moonlit

Yup, just have a box set up with the appropriate software on (for example Apache for serving web pages) and leave it switched on when you leave. You may encounter issues with firewalls though, it'll probably be easier to access it on campus than over the net due to this.

Try everything and if it doesn't work try something else. That's the best advice I can give, experiment with it all, maybe write a bit of code, build a machine to run it on, when you're done turn that machine into something else (as suggested, a webserver), also read, do a lot of research. You'll come across things you don't understand or words that mean nothing to you but that's a good thing, it helps you learn on the job so to speak. As for hardware, mix and match hardware, maybe look into how building your own circuits to interface with things might work (for example using an atmega to speak to a USB port). Read up on some networking, fire up something like Wireshark and see how your computer's talking to the outside world. There's so much you can cover, it's impossible to hint on it all here, but as I said just experiment and read up on things as you go, you'll be surprised how much you can learn. Good luck and have fun!

Ah, my bad, I didn't notice he'd said that, must've skimmed it half awake... Not really a lot you can do in that case, maybe clear out temporary internet files/temp folders, turn off hibernation if it's on, same with System Restore, turn off/shrink the pagefile, uninstall stuff you don't use... delete Windows help files... just general housekeeping I suppose.

It's likely to be bots, spammers don't tend to go to each forum and post by hand, it's particularly inefficient when you can have bots do it for you.

I don't, but if you use MSDN and sample code from the zillion sites which host various VB apps/samples you can pick it up pretty quickly. Not the best way to learn it properly, but that's how I did it. It's useful to set yourself a challenge like cloning Notepad. By doing this, you get to learn a whole bunch of stuff like menus, controls, file access, use of the clipboard, etc.

You can compile and distribute your creations with the free Visual Basic Express version without any problems.

Because of the response you gave, I will again STRONGLY recommend formatting the machine. Not only is it likely to speed up the machine, it's quicker, easier and safer than trying to pick out the crap. You never know when a machine is clean after an infection and this seems like an occasion where you really need to be sure. Of course, if the machine shows no signs of infection then reinstalling is probably overkill but don't skip out on it just because.

Many would disagree with me but I would say Visual Basic is a good place to start. In fact, any of the Visual Studio languages. Why? Learning a language take a long time, and sometimes it's nice to see some results as quick as you possibly can. I'm not a particularly patient person when it comes to programming so to make something that functions as a real Windows program within minutes of sitting down in front of my machine is a definite bonus to me. On the downside, it's not very portable and it's not going to do the real hardcore stuff like memory management. If you just want to get the basics of structure and syntax down though it'll do the job just nicely.

Might I recommend formatting her machine ASAP? Might be an idea to get a new AOL screen name too. Edit: Actually, have you considered that they might be getting this information from any social networking accounts she might have? MySpace, Facebook, Bebo, even things like Flickr can give away more than you might like but people just don't think about it.

Ever considered buying a mobile device but not been too sure whether you'll like it? Perhaps you're stuck deciding between several. A large part of the experience is the OS itself, the other parts like battery life and screen size can be expressed in numbers but you have to use the device to know whether you'd like the interface. So why not try before you buy? Emulators exist for many mobile platforms both old and new and they can really show you what you're missing whether bad or good and inspired by my intention to see what Android was really like, I tried a few of them out. Click the thumbnails for a bigger picture of each. OpenMoko: Available at the OpenMoko wiki, this emulator is based on QEMU and emulates an ARM platform for your testing pleasure. The supplied version of the OS though seems quite old and digging around on the wiki (and on the download section of the OpenMoko site) reveals more up to date and much nicer looking versions. Om 2008 and Qtopia versions are both listed in the downloads section, so why not try both? OpenMoko Android: The Googlephone in software form. Pure Google-in-a-can, a G1 in your pocket (or desktop), get it before everyone else. Get extra phone skins from here and here and grab the emulator as part of Google's Android SDK. It's also based on QEMU for those of you who are interested. Android Windows Mobile 5 and 6: Microsoft's shrunken psuedo-Windows is free for the taking just over here (Windows Mobile 5) and here (Windows Mobile 6). You'll probably need the emulator to run them on, and the network driver from Virtual PC (also free) for them to talk to the outside world too. More info. Oh, and with a little searching you can find WiMo2003 and PocketPC images for the emulator too, so you can try any form of WiMo device you fancy. Excuse the wallpapers, they weren't designed for 480x640 but I was feeling lazy, you can dress yours however you like. Bonus feature: Over at hpcfactor.com they have VHD images of emulated Windows CE versions too, so if you have Virtual PC (which you will have if you used the Windows Mobile emulator mentioned above) then you can plug these babies in and take a trip back in time. WiMo 5 (left) WiMo 6 (right) PalmOS: Ahh, it hasn't changed a bit, still looks exactly like it did all those years ago. Then again, it hasn't really done anything in forever. However, if PalmOS floats your boat you can go grab a PalmOS emulator which'll thrust you back to PalmOS 4 or you can check out the slightly more up to date PalmSim which runs PalmOS 5. Both are available from http://www.accessdevnet.com/index.php/ACCE...w-category.html though you'll need to sign up to get at the lovely outdated goodness. You can simulate you a hi-hat a Treo or Centro using the other pile of simulators located here, though again, you'll need an account. PalmOS4 (left) PalmOS "Garnet" (mid) PalmOS "Garnet" on a Palm Centro simulator (right) Symbian: Slightly less casual-user friendly than the other emulators, more for developers than anything else, but if you really need to see Symbian on your desktop and you have an account (or don't mind getting one), you can pop over to Forum Nokia and pick up the "S60 Platform SDKs for Symbian OS, for C++" which contain an emulator that looks very much like the image below: Symbian Blackberry: For those more business-minded, check out RIM's Blackberry emulator. A services simulator is available too, so if you'd like to see how the MDS/email stuff works, that's probably a good place to start. Blackberry Sadly I couldn't find an iPhone emulator, at least one that ran on Windows. I believe the iPhone SDK comes with one though so that might be a good place to look for one. Unfortunately it only runs on OSX.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/02/nintend...ounces-the-dsi/

The dual core Atom misconception seems a common one, someone else on here thought the same thing, I'm not sure you'd need a dual core CPU in these little netbooks anyway, they're just not that kind of machine. That's not a bad price for the Aspire One, £210's cheaper than my eee 701 at the time. I'd prefer if the Aspire One had the battery life of the eee 901 but hey, it looks good, it has an Atom and you can't have everything. Also, hey stingwray, long time no see.

SSH tunnel.

I personally find 4GB enough for what I want to do on my eee, but if you need to trim some fat, run your Windows CD through nLite. It's a customisable Windows slimming app and it'll cut out all the stuff you don't need. Burn the resulting ISO to a CD, install from it, and you'll save a whole pile of space.

Seconded. Crash, you need to chill out a bit. I'll agree with your sentiment, but while it's an ambitious task and one important to get right, you can't honestly blame those who are less experienced for wanting to take a crack at it. I personally believe that there are already way too many distributions and this is both part of the reason that yet another would be a bad idea (unless it overcomes the shortcomings of other distros) and a good reason that many would consider making their own. Linux, as I hear and see often, is about choice, about writing your own code, about "if it doesn't do what you want, make it do it", about everything being there for the taking (and for the modification). This to me all points to "if you wanna roll your own distro, you go right ahead!" and again, while I admit that I can see how much of a task it really is to someone who's inexperienced with Linux-based OSs/the Linux kernel/drivers/everything else that makes up Linux, it's practically begging to be done.

Hah, bastards! Really though, I'd have to be shown what benefit dual screens in a portable device would have though (beyond gaming, to discount the DS). I suppose the advantage over a bit laptop is it can have the same screen size but can fold to be easier to store.

If you're referring to the 3.0GHz Athlon64 X2 in your signature, they'll probably be fairly evenly matched in terms of raw power. There's no direct comparison between Intel and AMD CPUs, relying on numbers alone will tell you almost nothing about the real world performance of either chip. They're good at different things, I wouldn't worry too much though, they're very capable.

The Atom present in the eee is not a dual core model but you're correct in saying that it does not have an 800MHz FSB, it is in fact 533MHz. It does, however, support HyperThreading which may appear to an OS as a dual core CPU.

I know enough to know that you've met me.

Give http://www.goforstore.com/ a shot, might wanna check out http://www.oscommerce.com/ (seems outdated), http://www.getcre.com/ and http://www.zencart.com/ too.

Who?

It's a bit a car. See, Joe Shmoe wants to get to work, but he's fine with his 1.4 litre rustbucket that does 100MPH and takes 15 seconds to hit 60MPH. Sure, if you're a speed freak, 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 320MPH is nice, you might well ask why not everyone wants that but the truth is, most people just don't need it. I'm not a typical user and I'm fine with my Vista boot time, it doesn't take long, certainly not long enough for me to sit twiddling my thumbs wishing it'd hurry up. Once upon a time OSs could be stored in a couple of MB of ROM and the further you go back the smaller the OSs were. This was fine, but as computer have progressed software has become bigger and more and more complex requiring much more configuration and much more code to run (or decide whether to run, even). You could say that OSs don't need to be 8GB installed and I might well agree with you but while things could be a bit smaller/cleaner/more efficient, I'm not sure I'd complain too much about XP/Vista/OSX/many Linux distros on decent hardware right now. If you're into losing 0.2 seconds off your boot time then by all means have fun doing so, I just don't think everyone tweaks like that.

Well then, I can only imagine it's a party party when you guys meet up!

I was merely commenting on the fact that women in bars tend to get the better deal. Whether this happens to be due to a barman hoping for a wink and a cuddle or whether it's to attract women who in turn attract men who then buy drinks, it's certainly noticeable (at least in the UK).

Women don't need social engineering in a bar, they have tits. Case closed.