PC Tech Thread

There's such a thing as a 1.8" hard drive? That's news to me as well.

I should've known. It's a tiny laptop. Specs for it were non-existant so I took a punt.

I remember posting this from about a year ago, it was discussed in AQA a while back (not sure how to link to specific posts but search powerline). Can't remember what the relevance of DAB radios was:

I use these in my flat to extend my wireless range to another router. I had a bit of confusion when I looked at my network later and discovered I now had a Sonos and an extra network drive.

After clicking on a few things in the unpassworded network drive (mainly trying to work out what the hell was going on) I discovered it belonged to the house three doors down from me!

Everything on my network has passwords but obviously I wasn't too happy with this and finally figured out how to put passwords on the Powerline adapters so they formed a private network. It was a faff though (had to randomly download various powerline software until I found some that worked).

Definitely can carry past your own flat though. On the up-side I have half a dozen Dab radios (including one plugged into the same socket as the Powerline) and they're all fine

Isn't that just related to the wi-fi?

If I run basic ethernet powerline between the router and a hub in another part of the house that shouldn't involve any security issues.

No, this was the ethernet powerline. I think a lot of the different brands are the same generic model with different branding so, depending on the wiring, they can see each other.

My power socket adapter was, in addition to the other one I had plugged in, also connecting to the one that was plugged in three doors down.

It obviously depends on your wiring but I'd certainly use the encryption for the powerline adapter (although, as I say, the packaged CD I got wasn't actually compatible with mine and I had to randomly download similar ones until I found one that worked).

That is bad. I might be ripping up the floorboards sooner than expected.

Why won't wifi work?

It was fine once I worked out the encryption. I suspect that going with Belkin or similar rather than generic cheapo will give better software and support.

It was a lesson as to why you should password everything and change from default passwords though, even if you think it's on your local network. The network I accidentally connected to still had default passwords on all their stuff, I could have royally screwed them if I was so inclined (which would get particularly annoying with a Sonos I would think).

Hack ALL the neighbours!

Is it safe to assume whatever was on these is now destroyed?

Next question: What's the best way to dispose of them? Sticking them in the bin doesn't feel like a very responsible option, but the weekly recycling probably isn't appropriate either.

Looks good to me.

And unfortunately the bin is the best place as UK recycling is shitty.

You could take it to a council dump, which likely has a recycling area that takes electronics.

But they're annoyingly out of town, with awkward opening hours, and necessitating a car to go there (you really don't want to cycle in, you'll get punctures if you don't get run over by heavy machinery - Tonka trucks!), and finally you need to take council tax documents.

A massive ball-ache to do the right thing... so the bin is fine.

BTW, that looks like it was a lot of hassle, why didn't you just drill them or put a nine inch nail through them? All you've got to do is smash the platters.

Looks good to me.

And unfortunately the bin is the best place as UK recycling is shitty.

You could take it to a council dump, which likely has a recycling area that takes electronics.

But they're annoyingly out of town, with awkward opening hours, and necessitating a car to go there (you really don't want to cycle in, you'll get punctures if you don't get run over by heavy machinery - Tonka trucks!), and finally you need to take council tax documents.

A massive ball-ache to do the right thing... so the bin is fine.

Our local council dump isn't that bad. I don't need to take any documents. They will charge you if you take certain things though - we got rid of a car full of old wood and they wanted £30 (wood was far too damp to burn and had tar on it)

I'll probably have to do a run to Islington recycling centre at some point as well so will hang onto 'em until then.

It was a bit of a hassle getting them into that state, especially since most of them were held together with tamper-proof screws. I still managed to tamper the fuck out of them. Drilling, hammering (or angle grinding!) would have been much more fun, but I didn't have the tools.

Next question: What's the best way to dispose of them? Sticking them in the bin doesn't feel like a very responsible option, but the weekly recycling probably isn't appropriate either.

And unfortunately the bin is the best place as UK recycling is shitty.

You could take it to a council dump, which likely has a recycling area that takes electronics.

But they're annoyingly out of town, with awkward opening hours, and necessitating a car to go there (you really don't want to cycle in, you'll get punctures if you don't get run over by heavy machinery - Tonka trucks!), and finally you need to take council tax documents.

A massive ball-ache to do the right thing... so the bin is fine.

I'll probably have to do a run to Islington recycling centre at some point as well so will hang onto 'em until then.

There are electronics recycling points in Hackney, too.

http://www.hackney.gov.uk/recycling-on-the-go.htm

Just recycling in Hounslow then!

Which involves a drive out to Heathrow, and a visit to a massive open air recycling plant with a nice layer of glass everywhere, surcharges, and bureaucracy.

hmm so I don't trust bitcasa any more. Turns out it's not actually been doing anything since July... rather it crashes but the desktop icon remains. I thought it was working fine.

Any suggestions for stable, auto-updating, back up that doesn't cost a fortune ? I have to back up around 300Gb or so of photographs.

Secondly, besides ninite.com any other auto-updater type software out there ? I use puppet on linux platforms to keep everything in sync, but Windows doesn't seem to have anything

For small volumes of data I use Tarsnap.

And conveniently there's a puppet module for it here: https://github.com/microcosm-cc/puppet-module-tarsnap

Large volumes I backup to a NAS via rsync, and then manually copy to external HDDs once a month for off-site storage.

So my facebook is lit up with this.
Phonebloks - YouTube

Since when was a modular component structure a new idea?
Also, aren't the modules just as disposable looking the the hardware they mentioned.

Anyway, the firmware will make or break it, since everyone seems to be in such a hype about the concept of the device.

Anyway, the networks will kill it, since they rely on everyone being wed to biannual subsidised device "upgrades".

ftfy

Is there anything to consider with using 4GB hard drives. If a 3GB drive is compatible then generally will it be fine with a 4GB drive?

I vaguely remember all the furore when 3GB drives came out but I haven't really noticed anything re: 4GB.
Cheers

Which programme would people recommend to recover a lost hard drive partition (with data on it) under Windows XP? Lots of them out there, hard to choose.

I'll answer you later - My bloody HDD packed up again. May be time to bin it and use another.

I can't remember what it's called.

I recently bought a desktop computer, spur of the moment and didnt really do my research on it.
I have been out of the PC game for a number of years and have no idea whats good.
The basic(est) of info i have is it has an AMD A6-3620 QC 2.2GHz processor with 4GB RAM.
and a 2tb HDD.
I intend to stick some photo editing software on there, will the processor be able to cope or should i get a cheapy GPU too? It doesnt have its own graphics card, its a shared thing.
I also want to sling another 4gb RAM in there to help keep things ticking along nicely.
I know its DDR3 SDRAM, but looking you get a few different speeds, does it matter if i mix and match (i dont know what the speed of my current RAM is, can i find out?) presumably the faster chip will be sandbagged to match the slower one?
I tried watching a film through Netflix on it, and it was a bit jerky. (HDMI out, through my TV) stuck the playstation on and watched netflix thought that instead and it was fine, both wirelessly connected to the same router, same HDMI cable to the same TV. Could this be due to the lack of GPU?
Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for your help!
Parry
x

Why don't you use it first and see if it does what you want at a speed you are happy with? No point 'upgrading' it if it's doing what you need as it is.

Check your video card drivers are latest - even onboard GPU shouldn't be jerky.