DKC Atlas Forum

Ok dudes and dudettes, this is the Technology Thread.

Here, we can talk about technology in general, Windows Vista, MAC OS, Pentium Core 2 Duo, that stuff

Here's something I posted in another thread that was way ff-topic, so this thread is that for D=

My Vista works pretty good, I got Midtown Madness 2 to work too =P
The only REAL problem i ever got was that after downloading updates, the taskeng.exe stopped working, about 3 times I clicked Restart Now in the Windows Update menu and it has never happened before.
Once I was playing with Visual Boy Advance, and suddenly the screen went blank, and told me that "Some programs weren't compatible with Aero Glass effects".
Oh, and Yahoo! Messenger doesn't maximizes correctly =P
But those are only compatibility issues, I don't know what happens with Kong-Fu's...

Yes, and my Vista works exceptionally. Except I have to constantly run maintinenece on Norton....

Now Norton sucks

My old XP currently has Nod32, and it originally had Norton Antivirus with Internet Security, it was a trial of 60 days so suddenly it started bothering about Subscription Caducated.
So I lost my internet connection for a while, and when I had it back, it won't let me enter neither Hotmail, Messenger, it wouldnt let me download anything! =/
I tried everything I could think of, even some CMD commands I found on the net to the error Windows Messenger threw me.
And so my dad downloaded from his computer the Norton Removal Tool (because it wouldn't even uninstall), and he installed Nod and it worked again!
Stupid Norton

Wow....I just bought Norton. And spyware.

XD

For a good computer, I suggest having the following:
Antivirus: ESET Smart Security, Nod32, Kaspersky or AVG
Antispyware: Windows Defender, Spyware Doctor or Spybot: Search & Destroy
Miscelaneous: Tune-Up Utilities and Unlocker

Those are the best

But I suggest continuing with Norton until your subscription ends, then going to Nod32 =)

Nah, my dad just keeps renewing the subscription. I have spybot, though.

My computer has been exhibiting strange behaviors today, so I preformed a full HDD backup.

The first time I started my computer today, my anti-virus failed to start. The firewall and anti-virus service were running but it's GUI (the visible part) wasn't. It took me a while to actually notice this, as I had been viewing posts here on the atlas. As soon as I noticed I shut down my computer and restarted it.

Upon the second boot up, everything was running OK. I opened Dev-C++ and to my dismay, it displayed a system pointer error. I chose to terminate it to stop it from doing anything bad. About a minute or so later, my screen display started to malfunction somehow. It looked like what happens when you have a bad TV signal, except with color and only the bottom half of the screen was messed up. I suppose Dev-C++ accidentally got into the graphics display and screwed something up. I then held the button on the front of my computer and shut it down that way.

After this I did a backup. I do not tolerate my computer randomly misbehaving.


As for what I use for anti-virus and firewall: Kaspersky. It's the best one I know of, and it just shuts up and does its job. Doesn't bother you every freaking minute.

Anybody else here have BitDefender? It's for anti-virus, spyware, and all that other stuff... Scans your e-mails too.

My grandma (who is more technologically involved than most geeky teenagers) has Vista, and she hates it. She says it's slow, unresponsive, and needlessly complicated. I tried it out for a bit and I thought it was FREAKING AWESOME. Of course, I only got on the internet and Windows Movie Maker, but still.

I think Vista is more for those who like eye-candy and stuff like that.

Even without having even tried Vista, I can tell that it's slow and unproductive. Plus a lot of stuff is incompatible with Vista. I've been using XP since I got my first computer, and I'm going to keep on using it until something more productive (and compatible, for that matter) is made. Which will probably never happen.

I've heard that the next Windows (after Vista) is supposed to start from complete scratch, where NOTHING will be compatible AT ALL. You can count me out. It'll probably have a built-in spy device where it tells them every click you make, every keystroke, and everything else.

Tiptup Jr. wrote:I tried it out for a bit and I thought it was FREAKING AWESOME. Of course, I only got on the internet and Windows Movie Maker, but still.

Smoke much?

So... Simion and Tiptup's grandma know what they're talking about, but Tiptup is still paranoid.

The worst thing about Vista besides the freezing, poor performance, and slow speed is an infuriating security system called "User Account Control" that literally makes you enter an administrator's password just to do something simple like delete an icon off your desktop. They don't want you to turn it off, so they make you go through all the hassle they can think of to disable (like restarting your computer, and putting the option to turn it off in an obscure place) and after you turn it off it reminds you everytime at start up that it's off and you should turn it back on. They say it's all necessary, and that it "Prevents unauthorized changes to your computer. ", but come on. I seriously doubt someone's gonna sneak into my house just to delete the ZSNES icon off my desktop.

Smoke much?

AH'M CUCKOO FOR COCO PUFFS! CUCKOO FOR COCO PUFFZ!!!

So I maybe I was only attracted to Vista's shininess. Don't you judge me.

Simion32 wrote:My computer has been exhibiting strange behaviors today[...]

My XP computer is also weird sometimes. Sometimes the icons in the taskbar don't appear at all. And the sound gets lost sometimes (a weird bug). No sound plays, if I open WMP the counter goes normal but with no sound, and instead of stopping at the end, it continues. I tried recording something in Audacity with my microphone and playing it back and audacity froze, I had to shut it down. If I turn off the PC the normal Windows is shutting down sound plays so I don't know what happens =S

Simion32 wrote:As for what I use for anti-virus and firewall: Kaspersky.

I use Nod32 because of the same things you use Kaspersky. The reason why I chose Nod32 is because I didn't like Kaspersky's GUI.

Simion32 wrote:I can tell that it's slow and unproductive. Plus a lot of stuff is incompatible with Vista.

It's slow depending of your computer, my PC works fine to me. The only programs I've seen having uncompatible issues can be solved by Running the Application as an administrator.

Simion32 wrote:I've heard that the next Windows (after Vista) is supposed to start from complete scratch, where NOTHING will be compatible AT ALL.

No. Vista was the one that in middle progress was "reseted" and done from scratch. Windows 7 is actually pretty simmilar to Vista and according to Microsoft, it'll be compatible with most of the new programs.

Bill Veghte wrote:You've let us know you don't want to face the kinds of incompatibility challenges with the next version of Windows you might have experienced early with Windows Vista. As a result, our approach with Windows 7 is to build off the same core architecture as Windows Vista so the investments you and our partners have made in Windows Vista will continue to pay off with Windows 7. Our goal is to ensure the migration process from Windows Vista to Windows 7 is straightforward.

Of course they said Vista was going to be able to run in all the actual computers

Kong-Fu wrote:"User Account Control"[...]"Prevents unauthorized changes to your computer.[...]

That's quite a cool innovation to me. Imagine some page gets hacked and a potential virus (or something like Spy Sheriff) copies itself in the main page. If you're browsing from IE, and the file tries to install spyware in your PC, User Account Control would have to ask for permission for IE to continue. And since you did not accepted the download, you can be safe from a potential virus

Hmph. When I open certain programs, my sound stops working until I shut them off.

...My computer asks me if I want to allow IE to run because it says it's "unidetified".

Errm, OK. Microsoft just made me really mad...

http://blogs.msdn.com/gblock/archive/20 ... in-ie.aspx

In file properties box you'll get "this file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer" if you had downloaded a file from the internet. There isn't any way to remove them all at once. You can stop them from being "labeled" but all previous downloaded files will still have the "security" message. Without the 'feature' disabled, even files downloded via Firefox do this!

On AIM CFH and I discussed it (some text removed/censored):

Interesting... never noticed that. Another helper to UAC =)
Microsoft never ceases to amaze me Though they should make this more user-customizable.

Kiddy14 wrote:Another helper to UAC =)

UAC is for Windows Vista. I get this on Windows XP Media Center Edition SP3.

I certainly don't want Vista stuff mixed into my OS. Microsoft just failed at providing relevant updates, because I'm disabling the Automatic Updates services. I don't want this crap auto-installed without being notified of the changes, even though I knew about installing the actual update!

Actually this this file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer thingy came with SP3. SP3 and IE7, that's why Microsoft said to install SP3 you needed IE7.

Oh well then, I can't uninstall that now. Since it failed in the middle of the install the first time and system restore was off.

I suppose uninstalling it would break my internet connection since it would go back to the "broken" versions.

Simion32 wrote:In file properties box you'll get "this file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer" if you had downloaded a file from the internet. There isn't any way to remove them all at once. You can stop them from being "labeled" but all previous downloaded files will still have the "security" message. Without the 'feature' disabled, even files downloded via Firefox do this!

Say no more, Simion, I have the perfect solution. ...


If you tried to hack a Vista, It'd probably send a detailed report to the FBI's computer, spray sleeping gas out of the Floppy disk drive, then shut down permanently.

I don't know... I like Vista
My Vista is as stable as my XP, and my XP is like 4 years old. Considering that Vista is technically more stable than XP.
As far as I have used it, many applications run faster in Vista than XP, like WLM, Office, Firefox, IE, GIMP, Windows Explorer.
The thing is that people wants to run Vista in an XP limited computer. To fully use Vista you need at least 1GB of RAM, normal XP computers have in between 256 and 512 MB. It's LOGICAL YOUR WINDOWS VISTA WILL CRASH!
I personally am giving Vista a chance, and it has done pretty well! I mean everybody critics EVERYTHING!
95... too many changes, 98... a bare copy of 95, Millenium... memory leaks, bad desing, limited DOS (for the time I used Me, it ran slow in DOS but a restart would fix it; and BSOD's appeared due to missing drivers but that's normal in a fresh install), XP... nobody liked it, a memory consumer... and now it's A MOUNTAIN OF STABILITY COMPARED TO VISTA. When Windows Se7en is released, I'm sure people would stay with Vista because "they had just bought it, and it had just become stable and XP is too old now" ¬¬
Of course, I'm not saying Windows is the 8th technological wonder, better stuff like Linux is there, but we're talking about Windows in general.

Kiddy14 wrote:The thing is that people wants to run Vista in an XP limited computer. To fully use Vista you need at least 1GB of RAM, normal XP computers have in between 256 and 512 MB. It's LOGICAL YOUR WINDOWS VISTA WILL CRASH!

I have a 2 gig Vista and my XP, which is a laptop, runs way faster than Vista.

That's what I said...

Kiddy14 wrote:To fully use Vista you need at least 1GB of RAM, normal XP computers have in between 256 and 512 MB.

2 GB Vistas will run as fast as 512 MB XPs.

I don't understand where all the hate is coming from, Vista is great. With the most basic of computer understanding you can easily turn off UAC and anything else that might be bugging you. Any other problems you have is the software you use (Window Media Player is teh sux, get VLC).

Oh, and if you have less than 1GB RAM... what the f--- are you doing trying to run a current generation OS?

Besides, you can disable all the fancy flashy effects and save a ton of RAM and CPU.

Umm... Simion, Microsoft's Updates are vital for your Windows!

This is what happens when you play MM2 with a GeForce graphics card without Microsoft's Update for the game...
*reads comments* Oh god how embarassing, I was a n00b back then xD

That looks like a really bad DirectX error. I don't see how updates to your actual system would fix that. Of course, you can use OpenGL, which I think is much better than DirectX anyway.

There are a few useless updates, such as that WGA validation thing that sits in your task tray all the time. I don't need some program to waste memory in order to constantly notify me and micro$oft whether my windows has a valid license. They treat you like a criminal, thinking of every way possible to make sure you didn't copy windows illegally. Besides, you CANNOT uninstall that WGA thing. The update itself says that update is permanent and will become part of your system forever.

Trust me, I've gone without windows updates on my other computer for over a year and nothing bad happened.

Simion32 wrote:That looks like a really bad DirectX error. I don't see how updates to your actual system would fix that.

An update to the game is available... see...
http://www.microsoft.com/games/midtown2/

Midtown Madness 2 Update
Midtown Madness 2 Update fixes launching issues with Windows XP and graphics related with the Intel 810 and Geforce families of graphics chips.

DOWNLOAD UPDATE NOW 2 MB [1.23.02]

Simion32 wrote:I don't need some program to waste memory in order to constantly notify me and micro$oft whether my windows has a valid license. They treat you like a criminal, thinking of every way possible to make sure you didn't copy windows illegally. Besides, you CANNOT uninstall that WGA thing. The update itself says that update is permanent and will become part of your system forever.

If your Windows is original, the program won't be loaded anymore. To my knowloadge it's only like 600 Kb and only checks the system once. But if your Windows is illegal it'd most likely be loaded on every startup.
In Latin America, more than half the total population, from Mexico to Argentina, have a pirate Windows.

Oh, so that game is made my Microsoft, eh? That would explain things...

My copy of Windows is legal, by the way. It's an OEM disk made specifically for the Gateway GM5260. And besides, if it weren't, I wouldn't have SP3 right now.

Hey guys...
For all those Firefox 3 users, have you tried typing about:robots in the address bar? Try it

For all non-Firefox 3 users, what's it do?

I still want Firefox users to find them themselves so this spoiler tag is only for Netscape, IE, Chrome, Safari or Opera users

EULA Paradox
I just recently got Kaspersky Internet Security 2009. I actually took a few seconds to look at its EULA, and noticed this:

The KIS installer wrote:IF YOU HAVE PURCHASED THIS SOFTWARE ON A PHYSICAL MEDIUM, HAVING BROKEN THE CD'S SLEEVE YOU (EITHER AN INDIVIDUAL OR A SINLGE ENTITY) ARE CONSENTING TO BE BOUND BY THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT DO NOT BREAK THE CD'S SLEEVE, DOWNLOAD, INSTALL OR USE THIS SOFTWARE.

In reply to that, I say: how the h*** would I be reading this agreement text WITHOUT breaking the CD sleeve and putting the disc into the CD drive and running this program?! You can't FORCE me to agree or consent to anything!

The EULA, or any part of it for that matter, is NOWHERE on the CD sleeve, the box, or the quick-start guide it also came with. So they expect you to just magically "read" this off the CD so that you know NOT to break the CD sleeve if you disagree to the terms which are only stated in this EULA on the CD?

This is one of some EULA paradoxes I've noticed every now and then.

asmodeus wrote:I use windows and firefox any my browser displays APNGs correct.

Windows doesn't know what to do with APNGs... the image holder website where I uploaded the Barrel Roll image automatically changed the APNG file to a PNG extension so that unsoported browsers could see the first frame. Only these programs support the APNG extension currently

The cooling fan on my graphics card wasn't working for about 2 days. Got it working again, but I thought it was time for a new card nonetheless.

I don't have enough time to play the newest games, so I didn't need one of those big power(=money)-sucking monsters. My choice was a Radeon HD 4670 from Sapphire. My racing simulations are running more fluid than ever, it doesn't need the absurd additional power supply, and it is quite cheap. Especially for a graphics card.

So I've had this PC since 2004, and it came with a 256 MB RAM Memory.
Years later I bought a 512 MB and replaced the 256 MB RAM (apparently, they weren't compatible as the CPU would start doing this horrible sound every startup), but Windows and the BIOS only recognized 504 MB.
About last month, I noticed even 512 MB wasn't enough for Windows XP anymore, so I got another 512 MB Memory which luckily, was compatible with the other memory; except this time, the BIOS recognizes 1016 MB but Windows says it's a 0.99 GB memory.
So... is this memory lose normal... or? I've noticed it in Hard Drives too, so I don't know =P

Kiddy14 wrote:So... is this memory lose normal... or?

Just a ridiculous sell tactic.

You see, when they say 512MB, they may be 'taking it too literally', or 'confusing' computer memory with the scientific meaning of "Mega"...
They may use something close to 512,000,000 bytes -- not 536,870,912 bytes -- to save some money.

1024 * 1024 * 504 = 528,482,304

Yeah, just what I thought. They manufactured it according to "512 million bytes" not "512 computer MegaBytes".

One KiloByte(KB) is 1024 bytes; where one MegaByte(MB) is 1024KB. So a true MegaByte is not exactly 512 million bytes (as the scientific use of Mega would suggest), but rather 536,870,912 (1024 * 1024 * 512).

So they take off memory to just save some money?
Well, yeah, I knew megabytes and stuff weren't exactly 1000 kilobytes... but that's just...
Thank you for the explanation anyway =P

I'm a Mac user, been one for my whole life.
I'm running a white 2GHz MacBook primarily.

I hate Macs. I can't stand them.

Do you have a specific reason why?

I'd like to have a Mac. All I need is get used to it. Problem is I can't afford one, and at school you're required to have a Windows, because we're seeing Office and that stuff.

You do realize there's a free, cross-platform alternative to Office?

Yes, but at school you're required to have a Windows, because we're seeing Office and that stuff...
Is Office 2007 so teachers want you to learn about the Ribbon, besides I wouldn't like learning how to use a program I won't be using.
But once I get to University, I'd like to buy one =]

Whoa.

Raccoon Sam wrote:Do you have a specific reason why?

No. I just do....

That's.. pretty stupid.

Yeah... it's NOT a real reason
But... OMG $20,000 pesos just for an iMac? O_o
I got my laptop for just $12,000 well, I'll start saving =P

Raccoon Sam wrote:That's.. pretty stupid.

Well, every time I'm forced to use a Mac it just really frustrates me. I can't really say why. It might just be that I'm used to Windows, but still...

I didn't know whether or not to post this here or in the cellphone thread, so I chose here...
Anyway, my cellphone company, Telcel, has been really stupid lately.
I changed my phone line from a prepaid plan to a postpaid one. So when they did so, they didn't change the phone's data in the line (the change came with a crappy Nokia), so I couldn't use the internet with my SE K790.
I've been going to the Customer Service for a whole month by now, only to get that thing changed; nobody seemed to know what happened until I called the hotline and a dude told me it was that. Today an advisor told me the only thing I needed to do the change was the phone's invoice.
Except... I can't by now. Last Wednesday there was a meltdown on their systems that affected some of their lines, like mine I can call and send messages, but to other people a "changed or temporarily suspended line" message sounds when they call me. The advisor told me it was because, to them, my line is dead.
I've been thinking it might be a good idea to change my operator I can keep the number anyway...
EDIT: I can receive calls again but... all come from "Unknown" =S
EDIT2: Telcel fixed it... after 1 and a half months... my rant is over xD