Where's the "Any" key? New Tech Support Thread

[alex]

Thanks, Marinus! I actually just updated my post above to say that I did just that. I simply used the Disk Utility that came with my Mac.

[davy]

Can somebody PLEASE tell me how to change the default font/paragraph settings on Windows 07? God damn it. I don't want to use Calibri, and I definitely don't want an extra space between paragraphs, for fuck's sake!

[ieatrats]

Anyone ever change a screen in an ipod?  I've had a replacement screen sitting here for months, I've read the online manuals and videos, but I need to hear from someone who's actually done it - am I going to tear the ribbons when I go to take this stuff apart?  Do the circuit board contact parts just slide in, or do I kind of have to mess with it?

I suck at stuff like this, and while I've had a 30GB ipod shuffle for 2 years now and am quite used to it, I kind of want to be able to play something besides random, but it certainly will not be at the cost of trashing the thing.

pod is a 5G, 2nd gen I think.

[Chet]

When I try to go on youtube I get this message

Bad Request

Your browser sent a request that this server could not understand.
Size of a request header field exceeds server limit.

and it won't work again until I clear my cookies. It's really annoying having to clear my cookies everytime I want to watch something on youtube. What's up with that?

[donblood]

That's pretty stupid.  What's happening is that the cookies being sent to YouTube are causing the HTTP request to exceed a preconfigured request-size limit on YouTube's web servers.  In theory you should only be sending cookies that were set by YouTube themselves, which is why this is stupid.

If you're really interested (and I doubt you are) you can use an HTTP sniffer to see what cookies are being sent across (Firebug for Firefox, Fiddler for IE).

[davy]

I got my first Blue Screen of Death yesterday. Hard drive is fucked. Happened overnight and for no apparent reason.

Good thing it was under warranty, though I bet it happens again in another 6 months.

[auto-da-fey]

not exactly a tech question per se, but:

I brought my cable modem over to the new place, plugged it into the cable, and now have an ace connection. The question is, should I just assume this is a perk of the place, cancel my internet at my old place, and rest happy, or is there any reason for me to not just roll with the status quo without assuming any responsibility for the connection?

(this is one of those things I should know from experience by now, but since my policy is generally "eh, roll with it," I've never bothered to actually learn the mechanics of such matters).

[donblood]

In my experience, eventually someone will notice and you'll have to get real cable/internet, but until then, shit is free.

[auto-da-fey]

yeah, that's been my experience too*, just wanted to make sure there were no big potential downsides.



* favorite example: moved back into unkempt L.A. efficiency in Jan 2005, didn't bother to set up power account because it was working; around April the power stopped, so I called. "Hi, I'm new to this address, can I set up an account and get the power on ?" Them: "According to our records it's been on since January." Me: "Oh. Huh. Well, anyway, can I set up an account?" Them: "Sure, just bring us a copy of your lease showing that you're new, or you'll have to back-pay through January." Me: "Well, you know, I meant 'new' in a sort of general sense. I'm pretty busy these days, maybe I'll just back-pay for convenience, can you turn my power back on, please?"
That's probably what'll happen here, but until then . . .

[donblood]

Quite a lot easier with something that isn't a hard utility, though.  You can be like "I don't really watch TV or use the internet, I just decided to get me some of those"

[auto-da-fey]

yeah, in a sign of my incremental embrace of adult responsibility, I've already changed my gas and electric accounts today for precisely that reason; next step, 2.5 kids and white picket fence.

[davy]

So I'm writing all these book reviews, right, and I'm typing out the names of these damn books all the time, and it would REALLY please me to be able to italicize them without taking my hands off the keyboard. I'm using the newest Microsoft Word. Any ideas?

I remember being able to italicize words by _doing this_ back in the day. Apparently that doesn't work anymore. But that's what I've got in mind.

[lastclearchance]

So I'm writing all these book reviews, right, and I'm typing out the names of these damn books all the time, and it would REALLY please me to be able to italicize them without taking my hands off the keyboard. I'm using the newest Microsoft Word. Any ideas?

I remember being able to italicize words by _doing this_ back in the day. Apparently that doesn't work anymore. But that's what I've got in mind.

You mean besides Ctrl-I to toggle italics?

[davy]

Nope, that'll do fine!

[alistarr*]

if you're using word a lot you could do worse than read through a keyboard shortcut list at some point. you can do all sorts of useful stuff you might not have thought about but which would in fact be really handy - when i found out there was a keyboard shortcut for font size (ctrl and ] to make it bigger, ctrl and [ to make it smaller) my life became a lot easier.

[ellaguru]

Yeah, there are keyboard shortcuts for lots of things, if you look. Microsoft is very good at providing the functionality you want, and then hiding it so that you'll never find it.

[davy]

I've always known of the existence of hot keys, just never paid them much mind. Damn fingers have trouble finding that control key.

But still, the whole accessing-menus-to-italicize-things is getting OLD.

[ieatrats]

Is there some equivalent of mp3cutter and other software that you can use to edit compressed audio without reencoding but that works for m4as?

[girl]

Any things I can try to make my computer turn on? It's been freezing up for no apparent reason, as it did this morning, but now it won't turn on. At first I was just getting a blank grey screen, now I'm getting the folder that flashes between the finder icon and a question mark. I tried re-setting the PRAM (at least 50 times) and also tried unplugging it. That didn't work. It won't start from the disc either (start up holding c)--i get the same flashing folder.

[coldforge]

In most cases it means your hard drive has died, I'm afraid.

[girl]

 

[ellaguru]

Somebody who knows something about something may correct this or whatever, but you can sometimes coax a little extra life from a dead hard drive by taking it out of the computer, zipping it up in a ziplock bag, putting it in the freezer over night, taking it out of the freezer and out of the bag, putting it back in the computer and trying again. If this ends up working, you've still only gonna get, like, very very little life from it, so you turn on the machine and save whatever you can of the stuff you don't have backed up elsewhere while waiting for the hard drive to die for good. Then you buy a new hard drive.

Of course, if it's all already backed up, the solution is to just buy a new hard drive

[girl]

It's a 2005 Mac Mini, and the cd/dvd drive died a while ago anyhow, so I'll probably just be replacing the whole thing. (Although I DO like taking things apart.) I've been living in denial about needing to upgrade for a while now. We'll see how long I can live with just a phone and this netbook.

[girl]

Because I'm stubborn enough to think that it can't really be broken, I tried turning the computer on again. For a little while, I had the apple and I was all excited, but then it turned into this:

 
That can't be good. 

[diesel_powered]

Nope. Your OSX, she is fucked.