Archived CalgaryPuck Computer Help Thread

[Mike__]

Ahhh...finally got it. After the hundredth time messing around with the cables I finally got it. I have no idea why it never worked before but now it works and thats all that matters. Thanks for all the help Buff, sorry for wasting your time lol.

[JohnnyO]

Can anyone recommend a video editing software that will rotate a digital video. The wife used our digital camera to recorded a video clip and was holding the camera the wrong way. I have Pinnacle Studio 9 but I dont think I can do that in there?

Thanks

[photon]

http://www.virtualdub.org/ is a good free program that I've used to reencode videos before, I believe there's a rotate filter under Video / Filters / Add Filter.

[JohnnyO]

Originally posted by photon@Apr 18 2005, 02:12 PM
http://www.virtualdub.org/ is a good free program that I've used to reencode videos before, I believe there's a rotate filter under Video / Filters / Add Filter.

Hey thanks I will give it a try. I tried a few and they couldn't do it.

Success!! Thanks It took a few trys with the filter but I got it to work. Calgary Puck Saves the day Woooohooo!!

[I-Hate-Hulse]

I found this free utility to wipe hard disks before you return a computer or sell it to someone.

http://killdisk.com/

Far better than the usual FORMAT C: routine, for paranoid privacy freaks like myself.

[Buff]

Looks like it does a low-level format. Another alternative is to find the maker of the HDD, go to their site and download the drive diagnostics/utilities tools. I've never used kill drive before, but I'll take a look at it for the next time I need to do a low level format. Thanks

[Ro]

Hi all, another question.

I finally installed Sygate Personal Firewall the other day, and every once in a while the system tray icon flashes red. When I open up the window, a security log pops up, and there's a message that reads:

"somebody is scanning your TCP ports, 23.564.2223.44, blah blah."

It says that the threat is "minor," but I usually right click on the log entry and select "block all active responses" just to be safe. Even though I have no idea what it means.

Can someone enlighten me as to what's going on here? Do I need to be worried?

[photon]

Nothing really to be worried about, it's just letting you know that your computer is being scanned. Sometimes it can be your own ISP scanning your computer to make sure you aren't running a server of some sort (though this happens a lot less these days), but more likely it is someone scanning your computer to see if there is any way they can get into it. People scan random computers on the net all day long, so it's not a big deal.

You should be able to disable that notification and have it automatically not respond to the port scan; there's no reason to need to know every single time someone scans your computer.

[Incinerator]

Originally posted by Ro@Apr 21 2005, 02:43 AM
Hi all, another question.

I finally installed Sygate Personal Firewall the other day, and every once in a while the system tray icon flashes red. When I open up the window, a security log pops up, and there's a message that reads:

"somebody is scanning your TCP ports, 23.564.2223.44, blah blah."

It says that the threat is "minor," but I usually right click on the log entry and select "block all active responses" just to be safe. Even though I have no idea what it means.

Can someone enlighten me as to what's going on here? Do I need to be worried?

Like photon said there are millions of kids scanning random machines everyday to find the vulnerable ones, if you're running the most basic of firewalls you should be fine against these negligible threats. Some firewalls allows you to set the option so that it will only protect you silently in the background and not alert you of these annoying things. I've never used Sygate so I can't comment on that though.

[mots]

Microsoft Excel help needed. Basically i got a table like this (fairly simplified for this purpose):

1 12.2
1 15.6
2 14.5
2 34.5
3 34.7
4 1.9

And im trying to get a formula that will add up the sum of all the rows corresponding to 2 (14.5 + 34.5). If i use VLookup(2;A1:B6;2;FALSE), it just retrieves the value the first time it encounters 2, 14.5 in the above example. Is there a way to make all the values corresponding to 2 add up. I hope this makes sense.

[Eagle Eye]

Maybe I am thinking to simple but have you tried the sumif function?

Sumif(A1:A8,2,B1:B9)

[Buff]

Is anybody here an expert on cooling? I got a new computer and I'm having some heat issues and I want to bounce around some ideas. I think I know what I'm going to do, but I'd like to get some more opinions.

P4 3.4Ghz 800FSB
Asus P5GD1 Motherboard
Asus Radeon X300SE 128 MB Video
SATA HDD

the heat issues occur when I play Medal of Honor... I did have the video options cranked up to the max for the game, and I've only had heat issues that really worried me on one occasion, but the heat is something I may want to keep under control... the cooler your system the better it'll run!

Just doing stuff like posting hear at CP the heat is usually around the following:
MB: 30C CPU: 40C
Fans: 2600RPM
(I don't have a reading on the video card)

When I play medal of Honor I usually have the following readings (immediately after I end the game):
MB: 43C CPU 48C
Fans: 3200RPM

One I had these readings (after playing MOH)
MB: 46C CPU: 55C
Fans: 4500RPm

this last reading is what concerned me. I think it can be contributed to the high video settings I was using, but I would still like to get the heat and fan RPMS down as much as I can.

Any good ideas that will reinforce my plan, or make me come up with a better plan?

I know I'm better off going to a tech forum, but I'd rather give it a try here first instead of registering for a forum that I'll forget about in a month.

[Mike__]

Anybody have this problem with thier hard drive space. For some reason I keep losing space for no apparent reason. No, nothing is being downloaded and happens very frequently. Just last week I had 2 gb of free space and a day later only 46 mb. ???.

Just last night I cleared some space, 216 mb free space, this morning 156 mb. Computer was off and everything. Help would be much appreciated.

[Mango]

Does anyone happen to know if it is possible to make animated graphics with any Adobe products?

Thank you.

[Buff]

Originally posted by Mike__@May 3 2005, 08:15 AM
Anybody have this problem with thier hard drive space. For some reason I keep losing space for no apparent reason. No, nothing is being downloaded and happens very frequently. Just last week I had 2 gb of free space and a day later only 46 mb. ???.

Just last night I cleared some space, 216 mb free space, this morning 156 mb. Computer was off and everything. Help would be much appreciated.

You have a virus. It sucks up the space on your hard drive. Basically, on a low level, it is replacing the 0's with 1's. This is why you can't see where the space is being used. Make sure your virus scanner has the latest definition files and scan it. If you don't have an updated subscription, or a virus scanner, then go to housecall.trendmicro.com.

[Buff]

Originally posted by Mango@May 3 2005, 08:19 AM
Does anyone happen to know if it is possible to make animated graphics with any Adobe products?

Thank you.

I don't know, but I think I've heard of something. Try www.adobe.com.

[I-Hate-Hulse]

So in my main rig, I have my primary C: Drive with a number of other seperate IDE drives. Permissions have been set to restrict a HDD to a particular user (ie the 'everyone' group has been removed in the sharing tab).

My instance of XP of course dies, and I've re-installed windows on a new C: Drive. Problem is: I can't access the previously restricted drives anymore. I can't even right click on them to try and take control via the sharing tab. It just gives me an option to format them, and otherwise gives me a "drive not available" message. I've re-created the user account and given it the same password but no dice. Encryption was not used (I think).

Does anyone know how to access these previously secured drives? It's data from a previous business venture on it, that I'd rather not lose.

Thanks in advance!

[Buff]

Are these drives physical or virtual? Do you physically have more than one hard drive in your computer, or did you have one hard drive that was partitioned into seperate drives?

What file formats are each of the drives? Fat, Fat32 or NTFS?

Perhaps you need to go to Disk Management to 'reconnect' these drives, but be warned you can lose the data on them if you don't properly read the messages that popup. I don't have a computer with disconnected drives so I cannot properly point you in the right path, but I recently saw a computer like this. (unfortunately I didn't read the message, clicked yes and wiped out the data on the drive)

[photon]

What version of Windows are you running? I'm assuming XP Professional. I'm also assuming the drives show up normally under Disk Manager.

Can you see the drives in Explorer / My Computer? If you can right click on them and go into Properties do you see a Security tab?

If you can't see the Security tab then you can enable it: In Windows Explorer (or My Computer, whichever you prefer) go to Tools>Folder Options>View and uncheck "Use Simple File Sharing," click OK.

What is probably happening here is since the Everyone group is gone, no user on your current OS has any permissions to the drive or folders (a user with the same ID and password isn't the same, they have different unique ID's in Windows).

So give this a try, right click on the drive in Explorer, choose that Security tab, choose Advanced, and choose Owner. It should say the current owners is some bunch of letters and #'s and ??'s. Choose a new owner from the list (should show you the user you are logged in as and others depending on how it's setup), and check the "Relace owner on subcontainers and objects", then hit Apply.

That will go through the whole drive and change the ownership of the file to the new user, which means you should now be able to see them and change the permissions on them to be whatever you need it to be. If you removed CREATOR OWNER from them as well as Everyone, you may have to add it back and replace the permissions on all the children first to get access to the files.

If encryption was used, unless you backed up the proper key onto CD or floppy or something you are totally hooped.

[Eddie Bronze]

My CD-R/RW appears to have had the biscuit. I've had small problems with it for a long time, but now it won't even read a cd (says drive is empty when there is a cd in there) and play it, so I haven't even tried to burn anything with it. I made sure everything was hooked up properly and still nothing which leads me to think it's a laser problem.
So I'm thinking it's probably time for a new one.
Anyone have any suggestions on what I should get? I don't really know where to look but I checked Future Shop's website and they have a LG DVD-RW on sale for pretty much half price. I assume it will burn and play regular CD's as I'm not into the DVD thing (no TV so no point) but I thought I'd just ask and see if anyone else has one of these or if they'd recommend grabbing this while it's on sale.
Thanks for any advice.

http://www.futureshop.ca/catalog/proddetai...ogon=&langid=EN