That's no way to talk about me on my birthday! I'm not a PC virus!! ohh... wait, I guess I should rtfa, it was 20 years ago, I'm a little older than that.... *hobbles off with cane*
I'm about to turn 27 and I laughed when I saw he was 26. I'm not an old gamer quite yet. My mother still plays games, I'd say she may fall into that old gamer catagory, just not where she can hear me. She's hooked on PS/2 RPG and horror games.
I just recently reinstalled dosbox on my laptop so I can play some of my old favourites when I'm on the road. I'm replying the original Battletech Crescent Hawk and downloaded Buck Roger's Matrix from Home of the Underdogs. I played the original Buck Roger's goldbox game on my c64 so many times, but never had the sequel. If I only still had my original characters to import in! I remember in the original on the c64 when you're on Mars (or a Mars like planet, I can't remember,) the red stone it tells you to go to isn't shown for some reason, so I had to wander the map until I hit it. I played it once up to that point on dosbox ages ago and the red stone was actually on the map, right where I remember finding it (but it not being visible until hitting the exact right spot.)
(Incidentally, my favorite vendor this month is ZyXEL. $15 for an 802.11g box that runs linux and can be a router, or bridge out of the box. Plus access to a bash shell (sortof) with no hacking!)
What model is that and where did you buy it? That's seems way too good to be true, and I'm in the market for a new wireless router.
And in regards to Linksys equipment, I've never had anything but awful luck with them. I've always found D-Link stuff treats me well, though.
I had a client who had the same situation with RR. I ended up making a house call when they said they had wireless and 4 computers, but no idea how to virus scan. When I got there, they had 4 Macs and an unsecured network. When I turned on my notebook, it immediatly found two networks both called Linksys... The neighbor also had wireless, but had been connected to their router instead of his own. I disabled wireless (they didn't even need it) and the problem went away. On another note, the neighbor had WEP enabled on his, and I have a feeling they didn't actually know how it worked, and just connected to the one that got them to the web.
My company sells a line of laptops that have that shiny screen, and a lot of people really like them. I think it reminds them of a glass screen. On the other hand, my mother has hated every LCD she's ever used, saying they give her a really bad headache (doesn't matter the quality.) I snagged an LCD with the shiny screen and it didn't bother her at all. And this monitor wasn't necessarily as high quality as some of the ones that gave her a serious headache. She does have really bad vision, and something about the matte surface seemed to make her strain her eyes more.
The whole Napster thing put my old favorite local record store out of business, too. Same thing, walking distance to the local campus, and he sold lots of new and used CDs. Large amounts of vinyl, too, which kept me quite happy in small releases of punk and hardcore. The owner moved on to other business ventures (not another store, though.)
We now have a small chain retailer (it's 3 stores, all within a 3 hour drive, the closest being about 15 minutes from me.) They're great, and have a lot of the same types of items the other store did, in addition to a lot of hard to find DVDs. They adapted to the changing market better, by expanding their selections and really doing a local push where the other store didn't. It worked, and we still have a music retailer locally that isn't some huge Wal-Mart type store.
I still buy music, but I refuse to buy anything that's RIAA related. Funny thing is, I don't have any trouble with that, because of the type of music I listen to (and I listen to a very varied range, not just the above mentioned punk and hc.)
What bothers me is people that spend a lot now on something that isn't future ready. I own two HD's (56" projection and 17" LCD.) I paid decently for them (but not as much as most people think) and try to use the HD abilities of them whenever possible. But at least I'm okay for the future. My fiance bought a 30" Sony Wega around the time I bought my 56" and paid quite a large amount for it. It's not HD. But it is a nice TV, and she loves it, so I can guarentee you we'll still have it when HD is commonplace.
On another note, I did buy the larger TV because my current tv had an "accident." It was a cheap 20", but had a great picture so I used it until it's dying day.
Jabberwacky: I think that I am therefore I be.
User: Hey what's up?
Jabberwacky: Why do you want to know, are you trying to chide me?
User: Screw you.
Jabberwacky: I don't believe that.
User: Don't believe what?
Jabberwacky: That you speak with me only.
User: I never said that.
Jabberwacky: I know.
User: Stopping putting words in my mouth!
Jabberwacky: You are repeating again, I don't think you are a real person.
User: I am a virus!
Jabberwacky: You're a virus?
User: Lol im not a virus r u!!
Jabberwacky: No you are a idot.
Best conversation with Jabberwacky ever =D It did say idot, too, that's not a cut and paste mistake.
Thank you for the positive response (I was waiting for a few "You jerk" type responses.) I didn't try to physically stop the dog, I could imagine that being a bad situation (she was my best friend, yes, but she was a hunter at heart.) She did end up bringing the cat to me and dropping it at my feet, sitting down, and looking proud. The only good thing I guess about the situation was she wasn't brutal, and barely left a mark on the cat (she still was up at the vet to be checked out afterwards.)
I still feel guilty I never did find the owner of the cat, I know I would be going nuts if I was in that situation. Luckily my cat is an indoor cat, like I said before, and she has no want to go outside (she's a lap cat, that's for sure. Acts more like a few dogs I've had than the few cats I've had.)
Oh, and our yard was nice and fenced in, with a very high fence to prevent the dog from ever getting out. Her only other animal contact was the neighbor's dogs (who she loved to play with. They were so passive compared to her, but it was fun to watch) and my pet rat, who she tried to treat like a puppy.
Talking about kitty getting it from a dog whose yard she wanders into, about 12 years ago a beautiful white cat wandered into my yard and my dog happened to be out. I tried to get her off it, but there was no chance (she like to grab things and break their necks.) I felt so awful, but she was just protecting our yard (she would chase the neighbors cats away, but never hurt them. Squirrels, skunks, birds, and this poor kitty were another matter.) My dog was half Great Dane and half Ridgeback. She was 105 pounds of pure hunter (tall and thin like a great dane.) *sigh*
I tried to find the owner of the cat, figuring it was maybe one of the people on my block or on the other side, but no one knew anything about it. I felt so awful I was willing to take the screaming I would have probably gotten just to let them know.
Now I'm going to find my kitty (who never leaves the house) and hug her, because I feel crappy all over again.
I own a PC shop, and we sell quite a lot of machines. Almost all the clients want some form of Windows XP on them. But we do not force it on them, and I have had a few customers request no OS (I'm sure some of them just installed that Dell copy that had sitting around) but one of the machines came back with a small issue and it was running Fedora. I've only had one customer ask if we could install Linux on it for him, so we did. He was nothing but happy, because when configuring the machine, we made sure that everything would be compatible.
I'm writing this on a laptop I configured for myself a bit ago, and it's running SuSe 10 (I'm considering going back to Slackware, though, but that's neither here nor there.)
So I agree, if you want an OS-less machine and the company won't help, go somewhere else (unless they don't want them. It's free, no one has turned it down so far.) If I want to keep getting nice prices on the copies of Windows that people want, I just have to make sure machines are sold with some kind of OS. FreeDOS fits that description. This way I can offer my clients what they want, not what I want to force on them. All machines come with a nice OSS suite of programs (such as Open Office) to allow them a choice of applications without necessarily having to shell out extra money. I have happy return customers, which is what's important to me (and the business!)
I was working for Electonics Boutique at the time of the PS2 release. I saw over half of the release day systems come back with something wrong, and even more damaged games from people that insisted on putting them vertical. My release day PS2, on the other hand, just stopped working about 6 months ago. It was no longer in my possesion when it did, and the person using it played games nonstop on it for over a year before it flaked out.
These issues with the XBox360 don't surprise me, and I'll still be buying one. I enjoyed the hell out of my Xbox, much more than any of the other current systems, and that's the most important thing to me. And this is coming from one of these Linux is great people.
The only system I didn't see come back with a decent amount of defective units at launch would have to be the Gamecube. Nintendo does tend to make a rock solid system, though. I'm just glad not to be working in that retail nightmare anymore.
AMD has yet to prove the Athlon64 is more than a fluke (which is not to say I think it is a fluke, but AMD fanbois have a penchant for pretending AMD can do no wrong).
AMD can do no wrong! I heard from a reliable source that the new chips will not only have 16 cores, but will cure cancer, do your dishes, and run under 40F!
Before deleted them (I logged into AIM just to remove them after seeing this) I decided to play with them. Results are awful. Here's a great example of being immature and getting a great result.
Message to moviefone at 2:01:48 pm
fag
Message from moviefone at 2:01:49 pm
K, I found a match. You used zip ***** last. To use it type Y. OR type in a new zipcode now and I'll see if this is playing near you.
Message to moviefone at 2:01:54 pm
y
Message from moviefone at 2:01:54 pm
I found The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie playing on 11/16/2005 but not anywhere near *****. Try for another film, director or actor.
I found a copy on ebay for the C-64 because I used to love it growing up. Someone had "donated" a C-64 and a ton of accessories for it to me, so I had to find a copy of that game. System works great, looks a bit pixellated on a 56" TV, though. =D
I barely have time to game anymore, games that take months would take me years. A few weeks of gameplay will work out to a few months for me in the long run, which suits me fine. I'd rather take my time, play when I can, and enjoy the experience.
If I was her parent I would tell her to move on. I'm not trying to be an ass, but giving an ultimatum to someone you are supposed to love (or at least really care about) doesn't sound like a good idea. Maybe explaining the situation to her parents would work out better than explaining it to her. Just doesn't seem to be very tactful. More than likely is she really wants it, nothing anyone says is going to do anything about it. If the quality is as high as the inintial release of the PS/2, though, you won't have to worry about it kicking around too long at least!
How the HELL did you survive that??? 70mph into your driver door... Jesus!
Pure luck I think. I only had a cut on my finger from the airbags going off (3 went off, driver side door, drivers side front, and passenger front.) I had a passenger in the car, and he was fine, too. The guy that hit me wasn't so good, he went up a lawn, over a hill, hit the edge of a garage roof (the driveway is cut into the hill, so the garage roof is only a bit above that part of the hill) and landed on top of another car. He survived, but with a lot of broken bones.
What insurance company was providing the payments to you? I was in a very bad accident October 2004, and my laptop was destroyed in it. Someone ran a red light in a 30 mph zone and smashed into my drivers side door going around 70 mph (I walked away with a small cut on my finger, btw. My 3 month 1 day old Hyundai Elantra wasn't so lucky, completely totaled.) The insurance claim completely covered my laptop.
They originally wanted a receipt of repair, but I own a PC repair shop and this was one of my custom systems. So they took the receipts from my wholesaler for the parts and paid out on them, no mess with returning broken parts (which I could of if they wanted, but they never even brought it up.)
I completely understand the situation with dealing with Dell, though. I take care of them for a lot of my customers because of the run around they like to give people. I tell the rep I'm calling from a PC repair shop on behalf of a customer, and they immediatly take care of the problem without a hassle. Maybe the trick is just saying you're a PC repair shop, they don't ask for any kind of proof.
I'm really torn on this, because I want to forbid my girlfriend from buying any more Sony products (I personally have been boycotting them for years already -- their hard-on for proprietary formats (e.g. Memory Stick) was enough for me), but I know her family really likes gaming, and buys every console that comes out.
I hate to do it, but I may have to issue the ultimatum "Do not buy a Playstation 3, because I will be forced to break up with you if you do."
How about you ask her nicely not to purchase the system and explain your reasons? I don't forbid my fiance to do anything, I discuss with her why I boycott certain things (Walmart, Starbucks, whatever) and then ask her if she'd support me and also not go to these places. With an incentive of "Do not buy a Playstation 3, because I will be forced to break up with you if you do" I'd think you'd be in the market for a new gaming system to fill up all that free time in your new single lifestyle.
I have one major client that uses IMs to communicate, and many of the workers speak in IM-speak. Even when they use it to send me a message I reply back in full sentences. At least I managed to get them off of MSN and onto an internet Jabber server. A ton of their employees were wasting time talking to friends on MSN instead of working. The Jabber server didn't make me too popular with their employees until they found the smiley faces in the client *sigh*.
Slashdot Mirror
That's no way to talk about me on my birthday! I'm not a PC virus!! ohh... wait, I guess I should rtfa, it was 20 years ago, I'm a little older than that.... *hobbles off with cane*
I'm about to turn 27 and I laughed when I saw he was 26. I'm not an old gamer quite yet. My mother still plays games, I'd say she may fall into that old gamer catagory, just not where she can hear me. She's hooked on PS/2 RPG and horror games.
I just recently reinstalled dosbox on my laptop so I can play some of my old favourites when I'm on the road. I'm replying the original Battletech Crescent Hawk and downloaded Buck Roger's Matrix from Home of the Underdogs. I played the original Buck Roger's goldbox game on my c64 so many times, but never had the sequel. If I only still had my original characters to import in! I remember in the original on the c64 when you're on Mars (or a Mars like planet, I can't remember,) the red stone it tells you to go to isn't shown for some reason, so I had to wander the map until I hit it. I played it once up to that point on dosbox ages ago and the red stone was actually on the map, right where I remember finding it (but it not being visible until hitting the exact right spot.)
Why not! Half my customers call any computer a Dell, no matter what it is. It'll just help to confuse them even more.
My little deep fryer has one. Always thought it was a great idea and I'd love to see other brands using it, not just Apple.
What model is that and where did you buy it? That's seems way too good to be true, and I'm in the market for a new wireless router.
And in regards to Linksys equipment, I've never had anything but awful luck with them. I've always found D-Link stuff treats me well, though.
I had a client who had the same situation with RR. I ended up making a house call when they said they had wireless and 4 computers, but no idea how to virus scan. When I got there, they had 4 Macs and an unsecured network. When I turned on my notebook, it immediatly found two networks both called Linksys... The neighbor also had wireless, but had been connected to their router instead of his own. I disabled wireless (they didn't even need it) and the problem went away. On another note, the neighbor had WEP enabled on his, and I have a feeling they didn't actually know how it worked, and just connected to the one that got them to the web.
My company sells a line of laptops that have that shiny screen, and a lot of people really like them. I think it reminds them of a glass screen. On the other hand, my mother has hated every LCD she's ever used, saying they give her a really bad headache (doesn't matter the quality.) I snagged an LCD with the shiny screen and it didn't bother her at all. And this monitor wasn't necessarily as high quality as some of the ones that gave her a serious headache. She does have really bad vision, and something about the matte surface seemed to make her strain her eyes more.
The whole Napster thing put my old favorite local record store out of business, too. Same thing, walking distance to the local campus, and he sold lots of new and used CDs. Large amounts of vinyl, too, which kept me quite happy in small releases of punk and hardcore. The owner moved on to other business ventures (not another store, though.)
We now have a small chain retailer (it's 3 stores, all within a 3 hour drive, the closest being about 15 minutes from me.) They're great, and have a lot of the same types of items the other store did, in addition to a lot of hard to find DVDs. They adapted to the changing market better, by expanding their selections and really doing a local push where the other store didn't. It worked, and we still have a music retailer locally that isn't some huge Wal-Mart type store.
I still buy music, but I refuse to buy anything that's RIAA related. Funny thing is, I don't have any trouble with that, because of the type of music I listen to (and I listen to a very varied range, not just the above mentioned punk and hc.)
What bothers me is people that spend a lot now on something that isn't future ready. I own two HD's (56" projection and 17" LCD.) I paid decently for them (but not as much as most people think) and try to use the HD abilities of them whenever possible. But at least I'm okay for the future. My fiance bought a 30" Sony Wega around the time I bought my 56" and paid quite a large amount for it. It's not HD. But it is a nice TV, and she loves it, so I can guarentee you we'll still have it when HD is commonplace.
On another note, I did buy the larger TV because my current tv had an "accident." It was a cheap 20", but had a great picture so I used it until it's dying day.
Jabberwacky: I think that I am therefore I be.
User: Hey what's up?
Jabberwacky: Why do you want to know, are you trying to chide me?
User: Screw you.
Jabberwacky: I don't believe that.
User: Don't believe what?
Jabberwacky: That you speak with me only.
User: I never said that.
Jabberwacky: I know.
User: Stopping putting words in my mouth!
Jabberwacky: You are repeating again, I don't think you are a real person.
User: I am a virus!
Jabberwacky: You're a virus?
User: Lol im not a virus r u!!
Jabberwacky: No you are a idot.
Best conversation with Jabberwacky ever =D It did say idot, too, that's not a cut and paste mistake.
Thank you for the positive response (I was waiting for a few "You jerk" type responses.) I didn't try to physically stop the dog, I could imagine that being a bad situation (she was my best friend, yes, but she was a hunter at heart.) She did end up bringing the cat to me and dropping it at my feet, sitting down, and looking proud. The only good thing I guess about the situation was she wasn't brutal, and barely left a mark on the cat (she still was up at the vet to be checked out afterwards.)
I still feel guilty I never did find the owner of the cat, I know I would be going nuts if I was in that situation. Luckily my cat is an indoor cat, like I said before, and she has no want to go outside (she's a lap cat, that's for sure. Acts more like a few dogs I've had than the few cats I've had.)
Oh, and our yard was nice and fenced in, with a very high fence to prevent the dog from ever getting out. Her only other animal contact was the neighbor's dogs (who she loved to play with. They were so passive compared to her, but it was fun to watch) and my pet rat, who she tried to treat like a puppy.
Talking about kitty getting it from a dog whose yard she wanders into, about 12 years ago a beautiful white cat wandered into my yard and my dog happened to be out. I tried to get her off it, but there was no chance (she like to grab things and break their necks.) I felt so awful, but she was just protecting our yard (she would chase the neighbors cats away, but never hurt them. Squirrels, skunks, birds, and this poor kitty were another matter.) My dog was half Great Dane and half Ridgeback. She was 105 pounds of pure hunter (tall and thin like a great dane.) *sigh*
I tried to find the owner of the cat, figuring it was maybe one of the people on my block or on the other side, but no one knew anything about it. I felt so awful I was willing to take the screaming I would have probably gotten just to let them know.
Now I'm going to find my kitty (who never leaves the house) and hug her, because I feel crappy all over again.
I own a PC shop, and we sell quite a lot of machines. Almost all the clients want some form of Windows XP on them. But we do not force it on them, and I have had a few customers request no OS (I'm sure some of them just installed that Dell copy that had sitting around) but one of the machines came back with a small issue and it was running Fedora. I've only had one customer ask if we could install Linux on it for him, so we did. He was nothing but happy, because when configuring the machine, we made sure that everything would be compatible.
I'm writing this on a laptop I configured for myself a bit ago, and it's running SuSe 10 (I'm considering going back to Slackware, though, but that's neither here nor there.)
So I agree, if you want an OS-less machine and the company won't help, go somewhere else (unless they don't want them. It's free, no one has turned it down so far.) If I want to keep getting nice prices on the copies of Windows that people want, I just have to make sure machines are sold with some kind of OS. FreeDOS fits that description. This way I can offer my clients what they want, not what I want to force on them. All machines come with a nice OSS suite of programs (such as Open Office) to allow them a choice of applications without necessarily having to shell out extra money. I have happy return customers, which is what's important to me (and the business!)
Plus it would really help to grow my army of "zombie robots."
I was working for Electonics Boutique at the time of the PS2 release. I saw over half of the release day systems come back with something wrong, and even more damaged games from people that insisted on putting them vertical. My release day PS2, on the other hand, just stopped working about 6 months ago. It was no longer in my possesion when it did, and the person using it played games nonstop on it for over a year before it flaked out.
These issues with the XBox360 don't surprise me, and I'll still be buying one. I enjoyed the hell out of my Xbox, much more than any of the other current systems, and that's the most important thing to me. And this is coming from one of these Linux is great people.
The only system I didn't see come back with a decent amount of defective units at launch would have to be the Gamecube. Nintendo does tend to make a rock solid system, though. I'm just glad not to be working in that retail nightmare anymore.
AMD can do no wrong! I heard from a reliable source that the new chips will not only have 16 cores, but will cure cancer, do your dishes, and run under 40F!
Before deleted them (I logged into AIM just to remove them after seeing this) I decided to play with them. Results are awful. Here's a great example of being immature and getting a great result.
Message to moviefone at 2:01:48 pm
fag
Message from moviefone at 2:01:49 pm
K, I found a match. You used zip ***** last. To use it type Y. OR type in a new zipcode now and I'll see if this is playing near you.
Message to moviefone at 2:01:54 pm
y
Message from moviefone at 2:01:54 pm
I found The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie playing on 11/16/2005 but not anywhere near *****. Try for another film, director or actor.
I pointed adult sites at work to Badger Badger Badger. It was great when you heard it coming from about computers a few minutes later.
I found a copy on ebay for the C-64 because I used to love it growing up. Someone had "donated" a C-64 and a ton of accessories for it to me, so I had to find a copy of that game. System works great, looks a bit pixellated on a 56" TV, though. =D
I barely have time to game anymore, games that take months would take me years. A few weeks of gameplay will work out to a few months for me in the long run, which suits me fine. I'd rather take my time, play when I can, and enjoy the experience.
If I was her parent I would tell her to move on. I'm not trying to be an ass, but giving an ultimatum to someone you are supposed to love (or at least really care about) doesn't sound like a good idea. Maybe explaining the situation to her parents would work out better than explaining it to her. Just doesn't seem to be very tactful. More than likely is she really wants it, nothing anyone says is going to do anything about it. If the quality is as high as the inintial release of the PS/2, though, you won't have to worry about it kicking around too long at least!
Pure luck I think. I only had a cut on my finger from the airbags going off (3 went off, driver side door, drivers side front, and passenger front.) I had a passenger in the car, and he was fine, too. The guy that hit me wasn't so good, he went up a lawn, over a hill, hit the edge of a garage roof (the driveway is cut into the hill, so the garage roof is only a bit above that part of the hill) and landed on top of another car. He survived, but with a lot of broken bones.
What insurance company was providing the payments to you? I was in a very bad accident October 2004, and my laptop was destroyed in it. Someone ran a red light in a 30 mph zone and smashed into my drivers side door going around 70 mph (I walked away with a small cut on my finger, btw. My 3 month 1 day old Hyundai Elantra wasn't so lucky, completely totaled.) The insurance claim completely covered my laptop.
They originally wanted a receipt of repair, but I own a PC repair shop and this was one of my custom systems. So they took the receipts from my wholesaler for the parts and paid out on them, no mess with returning broken parts (which I could of if they wanted, but they never even brought it up.)
I completely understand the situation with dealing with Dell, though. I take care of them for a lot of my customers because of the run around they like to give people. I tell the rep I'm calling from a PC repair shop on behalf of a customer, and they immediatly take care of the problem without a hassle. Maybe the trick is just saying you're a PC repair shop, they don't ask for any kind of proof.
How about you ask her nicely not to purchase the system and explain your reasons? I don't forbid my fiance to do anything, I discuss with her why I boycott certain things (Walmart, Starbucks, whatever) and then ask her if she'd support me and also not go to these places. With an incentive of "Do not buy a Playstation 3, because I will be forced to break up with you if you do" I'd think you'd be in the market for a new gaming system to fill up all that free time in your new single lifestyle.
I have one major client that uses IMs to communicate, and many of the workers speak in IM-speak. Even when they use it to send me a message I reply back in full sentences. At least I managed to get them off of MSN and onto an internet Jabber server. A ton of their employees were wasting time talking to friends on MSN instead of working. The Jabber server didn't make me too popular with their employees until they found the smiley faces in the client *sigh*.