| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| 1029usr078198 |
Posted - February 11 2010 : 07:05:23
Listen now. or Download the archive.
Question: Jeff writes, "I tried to install some software, and now when I start my computer I have a message on a black screen that says something about, 'media test failure'. What does this mean and what can I do to get rid of it?"
Answer: Jeff, this is a great question because most of the time, you shouldn't see this message. What it indicates is that for some reason, your computer is trying to boot from the network and it can't. Normally, this isn't something you would use except in a business setting. In that setting, with the right preparation, you can boot from the network to setup Windows in a very hands-free manner. But at home, you don't use this method to set up new systems, and besides, you said you had just installed some software, so Windows was already set up. This looks like one of those times you'd want to call for professional help to determine why your computer is not booting from the hard drive like it used to.
Cool Site: The Twitter Tag Project: The Twitter Tag Project is a cool site to use in conjunction with Twitter. It began life as a virtual game of Tag, played using Twitter, hence the name. It has become a platform for several of the site author's Twitter and web projects. You have to have a Twitter account to play, good thing they're free. You fill in your account name and the account name of the person you want to tag, then click submit and it'll bring up a web page with a link you click to send the tweet. There are other things, though. There's Mr. Milestone that tweets you every 100 or 1000 followers. There's Follow Friday. This is a neat application because one of the cultural things of the twitterverse is to send tweets on Friday of people others might like to follow. When you fill in your username, the Follow Friday application will analyze the last 200 tweets you’ve been sent and set up tweets for you to use on follow Friday.
Cool Gadget: SolBatt II: This week's gadget is for all your USB charged devices, like the iPod. The SolBatt II is a solar powered battery charger. It uses the built-in solar panel to charge a lithium-ion battery. Once charged, you can plug in a USB cable to transfer that stored energy to your iPod or other gadget. So, the power comes from the sun, gets stored in the battery, and then transferred to your USB-charged gadget. A red light lets you know that first phase is happening; a green light lets you know the power transfer is in progress. Hmm power transfer. Sounds kind of 'Star Trek' doesn’t it? Anyway, this charger is available now and costs about $30. We'll have a link in the show notes for this device.
It's All "Geek" To Me: Buffering: This week's term ties into last week's. This word is buffering, as used in streaming media. When you stream media, like this station's broadcast at KBJS.org, what you hear is 8 or 10 seconds behind what you'd hear on the radio. That's because your computer tries to stay that far ahead so that if the data slows down, your playback isn't interrupted. But sometimes, your playback will pause and the computer will say "buffering". That's because the data was being played faster than it was being received and the computer ran out of stuff to play. It waits until its buffer is full again before it restarts where it left off. Of course that puts you farther behind, but that only really matters if it's live.
Links
PXE at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preboot_Execution_Environment
The Twitter Tag Project:
http://www.thetwittertagproject.com/
SolBatt II at Gearlog:
http://www.gearlog.com/2010/02/charge_your_gadgets_with_the_s.php
SolBatt II at Scosche:
http://www.scosche.com/products/productID/1905
Buffering on Microsoft's Windows Media site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/broadcastdelay.aspx#BufferingStreamingMediaData |
|
|
