Computer Questions (formally Your Desktop)

Shit. Ask toolbar or something thelike?

That goddam Ask toolbar. It attaches itself to everything these days, even more or less legitimate stuff.

Just remember; don't just click "next" without looking to see what you're agreeing to.

finally got rid of this damn ask bar crap.
/tom

Is it an ad?
Tom

I have a question for anyone who knows anything about the Opera browser.

I've just updated Opera and now I have 2 versions installed. Rather than updating the version I had, the process seems to have added a second version of the browser.

Does anyone know what's going on?

The "old" version of Opera is v12.17 (according to my computer's Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs utility. And what seems to have been added is "Opera Stable 26.0.165.60"

I'm surprised about the newer version because I've been keeping up with the Opera updates and only now have I received v26. Reading around, it seems to have been around for some time.

I assume that v26 (which I think is a version after Opera decided to base the Opera browser on Google's Chromium something-or-other) is the preferred version and I can delete v12?

The family PC has an intermittent issue with the monitor: every so often the signal between the monitor and the PC seems to fail and the screen goes blank. The only thing that I have found that resolves this is to long-hold the power button to reboot the PC. (I suppose this suggests that it's not the monitor but a problem with the PC itself.)

Normally this isn't a problem. But tonight it did it whilst I was doing a Windows Update. So I am thinking that the last thing I should do is to reboot the PC right in the middle of this update.

Probably need to leave it on overnight so that I know that is definitely finished updating and then do the reboot and just hope for the best...

I notice that it seems to happen with only some preview clips. Some play just fine.

Could this indicate that it's something that's peculiar with the settings set by Amazon?

I just got a 29" computer monitor from a friend who got a lap top. This makes a big difference for me.
Tom

I suggest you fully uninstall both versions from your system. Download the installer from Opera's official website, and do a clean install. As of March 25th, the latest version of Opera is 28.0.1750.48. Be sure you backup your bookmarks before you proceed!



This usually indicates that your graphic card is failing. How old is your machine?




The Amazon streaming service relies on Adobe Flash Player to work properly. When this extension is disabled or not installed on the browser, the service prompts to download a M3U file instead which essentially gets your PC's media player to do the buffer, only without using Adobe Flash Player. By default most browsers don't include the Flash player plugin due to its endless number of security concerns. You may want to check if this is the case with your Chrome browser:

1) Type in "chrome:plugins" in Chrome browser, without the quotation marks.

2) Look for an item called Flash

3) Check that both "Enable" and "Always Allowed" options are enabled.

It is also worth checking if you have any extensions installed that might prevent Flash Files to work properly. Ad Block extensions usually do this behavior if not configured properly.

I'm wondering how best to make an additional "back-up" copy of my music.

Currently, I have all my music mirrored on two separate external hard drives and these are regularly updated as-and-when new music is received. I have an extra external hard drive and I was thinking on using this as a third back-up drive but wonder how best to copy the music from one of the current drives to this new drive?

Whichever way is best, it's going to take a while - 500+ GB of music isn't going to be transferred quickly I imagine. Can I attach the two drives to my PC and just copy over via the computer, or must I copy the music to the PC's drive and then copy it to the new drive?

Cheers.

So, Synctoy can analyse and compare external hard drive "A" (containing my data) with external hard drive "B" (no data) (both drives attached to common PC) and initiate a duplication of drive "A" on to drive "B"?

I am hesitant to comment as I use a Robocopy script.
It's not complicated, and not even very technical, but if you get in on the ground floor, there *may* be a steep learning curve. So it all depends on how much effort you're willing to spend.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wik … mples.aspx
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/whats-new … 7-robocopy

I'll be happy to share my script, but of course you'd need to modify it to suit your needs!

A completely different route to take are offline backups.
I use CrashPlan and am VERY happy with it...but (from experience) I can tell you that backing up libraries of this size may take many, many weeks. And of course it's not free.

That should simply be a matter of drag and drop.

Indeed. Although I'd still recommend a script (especially with folders of this size and the amount of files we're talking about).
Main reasons: drag-and-drop can take a looooooooong time. And if the process is interrupted you need to start all over again! A robocopy script is MUCH faster and more efficient (as it can automatically skip any files already copied).