Update on Lair of Altaire's Status

[Altaire]

I'm sure some of you are wondering where episode two, with CD Jr, went.

Well, without dancing around it, my laptop is giving me issues.

Before anyone panics or jumps to conclusions, don't worry, the episode itself was recorded and I have it on my thumb drive. Nothing is happening to that. I can even still access it from my hard drive, but the problem is that I can't boot into my laptop's OS. It'll start to load up, stall, and then just shut down before it even gets to the login screen. Problem one is that I'm on a Macbook, so this is OS X; if any of you somehow happen to be familiar with it, then ANY insight would be appreciated. Right now, I'm running on a boot copy of Ubuntu (Linux), but the problem is that until I can install it natively (which I don't even have enough space on my drive for), I can't really find any kind of recording software to edit the episode with. That's basically the only issue with that particular ep: I don't want to post the uncut two and a half hours for quality reasons. I like to trim my recordings neatly where possible to make the final product as polished as possible. If my situation hasn't improved by friday, I'll just post the uncut episode, but I really hope it doesn't have to come to that.

Please be patient with us, in the meantime. I don't have access to an external HDD, so unless I can solve my problems from within Ubuntu (which has worked before, in all fairness), I'm incapable of doing any serious editing from my own home. Again, if someone here is familiar with OS X, Ubuntu or both, your help is MORE than welcome. I have only a very basic working knowledge of Ubuntu, and the only solution I can see right now is to reinstall the OS. That means losing everything on my HDD, and that is just not an option for me right now. If anyone wants to help, your best bet is to email me or PM me, but all my miscellaneous contact info is in my profile as well. Until I can sort this out, the podcast is going to be moving more slowly; episodes will still be going up, but likely only bi-weekly, since I'll need to get someone else to record it and I'll have to do the editing outside my own home. What I CAN promise you is that episode two turned out fucking great. Anyone who enjoyed the first is going to enjoy this one that much more so, guaranteed.

Sit tight, folks. We'll hopefully be back on track soon enough.

 

[Derptile]

You are so Canadian.

 

[Ashenar]

Should have Dive kicked harder!

 

[Altaire]

You are so Canadian.

...How? What about this thread is Canadian?

 

[Derptile]

...How? What about this thread is Canadian?

Don't worry about it

 

[Killphil]

Are you talking dual booting? I guess a VM wouldn't work seeing as it wouldn't have your software for editing. Although technically it could have the software, you'd just need to look for it....probably not worth the time. Do Mac books have a system restore? Was your computer updated recently? Maybe that's whats causing the issue.

 

[Altaire]

Are you talking dual booting? I guess a VM wouldn't work seeing as it wouldn't have your software for editing. Although technically it could have the software, you'd just need to look for it....probably not worth the time. Do Mac books have a system restore? Was your computer updated recently? Maybe that's whats causing the issue.

I don't think my laptop is up to snuff for VM, I've tried that before (and hell, it was only with Windows XP).

Define system restore, I'm not really sure what you mean; it seems like a broad category. My laptop wasn't updated recently, though. It's prone to random freezing, and it froze while I was in the middle of editing the podcast. My only option was to just shut it down forcibly, and when I tried starting it up again, that's when the problem arose. I'm not really sure what to make of that, but I suspect it's dead spots on the hard drive or the battery being fucked.

 

[Killphil]

Your laptop may or may not create a restore point each day and/or after each update. This ensures that if an update causes your system or affiliated software to not work properly, you can simple restore your laptop to a date that it DID work properly. It doesn't affect your files in any way. Try searching for system restore in whatever equates to a start menu on your laptop. Now be warned that it does take a little bit of time (it takes my computer 20-30 minutes) and if your computer has it, you'll get all the warnings about how it can't be undone and whatnot. My computer freezes when I run youtube videos without it being plugged in occasionally, however random it may be. Off brand battery is to blame. I'm still quite ignorant of any specific hardware issues, I only deal with software unfortunate as it may be.

 

[Altaire]

Unfortunately, I don't think my laptop does that, but I DO have good news: I found out that I can run Audacity from Ubuntu. As long as I save the file to my flash drive as I'm going along (in the rare event that the OS crashes and I lose everything), I should be able to edit and upload the show tonight, then work on episode three for next week. Recording is still going to be an issue, but I'll see if I can find a program to record with on this OS.

If all goes well, episode two will be up tonight, possibly late depending on how long the editing takes me. GET HYPE!

 

[G4S Claude VonStroke]

I'm proficient in OSX. What's your question?

 

[Altaire]

I'm proficient in OSX. What's your question?

It may not be OS X, so much, but it's worth a shot. Basically, my comp was just randomly freezing for short periods (the color wheel would pop up and prevent me from doing anything), usually under specific circumstances. For instance, it got REALLY bad when I'd use itunes, though only sometimes, seemingly on certain songs. It also froze up during certain videos (with both VLC and Quicktime), also seemingly at certain times. Like I said, I suspect it's dead spots on the hard drive, so I'd come across these and it'd just lock up.

Anyway, it got like this while I was editing the podcast, and it was stuck for so long that my only solution was to just forcibly shut down and reboot. Now, whenever I do, it won't even make it to the startup screen. I just see the Apple logo, then a progress bar is displayed (which... Usually doesn't happen). That ALSO gets stuck, and eventually, it just shuts off on its own.

I'm kind of lost, at this point, but maybe you can figure it out.

 

[G4S Claude VonStroke]

Seems like it's a hard ware issue. Could be a bad hard drive like you said or worst case a failing mother board. Years ago i had a mother board go on me and my computer would freeze up and stuff like that. Couple things you can try. Back up everything manually to an external hard drive. Put the OSX disc in and go to disk utility then write Zeros on the entire hard drive. Not just a regular erase. Reinstall os fresh and then add things back to it from the HD and downloading. If you STILL have problems it's hard ware issue. Also you can take it to an apple store and they will run a free hardware diagnostic for you. I'm currently trying to get a mac genius job, I would do it for you if you were near me.