Well, I was going to post a picture of the installation of my empeg in my "temporary" car, acquired following the demise of the ShoWagon.

But, I can't get the picture to attach to the post. When I click on the "add picture" button, the little swirly thing just sits there going 'round and 'round and nothing happens.

How do I do this?

tanstaafl.

It's a little non-intuitive. First you have to "Browse" for the file you want to upload, then click the "Add File" button. If that's what you did, it might just be taking a long time to upload.

Remember the time it takes will be function of your *upstream* ISP speed so if you're on something like a 256/64kbps ADSL thats only ~6kB/sec. i.e. even a 100kB JPG will take ~20 seconds.

I know you've successfully attached pictures to messages on this BBS before, so I know it's not likely to be anything you're doing wrong.

Quick checks: The filename, or folder name, of the picture you're attaching isn't somehow unusual, or unusually long, or contains odd characters, does it? The file type is ordinary JPG, right? The file size isn't unusually large, is it?

Here, I'll try attaching a little JPG really quick and see if it works for me...

Okay, that worked.

I saw the little swirly thing just like you described, only mine disappeared quickly as soon as the upload was done.

I can imagine a few situations in which a file upload wouldn't work and the little swirly thing would just keep swirling. They usually involve problems with the browser or the back end server. I'd say, reboot and try again.

Pretty much all of the above... However, I suspected that some of those things might have been causing problems, so I re-named the file (to "empeg.jpg"), re-scaled it to 640x480, bringing file size down from 264KB to 79KB, checked that it was a valid *.jpg by opening it with an editor, and watched the little swirly thing for about 10 minutes before deciding it wasn't going to work. My connection is DSL, typical download speed about 40 KB/sec, no idea what the upload speed is, but I can usually send an email with a megabyte attachment in under a minute.

When I get home tonight, I'll try it again with a freshly booted computer.

tanstaafl.

What is your Browser? What is your OS?

Just curious. Maybe try a different browser if you can.

Firefox.
Windows Vista

If it still doesn't work, I'll try Netscape... but I am pretty sure Tony is using Firefox, although probably not Vista. (If I had it to do over again, I would build my new computer with XP, and not Vista. Too many petty annoyances there...)

tanstaafl.

I was Firefox on vista SP1.

I'd think that if the BBS uploader didn't work with Firefox and IE, we'd have found out sooner than today. I don't think it's your choice of browser.

It could be some kind of security setting within the browser, or perhaps a third party firewall or virus checker, preventing uploads somehow.

Nothing works.

I tried IE, I tried different pictures, I let the little swirly thing swirl for nearly 20 minutes, I turned off my Windows Firewall, I rebooted, and I still can't attach a photo.




tanstaafl.


Edit: Odd, after I saved the file, it SAYS there is a file attached... but it doesn't seem to actually be there.

Test to see if my work computer will attach a file...

Yes, this seems to work. So it is something with either Vista in general (unlikely) or my home computer in particular.

The attached file was taken with the same camera, re-sized to the same resolution (1280x960) using the same resizing software, is similar in size (~300K). Only thing different is the computer used to attach it (different hardware, different OS) and a different upload path (cable modem at work vs. DSL line at home).

I dunno...

tanstaafl.

edit: Picture is sunrise from my bedroom window in Mexico. Can't actually move in there until I sell my house in Alaska.

edit: Couldn't resist -- added a second picture. Same shot, but taken less than two minutes after the first one. When SWMBO says "Oh, look at the sunrise", that means jump out of bed stark naked RIGHT NOW!

Another test. This time I let the swirly thing swirl for 45 minutes.

edit: It worked. WTF?

My usual upload speed is somewhere in the vicinity of, oh, about one megabyte per minute, maybe faster than that. That's about how long it takes me to send an email with a one megabyte attachment. So why would uploading to the bbs be more than 150 times slower?

Anyway, attached is my very professional empeg installation. The strap is a piece of mountain bike innertube, and a cassette adapter feeds the audio into the OEM stereo system. Note that I went first class with the power adapter -- not only does it plug tightly into the cigarette lighter, but it has its own on-off switch!

Little Blue Thing, I know you're proud of your remote display adapter in your Jaguar, and I hope you don't become too despondent about the pitiful inadequacies of your own installation after seeing what a true professional can do. Maybe with a few more years experience you may be able to approach (but certainly not surpass) the magnificence of my efforts.

Seriously, though -- this is a $700 temporary car, and I was pleased to be able to somehow get my empeg in it at all, and for a total installation cost (including the piece of innertube!) of about $20. (I already had the cassette adapter on hand.)


tanstaafl.

Noticed how cassette adaptors used to be about $10 as cars started to get CD players as standard, then since mp3 players got popular (along with loads of overpriced accessories), they're now $20?

Now that's a high margin business...

Hugo
(who cycles past a SHO in Sunnyvale on the way to work... not a wagon though)

Two things...

First, I'm relatively certain this isn't an issue with upload speed necessarily, but rather, something strange is causing a very long timeout on each packet being sent in the upload.

Did you recently make any changes to the network settings of the PC (or run a utility that made changes for you) for the purposes of speeding up online DOOM games? I've heard of people who do those kind of tweaks having the kind of troubles you're describing.

Second, I think it's just awesome to see someone your age using phrases like "WTF".

To the best of my knowledge, I have made no changes to network settings. I was thinking that this was the first time I had tried to attach a photo since building the new computer, but a little research shows that I attached pictures back in December with this computer with no problems.

The only utilities I have run are a registry cleaner ("Registry Patrol") and a disk defragger ("Auslogics").

It seems odd that uploading through email works OK, but something is making the computer unhappy when it tries to upload to the bbs.

Another odd thing is that the local stereo shops have not been beating a path to my door to hire me as an installer. I guess the word about my installation just hasn't spread enough yet...

tanstaafl.

Through email, do you mean, from a local email client such as Outlook or Thunderbird, or do you mean from a web-based email service such as Yahoo or Gmail?

Local email clients use a totally different protocol to send the mail than uploading a file to a web site uses. Whereas, if you used a web-based email service, then when you send a file through email, you'd have to upload it to the web-based-mail service first, and it *would* be exactly like uploading a photo to the BBS, and I would expect it to behave the same way.

It would be an interesting test to try something like that: find some kind of a site that also accepts file uploads through a web form like this BBS does, and see if you run into the same problem. Then we could be sure the problem was with all web form uploads.

Well, I've got to say... I'm impressed!

There's no duct tape visible anywhere!!!

I notice the adaptor you've used has nice thick phono leads - good call; they should keep the signal in pristine condition.

PS Love the steering wheel cover though - do they do a Jag one?

And not only is it rather fetching in appearance, it is also extremely functional in a northern climate.

Cheers

I know you probably don't want to put any money into it, but there are kits that will allow you to put it in the dash. Both
Scosche and American International make kits.

Good idea for a test. I was using a local client via the Vista mail program.

Tonight I'll try sending the picture to myself using GMAIL to send it, and my Vista Mail program to receive it and see what happens.

Well, maybe tomorrow night. I've got people coming to look at the house tonight, and we had six inches of fresh snow this morning and I have to shovel the driveway and the deck before they get there. Let's see... 300 foot driveway by 8 feet wide, six inches deep, that's 1200 cubic feet; plus the parking area which is about 40 x 50 for another 1000 cubic feet; figure specific gravity of .16 for fresh snow, that means it would weigh 62.5 x .16 = 10 pounds per cubic foot. So, that's going to be 10 x 2200 = 22,000 pounds of snow. Ooops, forgot the deck. Add another 1000 pounds for that. Oh, heck, that's only 11.5 tons of snow I have to move, and I sold my snowplow truck a year ago thinking I would be in Mexico by now.

For the folks who do not live in snow country... don't be too concerned by this sisyphean task (it's getting harder and harder to find words that nobody has used before on this bbs! ). I won't actually be shoveling this snow, that is, lifting it with a shovel and throwing it somewhere else. I'll be using a snow scoop and the whole job will take about two to three hours of pretty aerobic work.

Sigh...

tanstaafl.

Hey, I know what that word means without looking it up!

Sisyphus was even featured in a Red Bull commercial, albeit probably not by name.

Yes... but then I have to start thinking about an amplifier, ripping the dash and door panels apart for the wiring, and finding/installing a tuner for the radio, etc. If I were going to do all that work, then I'd want a subwoofer so the carpeting would have to come up for the wiring for that, and of course those $6.00 OEM speakers would have to go... and all of a sudden instead of a $19 installation I'm looking at over $1000.

I think I'll eave everything the way it is, and just put up with all the unbridled jealousy I get from you guys who are envious of my installation.

tanstaafl.

Uploading the picture to my Windows mail account: 12 seconds.

Uploading the picture to my gmail account: I gave up after 40 minutes.

You're right, Tony. While I haven't done a rigorous mathematical comparison, at first glance there does seem to be a disparity in upload speed between the two methods.

tanstaafl.

The first thing that comes to mind is an MTU issue, which may have been a result of your registry cleaner. I don't know how to fix that under Vista, though. (Actually, now that I think about it, Vista's PMTUD is supposed to be much better than XP's, but I guess it could still be the issue.)

Try this:

ping -n 1 -l 1400 empegbbs.com

Then increase the "1400" by one and try again. Stop when you reach 1600 or a ping consistently fails with a particular value. Let us know what your results are. (Yes, this is no fun. I usually script it under Unix, but I don't know how to do that under Windows.)

Get an Administrator command prompt and run the following command:

"netsh interface tcp set global autotuning=disabled"

more info here.

Good suggestions from Jonathan and Bitt there, definitely worth trying.

But before you try those, Doug, please answer me this:

Is the troublesome PC with Vista upgraded to Service Pack 1 yet? If not, please do so, then see if you have the same problem. If you still have the same problem, then try the stuff Jonathan and Bitt are suggesting.

(I know it takes longer to upgrade to SP1 than it does to try the things Jonathan and Bitt are suggesting. I'm talking academic curiosity here, I want to know if this was simply an SP1 bug that got fixed.)

Probably, but I can't say with 100% certainty.

The computer was built last October and was set up with all Microsoft patches and updates that were available at that time. In addition, the auto-update (or whatever Microsoft calls it) feature was turned on so that subesequent updates are applied automatically.

1) How can I tell if SP1 is installed?
2) If not, how do I go about installing it?

Since I was able to attach pictures in the past, what might have changed?

tanstaafl.

Go to Start (Is it still actually called that officially in Vista, since it's now just a logo), right click on Computer, and select Properties. For me, I see at the top a section called Windows edition, and mine says
Windows Vista Business
Service Pack 1

While SP1 is not a miracle cure all for Vista (just got done reseating network cables and trading ports to see why mine was dropping 80% of the packets to the network), it is slightly better and worth getting. If you don't have it, go to Start, and type in Windows Update. I don't think SP1 is going out over automatic updates yet, but it will show as a choice if you run the updater manually.

I'm not being offered SP1 and neither were two HP PCs I was running updates on earlier today. I wonder whether they are spreading the load on the download servers by not offering it to everyone at once?

Something that I've never noticed the likes of beforehand, perhaps this is relevant...

Start/computer/properties shows me

Windows Edition_______________
Windows Vista Ultimate
Copyright 2006 Microsoft Corporation All Rights Reserved

and that's it. Running Windows Update manually does not seem to offer me the option of installing SP1. It does give me the message that everything is up to date.

So, I still don't know whether I have SP1 installed.

tanstaafl.

Click on START MENU or whatever the heck they're calling it these days.

In the little box at the bottom of the start menu type:

WINVER

(press enter)

Mine says:
Version 6.0 (Build 6001: Service Pack 1)

This from a guy who actually works for MS. <headslap>

Where he checked is valid, and has been for many windows versions as well.

I'm guessing your not seeing SP1 as an option in Windows Update due to what AndrewT was talking about.



While SP1 can be installed manually, I'd highly recommend waiting till Windows Update does whatever voodoo they think is necessary for your machine. Of course it would be nice if there was some way of knowing what driver it doesn't like, but we all know how MS enjoys trying to simplify things to the point of uselessness.

Not no more. Haven't been there since October. Much happier now.

In spite of it saying your system is up to date, is it offering you any optional updates? Perhaps there's an optional update for a hardware driver you need to accept before it will offer you SP1.

I accepted an optional update for my Realtek network card last night and although repeatedly checking for new updates didn't show up anything else, lo and behold tonight it was offering me SP1. Could just be a coincidence though!

Yes -- one update, which I accepted, but still no offer of SP1.

tanstaafl.

It's a little scary just how deeply I wandered into Wikipedia's Greek Mythology section after looking up this character. I knew I had to Alt-F4 when I wound up at Amsterdam's Vrolik museum site looking at a baby cyclops.

Nice install, there. The SHO Wagon would be proud.

/me hits google...