How to Get Help: Providing RELEVANT INFORMATION + How to post SCREENSHOTS
Hi there
Nothing wastes more time and causes more 'frustration' (and often leads to questions not being replied to at all) than having to post straight back to a question with another question like 'What version of Music Creator are you using', 'What soundcard are you using', 'What version of Windows do you have' etc...
The general information that will really help out can be listed in your signature space - go to
User Control Panel at the top of a forum page, click on the
Signature and Comment tab. Once you've typed in the information, click on
Save.
The big benefit of doing this is that your specs will appear automatically at the bottom of
every post you make.
Things to include: * The version of Home Studio you're using - this is especially important as HS7 is laid out quite differently from previous versions
* The Operating System (which version of Windows) on your DAW computer (and if it's 32bit or 64bit)
* Your computers processor arrangement and speed
* How much RAM your system has
* The make and model of your soundcard and/or audio interface, and what drivers you're using with them
In the question itself, try to add further information
specific to the problem at hand - especially if third party hardware/software is being used.
Too much information is always preferable to too little information.
If you're unsure how to find some of your computer specs, click on
Start, right click on
My Computer (XP) or
Computer (Vista) and choose
Properties from the options.
If you are using your computer's built in soundcard, double click on the loudspeaker icon in your system tray (bottom right of your screen, usually by the clock) - this should open the audio mixer, your soundcard's name may appear here.
If it doesn't, follow this pathway:
Start > Control Panel (Classic View)
> Device Manager and click on the
+ sign next to
Sound, video and game controllers
Screenshots Finally, if you can't do so already, take 20 minutes or so to learn how to post
Screenshots - remember, we can't see what you see. A screenshot overcomes this barrier and will almost certainly get your problem sorted out more quickly.
Here are a couple of ways to insert images in your posts (with many thanks to forum member
Peggysuechan for the excellent tutorial on using DropBox):
Method 1 - Using Photobucket: I'll run through how to insert a screenshot such as this:
To take screenshots of what actually appears on your monitor, use the
Print Screen/SysRq key - you may have to hold it for a second or two until the image is copied to your clipboard. The cursor may blink rapidly to let you know the screen image has been captured.
You can accomplish the next stage in any number of ways but this is how I find it easiest for me. The screenshot is copied to your clipboard as a PNG file - I like to work with JPG's or GIF's for uploading so first thing I do is paste (Ctrl+V) the image into
Paint.net (or Paint) and save it either as a
.jpg or a
.gif.
You can edit the image in any number of applications - I use Photoshop Elements for more detailed stuff (like blurring the backgrounds of windows etc) but for adding text and arrows I use Paint.net.
Now you have the image you want to use in a post in the forum - the image is displayed by way of a link to it in your post. To these ends, the image must be uploaded to a web site and be given it's own 'address' which the forum software can read by way of the code used.
As my host program, I, and a lot of others here use Photobucket - it's free account is perfect for hosting images that are to be displayed on web pages. To open up a account go to
Photobucket Once you're up and running with Photobucket, use the
Upload images & videos button in your album to navigate to the image on your PC that you want to display; when you double click an image it's file name will be loaded into the appropriate field. For multiple image uploads, select them all (holding down the Ctrl button) and then click on
Open:
When your image has uploaded, left click in the 'Direct Link' field beneath it, then right click to open the drop-down options and click on
Copy to copy the address of the image:
Now, in the post reply window in the forum, click on the
Image icon button from the options along the top:
In the window that opens, use
Ctrl+V to paste in the link from your Photobucket album and then click on
Insert Image:
One very important point, the images that appear in your posts are not 'really' embedded there - the image has to always be in your Photobucket album and have the same 'address' - if you delete the image in your album, it will also be removed from your post.
Method 2 - Using DropBox:
You download the program from
here, my referral link: [link=https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTMxMjM0NTE5%3C/a%3E%3C/font%3E]https://www.dropbox.com/r...TE5%3C/a%3E%3C/font%3E[/link]. This way, we both get 250 MB of extra free space, rather than if you do it alone, yourself, through Dropbox.com. They give you 2Gs right off, free. But you can get up to 8Gs through referrals.
Dropbox goes into your
My Documents file in your computer by default. Or instead you can put it anywhere else you prefer. You can download it on as many computers as you want: work, laptop, or desktop. And it syncs all your files at once. Files you work on from your Dropbox at work is also changed on your computer at home, if you have Dropbox on them both.
There is a public file in which everything you store there gets a public internet link. So I send my screenshots from Paint.net (or from Paint) to
C:\Documents and Settings\susie\My Documents\My Dropbox\Public\Cakewalk
After you save your screenshot there, you go into your Dropbox (an icon sits on either your toolbar or taskbar) and open the file with the screenshot you just saved, right click on it, click on Dropbox, and the option will be there to
copy public link. You click on it, and your link address is saved for you to copy and paste it onto your message. No more uploading things anywhere.
And everything in it is stored offline so if your hard drive crashes, you don't lose anything in Dropbox. I store all my recordings in there. I save every Cakewalk .cwp file to a file in my Dropbox I've named
Songs. My music's path is set to
C:\Documents and Settings\susie\My Documents\My Dropbox\Songs Also, whenever you use someone else's computer, you can access all your files from Dropbox.com, where all your stuff is automatically stored.
On my site, I have a playlist that will only stream from my Dropbox. I've tried storing it in other sites, but it will never stream from them. Everything else on my website is stored from other sites (my website is Blogger, hosted by Google, and they allow no storage), but this particular playlist won't stream from any of them. I've used other playlists with other music players, and they've all streamed from other sites. But not the one I use currently. So Dropbox is useful to me there.
You can store more than one dropbox per computer. On every computer we own, my husband has his Dropbox on his user account, and I have mine on my user account.
Also, any file you delete is still saved on Dropbox.com, and you can restore it at any time. Kinda like the Recycle Bin works on your computer. So if you go with Dropbox to store your screenshots, will you use my referral to get yours? Afterward, they'll give you a referral link, and you can get extra space by getting referrals, too.
Once again, it's
[link=https://www.dropbox.com/referrals/NTMxMjM0NTE5%3C/a%3E%3C/font%3E]https://www.dropbox.com/r...TE5%3C/a%3E%3C/font%3E[/link].
Hope this helps - if you have any more questions or need any more information, please post back in this thread.
Steve
post edited by Willy Jones [Cakewalk] - 2011/05/10 09:11:50