Self Sufficient computer repair and maintenance

[edcgear]

Oh I'm so subscribed to this one!!
 
You got me at "Forgoten password.... and admin is not here"

I'm so going to be mr. nice guy at office!!

 

 

[detron]

Oh I'm so subscribed to this one!!
 
You got me at "Forgoten password.... and admin is not here"

I'm so going to be mr. nice guy at office!!

 

 

just remember, With great power, comes great responsibility.

also, remember circumventing an office or enterprise systems protections is considered illegal hacking.  (also think if you signed an acceptable use policy)

If it is not your system, then you MUST HAVE written authorization in order to not be tried as an illegal hacker.

this was covered in depth in my Certified Ethical Hacker training.

[jzmtl]

I'm stumped, Toshiba satellite laptop, windows 7, slow as hell, I mean literally my 10+ year old desktop is like ferrari compare to it. What confuses me is task manager shows CPU and RAM use is always around 30% or 40%, never goes higher even under full (slow) load.

I tried some cleaning software like ccleaner, no change.

I know clean reinstall is the best but owner doesn't have the installation disk. The system isn't English version so I can't just use another disk either, don't think the serial number would work.

Any ideas?

[detron]

I'm stumped, Toshiba satellite laptop, windows 7, slow as hell, I mean literally my 10+ year old desktop is like ferrari compare to it. What confuses me is task manager shows CPU and RAM use is always around 30% or 40%, never goes higher even under full (slow) load.

I tried some cleaning software like ccleaner, no change.

I know clean reinstall is the best but owner doesn't have the installation disk.

Any idead?

check this out

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/16720/enable-multiple-cores-on-windows-7/

may not solve all issues, but might speed up boot times, I do not run Windows, so I am not as helpful as others.

[jzmtl]

Thanks, I'll take a look. It's not just boot time though, it's literally everything. Sometimes I can click once and wait several minutes for it to respond, never seen a computer this bad.

[Whoey]

m

I'm stumped, Toshiba satellite laptop, windows 7, slow as hell, I mean literally my 10+ year old desktop is like ferrari compare to it. What confuses me is task manager shows CPU and RAM use is always around 30% or 40%, never goes higher even under full (slow) load.

I tried some cleaning software like ccleaner, no change.

I know clean reinstall is the best but owner doesn't have the installation disk. The system isn't English version so I can't just use another disk either, don't think the serial number would work.

Any ideas?

My brother in law has a Toshiba Satellite too, not too old, came loaded with winxp. It gradually got slower and slower, and even doing a factory reset on it didn't seem to help a whole lot. I ran some scanners on it and found out the Harddrive was failing epically. I replaced with a slightly smaller capacity SSD and maxed out the ram (it was only half the max capacity) installed win7 and it's dramatically faster than it was. I don't recall offhand what tool I used to scan the disk, I might have used an ubuntu live CD.

[John benett]

 

[jzmtl]

My brother in law has a Toshiba Satellite too, not too old, came loaded with winxp. It gradually got slower and slower, and even doing a factory reset on it didn't seem to help a whole lot. I ran some scanners on it and found out the Harddrive was failing epically. I replaced with a slightly smaller capacity SSD and maxed out the ram (it was only half the max capacity) installed win7 and it's dramatically faster than it was. I don't recall offhand what tool I used to scan the disk, I might have used an ubuntu live CD.

Owner borrowed an installation disk and reinstalled, told me it's much faster. So looks like it's software related, still can't imagine what was bottleneck the CPU and RAM though.

Now she's going to bitch at me because she no longer has an excuse to buy a new laptop...

[detron]

High End Results, No Cost!!

I have friends who are always asking me for help with Image/Video/Audio manipulation.
I am no pro with these things, but some areas I am OK. 
I tell these people to just try doing it themselves, but they complain that the software is too expensive.

Well,  I have a free solution that some of you just might enjoy enough to keep handy.

 

It can be used as a bootable DVD, a Bootable USB, or you can install it beside Windows (and maybe beside Mac, I do not have one to test)

bootable is a great option as it does not require any change to you current computer.  or if you have an old computer (not too old) you can just boot this up and utilize all of it's tools.

It is a Linux Distro,  but do not be scared!

Speaking of tools      this thing is loaded.  here is the overview  step through all the categories to see what it contains

I know some people will not use the links, so here is the text of the site without the images,  if you like it, check out the site

Audio

Ubuntu Studio makes available some of the most popular and recently updated audio software in the Linux world.

JACK

Jack is a low latency capable audio and midi server, designed for pro audio use. It enables all Jack capable applications to connect to each other. A common program for controlling the jack server is Qjackctl (shown in the picture below).

provides low latencies (less than 5msecs with the right hardware)
provides completely flexible connections
also acts as transport for jack-aware applications
Qjackctl

Ardour

Ardour is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), suitable for recording, mixing and mastering. Some of its features include:
Ardour

Unlimited audio tracks and buses
Non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo
Anything-to-anywhere signal routing
Unlimited pre- and post-fader plugins
32 bit floating point audio path
Automatic track delay compensation
Sample accurate automation
Standard file formats (BWF, WAV, WAV64, AIFF, CAF & more …)
More than 200 LADSPA & LV2 plugins freely available
MIDI CC control with 1 click
Level 2 MIDI Machine Control
MIDI Timecode (MTC) Master or Slave
Full integration with all JACK applications
Video-synced playback, pull up/pull down
Sequencers and Synthesizers

Ubuntu Studio comes installed with other notable applications such as:

Audacity – Audio Wave Editor
Qtractor – midi capable DAW
Hydrogen – Drum machine / Sequencer
Yoshimi – Software Synthesizer
sequencers

Virtual Guitar Amps

Rakarrack (preinstalled) and Guitarix are two popular guitar amp simulators.



Jack Session

Gladish will enable you to start applications, make connections between them, and save the whole configuration to file. Gladish is also an alternative to Qjackctl.

Gladish

Audio Programming

There are numerous easy to use audio programming environments available to Ubuntu Studio, such as the preinstalled puredata. Others are installable, such as supercollider, csound and chuck.


Graphics

Blender

Blender is a full fledged 3D content creation suite. You can create 3D models and animate scenes. Blender also has its’ own game engine and is vastly expandable with addons.

3D Solids and character modeling
Scene animation
Physics and particle functions
Shading
Game engine (create a whole game using only Blender)
Imaging and compositing
Highly extensible


Inkscape

Inkscape is a superb vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X, using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.



GIMP

GIMP stands for Gnu Image Manipulation Program, and is a similar to Photoshop.



MyPaint

MyPaint is a digital painting tool, designed to work with graphic tablets. It comes with a large collection of brushes, including ink and charcoal.

Designed for pressure sensitive graphics tablets
Simple and minimalistic user interface
Extensive brush creation and configuration options
Unlimited canvas (you never have to resize)
Basic layer support



Video

Openshot

Openshot is a simple video editor for Linux. Add videos, photos and music to create DVD’s, youtube clips and a range of other formats.

Simple and clean UI
Intuitive use
Format support based on ffmpeg


FFMPEG

“FFmpeg is the leading multimedia framework, able to decode, encode, transcode, mux, demux, stream, filter and play pretty much anything that humans and machines have created. It supports the most obscure ancient formats up to the cutting edge. No matter if they were designed by some standards committee, the community or a corporation. It contains libavcodec, libavutil, libavformat, libavdevice, libswscale and libswresample which can be used by applications. As well as ffmpeg, ffserver, ffplay and ffprobe which can be used by end users for transcoding, streaming and playing.”

DVDStyler

Use DVDStyler to create custom, professional looking DVD’s.

User-friendly interface with support of drag & drop
Multiple subtitles and audio tracks
Design your own DVD menu or select a template
Create a photo slide show
support of AVI, MOV, MP4, MPEG, OGG, WMV and other file formats
support of MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, Xvid, MP2, MP3, AC-3 and other audio and video formats


Photography

Darktable

Darktable is a photography workflow application and RAW developer. A virtual lighttable and darkroom for photographers. It manages your digital negatives in a database, lets you view them through a zoomable lighttable and enables you to develop raw images and enhance them.



Shotwell

You can use Shotwell to organize your library of photos.

Import multiple formats
Edit tags
Convert formats
Simple editing on the fly
Publish directly to social sites

THIS PAGE HAS THE DOWNLOADS AND INSTRUCTIONS

this is a great collection of media tools that are in a bootable operating system ready to go.  Some people truly need PhotoShop, or certain other programs, but some people will be just as happy with these free tools.

if anyone is doubting that a Linux distro can do what is needed,

 

10 movies made with the help of Linux

[detron]

I have used this for many years now,  but I did not understand the RAW image manipulation software need.  but now that I am EAGERLY awaiting getting a DSLR, I understand and appreciate the inclusion of such programs.

the other great thing about a bootable collection like this, is that you can take the disc/USB with you and use just about any hardware. 

[Whoey]

I discovered ubuntu studio a very long time ago, but never actually used it, I went with regular Ubuntu and installed the apps I was interested in. Looking at that list I have most of them installed...

[detron]

I discovered ubuntu studio a very long time ago, but never actually used it, I went with regular Ubuntu and installed the apps I was interested in. Looking at that list I have most of them installed...

That is what I did too, but I have a USB with Ubuntu studio in my bag.

Serious professional types would be better off with the studio distro due to certain kernel modules being pre configuration.   With out this  JACK cannot use real time access.

Ubuntu studio has a custom kernel designed for these apps specifically

[derekmac]

That looks like a pretty good free solution!!!   I'm so in love with Adobe Lightroom though, and with having thousands of edited RAW files, switching to something else is next to impossible for me.  If there was a way to export my Lightroom gallery, and import it, then I could switch over more easily, but I haven't found one yet.

I'm happy having Windows 8 and Mint dual booted though. 

[detron]

That looks like a pretty good free solution!!!   I'm so in love with Adobe Lightroom though, and with having thousands of edited RAW files, switching to something else is next to impossible for me.  If there was a way to export my Lightroom gallery, and import it, then I could switch over more easily, but I haven't found one yet.

I'm happy having Windows 8 and Mint dual booted though.

Import Lightroom into Dark Table

I am not trying to make you switch,  but a free backup option is nice!

[derekmac]

That looks like a pretty good free solution!!!   I'm so in love with Adobe Lightroom though, and with having thousands of edited RAW files, switching to something else is next to impossible for me.  If there was a way to export my Lightroom gallery, and import it, then I could switch over more easily, but I haven't found one yet.

I'm happy having Windows 8 and Mint dual booted though.

Import Lightroom into Dark Table

I am not trying to make you switch,  but a free backup option is nice!

Frig, I swear I did look for something like that!  I'll give it a try, and see how well it works.  Now, if I could just get Backblaze to work for doing my online backups, I'd be golden. (going to Google it after I post this.)

[Whoey]

interesting read, did not know about Dark table.

I am in a similar situation to the author except I use a Virtualbox setup to host a windows environment on my Ubuntu setup so I can still use some Adobe suite tools without rebooting, which is what his primary complaint is about dualbooting.

[MultiMat]

I needed you guys last night I was on our 5-6 year old Compaq laptop, which runs windows 7 & I was on Facebook(I only do this once or twice a week) & I clicked on one of Grant's video links & the bloody screen just went blank  Me being the cluey fella that I am did the ctrl+alt+delete & nothing. So I tried the i.t Crowd solution I taught the power button a proper lesson & held it down till it was quiet & then caressed it gently BUT again nothing, screen dead BUGGER.
I thought maybe it was very tired & needed a extended nap 
Tried again this morning , hard drive running as it was last night but screen dead  .So I did what most do , ask Mr Google  a associate of mr Google suggested tapping f8 like a mad man on start up I tried this & after a lot of beeping screen came alive  & I think I agreed  to a system restore which seems to have sorted things out.

I did wonder if that shady character Grant had given my laptop some kind of syphilis  . So I updated Windows Defender ran a scan , that was negative so I updated AVG & did a full scan & that found nothing  .
So I tried delving into the PCs log to see if I could work out what happened I found a lot of error listings but nothing I could make sense of(not really surprising  ). I am well chuffed the Compaq appears to have self healed(clever thing ) + now I don't have to spend $400(that is 2 camping swags for my boys  ) on a new notebook & my 15 year old can complete his school assignment this weekend  . We have a iMac that drives me a little batty ,I don't hate the laptop but we are more acquaintance than friends  ,  the boys do most of their assignments on the laptop. I think Linux would be great BUT I am a lazy sap when it comes to such things + I am clueless with most IT  I think Linux might give me a stroke & then make my head explode  , + the boys need to use the laptop for school.

[Millhouse]

Thanks Detron.

I'm very impressed as to how small the Ubuntu Studio install is.

I've just run it off a fairly slow USB pen drive and it was fast to boot and very responsive. The thing I was concerned about was how well it would pick up all the hardware on my PC, it did a good job.

You've definitely given me something to think about, an alternative to windows, especially on older systems.

[detron]

Thanks Detron.

I'm very impressed as to how small the Ubuntu Studio install is.

I've just run it off a fairly slow USB pen drive and it was fast to boot and very responsive. The thing I was concerned about was how well it would pick up all the hardware on my PC, it did a good job.

You've definitely given me something to think about, an alternative to windows, especially on older systems.

I rarely use windows.   And Linux is great at doing what it does.  I am glad you liked it

[Millhouse]

Personally, I'll be sticking with windows, but Linux is an option I had never really considered for older hardware.

I come across older desktops and laptops that won't run windows well, but Linux could probably breathe new life into them.

[detron]

Personally, I'll be sticking with windows, but Linux is an option I had never really considered for older hardware.

I come across older desktops and laptops that won't run windows well, but Linux could probably breathe new life into them.

It will, some flavors are made for old hardware

[bmot]

Okay, bear with me, I'm going to try to explain the problem I've been having lately... 


First.
I have an Acer laptop with Google Chrome. Yesterday, I got the latest update from Windows, and I think Chrome also updated at the same time.


Since then, I had a weird problem. Whenever I do something in Chrome, something weird happens. It seems that every movement I make (scrolling, selecting some text with the arrowkeys and holding shift, etc) it always seems to be one move behind. So, when I select some text, I click my arrowkey one more to the right, and it stays on the same place. It only continues when I click again, then, when I click to the left, it adds one more selected letter to the right before turning back and unselecting thing (I told you this is weird)


Same happens when scrolling. The first "tick" nothing happens. When I stop, and try to click a link, it suddenly jumps down one more "tick" and I hit the wrong link because of that. That is -really- annoying


This problem only seems to happen in Chrome, and on different sites in different grades, though there's always some signs of the problem happening. I just tried IE ( ) and that doesn't seem to work any worse than usual.


So, Detron, or anyone, know this problem? And if yes, help?

[detron]

Okay, bear with me, I'm going to try to explain the problem I've been having lately... 


First.
I have an Acer laptop with Google Chrome. Yesterday, I got the latest update from Windows, and I think Chrome also updated at the same time.


Since then, I had a weird problem. Whenever I do something in Chrome, something weird happens. It seems that every movement I make (scrolling, selecting some text with the arrowkeys and holding shift, etc) it always seems to be one move behind. So, when I select some text, I click my arrowkey one more to the right, and it stays on the same place. It only continues when I click again, then, when I click to the left, it adds one more selected letter to the right before turning back and unselecting thing (I told you this is weird)


Same happens when scrolling. The first "tick" nothing happens. When I stop, and try to click a link, it suddenly jumps down one more "tick" and I hit the wrong link because of that. That is -really- annoying


This problem only seems to happen in Chrome, and on different sites in different grades, though there's always some signs of the problem happening. I just tried IE ( ) and that doesn't seem to work any worse than usual.


So, Detron, or anyone, know this problem? And if yes, help?

GO HERE  read the whole page to make sure it sounds like your issue.  and if it is, then do as they say and turn off Hardware acceleration in Chrome

and be sure to reply back in this thread either way to maybe help other users.

[bmot]

That did the trick, it seems. Thank you sir


*turns IE off again* 

[detron]

That did the trick, it seems. Thank you sir


*turns IE off again* 

glad it worked.  and  on *turns IE off again*   that got me

[bmot]

glad it worked.  and  on *turns IE off again*   that got me

I was almost ready to start installing Firefox, but well, I was too lazy 

[detron]

Linux Distro for students, especially college

uber student is a linux distro designed for learners.  the tools included by default are excellent for focused students.

on the other hand, if you know a student who is not focused, this might help them become focused.

I have played with this distro, and the mind-mapping tool alone is worth checking this out, but then you couple that with all the other tools for organizing notes, MLA formatting, and other tools and you have the ability to maximize you efforts on the actual work, instead of the organization of your work.

even if all you do is have a copy of this with you as a back up in case your  operating system breaks, it can save a students life when there is a deadline looming.

[detron]

A Linux distro that will turn your existing Windows install into a virtual machine available from within Linux

RoboLinux  is a linux distro with an extra trick up it's sleeve.

it can make a virtual machine from your main Windows install (XP and 7,  NOT 8  ) available as a virtual machine inside RoboLinux.

so if your Windows 7 has all the tools you need installed, they will be available inside the virtual machine, just like if you had booted up Windows itself.

to take it one step further and simplify the new user experience, the RoboLinux team will actually make you a custom install for your printer or wireless needs.
Yes, they will take info provided from you, and make an install that will get your hardware working, if possible.  This is usually the biggest issue for new users.  if you have a laptop and the wireless does not work, it is not that useful when at school, or away from home.  Linux can operate almost all wireless devices, but setting it up to do so may not be a straight forward task.  RoboLinux team is trying to help the users of it's Operating System get past this road block.

the 4 videos on the main page http://www.robolinux.org/ are very helpful in deciding if this is a distro you would like to try.


this is a top notch distro, that has been growing fast in the past couple of years.

[Whoey]

Installed Darktable... I think I'm in love...

[detron]

Installed Darktable... I think I'm in love...

   I know right?  :

glad you like it