Sarah81

Apple's making a good move, at least as far as Intel lovers are concerned. I personally prefer AMD, and PCs, so ... I guess you can see how the new Macs wouldn't turn my head at all. But for people who really like Intel, this is a great move to draw them toward the more expensive side of computing.But what would *really* help would be more widespread distribution. In other words, if you could walk into any of the major computer retailers and buy a Mac off the shelf, they'd probably be a little more popular. Or a lot more popular.

Nah. That's not dorky at all. I had a friend when I was a teenager who would actually sit with a notebook while she was in high-school classes and code pages on the paper. Then, when she got home, she already had a really good idea of everything that she needed to do in her HTML editor (Notepad, usually) to create what she'd laid out when she was supposed to be paying attention to her teachers. It's people like that who make me ill, mostly with envy. *grins* But you don't have to go to that extent with any Web site to figure out what you want to do. One thing that I do is to have a template set up in Notepad with the basic coding for the layout that I want all the pages within my site to keep (i.e. fonts, backgrounds, etc.) and then just save it as an .htm or .html file. Then, I save the changes frequently and preview it locally - just to be sure that my lousy coding actually looks right.

The ones I love:My Belkin ergonomic keyboard. USB ports included so I don't lose anything by plugging it into my notebook. My Targus pocket mouse. I like it a lot better than the touchpad - at least when my notebook's at my desk.The IBM keyboard on the 386 I had a few years ago. The cord was coiled (like a telephone handset line), which was sort of weird in a cool way. More importantly, I could really bang out stuff without wearing out the spring mechanisms, or whatever IBM used instead of the wimpy little tactile "soft touch" junk (like in Dell keyboards). I usually burn out a keyboard or two before whatever system I'm running starts to give me problems (like age-related problems, I mean), but in this case the computer died for good before the keyboard did!And, because I loved tormenting my mother and sibs with the fact that I touch type, I could take the key covers off but still have keys to type with. Blank, yes, but wow did it drive my brothers crazy.The ones I hate:The Mac keyboards in the computer lab here at school. The stupid flat, black-and-clear keyboards. The keys are just too close together ... for me, I mean. Too many typos.Any laptop keyboard. Small, cramped together, and a bigger pain in my butt than it's worth.Old-school two-button mice. When I say "old-school" I mean the ones with the rubber-covered trackball on the underside. I never did like those things, mainly for having to clean gunk (mostly cat and dog hair) out of them all the time.But overall? I'd say that I've had the most luck with Logitech and Belkin brands. They seem to hold up - whether they're mice or keyboards - the best, and they're generally affordable.

Every time someone commits an atrocious crime, the media wants to find an easy scapegoat. Video games have been the primary targets lately, I guess because they're so popular, but that's not a good excuse or reason at all.In the 1990s, it seemed like there was ALWAYS either a Manson or Slipknot album involved when the media broke stories about rotten kids shooting or blowing up their high schools and fellow students. My question was always, "How come nobody ever says that a record inspired them to do something good?"Yeah. Society just wants to pin blame on something else, but take credit when something decent or good happens.The whole thing just annoys me even though I don't play many games. Personal responsibility is, apparently, a filthy phrase for a lot of people *sighs*

And if you managed to stop time, would you continue aging? Or would you age faster or slower? That's one that my astronomy professor posed to us in class once, for whatever reason. He didn't really answer the question (good thing, too - my head already hurt by that point, hehe), but it's definitely an interesting one to think about. What if, for whatever reason, you aged faster? If you actually got time to start again, and came back to Earth, you would be super old and your friends wouldn't even recognize you.Or, better, if you managed to either stop or reverse the aging process ... wait...maybe *that's* the reason that the guy in charge of Virgin is investing all this money in space travel.

I didn't even think about converting a console controller. Let's see ... if I bought the converter, I could just "borrow" one of my brother's PS2 controllers. Mwahaha. Wait. He's bigger than I am. And a lot meaner. Maybe I could just go buy the controller too *grins*

Hey everyone. I had a really inexpensive USB video-game controller so that I could play the old GTA games, and some modded games (SNES, NES, and Genesis). But, it being less than seven bucks, it broke. Understandable but very sad. Now I'm looking for a replacement that would work for basic video games. I don't want a flight stick, or any overly elaborate design. I like what I've read about this Logitech controller but those were all product descriptoins from the maker. Does anyone use this controller, or something similar? If so, do you have any comments that would help me figure out which one I really want? I've already bought two controllers since that first one broke - I had to return both of them (same model, bought at same store) because the model was a pile of junk (buttons kept sticking). Tired of the hassle, so I'd like to just buy one more, at least for a while.

Pretty much. You would think that the DVD industry would have learned something from all the problems with various artists' CDs not playing in certain players because of anti-piracy/copying coding. I remember that there was a CD that I wanted to buy (can't rememer which one now), but before I could news reports came out about that record label, and that album in particular, receiving tons of complaints from legitimate customers. These CDs would play in standard CD players, like the boombox that I had, but if you put them into certain computers, or even car stereo systems, they wouldn't play at all. So. If the DVD industry can't figure out a better way, they're going to spend more time fielding complaints from people who actually paid money for the products than they'll spend on catching the tiny number of people who pirate the stuff. Oh. And that CD? It was all over the Internet for free download. The anti-piracy protection only worked for a few hours, if that long, before a whole bunch of computer wizards got around the coding.

Considering the overheating problems that some 360 users have reported since the console came out, I can see how this water-cooled system would be attractive.But I can also picture some people making a huge mess of the modification job and ending up with a totally useless $400 pile of junk.

Thanks, m^e. I don't know how I missed that. Wait. I was on dial-up. Must have gotten tired of waiting and signed off the Internet.

I don't use the computer labs on this campus very often. The only time that I do use them is for creative writing, when my teachers tell me to bring in enough copies of my work for the entire class. Seeing as I pay over 300 bucks a semester for access to computer labs, Internet access, etc., I'm obviously going to use school computers for that massive print job (think up to 20 pages, times about 25). Yeah - the school provides the paper for lab printing, so I go there for larger jobs. Mostly, we have PCs in the labs. There are some Macs, but it's about a five-to-one ratio. Maybe four to one. I'll use Macs if PCs aren't available, but I usually end up going into the lab when it's not very busy anyway. I prefer PCs in general, but I *do* realize that the software I use (usually Word, at least in the labs) is the same on either system. That, and a lot of the Macs in the lab I use most often are covered with these weird, circular scratches - almost like someone tried to wipe the screens clean with steel wool or something. Weird.

I'm not the world's biggest Streets and Trips fan. I've always just used either an old-school atlas (love those things, to be honest with you) or looked up all the route planning and stuff before I leave home. I like Mapquest (well enough, anyway) and Yahoo! Maps (a little better than Mapquest). I guess if I were you, I would look for a demo version of the Road Atlas USA stuff. If you can try it before you make the purchase, you'll have a better shot at figuring out if it's really worth the investment.

Personally, I don't see why any motorcycle rider needs a special endorsement. It's not like most states make you do anything special to get it - just show up at the appropriate government office, give the attendant money, and wait for the updated drivers license to show up in the mail. Okay, so that's how a lot of offices here in Texas do things. I don't see the purpose behind the whole thing, really. Unless the state, or even the whole country, starts making would-be motorcycle riders take a driving test, or motorcycle training, to get the endorsement, there's no point behind the whole endorsement thing.

I heard about this one on the news a few days ago and am still a little annoyed by the whole thing. I would love to see how prosecutors interpret "annoying" in order to apply this new law. And I wonder if they'll go after spammers, or just individuals who flame each other out in Yahoo! Chat?

Well...it's free, doesn't take up much hard drive space, and is pretty easy on system resources (I'm on WinXP, incidentally). The only time ZoneAlarm's ever popped up to alert me about anything was when I launched a program, like RealPlayer or something like that, that needed to access the Internet. Overall, it's not bad. At least it's free, so if you hate it you can uninstall without thinking of all the money you wasted on the thing. But the firewall that comes with WinXP is pretty good too.

I'm interested in seeing what Windows comes up with for this new OS ... but like I did with all their other new releases, I'm waiting for the bug fixes to come out. I'd rather have a new OS a year or more later than its initial release date than have all the stupid problems that should have been fixed before it goes on the shelves.I wonder if my university will offer discounted copies of Vista? Hmm. I'll have to check into that.

Hi and welcome to the forums. I play guitar too. Well. When I say "play" I'm using the term very loosely (I suck). *grins* I hope you enjoy hanging out here.

I'm surprised that IE worked *before* you updated. Seriously though ... I'm going to have to agree with everyone who suggested Firefox. One suggestion that I can make towards fixing IE (if such a thing is even possible with that pile of junk program) is to browse around on Microsoft's Web site for suggestions. Who knows? There might even be a newer patch/update than the one you're trying.

Oh, that's on the top of my wish list for Google right now: getting rid of AOL, or at least making it a halfway decent ISP. I haven't been stuck with AOL in years, but wow ... my grandmother used it, and I was constantly having to fix her computer, and do all this other stupid stuff, because of AOL. Glad that's over. But still, I feel bad for people who don't realize that there are actually easier *and* cheaper ways to get online. Maybe Google can someday make some sort of difference. Yeah, right. They only own five percent right now; it would take tons more than that - billions and billions and billions of additional dollars sent to AOL - to have that happen.

If you know how to do a basic Web search, then yeah, Google's pretty great. Now, the debate begins with the question, "Should Google just stick with what it knows and stop trying to compete with every other type of service provider on the Internet?" *grins*

I've never really liked the extra junk Yahoo! pushes on me every time I go near their Web site. Yahoo Messenger's the only big exception to things that I'll download because, as you say here, the things are SLOOOOOOOOOOOOW.

Well, 1 = 2 according to this proof, which is of course false. But the trick is to figure out which step is incorrect. We went over that in my math class last semesters. We had fun trying to figure out where the proof went wrong. And no. I wasn't the person in the class who found it first. *grins*

Of course Forbes and the other two companies have access to anything that we put into the e-mail time capsules. But then again, e-mail services have access to any e-mails that we send. I don't write e-mails that I wouldn't want others besides myself and the recipient to read. Even if I *am* writing something that I'm partially convinced I'll receive in my in-box 20 years from now. As for the point behind this thing: I just thought that the e-mail time capsule was an interesting example of how technology and our old traditions blend as we become more advanced. My university still has a time capsule from 1995, and one from 2004 (when they opened a brand-new dormitory building), among others. Regular old time capsules, I mean, with photos, letters, school tee shirts and other things like that in them. Why not an electronic time capsule? With data storage and retrieval systems getting more advanced and reliable as we improve the technology, there's no reason to think that our photos, e-mails, etc. won't be available 20 years from now. Besides, this method beats digging around in the dirt, trying to remember where you buried the tin coffee can when you were a teenager. *grins*

I don't care about the alien women - if aliens ever contact me, I'll dazzle them with my brilliant knowledge about useless trivia so that, as my reward, they find me a handsome human guy. Or maybe I'll just start dating aliens. I've never cared what kind of car the guy drove before, but I have to admit that going out with an alien who drives a spaceship that defies the speed of light would be sweet.

I would take it. If nothing else, you can trade it around with other friends to get your hands on computer parts, or maybe something else that you would rather have. You gotta love being able to swap things to get other stuff. That's pretty much how one of my brothers (before he was legally old enough to work) kept getting his hands on all sorts of things, including spending money. And an enormous trampoline.