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Member (Idle past 1971 days) Posts: 6165 From: Co. Wicklow, Ireland. Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Computer Help II | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
DrJones* Member Posts: 2290 From: Edmonton, Alberta, Canada Joined: Member Rating: 7.6 |
I've never used them so I cant comment on their reliability but you can buy electrical outlet network adapters as well. Plug one into an outlet near your router and connect it via network cable to the router, plug another into an outlet near your device and connect it to the device by network cable and the wiring of your house fills in the gap. But your free way is better.
soon I discovered that this rock thing was true Jerry Lee Lewis was the devil Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet All of a sudden i found myself in love with the world And so there was only one thing I could do Was ding a ding dang my dang along ling long - Jesus Built my Hotrod Ministry Live every week like it's Shark Week! - Tracey Jordan Just a monkey in a long line of kings. - Matthew Good If "elitist" just means "not the dumbest motherfucker in the room", I'll be an elitist! - Get Your War On *not an actual doctor
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
My wife's laptop PC's video card died a couple weeks ago, and the diagnosis was that it wasn't long for this world, so we went down to Best Buy to buy a replacement. Having had bad luck with laptops we decided to buy a desktop, longevity being more important than portability.
Several among my wife's friends and co-workers strongly suggested that she should buy a Mac, but I never gave this serious consideration. Back when we bought our first PC in the mid 1990's I researched Mac's versus PC's and discovered that application software for the Mac was anywhere from 6 months to never behind availability on the PC, plus the greater popularity of the PC meant that it would be much easier to find a friend or co-worker who could answer questions, and so we bought a PC. But with so many applications now browser based, and with the growing availability of sufficiently capable application software on the Mac (even if some is still nearly a year behind release on the PC), and with the growing popularity of the Mac, and with so many saying good things about the Mac on a range of topics from reliability to freedom from viruses, when we were at Best Buy we took a look at the Mac. I was impressed. I do all my software development work on Unix and Linux (they're virtually identical at an application level these days), and I was surprised to learn that Mac is based upon Unix (which is what Linux is modeled after). The salesperson brought up a Unix window, and I played in it for about a minute and it seemed fine. grep, ls, awk, piping, they all worked. To get a Unix shell on a windows PC requires buying expensive software or using somewhat klugey freeware like Cygwin. Our other concerns about how my wife would get along without Word and Outlook were answered with short demos of Mac equivalent software. We could have bought a $100 gizmo that would have automatically transferred and translated my wife's email lists and folders and iTunes music from her PC to the Mac, but we demurred and over the course of the next couple days we were able to accomplish this ourselves. In other words, yes, we bought a Mac. And after a couple days I'm still impressed. Very impressed. For one thing, it was setup and working and on the Internet in 15 minutes, and most of that time was spent referring to the little booklet that comes with it just to make sure we didn't do anything wrong, and that in retrospect was unnecessary. I was blown away. So I have several Mac related questions, one of them complex. On windows you can set the taskbar to scroll down to a one pixel line at the bottom of the screen, and it only scrolls up when you hover your mouse over it. I like to use all the real estate on the screen and want to do the same thing on the Mac. So how do you make the menu bar at the top and the task bar at the bottom disappear in some equivalent or similar way? Is there an equivalent on the Mac to alt-tab? Now the complex question. While at Best Buy I checked the websites of all the software this website is dependent upon (Perl, MySQL, Subversion, Apache), and they're all available on the Mac. Apache is even built into Mac OS X. One potential problem I see is verifying cross-browser capability. On my PC I can verify changes I make to our website software on IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari, but do all those browsers also run on Mac? But it would appear that Mac is potentially a capable software development platform, but does anyone out there have any experience doing website development on a Mac? --Percy
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.5 |
I can answer a couple offhand (more when I get back to my Mac). I'd add that the Mac help system seems to be rather more helpful than that found on Windows and it's worth trying it.
quote: You can do it for the Dock (at the bottom by default). You can also move it to the left or right side if you find that helpful. It's somewhere in the Control Panel options. I don't think that you can do it for the menu bar (but I'm not 100% certain - I've never gone looking for that).
quote: Firefox runs on Mac. There is at least one unofficial Chrome port. And Safari originated on the Mac, of course. For IE you need Windows. (Which your Mac will run either via Boot Camp if you don't mind restarting or alongside Mac OS if you get some virtualisation software to support it - Parallels or VMware's Fusion are the main two. If you have a Windows license you can use, the Boot Camp option will cost you nothing).
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Shield Member (Idle past 2892 days) Posts: 482 Joined: |
Do you know Unetbootin?
It's a small app for putting linux distros on USB keys. You pretty much just choose a distro from a list, and press ok. Then it proceeds to download the newest version of that distro, then formats your USB drive and puts linux on it. UNetbootin - Homepage and Downloads [Added by edit]RAZD writes: I already use open office and would like to ditch the last remnants of Bully Gates programs. Good, and then you just need to ditch the rusty remains of Linux and Unix and move to Plan 9. //rbp (posting from a windows machine on a 85% windows network, thats work for ya =/) [Added by edit] You can choose both Live distros and regular installable distros. Edited by rbp, : No reason given. Edited by rbp, : No reason given.
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Theodoric Member Posts: 9202 From: Northwest, WI, USA Joined: Member Rating: 3.4 |
Drawback is that these are probably the most expensive option. Throughput is great but more than most people need.
Facts don't lie or have an agenda. Facts are just facts
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Progress! I got the Dock to disappear, and I found the equivalent of alt-tab.
But I've also found the mother of all gotchas for Linux programmers: Focus Follows Mouse (FFM). Mac can't do FFM. Most Mac people believe that FFM includes autoraise, but it doesn't. I found a wonderfully clear description of the difference at Settling the OS X focus-follows-mouse debate, and since I couldn't possibly put it any better I quote it here:
Stevey's Blog Rants writes: The Big Focus IssueEver since the Dawn of Time (Jan 1, 1970), people have been bitching about the lack of focus-follows-mouse on Mac computers. They started complaining about it fourteen years before the first Mac was even released, that's how bad it was. Every time they bring it up on Mac forums, the Mac users with non-Unix backgrounds ask "what's that?" And then a bunch of wrong answers start flying around, with a few right answers interspersed but drowned out in the noise. So let me tell you what it is first, in case you're not from a Unix background. Focus-follows-mouse means that when you move the mouse cursor, the window under the cursor gets the keyboard focus. But saying that confuses Mac people who all assume that "focused" is synonymous with "foreground", because that's the way it works on the Mac. The confusion stems from the fact that focus-follows-mouse comes in not one, but two, yes that's right, two yummy flavors. Flavor #1: autofocus — in this flavor, reminiscent perhaps of a sweet juicy mandarin orange, the window under the mouse gets the keyboard focus but does not come to the front. This allows you to interact with a partially-obscured window. It's especially useful when you have a terminal or shell window open, and it's running a background process that you want to observe... you guessed it, in the background! You leave a little bit of the bottom and/or side of the window uncovered so you can keep an eye on the output. Real-life use case: let's say you're a programmer who writes in C++. You will, of course, spend most of your working day playing Solitaire and reading reddit, because C++ is too goddamned stupid to do anything but gigantic, slow batch compiles of the entire dependency universe. So you have at least four windows open at any given time: your editor, your compile shell, your browser, and your Solitaire game. You've spent a lot of time adjusting your window configuration to be "just right", and unless you have a 30-inch screen (for instance, because you work for Google), your windows overlap. Watching your compile status is like checking your rear-view mirror; you do it every 7 seconds or so, even though you know the compiler will take a minimum of 15 minutes. It's like a slow-motion train wreck that you just can't tear your eyes from, even while playing Solitaire and reading reddit. And every once in a while you'll need to enter a command (e.g. "make", after you've fixed the umpteenth compiler warning about doing a perfectly valid type conversion). The last thing you want is to have to click the window to bring it to the front just so you can type "make", because then you'll need to go futz around with your window configuration again to get the window to go to back to whatever Z-location it used to be in the window stack. I know it doesn't sound like a big effort, but programmers are really, really lazy, and they like to minimize motion. They'd use feeder tubes if the Health Department would let them. So in the autofocus flavor, it's important that the window that gets the focus does not automatically come to the front. Flavor #2: autoraise — in this pungent flavor, somewhat evocative of a slightly overripe Durian fruit left in the tropical sun for about nine hours, moving the mouse into a new window automatically brings that window to the front. In the especially horrible default configuration, it comes to the front instantly, so the act of moving your mouse across the screen makes it look like that old "rectangles" screen saver, and your window configuration is utterly obliterated in under a second. Many programmers feel that autofocus is delicate butterfly and autoraise is a big, stinky buffalo. That's just how they feel about it. No accounting for taste. I, for one, think of autoraise as a big, stinky, deceased buffalo carcass that someone thoughtfully dragged into my living room while I was on vacation, probably towards the beginning of the vacation, and then they turned up my thermostat to 110°F, closed the windows and tossed a Durian fruit at the wall for good measure. But maybe it's just me. So one of the most annoying aspects of the whole "how do I get focus-follows-mouse behavior on my Mac" debate is that everyone assumes you mean autoraise. There are a number of packages out there, most of them commercial, that offer autoraise as a feature, and Mac users point you to these products and then get all smugly about how they've solved your problem and how Macs still rule the universe, when in fact the problem is still festering away. It's no wonder people still use Linux as their UI. That one feature alone keeps hordes of programmers from switching. (And yes, you can get the behavior on Windows using their TweakUI power tools, so some programmers use Windows as a Linux shell with a decent media player.) ... It's amazing how so many people choose to rationalize stuff they're forced to live with. Why not just admit it sucks? Sometimes stuff sucks! C'mon, admit it! Jeez! Sorry for the long cut-n-paste, but this precisely describes the feature and captures how Linux programmers feel about its absence on Mac. FFM is not a nice-to-have feature, it's a killer feature, killer in that its absence kills about any chance of me (and many other Linux programmers) ever switching to Mac. The story I heard repeated over and over again on the web was that most Mac people don't at first comprehend that it is autofocus without autoraise that is needed, and so they suggest the apparently very popular MondoMouse app. But MondoMouse includes both autofocus and autoraise. I just downloaded it and gave it a try to make certain, and it does include autoraise. Separating autofocus from autoraise is not an option. I suspect this might be a deficiency inherent in Mac OS X. Oh well. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Add another juicy comment from Stevey's Blog Rants.
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Taz Member (Idle past 3321 days) Posts: 5069 From: Zerus Joined: |
Ok, I've been using the dsl modem that att sent me. I have a versalink 327w that I got for free. How do I set it up?
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
If "free" is synonymous with "I don't have the instruction guide," this link is slow but it might tell you what you need to know:
Deletion notice | Scribd --Percy
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Minnemooseus Member Posts: 3945 From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior) Joined: Member Rating: 10.0 |
The last day or so I've been having problems getting quite a few pages to download. These are quite a variety of sites, some of them quite major (including the yahoo.com homepage). The download hangs can range from nothing at all shows up to the entire page seems to be there, but the browser indicates the download is not complete.
One thing I've noticed is "Waiting for" messages from certain sites tend to show up down in the lower left. These include google-analytics.com, s0.wp.com, and seemingly most commonly, s7.addthis.com. Mostly not at evcforum.net, but one time, when I was posting a message, such a thing showed up (memory hazy right now, but it may have been s7.addthis.com. I Googled around a bit and did find some talk that google-analytics.com and s7.addthis.com were causing problems. Tried clearing cache, cookies, etc. - didn't help. Adware or spyware problem? Running current version of Firefox on Windows 7. Also running McAfee antivirus but don't currently have any other protection software. I think all are up to date. Anyone else having like problems? Solutions? Moose Add d1.openx.org to the things that seems to be causing problems. Edited by Minnemooseus, : Add.
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Suggest downloading and running SUPERAntiSpyware. I think you get 30 free days.
--Percy
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CosmicChimp Member Posts: 311 From: Muenchen Bayern Deutschland Joined: |
Are you using wireless lan (WLAN / WiFi) or network cable to the router? If you are using copper network patch cables (cat 5 etc.), then try using a different connection slot at the router (assuming it like most has more than one LAN RJ-45 slot), that and/or switching the cable may help.
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hooah212002 Member (Idle past 831 days) Posts: 3193 Joined: |
MBAM (MalwareBytes Anti-Malware) is superb even if you already have an anti-virus software. The free version is more than sufficient.
Your god believes in Unicorns
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hooah212002 Member (Idle past 831 days) Posts: 3193 Joined: |
What browser are you using?
{ABE}Nevermind, you said Firefox. Try and download Google Chrome and see if it happens with that browser as well. You could also try a defrag of your hard drive. {ABE #2}Go to Pingtest.net and see how well your 'net is performing. On the same site is Speedtest.net to test the speed of your'net. Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given. Edited by hooah212002, : No reason given. Your god believes in Unicorns
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crashfrog Member (Idle past 1497 days) Posts: 19762 From: Silver Spring, MD Joined: |
These include google-analytics.com, s0.wp.com, and seemingly most commonly, s7.addthis.com. These are ad sites; the slow page loads are probably ad content. You may be able to use a browser plugin like AdBlock Plus to suppress loading of these ads and speed up your pages. You could also put these sites into your router's blacklist. Try running traceroute to some of these addresses. (On Win7 go to the start menu, enter "cmd" into the "Search programs and files" box to bring up the command line, then enter "tracert google-analytics.com", for example.) You're looking for "hops" where packets timeout or are lost. Try doing this on any website you find takes a long time to load.
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Percy Member Posts: 22505 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.4 |
Google analytics should be okay, I'm not sure about the others, but Moose is having trouble loading pages from this website, too. Don't you think running anti-malware/spyware tools should be the first step?
--Percy
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