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  1. Mercutio

    I just ordered some "cheap" systems...

    I use Via to the exclusion of anything else. Bozo's just been around Dells too long. ;) As far as things go, the 8VM800 is a really wonderful "vanilla" chipset. I use Gigabyte's version to power my file servers. I've also used Biostar versions. They're just dandy. Shuttle is a company with...
  2. Mercutio

    Hamachi

    Works great. I set up a Hamachi network to connect my home PCs with the PC in my Office and all three of the servers I maintain for my trainer job. Now I can access my vast quantities of por... music files at work, and I can administer my Exchange server from home.
  3. Mercutio

    Most-hated components - the top 10

    I'd like to ask Vlad which Wireless Network components he's found that are actually "good quality", 'cause I've tried everything short of Cisco and it's all been crap in one way or other.
  4. Mercutio

    Tuning 2003 server for workstation use

    PowerDVD version 6 installs fine on Server 2003. I'm sitting at a Server 2003 machine that has it installed right now. :)
  5. Mercutio

    SonicWall Router - What's the benefit?

    I have them at some of my customer sites. Sonicwall's VPN is much easier to deal with than trying to set up Microsoft's, and they're a lot cheaper than PIXes.
  6. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Mine is the top-end model with all the extra crap on it (EX, I think). $18k is the base model. The one I have was about $23k new. Aside from that, I didn't have to deal with the local Honda dealer, which is worth a bunch of money all by itself. Also mine had a mega-warranty rolled into the...
  7. Mercutio

    Something Random

    The Element is teh Awesome. $17k for a 2003 model with 6022 miles on it. 25mpg and a decent back seat that I can move to the side or remove entirely as needed. 100,000 mile warranty, too. And the one I bought has an aftermarket stereo in it. :D It took all of about 20 minutes for me to write a...
  8. Mercutio

    Something Random

    This particular car is my day-to-day car, a 95 Taurus with 183,056 miles on it. I also have a Crown Vic, but I've got an offer of $1500 for it, so it's gone. Time for a newer car. Found a Honda Element. 25mpg and it has storage space. Spiffy!
  9. Mercutio

    Something Random

    My car died today. It turn it on and the car shakes violently. The engine dies and the Check Engine, Oil, Brake and Battery lights stay on. I've had my car for as long as I've been driving. I am sad.
  10. Mercutio

    SonicWall Router - What's the benefit?

    They have pretty nice management and VPN functions. Not really anything a home user needs, but pretty nice for doing site to site VPNs and the like.
  11. Mercutio

    Hamachi

    Has anyone tried Hamachi? The web site seems to indicate that it's a multiplatform PC-to-PC VPN that is brain-dead easy to set up.
  12. Mercutio

    USB hub

    Intel has a Wireless USB spec but AFAIK there's no shipping hardware yet.
  13. Mercutio

    Windows *Vista*

    It's even funnier when you look up three posts. ;)
  14. Mercutio

    Something Random

    How to ruin a PC with PC in only two weeks.
  15. Mercutio

    Crossfire? Anyone tried it?

    I thought Crossfire only worked on motherboards with ATI chipsets. Why would nVidia want to support their competitor's system on their hardware in the first place?
  16. Mercutio

    Boot from Compact Flash

    Windows supports JBODs of up to 32 volumes, totalling not more than whatever arbitrarily huge size NTFS supports (256TB, I think). Most hardware RAID controllers (including 3ware) on 32 bit hardware choke on arrays larger than 2TB. I'm not sure if that's a limitation of 32-bit CPU architectures...
  17. Mercutio

    Boot from Compact Flash

    ddrueding, I'm not PLAYING the file on the C3. It's just the fileserver that happens to have the video file one of my other PCs is playing. Since it can manage flawlessly deliver two such video files over a plain 100mbit connection, it'll probably do for my needs.
  18. Mercutio

    Boot from Compact Flash

    I know my crappy C3 can saturate 100mbit Ethernet just fine, and can deliver enough data to play back two high bitrate xvid files simultaneously on different clients. I plan to drill holes in my cheap cabinet to mount an ITX or uATX motherboard. If the C3 can't cut it, I'll probably put in a...
  19. Mercutio

    Something Random

    ddrueding, have you tried Get Data Back NTFS on the befunged volume yet? 'Cause I'm almost positive it'll work for what you need.
  20. Mercutio

    Interesting Music site

    I've not used that site myself. Some of my students do. I do not know anyone who has had a problem with it, BUT you probably should be aware that if you're providing financial information to a bunch of Russians who are in Russia. Not the safest group of people to give your credit card number...
  21. Mercutio

    Boot from Compact Flash

    Nope, but that little guy would be dandy as a small web or print server. Or for that matter a file server. Over the weekend I'm hoping to start my wooden ITX PC project. I have a $30 put-together cabinet that I'm going to mount a Via system in. I'll be installing Linux (SuSE 10, probably) and...
  22. Mercutio

    Most-hated components - the top 10

    Drivers for a 5-year-old Dlink DFE-530TX+ 10/100 PCI NIC are fucking 48MB. I note, upon opening the ZIP file, that there are 1MB setup binaries for OSX, Linux and several different flavors of Windows - in both .EXE and .MSI format, plus a 5MB trial version of "EZAntiVirus". The combined size of...
  23. Mercutio

    [news] - Free VMware Server?

    Have you actually used P2V, Handy? $475 is fairly reasonable for Enterprise-ish software, but it'll sound like a ton of money to my client, especially when it's software I haven't used.
  24. Mercutio

    [news] - Free VMware Server?

    I was not aware of P2V Assistant, and VMware send me crap (mail, email) all the time. I even actually look at it. Now I have to find out how much it [i]costs/i]. Blah.
  25. Mercutio

    [news] - Free VMware Server?

    I would kill for a disk imaging product that could be used to transition from a physical computer and OS installation to a virtual machine. Just went to see a new job site. Simple job: I'm just deploying a dozen new PCs, a printer and a Linux machine for file and proxy serving. These people...
  26. Mercutio

    Suse Linux 10.1 x86_64

    CityK, you do know that you can install and use apt on SuSE, right? It's just a matter of finding a proper repository for SuSE stuff. I'm generally OK with Yast or just downloading .tgzs, but I teach my students about apt, and I show them how to install it and the related packages that make it...
  27. Mercutio

    Tuning 2003 server for workstation use

    The normal XP one. I do the "low bandwidth" install of just the driver.
  28. Mercutio

    Suse Linux 10.1 x86_64

    The "server" version of Ubuntu has a fairly fuss-free install, at least. I had to tell it a hostname, username and password and it did everything else. Maybe 20 minutes to install it. Apache and PHP were running by default, so I copied over some images and installed DAlbum (a php photo album...
  29. Mercutio

    Suse Linux 10.1 x86_64

    I'm hoping to install Ubuntu 6.06 Server in a Virtual Machine in a little bit. Torrent will be done in an hour or so, and I have nothing better to do. Maybe this will be the lucky first time I get a debian install to work right.
  30. Mercutio

    Can I get a hand from a torrent fiend?

    http://www.thepiratebay.com/ will be back tomorrow. :)
  31. Mercutio

    Windows *Vista*

    Illustrating how obnoxious Vista can be. Behold: What it takes to delete a shortcut!
  32. Mercutio

    Intel strikes back

    Interesting rumors of an ATI/AMD merger.
  33. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Methinks ddrueding's iPod went in the drink. If so, ouch. Probably not worse than letting 20 400GB drives fall down 10 feet of concrete stairs, but still bad. On the other hand, if he didn't have 100,000 MP3s backed up at all, I think we should change his forum title to "Goofus" or something...
  34. Mercutio

    Low benchmark scores on boot drive

    I use SpinRite as a secondary diagnostic tool. It reports SMART messages (which may or may not mean anything on any particular drive) as well as its own internal statistics as it operates. Sometimes the combination of the two reveals useful information. If nothing else, SpinRite is insurance...
  35. Mercutio

    Boot from Compact Flash

    Isn't the minimum size of an XP install slightly over 4GB to begin with? I mean, my Prepped disk images are usually about 3.8GB with XP + Office + Drivers, and those are compressed. I know I can shoehorn a decent Linux install on a 256MB thumb drive, but the first thing I thought of was silent...
  36. Mercutio

    Low benchmark scores on boot drive

    Check SMART values? Run SpinRite? Buy non-WD drives, cleanse the infected PC with fire and bask in the glow of righteousness?
  37. Mercutio

    Bought a Thinkpad A30. This thing is a thank.

    HardOCP takes a look at a Lenovo T60.
  38. Mercutio

    Most-hated components - the top 10

    You don't have to install the .NET framework for ATI's drivers, actually. You have to install it for their Control Panel Application, something I'd never in a zillion years put on someone's PC voluntarily, simply because I don't want anyone for whom I would build a PC to find the sliders for...
  39. Mercutio

    how to object to an AOL email address

    I get dinged by people from time to time for preferring my @yahoo.com address to other addresses I have or that I'm entitled to have. For me, @yahoo is a reliable first-layer spam filter that forwards messages to my actual e-mail address. Plus I've been using that address for seven years now. It...
  40. Mercutio

    Intel strikes back

    Is anyone here really tempted at all by these new Intel chips? For that matter, is anyone really interested in a faster processor at all at the moment?
  41. Mercutio

    archival of wedding CDs

    Almost anyplace that does photo processing will print photos for $.29 apiece. dotPhoto sometimes runs $.19 specials. In either case you get real photopaper and real photo ink.
  42. Mercutio

    HIS brand video cards

    I can put some h.264 720p porn up on my web site for you to try. :D Anyway, an x1600 is a step down from a 9700 or 9800, but folks I've sold them to have been more than happy enough with their performance in WoW. An x1600 is a $100 card, Greg. An X850 is a $250 card. It'd BETTER thrash that x1600!
  43. Mercutio

    archival of wedding CDs

    Paper isn't prone to data corruption issues and it isn't likely to become obsolete in the near future.
  44. Mercutio

    Turning video 90 degrees

    You can do it with Virtualdub, which is a free and tiny program.
  45. Mercutio

    archival of wedding CDs

    There are such things as Archival quality CDs. They're very expensive but might be worth looking in to. Also, it should go without saying that pictures should be printed out and stored on paper as well.
  46. Mercutio

    Bizarre USB devices

    In the late 19th century, doctors actually used steam-powered vibrators to cure Victorian women of "hysteria." The book "The Road to Wellville" by TC Boyle (and movie of the same name) give mention to this fact. If that isn't amusing enough, apparently early home versions of those devices...
  47. Mercutio

    Something Random

    I'm a moral relativist. I don't really believe there's such a thing as evil. However, there are things that I find to be despicable and worthy of hate. Social conservatives who seek to further their opinions in the public sphere truly disgust me.
  48. Mercutio

    Bizarre USB devices

    Here? Naw. Just don't post pictures of women of that... caliber and we're probably fine. :) My all-time favorite dumb USB toy is a USB Dancing Homer Simpson. I had one, but it broke the last time I moved. I found out the stupid thing is a holy grail for people who collect Simpsons memorabilia...
  49. Mercutio

    Something Random

    What reason is there to see the "conservative" side of the story as even possibily correct? There's a vaccine that can prevent cancer and they don't like it because, in their worldview, that might lead to someone having more sex. Wow. First of all, what young woman is thinking "Now that I...
  50. Mercutio

    Something Random

    Yet another reason to hate conservatives in the USA.
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