ViolentGreen

Quote: not too sure what your problem is but i can say that nero works fine for music. i use it. Have u tried a different CD? does your cdplayer work with other CDR's? just some things to think about ! RF I do not have any more cds at the moment. THat will be my first thing to try though. My cd player does work with other cds as well. Just wondering if anyone has experienced this before.

Quote: Java has a "RAD" style development environment? That's news to me... Look up JBuilder. Excellent program for building java applications/applets. Unlike what I have seen in Visual Basic however, these tools for java require that the programmer know something about the underlying code to set up event handlers. Its quick and easier to set up. Quote: Thing is though, that alot of what you learn in academia does not really carry over in practice to the working world... So, why do I say that you might be wondering. Well, for me this is reaching back pretty far in time,around 1994 when I started working as a professional programmer! I came out of MOSTLY a DOS/UNIX Operating System type, Assembler & C-C++ based background in school... w/ alot of Pascal & BASIC as well (other languages that I was taught like Fortran, & COBOL for instance, I have yet to use in the working world over a decade now). I thought C was the best thing to happen to computers since sliced bread when compared to Assembler language @ least, & these two were my primary tools in academia @ least. They were decent to work with building character mode console apps in DOS/UNIX etc. but not so good for Windows apps I felt, VERY complex. See, once I hit the working world however, BASIC was mostly everywhere though in VB/Access with "RAD" (rapid application development) tools & not in a DOS/UNIX character mode environs! (First in Win16 code & shortly afterward, alot of porting it to Win9x OS' from Win3.x into Win32 code.) The tools were VB & Access mostly for me (& later, linking that to backend servers like SQL Server, Oracle, & DB2), & it was a HUGE change from using DOS character mode tools that I liked in C/C++ & Assembler mostly, some Turbo Pascal! I began to notice that for QUICK production, VB & Delphi were much better than building Information Systems @ least (the 'bread & butter' work out there for most programmers) & you could build working systems in 1/5th the time it would take in C/C++ in Windows @ least. The point I guess I am trying to make is, that in academia, alot of professors & such are guys that may or may not have had actual out-in-the-working-world real world experience... True some may have, some may have acted as consultants, but I would wager many have not. So what they are teaching may or may not be in actual use out there... it may be good stuff, but the question is: Does it prepare the student for the toolsets he may be confronted with out there in the real world? * Most of what I got out of college @ least with dual degrees in this field, was principles... mostly. Yes, the languages helped that I picked up on but by taking many of them by overloading my schedule, it was like taking diff. forms of martial arts I would guess as a sort of analogy... you started to see that what you can do in one, you can do in another (BUT, you have to know the questions first to ask from one language to another, thus what I meant about principles). As far as teaching principles over specific languages goes, I think any respectable program teaches the concepts of programming as opposed to a language. However, you cannot teach the concepts without a language. In my experience, mosts institutions use C++ and Java. The fact that the folks coming out of school are familier with java is a huge incentive to use it because of familierity. Quote: P.S.=> Personally, I think that for Win32 app building & Information Systems work that Access, VB, VC++, & Delphi are the tools to learn & use on the front end & later learn SQL Server & Oracle (if not DB2 as well)... For web fiends, it'd be ASP/.NET &/or Java... learn them ALL, be prepared for what is REALLY out there & don't limit yourself... apk I agree completely. Java is not for Win32 application building. From my experience the performance is severely lacking, especially in the department of memory usage. Most of the Java IDEs are written in java and JBuilder would take over a minute to load on my XP1700 laptop. There are plusses and minuses to any language and like I said, I know very little about .NET. I don't see visual basic going away anytime soon either, nor should it. I am just making a case for Java.

I wish they would just give you the full file to download instead of a smaller file that downlaods the full one. Its a hassle if you are on dialup because it prevents you from using a download manager.

The A7N8X is an excellent motherboard. EXCELLENT!. You might want to head over to http://www.nforcershq.com/forum/index.php and check out the potential problems there. The user base there is enormous. It may seem that there are a lot of problems listed but remeber that the more users there are, the more problems there will be. The huge user base is great for problem sovling. There are very few problems left unresolved. They have links to reviews listed as well. Hope it helps you out.

Quote: OPen my computer - tools / folder options / view - very bottom "use simple file sharing" - uncheck that. What exactly does this do? XP has been a hassle to share between Pro and Home edtitions.

Quote: .NET vs. Java is what it's coming down to I think @ least, here... I seriously think Java will win out over .NET. The main reason for this is taht Java is already being used and tought in the Academic world due to the fact that it is powerful, easy to use and most importantly, free. You can download several powerful, free Java IDEs for free. Most have the drag-and-drop style for building windows aps like VB started. As far as I know there is no .NET developer kit that is free of charge, thus I have never used .NET. To be fair though, I know very little about .NET software. I think the academic use of Java will give it the boost it needs, much like it did C in the early days.

Definitely go for the nforce2 based chipset. They are pretty much unanimusly considered the best socket-a motherboards. I have the A7N8X Deluxe which seems to be teh most popular of the nforce2s. It has soundstorm surround sound(rivals audigy2), dual lan, RAID, dual ddr, ... Great Board!

I seem to remember that TweakUI has a "repair registry" option in the "repair" dialog. I am not sure what tihs does of the top of my head thoguh.

Whate are your impressions of it? I am wondering if it is worth the downlaod. I currently use IE because it is much faster then Netscape. I know phoenix is supposed to be stripped down; how does the speed compare to IE? I have only used mozilla once (3-4 years ago) and was less then impressed. What are your thoughts?

Not exactly. It was meant as more of a joke. But anyway, He seems to be very sharp and I doubt his unemployment will be long.

What exactly is Delphi? I have never heard of it before. Is it a C library or an entirely different language?

Quote: Quote: LOL...I use lynx fairly often. Still comes with most distros. I have a Lynx for Win32 port here + PINE mail for Win32 as well! * Both character mode versions of the originals, perfect copies in fact! (I even have Ws-Gopher 32 here as well, but I don't think there are many GOPHER servers out there anymore... I also have Ws-Archie for file searches, & occasionally even do FTP still using SmartFTP!) APK P.S.=> SHS-> Why the 'old character mode' stuff from UNIX ports on Win32? For my brother, he is a UNIX person basically... In fact, I have MANY of the UNIX commandline programs here in Win32 port form as well for him online integrated into my XP Operating System in case he comes over etc. apk After I got used to UNIX, I couldn't do anything at the DOS prompt anymore (not that there's a whole lot that can be done.) I put cygwin on mysystem and am now a happy camper!

Quote: i mean: when i have some windows (of explorer) opened on my desktop and have shutdown or reboot computer than after boot there are no explorer windows on my desktop! i didn't change parameters like hibernate or sleep. what can i do? There is an option somewhare (maybe under "folder options" or in tweakui) where it says something to the effect of "restore active windows".

Quote: Quote: How do you like XP as an OS? It's quite excellent! It's stable & capable & probably the EASIEST for compatibilty with legacy games & apps out of the box without major tweaking like using the Application Compatibility Toolkit & other 3rd party programs. MY personal case-in-point is the Williams Arcade pack running WITH SOUND & running fast here on XP where it would not on 2k with sound... XP just seems more capable with emulators like this old Win9x program (allows me to play a few OLD CLASSIC favorites of mine in Defender, StarGate, & Robotron 2084 which I like very much using this particular program as just a single example I run into!) Quote: I have heard so many mixed reports on it. What type of system specs do you need to make it efficient? You'd have to see MS' recommendations for the EXTREME low-end, & I wager it'd run on lower than that, IF you could get it to install on lower end machines than MS' spec for it (because it's SO tuneable internally for performance)... It does checking @ installation for various things like HDD space, CPU type, & other things that limit your options here. (NOTE - I'd bet this is adjusteable though possibly, by altering the .inf or .ini files used to initiate the installation on the Cd-Rom itself... I have seen other folks alter that to make installs do various things...) ANYHOW, back on track - The reason I say this? Well, I could run NT 3.51 on a 486 Dx/4 133mhz w/32mb RAM on it, 424mb of diskspace in total between 2 disks of 212mb size each, & it ran acceptably... 2k/XP are just members/descendants of that ancestor NT 3.51 & I'd wager, if you tuned XP or 2k right, they might run on Pentium I systems of 100mhz or better w/64mb of RAM even pretty well, slow, but useable on a guess! Diskspace limits could be hopefully gotten around by slimming-down how many options you choose to install from the basic std. installation type. Another work-around for this, to test it? Use PLUG-N-PLAY to your advantage potentially! What do I mean? Well... I had a system that would NOT let me install XP (but it allowed NT & 9x just fine, old VIA mobo based machine)... how did I fool it? I installed it onto that systems bootdisk on another VIA based system (newer one) first by transplanting the bootdrive briefly from the older machine to the newer one, installing the Os, removing the disk again & putting it back in the OLDER one, & then upon reboot... PLUG & PLAY oddly picked up the differences & changed equipment & ran it perfectly! Quote: Any major bugs still in it? Well, those are ALWAYS going to pop-up, especially in the arena of security... but MS is good patching it quick usually. Major Bugs? None I see that are "major", just some silly useability things usually is what I see, stuff like MMC.exe .msc snapins for Microsoft Management Console not saving the last Windows Size & position for each snap in (the disk defrag one does though, proving it's doable, but the rest don't), Explorer.exe periodically loses its view settings on some folders (seems to only use last instance view from last use of Explorer.exe only), but nothing HUGE on my end @ least that I see as a major bug. There ARE some things in the NTFS filesystem that need correction though... For instance: Zero byte length files take up NO space... right? WRONG! In NTFS, the MFT$ (Master File Table, like FAT table in Fat16/32 filesystems) keeps attributes of even 0 byte sized files... if a virus were to sit in memory creating LOADS of zero-byte files @ highspeed, eventually you would flood your disk & NOT know why by bloating the MFT$ up to the limits of freedisk space. (Crazy, eh?) Another one is the feature of Alternate Data Streams... where you can hide a file of ANY size inside the filestream of another file & make it TOTALLY invisible (NTFS only)... this is VERY easy to do in fact (was included in NTFS due to compatibility iirc, with Apple computers), look it up online sometime on how to do it. A virus could, theoretically, create GIGANTIC files via copy (faster than writing out data which would give away its activity too quickly if you ask me, use existing data instead), & insert them into the stream of another file thus hiding it COMPLETELY! This could eventually flood your disk totally out as well or creating other types of filesystem errors, like cross-links & such. MS includes NO tools for the detection of this afaik... Thank Goodness, that there are FREE 3rd party ones that check for this, but this is something that should be native to the OS itself... Why? Well, not even the Operating System &/or filesystem are aware of these types of files believe it or not once they are hidden... you as the user have to be. If a virus does this, it WILL get you, & you'd be none the wiser, as you would have NO idea this alternate datastream was created. Heh, be glad I don't create virus... I'd come up with some wild ones just based on these NTFS caveats. One question I've always had is HOW do defraggers deal with Alternate Data Streams in files on NTFS Filesystems & is this accounted for PROPERLY by them?? Quote: Any comments appreciated! * You got them above! APK ...Dude... Do you have a job?

Quote: ...Valve Software is currently investigating to make Half-Life 2 exclusive to Nvidia hardware That would be a huge mistake on the part of Valve. The 9700 is generally considered to be the best card available (last time I checked) and they would be alienating a large portion of the PC gaming community. People aren't going to scrap a $400 card so that they can play a $50 game. I seriously doubt that Valve/Sierra would even consider doing this

Quote: I conxur with adam, your drive has gone bad. Luckaly,good CD-RW Drives aren't all that expensive. Yamaha's 44x24x44 drive is good and so is a 52x24x52 Lite-On drive. If you have a lot of Multi-speed CD-R discs, the Yamaha is a good drive. I just got that lite-on off newegg for $48!

Quote: Well, I remember using a BBS on my trusty old Commodore 64, it was UK-based, but I can't remember what it was called! Used to take half an hour to upload 50k files... 8) Then, in the late 80s, early 90s, lots of Internet-based kermit and ftp downloads, lots of browsing newsgroups - all from the University network - connected to the Internet via JANET. Then around 93-94 the Internet. I remember my first taste of the web was via a text-based browser (Lynx?) - and I was thinking "what's all the fuss about?!". Then, of course, I discovered Mosaic/Netscape (wasn't so much Nutscrape in those days!), and I haven't looked back since. Man, this thread is making me feel old... 8) AndyF LOL...I use lynx fairly often. Still comes with most distros. I dialup into my university network. Its behind da firewall so the only way I can get out is with lynx Anyway, my first was with prodigy on a 486. It was graphical but did not have the WWW. It was like only being able to go to one website.

Quote: Quote: Yeah, well that didn't work. I just get a black screen. Try my method I posted then! * The first one using Giles Voillant's bootpart program version 2.50. (OR, conversely, try consult nebulus directly on his method's details then.... nice part about forums is, you have folks to consult directly! Private Message him if he does not respond directly here...) APK Well the problem with your method is that I don't have a FAT partition on my system as of now. I want to try to aviod repartitioning again. The more I think about it though, I need a FAT partition to swap files between OSs because linux has issues with NTFS.

Quote: Quote: Quote: Morrowind is the best stand alone RPG, followed by NWN. I only played SS2 once and didn't like it, although I may try it again. I just got morrowind and it is pretty cool. My character moves entirely too slow though, even when compared to the other characters in the game. If you don't want to cheat (which I recommend since it is waaaaaaaaayyy to easy to become powerful in this game without cheating) then get the Boots of Speed. Make ya much faster. Then just either assign speed points, Make Enchantments, or potions to boost your speed. Yeah well I think I am going to start a new character anyway...I chose the birthsign that doesn't let you regenerate your magic and it is getting to be a pain.

Quote: Quote: All you need to do is to create an image of the linux boot sector.. Type this while you're in Mandrake Code: dd if=/dev/hda7 bs=512 count=1 of=/mnt/win_c/linux.bin where hda7 should be your linux boot partition, might be something else.. like hda5.. so check "boot"- line in "lilo.conf" ..and add this to your "boot.ini" file Code: C:\linux.bin="Mandrake Linux 9.0" Ahhh, thanks nebulus... THAT's the other way I have heard about, & in fact, I think it was from YOU here @ this site in these forums that I saw that way of doing it! * (Two roads to Rome, you now have BOTH techniques for this use of boot.ini as your multiple partition boot manager!) * In the words of Microsoft: "Where do you want to go today?" (+ using BOOT.INI? Linux, DOS, Os/2, Windows95/98/ME/NT/2k/XP???) APK P.S.=> & nebulus? I just LOVE that signature of yours about programmers & the universe, lol... apk Yeah, well that didn't work. I just get a black screen.

Quote: Morrowind is the best stand alone RPG, followed by NWN. I only played SS2 once and didn't like it, although I may try it again. I just got morrowind and it is pretty cool. My character moves entirely too slow though, even when compared to the other characters in the game.

Any comments on the lenght of Unreal Tournament 2? I am thinking about purchasing it but was wondering how long of a game it is and the replay value. I have heard it doesn't have a multiplayer feature so that it a downside. Also would you recommend it ober UT2003?

Any comments on the lenght of Unreal Tournament 2? I am thinking about purchasing it but was wondering how long of a game it is and the replay value. I have heard it doesn't have a multiplayer feature so that it a downside. Also would you recommend it ober UT2003?

Thanks! You all have been great! I'll try it when I get off work.

Quote: yes linux would be the best thing in your case. It is very easy to make a linux box that has a very slim install. The only thing is trying to find a DVD player for Linux that can do all that stuff. Im not very up to date on what kind of Players are out there for that operating system. Look into Mandrake Linux. It comes with several choices of DVD players. Choose a simple window manager and only the mulitmedia pack and you will have exactly what you need. Mandrake is a no brainer to install.