Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Computers

I hope its appropriate to post this here as we all use them here.My comp just crashed resently and I weent and got a new one.Wanted XP Pro but all they had was windows Vista.Im no comp geek but I dont like it much.Its slow and am having a hard time gettng around in it.I called a couple of freinds/geeks and they just laughed and told me to call back in about 8 months AFTER WINDOWS FIXED ALL THE PROBLEMS.Apparently I should have waited to get another xp machine but I was too impateint to get back and read POND BOSS!!!!!
Tom
If u want details about this thing James is coming over this weekend to "browse" around on this thing and Ill find out what I can.Im going to show him this site and the mag while hes here anyway.

Tom, you may want to buy Windows XP Pro and reformat the drive and install XP Pro. Windows XP can be purchased for about $60. Unfortunately Vista is having significant issues at this point and it will probably take months to work them out. Type "vista problems" into google and you will see what I mean.

i miss DOS

A new Microsoft operating system should never be used until service pack 1 has been proven to fix all the problems.

Service pack 1 will need several patches to make it usable and will then require daily updates on a continuing basis.

D.I.E.D. – I have a case of DOS 6.22 packages in the warehouse with the printed manuals. What would that be worth on e-Bay?

I'm using Vista, have been for a month or two. It's not THAT bad. If it's REALLY slow on your machine...I'd have to say you bought a "new" underpowered machine. I'm using it on an old (3 years) AMD 64 3000+ with 1 gig and it's about as fast as XP was.

What is your "system rating"? Mine is 4.1

Sure it's got some "quirks" and takes time to learn where things are. There have been a few glitches but overall it's running just fine.

It's more of an upgrade to XP, it doesn't feel like a whole new OS like going from Windows 3 to 95 was.

See if you can figure out the REAL reason it's running slow. Then give it a chance, I think you'll learn to like it.

My Dell laptop is on its last legs and I was going to replace it. I checked with some "tech people" at work 2 days ago and they said exactly what Dwight said. They also said that if you are going to get a PC with Vista on it you need a "dual-core" processor (AMD or Intel, doesn't matter) and at least 1GB of memory. I may still get a new one this weekend and deal with the Microsoft updates and service packs.

I WOULDN'T BUY A COMPUTER WITH A NEW OPERATING SYSTEM UNTIL THEY HAVE BEEN OUT FOR ABOUT A YEAR OR SO. COMPUTERS ARE WORSE THAN CARS. YOU NEVER WANT THE NEWEST MODEL.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, I OWN A COMPANY THAT MANUFACTURES AND DISTRIBUTES COMPUTER CABLES & NETWORKING PRODUCTS SO IF ANY MY FRIENDS ON THIS POND BOSS SITE EVER NEED ANYTHING SEND ME AN EMAIL AT RANDY@DNRDATACONNECTION.COM I'LL GIVE YOU A GREAT DEAL. YOU ALL HAVE HELPED ME OUT PLENTY OF TIMES WITH POND INFO.
DON'T WORRY THE DNR STANDS FOR DONNA AND RANDY I HAVE ABSOLUTLY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES.

I've made a Powerpoint presentation for the Pond Boss conference. It runs beautifully on my wife's computer, where it was created, and includes video of my best young bluegill.

Here's the glitch. When we burn it to a CD, and try to play it on my computer, which is a relatively recent unit made by Compaq, the presentation plays exactly the same, except the video doesn't run, it just stays frozen on the first frame.

My question is, does it need recorded on something different, like a DVD-R?, or might there be some other problem?

My daughter has actually created the presentation, which means it came out really well, except there are a lot of pink colors in it.

My Compaq was really bad at playing cd or dvds unless I copied the info to my harddrive, then it worked fine. It is possible that your Compaq can't read cds, I would try another medium, like an sd card from a camera or one of those thumb drives that plugs into a usb port. Or if online with both email a copy to your Compaq.

Ordinarily my Compaq has no problems with CD or DVD-R. Maybe I could copy to a flash drive (is that the same as a thumb drive?).

What should I do to absolutely assure that the presentation can be shown at the Conference? I was thinking that I would have it on my computer, on a flash drive AND on a CD. I just don't want anything to go wrong. It's going to be a pretty cool show, I think. But leave it to me to screw it up some way.

I was at a dental seminar two weeks ago and the lady who was giving the presentation in front of 600 dentists was horrified that her Powerpoint video wouldn't run. That's my worst nightmare.

Worst Nightmare? Here is mine.

Bruce, I would call Compac and let them walk you thru the setup. Tell them the issues you are having. They will sort it out for you. Have all the teck info on the computer before you call. This is a laptop I presume?

Edit: what a dumb post. Call Compac? One can get better info/advice on this forum on most any subject. What was I thinking?

Dear PondBoss: my wife and I keep each other up snoring at night. We both deny....

Bruce Condello - It is not a computer problem.

You can call Compaq (HP), waste a half hour on hold (your dime) and talk to a tech person in India that speaks indian-english-er-whatish.

Try putting the video in the same folder as the PP presentation, or at least on the same CD.

If that doesn’t fix the issue, e-mail me and I will help.

Dumb question (by me)...What does that mean?

When my daughter put the video in, it went from a camera, to an SD card, to the hard drive of the big computer (wife's), then we clicked on "Add video" on the PP program. This made the video run on the main computer, but then we downloaded to a CD, which was then carried by foot to the laptop. It then ran perfectly, except for the videos, which just showed as a single frame.

Bruce Condello - PP can’t find the video because it isn’t on the CD that you recorded.

You need to make sure that the video file is on the CD.

Vista update
Memory 512 mb
hard drive 1.2gb
processor 356
emachine model w3609 walmart 500.00 bucks
James came over and looked at this thing right after I posted and browsed around.He said he turned off a bunch of pretties and to to try it awhile.
One week later,told me to remove macaffy antivirus. Had a few glitches but have rebooted 5-6-7 times and everything seems to be settling down and working pretty good now.James said maybe it had to get out of the diaper stage before it started working well.He also said macaffy was inter/contradicting other programs,thats why we removed it.It has screwed up a few times but reboot fixed it every time so far.It IS much faster now,seems like the reboots did most of that.Maybe it just had to get organized?
Sorry it took so long to report back on this thing but the weather here has been pretty sweet lately.
Sidenote,3 yr old grandson pulled a 5 1/2-6 lb cc out of the pond tuesday(everyone smiles).When I put it back he said no no grampa..I want to eat it ...NOW as he stomped his little foot down(priceless!!)If the wife can find the darn cord for the phone Ill try to post a pic

OK, you're right, Dwight. It's working now. The video is a little herky, jerky--but still watchable.

Sorry about the thread hijacking TOM G.

Bruce, you might try loading the video on the laptop hard drive, then attach it to the pp, with mine that straightened out the video, plus you will have a clean copy for any later problems. Do a dress rehersal at the site on their equipment, that way you might have time to iron out any problems and you can get your timing down. Flash, thumb and sd are all about the same. If you really get paranoid email a copy to your self and then if there is a severe problem with equipment compatibility, you know how it is in those foreign countries, you will have a copy to download.

Just a thought, perhaps the CD drive doesn't have a fast enough data access rate (bandwidth) to run the video.

We have this problem with videos on the digi-cam's data card. The computer cannot get the data fast enough to show them. Transfer the file to the hard disk and there's no problem.

How do I transfer the file to the hard disk? It was only three years ago that I learned to even turn on a computer.

OK, my wife figured it out pretty easy. It runs really easy on both computers now.

How should I bring it to the conference? Flash drive, CD and on my laptop???

Bruce,
Do all three, back ups are great, your laptop might not connect to overhead projector or big screen tv, but for sure the usb thumb drive, sd card or cd will. And you may need to use someone elses equipment.
Also when you get back from the conference would you email me a copy of the presentation? I will send D.I.E.D. a synopsis, you know, because of his bandwidth problem and all.

You can bring it to D.I.E.D. by Pony Express, then stand in his front yard and give it to him using semaphore.

What is the size of the entire program? A CD may be to small (they don't hold a lot of multi media) so you may need a DVD. They are a good back up. Get a nice sized flash/thumb drive (at least 2gb and 4gb would be better)as you can keep using it for additional projects and they are easier to use than discs. I am doing both for the slide show - just in case as per Rad's suggestion .

i knew i couldnt just quickly lurk, check a few posts today, then shut down, and that one of you'd make me look up a word in the dictionary, log on, and reply..... semaphore

thanks fer thinkin of me guys.....