Cobra

I haven't tried, nor know how, to bypass the router. I'm probably about 85% certain there are no splitters or surge protectors on my cable line. Great. So I guess I have a fun call to Cox to look forward to.

All right, the first one is with Firefox. I don't know why or even when it started, but it doesn't allow almost any forms of Javascript to run. I've checked all my settings and all my extensions to see if I just had a setting wrong or an extension I could uninstall/disable. Long story short, I couldn't find anything, so any suggestions would be nice. I don't particularly feel like starting a new profile. The second one is more complicated. Maybe. My router keeps dropping my Internet connection every 5-15 minutes it seems. It drops it, which I'll find out because a 600+ megabyte download or a loading webpage will just stall, so I'll look at my modem and the cable light is off, then slowly flickers, then rapidly flickers, then it's steady and my download will resume, that is, if Firefox hasn't decided to be gay and say "Hmm... No Internet connection... Well, whatever, I'm lazy- I'm not gonna wait for it to come back. I'm just gonna declare the file completed and hope he doesn't notice halfway through the video that it gets an error because it's unfinished." It's really annoying, and I hope I don't need a new router, because that probably means contacting Cox, and that conversation will probably run along the lines of this: "Well, what's wrong with the router? ...It doesn't work? Have you tried resetting it? ...Still didn't fix it? ...Are you sure? ...Did something happen to it, like something hit or whatever? Because if it's damaged as a direct result of you, then it'll cost you. ...No? ...Are you sure? ...Well, I don't believe you, so you're going to pay for it. ...Uh, yes, you are. ...Fine, then you aren't getting a new router. ...Hey, man, whoa! Put down the knife! PUT IT DOWN! AHHH!!!!" Anyway, it's a Toshiba PCX2500, if that makes any difference. Here's a screenshot of uTorrent to illustrate the problem better.

Mine started out as Captain Cobra, which was one of the choices given to someone for the protagonist of Halo on some radio show that was playing on my bus while we were picking up the people in my neighborhood like 5 years ago in middle school. Eventually, I decided to just shorten it to Cobra because it's easier to type, easier to remember, still retains part of the CaptainCobra username, and now it can also represent Cobra from G. I. Joe.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xIVZ9b0RgmY ^ There's the interview with the guy and Matt Lauer. Dude, I canceled AOL five or six years ago and they still send me trial discs.

Well, I emailed the guys over at UrbanCoffee.net- they're a podcast I listen to about politics, current events, technology, etc. It's really funny. They're self-proclaimed Mac nerds, so they told me they'd do a video podcast for me and the other listeners/viewers showing a Mac running side-by-side to a PC with similar specs and show how each do various day-to-day tasks. That'll probably be the catalyst in my decision. However, with my limited knowledge of Mac hardware, what would the benefits be of waiting for the G5 to go to Intel? The iMac I was looking at had a Core Duo in it. I think I need to see if there's an Apple store around here since Best Buy doesn't seem to have any Macs on the floor that I can try out.

@resopalrabotnick: Well, the Mac Mini was my first choice, because I figured it'd be cheaper, and it is... until I tacked on the monitor and keyboard. Then it shot up past the iMac. I'd need a monitor, so I guess the Mac Mini is out of the question. As for viruses, I don't think I'm so concerned about that aspect of either right now- people I know with Macs say that they never get viruses, spyware, any of that, and I never even used to bother with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, ip blocker/peerguardian, all of that stuff and I've only ever had like three viruses in six years, all extremely minor, but lots of spyware. @Swimmer: I've heard about the heat issues in MacBook Pros and such, but I'm not too concerned about that either since I don't want a MacBook, notebook, laptop, etc.I've heard about Conroe- supposed to be like $250 but outperforms AMDs $1000+ right? I'm not too excited about Vista though. I've been reading about the new features and everything and it just doesn't seem to be too much of a step up from XP... and then all the delays... I don't know. @Roco: I'll be making my decision soon, but I've still got to fix up my car before I can get back to job-hunting, and then it'll take a few months probably to get the money needed to buy a Mac or PC. @S7R1D3R: I don't have sound, so all that is lost on me.

The most I've upgraded this PC since I've had it is Windows ME to XP, a new Logitech mouse, took the RAM from 128 to 386, and put in a new soundcard after the old one died... the new one died like four or five months afterward. I don't have sound anymore as a result. I remember when I upgraded to 386- I couldn't believe how fast it was going. I was dumb. I don't really mind about the cheaper and upgradable thing- having a good computer overtakes the cost in priority as long as it's within reason, and I don't really think I'll be upgrading whatever I get much anyway. Durable I don't know about. Macs don't really have viruses or anything, and after all these years... I don't think this computer is running as fast as the day I got it even with the extra RAM. Really, for me, it all comes down to the OS, not the hardware.

Well, my current computer is a total piece of crap- (Pentium III, old n' crappy CRT monitor, one broken CD-R drive and one CD-ROM, USB 1.1, 386MB RAM, no sound, 32MB integrated graphics card, etc.). Eventually I'm going to need to buy a new one. I don't know whether to buy a PC or Mac next. I'm leaning toward Mac because my experiences with Windows over the years have been... well... an experience to say the least and I hear that Macs are more stable and whatnot. However, I'd like a professional/semi-professional opinion about it. I'm going to be using whatever I get to surf the web, download music, play games, watch videos, etc. I'm not going to settle for a mediocre PC/Mac this time around, so that'll be a price concern. For programs, I think the Mac will be fine; most of my programs have either Mac-equivalents or I just won't need them on the Mac (all the spyware and virus stuff). For games, I suppose I can just keep my copy of Windows XP and use Boot Camp. I'd just like to know if Macs are as easy to use and virus free as their infuriating commercials make them sound like. I say infuriating because they don't make sense in some spots. The PC is some stodgy old guy with glasses and the Mac is the "young and hip" guy? Riiiight. Yeah, that's reeeaaal subtle Apple. Real subtle. Macs don't have to worry about viruses and PCs get hundreds of thousands every year? Okay, true, but did you happen to mention that that's because Macs have like 2% market share so no one cares enough to spend time designing viruses for Macs? No? Didn't think you would. PCs don't come ready-to-use right out of the box? Mine did. I literally just pulled it out of the box five or six years ago, plugged it in and had plenty of fun. Yeah... Done ranting now... Anyway, Mac vs. PC, which to buy- PCs are cheaper- I can get a pretty good one for like $600. Macs are more expensive- I went to Apple's site to "design" one and I ended up getting the estimate up to like $1600, but to be fair, the Mac I designed was way more powerful than the PC.

I'm not anti-Microsoft or even anti-IE. I just go where the best product is. My only problem with Firefox is that it's too slow on my computer, but that's simply because I don't even have 400MB of RAM. IE, on the other hand, when it loads a webpage, it always give me 2 new blank pages and an error message and on the third new page is the website. I don't know why but it just does. And the IE7b installer always messes up at the very end and tells me it failed to install. Same with the IE6 installer. Screw that- I replaced IE with Opera. Opera's basically a hybrid of IE and Firefox. Now let's be honest. IE only has the top spot simply because it comes pre-installed on almost every new computer sold. People generally just stick to what was on their computers. If Firefox had that kind of advantage, then nobody would want IE. It's like Mac vs. Windows. Everything (including the bulk of viruses) are targeted to Windows and IE simply because they're #1 as you pointed out. That's why those retarded Mac commercials make no sense: PC Guy: "Oh, man, I think I'm coming down with something. Over 114,000 new viruses were written for Windows just last year." Mac Guy: "Yeah, Macs don't get viruses." That's retarded. Do Macs avoid viruses because they have better protection or software? No. It's because no one cares enough to design viruses for Macs. Pretty much the same with Firefox- fewer viruses, yet it does have better protection.

IE: 21 unpatched security flaws Firefox: 3 unpatched security flaws I use a combination of Firefox and Opera. I've been able to completely cease all IE usage, which was already very low, so I'm ecstatic about that.

Nice. I might try that sometime. Maybe I'll make mine look like a doobie or something.

I generally love puzzles like these, but I'm sick right now with a throbbing headache, so I can't really concentrate hard enough to try.

See this, MPAA and RIAA and everybody else? You do not f*ck with The Pirate Bay. You can only try to make the legal way as easy and cheap as possible. If this isn't as big a sign as can be for the MPAA and crew to make downloading movies and TV and music cheap and easy, I don't know what is. They can't stop sites like this because even if one goes down, 5 more will pop up in its place. The Pirate Bay is back and stronger than ever, and the only way that they can be stopped is if the MPAA and crew get their f*ckin' act together and just accept that digital downloads of movies, TV and music are going to happen, with or without their blessing.

@TimPawlak: I've already tried that. It didn't work the first ten times, so I don't think I'll try again. It's a cumbersome process, installing this soundcard, and all it ever seems to accomplish is adding little AOL icons everywhere. @dlewis23: I've already reformatted twice. First to get my computer at NTFS finally, and the second time was on accident. The sound didn't work after either. @php:You know, this is something that I suspected was the problem from day 1, and I think I'll probably try this again soon, but I've tried setting it on digital during the reinstall of the card and I've tried setting digital off and neither seem to work, but then again, in my experiences with this computer, the simplest solution seems to only work after I've gone through every possible fix once and have to loop back to the first ones.

My computer is a Gateway Performance 1000 PC and the soundcard is a SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit. My speakers are Boston Digital BA735.