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User: NormAtHome

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  1. IBM Net Vista's Also on PCs Plagued by Bad Capacitors · · Score: 1

    A friend just gave me their IBM NetVista which had bsod'd, doing a little research I found out about this and supposedly (according to multiple newsgroup posts) the whole NetVista line had this problem. I checked it out and there are six capacitors around the cpu and two by the power supply connector and they are all bulging and leaking, some more some less. I talked to IBM and while they are replacing some of the motherboards free of charge this machines "Serial number is not on the list" of machines that qualify but as the tech was quick to point out they'd be happy to sell me a replacement motherboard.

  2. Re:I find this shocking! on The Lawsuit of the Rings · · Score: 1

    It seems that most things like this eventually end up settled out of court with the settlement sealed so the world doesn't know the details.

    One of Hollywoods biggest tricks is to say that no matter how much a movie took in at the box office, that it made no money. I seem to remember the author of "Forest Gump" suing the studio that made the movie with Tom Hanks since they (at one time but I have no idea what the eventual outcome was) claimed that the movie made no money. And so since there were no profits he was entitled to no money since his deal was for a percentage of the "profits".

  3. Re:Building Architecture on Green buildings, Green Server Farms? · · Score: 1

    If I remember right, at that time most of the 60 to 100 PC's on the floor were Pentium 1's, at the time the Pentium II had just come out. Those machines ran cold compared to what Pentium 4's pour out these days, but the monitor's as you say would have made a big difference.

    I don't know that I would ever consider replacing a major thing like heat with the system you describe. But to me some type of exhaust system, just fans to move the heated air from the power supply exhaust out of the building so that the buildings air conditioning system doesn't have to deal with it makes some sense but who can tell what twenty years will bring. I think that we'll probably see photonic processors that run virtually heat free but of course there'll still be the system memory, the hard drive, the video card and the chipset to keep cool. Anything to take the load off the air conditioning system would save a lot of electricity, just ask any building manager and they'll tell you the air is the single biggest energy hog.

  4. Re:Building Architecture on Green buildings, Green Server Farms? · · Score: 1

    Wow, almost Deje Vu there... we did have various overloading problems in one building.. if I remember right in the first floor offices of the building we were in if the cleaning guy used the wrong outlet for his vacume cleaner... pop. In those days we were using a Foxpro 2.6 database, just thinking of all that reindexing makes me quesy!

    In the last building we were in I worked with a really good electrician to make sure that there were enough amps on each circuit for the number of computers we were using. In that case we spent $80,000 on electrical upgrades that included a new transformer in that floors electrical closet to get enough amps to the panels. I gotta say it was expensive but we never blew a breaker.

  5. Building Architecture on Green buildings, Green Server Farms? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    During the good years (gone but not forgotten), I worked in several large office buildings.. Six, eight and ten stories, none of which could be considered new and I can tell you the people who designed them had no idea what the PC computer revolution would bring. With anywhere from fifty to two-hundred PC's to a floor the buildings air conditioning system in each case was totally incapable of handing the kind of heat thrown off by that many PC's. In one building (in the warmer months) they had to have someone in at 5am to crank the air conditioning as low as it would go (the air conditioning system was centrally programed to shut off at night, nothing we could do about it), then as the day went on it would go from 60 degrees with all machines off to just under a 100 by the end of the day.

    On my last move from one building to another I was thinking how buildings now should have some kind of special exhaust conduits built into the floor with exhaust ducts on the PC's like a gas dryer. That way the buildings air conditioning system wouldn't have to deal with all that, and in the winter time you could use that heat to help warm the building.

  6. Gates out of touch... on Microsoft 'under attack' On All Fronts · · Score: 1

    This just reinforces my opinion that Bill Gates is so out of touch with the average user that it's laughable that he's the one (even if it's more behind the scenes than not) that's giving MS it's vision of where the company should go. Microsoft should be much more driven by what the end users want, it's seemed to me that for as long as I can remember Microsoft has been jamming their idea of what the people should want and how they should work down everyone's throat and that's just plain wrong.

  7. Re:In other news.... on French Courts Ban DRM on DVDs · · Score: 1

    Yes, I can see it now "All MPAA affiliated studios refuse to distribute movies on DVD in France". Can you imagine the brouhaha that would cause, having movies only available on VHS... then you'd really see wholesale piracy.

  8. Possible But... on French Courts Ban DRM on DVDs · · Score: 1

    There weren't a whole lot of details, but it said an "Appeals Court".. not being familiar with the French legal system I'd guess that there's probably a higher court and if the verdict can be appealed to a higher court it will, also they (the MPAA) may be able to get an injunction (a stay of the verdict) until the decision is reviewed by a high court.

    This would be a good thing if it holds up but somehow I have a feeling that the motion picture industry will likely find a way to quash this. After all don't I remember some Australian court ruling saying that region coding was illegal due to some trade regulations, and that was more than a year ago and region coding is still with us.

  9. They Should Get Paul Darrow... on Dr. Who Series Star Quits · · Score: 1

    He was great as Avon in Blakes 7 and he's also guest starred on Dr. Who at least two times in the past... If I rememeber correctly the first time as a UNIT soldier in either the second or third Doctors days and then again in a Tom Baker episode. But I bet he'd make a great Doctor Who.

  10. Re:Anyone seen Star Trek V lately? on William Shatner Pitches 'Starfleet Academy' Show · · Score: 1

    Well, when in any episode or movie did Kirk ever order one of his officers to kill anyone? Also the only instance that I can think of where he actually did deliberatly kill someone was in the "Search For Spock" where he killed the Klingon commander but only as a consequence of the hand to hand fight and after the commander had ordered Kirks son killed. Also having been Spocks friend for many years and knowing more about Vulcans than most he would have known that Vulcans are pacifists. Vulcan's in Star Fleet carry weapons only because duty requires it of them but no Vulcan would ever, even under direct orders deliberatly take a life.

    Despite what was presented in the two part Enterprise episode that showed the fall of the Vulcan High Command, there was a lot in that episode that contradicted known and establised Vulcan history as somewhat laid out in the original series, and expanded on in the various Star Trek books. It's generally said that the books aren't Star Trek "cannon", but since many of the best books lay out Vulcan history and culture that fits so well with what we know from the original series that I have to believe that Gene Roddenberry had some written documentation that gave a general idea of Vulcan history (in other words this is how they act and why they are the way they are) the writers of the show and later the authors used as a bible to more or less fabricate the Vulcan culture and mystique. Much of which has been totally trashed by the Enterprise writers, hence my comment about rewriting history. I strongly recamend the books "Spocks World", "The Vulcan Academy Murders" and "The Idic Epidemic" also "Dreadnaught" and "Battlestations!" they are amoung the best original series books and you get a pretty good feel for Vulcan culture and history.

  11. Re:Anyone seen Star Trek V lately? on William Shatner Pitches 'Starfleet Academy' Show · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Exactly, I sometimes wonder if he's ever actually seen the whole original series. Some of the things that happened in that movie were so out of character (for the characters) that at the point where Kirk orders Spock to shoot / kill Sybok that I wished I had walked out. He doesn't seem to have any real feel for the characters, not even his own.

    Star Trek as a TV series has just about exhaused all possibilites and just needs to take a break. I've actually been afraid of where Star Trek has been going, since I believe that had Enterprise run it's full course with halfway decent ratings that next we would have had a recast Star Trek The Original Series... which would have bombed since as Paramount and Berman have learned you just can't rewrite history and expect the fans to support you.

  12. Re:Adobe-Yahoo customer apathy connection on Adobe Acrobat Toolbar Worse than Malware? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yep, saw that... if you're not paying attention after the Adobe downloader finishes getting the three different install files (Adobe Photo Album, Yahoo Toolbar and of course the Acrobat Reader) and you answer Yes suddenly you've got stuff you never wanted or needed on your system and it's hard to get rid of.

    Someone else mentioned that Acrobat products after 5 have sucked bad and from what I've seen I'd have to agree.

    This is really getting out of hand, next thing you know there'll be sneakwrap / EULA crap saying as a condition of using "our" software you must install our adware / spyware / malware so that you can be bombarded by advertising while we monitor what you do with our software on your computer.. oh and by the way by installing our software you're computer now belongs to us..

  13. oh my GOD!!! on Top 100 Gadgets of All Time · · Score: 1

    The Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100 made the list, I can't believe that... It was my first computer out of High School, I bought it from a Furniture Store that had it listed in the classifieds for $100. (they couldn't make it work) I eventually ended up having three diskette drives attached to it.

    Just thinking about it makes me break out in a cold sweat, that freakin buffer cable between the keyboard and expansion chassis always was such a problem.... man talk about the dark ages of personal computing... somebody please pass the painkillers!

  14. Re:Will it be up to the quality of past VIA chipse on VIA's New PT Chipsets · · Score: 1

    I've had problems with a number of VIA chipset based systems. Enough so that unless I had substantial proof that there were major benefits to be had in using them and that I had people I trusted telling me the systems built around them were as stable as the Intel platform I'd steer clear of VIA.

  15. Re:So did Comcast, what's the difference? on AOL Kills Usenet Access · · Score: 1

    I don't think that anyone really minded them outsourcing it, but it was the fact that you were still being charged the same amount but getting a fraction of the service i.e. a 2gb a month cap versus the previous 500mb a day cap which just rubbed everyone the wrong way.

  16. Re:So did Comcast, what's the difference? on AOL Kills Usenet Access · · Score: 1

    I do have my facts straight, it is you who are in error.. Comcast, Cox Cable and AT&T all were investors and used the @Home network all or in part until @Home went into bankruptcy. Since you seem so unwilling to take my word for it here is a link to a CNet news article backing me up:

    http://news.com.com/2100-1033-276644.html?legacy=c net/

    So as you see Comcast was Comcast@Home and at least here on the East Coast everyone who was a Comcast broadband customer had an @Home email address.

  17. Re:So did Comcast, what's the difference? on AOL Kills Usenet Access · · Score: 1

    Actually when Comcast used the @Home network you originally had almost unlimited downloading capability, then they cut you to 500mb a day which was still really good by todays standards but when @Home went bankrupt and Comcast went to their own network I guess they just didn't want to get into running their own news servers so they farmed it out to Giganews who limited you to 500mb per month. So anyone who had Comcast and used news group downloads regularly got their limit cut to about 1/30th of what it was and ended up still paying the same price, I would have to say that's getting screwed pretty bad.

  18. Don't say that... on Harvard Pres Says Females Naturally Bad at Math · · Score: 1

    In ear shot of my mother, the retired (25 years plus) math teacher.. with a masters degree in Computer Science (granted all work was done on an IBM 1130 card cruncher). She'd give him an earfull and set him on his ass, I've heard her say that on average the best of her female students was always better than her male students. She'd also say that often the women wouldn't get the same amount of attention that the men got and that was part of the problem.

    I do still tease her however about not being able to program her VCR

  19. Re:Why Big Blue, of course. on Where Do You Shop for Server Components? · · Score: 1

    Truthfully, I've never bought IBM servers although I've worked on a fair number of their workstations and some Thinkpads. I've always been a Compaq guy myself, and although I always bought Compaq Servers and storage arrays for their reliability I would never buy a Compaq desktop.. (like the guy who started this I've been building my own computers for a long time, I think my first home made machine was a 286 16MHz) from what I've seen Compaq's, IBM's and HP's consumer level products just suck big time.

    I'm sure that IBM's server level equipment is at least as good as Compaq's (now HP/Compaq, boy did that merger tick me off) but you've really got to wonder what will become of their hardware once that Asian company that just bought their hardware manufacturing business starts building stuff for them. If I recall from some spirited discussion here they don't have a great reputation.

  20. It Just Goes To Show You... on Interceptor Missile Fails Test Launch · · Score: 1

    That nothing made in America is worth a damn anymore, cheap components, lousy manufacturing, design or workmanship.

    "American components, Russian components... all made in Taiwan" - Lev a Real Russian Hero

    ya know, there's just something about that guy I realy like...

  21. Sorry, No Way.... on Harrison Ford Confirms Indiana Jones IV Production · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm sorry but no one can replace Harison Ford as Indiana Jones, I just can't see any actor stepping into that role.

  22. Re:Great news. on DMCA Limited by Sixth Circuit Appeals Court · · Score: 1

    If you don't need to print in color a laser printer is a good choice. I've only replaced the toner cartridge in my HP 2100TN once, the original cartridge lasted almost 3 years and I replaced it with the extended life cartridge about a year ago.

    HP is my laser printer of choice, they seem to last a long time and I think that their JetDirect cards are better supported than other brands of ethernet interface. Although there are several posts here that seem to indicate that HP's are not what they used to be, the latest HP printer that I've worked with is a 4050TN and that seems to still be made fairly well. Of course I've still got an Epson LQ-1050 that I still use once in a while for wide caridge text printing, talk about a well made product and a company that's not what it used to be.... ah the good old days

  23. Prevention.. on Every 5th Call At Dell Is Spyware-Related · · Score: 1

    It's amazing how many calls from friends and private customers I've gotten over the last three months about adware / spyware on their systems, in many cases more than 5 active processes makes the computer unusable or the internet inaccessible.. too many custom protocol drivers inserted by this crap.

    So far the single best advice I've found was by the author of the HiJackThis! tool, it appears that a large percentage of adware / spyware uses weaknesses and vulnerabilities in the MS Java Virtual Machine (even the last version with the patches) to secretly install themselfs so uninstall the MS Java Virtual Machine and install the latest Sun version instead. Just search Google for "Uninstall Microsoft Java Virtual Machine" to find instructions on how to do it. So far no one that I've done this for has had a major reoccurrence though they've scanned and found more stuff with the latest Adaware SE 1.05.

    One other note, Adaware SE (I don't know if SpyBot is the same) won't uninstall "legitimate" stuff from the machine. The Adaware people have some type of standard that spyware / adware must meet in order to get in the removal database and one key is "Does the spyware / adware have an uninstall in the add / remove programs". In some cases the entry in Add / Remove programs is camouflaged as something you wouldn't think of like "IE Patch" or "Internet Tools" so if Adaware and Spybot doesn't totally fix the problem start looking for suspicious entries in Add / Remove.

  24. From The Horses Mouth... on William Shatner to Star in New Reality TV Series · · Score: 1

    Actually I just got back from Cherry Hill, NJ where William Shatner gave a talk and signed autographs at a Star Trek Sci-Fi show. First off (he talked about this for a few minutes) this is a one time only mini series (just a few episodes, not a full season), I guess unless it makes enough money and they talk him into doing something like it again. And he called it something like MTV's Punked, just practiced on the entire town... from his description it actully sounds funny. In general I really, really hate reality TV... I get enough reality all day every day.. but again from his description of some of the practical jokes they played on the town it sounds like a great laugh so I'm willing to reserve judgement until I see one or two.

  25. Lock Picking Tools... on Steel Bolt Hacking · · Score: 1

    I may be wrong but a friend of mine once told me that it's against the law (at least here in NJ, USA) to own lock picking tools unless you're a licenced lock smith.