I'm not sure if this is the right forum, but a bunch of n00b technical questions.... (1 Viewer)

Have a new computer. Don't want to sync iPhone because it has a bunch of old photos synced from old compromised computer which was hacked. I'd have SWORN I backed up my pictures on the external hard drive I used to keep most of my iTunes music, but can find it there. Outside of sending these hundreds of pictures via e-mail and then saving them onto the PC hard drive out of order since they'd all dated from when I took them and of like to keep it that way, can I do anything else? Having trouble with the Podcasts too. Why does Apple no longer have a download all option?! I keep trying to put them in from the hard drive, and the computer gets scrambled and can't seem to find the source files for them. I've tried asking about the stuff on Apple's forums, and I can't find any information from them, because apparently no on feels like answering.I realize this is an incredibly stupid question, but as I still live with my parents, it is technically their computer. As they paid for, I have no right to complain or ask for specific features, but I want to know if the computer is capable of handling HD, and if there was any method of connecting the DVR to it to preserve some recordings I have which are not available on video. How would I tell this?On another note, the fact that Netflix advertises super HD, I have so far been unable to get my Blu-ray player or my father Smart TV to buffer up to 1080 P, even though they are both advertised as being capable of doing it. Is it possible to get the Wi-Fi to do it without anything that cable connected to the device? It's possible to do without a VPN (which I do not want to pay for). I have heard that most ISPs will not admit it, but they throttle streaming services. When I used Vudu, sometimes it is full 1080p, but it frequently blurs. How can I tell how fast the Wi-Fi is going? When I contacted AT&T via their customer chat, they sent me to a website, and told me that the speed at which my modem was running and my wife I wore it was running more optimal, but I do not remember what that number was, or if they were simply telling me when I should get better. I'm a major digital skeptic (RIP Kodak ), but if they want me to adopt did you want to see you soon and streaming over physical media, one of the first steps would be figuring out how the hell to solve problems like this one the data loads are so heavy.Also, in Firefox, I have set the settings to clear history when it leaves except for active logins, but for some reason, even though it saves the passwords, it doesn't keep me logged in. Previously, when I had Firefox, I was able to close Firefox and clear all of the history but keep everything out which I was logged into. Also, is there anyway to put the iPhone backups I have saved on the external hard drive back into iTunes? Just for precautionary purposes. I like having them around. Incidentally, I bought the Command and Conquer First Decade DVD, and it keeps freezing on me, and Yuri's Revenge locks up and won't play at all. It's probably because it's only designed to run with a version of Windows which is much lower than the one which I can we have, Windows 8, but is there anything to be done about it? I also have to transfer my old Firefox favorites. And as regards other non-music, Apple's podcasts app is terrible! Trying to delete something off of the phones hard drive causes it to get to leave it in the computer, and vice versa, then I have to re-download it again. Or delete it off of the phone and it simply come back. I don't get why can't be like my old iPod, simply download everything on the computer, transferred to the MP3 device, and then uncheck the selection and re-sync, and it goes away. It's irritating as hell, I don't know what Apple were thinking, or perhaps they simply weren't. And why is there no longer a "download all" button on the podcasts in iTunes? This particular podcast has hundreds of episodes, downloading them by hand would not be entertaining.Also, I picked up Disney's World of Wonder disc, how long will calibrating my cheap HDTV take? A half hour? An hour? The blues and reds keep bleeding, for starters. It's an inexpensive LED, I'd love a plasma, but don't have the money, and won't have the chance come the end of the year. It also has a bajillion subsettings in addition to the regular controls, and I don't know what the hell they do. And that's not even counting the SRS sound, which much be useful if I was actually in the center of the room. Anyhow? Anyone done this before? How long did it take?

That is quite the stream of consciousness questions I can't tackle them all. Practically, you should take specific questions to the relevant forums. For instance, ask about calibration in the TV section. You'll get more help there than in AHL (or now the computer section) For DVR, break it out to either the HTPC or video devices forums! depending on your needs. Internet speed: http://speedtest.netRegarding iPhone and photos: I'd think that if your iPhone is the only place your photos are stored, you'd want to sync ASAP and get those photos copied to a computer for a little more safety.Podcasts: I don't use the Apple iPod app (tried it, not to my taste, but a decent app). I previously used Instacast, then Downcast, and now Overcast. Castro also looks very good. If you're an avid listener, I recommend checking out these apps, maybe buying one. Overcast is free, with most functionality and $5 for full features.

Yeah, I have Aspergers and ADHD, sue me . But if I sync, the iPhone, will it transfer the photos back? They were from Windows Live and were synced to the iPhone from the old PC, if I set it so sync, won't it delete them? On that subject, I backed up several iPhone backups on my external HD, how to do I put them back in iTunes?As regards the speed issue, how would I test how the wifi receivers (Smart TV, Blu-ray player are running? Any way to know if I'm being throttled?

On syncing, looks like a bit more caution is advised than I first thought. https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3141http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4083Wifi speed: speedtest.net run on a wireless computer or iPhone will indicate your wireless network performance. Some netflix players can show their streaming speed. Compare speedtest results to player performance to estimate if you're getting performance streaming performance below what your network should support. This might indicate ISP congestion or throttling.

That exactly what I was worried about . Damn. Looks like it's possible ton get them off, but more work .

Well, isn't this just special?! I just got off of a 30 minute phone call with Apple, and they told me that because the photos weren't backed up to the iCloud, the only thing that I could do was email them to myself one at a time. In a stroke of even more good news, all of the music which I loaded onto the external hard drive to keep it will not play on the new computer. This is not Music from Apple, but from CDs, and they told me that I would have to manually reload every CD. If you don't use their iCloud service, they wash their hands! I hope what those link load work .

Sorry to hear about the iPhone and photo troubles. It's for this reason I urge people to have multiple backups, both hard drive and online service. And have iCloud turned on to help in a jam.

If you've got ripped CDs on a hard drive, you can import it into iTunes easily, then sync it to your iPhone.

I thought so too, but when I pulled the music off of the eternal HDD and put it into iTunes, though it showed up complete with artwork, it wouldn't play anything because it couldn't find the files. If I ever get the damn tower back and the external, I'll see what I can salvage on the off chance that this guy couldn't. I know I should have my own computer and this would be less of an issue, but using my parents' does have it's financial advantages. It sounds like if he can't get the photos onto the external, I'm just SOL and I'll have to resort to e-mailing them one at at time for hours . I'd have SWORN I backed up at least some of the photos onto the external, but the last time I gives it into the new PC, I couldn't find them. The notion that they're in some format now incompatible with the new machine has occurred to me .

Hopefully, I'll be getting both the external and the tower back at the end of the week and they've both been purged of viruses. Now to the calibration nightmare .

Good luck! Computer crashes are the worst; such a time suck.

And so the adventure continues! I got the old tower back, and there's good news and....other news. Figured out what I was doing wrong as regards the music: moved it from the hard drive into iTunes without moving into the music folder first. I'm a moron, I know. Got that pretty much sorted out, and the good news is that once I got it over to the new computer, I had to fix a few albums' artwork and rearrange a few things, but otherwise, things mostly went well. The photos, however, a bit of a different story. When I put them onto the external from the old tower, they were all sub-folders within the main folder. I loaded all of the sub-folders into the main folder on the new computer, and here's where things become strange. They were all sorted by the date they were taken, and the majority of them synced the way they used to, but some of them were grouped differently on the iphone during sync, listed as the day they were loaded onto the phone instead of the day they were taken. It's very peculiar. Anyone have the slightest clue?

On a tangential note as regards the music itself, is there any way to preserve the playlists? I can recreate them in the new iTunes account, but the Sherlock Holmes audiobook series I have has all of the stories out of order, so putting them back in order would be a gigantic pain in the neck. And while this probably wouldn't matter to a normal, well-adjusted person who gets laid once in a while , can you manually set the number of plays on a song? It's a small thing, but it sub-grouped some stuff that way in the old iTunes account, so I was wondering if I could tell the new computer what said numbers were? I could check them and set songs on repeat, but that'd not only be a pain in the neck, but the final definitive proof that I have too much free time .

OK, the party never stops. So I got the photos from the tower to the external to the new hard drive. But when I sync them to my iPhone, I find something peculiar: the ones I actually took are all sorted under the appropriate folders, but the ones saved onto the phone from various websites are no longer sorted under the proper dates. Is this a new thing with iOS 8, or is it just another side effect of moving everything? I don't suppose I can get it back to the old way?
Oh, and more fun: I picked up an Ethernet cable. Much to my surprise, my DVR has an Ethernet port, and when I connect that to the Blu-ray player, it does in fact get me online! However, I naively assumed that his would be faster than the WiFi, but I'm still having trouble getting it above 720p. The thought of AT&T throttling me has certainly crossed my mind, why doesn't it come at full bore through the Ethernet as opposed to the WiFi? How will they handle charging me for data consumption? I assume it doesn't count under WiFi?
On a tangential note as regards the music itself, is there any way to preserve the playlists? I can recreate them in the new iTunes account, but the Sherlock Holmes audiobook series I have has all of the stories out of order, so putting them back in order would be a gigantic pain in the neck. And while this probably wouldn't matter to a normal, well-adjusted person who gets laid once in a while , can you manually set the number of plays on a song? It's a small thing, but it sub-grouped some stuff that way in the old iTunes account, so I was wondering if I could tell the new computer what said numbers were? I could check them and set songs on repeat, but that'd not only be a pain in the neck, but the final definitive proof that I have too much free time .
PS The phone keeps disconnecting and reconnecting when syncing. A bad cable, I assume? And by the by, what is "other?"

EDIT: I'm a moron, I tried to delete this post, contacted AT&T, it won't buffer above because of the plan I'm paying for. I'd have to pay more for more Mbps, I should check that before asking stupid questions. Thanks all!

Glad to hear you're recovering from your system crash.

It sounds like you're copying photos and music over, but lost all the meta-data. If you have the original computer hard-drive and can access the original iTunes directories, you should look into copying that over lock,stock, and barrel to preserve playlists, play count, etc. Otherwise, it's all gone with just the music files.

Likewise with the photos, I suspect, and whatever program you organized photos in on your Windows system.

I've barely looked at the revised photos app in iOS 8 and don't have any insights into it yet.

As for the Sherlock Holmes audiobook, audiobooks can be properly organized in iTunes with a modest effort. I've fussed with them over the years. Googling will find various tutorials.
http://aldoblog.com/audiobooks/itunes/importing-audio-cds/