Hivemind question:

I have an installation CD that I have to install on a colleague's Surface Pro 3. I was planning on creating an ISO of the CD and uploading to the cloud, then having my colleague download to his Surface. Any suggestions for programs he can use to read the ISO and install on his Surface? Is there a better method to use to install CDs onto CD-less computers?

I use daemon tools lite for mounting disc images.

Thanks DX. I just used daemon to create the ISO, but I'm a little nervous about installing it on my colleague's computer since he may accidentally trigger some of the 3rd party software.

I did a little digging and it looks like Windows 8 can mount ISO files natively without 3rd party programs. Can anyone verify that? I'm using Windows 7, but the Surface Pro 3 runs 8.1.

Android updating and backup is a shit show, no doubt. I'm a tech guy, root mine, and play with all sorts of custom roms, so I have no problem updating when I decide (and then going back if it sucks) but for average users it is awful. iOS is better for that (though not perfect).

For me, my pictures back up to Dropbox automatically, my text messages come through and are saved in Google Voice, my music and videos are all in the cloud, so it is really only app data that is an issue for me in terms of backup, and most of that (the important things) has cloud backups these days too. I think that is what Google expects for most people, which is why their manual backup options are so awful. Not a great move on their part but so it goes.

I tell people not to upgrade unless they are prepared for a factory reset immediately after, and even then I discourage it unless they REALLY want a specific feature or app. It just isn't really necessay most of the time. It sucks that that is my rec but it is: when you get a new phone in 2 years, it will have an updated version and you probably don't need it until then.

I love my Android phone and will never give it up. But with great freedom comes great bugginess.

Nevermind figured it out

I've got a bunch of MP4s I want to convert to AVI. What's the best way to do that or the cheapest reliable software that'll do it?

For Mac, Handbrake or MPEG Streamclip are both free.

Also both free for Windows in fact. Excellent easy choices.

ETA: though Handbrake is definitely easier and would be my rec. MPEG Stream clip is more powerful but somewhat less intuitive.

I have .mkv files that won't copy onto an empty 64GB thumb drive. Are they really big? Is the format the problem?

I have them on my old laptop and played them on VLC no problem. I just want to move them now.

How big are they, do you know? If the thumb drive is formatted as FAT instead of NTFS, there's a limit on file size.

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