Free Republic

A New Box From Sony Turns Videotapes Into Shiny DVDs Citizens of ancient cultures made no multimedia records of their own birthday parties, weddings or babies’ first steps. How tragic and boring. When they sat down in front of the TV after dinner at family gatherings, what on earth did they watch? The Sony DVDirect VRD-MC3 converts video from various formats to DVDs, working by itself or with a PC. Yet even in the most recorded, videotaped and photographed society in history, we have our own issues. For example, we insist upon upgrading our recording technologies every few years, each...

I need some suggestions before I reinstall the operating system. When I boot my computer I get a black screen. I can operate in safe mode.

I run Windows 98 (I hate change), and I've had AVG from Grisoft since 1998 ... a free anti virus that is no longer supported for Win98.Is there another freeware antivirus program anyone will recommend?Thanx.Yes, I'm logged in and I'm watching my sister and a moose eat cheeze in the shower ... stuning!

We have an old Dell Dimension 3200 desktop system, using Windows XP Home, with SP2. It has a PS2 type keyboard, which has been working fine until yesterday. At that time, certain keys stopped working ie we hit them but the corresponding character doesn't show up. Interestingly, it's the second and third keys (from the left) of each row, i.e. 2 3, w e, s d, x c. Everything else seems to work. Is there anything I can do from a driver or BIOS standpoint (or anything else), before replacing the keyboard? What's going on? Thanks.

Last week it was the music labels, this week it was teacher unions. Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs on Friday spared no words in criticizing the state of public schools and the teacher unions, saying that schools were never likely to improve until principals could fire bad teachers. The Associated Press notes that Jobs shared the stage with rival CEO Michael Dell to deliver their vision of technology in classrooms. Jobs, who is known to be quite intolerant of what he calls incompetence at his own company, touted a text-book free classroom, but reiterated that no amount of technology...

Kenyan authorities say they have cracked the password on a laptop computer belonging to one of the most wanted Al Qaeda suspects in Africa. A report by the Kenyan newspaper, The Daily Nation, on its Web site Monday quoted anonymous "senior police sources" as saying that the computer "contained vital information on terrorism training and intelligence collection, including spying." The report gave no further details, but said the computer was seized from the wife of Faisal Abdullah Mohammed - indicted by federal prosecutors for his role in the Al Qaeda truck bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in...

I am using PowerPoint 2002, and have created a slide show. It is set up to transition to the next slide every three seconds. So far, so good, everything works. Now I want to have a sound file on the first slide. It should start playing automatically, and continue playing as the slide show progresses. Here's the problem: once I insert the sound file, and start the slide show, the show never advances. That is, it just stays on the first slide as long as the sound is playing. If I press enter, the next slide in the show does...

I need to send a 5mb file to someone. I could do so via an email attachment or I could do it via an FTP service, specifically www.yousendit.com. My concern is the amount of bandwidth I consume in sending the file. Is there any difference between sending the attachment via email and sending an email message with a hyperlink to an FTP server, which the recipient would click on to download the file? Isn't it 5mb of usage in either case? Why would I use one vs. the other? Thanks.

I'm a political junkie (who on FR isn't?). I'd like to record some of the clips and programs that air on the C-SPAN website. What sort of program or software would I need to record and be able to keep these videos? The C-SPAN file extensions are always .rm and RealPlayer is the software that opens the files. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Chips push through nano-barrier New materials have had to be developed to shrink the transistors The next milestone in the relentless pursuit of smaller, higher performance microchips has been unveiled. Chip-maker Intel has announced that it will start manufacturing processors using transistors just 45 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide. Shrinking the basic building blocks of microchips will make them faster and more efficient. Computer giant IBM has also signalled its intention to start production of chips using the tiny components. "Big Blue", which developed the transistor technology with partners Toshiba, Sony and AMD, intends to incorporate them into its...

I am preparing a presentation on phishing, for my computer law class. I will have them create a hyperlink that apparently goes to a "real" site (e.g. www.realsite.com), but actually goes to a second site (e.g. www.fakesite.com). Question: am I correct that there's a way that www.fakesite.com can "mask" its own URL, and tell the browser instead (falsely) that it's at the "real" site? Is there html that does it? I'd like to be able to explain that concept and how it's done, and appreciate any help. Thanks.

I have a PowerPoint presentation on my Dell Inspiron computer, running XP Home SP2. I have inserted a sound into that presentation. The sound and the PowerPoint file are in different directories. As long as I run the PowerPoint file from the hard disk, and leave it and the sound file in the same location, I realize everything should be OK. Now, suppose I want to run the presentation on another PC. I burn the PowerPoint presentation alone to a CD, then play it on the second PC. I have a feeling that I will lack the sound, right? When...

I have a 3-4 minute DVD clip of myself, as I am being interviewed. I would like to put that DVD (i.e. the contents) on my web site. How do I do so, given that the DVD has several files on it (a single VIDEO_TS folder at the root, within which are .BUP, .IFO and .VOB files)? Does my ISP have to have certain software, or it just a matter of creating a folder on my web site to store these DVD files, then uploading these files? Thanks.

With the dashing success of "Worst Album Art Ever," I'm proud to present: The Best of Teh Internets: A FR Photo Album... Feel free to share strange, or funny pictures (including, but not limited to anything found on FR, ZOT! graphics, o rly/ya rly, Photoshopped images, bad album covers, etc.)

Ford Motor is set to announce a partnership with Microsoft to provide greater wireless connectivity to its lineup of vehicles, according to a published report. The Wall Street Journal reported the wireless offering will be called Sync and will allow for hands-free cell phone communication and other wireless information transfers inside the car, including the ability to receive email and download music. The automakers have been trying to attract buyers with greater entertainment and wireless communication options, including ports for MP3 music players in traditional car stereo systems, DVD video players for backseat passengers and satellite radio offerings.

lol spare the nasty comments about both products, please. I would like an EASY way to back up both products (one step backup if at all possible)...preferably freeware. Right now, for OE, I am using Outlook Express Backup Wizard. Is there a better product? I don't have anything for Outlook itself. I see that Outlook has a native file export feature, but it looks like I have to back up one folder at a time (?) Why did they design such a troublesome method? Thanks.

When handwritten essays were introduced on the SAT exams for the class of 2006, just 15 percent of the almost 1.5 million students wrote their answers in cursive. The rest? They printed. Block letters.

Advice needed from the Brain Trust: I'm hoping some computer geeks better than I can find an answer to this Excel problem. Basically, I've used Excel to calculate grades before, and that's fine. I usually have 3 exams and I drop the lowest score. Again, that's easy. However, this marking period, I have been informed that I should give a cumulative grade for the first and second marking periods. (It is math, after all, which builds upon itself.) Now, to be fair to the students, I would like to drop their lowest two tests out of the six, not just...

Airport Arrest Turns Up Nuclear Info Nov 16 9:36 AM US/Eastern A man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after officials say they found him carrying more than $78,000 in cash and a laptop computer containing information about nuclear materials and cyanide. Sisayehiticha Dinssa, an unemployed U.S. citizen, was arrested Tuesday after a dog caught the scent of narcotics on cash he was carrying, according to an affidavit filed in court. When agents asked him if he had any cash to declare, he said he had $18,000, authorities said. But when agents checked his luggage, they found an additional $59,000....

Hi there: When I am on the road, I often "borrow" wireless connection on unsecured networks. I am not doing anything malicious but is there a danger of the host network compromising my computer, such as accessing my files or capturing passwords when I enter them in on the browser.Thanks for any info you can offer.