reith

It's cliche I'm sure, and I'm fine if people flame or get upset by it, but this is something that I've used to help pay for my past MMOs/games/dvds/pcupgrades before. This is a revamped version that doesn't give you the nasty pop-ups, or any spyware of the sort (I've checked it out, but feel free to check for yourself) It doesn't earn you that much, only a penny per click but over time and if you get friends to help you, it really does add up.


With so many people waiting for some new games/videos to come out, I decided to start it up again and have already made a couple dollars rather recently, and within the next few months even with no more referrals I should have enough to cover a month or more of the next games/videos that comes out (It's Aion for me ). Of course it works best with the more people you get to refer. Use it how you want, but I know a lot of my friends who were using it regrettably before me and got me to sign up, used it to pay for their subscriptions for their online games, and helped one of my friends replace his crappy video card.

The main reason I picked this up and use it more than all the others you see is, I used to constantly get spyware, adware and all sorts of popups and crap from the older types of click-to-pay type money making sites, this one is on a 30s timer which means you can open one, resume doing whatever you were doing, go back 30 seconds later, close it and open another. I've been doing this quite luckily so far, I don't think it's a good move to actually buy their clickers but it seems to be a good site and I've checked many times over - I've gotten no spyware, adware, or virus/trojans or anything like that. Use it at your own discretion and if you feel like using it, go ahead, if not, then I hope you find something better, just trying to show some things. Tell me if you want to hear some of the experiences personally my friends and I have had, it's a fairly new site but collectively the three of us have gotten around 115$ total.

Anyways, for people who don't mind it, go ahead and sign up, it says you need an alertpay account but you can just post anything you want until you get one set up, just alter it in the profile tab after you get your account. I'd appreciate a referral but I'm not doing it for me, so if you prefer not to then don't but if you do since I provided a link go ahead, I hope anybody who tries it gets some good use out of it.


http://buxgroup.to/bux/

The server takes around 1 hour to reset. Give it time.

Thanks, I was kind of hoping for something like that. I was sorta freaking out about all my precious files being lost. Thanks for the heads up ^^

I had forgot about my site and about Xisto for a very long time and went far into the negative, and since all my secured files for my site are on my Xisto account, i could not log in via ftp to get them, and for some reason my cpanel wouldn't log me in either. I posted as much as I could and am now in 9.99 credits. I thought my account unsuspended itself after 4 credits? I could use any help in this, if it helps my -credits was something around -40 if I recall correctly. I really need to get my files and am unsure why my ftp won't work anymore, did something change? I know the way credits are displayed changed because it used to be on the forum area, but now it's somewhere else, just curious if something else got changed, or maybe if all my info got deleted, either way I'd really like to know.

Could Microsoft be the next IBM?
Back in November, I wrote about how disappointed I was with both Internet Explorer 7 and Office 2007. I wondered if Microsoft was coming to the end of its reign as the 800-pound gorilla of the computing world.

Since then, I've had a chance to put Windows Vista through its paces. If anything would help the kids in Redmond stay on top, it was this.

And I can say confidently that it's not yet ready for primetime.

Yes, it's pretty, and yes it has some nice new features, but they're nothing gotta-have spectacular. Further, Windows XP works very well, but we live in a society that thinks we need to constantly upgrade our stuff.

With Vista, I think the pressure to upgrade overwhelmed the testing process. Too many things are going wrong.

I tend to push an operating system, mostly because I like to customize things and I'm willing to dive into the innards to do that. And sometimes that causes problems if I tweak the wrong thing.

But Vista's problems started almost immediately after I upgraded, before I did any tinkering. What's more, I saw that others were having all the same troubles.

Bumps in the road ahead

First came the little things.

I had been warned ahead of time that some of my software would suddenly report that it needed to be activated, which turned out to be the case. That wasn't too bad; I just dug up my various serial numbers.

And although I have nothing to sync, Vista's Sync Center insists on putting an icon on my Start bar's notification area. Worse, I couldn't even start it; clicking "Open Sync Center" did nothing. The icon just sat there, taking up space.

Then the real problems started. When I opened a folder that contained both pictures and video files, Windows Explorer crashed. I had to wait several seconds for it to reload, at which point all my desktop icons were rearranged. Turns out it's a problem with how Vista tries to create thumbnail of videos.

Then I discovered that Vista would not allow Firefox to be my default browser no matter how hard I insisted. I even turned off Internet Explorer through the Default Programs control. Still, any link I clicked in an e-mail message would open in IE, while Firefox confidently told me it was set as my default browser.

I finally fixed this by not only disabling IE through Default Programs, but by delving into Vista's Registry and manually changing some keys, replacing IE with Firefox. (If you don't know about editing the Registry, don't worry it's not something for the casual user.)

It worked, but there is no way I should have to resort to editing the Registry to use Firefox the way I wanted to.

But that was nothing compared to what happened next.

Loop-d-loops

I was trying to set up a daily backup, simply copying all my stuff from one hard drive to a second one, without any kind of compression.

Vista stores all my documents and settings in a single folder called /users/AK. So all I had to do was back up that entire folder.

I tried Microsoft's own (and excellent) RoboCopy tool. It gave me an error. I tried 2BrightSparks's (also excellent) SyncBack. Another error. I tried a neat one I found called Karen's Replicator. Ditto.

All three had the same problem: A path was too long. I apparently had too many nested folders.

I looked more closely and found the problem. They were all trying to back up C:\users\AK\Application Data \Application Data \Application Data \Application Data and so on, ad infinitum.

Huh?

I Googled and found the answer. Vista stores its application data in a folder called AppData. Previous version of Windows used \Local Settings\Application Data.

To make sure old programs can find the new folder, Microsoft added hidden files called "junctions." If a program tries to access "Application Data" path, the junction sends it to "AppData."

I had run into an infinite loop. The Application Data folder redirected the software to the AppData folder, where somehow there was some reference back to Application Data. It looped forever.

The only way to fix a screwy junction was by using one of a handful of obscure programs some obscure programmers have created, all of which warn you, essentially, not to use them. Ironic, but true. Still, I messed and removed the troublesome hidden file and my backup software started working.

Other problems ranged from the mildly annoying (there's no simple way to remove items from the "New" context menu) to the absolutely frustrating.

In that latter category is the latest bugaboo: Photoshop suddenly decided to stop working. It told me "an error has been detected with a required application library" and refused to run. No amount of coaxing would change things, and neither running the program as Administrator nor reinstalling helped.

Finally, after much searching, I found the only solution that worked: I got Vista to reveal its hidden Administrator account, which I logged into. Now Photoshop works. So I moved all my stuff and now I log in as Administrator. I'm not supposed to it's a security risk but it's that or do without Photoshop.

Even as Administrator, minor problems persist. Shortcuts to search folders cause Windows Explorer to crash. Photo Gallery doesn't rotate images properly. In short, unlike with XP, when I sit down I'm never 100% sure things are going to work properly.

If someone out there feels like spotting me the cash for a 20-inch, 2.33-GHz iMac and Photoshop, I'd be grateful.

Andrew Kantor is a technology writer, pundit, and know-it-all who covers technology for the Roanoke Times. He's also a former editor for PC Magazine and Internet World. Read more of his work at kantor.com. His column appears Fridays on USATODAY.com.

This was an article written quite some time ago but have you noticed that a lot of the problems still persist, much of the crashing seems to of gone but it's really funny to me to see how much of this still rings true even after so many 'fixes' and 'updates' majority of almost all my games, even dx10 ones run slower on vista than they do on xp, despite my vista having a RAID0 and xp just an old IDE. It's probably different for others out there,b ut i sincerely hope this SP1 update REALLY fixes the problem. I'd love to use vista full time, if only it worked as well as my XP.

Forgive me for the self-reply but instead of making a new topic, I figured i'd post this bit, which for me, not a single thing has changed here, there's still a massive problem with support for Vista from pre-existing companies, even big firewall companies STILL don't have support for many.

Partners Report 10 Annoying Vista Problems As Conflicts Dampen Debut
CRN logo By Paula Rooney, CMP Channel
5:44 PM EST Fri. Feb. 16, 2007
Partners are annoyed by the abundance of software and hardware incompatibilities surfacing as Windows Vista is deployed to more early adopters.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant launched Vista and a companion update called Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update to the market on Jan 30.

That update, KB929427, handles some of the more problematic application incompatibilities, but the nightmare is far from over, partners say.

It's typical for these conflicts to appear shortly after an operating system is released. The big problem with Vista is not only the number of incompatibilities with existing applications but also the lack of drivers for critical hardware components and hardware peripherals, partners say.

One partner said he is surprised by the lack of Vista drivers available for basic hardware components that keep a PC running.

"Customers upgrading Vista in place may find getting support for existing hardware very challenging," said Phil Aldrich, North American Microsoft Practice Manager for Dimension Data North America, a $3.1 billion solution provider.

"Tons of vendors haven't done Vista drivers and that's left a big hole in support. I can understand when it comes to printers and scanners, but when we're talking about hard drives, chipset controllers and video cards, things that run the PC, it's surprising," he said. "It's not just peripherals but primary component manufacturers aren't ready, and that unusual compared to the previous releases [of Windows]."

According to various solution providers contacted by CRN, here are the 10 biggest problems faced by early adopters of Vista out of the gate:

1. Lack of available drivers from ISVs causing application conflicts;

2. Lack of available drivers for existing and new peripherals and hardware components;

3. Buggy drivers;

4. New security feature often flags existing applications as suspicious and interrupts service;

5. Few applications aside from Vista and Office 2007 take advantage of user account control;

6. Customers are confused by Office 2007's ribbon-like user interface;

7. The OS automatically recommends which Vista versions is best for each PC's configuration. This will cause small businesses to download different versions of Vista;

8. Benefits of Vista and Office 2007 running together are not obvious. Partners and IT staff need training for maximum ROI;

9. Deployment isn't easy. Partners should use either Business Desktop Deployment tool, "lite" BDD no-charge tool or other tools;

10. Hardware doesn't run Windows Vista well.

Some speculate hardware and software manufacturers have invested little in updating their current products because they expect most customers will buy a new and associated products to run Vista.

Aldrich maintains, however, that many installed PCs are properly equipped to handle Vista and Office 2007 and the idea that customers must buy new PCs is a myth.

Partners and IT pros are also facing problems with peripherals.

"There's not enough drivers out there. Peripherals manufacturers are not all up to speed with Vista, so be careful what you buy," said Anthony Rodio, chief marketing officer at Supportsoft, a Redwood City, Calif., partner that provides helpdesk support for Windows Vista to enterprises and consumers. "People want to use the functionality in Vista and there are some multimedia, video and sound devices that support Vista, but many peripherals have to catch up."

He noted, for example, that Microsoft's own recently released Zune is not Vista compatible. And he added that one of his technicians recently bought an up-to-date webcam for Windows Vista and it didn't work.

The lack of available Vista drivers for existing software applications is a nightmare, partners say. They don't understand why Microsoft and its ISVs have dragged their feet for so long in developing drivers for existing applications.

The Windows Vista Application Compatibility Update is a package of updates released on Jan. 30 that fixes application compatibility issues with applications like Adobe Photoshop, AVG AntiSpyware, Google Desktop 4 and Roxio Easy Media Creator 7.,5.

But that Vista patch introduced problems with another version of Roxio one partner is using. He reported it to Microsoft but it hasn't been resolved yet.

"So many things just don't work and won't ever work and that's the problem," said Brian Bergin, president of Terabyte Computer, Boone, N.C. "Smartphones, fingerprint scanners, video drivers and both ATI and nVidia's [cards] are questionable at best, not to mention [that] many business applications don't work. Microsoft did such a horrible job of working with vendors on legacy XP-Windows 2000 application-hardware compatibility that everything is up in the air."

One of the beauties of Vista is the added security, but in order to use it, you must have updated hardware and drivers for applications," said Aldrich. "And none of the large ISVs have done it."

New security features in Vista are compounding the incompatibility issues, Supportsoft's Rodio said.

"Windows security is nice, but it may interrupt some existing applications you are running, like a travel service or something that Microsoft flags as spyware and interrupts," Rodio added. "It will likely disrupt stuff you've done in the past."

Incompatibilities dominate the list of most common complaints registered against Windows Vista since it shipped on Jan. 30, say several partners who support consumers and SMB and enterprise customers.

Many ISVs have pledged to release Vista drivers in the second half of 2007 but partners should expect a flood of support calls for customers who deploy this year, experts say.

Paul DeGroot, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft, a newsletter in Kirkland, Wash., said it's not surprising to him that hardware manufacturers are not investing in new Vista drivers for older hardware.

Although some maintain that Vista runs happily on a Pentium 4 with at least 512 megabytes of RAM, he and others expect most customers will migrate to Vista through new PC purchases.

"I'm guessing that most of the hardware manufacturers will initially ship drivers for Vista only for new products that they're shipping about now because there wasn't demand in the marketplace for Vista drivers. In addition, Vista will be heavily related to OEM sales, and the OEMs may be selling compatible accessories with new PCs, so the aftermarket business will see less Vista-specific traffic.

Very weird problem. One thing you should do is plug the 3.5 mm jack into a MP3 Player or other device to make sure its not the source of the sound. Well if your able to use headphones then it should mean theres nothing wrong with your PC audio output. I'm afraid the problem would lie somewhere between your 3.5mm audio cable to the amp and output speakers.
But yeah the reason to plug the speakers into another audio source that you know works is to eliminate the possiblity that the source is causing the problem. If its showing the same problem pluged into another source then its your speaker system. Good luck

Yeah I don't have an mp3 player or anything sadly to plug into it as far as I know, I have a wide array of ports int he back of my computer for speakers, but mine only use the green and black ports, and i'm sure they're working just fine, it's very confusing and incredibly frustrating to know the speakers i spent a lot of money on are going with hardly any wear and tear on them, and being kept in as good of condition as possible from start to finish, I've no clue what else to do, does anybody know of any good speaker systems for the computer that are good quality? I guess i'll have to start looking for new parts.

Edit: Fuse change didn't work, was nothing wrong with the older one tried swapping in the new one anyways and there's no change, no nicks in cable that i can see, i'mjust totally perplexed by this.

After being quite reluctant to do this because I didn't really wanna screw my windows up, I did quite a few of the suggestions and I have noticed a marked increase in performance. I already have a fairly good computer but it makes it start up faster, and open and close programs, especially on XP much faster, which is very nice and a neat little trick to improve your windows functions.

I'm wondering if they'll fix any of the bugs with Vista SP1, does anybody know the date it comes out or what exactly may or may not be in it? Sorry if it's been posted before but I have a very limited amount of time to be on because my net keeps closing down on me x.x. Again I apologize for asking something that's probably been asked a whole lot before. I'm looking forward tot his honestly, though I've no clue what they could add besides more security hole fixes etc to Vista and Xp, but if anybody has a list or an idea of what will be fixed, like NVIDIA's 8800gtx problem with some games, especially FFXI and a fwe others, I'd love to hear about it, or even ifs omebody reads this and has found a fix already for some things, especiallyt he ffxi thing either PM me or email me if you can ^^ thanks again for any info.

This list while maybe a select few are true, most are completely laughable and just downright sad in my opinion. Many of them are hilarious for even suggesting they're as useful and as good as they, I honestly want to know who thought this up, compiled it, and truly acted and thought it was supposed to be some sort of serious "omg this is so speechless/cool" kind of list. It's just utterly retarded, they should be spending time working out bugs, FIXING the 8800gtx & Vista bugs that plague one of the best dx10 gfx cards instead of doing this silly list that nobody really cares about, and most people will be found posting it and laughing at it.

I've searched and searched all over and I can't find anything about this, the speakers are in great condition, while they're several years old they have been taken care of in mint condition all the time, recently the noise has literally cut in half or less, I"ve never had to put my speaker volume up to 50% or higher and now I can't hear a single thing unless i put it up to full blast, I've checked *all* windows controls, all software controls for my drivers, even updated the drivers, switched from XP to vista which all have different drivers and it's the same no matter what the volume seems to freak out on me and very very seldomly the volume goes right back to normal, which is pretty much ear shattering at 100% volume, so I've been stuck using my headphones to be able to hear anything without the risk of needing to change pants or having a heart attack. Does anybody know what I could do to fix it? I'm unable to find out what's wrong and new speakers are impossible right now which really is dampening my video game enthusiasm and enjoyment. If it helps any I hardly ever have my subwoofer on 100% just because the bass gets pretty loud, and I've yet to see if the fuse for the subwoofer is the problem but it really seems like it wouldn't cause the present problem, all connections are secure, I've redone them time and time again and checked them all to make sure nothing is bare or broken in any way. This coupled with my recent outage of net and then going at 32kbps speed instead of the supposed 8mbps, anyways I'd really like any insight on this, I'm really interested in getting somebody to help me, and thanks in advance for any help.

The post seemed to help me and my fiance quite a bit, we're still having problems with our net, but it's made it at least livable until we get the service tech out here. Nothing is really going to stop a 75% packet loss due to signal and other issues >.> btw I dislike Brighthouse Networks Road Runner cable internet with great intensity. But once again thank you for helping me and my fiance out, we were getting constant signal loss, and almost always disconnecting every few moments, but now we're able to stay on, slowly but better than unable to.

Thanks very much for the help, it worked perfectly. If you have a spare moment, do you know exactly why my php include didn't work and the one you used did? Is it because things work better / right with these servers and they didn't on all the other ones I've been on? I'm not entirely sure why the two different codes do the same but one works while the other doesn't. However thank you very much for making it work for me, I greatly appreciate it. And I only put that much code because he said he wanted to see all of the php file >_>

I don't have a .htaccess file, i'm not even sure what it is, the php file is quite large but I'll post it here in code tags regardless.Edit: Deleted coding.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

This takes me to a Chat page Log-in screen.
Should it?

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Should be the link, your link for some reason doesn't show the reithonry.php file which is what i use as my layout and everything, without adding the reithonry.php in there all links head to the chat, not exactly sure why, but try again with that link verbatim and it should show you exactly what I see. Thanks againf or helping jlhaslip, I really do appreciate your assistance. I rechecked the paths again and it seems everything is in order, still unsure of what's wrong, wish I knew how to fix this.

I think we'll need more code than that.
The public_html Folder is the same as you would have at a 'lesser' Hosting Service as your account root folder. The www Folder is merely an alias Folder of public_html. DO NOT DELETE ANY FILES FROM WWW FOLDER, or they will be gone from the public_html Folder, too. Learned that the hard way once.

When the php script throws that error, it cannot find the file you requested for the include. There is something wrong with your paths or permissions. You seem to have handled the permissions side, so let's focus on the path..
Post up the php source for the index.php you are using and are all the files in a single folder? public_html? Do you have anything in your .htaccess file that might be affecting the includes? mod_rewrites? Where is the script from? a CMS?

All files are in my public_html folder, within sub folders and such related to each thing the php calls for, the main problem isn't that it's just one file or one page that's missing, anything aside from the php file that i use is not working, typing it in or otherwise trying to direct to it won't let me see anything on the page, and i'm 99.999% certain all files are in the proper folders that are needed, though I'll check a few more times just to be sure. I'm not exactly sure what more coding you want, I only have one php file and that's in the main public_html directory, many of the other files are in the same directory with a few exceptions in other folders within the public_html folder, should I put public_html or www folder as extensions in the php link, or is leaving it blank sufficient? Currently a link looks exactly ilke this below.

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Should it be id=public_html/chapters.html?

Hey there, assuming this code works on either your local server or another webhost the problem is most likely one of two things.
First off you are right in putting your files into the public_html or www folders as these links lead to the only user-viewable directory, so if you have files elsewhere try moving them to a subdirectory of this folder.

The other possibility is that your file/folder permissions are set up wrong. For testing purposes try setting permissions to all your files and folders to 777, this is especially true for the files you are using the "include" function on or with. Hopefully this will now work fine, but of curse its insecure so youll have to change the permissions to something like 557 or 556, a little research on google will help with that as i rarely use linux i dont often change file permissions.

they are my best suggestions, if the problem persists then post some of the code, especially anywhere where the INCLUDE is used and of course if you havent already then try testing it on another server, it could simply be that the T17 servers are set up differently than the one you are testing on and so a little code modification will solve the issue.

I did exactly as you said for changing the file permissions to 777, still no change at all, I applied all changes to the public_html folder (where all my files for the site are) and applied the changes to all files there within so that I would be sure no file was at the default 750 code. I'll post the code I use to make this happen, all other sites have had no problems, I'm not sure why this is being such a big hassle, but thanks for the advice, I really do appreciate any help I can get.

<td valign="top"><?php include ("$id"); ?></td>

The td is just the area I place it so that all other pages fall within that table area, the php include is where I use the tag reference so that I can just type in "reithonry.php?id=file.html" and that file can remain very small and with only the content on it, while the layout is loaded around it via the reithonry file, this has worked on all hosts that have had php enabled, so I'm confused why it's not working here, perhaps I need to use something else, if there is anything that would allow me to keep one file for layout/design and all other files for pure content that goes within a certain area I'd be more than happy to use that instead, as long as it allows pretty much the same and for my other pages to remain clean with just content on them.

I use a single php file for all my tag decorations and image calling so that each page is lighter and therefore isn't bogged down with the same repeated code over and over, which allows me not only to much easier change my layout and design (as I often do) but once I've finally gotten it up and working here, I realized none of the links work, I doubled, and triple checked them over and over again to make sure I wasn't making a mistake. I swore Xisto supported php, so why isn't it working? Am I missing some sorta code that i need to add, or need to take away, I'd really hate to have to switch to a much lesser host just because of this, but if the problem cannot be resolved I have no real alternative since all my pages cannot be viewed by clicking the links since all have ".php?id=" references. Any help at all would be immensely beneficial and much appreciated. If by chance somebody knows how to be able to view the same site using a php main file w/ all the tags and decorations, on them on the computer (Vista or XP if it makes a diff, i can use both) I would also be very grateful as it'd allow me an alternative to having to switch to another host and instead just looking at them on my computer, and giving it to my fiance who can look at it on hers (though her only option is XP). I know you can look at plain html files and navigate links that call to your C: locations but using the php?id= didn't work and it would show the cannot find error message in ie and firefox, and windows explorer. Anyways, again thank you very much for any help you may have to offer me, even a definitive answer would be beneficial at this point in time.EDIT: By the way, this is the error message that shows up on the page, rather than any of the text i have for it. "Warning: include() [function.include]: Failed opening '' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/lib/http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/;) in /home/reith/public_html/reithonry.php on line 255" without the quotes. Is there perhaps something wrong with the layout of the folders, and would it at all be alleviated if I deleted all the folders in the ftp upload and just had the main site folder hold everything? The public_html and www folders somewhat confuse me as to why they're there, all hosts that i've had, had a very simplistic folder that you just deleted and made in place what you wanted, and i'm unsure of if placing my files in the public_html folder was right or wrong.

Thanks for the info, though I already knew much of it I find it's good to get it out there to the general public more such as you have. And personally I have a 32" LCD monitor but it only cost me 700$ maybe i got lucky or something, it's a Samsung and one of the main reasons LCD's lose their life of viewing is people pump up the brightness all the way (which nearly freakin' blinded me when i first got it) i turned mine down to about 30 not just for life expectancy to increase but also because it's bright enough as it is there, I'm used to an old huge clunker of a CRT 20" screen size that emitted crazy heat and was always at max brightness. So i figure I got several more years added on just by cranking it down to a tolerable viewing level. It's personal preference to me but the blacks look black on my screen, maybe it's 'slightly' more black on plasma, but for something like a computer monitor where you're always running nearly stationary images (desktop certain games etc) there really is no reason to have a plasma since it'll burn in. The future is lcd monitors as they keep making large strides in making them bigger and cheaper, though plasma certainly fuels much of this burst of technology and i welcome it because without competition our markets would crash and be dominated by singular companies that only care about profit. Anyways sorry about the small tangent, I must say I highly advise any LCD, it's come a long way from what i remember it used to be like, and if you can get one with a hard cover polyurethane screen over it that protects the actual LCD screen from smudges and dust and the like, then you're even more in the clear than most of us.

I fully agree too, when you do it yourself you're susceptible to bouts of insecurity, unwillingness or just plain lazy, and having somebody else there to go with you, do the workouts with you as well not only motivates many men like myself competitively but also you help each other, if you're going alone you figure if you skip a day that's okay, no big deal, but if you skip a day with a friend they'll come over and usually drag your *bottom* over to the gym or wherever you go to do the workout and they'll help keep you on track. I know i watch myself much more around my friends that work out with me rather than if i'm alone, i'm not sure why but it definitely gives a shift in mentality and helps me to focus on eating right, being healthier and not being some lazy SOB who never gets off his couch and just watches tv all day. I refuse to be apart of the growing trend of obesity in America and my friends help me to keep on track, I highly suggest each of you try to find somebody to work out with, it really can do wonders for you.

Now that I have a bit more time to talk about the orange box I'd strongly urge anybody who played half life 2 to go out and get this, for 50 mere dollars (less than the price of most new console games) you get Half Life 2, Half Life 2 Episode One, Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half Life 2 Episode 2.If you own one of the previous games you get a 'gift' if you order on steam where you can sell or give it to a friend if you want so that they can play the game for free. It is truly a shift in what I feel and think game designs will be in the future and is definitely a welcomed change in my opinion. Portal while short has immense replay value because after you beat it, you not only get a glimpse of Episode 3 (the person from portal will be in episode 3 and will interact with gordon), but you also get to replay levels with varying difficulty and i'm sure later on people will make some amazing maps for others to play, which will definitely enhance the experience. It's the first game that was a mix of first person physic puzzles, comedy, and fps-ishness. I preordered it and saved 5$ which i'm very glad I did, and I also got to play TF2. If you've ever played TFC (i'm sure many of us have) and you hated when you spawned immediately because that same guy who would spam grenades at the spawn point was sitting there lobbing grenade after grenade, and if you killed him, he'd come right back anyways and there'd be no delay, and usually your team stalemated with the other because they couldn't get past a certain chokepoint because each team insta-respawned after death making the number on each side hardly decrease for any meaningful amount of time. At the same time if you hated how Counter-Strike put you in the death zone until the next round started and you felt you learned from your mistake but couldn't actually get to play again until the round started but by then you couldn't really learn from your mistake because everything was now different and new from a new round, you'll love the perfect balance Team Fortress 2 gives. The average respawn depending on server is around 12s, some have instant spawns for high competition high octane matches which in it's own right is highly fun, but at the same time that's not the norm in the least, and even though it's not been out long at all, there are several valve test servers which have new maps created by themselves that they're testing, and new maps from players are popping up all over the place, people are just having a field day with this game and the new editors. Saying the game is beautiful graphically would be an understatement, and even though I don't get any lag at the highest settings, I've seen the game on the lowest, and it still looks incredibly good compared to TFC, of course you lose a hell of a lot of the beautiful things, but at the same time at least you can play the game and experience the true beauty of the game - the gameplay. Each class is perfectly balanced, of course some classes are stronger in certain areas but they all have their unique advantages and not one class can get over each other's advantage entirely.A few major notes first about Team Fortress 2 that they changed though should be mentioned. First I know it's minimal but the start screen is really cool and much more Team Fortress 2 looking, with a chalkboard that whatever server mod can write aboutt he maps they have etc on there, and for official maps there's an option to watch a video on the map to learn about it and what you should do. You're allowed to pick a team by choosing the Blu door or the Red door, and Blu isn't a typo by the way. Then you get to *see* each of the classes and see them move a bit and they're all categorized into various categories of offense, support, defense so people know what job is where and so they can better help their team. Also in the lower right hand corner you'll see the jobs your team has currently so you can better choose, see no medics but a lot of heavies? Pick a medic to help your team achieve victory and keep those hard hitting big lugs alive. See no scouts but a ton of strong offensives, yet your team never seems to have the gusto and speed to grab the intelligence (which has replaced the 'flag' in this game, much better imo, it also leaves a trail of shimmering papers when you have it which makes it easier to track people, especially faster ones who move out of sight fast) and bring it back to your base for some points. Grenades, something I really hated in team fortress classic are abolished in team fortress 2 thankfully, you'll never see one of those heavy grenades lobbed at you, and then see those annoying red balls pop out and explode killing you, nor will you see the hallucinating grenade of a spy, or the nail grenade of soldier, they're all gone, nobody can throw grenades anymore, the only explosions you'll get are from Demos and Soldiers. And the last major adjustment, nobody has armor, it's all an HP value that you can only get augmented by a medic up to 50% over your total HP, as long as the medic is healing you, you will stay at 150% which is a big boost to the huge HP of a heavy, and it also helps even if you charge somebody up, they can run away still having their high hp even though it falls over time it's good to charge an ally up rushing into combat to help them sustain a few extra hits.The classes are much better balanced and much different really, each class has 3 weapons no more, no less. They have their speciality weapon, Soldier's get a rocket launcher, demo's get a grenade lobber, medics get their healing gun (looks like a ghost buster's thing imo), scouts get a lever action double barreled shotgun, engineers get a shotgun, heavies get a gatling gun, sniper's get their sniper rifle, and pyro's get their flamethrower, and they all have a secondary weapon which is usually some type of gun, most of the classes get a simple shotgun with the exception of the medic, the demo, the scout, the sniper, and the engineer. The medic gets a modified version of the old nail gun, into a really cool looking hypodermic needle launcher that fires rounds very fast, but they don't go very long distances and fall so you have to aim accordingly, demo's get another grenade launcher that launches sticky grenades that can explode whenever they press the alt fire key, so you can defend or set up a trap or just cause the grenade to explode whenever you want it to, you can fire up to 8 at once to be used over that number they start replacing the older ones by making the older ones explode. The scout gets a pistol that is much more accurate over long distances, but not nearly as deadly as their shotgun up close, sniper's get an automatic version of their rifle for dealing with closer foes, and the engineer gets his trusty PDA in which he can construct teleporters, dispensers, and sentry guns. The classes are also much more balanced, for example, the heavy can deal much damage up close, but far away his shots are inaccurate and much of his ammo will be wasted trying to hurt you, this gives somebody like a sniper a prime target to hit in the head and easily kill. In the same right though a scout can move up behind a sniper and shoot him easily a fwe times while they can't see and kill them before they have a chance to do anything, while a pyro just needs a few short seconds to incinerate a scout, and a soldier only needs to fire a few rockets to dismember a pyro, an engineer can setup a sentry to take down most players, and their shotgun is lethal more than the others as well. a demo man can bomb the sentry, while a spy can come up behind and shank whoever they wish in the back killing them instantly, spy's are probably the most changed imo because they can be seen as what job they are on your team so you're not thinking they're another team, and at the samet ime they can disguise themselves to look like another teammate, they take on their name and everything, it's a random name of course, because sometimes i've seen my wife's name (who plays next to me) somewhere where she isn't and i know it's a spy, or sometimes very rarely i've seen my name and it was too late to do anything about it because it was more of a shock than a realization. They can also invisble themselves for a short amount of time allowing them to sneak past the battle and ontot he enemies side so it doesn't look like a red teammember is among the blue not getting shot at or anything. Also it's very easy to trust your teammates without knowing that your teammate really plans on shanking you the moment you give an opportunity, the problem is once you shank you must have an escape plan because your disguise is taken off. Spy's can also plant sappers which drain a sentry's HP and kill it, they can do this while staying cloaked though, it's a good idea to fake being an engineer and dot his as few will suspect you, obvious some classes you don't wanna fake, like a medic because you can't use the healer gun and will be found immediately. As I was saying though it's a very complex and balanced game much more than I would have ever hoped for, with Crysis coming out soon and my previous love of FFXI and the new expansion between these three games there will be no way i'll ever be bored again. One additional tidbit from Valve, is that they're thinking of creating another class later on, which if they do, adding onto the constant maps being created that are incredibly good, and beautiful looking, this game has significant replay value even on the same maps, just change the job you are and all of a sudden you're playing an entirely different game, very fun and I give it a perfect score, I am very glad they delayed almost a full year because it was WELL worth it, if i can i'll try to write some more about the other jobs, I just wanted to give a brief insight to the jobs that I found most different and interesting, I didn't even get to mention the uber charge ability of a medic, or the sniper rifle's charging shot that can insta-kill people, nor the critcal hits which make the game so much more dynamic.

The orange box is probably the best deal on any game you'll ever get, unless you steal it i guess, but legitimately this is the best offer you can ever hope to get. It's over $100 w/o the box as buying separately. I played through HL2:Ep2 the first night I got it and i was incredibly amazed, great lighting, improved graphics, not overusing the shine effect like so many games do now, it was just incredibly awesome and the storyline was just wow. The final battle was the best i've yet to see in any game, and my favorite of course is the interactions with npcs and how things respond. TF2 while i sadly don't get much time to play it, is hands down the best online fps out there and it's incredibly beautiful to look at, i'm glad i have a good rig for it just so I can play them all on max settings without lag, TF2 isn't anything like TFC it's an entirely new game, it feels clean and perfectly executed and all classes are a joy to play like the OP said, I've never gotten the feeling i should be this class to kill everybody like i did in TFC. It's more like "this situation calls for this class" and so you go for that class, and spy is infinitely more fun I get the extreme joy of watching my wife (who is far better than me) play spy and shank multiple people in the back, there's just no more fun or joy than seeing her shanking 6 people on the other team and they have no idea how that happened, then to go see her repeat that very same task time and time again. Hands down the orange box is the best, portal is awesome while a lil short it's a great tie in with the hl2 universe and it's incredibly funny in my opinion.

This will be a larger post but here are some key features (Before I get into brief detail) comparing the two operating systems.

 

VISTA:

CLEANER ICONS

MORE SECURE

READY BOOST

USER ACCOUNT CONTROL

XP:

EASIER NETWORKING

BETTER DRIVER SUPPORT

SUPPORTS MORE APPLICATIONS

MORE SUPPORT AVALIABLE

They are just some basic things associated with the two operating systems.

To choose which version you want of Vista, use the guide below.

 

Ultimate

Windows Vista Ultimate is the choice for those who want to have it all. Easily shift between the worlds of productivity and play with the most complete edition of Windows Vista. Ultimate provides the power, security, and mobility features needed for work, and all the entertainment features that you want for fun.

 

Home Premium

Windows Vista Home Premium is the preferred edition for home desktop and mobile PCs. It provides a breakthrough design that brings your world into sharper focus while delivering the productivity, entertainment, and security you need from your PC at home or on the go.

 

Home Basic

Windows Vista Home Basic is ideal for homes with basic computing needs like e-mail, browsing the Internet, and viewing photos. Easy to set up and maintain, it enables you to quickly find what you're looking for on your PC and the Internet, while providing a more secure environment to help protect you from an unpredictable world.

 

Business

Windows Vista Business is the first edition of Windows designed specifically to meet the needs of small businesses. You'll spend less time on technology support-related issues-so you can spend more time making your business successful. Windows Vista Business is the definitive choice for your business today and tomorrow.

 

 

Enterprise

Designed to significantly lower IT costs and risks, Windows Vista Enterprise meets the needs of large, global organizations with complex IT infrastructures.

 

I currently just use Vista Home Basic and I think that it is an excellent operating system, and the only other feature that I think is really not given in prioritism which is needed would have to be Media Center.

 

I also Dual Boot with XP Professional, for all my computing needs when I need to change operating systems, in the likes of drivers not being supported.

 

Thats the end of my post I hope you've enjoyed reading it.

I fully agree with the need to list this because so many people are putting down Vista that those who may want it turn away because of fear. I built a new rig and put vista on, and i can tell you right now, that having done RAID on both Vista and XP OS installs and start ups, there is NOTHING as good as Vista's natural support, fdd are entirely obsolete for the most part imo, i didn't even buy one for my new computer, seemed like a huge waste of money to me. I ended up just getting what i wanted and everything i needed. I didn't decide to dual boot because honestly i didn't wanna go through the trouble and a lot of other personal hang ups about it, but i use another HDD for xp, and having to setup RAID when i don't even use it for XP was beyond useless and retarded that it took me quite some time to find an old working FDD lying around and plug it in then install windows because it didnt' wanna work without the RAID controllers from the mobo. Vista ont he other hand runs much faster than XP (i mean if you have a crappy rig, it'd be stupid to upgrade and most people i see complaining don't have an up-to-date / good rig to adequately supply vista with what it uses, sure it uses more than it should but i personally like what i get in return and have noticed no degradation in pc/game performance) and it has a handful of features i love.

 

Personally the way you navigate folders and search is so superior to xp that i dread going on xp, which i have to for most of the time because the main game i play is FFXI and for some reason (more a gfx card issue) the 8800gtx won't work right with ffxi on vista, causes massive slow downs and such that many NVIDIA users are angry at them for. Though that's a bit off tangent i've never noticed any unsupported games that i've played having any problems. And i'll be honest I got vista for the future dx10, but hearing about dx10.1 kinda made me spaz a bit but yet again, that's a whole other hang up i have. Since forums are basically huge editorials i'm voicing my opinion for vista, i love the new design ease of use, and if the UAC really is that much of a problem just turn it off and get your own app to cover the firewall if you want that off too, really not that much of a problem and it's leaps ahead for security from XP. I use my own personal anti-virus and firewall that are the best in the game so far, and let defender do it's thing as well, and have noticed no issues. In fact my network speed and pings in games are around 15% lower in most cases, Team Fortress 2 runs supremely better, as does just about any other resource demanding application, supreme commander runs seamlessly, for those interested my setup is fairly simplistic and i'll list it below so that people don't think you can run vista perfectly without a hitch on some ancient set of equipment.

 

CPU: 2.6ghz dual core (Lightly OC'ed myself to 3.2 steady at 32C w/ Eliminator Cooler)

GFX: 8800GTX

HDD: Dual seagates in RAID 0 for 600GB space total

RAM: 2GB XMS Corsair

MOBO: 680i NVIDIA

 

The whole rig with keyboard mouse monitor etc cost just around 2,000 dollars, a good price by far in today's markets i'd say, for those who say they have no money to upgrade, really making your own computer and buying from retailers that don't stiff you on jacked up prices (hullotharbestbuy) and yet still don't have the best you need, is what fails most people, but if you buy from good retailers who have an idea of just what the hell they're doing then upgrading your computer or building a new one from scratch becomes incredibly simplistic and easy, and you have the satisfaction and joy of creating it yourself, knowing all the inner workings because you did them, and most of all knowing that you didn't have to pay that extra couple thousand (depending on who makes it) just to pay somebody else to make *your* computer which really isn't yours after somebody else makes it. Anyways sorry for the tangent/rant/craziness. The point I was getting across is that Vista hardly is as bad as people think it is, as for the FFXI thing for any of you who play, it should be fixed by the next expansion when they upgrade FFXI to DX9 from DX8.

I found a link after some digging and some preliminary info on fusion via wiki, take it with a grain of salt if you wish but they have a lot of sources up there for their info, since I suck at forums and knowing exactly how to do things properly i'll paste an excerpt from it which basically highlights the core as far as is known, still nothing yet on the intel though, and I apologize if i don't do this right.

* Fusion is a heterogeneous multicore microprocessor combining a general purpose processing core(s) and basic graphics core(s) into one processor package, with different clocks for the graphics core and the central processing core
* Four platforms focus on the four different aspects of usage
o General Purpose
o Data Centric
o Graphics Centric
o Media Centric
* The codenamed Bulldozer processor cores, announced in AMD Technology Analyst Day July 2007, will be incorporated with GPU cores to form the first Fusion processors, codenamed the Falcon family, focusing on desktop market with TDP of 10 to 100 Watts.
* An unnamed AMD Vice President expressed that Fusion can be implemented into mobile phones, UMPC and small multimedia devices, this has been further confirmed with the introduction of the codenamed Bobcat processor core focusing on low power consumption (1 to 10 Watts TDP) computations for handheld devices such as UMPC
* The Fusion series processor will see new modular design methodology named "M-SPACE", such that design of future multi-core processors will have a wider range of combinations, as well as gaining enhanced flexibility, thus to minimize the architectural changes for different combinations of components. Benefitted from this initiative by AMD, graphics core can be changed without much re-design of the whole core
* Fusion products will include at least 16 PCI Express (presumably version 2.0) lanes
* The implementation of UVD in silica for full hardware decoding of MPEG2, VC-1 and H.264 video streams on supported softwares
* The first Z-RAM design on a 45 nm fabrication process node was completed in 2006 together with the renewal of Z-RAM license, this is in coincidence with the process node that Fusion processors expected to be fabricated around the timeframe. This also conincide the AMD official roadmap for larger L3 caches after 2009, thus it was rumoured that AMD will likely to feature Z-RAM for larger L3 cache in Fusion products.
* A new set of instructions and development libraries for Fusion were being developed, and was revealed to be a new iteration of SSE, named SSE5, which is announced on the August 30, 2007.
* According to Dave Orton, Fusion will have 10% more pins than a "normal CPU" but he failed to further elaborate on what is a "normal CPU".
* Expected to come in 2008 to 2009 to replace the AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile processor for laptops.

Speed increase

There is to be an expected speed increase with the Fusion. Because the GPU and CPU will be on the same die, information transfer between the CPU and GPU/GPU memory will significantly increase since there will be no need for the information to travel on a bus as there is with current motherboards (resulting in the GPU able to shunt far more data than on the PCI Express bus, due to significantly larger amounts of bandwidth available).

EDIT: Found some info scarce but some at least about the intel version of the fusion, as far as it's knownt hey have not codenamed or admitted anything, though they have severely hinted at going in that direction. A few links will be listed below as sources.

Source 1: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

From the first source it seems pretty clear that intel is trying to keep up with AMD and ATI's merger, but everybody already has a pretty good idea that this near secretive acquisition will not be enough to compete directly and if intel doesn't do something soon AMD will come back on top with their new architecture design and innovation. It would seem only a merger of NVIDIA and Intel would truly be enough to put them both on equal playing grounds, and while NVIDIA is a big catch and very expensive piece, Intel is likely the one company that could pull it off. Considering that NVIDIA is now competing directly with Intel for chipset graphics and the like, it would seem almost as if they are telling Intel that they won't sit idly by. Smart move on NVIDIA's part because hopefully Intel will realize it's best in the long run to take over NVIDIA and that way the two companies can mutually prosper and benefit from each other, much like how AMD and ATI are. However this would likely weaken Intel much like it did to ATI and AMD while the merger went through and all the shifting around happened, but there's no doubt that both companies would greatly prosper together than they can apart. With NVIDIAs foray into muilti-core gpus Intel really could give them a boost tot heir performance and ability, and since GPUs are seeing a greater shift to generalized purposes both would prosper and benefit as well, I also have a link to a neat article about the progression of cpus and gpus and how we're currently at the many core stage for cpu, and the general purpose gpu stage for gpus. Thought they were fun reads and technology never ceases to amaze me, something new and different everyday, and I absolutely love to read about it. If anybody else has any new info lemme know i'd be more than glad to hear it.

Source 2: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Source 3: https://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/31

Source 4: http://analysto.com/blog/2007/09/24/nvidiaintelgpu-vs-cpu/

I believe that hard drives are going to be read by lasers in the future... which should alleviate the problem with hard drive access speed being the bottleneck for performance.
Source

That seems like a long way from actually being able to be implemented in the consumer mainstream... but I'm sure that these prospectives are worst-case scenario. Then again, Intel could be bluffing about its prospective progress in technology to snag the attention of CPU-scrutinizing audiences.

The recent computer advancements have really astounded me too. Just like the holographic storage media that they'll be using soon in place of dvds blu rays etc, and likely they'll use the same type of reading for hard drives stopping most of the wear and tear due to moving parts, and the main issue of RPM speed. If it wasn't for that HDDs would last a lot longer and would no longer be limited by the speed and size of the hdd. Which would also allow for huge amounts of storage. I'm honestly quite sure that a Terrabyte will be the norm in about 5-10yrs. I'm more looking into the exponential future increase of the cores of processors, I'm glad it's going away from pure mhz races since that was heading nowhere fast. Though the main problem I see is that hardware is moving so fast, that software is just now being able to utilize dual cores, quad cores are still not fully utilized even near the amount they should be. I understand why people would think that quad cores aren't worth it yet, they're still faster but really not wholly utilized yet, although it's nice that they're the same socket type so when they are fully utilized and worth the cash spent you can buy one, and plug it in just as easily.

I'd love to see more cores, and alleviating dependency on bigger and better graphics cards because that in itself is just getting incredibly ridiculous. I'm interested in learning more about the fusion processor and the intel counter-part of that, I don't really remember the name, if anybody has a link i'd really appreciate it.

It seems a little too much of a ripoff of C&C3 TS.
Units have the same concept and what not.
But being such a dedicated SC fan, I will def. buy this.

It seems like the same to me honestly, but I'm also a huge SC fan and I would love to be able to play one that doesn't look...well let's face it the old starcrafts look like crap compared to today's RTS games. I would definitely hope that they have the same gameplay and that not a lot has changed, I sometimes hate how RTS are so scatter-brained now with how you have to perform so many duties at once, starcraft was always more fun as you had plenty to do, but it never to the point that it was staggering or down right stupid to make that many tasks you need to do all at once basically. Then again maybe that's just me, but I really can't wait for this to come out.

For those of you out there like me who have both XP and Vista, and already know how to tweak your XP for maximum performance and aesthetic value, but are as clueless as can be on how to do the same in Vista, I found some extremely good tweaks for those people out there and I'll be listing them below, some of these I gathered from various websites and consolidated them into this thread for easier use of navigation rather than looking over tons of googled queries and such, I hope this helps some of you the way it's helped me.

Tip 1: Customize the size of desktop and file icons.
For some time, it has been possible to adjust font size in office documents and Web browsers simply by holding down the CTRL key while rolling your mouse wheel up and down. In Vista, the same action lets you tweak the size of your desktop icons. Just click on an empty area of the desktop, hold down CTRL, and spin your mouse wheel until the icons are the size you want. You can also adjust the size of your file or folder icons in Windows Explorer by doing the same thing. This is extremely handy for viewing thumbnails of images.

Tip 2: Increase SATA drive performance.

This tip “enhances” drive performance by allowing the drive in question to perform more write caching to system memory. The danger is if your system loses power and you do not have a backup power source (UPS), whatever data is cached to system memory will be lost. If you’re the adventurous type and want a bit more responsiveness out of your system, click Start, type Device Manager in the Search box, click the Device Manager, open up the Disk drives tree, right-click a drive, and select Properties. Go to the Policies tab and check “Enable Advanced Performance.” Click OK.


Tip 3: More widescreen Vista wallpapers.

When Microsoft went shopping for panoramic, widescreen wallpapers for Vista, it tapped Hamad Darwish to shoot some photos. Some of his photos made it into the initial shipping version of Vista, but many did not. Now Darwish is offering all of them for download, absolutely free. Some of them are absolutely remarkable, in our opinion, so go ahead and check them out.

Tip 4: Speed up Flip3D.

This tip will be useful for notebook owners or anyone whose PC is packing less than stellar graphics processing power. The Flip3D animation can bog down weaker graphics cards if it has to flip a lot of windows, so this is a tweak that lets you set the number of windows that will be rendered in 3D at one time.

• Click on the Start Button, type regedit in the Search bar, and press Enter.

• Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Microsoft, Windows, and DWM.

• Create a new DWORD and call it Max3DWindows.

• Set the value of this to something between four and nine (“4” and “9”) depending on the performance of your card (a higher number requires more video card power). You should then feel free to experiment to find the best value for your computer. Restart your PC to finalize the change.


Tip 5: Two must-have Sidebar Gadgets.

At first blush, we thought the Windows Sidebar was rather useless. The default Gadgets were not useful (who wants an analog clock when you have a clock on the Taskbar?), and it seemed like a poor rip-off of Yahoo Widgets. However, we’ve now come across some rather useful Gadgets at the Microsoft website.

The first is Multi-Meter, which is the first Gadget we’ve ever seen that can measure CPU activity for multiple cores. You can download it here.

Another Gadget we’re quite fond of is DriveInfo, as it displays the free space on multiple volumes. Since we have several hard drives on our home machines, we love this Gadget. It also allows you to access the drives by simply double-clicking them in the Gadget. Download it here.


Tip 6: Discover what applications are linked to certain processes.

The Processes tab of the Windows XP Task Manager was a confusing, barren wasteland of cryptically-named processes. If you wanted to find out which application was responsible for a certain process, all you could do was to copy down the name of the executable, and then search for it in Windows to locate it or Google it. This was an annoying process. Thankfully, Microsoft has fixed this in Vista by adding an “open file location” option when you right-click any process. Doing so opens the folder the process is running from, which can help you figure out if a certain process can be turned off or not.

You can also click “View” at the top of the Task Manager and click Select Columns to select which columns to display.

Tip 7: Use ReadyBoost.

There’s been a lot of talk about Vista’s ability to use Flash drives to “boost” system performance. Traditionally, Windows will cache files both to system memory and to your hard drive. The cached files on your hard drive reside in the Page File, which is also known as “virtual memory.” The problem with this approach is that even the fastest hard drives are sluggish when compared to flash drives, at least when it comes to seek times, which are nearly instantaneous on solid-state memory. Readyboost tries to address this situation by allowing Vista to use the Flash drive for its Page File, rather than the slow hard drive. It’s important to note that the actual Page File is still cached on the hard drive, but is being accessed from the Flash drive - which means that you're not at risk for losing your data.

So, how do you enable it? Simply insert a “Readyboost capable” Flash drive that is 1GB or larger in capacity into one of your system’s USB ports, and when the pop-up box appears asking what you want to do, scroll down to find the option, “Speed up my system using Windows ReadyBoost.” You can then specify how much space to make available on the device.

This is a hotly-contested feature in Vista as some users claim a decent performance gain (mostly people with less than 1GB of RAM), but others say the benefit is negligible. If you’ve got a spare USB drive laying around, why not give it a shot? We didn't notice a profound difference in performance, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you won't.


Tip 8: Partition drives in Vista.

Back in the XP days, if one wanted to partition a drive from within the OS, he had to purchase expensive, third-party software to do so. Not anymore. Vista includes built-in drive partitioning which is – we can’t believe we’re saying this – totally awesome. The reason it’s so awesome is that you can partition drives on the fly, from within Windows. For example, if you have a 400GB hard drive with 200GB of free space, you can shrink the original 400GB partition down to whatever size you want, and then create a new partition out of the new unpartitioned space. Here’s how you do it.

Right-click My Computer, select Manage, and click on Disk Management. You will see all of your volumes listed. Right-click whatever volume you want to shrink, and click “Shrink Volume.” (You can also extend volumes as well.) Type in the size of the partition, then click Shrink. After a few seconds, the partition will be shrunk, and you’ll now have a whole lot of unallocated space. Right-click it and select “New Simple Volume.” We fooled around with this utility, both shrinking and expanding volumes that had data on them and we experienced no data loss or problems whatsoever.


Tip 9: Stretch your wallpaper across two displays.

We love our dual displays, but we don’t like staring at two instances of the same image all day. Thankfully, Vista lets us stretch our wallpaper across both displays quite easily. This was also possible in XP, but it was not an intuitive process. Keep in mind, however, that stretching an image across two displays obviously requires a picture that is large enough to stretch all the way across both displays, so you’ll need to add up the resolution of both displays and find an image that is of those dimensions.

Right-click the desktop, select Personalize, and then Desktop Background. Select your image, and then select the middle option for “tile” to stretch it across both displays.


Tip 10: Turn off unneeded Windows features.

This one is self-explanatory. Do you need Tablet PC components installed? Probably not, unless you are using a Tablet PC. So turn off whatever you don’t need in the name of keeping your Windows install as lean as possible.

Click Start, Control Panel, then under Programs at the bottom click “Uninstall a Program.” In the left-hand pane you’ll see “Turn Windows Features on or off.” Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing. Uncheck whatever you don’t need.


Tip 11: Enable Aero mouse pointers.

This is odd. Microsoft made new Aero-based mouse pointers for Vista, but the default mouse pointer is the old 3D white scheme. To enable the new mouse pointers and animations, right-click the desktop, select Personalize, then Mouse Pointers. Click on the drop-down box under the word Scheme, and select Windows Aero (system scheme). Click OK.


Tip 12: Make XP computers show up in your network map.

Vista uses a new protocol named Link Layer Topology Discovery (LLTD) to display a network “map” of all computers in a network, but the protocol is only in Vista, so XP computers do not show up in this map.

Microsoft has generously released the software for XP, and it must be installed on an XP machine for it to show up in the Vista map. Click here to download the software for Windows XP SP2.

The following are mainly speed tweaks while the aforementioned were tweaks ot make things not only better but also more ease of use.

10 Speed Tweaks that can make a huge difference in Vista performance
1. Turn off Windows Search Indexing
Windows Vista search indexing is constantly reviewing files on your system to make their contents available for quick searching. This is handy, but can severely impact system performance.

To disable constant indexing:

* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the C: Drive
* On General Tab, Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching
* On the subsequent dialog box, Select Include subfolders and files

2. Turn off Remote Differential Compression
Remote Differential Compression measures the changes in files over a network to transfer them with minimal bandwidth rather than transferring an entire file that has previously been moved. By constantly checking for file changes, this service can hinder system performance.

To disable this service:

* Open Control Panel
* Switch to Classic View
* Select Program Features
* Choose Turn Windows features on and off
* Scroll down and uncheck Remote Differential Compression

3. Turn off Automatic Windows Defender Operation
Windows Defender real-time protection against malware continues to run despite having Automatic operation disabled.

To disable this feature:

* Open Control Panel
* Select Windows Defender
* Choose Tools from the top menu
* Select Options
* Uncheck Auto Start at the bottom of the window

4. Turn off Automatic Disk Defragmentation
Windows Vista and its always-on defragment feature isn’t really that necessary and can cause system slow down. Just remember to run a defrag manually every week or so.

To disable this:

* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the C: Drive
* Click on Properties
* Select the Tools Tab
* Click on Defragment Now
* Uncheck Run on a schedule

5. Add a 2GB or higher USB Flash drive to take advantage of Windows Ready Boost (Additional Memory Cache)
Ready Boost is Microsoft’s name for using a USB thumb/flash drive to provide some quick access memory the operating system can use as extra RAM. The Ready Boost system can significantly improve system performance.

To set this up:

* Insert a USB Flash Drive
* Click Start then Computer
* Right Click the USB Drive in My Computer
* Select the Ready Boost Tab
* Choose Use this device
* Select as much space as you can free up for RAM usage vs. Storage

6. Turn off Windows Hibernation
Windows hibernation background services can use a large amount of system resources. If you don’t use the Hibernate feature on a regular basis you may want to disable it to give Vista a performance boost.

To disable Hibernation:

* Select the Control Panel then Power Options
* Click Change Plan Settings
* Click on Change Advanced Power Settings
* Expand the Sleep selection
* Expand the Hibernate After selection
* Crank the selector down to zero
* Click Apply

7. Turn off System Restore
Analysis and restore point creation by Windows Vista can eat a fair amount of system resources. Disabling this service will obviously mean the system restore feature in Vista will not be available in the event of a system crash. Change this at your own risk.

To disable this service:

* Control Panel>System
* Click System Protection on the left panel
* Uncheck the main system drive
* Agree to the confirmation

8. Disable User Access Control (UAC)
This much-loathed new Vista feature attempts to protect your system from malware infection by making you manually confirm a whole host of everyday user operations. While it doesn’t directly impact performance, it can be annoying and might be more hassle than good.

To disable User Access Control:

* Click Start then Control Panel
* Select User Accounts
* Select Turn User Account Control on or off
* Uncheck User Account Control Box
* Restart as recommended

9. Disable excess Windows Services that Auto-Launch at Startup
Just like Windows XP, Vista ships with all kinds of services enabled that load at startup and may never be used by most users.

To see what loads at startup and disable the ones you likely won’t be needing (they can always be started manually later):

* Click Start then Control Panel
* Select Administrative Tools
* Choose System Configuration
* Click the Services Tab
* You can safely deselect:
o Offline Files (unless you’re using Offline File Sync)
o Tablet PC Input Service (unless you have a tablet PC)
o Terminal Services
o Windows Search (If you have already disabled indexing)
o Fax (unless you’re using a fax modem)

10. Disable Excess Windows Features
Windows ships with other features that are listed separately in the Vista operating system from the startup services.

You can view and disable these features by:

* Clicking Start then Control Panel
* Select Program Features
* On the left panel, select Turn Windows Features on or off
* You can safely deselect:
o Indexing Service
o Remote Differential Compression
o Tablet PC Optional Components
o Windows DFS Replication Service
o Windows Fax & Scan (unless you use a modem for faxing)
o Windows Meeting Space (unless you use the Live Meeting Service)