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  1. F

    Seagate 1.5TB review

    I admit the sample size is too low to be meaningful. I don't go through enough drives personally to ever have a meaningful sample size. Professionally, I only deal with 15K SCSI disks, moving to SAS at some point, and while those are pretty much all Seagates their falure rate has been...
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    Seagate 1.5TB review

    *shrug* Mine is working fine so far.
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    Something Random

    Which really underscores the problems a chain can face. My ban on Chili's and Merc's bad experiences at Applebees are limited to one or a few locations (franchisers?) yet we blame the entire chain. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with our bans. It has more to do with Corporate HQ not...
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    Something Random

    Chili's is on my lifetime ban list. Too many bad service experiences. Waiting 40 minutes for water was the last straw. Never again. Applebees and TGIFridays are fair as long as you're careful in what you order. Outback is OK but I would call them lower mid-tier at best. Haven't been in one...
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    The race for the US presidency

    Social Security: First, it should really be a separate item than other income tax-based budget items. It is a separate tax and it is the only one that is returned to the contributor as actual money. It is more or less self-funded. Second, income over $102K is exempt from SS tax. So the...
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    Upgrading from XP to XP x64?

    I'm not sure from a licensing perspective, but the Vista Ultimate upgrade package includes both 32 & 64 bit DVDs.
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    forgotten password in Vista, any solution?

    smithharry appears to be a spammer.
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    "Win-printers" (the new Win-modems?)

    It is simply a way to reduce manufacturing costs. They still have to write the printer engine but no longer have to supply the circuitry to execute it. But you've found the down side. You are very much tied to whatever platform(s) the manufacturer provides drivers for. Even, as you noted...
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    More Vista nonsense

    I haven't discounted that possibility, but I'm trying to do what I can for free before I have to $pend or go to the effort of moving parts from machine to machine. FWIW, though, upon rebooting after a BSoD, the Windows error reporting widget would always point to a driver being the issue...
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    More Vista nonsense

    Well, if I imaged it and the problem child is a driver in the image (one suspect are the mobo drivers which I'm omitting this time), then it wouldn't do much good. I could image the base install, I suppose, but that wouldn't save much time; XP installs pretty fast and I typically don't sit...
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    More Vista nonsense

    I had to reinstall my wife's PC again from scratch. XP Pro, C2Q6600, 2GB DDR2, Radeon 3870, Acer 20" LCD via DVI, 500GB Samsung, etc. Despite a very vanilla install, it always winds up becoming a BSoD box over time. Both she and I are getting rather annoyed. This time I've left off all of...
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    Something Random

    I almost got "deered" the other day. A blonde in a Cadillac sedan just drove out of a gas station right in front of me. She had looked right before entering (she wanted to turn left) but never looked left until about 1/3rd of her car was already in the road. Luckily I was alert; I dove on the...
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    The Palin Problem

    I'd say that Texas gets one thing right.
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    Something Random

    LM: I'm very sorry for your loss. It's been just over 9 months since my cat passed and I'm still not fully over it. We are considering adopting a cat from a local shelter, but I'm not quite ready. Late December/Christmas seems to be a time of death for my wife's family and it seems to have...
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    Something Random

    The October Previews is listing the Firefly Blu-ray box at $89.99 with a December ship date. 4 disc set.
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    Windows Home Server

    You can also buy pre-built WHS systems from HP and others. Combine it with a media appliance like this and I'd think a reasonable number of people would jump on it. Sure, not the millions who buy notebooks or desktops, but few machines have RAID and once someone gets burned by a failed drive...
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    Best remote connection software for a Windows Host?

    Yeah, I really like it. The only things I've noticed are that my laptop - the secondary machine - never puts the screen to sleep when Synergy is running (I either stop it or dim the screen) and that some apps on the secondary machine - specifically Vista apps run as administrator - don't work...
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    Windows Home Server

    Lets you get your feet wet in understanding a server without having the overhead of an AD environment and all that. You can do users if you want or just enable Guest for global sharing. I'm starting with Guest but will graduate to user accounts when I have time to play with it. It costs...
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    Windows Home Server

    I thought I'd run a thread about setting up & using Windows Home Server. First, as noted in another thread, I built my home server using a 1.5TB Seagate drive. Upon installation, it automatically set up a 16GB OS and a rest-of-drive data partition. Installation was almost painless. It asked...
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    1.5TB Drive

    Yes, that's how it arrived. There was enough packing material that the bubble-wrapped drive remained centered in the box, which was a good thing as UPS gave it their usual smash-a-side treatment. I'm not sure I get it how a rigid shell a la Sea Shell or similar would be that much better. With...
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    End of the World As We Know It

    Along those lines, Mark, a person sent a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune stating the gov't should just wait for the failing bank's stock to drop below $1 and then buy them up. His reasoning was that way we (the collective 'we' who in theory own the gov't; at minimum the 'we' who...
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    The Palin Problem

    That's an image of her I didn't want to have.
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    Disappearing partition and partition for speed

    Or don't worry about seeks at all. Sure, HDs are the slowest component of a modern machine, but they're still fast enough for individual use. The only things that seem to drag for me are boot times. But as that's not an issue multiple times each day I don't really care.
  24. F

    1.5TB Drive

    We'll see how Newegg packages the 1.5TB Seagate I just ordered. It should arrive in a couple of days.
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    Disappearing partition and partition for speed

    It isn't so much about forcing more head movement as it is making longer head movement. Example: Take a 300GB drive and put it in 3 100GB partitions: OS/apps, swap/paging, data in that order. A seek to read a data file will go around 2/3rds across the surface of the platters. On a single...
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    End of the World As We Know It

    So now the bank that's bought every bank I've ever had an account with has bought the only bank I've ever had (and still have) a mortgage with. Lovely.
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    Folding setups?

    Well, my interesting note is that Vista is more stable than Linux. Specifically, the C2Q9450 on an MSI X48c Platinum with 2GB OCZ low latency DDR3 would lock up frequently - at least daily - when running the SMP Folding client on Ubuntu. So far it has been rock-solid stable on Vista Ultimate...
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    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    World of Warcraft may be used by terrorists! <snicker>
  29. F

    End of the World As We Know It

    20 of the past 30 years have seen Republicans in charge of the white house. 7 of the 9 Supreme Court justices were appointed by Republican presidents. Exactly who is signing off on, executing, upholding, and not striking down the laws that may be the legislative source the problem? Regardless...
  30. F

    US vs. Japan

    Yes, your answer is f*** 'em if they won't play by your rules. Why are you so important that you'd expect family members to cater to your whims? Why are you so against people striking out to seek their fortune if they have to strike out further than you can bike in a few hours? Thank god the...
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    US vs. Japan

    In general I agree WRT renting a truck/van when you need to haul things as most households don't need heavy hauling capability but 3-6 times per year. In my case, a friend inherited a full size pickup when his father passed; I can borrow that when needed. So my household remains dual-sedan (1...
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    US vs. Japan

    From what I've read, EV1's used lead-acid batteries and had a 100 mile range. They were also 2-seat only with very little cargo room. GM could not at the time sell them at a profit; all vehicles were leased and even them GM took a bath on them. EV1s would nowhere near meet modern crash test...
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    US vs. Japan

    The Volt is not really a hybrid. The Volt is an electric car with dual battery charging sources: plug in and the on-board gas engine. JTR shouldn't have issues with this; it's the same model his lovely trains use: Electric motors with diesel engines to generate the power. By using the engine...
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    Y is Monkey-C a mod? :)

    In other words, because monkey do.
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    Having fun with Chrome

    Actually, the Revolution mice can (optionally) remove the friction from the wheel so the wheel maintains inertia while spinning. The MX also has a side-mounted wheel which I set to jump between tabs in FF.
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    Systems documentation project

    Track down warranty and maintenance contract info for everything so you know if something is covered when it breaks. For items no longer under warranty, determine if a service contract is desired. We, for instance, buy a 3 year warranty on every server & workstation. After the three years...
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    Having fun with Chrome

    Installed it. I don't care for having to have a bar for bookmarks when IE & FF make it a menu option. For a streamlined browser that's a big waste of space. I'd prefer to be able to right-click a tab or a page and have bookmarks be on the context menu. As to Mac v. Windows v. other OpSyses...
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    SSDs - State of the Product?

    120K IOPS, 700MBps read; 600 write. PCIe interface. 80-320GB available. Big bucks; I read $2400 for 80GB (the entry model).
  39. F

    More Vista nonsense

    My work laptop only scores a 3.2 due to the graphics; gaming graphics are 3.8. Processor/RAM/HD are 5.4/5.1/5.2. GPU is a 128MB nVidia NVS135M, CPU is a T7800, 4GB RAM, 120GB 7200RPM Seagate. I would hazard a guess that the GB of RAM was the limiting factor on the old machine; slower GPUs...
  40. F

    Strange Spam

    I can see that. If I let a bunch-o-spam accumulate in my junk mail box, it is definitely slanted towards the beginning of the alphabet. I'd say A-M get 70% or thereabouts.
  41. F

    Strange Spam

    I don't think they have to be popular. My domain, which is more or less unadvertised, gets 2K+ spams per day. Nearly all are for accounts that don't exist. Now, as some bogus accounts get lots of spam I think some people have signed up for crap using bogus emails at my domain, but that...
  42. F

    Odd Problem with Processor Power Management

    I should also mention that while it says it is USB 2, I haven't done any performance testing. Vista, however, wouldn't set a thumb drive for ReadyBoost while in the 2407; the same thumb drive is ReadyBoost-able plugged directly in the PC. That could be my laptop docking station, though, as I...
  43. F

    Odd Problem with Processor Power Management

    From the manual of my 2407: "This monitor supports High-Speed Certified USB 2.0 interface." and goes on to list the 480Mbps speed. "The monitor's USB interface works only when the monitor is on or in power save mode, If you switch the monitor off and then on...
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    Something Random

    Thanks from me as well. I'll mention my wife's birthday (but not birth date) is the same as mine. Both of her sisters have August birthdays as well. Lots of Leos & August Virgos.
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    End of TV :(

    Comcast is still whacked. Just checked my address and got "At this time, High-Speed Internet service is not available for sale on our Web site in your location. Please call 1-800-COMCAST (1-800-266-2278) to order service. " I wonder what I've been paying them for, then, these past few years...
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    Something Random

    Happy birthday! They seem to have skipped me on the list for my birthday. BTW, Judgement Day cannot be avoided but can be deferred.
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    Whither the Art of Negotiation?

    I don't think Internet buyers want to haggle. They want to look for the lowest possible price & do the deal. If that isn't you they move along. They don't care about the seller or the process as there's little chance for repeat business.
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    Which Car?

    If you can't do a long test drive with of whatever car you're considering buying, renting is certainly an option. Sure, it's $50-70 or whatever a day, but it beats paying $30K for something you won't be happy with.
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    Which Car?

    It is probably due to gearing, but most modern ATs get the same or better than their MT counterpart. FTM there's also usually only 2-3MPG difference between 4 & 6 cyl models. Interestingly enough, Hyundai's new flagship Genesis comes with either a 290HP V6 or a 375HP V8. The mileage...
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    Which Car?

    If you're looking at the hatchbacks and like the Hyundais, there will be an Elantra Touring later this year. Not sure if the timing will work out for you. It's a European model so it's not entirely new. You may also want to look at the 'cute utes' like the Nissan Rogue, Saturn Vue, etc...
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