The Computer Thread

I'm having problems with my USB wifi adapter for my desktop. It doesn't light up when I plug it in, and the computer doesn't recognize it. It's not a problem with the computer, as plugging it into different USB ports and trying it on a different computer doesn't help. Is there anything I can do at all, or should I just buy a new one?

Does the USB thingy have an on/off switch?

It has a little tab on the side which I've pushed to no effect. Putting a pin in the very small round hole on the underside did nothing either.

Microsoft and Sony use dedicated hardware and sell consoles below cost as a loss leader, so it's not directly comparable by price. For pure gaming, a console will outperform a PC of the same price because it's optimized for that purpose.

That's only true at the beginning of a console generation. Progress in technology often means that P Cs outperform by the end of the generation (and that console manufacturers start making a profit on their consoles).

Not to mention that this generation of console is not light on the OS footprint, 1/4th of all the resources in an xbox 1 go to keeping the OS running even when a game is.

I dont even think Vista was so hungry that it constantly consumed 1/4th of my ram.

I would recomend saving up a bit more and entering at the 7-800usd level though if posible kirby.

Samsung shows off the world’s biggest SSD hard drive: 16TB: "It’s not always easy to fit our computing lifestyles within the bounds of our computing hardware. Photos, movies, music, games – you name it. All our digital media starts to add up after a while, and before you know it you’ve run out of room on your hard drive.

Which is why the news that Samsung has just unveiled the world’s biggest hard drive immediately piqued our interest. The Korean company revealed its new uber-mega-drive this week at the Flash Memory Summit currently underway in California. And this thing really is big, offering a whopping 16 terabytes of storage, which is a whole 6 terabytes larger than the previous record holder."

Is that the biggest HDD period, or the biggest solid-state HDD? Because a solid-state drive holding the title of world's biggest would be damned impressive.

The biggest SSD.

Imma hold off on the SSD, until I get solid proof that their failure rate is on par or better with plain old HHD.

The government and the DOD still use CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, HHD's and even floppy discs because of both legal reasons (hardcopies in the case or removable media) and reliability. Some systems do use PCMICA flash drives, but only in small (under 10GB) formats.

I have yet to see SSD's hit government computers, even the regular desktop systems.

Then again, the Federal government (US) likes to buy in bulk and on the desktop they might still have tons of older Dell et al, sitting in the warehouse.

As soon as the results come in, I'll make the switch. I'm also waiting out some of the fringe operators (OCZ for instance) and I don't want to get burned like people did in the early 2000's with Zip and IBM/Hatichi Deskstars Dying Like Animals...

OK, since I'm getting fair amounts of electrical noise out of my speakers and some picture issues I think my monitor is slowly starting to die.

Clean your connectors and check them, one or more might be oose.

All the cables were pushed home and screwed in where applicable.

Keep in mind the monitor is at least five years old now.

In the meantime I've added a set of external speakers to the setup.

edited 2nd Sep '15 3:41:18 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Is it an LCD?

I am pretty sure the answer would be yes, but LCD and CRT mantaince is a bit diffrent.

Yes.

Seee if ajusting the brightness affects the electrical noise.

It seems stupid, but that setting kinda changes the amount of power the moniter takes in, and thus the amount of power behind the speakers as well.

well at least on some moniters, hence try.

So I'm a Windows and Linux guru, but I'm using a loaner Macboook for some work I'm doing. It's a 2007 model as far as I can tell ("Macbook 3.1", 2ghz Core 2 Duo). The newest version of a piece of software I'd like to have on it (Unity 3d version 5) requires Mountian Lion or later and this is on Snow Leopard. I've done all the googling for system requirements and such and I don't *think* I have a compatible model, but there's that bit of doubt. The upgrade to Yosemite shows as being available in the app store. At what point, if I tried to download and install it, would it tell me if it was compatible or not?

(It is not a make or break deal that I upgrade, it would just be useful. The Macbook belongs to the people I'm working for so it's in their interest too.)

edited 3rd Sep '15 4:32:57 PM by Elle

What do you guys think of VLC Media Player?

You're better off with CCCP with MPC-HC.

That works for anything other than a music video, for some reason. The audio for music videos gets messed up in a weird way that I can't quite describe in words, other than it ruins my enjoyment; VLC player doesn't have that problem, thankfully.

VLC's great assuming you're not on ancient/underpowered hardware.

I'm on a laptop that was considered among Toshiba's top of the line brands in 2012, and have been regularly taking it for maintenance clean-up (damn dust keeps building up inside every few months). Does that count?

edited 7th Sep '15 2:46:34 AM by MarqFJA

I think this thread talked about it before, but do you guys use any free alternatives to iTunes for managing media to and from Apple devices?

edited 8th Sep '15 10:50:50 PM by Nettacki

There are quite a few options for the iPod Classic, but there aren't that many for other Apple devices. I reckon iFunBox can be used with jailbroken Apple products, though.

New limit to the Church-Turing thesis accounts for noisy systems: "he question of what a computer is capable of, and what it is not, has intrigued computer scientists since the 1930s, when Alonzo Church and Alan Turing began investigating the capabilities and limits of computers. In a new study, researchers have explored the computing abilities of noisy physical systems, which are those that are disturbed by random fluctuations.

While previously it has seemed that physical systems may violate the Church-Turing thesis—a conjecture that in a sense defines a computer—here the researchers show that this is not the case for noisy systems due to a new computing limit. The results could have implications for designing super-Turing computers, or 'hypercomputers,' which are hypothetical devices that outperform all existing computers."

Research team demonstrates LEDs that use visible light to talk to each other and internet: "The light that typically floods homes, offices and public buildings could provide something more than illumination. Scientists at Disney Research and ETH Zurich have demonstrated that light could be a medium for light bulbs to communicate - with each other, with objects and with the Internet.

Transmitting signals via light is nothing new; Alexander Graham Bell showed that speech could be conveyed with light in the 1880s, years before speech was first transmitted via radio. The Disney researchers, however, have created networking technology that makes it possible for LED lights not only to communicate with each other, but to do so in a way that is compatible with the Internet and its technical protocols.

Stefan Mangold, who heads Disney Research's wireless research group, says these advances could give Visible Light Communication (VLC) an important role in the growing Internet of Things - the idea that objects can communicate with each other and share information to create smart environments."