We’ll give it a shot and see if we can get some fans, some action and maybe even some questions. We love comments here, too, but if you comment on our Facebook page, you will get an answer right there instead of having to come back here to read it. We usually send an email response as well so here or there, it doesn’t matter. We love comments.
The Facebook page will allow us to share links that don’t really fit here plus it will give us an opportunity to actually interact with our readers. Computers Made Simple gets quite a few hits for such a tiny spot on the ‘net and we’re excited to provide a new opportunity to get our solutions out there.
This is what our new page looks like:
Only one ‘like’ so far but we hope to see more!
In the near future we’re looking at posts on QQ, Facebook, back-ups, recording different things with your computer, etc. There’s always something new to write about. If you have requests or problems, contact us here with a comment or on our new Facebook page. We’d love to hear from you.
Yesterday, we locked ourselves out of one of our WordPress websites. Even though we write about tech things, we sometimes screw up. Luckily we were able to get back into the site using a password file that we had backed up on Dropbox. Here’s how it went down:
1. We keep a list of passwords in a simple text file on the main office computer and a duplicate file in our Dropbox folder online.
2. Somehow, probably when someone started to type something but didn’t know they were in the password file, one of the passwords got erased.
3. We had the admin password but we’d changed the admin user account’s settings so even though we were able to log-in as admin, we couldn’t do anything. If you have a WordPress site, this is one of the first things you should do. Hackers know that most WordPress users leave the log-in name as ‘admin’ which means that they are already half-way there when it comes to breaking into your site.
4. Since Dropbox syncs your computer’s Dropbox folder with its own online version, both text files were corrupt.
5. We logged on at Dropbox.com, found the file, then looked for the previous versions of that same file, an older version that hadn’t been corrupted. Dropbox stores older versions of files for these kinds of accidents.
6. After we found the file, simply right clicking it brought up this menu:
Right click and choose ‘Previous Version”
7. The previous version of the file had the correct password in it. After we logged into the site, we copied and pasted the missing password back into the original file on our computer. Dropbox, of course, immediately synced the two folders, its own and the one on our computer. We left the previous version as it was, just in case we need it again.
Now, you’re probably thinking, “Why didn’t they just use the ‘forgot password’ option on WordPress?” That makes perfect sense if we used the same email address for all of our sites but we don’t. Checking each of a dozen websites for the WordPress link would have taken much longer. The Dropbox option was faster. We have, however, made a list of what email address is used for each site. That file is on Dropbox and the main computer, of course. Yes, we should have thought of that before but we’re not real geniuses here, we’re just reasonably smart.
Dropbox can really help in this kind of situation. We hope you take our advice and use it. Check out the site, the installation process here: Dropbox
It’s an off-day today so we’re trying to set up a car to win the NASCAR Series in GT5. There are several very descriptive posts on the different game sites but the one thing that we find most helpful is the practice track.
If you’re racing the NASCAR Series, you can win or place near the top in every race except the last one, the Daytona track. Why? We’re not sure but maybe the AI (Artificial Intelligence) figures if you haven’t won by now, it will make it tough to win there at Daytona. What’s the secret? Well, we’ve found that running practice laps helps tremendously.
In one of the earlier races, the Lamborghini race on the Rome Circuit, we had a tough time skidding out on the sharp right hander near the start. The car we used was slippery as an eel but very powerful, over 800 horsepower. Unless we slowed down almost to a stop, we’d lose control and finish dead last. We decided to run some practice laps, going fast without the adrenaline that you get when you’re racing other cars. That worked perfectly. We were able to win in an excellent time, way ahead of the pack.
The secret to the NASCAR Series seems to be part tuning and part simply not hitting the wall. Daytona is set up in a circle, more or less, and the corners aren’t sharp at all. If you have your ground effects set up correctly, you should be able to go full throttle around the track with no braking at all. That alone will get you into the pack if your other settings are fine. However, the one thing that will surely make you finish way behind the pack is…hitting the wall. Keep your eye on the guys behind you when you hit the wall. They jump ahead almost instantly. This happens in the other races too but it’s very obvious here at Daytona. Additionally, once you hit the wall it’s very difficult to pull off of it.
The best racing line is to be close to the wall on the straights, of course. Different sites tell you to stick to the yellow line so you won’t get bumped by other drivers but the yellow line isn’t anywhere near the best racing line. This isn’t important at all on other tracks but it’s vitally important at Daytona in this particular race. The AI is completely different here so don’t assume that lots of horsepower will win the day. Just stay off the wall and you’ll finish higher than last.
Practice, practice and practice some more. We like the view with no car showing but that makes it a bit tough to know exactly where the wall is. Practice with the different views, even the one of the whole car, to find out which one allows you to stay close to, but not on, the wall. No matter how careful you are, you will probably drift close to the wall. If you can learn to avoid hitting it, you’ll be able to maintain your speed. If you find yourself drifting towards the wall on the corners, try hitting your brakes while keeping your accelerator full on. Your revs will stay up but you’ll lose just a bit of speed, hopefully enough to avoid the wall which would slow you down even more.
Winning the first three races is easy, just keep your ground effects lowered to the bottom on Indy and the High Speed Ring and drive to the start in the second race and stay there. Make sure you are dead straight before you accelerate, specially at the start until your SOFT tires heat up. Make sure you’re using soft racing tires in all races. Maybe not the last one, now that we think of it. We’ll try it with hard racing to see if there is a difference. Daytona is a 10 lap race and the hard tires might give a bit of an advantage in straight speed. We’ll check and get back to you on this.
Good luck! We love GT5 here at Computers Made Simple.
Besides QQ, Renren and Wiexin/WeChat and the other social networking sites mentioned in our last post, China continues to introduce new ones and, believe it or not, many old sites have existed for years. Here are some of them:
1.Youku has been around since 2006 and is an almost identical copy of Youtube. The difference is that Youku offers visitors full-length movies and TV shows, and yes, most have Chinese sub-titles, which Youtube cannot because of copyright issues. Although the site is in Chinese, you can search for videos using English words. A recent search brought up Big Daddy, albeit with Arabic sub-titles, which was streamed from Youku’s partner site Tudou.com. The video ran for 99 minutes straight, it wasn’t cut up into sections. Some videos are blocked, depending on your IP address, but most are available for viewing anywhere in the world.
Youku is Youtube but different.
2. Sina.com is described as an ‘infotainment’ site. Consider it like Msn.com and you’ll get the general idea. On Sina, you’ll get lots of news about China but you’ll also be able to read about world news with a twist; it’s all from a Chinese approved point of view. In the West, our news is uncensored but, as you all know, the truth is often adjusted by the companies that own the media site. Fox tells us the news through its point of view as does CNN, MSNBC and so on. Sina isn’t any different, when you look at it like that. Aside from news stories, you’ll be able to catch up on the latest sports and entertainment news. Everything has to be translated, of course, but if you are using Google Chrome, you’ll be fine.
Sina is the main news, weather, sports and entertainment site in China
3. Baidu is about as close to Google as you can get but with one big difference. On Baidu, users can search for MP3s, not just videos, but straight MP3s. We checked out some Bon Jovi songs and found a link to www.kuwo.cn. Sure enough, there was an MP3 player complete with karaoke lyrics as the music played. For each search result there is a ‘Play all’ button to stream all the songs on the page. Searching for images on Baidu is quite different from Google. A search brings up full size images instead of a page of thumbnails. Users can easily scroll down the page and see full versions of each photo, then click on the one that matches their search query.
Consider Baidu as Google on steroids. It’s a copy but it’s an improvement, too.
4. Zhan.renren.com is a combination of Tumblr and Pinterest, in our estimation. Linked with Renren.com, Zhan.renren allows users to share photos, comments, profound thoughts and videos on a single page. Like Twitter and Weibo, users ‘follow’ pages and are updated on the page’s status through renren. Some of the pages are incredible, really, full of fashion photography, classic autos and every other topic under the sun. Some pages are simple, others are very ornate, just as they are in Tumblr. If you have a perception of China and its citizens as being somewhat backward, you’d better reconsider. Zhan’s pages reflect an intelligence and an appreciation of art, music and culture that you’d be hard-pressed to equal on Western social networking sites.
Google Chrome will translate these sites for you.
5. China’s version of Ebay, at least one of them, is Taobao.com. Unlike Ebay, most of the items on Taobao are new and vendors sell everything from underwear to guitars at incredibly cheap prices. Taobao isn’t a store, just as Ebay isn’t. When you buy something, you’re dealing with a vendor, a private individual or company that uses Taobao as a gateway to their online shop. Millions of Chinese own shops on Taobao, while more millions of Chinese shop there. Shipping is the big problem if you want to get things into the West but if you’re looking for new products, Taobao is the place to go. As with Ebay, the seller’s reputation is how you judge whether your transaction will be satisfactory or not. Almost everything is sold at a fixed price, very few items are on auction. If you think of Taobao as a village market, a huge one, you’ll get a better picture of it. For wholesale purchases, Alibaba is the place to go.
Much of Alibaba is in English. We are the market they want to break into.
6. Alibaba.com is where China’s manufacturers meet the world. Again, Alibaba is a gateway, not a manufacturing company. They’ve set up thousands of sites for small, medium and large manufacturers to sell their products to the world. Instead of each company having an individual site, and some do, Alibaba brings people to their door, lets them search for items on their main site and then directs the search to a group of manufacturer’s shops. If you’re looking for drill presses, coolers, toys or anything in between, Alibaba is the place to go. It’s not for individuals, however. We’re talking bulk orders here, not piece by piece.
Not as boring as Ebay, take a look at Taobao and discover another world.
We’ve listed some of the larger and more interesting sites here but why not go exploring yourself? China’s Internet presence is vast, interesting and completely different from anything you’re experienced before. Hopefully, we’ve captured your interest. If you come across something interesting, share it here and we’ll check it out.
Our post on locking your Qzone was correct but one reader couldn’t duplicate one of the menus so here we are again. We’ll post another path to your security settings in case you can’t get to them as per the previous blog entry. Here we go:
1. Open your Qzone. Your main page will look like this but you can get to the security menu from any page:
This is the area that you want to find at the top of the page.
2. Hover your cursor (mouse) over the third set of symbols to bring up this menu:
Hover over the third set of symbols, underlined above, then click the circled symbol.
3. On the next page, look for the set of symbols on the right. Here they are:
Look for the set of symbols that we’ve circled and click on them.
4. Once you click the circled symbols, this page will come up. What you are doing here is finding your profile settings and editing them, just as you do in Facebook or any other social networking site:
Under the padlock icon, click the first set of symbols.
5. Clicking on the circled set of symbols will bring up the same menu as shown in our post about locking your profile. That article is here: Locking your Qzone
This is the menu:
Hovering over the circled set of symbols will bring out the menu just below it. This is where you can lock your zone.
TIP: As we said earlier, these settings are no different than the ones on Facebook or your MSN zone, basically the same as any other social networking site. The difference is that these settings are all in Chinese. If you use Google Chrome, the job is a bit easier. Part of the fun of all of this is getting to know some Chinese symbols and working out these settings on your own. It’s a mystery, right? Everyone loves a mystery. We hope this helped you. Let us know if it didn’t.
Thanks for reading!
a little bit of hi-tech, a little bit of common sense and a lot of fun
