mastercomputers

This is really strange as Chrome rolled back those changes in May so maybe it's some left over crud. You should always test with a fresh browser set at defaults as browsers have been implementing user behaviour preferences based on user browsing experiences. If you read up on Chromium and Chrome developmets, you can see the direction they are heading. The autoplay policy seemed a bit pushed but I do prefer having choice rather than forced to hear things played on my browser unknowingly.

Not only trying before installing. You may decide on just running the container instead and not risk things going wrong. However, things can go wrong in containers just like they do with normal environments. Although, containers are like sandbox environments. I believe you can snapshot them and restore them easily. So if you tested a browser in a container and it got infected with a homepage changer, you could easily just restore that container and have the insurance that it only affected that container and you easily fixed it without having to take steps necessary to remove malware. This maybe safer, but this does not mean you drop your security because of the way you run things. People are always trying to exploit while others are trying to prevent. You need to still keep on top of things. One thing I didn't mention, you can build a vast library of containers and only use them on a needs to basis. So you may store LibreOffice away on storage and grab it when you need it, then store it away when you're done. Cheers, MC

Docker is container platform for containerised applications/programs. It's like virtualisation but not in the sense like a virtual machine but more like a virtual environment. So imagine I developed a program called xisto.forums that I based on the yordan.helper file which is developed by you. Now in a normal system, you are required to install xisto.forums as well as the required yordan.helper file. When running a container platform however, you create a container that includes all the files you need with it. So in my container you will have xisto.forums and yordan.helper. You now have all the necessary files required to run xisto.forums. Things to understand: You have the version that I used to create the program, so it's tied to that particular version. These containers will not interfere with your system files because they are ran in their own environment. So if I included yordan.helper v1.0 but your current system has yordan.helper v3.2, they will not conflict. I could include a newer version or older version than what you currently have. Sometimes with slow to update/upgrade software, you maybe able to find a container that is more uptodate than what your operating system provides. Since they do not make use of your installed system files/libraries, they can be huge in size because they will contain everything necessary to run it. You can run multiple versions of different containers. There's a lot of pros and cons to doing this and whether you need it or not. For me, if there's a need to run old software, maybe that's the way, for newer software my Linux distribution is a rolling release and maintains very bleeding edge software in which case I'm never far behind with software I need to run. The file sizes can be ridiculous, even in the GBs. There is some work being done on sharing common container files/libraries to reduce the size. You could try it first before you actually install it properly. There's much more pros and cons but these things may improve over time. Cheers, MC

The domains security certificate has expired, so browsers can not guarantee that the encrpytion used to keep your information here is safe. No real problems other than waiting till the certificate gets renew, if it is to be renewed. There's a lot of changes being discussed on what direction we go with this site that we may have to wait till we have our plan in place. Until it's renewed, that message will persist but some browsers can allow you to ignore it for this site until we get it renewed. Cheers, MC

I would be more than happy to contribute, build this place back up, but this place needs some TLC, I am all for a clean slate and to start again from scratch with fresh content. Post to Host is really no longer a viable option but I enjoy sharing my knowledge. I am waiting for OpaQue to return to see what options we could possibly take. The search terms that I see in our log are quite ridiculous for what traffic we require. Having no home page really means this forum has lost its ability to target the audience we like to reach. There's a lot of things we could do but it requires time, which unfortunately is something I'm struggling to have. MC

The only issue I would have with using a Live Media boot is that the BIOS never saw the hard drive so it may not exist to the Live Media OS as well. It needs to be detected by the BIOS just to make sure that the OS will see it. Cheers, MC

<p>Hi chevblaz,<br /> <br /> The pxe (network) boot is just a process that happens after the other boot devices in the list fails. e.g. CD, USB, HDD, etc. You can really ignore that message as it's just failing by not finding a means to boot from a network and I'm sure you do not actually do a network boot.<br /> Your symptoms suggest that the BIOS is not always detecting the hard drive, so we need to figure out why that is. If you do manage to boot into Windows, I <strong>highly recommend you back up</strong> what you need as it sounds like it could go bad and you may lose everything.<br /> So if you do manage to get a back up, these are things that I would get you to try. I hope you are comfortable with removing your hard drive, it is necessary for these tests.<br /> <br /> So with the laptop powered off and unplugged. Turn it upside down and I would want you to remove the hard drive, usually indicated by a stack of round platters maybe on a lean, or a cylindrical shape. Depending on how old your laptop is, this could be an easy process but newer laptops are now making it difficult to do simple upgrades and it's definitely not in my interest for them to take this approach, as it just makes our job longer and also exposes more than just what we want to work on.<br /> <br /> So if you get the hard drive off, look at the connector and see if the hard drive is actually fitted to it correctly. You may have to take the hard drive out of it's enclosure to ensure it is fitted to it correctly. Also check to see if there's no visible damage to the connector. Once you are positive it's connected correctly, just push it back into place, secure it and then start the laptop. When you get to the screen to enter your BIOS (setup, CMOS, etc), press the corresponding key to get into it. Check the SATA devices to see if the hard drive is appearing (you may need to go into it), if it is not showing, it still seems like it's having issues with the drive. If it is showing, continuing testing it out and if the problem shows itself again we need to continue with other tests.<br /> <br /> The other test I would try would be to remove the hard drive again and try it in another SATA laptop or PC, if it's another laptop, you just put the hard drive into the enclosure of the other laptop or if it's the same/similar laptop, just slide it straight in and power it on and enter the BIOS, if it's not being detected there, it's showing signs of a faulty hard drive. If you are testing it in a PC, you will have to remove it from the enclosure and connect the SATA cable and the power cable to the drive and perform the same tests, seeing if it appears in the BIOS.<br /> I don't suggest if you do put it into another computer, letting it run till it gets to the Windows OS, otherwise it will install unnecessary hardware and drives for the computer it is in and just add more bloat that is not required. So instead of saving and exiting from the BIOS, just push or hold the power off button until it shuts down.<br /> <br /> So depending on the results, if you don't get it showing, the hard drive is failing, which part it could be is really irrelevant and no one usually fixes a hard drive and just usually replaces the whole thing. Now that you know how to take a hard drive out, you can easily do this process yourself and would just need to know how to install the OS again.<br /> <br /> If it is showing, then the actions you took to fixing it, whether it just wasn't seated properly solved it. If it's showing up in the other laptop/PC, then it would be checking if the connection on the laptop for the hard drive is not damaged, or updating the BIOS to see if that resolves the issue but it's really at a stage where you should seek professional help than if I start asking you to tear open the whole laptop checking components, etc.<br /> <br /> <br /> Cheers,<br /> <br /> MC</p>

Your computers can have the same LAN IP address on the same network. It will most likely cause an issue and you'll be notified by your OS hopefully of the conflict but you can setup your IP to be the same address as another device on your network, no error till it is discovered that it is in use by the other device. Knowing that it is possible may help people diagnose their problems they could encounter, especially if you manually set your addresses. DHCP helps avoid conflicts if you automatically allow it to assign your IP address, this would be why you can find that the addresses on your network are only a number apart. Cheers, MC

I run Linux Mint because it worked out of the install for my laptop although I'm still a fan of Fedora and have run many other distributions, it all came down to which one installed without a hitch. I just find that it's not about flavour anymore but more about being able to do what you need to do with less configuring. I just find myself not having the time to set my systems up how I would normally do it. There's only subtle differences in the major Linux distributions. For those in a rush, Linux Mint would be a good place to start. On older machines, you would be better finding distributions specifically tailored for you and there's many options here too. Pick many to trial, you don't have to settle on your first choice. Cheers, MC

Your internet service provider assigns you your outside address for the web. Now it's possible that it could change when you reconnect to them. Some ISP give their customers fixed/static IP addresses, in which it will never change unless you ask them to change it. Maybe changing the IP address is what you may think you need, but there are many ways of obscuring/hiding your location, usually by means of going through a proxy that routes your data through them on your behalf, in which case you take on the proxy's IP address. Think of the proxy as a middle man, he gets your request and does it on your behalf, then sends what he receives back to you. There are also ways you can bounce your traffic though tunneling, etc. However, depending on why you may require a different IP address, you probably should research more into it, since I really have no reason to delve deeper into ways to change it but that's my views, there would be some reasons you would want to change it. Especially to get around country restrictions, etc. Cheers, MC

To answer that question, if your cellphone is capable of being a hotspot, you can enable that and connect you wi-fi device to it. Mobile data must be enabled. There are also mobiles that can act as a modem but require the modem driver for it, usually via plugging your usb connected phone into your computer. Not all phones have this capability, so check with the manufacture if your device is capable. Again mobile data has to be enabled. It could be possible to share a internet wifi connected device as an hotspot as well, but would need to test it out. In the age before usb, we had card modems that you could buy the connector to your cellphone. It would then make it possible for the modem to use your cellphone to dial through your cellphone to your dialup provider. Cheers, MC

I understand the views of others when they say that they don't need them, but it depends and you fail to point out how revolutionary cellphones have improved our way of living as well as the bad habits that come with it too. Depending on how important your job is and what is required, especially if you're suppose to maintain something that needs to be operating. Then being contactable 24/7 may be necessary. Doctors seem to be that occupation that would require it, you expect them to have pagers but even mobiles would be better because they can at least reply back. I think there's more benefits to carrying a mobile than doing without one. You just never know when you may need to use it in an emergency. Mobiles have saved peoples lives and I rather know that even if I never had to use it or be contacted by it, at least I got it. It's just like insurance, it's an in case of something happens more than a need to have it. Imagine being in an accident and no one could get you any help because they couldn't ring the services you required, because they didn't have a mobile. They could try and get help in other ways, but every second counts in life critical situations and the more time it takes them to do what you need, the slimmer your chances get. Cheers, MC

I use to be against WYSIWYG editors, but I have changed my views on them. Hand coding will always be my preferred method but for those who don't have countless hours to learn and want to get their site up quickly then by all means, use the tools that are developed for those cases. It's more important to get what you want out there as quickly as possible than to delay it till you've learnt the markup. As I see it now, many sites fail to conform to recommendations, yet they still work how they should with maybe a few inconsistencies in browsers but people will probably not even notice these things. You also have options of hiring a freelancer/web designer for those who do not wish for the hassle. Again, nothing wrong with that but if money is an issue, then opting for DIY and learning HTML and getting yourself a free editor should be the way to go, many great tools out there do exist and even have less Markup Soup (lots of unnecessary code tags). If you are into hand coding, then you should create yourself some skeleton/boilerplate templates available, as I find with HTML, I usually stick to quite a consistent style of coding and a lot of the head information rarely changes and the body usually follows similar suit, unless I decide on change the overall look. So what are some of the free, open source editors out there? I will trial them out and give my views on them if I have time and see which one I would work with if I were to use one. The only requirement I ask for is that they are cross platform/browser, needs to work on Windows, Mac and Linux, I only run Linux these days. Cheers, MC.

When I was first interested in learning HTML, I read the source code of websites to understand it. I modified them to see the changes. I now no longer need to view the sources of sites to understand how they work. I can just look at a site and can just write it to how I feel it is displayed and quite possibly write it more efficiently. With the numerous display sizes of devices that access the web now, designing sites involves a lot more. You could start at either end of the spectrum, start with small displays and work your way up to larger displays, that's my preferred method or start with larger displays and work your way down. Armed with a pen and a pad, draw what you would like your site to look like, with smaller displays this is quite easy, you basically just need to work out the order you want information to appear and a suitable size for images. Then when you start working on larger displays, you just move your information around to fill up the area you have and also maybe increase image sizes. Once you have a layout you want to do, work on achieving it. With an editor, you could possibly achieve what you want a lot quicker, but I would not know which editor to opt for. There are many editors that run in your browser now, that can understand HTML 5, which is where I would point people to because you want to keep up to date and be sure that your site will be supported in the long run. KompoZer maybe a bit stale in development and seems to lack HTML 5 support. I am not sure if it has been forked, but it does need a bit of love to reach a more modern age. There is really nothing wrong with suggesting WordPress if they are wanted a blog, or telling them to use Dreamweaver. These are programs that were designed to make it easier for them. Their learning curve would not be the mark up language but more understanding how to work with the program instead. I still recommend they learn a little basic HTML so that they do understand what is happening though and I believe this is what puts a lot of people off. Learning languages is not an easy feat. There are many programs out there, designed for particular purposes and I'm sure they could find one that fits their needs. Cheers, MC

WYSIWYG editors were designed for the purpose of quickly getting your web page up. For that purpose they are excellent but the amount of effort they put into making it appear correctly, usually means they go overboard with adding additional tag soup to the mix and can be hard for someone who does not use your editor to clean the mess up. This however is aiming for less bytes so page loading can be quicker, but we are only talking a few additional bytes that can barely go unnoticed with the speed of internet these days, however, you wanted to make them efficient later on so that those who use mobile data do not chew up their MBs. I prefer hand coding. You could simply have a set of simple skeleton templates in place that you can quickly throw up a web page in a matter of minutes. The reason I do it this way, is I work mainly with a lot of frameworks and web languages, which are sometimes not pluggable into or understood by your editor. Then again, I'm more a developer than a designer, so the backend is usually my main concern than what goes on in the front. If I want to use existing software for my site, then I usually opt for open source, so that I can rework it to fit my needs. If you are interested in using an editor to help you get a site out quickly, then use software that's main purpose is designed for that. I would not recommend using any office suite program to do it, as it seems to come out a lot more messier than editors made for that purpose. People may tell you to hand code, because it's better but I think the important thing is getting it up and serving as quickly as possible, and then fix the mess later. Just don't create a 100 page site with an editor, that would be too much effort to clean up. What do you mean how do you do this kind of thing? I would use a plain text editor, but not notepad. It would be an editor that supports UTF-8 and does Unix/Linux line endings. Other features that make it easier to work with is line numbering, tag/bracket matching, line highlighting, auto indenting, auto close tags, auto tag completion/suggestions, preview and color code syntax. Again, these features are not necessary, terminal editors suit me fine as well but these aides do help detect errors and give you reminders. So what are you thinking of doing Yordan? I would not mind helping others get their sites underway, usually easier working on other peoples sites than your own because you're following what the person wants than trying to tackle your own ideas of what you want. Cheers, MC

I can shed enlightenment on what has hit Xisto pretty hard, or maybe I can not? So I may metaphorically speak it, The search giant Goliath versus David in which the giant changed tactics to avoid sending villagers to David. This hit David pretty hard and now lots of the villagers David use to get have migrated elsewhere. Somehow they are now reaching different parts of the Earth and not directed towards David no more. Thank you mighty search giant. I also believe a lack of attention comes this way too, this place could do with same vast changes, including the main Xisto home page which little has changed when I first registered here in 2004 and was one of the first 30 members and I am still the longest surviving member that visits here. Back then, times were good, little information existed and it was a gold mine for posting topics. A lot of my topics I remember writing here however vanished and with mishaps like that, a lot of the work I did was pretty much off the top of my head and straight to forum posting, so no backup of what I wrote exists. I could write it again and improve on it with more knowledge that I have gained, but that motivation isn't there anymore. Cheers, MC

There's actually a lot of incorrect posts still sitting around here, huge changes have been made but not updated. Unfortunately, cancelling my paid hosting here cost me my old membership and privileges. Bit of a downer and probably why I very rarely visit anymore as well as other things but hopefully some life comes back here. Cheers, MC

Hi fila, Most of my guides that I wrote were specifically catered for my minimal installation which may have been mentioned in those posts. If you know the difference between a desktop and a server operating system, then there is really not a lot of difference except for the software that is being offered to you. Server OS is a slimmed down version of the Desktop version removing a lot of GUI and non-productive software, it may even use different utilities to get the installation done, especially in a command line fashion. The idea with a server is that it should not have anyone physically using it unless it's undergoing maintenance by the server administrator, but even this is usually done remotely unless it involves hardware. My minimal installation is like the server version without actually installing any services (software for serving clients). The reason I use Desktop version in the installation is because it has more software given and gives you more control over what you may want to install. I do not wish everyone to follow my guides exactly. They may base some of the information on it, but maybe they would prefer a desktop GUI because command line is too hard for them or they want it to be easier on them and know how to use their mouse better. My method is usually always start with the most minimalistic and cleanest way, then add only what you need, keeping the hundreds of software that you may never ever use out of your system as a lot of Linux is now leaning towards having too much bloatware but this is to give it the out of a box experience but not suitable for those who are already experienced. Cheers, MC