AndyFair

Assuming the whole house is wired to Cat5e standards, it should be suitable for gigabit ethernet. What are you going to be using such a fast network for? Gigabit is really a backbone technology (which is why most of the gigabit networking kit is so expensive), it's not really meant for normal LAN applications...although I have read in the IT press that gigabit will be coming to desktop soon - I think that's more of a waste than running Word on a 3GHz P4 desktop... Just my thoughts... AndyF

Quote: Are some people really that ignorant? it is people with that state of mind that spread disease around cause they think "i can't get this" It's a case of the old "Typhoid Mary" syndrome. People would rather carry on as usual rather than admit that they might have actually caught the disease. How long did people carry on thinking that AIDS was only a gay disease, and that you were safe if you were heteros3xual, all the time ignoring the evidence that the majority of sufferers in Africa were heteros3xuals who were/caught it from prostitutes. It's easier sometime to wear blinkers than it is to face up to the truth. And, BTW, millions of people each don't die from colds: a few people each year die from secondary infections (which tend to be bacterial in nature, and the deaths are usually from bacterial pneumonia). People can also die from influenza as well. but they tend to be either the young, the old or the immunocompromised. I'm taking the middle ground on this one: I don't think we can be complacent with SARS, but on the other hand, I don't think it's as bad as the media are making out. Just my (ever so 'umble) opinion AndyF PS - Apologies about the "heteros3xuals" above - phpBB doesn't like S E X!

OK, shortcomings of the Intel integrated graphics aside, what OS are you using? What version of DirectX? What are the specifics of the GPF? Latest drivers? You know, the usual stuff. Splinter Cell is quite graphically intensive, can you run the game with all the settings at minimum, or don't you even get that far? We need information! Rgds AndyF

SARS is a coronavirus, a group of viruses that also includes some strains of the common cold. This means that SARS is probably likely to spread by the same vectors (mainly aerosol, with contact as a secondary vector). However, I saw a report yesterday that mentioned that although SARS may be related to the common cold, it doesn't appear to spread as rapidly as colds do. It seems that SARS is only transmitted through repeated contact with a sufferer, so just fleeting contact with a carrier (the "cough in the lift" scenario) is unlikely to result in the disease. If you think about it, Toronto has 300 known cases in a population of 2.5million, the chances of you meeting a carrier, let alone spending enough time with them to catch the disease, are slim at best! One of the things it shares with cold viruses is its high mutation rate, so much so that samples of SARS taken from the discovery of the disease (less than 6 weeks ago) bear little resemblance to strains of SARS being found today. If you think about it, we have maybe ten thousand max reported cases world wide, and out of that ten thousand a handful of deaths - so we have 0.0001% of the population, maybe resulting in say 5-10% of that figure in deaths (I've just checked on the BBC news website, the known death toll is only 293 at the moment). Compared to diseases like malaria, TB, AIDS etc, that's just a drop in the ocean. I'm not saying that we can be complacent with SARS, but you have to take it in context. People can die from influenza, but I don't see countries closing their borders because of flu. Although, come to think of it, it was about 100 years ago that we had the last major flu pandemic. There are similarities between SARS and flu in that it appears to have started in the Far East (many flu epidemics can be traced back to the Far East, flu is virtually unique in that it can cross species boundaries, and in crossing those boundaries, picks up genetic variations, which results in new strains of flu. Flu epidemics are named by the point of origin, and the species of animal that the flu virus came from - although I have yet to see a Peking Duck flu strain ), and like flu causes distress in most of the population, but can be fatal in some cases. It's likely that SARS is a mutation of an animal form of coronavirus, that through mutation, has entered the human system. The similarities between flu and the common cold mean that we'll probably never see a "panacea" vaccine for SARS - it mutates too quickly (the mutuations in flu, colds, AIDS etc. appear in the genes that encode the surface proteins, which means that any antibodies that an individual has against a previous strain of the disease are useless against any new strains). Here's a useful link from the BBC, which gives some background. Not to sound complacent yet, but at the moment there's not much to worry about. We really need to start worrying if it ever reaches the third world (at least if it stays in the first and seconds worlds, then at least these countries have the capabilities to treat and quarantine people. Third world countries do not have these capabilities, which means that the disease could spread unchecked)... Rgds AndyF PS - I knew the degree in Microbiology would come in handy someday. Never thought I'd use it on NTCompatible though

I've been toying with the idea of buying a DVD writer, but I don't want get stung buying the wrong format! Don't want to have a repeat of Betamax all over again (yes, I know Beta is better, but when did that ever matter in consumer wars?!) Is there one format that is inching out over all the rest, or is still neck and neck? Rgds AndyF

Quote: The main reason the cartridges are so expensive is because the print heads are also on the cartridge. That's one of the reasons, the other reason is that the printer companies are allegedly artificially inflating the cost of consumables (printer cartridges). The printer is sold as a loss-leader - the real money to be made is on the cartridges! This is the subject of an EU investigation, not sure whether they've published any findings yet. Back to the original topic, I used to have a Lexmark printer, and used refill kits with no problems. You'll still need to buy new cartridges every so often, because the refills only last so long before the head starts to wear out (generally new cartridge + 2-3 refills is about the limit I found) - but it's still much cheaper than buying new cartridges every time! Rgds AndyF

Quote: ...Especially for a student like yourself, good practice man! No longer a student, haven't done any major studying since I finished my Masters degree over 10 years ago. But I still like to keep my hand in, keep learning new things. My latest thing is 3D - my MSc was in Computer Modelling, we did a lot of programming work in 3D, but this was a few years before 3D accelerators and Direct3D (even before Windows went mainstream). I'm trying to get back into 3D, re-learning all the matrix stuff, I want to do it properly before I get into the Direct3D stuff. It's scary how much stuff I've forgotten (never had to use matrix calculations in the database stuff I do at work!), but equally scary is the stuff that's still familiar to me! Rgds AndyF

Stuttering and slow videos (intro and in-campaign movies) are known problems with C&C Generals, as well as other EA games. Check the C&CG website forums for more info. It doesn't appear to be confined to just one motherboard type, soundcard or video card. As far as I know, EA has neither acknowledged the problem, or issued a fix for it - although I may be wrong, I haven't checked in the last couple of weeks. Sorry I couldn't help more. Rgds AndyF

The reason I think hot swap RAM would be complicated is all due to the OS mechanics. I'd see it happening something like this: you'd have to "inform" the OS which bank you'd be swapping out the OS would have to know what memory addresses are served by that particular bank OS would then swap the contents somewhere else (another memory bank or hard drive) OS would mark addresses served by the memory bank as "out of bounds" you would then swap the RAM (being careful to swap exactly the bank that you told the OS you would!!) OS would "unblock" the new addresses and start using them as usual[/list:u] I think that the only way you could have true hotswap RAM (i.e. just open the case and swap memory without having to tell the OS) is if you had some kind of mirrored memory RAID-1 setup (RAM-RAID? Hey, that sounds good, maybe I should copyright it before someone else has the idea ) so that losing a section of memory wouldn't result in the loss of programs/data. In terms of hardware modifications needed, who knows (I'm not an electronics whizz!) - maybe it's just as easy as having a shorter voltage pin so that is the last connection to be made (I think that's the layout of SATA connectors, which is why they're hot-swappable)? These complications are probably why we're only at the hot-add stage, not the hot-swap stage - but the "thought exercise" above shows that it's not impossible, just a pain to implement. But with the prices of memory going through the floor (who'd have thought 10 years ago that half a gigabyte of RAM would cost less than $100?!), maybe we're getting to time when we may see RAM-RAID setups (going back to the original definition of RAID, where the I stood for "inexpensive", not "independent")? All food for thought! Wow, I haven't thought this hard since University, and that's more than just a couple of years ago 8) Rgds AndyF PS - Finally, APK, I've made a post that's almost as long as one of yours!

Alec From the link that adamvjackson posted above and from Microsoft's own web-page, it looks as though only hot-ADD memory is supported, not hot swap (I guess hot swap would be too complicated and would defeat the whole point if you had to put the server into a suspended mode to swap RAM) Quote: Hot Add Memory Hot Add Memory allows ranges of memory to be added to a computer and made available to the operating system and applications as part of the normal memory pool. This does not require re-booting the computer and involves no downtime. This feature only operates on servers that have hardware support for adding memory while the server is operating. Most existing servers do not have such hardware support and can be damaged if memory is installed while the power is on. It is recommended that you consult your server operator's manual for more information Looks like we'll have to wait a while for a truly hot-pluggable system... Rgds AndyF

Hot-plugging is dependent on the motherboard used, as well as the OS. If you try to hot-swap PCI cards or RAM in a standard motherboard, all you'll end up with is a fried motherboard (and likely fried RAM as well!) All the OS part of hot-swapping does is recognise the fact that something has changed with the hardware and modify itself accordingly - same as what is supposed to happen with USB/FireWire. I'd imagine that you could only do hot-addition of RAM (or hot-swap of a faulty module that the OS knows about and is actively avoiding using - after alerting the SysAdmin of course!), because unplugging a RAM module while it's in use would crash the OS pretty quickly Unless, of course, you have an "unplug memory" option somewhere, like Win2k has for PCMCIA cards? If Microsoft is introducing hot-plug into 2k3, then perhaps we may start to see lower end motherboard containing the feature - did they say whether it would be across all versions, or just the top-end (datacentre) versions? Rgds AndyF

I would definitely go for Win2k - bear in mind that Microsoft are pulling mainstream support for NT from the end of the year, and there has already been one case where MS have said they won't be patching NT for a particular problem. Also in terms of driver upgrades, your more likely to get recent drivers for 2k than you are for NT. Rgds AndyF

Yes, we have dual-licence machines at work too - you can run either NT or 2k (but obviously not both) without having to get an additional licence. Rgds AndyF

Quote: Quote: Can you imagine the what the World would be like if Microsoft was to do that. God would disappear in a puff of logic Black would turn white Humans would get killed on the next zebra crossing. DosFreak - second HitchHiker's quote within a week...? AndyF (Fellow fan!)

I would agree with the .NET framework stuff. I've been looking into the DirectX9 SDK, using the Managed Code version looks far easier than through the COM interface... All I need to do now is get to the Win2k3 launch for my copy of VS.NET 2k3... Rgds AndyF

Well, the obvious answer, of course, is time travel. At some point in the future, you've discovered what a wonderful website NTCompatible truly is, and to make sure that you start as a "Senior Member", you travelled back in time and set up an account today. That way, when you start using it (again?) in a few years time, you'll already have made some posts. ;( :x *** On a more serious note, check with Philipp, he may be able to trace back IP addresses and the like of the person that registered using your e-mail address. But, in the meantime, if you find something useful here, stick around - we're a friendly bunch most of the time! Rgds AndyF *** Well, if some "less than accurate" newspapers can report about time travelling stock exchange trader types, then so can I!

Quote: ...because of gas costs...with today's gas prices... Gas prices? Don't talk to me about gas prices. We're paying 78p per litre here in the UK, that's £3.55 per gallon in old terms (roughly US$5.50 per gallon, or AU$2.00 per litre for Felix!). It now costs me over £60 to fill up my car from empty. I'd love to be paying the prices that people in the US or Australia pay!! Rgds Andy

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

Quote: i guess i have to install it on my 98 and transfer the WHOLE directory by network..ahah.sad. thanks dude!=D Not quite that simple, the game might use registry settings which you would need to copy over as well. Sounds to me like you have a dodgy DVD drive...if it works on one PC, but not another, that's what it sounds like. Take the laptop back, get them to replace the drive. Rgds AndyF

Excellent, all I need now is an Imax projector... AndyF

Can't see why there would be problems using an 80-wire cable...the additional 40 wires are only there to cut down on cross-talk. It's not as though they're connected to anything... ;( Confusedly, AndyF

Quote: ...i had to sell my geforce 4 4200ti 128 meg because the game would restart the computer... Let me get this straight...you changed video cards because of one game? AndyF ;(

Try uninstalling the game, then re-installing to the default location that the installer offers (something like c:\DAOC\) For some very strange reason, DAOC is very touchy about where you install it. I had this problem, and the only suggestion the tech support guys gave was "install it to the default folder". I tried it, and it worked! Don't know why, though. The only reason I can think of is that it's bad programming... ;( Hope this helps, Rgds AndyF

Luckily I went to an MS seminar on Friday discussing (amongst other things) Windows 2003 Server - and one of the things mentioned was clustering and server consolidation. 2003 clustering is more advanced than before, in that it is now possible to setup 2-into-1 and N-into-1 clusters, as opposed to the relatively simple 1-into-1 clustering which has been available until now (although I may have understood that bit wrongly!) Take a look here for more info on 2003 clustering. Hope this helps, Rgds AndyF

The auto shutdown is the easy part, it's the auto on that is the awkward thing. The only way I can think of doing it would be something like the following: 1) Shut down the PC automatically from within Windows (something like a combination of the AT command and a command-line app to shutdown Windows) 2) Use a programmable timer switch to turn the power off, say 15 mins after the PC has shut itself down 3) Use the programmable timer switch to turn the power on at a specified time, set the BIOS to turn the PC on as soon as the power comes back on (the setting is something like "Boot after power failure") That's the easiest way I can think of doing it. Not elegant, but it should work. Hope this helps, Rgds AndyF