SP Rao

I agree. WINRAR is supirior. I use both Winzip and Winrar. It was nice to see some one point this thing out! I never knew my WINZIP 10 was velnurable! Thanks for the info mate!

Well flashdiamond, firefox is better for virus protection relatively to IE7. MS has improved IE7 a lot, but still it has too many bugs. My recommendation goes to Opera. Opera simply rocks. Firefox is good too. (I have never used netscape or MSN). IE... well, IE6 was pathetic. IE7 is ok, but nowhere near firefox or opera. Since Firefox is opensource, we get a lot of extensions for it. Because of that Firefox offers a lot of features, but opera is not open source. (It is free, but not open source). Hence extensions available for it are less. Even then, it has a lot of features which no other browsers offer. Like mouse guesture, inbuilt bittorrent client etc.

MelliFobian, before you post make sure you are in the right forum. I can see that you are new around here. Just go through forum rules once. It is very easy to go to a thread and post something relevant there. Well, as far this microsoft deal is concerned, this deal doesn't help end users at all. It will just fill M$ pockets... It is one more step towards monopoly. Let us waite and watch what happens. But, I guess it is a good move from M$ perspective.

Well tansqrx, you were right in pointing out Visual Studio Express edition as free not open source. I really like this package. They give SQL Server Express edition too for free (Embedded with Visual Studio Express Edition). That's cool ain't it? I was really surprised that microsoft entered into such a move of providing a very good product like visual studion for free (Express edition or not). It does have most of the features of Visual Studion standard and premium editions. Worth having in your PC boy. Honestly. If you want a comparison chart of what you are missing in your express edition, follow the link below. https://www.visualstudio.com/ All in all, it is a great product from microsoft, which is more it is absolutely free for life!

Well, it is really a nice concept. I will be downloading something from there once they have something which I need. Most of the software which they offer are unknown to me.Anyway, good finding.

I use Flashget as my download manager. It is fun, fast and easy. It serves all my necessities. (Like pause/resume, multiple files. ). t does improve my download speed marginally. You can control in how many streams you want to download a file etc... I use Azereus as my Bit torrent client. It is really good BitTorrent client. Never knew about BitTorrent clients untill recently... When I wanted one I astarted alphabetically. After using Azereus, never wanted to look for any further These days I use Opera 9.02 as my Browser. It has a very good dowload manager. The beauty of it is, you don't need a separate bit torent client for downloading torrents So I use FlashGet for normal file downloads, Opera or Azereus for Bit Torrent downloads.

Well, Microsoft is qu9ite unethical and ruthless at times. That's why tech lovers hate the company. Most of the times they help themseves rather than the entire tech industry. A lot of their actions have crippled the technical growth. Their monopoly is yet times too much to handle.... (There were so many Court cases regarding the monopoly of MS ). When it comes to Zune, definitely it looks catchy. Appears to have loaded with features. But I really love iPOD. May be Zune is good too. As far as my knowledge goes, it is yet to be released in India... Will definitely consider buying it if its features are good enough.

Well.... I ain't sure which PC he is running. The system requirements say minimum of 384MB of RAM required for single instance to run. The processor requirement is Intel P3 or P4. Well, I've just got CS2. Will be installing it today. I have a PC with Athlon 3000+ 64Bit PRocessor and 512MB RAM.... It better work! Have they already Xcome up with CS3 for release in Q2 2007??? That's too much! Anyway, waiting for some awesome features.... I really doubt if that will run on my PC without upgrades though. Thanks for the info. MAy be wi will get trial downloads before its release?

He he.. Funny error. I could simulate it.What a stupid piece of code that must be which is running inside IE....Definitely a bug. What else could we call it?I use Firefox and Opera.... Opera in particular is one step ahead that all the other browsers... It had almost all the features of Firefox 2.0 more than two years back! IE browser really s*cks!

That's very rude a comment. Even I was and am of the opinion that Linux is better than Windows. In fact it is in many ways. But never forget, there's no linux version which is as user friendly as Windows. I had a real tough time installing Linux and there weren't enough softwares available for my needs. There are Umpteen number of Linux flavors, choosing one itself is a big thing... As far as the problem of desktop icons disappearing is concerned, I agree with other guys that there could be a virus. I don't think you need a memory upgrade or something. (It was running fine till then. Why suddenly the problem?). But if you were hibernating, then check the hard disk free space. Deleting some files might help. I suggest installing a good Anti spyware/ Antivirus like AOL/ Norton and try scanning the HDD once. Make sure you have the latest virus definitions updated!

Re installing windows might be stupid. Before doing that, try these things all over again.1)Remove all the existing wireless setups and start a new one. 2)Don't give any static IP. Including DNS server let everything be dynamic 3)Try connecting now... 3)Check if you are using a modem+router (A single unit). The best thing would be to check if router is configured right by using some other laptop. I suspect Router configuration rather than the laptop. Just let me know if Wireless N/W is setup properly... I may be of help as I had resolved a similar issue myself... At that time I had a modem which was already present and I got a wireless router. Wanted to configure it, but I was unable to go online... Finally I realized that the modem I had was also working as a router(It was Router+Modem), so there couldn't be two routers having similar IP there... Hence it was failing... Finally I had to put the Modem+Router to modem only mode and it worked like a beauty....

I really don't get the logic of changing colours nor do I know how changing colour helps in fixing the bug. Must confess Red looka much more devilish

Well Pat, The process is simple. 1)Just login to your Xisto account. 2)Scroll down the page till you see the heading "FREE WEB HOSTING REQUESTS " 3)Click on new hosting requests. 4)There's a form template there. Use that to create your request. 5)After you create a request there, keep checking for any replies. Within a week your applicatioon will be processed and then you are on your own with you website Here's the link to the forum http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Cheers, SP

Must say quite a blizzard idea.... Creating online OS. Let us imagine the possibilities. How will you connect to net without a OS??? The only possibility is, whoever is hosting the OS should provide a machine which can access the Online OS. In other words, we need 2 OS instead of one!The other thing is, why would we need such an OS? It sounds too stupid to me to install all my favourite software in one corner of the world which doesn't even belong to me! Come to think of it, what will be the end system? What good will it serve to have an OS up there in the net? When someone asks about what's the system config of yours? What are we gonna tell? My OS runs in one corner of the world about which I have no idea? Of what use will our processors be?Having softwares online makes sense. But, OS? Give me a break... We can already share pics, data, videos and what not? There are so many hosting servers who offer us space. Agreed that applications like Google spreadsheet are really handy(Very useful in status reporting and all as multiple users can update the same document from across the globe). Irrespective of having OS online, we would still need another machine with an OS to connect to this OS.How do you expect these so called "Online OS" to run? Will the apps get downloaded onto your machine and run there or will they be running on one remote server and you are just watching the "Logs/results" of your operation? Having an online OS doesn't make sense. Having online applications do. As far as Linux is concerned, it would have reached heights if everyone focused on having single Linux. Now every Tom,**** and Harry want to have their own linux. There are so many flavours of Linux but none too perfect. (The only Linux/Unix OS which I found amazing was Solaris.) Otherwise in one way or the other Linux bugs us. When I got my PC recently I died hard installing various Linux versions... They didn't help me much. They all gave funny errors in one way or the other. (Tried Ubuntu, Fedora Core 5, Mandrake, Suse...) The only thing about linux is it will not hang like windows but throws funny/irrelevant error messages. All linux flavors are good in their own ways but none too perfect. That's the only problem with Linux. And honestly Support for linux is really bad. Linux has potential, let us see how future of Linux goes...May be I blabbered too much;may be I was incoherent, am too busy, no time to focus. Just wanted to put my views forward.

Was about to point out the same thing. In your list nbit007, you've left one of the most important and beautiful linux versions Ubuntu. honestly it's worth giving a try! As Aka_Bar was mentioning, depending on your needs you will have to choose your OS. But, frankly if you ask me, an OS should be able to perform all the tasks. It shouldn't matter what kind of application you want to run. OS should act as a platform for any kind of application. Well, some Linux versions fail to live up to this. If you want me to suggest some, you can try Ubuntu, Suse or Solaris 10.1.

Some details about DDR and DDR2 and their differences are explained in these links. http://www.motherboards.org/reviews/hardware/1476_1.html http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Well, Tallkid I don't know which country you are from. (Guess USA). I stay in India. Now, it's no big deal to get DDR2 memory. There are good memory manufactures like transcend, Kingston etc. You can just pick the size and brand. Request for DDR2. (I just bough 512MB DDR2 of Transcend two weeks back.) To check if there are any online deals, you can check. Deals2Buy

After all these years I am no more a parasite for PC! I just bought myself a PC last weekend.I contemplated a lot on which processor to go for... Dual core processors were way too expensive. Didn't want to go for P4 processor. Finally I chose AMD Athlon 3000+ 64-bit processor(AM2 Socket). Here's the configuration. M/B: MSI motherboard(K9N6PGM-F That was the best one for my budget aroung with built sound card having 5.1-channel DVD output, 128MB Graphics accelerator, Gigabit LAN (10/100/1000)etc...) RAM : 512 MB Transcend DDR2 RAMHDD: 80GB Hitachi SATA HDDCD Drive: Dual layer DVD writer (LG)Cabinet : i-Ball ATX cabinet Peripherals: Logitech Keyboard and mouse. Apart from this I have a Compaq monitor (belonged to one of my friends before. This one I'm using temporarily. I have plans for upgrading it. ), I have an Intel Webcam, A USB Foppy drive, A Memory Card Reader.I haven't bought any OS yet. I was trying to install Fedora. Had some problems with it(Everything was right except for the fact that mouse pointer was invisible; though mouse was working!!!). Now contemplating on WinXP. One thing that I really liked about the Athlon processor was the Cool n quiet technology. The comp really works very silently. You can barely hear the fan. It's really good!Any suggestion on upgrading/ or on configuration is welcome!

Guess you are new around here. I fail to find a correlation between the discussion thread and your post. May be you should consider moving your post somewhere else? (May be I didn't understand your post. Is "AD PROGRAM related to motherboards and memory? Are you talking about ADs regarding MBs and RAM?)

Well dude, It's working only because hardly any big application is running on it. Try running a webserver and a database service(Let's say MySQL) and a graphical application. (Which uses reasonable amount of graphics) Unless you have a graphics card which has RAM, the comp will hang itself.

As somebody already pointed out, char stands for character. Hence, for obvious reasons I pronounce it as "care" with a C stressed... Well, my native tongue isn't English either. But I've learned all programming languages in English. (That means instructor explained things in English.) Also, I always spean in English at my work place or during any discussion about programming. Everyone I know pronounce it as "care" with C stressed... (Some people plainly say "care")

To be frank I agree with you DrK3055A. If you are running considerably big applications, 512MB(Minimum) is definitely needed and 256MB is not enough. For example, if you're running SQL Server 2005 Express addition with Management console, the minimum requirement itself is 512MB!!! If one is running 3-5 reasonably big applications simultaneously or one big application, 512MB will be too low for XP. Tallkid, I strongly suggest a RAM upgrade. You can buy that Kingston RAM. (I don't know if your motherboard/processor support it). But, DDR2 RAM is a better buy than DDR.

Well xboxrulz, I have already tried that. Still no change. I was using GNOME first. After struggling for some time, I switched to KDE. But the problem persisted. I did change the mouse pointer settings, still no use.... The joke is the busy pointer gets displayed!!! (That was displayed when I double clicked on an item and the application was yet to open...) I'm really puzzled. While booting up, till the login screen comes, the mouse pointer will be very much present. But soon after the Login screen appears, the mouse pointer disappears!

I was trying to load Fedora into my Machine. After 30 minutes of smooth run, I succeeded in installing it. All along my mouse was working just fine. After the installation was complete, when I rebooted the machine still mouse was fine. Now finally after I give the user ID and password fpr login, the mouse pointer just disappeared!!!Well, the mouse still works. When I move the mouse the items get highlighted. When I double click the highlighted item, it opens the application. The scroll button is working fine. but.... The mouse pointer is not being displayed!!! I tried changing the mouse pointer, still the problem persists. Frustrated, Ire installed it. Still the same old story... Can't see my mouse pointer. I'm using Athlon 64- bit processor (3000+) with 512MB of RAM, MSI Motherboard and I'm using Logitech Scroll Mouse....Any help in finding my Mouse pointer will be appreciated...

I don't know if it's trend to have multiple computers. I never felt the need for many so far. As far as owning computers is concerned until recently I was a parasite! Recently purchased a Athlon 3000+ 64-bit processor based assembled computer. I'm yet to load a proper operating system there. Currently I have Fedora installed...Other than mine @ home we have a IBM laptop and another P4based desktop machine... Bothe belonging to my friend....

An excellent post saint-michael! I always wanted to use Firefox as my default browser. (I'd used it here and there. In net centers etc. But never had it in my system.) Only yesterday I was able to install it in my office system. (It's difficult to get sign offs from various Security guys to install a software in my company. Somehow I pulled it through). It was only yesterday that I was wondering which pluggins might come handy. In fact I had downloaded most of the extensions listed in your post. Unfortunately I saw your post just now. Anyway I'll add the ones that I left out yesterday to my "Install" list. It was really a very informative post. Considering the fact that there are more than 4000 pluggins+extension for Firefox. Thanks dude.