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  1. Mercutio

    Merc's Useful Tools of the day

    Not so much a tool as a discovery: Thunderbird told me the magic settings to make Yahoo e-mail work with IMAP, something that I didn't think was possible. Incoming Server: imap.mail.yahoo.com Outgoing Server: smtp.mail.yahoo.com Incoming Port: 993 SSL Outgoing Port: 465 SSL Username: Full...
  2. Mercutio

    PC Gaming = World of Suck

    Piixl has an interesting living room gaming PC design. Looks like an ITX board with a perpendicular-mounted 16x PCI-e slot. The chassis is supposed to be expandable to accommodate hard drives. Since it basically clamps to the back of a TV, this thing has real promise for all kinds of...
  3. Mercutio

    Which OS Upgrade for old computer?

    This is a great frustration for me. Almost everything people want to do these days relates to online services, particularly for home users. They want their Facebook and Picasa and Spotify. Very few people even burn discs, and for the few people who can't be served by Google Drive's Office...
  4. Mercutio

    Haswell Laptops 14" and smaller with at least FHD screens

    8.1 isn't considered a Service Pack but rather a new OS. Upgrading previous versions of Window has from time to time required specific updates be in place. Since most of the machines impacted will have the update delivered either by the Windows Store or a corporate update server, the only people...
  5. Mercutio

    question Which Tablets

    Just the mattress weight. But that's enough that I can stack 12lbs. of crap on it and nothing will go anywhere. My cats were curious about it but they haven't been able to knock it off either.
  6. Mercutio

    question Which Tablets

    If you have a tablet or e-reader or phone you keep by your bed at night you owe it to yourself and everyone you know who does the same thing to get one of these stupid $16 pieces of plastic. I've been using mine for about three weeks and I appreciate that I'm not having to go dig for a charging...
  7. Mercutio

    Music

    Gonna have to do something since apparently AOL is pulling WinAmp off the internet in a couple weeks.
  8. Mercutio

    Which OS Upgrade for old computer?

    My rule of thumb is to not even bother to install Antivirus software on any computer old enough that it doesn't have a Windows 7 COA on it, but I do think that using at least Adblock+ and the Spybot immunizations are a pretty big deal, and people also need to give a pass to Acrobat and Java at...
  9. Mercutio

    Something Random

    My SO's mother apparently had a class with me in high school even though she's a couple years older than I am. I haven't met her yet but I'm not looking forward reminiscing about Mrs. Vance's government class. re: First snow, it's best when it's on a weekend, so you don't have to do the thing...
  10. Mercutio

    Would you buy a vomit box if it came with decent hardware for a reasonable price?

    I have no idea why they strip expansion slots off boards that should have them. I'm actually glad that nobody is still trying to make PCI video cards because I can't tell you how often I've seen someone who thought they were making their $250 crapmachine better with a $250-from-Best-Buy PCI GTX430.
  11. Mercutio

    Which OS Upgrade for old computer?

    Now is the time to try SuSE or Mint or something. I don't think you can justify wasting an OS license activation on a machine that old, and you probably just want a Facebook/Youtube/Web Browsing machine anyway.
  12. Mercutio

    Would you buy a vomit box if it came with decent hardware for a reasonable price?

    That was about $300 worth of parts in 2008. The E2200 was a half-step above a Celeron. The motherboard might've sold for as little as $45 and the hard drive might've been $50 even back then. It wasn't a fantastic buy.
  13. Mercutio

    windows 7 or 8 works in my system

    Either Windows 7 or 8 would really be a waste of the license activation on that machine.
  14. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    At least with regard to Hyper-V, the CPU requirements have been pretty much fixed since Server 2008. Virtual PC (and therefore XP Mode) didn't require those things but it also supported only a subset of all the features. No, a lot of older CPUs and MOST laptops are completely SOL on Hyper-V, but...
  15. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    Properly speaking, they're only for SOME Pro/Enterprise/Ultimate licenses. It depends a lot on how the licenses were purchased and how the organization manages them. Individual OEM licensing can actually be slightly different on a per-OEM basis from the whitebox OEM licenses we're probably most...
  16. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    Probably, but you can't interchange Windows versions like that. If you're on the 64bit version, you can't upgrade to 32 bit.
  17. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    Probably. The place where a normal human would most likely encounter Windows Embedded as opposed to Windows Mobile or RT or some other stripped down version is in point of sale equipment. Some of the register systems I deal with now have pretty fancy dual core Atom CPUs in them for no particular...
  18. Mercutio

    question Hibachi Failure

    Were I a betting man, I'd guess that if you left one sit on top of the drive for a couple weeks, it would be sufficiently hosed. It's already unreadable by dint of whatever other aspect of the drive has failed and somehow I doubt that anyone at WD is going to break out the bunny suit and...
  19. Mercutio

    How to create a wiki?

    ... and that's not even getting in to the special layers of .NET dependency hell. Basically the repair instructions boil down to "Make sure you install every single dependent Sharepoint Component, plus all the updates and THEIR dependencies, in exactly the same order they were installed in the...
  20. Mercutio

    question Hibachi Failure

    Doesn't everyone have a bunch of rare earth magnets sitting around someplace?
  21. Mercutio

    question Hibachi Failure

    You could always just de-magnetize it, send it in for an RMA and pass its replacement along to someone who would appreciate it.
  22. Mercutio

    How to create a wiki?

    That's a good-sense reaction to a piss poor product, but if it already exists in his organization it's probably the path of least resistance. Be glad you've never had to fix a broken one.
  23. Mercutio

    question Hibachi Failure

    Without knowing any other details I think I'd probably start by trying to do some data recovery or maybe let a third party SMART tool analyze it since DFT isn't being that helpful.
  24. Mercutio

    4k TVs and Monitors

    The top review here is worth a read, I think.
  25. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    4.3 was the last version released on Floppies. The install set is 25 disks. I'm pretty sure both Windows 95 and OS/2 3.0 could be installed from floppy. Both of those weighed in at around 100MB. I also distinctly recall installing/compiling pre-1.0 Linux from a 19.2kbps serial line, which was...
  26. Mercutio

    How to create a wiki?

    I was JUST going to say that setting up a Sharepoint-based wiki is ridiculously straightforward if you already have the ingredients (Sharepoint 2010, basically) on hand.
  27. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Just for Coug. And probably better if you've recently indulged in recreational pharmacology, I give you: Friendship is Manly http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z7UnO66q9w
  28. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    .ISO files aren't really a problem, though Microsoft can no longer legally distribute Windows 98, ME or 2000 because they shipped with Microsoft's unauthorized Java interpreter, but some of us ARE bound by an obligation to provide legal copies of software to our employers and customers. ;)
  29. Mercutio

    This is the thread for the discussion of interesting apps.

    There are two releases of Swype. One of them was packaged with a lot of devices by default, including my Galaxy S4. It does offer voice typing, but the for-pay enhanced version that I somehow have (probably from one or other device on my Play account) has a different Voice Typing symbol and uses...
  30. Mercutio

    Port Forwarding on a Netgear ProSafe SRX5308

    OK, what about a QoS setting? Are you doing anything with that? Is it possible you're getting some traffic delayed because the router is reserving capacity for some or other reason?
  31. Mercutio

    Best movie you've seen

    I thought the movie version of Catching Fire was better than the book, but that might just be residual crushing on Jennifer Lawrence. The third book was pretty bad, so I can only hope there are some departures or at least some editing in the film version. Also that Jennifer Lawrence decides that...
  32. Mercutio

    WTB: Laptop Processor T9500

    I gave away my T61, which hat a T9x00 CPU in it, about nine months ago.
  33. Mercutio

    Windows 8 on early Pentium 4?

    Since I can still buy a Windows 2000 license if I really, really want one, I wouldn't be worried about availability. I do think that there are some consumer-friendly forms of Linux that make every bit as much sense as a move to OSX. Install Firefox/Chrome and VLC and you're probably just about...
  34. Mercutio

    Alternative folding support idea - mining for coins to fund F@H

    I have a whole, whole bunch of unused Windows Vista licenses! ;)
  35. Mercutio

    Something Random

    You'll have to live yet another year with those troublesome extra penis inches.
  36. Mercutio

    Something Random

    They normally address the message to the Apps account administrator, so you should have something like ddrueding@hookersnblow.com or whatever your domain is.
  37. Mercutio

    Port Forwarding on a Netgear ProSafe SRX5308

    Are there parameters on the attack checks? It's allowing the connection, but is it possible that it's timing out because of some other part of the firewall config?
  38. Mercutio

    Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600 SODIMM (v. spot the difference)

    Maybe to justify a higher price for large organizational buyers?
  39. Mercutio

    Crucial 8GB DDR3 1600 SODIMM (v. spot the difference)

    I suspect that it's more a matter of having a validated configuration for a mobile workstation. Just like you sometimes want to buy HP hard drives for HP servers.
  40. Mercutio

    Haswell Laptops 14" and smaller with at least FHD screens

    Toshiba's business line is called Tecra. And Apple's laptops are certainly good and well supported products even if the company is collectively synonymous with a container of fluids for the cleaning of body orifices. HP Probooks are effectively Pavilions with business support, but Thinkpad...
  41. Mercutio

    Quiet server build

    There's a certain case to be made for inertia. If you already know how to work one thing and it does what you want, it's really hard to just move on from that. VMware works just fine and dd has already addressed the deficiencies it has (in his case by running it on a desktop rather than ESXi...
  42. Mercutio

    Something Random

    More maps
  43. Mercutio

    BT Headphones

    Volume adjustments don't seem to be a problem, but I do really have a good handle on the in-line controls yet. Long pushes have a different meaning from quick taps, so sometimes I wind up fast forwarding music on accident.
  44. Mercutio

    question Is an Intel E8400 CPU compatible with an Intel D946GZIS MB?

    I've had Wolfdale and Yorkfield CPUs on those boards. I've run a Q9400 on one and I have a few E5400s scattered in among much older E6300s. Sometimes a BIOS update is needed, but that's not really an impossible hurdle to clear.
  45. Mercutio

    problem Desktop pc freezes resume after 14 months of utter bliss

    Ages and ages ago, I had issues with Asus Pentium 4 motherboards having a hard-coded thermal shutdown limit that was set too low. Those systems didn't freeze. They'd go hard-off and then display a boot time message indicating that the CPU had experienced a thermal event. You might want to look...
  46. Mercutio

    Alternative folding support idea - mining for coins to fund F@H

    As I understand it the truly dedicated Bitcoin miners are using ridiculous rigs, like 8 GPU SLI configurations, to quickly create value. I'm not sure I understand the value of using $60 worth of electricity to run one machine that's going to generate perhaps $70 worth of pretend computer money...
  47. Mercutio

    Media Player Appliances

    All of the local content type players I have used are either discontinued or have their own drawbacks. The Boxee Box was a local content champion and has a blazing fast UI, but it falls down for network-shared content and limited support for many kinds of online services. The Popcorn Hour C200...
  48. Mercutio

    This is the thread for the discussion of interesting apps.

    The full, paid version of Swype includes Dragon Dictate's voice recognition engine. It's really quite good. I notice that it can transcribe radio content with accurary. I believe S Voice uses Samsung's voice recognition, which is the same one found in the Samsung keyboard (which is "swipe-able"...
  49. Mercutio

    BT Headphones

    I did pick them up and I've had them for a week. Here's what I can say: 1. The earbuds are bigger than I thought they'd be. They stick out a bit from my ears. I've found that if I wear them with a stocking cap or any tight ear covering, there's too much pressure on the earbuds to vibrate and I...
  50. Mercutio

    Quiet server build

    How quiet is quiet? My file server at home has a pair of Scythe Ninja HSFs (LGA1366 Xeons) on an Asus workstation board inside a giant Norco chassis. I'm using a standard Seasonic Gold-class power supply because there's simply no way to get a quiet rackmount PSU. I can tell that the machine...
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