there's no tutorials for the phone I have :(


It's a courtesy phone provided for by the guvment. I have figured how to get em on using cloud. Thanks though :)

Bought myself new bluetooth speakers and there's a very noticeable audio delay, no matter whether I use my laptop or my phone as a source.
From what I could find on the internet the problem is basically unfixable.
Or is it? Anyone has experience with this?

Speed up time to make the delay less noticeable.

I'm replacing my old Ubuntu desktop / media server with some newer hardware. Wondering whether or not I should make the jump to an SSD for the OS.

Current System:
AMD FX-4300 Quad Core
8GB DDR3
300GB Seagate Barracuda disk for the OS
12-year old VGA monitor. (No interest in HD)

New System:
ASRock Z97 PRO4 MOBO - Correction: MSI 970A-G46
AMD FX-6300 Six Core Black Ed.
12GB DDR3
Same monitor

I'll pick up a cheap video card as this mobo doesn't have onboard video
And potentially a 128GB SSD for the OS

What I Use It For:
- Subsonic Media Server, web browsing, Google suite of apps
- Potentially using Virtual Box for Adobe Creative Suite, though presently I use Inkscape and Gimp
- No HD Video or gaming

At present, file browsing, Chrome, and gMusicBrowser are sluggish and Gnome hangs almost daily. Wondering whether the SSD would significantly improve basic system performance over the 8-year old HDD?

Absolutely 100% you should get an SSD for your OS (that's "solid state hard drive" and "operating system" respectively, Trollheart).

You will see a dramatic speed increase in boot time and how quickly applications work.

I don't know if NewEgg ships internationally but they always have deals going on SSDs. I would really suggest upgrading to a 1080p monitor though, they run fairly cheap these days... and it's 2017...

Thanks for the input! Two new manufacturing plants just opened so there should be a drop in market price in the next few months. I'll keep an eye on sales daily.

My 22" monitor is WSXGA, and I've never watched anything that was available in over 720p, as most of my viewing interests involve 1920s-1960s classic and cult cinema. I'm in no hurry to go from 1680x1050 to 1080p, but if a hand-me-down monitor comes along I'll pick it up.

Thanks again!

You do you man, I'm all about that video fidelity, but I like to game a lot too, so different priorities for me.

I do have one question though, is your MOBO ("Motherboard", Trollheart) compatible with an AMD processor? I'm looking it up on Newegg and it looks like it only supports Intel processors.

Thanks for the lookout. The box says AMD Crossfire technology and supports both Intel and AMD, and the CPU block has an AMD FX logo etched on it. I should be in good shape.

Alright, I would just double double check because it could mean that it supports AMD graphics cards. This is what I find when I look up your MOBO

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...82E16813157507

Its chipset is Intel Z97

My mistake - I just double checked with my friend who provided the MOBO - he was just using a spare MOBO box - the actual model is the MSI 970A-G46 which is strictly AMD FX.

Sorry for my oversight! I appreciate you taking the time to make sure I'm set.

Yo Pete! Why you singling me out? I'm not even contributing to this set of posts. Also, I know what all those acronyms are: I'm not computer illiterate. I ain't no Freebase Dali, but I know what it is and where it goes. :(

Hey, everyone. I did end up picking up a certified refurb SSD and spent 7 hours attempting to install Ubuntu and mirroring my OS config to the drive. I quickly learned that my custom config doesn't lend itself to cloning applications, so after trying several backup utilities I gave up and wrote a process guide to rebuild the entire system from scratch.

I then tried flashing the live USB with several distros none of which installed without errors, zeroed out the SSD and started from scratch repeatedly, but each attempt was worse than the prior. Every install reports numerous system errors when I boot to it, all application installs fail, and after the latest fresh install, the system freezes at the password prompt.

I ran disk tests and it says it's OK. Any ideas why the SSD is giving me so much trouble simply installing Ubuntu?

looking for opinions from those more knowledgable than i

my macbook will be 6 years old this winter and i'm thinking i'm way over due for a new computer. i'm done with Apple as I've had a fair share of issues with this computer and for the price tag it really doesn't wow me. because i'm a university student it will kind of need to be an all-purpose computer, but i would primarily like it to be able to run games and stream (not necessarily at the same time, the streaming would more than likely games from my xbox.) because i can still get a little money for my mac, i'm not overly worried about paying a little bit extra to get higher quality. in saying that, i am still a student so i would like to keep it under $1500 for sure.

tl;dr i'm looking at this laptop, from my knowledge it seems like it would meet all my needs. i7 processor would be really nice and i see it's on amazon for $1,349. having an hdd isn't ideal, but i'm sure i can swap it for an ssd later on if it really affects performance. so if someone can confirm that i'm not wasting over a grand by buying that i would appreciate it, or if anyone has a better alternative in the same price range or cheaper point me in that direction.

That is one hell of a laptop! I've never used computers for gaming [besides solitaire], so I can't help you out much, but Windows 10 does have good integration with your XBOX, which you mentioned would be a selling point for you. I hear that Alienware laptops are great for gaming. You might check them out.

yeah, Microsoft seems to be pushing really hard towards merging Xbox and Windows software, the line between video game consoles and PCs are getting narrower and narrower by the year.

the high end Alienware builds look nice but there's nothing in the price range of the ASUS with the same specs. i'm pretty sure there are a few IT guys on here so i just wanted to ask the question in case there was a make or break quality I should know about the laptop ahead of time.

A Friendly Word of Caution for those considering Ubuntu 17.10

I recently found myself missing the superior Gnome desktop environment while stuck with Unity in Ubuntu 16.04. That was the core motivator for me to make the switch to 17.10 which finally implemented Gnome as the standard environment.

Mine was not a smooth transition. Rebooting after the upgrade, I lost support for both keyboard and mouse. Booting to a live USB I ran into additional troubles with a known bug where obsolete packages from the existing system cannot be removed. Cutting my losses, I performed a fresh install and began rebuilding my applications from scratch.

There were numerous hiccups - issues with Java compatibility for my server, (resolved by rolling back to v8), and some third party applications have no support as of yet for 17.10. The only major unresolved issue at present is FreeFileSync. I've not yet found a comparable disk synchronization alternative for Linux and the application interface is a bit garbled in 17.10.

A word of caution for anyone considering making the jump - know what you're getting in to. And unless you desperately need a particular function only available in the new distro, you might be better off waiting another round.

But if you have given it a shot, I'd love to hear your results.

If anyone can explain VOIP, SD WAN, and MPLS systems and how they work to me like I'm 5 years old, that'd be pretty sweet.

Definite contender for Most Helpful Comment of 2017!

Me neither. I gave up and handed the project off to someone who had time for that ****.

Maybe I can shed some light on the situation.

Well, little Frowny, you see, there are these big scary things called "Network Protocol's" that you should never touch because they could kill you. Here's your juice box. It's nap time.

Has anyone here ever successfully converted a VGA connection to HDMI? VGA is an analog video connection and HDMI is digital A/V. I bought 2 adapters [with VGA on one end and HDMI on the other], but neither worked.

I want to use my LED TV as a PC monitor, but it doesn't have a VGA input. I have seen electric boxes that convert the signal from analog to digital online. Has anyone here ever tackled this issue?

VGA to HDMI Cable PC Laptop Computer to TV Converter Adapter HD Sound HDTV 1080P | eBay

would think that should do the trick, no? when i worked at wal-mart we used to sell converters for that. RCA to HDMI is where we always had the bigger problem.

Dude, I used to work at Walmart in Electronics too.

https://i.imgur.com/55MWqhs.png

:beer:

Any crazy Walmart stories under your belt? We've all got 'em LOL.

the wal-mart i worked at was in my hometown (very small community, probably a population of 2500 or so) and because it's relatively low-income area we dealt with a lot of theft. anyway, there was one customer in particular, one who i actually believe suffered from a few mental disabilities, who was a repeat offender. one time in particular, he was caught by the store manager with a cart full of items he had just stolen tied to the back of his bicycle. the cops were involved and he was stopped before he made it too far, but the image is just hilarious on it's own.

that's probably the most memorable one. aside from that it was just a lot of bitchy customers who i wish i could've slapped around.

oh, there was also the two or three month period where i'm pretty sure there were some fairly serious drug lords near my town because these 3 or 4 guys would come in every few days and buy a handful of pre-paid cell phones and pay in hundred dollar bills that they kept rolled up with an elastic.

I loved it when a dude legit asked me if we sold a "universal adapter."

oh **** there was also the time where a customer asked me about our wireless TVs. i gave him a puzzled look and he said "you know, wireless, like all the ones you have on display up there? they obviously aren't plugged in!"

i was speechless.

Well show me the wires then, Mr. Smartypants

Aux to floppy disc like a mother****er

I had NASCAR driver CARL EDWARDS come through my checkout one time.

Did he stop or just drive on through? :)

Anyone know how I can use stereo speakers with a laptop?

I just plug my speakers into my laptop and there's stereo.

Is there something I'm missing here?

yes

http://gandhiappliances.com/wp-conte...-MHCEC99-1.jpg

Speakers like that. Not desktop/laptop speakers.

Oh ffs that link

New link put in

Ok that's different. My first thought would be that there's going to need to be some extra unit in between. Then I googled it and found this thread:

https://www.techspot.com/community/t...-thanks.61179/

Especially this part seems worth noting:

"You cannot connect the speakers directly - your wee soundcard just doesn't have the output power needed. Well, unless the speakers have a builtin amplification system.

So instead you have to connect your monsterspeakers to some amplifying unit and then feed that from your laptop. You probably need a 3.5mm stereo male to dual RCA male cable to make the link from your lappy to the sound system. "

Plus, at least where I live, speakers can have quite a few types of connectors. The stereo I'm using for CD's right now just has these clamps where you stick the exposed wire from the speakers straight into the clamps and shut them. I'd have no way of hooking those speakers up to my computer unless I found an amplifier with clamps - which probably would be difficult.