Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: Hawkmoon on January 13, 2018, 08:49:36 PM
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My computer is out to get me ... again.
Starting yesterday (Friday, January 12, 2018), my computer has stopped rendering some screen fonts correctly. The article titles on The Drudge Report page are displaying as somewhat pixellated. More annoying, I use Thunderbird as my e-mail application, and I've been using Century Schoolbook as my font of choice for composing. All of a sudden, Century Schoolbook looks more like Courier New -- no variation to the stroke width whatsoever, everything is one pixel in width. Century Schoolbook displays properly in Word Documents, but not in Thunderbird.
I just updated display drivers ... no joy. It's a Dell Inspiron desktop running Windows 7 Professional, with a Dell 24-inch monitor.
Any suggestions?
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Update: I found the cause -- I remembered that I had just installed Windows Live Essentials, in order to get Windows Movie Maker. I went back to a restore point prior to the installation of Windows Live Essentials, and my screen fonts are now back to normal.
Which leaves me once again without a video editor. Does anyone have any suggestions for an easy to use, freeware video editor?
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I haven't used it but I'm told Lightworks is good:
https://www.lwks.com/
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I use VSDC Free and love it! http://www.videosoftdev.com/
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I just wish MS would stop tinkering with my machine.
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I just wish MS would stop tinkering with my machine.
Me too! So do I!
My computer's latest trick is that some (but not all) Youtube videos only show a black screen when playing. The audio plays, I can see the elapsed tome bar progressing across the bottom -- but there's no video, only a blank, black screen. ??? [ar15]
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I just wish MS would stop tinkering with my machine.
I found the Xubuntu installer to be very good at preventing that.
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Me too! So do I!
My computer's latest trick is that some (but not all) Youtube videos only show a black screen when playing. The audio plays, I can see the elapsed tome bar progressing across the bottom -- but there's no video, only a blank, black screen. ??? [ar15]
I intermittently get a green screen on Youtube and Facebook videos.
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<rant>
Well, my basic bich is that every "updedoodledate" that sneaks in screws up my settings. Like fonts... especially fonts. And changes other stuff. And sometimes often creates other faults.
What used to do this now does that and what used to do that now does this and what used to do the other thing now don't do nuthin' nohow and you've got to spend twenty minutes on a user group to find out that now you have to press %, Print Screen, and ~ simultaneously to do it after Version 6.1.8934775699987826565.
So you hit CMD ver and find out you have Version 6.1.8934775699987826564, so that tip wasn't "helpful."
I keep harping on the value of establishing "fluency" with a system so you can throughput your work, but sometimes it seems like MS is constantly trying to repair a house built on sand and you have to do the shoveling. Isn't there some Biblical quote about that?
Now all of a sudden I find my scroll wheel doesb't work the same. Dammit, give me stability with whatever warts I can cope with and then leave my system fricken alone except for MSE definition updates.
</rant>
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I intermittently get a green screen on Youtube and Facebook videos.
I see that when Adobe Flash needs to be updated.
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I see that when Adobe Flash needs to be updated.
Flash should have been killed off at least five years ago, IMO. Browsers have to spend so much time on Flash threats, sometimes I think it's a miracle that it works at all. It doesn't help that so many people still continue to use it in their websites.
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Flash should have been killed off at least five years ago, IMO. Browsers have to spend so much time on Flash threats, sometimes I think it's a miracle that it works at all. It doesn't help that so many people still continue to use it in their websites.
I seem to recall youtube stopped using flash back in... 2015?
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I seem to recall youtube stopped using flash back in... 2015?
It's odd, for sure. I see pixelated green screens on some Youtube videos, and updating flash usually takes care of the problem. Like Ben, I think Adobe Flash needs to be done away with.
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I think the lot of you need to replace your computers with etch-a-sketches. I've never seen such a concentrated group of people for whom the smallest update causes so many problems. Really? Your fonts get borked by a system update? Are you using the most obscure 3rd party fonts you can find?
I've been running this computer, which I built 5+ years ago, with the same install of Windows 7, without issue. It updates when it needs to and the only indication to me is an occasional reboot overnight as necessary to install the updates.
I have two kids and a non-technical wife in the house. If there were problems, I'd hear the chorus of "Fix it!". That I virtually never have to mess with my PCs' settings means they just work (phones and tablets are the source of my labors).
Flash should have been killed off at least five years ago, IMO. Browsers have to spend so much time on Flash threats, sometimes I think it's a miracle that it works at all. It doesn't help that so many people still continue to use it in their websites.
IIRC, Flash is disabled by default in Waterfox. You have to manually enable it when called for. I seldom do.
Chris
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IIRC, Flash is disabled by default in Waterfox. You have to manually enable it when called for. I seldom do.
Chris
Unless one of my add-ons did it, I think it's also auto-disabled in the latest Firefox. I usually just don't bother with activating it on most sites that have flash animations, and I doubt I'm missing much.
The exception is weather.gov, where they still run radar animations, among other things, in flash. Which I find kind of comical, considering how much time I remember the fed.gov dedicating to having us fix flash security problems.
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I think the lot of you need to replace your computers with etch-a-sketches. I've never seen such a concentrated group of people for whom the smallest update causes so many problems. Really? Your fonts get borked by a system update? Are you using the most obscure 3rd party fonts you can find?
Oh, cut it out, Mr. Defender of the Faith. Etch-a-sketches indeed. And the fonts are normal windows fonts, but, e.g., set with the readability options... you remember those? Which Screen looks best to you?
Those selections get wiped. And how come it is that after something gets "borked," going back with Restore fixes it most of the time?
I'm not going to catalog every example of this kind of crap, but you don't have to be so prickly about other people having problems with Windows. Many other people.
In a similar thread not too long ago, I suggested that those in IT should be disqualified from commenting.
Hm.
Etch-a-sketch.
Indeed, Chris.
Terry
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http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-04-03
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http://dilbert.com/strip/1995-04-03
:rofl:
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but you don't have to be so prickly about other people having problems with Windows. Many other people.
Who's prickly? Just wondering how so many people struggle with an otherwise stable system. At least for me, Windows since XP has been stable to the point of the desktop being more appliance than computer.
In a similar thread not too long ago, I suggested that those in IT should be disqualified from commenting.
;/
My particular realm of IT has no bearing on "desktop stuff". In the nearly 23 years I've worked in "IT", less than 3 of it involved Windows-based systems. These days, my "IT job" is all about cyber security operations design, aka "people and processes". I'm no more up to speed on current desktop tech than anyone else.
So, what about my "IT job" makes me more qualified than the average joe and therefore unable to comment?
Chris
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I just wish MS would stop tinkering with my machine.
(https://s6.postimg.org/wcd050apd/Weather_Win10.png)
I sometimes wonder how Microsoft is unable to look at crap like this and see the need for at least a "don't interrupt me" mode, but apparently their hubris overrides even that little bit of common sense.
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(https://s6.postimg.org/wcd050apd/Weather_Win10.png)
I sometimes wonder how Microsoft is unable to look at crap like this and see the need for at least a "don't interrupt me" mode, but apparently their hubris overrides even that little bit of common sense.
That is funny, well because that one of the TV stations where I used to live and her name is Metinka (tinker... hahahaha)
http://www.kcci.com/news-team/fa8ac9d2-11d2-4715-be10-f6010dd22960