lnxr0x

Priced out on www.newegg.com comes to $706 (give or take depending on the day) . Thats with a legit copy of XP. That doesn't include shipping, although most items were FREE shipping. So you're paying about $150+ for labor & testing, as long as you get a warranty is not toooo bad. Couple things... while i've never really heard anything bad about asrock boards I haven't heard anything great either,... also DO NOT use the power supply that comes with the case, most cases that include a supply just throw in a $2 p.o.s. to add value. Do yourself a favor and spend a little extra and get a decent power supply.

I work for an cable ISP and your IP can change(the network is DHCP) but normally if it stays connected to the same physical mac the IP will remain the same. As long as the node isn't very busy I've seen IPs get renewed on modems that have been off for hours !! The best way is to change the MAC in the router (cloning) as the previous poster noted ** on the other side of the coin my personal connection is DSL. All I have to do is power cycle the modem and I'll almost always get a new IP.

^^ Good point... If their wifi was AD-hoc and your "fake" signal was stronger than the actual "real" access point that could work... (a lot of work to get some temp user ids and passwords :)

Hmmm... wonder if you could setup a freeRADIUS server to accomplish a "login" page. ... <_<

With the unsecured you could always spoof the login page and just have people typing in their user names and passwords :)

heres a couple of my favorites ... any of the books in the stealing the network series are good but i liked the first the best. Just search amazon and you can find TONS of good techno books !! Stealing the Network: How to own the Box The Art of Intrusion: The Real Stories Behind the Exploits of Hackers, Intruders & Deceivers ..edit... forgot these 2 .. Hacking Exposed Secure your Network using free sotware

It's limited in functionality but you could try gopc.net I use it at work because port 6667 for irc is blocked, but not when I login to gopc (which is an automatic SSH connection) there's a client and also a java version that runs within the browser (if you run Linux or OSX) hope this helps :)

^^ thx .. the one thing I've learned about being self taught when it comes to I.T. is that (for me at least) hands on experimenting is the best way to learn. I basically setup diff "home-brew" labs; couple old pcs, some used cisco routers & switchescan go a long way. I try diff configs with routing protocols, diff server software ie: samba, FreeNAS, Xampp, nmap, IDS stuff with Snort, tunneling with SSH & GRE.. etc. I just get creative and have fun ... and let me tell you I've learned ALOT !! First.. find something you love,.. second.. find a way to make money doing it !!

I work in IT, if you can can call ISP tech support "IT". I'm currently studying many diff areas of IT but focusing on security. I hope to get a more "hands on" position, unfortunately the company I work for only wants to promote you to leadership positions like supervisors and managers ... pfft .. i'm no manager .. I'm technical, I like being technical, but alas no path to a higher level of tech support other than being a script-monkey. :P

It's probably a bad fan bearing. Next time it happens just see if you can open the case and locate where the noise is coming from, you can also (gently) place your finger in the middle of each fan to find the culprit. (NOTE: don't stick your fingers in the blades !!! we don't want any bloody stumps around here.) ;)

RIGHT CLICK ON "MY COMPUTER" CLICK ON MANAGE CLICK ON DISK MANAGEMENT YOU SHOULD SEE THE DRIVE ON THE RIGHT IF YOU RIGHT CLICK ON THE DRIVE, IT SHOULD GIVE THE OPTION TO FORMAT, CREATE PARTITION, OR MAKE ACTIVE HOPE THIS HELPS

My 933 Mhz PIII prob takes about a min and a half to load Xubuntu. but I don't know for sure because I only shut the PC down about once a month for updates :)

So... is the Quake 3 server live yet ??

Found this story a few years back on grc.com. You may have already read it. Basically about how GRC.com and company infiltrated a bot net by reverse engineering the bot. cool stuff not hosted on the site anymore :( .. not sure why ?? but I found another link ... http://lee.org/blog/images/20050802-grcdos.pdf

WOW ... small world !! I attended Tunxis back in 2001 for certs in Networking !! You're going the right direction, but as others have said there's nothing like real world hands on experience. (which they should give you some of at Tunxis) Over the years I've setup multiple test networks/equipment in my home for learning on. Really IS useful ! I currently work in a tech support field,.. but it's call center corporate stuff... the pay is alright but I'm still working towards more hands on server side work ... I'll get there soon enough :) Good luck in your learning !!

First tried Red Hat 5 back in 1998. (That didn't go so well) Tried one of the earlier Knoppix CDs ... Then finally installed Suse 8.0. I used Suse for quite some time but really didn't "understand" how everything worked. I compiled Gentoo from source .. (that was a process, but a great learning experience !!) After that I settled on some nice middleground with Slackware. Since then I've tried too many distros to count currently running Xubuntu 8.04

It's called Dark Wood heres the link for the download http://zygat3r.deviantart.com/art/Dark-Wood-58266349

Here ya go... might have been just as good to post just my wallpaper :P

zero icons here ... call me old school but I usually start most programs from a terminal

^^ Agreed.. if your main thing with PC is gaming then stick with Windows... if you want to dabble with *nix then you would be better off running Linux from a virtual machine within Windows,.. that setup is powerful enough for sure !!

here's a good list of Linux games ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Linux_games

Don't know if it would fit the bill or not but you could also run a server with gameservers.com. I used to run a Quake3 server for a while. Costs about $15/month. (prob about the same as would cost to run a dedicated PC at home for the the month). If you have a certain MOD you need setup they will help you get it running I used to run the excessive mod for Q3