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Early LCD adopters, how much did you spend on your first LCD?

I wasn't one of the earliest adopters, but I bought a 15" LCD for $350 in 2000 or 2001.
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Feb 1, 2006
- Forum: Computer Building
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Best distro for MythTV?

Get KnoppMyth. It's a distro custom tailored to run MythTV as easily as possible.
- Zelmo3
- Post #5
- Jan 27, 2006
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Why does printing take up so much CPU?

"xosview" is a handy little tool for seeing how busy the CPU is, among other things. It's the old graphical Linux standard for monitoring resource use, like a predescessor to gkrellm and the like. Surprisingly, neither my Ubuntu nor my Debian box has it installed, though they both have icons...
- Zelmo3
- Post #15
- Jan 25, 2006
- Forum: Windows
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Dell or E-machine?

Nothing empirical here, just my limited experience. I have an e-machines laptop. My girlfriend has a Dell. I'm jealous of her laptop. I got my laptop from Best Buy, and luckily I got the store's service contract. In the two days following my purchase I replaced the laptop twice. Since then I've...
- Zelmo3
- Post #7
- Jan 25, 2006
- Forum: Computer Building
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Which Linux to try next?

Try this. It comes with the Enlightenment window manager, which is supposed to be pretty wicked. As for drivers, they're mostly included in the kernel.
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Jan 24, 2006
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Best Computer Game

Cripes, I can't believe how many people like Half-life and/or games using the Half-life engine! id has the top 3D engines in my opinion, and I can understand people getting excited about Unreal-based games, but Half-life just feels like crap to me. Anyway, I had to vote "Other" because...
- Zelmo3
- Post #227
- Dec 17, 2005
- Forum: PC Games
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win xp takes ~the same time to load on PM 1.86ghz and PIII

The Sony's hard drive speed might be the same as the Toshiba's; drive speeds haven't changed much. I'm guessing the bigger factor is the amount of stuff that gets loaded at boot time. If you reinstalled Windows from a retail disc, then your computer is probably not loading all the extra crap...
- Zelmo3
- Post #3
- Dec 17, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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linux users

You can bug Valve for a native build, but I don't know if they'll be as accomodating as id or Epic.
- Zelmo3
- Post #7
- Dec 15, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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suse 10.0 internet install: ip address of mirror?

131.188.3.71, according to "ping ftp.uni-erlange.de"
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Dec 15, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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How much money do you spend on hardware upgrades annually?

A few hundred used to be normal. A year or two ago I spent well over 1K. This year, all I could afford was the $40 for a new optical drive, and even that hurt.
- Zelmo3
- Post #13
- Dec 15, 2005
- Forum: Computer Building
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Installed Linux on 2nd partition, can not boot to it...help!

Yeah, you need to either install a boot loader on the MBR or on a floppy that you insert when you want to boot Linux. The quickest solution would be to run the installer again, and see if you can bypass everything except the boot config, then set it to write the boot loader to the MBR. If the...
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Dec 14, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Fedora Core 4 -- yum update upgraded my kernel

Updating the kernel will cause no trouble unless you're using some drivers that aren't included in the kernel (such as proprietary video and some wifi). But even in that case, you just need to re-install the drivers and everything will be happy again.
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Dec 14, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Open Source Gaming Platform?

I'm able to play most of my games in Linux. For some (the Quakes, Legends, Tux Racer) there is a native build; others (Battlefield 1942, Risk, myriad of freeware games) play well with WINE or Cedega. The only exceptions I've run into are my girlfriend's Sims 2 (which, due to bad design, might...
- Zelmo3
- Post #12
- Dec 13, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Is wireless G enough for gaming?

Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Services Near the bottom is Wireless Zero Configuration Service. It's probably set to Auto (or whatever). Tell it to stop, and your spikes will go away. Note that it has to be turned on to connect to the network at first, so if you reboot and can't...
- Zelmo3
- Post #9
- Dec 11, 2005
- Forum: Networking
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Is wireless G enough for gaming?

Wireless is plenty fast for gaming (my 802.11b router pings under 2 milliseconds, from across the house and one floor up). You can fix the lag spikes by turning off the Wireless Zero Config service after you're connected.
- Zelmo3
- Post #6
- Dec 9, 2005
- Forum: Networking
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Why buy SATA if IDE is just as fast?

You don't have to worry about setting master/slave jumpers on SATA drives. Also see Anand's original coverage of SATA technology for the basic differences between it and parallel ATA.
- Zelmo3
- Post #6
- Dec 9, 2005
- Forum: Computer Building
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Vote for Best Mouse to upgrade from MX500 and MS2.0

I still prefer the original MS Intellimouse, with a wheel and a ball. The shape is very easy to grab onto and manipulate with my fingers (which makes for very fine control), and I've found ball-based mouses to be easier to quickly relocate on the mousing surface than optical mouses. Their...
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Dec 8, 2005
- Forum: Mice
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your very 1st sound card and videocard you bought

I was party to a sound card upgrade to a SB16. In fact, that's what got me interested in computers in the first place. The first sound/video upgrades I made to my own machine were a Number 9 Image 128 for video (after upgrading my Trident's video memory to either 1MB or 2MB, I don't remember...
- Zelmo3
- Post #222
- Dec 7, 2005
- Forum: OT Discussion Club
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whats wrong with my fstab?

Here are the options I'm using for a Windows disk that I keep mounted: rw,suid,dev,auto,users,async,gid=6,umask=0002 I'm using rw because it's a vfat volume, and writing works well. For NTFS you probably don't want write access. My understanding of the current state of NTFS writing is that you...
- Zelmo3
- Post #3
- Dec 4, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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playing old DOS games in WinXP

Try the games with Windows' command prompt first--a lot of things will work that way, and they'll run fast. For everything else, DosBox is an excellent emulator. It will run a lot slower than XP's command prompt because it has to emulate the hardware for DOS to run on, but almost anything works...
- Zelmo3
- Post #6
- Nov 28, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Quake 4 won't proceed beyond "loading game..."

Have you tried starting it from a console so you can see the program's output? That might tell you where it's getting stuck. As for changing visual settings, you can do that without starting the game by editing your quake4config.cfg file in your q4base directory. Open in with a text editor and...
- Zelmo3
- Post #16
- Nov 27, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Stripping Speaker Wire

Even if wire strippers can be had for little cash, I've found every set I've used to be problematic in that they either don't cut away enough of the plastic or they cut off some of the wires inside. Probably the easiest thing you can do is open a pair of scissors, hold the wire where the scissor...
- Zelmo3
- Post #6
- Nov 27, 2005
- Forum: Peripherals & Components
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How often do you shut down windows?

It doens't apply so much to Windows any more, but I leave the computer running unless I'm going away for more than a day.
- Zelmo3
- Post #6
- Nov 27, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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what is your game handle?

"Zelmo" most of the time. For Battlefield 1942, I'm "COL 32.DLL" when playing in Windows and "COL Dotorg" when playing in Cedega (or it may be the other way around, I don't remember).
- Zelmo3
- Post #14
- Nov 20, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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dhclient doesn't like the school network?

A few lines from the bootup process: Nov 17 09:24:20 localhost kernel: [4294717.953000] ndiswrapper version 1.1 loaded (preempt=no,smp=no) Nov 17 09:24:20 localhost kernel: [4294718.040000] ndiswrapper: driver bcmwl5 (Broadcom,06/13/2003, 3.20.23.0) loaded Nov 17 09:24:20 localhost kernel...
- Zelmo3
- Post #5
- Nov 18, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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dhclient doesn't like the school network?

I found these lines in /var/log/messages: Nov 17 09:37:39 localhost kernel: [4294886.533000] Process dhclient-script (pid: 7616, threadinfo=c9190000 task=d42edac0) Nov 17 09:37:39 localhost kernel: [4294886.533000] Stack: 00000000 bf9e252c 00000000 c8c66a90 c90d2f60 c8c66a90 dbee4440...
- Zelmo3
- Post #3
- Nov 18, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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dhclient doesn't like the school network?

At home I use static network addressing on my Linux laptop for convenience. The school's wireless network uses DHCP, so I have a script to bring the wireless interface down and then back up with DHCP and the correct credentials for wireless access. After a varying amount of time (ranges from as...
- Zelmo3
- Thread
- Nov 18, 2005
- Replies: 6
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Maximum simultaneous keypresses on a keyboard?

I don't know what the maximum is on my Logitech wireless internet kb, but I've noticed that I can press w, c, and a simultaneously (to crouch and strafe left while moving forward in Return to Castle Wolfenstein), but not w, c, and d. So in some combinations I can't get more than two, and I don't...
- Zelmo3
- Post #12
- Nov 14, 2005
- Forum: Keyboards
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So Microsoft Update is great ...

CNET used to offer a service called Catch-Up, which would do what you're asking about, all from the comfort of your web browser. I used it when I was a regular Windows user, and as I recall it worked quite well. Sadly, it's been discontinued, though it appears you can sign up for a weekly...
- Zelmo3
- Post #4
- Nov 12, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Ubuntu: Enabling 5.1 Surround

Wow, thanks for the links, Drag! Yesterday I had resigned myself to thinking I couldn't get 5.1 surround without JACK (which wasn't working for me). Today I saw this thread and checked out the Doom 3 link, and now I have full surround working in Quake 4.
- Zelmo3
- Post #10
- Nov 11, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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System and Visual Studio compile performance

Not sure about Microsoft's compilers specifically, but the GNU C compiler is almost entirely processor-dependent. I don't imagine the instructions or data that get used repeatedly in compiling would exceed the capacity of a modest cache, but I can't back that up.
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Nov 10, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Downloading ATI drivers for linux (attempt #3)

If the drivers installed correctly, it's often just a matter of checking whether your xorg.conf has the right setting for the "UseInternalAGPGart" option in the device section. For me, it has to be set to "no" (which I think is the case for most people), but it depends on your motherboard and...
- Zelmo3
- Post #7
- Nov 10, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Best game

Yes!!! My best friend and I stayed up half of Halloween night (not to mention numerous random afternoons) playing that on his Apple IIGS. As for DM2, sometimes I sill feel a need to poke around in that one from time to time. Thank DOSbox for making that possible!
- Zelmo3
- Post #124
- Nov 7, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Standalone microphone - good for gaming?

A desktop microphone is going to have a lot of trouble picking up your voice unless you use an unnatural amount of gain (which would require special equipment, and would also amplify any background noise). Headsets are really the only way to effectively isolate your voice.
- Zelmo3
- Post #8
- Nov 6, 2005
- Forum: Peripherals & Components
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Suse video driver question HELP

The file probably isn't executable--a lot of downloaded binaries come that way. You need to chmod +x ati-driver-installer-8.18.8-x86_64.run to make it executable, then run it as root and you should be good to go.
- Zelmo3
- Post #4
- Nov 6, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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Best game

OMG, that was easily the BEST game for the 2600! Wow, now I wish I could find a port for PC... or a set of paddles that I can use with an emulator. Come to think of it, I think I'll grab an emulator just to play Combat or something.
- Zelmo3
- Post #109
- Nov 6, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Suse video driver question HELP

Look in your /etc/X11 directory for a file called xorg.conf.old or something similar to indicate a backup file. Rename it to xorg.conf, and the next time you startx it will use that file. You should be able to make a few minor changes to the backup file to make it use the new drivers. Namely...
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Nov 6, 2005
- Forum: Operating Systems
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cAN Open office...

It works with Chinese, both simplified and traditional. Not sure about importing an MS Word doc in Chinese. It's free, so you can try it without any loss (except for download time).
- Zelmo3
- Post #2
- Oct 31, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Best game

OMG, you can't be serious. I wanted to like that game, but I kept getting thrown off the Vogon ship. Then, a decade or so later, after I found out how to get the babel fish and finally made it to the heart of gold, seems I can't do anything there except get a cup of something that tastes almost...
- Zelmo3
- Post #47
- Oct 31, 2005
- Forum: Windows
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Anyone still use the original office products

The U.S. Department of Justice uses WordPerfect, and has recently re-committed to doing so for another term of contract. Most of my family uses WordPerfect (it's kind of a regional thing now). I mostly use OpenOffice because it saves me having to boot Windows, but for any word processing that's...
- Zelmo3
- Post #5
- Oct 23, 2005
- Forum: Windows

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