keri-j

Whoah! When buying a PC there is a LOT to think about... I'm gonna try and help you with it now Future Proofing: you're not going to want a PC that becomes obselete in a month or so, which is why you've got to make sure when you buy a computer that you can upgrade the parts in it so that it's compliant with all the common standards, has all the right ports, supports the graphics cards needed for future game etc. For instance, look at the specs of my MacBook Pro: -Intel T7800 processor (dual core at 2.6GHz) -200GB hard drive at 7200 rpm -4GB RAM at 667MHz -GeForce 8600M GT grahics with 256MB VRAM -1920x1200 screen This is all I'm going to need for a long time. I have a fast enough processor and enough RAM that my laptop will be considered powerful for quite a bit of time to come, although this power comes at a price. The graphics I have are enough for what I use, they're fit for purpose, all I do is play small games now and again, edit photos, browse the web and play media, which it can handle with ease. I have a big enough hard drive to store all my files and media etc. And if I need extra space, I will invest in external storage. Either an external hard drive or networked storage will do. You get the idea of future proofing now... Value for Money: Obviously you'll want something that's good value for money. I suggest you buy your PC off of Dell. The reason they're cheaper is that they don't have any stores, so they don't have to pay rent for the location, wages for shop staff etc. and they offer good deal. I, personally, have bought a PC from Dell, and a few accessories, and have been happy with what I have purchased. Something you'll want to think about is that the further in to the future you go, the better the PC you get for your money, so maybe you should decide exactly what PC to get closer to when you're your getting your money. Operating System: Choosing what operating system you use is important as well. Personally, I despise Vista. It takes up way too much system resources, is confusing, has a very bloated GUI and is just generally annoying to me. You may have a different experience of it. It does have good multimedia capabilities, and the most important thing of all about it... DirectX 10. A lot of games in the future are going to require this, and it's only on Vista. I used to use XP Pro and liked it, it had it's flaws... but it worked (for the most part). Now I use Mac OS X and it's just fantastic. It's quick and responsive, it looks good, it's functional and everything works like it's supposed to. Of course, Apple hardware comes at it's price... which, incidentally, is quite high. Also, running Vista with 1GB RAM wouldn't be too fast. What I would do: I have good hardware skills and have built many a computer, for gaming, networked storage, local media server, web server, ftp server and across many OSs (Windows 2000, XP, Vista and many Linux distributions), so what I would do is buy all the parts needed and assemble them myself. Or, if I'm feeling lazy, I'd buy a barebones system (a system with all the basics like case, motherboard, power supply etc. You buy the processor, RAM and hard drives seperately). Whatever you do, good luck What I recommend is that you check the Dell website for good deals on PCs near to your specs nearer the time you expect your money. Anyone care to add anything else to that?

I think the dude ment more like the type of qualities you try to achieve through selective breeding by "good". More healthy, resistant to disease, fine fur, no genetic disorders maybe. The best thing I can suggest is to look for a kitten with a good coat of fur (nice and shiny), no obvious medical disorders (simply because treatments for animals cost a fortune, so much so that I've heard of people getting rid of cats just because they had epilepsy and they couldn't pay for the medication) and a good lineage!! (ie parents were healthy cats etc.) Good luck! And remember, as it's coming close to that time, a cat is for life not just for Christmas! (That said, kittens are so darn cute!)

Y'know a really annoying thing about Internet Explorer (possibly not 7.0+ though) almost always when there's a faulty internet connection or no connection at all and you try to load a page, IE attributes it to a DNS server error. Although, I suppose it is because it can't connect to a DNS server to translate the domain name in to an IP address. Still, very annoying if you're a newbie to the whole computer thing and are trying to figure out why you can't connect to the internet. [nostalgia}Ah, the long gone days of n00bdom...[/nostalgia].

Oh, tell me what's the point in life? When all it's full of is trouble and strife. I try and I try and I fail and fail, I'd just like to build a boat and sail and sail, Away from this awful place, this awful state of mind, This awful lack of grace. Sadly, that's all I remember, but I will update it when I remember/find the page in one of my notepads.

I would do it myself, but I'm too lazy. What you do is look up the guitar tab (a bit like sheet music, only easier to understand and can be written in normal text for those who don't know), you then copy a unique line from one of the bars (only one because you can't google them all at once) and you google it with the word 'tab'. Just pick the one that isn't credited to James Blunt.

I use the Cain component of Cain & Abel constantly, but it will only run on a computer with WinPcap installed. I have the installer for this as it is included in the Cain & Abel download package. I have WinPcap installed on my laptop, but would like to run Cain on other computers without having to install WinPcap. When you attempt to run cain without WinPcap installed you get an error message along the lines of "Could not find packet.dll" and the program terminates. I would like to have packet.dll on the same USB drive I have Cain on, so that I can run it without any installation, thus making it a portable app, but need a script to tell Cain where packet.dll is located on my USB drive. that's what I need help with. All I really need to know is what language I would need to write the script in; would it be in a batch file or something? Once I know how it should be written I'll attempt to do said writing with a friend, but any help offered would be greatly appreciated. the Cain & Abel package can be downloaded from it's creator's site at http://www.oxid.it/. I've found that this issue is actually over packet.dll from Cain, not from WinPcap, but would still need WinPcap for wireless functionality. I'm not sure where the Cain & Abel installer places packet.dll, it may be somewhere in C:\WINDOWS, assuming C: is the Hard Drive you installed Cain & Abel to.

After seeing a quick update in a computer magazine, it seems that only HP (Hewlett Packard I think) will be selling PCs with Linux pre-installed after Dell chickened out, and HP will only be doing so on a small scale anyway. I think Dell's decision was sucky from a personal point of view, but obviously a good one from a business point of view. I mean, who's going to buy in to an Operating System they don't know about? Most people I know don't know that there's an alternative to Windows that isn't Mac. If you support Linux being pre-installed on PCs, it seems that the only thing you can do is go out there and inform people of Linux's existentce and how good it really is. Telling them you can boot from a live CD without getting rid of or damaging Windows would be a very good thing if you explain it well or show them yourself, because that kind of task can seem quite daunting to a computer newbie.

Welcome to the forum FaUZaNeVVa, I hope you enjoy it here. And while I like Metal music, I find that Black Metal is a little to heavy for me, unless I'm super-angry...

I see little point in the "What browser do you use?" topic except to discuss the pros and cons of different browsers. It's obvious that most people will use Internet Explorer because almost all computers that are bought for people or sold to them are pre-loaded with Some version of Windows, in which the only browser is Microsoft's own, Internet Explorer. And since a big proportion of first-time computers users are not so computer savvy and do not become so because they do not really need to, they will use what they are given. In the internet Cafe I am typing from, a few of the (Windows 2000/XP) computers have Mozilla Firefox installed on them, most likely by Firefox enthusiasts, and I see that almost all of the people who use the computers use Internet Explorer, because they will stick to what they know. Now I, I was lucky enough to have friends that use Firefox and being the wannabe non-conformist that I am, I rejected IE and installed Firefox, and since then have always thought of IE as a product of "The Man". I am also close to ditching Windows all together, and going with Linux... But anyway, I digress. It has recently come to my attention that computer company Dell will be giving the option of having either Linux or Windows Vista pre-installed on the computer systems it sells, giving Mozilla Firefox and other good browsers a chance. I hope this has been fairly interesting for someone, and I strongly encourage people to download and try Mozilla Firefox, a great (free!) browser. Get Firefox.

I don't know if MS and Yahoo! will ever team up (I kinda doubt it), but all I know is that I hope some day a giant Apple robot kills them all.

It was a horrible, depressing, drunken blur for me.

That thing is so cool, I don't really like the physical design too much, but otherwise it rocks! (Good quality) Music and telecomunications!! I have music on my cell, but it doesn't sound all that good and has a bad capacity. The only problem is that if anyone in my arear had a device that flashy, they would get mugged sooo quickly. And I don't fancy that happening to me.

I don't have any stress management techniques, so I just get angry and frustrated until I cry.

That is way cool! It is slightly lame to take all that time to make a parody project. The COOLEST thing about it is that the email service is ACTUALLY functional, it's really quick too. I wouldn't use it as a serious email service though as it's probably not safe.