Technology, Computers and Smartphones

[Deleted]

poorfrances, here's an illustrated guide to installing a hard drive, which will show you how to open up the case and find the general area where the hard drive is. This is how to remove the hard drive.

(I was going to replace my nearly-full hard drive until I came to my senses and hired a professional. Good thing, because something went wrong and he spent about 10 hours fixing it!)

[180deg]

foxfair said:

Can somebody tell me how to download website files? I have a website. I am moving. I am switching hosting companies. The new company needs the website files. They aren't stored on my computer. I don't have Frontpage. Can I download these files to my computer? How?

Urgh I wish I knew more about this stuff!

If it's only a few pages and the site's still active the down-and-dirty easy way is go to the site, then File>Save As (or Save Page As in Firefox). Make sure the Save As Type is "Web Page, complete" and save to your computer. Then go to the next page and repeat, until everything's done. This should save as HTML webpages and folders of image etc. files.

You can open the HTML webpage in your browser - do this offline to make sure you have everything. Then, depending on your host, you might be able to just hand over the files/folders as is, or you might need to alter the HTML, which you can do in Notepad (you don't need Frontpage). If you want to see the HTML (which is really geeky interesting if you haven't seen it before) use View>Source.

[Deleted]

Up to now I have only come across commercial products: MacScan and InternetCleanup4. Both cost about $ 30.- (Canadian). On a positive note, there is hardly any spyware (if any at all) for Macs.
The best protection not so much against spyware itself, but its actions, is to properly configure your firewall. If you close down all the ports you do not absolutely need, you are more than half-way there.

[laconicchick]

There seems to be something wrong with the speakers on my laptop. They were working fine yesterday, and now they are really, really quiet. They seem to be on the highest volume, but I can barely hear a whisper out of either of them. Thoughts?

[Deleted]

You've rebooted, I take it? And, if you're a Windows gal, have you double-clicked on the li'l speaker icon in your System Tray (lower right) to make sure all the sliders are at the top? (You can, alternately, go to Control Panel > Sounds & Audio > Audio > Sounds Playback > Volume to get to the same panel).

[laconicchick]

Yeah, I rebooted, and yes, I checked the little speaker icon. Everything is on high. Even if I plug actual speakers into the microphone... hole (port? I don't know), it's nowhere near as loud as it should be, even if the speakers are turned up high. It is also a fairly new laptop (bought in December).

ETA: My computer seems to have spontaneously fixed itself. Should I get it looked into, or wait and see if it happens again? My instinct is the latter, but it could be inconvenient.

[chonies]

For those of you who have recently acquired the MacBook, could you give some advice? I'm trying to decide whether or not to take advantage of the student discount on Apple.com (which end 9/16) and I would appreciate any and all comments--the more screamingly honest, the better. I would just be buying the 13" basic model, not the pro, not the upgrades for more memory, and Apple Care. I've had Apples and Macs in the past, but not since the mid 1990s, and I...just need a hug and gentle persuasion before I send off a giant chunk of money.

There are no Apple stores near me, so I can't go visit them in person, which I don't even know if that is a plus or a minus.

[Deleted]

So this weekend I finally set about destroying the old computer. The problem is, once my friend and I managed to pry the thing open we couldn't figure out where the hard drive was. Certainly it was nothing removable. So what we did was cut a bunch of wires and drench the insides in ammonia cleaning liquid (we didn't have any coca-cola). So someone please tell me that that should've taken care of it.

[chonies]

Probably. But there's kill software too.

Like Blanche Devereux said, better late[/color] than pregnant.

ETA: Whoopsies. I had a feeling this had been going on a bit--the software would be useless if there's no booting. Your drive is probably quite thoroughly dead. Rejoice, therefore, in the new McQueen!

[Deleted]

The reason why I threw the computer out, though, is that apparently some catastrophic virus got into it and erased the OS. So kill software was pretty much not an option because while I was able to restore Windows it was all funky and apparently my network connections were destroyed, so no Internet.