shadow1100mfp

do you mind if i make a shirt with your amazingly awesome quote on it? its seriously one of the best things ive ever heard... well read. anyway, secuirty in windows IS a joke, especially with p2p programs such as kazza. limewire does a pretty good job at finding corrupt files and deleting them before they infect you, so i find that a once or twice, or even three times weekly scan with mcafee, spybot, avast, and ad aware does the trick for me (once weekly even if i dont use p2p, twice if i use it moderatly, 3 if iuse it heavily, everyday if i leave it on). if you don't feel like paying for mcafee, then theres a neat little article on ihack i think that shows you how to get a year long demo for free, full features. thats how i got it on all 4 of my current computers (it wouldn't work on 2 of my computers though because they were too old but they aren't my current computers). mcafee does a somewhat good job at blocking viruses and spyware, but it does slow down your computer considerably, and it makes you wait like 5 or 10 minutes after you start your computer untill you can connect to the internet but after that it works just fine. if your worried about speed though, just shut off all automatic filtering, or set them all to one time, like i do (12pm every sun., weds. and sat.), and it only takes about 30 minutes for all the scans to work through it all, which is perfect for me since thats usually when i'd be working in the garage or going to class). though i strongly reccoment you try to block yourself from every activity that would expose yourself to a virus, such as downloading anything that isn't from a trusted site (such as download.com, hak5.org, etc.) also, i've heard a story that a nasty quicktime video is going around, or it's a quicktime video that gets encoded wrong, and it screws up quicktime and itunes (it happened on my main computer and i still havn't been able to fix it), so be cautious of anything you view and download, if you are youll most likely be safe with just mcafee running, but why not take the extra incentive to keep all your data safe? im not sure about linux though, but on hak.5 they said something about phando or something that was a weird name, and it lets you run windows programs in linux? maybe try some of those antispyware programs for windows that are mentioned on this thread through that? also just to throw it out there, who cares if your os is not at risk for viruses? it could be tomorrow or the next day, or even a year from now, but i know id sleep better at night knowing all my bills, my identiy, credit cards,5000 songs, 8000 photos, hundreds of movies, all files, emails, etc. are safer because i took the incentive while i could and while it was free. not to mention, just having a/v software could prevent you from getting a virus that will fuck up your entire system, so not only are you protecting your data but your also protecting all your hardware. (its like a condom for computers! haha, you can thank a friend of mine for that part, he said that when i tried explaing what a/v software does)

as the guy above me stated, walmart should have it, i've seen it in the three that are around my home town (isn't it sad that i have 3 walmarts within an hours drive from my home? lol). if not, sams club might, but you need a membership to shop there. hardware stores such as true value (thats my local hardware store, but i think they have places all over the us), ebs (if you live in the east, they might have it), aubochaun (SP?) hardware would have it, and any glass retailer would have it or can order it for you, or you can order it online, i read a post on here once saying that there was a place in canada that sells plexiglass and they can custom cut it to within 1/2 a millimeter, so they can do it pretty precise. you can search for glass dealers in canada or you can wait till the exchange rate is good and go for a little road trip (ALWAYS fun lol).

haha, as i mentioned, this is a very horrible pc as far as speed and performance goes, so i wouldn't save anything other then the dvd drive and the hd anyway, not to mention that the ram is rd, and everything in it is pci only (i dont have an agp installed and it doesn't have pcie slots). the psu is total shit anyway i am almost certain that that is what is causing all the trouble. the m/b is not recent enough to do much other then get on the internet and run word and such applications. but i will still keep the parts just so i can practice my soldering on them before i go to the big expensive stuff lol. though the case is still in perfect working condition so i will be keeping that, as i was planning on building a music and video server for my rec room anyway so this cuts out about 100 bucks from the price of that project =]. atleast something good came from this. i didn't breath in too much of the smoke, i got it all ventilated pretty quickly, but i did end up getting a few good lung fulls while transporting it to the stand where it is now with the fan on it (about 75 feet away, and down a flight of stairs). is this anything i should be worried about? like i said, i know that burning wires in a car is toxic and after 6 seconds of breathing in those fumes you could be dead, but im not sure if this WAS the wires, im just convinced it is the wires of the power supply as that is already fucked, so it wouldn't surprise me if it was. im not experiencing anything bad like dizzyness or lightheadedness and i havn't from the time i was exposed to the smoke. should i just keep an eye on myself for a couple days and if something strange does occur just go to the emergency room? i've never delt with wires burning before, or smoke for that matter (other then second hand smoke but thats different smoke, although just as deadly in some cases). thanks for all the help also! i wasn't expecting someone to help me i was expecting someone to laugh at me and call me a dumb ass and i just had to do this easy task and it wouldn't smoke anymore, but i got an answer with some substance to it! i was somewhat shocked lol. but im ready to let go of that system i think, i never really liked it from when i got it because i was lied to when i got it for $1200 brand new at staples (i didnt know much about computers at the time and they said it would play all high end games, and i got home and it couldn't even play games like lord of the rings on low settings). im also ready to get a new computer, the first computer i will be buying while i know a good deal about computers =] this time ill be able to tailor it to my needs and not have to buy some stock one and leave it stock, illbe able to change it around, change parts and stuff and it will really be MY computer =] ill post some pics of my 2 main workstations when i get the new computer and im done with all the changes ill be making to it (first one ill be making is adding the second hard drive, second is adding the 2 32 inch monitors i bought (they are tvs, but they can also be monitors). i know my stuff isn't quite top end, but its still better then most average homes have (3 42 inch plasmas, 2 32 inch lcd monitors/tvs, 3 computers, 3 laptops, 3 ipods, 1 40gb mp3player, 2 20gb mp3players, 5 digital cameras, alltogether more then 10000 watts of speaker power, and more cables then they sell at the local department store (and thats alot of cables! lol) isn't it strange when you get rid of a computer? i know they were just doing a skit for evil server signal interuption, but you have to admit, you feel kind of like ally acts in that skit, it's kind of like a car, but more because it's in your house 24/7 and you do all your work on it. maybe its just me. oh; sorry about the long replies lol

i was thinking of doing that, but it has an almost new 250gb highspeed western digital hard drive with thousands of songs on it, hundreds of movies, and also thousands of pictures that i hadn't gotten a chance to back up before it died. it also has an almost new dvd burner in it. would it be of any elevated risk to save just those specific parts for my new computer, and not use the rest of the computer? i don't want to throw it away, but id like to save everything from it because im getting into welding and soldering and that kind of stuff, and i think that would be the perfect thing to learn precise soldering on, since i wouldn't use it anymore. im almost positive the guy wont fix it anyway because just in parts, it will cost me about 500 to replace the m/b, the powersupply and all thecards in it, and he won't do anything over 200 unless your really set on it, and im not in this case (pun not intended). also, just to throw this out there: im looking around now for a new computer to replace this one (it's not a huge priority since i have many computers but i like to have spares because things are always breaking at my house, many do to the amount of power outages i have, and because last year my house was hit by lightning and things are just dieing ever since, so i love having spares of everything, even if they aren't top quality).i found a good computer on the circuitcity website for $370, by good i mean it's a basic computer, but it's better then the one that died, and it has plenty of power for me as far as i can tell, if anyone wants to take a look at it (http://www.circuitcity.com/ssm/Compaq-Presario-Desktop-PC-SR5102HM/sem/rpsm/oid/188987/catOid/-12962/rpem/ccd/productDetail.do)

am i safe in assuming that if my computer starts pouring out smoke only seconds after turning it on that something is wrong? by pouring, i mean it was going out of every hole on the case, even the holes on the side of the front cover (theres a plastic face plate on the computer, and it goes about 1/2 inch past the actual side of the case, and there are holes in it to allow air into the case). i immediately unplugged it and took the cover off to see what was smoking (burning and melting) but it smelt strongly like mice (or hamsters) and was full of smoke and still smoking 5 minutes after i unplugged it, so i just left the cover off and put a big room fan next to it in front of a window (the fan pointing out the window to get the smoke out of my house). if this is bad, which im most certain is (i know that when wires burn in cars the fumes from the plastic can be deadly), what can i do besides take it to someone who can look it all over and upgrade everything causing problems? really all i want from the case is the hard drive, but something is wrong with something in side the case, and im most certain its the power supply still. when i took the computer out of commission it was because it had no ventilation, (the fan on the power supply burned out, the bearings on it are gone), and that was it. but i plugged it in in my basement and this happened, so im thinking maybe one of the wires of the power supply melted, and it's not really the fan, just that wire? in either case the power supply is bad, but i don't know if thats the only thing thats bad and i don't know how to tell if that is the only thing wrong with it other then taking it to a computer tech. the only problem i have with doing that though is the guy doesn't know much (i read online that your not supposed to use wd 40 on fans as medium engine oil can cope with the rpm much better, and he said he just dipped the fan in wd 40 after he dusted it the last time i brought it to him). also, he way overcharges, i know computer techs are expensive, but he charges for every hour its at his house (its someones home business), and he usually doesn't call until the day after even if i request he call as soon as its done. but, he does get it done quick usually within 2 days (not including the "grace" 1 day period he gives), and hes never busy and gets right on fixing it before i even leave. also at the end he tells me what he did and why he didnt do things, but he gives stupid reasons (such as "i didnt have any 80mm fans in stock" when theres a cheap computer ware house with pretty much everything ever, not 30 minutes from his house) the computer ware house also fixes computers, but they charge $100 down, flat rate fee, even if they just replace a $6 fan or something. i don't want to retire this computer, but i don't want to pour half a weeks pay check into it at one time. i take that back, i do want to retire this computer, but i want to replace it with one of better quality and have the hard drive of this one as a spare storage /backup on the new one, but i don't really want to buy a whole new computer unless this thing cant be fixed for less then 50-60 (a power supply twice the wattage currently in it will cost me 40 dollars, on tiger direct, and another 20 for a 5 pack of fans). if anyone has suggestions with what to do with my situation id love to hear them, because im perplexed as to how the parts that are failing are the ones that he replaced and said id have no trouble with them. (power supply, vid card, eithernet card, usb slots, he replaced these all with things he had laying around in computers that are from the windows95 era.. when i took the computer to him originally, i told him "replace the parts that don't work, but make sure it's of equal quality, i don't care what the price is" because at the time this was my only running computer, as i was making other repairs to the Compaq, and what i got was this p.o.s. that ran worse then my 10 year old Compaq (Compaq has half the memory, 1 15th the storage, and a much older main board of what he put in it). when i bought the computer brand new just 5 years ago, it had 512 memory,nice video card with triple monitor out and an extra card that had just dvi and component, eithernet card that had both eithernet and dial up (the one he put in had just 2 eithernet), 4firewire ports, 8 usb ports, 1 case fan, and was the hard drive and os was all profiled for the hardware installed and optimized for it all, he only put the replacement parts in an old case and swapped the hard drive, and called it good he didn't even optimize it, and this repair alone ran me about $300 which was ridiculous. aside from telling me to get a new tech and throw away everything that looks melted and replacing it myself (i start school again in one week and i still have to clean my house and finish various stuff that i havn't done this summer, including that pool table), any advice as to what to do?

verry subtle ... he does have a point though, if we pay for the music we should be able to use it how we want, its the same as buying a cd you can put that on any mp3 player you have, they don't limit it to one or w/e

ahhh. well maybe if i make the program and it turns out good ill buy the full bersion just to use it. they make soft ware like this, but its expensive and ment for actual pool halls, not home rec rooms.

ill try out v/b and d/b then. is there a way to save the programs so that when the demo is over i can still use the program?

so for someone whos never done anythign and isnt planning on doing much, visual basic or dark basic would be a good one? another feature i thought of while shopping for haxor flakes (aka soda): another window on the software end, with elimination brackets on it, maybe the ability to save positions?.

wireless would be cool, maybe infered? but thats line of sight.... maybe it could be incorperated into the wireless laser transmitter somehow? lol. the case is pretty much done anyway, i found a sheet of plexiglass in my garage a couple days ago and made a small case for just this purpose, so if im already cutting into it to mount the three buttons i might as well put a few more in while im at it. the music player was just an idea, because theres also a stereo in the room (it's a full rec room/game room/media room), but i thought itd be cool to have almost a kiosk (i think thats what its called) where its all set up and when i have friends over they just go over and enter names or whatever, and start playing... that way they wouldnt have to go through opening certain programs, looking for the right icon etc. and the chance for them to screw up my computer is minimized. (someof my friends don't know how to use computers very well, so i thought it'd be alot easier just to incorperate the player into the pool hall programs interface) what type of programming would i need to know to make this program myself? like ive said before i don't have much time but ill give it a go and if it works out then hooray! but the challenge is still on to anyone who wants to make the program and have the masses test it (if you do make the program, put your name into the program somehow, like under help or something, as the producer of the program)

i like your thinking =] because i do have countless mouses around my house that i don't use any more, so i could do that easily. im pretty skilled at working with tools, so i could even whip up a nice case to mount everything in, and mount that onething to the table instead of mounting everything seperatly. as far as music controls, do you think that would be best controlled by a mouse, on the computer itself? or would it be all that much better if i put some buttons together like play, pause, vol up, vol down, next and mounted that to the table too?

i guess its a coding challenge, but anyway: im building a pooltable, and i know many people who have pool tables, rec rooms etc etc. but no one has a custome point system, and that would be the ultimate geek/hak.5 tribute to make a program, hak.5 logos throughout, that kept score: what i am thinking is you attach 3 buttons to the side skirt of your pool table, all wired to a control box which leads to your computer. one button marks a point for team a, the second for team b, and the third is a reset switch. on the computer end, it would be a simple program, able to run on any low end computer easily, opens directly to the game screen which has 3 main partitions of the screen: team a, team b and a timer (screen is divided into thirds, first third being team a, second third being the timer, third third being team b). points are shown on the team screens, the timer displays the amount of time that the game has been in play, and the current time (maybe with an option to set a time limit, when the limit is up it plays a sound file of the users choice?). themes would be built in, all with hak.5 logos (or how about a picture of wess' face with pretty flowers? haha), the only real difference between themes would be color scheme: the colors to be included would be basic red (not bright red, kind of maroon), black and green (again, not bright, but dark, like a pool table), these colors would come default in the program to match a majority of pooltables, but since it's an opensource kind of thing, im sure people would make their own layouts for it. button layout would be something simple, such as standard square boxes, black with lettering to match the color scheme. and if you wanted to get really fancy, it could include a music player, with the ability to do anything from shuffle to search your music for specific songs/artists on the hardware end though (the buttons), i think it would be possible to set up an automatic point system with the buttons, but have the buttons tell the computer whos turn it is, team a or b, and then have a sensor at each hole (when a ball goes in a point is scored to that team). if a mistake is made, then you push the reset switch and the computer deletes that point (press twice for new game). just an idea i've been working on over the last week or so, im really getting into pool, and i thought this would be the perfect computer oriented accessory to set hak.5 rec rooms apart from the crowd. i would try to program this myself, but i have no idea how to program anything other hten basic stuff, but i figured there are alot of people here who would love to have a go at this challenge, maybe we can put it up for downloading purposes if it is popular enough? at any rate, if anyof you take this challenge on i will be extremely greatful, it will be wuite the addition to my rec room. ill be sure to put up some pictures of my hacked out rec room when im done (it's about half way there).

Taking the side off the Case isnt prefered, it will cause more dust to build up in the case, whcih then can fry components, best to leave it on, n run a lil hotter. Also theres not really gonna be a program out there thats going to tell you the model psu ur runnin, simplest way, is to check out the amount of molex's you need (the part that goes the the HDD's and CD's) if you need SATA Power Lines, SLI Power Lines, of the psu is MINI-ATX, or just ATX. and How many watts u need to be pumping out. For the sounds of ur system, it seems like ur gonna be wanting somethin in the 300-400w range. it's an atx, the only thing i was looking to find out was what type of stuff to buy (like for memory i knew i needed rd ram, not sd or ddr or ddr2, for raid1 hard drive i know i need ide etc) but, i have a similar system, same proformance but a little less memory, and that only has a 145 watt p.s, most of the parts on that system are higher proformance newer parts then on the one im having trouble with, so shouldn't a lower wattage p.s work? i don't want to try and run it on like 50 watts, i know thats too little, but the local stores, power supplies are rather expensive, a 250watt is $60 and a 430 watt is $80, so i wanted to try and get away with the lower 250 watt one, so i could save 20 bucks. id prefer ordering from tigerdirect where the prices are discount prive at namebrand products, but i don't have paypal, credit card or anything of that nature. not to mention, i think instead of buying a p/s now, im going to wait another week or 2 and buy a case that has one in it, or buy a case at a computer shop near my house that throws in a free credit if you recruit customers, and i can use that credit to buy a nicer power supply then i would have originally bought

had to ruin my dreams didn't you? even still, can't drm be defeated by burning to a cd/dvd and then re-ripping it )or in this case, ripping for the first time) to the computer?

you know how you download videos from youtube? (you copy the url, put it into something like www.keepvid.com, click download) doesn't itunes work off of the internet, meaning that it uses urls, meaning that, in theory, if you get a url to something from itunes that you can download it with something like keepvid? (edit: i haven't done this personally, i have only found the url and thought it was similar to youtube)

thankyou very much! and, if i don't end up replacing the power supply, im sure if i took the side of the computer off, put a screen there (from an old screen door or something) and put my 36" fan next to it, that i'd end up with plenty of ventilation lol

ill take a look at those, and find out the info about that machine (like i said i havn't used it in like 8 years)

What im trying to say is, sure you can install gnu/linux on it but it will be harder(not just installing) than installing it on a modern pc. So you should probably install gnu/linux on a modern pc, learn the basics then have a crack at your old machine. thats what i thought lol

what do you mean? like try putting it on an more recent machine before i put it on the old one?

just a quick question about linux: cleaning out my basement the other day, i found my first computer, EVER.(well, 3rd, but this is the first one i kept) it's the top end model pacard bell(sp?), with an unbelievable 8mb of memory, vast 35mb hard drive, and the huge 14 inch screen lol. that thing served me 7 years of doom (original), but now its just sitting there. would this computer be acceptable to put linux on? and what distro. of it would be best? (perhaps dsl?). i've never used linux before, so i wanted to get started with it on something that i didnt use anymore and i obviously dont use this computer anymore lol. if not, i like the style of the case (it's a media center case, not a tower, and media center styles are pretty expensive cases), so would the locations be uniform to todays standards? (like, would i be able to put new guts in it and just use the case) or would i have to make new holes and everything.

i hear ya=] there are alot of good video cards out there that aren't the best of everything, but they are still really good and more then enough for some people, it's sad that alot of people over look them though because they just want the best of the best. such as the nvidia cards, im looking at the 7300gt (well, 2 of them actually, but that particular model), which on tiger direct goes for about $50, i know its not the best model, but its still high performance (512 mb 533mhz vid memory, 400mhz duel *350 core clock speed*, svideo*hdtv, vga, dvi outputs,). that particular card IS PCIe, but its rather cheap and the agp card i wanted was atleast 3 times that and even less performance. you just need to look for features and such before you settle on something. it's like shopping for a car, your stuck with it for quite a while, so get what you want or your going to regret it

Could you perhaps elaborate? Doesn't CPU-Z simply give you a listing of stuff in your machine? 1) don't you know this, or can't you break out a screwdriver and find out by just looking at the stuff? 2) When replacing computer bits, you practically *NEVER* want the same exact stuff anyways (aside from the fact that chances are whatever's in there will no longer be available anyways). i would break out the screw driver (as i already have many times), but there are no numbers (from what i remember) on the pieces themselves, or they were hidden (i didn't look very hard for them though), as i said, they guy replaced everything with rather old parts of his old computers, so it went form a somewhat highend machine to a really really lowend machine. i could open the case again and take a closer look around, but id still need to run cpuz to get the speeds of everything to find out what id have to buy to improve it. on any note, if running the computer in these conditions is not a possibility, is there a site i can go to that will help me identify what type (like pci, pci-e, etc.) all the parts in the computer are? i only have a couple hours or so a week that i can work on my computers, and if i could get a site that could help me like that it would make it alot easier to do. and thanks for all the help guys! :)

it wouldn't be under much heat anyway though, because it is a very, very basic system (it can just connect to the internet and watch movies and stuff lol). but, all i need to do with it for now is run cpuz to get all the parts from it so i can get replacment parts for it (which will be in about 5 days when i can get the parts) sadly, i do not have life insurance, and knowing how clumbsy i am i would prolly end up touching every last capaciter in the p/s lol the computer itself hasn't been plugged in since, god, like jan. or feb.? most if not all power that was residing in it should have dissipated by now, shouldn't it?

id gladly sell you mine lol, it's only from 2002, but if you had a video card attached to it that was somewhat high quality then it would most likely work mor ethen perfectly, just you might want to up the ram lol and if not, then go on ebay, buy a broken m/b with an agp slot on it and hack the agp slot onto a working m/b that doens't have one lol

correct me if im wrong, as i most likely am, but on the show where freenas is mentioned, darren (sp?) says that you can run the os from anything really, a usb key, a c/f card (as you he did), and even the hard drive that is being setup to be a nas.