rayzoredge

Outstanding. Thanks for the update. I didn't even think about laptop applications... when I read 2.5", I immediately thought of smaller external drives... which somehow didn't click in with laptop HDs.

That would be the trade-off for cordless freedom. I just buy Energizer AA rechargeables and a 15-minute charge pack. They're always juiced and provide quite a bit of straight play time.

How much is this entire setup going to cost you? You're probably going for the best bang for the buck, but I would suggest that since this machine is already rather superpowered with everything you're putting into it, you might as well throw in a good sound card (SoundBlaster Fatality?), speakers (Creative/Logitech?), and a larger monitor/LCD to boot. The monitor could also use a faster response time to prevent any glitches you may see in fast-paced gaming. I haven't looked at any of the products specifically, but from what it looks like, you will be having a spectacular machine. Can anyone answer that question regarding ATI video cards on a mobo with an NVIDIA chipset? Because I had that question before but never got an answer. The quad-core (and total VRAM) seems like a little bit of overkill... I'd understand if you want to future-proof this as much as possible, but I'm sure you could actually do with just dual-core or even a single, just because most games out there don't even utilize the potential of having more than one processor. Then again, it would make sense to future-proof... To pick out the best video cards to dual, I suggest that you look at specifications and designs aside from the amount of VRAM that it will have onboard (GPU specs: pipelines, shaders, and all that good stuff that I'm still a newbie at). It also looks like the cards you've chosen don't support DX10. If you're going to future-proof with quad-core, you might as well throw in some more for DX10-compatible cards. I'm sure you've see the world of difference that DX10 has to offer compared to DX9.0c. I don't know your computer background but you do seem like you know what you're talking about, so I'll leave you with that.

Dude, you're living one of my dreams. I was looking into getting a 2006 Honda Civic Si in black, but it was just way out of my means and I could not find one near me. It would have been an awesome toy though.I settled for a 2003 Honda Civic EX in black. Standard, of course. Hope you have a ball with it. Don't speed too much.

A co-worker and I were JUST talking about career paths based on college majors and minors. Take a look into a double major with whatever you'd be interested in plus a language, or just minor in the language. Employers would love to snatch you if you knew a language fluently. This applies to the security and ease of snagging a job after school, though. I recommend that you go to several job/career fairs to see how your interests tie in with possible career choices.

I don't see how this is an innovative thing...Is it because SATA is just catching up to IDE capacities? I'm very behind on technology because I have no need to upgrade or to even purchase a desktop for a long, long time... What about eSATA?

Computers will always surpass the capabilities of a console... simply because you can do everything with a computer now. It's a multipurpose machine... you can watch TV, movies, listen to music, play games, do your homework, design a website, program new software, hack existing hardware/software... and you can upgrade it if it's lagging behind on what you want it to do. Out of just consoles, I think the new-gen winners would have to be the Xbox 360 and the Wii. The 360 wins praise for a great gaming library, backwards-compatibility with many older games, and great potential. The Wii is great because it's loads of fun, has an innovative way of play, has great games, and the Virtual Console brings back memories with a growing library of classics from Zelda titles, Mario titles, and hits like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana.I'm a out-with-the-old, in-with-the-new sort of person, but that doesn't mean that I don't enjoy playing something for the sake of nostalgia. And the two consoles I mentioned above do just that. The PS3 also has limited backwards-capability and throws in the entertainment potential of Blu-Ray, but I don't hear enough praise about the console itself to warrant any recommendation. The price tag is also a rather large turn-off, even with the recent price drops.We will have our fan boys in this thread. Choose whatever floats your boat. I know what floats mine.

I haven't done the whole college/dorm thing yet, but I have been on my own (kind of) in the barracks when I was active... which really is kind of dorm-like. =pI think the main things I had that I used a lot were- my computer- my TV- my XBox- my 5.1 6-dvd/cd changer sound system- my toaster/coffee maker machine- my microwave- my fridgeNot to mention the ton of food I always had on hand... so I never had to run down to the dining facility for food.

I think the word you're looking for is "telekinesis." And I would have to go with "psychokinesis." I'm out for personal happiness here. I think I might not so much persuade a woman to love me, but to "strongly suggest" she see my better parts. It would be a hell of a lot easier if people didn't judge by looks right off the back, not to mention that I'm wicked shy. I could also persuade bankers to give me money, walk into a store and ask for things, go into a museum and ask if everyone could leave so I could enjoy it myself, organize a party and persuade people to come hang out with me regardless of their plans, etc. But then again it's messing with free will in some of these cases... which makes for a rather pathetic and isolating use of power. I could just simply ask a multi-millionaire to give some money to me though. And widely televise for all terrorists and criminals to kill themselves. And suggest world peace.

I use Norton Antivirus 2004 for manual scans. I never utilize the auto-protect because I hate resource hogs... and AVs are resource hogs.Over time, I'm hearing good things about Spybot, Avast, AVG, Ad-Aware, Zone Alarm, and a few others I can't remember to name. I would suggest those if you are undecided as to what to choose for an AV.I don't personally use anything but Norton's manual scans just because I try to be very careful and wary of what I download and do on the Internet. Keep in mind these little tips:- Don't open up any e-mails from anyone you don't know.- Don't blindly save things.- Multimedia files do not harbor viruses (like pictures, video, and music files).- However, archives and compressed files (ZIPs, RARs, TARs), regardless of their content, MAY harbor viruses and other malware.- If it looks out of place, not from a trusted source, or you have that gut feeling, don't mess with it.- Don't let just any online application "scan" your computer and "optimize" it. These are usually the culprits that bring in spyware.- Get to know how things work normally on your computer so you know if you've been infected.- If you have been infected, back up all of your work and personal files onto an external hard drive, scan it with multiple AVs (not one AV will find and eliminate everything), then proceed with a clean wipe and reinstall. I recommend you do a complete delete and full format of the hard drive before reinstalling to prevent recurring viruses.Don't rely on AVs to save your butt. Use your head and apply common sense. Prevention is key to maintain a well-functioning machine.

That was priceless. I'll shut up now.

I think our government is kind of screwed up when it comes to priorities. Not to mention that the budget allocation for military funding keeps getting cut.I did some prior research on the XM8, and although I haven't fired the weapon myself, the cons seemed to have been rather insignificant in comparison to the single pro of replacing the M16/M4 as the service member's current firearm. As I've mentioned above, the advantages are rather significant.Sure, the M16 and M4 are still serviceable and by a long shot still decent compared to what we could be firing, but isn't it time for a change?(Of course, we - as in the Army - blow millions of dollars into researching a *BLEEP* camouflage pattern AND THEN actually use it. It doesn't even blend in with anything! What camouflage pattern am I talking about? The ACU. )

Age does matter.I firmly believe in what some people have been saying about psychological maturity... although you two may very much be in love now, your thoughts on life in general will be very different. She might not even know what she's doing, actually, and probably not aware of the fact that there IS this issue to deal with when it comes to love and age difference.I personally don't care for the whole legal issues of the matter, but you also have to watch yourself. I'm not expecting you to be a typical horn dog, but I also do expect you to be male. Don't hold back on sex because of legal issues, but do hold back to keep this from being a typical high school relationship of hormones. Both of you are STILL going through changes physically in your body and may be making some thoughts and decisions BASED on the hormonal changes in your body. It's almost safe to say that you can't morally trust yourself... learn to question your choices at this stage in time. (Hell, we all still need to at all stages in life... just moreso during the high school/college years.)Feel free to enjoy your relationship, but at the same time, keep in mind the legal, psychological, and even physical factors that make this whole situation kind of wary to most other people that may view your relationship in (mostly) a negative way.

Um...Anyone thinking of Heroes at the moment? I would love to have the power of persuasion for a day, provided that the effects would last permanently. It would be hard NOT to mess with free will though. I'm bad.

It's actually hard to determine what's been burned, blown up, and destroyed when we can only go off of what you say. I hope that you didn't get ripped off by that technician. Most guys will take advantage of the fact that the other guy doesn't know what he's doing. (Which is "why" you fried your stuff.) If you heard a pop, I have reason to believe that it is the power supply, and if you don't have a POS PS, your components SHOULD be fine... but if the surge got to any of your components... 'nuff said.But that was to the original post. I just thought of rechecking the latests posts and now we have a new prob...Worst-case scenario is that you fried both hard drives, but that shouldn't have been the case because unless you have a POS PS, the surge should have ONLY fried the PS and left everything else alone. Saint Michael may be right about static electricity, but then again, as good computer builders, we always ground ourselves to something first, right? Test the drives themselves on a computer that works. See if it even recognizes. What sounds do the drives make? Does it make any noise at all? If they do turn on, spin up the disks, but still can't be recognize, you may have fried the logic board WITHIN the hard drive... which leaves you with a working, but non-detectable paperweight. One fix for that case is if you have a spare hard drive of the SAME make and model, you could swap the logic boards (but of course, not only does this void your warranty, but it also is pointless unless in the rare case that you have a "dead" hard drive of the same make and model with an intact logic board). Otherwise, you may be SOL...I've never heard of what Habbo is talking about, since I would believe that you would NOT be able to simply install device drivers onto a HD that "lost" its device drivers. If the logic board is dead, it's dead. No recovery. Even if it supposedly "lost" its drivers, I don't see how you could even access it then, because the computer itself doesn't even see anything in the BIOS. You COULD try specifying generic cylinder/capacity/etc values to see if you could try reviving it, but that would be guesswork that I believe would be in vain.Of course, anyone feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

The hardware in the 360 is better than the Xbox. Therefore, hands down, the 360 is better than its predecessor. Just because you cannot modify the hardware in the 360 doesn't make it inferior to the Xbox itself. Maybe it is better in the ASPECT that it is easier for some people to modify, but that still nullfies the argument because both consoles were not meant to be modded. Now, if you asked the question in terms of which console was better to modify, then this would actually be a valid poll.

I BELIEVE (and don't hold me to this) that for cable and DSL users, you CAN boost your bandwidth (not necessarily speed, but that ties in).Unfortunately, these methods involve modifying the cable/DSL modem itself, as companies create "choke" limits to keep the cable/DSL modem running at a lower limit... probably to cheat you out of a possible 10Mbps? I wouldn't have the slightest clue on why they would do this... unless with the increased bandwidth you increase your traffic with your ISP, which means that there is more machine power dedicated to serving your network requests and stuff, which "slows" (but not too noticeably) everyone else using that ISP location down.But then again, I'm not dead sure.There are also some "hacks" that you can do to increase available bandwidth... like the infamous Windows Update choke. (It keeps 20% of your bandwidth reserved for updates in the background, supposedly.)If you're interested in doing that, go to Start > Run... and run "gpedit.msc". You will be brought to the Groups Policy dialog. What you will be looking for will be located under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > QoS Packet Scheduler (on the left-hand side folder tree). Under that, in the contents you will find a "Limit reservable bandwidth" setting. Double-click on this, ENABLE it, and set the variable to 0%. If you just leave it disabled, supposedly Windows still keeps that 20%... which really wouldn't surprise me. That's all I know for now.

Personally, I'm using Windows XP SP2 and on some off times, I fool around with Kubuntu.I used to praise that Windows 98SE was the best, most stable OS that we had in the Windows world. I never looked at Linux and am still shy of learning a new OS. However, I jumped into XP and the leap wasn't quite that bad. Being hesitant to upgrade to SP2 at first, I am now one of many users that find XP SP2 as the new stable, most compatible Windows OS out there.There are a ton of Linux distributions out there, appealing to many, many tastes. The problem is hardware support. I run two laptops and sometimes Linux doesn't recognize the hardware I do have... which lead to experimenting with sUSE 10 a dead issue after hours and hours of trying to use ndiswrapper to get my wireless networking up and running... and failing. I jumped to FreeSpire because I liked the eye candy, but again I couldn't get it to recognize some of my hardware, notably the fact that I had it on a tablet PC and not being able to use it as a tablet anymore. I'm running Kubuntu now and just for eye candy and experimentation with Linux, which supports all of my hardware and even Beryl, which is a fun way to tell Vista "In your face!" I hear a lot of great stuff about the Ubuntu distributions, and I can safely support them as one of the better Linus OSs that you can use.So, in a nutshell, the "best" OSs would have to be Windows XP SP2, Kubuntu 7.04, and Windows 98SE.But that's what worked for me. This topic is rather subjective.

I listen to almost everything...... except for the crap that's on the radio nowadays. Like most rap, "hip-hop" (I say that because some newer songs are absolute garbage), and some R&B.

Wow. Xisto killed my post? (It didn't post my reply.) What part was confusing? My part or what Wiki had? (It was hard to translate it into English.)

I believe that it is a bit of both. It really depends on many factors, especially factors dealing with the person being exposed to the content. As we live and grow, our behavior develops on the experiences that we go through growing up. We form our reactions, thoughts, and methods of thinking on these foundations. Examples: 1.) If you were sexually abused by a family member, you may develop a fear and general distrust of people altogether. 2.) If you were raised to fight and bully others, you might resort to violence to solve problems in the future. Video games as an influencing factor work the same way, in my opinion. Anything that is able to influence the development of a child will sway their behavior in the future towards the subject matter. Fortunately enough, most kids are old enough to think for themselves and are not exactly swayed to terrorize and kill a bunch of their fellow classmates after playing a game of Halo. However, some kids are literally mentally undeveloped enough to accept the idea that video game violence portrays an acceptance of violence in reality, and thus they will adapt to the idea that violence in society is okay. Basically, what I'm saying is that if you raise a child around violence, that child will most likely have more of a violent behavior as his/her thought process will revolve around their own experiences with the matter, simply because that's all they know. If you have someone that has the mental capacity to determine that violence is not acceptable, yet that person plays many violent games, that person MAY become violent in behavior as a result, but not very likely considering the fact that he/she KNOWS that violence is not acceptable in the real world. That's what I figure. [Hopefully that wasn't confusing.] =p Remember that if you do agree with what I believe in, it is the mental capacity to determine whether violence is right or wrong that would sway a person to become violent as a result of violent video games, which means that this leaves anyone subject to becoming violent as a result of violent video games [and not just younger children]. If I didn't know better, I could very well myself become more of a violent individual because I enjoy violent video games... and so could you.

As much as I loved Chrono Trigger I haven't actually tried Chrono Cross.Maybe if I get into an emulator kick again, I'll give it a whirl.But after I play Chrono Trigger again.

I'm wondering why the XM8 project wasn't continued.The XM8, if further developed, would have replaced most of the military's need for multiple weapons systems by utilizing its modularity to customize the weapon for the user with its ability for attachments and hot-swap capability of barrels and other parts. Some of the weapons that it could have replaced were, if found effective, the M249 SAW, the M203, and the M16 and M4. The XM8 is able to function as a fully-automatic weapon, a sub-machine personal defense weapon, a sniper rifle, or a normal carbine. It seems strange to me how this wasn't enough of a priority for the government to keep funding the XM8 project, since we are trying to go for a more modular approach to our weapons and equipment... or that's what I thought we were going for. I think that it would have at least been a good replacement for the M16, if not the M4. Included advantages over our current weapons includes added durability and life to the barrel (15, 000 rounds WITHOUT cleaning or lubrication and a 20, 000 round lifetime, as opposed to the 7, 000-8, 000 round lifetime of the M16 and M4, which require constant cleaning to perform well) and how each variant (with exception of the PDW variant) comes with the optics preinstalled.Sure, there were some cons to the XM8 system, but as the army is approaching modularity, why not? I'm not sure how successful this weapons system would have been realistically, but theoretically I don't see why it was discontinued. Or should I say, why the government decided to disallocate funding to the project.

Why the iPhone sucks: Disclaimer: This is all out of opinion based on what I've heard, learned, and read about the phone. I don't have one myself and I don't plan on buying one. Ever. The iPhone is an overrated, overpriced, and shoddy piece of equipment slapped with the i legacy and the cultured trend that goes along with it. With its initial price tag of $600, it's one very expensive paperweight. The iPhone, in theory, is a great little gadget to have. Who wouldn't want to do everything that you can do with a laptop and a cell phone, all contained into one little device that fits in the palm of your hand? It is very neat, in theory, that along with this, it looks sleek, shiny, and sexy, as far as technology goes. It features a touchscreen that requires no stylus, relying on touch. It features a 2.0MP camera, multimedia capability, but cannot record video. It is Internet-accessible and also is equipped with Wi-Fi. Yay. Now I get to rip it apart. The screen is made of glass. Which means you can scratch it very easily. The touch screen relies on warmth from the skin. Which leads to frustration in the wintertime. You have to buy an adapter to use some headphones with it. The network protocol the iPhone uses is the lesser EDGE band by AT&T, a step lower than the 3G (the fastest network available by AT&T). Which means that Internet usage will be slow at best. And although Wi-Fi may be faster, who wants to pay $10 per day use for WiFi HotSpots at Starbucks or airports? Every time? It doesn't support instant messaging. There's no keyboard for it anyway, so IMs won't be a huge loss. And typing on a touchscreen is going to be a *BLEEP*... it's already a pain with Blackberries, but at least we all know the QWERTY layout and can "thumb" it. The plans are horrifically exorbitant, starting at $60/mo up to $100/mo, the latter allowing unlimited minutes and limited SMS. The battery is literally built-in. As in Apple didn't think that you would ever need to replace the battery. Ever. Should I keep going? Bottom line is, it's the new thing and everyone's going to jump into the pool. But people should take a second look and realize that the pool is very shallow, because the iPhone is going to make a really bad run for your money. $600 for the 8GB variant + [$60 monthly plan (which is the cheapest) x 2 yr contract (minimum)] = $2040 My phone right now, not being cheap itself: Motorola i580 w/ Nextel $300 for the phone + [$45/mo x 2 yr contract] = $1380 And my plan already has unlimited nights and weekends, which for the iPhone the $80/mo plan offers unlimited nights and weekends. That would bring it up to $2520. And my phone already does everything the iPhone does. Hrm... Any testimonials? And not from iFans of iProducts either.

In the olden days, cameras were made in the stylish fashion of "camera obscura, " where basically a hole was made in the wall of a box, and on the other side there was a film piece there to "capture" the picture. Of course, we've gotten a lot more advanced than that since then. The basic workings of a film camera rely on that basic mentioned concept, but now we use fancy things like mirrors, photographic film/plates, and other doodads to decrease the capture time, improve image quality, and flip the image vertically (since images are always captured upside-down). With the advent of digital cameras, we introduce two different technologies: the charged coupled device and the CMOS. I'll try to explain both, since even Wikipedia realizes that the explanation of physics of operation (at least for the CCD) is as comprehensive as ancient Greek. (No offense to Greeks, of course. Just a figure of speech.) =p - I'll be honest: I read this and didn't understand a damn word. Attempting to decipher from the technical jargon... CCD output comes from the result of input from the electric field generated by the semiconductor and its surrounding electrodes. This output is then "put" onto the silicon wafer, coated with Boron and phosphorous. (The chemicals are the "designations" where the electric signals become attracted to accordingly.) Through the LOCOS process (this needs further reading), there is a gas reaction that forms the channels of color that we are familiar with: RGB. These channels are exclusive from the electric output that comes from the semiconductor and what we see as captured are these channels of color, "rearranged" by the electric output from the semiconductor, to form a picture. Different CCDs can be made by altering the concentration and application of different chemicals, which will produce varying results, such as infrared. That's what I got from CCD. Anyone a photographer that can correct or verify me on this interpretation? - Now CMOS sensors... gah. It sounds like CMOS sensors work on the same tangent as CCDs, except for the fact that the whole device is actually a chip, or die, consisting of several millions of transistors contained on a single silicon wafer. These transistors seem to work by sending and receiving electric signals via gate logic (on and off, going one way or the other), later essentially doing the same thing as the CCD does with distributing this electric signal across a wafer coated with chemicals to "arranging" channels of color. I also forgot to mention that these devices convert light into electrons in order to "interpret" them as electric signals received by the CCD's semiconductor and the CMOS's transistors. Gah. I also just re-discovered HowStuffWorks.com after having read that whole damn Wiki article. Gah... HSW describes the workings of CMOS and CCD in a few simple descriptions: - - If I haven't confused you yet, and to conclude, just be appreciative of your digital cameras. I know not a lot of us use film anymore... Oh, and CCD is better than CMOS, but not by far nowadays, with CMOS catching up to par. Quotes are from Wiki and HowStuffWorks... two awesome sites.