the graphic design department here and see what they have to say.

The CS is OSX, but it only installed, because there was already a version on the machine. The complete program is on the disks. Now that I won't have OS9 on my machine, I can't install the old version so that I can update it. Or are you saying I need to load OS9 so that I can load the old PS then upgrade and then throw out the OS9?

errant371 · **Reply #22 on:** July 17, 2008, 03:21:45 PM

Sorry it took so long to get back to you Russell. No, you should not have to re-instal OS9. Since CS is already on your system, it "should" boot up and run it's own updates for any changes that occurred when you upgraded your OS. The one big complaint about OSX was that it (on purpose) was not backwards compatible to previous OSs, so programs that ran natively in OS9 will either a: not run at all or b: run much slower because OSX will first need to (either) boot a small version of OS9 (called Classic) or run a hidden emulator (which you will only notice because it takes a while for the program to boot). Confusing, I know.

The short version is, CS "should" run. If it doesn't, there isn't much you can do about it, unfortunately. The backwards compatiblity thing hurt a lot of people in the pocketbook for having to shell out for new software. You may have to purchase a new version of CS (if you know a student or an educator, you can get an educational version of CS4 Masterclass without the docs for around $500.00 through their university bookstore if that bookstore sells mac software).

I hope this helps.

Russell Nash · **Reply #23 on:** July 17, 2008, 03:32:41 PM

I had no problems on the other machine when I upgraded the OS. My question here is that since I don't have classic on this new machine and only have an OSX version as an upgrade, how do I install it?

I'm just going to jump into it tonight or tomorrow. I copied over the program from my old machine already, but it doesn't work because the supporting files aren't there. It says I need to reinstall. I'm hoping that it will take that as a previous version already installed and let me upgrade.

Buying a new copy is not an option right now.

CGFxColONeill · **Reply #24 on:** July 19, 2008, 07:26:38 AM

I lost all my bookmarks... any ideas on how to get them back w/o re adding every one?
thanks