So I’ve been noticing that windows is really slow on my netbook (even on my Toshiba A300), and so has my wife. It is quite frustrating that I could probably check my e-mail faster 20 years ago (boot time to open the application, etc). Sure, it was text based, but the functionality was there!
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Well, I’ve finally gotten around to trying to backup all my important (and not so important files) offsite. Here I’ll give a rundown of the sync products I tried and some issues I ran into…
Yeah, I had that problem. zenphoto uses flowplayer, but I think the problem would exist in any flash-based video player. Basically, it would need to download the whole .mp4 file before starting to play – defeating the whole idea of ’streaming’
Apparently, I’m not alone with this problem. And, as often is the case, someone else on the internet has solved it admirably with MetaDataMover.
Doesn’t your mp4 file stream properly over the Internet? Does the mp4 need to download completely before playing in a Flash player? rndware’s Metadata Mover moves metadata from the end to the beginning of mp4 files. This allows any mp4 file to be streamed using Flash players, without needing to load the entire movie.
I’m just puzzled why this tool needs administrator access. Hope I haven’t installed a trojan…
Local cache: mp4MetadataMover0.9
On all my Windows XP machines, I’m used to pushing Win-L to lock the screen and go to the Welcome Screen, so for example, I can pass the computer on to my wife, and come back and resume everything I was working on without any lost time.
On Windows Vista (which I have on the laptop because it came with it – and I’m not spending any more money on a Windows XP license, as if you can still find them….), Win-L just goes to a new ‘locked’ screen. It’s an extra mouse click to go to the select user screen. Which doesn’t seem like much, but despite the fact that the resolution is the SAME FOR ALL USERS, Vista insists on refreshing the screen. And Vista being Vista, it is SLOW to do this. So, instead of 2 seconds to switch users, it takes 10-15, which is really annoying for a supposedly ‘upgraded’ operating system.
I know, I know, I should just install Linux on the laptop. My wife probably wouldn’t even notice. :) But, I do ocassionally play games (ok, ok, dual boot, I know).
I’ll do that with Windows 7 I guess…
Anyway, this website has a workaround that, while not ideal, allows me to get to switch users with a quick keypress in Vista (Win-2). So, somewhat improved user switching. Doesn’t help if the screen saver kicks in & goes to the ‘locked’ screen automatically… but when it comes to Microsoft, I’ll take what I can get. They even have a solution for Vista Home/Home Premium without a TSDISCON executable.
- Create a shortcut on your desktop to TSDISCON (* see below) and call it something like “Switch User”
- Go the shortcut Properties page and assign a shortcut key. Note that unfortunately you can’t use the Windows Key in your shortcut – so I went for CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + L
- Right click Start button and choose “Open All Users” and move the shortcut into the Programs folder (confirming the UAC prompt as you go).
- Log out, and back in again. This is necessary because Explorer hasn’t noticed there’s now a shortcut with a new shortcut key it should be taking notice of.
And that did it. CTRL + ALT + SHIFT + L isn’t quite a neat as WinKey+L but it’s a hell of a lot better than poking around in the Start Menu.
Well I had a few minutes today so I finally got around to looking at what’s wrong with my C310. For the last few years I’ve had to underclock the processor or the CPU temperature would go abouve 100 degrees C and funny stuff would start happening. Even running at half speed (~ 1000MHz), the CPU would idle at 80-90 degrees. Seems a bit hot.
I bought a new Toshiba last year, but I missed my old computer (hey, at least it’s running XP instead of that crappy Vista!) so I thought I’d give repairing it a whirl.
While I’ve been using SyncEXP to keep my music collection, etc, synchronzied between my laptop & my file server at home (as well as my portable HD on occasion), I wanted to find something a little more bandwidth-friendly, so I could synchronize over the network if need be.
My search for an rsync-like util to do this landed me with Unison. Works like a charm – unfortunately the GUI doesn’t work (at least, not in Vista), from the precompiled packages available.
No matter, I just set up a little batch file and PRESTO! Synchronized like a charm.
Well, at least, it’s working on it. I really should have done this first sync in a while from home… :)
Well, I’m playing with the new Toshiba laptop I just bought (Satellite A300-07G), after my wife started really complaining about my old Acer TravelMate C310 Tablet (it is about 4 years old now, and getting a bit slow, crashing randomly, and the CPU runs at about 85 degrees — Acers never do cool things well, do they?).
Besides the approximately 3 hours it takes to unpack its software after first boot-up, it runs pretty well. Initial boot times were in the 3 minute range but I removed Norton 360 (which was the major culprit, I think), and some other programs, tweaked the startup a bit with msconfig, and installed Kaspersky AV, and VOILA!
Was trying to find something similar to notebook hardware control for the 64-bit vista that came with the laptop, and ran across RMClock.
A little tweak to let it run without signed drivers (need to run cmd.exe as admin) was presented in the forums:
Disable Driver Signature Enforcement. Go to the command promt (run “cmd.exe”), then type
“bcdedit /set loadoptions DDISABLE_INTEGRITY_CHECKS” (without quotes, and the DD is not a typo)
And a scheduled task to get it to start up on boot with admin priviledges… and we’re all set! … Except it doesn’t work. :( *sigh* back to the drawing board!
Vista is very pretty, BTW. Looks sketchy performance-wise, but… we’ll see how it goes!
I went to visit my brother in Ottawa recently – hadn’t seen him in some time. While there for the weekend, he convinced me to put EVE Online aside for a moment and try this different online MMO, Mabinogi.
I am a Family Physician in Southern Ontario with an overindulgent geeky side!
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