Arthur Fuller
fuller.artful at gmail.com
Fri Dec 27 13:21:37 CST 2013
Sound problem totally sollved. Listening to Arcade Fire right now and it's gorgeous. If you don't know who they are, you can search YouTube. Best thing out of Canada in a few decades. Wow, this sound system and this music are so beautiful. I am one very happy camper, but must admit that it is cutting into my work schedule LOL. P.S. For anyone interested in CDN music, look for Rough Trade and Mary Margaret O'Hara. A. On Fri, Dec 27, 2013 at 1:58 PM, Gustav Brock <Gustav at cactus.dk> wrote: > Hi Arthur > > It sounds like you manage to keep off the streets. > > As for the version info, call ver at a command prompt: > > C:\Users\Gustav.CACTUS>ver > Microsoft Windows [Version 6.3.9600] > > or right-click This computer. Windows version is written top-left. > > If your speakers are powered, the light-green mini-jack should match your > headphone output. > > /gustav > > >>> fuller.artful at gmail.com 27-12-13 17:50 >>> > First off, I like Windows 8 and especially 8.1 a lot. I know that lots of > people don't, but I have grown into it. One possible reason is that an > external monitor is connected to my laptop. That allows me to run the Win8 > UI on the laptop and the Desktop on the external, and just drag the mouse > from one screen to the other, so I run stuff on both at once. It helps to > have 8GB of RAM; that helps a lot. > > But there are a few things that I still can't find. Such as, which version > of Win8.1 am I running? I used to know how to find that in Win7 and cannot > locate this info in Win8.1. I also cannot find, despite the little guide > that came with this Dell laptop, how to switch from cabled to wireless. The > guide says it's F2 but that doesn't seem to work. Maybe I'm supposed to > hold down some additional key as I press F2. Don't know. > > I also have a set of Logitcch speakers and I did notice that there are on > the aide of the laptop a pair of jack inputs, one for microphone and the > other for headphones., according to the guide. Do I just plug the speaker > jack into the headphone jack? > > Any ideas, anyone? The laptop in question is a Dell Inspiron with 8GB RAM > and 1TB hard disk (and not that it matters, but a couple of TB USB > externals attached). > > And before closing this message, I want to praise Dell Canada for their > superb support. The hard disk failed after about 7 months, so the local > dealer said that I had to deal direct with Dell. I ran Diags and obtained > the error number and phoned Dell and quoted chapter and verse; they sent me > a container by Purolator with instructions on how to package it, and a > number to call for pickup. Purolator arrived a day later to pick up the > laptop. Three days later it was delivered back to me, with most of the data > recovered, and a spanking-new hard disk in place/ That round-trip must have > cost them $50, aside from the labour costs. I sparked it up and Presto! > Everthing worrked. They didn't manage to recover all my data, but since I > have several USB externals attached and schedulued backups, it only took me > a few minutes to put everything back in place. This is the first Dell I've > ever owned, but on the strength of their support policy I will recommend > this company to every present and future client, and family member. > > One last thing: being a bi-OS-ual, spending half my time in Windows and the > rest in Linux, with 8GB of RAM this works splendidly. So well, in fact, > that I have a couple of different versions of Linux in Virtual Boxes, and > sometimes run them both at once. The only thing I haven't figured out is > how to create an XP Virtual Machine; I have an old client or two that has > not yet moved beyond XP and once in a while I need to do maintenance on > them. In the ideal world, I would have a VM for each client/friend/family > member, so I could just switch from this one to that one, and essentially > be running a duplicate of their system, albeit with outdated data, but the > data doesn't matter, it's the code that matters. So that means that for > client ABC, he's running XP and refuses to migrate, and he has an Access > app against a MySQL back end, and refuses the risks of upgrading. Client > BCD has Win7 Pro and an Access app against an MS-SQL back end, and refuses > to upgrade. Client DEF has an Unbuntu installation running a PHP/Javascript > site with MySQL in the back end. > > That will suffice for now. Then there is me, always the experimenter and > explorer, playing with the latest release of Python and whatever else > interests me (I hereby confess that I'm a coding slut, always interested in > every available language, from C++ to assembly to VBA to Eiffel (and kudos > to Bertrand Meyer for showing us the way). I suppose that you could > describe this as my problem. The only language in which I am confident in > declaring my fluency is VBA. In the rest, I am at best conversational. > > And just to reveal how out of the current loops I am, last night I re-read > Albert Camus's "The Rebel", for about the fourth time. Tomorrow it's Tom > Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" for the fourth time. But before I leave > Camus, a month or so ago I had a conversation with my friend Audra, and > somehow the topic of Camus and "The Rebel" came up. And I vaguely quoted, > and said "This book is about the relationship between the Master and the > Slave, and it proves that The Slave is always in control, because at some > point he will say, Rather than suffer this abuse, I prefer to die. And at > that point, the Master has lost all his power. That spoke to my soul. That > told me almost everything I needed to know. It didn't teach me how to make > love to a woman and I still don't know that, but it did teach me how to > behave in the public world. I will never forget that: the moment when the > Slave says he would rather die than suffer the crap the Master shovels upon > him, that is the definition of Progress. > > -- > Arthur > > _______________________________________________ > dba-Tech mailing list > dba-Tech at databaseadvisors.com > http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-tech > Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com > -- Arthur