WeaponX

OK, having major LCD issues on my laptop today. I have one of these no name brand (actually called Prostar) laptop that I bought a few years back. It's served me well and only giving problems here and there occassionally. Well, this one takes the trophy.The screen is flickering light to dark background...I can still see as I'm typing this. It's just going into a darker contrast and back to normal. Then it will go completely black on me. Sometimes it comes back...when it doesn't, I close the lid and open it back up again. Again, sometimes this works, other times I have to shut and open the lid several times before it opens back up. The strange thing I noticed when it turns all black is that there are times when I can actually see the images in the back (just too dark to look at it normally). But most of the times it's just plain black (blank screen).Does anyone know what part is bad? I tried to take apart the darn thing myself and see if I can maybe reseat the LCD cable but this doesn't sound like it could be the issue.Thanks.

@xboxrulz: Does that HDD Utility Disc program come with the Sony hard drives? The one I have is a regular Maxtor one that I bought separately. That program seems to only format it for a first time use though...don't want to do that here since my brother's games are still all in there.I'm going to get a spare blank hard drive to do this soon.Side question (related in a way)...Is it possible to do the cloning via USB 2.0 instead of IDE? I have those USB enclosure drives and want to use my laptop to do this. Always curious if ghosting using USB would work. I know it will be much slower than if it was using IDE

Aequitas619, we have a section here for SimpleMachines Forum questions or you can even post them in the SimpleMachines Forum itself. They have good support and are pretty fast.For the image verification, you can locate that option by going into Admin->Registration->Settings and you will see Disable the use of the visual verification on registration. Leave it unchecked if you want it to show up.

Maybe freezing it caused whatever was loose (if anything was loose) inside to be seated properly again? Freezing will in a way "shrink" the metal parts inside. I heard of a few ways users try to fix their iPod's with the sad iPod icon, but freezing it is a first for me.There were many "confirmed" cases where users were saying that slamming the iPod to their hand will fix the problem. Their iPods might have had a loose part inside or something, but smacking it seems to do the trick. The question is how long will it keep working though. Read many comments online that it was working for a short while and then the problem came back. Continued smacking is not a solution....neither is the freezing if you ask me.

Thanks for the replies. I was just trying to back those files up to my current external hard drive first. I need to find a blank/clean hard drive in that case to do the cloning.Hope this program works

Hi, not really related to Windows "per se", but since it has something to do with the formatting....OK, I have installed a hard drive for my brother's Playstation 2 gaming system. It has worked for a long time until recently. The hard drive started to have that click of death sound. It still works and all, so I took it out before any more damage will be done to it. The problem now is that I can't get any of the games out of it. I want to copy all those games to my computer and then back to a new hard drive if possible. Otherwise, it will literally take him days to put all those games back again.Anyone has experience with this before or perhaps know of a program that can read all formats and copy the data over to my computer? The Device Manager will see that Playstation 2 hard drive but it will NOT show up in My Computer. I checked the Computer Management area and it prompted me to format it since it couldn't recognize the file format it was using. I already tried Norton Ghost, but to no avail since it too can not see it.Thanks.

Don't know. Does that Stoik Capture program capture all my videos in real-time? I want to use one that will be able to transfer from my mini DV tapes to my computer very quickly...so preferably not real-time.

If the user is really looking to buy a Photoshop at a discount, he/she can take a look at JourneyEd: http://www.journeyed.com/product/search They have discounts available for students. You will need to submit proof (ID and documents if I recall properly when I did this a few years back) showing that you are a student. Price is still a little steep since it's Adobe Photoshop

SimpleMachines does a pretty good job on my side. I don't have much spammers on my forum...believe it or not, only had one that actually posted something in my forum in all these years I've been using it. I don't have version 1.0.8 installed, but does it have image verification during the registration process? Go to register now and see if it asks you to enter the random letters/numbers in a box. If not, then it doesn't have it. You might want to update to v1.0.9 at http://download.simplemachines.org/?archive Otherwise, do the full upgrade to the final 1.1.1 stable version that was released last month. I'm using it now and it's been running pretty well as usual. Even when I was running the released candidate versions they were good. As usual, make sure you backed up your entire SMF directory and also make a backup of your SMF database file in case something does go wrong. Then do the update/upgrade. If you need any help with this, feel free to post back.

My question was not clear from the recent responses I'm getting. I was wondering if it's possible for me to use BOTH (wired and wireless) connections at the SAME time. I know I can use them separately if possible, but I'm usually one my wireless for my web browsing and from time to time, I want to transfer huge files over to another computer. Using wireless (as we all know it) will be slow especially if I'm using the web at the same time. So I want to connect it using the network cable for transferring the files over and wireless for my web activity.Not sure if this is possible at all, but I remember reading somewhere that it's possible to have two network cards operating at the same time.

You should leave your setup as it is now unless you want to start fresh and reinstall Windows. Otherwise, leave Windows in your original/current hard drive now. Then partition the new hard drive so it can include Gentoo Linux and a HUGE partition for all your video files. It's best to keep your video files there (especially if you will be editing them) since it will fragment your drive causing your computer to "slow down" in a sense. It's just like having a room where you have clothes and other things laying around...cluttering the area with not much room for you to operate/move in. If you have the full install Windows CD, you should be able to install Windows again without any problems. Otherwise, if it's some kind of upgrade CD, you will need to have a previous version of Windows installed first. What motherboard do you have there? Depending on what memory type you need, $157 might be around that price you will get it for. I saw some for cheaper though but they are a different type. Take a look at Crucial (http://www.crucial.com/) to see if the prices are comparable to the ones in that store. Hard drive prices have come down a lot and you can find great deals on a new hard drive from time to time. I got a 400GB Seagate for $90 a few weeks back and love it. I'm a huge Maxtor and Seagate fan. Although I haven't personally used Western Digital hard drives before, I tend to stay away from them. It's just a personal thing I have against it. Some people have no problems with Western Digital and hate Maxtor's. So it goes either way. I think Seagate are one of the top brands though since I have used these before and they still work now (over 10 years already) and Seagate also have a great warranty (5 years). If you are a serious video editor, you might consider using a SATA RAID setup. You will need to get the controller cards so they support SATA and RAID since your computer doesn't have these features. Using RAID 0 will increase the data being read/written to/from the hard drive. That might be the option you want.

Do you want to make an external hard drive yourself by using one of those USB/Firewire Enclosure Drives or do you want one that's already made an external on the store? I'm asking this because if cost is a factor, I recommend buying a enclosure drive and an internal hard drive to make your own external hard drive. Otherwise, you might be interested in this external hard drive by Western Digital. I'm personally not a Western Digital fan as I use mostly Maxtor and Seagate branded ones. If size is an issue, you might want to look for one of those smaller external hard drives, which can be expensive.

What do you mean? It sounds like you are just starting off using your forum. I recommend looking at other alternatives before your forum has more members in it. Invision Board is a very great forum software but you need to pay for it. They have annual subscriptions with support. I recommend using Simple Machines Forum at http://www.simplemachines.org/ I have been using their forum software for years now and absolutely love it. Support is also great when I run into problems upgrading the forum or adding mods to it. Simple Machines Forum uses image verification and also has an option that requires users to click on a validation link sent to their emails before they can login and post anything.

I'm always interested in learning more in the security area and have never used podcasts myself either. Guess it's better late than never for me I was always a Leo Laporte fan, so I'm positive his podcasts are great to listen to. Downloading them right now. Anyone know how to get a bunch of them at once? Hate going through 70+ episodes manually.tansqrx, I'm not sure how far you want to go into security, but if you're looking for a book, get the ones by Kevin Mitnik. He's a reformed hacker and wrote books on security. You can find them on Amazon...

Elmbonsai, if you are still looking for a program to convert the text to speech, take a look at: http://www.naturalreaders.com/index.html It will read the text aloud and although it still doesn't sound 100% natural, it seems to be the closest ones I've heard. I compared it to a few other alternatives out there including the project created by AT&T labs: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ The AT&T one doesn't sound natural at all, but you might want to give it a try and compare the differences.

Would I still need to get that widget if the wireless card works? I'm asking because I could see some wireless connections in my area and can even connect to those that are unsecured. But when it comes down to mine, I couldn't get it to work. I remember disabling all the security already. I'll try to find some free time and maybe reset the router and leave it unsecured to see if that works.If I can get it to connect to my router, do you know if it will support WPA encryption? From all the iBooks I worked on, I have never connected ones to WPA (only WEP).Let me know what widget you were referring to earlier. I won't mind using it as long as it can pick up my wireless signal from the router.

I asked this question about a year ago and decided to call it quits back then. I decided to give it one more try before I go out and buy another wireless card for it.To make a long story short, I have basically tried everything to get the iMac connected to my router. I even disabled all my wireless security settings and broadcasted the SSID, but to no avail. I know my wireless card works because I have tried connected it to another wireless access point before and it worked.I don't want to disable all the wireless security settings again, but is there a way to connect wirelessly if I have WPA enabled? I have the Netgear MA111 USB Wireless Adapter and don't see an option for WPA (only WEP).I have attached some screenshots of the wireless adapter settings I have in system preferences. The wireless adapter is listed under Other with a question mark for some reason. All drivers for it are already installed. I click on Create and not sure where to go from there. I tried enabling WEP and just enter my WPA password instead with Enable Key Index checked and unchecked. Neither worked. It would say Connecting...but nothing would happen. I see other wireless networks nearby and can connect to those without a problem.What could I be doing incorrectly here? I disabled WEP/WPA, MAC Address Filtering and even enabled my SSID to be broadcasted. Do I have to buy an Airport card in order for it to work with my router (Westell Versalink 327W from Verizon)?I'm using Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger) if it matters.Thanks.

Your forum will probably not be hacked or attacked if it's a small one, but knowing what sick people are online, I usually don't recommend taking the chance. Better to be safe...Don't worry about switching over to Simple Machines Forum. They have a converter file that you can download to convert the database to be SimpleMachines ready So all data will be intact during the transfer.

@vhortex: I totally agree with the issues for using the phpBB forum. Leafbunk, if you can, you might want to look into using other forum alternatives that are more secure. phpBB has been known to have a lot of security bugs in it and from what I heard, sometimes it takes them a while to release an update to patch up the problem. Take a look at SimpleMachinesForum and try that out instead. They usually have a speedy security patch released if any are found. If you have problems using it, feel free to post in the SimpleMachines Forum section here at Xisto.

What Windows operating system are you using? I did a search and if you are using Windows XP, this can be accomplished using a registry edit. Take a look at this site for more information on how to do this.

You can not create another sub directory folder under the other new folder you created (user_avatars). You MUST create just a top/parent folder in the gallery folder. Like user_avatars or anything else. So just put your images directly into that user_avatars and any other folder you created under gallery. Do not create any more new folders inside the other folder (like user_avatars) or it will NOT show up. Create as many folders you like inside the gallery folder though. Images will appear.I just left the avatar storage directories by default. It doesn't cause any problems. The thing missing was creating the new folders inside the gallery folder.If you can't see the pictures next to your posts in the forum, then you probably haven't enabled it yet. Go back into the Administrator panel->General Admin->Configuration and scroll down to the Avatar Settings area. Under Enable gallery avatars, make sure it's set to Yes. Save the changes and go into your Profile. Scroll down to the Avatar control panel and click on Show Gallery. Everything should work from there.

You are not using any script to do this. It's all in the phpBB forum software.Had to play around with it a little on my local computer before I figured out the problem. The issue is that you MUST create a folder to store these avatar images into. The default images/avatars/gallery/ is not enough. Create a folder inside the gallery folder and give it a descriptive name. You can create more folders to categorize the images. This creates the different drop down menu in the Avatar (Profile) settings. So create the new folder/folders and put your images into them accordingly.It worked perfectly over here

When you login to cPanel, there will be a section under Analysis and Log files where you can check up on those stats you mentioned earlier. They go into almost every little detail with charts and tables.

I tend to not use these click per impression advertising services. I just don't find them as effective as the pay per <- snipped -> You usually will need thousands of impressions and won't get much out of it either. Did a search on Google and found a bunch of results. Just search for pay per impression and you'll find what you need. You can also take a look at Xisto's own list at: http://forums.xisto.com/topic/109-forum/ If you have good content on your site, stick with Adsense. Some people hate their system, but I love it. It provides good content (usually related to what you have on your site) and this may catch the user's attention.}

Please don't edit your original post next time. If you need to add anything in, either add a EDIT section on the bottom or just reply to your own topic like you are doing now and add what you want to say here.More ads may mean more money in some cases, but keep in mind that visitors want to see content on your site and NOT the ads. I know you may want to put one here or there for your users to see but overdoing it may blow off some possible future visitors. I usually keep it to one or two ads on my site.Here's how I usually approach this. If you are just starting out and don't want to spend much money, go for cheap web hosting in the beginning or become a regular member here at Xisto and get a free account :PI never expect to earn anything from my website so I started with a low cost web hosting service until I got more visitors. If you have good content, you will attract more visitors. Make sure you add descriptions to your site if by entertainment you mean putting up videos or the like online where there is no text.