Omkar™

Windows® Vista is a high-end OS. Lets go to the basics: why do we use an Operating System (OS)? To gracefully interact with our hardware and provide a baseline for our software to allow them do things we want to with the help of the hardware. Have a glance at the 'Minimum Requirements' for using Windows® Vista. As Darasen has rightly quoted in this topic, So lets put it straight:Windows® Vista uses much of your hardware to run itself, leaving little more, 'leftovers', for your games, applications. Well, suppose you do have that high-end hardware config, allowing you to run Windows® Vista & leaves much for your 'hardcore gaming', then as GeorgeT quoted, Bottom line: If you're happy using your current PC with Windows® XP, then its the best you can get. Windows® Vista is only feasible if you plan to upgrade your hardware & meet with those specs, which also will give you just the same performance as on WIndows® XP, nothing more! So much for Windows® Vista??

That's some exaggeration, FirefoxRocks! But yes, I believe most of us 'ripe' internet users have visited such a website for reasons of their own. The last time I recall doing that is 'cause one of my colleagues quoted me 'the only' website to get some relatively out-dated (all regards to current supersonic trends to bilateral change) stuff. You do expect loads of 404 errors ("damn, dead end!") on such old, rusty sites which are either hosted free (with ADs) or are owned by someone who doesn't care about the (obliviously meager, for him) hosting costs he keeps paying for it. Nonetheless, if you're desperate for that something and have been told that this is the only stinking website on the entire WWW that hosts it, then you would take the effort to find it (and instinctively more to snap out of it as soon as you grab hold, and make a point to comment about your visit to your referrer!). The other day I came across a site that had all its links configured to open in new windows! Thanks to Firefox, they just counted more tabs, but that is something you'd never want. Imagine the side-navigation links opening up new tabs and clotting your browser to more smudged pages of the insane website! But the truth remains, that its the World Wide Web. There're good sites, and there are bad sites. And there are sites like these (!) If they've got what you're looking for, you gotta stand it all!

Well I glanced through the release notes for SP3 (had my fingers crossed & luckily there were no Genuine Advantage checks for the meagerly 324KB pdf download, phew! 'cause going through that ordeal diverts you from what you were originally doing on your sparingly-compatible Firefox on the Microsoft website & makes you forget what & why you were trying to download in the first place!) and the summary says it all. Unlike previous service packs, this pack is intended to - So basically if you have been updating XP regularly via Microsoft Update, you don't need to have this. If you haven't been updating (or haven't ever done that) and are still living with it, you don't need to have this. Don't you think Microsoft is undermining the importance of its own updates by publishing such comments in their own articles? What we can make out of this is, choose your own updates. Fortunately, the 'white paper' describes in detail the abstract contents of SP3 and apart from NAP it clearly states that nothing has been ported to XP from superseding versions of Microsoft's products. (This too, doesn't seem to be of any deemed importance to most XP users and virtually all Microsoft WindowsÂŽ XP Home Edition users!) So is WindowsÂŽ XP SP3 next on the list of downloads for this week? Most probably not.

Thanks a ton, guys!I was actually upto uninstalling my programs with this nuisance (left with only ~52MB) of free space on C:! SpaceMonger worked out perfectly for me! So here's the culprit(s): %temp% revealed a ~1GB file, which turned out to be an isolated image of a really old CD burn (sometime around Feb '07) - maybe Nero left it off unsolicited (though it usually doesn't!). System Restore was the one actually swelling up the drive. Everytime I used to uninstall some programs to free up disc space, it make a restore point, eating up the same amount of space again! Believe it or not, System Restore hold(ed) ~3.5GBs of data! Damn that! System Restore was disabled in CP. Stealth operations, is it?! Also, since I was into SpaceMonger, I found a couple of ancient movies I had on my HDD, which I don't happen to recall viewing since they got in there in the first place! But we aren't let-goers of Digital Media, are we? Burn(t) 'em down DVDs! So that freed up another ~5GB of space - considered a bonus, I should say! At the end of it, I'm happy to have resolved the issue effortlessly, thanking you!

A few days ago, I had a lil' 'Low disk space' balloon popping up from my taskbar saying I was running out of space on C: (I could hardly believe it!) But ever since I got this 4th PC, I've been keeping the C: partition purely for Windows (with some obvious experiences 3 rounds of fire!) But then I had NFS UG-2 on it this time, so I ripped it off freeing ~1.7GB of space. Now my partition is worth ~10GB. The next day, it pops up again, saying I have less than 200MB left on C:! How on earth is it possible for ~1.7GB worth free space getting hogged up in 24hrs without me intentionally doing anything?! So the immediate concern was malware/virii. So is there any such malware that fakes Low Disk Space warnings, or does really fill up free space by junk data?! Of course, I scanned my PC using Spybot S&D, which found the usual tracking cookies n stuff. And Avast! Antivirus, which found a trojan horse worth a few cents. Nothing down there. Problem still persists - everytime I free up space squeezing something out of C:, its back to <200MB! Help!

Ever wondered while copying GBs of data from one place to another on Windows, staring at the file copy animation dialog (which actually give newbies the 'feel' of copying ~ for Xperts, the HDD LED is good enough! ) - and at other times, when you've added a new disk drive (USB Mass storage, or such sort) when on slower systems, opening My Computer shows that (darn) 'Searching for items' animation? Well I was thinking of seeing something better than that puffed-up yellow torch looking around for items in there! Anyone having eXplored Windows® directory structure could tell me where Windows® keeps these animations? And what type are they? AVI (Sure hope so!) I'd like to spice up the visuals and replace these with some (more) geek animations... Having customized everything else (tight from the cursor to Window Title Bars) ~ this is the only thing that somehow 'doesn't fit in'... I wonder if this is possible? If you do look into it, please let us know!

Have anyone's ears been keen to pick up the Nat Geo Jingle evrytime it play on the NGC (National Geograpihc Channel)? Its at the end of every promo or whilst the 'Coming Up' list!I'd like to have that sound in my collection! Can anybody find an mp3 or any other format for this jingle? I checked YouTube, but there's nothing that plays this jingle..Hope you guys can figure out what I'm talking about!

Its a world of wireless connectivity, and a hoard of I/O devices to choose from! And all of it applies to music needs! When it comes to listening to songz all day, I'd prefer the headphones, rather than the sound-system making the society aware of it just for the bass! Now there's an online radio station that I'd like to listen to all day ~ but I'm roaming around my place all day - you know its not possible to be in the same room forever! But I'd like to have it uninterrupted! So instead of using the sound system on my PC, I'd use the headphones on my cell phone! You see, I've got a Bluetooth™ Dongle for my PC and a Sony Ericsson™ Z550i Cell Phone (which obviously support Bluetooth™) I have the Walkman Series DeepBass headphones with MegaBass™, n they're as often in my ears as I'm awake with 'em! I'd love to listen to this online radio channel on those beauties! I was wondering whether its possible to stream the audio output from the PC to the cell phone via a Bluetooth™link? Can you suggest any software that would allow me for this? Software applies to both PC and cellphone (Z550i supports Java™ applications) All help is appreciated! P.S.:This is not to be thought of as streaming audio from the cell phone to a Bluetooth™ Headset! And please excuse the over-usage of the trademark, its just that it looks so geek!

I've not been very keen on doing a PhD in Microsoft® Office Applications, but when it comes to using Excel for more complex processes, its much more than just deriving a formula for adding 2 cells! One of the engineers in my Dad's office was driven nuts by 'the way things work around here'! They sell carbides and similar industrial tools and like everyone, they've got a pricelist and stock list. Now, the not-so-anticipated part of the available data and resources is the way it is presented. Here's what the dilemma is all about: The pricelist contains Product ID of particular inserts/carbides (which is a 5 digit pure numeric) AND the Grade corresponding to that carbide. These are just 2 of the many attributes associated with each carbide type. The stocklist contains the same Product ID, but not the Grade. Now, when the engineers does his job, he's got to include the Grade in the stocklist he presents to the customer. And he's sitting all day there cascading 2 excel windows and simply adding a new column in the stocklist for the Grade and manually looking up the Grade corresponding to each Product ID in the pricelist, copying it to the right cell in the stocklist. We were looking for something that would create a database of the Product ID and the corresponding Grade, and a macro that would look up the data and append it to the required document. Now is this possibleusing the (seemingly vast) resources from Microsoft® Office ~ if yes, can somebody please guide me into simplifying this cumbersome task? We'll be using Microsoft® Office XP Professional Edition.

Thanks everybody, the problem has been resolved. I just had to adjust the settings for ICS/NAT Gateway in Z|A. I just wonder, I have Z|A Pro on the host computer, but there's no firewall on the laptop (I mean its got the Windows one, that's as good as nothing! ) - so does this Z|A protect the laptop too? Does the data flow to/fro the Internet by the laptop filter through the Z|A Firewall? Or do I have to install Z|A on the client laptop too? And yes ~ I'm not exactly sure how ICS works on clients. I mean each client has got its own IP address in the local subnet. That's not nothing to do with that of the Broadband Service. My ISP automatically allocates me a dynamic IP address each time I connect, but if I share this connection with my laptop, which appears on the local subnet, is it that for the ISP it apprears as if the transactions made to/fro the laptop are coming from the c\same IP address as the host computer?

I liked the GetVideo extension for Firefox, and it does pretty much its job ~ just that my Download Manager doesn't seem to get what's going on doesn't take over the download automatically. I didn't like the FLVPlayer, though. Its got nothing! It just Plays the given FLV File/URL and nothing else! My cell phone supports 3GP files, I wonder if I could get 'em converted to 3GP somehow?! Besides, isn't this illegal? I mean there must me some reason Google didn't make a link for downloading the movies straight.. How else would they get repeated visitors to their site?! But it doesn't look like it as I found this extension on Mozilla's official website!

I'm in complete agreement with all above! Admin!! ~ your role to play!

I've been using ZoneAlarm Pro for about an year now with my personal desktop to be protected with all the various Internet Connections I've opted for. Most recently, I've been using Broadband over my Ethernet LAN card, and Z|A protects my PC perfectly fine! But now, I wish to share my Internet connection with a laptop over Wireless LAN (Ad-hoc connection). I've successfully configured both systems for the wireless connectivity, and have enabled ICS (Internet Connection Sharing) for my broadband connection with the Wireless Adapter. Note that I'm not using a router, and am connecting directly to the laptop using a secure Ad-Hoc connection! Everything works well and fine and I can access the Internet from both systems, as long as Z|A is not interfering! As soon as I start Z|A, it block off access to the ICS only! I can still the the laptop in my workgroup and access its shared resources! Just that I cannot use the Internet from the laptop any more. Z|A detected the Wireless Network when it was first established, and I've configured it to be in the Trusted Zone. It shows the following Network config: IP Address : 192.168.0.0 Subnet Mask : 255.255.255.0 (I guess nobody could have settings more default than these! ) Now, my desktop (the host with the Broadband connection) has a static IP as 192.168.0.1 and the laptop has an automatically assigned IP by DCHP. The Default gateway for the laptop is again 192.168.0.1 Can anybody figure out why Z|A is getting against my wits?! I liked it so much for the best firewall against the Internet! Guess its not oiled up enough to handle WLAN Connectivity... P.S.:I tried the ZoneLabs Instant Support, but its just a bot that can answer to simple questions. As you can see, mine is actually a scenario!

Hey, Jimmy89, that article was really helpful (keeping aside the childish methods Microsoft uses to convince their users! ) Well, I did exactly what it said, and hurray! I got the 2 computers to see each other and connect wirelessly! Here's what happens- Both computers are connected to the same Wireless Network (Ad-Hoc), with an automatically assigned Private IP address (It takes a while for 'Acquiring Network Address'). I've checked the 'Share Internet Connection' on my desktop for the Wireless connection. Now is that all? I mean they're connected BUT on both computers, the received packets seem to be 0! (Damn!) Another thing, I have one Ethernet card for my desktop and I connect to my broadband through this card. While activating ICS, I selected this LAN to share. Now, help me out if i appear a bit confused, but there's just one LAN port and I cannot select my Broadband connection to share with ICS. It works only with LAN connections. So do I have to do something more?! And yes, the fact remains, that I cannot use the Internet via the laptop!

Can anyone please help me out in setting up a Wireless LAN Network on Ad-Hoc (Peer-to-Peer) with the following scenario? I have a Broadband Internet Connection via Ethernet to my Desktop. Its comes in directly from a DSL modem & doesn't have a router. Both my Desktop & Laptop have WLAN radios. (And they're very much tried & tested!) Both have Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2. Here is what I need to do: Connect wirelessly between my desktop & the laptop AND share the Internet connection among them. I do not have a wireless Gateway/Router, so it'd have to be peer-to-peer. The usability should be such that when I have my desktop working and connected to the Internet, the laptop should connect wirelessly later, and use the Internet Connection. Can you please explain me how to achieve this using either Windows® Zero Configuration Wireless Settings, or by any third-party software.

I remember using Window Blinds 2 years ago, when I was struggling with WIndowsÂŽ 2000 Professional. You see, the most 'apparent' (literally!) feature Windows XP offered was the GUI that seemed a lot more comfortable to the eyes! But then I got my own copy of WindowsÂŽ XP Professional and got the looks without any additional software. But then even XP has go competition : Vista! I was just thinking.. Hey! I agree the look n feel of XP is kewl, but something can be more kewl! And so it starts! (Ah! The ol' Lionking tagline! ) TGTSoft's Style XP! I found it online (don't ask me how - you know how we can find anything online in the weirdest ways!) It styles XP by applying custom themes. You have huge library at varied sources contributed by authors round the globe compatible with Style XP! The BEST parts of this app are: NO Taskbar Application! No, it does not eat up valuable system resources to give you the look! You can have just an 844k Service that controls the styling. Not worth the sacrifice, eh? Well then don't! If you're fine with the non-styled Windows XP look before you logon, then you don't even need the service to start! That literally means you never use a nibble of resources to style your XP! Quick Styling No restart needed. You don't even need to click on 'Apply'! Just check an option in its interface, and its done! Translucent Menus Remember translucency was one of the not-so-attended features in WindowsÂŽ XP? We used it in.. Well, Winamp? But hey! Using Style XP you can make the taskbar translucent, you can make the Start Menu and all other context menus translucent! The translucent Start Menu especially helps when you're in a midst of Windows down there (not that I use it that often) Overall, I find this app very appealing! With all the billions of visual style I can choose from, there's more to Styling than XP! Here are some links that might be helpful if you wish to check 'em out: Style XP Homepage : TGTSoft (You can download a free 30-days trial from here) Some Visual Theme Websites : ThemeXP Belchfire I've given my version of WindowsÂŽ XP a makeover with my favorite Style, nicer cursors and translucent features! Give it a try!

What exactly is it that you want, Jimmy89? If you want to change the volumes of individual programs, then they must be having volume controls of their own! Maybe you want it in one combo panel, but I don't see much of its need. If you are working with programs that don't boast of their own volume control, then that might be a concern. I haven't seen the 'New Vista Sound Mixer', so what is it?

With the experience you had, Team Destiny 07, that's definitely not a good start opting for a good web host (let alone the FREE part) What can one conclude in such cases? on' they want new users to sign up with them? It might be that you're in the wrong location. A year back, before I hit Xisto, I had come across several hosts that provide hosting only to applicants in their locale : and there's no point in lying, they check up the IP anyway. So that might be the unshown 'error'! In either case, they should've told you about it! (Ashamed or something?! )

Just today morning I woke up longing for an expected mail in my Gmail mailbox. It wasn't in the Inbox, so I thought of checking the spam mail. But looks like it definitely isn't a great Monday morning for me! When I try to sign in to Gmail, the browser just gets redirected a thousand times and ends up nowhere, still redirecting! There's no 'Loading' page or 'This seems to take longer than usual' page either. There is little internet activity (something around 1.5kBps). I really don't remember the last time I signed in to Webmail since I use POP3/SMTP with my favorite Email client and seldom need to see the site! I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.3 and it works great for everything else (obviously, everything else does not include what I'm trying to accomplish! ) But I also tried logging in with the ol' IE 6 (It was quite an effort digging out the exe from the parent folder itself! I almost never switch to IE) : and its giving the same problem (Hurry! I was actually thankful IE didn't show signs of supremacy over Firefox! ) But the problem remains, I still can't login to Gmail! Can anybody help me out and has anybody faced a similar problem?

Hey! That's a nice layout for the new official phpBB site! Doesn't look like they're gearing up for phpBB 3.0 though... I especially liked the Downloads page. : the earlier one was too complicated... And they've updated their favicon, and are using a special character in their title bar, is that safe? Well, in the world of Vista, I guess its all the GUI that matters! But on long pages (features, for example) the simple text on white background doesn't look like XHTML, does it? Could've done with a template there...

First of all, congratulations, wutske for your new Laptop with Windows® Vista Home Premium! As far as my knowledge (and memory) goes, the Windows Firewall did nothing (apparently) for Windows XP. Its settings, most of the times just refused to be revealed ("Windows cannot show Windows Firewall Settings due to an unidentified problem") and the rest when it is, there's less options in that than the earliest version of Pacman had! I see you are concerned about the security of your Laptop (by the apps you've got on) - so its highly recommended that you have a high-end firewall to your high-end OS! Can't take any risks with Microsoft, you know! Maybe you can run ZoneAlarm in 'Compatibility Mode' for Windows XP - I haven't used Vista yet, so I'm not sure if they still have the feature! And of course, you can always tweak the Setup to force an install on Vista! My suggestion is that you don't rely on the Windows Firewall! If you're packed up for Spyware n Virii, then better make sure you got a strong wall before your newest goodie! You'll surely find some firewall that works out on Vista - after all Windows® is know for its compatibility (and that's why most of its users are still hooked on! ) P.S.:You might consider updating your signature, wutske, with your latest OS!

Firstly, to Silverfox : Dude, its not hard to get hosted at Xisto! Wake up! The first 30 (or 10) credits come in a jiffy, and you're new to the forums anyway, so you'd get hosted in a short while. As others have mentioned, the hard part is to maintain your account here. The credits system is a novel idea to pour in for hosting, I appreciate it and so do the members happily hosted here! From the looks of it - its pretty evident that Xisto seeks to provide quality free hosting to technically-minded people. If that doesn't come as a part of the T&C, then the nature of the forums couldn't make it more evident. Take a look at the sites that are hosted on Xisto. Most of them are technically, and maintain the same standards as the Xisto Website. Its ll about quality here. Its got to be in your veins : you make quality posts, you get a quality hosting account, you end up having a quality website! That's all there is to it!

I've used both CDMA and GSM technologies in the past - and experiance counts : CDMA definitely has more voice quality! Its so noticeable, maybe I'm not the Average John then! But there are Pro's and Con's about both.. In India at least, CDMA handsets do not hold a SIM card. So you can't change your handset (or its not as easy a process). I often bet with my friends and we're shuffling between our handsets, thanks to versatile SIM cards! Besides, CDMA is used for cellular as well as FWT services. In case of FWT, I think that's the best solution for quality. But of course, GSM is an internationally accepted standard. And people tend to roam. So all odds favor it - for the compromise in quality, we would use GSM technologies in the future. I didn't agree upon that SMS taking a long time to be sent thing though! I've never seen that around!

Well, 2 months back, I should be saying, "Yeah! It sure does!" Anyway, it was much of a nice discovery, and one of the very few ones that are actually helpful! It was a sad thing though, that Firefox 1.5+ didn't have an extension for spell-checking! I remember there was only one SpellBound™, but it didn't match the standards of a Firefox extension! For all these years (ahem, true to be exaggerated for a couple of months) I was using the Google Toolbar to spell-check my web forms. Adding yet another dimension to the 'betterness' of Firefox2! Keep up the good work, dear Mozilla!

Just tell me who in the world wrote that article - I just want to give that person a 'courtesy visit'! Microsoft®-Windows®-Secure can't even think of these 3 words in one sentence! Kewl speech, Quatrux! But with my copy of Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional with Service Pack 2, its stuffed with Avast! Antivirus, Spybot Search & Destroy, ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall to get along with. Niether do I trust Microsoft's DEP nor do I trust its firewall! In my opinion, any berserk going online with IE and equipped with the Windows Firewall, would repent in a short while, his PC gone to ashes and in for a re-installation! I even actually tried that - on a new Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition installation, I connected it to the internet and surfed the sites one usually does - Yahoo! and other stuff, clicking on advertisements on the go - and (no) viola! A later scan found insanic stats of Virii and Spyware! So, in no way is Microsoft® Windows® a secure OS! As for the patches are concerned, we've been all the way to Service Pack 2 and still struggling for a "Security Hotfix" from the Windows® Update every week! So, just a friendly compliment to Symantec - if you wish to sell your products, please praise yourself, not your platform!