Posted in Computers & Tech / Hardware Workshop
Author: Grafitti Total-Replies: 10

You can also buy a small box that has one input and two outputs.. of course depending on what you spend you get either simply 2 displays the same, whereas others can split the image over 2 monitors if your card supports it. it should, if it's anything decent.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Search Engines / Google
Author: Mish Total-Replies: 2

Good. But change it to Blackle.

http://blackle.com/

Quote:
How is Blackle saving energy?

Blackle was created by Heap Media to remind us all of the need to take small steps in our everyday lives to save energy. Blackle searches are powered by Google Custom Search.

Blackle saves energy because the screen is predominantly black. "Image displayed is primarily a function of the user's color settings and desktop graphics, as well as the color and size of open application windows; a given monitor requires more power to display a white (or light) screen than a black (or dark) screen." Roberson et al, 2002

In January 2007 a blog post titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year proposed the theory that a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity of the search engine. Since then there has been skepticism about the significance of the energy savings that can be achieved and the cost in terms of readability of black web pages.

We believe that there is value in the concept because even if the energy savings are small, they all add up. Secondly we feel that seeing Blackle every time we load our web browser reminds us that we need to keep taking small steps to save energy.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Operating Systems / Windows (All Versions)
Author: rbf1787 Total-Replies: 9

Dual monitors are awesome, but how cool would it be if you could get an image to span across both monitors, rather than the image being cloned on both monitors?

This is how to do it:

take and image that has the dimensions desired, save it on your hardrive.

then right click on your desktop --> properties --> desktop tab --> choose "none" for wallpaper --> click Customize Desktop --> "web" tab --> "new" button --> Browse --> double click the picture you are looking for --> "OK" --> "OK" --> "OK" --> the image is now on the desktop, however it may be off center.

simply hover your cursor over the top of the image, a tab should show up, click and drag the image to where you want it.

That's it. enjoy

thanks
matt

Posted in Computers & Tech / What's New...?
Author: MediYama Total-Replies: 10

I just learned that if I change my skin to Windows Classic (in Windows XP) and don't have a background image, my computer goes remarkably faster. Really nice , I actually noticed Adobe Photoshop starting up faster.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Operating Systems / Windows (All Versions)
Author: Ronel Total-Replies: 22


I can't believe that thing cost too much trouble!

This are certain "too much parenting" in Vista. (Mosty problems are in web browsing)

1) It doesn't want me to see the logo or the site of ImageFilez.
2) What does "image.google.com" have something that is worthy to be banned?
3) It has problems with google! When I entered into their search engine(I typed Table Settings), it was fine. The next thing I knew was it restricted me into every seach result!

4) That control should change its conditions for web browsing!

Anyone listening....Just too much control!

Anyone know why?

Posted in Computers & Tech / Operating Systems / Windows (All Versions)
Author: (G)franzano Total-Replies: 7

colour ploblemsWindows Xp, How To Re-enable Show All Possible Color

I have just formated my pc..How can I get back the screen resolution that enable viewing images by picassa? my scrren resolution for now is 640 by 480..Can I upgrade ths resolution to 800 by 600 with 16 bits? how? 

-question by franzano

Posted in Computers & Tech / How-To's and Tutorials / Hardware related Stuff
Author: rbf1787 Total-Replies: 67

I'm sure 95 % of you are running your system with one monitor. Primarily because that is the default for any computer. What if i told you that running your system with dual monitors or even triple monitors will increase your user performance extensively?

Ways it helps:
- can play some games while instant messaging, writing emails, watching movie on other screen, looking up something online, etc...
- Helps with working on websites or other programming, because code can be on one side, while the preview image is on the other monitor.
- Spreads the space out so you have more table top room, which allows you to use it more efficiently.
- Working on essays: you can have your word processor on one side and your source on the other monitor.

their are an exponensial amount of pro's to having dual/trip monitors.

this is how to get it working:

in order for all of this to work, you obviously need another monitor or a tv next to your computer.

Step 1:
- check your computer hardware guide to see what kind of graphic card your computer supports (AGP, or PCI).
- after checking which kind of port your computer offers buy a video card, a good place to do research for one is http://tomshardware.com and an excelent place to buy is http://newegg.com
- Nvidia is better w/ dual monitors than Radeon are more effective w/ games.

Step 2:
- now that you have your video card, it's time to install it.
- Make sure your computer is turned off for this next step.
- take the case off of your computer and your motherboard manual should show you where the video card port is.
- it should click right in.
- after the hardware is installed into your computer, you now must instal the software required to run it.

Step 3: FOR A MONITOR
- plug the primary monitor into the video card monitor port, and plug the secondary monitor into the default computer monitor port.

Step 3:FOR A TV WITH SVIDEO
- if you don't have an svideo chord that can reach from your tv to your computer then buy one or move your tv closer.
- plug the chord into the svideo input in the video card, then plug the other end into the tv svideo input.

Step 3: FOR A TV W/OUT SVIDEO OPTION
- buy an Svideo --> RCA male/IN adapter, at radioshack and best buy they are about 20 dollars, but i bought one on ebay fro 99 cents w/out shipping.
- then plug the svideo chord to the svideo option in the video card panel, then plug the other end to the adapter, then the adapter to one of your rca inputs.

Step 4:
- turn on your computer, a prompt should come up saying your computer has revieled new hardware. put in the software installation cd, which should be included, if not go to the website of your video card manufacturer and download the driver for the specified video card.
- after the driver/software is installed install any extra required programs, i.e. upgraded directX version... restart your computer.

Step 5:
- both monitors should be working when the computer is rebooted. If not then right click on the desktop--> properties --> settings --> click on the video card monitor should be a little box w/ monitors, activate the check box that say "Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor." if already activated, go to the other monitor.
- if there is only one monitor click "advanced" --> click the tab of the video card --> dual displays or display settings.

any questions just pm me or email me

thanks,
matt

Posted in Computers & Tech / Hardware Workshop
Author: vizskywalker Total-Replies: 38

None of you are stupid. I'm going to demonstrate with one example.

Microsoft Power Toys lets you have 4 desktops at a time and switch between them. That is fact one.

Video Cards allow for multiple pages - different sets of images to be displayed on monitor. Only one page is displayed at a time. To reduce flicker, an unused page is changed, then switched to, so the screen is not updating while being redrawn. Fact two.

Some Video Cards allow for multiple outputs and allow different pages to be sent to different outputs. Fact Three.

Some software utilizes facts one, two, and three to place two of the four desktops on different pages and send each page to a different monitor. the software then usually allows moving th emouse to the edge of one of the desktops to switch control to the other desktop.

You can have different things displayed at the same time, and changed at the same time. But unless you are weird, only one display will receive input at a time.

~viz

Posted in Computers & Tech / Hardware Workshop
Author: Darasen Total-Replies: 9

Since I know Wutske is bright enough to have tried all the obvious things I will suggest a thing or two that has fixed PC's for me before that are far less obvious.

Try removing everything from the unit anything attached to the motherboard, including the CPU, but the the power supply connector. Power on for a few seconds then off. Put it all together and power it up. This has worked for me in the past a couple times when everything else has failed. I have no idea why.

If the Dell in question is one of the desktop ones and not a tower of any sort it may have the odd PCI car the turns into sideways PCI slots. I had a Dell I worked on once where that card went flaky and removing it fixed the system.

Oddest suggestion: Once more if the unit is one ef Dell's flat-ish ones attempt to determine how the unit was oriented previously. (you stated it was second hand) Look at the feet on it to see if it was used side ways or flat. In that position see if it starts. I know that sounds stupid but have seen PC's that will operate in only a certain position. This is because they developed tiny faults in the board for one reason or another and short out when placed in the "wrong" position. I worked at one place installing new units where the in house tech dept. over stacked the Dells (about 20 high) while imaging them. The ones on the bottom suffered this condition.

Not a possible off the wall fix but as a trouble shooting step just try powering it on many times successively. If one time in twenty to fifty it actually boots then the motherboard has likely gone to that great Taiwanese factory in the sky (or at least is walking towards the light). My brothers PC did this

Posted in Others / The Lobby (No post counts)
Author: MajesticTreeFrog Total-Replies: 23



Where did you get that background image?


My background: http://majestictreefrog.astahost.com/screen.jpg

Posted in General Discussion / Computer Talk
Author: Atomic0 Total-Replies: 17

I have a Samsung 2493HM 24-inch monitor with a matte LCD panel. It doesn't reflect light coming from outside, and displays images and text with high contrast without blurring. This may be due to the monitor's 1000:1 contrast ratio (Dynamic Contrast 10,000:1). I originally thought my monitor was glossy until I checked the specifications, although I think there is plastic or glass covering the LCD panel.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Operating Systems / Windows (All Versions)
Author: mikesoft Total-Replies: 4

So I have this problem, hopefully someone will help me out.

This may sound weird, but my PC plays 3D games surprisingly fast (for an old P4 2.4GHz PC). And I mean games like call of duty 4, SC: double agent, rainbow six vegas, world of warcraft, etc etc. Of course I have 1 GB of RAM, win XP Pro, geforce 7600gs agp card (great v-card btw). I play COD4 like at medium settings for video, even some things in high settings, except for shadows which are off, and I get a pretty good amount of frames per second, really smooth gameplay.

The problem is that when I run flash applications it kinda runs slow, slow FPS and stuff. Same thing happens with a lot of 2D applications, like OLD GAMES.. i mean really old games, DOS games to be precise. I don't know why this is happening, it should be the other way around...

Anyway, I think maybe it has to do with the DX installation, directdraw? There's this game, Football Manager which is a football (soccer) simulation game which runs in 2D graphics, just texts and images and still I get low FPS...

I have a laptop, same processor, ATI integrated video card, 512 RAM (32 shared), and flash applications run smoothly here. So the problem has to be my PC. It can't be the video card, since this one is new, and with the old one it happened the same. I'm guessing it has to do with drivers, not the video ones but another kind of drivers which are causing this performance drop.

Why I say drivers? easy, because I also have an ubuntu installation and over there flash applications run smoothly like they should... so it's not the hardware, it's not the windows since it's the same one on laptop and this one have been formatted not long ago, so it has to do with drivers.

The only thing different between laptop and desktop (other than video card) is the motherboard of couse, but both have integrated sound. My guess is that the sound driver is causing this, but my question is.. does anyone knows if sound has to do with 2D applications? Why can I run 3D applications so smoothly but 2D applications with such low FPS?

While someone helps me in here, I'm gonna try to update my sound card drivers, or in case these are the latest ones, then I'll try installing old version on the same driver, hopefully that'll do it.

Any other suggestion are deeply welcomed. Thanks a lot.

Posted in Computers & Tech / Designing / Web Design and HTML
Author: Quatrux Total-Replies: 40

Well, I still usually prefer to make the design look good on 800x600, those kind of sites still look good on 1024x768 but with people still using 640x480 to browse the net, well they need to understand that they have this resolution and they need to scroll due to it, so I don't think people need to target that kind of resolution..

Moreover, it is hard to create a layout to fit everyone, I mean by setting the width to display 80% or 90% or even 100% for example, on very big resolutions, the site may look very weird and on very small resolutions everything can't fit normally, so in conclusion you still are targeted to 800x.. and 1280x.. Another problem with having such a layout is with margins, paddings and images which look big on small resolutions and look small on big resolutions.. In my opinions, forums are very good looking with 90% of width, because usually forums are full of text, but for example, did you ever try to browse astahost forum on a 640x or 800x resolution, it still looks much better on 1024x or 1280x widths of pixels, so I think that it is any webdesigners taste, the traditional way would be to still fit it for 800x600 and the new webdesigners would really want to fit it on their own resolution or for major resolutions people are using, it also depends on what about the site is and for who it is!

Posted in Computers & Tech / Software / Multimedia
Author: Mark420 Total-Replies: 8

Ive hacked an old xbox to bits and made it into a GeexBox
Ive got an old p2 500mhz with 128megs of RAM made that into a Geexbox.

Take a look at this ...boots from a CD or DVD and turns virtually anything into a media center.
You can modify soo much of the Iso Image before you burn it also..I burned it onto a re-writable tried it first time..then modified the backgrounds some of the Xvid settings.channels for my tuner..then burned it again with these new settings...worked with my TV card right away when i tried it on my pc with hardly any config.
Plays mp3s and movies-Xvids divx..u name it!! plays DVDs fine.

Its well worth a try out for the price of a blank disc GeexBox Homepage

Posted in General Discussion / Science & Technology
Author: jeremycollins Total-Replies: 9

Microsoft has come up with the newest technology in the computer world. You may have already heard of it, but I think it's awesome. The Microsoft ^Surface is the newest technology for computers. It's a big touch screen. It is flat like a table, and you interact with it using your hands, and other objects. It acts as a table, you eat on it, however, you can play games, go to the internet, draw/paint, etc.

It is the most amazing interactive device out there. I think everyone will want one. You can put your digital camera on the surface (just by placing it on the surface of the computer) and in about a half of a second, all your images/video will pop up on the screen, and you can move them, size them, play/view them. Then, you can set a phone on the screen, and slide the pics over toward the phone, and they zap onto your phone! Realy cool. Just go there and you'll see what I mean!

Learn about the Microsoft Surface Computer!!!