Octopus Overlords

Where does everyone buy their parts these days? I'm trying to move away from Amazon as much as possible, and I don't trust Newegg anymore.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:21 pm Where does everyone buy their parts these days? I'm trying to move away from Amazon as much as possible, and I don't trust Newegg anymore.

definitely add B&H to your list

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/c ... s/ci/26717

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sun Jul 03, 2022 1:21 pm Where does everyone buy their parts these days? I'm trying to move away from Amazon as much as possible, and I don't trust Newegg anymore.

I use Newegg if not Amazon. You don’t trust Newegg to do what exactly…deliver what they sold you? I’ve personally never had an issue, but anecdotal obv.

Amazon Fire HD 10 refurb is as low as $70, and that's BEFORE Prime Day. That's LOWER than the smaller Fire HD 8 refurb. Guess they have a glut of those...

Well, I just put my 20-year-old Samsung monitor out to pasture because I don't think my laptop can adapt to its DVI and VGA ports. I hate to throw away something that still works and served me well for many years, but I don't have any use for it anymore. So off to Staples it goes. Erm, I mean, it's going to live on a farm where it can frolic all day with other obsolete technology.

Why not wait a few days for Prime Day?

I have prime but zero money.Does not compute.

My wife got a HDMI to VGA adapter dongle to use our old monitor as a second screen when she need it on her work laptop. It works just fine.

Hrothgar wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 12:32 am My wife got a HDMI to VGA adapter dongle to use our old monitor as a second screen when she need it on her work laptop. It works just fine.

Hmm, maybe I'll reconsider retiring the Sammy. Have to take a closer look at its ports and make sure that's really what it wants.

They make all kinds of connectors...displayport to DVI is one. Im sure they make them all.

My stored away old Sony Trinitron is so old it still have a built in power cord and I think its only SVGA. If I ever dig it out one day I bet theres a connector for it...I hope lol. Like Ill ever dig it out

Kraken wrote: ↑Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:07 pm Well, I just put my 20-year-old Samsung monitor out to pasture because I don't think my laptop can adapt to its DVI and VGA ports.

adapters and cables are very easy to find and inexpensive:
https://www.ebay.com/b/Dvi-To-Hdmi-Adap ... 7023304019
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dv ... 34&_sop=15

get a DVI adapter rather than VGA as DVI is digital and VGA is analog.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 4:07 pm My stored away old Sony Trinitron is so old it still have a built in power cord and I think its only SVGA. If I ever dig it out one day I bet theres a connector for it...I hope lol. Like Ill ever dig it out

do you mean S-Video? a bit more expensive but still doable. and with bonus composite A/V connectors as well:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/255571793793
https://www.ebay.com/itm/115447779223

Think its VGA. 17" SFII. Used it until 2007.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 10:10 pm Think its VGA.

https://www.ebay.com/b/Vga-To-Hdmi-Conv ... 7023403911
https://www.ebay.com/b/Active-Displaypo ... 7023357089

Yup figured there was stuff out there. Its amazing you could still use old stuff. I loved that monitor so much. But my eyes got older. Sometimes I wonder how I sat here and played games on a 14" display or watched movies from my bed on a 19" screen. Back then The Dukes of Hazard was clear as day. Now Id be wondering if that was Daisy or Bo.

since it's a CRT, a far better use for it would be with old game consoles via a VGA to RF/composite/component adapter (everything up to PS2/original XBOX/GameCube for sure), as pre-LCD consoles are intended to render 'properly' with actual scanlines and VBLANKs.

example of VGA to component transcoder/converter:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/174151197806

and decent CRTs can fetch a good price on the secondhand market just for this purpose.

Had a very weird Windows issue.

Every once in a while my CPU would overheat, despite having a liquid cooler on it. My CPU temp would spike into the 90s (C) range (it should be at 50s) I check CPU graph and it says CPU cycles are consumed by QmxNetworkSync, which is an updater for a music program I barely use. So uninstall it, right? Now quite. The program itself is fine. It's just this updater.

So just on a whim, I run Windows Compatibility Wizard on it.

Windows say it should be run with Win8 compatibility settings.

I set it to Win8 compat settings, run it... No more CPU spikes. At least what I can see. But the only to know for sure is to reboot the system.

Kasey Chang wrote: ↑Fri Jul 15, 2022 2:49 pm Every once in a while my CPU would overheat, despite having a liquid cooler on it. My CPU temp would spike into the 90s (C) range (it should be at 50s)

Hmm, I never really pay attention to my CPU temps. I do have a desktop readout of my GPU. In graphics intense games like the AC series it will be about 80 C, which Nvidia says it should be. Do CPUs usually run that much cooler than GPUs?

Much hotter, according to my experience. Right now, Speccy says my CPU is about 50 C, but GPU is about 31 C, both at near idle. I don't think I've seen my GPU go over 60C unless I'm running Folding@home at max or 3DMark.

hitbyambulance wrote: ↑Sat Jul 09, 2022 9:05 pm

Kraken wrote: ↑Fri Jul 08, 2022 10:07 pm Well, I just put my 20-year-old Samsung monitor out to pasture because I don't think my laptop can adapt to its DVI and VGA ports.

adapters and cables are very easy to find and inexpensive:
https://www.ebay.com/b/Dvi-To-Hdmi-Adap ... 7023304019
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=dv ... 34&_sop=15

get a DVI adapter rather than VGA as DVI is digital and VGA is analog.

Alright, I rescued my old Sammy from the recycle pile and ordered a male/male HDMI to DVI-D cable for $5. If it works (and there's no reason to think it won't) that old monitor might have more years of service ahead of it.

I bet its happy.

Well now my printer isn't part of my computer. This should be fun in my buzz'd up state. Not ready to deal with a wayward printer today yeesh

EDIT: Found it!!

was wondering why i was having memory issues on my work laptop. just tried to close Firefox - "Are you sure you want to close 2,562 tabs?"

i ... have a problem.

Jeez man, and I thought I had a problem with 10 tabs.

and also the downside of having 32GB RAM installed

Danger for those running Windows XP laptops!

some Windows XP-era laptops did end up taking exception to the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” because it contained a sound that crashed their hard drives.

According to Chen, an unnamed “major computer manufacturer” discovered that some of their computers were crashing when trying to play the song and that playing the song on one laptop could even crash another computer nearby that was just minding its own business. The manufacturer also discovered that the issue cropped up on other companies’ laptops as well

Impressive job Janet!

Pyperkub wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 12:27 pm Danger for those running Windows XP laptops!

some Windows XP-era laptops did end up taking exception to the music video for Janet Jackson’s “Rhythm Nation” because it contained a sound that crashed their hard drives.

According to Chen, an unnamed “major computer manufacturer” discovered that some of their computers were crashing when trying to play the song and that playing the song on one laptop could even crash another computer nearby that was just minding its own business. The manufacturer also discovered that the issue cropped up on other companies’ laptops as well

Impressive job Janet!

i'd say instead that's good work on the part of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis

New monitors made by LG can be flat or let you curve them yourself. Id NEVER get the curve right for me like that. I have not ever used a curved monitor so I have no idea the ideal curve. I didn't know OLED panels didn't need backlights. Also for the love of anything people stop doing dumbass thumbnails on YT videos. Ive hated them for years. Enough already. Even Paul is doing them now. Sigh.

I need to vent...

<vent>

Folks here with an IT bent occasionally mention the stress of dealing with a family member (usually a parent) who is not computer savvy or worse. It is really an issue when you are married to the person ...

So I happen to be standing behind my wife when she is firing up her Thunderbird client and there's a pop-up saying it needs her Gmail password (she gets her Gmail through Thunderbird, long story ). She grumbles and closes the pop-up. I ask her about it and she says oh, it's been happening the past few days and she just closes the pop-up. I asked her to let me look, she grumbles and I notice that her last Gmail email is from days ago. So I restart Thunderbird and it again asks for the Gmail password. When I enter what I know to be the password I entered for her when I sent it up it tells me that the password is wrong and that there was a change three days ago

So I ask my wife, did you change a password three days ago? Yes she tells me. Does she remember what is was for? No. Does she remember the new password? No . I eventually find the way to change the password to something that once again I'll keep track of. I remind my wife to not change passwords without telling me and I get that harrumph that tells me we'll be going through all this again sometime.

</vent>

Hmmm My Thunderbird hasn't worked in days. It has a popup saying login failed. All I can do is retry or enter new password. Seems strange. I just close it too lol but its my ISP email I only used for junk.

Could be a problem with Thunderbird itself rather than the account. I used to use Thunderbird until I had trouble logging in, and I realized it must have been some corrupted file or something. Tried getting help from my ISP, who promptly told me they didn't support it and pretty much told me to use Microsoft Mail or Outlook.

I used to use Outlook but it died and went away so I was forced to switch....guess I wont get to use my isp email...who cares.

Rumpy wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:12 pm Could be a problem with Thunderbird itself rather than the account. I used to use Thunderbird until I had trouble logging in, and I realized it must have been some corrupted file or something. Tried getting help from my ISP, who promptly told me they didn't support it and pretty much told me to use Microsoft Mail or Outlook.

Nope, as it turned out she had changed her Google account password because they had sent her a reminder that she hadn't changed it in awhile . So she changed the password in her Chrome browser which caused Thunderbird to not be able to access the account.

She is normally very good at keeping track of all her passwords and account numbers. She keeps them on an 8.5x11 sheet she has in a transparency on the desk next to her . Years ago I started hiding that sheet anytime we went away. She still gets pissed if I forget to dig out the sheet after we return.

And it's printed from a Microsoft Word file she keeps, unencrypted, on her computer. I've tried to convince her to use encryption or keep it on a removable drive or hell, just write it out by hand. No joy . Every time we come home from a trip I expect the house to be burgled, the computer gone and our accounts ransacked. Life is fun!

Life sucks again for me..was calm and centered not mad at a thing...now I hate it all with a passion again.

Im actually able to use my password in Thunderbird but then it says......

Login to server mobile.charter.net with username (my name at the isp)

So probably a problem with Charter / Spectrum. I have a VERY old chartertn.net account and they got rid of that like 10 or more eyars ago but i got to keep mine cause id had it so long. maybe they finally dumped the tn one...shrug. Dont care .

Daehawk wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 6:42 pm Life sucks again for me..was calm and centered not mad at a thing...now I hate it all with a passion again.

Daehawk wrote: ↑Mon Aug 29, 2022 7:26 pm ...shrug. Dont care .

Damnit!...Finally got tired of my numpad INS key being half way crap so took it out...one of the little plastic tabs that holds the spring was off the key and hald the spring was on the other side. Damnit. I had a HELL of a time putting this thing back together in 2018 when I cleaned it. Knew I was in for hell. 45 min later I was mad as hell and got the super glue out and glued those little plastic tabs onto the key LOL weee...it will take me prizing and distorting the spring to get it off next time ineed to but Ill be damned if Iwas gonna fuck at it all night.

Then I didnt notice the drop of super glue that fell on my steel mousepad...and swiped it with the side palm of my hand. And dont listen to anyone that says nail polish remover works..it NEVER has but I tried...took me a half hour to scrape it off my hand and mousepad. That pad is never going to be the same after I took my switchblade to it...have no razor.

ill be glad when i can afford a kb.

EDIT: Dagnabbit! The mousepad was glued to the heating pad under it...lucky it was just the hp cover. I keep one there for cold weather..this steel mousepad gets so cold my hand goes numb.

Your episodes are like watching an episode of Red Green's Adventures with Bill.

Cept I didn't use ducktape

Oh, Bill didn't. They were adventures in misadventure. He'd always start with something inevitably simple that would snowball from there. One thing would always lead to another

Scammers have given up...they titled their latest email scam at me with "Please send your personal details"