Recent Posts

1876

Living Room / Re: Microsoft lashes out at Googler for making Windows vulnerability public

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 11, 2010, 02:19 PM »

+4

There is no excuse for publishing this sort of detail when no fix is available.

If there is a temporary work around that should be suggested and a reason but details are pretty unforgivable.

What will happen when someone sues Google for publishing the method by which a company gets attacked? It's a bit like publishing how to make nerve gas and then saying 'not guilty' when terrorists use the recipe!

1877

Living Room / Re: Two computers - one set of secreens etc. Ideas?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 11, 2010, 07:06 AM »

I have a spare keyboard and I have just discovered that my monitor has DVI and VGA inputs that can be manually selected via a button so if I connect my server box via a VGA cable I should be able to flick from my main computer to server with a quick press of the button. I am going to need to check if this works though!

1878

Living Room / Re: XP Hangs on Shut Down

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 08, 2010, 02:57 AM »

If I were you I'd use MSCONFIG to disable all startup items and all non-MS services and then reboot. See how that works. If all works OK gradually add services and startup items.

If your system doesn't shutdown from this state then there is something wrong in Windows or a driver. Try running SFC /SCANNOW (and have your Windows installation CD handy) to check that Windows files are consistent. If that doesn't find anything I would try upgrading motherboard and graphics drivers.

The other thing I would do is run a full Start > RUN> CHKDSK C: /R /V on your system drive to ensure it is consistent (esp. if you have been using the power and restart buttons a lot).

Also don't forget to look in the Application and System event viewers for come clues (START > RUN > EVENTVWR.MSC)

1879

Living Room / Re: The Pill that can Wipe out Painful Memories

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2010, 07:04 AM »

One of the few Carey films that doesn't have the audience cringing behind the sofa. +1 

1880

Living Room / Re: XP Hangs on Shut Down

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2010, 05:46 AM »

Have you tried logging off and then shutting down?

1881

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Nero 10 returning to good form?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 07, 2010, 05:43 AM »

FWIW, InCD has defaulted to unselected when installing Nero.

Talk about irrelevant. Nobody discusses/uses packet writing software anymore.

-Innuendo (June 06, 2010, 07:03 PM)

Isn't that because it has been built into Windows since XP?

Why would you use InCD (or Roxio's poxy equivalent) when everyone knows they were flaky at best and media is so cheap now you may as well burn things properly in the first place.

1882

General Software Discussion / Re: Is Nero 10 returning to good form?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 06, 2010, 02:09 PM »

Nero seems irrelevant these days - there is just as good, or better, burning software that is either free or cheap.

1883

Living Room / Re: Is a college education worth the money?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 06, 2010, 01:13 PM »

I think the bigger problems (at least in the UK) are:

• increasing massive graduate debt
• high drop out rate (with debt and nothing to show for it)
• degrees being pitched at a much lower level to try to meet the government 50% target take-up rather than the top 5% when I left school so now everyone needs an MA, MSc or PhD to be noticed as having qualified in something special.

By the way the last of these includes the decline in science and technology teaching in the UK as more of the 50% opt for 'easy' subjects.

I'm not being a snob - but pressure to take part in a largley irrelevant academic career simply moves the goal posts and doesn't achieve a lot.

A much better approach would be to reintroduce apprenticeships and technical education for the people who actually want to do something with a qualification.

In the UK these days the largest shift in graduate professions is to plumbing and electrical work because they pay so much more than most graduate jobs.

1884

Living Room / Re: Honestly, who here actually owns an iPad? be honest!

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 06, 2010, 10:51 AM »

No iPads or iPods here ...

1885

Living Room / Re: 10 Suicides at Apple factory this year.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 05, 2010, 06:35 AM »

Actually looking at the article again isn't it a Foxconn factory and don't they make motherboards for Windows, Linux systems etc. too? Why is Apply facing this alone?

It is the price exploited people pay because WE want cheap electronics.

1886

Living Room / Re: iTunes Store Alternative?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 05, 2010, 06:33 AM »

Sorry I thought you wanted film music - not the films themselves. Amazon sells MP3 downloads.

FWIW why not simply buy the DVDs - 9 times out of 10 they are cheaper than iTunes and you get a much better product. You can always rip them for mobile players if you want to.

1887

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 05, 2010, 06:31 AM »

Read some reviews of cheap HDMI cables - they have been known to fail within a few days.

1888

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 12:26 PM »

Hi quality connections need to avoid surface corrosion. Gold is highly unreactive and an ideal connection surface.

1889

Living Room / Re: What books are you reading?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 09:00 AM »

Just finished the Stieg Larsson Millennium Trilogy:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (originally "Men who Hate Women")
The Girl Who Played with Fire
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest

Brilliant thriller/crime series originally in Swedish. Unfortunately the author died before he witnessed his success.

All three have now been made into well respected films (in Swedish) but apparently Hollywood is planning how to ruin them!

http://www.amazon.co...arsson/dp/1847245455



http://www.amazon.co...oo-DVD/dp/B00361GC7A

The first book takes a while to get into but once you do they are not easy to put down! I had a number of sleepless nights reading and ended up giving up a weekend to finish them off

1890

Living Room / Re: iTunes Store Alternative?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 08:30 AM »

Have you tried Amazon?

1891

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 08:22 AM »

Good HDMI cables are 24 carat gold plated - how much gold are you going to get for 60 cents?

1892

Living Room / Re: 10 Suicides at Apple factory this year.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 04:12 AM »

When William Wilberforce tried to abolish the slave trade one of the arguments of the slave traders was that the slaves had better conditions than if they were free.

1893

Living Room / Re: install win7 32 or 64 bit on a 4 gig ram machine - opinions, please.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 03:37 AM »

All I know is that I have no IPv6 hardware or software (who does?) and it has caused some odd effects on my system. Disabling IPv6 cured the issues.

The other thing is that IP are by default allocated dynamically and IPv4 and IPv6 so you may have a fixed IP on one system and a dynamic one on the other.

1894

Found Deals and Discounts / Re: HDMI Cables: $0.60

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 04, 2010, 03:34 AM »

Would you really buy a 60 cent HDMI cable?

1895

Living Room / Re: install win7 32 or 64 bit on a 4 gig ram machine - opinions, please.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 03, 2010, 01:27 PM »

Are you using fixed IP addresses or DHCP?

You could try disabling IPv6 in Windows 7 and see if that makes a difference.

To disable IPv6 just create the following registry/value:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\TCPIP6\Parameters]
"DisabledComponents"=dword:000000ff

IPv6 still appears to be there but it is completely disabled. Just delete the value to re-enable it.

1896

General Software Discussion / Re: Any (Free) VPN service to recommend?

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 03, 2010, 01:23 PM »

TeamViewer is free for personal use and can act as a VPN via client software or via a browser. The connection is secure.

1897

Living Room / Re: install win7 32 or 64 bit on a 4 gig ram machine - opinions, please.

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 03, 2010, 07:06 AM »

I would give 7 64 bit a go - what is there to lose apart from an hour of fiddling?

1898

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows 7 XP Mode now doesn't require hardware virtualization

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 02, 2010, 04:08 AM »

You can shutdown the VM by making sure the XP desktop is open and clicking CTRL+ALT+DEL at the top of the window. There is then a shutdown button.

Here are some further options:

http://blogs.technet...virtual-machine.aspx

1899

Living Room / Re: Google Ditches Windows on Security Concerns

« Last post by Carol Haynes on June 01, 2010, 07:55 AM »

You cannot protect an idiot that insists on clicking on "super-sexo-matic.exe" in their email inbox

-Renegade (June 01, 2010, 07:43 AM)

You can if they are on MacOS or Linux

This might actually be good news for Microsoft - if Google promotes MacOS and Linux they are bound to become bigger targets for malware and then the dirty truth that Apple and Linux fanboys constantly try to gloss over will be out there!

1900

Living Room / Re: Sharing Media in WMP problem

« Last post by Carol Haynes on May 31, 2010, 06:52 PM »

Couple of ideas in there. Thanks.

Having said that I think it is time to upgrade my computer from XP to 7. It needs reinstalling as it is full of rubbish and there doesn't seem much point in spending the time and energy on reinstalling XP!