Author Topic: Hardware/OS Geek Thread  (Read 53329 times)

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Offline Nathan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #675: January 02, 2010, 09:47:08 PM »
I'm not sure if I should put it here or make a new thread about cell phones or what, but I've seen a rumor floating around that the Nexus One (Google Phone) will also be available for AT&T's 3G bands, though only sold as an unlocked (ie unsubsidized) handset.

I'm not out of my contract yet, but I would like to get one if it is $530 unlocked for AT&T.  I'm thinking of taking Mobile Application Development as one of my comp/sci electives and I think programming for Android might be a little easier than Apple's restrictive policy.  With Android I can load my own apps for free instead of going through Apple's approval process.

Offline NatsAddict

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #676: January 03, 2010, 10:44:02 AM »

Offline The Chief

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #677: January 03, 2010, 11:34:29 AM »
I hear that Book v2.0 is going to add a "sticky-finger" feature that makes page loads twice as fast

Offline Obed_Marsh

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #678: January 04, 2010, 10:04:20 PM »
Anybody know any good retail stores in D.C. or which are Metro accessible for cheap HDMI cables? I need to grab some tomorrow last dash.

Offline Nathan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #679: January 04, 2010, 10:12:03 PM »
Anybody know any good retail stores in D.C. or which are Metro accessible for cheap HDMI cables? I need to grab some tomorrow last dash.
You're probably going to get ripped off no matter where you go.  HDMI cable retail pricing is ridiculous.

Offline Obed_Marsh

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #680: January 04, 2010, 10:43:56 PM »
You're probably going to get ripped off no matter where you go.  HDMI cable retail pricing is ridiculous.

If that turns out to be the case, I'll wait but someplace out there I'd suspect I'd find something decent. I wish this area had a Fry/'s.

Offline PANatsFan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #681: January 04, 2010, 10:44:16 PM »
Anybody know any good retail stores in D.C. or which are Metro accessible for cheap HDMI cables? I need to grab some tomorrow last dash.
www.monoprice.com with overnight shipping will be cheaper.

Otherwise, maybe a pawn shop?

Offline Nathan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #682: January 04, 2010, 10:46:09 PM »
www.monoprice.com with overnight shipping will be cheaper.

Otherwise, maybe a pawn shop?
monoprice ftw.

6 ft Moster Cable HDMI cable - $100
6 ft Monoprice HDMI cable - $4

Offline Obed_Marsh

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #683: January 04, 2010, 10:50:33 PM »
www.monoprice.com with overnight shipping will be cheaper.

Your probably right.

I'll probably bring some electrical tape and just mark what needs to be changed and worst case come back when the cables arrive or just detach some of my own stuff and bring those cables. I'm helping out a friend a friend who electronics illiterate and was hoping to make one trip.

Offline sportsfan882

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #684: January 05, 2010, 01:42:36 PM »
how do i go about putting windows 7 on apple macbook pro machine? boot camp doesn't support it, right?

what would you do? vmware fusion?

Offline PANatsFan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #685: January 05, 2010, 01:54:39 PM »
http://blogs.sun.com/fatbloke/entry/windows_7_on_virtualbox

Try virtualbox. It's open source, and any software made by a company called Innotek is worth trying :lol:

Offline Nathan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #686: January 05, 2010, 01:57:54 PM »
how do i go about putting windows 7 on apple macbook pro machine? boot camp doesn't support it, right?

what would you do? vmware fusion?
It works with the boot camp drivers just fine.

Offline The Chief

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #687: January 05, 2010, 01:59:01 PM »
Bootcamp doesn't officially support 7 yet but it works just fine on my borrowed late '08 macbook.  Vista drivers are generally going to work in 7, so it can be done if you don't mind that a device or two may not be completely supported and power management probably won't be quite as good as it will be once Apple rolls out official support.


Offline JMW IV

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #689: January 18, 2010, 02:34:46 PM »
ok, check this.

my dad gave me one of his extra laptops.

now I know it is a weak, crappy computer, but it suits my pressing needs, and it was free. so i'm not complaining.

however, I can't seem to play streaming videos. well, i can play them, but the video itself is a slide show.  the audio comes in perfect, and I can do streaming audio and internet radio like last.fm.

however, i can't watch hulu, or youtube videos, because like I said..while the audio of whatever I am watching is perfect, the video is a slideshow. I'm wondering if my computer just isn't capable of this at all, or if I am missing some software or something.

here's the basic specs:

HP Pavilion zt1130
Windows XP Professional
Intel Celeron 1133 MHz processor
624MB RAM
DirectX 9.0c
S3 Graphics Twister 0020103c

thoughts?


Offline sportsfan882

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #690: January 18, 2010, 02:41:06 PM »
you need adobe flash player for youtube

Offline JMW IV

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #691: January 18, 2010, 02:42:17 PM »
you need adobe flash player for youtube

yeah, i got that. if I didn't the videos would not load and buffer at all. but they do. they're just really, ridiculously choppy.

Offline Nathan

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #692: January 18, 2010, 02:44:56 PM »
Do you have the latest version of Flash installed?  Flash is a real pig, it can bog down even newer computers.

I never had a problem watching flash videos waaaay back in my pc days when I had an Athlon 1600+ that was something like 1.4 GHz and 1 GB of ram, though I did have a 64 MB graphics card.

I know that most netbooks can't handle hd video, so it could very well be that your laptop won't handle it.  Someone with experience on a machine with similar specs may be able to say for sure.

Btw, what browser are you using?  I've read that Chrome is the absolute worst for memory usage.  Firefox was the best in the tests I saw.  Maybe try it on firefox and see how it goes.

Offline sportsfan882

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #693: January 18, 2010, 02:48:51 PM »
clean out your temp files, temp internet files, etc

accessories-system tools-disk cleanup. you can do it in IE as well

Offline The Chief

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #694: January 18, 2010, 02:54:09 PM »
I doubt you're going to be able to get flash video of much quality to play on those specs.  That's not really that bad of a laptop for just basic web surfing, but as Nathan said, flash is a pig.

SF - try "CCleaner" - nice little app that does all that stuff for you in one go.  Will clean obsolete entries out of the registry too.

Offline JMW IV

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #695: January 18, 2010, 02:55:59 PM »
ok, i'll do that right after i finish installing service pack 3.

could be it, this computer belonged to someone else before my dad fixed it up for me.

curiously..on a scale of 1-10, where does my computer's crappyness lie? I figured around a 3 or 4.

Offline JMW IV

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #696: January 18, 2010, 02:56:55 PM »
is cccleaner free?

Offline The Chief

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #697: January 18, 2010, 02:57:18 PM »
is cccleaner free?

Yup.  Just make sure you un-tick the Yahoo toolbar option during the install.  Unless you like that kind of thing.  I would untick the recycle bin options too, but that's just personal preference.

Offline sportsfan882

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Re: Hardware/OS Geek Thread
« Reply #698: January 18, 2010, 03:01:00 PM »
I doubt you're going to be able to get flash video of much quality to play on those specs.  That's not really that bad of a laptop for just basic web surfing, but as Nathan said, flash is a pig.

SF - try "CCleaner" - nice little app that does all that stuff for you in one go.  Will clean obsolete entries out of the registry too.
yep. i have used that one for years. love it

Offline sportsfan882

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