VT-Vincent

I'm 25.

The district actually had one meeting on the subject, but other than that no one seems too concerned. The other day, I was actually in a classroom where it looked like at least three of the kids were sick.

*sigh* ... I'm just waiting to get it. I work in a high school doing tech support, I'm sure I will get it eventually from some filthy keyboard or mouse.

I would normally agree with this if it weren't for the danger involved. Nuclear power plants have become much safer over the years and have essentially been "idiot proofed" as much as possible, but you know how it goes - if it's idiot proofed, they'll just build a better idiot. Never underestimate the human factor.

One thing I'd like to add is that the most reliable way to tell where a graphics card stands would be by it's benchmarks. Tom's Hardware has a really good resource for this - their graphics charts will allow you to compare several cards within the same generation to each other interactively so you can see how they stack up in identical benchmarks. In the end though, the most important factor in the speed of the graphics card is the GPU it's using. Quantitative measures such as memory can't be used as a reliable indicator of performance. It's kind of like compairing a Pentium 4 at 3.0Ghz to a Core 2 Duo at 1.8Ghz. If you were to look at only the quantitative speed, the Pentium 4 would seem to be the faster chip in a single CPU benchmark, but the reality is that any Core 2 would easily outperform it even in a single CPU benchmark. The architecture is the determining factor in this particular example, and the same can be true of graphics cards.

It's actually amazing how bad the forum spam problem has become... I have a relatively small site and I still get them frequently. They have to be human users at least doing the initial registration as GC said, probably from a third-world country being paid through some type of virtual sweatshop system like the Amazon Turk. The spam bots have become very advanced, but I have a hard time believing they can understand logic challenges, break re-captcha AND manage to circumvent IPB 4.0's new security measures the day it was released.

Tomorrow, 9/9/09 will be the 10 year anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast's launch. For me, this console holds a special place in my collection for introducing me to many firsts. I was one of the people that pre-ordered it at launch and it was quite an exciting time, it was the first foray in to the 6th generation of console gaming. I remember being blown away by the graphics of Sonic Adventure and the unbelievable clarity through my VGA box. I also remember my first experience with IRC on the Dreamcast. The Dreamcast also was the catalyst for my first entrance into the world of web design which I still continue in till this day. I, like most people was devastated at the console's early death in 2001 and ultimately, the effective death of Sega. Of course Sega technically still exists, but I think most people can agree that it exists in a somewhat shallow form and it will never be the same as it was back then. What fond memories of the good ol' Dreamcast do you guys have?

Hera, I would respectfully disagree. I don't believe we went to war over oil and I think our intentions were good. Unfortunately, as the saying goes - the road to hell is paved with good intentions. In hindsight, there's no doubt Iraq was the wrong choice for a number of reasons. It was also poorly managed on top of that and it has neutralized one of Iran's worst enemies. At this point though, all we can do is work to make things right. I think we, as a country should take an important lesson away from this. That would be the more that we interfere in the affairs of other countries, the more trouble we end up causing in the world. Throughout history, our involvement in the middle-east has been one disaster after another. What we needed to do was get the people responsible and get out. We can't drag a country into democracy kicking and screaming, it simply won't hold. A true revolution needs to happen from within, much as it did in our own country. On the topic of nuclear weapons though, I would like to see a full nuclear disarmament of the US and other countries possessing them. They are terrible weapons and can only be used for one purpose - to cause death and suffering on an unthinkable scale. To put it in perspective, the weapons that we and other nations possess today are many times more powerful than the bombs we dropped on Japan. What war could possibly justify destruction on that large a scale?

I agree that spyware-like behavior is unacceptable for DRM, but I am willing to put up with a reasonable level of DRM when it is warranted. A good example would be the DRM system Adobe uses on all of their CS4 products. Basically, it needs to activate when installed (which can be done on up to 2 computers) and when the activation succeeds, it writes the activation data to the boot sector. They include a built-in deactivation utility which allows you to move the installation to another computer, which I use whenever making any major changes to the computer as a safety precaution. It's more invasive than I'd like, but it doesn't cause any problems and I do see the need for it. Unfortunately, Adobe's software is among the most pirated next to Windows itself. I'm also willing to accept it since they provide the customer with a valid method to deactivate the software when needed.

I hate to say it, but things like that are actually what curbed me away from gaming on the PC (aside from emulation, of course). It seems like most games out there these days try to install some type of invasive garbage like that. Best case scenario, it seems to just screw the game up. Worst case scenario, it actually causes instability in the operating system. These days I only do gaming on consoles.

Using nuclear weapons on another country wouldn't accomplish anything, aside from telling the world that we have just as little regard for life as our enemies. It's important to realize that the events of 9/11 were carried out by a small group of terrorists and were not the act of an entire country our culture. We're actively at war with those responsible for what happened, but it's important to show the people Afghanistan that terror and death is not the only way of life. When they realize that and turn against groups like the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, there will be fewer and fewer safe havens for them to hide in. Even in cases of organized countries such as Iran that openly sponsor terrorism and challenge the world, we need to recognize even the government of these countries does not fully represent the will of it's people. In any case like this, only those responsible should be punished and innocent lives should be protected at all costs.

Symantec provides a manual definition update for their Norton Antivirus software: http://www.symantec.com/business/security_...ail.jsp?gid=n95 NOD32 on the other hand, I don't beleive ESET provides definitions outside of the updater software. I know McAfee provides manual definitions as well, but I'm assuming you probably don't want to go that route.

The only program I've seen that is close to this would be PC Tools' Registry Mechanic. It can scan your registry and remove entries from uninstalled applications that it recognizes. Personally, I've found it good for fixing occasional anomalies such as applications hanging on startup, which was commonly caused by a file that was removed being referenced in the registry. Personally though, I've never had much use for registry cleaners. They essentially try to guess what should and shouldn't be there based on their own algorithms, since the majority of entries don't reference a file. Regarding program clutter in general, there's really no true automated way to get rid of it to the best of my knowledge. You can check common locations for components such as the following: Registry - HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\ Registry - HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\ Under XP Only: C:\Documents and Settings\{yourname}\Application Data\ C:\Program Files C:\Program Files\Common Files C:\Program Files (x86) C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files Under Vista\7 Only: C:\ProgramData C:\Users\{yourname}\AppData\Local C:\Users\{yourname}\AppData\LocalLow C:\Users\{yourname}\AppData\Roaming Most well-behaved applications shouldn't stray to far from these locations. The problem with creating an automated method to remove this clutter is that there's no way to directly link these files to the application that created them. The same is true of registry entries that don't reference a particular file as well. The only way an application could actually know what program created what files would be to run on the system using a real-time scanner and to log the behavior of every applications. Honestly, if something like this existed, it would likely be too invasive to bother using. Luckily though, most of the files applications leave behind are benign. They are usually just your program preferences or stored data within the application.

Congratulations on the PS3, this was definitely a good time to pick one up. I'm considering picking one up myself at some point, but I'll probably wait till I can get a better TV. A single HDMI port isn't cutting it these days.

Good luck on the move, I hope everything goes well.

As Shiba mentioned, Spybot is definitely the best free one. Ad-Aware used to be popular, but really doesn't catch much these days. In terms of commercial software, a lot of Antivirus suites now include very complete spyware definitions (Norton and Kaspersky come to mind), but I believe the two best commercial anti-spyware products are PC Tools' Spyware Doctor and Webroot Spy Sweeper. There's also a version of Spy Sweeper that includes antivirus protection based on Sophos, generally regarded to be one of the best in the industry. Spyware cleaning is pretty tedious though (and really isn't guaranteed to undo all of the damage). The cleaning process, as I remember it goes like this: - Disable System Restore and clear all temporary files. - Install and update the anti-spyware tools to be used. - Boot to Safe Mode and run scans using all tools on each account on the computer, repeat the scans to ensure they come up clean. - Boot normally, run the scans under each account again, if they come up clean, the computer is good. Unfortunately, PE discs aren't of much use for spyware-related issues as most of the better anti-spyware software is not designed to run from it and can't remotely scan a registry.

I actually haven't had to reinstall Windows due to any problems for longer than I can remember, it has had to have been at least 5-6 years. I usually end up upgrading the OS or re-tasking the computer before anything like that happens. I'm also very selective about what I install and I avoid any common sources of viruses/spyware. I think the longest running install I have right now is on my Media Center, it's been running XP MCE for about 4 years now. I run all of my emulators on it, some of which don't work to well with Vista or 7 so it will probably stay on XP for the foreseeable future.

A virus infection is definitely possible, or maybe some system files have been corrupted. In either event though, you may want to consider backing up your data, formatting the drive and reinstalling the operating system. While it may be possible to resolve the issue at hand, a lot of the time you'll find future problems down the road. If you go this route, I would highly recommend installing and updating one of the better antivirus programs mentioned (ESET, Norton and Kaspersky are all good choices) before moving any of your data back. It also wouldn't hurt to back up the files to an external hard drive if possible, this way if a virus is detected in the backup it can be removed by the software.

Out of curiosity, do you use more than one browser? and if so, do the connection errors occur on all browsers or just one? At this point, I think you may want to create a second user account to see if the issue is duplicated there as well. If it affects another account, that will tell us that it's at the system level and not related to any changes the software may have made to your user account.

I remember when I used to play Skies of Arcadia on the Dreamcast, I knew when a random battle was coming from the incredibly loud spin-up and seek noise coming from the drive.

I admit I spent quite a bit on cooling for both systems. I went with Zalman's top the line CPU coolers on both, used only 120mm case fans on the lowest setting and went with graphics cards that used a low-noise Zalman GPU cooler.

They've actually improved their product greatly since 2007. I'm still not a fan of Norton Internet Security, but Norton Antivirus is minimally invasive, takes very little resources and is a generally quiet and self-maintaining application. Their definitions regularly rank among the best. If you haven't used it for a while, I would recommend trying their 15 day free trial. It also removes without a hitch, unlike previous versions. Glad to hear everything is back up-and-running, it sounds like the uninstaller probably left the service component of the firewall behind. ESET usually ranks at the top in most detection bechmarks and it is very fast/non-intrusive. Personally though, I would only go with the antivirus product if I were to use it. I've found 3rd party firewalls to be very intrusive and generally not provide that much more security than a properly configured router.

It sounds like it may have had a built in firewall gone awry. I would double check for any remaining McAfee components in Add/Remove programs and take them out if you find any. If you don't see any remaining McAfee components there, you may want to try the McAfee Consumer Product Removal tool from this page: http://service.mcafee.com/FAQDocument.aspx?id=TS100507 This basically scans your computer for any trace of their products and removes anything that may have been left behind. If you have any other security products (another antivirus, anti-spyware, firewall, etc), you may want to remove them as well. If you're still having issues, the next step will be some basic network troubleshooting to see where the connection is getting cut off. Generally, I don't recommend most security products like McAfee due to how invasive they can be. In recent years, Symantec has improved the quality of their Norton products and the standalone Norton Antivirus 2009 is a good solution. For added protection, you can also enable the built in Windows firewall.

I just started a new game on Skies of Arcadia Legends. I really enjoyed the original on the Dreamcast and I've been meaning to play through the GameCube port. Unfortunately, when I bought it years ago my GameCube died about 35 hours into the game. This is the first time I've picked it up since then. My old save was even left on the memory card, but it's been so long I figured I would start fresh. I recall how nice the graphics were back when it was original released on the Dreamcast, it's hard to believe how dated they've become. It's also a shame they had to down sample the audio to fit it on a single GameCube disc.

Actually, I have to admit that the noise bothers me a lot. I've actually gone out of my way to build both my media center and desktop as practically silent systems. The 360 is louder than both computers and in a somewhat small room, it is very noticeable. Unfortunately all manufacturers are prone to using cheap and small fans.