Cobra

Yea, I figure that too, but I can't find many soundcards that are good yet cheap. I don't want a super-great, top-of-the-line soundcard, but that seems to be all anyone makes these days. I've got two speakers connected to a 4+ year old computer; I don't need anything fancy...

I'm not going to give up on it yet, though, since the last time it did this I had almost given up on it when it started working again. I just don't want to go back to having no sound again... That was horrible...

Okay, wow, this is a lot better now that I'm using standard; before I was using none, and that was okay, but I wanted it smoother, so I switched to ClearType, but that was too blurry, so Standard is the perfect compromise.

ive got a Gateway EV700 monitor that's 17" (i think) and i run at 1024x768 but my brother runs at 800x600 so i constantly have to switch back since xp cant just save which screen resolution we both use as separate settings...

I support Blu-Ray, but I think that HD-DVD will ultimately win because the general consumer won't want to pay the extra cash even though Blu-Ray is the superior product.

You could always try 1.0.5, or even 1.0.6b.

Okay, I've got an old Soundblaster Live! Value and late last year, it stopped working, so a couple months ago I tried to reinstall the soundcard and then it started working again.

Today, though, it was thundering out and I had the computer on, defragmenting, and didn't want to interrupt it just because of the thunder. Then, all of a sudden, the power surged and everything quickly turned off then back on. I logged back on and now I've got no sound. I've already tried reinstalling it, but it didn't work and now I'm out of ideas.

(Btw, this is kinda random, but do you guys know how to turn off Cleartype? I turned it on and everything's a bit smoother, but some stuff is kind of blurry, so I'd rather have it off.)

Wait, so you do have the tilt function? I think you're still not making this the easiest problem to fix.

Yea, me too. I think, though, that he means the newer mouses where the middle button can be tilted left or right to move from side to side. My Logitech MX1000 does that, and it works fine in any program that can scroll side to side. I'd just say either Customer Support or try fiddling with some settings.

When I first got my MX1000, the back/forward buttons would only work in IE and Explorer, but not Firefox. The FAQ on Logitech's site said to make the back button use the keystroke command Alt+Left and forward Alt+Right, so now it works (though I found a better solution later on, on my own).

Actually, as cool as Internet2 looks, we'll never see it in effect for the general public. After the first Internet became saturated with websites and commercialization and everything, the people who had originally had their eyes set on using the Internet (colleges and researchers and such) started developing Internet2. It's got blazing fast speeds, and you'll never have anything as good as that until Internet3 (hopefully it'll be Internet3-D ) is developed because it's going to be used for colleges and researchers and such, exclusively. However, all hope is not lost for us, because I listened to some interview online about a month back from one of the people involved with Internet2, who said that while Internet2 will not be released for the public, some of the techology powering it will eventually be implemented into our current Internet.

Lol, I finally feel smart here.

i usually buy my cds used if i can find them in good enough condition anyways. i guess itd be kinda nice to download them and burn them and such, but i also like getting the album cover and the cd label. such as linkin park's meteora cd. i got a bonus dvd that came with it for buying it when it first came out, which i thoroughly enjoyed watching, and the like 40-page album cover/booklet thing with all the lyrics and pics of the band and lots of grafitti was excellent.

i suppose it all depends on what album you're buying.

id rather have them invest in wireless internet than using powerlines for internet. wireless should be the future, not powerlines. what happens if my laptop is plugged into the powerline connection and the powerline gets struck by lightning? there goes the internet for me, i guess. if that same thing happened and i was using wireless, id still be happily surfing the web. plus, less wires, and i hate wires.

lol nvm, Area 51 is preloaded onto the software already and i checked, it matched up with the coordinates listed on several websites i went to.

No E.T., but that could just be because it's so low quality... i wonder why...

bah, my area is so low-quality it doesn't show up right. anyways, to see the area where i live, search 'Vinton, VA' and it'll be somewhere in there. is the white house really blurry to you guys or is that just mine? maybe they think terrorists will use this to plan future attacks or something. BTW, anyone know the coordinates to Area 51? I wanna see if I can spot a glimpse of E.T.

meh, i don't think this is a good use of technology. it's just the cities wanting more money. how many times a day do you need to be taxed, really? you go to work, get part of your earnings taxed, then spend part of that on bills, and the rest on food and other items, which you get taxed on (food tax, sales tax, etc). how much is a city going to lose if you need to say, stop at a pharmacy to pick up a family member's medicine, see that there's still like 5 minutes left on the meter, so you quickly go inside and get out of there before it expires. it's just like if that first car was still there....

(okey-dokey, im done ranting )

ill upload a pic of all my extensions in a minute; ive got some really useful ones, (though probably too many- im trying to uninstall the ones I don't use anymore so Firefox will run faster).

and BTW, don't go to addons.mozilla.com, go to http://update.mozilla.com/ because that's where updated extensions go, so you'll always find the latest version and if an extension has never been updated, i wouldn't want it, so i'm pretty sure that new extensions don't go there until the author updates them.

EDIT: Here you go, my master list of extensions after a little cleaning up. i accidentally clicked uninstall rather than update for the dictionary search extension, so ignore that. its a good extension.

@FallowEarth: i usually buy cd's rather than burning, (not that it really matters anymore since almost a year ago that drive broke and havent bought a new one yet), but 99 cents a song is a lot if youre buying the whole cd. thats why they charge 99 cents: just shy of a dollar and for most cds, you'll be paying just a little extra. i'd rather just buy a used cd.

oh well, Microsoft is just going to regulate all the downloads or whatever because people are bound to start sending movies and games and shit like that through it. it's inevitable. besides, I wouldn't mind snagging a copy of Donnie Darko for my computer. I usually delete the movies i download when I download them anyways, (like Episode III and The Warriors, for example), because they take up way too much space on my POS computer, but I could make room for that movie. it's so freakin' deep that it makes The Sixth Sense look like a kid's movie (intellectually, at least).

I read another article about it that was really in-depth about Prefetching and how to control it. You should take a look- [link]. I believe that it also states in the article that clearing it out too often is also a bad thing, because prefetching can also help the computer, and recommends clearing it out about once a month. I'd say clear it about every two weeks, though, because it works for me. Sometimes, however, I'll also go in and delete the .pf file of a program that I've run and won't run again for awhile because I don't want it slowing everything else in the prefetch down.

It's kind of random, I think, if you get faster speeds using a different browser; some people do, and some don't. I know that I used to get insanely fast download test scores with IE, but we never really figured out why it did that, though, right, guys? (Some people like CA3LE and shug might remember the awesome-ness that used to be my scores.) But those weren't how fast my actual downloads were going, so when I switched to Firefox, my true download scores came out, but were lower. I'm happy I made the switch, though, but also because browsing is a lot faster with FF, but because of the tabs and all the extensions and stuff. Not to mention IE always used to crash on me every 5 minutes. (Still does.)

Yea, sorry for my long absence, but what with school, and exams, and buying GTA:SA, I just haven't had the time to manage all of the forums I'm a part of. Anyways, my speeds kinda suck for some reason...

:::.. Download Stats ..:::

Connection is:: 1977 Kbps about 2 Mbps (tested with 2992 kB)

Download Speed is:: 241 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (server2)

Test Time:: Sun Jul 03 2005 18:27:55 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)

Bottom Line:: 35X faster than 56K 1MB download in 4.25 sec

Diagnosis: May need help : running at only 61.06 % of your hosts average (cox.net)

Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-3BJTRPHN8

:::.. Upload Stats ..:::

Connection is:: 500 Kbps about 0.5 Mbps (tested with 579 kB)

Upload Speed is:: 61 kB/s

Tested From:: https://testmy.net/ (server1)

Test Time:: Sun Jul 03 2005 18:30:03 GMT-0400 (Eastern Standard Time)

Bottom Line:: 9X faster than 56K 1MB upload in 16.79 sec

Diagnosis: Awesome! 20% + : 23.15 % faster than the average for host (cox.net)

Validation Link:: https://testmy.net/stats/id-0BEQGW83S

My upload speed is "awesome!" but my download speed "may need help."

Once you get it fixed, you should tell her to run anti-spyware program regularly, like Lavasoft Ad-aware SE, Spybot Search & Destroy, or Microsoft Anti-Spyware, or all three. Running them once a month at least should keep her laptop working properly. I run mine around every two weeks, and my computer runs pretty well (despite it being a pretty crappy computer in the first place ).

There are extensions for Firefox that allow you to refresh all your tabs at once and other functions like that. I'll search for it soon and see if I can't find any good ones.

Thanks for the links. I knew about the HD thing. To me, and probably a lot of other people, the gameplay matters more than the graphics.

Yea, for me, too, but I'd still like to see the technology increase as rapidly as possible. The faster the future can come the better. If more companies and such made HD standard and included it in everything they do, we'd eventually get to the point where everything is in HD and would scoff at all the non-HD things. Kinda like if you watch a movie on VHS after watching it on DVD. Every once in awhile, when I do that, and it messes up and a line go down over the screen, and I can hear the VHS player running, I'll just groan and wonder how I ever put up with it back when VHS was standard. Same for dial-up.

Basically, I just don't want to see this backfire on Nintendo, because most of the quirky, unique, (but a lot of the time, crappy), console games come out on Nintendo's systems.

@dlewis23- Don't worry, because everybody who buys a next-gen system is going to be making their wallets cry like babies. It's also rumored that games are going to have to cost $60 to make up for increased production costs. I think that some games will still cost $50, but only if it's made by a developer with a lot of PC experience. Anyways, here's some info about the PS3's HDD:

In recent interviews with the Japanese press, Sony Computer Entertainment president Ken Kutaragi said that he expects the initial capacity of the PS3's hard drive to be 80GB. While Sony hasn't released any figures on how much its hard drive is expected to be priced at, a 2.5-inch 80GB in the current Japanese market costs around an average of 20,000 yen ($180). Sony sells its 40GB hard drive (SCPH-20401) for the PlayStation 2 for 10,479 yen ($95).

Source: GameSpot

@netmasta- Nintendo's Revolution, (which, by the way, is the only console that won't be supporting HD, [link]) has only 221 games confirmed for download so far, [link, but the price hasn't. It's rumored by most to be around $5-10, but Satoru Iwata has proposed another way of getting the games out there:

Iwata took a similarly ambiguous tone vis-

xbox is totally down hill, the first xbox should of been around the same price as xbox 360 is now, 400 to 600 dollars. They are not gaining anything from the xbox, so I wouldn't trust them so much. The PS2 had a 4 dollar profit or so. (rofl.) And the gamecube was gaining 20 per sale.

I'd take these factors into mind right now, as that could be the deciding point whether you should be loyal to a console or not.

Nobody makes money off their consoles until the end of the lifespan, and that's only if they

re lucky. Check out the estimate of how much Sony will lose on the PS3: [link]

...but yea, the PS3 will be the best. At E3, it wasn't even performing at 75% and it still beat the 360 power-wise. Online, I assume Microsoft will win, but in terms of games and stuff, Sony all the way. You guys know how Bill Gates announced that Halo 3 will release the same time as the PS3 launch? Bungie denied it. Good for them. Work on Halo 3 as long as you need, Bungie, so it'll kick ass. [Just because I don't like the XBOX or Halo or even Microsoft doesn't mean that I don't want Halo 3 to be good, because it'll hopefully set a standard for other FPSs and progress gaming as a whole]

Start working overtime now, people, because the PS3 is likely to sport a $399 price tag. It'll so be worth it though, just so you can go to someone's house with a 360 and complain about the graphics.

im not running one. i used to have Zone Alarm Pro, and it said it was stopping stuff, but after awhile i got tired of having to allow programs to run and manage all the filters and everything so i just quit using it. havent had a virus since. virus free since 2002. however, my computers a veritable fortress against spyware.