******** Thread now full, see volume 13 ********
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=22331
In this thread you may ask any computer related question for which you need help, advice, suggestions or whatever.
Usual rules apply,
No motoring related discussion,
No politics,
No Speeding, speed cameras, traffic calming
No arguments or slanging matches
Nothing which I think is not following the spirit of the thread
Nothing that risks the future of this site (please see the small print for details www.honestjohn.co.uk/credits/index.htm )
Any of the above will be deleted. If the thread becomes difficult to maintain it will simply be removed.
There is a wealth of knowledge in here, much of which is not motoring related, but most of which is useful.
This is Volume 12. Previous Volumes will not be deleted.
A list of previous volumes can be found here:-
www.honestjohn.co.uk/forum/post/index.htm?t=20892
|
I recently changed (dialup) ISP and I find that after authentication there is always a delay of app. 63secs before the connection proceeds.
My previous ISP also had this 'feature' on one of the available numbers but on others the connection was instantaneous after authentication.
Anyone know what causes the delay?
|
to dial up to the internet you go through several servers first.
1st is the RAS server, Remote access services or Authentication.
Unless your ISP has this running as a DHCP server you then get your IP address from another server. finally there is the DNS - domain name server.
should be about 5 seconds after authentication, unless the other servers are busy or poorly configured
|
|
Thanks again RF! The odd thing is that with both ISPs the delay is always 63-65 secs, as if it's intended or set to be that way. I have noticed that the IP number is always different.
|
Frostbite, what's the ISP?
With my previous ISP (Freeserve) if you had the "Enable software compression" box ticked, it would take longer to hook up and make a connection with the ISP. It might just be a configuration setting that needs changing in your connection properties.
|
|
Hi Dave. Like you I was with FS, and got this on one of the dialup numbers but not the other three available - they were instant. Now with Freenetname and only one number on offer.
|
Frostbite,
Have you been to the Freenetname support page? support.freenetname.co.uk
Choose your operating system and product connection. You'll then be presented with how to set up your connection. Might be worth while comparing your set up with what they suggest.
|
Yes, thanks Dave. Been there done that....
Don't know if I will stay with them - mailed to say 'going to suggest my friend uses your broadband, can you advise the likely delay in providing their modem and BT doing their bit'.
Just got a mail saying 'BT can't change your line, but we have sent your modem & charged your credit card'
Aaaargh!
|
|
|
|
Now calmed down a little from getting that idiot message yesterday!
I was also advised to clear the checkbox about dialing on the server tab, so did both and it works fine. Thanks for your help Dave.
|
|
|
|
|
afternoon folks,
just come back from "trying"to fettle friends machine,and found that he had no firewalls running, so i've enabled both the "norton" and xp firewalls, closed the windows messenger service that was "enabled" and set him off downloading all the critical updates, 17! of them. he has also 16 ordinary updates to sort through, and although the system was only bought "brand new" in march 2004, the norton virus was feb 2002,so i've told him to update that s well. one prob, is that aol, will not connect whilst the norton firewall is active, so we have to close it to connect, then once on-line, we can enable it again, have i missed doing something, or is this normal?.
by the way, many thanks with your help on this problem,.
billy.
|
|
Two firewalls is excessive IMO. If AOL won't connect with Norton, but will through the Windows one, then leave it at that.
|
If AOL won't connect with Norton, but will through the Windows one, then leave it at that.
Except that the Winows one doesn't block outgoing requests so if you download something nasty it can do its work and you'd never know. Since you'd nevertheless feel secure because you have a firewall it's worse than useless--scandalous would be a better word. And Microsoft seems to agree as they will be updating the firewall in SP2 (thus putting Norton out of business perhaps). I don't know about Norton but Zonealarm allows you to let specific programs connect to the Internet. No doubt there will be something in the Norton settings to do this.
|
|
MS wont be updating the firewall, nothing in firewall functionality will change. It will only be enabled by default (the default now is inactive)
|
MS wont be updating the firewall, nothing in firewall functionality will change. It will only be enabled by default (the default now is inactive)
That's not what it says here:
www.winsupersite.com/reviews/windowsxp_sp2_preview...p
Quote: In XP SP2, ICF has been replaced with a new firewall, appropriately named Windows Firewall. Like ICF, Windows Firewall is a stateful firewall that monitors inbound network traffic, turning away unsolicited connections. Unlike ICF, Windows Firewall is enabled by default, and it protects traffic moving in two ways--inbound and outbound--and not just one-way (inbound), as with ICF. And it includes more functionality as well as a more obvious and more configurable management interface, similar to third party firewall products you might have tried, like ZoneAlarm.
Here:
www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1413404,00.asp
Quote: The new ICF can be enabled and disabled on a per-interface basis. For instance, you might leave it off for the Ethernet connection, but enable it for your wireless network. You can also make global changes across all interfaces. Through a new UI, command line programs, or programmatically, you can open static ports and perform other configurations, such as basic ICMP options. Logging has been improved to include dropped packets and successful connections.
...
There will be a new ICF Permissions List to which an administrator may add a trusted application. When an application on this list needs to open a port, ICF will open it automatically.
And (less clearly) here:
www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/mai...0
I hope that helps.
|
I stand corrected
I must check my facts before i post (slap)
|
|
|
thanks chaps, interesting reading.
just tried to phone him to tell him to keep an eye out for xp(sp2) in the future, but his line is still engaged, must still be downloading, at least he's on the right lines now anyway.
billy.
|
By way of an epilogue to this, there's an interesting article on Wired News about browser hijacks that generate dodgy ads:
www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,63391,00.h...l
|
|
|
|
|
|
I have also been trying to sort out a friend\'s new PC.
We are in Spain, and she bought this machine from Time in the UK.(More for your cash etc.). She has contracted with a local ISP for a dial up connection. I have input all the details necessary, such as account name, password, POP3 & SMTP server details, plus the dial up number supplied.
The thing resolutely refuses to connect, much to my chagrin, as the block\'s PC \"expert\". There seems to be no dial tone and the modem will not even dial any number supplied to it, let alone the one for the ISP.The troubleshooter indicates that the device IS ennabled & working properly!
Two possibilities come to mind, the first being that the internal modem is not working, the second that despite similar looking connections, the phone line from the PC to the telephone network has incompatibilities vis a vis UK to Spanish telephony.
Has any one any thoughts to offer?
Roger.
|
Its the dial tone, not getting the right one for a uk modem
you need to uncheck the \"wait for dial tone\" box on the modem properties.
|
|
|
The Spanish phone socket is physically different (an RJ11 \'American\' one instead of the British type) but the wiring is fairly similar. I seem to remember that there is a difference with the ringer circuit which means that UK bought adapters may well not work quite as you expect them to, but this only applies to phones and modems where you\'ll be accepting incoming connections.
Dial tones are an issue - the modem may well not recognise another country\'s tone, so you can sometimes add a command to the initialisation string to tell it to ignore this and dial anyway. You can often add X1 after the AT in this string, but this is pretty brute force and might stop a few other things working - it\'s often best to try X3 instead and see if your modem supports it. Windows will allow you to do this with a simple checkbox in the connection settings though (wait for dial tone) so try that first of all before you start chucking commands around :)
So, to summarise: Kill the dial tone recognition, fire up the phone dialler and try a few numbers - preferably ones you have access to then and there so you can test it! Mobiles are good for this.
|
|
The cable at the modem end will be an RJ11, they are nearly always the same at that end. you need to toddle to your local pc store and get a new modem cable. \"Modem\" - \"RJ11\" - \"Cable\" - \"Spanish Telecom plug\"
|
|
Malteser might actually get away with just using the modem lead itself as long as it isn\'t one of the Rockwell or US Robotics ones - the Spanish phone system actually uses RJ11 sockets, and so if the modem lead is a typical RJ11-RJ11 with a UK adapter bundled in, he\'ll just have to take the adapter off :) I think it\'s only the mirror image wiring order on UK phone sockets that causes the confusion and raises the need for an adapter.
|
update!
Well, it turned out to be a modem problem.
The engineer who took the tower away said that it appeared that the modem had been set to only dial up Time Computer's ISP - Supanet.
I find this hard to believe. IF this is so it is very sharp practice indeed.
A new modem has sorted out the problem, but at a cost - including call out & time of 130 Euros.
Not much chance of a warranty min Spain!Has anyone heard of Time doing this, or is it rubbish?
Roger.
|
|
Modem is configurable to dial from country you are in.you also need to input any code for your area.so it dials the correct no from the country you specify.ie if all that is wrong you wont get a connection.or if you do it may be dialing through another countrys code and your bill may be very expensive.
|
|
|
>>Has anyone heard of Time doing this, or is it rubbish?
No, its quite correct. One of the PC mags had an article on this recently. Supanet is the house ISP of Time Group; their business connections go way back.
You can get around th problem by uninstalling and reinstalling the modem using generic Conexant drivers (Downloadable from www.conexant.com/support/md_driverassistance.html ), or by installing a softmodem for under a tenner.
Pretty sharp practice on Time\'s part I agree, but apparently not illegal. Caveat Emptor once again. :(
|
|
|
|
|
|
OK, I know this is V sad, but is it possible to run Atari ST games (on 3.5" floppy) on a PC?
If you can stop laughing at me, I'd be grateful to know how...
Cheers........
|
|
you cant read the atari floppy diskettes, they are formatted differently, but you can get an atari emulator for the pc!
|
Cheers RF.
Sorry to sound numb, but how does the emulator work then & what do I do to run them from the Atari disks?
|
|
|
Ok, cancel my last msg - I get it now.
A PC will NOT read Atari formatted disks. A PC will NOT read Atari formatted disks. A PC will NOT read Atari formatted disks...
Doh!
|
|
|
|
Grab a copy of Steem from:
steem.atari.st/
This is a fantastic emulator - really easy to set up, and just drag and drop games into the window to run them. Try to get hold of a copy of Retro Gamer magazine from this month (the gremlin Games cover) as this has the emulator AND plenty of ST games to play with :)
There was one disk format both the PC and ST could read, and that was MS-DOS format/80 tracks/9 sectors/720Kb. You won't really find ST games on these disks though, but you might be able to rescue data.
|
|
|
|
Ipaq GPS advice......
i want to buy an ipaq and GPS (bluetooth). the ipaq will be mainly used for GPS travelling around the UK.
im a bit lost as to what system is best etc?
can anyone recommend a setup package. which ipaq is best? whats the best GPS unit?
im new to this so advice would be appreciated.
thanks in advance
dave
|
Re the ipaq. Volume and screen brightness are important in car use. Try them out in the shops for this.
For your GPS package I would suggest TOMTOM. It is pretty good, they provide (infrequent) updates (some dont)and it has a Points of interest database, that can run a GPS speed camera locator at the same time. Use any Blue tooth GPS module that is compatible with TOMTOM.
If your car has a reflective windscreen you may need a GPS rereadiating attenna.
Check out gpsinformation.net/
|
Re the ipaq. Volume and screen brightness are important in car use. Try them out in the shops for this. For your GPS package I would suggest TOMTOM. It is pretty good, they provide (infrequent) updates (some dont)and it has a Points of interest database, that can run a GPS speed camera locator at the same time. Use any Blue tooth GPS module that is compatible with TOMTOM. If your car has a reflective windscreen you may need a GPS rereadiating attenna. Check out gpsinformation.net/
Agree with you about TomTom. I use Kane car gear and it is a lot less flexible for Points of Interest and map overlays and they seem not to have heard of customer service. I'm still waiting for a reply to a number of emails I sent 3 or 4 weeks ago asking about updated maps. Kane is expensive too.
I'll continue to use Kane for another 12 months, then I'm going to get the TomTom software and maps as I suspect it will prove cheaper than a map-only upgrade on the Kane setup.
|
|
|
|
A friend of mine has a year-old PC running XP home. Her ISP is Tesco.net and she gets to it through an analogue dial-up. She recently complained of poor internet access and inability to send e-mails from outlook express. On the Tesco log-in pane you can see the telephone number that it\'s trying to dial. First attempt was 00000000 (eight zeroes), then it says \"no answer\" and a wierd number beginning 16 comes up. This number has several asterisks in it. If it doesn\'t say the line is busy, it connects and internet use is fine. Trying to send an e-mail through outlook express gives a message from Norton along the lines of \"the server was disconnected while you were sending, go away ...\".
I\'ve looked at the connection in control panel and set it back to how Tesco recommend including the correct phone number(excellent help pages btw) but it\'s back with the odd dial sequence as soon as we try to connect again.
Has some nasty program hijacked her dialler and will she be running up huge telecom bills? Can a normal mortal (me) help her out with some advice from you kind people or does she need professional help?
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
|
If nothing has been intentionally changed, and you haven't noticed anything else going on, then I would guess its been hijacked.
Firstly, can you open the dial up window, chane the phone number, and then connect ? IF so, do so, download a program called "Hijack this" or similar...
www.wilderssecurity.com/bhblaster.html
www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
hjt.wizardsofwebsites.com/
That will egt rid of it.
If you cannot, and you know the username/password/telephone number, then try manually creating a new connection and then do as above.
Failing that, load it down on to a diskette or CD from another machine and then run it on the offending machine.
Whichever, I wouldn't allow it to connect to whatever number its connectign to at the moment - it can't be good news.
|
Thanks, Mark.
Hawkeye
-----------------------------
Stranger in a strange land
|
|
|
|
2 Dumb questions from the colonies:
1. I am in the southernmost part of our great metropolis. I have (what they say is) DSL (256 down, 128 up). I get the distinct feeling I\'m at the end of the equivalent of a water pipeline sometimes when just a trickle comes out. My laptop on a 28.8 dial-up is often faster.
Why so, I wonder. Other times it\'s pretty fast but not a lot more than a 56 dial-up in the city. I\'m wondering whether to can it, just as I have recently done with my all singing all dancing stuffed full of useless options hard to find anything and wading thru pointless menus Nokia camera phone and gone back with a sigh of relief to my original 3210. Complete waste of money.
2. If they allow GPS in cars in UK why is cellphone usage banned?
|
1/ You are suffering from the equator effect. All internet access originates at the equator. Now gravity as you know makes things go down. The data bits all fall from the top of the earth to the bottom of the earth. To get our data bits up to the northern hemisphere a pump is used. To stop the data bits falling from the equator to the bottom of the earth (and all our data bits syphoning there as well) a restrictor valve is used on southern hemisphere internet. Hence being in the southern hemisphere, you are being throttled back by this valve.
or
It could be a thing called contention ratio. Basically DSL internet access is split into nodes. On the basis that not everyone will be using all the net all the time this is split (usually) into 50 users. A contention ratio of 50-1. So If all the people on your node all decide to download stuff at the same time your pipe is shared into chunks - sometimes as low as the same speed as dial up. Now its rare for everyone to be using all their bandwidth all the time so its usually ok most of the time. Your supplier may have larger contention ratios,
and when everyone logs on at once you all slow down. Hence the variability.
|
or
You could actually be at the end of the pipe. DSL is dependent on quality of line, and the quality goes down the further you are from the node. Get your PTT to do a line check. Ensure they know its for data. Best way is to report a fault, get your engineer down, slip him a few peso\'s (and his supervisor) and get your local line replaced and all the connections upstream \"re chromed\" (thats cleaned and remade)
|
Would that therefore explain why, when on occasions it slows to a standstill, if I log off and then log on again it comes back much faster?
|
|
No that sounds like a internet provider server problem. The server you are logged onto is clogged or slow, signing out and in again gets you into a faster less clogged server.
|
|
for server read \"server, router and routing path\"
|
|
|
|
"If they allow GPS in cars in UK why is cellphone usage banned?"
Because politicians have chauffeurs...
(You can still use a pratphone in a car here, as long as it is hands-free, or you're a passenger.)
|
(You can still use a pratphone in a car here, as long as it is hands-free, or you're a passenger.)
Not if the passenger is sat next to a learner driver.
(I'll shut up now otherwise I'll have to moderate myself and move this to the mobile phone thread.)
|
|
|
|
|
Does anyone else in the BR use bigfoot email forwarding or other services, and if so, are you having problems ? - I know i'm not receiving emails, and bigfoot.com seems to be down or deaaaaaaad sssslllooooowwwwww
|
do you mean www.bigfoot.com ? Looks fine to me, loads rapidly, rather a garish flashy web page though.
I.
|
Thats the one. home page is loading slightly faster than it was before, but I can't log in to email forwarding, and I know email being sent to my bigfoot address and someone else's bigfoot address hasn't arrived after 5 hours, and my emails to their helpdesk aren't being acknowledged
|
|
My stones.com service is provided by bigfoot and there have been massive delays (up to days) to mail recently. And yet some arrives instantly...
|
well I finally received an autoacknowledgement for an email I sent to their helpdesk 6 hours ago
Still, at work i'm currently dealing with a major multinational that would be instantly recognisable to anyone on the planet, who have a depot 20 miles away, yet last week emails were taking up to 2 days to reach me.
I think that the net email system, or parts of it, are groaning under the weight of pointless emails. A few weeks ago, I had a trojan (tofger.bb), since when one of my email addresses has been spoofed. I now receive 1 -> 2 thousand emails a day, which are either
1) 'don't spam me' notices - pointless because i didn't send the stuff in the first place
2) 'please confirm your email isn't spam' notices - ditto
3) 'this mailbox is full' notices - presumably full of all the carp that's flying around
|
|
It's amazing, isn't it? Somebody somewhere must still be making spammers' lives worthwhile (financially, that is - they're clearly not worthwhile in any other sense) by responding to their rubbish. It would appear that there really is one born every minute...
|
|
|
|
Wonder if anyone knows the answer to this? I have been using Firefox for some time and decided to try Moz Thunderbird email software thinking it would add a link to the ff menu bar (it doesn't).
Ever since installing it, ff no longer starts up on connection although I have several times clicked 'set as default browser'.
Not the end of the world now having to do it manually, but puzzling.
|
To be fair, the idea of Firefox and Thunderbird are that they are separate small programs. This is a deliberate departure from Mozilla proper, which suffers from being a large and slow program that tries to do everything.
Which operating system are you using? I'm not sure what you mean when you say Firefox doesn't start on connection. Why should it? I wouldn't expect it to start until you click its shortcut.
To be honest I'm less impressed with Thunderbird than I am with Firefox. In particular, I don't like the way it has a separate inbox for each e-mail account. I continue to use it because it enables me to use the same program in Windows and Linux and because I can't be bothered to migrate all my accounts and settings to another program.
|
I am using W98 and Firefox did originally auto-start on connection (as IE used to) - I assume this is what is meant by 'default browser' otherwise I can't see the sense in nominating one.
Only played briefly with Tbird, but I'm inclined to agree with your sentiments so far - the things we do to get away from MS stuff!
|
The default browser is the one associated with URLs and internet shortcuts and the one that fires up when you click a link in another application, such as your e-mail program.
I still don't understand how or why a browser would automatically start when you connect. I'd find this quite irritating if I were connecting to do something other than web browsing.
You don't say what kind of net connection you have. What do you click to connect to the net? Is it the standard Windows dial-up networking box or do you use some sort of dialler provided by your ISP? Could there be an option in that to launch your browser?
|
I have a dialup connection, using the little-known (I suspect) VDialPro.
Thanks for tweaking the appropriate brain cell - it was a section of the dialler that needed attention following a directory change.
|
|
|
|
I agree with Welliesorter; I don't knwo why you would want a browser to open on connection, but I've had isps that installed software to make the browser open (on their portal homepage) on connection a la AOL. Drove me nuts at the time so I stopped it doing it. It's also potentially a security issue. If you download something that can dial, it can also open a vulnerable browser (i.e. IE).
Also Thunderbird does need improvement, with the separate inbox issue being the primary annoyance. But it is still Beta software, so we can hope. Personally I use Eudora in Windows when I'm forced to use that because it syncs well with my Clie handheld, and Evolution in Linux for the same reason. Actually I wish Evolution would port to Windows because it is by far the best mail client and PIM I've used--way ahead of Palm's PIM offering.
|
|
|
|
|
I have been trying to save files to a CD using software called Deep Burner that I downloaded from the internet, but it's not working. I get a message saying 'not a writing drive'. Does this mean that my PC's CD drive can only read CDs but not write to them? It is a 7 year old machine running Windows 95 with a Toshiba CD drive.
Any ideas on how I can get round this would be most appreciated - I need to save a large Powerpoint presentation to disk so that I can run it from various laptops round the country. I'm wondering if I could save it to floppy instead but I don't know if laptops still have floppy drives?
Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you
Pete
|
|
It sounds like your CD is just a cd reader and not a cd writer. Check out the device manager. If it just says CD you are stuck. it needs to say CDRW to be able to write.
|
|
|
I doubt very much that a 7 year old CD is a writer, they were VERY expensive then. Unlike now, when one can be bought sub-£30 and probably sub £20 in the right places (I bought an 8 speed DVD writer for £50 two weeks ago, that will also write CDs).
Probably easiest option is to buy a CD writer, an old spec machine ought to be able to write CDs OK (they now have integral burn-proof technology which reduces the problems caused by slow machines).
You could also use a file zip product (WinZip is one of the most popular) which would shrink the file so you could easily copy it to floppies (or maybe even just one floppy) but you'd need to either make it a self extracting file or the destination computer would need a product to unzip it.
I *think* most laptops would have a floppy drive, but would have thought that CD would be a better bet.
Last option I can think of is a USB memory stick - even if your computer does not have a USB port you can buy a PCI USB card (< £10) into which you plug portable memory (probably about £25 - £30) which would carry up to 64mb (or more, more expensively of course) of data.
|
Thanks for the advice Smokie. I think the Powerpoint file will be less than 1.44 mb so floppies might be OK, or I could always split the file and use two floppies. However, it sounds like my best bet is to buy a CD writer. How would I fit this to my machine - by dismantling it and replacing the current CD drive? My machine doesn't have USB.
Thanks again
Pete
|
Don't try and go down the USB route with Win95 - it is flakey at best (with 95B & C) and will not work at all on 95A.
CD Writer is the best route IF all the laptops you are going to use have CD-ROM drives. They are a bit like floppies - some do, some don't. Belt and braces solution would be one on CD, one on floppy.
Is this a one-off presentation, and if so can you email it to someone with a CD-Writer?
|
Thanks VDM - I hadn't realised USB might be a problem with Windows 95.
It's the kind of presentation that I might want to tweak after each time I use it (re-ordering slides and so forth), so I would quite like to be able to access it on my machine. I think I will go for the belt and braces approach that you suggest, though. Any tips on which CD writer to buy, and am I likely to encounter any problems in fitting it? (I'm almost totally ignorant where PC hardware is concerned).
Best wishes
Pete
|
Changing the CD drive is very easy. Philips screwdriver and a bit of care is all thats needed. Take the case aprt, and the CD drive is held in place with 4 screws. Has 1 four pin power cable, one 40 pin flat data cable and possibly one three or four pin audio cable. They cant go in the wrong way round, but make a note for peace of mind.
Order any make of drive (try www.aria.co.uk) in trith there are only 4 makers anyway with different brand names. Go for the cheapest CD/RW drive (not worth getting a DVD drive your machine is too old). YOu may need to update the software drivers to make it work.
|
Take the case aprt....
But before you do, leave the mains lead plugged in, but turned off. This will ensure that the chassis of the case will still be earthed, and greatly reduce the risk of any static electricity damaging the electronics.
|
|
|
Thanks very much - I feel I can (just about) manage that. One more idiotic question: what is involved in updating the software drivers? Which software? Is it something I can do for free over the net? And is it likely to cause me problems with my system - I've tried to install stuff before and had error messages relating to some winsock file that I never managed to install from the Microsoft website.
Sorry if this apparently simple query is starting to expand!
Pete
|
The drivers should come on a floppy (hopefully NOT on a CD!) with the drive when you buy it.
There should also be instructions on how to install the whole thing, but, like Ikea furniture, they will have been translated from the original Chinese by someone who speaks fluent Norwegian but sadly neither English nor Chinese.
Just check the jumpers on the back of both CD drives, so that if your current CD drive is set to Master (or Slave) then the new drive has the same setting.
Before you buy the drive, please make sure that it and the software that comes with it are Win95 compatible. Just scanning a couple of websites at the moment, and many drives/software packages have a minimum stated spec of Win98SE. www.optorite.com/_english/web/1_product/1_feature....0 is one that IS Win95 compatible. £23 +Vat from tinyurl.com/2pmdv
I am sure there are others - somewhere around the 17-25 quid mark would be a target price.
|
|
|
|
|
>Thanks VDM - I hadn't realised USB might be a problem with Windows 95.
IIRC it was invented by Apple in 1995, possibly 1994.
|
|
IIRC win/95 never supported USB.you needed an extra card installed.I doubt you will need a driver update 95 is plug/and/play.ie drive should work but as VDM said they do normaly come with floppy.only prob may be recording software some wont allow recording of below 6MB and will refuse to record.had this on my old Olivetti plus a memory upgrade may be needed.I only had 16mb had to upgrade to 48mb for it to work properly.and as VDM said make sure it will work on 95.it wont work otherwise.
|
|
Windows 95 never supported USB - it was only added in Windows 98 version 2. I would caution against buying a CD writer for Windows 95 - they weren't even available when it was released and the software that comes with the drive could almost be promised to not work. I would look at a new computer, tbh, as a decent system with a CD writer can be picked up for less than £300 second hand.
|
NATIVE Win95 (Win95A) certainly did not support USB. 95B and 95C did support it, though badly and seemingly only when it felt like it. Caused no end of problems.
The CD writer I referred to above specifically states that it is for use with Win95, and is retail boxed, not OEM, so if it doesn't work there is a comeback against the supplier. :)
|
Thanks for that! I think I'll go down the High St, as opposed to mail order, in case there's a problem. I think Morgan in London do a couple of drives that apparently work on Windows 95.
Thanks for all the help - hopefully there won't be a follow up post headed 'I've installed a CD drive now my computer won't work at all ...'
Pete
|
|
|
CD writers WERE available for windows 95. I had one working on windows 3.1, windows 95 and OS/2. Very expensive tho.
|
|
|
|
Apparently we are wrong.OEM versions of 95 were/could support USB.Boxed versions bought from shop were not.and microsoft did not make any upgrades for USB support in any version of 95.support for USB was dependant on company that made pc.its on MS website.I know rewriters do work on 95 as I had one.bearing in mind what I said before.
|
Ah - that explains the confusion. At the time, I was working for a company that made and sold PCs, and we WERE using OEM versions of the Windows OS. I seem to remember that the way to tell the 95B CDs from the 95A ones was that the B version had "with USB Support" printed on the CD! I think I still have one lying around somewhere.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Hello all, some audio advice needed please:
My new (10 year old) car comes with this odd little stereo that plays something called "cassettes" - never heard of them.
So I need something to listen to CDs on. I'd like to avoid an autochanger if possible as there's nowhere to put it that's convenient and out of the way enough. A lot of single slot CD players now have mp3 capability, so i thought this would be an ideal way of keeping a lot of music on one disc, and also means that I don't have CDs cluttering the car up. But being the lazy so-and-so i am, i would like to know how much of a faff it is to record my CDs onto an mp3 format CD to play in the car? Does anyone here do it?
Also, how much can you get on a standard CD in mp3 format? If I could get my favourite CDs on 8-10 mp3 CDs to keep in the car all the time, this would be ideal.
Also, can these mp3 players also show the artist/track name? And is that yet more faff to program in when you burn the CD? Is there any sort of search facility so you can select which songs/artists you want to listen to?
Sorry for the somewhat garbled post, i'm getting more and more like my dad when it comes to new technology, and i'm only 24!
|
1/ Recording CDs to MP3 is very easy. Lots of freeware and paid up applications to do this in batch mode. Yes i do it. Use the program that came with my personal MP3 player. Latest versions of windows media player will do it.
2/ MP3's on CD? depends on what quality you do them at. Cant remember off hand but at least 10 audio cd's to one MP3 cd
3/Artist track name - car player needs to have a feature called
CD text like this one www.pioneer.co.uk/uk/product_detail.jsp?product_id...1
4/ note the player above also does WMA - windows media audio.
|
|
|
hi owen,
depending on which sound card you have on your computor, there may well be a cd ripping feature which allows you to copy cd's to your h/d, sometimes they rip as .wave files, which you then convert to mp3, sometimes you can rip direct to mp3.you then just transfer the mp3's to disc using either the cards "compile cd" feature, or a program like "nero" etc. most mp3's are in the region of 3-4mb, so if you do the maths you should get plenty on a 600-750 mb cd.
billy.
|
|
|
A CD holds roughly 700MB of data - that's enough for 10+ hours of music, depending on the quality you need. MP3 players can display track information, but only if it is encoded into the track when it is recorded.
As for faff - it basically involves having a reasonably fast CD burner on your PC (about £23 in PC World, for instance, probably not worth paying P&P for that) and some encoding software. This can be downloaded, or bought, but I use the Windows Media Player that comes with XP, so I can't give any recommendations. You basically put the CD in the drive, select the tracks you'd like encoded, and it should go through them in about 6 minutes per CD. You then just burn the files to CD like any other.
Then you'd need a head unit. I'd recommend a Sony because there are lots of adaptors for existing remote controls, and they're not too expensive (unlike most Sony kit). A CDXF5500 is £125 from www.mcs-direct.co.uk
As for search - I suspect it may be more like seek and/or random play although I don't have an MP3 player in the car, so I don't know.
|
p.s
while we are talking mp3's, if you like "collecting" them off the net, theres a neat little program available on a 20 download/30 day trial, called "mp3easy". works on a file transfer protocol to avoid legal issues, upload one-download one. i use it regularly and find it "spot-on".
billy.
|
I usually get somewhere around 120 - 140 tracks of 3 - 4 mins (i.e. single length) when they are encoded at 128kbps, which is pretty good (I think it's called near CD) quality.
If you can find a product which does some equalisation it could be useful, if you are taking tracks from the net, as tracks are often recorded at differing volumes and this goes a way to smoothing it out on compilations.
There are many download sites which are now legal, and don't cost an arm and a leg - 99p or less a track springs to mind, although there was a much cheaper Russian site mentioned somewhere recently.
You could, of course, buy a portable MP3 player (like a CD player...) and one of those fake cassettes (got mine from Argos) and not bother changing the radio. It works fine for me, although being a first generation MP3 player it buffers less and has occassional skips over speed humps...I think newer ones would buffer less from this. You then have a portable MP3 system, ideal for the beach etc
e.g. one of these tinyurl.com/2bx88 and one of these tinyurl.com/2pjmp
|
I usually get somewhere around 120 - 140 tracks of 3 - 4 mins (i.e. single length) when they are encoded at 128kbps, which is pretty good (I think it's called near CD) quality.
umm, I know that's what some software tells you, but it's worth doing a few tests to see how far short of CD quality 128 really is. If your speakers are any good at all, then you'll really notice the difference between 128kbps and 192kbps. For music anyway -- speech is OK on 96kbps or even 64
|
|
|
|
www.apple.com/itunes
For Mac and PeeCee ...
Free, and as with all Apple stuff, v. easy to use. Import your CD's as MP3's, then burn them as MP3 CD's (you'll need to edit the preferences to turn this on - defaults to normal audio CD's.
One tip whatever program you decide to use - go to th custom setup for MP3 import options, and turn on Variable Bitrate Encoding (BVR), and set to maximum quality; makes a big difference to the sound quality, and still makes small files (you should still get about 9 CD's per MP3 CD ...
|
must be Monday -
the
VBR
:-)
|
|
Owen, do a Google on Free Rip. It's a free (you guessed that from the name I bet!) CD to MP3 converter that I find very easy to use.
|
|
Thanks all, some great advice. Given that it doesn't sound like too much hassle to get some CDs onto MP3 then i'll be getting one in the near future.
|
|
|
|
|
This will be moved into the current "Computer related questions" thread later today.
DD.
|
CDex will do a good job of ripping from CD tracks to MP3. It's very simple to use and free from cdexos.sourceforge.net .
I find encoding at 160kbps to be of acceptable quality.
Top tip with most audio ripping programs is to make sure you're connected to the net while using them. The program will go to an internet database of CDs, work out what the track titles are, and name your ripped files automatically. I have some pretty obscure discs but I rarely find they're not in the database.
I've never been able to work out how to use iTunes.
|
I find encoding at 160kbps to be of acceptable quality.
It's worthy experimenting with this, because it depends on the type of music. With some stuff you really notice the difference, others you don't -- personally I find that a track with a lot of varied but strong bass needs a higher encoding rate
|
|
Thanks for all your help with the in-car MP3 stuff, i've just ordered a Sony CDXF5500 from mcs-direct so hopefully i'll be able to get some CDs ripped and mp3-ified over the weekend!
|
|
|
|
|
