Stuck to the side of customer's computer:



/sigh

I wish it was widespread policy to publish such offenders.

Internal Website:
2008 10 19 John Smith - taped password with destroy notice to computer
2008 10 15 Karen Abbott - turned off firewall to get rid of "firewall messages"

People would either learn quickly, or at least you'd have a list of repeat offenders to fire.

Then again, you can't operate a business without any executive and staff.

Would it be more feasible if unique IDs were used instead of names? Get the watercooler shaming talk going.

I know of a place that keeps sensitive financial information for many people.

The PGP key for their server...

Is written in Sharpie...

On the front of the server.

FuturePastNow: I know of a place that keeps sensitive financial information for many people.

The PGP key for their server...

Is written in Sharpie...

On the front of the server.

My accountant used to keep a backup of all her data on an unencrypted external hard drive. She would back everything up every day and take that HD home with her - and stick it in her desk drawer at home.

Mike: Please tell me the door to the room the server is in is at least locked? :)

No, it's a small business (tax preparation). The server is on a table in the back of the main room. Anyone going to the bathroom walks by it.

FuturePastNow: I used a tablet PC years ago... for work. I never used any cool software, though. All I can help you with is breaking the handwriting recognition.

I had fun with that in XP, but then again XP wasn't trainable, and I write terribly, so it was never close to what I typed. There's little difference between my p's and l's, m's and n's, and h's and n's though, so it still doesn't always like me. I can still post to fark with it though. If I ever post with no starting caps and brief sentences, I'm probably using the handwriting.

FuturePastNow: Mike: Please tell me the door to the room the server is in is at least locked? :)

No, it's a small business (tax preparation). The server is on a table in the back of the main room. Anyone going to the bathroom walks by it.

Hey buddy, which way to the uh, bathroom?

First Question: Is one able to upgrade from Open Office 2.0 to 3.0 on his Asus Eee 4G PC? More to the point, is one who got an Asus Eee 4G PC because of its simplicity/cost/portability and not because he knows jack shiat about Unix or Linux able to upgrade from Open Office 2.0 to 3.0 on his Asus Eee 4G PC?

Second Question: In the Star Wars universe, or pretty much any other sci-fi universe where humans and aliens live together, what are the public school systems like? Are the schools integrated, or segregated by species? If they go to school together, are there some classes taken by one specific species as those classes would only benefit them, like how boys used to take shop while girls took home economics? And in places with "racial" tension, like on Taris before Darth Malak destroyed it, was there an integration of schools that mirrored the U.S. integration movement in the '60s?

N. S. Radieaux: First Question: Is one able to upgrade from Open Office 2.0 to 3.0 on his Asus Eee 4G PC? More to the point, is one who got an Asus Eee 4G PC because of its simplicity/cost/portability and not because he knows jack shiat about Unix or Linux able to upgrade from Open Office 2.0 to 3.0 on his Asus Eee 4G PC?

Using the stock Xandros install? I think you'd have to wait for Asus to update their repo. I'm not entirely sure. There's not a lot about it on the eeeuser forums.

Second Question: In the Star Wars universe, or pretty much any other sci-fi universe where humans and aliens live together, what are the public school systems like? Are the schools integrated, or segregated by species? If they go to school together, are there some classes taken by one specific species as those classes would only benefit them, like how boys used to take shop while girls took home economics? And in places with "racial" tension, like on Taris before Darth Malak destroyed it, was there an integration of schools that mirrored the U.S. integration movement in the '60s?

shut up

N. S. Radieaux: Second Question: In the Star Wars universe, or pretty much any other sci-fi universe where humans and aliens live together, what are the public school systems like? Are the schools integrated, or segregated by species? If they go to school together, are there some classes taken by one specific species as those classes would only benefit them, like how boys used to take shop while girls took home economics? And in places with "racial" tension, like on Taris before Darth Malak destroyed it, was there an integration of schools that mirrored the U.S. integration movement in the '60s?

Well, I don't know about the Darth Malak thing, but in the school for young jedis where Yoda was teaching in the fake star wars movies (the new ones) I think there were humans and non-humans..maybe. Can't remember for sure and it would take the armies of several global powers to get me to watch those got damn movies again to find out. Funny robot noises FTL. But that was a jedi school which seemed based on hippie ideals more than strict learning.

I'm going to guess that the more non-human a non-human is, the more likely it's going to stay within the bounds of it's kind. Common sense. The Bothans were pretty human-like, and I think in some of the Rogue Squadron books, one of the [human] pilots and a Bothan were dating, so I'm sure they could go to school together easily.

I bet a book or movie based less on scifi adventures and more on speciesism would be mind-numbingly boring. Didn't really answer your question, but it was fun to think about.

suck it no_47

Thanks #47, gayb.

N. S. Radieaux: And in places with "racial" tension, like on Taris before Darth Malak destroyed it, was there an integration of schools that mirrored the U.S. integration movement in the '60s?

Funny you mention that, I was thinking about a Star Wars plot paralleling the Women's Lib movement. Featuring a Sith villainess with severe penis envy.

The ensuing drama would pretty much write itself.

it's drunk, and I'm a Saturday night posting on Fark. Amen!!!11

Okay, I give, I need help shopping for an Ultramobile PC (not entirely sure I want to buy one yet at this point though) Google is no help, I can't even find an aprox price. Any tips searching/a good site to shop? Not even entirely sure what to call them.

Anyone with personal expirence with them?

For clarification, I want a baby tablet, like the kid with a split keybaord on either side, not this small fold up laptop horseshiat

They're called "netbooks" or as you're aware "UMPCs"

start by looking at Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind, and the various Asus eeePC models

okaaaaaaay then no

Like one of those fancypants Nokia phones?

When I run CC cleaner I get an error message I've never seen before. It pops up near the clock just like Windows update and desktop cleanup wizard balloons.

It says:

CCleaner.exe - Corrupt File
The file or directory C:\$Mft is corrupt and unreadable. Please run the Chkdsk utility.

As far as I can tell, CCleaner still works. Other than a stupid long startup time, I'm not having any issues with my computer.

What could this be.

No_47: okaaaaaaay then no

Like one of those fancypants Nokia phones?

Gah, no, like the ASUS stuff:


But I've seen some with little split keyboards on either side too, though most seem to have gone with the slide-out keyboard.
Lots of weirdness on google, clearly lots of methods of adding the keyboard, but UMPC seems to mostly be it.


This looks nice, but I'd like something with a comfortable pen too;currently using a hybrid Tablet PC from Toshiba, VERY nice, comfortable pen, not like the DS style pen this has...

I've become a bit too used to my tablet, so anything portable without a pen feels like a waste of money to me :/.

No_47: They're called "netbooks" or as you're aware "UMPCs"

start by looking at Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind, and the various Asus eeePC models

I've heard of the eee, a friend of mine wants one, doesn't appeal to me. I can't type very well on a NORMAL sized keyboard, and don't care to use the normal comp layout in class either way. I may stick with my current comp through undergrad at least, but it's a bit heavy/ect. Battery life is also a bit of a pain, I have 3 batteries for mine actually (2 normal (one dead...) and an extended). I like computers but being teathered to an ugly workstation in one seat is very unappealing, I greatly enjoy the freedom of my tablet. I tend to use my tablet pen as a replacement for my touchpad/mouse, even in notebook mode.

Those UMPCs sold very poorly, especially in the US, so most manufacturers gave up on them. But companies that import crap from Japan still sell them here. Dynamism has that Samsung Q1 Ultra for $900. They've got some others as well.

FuturePastNow: Those UMPCs sold very poorly, especially in the US, so most manufacturers gave up on them. But companies that import crap from Japan still sell them here. Dynamism has that Samsung Q1 Ultra for $900. They've got some others as well.

I've kinda wondered why Tablets (like mine, big ones that double as laptops, not UMPCs) aren't more popular...I'm in college and I've never seen another...most peple have never seen one before, and I pretty much get a compliment on it every time I sit next to someone in a lecture, some people even tracking me down after class to ask WTF it is/how it works...even my comp sci TA asked about it. I think college students would eat this shiat up, IDK why they've never been marketed more toward college students. It's not that much more expensive and it's a LOT nicer than 50 farking notebooks. Searchable notes are awesome, too.

UMPCs are different; the non-tablet ones just seem...stupid to me, too tiny. Any particular reason these failed? Do they have the nice features notebook size ones have (induction based pen, fully working OS?)
Kinda tempted for the Q1 ultra, goes for 500ish used on ebay. I'll paw through dynamism to see what's availible.

OMG I almost came watching the demo of the shift (new window)

Do these things have inductive pens you you can hover/right click with a mouse/ect, or is it just a touchscreen you use a pen on, like the nintendo DS? My biggie has a fully functioning pen, I'm not sure if I could function without a hover function. Do these do that/is this possible, or can those tiny pens not do that? My pen's full sized and $60.

Blech. I powered down my machine and went to watch a movie. Came back, turned it on, and CHKDSK was running. I wrote down some of the stuff it spat at me. Because of a "Code 128," some files 84756, 84763, 84765, and 133520 were all deleted. They left some "orphan files." XP then tried to correct an error in index $130 in file 10222. Then, it spat out a huge number of files within 10222 which had to be deleted. Some of them were .gifs, some of them were web addresses from the file name, but there were A LOT of files it deleted. This created some more orphan files which were later apparently restored.

Am I, or my computer, going to die? I've never seen CHKDSK do anything like this, but then again it's been years since I've had a machine that needed it to run.

TehNacho: Blech. I powered down my machine and went to watch a movie. Came back, turned it on, and CHKDSK was running. I wrote down some of the stuff it spat at me. Because of a "Code 128," some files 84756, 84763, 84765, and 133520 were all deleted. They left some "orphan files." XP then tried to correct an error in index $130 in file 10222. Then, it spat out a huge number of files within 10222 which had to be deleted. Some of them were .gifs, some of them were web addresses from the file name, but there were A LOT of files it deleted. This created some more orphan files which were later apparently restored.

Am I, or my computer, going to die? I've never seen CHKDSK do anything like this, but then again it's been years since I've had a machine that needed it to run.

Sounds like your hard drive's failing-I'd do a full backup and replace the harddrive ASAP. Start the backup immediately-it may be fine for a while, but once a harddrive's started to lose files like that (even one file) the whole thing's not long for this earth.

Barakku: TehNacho: Blech. I powered down my machine and went to watch a movie. Came back, turned it on, and CHKDSK was running. I wrote down some of the stuff it spat at me. Because of a "Code 128," some files 84756, 84763, 84765, and 133520 were all deleted. They left some "orphan files." XP then tried to correct an error in index $130 in file 10222. Then, it spat out a huge number of files within 10222 which had to be deleted. Some of them were .gifs, some of them were web addresses from the file name, but there were A LOT of files it deleted. This created some more orphan files which were later apparently restored.

Am I, or my computer, going to die? I've never seen CHKDSK do anything like this, but then again it's been years since I've had a machine that needed it to run.

Sounds like your hard drive's failing-I'd do a full backup and replace the harddrive ASAP. Start the backup immediately-it may be fine for a while, but once a harddrive's started to lose files like that (even one file) the whole thing's not long for this earth.

Really?

It's less than a year old... and it doesn't make any funny noises... a lot of my important stuff is backed up... well, I have my fingers crossed... what's weird is that this didn't start until the last time I ran CCleaner.

TehNacho
Am I, or my computer, going to die?

More like your file system or hard drive.
NTFS' MFT file stores where the files are on your drive.
Now if that MFT file is broken..not good.

It's probably too late in your case, but after doing a backup you could try to run chkdsk with the "/f" option (if it didn't use it already in the previous run) or give TestDisk's MFT repair function a try.

TehNacho: Barakku: TehNacho: Blech. I powered down my machine and went to watch a movie. Came back, turned it on, and CHKDSK was running. I wrote down some of the stuff it spat at me. Because of a "Code 128," some files 84756, 84763, 84765, and 133520 were all deleted. They left some "orphan files." XP then tried to correct an error in index $130 in file 10222. Then, it spat out a huge number of files within 10222 which had to be deleted. Some of them were .gifs, some of them were web addresses from the file name, but there were A LOT of files it deleted. This created some more orphan files which were later apparently restored.

Am I, or my computer, going to die? I've never seen CHKDSK do anything like this, but then again it's been years since I've had a machine that needed it to run.

Sounds like your hard drive's failing-I'd do a full backup and replace the harddrive ASAP. Start the backup immediately-it may be fine for a while, but once a harddrive's started to lose files like that (even one file) the whole thing's not long for this earth.

Really?

It's less than a year old... and it doesn't make any funny noises... a lot of my important stuff is backed up... well, I have my fingers crossed... what's weird is that this didn't start until the last time I ran CCleaner.

It may last a bit longer, but for the most part a (physical) hard drive problem is like cancer: it's going to go sooner or later. CCleaner wouldn't have anything to do with it, sounds like it's a psychical issue (HDD have moving parts, they'll all wear themselves raw eventually). It may still be under warranty if it's only a year old though, so that's good.
Don't let Best Buy sell you any "backup services" ect or generally anything you don't explicitly ask them for in this. My sister's asked them about doing backups/attempting to fix these things, they charge the price of a new farking HDD and aren't as good as a random geek with linux at fixing shiat.

You can buy "server grade" hard drives (I recommend anything vpr matrix (new window) if you're scared about it happening again, but for the most part it's not necessary unless you NEED it to not screw up; it'll be a bit more expensive, but for the most part normal hard drives are just going to fail every once in a while. The current two in my desktop have run for like 3/4 years now without problem, but my last comp failed within a year.

Barakku:

It may last a bit longer, but for the most part a (physical) hard drive problem is like cancer: it's going to go sooner or later. CCleaner wouldn't have anything to do with it, sounds like it's a psychical issue (HDD have moving parts, they'll all wear themselves raw eventually). It may still be under warranty if it's only a year old though, so that's good.
Don't let Best Buy sell you any "backup services" ect or generally anything you don't explicitly ask them for in this. My sister's asked them about doing backups/attempting to fix these things, they charge the price of a new farking HDD and aren't as good as a random geek with linux at fixing shiat.

You can buy "server grade" hard drives (I recommend anything vpr matrix (new window) if you're scared about it happening again, but for the most part it's not necessary unless you NEED it to not screw up; it'll be a bit more expensive, but for the most part normal hard drives are just going to fail every once in a while. The current two in my desktop have run for like 3/4 years now without problem, but my last comp failed within a year.

Damn. I have hard drives I bought at least 5 years ago with no problems. This will actually be the first harddrive to actually die on me. Well, when I have the money...

Oh and Best Buy/Circut City/Technicians aren't going to get within a mile of my machine. If it is something I'm not able to do/diagnose myself or with the Geek forums help, it's not worth doing.

TehNacho: Oh and Best Buy/Circut City/Technicians aren't going to get within a mile of my machine. If it is something I'm not able to do/diagnose myself or with the Geek forums help, it's not worth doing.

Good plan. I'd make your backup as soon as you can, borrow a backup drive from a friend is nothing else. If you have vista you can do a full backup very easily (I have ultimate and always have, I don't know if all premium installs have this or what) otherwise you'll need whatever other software. Just copy important stuff if nothing else.

If you only have one machine and really want to be safe it might be worth getting a (smaller if need be, for the price) server grade HDD. The warranty should be very good, but they don't fail often. But like you said, most HDD will give you years of good work. Laptops can have more problems if you have one now: HDD have moving parts, so if it accesses the HDD while moving it could scratch the disk. Mine an many modern laptops have motion sensors to stop the HDD head if this happens actually.

Accelerometer, actually.

Barakku: Any particular reason these failed? Do they have the nice features notebook size ones have (induction based pen, fully working OS?)
Kinda tempted for the Q1 ultra, goes for 500ish used on ebay.

The UMPC was a pet project of Bill Gates before he left Microsoft (as were tablet PCs in general). They failed, in part, because manufacturers charged way too much for them in the beginning. And they had really weak hardware- 800MHz Pentium M was the usual. And the first generation of them had like 90 minute batteries.

They can't be used as someone's only computer, most people aren't interested in owning a second computer, and most people who want a second computer don't want to pay 2007 prices for 2001 tech. Especially not something funny-looking.

TehNacho, put that drive in another computer and run a program called SpeedFan to read the SMART info. That'll tell you if it is good or bad.

Barakku: If you only have one machine and really want to be safe it might be worth getting a (smaller if need be, for the price) server grade HDD.

"Server-grade" hard drives are not any better than consumer drives. The hardware is exactly identical in every way. The only difference is some firmware optimizations that certain RAID controllers can use and that will reduce the drive's performance in a single-user environment (IE, a personal computer). For this, drive makers charge a lot of extra money.

FuturePastNow: Barakku: Any particular reason these failed? Do they have the nice features notebook size ones have (induction based pen, fully working OS?)
Kinda tempted for the Q1 ultra, goes for 500ish used on ebay.

The UMPC was a pet project of Bill Gates before he left Microsoft (as were tablet PCs in general). They failed, in part, because manufacturers charged way too much for them in the beginning. And they had really weak hardware- 800MHz Pentium M was the usual. And the first generation of them had like 90 minute batteries.

They can't be used as someone's only computer, most people aren't interested in owning a second computer, and most people who want a second computer don't want to pay 2007 prices for 2001 tech. Especially not something funny-looking.

I use a portege (new window) Two year old model, works just fine with vista, but it's the last model with 1 gig ram, so I'm thinking of upgrading that. Seem to work just fine for me, and aren't much more expensive than a plain laptop. I don't see why you couldn't use it for your only computer, I more or less do, just play movies on my desktop cause my speakers are on it.
Sure you're thinking of the same kinda tablets, and not slate-only tablets? Most are basically notebooks that can fold down into a slate orientation. The hybrid form's what I'm looking for in the UMPC as well.

Barakku: I don't see why you couldn't use it for your only computer, I more or less do, just play movies on my desktop cause my speakers are on it.
Sure you're thinking of the same kinda tablets, and not slate-only tablets? Most are basically notebooks that can fold down into a slate orientation. The hybrid form's what I'm looking for in the UMPC as well.

I mean the little UMPCs, like the Q1 Ultra. No one is going to use that thing as their main computer.

You want... I'm changing the terminology a little... a convertible tablet netbook?

Dynamism (which is by no means the only store of its type) has one of those that looks (to me) really nice: Gigabyte M912

FuturePastNow: Barakku: I don't see why you couldn't use it for your only computer, I more or less do, just play movies on my desktop cause my speakers are on it.
Sure you're thinking of the same kinda tablets, and not slate-only tablets? Most are basically notebooks that can fold down into a slate orientation. The hybrid form's what I'm looking for in the UMPC as well.

I mean the little UMPCs, like the Q1 Ultra. No one is going to use that thing as their main computer.

You want... I'm changing the terminology a little... a convertible tablet netbook?

Dynamism (which is by no means the only store of its type) has one of those that looks (to me) really nice: Gigabyte M912

Oh no, I thought you were talking about tablets; I HAVE a portege now, posting from it; the full sized deal.
The UMPC I understand aren't a great PC replacement, and yeah, a hybrid netbook's basically what I'm looking for: The HTC Shift looks more like my thing...unfortunately a bit more expensive.

At this point I'm considering either getting a hybrid (big tablet) with specs to replace my desktop, or phase out my hybrid for a UMPC. Not sure I ever want to deal with a desktop again, but there really aren't "desktop replacement" tablet PCs...

Also, since these things don't have CD drives, is there a way to get vista ultimate on it without a USB CD ROM? Looks like most already have a premium vista already installed though. The amazing level of tablet extensions they added to vista's what made me get it. That and liking all my tech stuff sleek and sexy.

The gigabyte looks like a baby version of my portege, actually. These things all have crappy pens though...
/ My pen is awesome

Aw shiat, looks like the Shift only has 800 mhz processor...life's not fair :/.

I finally remember the kind of app I'm looking for, is there such thing as a gesture control kind of app for windows (vista)? like make a couple circles in a mouse hover to refresh, ect?
Google just brings up a lot of fancy devices that use gestures

Sweet.

The "IT" (Idiot Technologists) guys here have thrown the switch on a Barracuda internet/web filter. They've apparently been spying on employees web surfing habits and decided that we're wasting bandwidth on streaming audio/video and "going to sites that they shouldn't."

After several days of flawed Farking via the likes of vtunnel, et al, I bit the bullet and set up a ssh based poor-boy VPN tunnel/proxy with one of my Linux boxes at home. Works like a bloody charm! It does leak DNS queries so they could see where I'm going if they knew to look. Gonna have to see what I can do about that.

Ah, in firefox, about:config, set'network.proxy.socks_remote_dns' to true. No more leaked DNS queries by the fox.

ok i know this is an idiotic question : does the "fax talk" bundled software, work ? i need to start sending faxes again and was wondering if it was viable

i see i'm out of my league here

I have IE 7. Almost everytime I click on a link that opens up in a new window, the current window fades like the new window will open, but it never comes up. And after clicking the window for a couple of seconds and trying to close it out, it says the program is not responding. It pisses me off. How do I fix it?

As far as I know, my computer is not f*cked with viruses and I don't want to do a system restore. I'm tired of reopening internet explorer every time it decides to freeze up and not open a separate window. Sometimes, IE will also freeze up randomly and "not respond" even while I'm reading the FARK forums, or just surfing the web. Please help! I'm getting tired of this shiat.

piaddic120: How do I fix it?

Pick one:

Firefox (new window)
Opera (new window)
Safari (new window)
Chrome (new window)

piaddic120: I have IE 7. Almost everytime I click on a link that opens up in a new window, the current window fades like the new window will open, but it never comes up. And after clicking the window for a couple of seconds and trying to close it out, it says the program is not responding. It pisses me off. How do I fix it?

As far as I know, my computer is not f*cked with viruses and I don't want to do a system restore. I'm tired of reopening internet explorer every time it decides to freeze up and not open a separate window. Sometimes, IE will also freeze up randomly and "not respond" even while I'm reading the FARK forums, or just surfing the web. Please help! I'm getting tired of this shiat.

Got adblock (something called IE 7 pro has it, speeds things up)? Otherwise you could try disabling adons (just run the IE 7 without addons thing). Increasing your browser cache size may help as well, if the chache is filling too much, but I'd bet addons, if it's not adware/virus related.

I do somewhat recommend firefox, if change is an option, but IE7 pro has most of the basic good stuff from firefox for IE7, and firefox has a lovely memory leak issue that I've been seeing too much of lately...

MusicMakeMyHeadPound: piaddic120: How do I fix it?

Pick one:

Firefox (new window)
Opera (new window)
Safari (new window)
Chrome (new window)

I just wanted to applaud this answer. very nicely done.

AesopRock_00: MusicMakeMyHeadPound: piaddic120: How do I fix it?

Pick one:

Firefox (new window)
Opera (new window)
Safari (new window)
Chrome (new window)

I just wanted to applaud this answer. very nicely done.

Although the answer was sarcastic, I'm considering firefox. But does firefox take up more memory than IE?

I tried disabling addons but that didn't work. Still have the same problem