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  1. M

    Just curious - Who here owns a mac?

    2.33Ghz C2D 17" Macbook Pro 2 GB RAM 667Mhz bus (pre-Santa Rosa) 100GB Hitachi 7200rpm drive
  2. M

    Bad CRT, or bad video card?

    Thanks for the warning. I seemingly have bad luck whenever I mess around with hardware even in relatively innocuous ways, so I'll need to be doubly careful if I ever try this.
  3. M

    Bad CRT, or bad video card?

    I'd probably electrocute myself (even without having the monitor plugged in). :) Seriously, I'll probably hold onto the CRT and try that sometime when I'm feeling brave ... I could always use it on an auxiliary machine if it does work. In the meantime I was already planning to transition to...
  4. M

    Bad CRT, or bad video card?

    That's a good point ... I'll try it as soon as I send this off. UPDATE: Yep, the CRT is still acting up, even when connected all by itself. It didn't happen right away today, but after a couple of hours it is definitely screwing up. If the card did set the refresh rate too high, could it...
  5. M

    Bad CRT, or bad video card?

    I have an ATI Radeon 9800 Pro (AGP, 256MB) that I've used for a couple of years with a Mitsubishi Diamondtron CRT monitor. In January I added a Samsung LCD flat panel monitor as a 2nd monitor, attaching it via the 9800 Pro's DVI output (obviously the CRT had always been on the analog output)...
  6. M

    HP NC8430 - getting full display brightness on battery power?

    Yep, same control here ... and I have indeed ended up disabling the ambient light sensor in an effort to get the display as bright as possible on battery. Even after that, it still wasn't nearly as bright as when on external A/C, unfortunately (as you've confirmed). If anyone knows for...
  7. M

    HP NC8430 - getting full display brightness on battery power?

    On my NC8430, fn+F8 just brings up the Battery tab of the Power Options dialog. (The F8 key has a little blue battery symbol on it to reinforce this.) fn+f10 increases the brightness, but when it is maxed out the screen still is far dimmer on battery than when on external power ... so dim, in...
  8. M

    HP NC8430 - getting full display brightness on battery power?

    I've got a new HP Compaq NC8430, and so far I like it very much. However, I cannot figure out how to get the display to run at full power and intensity when I'm running on battery power. I've used the Windows Power Options successfully (I think) to force the CPU to run at full speed on...
  9. M

    What to do after I open the box?

    I expect to receive my first notebook PC (HP NC8430) sometime today. Assuming that the unit is not DOA, I'll have a lot to do with it right away (uninstalling Norton and installing my own AV, upgrading the hard drive to NTFS, updating the OS, getting wireless comms working, installing software...
  10. M

    Really annoying notebook problem, you ever seen this?

    I'd suggest disabling the touchpad entirely for a bit, just to find out if the problem is related to it. If so, then either you are brushing the pad lightly without realizing it, or else maybe the touchpad is acting up. (Had a relative who had this problem ... turns out they were touching the...
  11. M

    Laptop newbie needs help choosing

    I was under the impression that the change to the V5200 was hardware rather than drivers? Maybe I misunderstood. Anyway, this morning I'm putting aside my HP bias and taking a close look at the following machine: HP Compaq NC8430 Other than the smaller hard drive, I'm thinking it might...
  12. M

    Laptop newbie needs help choosing

    Thank you for the comments! Yes, I don't expect anything like pro sound ... just hoping to get something that isn't quite as bad as a tiny AM radio (the high-end Acer in particular has apparently been dinged for having appallingly bad audio). I'll continue doing sound on my desktop, where I...
  13. M

    Laptop newbie needs help choosing

    I've never looked seriously at laptops before, but I find myself in need of one now, and I can't wait around long enough to get a Lenovo Thinkpad. So I'm looking at several options (links below), and could really use some opinions. I'll be using this laptop mainly for software development...
  14. M

    AVG Email Scanner

    I had similar problems with AVG's email scanner last summer (any email larger than a certain size would get hung up in the outgoing scanner rather than being sent. The solution I eventually resorted to was to dump AVG altogether, reconfigure my network and email settings pretty much from the...
  15. M

    How to "uninstall" Windows XP Pro from a HD?

    To elaborate a bit, the MS rep told me that you get exactly *one* online activation for an OEM version, regardless of hardware changes. But you guys are right and she was wrong ... online activation DID work. I guess it was because the machine had remained unchanged for enough months, and the...
  16. M

    How to "uninstall" Windows XP Pro from a HD?

    I'd rather start from scratch, since in the process of dying this current hard drive has already lost some files that are a part of Windows, and I really don't trust the state of the OS on it anymore. Also, I doubt very much that the hard drive would keep running throughout the process of...
  17. M

    How to "uninstall" Windows XP Pro from a HD?

    My hard drive (only 8 months old or so) is on its last legs. I have the replacement in hand. However, my Windows XP is an OEM version I got from mwave.com (along with the original barebone, which did NOT include the hard drive by the way). I've read that I can legally continue to use the same...
  18. M

    a simple music creating program

    Regarding the suggestion of Cakewalk ... I use Cakewalk Sonar in my studio (Sonar being the only one with the "drag and drop" of Acidized wave files). But Sonar is an order of magnitude more complicated than Acid, so if Acid is too complex, Sonar is not even in the ballpark (at least for the...
  19. M

    a simple music creating program

    Sony's Acid (formerly from Sonic Foundry) is the classic example of what you are talking about (drag and drop, bar by bar music creation software that's most strongly geared toward techno music). The full version of Acid is not cheap, but the free Acid Express might be more than enough for your...
  20. M

    What software can compare the difference between two images?

    Paint Shop Pro can be used to show the differences between two images using its "Image Arithmetic" feature.
  21. M

    Visual Basic

    Oh yeah, I keep forgetting about the 2005 beta (no time to spend on it right now). That might be a good starting spot ... at least the price can't be beat.
  22. M

    Visual Basic

    As to which one, it kinda depends on what you plan or hope to do with it. VB6 is better for prototyping quick little applications and is probably a little easier, but VB.NET has more future and may teach (somewhat) better programming habits. The best place to buy is the one with the cheapest...
  23. M

    photoshop

    Yes, PSP will open Photoshop files. But PSP isn't free either.
  24. M

    Ubisoft beefs up copyprotection, and it sucks

    Unless Ubisoft reverses itself on this, I guess I'll be saving the $40+ I was planning to spend on Silent Hunter III, because I'm not about to dump my primary system backup capability (my DVD burner) just to play a silly game, no matter how much I had been looking forward to plunking down my...
  25. M

    Hardest game you can remember?

    Hardest cheating game I have played - Civilization III Hardest non-cheating (as far as I know) game I have played - The Perfect Admiral
  26. M

    Anyone using Skype?

    Yep. Skype is pretty darned remarkable. Puts my cell phone all to shame ...
  27. M

    So whats going to be the new killer games?

    I'm awaiting Dangerous Waters (which just went gold) and Silent Hunter III (which looks about two months out). Gotta get back to sinking some ships ...
  28. M

    What email client do you use?

    For myself, I find that Thunderbird is pretty much the only decent game left in town (at least under Windows). I gave up Eudora for Thunderbird, and would never go back. I've also used Outlook and Outlook Express at various times in the past, and I won't go anywhere near either of them anymore...
  29. M

    Arrays inside structures in c++

    The general idea of accessing array values when the array is declared within a structure is fine. Just be aware that your sample code isn't doing that ... it declares a zero-length array (no size between the brackets) and then later tries to access something in the 2nd position of the array...
  30. M

    convince me to switch over to linux

    What I don't care for in these type of debates is the "have to choose one or the other" mentality. Just because the companies choose to partake in such an "us and them" approach doesn't mean users have to. Last year I was dual-booting Windows and Gentoo, and although my current main box is...
  31. M

    Which OS are you?

    Egads, I'm Palm OS ... :o
  32. M

    convince me to switch over to linux

    If I were going to write this hypothetical software DVD player, I think I'd rather start from scratch than use MPlayer's code ... when I was playing around with Linux last year I was far from impressed by either the functionality or the robustness of that application. (I'm not familiar with the...
  33. M

    convince me to switch over to linux

    Kamper, It seems we've either agreed or at least agreed to disagree on most of the points. However I still want to respond to one item: I am unable to ascertain which part of my scenario you have such a problem with that you say you'd never buy such software. Is it that new ideas aren't...
  34. M

    convince me to switch over to linux

    Counterpoint: what if I, for example, came up with some new and spectacular DVD player that has some amazing features that had never occurred or even seemed possible to anyone before? And what if it took me two years of full-time effort to implement said player? How do I pay my rent and put...
  35. M

    convince me to switch over to linux

    Open source might well work for enterprise software like what JBoss makes, where training and support are essential and ongoing needs for their clients regardless of the quality of the software. But I don't think you should generalize that into saying that open source makes more economic sense...
  36. M

    is there a codec to play .bik files ??

    I believe you get a Bink player as part of the package if you download the Rad Video Tools (from http://www.radgametools.com). Or at least you did back when I downloaded them a year or so ago.
  37. M

    vb.net and asp.net: what to learn first?

    Yes, ASP.NET applications can utilize either C# or VB.NET. As for books, someone else will have to answer. I just learned my way through it using the .NET SDK documentation (but I'm not a beginner).
  38. M

    vb.net and asp.net: what to learn first?

    From what I've been told, VB.NET is only bad if you are coming to it as an experienced VB6 developer (because it's very much a different language from VB6 that is hiding beneath similar syntax). For someone like myself who hadn't done Basic of any flavor since childhood (spent most of my career...
  39. M

    Does System Restore slows down windows?

    The problem with this statement is it suggests that having System Restore enabled makes a computer more vulnerable to malware infections. System Restore does no such thing. The only problem with System Restore regarding malware is that you may have to temporarily disable it to get rid of a...
  40. M

    Firefox vs. IE

    Cerb is right. The increased height of the Opera ad bar (call it what you will) means that there is a bunch of wasted vertical space even if you have another normal toolbar beside it. And some people like to trim down the number of toolbar buttons to make more space for webpages ... one can't...