My memory fails me

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 1:19 am

Well - I can do everything - it seems, bar click on the shot to get it full screen.

I can print it but it takes much longer to send it to the printer than usual.

If I want to put photos on a forum, that's not a problem - photobucket takes the shots from the new camera just as well as the old one.

£20 per giggle sounds good to me - seeing as the main aim is to sell bigger photos. I've been selling crystal clear A4 photos from a 4.1 mp camera for years at up to £120 framed.

A new computer is not out of the question either - in fact it'll probably come with the CMC package - but before I do that I really must take some sort of course - or take on someone that does not need one/could run one - so that stuff I need is transferred, without the clag that I don't.

Anyway - I can do encapsulated stuff like this ......

Front.......

Back........

Detail ........

Without no stinkin' computer - Aaaaaagh!

These shots are from my new camera, it did not need the flash - my old one would have, and would not have come out anything like as bright and clear.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 7:54 am

John,
I totally agree with the other guys about copying the photos to a folder on the hard drive manually. I use 'Windows Explorer' because I don't even like 'My Computer'.

I don't like the software that comes with cameras, flash drives, mp3 players that takes control of you and your equipment. So many people never get to understand the basic concepts of files, folders, hard drives, software, etc, etc. because of this. I get so many people who come to me and say "I've got a photo in 'Irfanview'/'Picasa'/ACDSee and I don't want it there. I want it in 'some other program'! They don't have a clue about the basics.
......................................................................................
I have said for a long time that I didn't want to own Vista, but bought a new Dell XPS from an auction site recently that came with Vista Business and am finding it OK so far. It's only crashed twice and once it went to the blue screen of death, but a reboot sorted it.
Using windows Explorer in Vista is interesting, but I don't know that I like it all that much yet.
This machine is quite small and very light and has 4 gigs ram and 250gig hard drive so it's much more powerful than the old one. It has lots of other bells and whistles like fingerprint reader and built in Webcam

kev@frames · Post by **kev@frames** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 2:40 pm

SpeeDefrag and Easy Cleaner (google for) are long established and rock solid free tools which you might find very useful, John.
SpeeDefrag is far better at defragmenting your drive than the built in windows job, and you can leave it run and it'll turn off your PC when done.
easy cleaner from toni arts will clean up the registry as well as any unecessary files, duplicates, cache etc.

Cleaning up the registry is good practice anyway.

Easy cleaner is fully "undo-able"

set your windows cache (internet cache) TO 80MB, you dont need more than that, 80mb has always been the optimum for all the windows, from 98/SE/Millenium through to XP XP pro etc.

Consider turning OFF system restore which is a real hog on disk space. Of course if you do this backp of important files is of paramount importance (well, it always should be anyway lol).

Drop your recycle bin settings to, say, 2 percent of your drive space. 10 percent is default. this will free up more useable drive space.

Turn off drive indexing.

If its a work machine, are you using too much RAM for (eg) onboard graphics? Try reducing the graphics allocation for your RAM

go to start/run then type msconfig - here you will find all the startup programs which start when you start your machine. Turn off all the carp you find -eg open office quickstart, adobe updaters, asll thosde things which monitor printers, monitor for cameras, scanners, etc. This will save your system overheads (ram).

Now find (free) and install FREERAM XP PRO - that will automatically free up ram when needed, it also defrags your RAM (not your disk) and execute global memory compressions on demand or automatically, it also clears the clipboard (again saving RAM).

then with freeram XP installed you can see if you have any "memory leaks" from (eg. likely culprits - freebie screensavers, some java scripts, some beta programs, programs running macromedia flash lookalikes)

this works on all 3 of our workshop machines which, believe it or not, run XP pro on 256 of RAM, and on a "clean" system, including the one which runs the wizard, and the mat designer software isn't exactly a lightweight in its demands on the system

at home I have 2gb RAM, 6.8ghz dual core, and twin PCIE SLI graphics cards, liquid cooled, and overclocked the carp out of it, and I still use the above freebie progs to max the performace- but thats all to work flamethrowers in team fortress, hopefully you are too busy making frames to even think about picking up a virtual flamethrower

Thats a start!
kev

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:32 pm

Well, I went down to PC world today and asked if I could buy some memory - when they said 'What for?' I said 'I forget!'

Kidding!!

I'm following instructions you've all kindly given, but I think I'm going to get a new computer for work - along with a CMC, then - or before it arrives, either hire a very computer literate person that wants to be a framer, so's we teach each other something, or take evening classes, or both!

I'll struggle on with this one at home - 'My Pictures' is probably a problem - it's stuffed - thousands of shots - I'll get them all on to discs and empty it.

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:51 pm

John, do you know where to get a set of those banknotes? They'd make a great gift for a really good friend of mine.

Lemon_Drop · Post by **Lemon_Drop** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:54 pm

It might be faster if you get a external hard drive and transfer anything you dont need on the C drive and burn it at a later stage.
PC World has one on sale 750 Gig. for £99.
Thats one massive hard drive.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editor ... t=left_nav

Just an idea John.

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 8:58 pm

Roboframer wrote: I'm following instructions you've all kindly given, but I think I'm going to get a new computer for work - along with a CMC, then - or before it arrives, either hire a very computer literate person that wants to be a framer, so's we teach each other something, or take evening classes, or both!

John,
Another alternative is to get a local high school kid who wants to earn a few quid, to come in for an hour or so on a few days each week to teach you exactly what you want to know about operating your puter!

zanart · Post by **zanart** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 9:18 pm

Moglet

You may still find some on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SET-OF-5-ONLY-FOO ... otohosting

Although they are quite rare now as they are illegal under forgery laws - see this news report:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/lanc ... 703797.stm

Not sure of the outcome of the arrests but they are illegal to produce or sell.

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 9:21 pm

Moglet wrote:John, do you know where to get a set of those banknotes? They'd make a great gift for a really good friend of mine.

Yep - Wing Wah's - I'll bring a set with me.

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 9:29 pm

zanart wrote:
Although they are quite rare now as they are illegal under forgery laws - see this news report:

.......they are illegal to produce or sell.

The frame in my post is purely - ahem - a prop for double sided framing - just like the other 5

Moglet · Post by **Moglet** » Fri 28 Dec, 2007 10:35 pm

Thanks, John!

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 5:56 pm

Lemon_Drop wrote:It might be faster if you get a external hard drive and transfer anything you dont need on the C drive and burn it at a later stage.
PC World has one on sale 750 Gig. for £99.
Thats one massive hard drive.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editor ... t=left_nav

Just an idea John.

Well, that's what I decided to do - but the offer on that particular one ended yesterday and they were sold out anyway - the man said - so I drove to the next nearest PC World - a much bigger place and the man said the same thing - so I got This one

Installed it successfully now need to find out how it works!

markw · Post by **markw** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 6:41 pm

I got the 500 gig version - now waiting for a Linksys Slug so that I can network the hard drive - then all my home computers can use it - and I can set it up as a web server as well.

All this excess of storage at such a low price - but beware that you dont put all your eggs in one basket. These things are great for mirroring stuff that you keep on your computer - but if you use them as storage then just realise that you can lose it all in the blink of an eye. so how do you back up the back up? I suppose the answer is always on media that cant crash and let you down.

Having ordered the extra ram for my daughters laptop on Thursday afternoon I was amazed when it turned up next day. It was only half a gig but it transformed the performance of the laptop - This just highlighted the abysmal service I'm getting from BT Total Broadband - I really hadnt had the time to hassle some poor chap in Mumbai until now - 2 hours running tests with a nice chap called Sandjay who went off shift one hour into our "session" but stayed to make sure I achieved a successful result - we didnt and I just confirmed what I knew - there's no such thing as a quick fix with broadband - some clever engineer has to physically alter something somewhere and you get the speed that you pay for - for a while.

I pay for 8 meg. I get about the speed of a good dial up service.. My exchange runs at 8 meg plus - Sandjay tells me its worst performance is 6 meg and that according to his test I am getting a good service and he can do no more. Ive been through all this before including BT engineers visiting to test my line - its old copper just the right distance from a fast exchange - no loss of signal no noise etc - best performance he's seen - next day I'm getting 6meg plus - until recently, when it drops to virtually nothing again. lots of my neighbors have just got the BT vision system - we get crap TV signals here in the Cotswolds - No freeview so BT vision is a possible answer - It gobbles up bandwidth and I suspect thats why we are struggling to get a reasonable service - Sandjay seemed to agree with me and we have agreed to monitor my speed for a couple of days - 19Mbps last time I looked - dont put any big pics on the forum - it will take a week to view them.

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 7:00 pm

Hi Mark
Same problem down here in the wet SW.

I spent ages with 'Nikita' the other evening about my BT Broadband. You are lucky, I am running at 3 Meg, even though I am paying for 8 Meg. Until that is she did inform me that BT have changed their wording on their Contracts. It says 'UP to 8 Meg'. My Exchange which is only 2000 metres from us can only take a 6 Meg capacity.

That is the problem with overhead cables. To make the matters worse, when it rains or gets foggy, the data drop is tremendous and I am down to 1.4 Meg.

I am told that there is nothing that they can (or should that be WILL) do about it.

I did ask for a rebate for the slow connection. Their come back was "We will monitor your speeds for 1 month, but bear in mind that you meet the criteria for your area"

We have not got cable down here either. It is not even worth changing ISP's because they will only come through the BT network.

Frustrating.... Yes.

w00dward · Post by **w00dward** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 7:23 pm

Hey Robo, what sort of relocation package are you offering to a geek who wants to be a full time framer?

I find ADSL to be hit or miss. Personally I have cable and soon NTL (sorry, Virgin Media) are bringing 50meg to Coventry... hmmmm.

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 7:32 pm

w00dward wrote:Hey Robo, what sort of relocation package are you offering to a geek who wants to be a full time framer?

Merlin · Post by **Merlin** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 7:46 pm

Wow
An old fashioned Frame Tent!!

Good Job there then

markw · Post by **markw** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 8:16 pm

I think woodward wrote Geek.. job offer - gay who likes camp - ing???

osgood · Post by **osgood** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 8:35 pm

markw wrote: I pay for 8 meg.

Mark,
What exactly is 8 meg referring to?

My ADSL accounta at home and at work are stated as '1500/256kbps'. 1500 is the download speed and 256 is the upload speed. I don't know how fast that is compared to your 8 meg, but for file downloads I get around 150k/sec and last week I was downloading some large video files, four at a time and was getting more than 300k/sec in total.

w00dward · Post by **w00dward** » Sun 30 Dec, 2007 8:36 pm

A tent eh.. Tempting... The Scout in me is fighting this one. Need to restrain him again.

I was hoping for this actually.