Computer expertise needed . . .

[bigguns7]

So my CD burner was on the fritz, so I called Dell Tech Support to get it remedied. They told me to uninstall and reinstall the burning software, so I uninstalled it. When I put the CD back in to reinstall the program, it won't work, it just sits there and then freezes my computer. The tech support guy (a real moron), tells me I have several options: go to Best Buy and purchase new software, backup all my files and reformat my entire computer, purchase an external CD burner.

Now, it's pretty hard to backup all your files without a CD burner. I can remove my hard drive and put all the data on a friend's computer, but that's just not practical. I don't really want to buy any new software, and I will certainly not buy a new external burner.

So, what are my options?

 

[WODIN]

Reinstall the CDRW driver software.

Dude you're not gettin any tech support!

 

[pushing_fe]

have you tried rebooting?

I had a similiar problem when a Coors Lite got spilled in my CD burner. You see I like to open it and use it to hold my beer. Well, what I did to fix it was take off my case and dry out my mother board with a leaf blower. This might work for you as well.

 

[Latimer]

Replace the burner. If you are still having troubles after that, return the new burner.

 

[bigguns7]

Reinstall the CDRW driver software.

Dude you're not gettin any tech support!

I tried that. Like I said, it just freezes up my computer.

 

[WODIN]

I would try this.

Unplug the cdrw from the power supply.
Uninstall the hardware from your windows profile.
Boot the system and do a shut down.

Plug the cdrw back into the power supply.
Boot the system

Then follow the windows new hardware wizard.

 

[bigguns7]

I would try this.

Unplug the cdrw from the power supply.
Uninstall the hardware from your windows profile.
Boot the system and do a shut down.

Plug the cdrw back into the power supply.
Boot the system

Then follow the windows new hardware wizard.

Thanks, that sounds like a good plan.

 

[HappyScrappy]

what wodin says is wise.

a friend of mine had to do that when his computer started acting all pissy.

 

[Y_lifter]

Hopefully you are not running Winblows 95 or NT cuz the
Plug and Pray won't be happening....
*
*

 

[Code]

This is why I love Macs.
Never had a problem with hardware, never had a problem installing new hardware.

Then there is the flip side, Solaris. Mounting anything is a hassle.

 

[HappyScrappy]

This is why I love Macs.
Never had a problem with hardware, never had a problem installing new hardware.

Then there is the flip side, Solaris. Mounting anything is a hassle.

lol - Macs have it much easier. you can either have this cd burner *holds up right hand* - or this one *holds up left hand* - and either one is gonna be $500 and crystal clear blue - like the ocean - pretty eh? and if you want to listen to mp3s - there is this *holds up single option*
much easier to get it right when there is a limited number of options and more money to back it.

whereas pcs have about a thousand different vendors that make shit for them and they all compete to have strange obscure drivers so that they can think they are cornering their market through obscurity. and they all cost less b/c they all have to compete in the open market.

Macs are shiny though, and usually curved. and I like that.

solaris works with all kinds of hardward - it just has to be on their list (much like a mac - sure we work with all kinds of stuff, here is a list of the 5 things)

 

[Code]

lol - Macs have it much easier. you can either have this cd burner *holds up right hand* - or this one *holds up left hand* - and either one is gonna be $500 and crystal clear blue - like the ocean - pretty eh? and if you want to listen to mp3s - there is this *holds up single option*
much easier to get it right when there is a limited number of options and more money to back it.

whereas pcs have about a thousand different vendors that make shit for them and they all compete to have strange obscure drivers so that they can think they are cornering their market through obscurity. and they all cost less b/c they all have to compete in the open market.

Macs are shiny though, and usually curved. and I like that.

solaris works with all kinds of hardward - it just has to be on their list (much like a mac - sure we work with all kinds of stuff, here is a list of the 5 things)

LOL!

Hey now, none of my Macs are Ocean Blue!

Yeah, distributers for Macs are few and far between. And I think that's why Mac is so much better than PCs. Mac has rigid standards for OEM programmers and even hardware makers....whereas anyone can write shit for a PC.

 

[HappyScrappy]

I guess that could be good or bad, depending on your opinion. I like cheap and open, so I'm a pc person - but I've been on pc's since the 80's, so I'm gonna be biased. my only mac experiences have been bad.

although, to their credit, if it freezes up or crashes, you just reboot and do it again.

 

[Code]

I prefer closed and expensive when it comes to computers. The more controlled an environment is, the less entropy.

PC's are entropic fields of chaos and frustration.

Macs are like the Little Engine That Could, it might not be the fastest or the coolest...but by golly the job gets done.

 

[HappyScrappy]

I will say with absolute certainty - if the Mac Ti notebook had 2 or 3 mousebuttons (ideally a left, a right, and a middle one for scrolling), then I would be all over that. it is so thin, smooth, and shiny. I would spend most of my time caressing it and showing it off to random people so that they could know that I spent $3K+ for it. Then back to rubbing it.
everynow and then I'd program on it.
for now my HP will do, it has a huge screen, is fast as heck, and was cheap. it gets a bit warm for true latop use though

 

[Y_lifter]

You forgot the 5 or 6 error messages that the OS will provide you to troubleshoot with....

Makes you wonder who copied who's ideas

 

[WODIN]

Ohhh Macs are pretty. I was looking at blue one this past weekend....I was mesmerized by its sleek curvyness, shiney buttons and ohhh the blue....sooo sooo blue.

 

[HappyScrappy]

Macs are like the Little Engine That Could, it might not be the fastest or the coolest...but by golly the job gets done.

I buy my own computers though, and the Mac is too much $$ for the performance. while they have cool looks, looks aren't enough for a workstation for me (laptop maybe).
I think they might be one of the cooler ones, but yeah, I don't know about their performance. I know they brag that it opens Photoshop faster than any other system, and that it is rated (by old standards) as a supercomputer. yet for the things I want to do the processor just isn't that great.

all in all, whatever works for you and gets the job done is what to go for.
linux is fun for me to play on/with, but the XWindows systems feel fragile. Windows is easy enough and has a lot there for what I need to do. Macs are pretty and fun to play with, but $$$.
and solaris and BSD are good for stablility and CLI stuff.

I got into linux b/c I really wanted a BeOS box. then when they went under I saw that a lot of Amiga users were cool, so I wanted one of them. but one of those guys suggested I try linux - that was '95.

yee haw.

 

[Y_lifter]

I remember they had it over the Intel for about 5 months when they first brought out the RISC.

And then, the RISC hit the fan...

 

[Code]

My biggest reason for using Macs and pushing Mac exclusive shops.....

Virii.
There are none. It makes an IT guys job SOOOOOO much easier not having to worry about some dumbass in marketing opening something he thinks is a love letter from a complete stranger.

 

[Y_lifter]

True, If someone sends you a virus it won't work on the mac
But then again, neither will half the other Win files that get sent.

 

[Code]

Not so.
Mac has many utlities to view windows files. In fact, since Apple has MS Office for Macs, I've never seen a file we can't open. Except those pesky virii.....

 

[Y_lifter]

The issues I remember were opening Office files from newer versions of Win Office on the Mac...

Same issue's on the PC between office versions but not a show stopper.

Sounds like since OS8 most issues between the 2 have been resolved huh?

 

[Code]

OS8.1 helped with some of that.

But we're now on OSX, so there are some new problems, but those are with software no one uses anymore like Word Perfect. They can still be opened, but it has this weird post-script mark-ups and shit.

 

[Y_lifter]

Some of my favorite old time Helpdesk calls were Mac folks.
All so happy and cheerful and just glad to have someone to talk to.

Excell with Macro's wer always fun to explain what was happening.

Got one call from a foreign dude dude yelling "WORDSTAR SCREEN ALL BLUE ! WORDSTAR ALL BLUE as soon as I answered the phone.. bwahahah

 

[HappyScrappy]

My biggest reason for using Macs and pushing Mac exclusive shops.....

Virii.
There are none. It makes an IT guys job SOOOOOO much easier not having to worry about some dumbass in marketing opening something he thinks is a love letter from a complete stranger.

oh come on! you are joking right?
There are tons of Mac viruses (virii) out there, unless you are talking about OSX - and then I hardly think that Mac can take credit for that since it is a BSD system. unix tends to be immune to it because you shouldn't be running as root - if you do, then you have access to the hardware, deleting things that shouldn't be, and editing files that shouldn't be edited.
if you can't change things, then anything you run can't either.

so what you likely mean is that a virus written for a PC won't do damage to a Mac (still have a few arguments there as well if it is a script).
to your credit, the windows market share is waaaaay larger than Mac's, so there are going to be many more virii on that system just due to the numbers there.

 

[Code]

Check out CERT man. Did a search for the words Apple and Virus.

25 hits. Two harmful virii. One was the micheangelo virus....

I'm telling you man, my anti-virus scanner on our e-mail server gets a hit about 20 times a day filtering out PC stuff, and in 2 years none have been for macs.

 

[HappyScrappy]

Check out CERT man. Did a search for the words Apple and Virus.

25 hits. Two harmful virii. One was the micheangelo virus....

I'm telling you man, my anti-virus scanner on our e-mail server gets a hit about 20 times a day filtering out PC stuff, and in 2 years none have been for macs.

right - but think about it for a second.

if it were reversed, say that there were 25 virii for macs, but there were millions of macs out there and hundred of thousands of PCs. then you would be getting lots of filtered hits of the Mac virii.

it is a numbers thing - if you 10 infected computers, you can't send out more virii from another network that has 1,000 infect computers.

also - you know code - so you should know damn well that there is *nothing* inherent in the Mac system (prior to them using Unix) that prevents virii and worms (the worms are what you are really comlaining about) from being made for Macs - you just said that they exist.
the fact is, they are a minor market - so there is just no interest in writing for them.
but the Mac isn't some sort of virus proof system, it is just nobody gives a shit about writing virii for them.

hell - maybe that will be my next project
the downside of that is I'd have to get and use a fucking mac

 

[Code]

I never said you can't write a virus for a mac. But mostly, it's because common windows holes simply do not exist in Macs.

Most virii exploit known holes in applications, not in things like tcp/ip or other background stuff. TCP/IP just isn't as sexy as writing code to make "Clippy" delete your hard drive.

Mac users are, on the average, not script kiddies and tend to fall into small categories:

Graphics/animation designers
Writers (mostly newsprint)
Older Programmers

 

[TheProject]

jeez, somebody poked Scrappy with the Mac stick.

Now he's gonna be all pissy again.

 

[HappyScrappy]

My biggest reason for using Macs and pushing Mac exclusive shops.....

Virii.
There are none.

and

I never said you can't write a virus for a mac.



either way, I don't really care. and yeah, the Mac stick makes me jumpy and mean. I've had to program in Linux, FreeBSD, Windows everything back to 3.1, DOS and Norton on an 8088 and a 286, Mac, Solaris, VMS, and even Irix - and my own personal opinion is that Mac is a whole heavy load of shit and worthless.
just as your own personal opinion is that they rule.
either way, no prob - I was just pointing out the parts that didn't match up man, just as I do with anyone else on the site

in college when I would have to program on a Mac (is there such a thing as a 4200? that is what I recall it being called) - you would never know if your code was fucked up (highly likely - lol), or if the machine just was sucking ass again and crashed of its own free will and volition and had nothing to do with your code.
So you would have to waste hours on multiple machines and waiting over two minutes for each reboot.
Incredible amounts of suck. And my roommmate in college hada 6100 while I had a P90 with Win95 - which kicked the shit out of his system in every way. His wasn't even multithreaded - so I would break into his computer (Mac runs applications, applications have holes - fact) and then change his "mail" sound to "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin and then send him mail wherever I was on campus - knowing that his computer was locked up and unable to do anything else until that song was done.
Brilliant.

The only OS that has come close to sucking as bad (IMO) as a Mac, was Win3.1. That was total shit AND ugly - at least Macs are sexy looking (although certainly no Irix system).

but like I said, it is all a matter of opinion. and I'm of the opinion that Mac is a load of shit.
(OSX is a harder call since it is really just a unix system with Mac making a better window manager on it - the first pre-patch release was slow and made me laugh - the newer ones seem slightly more reasonable - I would consider working on one if they had multiple buttons - and YES I know the support for it is built in - but I want a laptop and I'm not gonna carry shit around so that I can use it - I just want the laptop and that is it)

bitch bitch bitch

 

[TheProject]

My biggest reason for using Macs and pushing Mac exclusive shops.....

Virii.
There are none.

and

I never said you can't write a virus for a mac.



either way, I don't really care. and yeah, the Mac stick makes me jumpy and mean. I've had to program in Linux, FreeBSD, Windows everything back to 3.1, DOS and Norton on an 8088 and a 286, Mac, Solaris, VMS, and even Irix - and my own personal opinion is that Mac is a whole heavy load of shit and worthless.
just as your own personal opinion is that they rule.
either way, no prob - I was just pointing out the parts that didn't match up man, just as I do with anyone else on the site

in college when I would have to program on a Mac (is there such a thing as a 4200? that is what I recall it being called) - you would never know if your code was fucked up (highly likely - lol), or if the machine just was sucking ass again and crashed of its own free will and volition and had nothing to do with your code.
So you would have to waste hours on multiple machines and waiting over two minutes for each reboot.
Incredible amounts of suck. And my roommmate in college hada 6100 while I had a P90 with Win95 - which kicked the shit out of his system in every way. His wasn't even multithreaded - so I would break into his computer (Mac runs applications, applications have holes - fact) and then change his "mail" sound to "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin and then send him mail wherever I was on campus - knowing that his computer was locked up and unable to do anything else until that song was done.
Brilliant.

The only OS that has come close to sucking as bad (IMO) as a Mac, was Win3.1. That was total shit AND ugly - at least Macs are sexy looking (although certainly no Irix system).

but like I said, it is all a matter of opinion. and I'm of the opinion that Mac is a load of shit.
(OSX is a harder call since it is really just a unix system with Mac making a better window manager on it - the first pre-patch release was slow and made me laugh - the newer ones seem slightly more reasonable - I would consider working on one if they had multiple buttons - and YES I know the support for it is built in - but I want a laptop and I'm not gonna carry shit around so that I can use it - I just want the laptop and that is it)

bitch bitch bitch

and there he goes....

allow me to sum up:

"I think Macs suck!"

heh