Any Dads need any advise of a technical nature ?

[WPOnline]

I would like to offer help/advise if anyone has any burning Tech type questions you've been meaning to ask someone, particularly focused on safe guarding kids online.

thanks

ps Xbox 360 banter is always welcome

I could have done with you last night - laptop problem.

(sorted now)x

tut, dads only?!

what type of technical nature stuff are you offering dad's and what qualifys you as expert?

Why does storing my iTunes library on an external hard drive result in track duplication/triplication?

This is a rubbish service.

I am a mum, not a dad, but maybe you can help me? We run our apple mac mini through our tv and for some reason our photos (and DVDs ) show dark on the screen. They are fine on the camera and iPhone but too dark on the computer. The computer us calibreated to our tv so not sure what to do about it. I've tried googling it and asking fir help on here but not got anywhere yet. Any ideas (please!)?

Please excuse typos

hi All

Firstly, no its not dads only as I did post something similar in the "internet safety forum"...so there!

@ivykaty44 I wouldnt call myself an expert but just "seen a lot" over the last 10years in IT and happy to share my experiences. I remember my first PC only had a 40mb hard drive, yes 40meg!!.

@ChampagneTrulyReigns , i have my itunes in the default location but I did check to see what happens if you change the default location to another drive. It seems that after you initiate the move, the process will only copy your music not actually move it. So the original content will stil be in the default location. The correct way to have your itunes libaray off loaded to another location is explained here:
bit.ly/eIQZEb

@Silver28 ,hiya - I dont have an apple tv, but reading around it seems to be a common thing. Can you try:

1. Go into the Settings menu and choose Audio & Video.
2. Select HDMI output.
3. Using the Play/Pause button, switch between Auto, YCbCr, RGB High and RGB Low until you find the setting that provides the optimal brightness level. Look at the Apple TV image on screen to pick a setting that shows you the most detail in the image.
4. Fine-tune your brightness levels using your TV brightness adjustments.

and see if it helps?

good luck

Thanks v much for your advice. Sorry I didn't make it clear, we don't have an apple tv we have a mac mini that we use with our toshiba tv (which we use as a monitor). Do you think it's as simple as adjusting the brightness settings on our tv? I don't think we could do that, as the current settings are fine for tv viewing so if we alter them it'll be too bright.

Normally each input in to your tv will have its own brightness / contrast / color type settings.

So my xbox 360 has certain display settings on the TV which differ from my virgin+ box etc

How is your mac mini connected to your TV ? is it vga?

vga cable looks like:

bit.ly/eiiISp

if it is, you will get a much clearer/brighter picture if you use a DVI to HDMI adapter.

DVI is digital and hdmi is digital, so there is no conversion (ie digital to analogue)needed

Either way, you are definitely not alone as I have seen lots of other posts about people with mac mins connected to TV and getting a dim/dark picture.

Can you confirm if your macmini has a mini-dvi port? if so, I will find you a link so you can get the mini-dvi to HDMI adapter you need.

cheers

Thank you! I'll go and check and will be back later.

Hi apparently we use an hdmi lead, nit a VGA cable.

Do you know how we would alter the brightness/contrast etc for the computer input without altering the tv/bt vision picture?

Thanks

40 MEG!! My first pc was 32K!!!

wow, its like a slower less informative version of google.

Hey Wp. You're just who I have been waiting for.

I have lovely MacBook and a quite lovely Sony HD video camera, with videos on it going back 15 months to the first days of my twins.

My Mac can't read or play the files on the video. I have managed to copy them to the hard drive but the Mac can't play them. The videos are mpeg files, I think. I think the Mac wants them to be another sort of file.

Can I convert them or get a programme that can? I want to save them to DVD before I lose / drop the camera and lose them all.

Thanks

hi Silver28, it would depend on the TV you had but its quite easy to test. Turn on your macmini so you can see the picture on your tv. Then adjust the brightness up a bit. Say if it was 50, increase to 55.

Then got back to your normal TV channel(sky/virgin/freeview) and press the settings button again and check what the brightness setting is. Hopefully it will be a different number to 55, which will prove the settings are independent. You can then go back to your macmini channel and increase until you get a better picture.

@CuppaTeaJanice - my first spectrum was 128K... but ok, you win

@lazysod - why you unhelpful um err.. lazy sod!!

@daretodream - What is the exact format the files are in?
Can you try and play them with VLC for the mac?

VLC can handle most audio/video formats and you can down it from here:
bit.ly/g7fn71

good luck

Thanks again for your advice. I have altered the brightness settings (to the max on some of the settings) on the tv. The pictures are definitely better. Not 100% right but much less dark.

The same settings apply when I go back to the tv channels but it doesn't matter as the picture still looks fine.

if I remove the thermostat from my car, will it still be okay to drive?

Is it always a long way to Tipperary?

What's your top score on Just Dance?

"Pan Sat 15-Jan-11 21:51:00
if I remove the thermostat from my car, will it still be okay to drive?"

Yes but why would you want to? In the old days people used to do that if the car was overheating, especially if they thought the thermostat was faulty and not opening properly (you test it by putting it in a poan of boiling water). Modern stats almost never go wrong

But it is no more trouble to take out the old one and put in a new one (they're not expensive)

But in cold weather the car will not reach correct operating temperature, so it wil not run well, and the heater will not be hot.

So...

why would you want to?

(or was it a test question?)

Thanks pigletjohn.

trouble is I ahve just checked the Heynes manual and see that it order to remove the thermostat I would have to remove the timing belt and a couple of other things. This leads me into the the tricky world of doing things like finding Top Dead Centre on teh pistons, and the manual indicates this is a "four spanners out of five" job.

I know my limitations!

why would you want to?

well, because the car is tending to over heat, whilst at the same time the heater is only blowing cold air into the cabin. I am informed this is a problem with the termo not opening and allowing the water to circulate all the way round. Is this advice a pile of poo??

Not impossible, but rare these days. I once had that when a heater hose was choked with grime. Is the car very old?

When did it last work corectly, and has anything happened since then?

You have of course taken the rad cap off and verified that it is full?