OT: Technology and Geek Stuff Thread

[DeanUK]

Storing photos and music though? I'm sick of moving them around every couple years because my external drive starts acting goofy.

My ISP gives me unlimited upload for Flickr as part of the package. I still back up to an external drive though. The good thing with Flickr is that you upload the images at the full size.

[Coop]

It's totally your call Mason - as a network admin I am by nature a bit of a control freak. At home I backup my stuff to 2 separate devices.

Tony - I've had external drives go and unfortunately they often do with no warning..

[Panoptes]

Mason - there are several online services available. Dropbox is one, and there are several others. Most will give you 1 or 2 GB of space free, more than that you have to pay for. Opinions vary - I myself am leery about putting my personal info "in the cloud" even though it's password protected.

Ditto

The one type of site that just slays me with laughter is the kind of site that you can "safely" store all of your passwords to all the important websites in your life in one convenient location.

Wow, how convenient! And completely idiotic.

LOFL

Never in a million years am I going to put all my most guarded passwords out on the web, password protected or not, for any hacker(s) from any computer in the world to do their best to gain access to for their own personal and financial new beginnings (or someone else once they sell that info).

[Topweasel]

Didn't consider the cable. I did unplug it and plug it back in though.

GO LIONS "11" !

Blinking Monitor usually means no signal and its in sleep (though some is a solid orange power light). Its 9 times more likely that the computer is at fault. I have seen a monitor go out, but its rare in comparison to a computer issue.

[Topweasel]

Mason you could always put your stuff on one of those Raid Mirror LACIE external drives. Or better yet stop dealing with external drives and get a WHS, and have store and duplicate your pictures and do incremental backups of your computers. Pretty cheap to set one up with the current cost of hard drive space.

[mason reese]

Don't really have room for a WHS, I live in a small-ish 2 bedroom apartment with a wife and kid. For various reasons I've had to powed down my externel drive 4 or 5 times over the last 2 years. Any time I power one down, there seems to be a fairly good possibility that it doesn't power up right. Usually I can get past it, but right now I can't access my newest one and it's pissing me off.

[Topweasel]

Don't really have room for a WHS, I live in a small-ish 2 bedroom apartment with a wife and kid. For various reasons I've had to powed down my externel drive 4 or 5 times over the last 2 years. Any time I power one down, there seems to be a fairly good possibility that it doesn't power up right. Usually I can get past it, but right now I can't access my newest one and it's pissing me off.

See thats where you build up a little HTPC in like a Silverstone case to setup at the TV to act as a media server, backup server, and PVR. That takes a bit more work and money though.

[DanO]

"DanO, did you ever figure out if it was your monitor or your computer?"
---------------------I plugged my sons monitor in and everything worked fine. So that's great it's not the computer. I also got lucky as a friend gave me an old monitor to use so I'm back in business. No cost incurred--------YIPPPPIIIEE!!

"Blinking Monitor usually means no signal and its in sleep (though some is a solid orange power light). Its 9 times more likely that the computer is at fault. I have seen a monitor go out, but its rare in comparison to a computer issue."
---------------------What's this sleep mode you speak of. I didn't dispose of a perfectly good monitor did I??????

GO LIONS "11" !

[LionsFanInJapan]

Great news!

[mason reese]

Maybe you guys can explain this to me...

I have my router, nothing is hard-wired into it, when I wire my external drive to the router the port indicator light on the router turns on. It even blinks which makes it look like some kind of communication is going on between the router and the drive...but when I go to the admin page of router setup and look at the list of attached devices; I see my wireless devices listed but nothing show up under the wired devices.


Does the blinking light on my router just indicate an electrical connection was made? Or does it mean that at least there's some sort of communication going on?

[Marko69]

"DanO, did you ever figure out if it was your monitor or your computer?"
---------------------I plugged my sons monitor in and everything worked fine. So that's great it's not the computer. I also got lucky as a friend gave me an old monitor to use so I'm back in business. No cost incurred--------YIPPPPIIIEE!!

"Blinking Monitor usually means no signal and its in sleep (though some is a solid orange power light). Its 9 times more likely that the computer is at fault. I have seen a monitor go out, but its rare in comparison to a computer issue."
---------------------What's this sleep mode you speak of. I didn't dispose of a perfectly good monitor did I??????

GO LIONS "11" !

This makes me think of British comedian Lee Evans and when he talks about objects around the house and if they had feelings......, would be like this,.....,

DanO (as he throws monitor into trash) "Stupid fucking monitor, get out my house you piece of shit."

Monitor: "What'd I do? That bastard just woke me up!"

[Topweasel]

"DanO, did you ever figure out if it was your monitor or your computer?"
---------------------I plugged my sons monitor in and everything worked fine. So that's great it's not the computer. I also got lucky as a friend gave me an old monitor to use so I'm back in business. No cost incurred--------YIPPPPIIIEE!!

"Blinking Monitor usually means no signal and its in sleep (though some is a solid orange power light). Its 9 times more likely that the computer is at fault. I have seen a monitor go out, but its rare in comparison to a computer issue."
---------------------What's this sleep mode you speak of. I didn't dispose of a perfectly good monitor did I??????

GO LIONS "11" !

Nope you are probably good. Just when a monitor stops receiving a signal unlike most TV's it goes into an extremely low power mode waiting for a signal. If another monitor worked you should be fine.

Though I have seen monitors get stuck on sleep. Sometimes getting unplugged (from wall and PC) can allow it to work again. Also dependant on the monitor sometimes its the connection it has a problem with so if you are using DVI, then VGA might work and vice versa. This was a big issue on some Dell Ultrasharps like the 2405-2408.

[Topweasel]

Maybe you guys can explain this to me...

I have my router, nothing is hard-wired into it, when I wire my external drive to the router the port indicator light on the router turns on. It even blinks which makes it look like some kind of communication is going on between the router and the drive...but when I go to the admin page of router setup and look at the list of attached devices; I see my wireless devices listed but nothing show up under the wired devices.


Does the blinking light on my router just indicate an electrical connection was made? Or does it mean that at least there's some sort of communication going on?

Some level of communication. The nicks can establish a handshake, but for example if it is not broadcasting the MAC, or the firmware requires communication with the hard drive and that isn't working before it "boots up" then that could be an issue.

What type of drive is it? One of those network Mybooks from WD? The enclosures accross that whole Mybook line are horrible. Very poor internal hardware, enclosures are not their cup of tea.

[mason reese]

Some level of communication. The nicks can establish a handshake, but for example if it is not broadcasting the MAC, or the firmware requires communication with the hard drive and that isn't working before it "boots up" then that could be an issue.

What type of drive is it? One of those network Mybooks from WD? The enclosures accross that whole Mybook line are horrible. Very poor internal hardware, enclosures are not their cup of tea.

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner.

[Topweasel]

Ding ding ding!!! We have a winner.

Good news is that the drive is probably good.