mahesh2k

The reason many office/work based users don't use laptop is because of the reason like - big screen, more computing power and ability of not being portable. In office and university and some work areas, they don't want the machines to be portable. Imagine apple, IBM and MS paying for portable computers and data or internal stuff getting leaked. Same is the case of university.There are some offices which can tolerate portability like say educational insitutes or recruitment offices or others where data is not sensitive to the operation of the business or organization and purely used as a means to get work done. That is why laptop is possible in some cases and not all for the office.Also don't ignore big screen requirement. Some of the Mac machines are sold with bigger screen in audio and video studios, they can use laptop too but big screen is requirement in many office and work situations which laptops can't cater. And we are not talking about 17'' screens, but more bigger than that.Another point is heat. Imagine some of the hot regions in the city in asia like say you live nearby a bakerty/restaurant and the heat generated from those places affect your machines. So portability can't fix these issues all the time. We asians are in hottest region and hardly we are going to see anything below 40 deg in future.

Physical bad sectors appear for many reasons llike say power outage, disk damage or disk dropping etc. So if there are sectors under issue due to these reasons they can be mapped out and kept aside but they can't be recovered. I have seen that sometimes few people install linux and windows on such system use it for some days. After that system eventually increases the bad sectors though this time more of recoverable, but eventually there are many and system won't boot up.This is what happens in most worst case scenario cases and for that reason i am not using such HDD. I am sure that there are people who wish to use HDD for time being and for them mapping of the bad sector is quite needed. Window based utilities are quite common because most of the disk manufacturers are supporting the window based installs more than linux. I am trying to find some good linux packages that can help, so that i can use them under liveusb.

Here is something interesting i have found. The thing is UNetbootin. This software either downloads or uses your own iso to create a bootable system on your USB drive. So it seems it is possible to do this way. I have the 512mb disk ready and just installed the unetbootin and not yet booted to the USB but going to do that once i finish the network stuff on this laptop.Just for the information, those who are using ubuntu can download the Unetbootin from the software center and then run it. Just select the .iso file downloaded or download online using the UNetbootin, so that it can download the software on your system. It also lets use the erase or format option if you need.I am thinking that this should work because most of the time UNetbootin method works for ubuntu and some other distros. It's just not sure that distros like slitaz and puppy are possible. But they have now supporting these distros in their menu options as well.

Here is one more way if it works. I have ubuntu installed which allows me to install a startup disk creator. So i can choose the .iso file and also install the same on USB disk. So is it possible to install that way?I mean by following this method -System > Startup Disk Creator. Here i can choose the .iso file and the USB which enabled me to add the install files. Not sure if this metthod works but if i am not wrong it will let me copy the contents from the .iso file to the USB key. So theoretically this method should work. I'll digg the thread anyway but just asking to save the time.I just checked your thread and found that the method explained there is quite generic and lets anyone boot from the specified boot configuration. I failed to find the puppylinux current version specific instructions over there. Any idea where that reply shows for the puppylinux 5.2.8 specific install notes?

I have this 512 MB USB drive which is more than 4 years old and i want to use it for something better like rescue USB. I know that in order to install the puppy linux one has to create the CD live and then boot into that and then go ahead and install the files on USB. This is quite common and suggested method for the newbies.I am wondering that other than this popular method, is there any other way to install puppylinux on USB disk without having to create livecd? I know some people do it by erasing the disk and sestting boot flag to the USB. But i am not aware of that method. It would be good if there is step by step instruction for this method. just tried some of the youtube and wiki for the alternative method. I found that USB install is not quite easy with the livecd either. Some of the members are having issues on their official forum. So not sure if i want to do this cd basesd method. It is unnecessary in my opinion considering the amount it takes for doing all of this.

Most of the new laptops are light in weight and i don't think there is any issue with keeping them on lap or bed. Only thing is not to keep them on plastic surface because they get heated more quickly if placed on plastic surface and other stuff that increases heat. I have this vostro 1550 laptop which is quite heavy for no idea why. It has heat sink or ventilation stuff, whatever we call it on the left side. It is also quite heavy so i can't keep on my lap and use it.If laptops are lightweight then they are less likely to have venti-lation spots and also the space is tightly adjust. These are the types of laptops which are quite easy to get heated. This is my observation so far and will surely change based on the laptop model. Expensive laptops like Mac AIR usually have more fans and that way they are made to handle the heat.One more thing I have noticed that new li-on batteries can be plugged in to the AC for hours and there is no issue on battery. That doesn't affect the performance of the battery. I am sure that after so many years batteries are now improving. This will also change the heat that circulates within the laptop. So if batteries are taken care of then all that remains is GPU heat.

Is HDD regenerator free or you need to pay for it. I just don't want to pay for the disk tools because system like linux already have most of these tools. As for this paid tool if it is worthy only if it is going be usable on multiple platforms. I am using linux purely with no windows system at all. If this hDD regenerator is going to work only on the windows then it is disadvantage for me.From what you're saying it looks like that they are giving us options to boot into HD in low level write and read mode. That way they are separating the sectors. I am sure it may work in case of the windows. I'll see if i can get my hands on the windows system so that i can get the boot usb or cd and that way i can see if it gets fixed.

Just 4 days left for the ubuntu release and i am sure they have packed the HUD interface with community guidelines. I don't think there was much positive votes for the HUD but in any case they have got enough votes that they soon will make more changes and make it usable system. In order to not to make it hard for old users on learning curve they have kept old gnome shell intact.Gnome classic and the changes in the unity are made to make it easy to use new version of ubuntu. I have seen few youtube videos for the precise pangolin updates. I do feel that they have some interesting stuff coming out for all of us. Just have to wait and see how this is going to work for tablet and the desktop interface.Anyway, going to fireup my torrent this monday for the ubuntu disc. I have some positive expectations from the ubuntu, so lets just see how gnome classic, hud and other stuff in this long term release is going to perform.

Well, this pentium 4 was quite rigid in my opinion. It had issues once in a while but never too much like this too cause the total stopping of it. I guess motherboards are maxed out to its full potential. Also 44 degrees was not the temperature here for quite some time but it was for last 2 or so years. I have noticed earlier temperature to be much cooler.Yordan, it is funny because i am not sure how the PC's or laptops are going to last with such hard testing every summer. Last summer temperature was max 40 and each year it seems it is increasing by 2. So it will be interesting to see how the peoplnie in this part of the world are going to keep their laptops or pcs. I am sure that PC desktop ones can be kept for longer with cooling techniques.It is hard to do this in case of laptops because most of the time we carry it wherever we go and this often bring us in a position where there is too much temperature. That is why i am a bit concerned with this. I am sure that local laptop manufacturers are going to work on it more harder now to keep the hardware performing because otherwise they';ll get more complaints during warranty period.

Thing about borrowing or buying alternate hardware to keep the current going is quite hard for me. I mean processor and motherboard are gone but it seems to me that RAM is working fine and so is HDD and display. So getting older yet functional hardware for say processor and motherboard is not quite easy for me here in my city.I do want to see if there is any option but most likely i have to hold down on that puchase because older hardware here is less likely to be reliable so donating is much better as these are separate items and could be useful for someone else.I finally figured out the reason of the CPU heat which is current environment temperature here. We have 44 degrees here and i this is quite hot for any type of computer regardless of the fan or the other cooling solutions. I am sure laptops can be managed here but even they do need some cool air or else they are going to have issues with temperature here as well.I am planning to get one laptop cooler which will help me keep the current laptop cool and in turn i can also experiment with old setup to see if it performs under the hot temperature which is highly unlikely anyway.

Ubuntu after version 11.04 has higher system requirements. So with gnome 3 and unity 2 the system has to be new or with some higher RAM and GPU. So that way old machines are less likely to work on that. In case of xubuntu, it works fine on the older machine as well as newer machine. The dream linux which was explained in the previous reply was one more distribution that uses xfce and is quite fast in my opinion to run on older machine.Enlightenment desktop or xfwm or openbox based distributions are the one with some higher limit but they do run on the old or limited hardware too. In case of puppy linux which works like a perfect desktop machine from the USB or similar media can be alternative. As the puppy linux only takes around 122 mb or lower system resoources for both HD and RAM.In case of ubuntu, pentium 3 or pentium 4 machines are less likely to run the precisse pangolin which is version 12.04 releasing this monday. As per my test, it is hard to see that working on pentium based computer, so i suggest xfce or openbox or say lxde based distrubution. LXDE is lightweight and good distro compared to ubuntu. LXDE flavor of ubuntu is called lubuntu, you can check it out.

Dreamlinux is XFCE based so yes, its got to be good on low end machines. I do think that now a days xfce is quite high on the system so 256 on wards should be the ram. I have used on 1GB of RAM and noticed that there is no way to check the performance difference between them.You will notice that they are quite the same at the performance even though there is increase in the RAM amount. I do think there should be program like ubuntu friendly that checks the system for the hardware and parts and certifies if it is valid for the respective hardware.In case of dreamlinux there seems to be no way of checking that as there is no such checking program. I would love to check if there is any local group or software that runs programs like ubuntu friendly and manages the certification for other distros. In any case, dreamlinux is good for low end system as there is XFCE. So yes, if anyone is in need of low end machine then this is good system for them to work with. I will check it's performance over virtual machine if i get time.

Just to update this thread, the computer reported in the OP is died. After 10 years of service, this guy finally failed on me. I changed the fan and turned on the machine and since then it fails to bootup. Connections are fine so most likely the CPU or the motherboard is died on me. As the machine is quite old and the components are hardly in demand, i am going to keep the trash at home anyway.I do see that DDR RAM is useful for other people so I may send it to someone who needs it. I also think that some other components are useful as well and most likely i will donate that to the hardware needy organizations like debian or some other NGO. That aside, rest of the stuff will be used for some other purpose. I don;t know what to do with the case lol.As for ahsan's last post, yes i agree that vaccum cleaner or blower usually helps to clean the dust from the laptop. In fact one doesn't need cooler in most situations if there is vaccum cleaner to clean the dust. I have so far managed fine with vaccum cleaner on slow speed to clean the dust. Blower can be good but should be used in caution not to damage by opening laptop and blowing it on temperature sensors.

Yes. Oracle and sybase have commercial db and they have a quite popular userbase. Not to forget like mysql, oracle has more web searches on the web. I have also seen lot of error codes documented quite a lot by users and some suppor forums.The thing about oracle is that it is quite popular among java developers. I dont see many php developers using it and for them mysql and postgres are often the choice. In case of asp developers ms sql server is the choice.My personal opinion is postgres. It is available with most of the webhosts. I have hosting with another company that uses postgres. I didnt find much difference with wordpress or other scripts. So postgres suggestion from me.

Webdna looks like different thing in itself. I am not sure how many people will adopt it as an sql alternative. Besides it is not yet used in any popular online project. If there are any then i dont mind trying it in that case.Postgre sql and ms sql server are two alternatives to mysql. Postgre sql is free but ms sql has feature limited version version. So for php based projects i think postgres is enough for most of the needs.I used postgres and sqlite and i found them fair alternatives to mysql. Syntax and learning curve is not that steep. So worth trying and they are free.

ebuddy and meebo both are not good for video chat. Atleast i didnt found them usable because it is quite hard to set it up for low speed internet connection. Even for fast internet connection i doubt if it is any good.Yahoo messenger is now in gwibber and pidgin so it is possible to use it within ubuntu or any other linux distro. Web based messengers show lot of ads and they often disconnect themselves, so that is why i rarely rely on them.

As for database, i am not sure it is going to work with mysql database. Google and other search engines are using something different which is likely to be custom coded.Google app engine which hosts many apps with search feature makes use of something custom. The syntax for accessing database is quite something different. It doesnt look like sql to me.Couch db, nosql and some file system friendly search engines are in use. I tried python,yaml and app engine for connecting two dbs. I thought about making it look like search engine and it didnt worked for me.

Sphider is one search script that i know which allows meta search operations. It indexes and filters content based on custom code. I have seen some variations of that scripts that is hosted on some sites.Another thing that was usable- yahoo search boss. I am not sure if it is working anymore. As yahoo is merged with bing, i guess the boss api may not be working anymore. Duckduckgo is the search engine that uses it. The thing about search engine is that it is necessary to buid spam index and filters before bot wildely indexes everything. So it all depends on lots of coding, better hosting and diskspace and we're talking about datacenter here.

I am using linux and most of the linux based softwares are open source or atleast free in nature. I am not sure if this is what you want but you can try some of the softwares in linux side. There are chances that these softwares are likely to be in cross platform mode and available for your version of linux. Fontforge is possible to run under linux but some of the members here hate fontforge so maybe you can try some other version of the font creator. My suggestion is to check out some of the font creator software that are capable to run under windows xp. Then use those softwares under wine in linux if you're using linux. Most of the time old windows versions softwares are easy to find and you have plenty of such options for fontforge on alternative.to website. That is the site I usually use for finding the alternative softwares.

I played age of empires in cafes and sometimes online.It was hard to play with online folks because they were very quick when it comes to attacks and then backing their own team players. I realized that playing in cafe with other folks is much better compared to online one because the thrill is something that you can't trade. AOE had two releases. I remember second which was full of campaigns from the kings and some of the old historical attacks. Music and graphics was too good. The narration wasn't boring either. Overall a nice game to play under linux. I am not sure if i can play these under WINE, i am gonna test it anyway.

Exchangers is the only way one can transfer money from paypal to moneybookers. Think of it as a barter kind of system with you giving real money. For example, it is like moving money from one person to another with different set of protocols, here middle man is used to transfer the funds.You join some exchanger site and then ask for the respective exchange. You transfer paypal or moneybookers fund to that persons account, escrow will look after that fund. Then the exchanger will begin his transfer, once transferred that money to escrow then both you get funds from the escrow. That is how the process works in case of exchanger. You can try that on exchanger.com website. In case of private exchange you have to be careful because there is no escrow in between you people and you have to rely on your trust for the same. I have done exchanges for liberty reserve and paypal for quite some time. I use exchanger.com and some of the private exchangers too. I think it does help to some extent but most of the time you have to weed out the bad exchangers. One more thing there are many such hackers, exchangers in yahoo messenger. Never ever begin your side of transfer in exchange because they'll run away and will not do the exchange. That is what I have learned from most of the other exhcnagers and in such case it is better to use the escrow.

I am in currently situation where there are more power cuts per day than they were used to be before. Earlier there was only one in the morning but now there is one in the morning and another at random during 2:30 pm or 4:30pm depending on their mood. This makes it really hard for me to use the desktop machine because it takes more time for the backup to charge. This is the reason I am also considering buying new laptop and replacing the current old one. I do think that desktop is still the best but the time it takes for the power failure and then rest of the daily routine. It makes it very hard to use the UPS and desktop. I am sure that there are similar situation where people are getting more than 10 hours of power loss (its quite common in any asian country). I don't understand how many people manage to maintain the desktop without UPS in such situation. I am sure that one of my hard drive failure was because of sudden power loss and lack of the UPS. Now that I have it though i don't think it helps considering the more power failures these days.

I have just read the news that there are some of the developers from the SMF which are branching out of the SMF project and starting a core framework project for BBs and CMS. I think this is a good start and I am sure SMF forum software will be much improved with this core. I don't know if they are going to totally replace old way of forums but it seems this project is going to deliver the core and some of the additional modules to it. You can read about the smCore on their official developer forum. Some of the nice discussions are there on that forum. I see that they are also thinking about extensions, design and some other coding practices. So it is kinda of start-from-scratch type of project. I am going to keep eye on them because I always wanted to know about the group based projects like these. Something to learn from them is additional benefit. You can check their official site here. You'll find that they're supposed to start work on the core project from 3rd of this month. I am not sure what other news is out about the project. They have so far only declared about contributors and doc team. Coder of noserub protocol norv is one of the contributor of the smcore. I think it is good direction for the SMF and some of the forks that are developed from the SMF code. I know that for quite some time SMF had a lot of issues and that is why this branch was developed out of the SMF. In any case, this is a good news and definitely something to look out for. I am sure smCore will bring back old SMF reputation and will relieve many webmaster from searching for a better BB system. :-)

I have noticed that most of the web apps are using some sort of web framework like codeigniter. All of them are handling sessions by some crtypitc way, atleast to me. I don't see any of them using sessions with typical php session handling way. Then again it all depends on your project. If you're coding from scratch then it is always better to test with something that php offers. Then you can go ahead with the web framework way.By the way, I was kinda confused about how the frameworks or our own code can be used to set the timed sessions. I have seen few payment processors using that type of feature. For example, say liberty reserve that logs you in for 15 minutes and then session gets expired in some time. So that is why the question is, how those sessions are handled by code. I am not sure if these types of sites are using codeigniter, mostly their own custom framework and code.This is an interesting topic, I would see some other responses with code. That will clarify everything for those who have less idea about sessions.

I have seen that over the years the quality and the service of the clicksor inc is going down. You can check the earnings even for the 1k impresisons or clicks. The amount is horrible. Not only they take bigger cut out of your earning but also keep the bid low to attract spam advertisers on the keywords. So that way some crappy ads are likely to be seen on your website. It is also not properly aligned with the ad market.I think they used to be good in the past. They had some decent advertisers and enough funds for the improvement but the google and some other advertisers totally took their advertisers and in turn their publishers. I don't how much of their service is remained good or honest as it was in the past. But some of the experienced members who posted in the past said that this network is no longer worthy for the ads.So if any publisher is reading this should make a not of it and avoid placing their ads on their blog or website. You're not only losing the money but also going to get very spammy and non relevant ads on your pages. That way your site will look dull too and in turn traffic will be reduced over time. That is how I see about this network. I am not sure if any other Xisto member tested this network, it would be good to see if they give comments on that.