PC Astray

To me, only MSN Messenger keeps me occupied online since I'm always waiting for this particular girl to show up. Other than that, I will just read her blog an re-read her entire archives when waiting and post at several forums. Since my computer is already overclocked and optimized to the extreme, there is nothing else I can do other than do it again after a reformat. I'm assigned to build a InvisionFree forum for my Land Scout Troop and I might require your help since I'm not very good at anything.

I built my own budget PC and it's nothing much but I think I should have at least get a better subscription plan with my ISP since I have to share a 256KBps Broadband connection with my cousin, who uses more than half of it playing his games on his a426d but well, I can't do much about it since he's the one playing/paying. Windows XP Home Edition OS Athlon XP 1800+ Processor Chip Cooler Master DP5-6I31D-01 Active Cooler Chaintech 7NIL1-SUMMIT Motherboard 256MB Kingston PC2700 In-Win V564G Case 250W Power Supply (included with case) Western Digital WD400BB Hard Drive Sony DDU 1621 DVD-ROM (16X/48X) ATI Radeon 7000 64MB graphics card 19" CTX VL700 CRT Monitor Creative SBS 270 Speakers Integrated Audio Logitech LABTEC Generic PS2 (Donated) Microsoft Wheel Mouse Optical (Donated) It's built some time last year so it may look a little old but who cares...I'm not much into games since I probably don't even have the money to afford them

I am a photographer for my Boy Scouts unit and also for my school so most of the photos I've taken are all about my school and none for Scouts as they are copyrighted by Venture Scout Leader Andrew Yeo and besides, they're not professional and I don't think they're entry level either. Somewhere in Malaysia for our Leadership Training Camp... My air conditioned container classroom... The Girl Guide who I like is somewhere in this class...(But sadly, not in this photo) My Primary School Chinese Orchestra friends...(Different instruments though) My annoying sister who's living with me and my cousins, for now....(Since our parents are dead) Note that these images have not been edited by any programs...yet.

Adding a new stick of RAM should do it but the price tag doesn't include it, including the cost of shipping and the other essential add-ons that are not included. However, I find that the iMac is the perfect desktop replacement, a second home unit for multimedia means and the idea behind the Mac mini is that the small budget is not synonymous with small performance.

If you're planning to build your own system, I suggest getting a Shuttle XPC with integrated graphics since you're not into some serious gaming or Antec's Solution series with a Foxconn WinFast NF4UK8AA motherboard and so on. I highly recommend AMD processor chips since they're quality and rather cheap when compared to Intel and other companies (bet you never heard of them). 512MB of RAM should be enough but your OS will be a problem since most programs only work with Windows XP and I can recommend you lots of freeware programs for optimizing your computer if you want (but I think you already have it optimized by then) but considering the fact that Windows XP is always targeted by hackers, it's your choice whether to use it or not.

This may sound stupid and yes, I do admit that I don't know how to use Bittorrent even though all I know is that you'll have to find some site and download a .torrent file and initiate it then the Bittorrent will start downloading it but I don't find it as easy to use as BitComet so I'm using it right now. I don't see much difference from it to P2P programs like Ares Galaxy 1.8.1 or Grouper Beta.

It depends on your extent of knowledge based on the OS you are using. Since I built my computer from scratch, I know it inside out, outside in and you don't need programs like TuneUp Utilities 2004 when you can tweak them yourself using the built-in Registry Editor but sadly, some settings cannot be tweaked via the registry and you'll need Tweak UI for that (That is if you're using Windows XP). However, you'll need an antivirus, antispyware, firewall and probably a registry monitoring tool in order to keep your computer safe against online threats and what kind of content you are handling. Right now, I use only Sygate Personal Firewall Pro and Prevx Home.

If Yahoo! Mail has an upgraded email inbox storage of 1GB, it will then be the best free email service online (from my personal opinion) since they have Yahoo! Geocities, Music, antispyware based on PestPatrol and a whole lot of other features with their toolbar. Even though its popup blocker cannot be compared to Google's, it's still considered above average and if you merge all these features against Google's GMail, Yahoo! Mail will be considered better. (and again, from my person point of view)

Yahoo! said that it will take about two weeks for their free email users to see the difference from their 250MB inbox to search rival Google's GMail 1GB by about late April this year. Yahoo!'s vice president of communications products,Mr Brad Garlinghouse, claimed in an interview that this storage boost is not a response to Google's issusing of GMail invitations to random visitors of Google's homepage from last week. The antivirus scanning will still be provided by Symantec's Norton Antivirus in the free version of Yahoo! Mail.What do you guys think? After GMail was actually released last year, free email service has changed greatly as Yahoo! announced increase its storage from 4MB to 100MBand then upgraded it again to 250MB in November 2004. Also, Microsoft said it would implement its own storage boost to 250MB but most users living outside the US or UK will still have 2MB inbox unless they reactivate their accounts with US or UK's addresses.

You can try downloading WebFerret Free, a search engine which will search for your keywords from multiple search engines and different people do have different opinions, so you can't say if Google is better than Yahoo! It depends on how you see it.

I agree with you. The Mac mini(s) only come with 256MB of PC2700 (333MHz) DDR SDRAM and that is barely enough to run its Mac OS X but the software bundled with it does look nice. The US$500 does not include the prices of other accessories and you're better off building your own one with the money.

Mozilla Firefox 1.0.2 is just a patch for potential vulnerabilities which has not a single record of real world exploits but released just in case. You can choose not to download it but it is recommended. This bug was identified by Internet Security Systems, which is a security research company for products and services.

AVG Free Edition 7 is resouce light but AntiVir Personal Edition 6 is much lighter and has a higher detection rate. But the problem about AntiVir PE is that it has a Windows Classic interface which might not be very user-friendly and its update is rather slow and you'll even have to reinstall it sometimes but on the other hand, AVG isn't very user friendly too but it has a rather fast and easy update process so if you want to use it, get an on-demand virus scanner for your computer or an anti-trojan.

If you're like this, I think it'll be alright as long as you have a registry monitoring tool like Prevx Home, which is much more sensitive than Spybot - Search & Destroy's TeaTimer system settings protector so that viruses, trojans, spyware, you name it, cannot be installed. Of course, people can "see" you but they cannot install any unwanted programs as long as you deny them from your registry.

I use Mozilla Firefox mainly because it's open source but I never said that I don't like Opera (neither did you) since it is faster and more compact than Mozilla. Other than that, Opera's Download Manager is much better but it still loses to Free Download Manager and for adblocking, since Opera doesn't support it and neither does it have plugins for it (very few indeed), you can always use a firewall like Agnitum's Outpost Free or Professional to filter them out. If you insist on using Mozilla, get the Free Download Manager to manage your downloads like Opera's.

For your information, Ad-Aware SE is an antispyware that scans for spyware unless this spyware is considered a virus by some antivirus vendors. No offense, Mr Bond but virus and spywares are different things from my point of view.

I think X-Fire is one of America's Army add-on if I'm not wrong? I've seen it before but uninstalled it since my exams were closing in. Oh, I just Google-d it and found what it's exactly all about... http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

I'm not really sure but I think I got this link from link but I haven't really try it out...yet. The amount they're paying looks good enough but what do you guys think? The only way I earnt money online is to play some game, sell that character and have the money deposited to my PayPal account...not a wise thing to do considering the fact that I'm a student.

Hey, it will be nicer if you don't call people without antivirus or firewall idiots. Some people just don't seem to have enough memory to do that or they don't know the threats of these "unwanted programs". Others may just use their computers for "honeypots". Most of my friends don't really give a damn about antiviruses so I try my best to explain it to them about how serious is the threat that they pose. On the other hand, nice tutorial and that should get some people to do just that.

deviantART: where ART meets application! You can find virtually anything related to art here. Really. Neowin.net - Where unprofessional journalism looks better. Another website where you can expect yourself to find a very active community with news from all over the world. (Computer related, that is) Reviews and free downloads at Download.com Like what the site title says, it offers helpful reviews and somewhat free downloads. (Free trial version dowloads...but helpful enough) CHSSCOUT.NET: The Network for Guides and Scouts! If you're into Scouting, this website will be a great resource to you.

Don't forget about Gundam SEED...I never liked the series before SEED but the one after it, Gundam SEED Destiny takes place 2 years after the events of Gundam SEED when both Earth Alliance and ZAFT signed a treaty after the destruction of the superweapon GENISIS. I do recommend both of this series simply because I love it but watch SEED first so that you will understand what's going on.

I thought it was a mere joke...so I, being an extra, ordered fourteen discs and got them two minutes ago...Not what I expected but I got more than I asked for. Now what am I supposed to do with them? LoL, I guess I'll try it out once I get a new hard drive for the PC I've assembled from parts I manage to get my hands on. Its' not like I have alot of money and I have to live off my relatives... :DThis is the first time I heard of Ubuntu and there is a new version coming right up? Damn...

Go to System Key: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\ {4D36E96A-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}\0000] and create a new DWORD value called "EnableUDMA66" and set it to "1" to enable UDMA66. This will increase your computer's performance by a slight margin but it's better than nothing. This tweak only works on Intel chipsets that support UDMA66 mode.

It seems like to me that you have no antispywares so consider installing one from here.The antiviruses you listed there only have some of the most common spyware signatures in their database from what I know so don't count on it. I recommend getting a registry monitoring tool like Prevx Home but you can also try out Spybot - Search & Destroy's TeaTimer which is less annoying but remember to disable Prevx Home when you are installing something from a trusted provider. Since some unwanted programs install themselves without the user's acknowledgements, this will come in as the last line of defense if in any case, your antivirus/antispyware misses it. Immunize your computer with SpywareBlaster, brought you by Javacool Software. Spybot - Search & Destroy also has this feature but SpywareBlaster covers most of it.

Since I'm a Singaporean Chinese, my parents gave me a name called "Ang Ping Chong" and since they're dead, I call myself "Astray", thus the name "PCAstray". How did I get the name "Astray"? Well, I happen to be a fan of Gundam SEED, not the earlier series though. I'm also refered to as "Pinky" but the username is always taken. I got this callsign since 10 when my form teacher was giving out our Report Cards...so this has been with me until now...Call me that if you want but I will prefer it as "Scouting Pinky".