Tech Support

I might have set up a forum like this before but I'm too lazy to check now. I thought it would be nice to have a forum where you can tap into the vast knowledge base of FHDC members. So here are my questions. One actually has to do with FHDC, they both have to do with Mozilla. First off. I switched computers and I'm now using Firefox. Since I've made the change I can't see the temperature displayed on the FHDC front page. The link to the weather still works. Is there some setting that I can change to make it work? Secondly. I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird for my email. Every time I turn it on it says, "Do you want to use Mozilla Thunderbird as your default email application?" I click on yes. Then it asks me the next time anyway. OK one more mozilla question. When I start typing in the address bar it gives me a drop down menu. I used to have it set to autocomplete. I liked that better. I can't see how to do that on firefox.

Not having used Firefox on PC extensively, I probably won't be a lot of help. But, on the Mac anyway there is an option in the Preferences -> Web Features under Load Images that has a check box which says "for the originating web site only". If that is checked, try unchecking it.

For your Thunderbird, try this page.

For inline autocomplete, see if this helps: inline autocomplete

Or, no plugin required for inline autocomplete:

http://dougal.gunters.org/blog/2004/12/15/firefox-inline-autocomplete

Good ideas but they didn't work :-(

Hmmm I tested the about:config one myself and it DID work. Did you make sure you were using the correct case for all the letters and did you restart FireFox after?

This is weird. After all these months it started working when I didn't change anything. I just noticed that I can see the temperature on the FHDC front page.

Perhaps you've added that particular server to the image blocker.

Tools | Options | Web Features, then click on "Exceptions" and see if the server the weather hosting is from is blocked

Nothing is working. gah. I think my room has a computer curse in it.

The whole asking you again and again if you want it to be your default browser is typically if you are bouncing back and forth between it and something else..
The second you open up something like IE it doesn't feel loved anymore..

If he's using thunderbird as a browser, that's a neat trick.
;)

eek.
for some reason I read it as firefox..
'swhat happens when I'm reading more than one thing at a time..

doh

Clearly you don't have enough certifications or Ghost experience.

That was it. I was connecting through earthlink softwear. When I switched to using the MS softwear it stopped asking.

Under "tools", "options". Run through "privacy", cookies and "web features" and see if you are blocking images from fruhead or the weather service. I use firefox and the weather banner displays just fine.

I had checked that. I am just convinced that this computer hates me.

Well, geez! Why didn't you just tell us that in the first place?

The answer is simple, hit CTRL-ALT-SLEDGEHAMMER and go get a new computer!

Duh!

I am trying to burn a mix CD mainly from songs I have on CD. How do I go about it on iTunes? The only way I can see to do it is to copy the entire album first onto my hard drive. I want to just use a few songs from each album.

AFAIK, you can't do that... or... if you can, not easily.

Just think of it as a good excuse to get around to ripping your cds to your computer. :)

I don't have a CD on me to test right now... but I believe, by either unchecking the unwanted songs on the CD, or by selecting the ones you do want, you can copy to the PC only the songs you want to copy.

-- Pauley

oh, yes... THAT is definitely true.

I've done that at work before.

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that iTunes in Windows (any rls) is a serious resource hog?� I only used iTunes for a day or two, mainly because I don't care for a music management interface (winamp suits me fine), but I wonder if my theory on iTunes whorage is consistent with what others would expect.�

I'm assuming iTunes for Windows is a port, firstly.� I'm also assuming that Mac hardware has amazingly less permutations for system configurations, since most if not all Mac hardware is 1st party, right?� So, if the software was written for a fairly limited amount of hardware configurations in Macs, is it safe to assume that iTunes for Windows is mostly, if not completely unoptimized for x86 hardware?� It makes sense to me that Apple would only minimally care about optimizing iTunes for Windows, at least only enough to the extent that it would execute without random faults.� I'm willing to bet that most iTunes users aren't running many other CPU-taxing processes (although firefox loooves ram, kids), as everyone that I personally see using iTunes never really has anything else running.�

This, to me, smells like a lazy port.� I'm no coder, and while I have a pretty damn good understanding of programming logic, I wanted to see if I had the right idea up in this beeatch.� I really just think iTunes Win runs like crap, and this is what I came up with as to why.�

*I've been awake since 10:30pm on thursday (retail!), so bear with me if I'm making absolutely crap for sense.� My god I have no idea what I'm talking about at this point.� I probably just wanted to vent about my distaste for iTunes for Windows, but in a quasi-productive manner.� That's probably it.� I like Macs a lot more these days, Apple earned my respect the day they added right click functions :-P

I've heard that from other Windows users, too but I always had different experiences.
I ran iTunes on a desktop without problems (3ghz, HT CPU) so that doesn't count but am now running it on a Notebook (Pentium M) and my CPU usage with only iTunes running in the background (and about 20+ icons in the system tray) is between 0-2% :D
No probs at all - not even while photoshopping ;)

yeah, I have no problems with it either... but it IS kinda slow and boggy at times.
Especially on a slower machine.

I notice no problems at all using it my home machine, but that, like yours, is 3ghz with a gig of ram, so..... :)

I am, however, using it a 1ghz laptop just fine... though response time is pretty slow. The interface just FEELS slow, you know? Slow to respond to input, etc.... slow to respond to a disc being put in...

That said, I freakin love it... and until something equal and faster... or better.. comes along, I'm stickin with it. :)

Oh, I will add, however, that the shuffle functionality in the new version is awful.... why is it that nobody can program a decent randomizer? How hard could it possibly be to tell it to play in a random order, but not playing anything that's been played in the past, say, week... or two weeks.... and not to play two songs by one artist back to back?

hmm. i guess the most likely answer to my own question is that iTunes happens to work better with certain processors than others, which would make it pretty similar to like, everything else that has been ported with minimal tweaking. now that i think about it, i actually dont WANT to think about it. hell, i just worked 15 hours in a row. my brain shouldn't even be FUNCTIONING right now.

in regards to the randomizer... i'm convinced that they call it shuffle because 'random' would be a bold lie. whatever algorithm they are using to calculate the randomization probably has absolutely no variables in it. i recall someone having done a reasonably in-depth study on this, and iirc, their results showed that the shuffle mode is incredibly biased. as to what it's based on, got me. i just don't see what sort of motivation apple could have for writing such a stupid set of instructions, whatevarrr they be. as far as im concerned, the only efficient way to generate a random number is something along the lines of grabbing 'random' decimal places from pi. bleh.

regarding the "randomizer"..... this wasn't the case with the old itunes, but IS the case with the new one (going backwards, anyone?) :


If you want to play a song specifically... one that's played in the last 3 days..... you roll through the list and you double click it to play it..... it'll play it... then it will continue to play the "random" songs it played after that song the last time... IN THE EXACT SAME ORDER.

laaaame

Here's how I overcame this in iTunes for Mac.

I set "upcoming songs" to "0"

I then cleared the current playlist (CMD-A, delete).

Then, play some songs. If you decide you want to go back and play a song again from the list of already played songs, go back and then click "Refresh" and you will get new songs.

eta: And, this behavior makes sense to me, because iTunes is creating a random playlist, not simply playing random songs. So if you go back to an earlier point in the playlist, it's going to continue to play the playlist. It may not be the behavior you want, but it makes sense logically.

Pi is pseudo-random, not random as is obvious as you can always predict the next digit with a rather simple algorithm. If you really want random you base it on the decay of a radioactive isotope. That would actually be practical and not dangerous. It would need a tiny amount of a slightly radioactive substance, less than you find in your smoke detector.

Thunderbird started automatically quoting when I respond to an email. How do I stop that? I can't find that on the options menu.

This one is non-obvious, and I have no idea why it's in the account settings...

Windows:
Tools | Account Settings...
Composition & Addressing

uncheck "Automatically quote the original message when replying"

Thank You!

I need the collective wisdom of Fruheads again. I can't get into my yahoo account. It says the password is wrong. I suspect that someone hacked into my account. They must have changed some of my personal info as it says it is wrong when I asked to have the password mailed to me. Anything I can do?

What You Can Do If Your Yahoo Account is Hacked

Thanks!
I can always depend on you guys.

I wrote to Yahoo and explained what happened and I have my account back. It was actually fairly painless. It should have been easier though. They asked me my security question and I answered it. If they had done that on the web page when I didn't know my password I could have gotten it immediately.