PC Astray

Free games are mostly web-based and I do agree that America's Army is the best First Person Shooter game available for free probably because it's the only one. I don't really play games now...just Medal of Honor Allied Assault and Halo Trial, both online. I have a copy of Breakthrough but my computer is not up to specs and neither is my internet connection... And of course, Halo Trial is one game that I would recommend but you'll be bored of it in a matter of weeks, playing the same old map with the same old people.

The earlier version does have spyware even in its beta development stage and this caused some controversy and it started losing popularity so the developers came up with a new version that gives you the option whether to install the bundled software or not and it is checked by default. Otherwise, I see no cons except the lack of files since this program is rather new. The ads are somewhat the similiar to that of Warez P2P but I find Exeem nicer.

finaldesign and sasux, you have a point but there are alot of factors that may make Windows XP slow. You may want to consider doing just that and using Windows XP's built in services.msc, msconfig and regedit to disable unwanted services, what programs to run during startup and tweaking your registry settings will help. Refer to the http://forums.xisto.com/topic/72-forum/ '>Windows subforum in How-To's and Tutorials for more details on how to optimize your computer.

I saved a really nice girl who I don't know and nearly got ran over by a car by jumping onto her but I hit the ground before she did and she was on top of me, our lips barely a centimeter from one another and I didn't get a kiss for that. Just a kind of suprised and disgusted look... Next time, I swear I will never do this again. My entire "Landser" Scout Troop saw it...along with some Sea Scouts who are in the National Day Parade training with me.

You didn't mention what kind of PC that you want, whether it's for gaming purposes, a Media Center PC, a compact one or just a one which comes with a user-friendly price tag. From here, you can then decide which case to choose since some come with power supply and even motherboards included. I know a few decent cases but they might not suit your taste. I can't think of any in the Budget PC category since they're mostly ugly and I'm not really into Media Center PCs. For Gaming PCs:Antec Sonata/P160/ SLK1650B/Super LANBOYKoolance PC2-650BKFor Compact PCs:Shuttle SN25P/XPC SeriesMac mini (Small-form-factor PC)

I prefer searching on multiple search engines using Maxthon's built-in Search function but if you ask me about stand-alone search engines, Google will be my the one I turn to since the loading time is fast with its less agressive Google AdSense text-based ads and servers I think. Besides, the ads are not as annoying as Yahoo!'s which I think seconds to Google. (Pardon me if my English is bad. I've been using Singlish very often nowadays.)

To tell you honestly, I don't even know Sun Microsystems is in the processor market but both Intel and AMD are widely known so therefore, they are readily available in vast quantities at a lower price. ECS has just released a new budget gaming board, the ECS nForce4-A939 which has support for Althon 64 processors so you should consider buying this as well.

You may consider getting a motherboard with integrated graphics and audio but your gaming experience will be affected. I think one integrated with sound and support for PCI Express graphic cards should be good enough since you can upgrade it next time as you wish. Since you're in United Kingdom (I know you guys are suffering under the tax), then consider buying the PC parts from foreign countries that inclue free shippinh and so on. I hope this helps but I think you have already taken this into your consideration.

Read this and understand. I am a Mozilla Firefox user who thinks Opera can do better if it is open source with an adblocking feature and Camino 0.8 is the alternative Mac OS X browser to Mozilla Firefox so I don't think it should be a choice in this poll.

Those pictures you've taken look really nice, and may I know what time was it taken? I'm not sure when the sun sets there but it sure looks really nice. I've been there when I was four years old and the people are really friendly. (Not the Customer Service but the locals) It's really worth visiting but if you're going to Bangkok, you better know how to withstand the heat since my cousin who happen to go there on for community service told me alot of her friends suffered from dehydration

An affordable computer that has the ability to run any programs the user is going to run so a 64-bit processor chip should do the job. Besides, AMD is much cheaper in terms of its pricing policy than Intel, the latter known for its stability but well, a Sempron might do the job but let's leave it to Seaworm to decide.

GMail alone is nice but I prefer what Yahoo! offers when you sign up for their free email service. With the 1GB email storage, you can backup your files but I use Yahoo! as a source of entertainment since I do visit Yahoo! LAUNCH often (When I can't decide on what to listen), edit my Geocities website (But I still use InvisionFree more often) and use Yahoo!'s Briefcase as a server. (Even though I have Grouper BETA)

Athlon 64 3200+ ProcessorActive cooler included in Athlon 64 retail box Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA/Gigabyte GA-K8NS Pro/ASUS K8V Deluxe Motherboard2X 256MB (512MB) Kingston DDR400 ValueRAMAntec Performance One/Plus/II or Solution seriesPower Supply included in case Samsung SpinPoint seriesLite-On LTC-48161H (DVD/CDRW)ATI Radeon 9800 (128MB)/ Nvidia GeForce 6600Audio Sound Blaster Audigy LSWindows XP Home Edition Operating SystemIf you want these parts to be far more affordable, buy OEM versions and make sure you test them out within the warranty period which is usually less than one week. It's better if you replace some parts from the current PC you are using to the one you will be building so that should save you some money too

Since your dad isn't into the idea of switching over to Mozilla Firefox, you can either continue talk to him about it until he gives up one day or just improvise by immunizing your computer against such threats like ActiveX controls or tracking cookies with SpywareBlaster of use an IE shell like Maxthon and disable ActiveX controls. And please get rid of this infection before installing SP2 if you are using Windows XP. Some antivirus and antispyware might not detect the infection if it's VX2 or other similiar variants so you'll need specialized tools and try running your computer in Safe Mode and scan for it.

I use Google Desktop Search and I don't have much to say about it, only that I prefer the built-in Search function in Windows XP since it seem to provide the results I'm looking for. I only use Google Desktop Search when Windows can't find the file I am looking for (one that I know exists but not sure where is it) but I can't really blame it probably because I disabled the Indexing Service. I compared it with MSN Desktop Search and of course, Google is far off better.

I find GMail Drive far more easier to use. As for having an email storage of 2GB, I think Google should upgrade the maximium file attachment size to like 250MB but that should take some time. I wonder how many servers Google use to substain GMail...

jss11, you sound just like my patriotic cousin who is a Singaporean/Creative fan and but since I live on my budget system which is already likely to suggest that I have no money already tells you that I buy whatever that is worthy of my savings. I managed to get my hands on a Creative MuVo TX FM 512MB thanks to another donation from my best friend who has the resources to donate her stuff to me

Hey techocian, just want to let you know, there's an easier solution to get rid of that if it is a VX2 infection. Since you said you have had Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition, there is an add-on for it here at their homepage under the Add-ons section. Using HiJackThis! will help too but the VX2 Cleaner add-on is much easier to use.

All email services are somewhat equal, one way or another only that their features that they offer are slightly better than one anothers like for instance, GMail, which is based on Javascript which loads rather fast, the first free email service provider for 1GB email storage, the use of third party tools to use GMail in a better way, and so on but if Google were to come up with some instant messenger, I'll make sure everyone on my MSN Contact List recieves an invite and Yahoo!, which will be expanding its email storage to GMail's current 1GB inbox, the features that they are offering when you sign up for their free email service is also alot, with Yahoo! LAUNCH, Geocities, Briefcase and much more. Both free email providers have their pros and cons but they are basically email after all.

I don't agree. It depends on what kind of chatrooms you join too so all you have to do is to drop into one chatroom with a decent name and see what's going on in there and leave since that's what I normally do but I seldom use Yahoo! and spend my time chatting with people I know on MSN Messenger. Updated Due to the overwhelming response, I think I will have to disagree probably because I'm not too exposed to Yahoo!

I think it's mainly because of security as I heard once that most antivirus are unable to scan within .RAR archives but they can within .zip files.

One thing I like about Google is that it's faster when compared to Yahoo! since they use their very own Google Ad(Non)Sense text-based ads and I tend to block them off with Mozilla Firefox's AdBlock plugin and the search results are fairly better than Yahoo!'s too. However, It depends on your taste since everyone have different tastes and so on so you'll just have to test out both search engines and see which one suits you well enough

How about building a computer like I did? This will be the specifications for my budget PC which I build last year and it did cost me a bomb. (Honestly, I'll rather buy a bomb) I managed to build it with some help from some Microsoft guy I met online who recommended me some products and stuff but you can always search Google for more specs for budget PC systems so count on it.

Thanks for the comment. If only my parents were not dead, I don't think I will even have this kind of budget PC system. One question I'll like ask you guys viewing this topic: Which Linux OS (Free) would you recommend other than Windows 98SE for a computer running a 200MHz Pentium Processor with MMX Technology and 128MB RAM? (Please tell me your answer when posting your PC specs or just PM me. I'll appreciate your help greatly so that my sister will stop nagging at me and fight over the computer I built.)

Well, I do agree that GMail is much better when compared to Yahoo! Mail Free alone since the latter is slower to load with graphic ads while GMail is based on Javascript (If I'm not mistaken) and text based ads (Google AdSense) but when you sign up for Yahoo!, you can get a whole lot of other features to use since they all come in a package.