The Official Computer Tech Support Thread

[Burning Down]

Originally Posted by John Wilkes Booth

I need a way to watch videos that aren't available to the US. I like this program on Al Jazeera English called Empire which until very recently I was able to watch on youtube or on AJE's website. A few days ago I started getting a message on both sites that the content wasn't available in my country/location. I tried using a proxy from outside the country (with the FoxyProxy add on for FireFox) which works on and off but is pretty slow when it does work. Are there any better solutions?

Have you tried Anonymox (think thats what its called)? I have the Firefox add on and it lets you use UK.or Dutch IP addresses.

Wonder why Al Jazeera is not available in the States. I can view their videos here in Canada, so if you find a way to get a Canadian IP that should work too.

[John Wilkes Booth]

It seems to be because they are launching Al Jazeera America tomorrow, which will be available on TV. I just tried visiting their live stream to see if that's still available, and got this message:

Thanks for visiting the Al Jazeera English live stream.
We have some great news to share – Al Jazeera America is launching August 20th! As a result, this live stream is no longer available in the U.S.

Visit here to see if your local television provider will be carrying Al Jazeera America. If you will not be receiving it, let your voice be heard and request it today!

That would be good news if they didn't decide to restrict access to AJE because of it. I liked the commentary they had on that Empire show.

edit - Forgot to say: I'll try your recommendation tomorrow. Thanks.

[Burning Down]

Ok, I'm usually pretty good with computers but this problem is stumping me. The keyboard on my laptop seems to be completely messed up. I haven't spilled anything on it nor is there any dirt under the keys (just cleaned it last week). But when I type on it, I will press a key and get a completely different character. When I pressed A, I got N. Shit like that. It's now like a weird cryptogram puzzle that gets printed in the newspapers. The numeric keypad does not work at all, even with NumLock on. Caps key and shift keys do not work. The only key that seems to work properly is the damn space bar.

I tried doing a system restore on it, back to a few days ago before the drivers were updated, to see if that would reset things. Nothing. Absolute failure. There is also a problem with the typing cursor - if I click to type something in the middle of a sentence, it just scrolls all the way back to the end. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

What can I do? The Internet is not turning up any reasonable options. Or maybe I'm searching with the wrong keywords. Or maybe Google just sucks.

inb4 "d'oh how did you type this up then?" - I'm using my boyfriend's computer.

[Stephen]

Maybe you accidentally set it to an international keyboard layout?

[Burning Down]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Maybe you accidentally set it to an international keyboard layout?

Nope, there's only 2 language options - US English and Canadian Multilingual Standard. CMS is not any different really except that you can type in French and use the accents without having to use the Unicode shortcuts. It was, and still is, set to US English.

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by Burning Down

Ok, I'm usually pretty good with computers but this problem is stumping me. The keyboard on my laptop seems to be completely messed up. I haven't spilled anything on it nor is there any dirt under the keys (just cleaned it last week). But when I type on it, I will press a key and get a completely different character. When I pressed A, I got N. Shit like that. It's now like a weird cryptogram puzzle that gets printed in the newspapers. The numeric keypad does not work at all, even with NumLock on. Caps key and shift keys do not work. The only key that seems to work properly is the damn space bar.

I tried doing a system restore on it, back to a few days ago before the drivers were updated, to see if that would reset things. Nothing. Absolute failure. There is also a problem with the typing cursor - if I click to type something in the middle of a sentence, it just scrolls all the way back to the end. WHAT. THE. FUCK.

What can I do? The Internet is not turning up any reasonable options. Or maybe I'm searching with the wrong keywords. Or maybe Google just sucks.

inb4 "d'oh how did you type this up then?" - I'm using my boyfriend's computer.

Borrow a usb keyboard, plug it in and let the generic driver install by itself. Type. Same or not?

[butthead aka 216]

did somethin dumb


im in chrome. i was tryin to install a new flash player or somethin and now flash works but i have to click on videos to get the pic to even show up. like in plug, the songs dont play automatically. the screen is dark with a flash symbol and i have to click on it for the song and video to play. same with every type of media. prob very simple to fix but i dunno how. please help me nerdz

[Freebase Dali]

Originally Posted by butthead aka 216

did somethin dumb


im in chrome. i was tryin to install a new flash player or somethin and now flash works but i have to click on videos to get the pic to even show up. like in plug, the songs dont play automatically. the screen is dark with a flash symbol and i have to click on it for the song and video to play. same with every type of media. prob very simple to fix but i dunno how. please help me nerdz

Re-install Windows.

[Burning Down]

Originally Posted by Freebase Dali

Borrow a usb keyboard, plug it in and let the generic driver install by itself. Type. Same or not?

I did that and that keyboard worked. And then when I unplugged it, the laptop keyboard seemed to have sorted out the letters and numbers, but when I press the keys, I get 3 of each character. What. The. Hell. I'm really at a loss here. The computer is still under warranty (glad I got the three year one!), but I'm hesitant to take it to those hacks because they'll say I have to pay for some crap or something.

[Stephen]

It's not on some Unicode setting is it?