wutske

get an Atari and put it in a modern looking package ? If it's realy cheap and if it has a large community before it's launched, I think a 2D console would be a great idea. What if it would be portable (with a built-in LCD) and have a TV-out connection and a wireless remote, don't you think it would rock ?

I've been using Vista for a while now (1 month) and these are my conclusions:Pos:-Network Center is kinda usefull, but it need some tweaks-Power Management is more advanced (usefull for laptops)-the search bar in the start menu is super-the drop-down menus in explorer are much better than having to go a few folders up and the going to the folder you likeUseless:-Vista Aero interface (+ the win-tab thing)-UAC (disabled it)-the same annoying questions you got in SP2 (disabled defender, security center and program checking)-the sh*tload of services (like indexing, diagnostic services, ...)-the sh*tload of other useless stuff (windows cardspace, windows sidebar, ...)Con:-WMP11 is SLOW due to DRM-nVidia GeforceGo drivers are still beta (this makes the windows gallery a sucky program, because themes don't work and zooming isn't optimized)-tends to be slower-not every program supports vista (eg. CDBurnerXP Pro (non-alpha version), Netstumbler, ...)Overall, I'm pretty happy with Vista, altough it still needs some minor improvements (like removing the Protected Pipeline from WMP11 )//edit: forgot to mention there isn't a good free vista compatible firewall atm and the Vista firewall only has inbound protection, no outbound as I prefer

I'd like to use the tor network when I'm connected to insecure (wireless) networks. This works great for my browser (opera), but some programs don't support a proxy server (like the messenger I use). Is there some (free) program that allows me to run Mercury (the msn messenger I use) through the proxy (127.0.0.1:8118) ?Or does somebody know if this is possible with Privoxy (the proxy server (?) that comes with the tor bundle) ?

I think AMD is in big troubles nowadays. They bought ATI for way too much, while they couldn't afford it. They are selling underpriced CPUs and I believe nVidia still has a larger market share in GPUs than ATI did. I also don't believe their upcoming CPUs are going to be able to beat the Core2, keeping them in the same position as they are now.What they need is BIG CONTRACT and they should stop spending too much money ...

I have no idea . The only thing I can come up with is performance, but I don't realy see that as a weak link in a security system. The weakes link in a security system is the user itself.

same question, again .Anyway, I tend to change mind sometimes so here's my opinion.I like Vista over XP, as long as it's configured my way (no annoying messages, no security center, no aero, no useless resource eating crap in the background). It's new, so it's not perfect, but I like it because it's more flexible, for networks, battery, ...I've used linux, so I know what it is and as a windows user I can't get used to it. It feels slower, it's not as easy as windows and to be frankly, it's not safer as windows (because I know how to protect it).

*kouch* Jul 23 2006

But it still does a better job at compression data. If you check the 7-zip website you can see it compresses better as winrar (for the two examples). http://www.7-zip.org/

I'm not even going to try it, it's probably as annoying as the Safety Center (that's why I disabled it and I disable windows from checking signatures).I suppose you're using it on XP, because Vista has a back-up utility included and phising protection is included in IE7 too.I do have a question about the firewall. Does it also ask when 'unknown' program want to go out or not ? About the IP blocking, the windows firewall allows you to specificaly block IP adresses.So, no LOC for me

2- This is only usefull if you don't trust the people that can access your pc3- This ain't going to help, if someone wants to access your pc, he just has to remove the bios battery.5- doesn't need to be a suite, a combination of free av software and firewall works as well as an expensive suite6- windows firewall provide SOME security, but seem rather easy to crack (+ it doesn't provide outbound protection)7- I agree, but it's hard to remember like 20 usersnames and passwords8- This does not turn of file sharing. This only disables the wizard like file sharing setting. If you disable simple file sharing, you'll get more controll when you start sharing a folder.9 + 10 ditch IEThe main rule when you want to secure windows is to use some common sense. Don't vist louche sites, don't use software that isn't right ... and don't use Microsoft stuff to get to the internet

what about rar and 7zip ?

I can't agree more with what m^e says. It's stupid not having an AV program installed, not only because some viri will send your information to some weird people, but also because some viri can make your computer a zombie. Maybe your computer is now sending thousands of spam mails (btw, if they track you down, you can get in some troubles with the authorities, innoscent or not) or maybe it's waiting for the next DDOS atack to the Microsoft website ...@turbopowerdmaxsteel: the performance hit of a virus scanner isn't that great anymore. Yes, it does use like 40Mb of memory, but that won't make the difference. When you do a lot of coding, you can also set your virusscanner to ignore any movie files and temp files created by the encoder.@Herbert, yeah duhu, that's typical Norton behavior. It's a slow resource hog and it sucks at keeping viri away from your pc. I'm not saying other av software is perfect and will stop every virus, but usualy they do better.

If your video is captured in avi or mpeg format (so not in Quicktime or wmv), then you can use VirtualDub. Load the video, do ctrl+r (or go to the video>framerate menu) and under 'source rate adjustment' you should select 'change to' and change the framerate so it matches the desired rate (if you want half speed, and the source is captured at 30fps, you'll have to enter 15)

Since Media Player 9 I started to like it, I even called it the sole thing Microsoft made well. I realy don't want to use Winamp anymore, it's like it's been made out of several pieces (wich is good for something like The GIMP, but not for a media player). iTunes isn't one of my favourites either, mostly because it comes with Quicktime (I prefer Quick Alternative, it's much faster). The VLC player is to basic and ugly in my opionion.Yet I must say I hate WMP11 on Vista, music tend to hang and skipping a song takes up to 10 seconds ... just because it wants to do some DRM check ... even worse, it sucks up more processor time than usual ...That makes me the man in the middle, I'm stuck, my favourite sucks and I don't have a good alternative

Good luck on the freeware road . I quit using pirated software more than a year ago and I must say there are a lot of free alternatives available and they can do almost the same as the paid versions (wich sometimes contain a lot of stuff you don't need or use). I'll share my favourite html editor, notepad++ . It's more than enough to do what I want to do. I can write the code the way I want it (and writing it correct, something dreamweaver doesn't always do).

there's no such thing as 'best', because best would mean perfect and perfect doesn't exist. The only thing you can do is getting as near as possible.Getting near perfect involves some strategies, like you said. My strategy is different. I use Avast as my on-access scanner, I used to have a second on-demand scanner installed to do a regular scan. I also do not use Internet Explorer or Firefox at all, I have Spybot S&D and Adaware installed and I regulary do a backup on DVD (only data).I don't like the idea of creating a ghost image, it's of course a quicker way to install windows, but when I reinstall windows I also want to install the latest version of my software.

Thanks, and tje signature update is on the way .I realy like having a secure environement, so I'm still looking into a good and free (that's another thing like, a free environement ) Vista compatible firewall. I've been thinking about using ZoneAlarm, but I've never been a great fan of their firewall. For now I'll stay with Windows Firewall, I've blocked apps that I don't want to go outside and everything that want's to get in gets blocked too . Luckily I don't have to worry too much about attacks from the outside, I'm behind a router so hackers will have a hard time accessing my laptop (as longs as there is no crapware installed on my pc, but that's why I have Opera + a good anti-virus packet).I'm currently looking at Comodo Firewall, a somewhat unknow firewall (wich can be a good thing), but it doesn't work on Vista (yet), first Vista beta will apear April 16th.

and the patch seems to screw up some applications http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/= seems like they wanted to release it to soon

So, I finaly got my new laptop with Vista Home Premium installed.I like having all controll over my security, so I installed Avast, Adaware, Spybot S&D, disabled Security Center and Windows Defender (since it's just a piece of crap that slows down your computer). The lasts piece of software that is missing is a firewall. The main reason why I have a firewall is because I want to controll wich applications can connect to the internet.I tried installing Sygate PF, but that one is incompatible, Comodo PFP, Zonealarm are too and I don't like Kerio (if it's compatibel). So that means I'll have to use the Windows Firewall.Now, my question is, why doesn't it ask when a program wants to connect to the internet ? I've been trying several settings in the default firewall and the advanced firewall environement, but it just doesn't ask for permissions, is this normal because I remember the XP firewall did ?I now I can create a rule to block every outgoing application, and then unblock the apps that I want, but that's a bit too far fetched (and I still want to be aknowledged when it blocks or doesn't block an app).Does anyony know how I can get it to ask for permissions ?P.s. I did tweak Vista a bit by disableing some more or less useless services. I don't think this is going to be the reason, but who knows

yep, using the mount command. eg. you want to mount /dev/hda1 in read-write mode, you have to enter: sudo mount /dev/hda1 -o rw if I remember correctly. If you have a lot of time, you might consider making an Ultimate Boot CD for Win ( http://www.ubcd4win.com/ ), it's maybe a little bit slow to boot, but when it's booted, you have a nice environement to fix you computer (altough knoppix sometimes is more powerfull).

My father is looking for a some kind of website where he can share documents with friends and colleagues.The documents should only be accesible by his friends/colleagues, because some contain sensitive data (eg. about work). The users also have to be able to give comments on the files. The last requirement seems to be the hardest, because there are a lot of data-sharing sites available, but no of them seem to have an option to give comments on the files.So, do you guys have any suggestion ???

Since I started my Electronics-ICT studies I started to need something like this, so the first thing I did was getting myself a 1Gb flash drive . I must say it's getting an addiction to put as many of my applications on it (since a lot more apps can run from a USB stick, like Opera, Notepad++, ProcessExplorerNT, DevC++, ...), like this I can happily work with my prefered applications at school (since we have to work with InternetExplorer, wich is slow and doesn't have mouse gestures like Opera does).Unfortunately my USB drive isn't exactly fast, some of my applications feel slow, just because they have to wait for the flash drive, so if I can give you an advice, spend some more money on a faster drive (especialy if you want to run oOo, it's over 100Mb in size and it loads terribly slow)

I prefer Avast over AVG, altough AVG might be better (as said in this report http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ -btw, the reviewed versions are the pro version, but I guess there won't be any difference in the scanning engine-) . What I realy do like about Avast is the it shows me every mail it scans (so I can see who send me a mail, it's almost like it's a POP3 checker ), it can block URLs (no more intellitext advertisements ) and it has a descent scanning enginge. Downside of Avast is that it uses quite some memory (especialy if you use every engine (resident, mail (pop3, smtp, application independant), outlook, p2p, chat, web (scans everything that passes certain ports) and network(intrusion detection)), but you can safely work with only resident, mail or outlook and web.

whatever you do, upgradability will be nill. Your motherboard is outdated and it supports nothing but outdated stuff (wich is more expensive, like SDRAM). Upgrading the cpu with only 300Mhz and adding some more memory will only make you keeping this computer another year, so I don't think this is the best solution. The cpu is useless too, +300Mhz is realy nothing, you'll hardly notice the difference.I'd rather look for a new motherboard, cpu, memory and graphics card and this doesn't have to cost you $800-$1000, you can still refurbish a lot of things from your current computer. If you do this, you'll have a computer that can run fast enough for a few years. After 3-4 years you will of course have the same problem as you have now, everything is outdated (in 3 years, will probably have PCI-e5.0, DDR4.0 and the CPUs are wireless ).I know it's a tough decision (money wise), but I think you'll get more out of your money if you do a good upgrade rather than paying a lot of money for old hardware that isn't going to make your computer noticeably faster.P.s. doing a fresh windows installation can speed things up too .

I can't realy give a simple answer on your question, it just depends. First of all, today it isn't just the frequency (most people link frequency with processing power, altough this is absolutely not correct anymore) that matters, but there also the number of cores, the amount of L2 cache ... If you multitask a lot (not like, listening to music and surfing at the same time, because even a celeron can do that), then switching to a Dual Core (or even a Quad Core) is reasonable. Next thing to consider is what you want to do, if you do a lot of simulations, coding/decoding, ... then you realy want a processor with a lot of power and preferably one with 2 cores or more (since more and more applications support more cores), this can realy reduce the time you have to wait. For gaming it'd say you don't need to have the fastest cpu around, since they won't realy offer you any speed gain. The techreport has written a good review about the current cpu's around: http://techreport.com/review/12091/intel-vs-amd-today-generation-compared bottom line: if you only do simple tasks like word processing, surfing, listening to music, you can even be happy with a Duron clocked at 1Ghz, but there are a lot of people who realy need the processing power that is available nowadays.