rayzoredge

For what you got, I would say that's pretty darn good. I'm assuming that you're going to be using this for general use, which this laptop seems to be good with the hardware in it. I know I don't have much in comparison, but my desktop replacement with a Pentium 4 3.2GHz (single core) and 2GB of DDR2 RAM is more than enough for basic word processing, working with Photoshop, etc., and my other laptop with an AMD Turion X2 1.6GHz (dual core) does decently with the same tasks. I don't think you're going to go about playing a lot of computer games... but if you do, you should be able to play most games at medium to low settings (even the newer games out). My desktop replacement runs most games at low to medium settings with decent resolutions, and your graphics solution rates higher than mine on NotebookCheck. You should be good to go, but if you do decide to throw some upgrades in the future, I second the remark about RAM. Everything else should suffice. Compaq used to be a brand that people steered clear of, but since HP picked them up, they seem to make pretty decent machines. HP's customer service isn't bad from my experience, but a friend of mine had a bad one dealing with sending his laptop in for repairs. Hope you enjoy your new laptop. I'm still in it for the long haul...

When I read this thread's topic, I did a classic "Whoa... wait... what?" moment. As I read the actual article, a specific word caught my eye: *begin cheesy Arabic accent* "Thank you for the monies, gentlemen. We will cease fire for a period of one day and enjoy the peace that these negotiations bring." *BLAM!* "Oops, sorry... the timeframe I just announced was not definite. Oh well. Commence conflict again." *end cheesy Arabic accent* - Doing the usual kick of wandering over to Wikipedia to learn more about the Taliban before I spout off jargon based on nothing but what little I know, it looks like this isn't anything new. The U.S. has, in the past, bolstered what we have come to see as a threat today. Back in the days of the Cold War, we threw funds, weapons, and equipment to Afghan radicals to help fend off the Soviets, and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency (ISI) was mostly responsible for gathering and organizing what we know as the Taliban today. If it appeases this action in any way, the funds are supposed to help fix what Pakistani security forces destroyed. You know, like houses and compensation for lives and such. Because I'd love to cash out for lives lost any day.

Numbers on compression comparing effectiveness can be found on this article, and numbers on speed can be found on this article. Looks like it's file-type dependent.

I'm trying to build a quote sheet for our company. Basically, I have made a master parts list with prices, quantities, and descriptions on one worksheet and a quote sheet on another. What I want to get accomplished is this: When I'm on the master sheet, I will modify the quantity numbers to incur a change from 0. What I want to happen on the quote sheet is that the quote sheet will automatically insert the data (description of item, quantity, and total price) from the row that has a positive quantity onto that worksheet. Finally, I want a total cost figure cell that will move down as more items are added to the quote sheet and that can get a sum of the total costs to display the final project cost. Attached are screenshots to help explain what I'm trying to do: Can someone help me out? Is this even possible? (I think it might be with dynamic ranges and whatnot, but Google-fu confused the crap out of me.)

My post or OP's post? Usually I select a long phrase and use Google to search for that exact phrase (using quotation marks) to check for plagiarism. OP looks legit. If you mean me, I might have posted something similar on a topic about hackers... can't remember. (I don't look for my previous posts and copy-and-paste, you have my word on that. Not like I'm going to take the effort to peruse my own previous posts anyway... ) I use common sense and type out my own words. If I've repeated myself in some way, someone's going to have to rat me out because apparently, I can't remember what I post. If I "sound" like an article... well, I'm going to want a fanbase so that I can blog and try ad revenue to bolster my economic stability like SM does.

If you know the code, you know any possible exploits or workarounds to the code. Also, if you have the code, why would you write your own code (aside from tweaking it for your usage)? Not everyone is out to look at code to see how you did things and to learn from it. I'm sure Opaque put in a lot of hours, blood, sweat, and tears to make the myCent system work. To openly share things to allow them to be improved upon (look at open-source software) is one thing; to openly share things so that people can copy the work and call it their own or use knowledge of the code to exploit the system is another. I used to be a script kiddie back in the day until I started looking at the code closely and learning how and why things worked... which led me to be able to write my own JavaScript, HTML, and CSS. Really, it's a benefit to you to pursue learning how the myCents system works by thinking about how it tracks members, how it adds credit per word per post, how it self-updates, how it verifies information and avoids errors or loops, etc. You don't even need to have the code at hand to think about what it does, and once you know what it does, you can pursue how to build it yourself.

You are taking one often-misconstrued term and, well, passing on a one-sided definition that makes "hacker" a derogatory word.A hacker is, by definition, someone who uses something for a purpose that the object isn't intended to do. Mostly, we relate to hackers as malicious cyber-terrorists or whatnot... when in reality, you are hacking something if you are exploiting code, changing things around, or using software to do something that it was not intended to do. Think of tweaking the user interface in Windows by changing values in the registry, editing code in configuration files, or changing splash screens or boot images. Think of using an empty box that you would normally throw away and turning it into a useful container with dividers to store your scrapbooking supplies. Think of do-it-yourself articles on just about anything. You are hacking, and for the most part, just about everyone is a hacker.Now, if you want to limit the realm to the computer field, we have three categories that you can throw hackers into. White-hat hackers are those who exploit code, penetrate security measures, and the like to benefit the technological field by implementing counter-measures and improving security. (You may have heard of computer security specialists or analysts. Also, think of programmers that assist in creating firewall software or the folks down at Microsoft that help build these hotfixes. The people who find these exploits are hackers. The hotfixes sprout from exploits that are found by white hats, or exploits by black hats that customer feedback provides.) Black-hat hackers are those that OP speaks of: the cyber-terrorists that penetrate through security measures to obtain sensitive information like credit card numbers, company secrets, and identification items (like social security numbers, birthdates, and whatnot for successful identity theft) for their own nefarious usage. And of course, there's the gray area... appropriately-termed "gray-hat hackers," who do a little bit of both.Nirmaldaniel has his facts straight. OP and others on that bandwagon might have to look at things in a different light before asking the question of whether you want to be a hacker or not.

Wouldn't it just throw "black bars" to fill in what's not being used of the current resolution? I know you're going for fullscreen, but maybe that's what you're going to have to deal with.In the case where your screencast will just stretch to fit (as both resolutions seem to fit a 4:3 ratio), you might have to live with that too, unless YouTube supports resolutions higher than what you specified. You might notice a slight difference in degraded quality with this case, although I'm not sure how much as the resolutions specified are pretty close to each other (just a step up).I know you don't want to change your screen resolution, so either case is going to have to work out for you. Maybe the software that comes with your GPU will be able to let you fiddle around with which solution works best for you.

I own a few SanDisk Cruzers myself, and I think that most people find that the U3 software is so intrusive (with automatic installation) that they don't bother looking at the software well enough to appreciate what's available. Thankfully, SanDisk offers a removal option, but they should offer the software as a free download instead of programming each USB stick to auto-install the software regardless of what the user wants. As mentioned, I'm sure that there are a ton of free alternatives to the software included anyway, although one thing that U3 will have convenient is that it is pre-installed and comes as a consolidated suite. One gripe that I have with Cruzers, however, is that they test out to be one of the slowest-performing USB sticks out there... which probably explains why they're so darn cheap. Spend the extra money to get a Titanium edition stick. For some reason after some impromptu research, the Titanium reads slower than its Micro counterpart but writes faster. You can take a look at one article here.

What is so hard about 7-zip that you can't right-click on the .rar file, then select 7-zip > Extract Here (or wherever you want to extract your files to)? 7-zip is an outstanding program that supports more than just .rar files. WinRAR: 7-zip: View the comparison of compression programs, to include WinRAR and 7-zip The numbers tell all. I personally prefer 7-zip (coming from WinZip) for ease of use.

Since the inception of myCents, I've earned about $110 as of this post.I plan on using the hosting, but I'm still at a lost as to what to do with a website at the moment. This might change soon, however... *insert evil cackle here*Goes to show that if you actually put in some informative contributions towards threads that are relevant to your interests, you can make enough myCents to last you a while. With 692 posts (not including this one), my average per post would be about $0.16 per post.Remember, quality... not quantity. I wonder how many myCents some of the regulars have...

I actually went to Midas and ate the $80 it cost to clean the whole thing out. It was a three-stage product: one which went straight into the engine that I suppose was a very strong cleaner, one that went into the gas tank, and there was a last stage that I can't seem to remember. Basically, it cleans out the throttle body and throttle plate (which you can see from taking off the manifold cover) and the fuel injection system so that your injectors actually spray out your fuel best without anything possibly hampering it (like clogs or build-up). However, while I was trying to figure out what they used in my car, I ran into this: Clicky The respondent seems pretty biased, so I'm guessing that he might have had a bad experience... or it is really that easy to do yourself and not bite the $80 bullet. The process of cleaning the fuel injection system seems to make sense, but do your research before going out and blowing money. I trust Midas to do a lot of car work, but that's because the guys HERE are pretty cool and usually let me know of problems that even I was unaware of, plus they give me suggestions that don't always include something that they can do exclusively, which either is the best marketing gag ever, or that I feel that I'm talking to a buddy who knows cars and not so much the Midas mechanic trying to pinch every penny from me. (Sometimes, it pays to be cynical.) More information on fuel injection/intake system cleaning: Clicky If I find out what our Midas uses for fuel injection and intake cleaning, I'll post it here. - As far as the cold air intake, if you have it installed, see if you can get a buddy that can hook you up to a car computer reader... which might be hard to find because I believe that the devices are make and/or model specific. It makes sense to me that if you introduce an improved factor to default computer settings (i.e. introducing even more air into the combustion process), you would probably need to tweak everything else to achieve optimum performance. It probably doesn't make a difference, but I would do some research on that end too. (Because of this thinking, I run my Honda Civic stock instead of throwing on the cold-air intake that I was thinking about installing back in the day.) You're probably good to go, though... but personally, I would try to make sure of it. - Here's a side question to anyone that can answer it: If I, hypothetically-speaking, were to switch out my fugly, stock steel wheels and replace them with wheels that were significantly lighter, would that improve gas mileage and performance? By how much of a margin of a difference would it make? My brain says that with a lighter metal alloy coupled with less material for the axle to turn requires less torque, you would be able to spin your wheels at the same speed with less effort from the engine. Anyone?

That's how I picked out just about every single one of my laptops. I would figure out what I would want first, filter my choices, do my peer and professional review research, and then just go with it. I didn't think of design or laptop layout (like I mentioned in my first post), and to me, a component was a component... most companies grab the same stuff to build their laptops before slapping on their logo and shipping them out to the masses. Kerco brings up an awesome point about the possibility of having to deal with the company that you bought from for future services and repairs. I don't usually look at that aspect because I consider myself a bit tech-savvy enough to warrant my own repairs and work on the laptop, but not everyone is that adventurous. The problem with trying to research customer service, though, is that views of company customer service can be skewed by all of the horror stories out there. For example, I had no problems asking HP for replacement OEM CDs... but a friend of mine who owned a Pavilion dv5 series had the worst time sending his laptop in to get repaired in a timely manner. And of course, you have to ask yourself how subjective their experiences were, and whether this was an isolated case. Not everyone at a company plays nicely... but the best thing you can do is try to make your decision based off of word of mouth. Actually, I probably should have brought up the fact that at a local repair store here, the PC repair tech was telling me that he rarely if ever saw Acers in the shop. I guess with that statement, you can assume that Acers are pretty solid. Maybe. That and OpaQue put some praise on Acer, so of course it's got to be good.

It's funny that no one mentioned MSPaint. So I will. MSPaint - I use this a heck of a lot to do screenshots, quick conversions (PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF), or quick copy/paste/edit stuff. Calc - It's always there. And I'm too lazy to do basic math. Notepad/Notepad++ - I should just get rid of Notepad and make Notepad++ my default program for text files, but this is great for simple as well as advanced editing, quick editing, pasting my scrap, making to-do lists and reminders, or just viewing what's inside an unknown file. Notepad++ wins with a tabbed interface, color coding, and a default context menu item. Windows Media Player - Playing media is just a must. Combined with the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack and we're good to go. VLC - Plays anything that WMP can't. Great for when my curiosity runs amuck, or to check if a file really is a media file. Default context menu item, too. Adobe Photoshop - Image manipulation is just too much fun and just too useful. GIMP is also a very similar and viable (hint: free) alternative. Norton Internet Security Suite 2009 - Faster, lighter, more effective, and it gives me a sense of relief from the stress that comes from Internet threats. 7-zip - Superior compression, context menu options, fast, and free. Better than having to skip registering your 4-year-old evaluation copy of WinZip. WindowBlinds - Windows is ugly. WindowBlinds isn't. Speaking of which... Compiz + Emerald - Linux is nice. Compiz and Emerald makes things prettier. FireFox - Surfing the net has been revolutionized... and I don't want to go back or to anything else. There's no incentive to yet, anyway. I blame FireFox for taking away years of my life due to the Internet now being a safer place to be. Format Factory - No more searching the Internet on how to convert video formats. This does most of it without blinking an eye (or raising a brow). FoxIt PDF Reader - Bye-bye Adobe Reader. I hardly missed your bloated, slow, annoying-update crapware. GoldWave - Batch work, easy audio processing and editing... what more? Google Maps/Earth - When I need to find an HVT to plan my next attack to one day rule the world, Google will be there for me. It's almost TOO useful. Maybe a little scary. Infrarecorder - My free way to burn my CDs and DVDs without resorting to bloatware like Roxio and Nero. (Eat that, Nero Scout.) Launchy 0.0 (first launch) - When I'm too lazy to grab my mouse, I can always count on Alt-Space, typing "f" and hitting enter to load FireFox. Or begin to spell "word" for MS Word. LogMeIn Free - Awesome remote access program. I can now play with my computer at home at work and help my girlfriend with any computer issues... without even being there. For free. Now only if they could make it so that you can remotely turn on your machine... but I have Girlfriend 2.0 to do that for now. MagicDisc - Free virtual CD program. I don't need to go into detail here. RocketDock - Free way to emulate the purdy OSX application bar... and it's actually better. (Avant Window Navigator is great for Linux too... minus the headache of adding launchers.) GMail - E-mail, with tons of features, with built-in IM support for AIM, which makes me realize that I don't really need Trillian anymore. Now only if everyone I knew was on GChat or AIM... uTorrent - 'Nuff said. Microsoft Office XP/OpenOffice - Because I refuse to update to 2007. That and the suite includes everything I'll need to stay somewhat productive.

In theory, prefetching makes sense, so it makes sense to add the prefetch switch to make FireFox load faster. Judging from the blogger, I'm going to go out on a limb and agree with him. However, speaking of prefetching... there is a FireFox preloader that drastically cuts intial load times for FireFox... at the cost of adding some boot time to your startup. I'm using it now on my work computer and it does work (cutting my FF load to 4 seconds)... but one thing that annoys me a bit is that sometimes when the preloader kicks in, it opens up a "windowless" window (only the title bar shows, with no text and just the FF icon), and that sticks around, which means that sometimes it has the tendency to make you lose out on all your previous tabs (if you have that option enabled). If you want, though, you can give it a shot.

AlienWare is Dell. They bought/merged a while ago. AlienWare is usually associated with high performance, but with that performance comes top dollar prices. I can actually relate AlienWare with anything Apple: you won't find either brand with new products for under $1000, I don't think. From what I'm hearing and have heard about Apple's computers and OSX, it can be a viable solution, but not one that fits your budget. If having OSX and/or snagging the latest trendy gig is a priority, I would look on eBay to see if you can find some Apple laptops for less than $1000. I haven't looked at Apple laptops at all because they are cost-prohibitive to me, but they may boast good hardware design. (Read my previous post.) Another potential issue that I would think would exist with AlienWare is heat. If you're looking to buy into AlienWare performance (and the logo, as Ash-Bash mentioned), performance generates heat, which demands a good cooling solution and laptop design/layout. (Again, read my previous post.) But again, as with Apple, I don't think you could find any AlienWare products new for under $1000 unless you shop around for used laptops on eBay or wherever else.

PM or have Tramposch post here. He has Windows 7 and promised benchmarks... which haven't been updated on his thread.

This is a very subjective topic.Dell's are branded as budgetary laptops, but I wasn't too unhappy with mine. I used to own a Dell Inspiron 8600... not a bad machine, but I don't like how they lock down the BIOS so that you can't do anything with the hardware, and I don't like how Dell has their super-secret-squirrel keyboard shortcuts that you need to call tech support with. If you're a little tech-savvy, I would try another brand, but Dells are not bad. I also hear decent to good things about the XPS line and their Studio line. The customer service is decent, but I don't know how it's like today. (The only things I've done with tech support would include trying to restore a hard drive and ordering a new keyboard, both of which were okay experiences.) I am now currently using my girlfriend's Dell Inspiron i1501, and after a few coffee spills, a replaced keyboard, a supposedly-dead battery/faulty power supply that I fixed later on with ease, it still runs decently for a "cheap laptop."I love HPs because I own two of them, and I haven't had too much to deal with concerning hardware issues. I bought a Pavilion zd8000 back in the day mainly to do laptop gaming (of course, right before they started beefing up graphic capability in laptops), and besides the known heat issues, the zd8000 has suffered through one dead battery (due to the heat) but nothing else. I usually leave it plugged in anyway and keep it raised to promote airflow to get as much life out of the laptop as I can (as it is classified as a desktop replacement). I also bought a tc1100 tablet PC back in the day on eBay with nothing else included... and the resulting call to tech support was actually quite pleasant with getting Windows XP TPC edition and driver CDs shipped to my house. Quick and to the point... but of course, that was my experience.I'm working off of a company Toshiba Satellite Pro A6100, and I'm surprised that it isn't dead yet. The onboard power board is faulty as it isn't able to charge the battery at all (which I tried to fix myself with no avail), the keyboard's mouse nub likes to trail in random directions with age (even after having replaced the entire keyboard), the battery might be dead (I don't know if it is or not), but the darn thing still works. I haven't talked to tech support at all because it is a company laptop serviced by our super-competent IT guy but hey, I can't complain too much... until I have to push out mission-critical stuff off of a 6+ year old laptop. In all reality, if you want the best bang for your buck (and I don't mean the most amount of power for the least amount of money), look at the design of the laptop itself. Scrutinize it. (It really helps if you have the laptop in hand before purchasing it.) Heat is a component killer. The reason why I think Toshiba sucks is because of the critical component failure rate... people love to complain about hard drive failures, but on closer inspection, some Toshiba laptops house their battery near their hard drive bays. Poor airflow will result in future problems later. See how many fans the case has, and see if the fans are even producing an effective airflow that actually takes heat AWAY from the system. Make sure that heat-heavy components like the CPU or the GPU aren't close to the hard drive, and it's best if they're near the outer part of the laptop layout as opposed to being located moreso internally.Of course, if you're not very tech-savvy, tech support might be something you should look into. The only way to actually research this would be by peer reviews, but remember that peer reviews create a skewed outlook on things because most people will go online to post complaints rather than praise the company they bought from.Also, when you finally make a choice, do research on common issues with that make and model of laptop. My zd8000 was known for heat, especially near the right palmrest, and knowing that I elevated the laptop, snagged an external keyboard, and had an oscillating room fan blowing on that thing 24/7. (But I'm ghetto like that.) Research problems that you're GOING to have and take preventative measures accordingly. (I never had any real issues with any of my Dells or the HP tc1100... except for losing the pen tip to the stylus for the TPC. And if you buy an older model, be prepared to pay more for hard-to-find parts.)In the end, I think that for the most part, you'll be happy with your purchase IF you do your research. Brand names can be important as far as quality goes, but every company has a few lemons. Avoid the lemon and make as educated of a purchase as you can.

I think the cheapest thing that you can do would be the cold air intake. To optimize the usage of increased air flow, though, you should try to find a buddy or a shop to do any adjustments to the onboard computer, if need be.An exhaust system is a very expensive way to go. From what I can remember, those start at about $200 for the complete gig, but it does decrease restriction and allows for a better, smoother circulation of exhaust. Is it worth $200+? I'm thinking not, IMO.I have a K&N washable reusable air filter for my Honda Civic and I have to say that the idea is awesome, but you have to be careful when "washing" it. Don't bend it too far to get at the dirt and dust, and I would try to clean it out dry before submersing it in water and trying to clean it that way. And of course, it's imperative that it's dry before putting it back into the air filter housing.You can also work on lightening your load, like taking out your spare (your discretion), any unnecessary items, or heck, take out the backseat. One thing that did wonders for my car just recently was cleaning out my fuel injection system and throttle. Midas recommended it to me and it made sense, and since I haven't done that in the history of owning the used car for a couple of years, I figured I'd do it (even though the throttle plate wasn't very dirty). After the cleaning, the engine sounds much "throatier" and has that low tone of a ricer with a humongous muffler... all with just a cleaning. Sometimes, performance can be gained or restored with simple maintenance... something that we often overlook.I was looking at doing this same sort of gig: to increase the performance of a car for cheap. I backed out of it though because I didn't feel like making modifications to a car without actually knowing for sure what I was doing. The cost to improve performance versus the possibility of screwing up not to mention negligible performance gain kind of turned me off to the whole thing... but I'll tell you this: if you do go with a cold-air intake, make sure you don't live in a wet state.

Oh I know. Never mentioned that they were crappy... I had my Killswitch Engaged kick for a while. You have to admit though that it really is just heavy scream-o... scream-o that I enjoy as opposed to soiling my ears with the garbage they call music nowadays on the radio. And for those of you who don't know anything about Killswitch Engaged should listen to a song of theirs, then compare it to one of the magnificent titles I listed in my previous post. The comparison between the two by my liking of KSE and my disliking of anything like what I mentioned above is kind of humorous, if you think about it. Also, those of you who are ready to attack me for not knowing what music is should take a listen to work by Harry Gregson Williams, listen to Colbie Callait and A Fine Frenzy, listen to Frank Klepacki's latest work with Red Alert 3, pay attention to the guitar work with Avenged Sevenfold, then get back to me about music. (Yes, my music tastes vary from Godsmack to Dido to Static-X to classical compositions.)

Oh, and speaking of Firefox's superiority... While looking up stuff for estimation software, I was using Google when I found a site flagged as suspicious by Google. Out of curiosity, I decided to go to the site anyway by pasting the URL into the location bar, in which then Firefox 3 warned me of suspicious activity on the site. Curious, I decided to do the same thing with IE8 (which I downloaded yesterday). I went to Google, searched the same thing, and clicked on the link, which led me to Google’s warning page. I ignored it again and pasted the URL into the location bar, which IE let me do without any warning whatsoever, except for the ActiveX/plugin warning that I made default (setting it to let me know when a page was going to execute any scripts or any Flash or ActiveX controls and prompting whether to let it go or not). Apparently Microsoft’s anti-phishing/suspicious site index needs improvement… or is non-existent. I know that realistically, this is only one site being cross-checked between browsers, but I just thought it was a funny thing to share, relevant to SM's "browser wars."

What are you guys talking about? Mainstream music couldn't be any better than what we have nowadays! Think of the awesome pop, rap, and "hip-hop" hits that we have playing on the radio nowadays! Lend an ear to these fine examples! Jamie Foxx & T-Pain - Blame It Akon - Sorry, Blame It On Me Asian Pride - Got Rice, B*tch? Seriously, I don't even see how these made it to publication and to the masses. The only gratification that I can get out of these songs is laughing at and making fun of how horrible they are... but then the solemn realization that people actually like this crap settles in. This is coming from someone who listens to absolute garbage for music at times... like Killswitch Engage and Dry Kill Logic's scream-o, heavy stuff, so when I say something's horrible, it's pretty darn horrible for me to compare it to scream-o and then prefer the scream-o. I also enjoy pop, rock, and alternative... but a lot of the "poppy" songs out there are also just as terrible. And people love this stuff.

I see that a heck of a lot of people are trying to throw out the awareness of PTC sites. They seem promising, easy, and too good to be true. And of course, after some digging, I found an awesome BlogPoster that seems to have been exposed to every single site out there. And there are a TON. Clicky I think that those of you who are into PTC should definitely search through this person's blog. Sift through and do your research on your PTC site! I know that she's a little terse with her descriptions, but remember KISS... not to mention that she's a mother of three, a teacher, AND a blogger keeping track of all of these sites. I'm sure that a lot of you are lazy and want to know where the real-paying sites are. For those of you who have ADD and might miss the link on the right-hand side of her BlogSpot main page, I present to you an awesome compilation of sites that do pay, along with how much this same woman has been paid as "proof." Clicky 2 Take it with a grain of salt, add it to your knowledge base of PTCs, follow and worship her very words, or ignore it... it's your call. I hope this helps you guys out. (I'm assuming that her work is legit, but there's no real reason why she would do all of this just to lead you to her recommendations... unless there's a referral link to every single one of them.) Also, if you do decide to sign up for a program that she recommends, please take into consideration who gave you the information. Send her an e-mail or look to see what Andria's member ID for that PTC is, and make her your referral. After all, she did work pretty darn hard to figure all of this stuff out.

Meh.Firefox users will bash Internet Explorer users. Internet Explorer users will defend their browser because they are most likely M$ fanboys or techies with legitimate supporting arguments for using Internet Explorer... because if you actually are arguing about it, you already exclude yourself from the mass majority that use Internet Explorer for the simple fact that it came preinstalled with Windows. Safari and Opera users will tout their speed superiority. And people like my girlfriend will still use AOL because she's used to it, even though it's garbage, in my opinion.Firefox is great because it has a community that actually continually develops and improves on it. It supports add-ons and lets you customize your browsing experience. I love using it, but I also hate the fact that it takes forever to load and the memory usage that supposedly was fixed back in the day when 3.0 came out. I guess it's pretty typical now to see your web browser take up hundreds of MBs of RAM.Internet Explorer has come a long way, but since it's actually catching up with everyone else and even struggling with other aspects, why move to it? (That's if you've used any of the other "superior" browsers.) I like some of the things that IE8 has introduced, like Web Slices and Accelerators, but personally, I'm good with Firefox and throwing on an add-on or two. The sandbox feature seems pretty darn cool, but again, M$ is playing catchup, as Chrome came out with the concept on inception.I didn't like Chrome when it first came out, and I probably should be giving it a chance now. Back in the day, it was released with a Fisher-Price look to it but I did like the idea of sandboxing each tab as its own process, which is what it has over FireFox. (Sometimes FF likes to crash when I visit certain websites... but since I know it's specific to that website, and since I don't care too much about having to restart my previous session, I live with it.) Maybe I'll give Chrome another go, but as of right now, I'm happy with FF.I've never tried Safari and frankly, I don't have much incentive to. Safari does have its speed going for it, so for simple just-go browsing, I'm sure it's great. But again, I like FireFox.Opera actually seems like a browser that I would try, since reading about it always seems like a positive outlook. There are many in-built features with the browser, and I'm sure that it would be something worth trying out, especially if you want to escape the Internet Explorer default.Overall, I think the only browsers that are worth your time would have to be the ones you can find that you can use happily. I have to admit that Internet Explorer 8 has come a long way (finally), but I guess that I've built enough of a caution to avoid IE as much as possible because of ActiveX as well as the fact that tabbed browsing revolutionized how I surfed the web, which doesn't give me any incentive to move back to IE (or any browser) if FF already has it (along with all the other cool features).

@truefusion: Thanks for the clarification through Wikipedia. I am now an expert on kernels. @georgebaileyster: I would imagine that a POSIX only exists on devices like an iPhone or a smartphone or PDA or something where manufacturers could afford to develop an operating system that tailors specifically to the device, unless an enthusiast or a coder would trudge through the toils of programming a personal operating system for a personal computer. However, looking on Wiki suggests otherwise... does this mean that as Leopard is considered a 100% POSIX-compliant OS that it is dynamic in what it loads for drivers for devices and components and leaves any extraneous junk out, as opposed to Windows by default which seems to have a large device library loaded and available to tailor to plug-and-play compatibility with no real hiccups? (Am I understanding this correctly?) Looking into the POSIX article already answers my question of whether Windows supports an ability to enable a POSIX environment, possibly to increase performance by purging unnecessary device drivers... but then again, I think I'm misinterpreting of what the POSIX standards are. @bluedragon: From what I'm reading, I'm understanding this in an opposite light. It seems that a monolithic kernel would be more efficient with the hardware presented because everything is interacted at a kernel level as opposed to going through two layers with a microkernel to get any messages to and from the hardware. Of course, any problems with the monolithic variant will cause issues at the kernel level, and I can see how stability is compromised, whereas microkernels address the issue by providing the layer buffer at a user mode to effectively sandbox the issue and keep the entire kernel (system) from crashing. (It's funny to me to know, however, that I've experienced more of a frequency for versions of Windows and earlier versions of OSX to lock up completely, as opposed to Ubuntu, which has yet to do the same.) I'm sure that OSX has come a long way from the 90's when I used to see the stupid bomb icon indicating a crash that, for the most part, I could never recover from, and I know that Windows has had its many issues, but both being hybrid microkernels in the attempt to benefit from the stability of a microkernel and the efficiency of a monolithic kernel structure, you would think that OSX and the Windows OS lines would be more stable, more efficient, and better than any Linux distribution. Would this be one of the reasons why the Tanebum/Torvald discussion came to be? With all of the reading that I've been doing, I'm rather confused as to why one operating system is favored over another. Theoretically-speaking, the Windows and OSX platforms with hybrid kernels should be better than the largely-monolithic kernel of a Linux distribution or the microkernels of other operating systems. However, the usage makes apparent that Linux seems to be on top of things with its kernel, not being restricted by a buffer as is with a hybrid kernel or a microkernel. Maybe I'm understanding a lot of this stuff incorrectly? If I'm not, why hasn't Linux come out of the woodwork to the consumer market as much as the Windows or OSX platforms? I know that marketing is a large factor, but if the concept of the hybrid kernel hasn't been perfected yet, why is Linux not announcing this sort of information to gather more of an audience? It was apparent that Vista was a resource hog, but with OSX based on the Mach kernel which apparently has some major performance issues concerning overhead, why isn't the Linux community spreading awareness about these shortcomings? Again, I would like to be corrected if I'm spewing out mumbo-jumbo.