Styx

Lavasoft SE has found adware and malware that other programs weren't able to find. i highly recommend it---besides the fact that it's totally free. there's a pro version, but there's little difference.

Photoshop CS is expensive!!but it's worth it. i don't use anything except that.Quite soured on Corel. though the suite in version 12 has some nice things, i'd choose photoshop over Corel anyday. One thing that i feel tips the scales overwhelmingly in favor of photoshop, is that there are thousands of plugins available for photoshop, and only a handful for Corel.

that's nice! heck, if it doesn't work on your system, just restore it to how it was before. other good sites for XP tweaks are http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://www.blackviper.com/ http://www.theeldergeek.com/

total commander FTP works great, though in sticky cases, or when there's trouble with the connection, Filezilla is my FTP uploader of choice. sometimes commander gets stuck on files, and it's annoying to come back to your computer an hour later and find it hasn't done anything.

that's cool. i wish i knew of it when i had those old disks i was trying to recover. though for most of my defective dvds/cds,i found badcopy pro to be able to recover most of it. works for zip/flash drives as well.

hmmmm...have u tried deleting all preferences?that worked for me.other times i just copied over the files that were causing problems from another computer, and photoshop booted up with no problems.I HAVE had several problems though with certain AMD processors.

I'm looking for a kids game called Adiboo, by Sierra Systems.used to have it years back for my siblings, and now i want it for my own kids, but can't find it.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ has good tutorials. i don't know for sure whether they have for Imageready, but they should. tutorials range from extreme beginner, to very advanced.

i use McAfee personal firewall 6.0 don't like Windows firewall and never used it.in addition to mcafee i have the firewall on my router. though it can't be THAT good because mcafee constantly is blocking attempts.

ez cd creator was fine in version 5. 6 and 7 go waaaay too slow.nero has never given me problems, and i look at it as a high-end alternative to EZCD.

pricewise, i would go for an Athlon.but for high-end graphics & video editing, nothing beats a good Pentium.on my older computers, (PII vs K3) the pentium was much faster, tho the gap now is pretty much closed now, IMO.

i use DAP and HiDownload.though hidownload isn't freeware, it has cool extras and supports streaming recording.But Overall, i find DAP to be the most versatile.

I prefer Windows over other OSes. main reason is because 99% of the software is written for windows. games and all run better on windows. graphics programs are better on macs, but i don't have the $ for one. And other than gaming, i prefer XP pro over 98.If you know how to customise it, you can tweak it higher than 98, plus you've got NTFS.Don't know enuf about Linux to give my opinion on it.

Zonealarm is ok. but try running it and norton together and they screw up.Tiny Personal Firewll has gotten rave reviews from friends of mine.I personally prefer the McAfee Suite--running Virusscan 9.0 and Firewall 6.0blocks a hell of a lot of attempts.

though i've tried it on my browser and it didn't do any good. not that it went any slower, but no increase (at least noticeably) either.

oh how i hate laptops! i've got a Compaq Presario 2568CL

nero has a backup to cd/dvd as well. i use that. i don't like the norton control suite. nero has never given me trouble, and i've used it on all windows systems, fast and slow computers.

I use Firefox as my default. but i keep IE 6 as well, because certain sites don't display properly with Firefox.also i don't like the download manager. it cuts off my downloads in the middle if the site doesnt support resume, and every now and then it just stops. the auto-resume feature doesn't work, and i have to start from scratch.But tabbed browsing!!!!!!---makes it worth it all!

here's another good program, that i've used and have had no trouble with:winavi video convertor. download it from http://www.winavi.com/ it basically converts anything to anything.older versions though have quite a few bugs. get at least v6.2

I liked NFS underground, but though older, i also like 6. though my graphics card for some reason won't launch the game...funny, as it plays underground fine.

although the high-end Macs have expansion slots for upgrading. guess Mac fans made a big enuf scene about it. for graphics, a Mac takes the cake. though i use a PC for my personal work as i can't afford a Mac.

I've not yet had a chance to play part 2, but i've completed part 1 several time. --a die-hard fan of NFS, i found underground to be my favorite game yet!