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Computer help

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I've found a post with those strange characters in it see screenshot below. When it was posted long ago, the BHF used vBulletin software which probably displayed something different. The BHF now uses Xenforo software which displays what you see.
characters.jpg
 
thanks. for that mike. i tryd making them strange letters à}|ÿ›
 

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Do they appear when you are typing?

On keypads such as iPads or iPhones, and many others I presume...if you hold your finger on say the letter a for a short period of time you will see a choice of àáäæ and a few other. If you are in capitals you would see  à and others.

If you run your finger upwards you can choose which one you want, but if you swipe a little upwards before removing your finger it will choose the one of them.

The characters are for languages that use accents.
 
Pedrocut said:
Do they appear when you are typing?

On keypads such as iPads or iPhones, and many others I presume...if you hold your finger on say the letter a for a short period of time you will see a choice of àáäæ and a few other. If you are in capitals you would see  à and others.

If you run your finger upwards you can choose which one you want, but if you swipe a little upwards before removing your finger it will choose the one of them.

The characters are for languages that use accents.[/QUOTE
i am old fashioned i use a desktop or lap top pc.:laughing:if i hold a key nothing. to get that strange letter i have to put number lock on,hold alt and press 0194 then loose alt .Â. no way could i put a line.like in some posts
Click to expand...
 
mikejee said:
I think the symbols may have originally been smilies
Click to expand...

I thought that Mike. Also as OM said they are only on older posts. I don't think anyone actually typed them. It was a bit like I used to get a square on my old phone if someone sent a message with an emoticon in.
 
When I searched to find an example to get the screenshot in #205 I only found one forum name (no longer a member) who had those characters in a post. They seemed to appear at the end of sentences and the actual smiley was there.

With regard to iPads, the predictive text is brilliant.:)
 
Is there any way to watch videos on the BBC website without downloading flash player which I believe has security issues?
 
Smudger said:
Is there any way to watch videos on the BBC website without downloading flash player which I believe has security issues?
Click to expand...

I access the BBC player on my SmartTV, Smudger. That doesn't need a flashplayer, so I don't know why you need it with a computer. And I thought standard computer software already had a flashplayer included. They sometimes ask to be updated.

Regards, Ray T.
 
Looks like they only use Flash now on older computers (Windows XP) or older browsers and now use HTML5.

The help says:

"There are two media players used across bbc.co.uk (Flash and HTML5). If we give you Flash player by default and you want to switch to HTML5 head over to bbc.co.uk/html5 where you can easily check this and change to HTML5. If you don't see an option to change to HTML5, it's because you're already using the HTML5 player."

The help above came from here

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/help/troubleshooting/web/troubleshooting_pc_mac

Note Flash is gradually being phased out and replaced by HTML5. Any decent web site should be replacing Flash with HTML5.

Many of the newer Browsers (like Edge and Chrome) now disable Flash by default and only turn it on (after asking you first) if a web site needs it.
 
I have recently bought a Sony Bravia tv. Is there any way i can download a audio codec to it? I have downloaded some tv series & the first episode played ok, but the 2nd episode said audio codec not supported. I have internet on tv but don`t really know how to download anything on it. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Had some 'fun' with computing today ...
I picked up my iPad this morning to look at the web and BHF and entered my 6 digit passcode and ...

Message ...Wrong passcode ...re-enter
Entered it again ... wrong again ... silly me ... have I had a brain freeze ?
Opened my passcode vault in my Windows laptop and confirmed I had the correct passcode.
Entered it again in iPad ... message 'ipad disabled for 1 minute repeated entry of wrong passcode'.
I entered it again and the iPad was now disabled for 5 minutes ...:(

Apple beginning to suspect I had found someone else's iPad and was trying to use it.

Time for some 'Googling' in my Windows laptop and advice was.

Run iTunes and open my Apple account.
Completely shut down the iPad.
Hold down the iPad 'Home' button while plugging into the Windows laptop and keep button down.
Laptop sounded connection chimes and reports connection with an iPad.
iTunes shows the serial number and reports 'this iPad has a problem'.

I'm now starting to think I am looking at an expensive shiny brick ... :worried:

Waited ages as iTunes looked at the iPad and then offered a factory restore or restore from last back up.

I had backed it up on 7th May so went for backup restore.

An hour went by with the iPad bleeping and my laptop chiming.

Then Apple wanted my full ID and password which I entered.

They then sent a verification code to my mobile phone.

I entered it in iTunes and things slowly proceeded.

Eventually a 'Welcome to Your New iPad' message appeared on the iPad.

I had to create a new pass code and a few other things and the iPad home screen appeared.

I then watched all my apps slowly downloading from the backup.

Lessons learnt
Apple security is very good but when you have to take it on it can be confusing.

Thank goodness I had backed up the iPad even though I've lost 10 day's stuff.

I wished I had been able to video myself doing all this because I pressed so many buttons I've already forgotten exactly what I did.

Now proceeding with caution because in 7 years of iPad use I have never seen anything like it.
 
How do i make a disc (iso) image of my entire pc onto a 64gb usb stick & can i use it to reinstall all if my pc crashes? TIA.
 
There is this ... I used it once but don't use it now.
www.macrium.com

Macrium Reflect | Free 30-Day Trial

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups
www.macrium.com www.macrium.com
The 'paid-for' version is widely used.

My procedure now is to keep all my data and images etc, on a separate partition and back-up that partition once a week to an external drive. If I need to restore Windows 10 system I use the built in W10 recovery. Used it a few times in the early life of Windows 10.

If that did not work I would use my USB Recovery drive which I had previously created as last resort.

Type 'Recovery' in windows search and Settings will open in 'Update & Security' and an option to create the USB recovery drive is available.
 
oldMohawk said:
There is this ... I used it once but don't use it now.
www.macrium.com

Macrium Reflect | Free 30-Day Trial

Macrium Reflect - Incredibly powerful software that allows you to create and schedule effective backups
www.macrium.com www.macrium.com
The 'paid-for' version is widely used.

My procedure now is to keep all my data and images etc, on a separate partition and back-up that partition once a week to an external drive. If I need to restore Windows 10 system I use the built in W10 recovery. Used it a few times in the early life of Windows 10.

If that did not work I would use my USB Recovery drive which I had previously created as last resort.

Type 'Recovery' in windows search and Settings will open in 'Update & Security' and an option to create the USB recovery drive is available.
Click to expand...
Smudger wants a SYSTEM IMAGE, which is different to Recovery.
 
Lumpammer said:
Smudger wants a SYSTEM IMAGE, which is different to Recovery.
Click to expand...
Yes I understood that which is why I suggested Macrium Reflect which will produce a disk image. I used it once when I wanted to move an existing W10 complete with it's activation code, apps, and data (the complete image ) to a replacement HDD.

In normal circumstances only my data is important to me and generally ensure that it is backed-up from it's separate partition. I can replace W10 anytime with recovery and replace apps as required.
 
oldMohawk said:
Yes I understood that which is why I suggested Macrium Reflect which will produce a disk image. I used it once when I wanted to move an existing W10 complete with it's activation code, apps, and data (the complete image ) to a replacement HDD.

In normal circumstances only my data is important to me and generally ensure that it is backed-up from it's separate partition. I can replace W10 anytime with recovery and replace apps as required.
Click to expand...
All that can be with windows, you do not need any more software.
 
I read Smudger's post that he wanted a disk image of his entire pc

How do i make a disc (iso) image of my entire pc

W10 will make a system image but will not make a disk image.

I suppose it all revolves around what Smudger wants .... system image or entire pc image.
 
I could not make a system image on usb (can`t remember what it said ) so i shall buy some dvd`s & do it that way (with fingers crossed )

PS A system image is a full copy of what`s on my pc or have i got that wrong? Anyway guys, thanks for your help.
 
Smudger said:
A system image is a full copy of what`s on my pc or have i got that wrong? Anyway guys, thanks for your help.
Click to expand...

I use Macrium Reflect Free to make full disk images of the 6 PCs in my house. I have been using the free version for years and never needed to pay Macrium any money. I think it is a fantastic product.

Note it does not produce an ISO (I don think you want an ISO) it produces files in Macrium's own "image" format.

Note it is fairly technical so can take a bit of time to learn.

To use it you proceed as follows:

1) Download Macrium Reflect Free from the Macrium web site and install it. This is fairly easy.

Make a Macrium "rescue" CD/DVD or USB stick. This is easy. You need this if your computer can't boot so you have to boot from the CD/DVD or USB stick to reinstall Windows.

When you want to make an image start Macrium Reflect on your PC, then from the Macrium interface select all the partitions on your disk. Select where you want the image to go (external hard drive may be best and easiest that is what I use) and begin the image creation. Takes about 10 to 15 minutes on my PCs but that is basic Windows with no personal files.

Of course you cant "test" the image as you would then overwrite the "good" Windows image on your computer.

Because I use desktop computers what I do is take out the hard disk with the "good" Windows on it, then put in a empty spare hard disk (this is not so easy to do if you have a laptop as it is harder to swap disks).

Note the "new" hard disk I put in can be a different size from the original as Macrium allows you to resize partitions when you do a restore.

I then boot from the Macrium rescue CD/DVD or USB stick I created earlier, then within Macrium point it to the image on the external hard disk I created and restore Windows from that.

It takes 10 minutes or so then I reboot the computer from this "new" hard disk and I have an exact copy of what was on the "master" hard disk I took the image from.

Note if you are running Windows 10 there are quite a few options "built in" to reinstall Windows if you get problems.

You can even create a "Windows 10 recovery drive" on to a USB stick. You can boot "Windows" from this USB stick and then try to use the Windows 10 files on your existing hard disk to try to fix the problem. For example you can do a Windows 10 reinstall (using the existing Windows files on your PC) that keeps your personal files and does not overwrite them.

You can read more about it here

https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/4026852/windows-create-a-recovery-drive

Below is a link to a useful page abut the different ways to reset or reinstall Windows 10 if you need to (some where you DONT need to do a full reinstall). Looks complex so many be worth reading a few times


DONT use the Backup and Restore program supplied with Windows 10 (and Windows 7 and 8), its very limited (and not a patch on Macrium). For example if your hard disk crashes and you have to replace the hard disk the restore wont work unless the new hard disk is exactly the same as the old hard disk. You cant resize partitions during a restore like you can with Macrium Reflect.

Any questions on Macrium Reflect just ask, I have been using it for years and it has never failed me.
 
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Thanks again for all your replies & help. I think i`ve mentioned this before, that i have a slight problem with dyslexia & have to read most things a few time to understand it. Nevertheless, i enjoy a challenge & shall see where i go with Macrium! :dizzy:Dyslexic.jpg
 
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Smudger said:
Thanks again for all your replies & help. I think i`ve mentioned this before, that i have a slight problem with dyslexia & have to read most things a few time to understand it. Nevertheless, i enjoy a challenge & shall see where i go with Macrium! :dizzy:
Click to expand...
1576657942458.png
 
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