carl0s

There are some Vista benefits, but the downs outweigh them too much for me. Parental controls are good for home users. Offline files cache works better, and fast user switching for remote desktop means a computer can be used for remote desktop by more than one user, without forcing the other user's applications to be closed. Networking performance generally seems to be fucked though.

yup, and Linux I get asked quite often "should I get a MacBook", and my answer tends to be "If you fancy one, yeah, why not. The O/S is superb, build quality is about the same as a mid-range PC laptop, price is good for the spec, and it's not got Vista".

Wow. Cool forum theme. You could buy home & student OTS for not much, but more than those guys are saying above (about double if I remember, but it can be installed on three home computers). I would just use OpenOffice though. get the Novell Edition if you want nicer looking icons, a bit more polished etc. See here: http://user.services.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=49&t=11126

The last straw for me with Vista was the broken networking. I found that once you have more than about 10 PPTP connections in Network Connections, things start to go very wrong - 45 second delays every time you right-click the network icon in the system tray. I went on the newsgroups asking where I go to report bugs to Microsoft. Nobody knew.

meh. 35 I think a lower number is better.

It says I'm 54 (I'm 27!). Is that a complement then? My brain has grown beyond its years? I kept doing it wrong because I was not seeing the zeros for what they were. I saw them there and remembered them, but I was not counting them. I think I was seeing them as 10s or 8s or something. I'm gonna have another go

I thought you were onto all this virtual machine stuff already KVM is the kernel based virtual machine system that's built into the Linux kernel, so I have a virtual machine based on KVM that's running XP Pro. It's like VMWare or VirtualBox but already there built into the system. I use that XP virtual machine to run Outlook because of my Exchange server, and to dial into customers networks via the internet (PPTP VPN servers). I also need that XP virtual machine to run the actual remote-control program that I use once I've dialed into customer's networks, and that's called NetSupport Manager. Evolution is the free world's Outlook, but up until now it hasn't been able to deal with Exchange servers except through a very broken HTTP based plugin. Openchange (http://www.openchange.org) is a free implementation of Microsoft's MAPI/RPC protocol, for building an open source Exchange Server drop-in replacement, and at the same time the librarys needed for building a plugin for Evolution (any anything else that wants to do MAPI) to make it talk to Exchange servers properly/natively, using MAPI/RPC like Outlook does. The Openchange code is good, almost totally usable. The next version (0.8) is due to be released like today/tomorrow, according to the lead developer on the mailing list, but the plugin for Evolution is on hold because the people who have contributed code to Evolution have done so under various different GPL-like free software licenses, but all that code needs to be re-licensed under a newer type of license to be compatible with OpenChange and other stuff that OpenChange uses (Samba4), and this requires explicit permission from every person who has ever contributed any code into Evolution.

It's funny really. I've totally gone beyond the point of "oh shit, I can't use "x" program/game/simulator. Need to go back to Windows". I'm now "OK, I'll do it the Linux way instead, or I'll use my Laptop, or the VM, or if it just totally isn't possible, I'll not bother" I still have the kvm virt-machine with XP for NetSupport and Outlook, but once Evolution is relicensed, the OpenChange plugin will be released and I'll have proper native Exchange server connectivity through Evolution, so then I'll only be using the KVM for PPTP VPNs and then NetSupport over those VPNs. I'll probably just find alternates at that point.

Working for me, and crossover is sort of the commercial side of WINE as I understand it, so awesome - thanks very much

I think the most famous way is something called formmail.pl which is written in perl and gets invoked with HTTP POST or whatever. I'm not a web person, but that's what I remember.

Oops. I made a booboo. I am actually running at WUXGA (1920 x 1200). So, although technically your graphics card is capable of even higher resolutions than you need, I can't exactly confirm that it supports the exact resolution you want. I'd be quite surprised if it didn't though.

Yup, I'm using a 26" LCD monitor. I think a DVI to HDMI should do nicely though. In terms of brand etc. I would expect it to be much like a USB cable, in that it pretty much just works if it's got the right label on it, so I wouldn't go spending double money on a gold plated or extra thick one or anything.

I have an nVidia GeForce 8600GT and I run 1920x1080 on my monitor, so you should be fine.

Actually that's exactly how I feel sometimes, except for the weeping and blackness part. Maybe taking up religion would make me a happier person then

What a great thing. Here's a good article, where it all started I think: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/21/religion-advertising

This one ("PSU problem and internal regulation") sounds just like duff capacitors, as seen on many motherboards.

Have you got some funny firewall software then? ZoneAlarm, Norton, McAfee etc. ? You'll need to sort those out. They shouldn't block DHCP though, which is the thing that gives you your IP address. The cable modem will give a private IP address to begin with (192.168.x.x) after being powered-on, with a short (15 second or so) lease time, so that your computer continually requests a renewal of the address. When the modem makes the connection to Virgin it will pass a public IP address to the computer. This is why a firewall is important really, but a software firewall will do for now. Windows Firewall is enough.

I don't think he has any issues with connecting to the router, it's just that the router is broken and keeps crashing, so he wants to work without it. When moving a cable modem from one device (computer/router) to another, you quite often have to power cycle the modem.

You need to do away with the router, plug directly in to computer, power off cable modem and power it back on. Enable Windows Firewall on the LAN connection, or go out and buy a Netgear WGxxx router.

I think he's still under the impression that this is a Toyota factory fitted switch, on a J-Spec car..

Well, 'cause the car is a J-spec, it didn't have a factory rear fog light switch, so I don't think anybody will know what yours looks like.

Actually, can't be pressure I wouldn't think. The oil looks to be leaking out overnight/weekend whilst the car is parked.

Just been and had a look. It's definitely coming out where the filter joins the engine/whatever, underneath. It felt tight enough to me, but I was able to go another half turn.. Let's see what happens. The car is currently on a slight incline (nose up), due to the driveway, and having been sat idle for a couple of hours, the oil level is reading high, i.e. on/maybe a bit above the second dot. But when I checked it last week just after a run on a flat piece of road, it was in-between the two dots, which I thought was good. Could my oil level be high? Could high oil level cause higher pressure and therefore a leak where there otherwise wouldn't be one?

Walbro. Mine was cheap off eBay.

What about one of these? : http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop_studio_15?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs. The £499 one. I haven't had one before, but it looks styling wise a bit like the XPS M range which are quite sexy. It seems to tick all the right boxes, and if you want a higher or very-high res screen, you can select that. Price seems good. Fujitsu Siemens aren't great on build quality - I've had many of their smaller more expensive machines fall apart (Lifebook S-series). Acer are great for spare parts - very cheap, but not my favourite to actually use (touchpad buttons are too tight/stiff). Dell's latest offerings are all generally nice to use. £499 seems a good price too. You could have it cheaper, but with a slower processor. You can have different colours too