dreus

Well, that history bit was surely a refresher :)As technology is constantly evolving, there'll always be a newer, 'flashier', 'better' product on the market. And since we can never keep up, we'll keep shelling out our hard earned dollars to get our hands on these devices."Will the system wars end?" parallels asking the question "Will we suddenly come to a halt and say, 'Hey, you know what, I think we're done. Technology and scientific advancement has reached it's peak and we can go no further'?"...Yeah right.

And I believe you need to be a resident of the United States for the 'free offer' to apply.

Thanks for your help ghostrider.Oddly enough, I tried plugging my LCD monitor from my desktop into the laptop and after hitting the function/display button a few times and watching my laptop screen flicker on and off, the whole 'screen flickers on startup' issue appeared to be resolved.Although I still find the whole ordeal rather bizarre, I'll just be happy with the fact that the annoyance appears to be gone now.Again, I appreciate your input.

In the past, I've always bought the extended warranty when purchasing my electronics: laptop, ipod, printer... all that jazz. I guess I've been lucky but I've never really used / taken advantage of my warranties. I've found that a lot of the warranties extend from 1 yr to 3 yrs which is great if you're looking at the "better be safe than sorry" side of things. But the fact to the matter is (and from personal experience as well), by the time 3 years has passed, the technology has changed so much that the initial cost of the warranty could probably afford a new model of the product that you need repairing.Long story short, I really have to ask myself if warranties are worth it. I guess this is relative to the user. People who really push their equipment ought to opt for a warranty (assuming that using something more increases its chance for malfunction) while users who are sure to take care of their purchases should think twice before shelling out the extra cash. I guess I?m still a believer that if the object is a problematic one, the problems should come through during the one year warranty term.In regard to computers, I feel that desktops are better if they are built than if they are purchased as a bundle. There?s greater customization and of course, knowing what is in your computer (because you?re the one who put it there) is a pretty good feeling.But if you?re thinking of buying a computer now, perhaps reconsider and hold off your purchase for the time being. With Windows Vista being released soon (perhaps sometime this Christmas holiday?) and being as demanding as it is, it would be safe to assume that a lot of the hardware that is out there right now wouldn?t be quite up to par.Ah technology. We can never keep up.

I think the most important thing to do (even before not panicking) would be to stop using the drive. Don't create any new files, delete anything... and if you must, keep it to a minimum.Truth is, if the file is not in the recycle bin, e.g. shift + del file, you'll have a much harder time in recovering the lost file. 3rd party software should never be installed on the same drive as the one where your lost file was once located because odds are it'll overwrite any last bits of what is left of the deleted file. I believe the recommendation was to install on a different computer, hook up the drive with the missing file and only then, should you try to locate and restore it (this is from personal experience after deleting an important folder that I never fully recovered).I guess the lesson here is to be careful and to pay extra attention whenever removing something from your hard drive.

Or VirtualDubMod which is basically a fusion of VirtualDub's video capabilities with NandDub's audio support

Just another quick idea. Have you given a look in the device manager to see if anything can be done to perhaps uninstall/install the drive?Sorry I can't be of more help. Regrets and again, hope you find a way...

I'm not sure how relevant or helpful this might be but did your flash drive happen to come with installation material? I remember that when I bought my usb key, it came along with a CD and software that I had to install before getting it to work properly on my desktop (an old computer, to say the least). However, I didn't have to go through the same process with my much newer laptop; it was instantly recognized.The next bit is more of a hunch, but could be worth a shot.-Hit Start-Run-Type in "cmd"-See if you can locate your drive in the dos prompt thingy. e.g. cd x:/-If so, type "format x:/" and see what happensGood luck!

I agree biscuitrat.To me, old school MS Paint is right up there with other classics like minesweeper and solitaire... simple to use, a bit of a time water... a vintage Windows thing. Although I seldom use paint, it wouldn't feel right for Microsoft to release an OS without those original programs. I'm not too sure how many people would be receptive, not to mention shifting over, to MS Paint2 if it were released though. It seems like a lot of people have already settled on more 'designer labeled' photo/picture/digital art software like photoshop, paint shop pro and the like.

I have a Dell Inspiron5150 and my video card is an Nvidia Geforce FX Go5200. A problem that just came up recently has left me quite puzzled.My laptop monitor flickers to a black screen right at startup. Moments later, everything appears to be fine again. Although the issue doesn't seem particularly life threatening, I was wondering if anyone would know what would cause this and/or ways to fix it. I guess it's more of a nuisance than anything else.I initially didn't have this problem and only noticed it after deframenting my hard drive. I have already reinstalled the latest drivers for the vid card but have had no luck.Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I don't know... I kind of liked Steam.Getting updates was faster and more automatic. You just logged on and everything was pretty much done for you. I also thought that it was a neat feature how you could log into your Steam account on any computer and play your games (or re-download them). There was no fuss to carry around CDs and protecting your cd-keys.I think there were some issues with VAC and Steam's whole "product authorization" thing in general but I believe they got those sorted out pretty quickly.

I used to use WindowBlinds quite religiously to pimp out my desktop. Every week or so, my computer would have a new theme. It was a cool feeling to catch your classmates admiring your desktop when I used to bring my laptop to lecture halls and take notes. http://www.wincustomize.com/ Has hundreds upon thousands of blinds / icons / docklets and other ObjectDock products that have been previously mentioned. Some of those programs though are not free and come with a tacky 'Buy Now' order screen during startup (another reason I eventually uninstalled it) I recent came across this website http://www.crystalxp.net/bricopack/en.htm Which offers a thing called Bricopacks. It's an all-in-one GUI (desktop layout and such) modifier. Just click, install, and "Crayola WinXP" goes bye-bye. I checked it out and it isn't too demanding on ram. I have 512 mb of it and my laptop loads up fully (ready to use as I open an application) in under 45 seconds. I currently using the Longhorn theme but there's also one to deck out your pc to make it look like Windows Vista. Happy desktop pimpin'

That's just wrong. One must really ask, how low are human beings sinking just to save a few bucks? Although I find the whole 'file-sharing is illegal' thing a little overplayed, I do see and well... respect the standpoints of those who object to this. Music, movies, games, whatever were originally made with the intent of those products being sold to the public (yes and I can already hear the opposition's arguments e.g. it should be accessible to everyone, an artist creates for art itself and not for profit etc.) but yeah, lawsuits targetting people who are file-sharing isn't completely unjustified. I download/share quite a bit myself. Do I feel guilty about it? Sometimes. I guess that makes me a hypocrite (which I won't deny) but yeah, I guess there are times when pirating would seem justifiable and other times not so. It's a sketchy topic of discussion. I'd like to see how the RIAA approaches this one though. I can almost imagine the courtroom scene: RIAA "So yeah... downloading is wrong. You're bad people and should be made an example of." Family "But we don't own a computer to download with" *dead silence. owls and crickets can be heard in the background*

Who's the fellow with the top hat? Is that supposed to be Scrooge? Hence Scrooge + Google = Scroogle? or* Scrooge was a miser and this ad-free version of Google parallels the whole "cut back on advertising costs" kind of idea?I tried out the search engine and typed in "Happy Fun Ball" (from the SNL skit) but the results came up as a Google search. I guess it works, but I don't see myself deviating from the original Google anytime soon.Regrets.

HahaI guess we would call that free association? The art of saying (or in this case typing) whatever comes to the mind.I was pretty confused when reading this post but that's what I figured you were trying to get across Justin. Do correct me if I'm wrong. I guess to add further, wouldn't this particular post be in the wrong forum then? I understand that it is miscellaneous chatter but then again, it is under the Google category.Anyway, that's what came to my mind so I jotted it down.Shrug.

That's good advice Alissa.Just wanted to reiterate that open communication will go a long way. It might sound simple enough but really spending the time to talk with your partner about your concerns, reasons you are feeling jealous and really making an effort to work together to overcoming this problem.I wish your relationship well and that you can work things out. Especially a relationship that has gone on for eight years... it would be unfortunate if this issue couldn't be ironed out and you simply "gave up" on it.

I used to play Half-Life quite a bit, in particular the mods Team Fortress Classic and Couter-Strike (yes, the original, not source). After a while though, it got kind of repetitive since most of the servers very seldomly varied their maps. 2fort and de_dust (respectively) went from great to just plain boring.I guess that's the case with deathmatch styled games though. You load up, kill or be killed and then respawn to do it all over again - and that's where the fun is supposed to lie. Thinking about it though, there isn't anything that challenging, saved for improving reflexes and mouse clicking accuracy.To many extent, I agree with you midnight. Such games have become more of a social thing. But why meet and play online when so much more can be achieved by doing something with friends in real life?

I guess there is driving in Mafia (inference drawn from the picture of the car) lol.I agree with TripleH. 'Most Wanted' had sweet graphics and lots of options to supe up your ride. Great sound and a fun soundtrack further added flavour to the mix.How about the Gran Turismo series? They were a big hit in residence... although they seemed to go on forever.

It's incredible how long the Mortal Kombat series has been around. I can still remember playing MK1 and hurling fireballs with Liu Kang (sp?)It was probably one of the goriest games back in the day and heck, I'm willing to bet that it still is (good 'ol brutalities... *combo them to the point of explosion*)Although I haven't played Shaolin Monks for Ps2 (and yes, thanks for the suggestion/recommendation), I did try Deadly Alliance (I think it was on Xbox) last summer at a friend's house. Brutal violence but great fun. The whole 'fighting style' thing kind of left me lost and beaten to a pulp.My personal favourite though, still has to be Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3

I think Ryu has to be one of the most featured characters in fighting (button mashing styled arcade games. From the original Street Fighter series, through the crossover games (X-Men, Marvel, Capcom etc. etc.) Ryu was a playable character in all of them - at least that's what I remember from all the quarters I lost at the local arcade.I've always thought that Ryu was one of the coolest fighters because his reason for fighting was to improve himself. Heck, even his comments after fights (reference to the crossover games) was always an encouragement to the fighter who had lost e.g. "You have to train more" etc.Ken always appeared more arrogant. If I remember correctly though, he was a faster fighter than Ryu. As a result, you'd get more combos and stuff out of the button mashing.I'm suprised nobody has mentioned Akuma or Dan. Or am I just that big of an arcade nerd?Akuma, in my opinion, was the one who really kicked *bottom*.Dan, who tossed explosive autographed pictures of himself, was the one who's *bottom* was kicked.

Practice, practice, practice!Although performing magic tricks and wowing the audience does require a good mastery of the skills that are needed to perform those specific tricks, "presentation" plays a huge part in being able to pull off magic effectively.A good magician is also a good story teller/narrator. Often times, their stories / banter that go along with the magic trick plays a big (if not, even pivotal) role in making the audience believe that the illusion that they are seeing is real.If I remember correctly, PenguinMagic offers a lot of different tricks - some of which look absolutely amazing but once you figure out how it is done, are shocked by what a simple illusion it is.I used to do card tricks, learning and sharing with friends. I also remember reading a few e-books revealing David Blaine card tricks & street magic - many of which are available via thorough Google searching or off Torrents.Recently, I saw this movie clip of an illusion that really blew me away. A magician in Japan appears to specialize in matter-passing tricks e.g. passing a salt shaker through a glass table. This particular trick of his involved removing a hamburger from a poster menu, taking a bite out of it and placing the burger (with bite taken out of it) back into the poster menu. The poster now featured the burger with the bite. He repeated the trick (and result) with a different burger on the menu.Crazy stuff.

I first learned how to code in HTML after taking a computers class in high school. Back then, we had to make a working website as part of a school assignment. All we were allowed to use was notepad. Dreamweaver / Frontpage were strongly discouraged. A few years later (and forgetting most of the HTML I had once learned), I felt like building a website again. I decided to give Dreamweaver a shot and found it to be really easy to use. Lots of flexibility and nifty features. By switching between coder/designer views, I kind of re-taught myself HTML and using the dual view/features, opened up to a lot more tweaking (not to mention getting more done in less time). I haven't worked with Frontpage so I can't really comment on it. I recently toyed around with CSS but I have not quite figured it out yet. There's a website at http://www.cssbeauty.com/ that showcases a lot of nice looking examples of websites that use CSS. Good luck with your web designing!

Sigh.I'm not American but I hear what you're saying. I also sympathize with all the troops who are in Iraq fighting a war that, well let's just say... yeah.In my opinion, Bush is a nimrod. I feel the same way about those who re-elected him but I guess I'll spare the pro-republicans from any further bashing. This whole fear-mongering, terrorism business is too overplayed. Yes, it did have a lot of shock value (and a lot of tragedies to reinforce it) but really...Like you said Brian."I think that we're done"

I think it was only a few days ago when I heard a story on the news about a particular family in Indonesia. This family has international health officials worried because of the possibility that the H5N1 virus was beginning to spread from human to human.All in all, I think that this is no small problem and with the rise of so many diseases and so many ways that they are transmissible, I think that a pandemic disease is rather imminent.

In response to the question: "Why People Get Drunk"... In social settings, alcohol makes the person feel more relaxed. It gives the feeling of a stimulant (puts people in this europhoric state) when it really is in fact a depressant. Regardless, alcohol is a drug and like all drugs, can be addictive. I have nothing against drinking. Heck, I drink a few every now and then myself. What I strongly oppose is irresponsible drinking and I believe that this is the main reason why people get drunk. For a lot of people, having a drink or two at a party can really make conversing easier. It makes them more relaxed and less tense. But it is also during these 'social events' where people are most proned to getting drunk. Just a few quick examples: -the person has already had a few too many drinks. they lose count of how many they have consumed. they keep drinking. -dares from friends to have another -birthday and other parties -holidays and festivities From personal experience, drinking plays a huge part in the university student's life. Most of the time students get drunk are usually times when they are among friends (or at least with somebody else). The whole, "It's Thursday! Let's get sloshed!" kind of vibe results from students wanting to take a break from their studies, to go out and have a good time. This in my opinion, is an absolutely horrible and irresponsible mentality. By all means, have fun! But fun doesn't need to come with a hangover the next morning. For people who drink just for the sake of getting drunk, there must be something wrong with their lives e.g. lack of motivation, no self-esteem, loss of personal integrity, depression... A lot of people think that drinking will take the pain away but in truth, it only adds more salt to the wound.