rayzoredge

I believe that we've already covered this in another thread.But in a nutshell:The Xbox 360 seems to have a better variety of a gaming library. My research on the two consoles' hardware also suggests that the graphical capability of both systems are nearly the same, although the PS3 may have the 360 beat in processor power. (More to come later.) Games for the 360 will be more plentiful not only because it's been out longer, but because the creation of games by developers isn't as difficult as creating games for the PS3 (in which each processor core needs to be considered). Both machines support high definition video and digital sound. Even with the price drops, the 360 still wins as a gaming console, but if you are interested in the potential of Blu-Ray and opt for more of a full entertainment system, the PS3 can be a better choice, given time for more games and hardware upgrades/developments.

This isn't even a valid argument. You might want to change your question to make it more of a subjective argument; however, the 360 wins hands down.It IS the successor.

This is why you learn to do everything yourself so the only person you can blame is yourself. ESPECIALLY if it was just a simple matter of a wipe-and-reinstall.I am a proud owner of two HP laptops... the Pavilion zd8000 (which I am using now) and the tc1100 tablet PC. I have had no hitches with the machines themselves that shouldn't have happened. The zd8000 suffered a dead battery after over a year's worth of use, but a nice little bit of research on the type of battery it was and how heat quickly degenerated the life of Lithium-ion batteries made it clear why it died. It's partially HP's fault for creating such a beast of a machine that puts out SO much heat (which was a common complain with this laptop), but I don't care... as it is a desktop replacement which basically gives me a functioning, portable computer with enough power to do most of the things that I want it to do. No problems with the tablet PC as of yet... but I don't expect anything.The customer service experiences that I've had with HP themselves have been very limited, as I fix my own problems and do my own work on these machines. The only time I called HP customer support was to get a copy of Windows XP Tablet PC Edition, and without much hassle they sent me recovery and driver CDs plus the copy of Windows... no questions asked. (Makes me wonder if it's THAT easy to get a free, legal copy of Windows...) So if you don't want to deal with possible damage to your computers by incompetent technicians or accidents, just learn to do stuff for yourself. It's a lot easier, more rewarding, and only costs you a little bit of time to learn something that will provide useful now and in the future.

Holy. Crap.I didn't think anybody still even thought about this game, really.For the SNES, this was one of a handful of games that deserve a glance-back and a replay just for old times sake.I actually just bought the soundtrack to the game just recently and discovered orchestral and symphonic compositions by people who were mesmerized by the beauty of the game's in-game music. So there's a definite 10 out of 10 if it can inspire a community of fans to go out and create actual pieces.There's not much that I can really say about this game without seeming fanboy-ish. But Chrono Trigger is definitely up there with the games that every Super Nintendo owner has to have in their gaming library.

Someone asked me about Blu-Ray and this is what I told him: Just my two cents. Source (which is all me, of course, with the help of Wiki) :XD:

The topic is kind of subjective and dependent on if you operate under the coverage area of that carrier or not.I currently use Nextel and as much as I hate the service coverage, I plan on sticking with it simple because I KNOW that Nextel service is actually better with industrial and commercial applications. (That and I love the walkie-talkie feature... I hate using the phone to begin with, but it's nice to be able to just say what needs to be said with a one-way transmission.) We live in the middle of nowhere so it's understandable that Nextel will not erect a tower just to please a few dozen customers. In the world of business, we're not worth it. :XD: There will be more service towers in more urban than rural areas. This is true with all carriers, which is why you will see that most customers will praise Verizon and Cingular/AT&T. Apparently, people are not having much fun with T-Mobile...In all reality, all carriers will be about the same, if not slightly variable with signal levels assuming that you will be able to find the same carriers on each and every service tower. However, take into consideration what each carrier is tailoring themselves for. Nextel/Sprint may be moreso for industrial/commercial; Cingular/Verizon/AT&T/T-Mobile may be more for the average consumer. Think of all the plan features and the phones available before you choose. The only clear winner in this contest is the carrier that provides the most coverage of the area that you will frequent.

I'd like to thank Sean and Watermonkey for their awesome contributions to this thread. I learned quite a bit today that I've been meaning to do my own research on.Thanks to you guys, I'm not going to play the stereotypical Azn and "rice" out my car with a turbo or supercharger. :XD: I appreciate the fuel economy of my Honda Civic and am trying to improve/maintain it as much as I can.I can safely assume that a cold-air intake would stress the system in the same manner? (Of course, not to the same extent.)

Wow. Why does everyone throw up Alienware? Or do we not have any other choices?Sure, they say that money is no object, but that doesn't mean that you should completely take advantage of that offer and pay a few hundred dollars more JUST for the AlienWare name when there may be cheaper alternatives that perform at the same par.I have no personal experience with Alienware. I only know of one person personally that owned an Alienware laptop... and some of the hardware failed on it miserably. He currently does not have a functioning CD/DVD drive.Of course, don't let that sway you away from Alienware. There are far worst cases with different companies.Do some shopping. Go to HP, Dell, Gateway, iBuyPower, CyberPower, etc. Build systems and see how you like the results.Think about what you want to get. Think about what you're going to use the laptop for. In this case, you're probably going to want a machine that's capable of the best gaming possible... which means that you may want to invest in a laptop with an AMD processor. Or you could utilize the laptop to encode and decode multimedia for your media projects... which then an Intel processor would win your bet.Since money is no object, try to snag 4GB of RAM. Throw in the most expensive video card option that is allowed to you. Add a good sound card. Try for the largest screen size possible. Or, if you're looking for portability, the smallest form factor. Think of accessories, add-ons, peripherals.Build multiple designs using different brands, manufacturers, and distributors. Then compare and pick out the most powerful machine. Think about the reputability of the company and do your homework. Put up the product against peer-review. Read extensive and professional articles on that machine, and see if you can see a trend towards or away from that brand.There are a ton of things that a lot of people miss out on doing when shopping for a computer, or anything, rather. You need to know what you're getting, why you're getting it, if it will do what you want it to do, and if it will keep you happy. And of course, you need to see if you're getting the best bang for your buck, but since mommy and daddy are forking over the money, this doesn't apply.

I would also like to note that the PS3's GPU (NVIDIA RSX) boasts slightly-better specifications than the 360's (ATI Xenos), but the 360's GPU hosts an on-board eDRAM die that supposedly keeps a performance load off of the processor itself (similar to AMD's processor design). Of course, you would only care if you absolutely needed to know which console trumps the other in graphical capability. There are various articles and discussions on which is better, but I'm sure they are all biased. Unfortunately, I haven't found any benchmarks for either consoles... but you can rest assured that both consoles are very similar and not that far apart from each other as far as graphics go, I would think. In my opinion, even with PS3's figures, the Xbox 360 may win in the gaming department as the eDRAM developed by NEC would improve gaming performance by a bunch since everything is unified. However, none of this matters if developers don't take advantage of the power of the hardware. :XD:

I personally think that cell phones should stay cell phones and not play as a part of today's fashion.Then again, I could say the same thing about cars, and about computer cases, and et cetera.When it comes to cell phones, the most important thing that you can focus on is functionality. I would rather have a cell phone that works and makes me happy to be able to talk to my friends and family instead of a piece of crap that looks pretty and would make a nice paperweight.Take into consideration again that half the damn world has a stinkin' Razr. It's like the whole iPod deal... if you want to be noticed, go different.But if looks are a must, do the Razr. But don't regret the fact that you may not be able to make some of your calls... which personally is a major pet peeve to me [when things don't work the way they're supposed to].You're going to have the darn thing in your pocket most of the time anyway (unless you snag a holster too). Does it really matter to you how YOU look with a Razr to your ear as you talk on the cell phone, as most people will shun you anyway for talking ON a cell phone? (People-watching is fun, but I'd rather watch people play games than watch someone talk on a cell phone. And we all know fun that is.)

I have to agree if you're going for the gaming aspect. The 360 definitely has a larger game library and it's a pretty good buy for a gaming system. The PS3 surpasses the 360 in specifications but there aren't that many games out there that push these limits. It also depends on what you're a fan of. Xbox 360 already has a ton of successful hits and will be having more (Halo 3, for instance). I haven't been paying attention to the PS3 game library as of late, but I liked Resistance: Fall of Man, along with the upcoming Killzone 2. Of course, I'm only naming off first-person shooters... you'll have to do some homework yourself as to what system hosts better games for whatever genre you enjoy most. There is also the entertainment factor of the systems to consider. Microsoft is supporting HD-DVD, whereas Sony is pushing its Blu-Ray technology with the PS3. If you're looking for a Blu-Ray player, the PS3 will do that AND be a pretty good gaming console at the same time AND be at least several hundred dollars cheaper than a stand-alone BR player. With the 360, you will have to purchase an add-on to play HD-DVD movies. There isn't that much of a difference that most people will see between the two disc formats aside from different, format-exclusive features, but then again, you may not even miss them. The format war is still going on, and usually one side wins. If your decision also includes this factor, hopefully you pick the winner. Both consoles support high definition video output and digital sound output, so no questions there. Both consoles have their ups and downs. Hope this helps out a bit.

Holy crap. I read this when I was in elementary school. I'm glad that they're still having this as part of the curriculum... it is an outstanding read. It's been a while, but some of the things you put out are misinterpreted. I'll let you read more to figure it out.

Since everyone has already jumped in with suggestions and recommendations, I'll throw in my two cents with WHY you should go with either RAM or a video card: RAM dictates how much memory can be utilized to help load programs and keep programs resident in memory. The more RAM you have, the more programs you can load in memory to keep some of the workload off of the processor. What happens is that the processor makes its calculations and uses RAM to store data to work with... and the more RAM you have to work with, the more stuff your computer can have loaded at one time. With an integrated video processor on the motherboard, I believe heavensounds is right on how the integrated video shares memory with your RAM (but up to the dedicated amount... which is usually noted on the computer's specifications). If you upgrade your memory, it won't necessarily help out your computer's graphical power by much if at all... but you'll be able to run programs more efficiently.I'd go with RAM for right now considering you have only 256MB. Windows XP takes up to 512MB just to run well.Now, with a new video card, gaming gets taken to a whole new level, assuming that your games can take advantage of the power. A new graphics card will take off the load off of your RAM (dedicated video memory) and add a GPU and truly-dedicated video memory to your system. Games will be faster, object rendering will be smoother, etc. Things will be peachy. Pay attention to the benchmarks and specifications of the card that you choose... it's not always the case where just more video memory is better. Pay attention to models, variants, and reviews.Hope this helps out.

Umm... I'm not exactly understanding the situation but here's what I can suggest: 1.) Make sure your AutoPlay is on. 2.) You can Explore the CD through My Computer and running setup.exe or the AutoRun manually. 3.) Make sure your CD isn't messed up (scratches, cracks, etc.).

Trillian is outstanding. I haven't switched to anything else since I found it a few years ago.I'm using Trillian Pro, and really the only differences that you'd notice between the Basic and Pro versions are the avatars being displayed on your buddy list, the animated emoticons, and the video conferencing. So you're not really missing out on much.The IRC client does work pretty well... I use it every now and then. I just think that the best feature of it is its ability to consolidate multiple instant messaging platforms into one program... just so you don't have to load up AIM, YIM, MSN, and everything else just to keep in touch with friends and family. The tabbed windows feature is also pretty awesome IMO, so I don't have a ton of IM windows filling up my taskbar.Anyone know of any nifty tricks that you could do with Trillian? I'm sure we could all try to maximize its potential. :XD:

Stories like this make me feel like everyone's got a hidden agenda.I've just recently been used also, but not to the extent that you've experienced. I'm swearing off of girls for a while because of it... I'm glad that you were able to bounce back.Good luck to you and your current relationship.

I'm sorry to hear how things have turned out.I think that you should go ahead and meet up with him just to catch up for old time's sake. You may never have him as a lover again, but wouldn't you rather have him as a best friend at least? (That's been something I pathetically believed in: have them as friends forever than love and possibly leave them forever.)It's a delicate situation: see him and possibly regret it, or not see him and always think of the "what if?" I say you give it a chance and at the very least see him. You'll know what to do next when you do see him, I would think.Sometimes we can't win it all. I hope that isn't the case here.Good luck and best wishes.

My experience: Don't expect anything, and don't expect anything to go smoothly.Go with the flow and see what happens. Don't push anything.The one time I went to go see some girl I met online and chatted online with for over half a year scarred me emotionally for life. But I won't bore you with my story.I hope all goes well with your meeting. :XD:

This is coming from a guy who had a bad experience with meeting people you met online in real life. And no, "she" wasn't a dude. Be careful with this situation. Where does she live? Is she near you? Do you think it might be a good thing to meet up? Don't have any expectations; it's best if you guys just have a good time together... see where it goes on-the-fly and make your decisions then. "More than friends" usually means that she's pursuing a relationship, but we need womenfolk to clarify this phrase since femme fatales can be quite crafty with their words. :XD:

Wow... most of all I read was "FF is the best!" and "FF rocks!" :XD: Has anyone extensively used IE7? It does support tabbed browsing... but that's about all I know, personally. Firefox is actually rather nice to have, since it has tabbed browsing and tons of add-ons that make online life much easier. (That's my repetitive statement for this post... hehe.) I don't see an actual speed increase or anything, but then again I haven't really compared it. Using the about:config tool or the FasterFox add-on may speed things up a bit since it snags data before you actually go to the link and/or increases the data transfer rate using those doo-hickey toggles and switches that I'm not very familiar with explaining. However, one thing that peeves me off about Firefox is the fact that the infamous memory leak really kills off any available RAM you may have. Right now, I am dedicating over 148,000K (145MB) of memory just to Firefox alone with 10 tabs open. (However, there is a tweak to fix this. Click here to find out how, as well as tweak options to optimize your browsing experience.) It's not too bad when you've got 2GB of RAM to play with though. =D

Thanks for the correction. I think I just noticed that they didn't have ImageReady on the side, so I figured they got rid of it. That and I was too lazy to look. :XD: Why would they have Bridge, Device Central, Stock Photos, and all this other crap that sits outside of the program instead of being integrated also? Then again, PSCS3 takes a while to load already unless it's in cache...

I am an anti-Apple person for no reason whatsoever, so don't be surprised when I say...Get a Creative Zen. :XD: If you're willing to throw down the cash for it, one of your best bets would be to snag a Creative Zen Vision: M 60GB. I guarantee that you won't need to buy another MP3 player for quite some time after buying that sucker.I compared it to its iPod equivalent, and although it doesn't KILL the iPod, it certainly has advantages over it that most people may find appealing:* the Zen's color display shows a whopping 262,000 colors to the iPod's 65,000* the Zen "supports DRM-protected WMA files, meaning you can stock it with songs purchased from any number of online stores. The iPod, of course, limits your shopping to iTunes Music Store. The Vision:M is also Janus compatible, so you can stuff it with tunes downloaded from subscription services such as Napster To Go. At the moment, iPod users have no such option."* the iPod though can "grab some first-rate TV shows from iTunes Music Store--a prospect Zen owners will have to envy for the moment."* the Zen "supports a much wider variety of video formats than the iPod: DivX, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, and XviD among them"* the iPod wins with using just one program (iTunes) to manage everything on the MP3 player, whereas "Creative forces you to use four separate programs: ZenCast Manager, Media Explorer, MediaSource Organizer, and Sync Manager"All information quoted from CNet's comparison review... which I just now find out that they took off. (There's just the voting part there now.)

Nothing, really. CS3 fully integrates itself into the suite so that you can use it more easily with everything in the CS3 package (like Flash, Fireworks, etc.). However, it kills ImageReady, so you have to use Fireworks if you want any animations done. (Photoshop will open up animated GIFs, but only show the first frame for you to edit.) I'm not so sure on features. So far, it's not worth the upgrade, IMO.

There is a list you can add your name to that keeps most telemarketers from calling. Click here. Effective for five years. There are also numerous humorous things that people have done to telemarketers just to get back at them. I'm sure a lot of comedians have exploited many a telemarketer for a few laughs. But of course, you can just hang up, or even screen your calls using your answering machine. I'm not sure what else you could do aside from adding yourself to the "Don't Call" list or just hanging up.

It could use some adjustment to contrast, but looks pretty good.Did you do this yourself? If so, Photoshop? Custom brush?(Nice lens flare.) :XD: