welo

You do realise that Win7=Vista with a changed UI, slightly better security (buckets an advance, home groups a regression), DX11, and some tricks to make the responsiveness seem a bit better. Seriously, it is anywhere from 10% better to 10% worst (with the exception of Win7's greatly improved download speed over Vista)!

You want software companies to start from scratch each time they develop the next version of its OS?

Vista might not have been as bad as its reputation, and Windows 7 might have been hyped to some extent, but I don't know many people who'd prefer Vista to Windows 7...

Besides, this is pretty off-topic, but I couldn't keep my mouth shut..

1. Video

I have no experience with VGA to Composite converters. I usually use the SVHS-out on the laptop (if it has one), assuming that the SHVS-out on the laptop takes advantage of the closer integration with the video card - no idea if this is actually the case. But be warned, my experience is that those SVHS-out often don't work, and if you google for it, you'll see that this is not just my experience.

I personally would go for one of those 700THB DIVX/MP4/DVD players plus a 8GB USB thumb drive if the SVHS doesn't work.

A SVHS-out looks like this

That said, my experience with Laptop -> TV is a bad one. More often than not I couldn't get it to work, and googling on this topics reveals that it is not a lack of expertise on my side, but a problem of lousy drivers.

You can than use various cable combinations to connect the video signal to the TV.

TV might either have a

RCA connector aka 'Cinch' connector

or a Scart/Euro-Scart/EuroAV

Or maybe even a SVHS-in (very unlikely though)

This is a cable set to connect both video and audio to SCART

This is SVHS to SVHS (usually better shielding than RCA cables, but also more expensive)

Here some SVHS to RCA adapters/cables

For video the shorter or thicker (that is better shielded) a cable is the better. The less plugs, the better. All affects signal quality. If using Cinch/RCA cables you will find many long cables (5m up) with poor shielding - this is because these cables can also be used for transmitting audio signals. The color code usually is yellow - video audio (left/right) - yellow/white (or vice versa) You can use audio cables to transmit a video signal, no problem for testing your setup or with short cables (1m), but usually the video signal quality will deteriorate. So connecting laptop and TV physically is just a question of right cables, adapters.

However, my experience is that many times it will not work due to bad video card drivers. Usually there is an option when you go to Display Settings -> Advanced. It is often related to Dual Monitor support. You should be able to choose 'TV' as a second monitor, then decide whether the picture should be mirrored, etc. More often than not the 'TV' is not detected and greyed out (or doesn't show up). Other times you can try to force the driver to enable the port but it still doesn't work.

I've read that the problem is that the video port is laptop/vendor specific and the standard video card drivers (Intel, ATI, NVIDIA) will therefore often not work. So your best bet is to install the drivers specific to your laptop from the vendor's support site (Compaq, Acer, etc).

2. Audio

Instead of getting a 2to1 RCA adapter for the audio you could set your playback software to MONO. The software will mix left and right channel and output the mix on both channels. You then need to connect only one of the channels to your TV. I guess this will get better results than the 2to1 adapter.

I don't recommend doing an upgrade, I've read quite a view reports where people ended up with an unstable system after an upgrade.

Just make sure your data is backed up and safe before install - recheck if backup contains all data!

A shop might just wipe the whole drive during install. Or do you plan to do the install yourself? If so, I recommend a bit of planning before you start - it might save you troubles and time in the end.

If you plan to go with the 64bit version of Windows 7, an upgrade won't work anyway.

64bit is not necessarily better, but gives you better protection against root kit infections, and is 'required' for 4GB of RAM and more. Why don't you post the hardware specs of your PC (CPU/Ghz and RAM - right click 'My Computer', choose properties - or the exact laptop model number - check the sticker at the bottom of your laptop).

welo

Not BSOD as such, just stops and reboots.

Anyway, I fired it up and Windows Update said it needed 24 urgent updates! Pretty impressive for a new build with bugger all installed!

So I let it get on with it and it says reboot, which I did so for the last 20 minutes it's been displaying "Preparing to configure Windows. Do not turn off your computer" with the little blue thingy going round and round and the HD LED randomly flashing away. How long do I have to put up with this sh!t? Reminds me soooo much of a Vista SP1 update....

Patience isn't one of my virtues when it comes to MS products so I cold-cocked it. Seems to be OK now.

Windows is set to automatically reboot after a BSOD by default. Often the blue screen will only flash up for a second, or - if the screen is slow to switch resolutions - it will not show up at all.

I'm not saying that I'm absolutely sure it is a BSOD, but IF it is, you might find a hint in the error message to what causes the reboots. And statistically it is more likely to be a BSOD than anything else.

You can either use the program to access the error log of recent BSODs.

or disable the automatic restart option - the PC will then stop on a crash and display the blue screen until you do a hardware reset or power-off.

I think it's possible to migrate a virtual machine from VirtualBox to Vmware or other solutions. It's merely a matter of converting the virtual harddisk, then create a new virtual machine based on it. You might have to change/update drivers but should be no problem. I moved from VirtualPC to VirtualBox this way - VirtualBox can even use VirtualPC's VHD files.

Not that I'd do it on a daily basis but there should be a migration path if VirtualBox is really discontinued. Is it currently possible to migrate from VirtualBox to Qemu?

Since you have security concerns (if I remember correctly from another discussion) I recommend to go with Windows 7 64bit for security reasons.

Only reason that would keep me from going with Win 7 is the costs and slow hardware. But any recently purchased Laptop should be up to the task.

welo

Btw it seems that you can install multi-language support on Windows 7 Pro.

http://www.andrels.com/wp-en_US/index.php/...emium-editions/

Not sure if this conflicts with the Windows EULA or not.

welo

I downloaded it Martin, and it certainly looks about ideal. Unfortunately <this is embarrassing> even something as simple as this I have questions with because I have done so little web stuff.

Not embarrassing, the word is 'ambitious'!

Welo had some suggestions I am also looking into, but I think Single File Gallery is the best choice so far if I can get the puppy installed. Once I get the gallery feature operational I can concentrate on loading photos etc, which even I can handle.

Nothing wrong with keeping it simple. However, if you have Joomla up and running already, it might be easier to setup one of the gallery addons. Just speculating here, since I don't know how Joomla works. Maybe Martin knows..

welo

My laptop has eSATA and it is great for my line of work when I have to back up large files for my projects.

I ended up with 7 Pro as didn't see the price differential between that and Ultimate justifying Bitlocker and the multi language support.

Loaded up OK and installed the add-on VGA but a couple of times it has shut down/restarted unexpectedly. I will check the connections and re-seat the RAM and see what gives.

Sorry to hear of your troubles. Remember that this is most likely a blue screen (BSOD) - use this app to read the BSOD minidump log file: http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/blue_screen_view.html. If it can't find any, then Windows is either not configured to store the reports (AFAIK it is enabled by default), or it points to a power stability issue (from my personal experience).

Btw do you use a UPS and do you have grounding at your place?

Good luck!

Are you able to suggest web album software which I should consider now? I am not beholden to Joomla development if software already exists. I have just started searching for a suitable Joomla template for hundreds of photos so it is a good time to consider alternatives.

Sorry, don't have hands-on experience with any gallery software myself, but used to work as a software engineer on a Content Management System and Media Management System.

I guess it depends what you want to achieve. If you plan to combine written content (articles) with galleries than I'd look for an addon to your CMS or a standalone gallery system that integrates well with your CMS via a plugin.

If you want to create a community around your site focus on the community features like user registration, comment system and rating system. Don't just check if those features are present but how they work in detail and if they are convenient enough. Since you will most likely not kick of the next thaivisa (who knows? ) plan for a lower number of visitors and comments, e.g. allow listing of recent comments, or sort photos with most comments at the beginning, allow comments per album, etc (just a view ideas) so people's contributions don't get lost.

Well, I guess I am going a bit over the top here

Otherwise, if you just plan to share some (or many) photos, I guess you will find that you have an awful lot of choices

http://www.hotscripts.com/category/php/scr...mage-galleries/

This lists hundreds of PHP based gallery products (free and commercial) and often provides a demo link to check it out in action.

Single File PHP Gallery looks like a straight-forward gallery probably perfect for getting something running quick.

Have a look at TinyWebGallery to get some ideas about possible features of web gallery solutions, like slideshows, file download, comments, voting, etc

EDIT: Oh well, here a list of Joomla photo gallery extensions - http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/ph...s/photo-gallery

welo

Might be some files you copied to the drive recently that cause troubles to the player due to a 'bug' (error) in the player's software (aka firmware). Might be a specific file that contains characters that cause the player to stumble, or a cascaded directory structure, the numbers of files on the drive, etc. Just guessing here.

To verify this theory you could copy the files from your hdd to your PC and then wipe the disk by reformatting (with FAT or FAT32). Then test again, then copy one file that you know that works and test again.

I understand it is a 2.5" drive that has no external power supply. If the drive spins up and keeps spinning, the power supplied via the USB port of the player should be OK. This is something you can check just be listening - any up and down spinning signals a power issue (not enough power). However, based on what you wrote in your last post, it doesn't seem like a power issue to me,

Btw, anybody remembers IBM's Deskstar 75GXP in the late 90ies? There were claimed failure rates of >50% within the first year, and a law suit was filed (and won).

IBM's problems back then were most likely due to a problem with newly introduced technologies (glass platterns), and not necessarily with a generally inferior quality of IBM disks. What does this mean today, 10 years later (IBM sold its harddisk business to Hitachi btw)

More recently, there were issues with the Seagate 7200.11 1.5TB drives in the beginning of 2009 (see here and here), but what does this mean for newer models/vintages?

Seagate Barracuda used to be a very reputable hdd series before that (in terms of performance, and reliability). So today, a year later, would I recommend against buying a Seagate drive? Based on what?

I understand that one feels strongly about a brand if it has failed on one personally (and more than one time). That's why you'll find the same contradicting information on WD and Seagate all over the web.

Google reports a failure rate within the first year of about 5% (on average, not on specific vendors/models). 5 out of 100 is not that much, but would you bet that your drive is NOT one of those 5 (the bet being your sole copy of 10 years of family pictures).

So my point is: better assume that your drive WILL fail and plan and actually IMPLEMENT a (regular) backup strategy

welo

Which antivirus software do you have installed? Is it up2date, did you run a full computer scan?

What happens if you google for 'free antivirus'?

Click on the first result, it should bring you to http://free.avg.com/ If any other website shows up your browser has probably been hijacked by a trojan. (I don't recommend AVG though!)

Go with Malwarebytes as has already been suggested. If it finds any infections, copy/paste the log file here.

Also download Hitman Pro from here: http://download.cnet.com/Hitman-Pro-3/3000....html?tag=mncol

It is fast and not popular enough yet to be blocked and sabotaged by trojans that are already on your system.

welo

Just keep in mind that it is not necessarily a certain manufacturer that is more or less reliable, but a certain model, series/vintages, or maybe even disks manufactured during a specific time period at a specific plant that are showing unusual high failure rates.

For example, there seems to be a high failure rate for the Seagate 1tb & 1.5tb drives, but their 250gb & 320gb drives are solid. Yet the Western Digital 1tb, 1.5tb, & 2tb drives seem more stable, but there have been issues with their 500gb drives.

source: http://serverfault.com/questions/7952/what...rates/8023#8023

The number of customer complaints on message boards and such, and even personal experience are not the best tools to draw conclusions on the reliability of a vendor. This is a matter of statistics, test sample size and significance. Unfortunately there is not a lot of data available on that subject.

These kinds of data sets are hard to get - first you have to have 100,000 disks, then you have to record failure-related data faithfully for years on end, and then you have to release the data in a form that doesn't get anyone sued.

source: https://lwn.net/Articles/237924/

Google published a much talked about report in 2007, but didn't include (or publish) results based on vendor or model.

Failure rates are known to be highly correlated with drive models, manufacturers and vintages [18]. Our results do not contradict this fact. For example, Figure 2 [that was a chart on failure rates after x months] changes significantly when we normalize failure rates per each drive model. Most age-related results are impacted by drive vintages. However, in this paper, we do not show a breakdown of drives per manufacturer, model, or vintage due to the proprietary nature of these data.

source: Google report, http://static.googleusercontent.com/extern...sk_failures.pdf

One interesting find was that failure rate does NOT correlate to higher temperatures (if not exceeding 55°) which was a commonly accepted 'fact' until then.

There is a reliability database at StorageReview.com (unfortunately one has to register and add at least one sample before being allowed to access the database), and it seems that WD was not doing that well in mid 2008, but even (or especially) StorageReview has a problem with a low number of samples/entries and statistical relevance, as this poster sums it up:

Well, there is a bias, but it's not StorageReview's. In any survey where you only get a sample of the population, the survey results reflect the people who answered the survey, not everyone. If there are factors that make the sample population different from the whole population, then the survey won't show meaningful results.

For example, suppose that of the people who have failing Raptors, a higher percentage of them go to StorageReview to input their experience than the people who have working Raptors. Thus, the StorageReview survey could reflect a higher failure rate than actually exists in the field.

With the low sample size of the StorageReview survey (I think I saw somewhere where there's only 140 data points for one of the Raptors), this makes the sample results all the more likely to deviate from the population.

In short, I don't think the StorageReview results can be trusted because of these statistical factors.

So which harddisk to buy?

The one with the longest warranty!

Just prepare that the drive will fail sooner or later and implement a backup strategy (or prepare to loose your data)

welo

If it's a 2.5" drive without external power supply it might be a power issue. Does the drive spin up when connected?

The drive will require more power when starting up, maybe the DVD cannot provide enough power anymore - but it's still enough for the thumb drive.

Regardless of 2.5" or 3.5", try another USB cable. Sometimes cables of poor quality (bad shielding) or cables that are too long cause troubles. The thicker and shorter, the better. Once with extra shielding (a cylindrical box near one end) are better, too.

If 3.5" with external power supply, I assume the harddisk spins up (-> noise), does it?

Does the DVD try to access the drive ('initializing...' or similar) or not detect the drive at all.

If it detects the disk but fails listing the contents, it might be a file system issue. Run chkdsk on your PC, or try emptying the drive and see if the DVD player can read it.

Did you change anything on the disk since it last worked?

USB3.0 or eSATA comes in handy when you want to connect an external harddisk. But this is actually the only use-case I can think of now where both matter. So you are probably right. I just wish my Laptop had eSata because USB2.0 sucks big time for exernal storage systems

Switching language is only a view clicks but requires logging out and back in again (create a shortcut to the 'change display language' dialog on your desktop, then it's only dblclick, select language from dropdown, click OK, click logoff in the dialog box and it will log you off, you'll then have to login again)

If think the display language setting is stored per user account if you want to setup two different user accounts.

welo

Get one with a 6-cell battery for longer battery life (instead of 3-cell)

The 2nd generation Intel Atom CPU/platform is more energy efficient and called 'Pineview', CPUs are named N450 and N470. Some 1st generation netbooks might still be on sale.

1st-generation, 3-cell netbooks should be the cheapest, 2nd-generation with 6-cell battery the most expensive.

Try the forum search, limit to the IT forum, use 'vonage' as the search term, and choose 'show result as posts'

And have a read here to get more ideas...

Voip Options In Thailand, skype? Is thai internet reliable enough 2010-05-22

Skype Withdraws Thailand From "unlimited Country", Might as well remove the ad now... 2010-05-08

Calling Thailand From Usa, Best cards available online for both mobile and landline 2010-04-12

Anyone Know Cheap Call Number From Uk To Thailand 2010-02-26

Phone Services For Dialing From Thailand To Usa, 005+... 009+... etc 2010-04-01

High Phone Costs Vs Skype, how to save money 2009-12-27

One2call International Rates 001 005 009 Etc. 2009-07-

Phone Call Cards With Cheap Rates, to the Netherlands 2009-09-04

Phoning Thailand From The Uk, what is the cheapest and best for mobile and landline ? 2009-09-13

Cheap Overseas Phone Calls 2008-05-07

Whats The Best Voip International Service You Use From Thailand?, VOIP, Computers, Telecoms, Internet, 2007-10-12

True InterSim http://www.truemove.com/EN/Inter-SIM-postpay.rails

12call international calls howto http://www.ais.co.th/12call/en/service-AIN.html

Thai VOIP Provider with BKK dialin numbers

www.thaitelephone.com

www.deedial.com

Hm. Seems the PRO version has neither eSATA nor USB 3.0. The ASUS P7H55D-M EVO has both.

Good advise but it seems too late.

Checking the device manager and re-installing the drive would be the first step (because easy to accomplish),

but more likely it's a hardware issue, so cleaning the lense (with a cleaning kit or manually -> google) would be next.

A DVD drive uses two different laser diodes to read CDs and DVDs (different wave lengths), so if one type of media is not working, the laser might have burnt out.

If I remember correctly on aging drives the laser calibration might wear out as well.

Both are not easy to fix and replacing the drive is usually the better option.

Don't forget to check the warranty of the drive (sticker on the drive itself) if it is a Desktop PC.

Some standard questions:

Is it a Desktop PC or Laptop?

How old is the drive?

When did the problems start? Did you change anything in your setup (software, hardware) recently?

Use the best 'pressed' CDs and DVDs you can find (original, no scratches) and clean them before testing.

You mostly refer to DVDs but also state that a 'CD-ROM' is not working - is it possible you actually tested with a data DVD and not a data CD?

CPU temp seems not optimal, but not overly hot either - judging from other reports. Check out this one

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249655-2...emperature-high

Compared to what temperatures others report I don't think you can rule out an overheating issue.

You could try underclocking your CPU to rule out an overheating issue with the CPU - if your BIOS supports it. Sometimes this works by underclocking the Front Side Bus (FSB).

Or reseat the heatsink and re-apply the thermal paste. Quite a lot people suggest this on other forums as well. Stock cooler doesn't seem to be very good either. The guy actually brought down idle temperature to 18°(!) with a new cooler.

Btw do you have the Core2 Duo E6600 at 2.4Ghz or the Pentium E6600 at 3.06. They are both specified at 65W TDP (Thermal Design Power), but the first is 65nm, the latter 45nm. The 45nm Wolfdale seems to be clocked at the upper range compared to other models of the same architecture. I'd assume it might be more sensitive to heat issues.

EDIT: Seems my theory is wrong, the 45nm Wolfdale can handle up to 74°. And I assume you own the 65nm since you mentioned a 60° limit.

If you boot into the BIOS and have the CPU idle for some time, what are the temperature readings and does it crash?

I guess suspecting a power supply issue is very reasonable, too. A voltage drop might definitely cause freezes (or reboots). Don't know any other way to rule out this one than changing components (power supply and UPS). If you can rule out a heat issue (crash in the BIOS) I would go for this possibility.

Do you have an onboard GPU or an addon video card?

welo

AFAIK dpi is pretty irrelevant for displaying images on a computer screen.

The browser will (usually) display the picture by matching one pixel of the image to one pixel of your screen. The dpi information is merely additional meta data that is used to calculate width and length in inch when the picture is printed on paper.

Adobe Photoshop even removes the information on dpi when using the 'save for web' option. The quality of a picture always depends on the actual number of pixels (as well as compression quality in case of non-lossless formats). Just look at modern digital cameras - when choosing the picture quality it is always about pixels (plus compression quality), never about inch or dpi.

http://apptools.com/examples/dpi.php

http://www.scantips.com/no72dpi.html

Websites that focus on photos usually provide the same image in different resolutions (=pixels) depending where/how it is used on the website:

thumbnails

'full screen' view

high-resolution file for download and printing.

The web designer usually creates the website design for a certain minimal screen resolution (for instance 1024x768). Your 'full-screen' picture resolution should then be chosen to fit on a screen of this 'size' displaying all user interface components AND the image.

More sophisticated websites might provide the full-screen size depending on the users screen resolution to improve user experience or allow the user to choose the resolution.

Web album software usually takes care of generating the various formats from the original file. That might happen on the fly, on upload or triggered from the administration interface. The generated images are usually cached on the server since CPU power and response times are more valuable than storage space.

As already mentioned on this thread, you should think about what maximum quality (high-res, for download) you want to provide to the user. For the user it's usually the bigger the better, but many times photographers don't want to give away their high-res pictures for free.

This brings up the copyright question - if you don't 'own' the pictures (through purchase, or because you took them yourself) you cannot just collect images on the web and publish them on your website.

So back to the OP's original question about the pixel resolution:

Learn from others. Have a look at flickr and Co and see how they handle the full-size format on different screen resolutions

welo

ASUS EN8400GS/512Mb vga

Good choice energy wise

2D Desktop use: 19W

3D Full Load: 32W

(for the 256MB card, source: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforc...er,2122-4.html)

I guess you didn't order from the US now, did you?

welo

A number of nasty and malicious posts have been deleted from this thread.

Thank you!

Nobody wants to be fooled, and there is always two sides to a story, but this kind of negativism and aggressiveness was too much for me!

And interestingly, whereas one person complained/wondered that Martin is replying slowly, another critic accused him of wasting time in this forum instead of taking actions. But for both it seemed to make it more likely that the story is a hoax.

Good luck, Martin!

Martin.

Have you contacted Andrew-Drummond dot com?

If not, why not?

Hmmm, nil response, & it's no wonder there are doubters posting.

Amazing!

C'mon guys (this is not only addressed at GungaDin)!!

Don't you think that the man has other things to do than answer posts on this forum? Maybe he is actually trying to get into contact with the right people and/or take actions.

It's not that he doesn't respond at all...

2010-06-01 18:22:47

2010-06-01 19:00:45

2010-06-01 20:58:21

2010-06-01 22:13:03

2010-06-02 00:52:44

2010-06-02 02:09:11

2010-06-02 10:05:12

2010-06-02 13:28:48

2010-06-02 14:28:28

2010-06-02 14:57:49

I understand that people want to know more details about the story, either out of curiosity, empathy, whatsoever, or to be able to provide better advise.

But I think it is also perfectly understandable that he does not want to discuss the whole personal story here in detail. Maybe he went public in order to get connected to the right people (directly, personally) or put more pressure on the police (just like others here suggested).

Not sharing the details of his story here is by no means a sign of a 'fishy' story IMHO.

welo