Yes, the autofs (fstab) method would work as you require it to.
Each time you attempt to enter the mount point, it will try and connect to the Windows share if it is not already connected, and will fail silently if it can't.
You'll just see an empty folder if the Windows box is not available.
Very odd indeed. I wonder if it is something to do with the fact that the files are on a Windows network share - can't see why that would matter but it's a possibility.
It wasn't particularly clear that you were only having problems with AVI's.
Given that you did not mention anywhere in your original post the correct way for setting a default application in OS X, I assumed that was the root of your problem.
So when you do it the way I suggest above, does the icon on your AVI files change to that of VLC or is it still showing the QuickTime icon?
File associations as the responsibility of Finder and have nothing to do with QuickTime or any other system settings. You could tell Finder to open AVI files in TextEdit if you really wanted to and it would blindly obey you - therefore, I don't really understand why you are having the problem you say you are.
Just to be absolutely clear, you are doing 'Right Click, Get Info, Open With, Change All'?
He's talking about MacBooks... What kind of 3D video card can be plugged into *any* manufacturers notebook computer apart from the handful of machines with an MXM slot?
Some people are driven more by aesthetics than the technical capabilities of a machine. Not everyone wants a tower unit sat next to their desk, and not everyone is bothered about upgradability and expansion. Also, there are a lot of people who buy the iMac because of how it looks. It's a pretty convenient package - especially when you are using wireless accessories with it.
Most geeks won't appreciate it but you can be sure that your 'arty' type sitting in his glass and stainless steel clad loft apartment sure will.
Show me a PC with a built in 20" widescreen display, dual core CPU, half decent video controller and all the other niceties that come with owning a Mac.
At any price?
No?
That's because it doesn't exist.
On the basis that there is no lower cost alternative, it's unreasonable to call it overpriced!
We have consumer law in the UK to protect against this kind of thing.
A few relevant points:-
Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety. - 15 months is not acceptable durability for a $900 camcorder.
For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement). - so long as you can prove the lack of durability is unreasonable, you have up to six years to claim.
Do you not have any similar legislation in the US?
I've had an NTL cablemodem for four years - I get blistering speeds at all times, never with any packet loss. There have been about three service outages in the whole four years, none of which lasted more than a couple of hours.
I am sorry but *YOU* are wrong. And we are not talking about HDTV here.
If you are watching an anamorphic DVD or Digital TV broadcast on a 4:3 display, the display is simply reducing the vertical height of the image (same as reducing the height on your monitor would).
Tell me this. If you reduce the height down on your PC monitor are you losing pixels. You are not. You are compressing the same amount of pixels into a smaller space. This is actually *INCREASING* the resolution, not reducing it.
This is why - as I already stated - watching anamorphic 16:9 on a 4:3 TV is more than acceptable. The end result is a brighter sharper picture than you would get when watching 4:3 material.
Now if your TV is displaying a full raster, and you have your DVD set to letterbox mode, you are losing over 25% of vertical resolution in the black bars. This is clearly a bad thing, and not what I was describing in my post.
The only time you would do this would be if your TV could not do 16:9 compression. Most TV's newer than 10 years old can do 16:9 compression.
Again, I thought I had made the mistake of making this point clearly in my original post... So before you tell someone they are wrong, why don't you do some research!
This is simply wrong. When you watch an anamorphic widescreen DVD, your player is still outputting 480 (or 576 for PAL) lines of resolution, and your TV squashes the picture vertically. You get an even sharper and more detailed image. You most certainly *do not* lose resolution.
The exception to this is if your TV cannot do 16:9 compress, and/or you have your DVD player set to letterbox mode rather than 16:9 mode.
I suspect it is commonplace in the financial industry.
My wife works for a building society in the UK. She has a purely technical role - no contact with money and certainly no means of misappropriating any. Despite this, it is standard practice to perform a credit-check on all employees.
So in answer to this post, and the one below - it most certainly does happen in Europe. Well in the UK at lest!
I viewed the site with Konq with no problems. I accept that ultimately, the site is a cheesy waste of time though!!!
The link titles are truly awful - can't argue with that...
Ps. My first ever post after reading Slashdot for absolutely ages. Strange that it is for a subject so unimportant to life the universe and everything. Oh well...
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, the autofs (fstab) method would work as you require it to.
Each time you attempt to enter the mount point, it will try and connect to the Windows share if it is not already connected, and will fail silently if it can't.
You'll just see an empty folder if the Windows box is not available.
That I can help with hopefully! Two ways:-
Geeky way - which has the advantage that the share is mounted at startup and available to all users:-
Get a command prompt up and do: sudo nano /etc/fstab
Add a line like this:-
hostname:/movies x url net,automounted,url==cifs://guest:@hostname/movies 0 0
Where 'hostname' is the name of your Windows box and 'movies' is the name of the share. You'll then find the shares in /Network/Servers
Easy way - which is almost certainly adequate:-
Mount your shares the usual way.
Go to System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items and drag your shares into the Login Items.
Very odd indeed. I wonder if it is something to do with the fact that the files are on a Windows network share - can't see why that would matter but it's a possibility.
I know this is no help but it works fine here...
It wasn't particularly clear that you were only having problems with AVI's.
Given that you did not mention anywhere in your original post the correct way for setting a default application in OS X, I assumed that was the root of your problem.
So when you do it the way I suggest above, does the icon on your AVI files change to that of VLC or is it still showing the QuickTime icon?
File associations as the responsibility of Finder and have nothing to do with QuickTime or any other system settings. You could tell Finder to open AVI files in TextEdit if you really wanted to and it would blindly obey you - therefore, I don't really understand why you are having the problem you say you are.
Just to be absolutely clear, you are doing 'Right Click, Get Info, Open With, Change All'?
I couldn't get OS X to use VLC by default. Selecting "open with" VLC ALWAYS only works for that single file, not the file type, despite it saying so.
To set a default application for a file type in OS X, you do the following:-
Right click on any MKV file and choose 'Get Info'
In the 'Open With' section, choose VLC
Click the 'Change All...' button underneath.
All MKV files will now open by default in VLC
Ah sorry - my misunderstanding. I thought iPlayer was not available at all outside the UK.
Are we talking about this http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/ ?
There are no ads whatsoever on BBC iPlayer or any other page on bbc.co.uk.
I have no idea what you are talking about?
So your reply to the parent went *under* his head?
I've not heard that expression before 'I was being so funny that you didn't notice.... Woosh, It went right under your head.'
Shouldn't that be
----------- Your head
Big empty space
----------- My comment
?
Damn those cookies!
I still think that a whiny little ladypart-battercake is amusing though...
Dear A/C
You might have been modded a troll, but you've given me a great new word to add to my insult vocabulary.
Thanks!
A/C
He's talking about MacBooks... What kind of 3D video card can be plugged into *any* manufacturers notebook computer apart from the handful of machines with an MXM slot?
Just about every single person living in the UK...
Sorry - I'll have a go then.
Some people are driven more by aesthetics than the technical capabilities of a machine. Not everyone wants a tower unit sat next to their desk, and not everyone is bothered about upgradability and expansion. Also, there are a lot of people who buy the iMac because of how it looks. It's a pretty convenient package - especially when you are using wireless accessories with it.
Most geeks won't appreciate it but you can be sure that your 'arty' type sitting in his glass and stainless steel clad loft apartment sure will.
But that's exactly my point.
For someone who *wants* an all in one unit - there is no better choice.
You don't want an all in one unit so by definition the iMac must seem silly and pointless to you - it doesn't mean that it is to others.
Except that they are not overpriced.
Show me a PC with a built in 20" widescreen display, dual core CPU, half decent video controller and all the other niceties that come with owning a Mac.
At any price?
No?
That's because it doesn't exist.
On the basis that there is no lower cost alternative, it's unreasonable to call it overpriced!
We have consumer law in the UK to protect against this kind of thing.
A few relevant points:-
Aspects of quality include fitness for purpose, freedom from minor defects, appearance and finish, durability and safety. - 15 months is not acceptable durability for a $900 camcorder.
For up to six years after purchase (five years from discovery in Scotland) purchasers can demand damages (which a court would equate to the cost of a repair or replacement). - so long as you can prove the lack of durability is unreasonable, you have up to six years to claim.
Do you not have any similar legislation in the US?
That's a pretty sweeping statement to make.
I've had an NTL cablemodem for four years - I get blistering speeds at all times, never with any packet loss. There have been about three service outages in the whole four years, none of which lasted more than a couple of hours.
I guess some people have been unlucky.
I am sorry but *YOU* are wrong. And we are not talking about HDTV here.
If you are watching an anamorphic DVD or Digital TV broadcast on a 4:3 display, the display is simply reducing the vertical height of the image (same as reducing the height on your monitor would).
Tell me this. If you reduce the height down on your PC monitor are you losing pixels. You are not. You are compressing the same amount of pixels into a smaller space. This is actually *INCREASING* the resolution, not reducing it.
This is why - as I already stated - watching anamorphic 16:9 on a 4:3 TV is more than acceptable. The end result is a brighter sharper picture than you would get when watching 4:3 material.
Now if your TV is displaying a full raster, and you have your DVD set to letterbox mode, you are losing over 25% of vertical resolution in the black bars. This is clearly a bad thing, and not what I was describing in my post.
The only time you would do this would be if your TV could not do 16:9 compression. Most TV's newer than 10 years old can do 16:9 compression.
Again, I thought I had made the mistake of making this point clearly in my original post... So before you tell someone they are wrong, why don't you do some research!
Hi
This is simply wrong. When you watch an anamorphic widescreen DVD, your player is still outputting 480 (or 576 for PAL) lines of resolution, and your TV squashes the picture vertically. You get an even sharper and more detailed image. You most certainly *do not* lose resolution.
The exception to this is if your TV cannot do 16:9 compress, and/or you have your DVD player set to letterbox mode rather than 16:9 mode.
I suspect it is commonplace in the financial industry.
My wife works for a building society in the UK. She has a purely technical role - no contact with money and certainly no means of misappropriating any. Despite this, it is standard practice to perform a credit-check on all employees.
So in answer to this post, and the one below - it most certainly does happen in Europe. Well in the UK at lest!
All you have to do is go into the system setup menu and select "Reset Thumb Data".
It will forget everything it ever might have thought about you...
Mind you, expecting journalists to read the instruction manual before making wild statements is of course too much to ask...
Hey, you could - of course - buy it instead of stealing it!
BBC Shop
I viewed the site with Konq with no problems. I accept that ultimately, the site is a cheesy waste of time though!!!
The link titles are truly awful - can't argue with that...
Ps. My first ever post after reading Slashdot for absolutely ages. Strange that it is for a subject so unimportant to life the universe and everything. Oh well...