Tag Archives: Toshiba

DVD Software, Printers and Scanners

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My laptop (Toshiba Satellite A505-S6025) supposedly has Roxio Creator 2010 on it, pre-installed, well IS SUPPOSED to have … according to documentation on this model. I don’t have it. I have Roxio Burn, that’s it.

There is no “DVD Creation” sort of software on this laptop minus Microsoft’s Movie Maker software, which is not my idea of what to do with my lovely Sony HD video.

I do need to purchase something better, but want to use what usually has been on laptops I’ve had in the past, nice enough to use, easy, put-together a nice DVD with menus and such. I’ve also taken apart Math-U-See DVD’s to put back together in a more computer friendly format, it’s worked great with the HP laptops I’ve had, Cyberlink DVD software on my last HP, and also making a cool DVD for my boys with videos online, You Tube, and other places, things other people made for Bionicles, and also put some music files on it so they can play the whole thing on the TV when ever they want.

My Toshiba Satellite A505-S6025 runs Windows 7 x64 Professional. It has nothing worthwhile to create DVD’s with. Nothing at all. Frustrating. I can’t afford to buy software right now. I have OTHER needs that are higher: An Inkjet printer, a scanner. I have an old HP LaserJet to print with. An older Epson personal (4×6) photo printer that isn’t in good condition and may or may not work anymore (I don’t use it much, and the ink may be too low, dry, etc. and I hate buying cartridge packs for it since I’ve had bad luck with them in the past but never contact the company about it …) Anyhow, I want to print more pictures often, without having to hook something up to my computer, and worry about printing enough photos to get my worth out of it each time … I have documents to print in color, and larger photos too. Not JUST 4×6 photos, and not JUST black/Grey scale documents. That’s all the capacity I have right now, and no scanner anymore. Any I had are old, broke, thrown away, or in storage where I can’t find them. All old anyhow. The last I had was an Epson all-in-one and the printer got to the point of being too full of garbage ink and it wouldn’t work, so the whole thing quit working … dumb. Garbage for sure (I tried methods and eaked out more life from it here and there, but it ended up I’d have to install a tube and container outside of the device to drain out the garbage ink permanently (no way!) and I found that the device used up so much ink for nothing, I hated it to death. So we’ve been without color printing ability or scanning for quite a few years now.

There is an HP printer I have had my eye on, it’s another all-in-one but functionally so much more than the other one and I’m willing and able to print way more often and do more stuff with that new model than I’ve ever been able to do before … just awaiting the end of the month now and hoping HP keeps it on sale that long so I can get it for less. Best Buy used to sell it, it’s on their Reviews site, but no longer on their website for sale. Haven’t really checked the store yet.

There is also a full flat bed scanner I want. I want to scan large things and that’s what I’ll need. A dedicated full scanner. HP has the one I want. I can buy it or the all-in-one printer at the end of the month. I want the scanner worse, but I want the printer worse. Ha. Conundrum. Printer will win if it’s still the same price or less when time to buy. Otherwise, the scanner will be cheaper. Right now both are on sale with “instant rebates” but the funds are not here so the waiting game continues.

BSOD after Sleep, Windows 7 x64

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My Toshiba Satellite A505 laptop has worked fine until yesterday. I had an occasion where the laptop went to sleep, and upon waking it up and entering my password my desktop showed briefly, then a BSOD occurred.

I didn’t look for the dump file. It had never happened before, hoped it was a fluke. It was, until just a little bit ago, when it happened again.

I looked online for anything written on it and it’s a plague with no specific answer for many computers. Simply though, the answer of take “sleep” off of the power options that are saved. Meaning, don’t let your computer sleep. Just let it run out of power if running on battery, or keep it plugged in. This is problematic for me as I’ve loved using my computer with it’s huge battery without being tied to a power cable all of the time. It’s worked fine this whole time I’ve had the laptop since March 2010. Except for twice since yesterday. The thing about it is some Microsoft updates installed on the 16th. So I used System Restore to put me back to the 15th.

I did change my power options though. I just am unhappy about this issue, don’t want ANY crashes. I have Fedora installed on this computer (dual-boot) but don’t use it as ACPI issues keep it from letting me know how much power, or how little I have, or about impending power off’s. This Windows 7 issue then, on a laptop which I like using the battery with, is secondary to the Fedora problem, but similar. At least, in theory, it will still tell me to plugin soon or else. But I have loved shutting my lid and knowing that the next day I’ll have enough power for an hour or two or three. No more, if I don’t want those dratted BSOD’s.

I’ll test it out without letting Windows Update re-update my computer. But that will be a test I’ll not be able to stay with. How to find a solution, I don’t know. The last thing I want to do is search forever for a BSOD problem when all I want to do is use my stupid computer!

Windows 7 is way better than Vista was for me (on a different computer.) I’ve had problems nil on Win 7 until now. About 6 months of computer bliss. Now what? Slave to what Win XP would do to me … miserable. Vista was moreso a sluggish pest of aughhhhhh! Than BSOD for me. Whatever. I don’t like errors, especially when it wasn’t anything I did. I didn’t install anything. Just regular old Windows Updates. Whoa, maybe I did. FLASH asked to update at some point recently. So I’ll see what happens.

Toshiba Satellite A505-S6025

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I got a new laptop this past Friday at Best Buy. Toshiba Satellite A505-S6025 a new in 2010 model. We went to BB about a week ago and talked with a guy there and based on what I need, a machine to be able to work with pictures, graphics, video, which will be my interim machine until I can get a big desktop machine built to work with video …

We talked about different models and the point of the Satellite model I got was it had a separate dedicated graphics card, unlike what all the HP’s we’ve gotten over the last few or more years have. Also the size was interesting. I don’t particularly like too big, I don’t like mid-size more though. I had a 17″ laptop long ago. It was nearly too big. I then had a 15.4″ laptop and it was OK, but I longed for a smaller laptop, and eventually got a 12.1″ touchscreen laptop. That’s the one I’m now upgrading from. Not because it’s worn out, not because I don’t like it anymore, but because hubby needs a better computer for work and I could use a more powerful one with the things I do, and that HP tx2500 is powerful enough for the kind of graphics he’ll be downloading and using, but it’s hard to use for processing my Sony Handycam HD video & such things.

I started writing this post, the above two paragraphs, the day after purchasing the laptop. I do like it. I don’t like it. Main points of it are:

Pro:

  • Big Screen, online videos look great.
  • DVD’s played in Toshiba’s DVD player look fantastic (also has “upconvert” feature on/off controllable)
  • Win 7 boots fast
  • Less bloatware than HP’s I’ve had in the past
  • 12-cell battery is excellent, props computer up in back nicely for incline. Holds power well. I unplugged this computer, for instance last evening, worked on it a little, brought it upstairs and didn’t plug it in, shut the lid (which is set to do nothing.) Brought it downstairs at 5:50am and it’s been on since, and at 43% now, which is 10:13am.
  • Dedicated Graphics memory nVidia GeForce 310m …

Con:

  • Dedicated Graphics memory nVidia GeForce 310m ( it’s a pro and a con, because it’s the least of it’s category & also doesn’t allow for nVidia 3D to work if I wanted to purchase stuff.
  • The graphics driver is also less powerful than the sales guy led me to believe, but that’s not entirely his fault. It is though since he never tried to upsell any ideas of higher power graphics, driven laptops. Only thing he did was point out the i3 core vs. i7 core … there was one Toshiba that was i7, power ratings dropped drastically because of i7, and so the i3 looked better, everything else being the same, for a hundred dollars more. No laptop I’ve looked at since online with a better graphics driver was what I wanted, something was off or wrong about every one except for the variety that were $2000+
  • Graphics display resolution is too wrong. 1366×768 is what many things are from what I saw online, but it’s too weird for my liking. Too big. I want smaller, something bigger/smaller … you know how graphics resolutions, the bigger the number the smaller the picture, so 1366 is great, but 768 is not. There are no other good choices either.

I was thinking about returning it (would have to restore it to factory first) but then after a little looking online just realized there was no way I could afford a better laptop, and I need to put any $ like that into building a new power desktop for my video and graphics work.

All in all this computer IS more powerful than my HP tx2513cl, which I gave to my husband, which is an upgrade from my oldest laptop around here, HP5000 series from quite a few years ago.

I moved my stuff off of the tx2513cl onto this laptop, and then clean-installed Windows 7 Professional upgrade onto that HP, which had been running Vista Home Premium (yuck!) I wanted to upgrade it for me since October, but couldn’t convince my hubby to do it. Eventually he agreed to get me a new laptop & upgrade that one to Win 7 for him. OK, better deal in some ways. I don’t have touchscreen, panel swivel, etc. anymore. It was a nice size, small, light. But I do like larger monitors, I do have an Intuit 4 wacom tablet that I can use but just haven’t used it except for once before.

So I just decided for all the reasons stated and not stated that it was best to just keep this laptop and fill it up for use.

I shrank the C: drive and partitioned a second area for my stuff to reside alone (I prefer to have it separated so it doesn’t all blend in, and then I remember to keep everything separate when it matters & wouldn’t have thought of where it would go otherwise) I then installed Fedora 12 64-bit in the rest of the free space. It’s running OK. I actually like Windows a lot more now that I have Win 7 Pro 64-bit. It’s fast, overall, clean, easy to search and doesn’t seem to be working hard ever, when I’m just browsing the web or something easy, like my tx2513cl running Vista did.

This computer has a 16″ screen, it’s big. It does fit into my samsonite soft leather bag, not into the protected area, but fits with squeezing. I need to get a neoprene fitted sleeve then, which will make that easier. The times when I do travel with a computer I’ll have to just load less in the bag, which will probably make it lighter since I have tended to load it up with other devices and books and it got much heavier than my husbands bag (same kind) So a heavier computer that’s bigger will aide me in loading less into it. That’s good.