Sorry I should have clarified, My garage is detached and across my back yard, so running ethernet cable out there isn't something I'd want to repeat (I just ran cable TV out there). The ethernet was already set up in my house running from the cellar to the office where I have the router set up. The playstation will pick up a real weak signal from the router, but I figured maybe an uprgade from my 30 dollar unit may fix my issue.
Most wireless routers can have a signal booster attached, which is really just an external antenna. This is an insane version of one: Grab the make/model of your router, and head to a local shop that sells them, and tell them you need some sort of booster antenna. Usually you can just unhook the small ones that it came with and attach a larger one. Failing that, buy a new one that has or supports larger, longer range antennas. Also look into having an external antenna for the PS3. Be sure it's got as clear a shot, line of sight, to the router as it can. Walls, brick, etc., all fuck with that. You might have to mount an antenna on the outside wall and run a cable into the PS3. There are other, more directional solutions as well, but usually for more $$$.
I tried the linux thread, but doesn't seem to be the most popular place in the world. Have a brand new laptop and a reasonably new shitty netbook - thinking about going Linux for both of them. Tossing up between Ubuntu or Mint for the laptop and Ubuntu or Crunchbang for the netbook - any feedback for one direction or the other? Machines will be doing typical home user stuff - lots of browser based stuff, torrents, multimedia and occasionally a little local word processing.
On the old board somebody posted up a program that would allow you to resize pictures by right clicking over their thumbnails. I've since moved onto a new computer and cannot, for the life of me, remember what program that was. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks!
@Scootah: Mint is a derivative of Ubuntu and better in my opinion: <a class="postlink" href="http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/02/why-mint-over-ubuntu.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://jeffhoogland.blogspot.com/2010/0 ... buntu.html</a> I've used it before and liked it. Generally using RHEL, Fedora or CentOS currently. I haven't used CrunchBang, but it looks interesting. I would suggest trying it out, but on their website it says the following: CrunchBang Linux is not recommended for anyone needing a stable system or anyone who is not comfortable running into occasional, even frequent breakage. If you don't mind tinkering with it, it should be fine. Otherwise, go with Ubuntu.
The list of differences has increased quite a bit since that article. Most notably, Mint 11 still uses Gnome 2.3 as it's user interface, whereas Ubuntu uses Unity, a user interface specifically designed for it. The latter seems to be geared more towards netbooks and tablets, so you might want to consider using it there. Mint should be a more comfortable transition, though. The placement of "stuff" on the screen is more traditional (ie. somewhat similar to Windows).
So as some of you know I was having some major issues with my pc. I sent it in to Asus and they replaced the hard drive and the motherboard, so clearly it had some hardware issues. Now I got it back from Asus but they are saying I need a system restore cd to complete the process. I don't have one and it costs $50 on their website which is total bs if you ask me. So my question is, do you guys know if I can get this some other way for much cheaper or for free? Do I even need this shit at all? I ask the latter question because I turned on the computer but it seemed to have some sort of dummy user profile created for which I did not know the username or password. I turned it on in safe mode and created a new profile but when I attempted to log on to that, it said the account had been disabled. Suggestions?
If there is an asus warranty repair center near you, they'll probably have the CD image that you need - and they'll probably make you a copy for a better price than $50. Alternately, if you are reasonably tech literate or if you have a geek friend, you can boot from something like a BartPE disk or another live CD that includes a password reset tool in the kit and reset your machine's local admin account. If that sounds unduly difficult - probably give it a pass, as even if that works - there's a reasonable chance that you need the recovery disk to slip the licensing information in and that just carving yourself a working password will ultimately end up being a pain in the ass instead of a shortcut.
Find a few friends and split a Microsoft Technet subscription. Go to <a class="postlink" href="http://technet.microsoft.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://technet.microsoft.com</a> Google for "microsoft technet discount code" or something similar to find a discount code. For less than $220, for the last year I've had access to any and every version of MS operating system, project, office, SQL Server, etc, and had the ability to generate legitimate keys, usually up to 10 for each specific product. EVERYTHING except for the Visual Studio stuff, which is an MSDN subscription and costs a lot more. ($1200 or so). I have just about every version of MS operating systems, with valid, legitimate auth codes, for me and my family. It's so worth it, especially if you spend $40 between 5 friends. $0.02
Ugh, aren't there any torrent sites or something that can get me the cd image? Its such bullshit that I have to pay for this shit. The nearest warranty repair center is about 40mins away... Also, I really don't get this. If they replaced the hard drive and installed an OS on it, why do I need to do this restore shit? Definitely going to look into the tech net thing. So sick of this constant headache.
Technet is awesome - it's just fucking annoying that you have to pay again when you already have the licenses. And basically no, torrents rarely exist and are never right for your kit. When I worked for a business that also owned a repair center, we just made copies of every restore CD that came through either on the way to a client or when someone brought one in with a machine - because they're fucking impossible to get hold of unless you pay the original vendor a fortune. And remember, the people who made the restore cd and the bullshit process that go with it, are a hardware company. When they make software, like a restore CD, or build a software process like implementing a restore CD - they inevitably do a shitty job of it. Usually they came up with some bullshit requirement for half understood reasons to resolve a poorly defined problem, and then gave the job to an intern electrical engineer who did two units of software design a couple of semesters ago and you ended up with this retarded restore CD situation. Which is annoying enough when you have a computer worth a grand. The bullshit is exactly the same when you buy some industrial widget with a price that looks like a phone number and has a serious risk of killing people if the software fucks up - and they still have the same bullshit where an incompetent half arses the software because the business is focused on hardware.
Ok, so Im not sure what is going on. I found an Asus recovery cd that said it was good for all Asus windows 7 64-bit laptops. I ran that and I think it reformatted the hard drive, though I'm not entirely sure. I do have windows installed now and it took me through the first time setup process, which worked seemingly fine. The computer is now on and running. I'm going through the various things available to see if everything is working (USB ports and such). Am I in the clear or did I just fuck myself even harder? Ok so it seems I have several driver issues that need correcting, but I think once that is taken care of, I might be all set?!
You probably just overwrote everything on your hard drive with that image that was on the DVD. Any files you had on there before, windows or otherwise, are gone. You now have an incredibly out of date installation that will probably go through a shit-ton of updates to get current. You DO have backups of your files, right? Right?
Yeah don't worry I would never have been so aggressive if I didn't have backups. I took care of that before I even sent it to Asus. One question, should I get drivers first or get windows updates first? Does it matter?
Asus don't even attempt to recover data when they do a failed disk on warranty. Or at least they never have for anything I've heard of. If your device goes in for warranty repair - the assumption is that you recovered anything that was recoverable before you sent it in. Some partner warrant repair centers will ask you if you want to pay them to try and recover data - but since Asus won't pay them for the time to do it - they have to charge you extra or it's not worth the hassle and they just tell you that it wasn't recoverable.
I'd be tempted to do the windows shit first, as they sometimes are required for the drivers. But I have a Mac, so what do I know?
Win 7 isn't nearly as bitchy about that as Vista. But I'd rather have the gaping security holes patched before I started looking for drivers personally.
I'm up and running. This is so much better than whatever Asus would have done for me.now I don't have to start with uninstalling all their garbage software. Thanks for all your help scootah and netty, I really do appreciate it.
I need to create some screen-capture videos to demo some software that I'm running on my Mac. Think screen capture but with a audio/video output of some sort. I used to use some paid-for software that did a great job, but I can't find it and it's way outdated right now. Anyone have any suggestions of any Mac-based free options?