Posts by wiredcanyon94

fadedbear92 said:hey everyone

I installed the trial version, but since I'm a total newbie, I don't really get how you actually use a VPN🤦. Like, if I go to some music torrent site—The Pirate Bay, for example—what am I supposed to do with North? If this isn't allowed here, I can send a DM. Thanks🙏

It’s allowed. As long as you aren't explicitly talking about theft. 😉
It's kind of like talking about guns. You can talk about how they work, but it’s not cool to discuss how to kill people.

I don't use North myself—I use a different VPN—but the logic behind all of them is identical. You just need to connect to a VPN server using their client software. Once that connection is established, your "exit point" onto the web isn't your local ISP anymore; it's that specific VPN server you connected to. Your ISP will see encrypted traffic, but they won't be able to see what you're actually doing.
As for your question, once you've connected to the server, everything else works just like usual. Your browser, your torrents, your email—it all functions normally, just as if you weren't using a VPN at all. All your internet traffic flows through that server automatically, so you don't have to do anything extra.

To figure out exactly how the setup works with North, you should check out their FAQ. You'll want to see what specifically gets installed on your machine. I'm sure they have it laid out somewhere.
Usually, when you install one of these VPN clients, there's just one main button (on/off) to toggle the connection to the server. There are plenty of other settings you could mess with, but for a beginner, most of that stuff is irrelevant.

Jack Jones3 said:Greetings,

I have a question regarding legalities—is a Wi-Fi subscriber legally allowed to intercept my communications? This is someone I share an internet bill with since we split the monthly cost. The situation is taking place in Germany. Thanks in advance.

You should probably head over to a German forum for this. They'll have a much better handle on how the laws work over there.

That’s just a "band-aid" fix, and honestly, I wouldn't recommend it.
Just grab a switch and set it up properly from the jump. What happens if you suddenly need to plug in another device tomorrow? You'll be stuck. You can never really predict what you're going to need down the road. These days, everything demands a connection—your printer, your PlayStation, the smart TV, an external hard drive... it never ends.

Do yourself a favor and pick up even a basic 100 Mbps switch. Set it up right the first time so you actually have some ports left over "just in case."

Aaron Baker3 said:Look, I’m happy to help with just about anything, but when someone asks you a question, is it really that hard to spare five minutes to explain? Seriously, five minutes. It’s nothing. I can handle database migrations in my sleep—that's easy—but like the previous guy said, nobody even gave me the chance to ask what the actual issue was. Anyway, thanks for the "lovely" responses. You guys just proved once again that people in this country can be incredibly shallow, frustrated, and just plain stuck in the mud.
Best, 👍

Don't play the victim. It's not true that you weren't given a chance to ask a question. You can literally ask one right now. I don't see a ban on your account.

boldhound17 said:before I go ahead and format everything—for pretty much the same reasons as the guy above—I have a question...

Does anyone here actually know, or maybe have some hands-on experience, how a TV handles an NTFS drive via USB?
Specifically, I've got this older Panasonic plasma, an ST50... it currently reads an 8GB thumb drive formatted as FAT32 just fine.🙂

It also picks up my external hard drive containing files larger than 4GB—so I'm assuming that one is NTFS.🤔
The only thing is, unlike the thumb drive where everything pops up instantly, with the external drive I have to sit there for about a minute waiting for it to load.

So, yeah, I don't want to brick my USB and make it useless for what I actually use it for.
Which is basically watching NBA games every single day.😁

Your best bet for an answer is probably digging through the manual for that old Panasonic plasma.
Or you could just use trial and error. Move the data off the stick, format it to NTFS, and see what happens. If it fails, just format it back to FAT32.

Just a heads-up though: the whole "trial and error" method might end up taking two or three minutes longer than it took you to write this post.

Aaron Baker3 said:By the way, I really hope I never turn into one of those people who can't spare ten minutes to help someone out, especially when they actually know the answer. To me, that’s just pathetic. It doesn't matter if you have the entire internet at your fingertips. Are you going to tell a stranger, "Hey, everything you need to know about American history is online, so go learn the basics yourself"? Maybe I am young, but I'm not an idiot, and I hope I'll always step up to help whenever I'm able to.

Look, he helped you. You might have missed it, but he gave you the answer. Just convert it to the same base and add them up.
If you can't figure that out with the internet helping you, maybe you should consider switching to theology? You had it in school, didn't you?

ironcyclist58 said:I can't speak for every single version out there, but in Microsoft Word 2013, if you just click on the word count in the status bar, a little window pops up with all sorts of stats—including exactly what you're looking for.

That feature has been around for ages. It’s in the older versions too. Much older. I couldn't tell you the exact year they rolled it out, but it's been a staple for a long time.
And it's definitely still there in the newer versions. 🙂

wearyhawk22 said:GPS makes it easy enough to get anywhere as long as there’s an actual road mapped out leading to the spot.
But I’m trying to find my way to a specific plot of land that doesn't have any access roads at all.
Is there an app that can guide me to a specific set of coordinates through rough terrain where there aren't any paths?

That's what topographic navigation is for. Not sure about a specific consumer app, though.

neonhawk24 said:Hey there,
I just picked up a new laptop and I'm looking to get my software sorted out bit by bit. For video, I already know I'll be using VLC, but besides that, what kind of free programs should I look into? Any suggestions?

It’d be a lot easier if you told us what you actually need them for.
What's the plan? What are you trying to get done?

Alex Booth3 said:Logic suggests the issue should be in my system settings, but if that were true, why does everything else load fine? I can see all my own photos on various sites without a hitch, yet when I try to view someone else's stuff on those exact same services, it claims their host is "unavailable"...???

Whether you have a fire extinguisher handy or not, the house is still burning down.

And does another computer on that same network show them up normally?

cosmicviper18 said:So, I’m looking for some advice here. My drive is a complete disaster right now. Based on what you guys have dealt with, what’s actually worked? Any specific software recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

If the hardware itself is fried, no amount of software is going to save you. But if it's just a logical error, then yeah, software can be a lifesaver.
I once managed to pull a decent amount of data off a drive that had been totally trashed by a TV using some weird proprietary file system. I used Get Data Back for that.
https://www.runtime.org/

But obviously, that stuff won't touch a physical hardware failure.

There are actual data recovery firms out there that specialize in pulling files from broken media, whether the issue is software-based or hardware-based. Just a heads up: they don't do it cheap. It really comes down to how much those files are worth to you.

fadedbear92 said:I’m honestly debating whether I should grab a trash bag or if there’s still a glimmer of hope.
So, every time I opened my laptop lately, the battery would pop out from the right side—looks like some kind of internal clip snapped.
I tried just shoving it back into the slot, and it worked fine for a bit, until tonight when it popped out again and now the thing won't even turn on. I took the battery out and put it back in, and I can see a little light blinking near the charging port. Please, any advice? Thanks!

Is there anywhere I can rent a laptop over the weekend? Thanks!

Just Google "laptop rental San Francisco."
I'm assuming you're based in San Francisco.

Mark Allen6 said:Hey, I'm trying to set up a Medium blog and I could really use some help??? Anyone... 😢

Go ahead and ask. If anyone here knows the answer, they'll jump in.

fadedbear92 said:So you mean a different disc?

Yeah.

If you’re only dealing with six computers, you honestly don't need a dedicated server.
Just get everyone on the same Wi-Fi router if you're trying to avoid a mess of cables.
Pick one machine and set up a shared folder where everyone can—as you put it—shove all those collective documents.
The catch is that specific computer has to stay powered on if anyone else wants to grab files from it.

Another move would be picking up a NAS drive. Just plug it directly into your Wi-Fi router via an Ethernet cable (most routers have plenty of ports) and set up a shared folder there for everyone to dump their files into.

Using a service like Dropbox is an option too, but personally, I'd steer clear of it. It tends to eat up way too much bandwidth whenever you're uploading or downloading large files.

Edward Peterson70 said:I'm running into a headache with my micro SD card.
A few days ago, I toggled the write-protect switch on my micro SD to SD adapter while it was plugged into my laptop. Then, I popped it right back into my camera using that same adapter.

Now, I keep getting an error saying the card is write-protected. It’s being stubborn—I can't format it in the camera, my phone, or even on my laptop.

At first, I figured the issue was just that little lock/unlock slider on the adapter, so I tried a different adapter and even a micro SD to USB reader, but no luck. Still nothing.

Neither quick nor full formats will go through, and I've already attempted these steps:

I noticed "StorageDevicePolicies" wasn't there, so I went ahead and created that folder myself.

And this:

I even tried running the "clean" command.

The weird part? I can still open the card and view all my photos perfectly fine. Everything works normally except for this constant "write-protected" nonsense.

By the way, I ran scans with Norton AV and Malwarebytes just to be safe.

I dealt with something almost identical a couple of months back with a microSD card. Neither Windows 10 nor Linux would touch it; they'd both just insist it was write-protected.

Eventually, I tried it on an old laptop running Windows 7, and that thing actually managed to format it. Once that was done, it worked perfectly fine again on both Windows 10 and Linux.

bluecyclist64 said:Sorry to bother you all, but is there any software out there that lets me link two different external drives so they serve the same purpose—essentially mirroring the data to both?

You aren't bugging anyone. If I'm understanding you right, you want to hook up two separate USB drives to your PC and use them for mirrored backups? Honestly, just try asking Google something like "how to mirror 2 usb drives?" or a similar phrase. There should be plenty of ways to do it. I haven't messed around with that myself since I just rely on my Western Digital setup.
Give it a shot and let us know which option works best for you.

Bryan Fowler7 said:That tiny little nubbin stick I got bundled with the joystick
I can't hook up any other antenna—like a standard coax cable or whatever—because there's just this weirdly small circular port on the stick

Wait, is that the same stick you grabbed for two bucks online with shipping? The one I told you I'd buy off you for a single buck if it turned out to be a dud?
Look, if that thing doesn't work, I'll give you $2.00 for it.

fadedbear92 said:Wait, what's that? Mirroring? I'm not really a tech guy—can you explain that in plain English?😉

Just stack two identical drives in there—say, 3 TB each, or whatever capacity the manufacturer actually supports.

When you're running a mirror setup, it’s exactly like what the other guy mentioned: it looks to you like you just have one single 3 TB drive, but behind the scenes, it's actually writing everything to both disks simultaneously.
Look, if a drive dies—and let’s be real, it’s usually just one at a time—you just grab another identical one to replace the dead weight. Once you swap it out, the system just replicates all the data onto the new drive. It’s pretty straightforward. Most of the time, you aren't going to deal with both drives kicking the bucket at once.

I only used that one as an example. That’s the one I actually have on hand, but there are plenty of similar devices out there on the market. It doesn't have to be that exact model.

fadedbear92 said:I’ve got three 1 TB Transcend external hard drives, and things are starting to go south—the first one already bit the dust, and this second one is being super flaky about showing up on my computer. Honestly, I'm pretty sure it's on its last legs too. Does anyone have any advice on what kind of storage I should switch to for all my files? Thanks!

"A lot" is a pretty subjective term.
Maybe something like this?
https://www.wdc.com/products/network...ex2-ultra.html

I don't mean you have to buy that exact model, but look for something similar. You basically get two drives running in a mirror setup, so if one dies, you just swap it out for the other. If both fail at the exact same time, though, then you're just having a really bad day.