CoffeeFiend

Almost all of the Firefox crashes I've seen over the years were due to a corrupted profile. Make a backup of it, and delete it, see what happens. If it doesn't fix it, then you can restore it. If it fixes it, then restore your bookmarks and such.

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Celeron 1.66GHz, 1GB of RAM, Intel GMA video... Ouch. The specs are barely better than a netbook. To be honest, I'd be looking into the return policies if it's brand new, unless it was dirt cheap or something. If you're stuck with it, more RAM would be a good investment (as low as $9 for a 1GB SODIMM of DDR2 around here).

That explains your spec'ing -- you're basing everything on Australia prices. Don't assume prices are the same everywhere else. Without looking for more than 30 seconds (no weekly specials, no mail in rebates or anything), I can find a decent 2x2GB kit in Canada for $35 USD ($43.49 CAD, converted with current rates from xe.com). I was already being "generous" by saying $50. For $80 USD, I can get 3x2GB of DDR3 (or 4x2GB of the previously mentionned DDR2 for like $70).

Even without cheating, there's a lot of the so-called "paper MCSEs". They managed to legitimately remember enough of what the book(s) said to pass the exam, and that's about it. No real understanding nor experience. There seems similar things going on with other certs too (we had a networking contractor over last week, and I wasn't exactly impressed).

Yes, RAM may drop further, but just how much money would he save buy buying the other 2GB stick later, even if it dropped by 50% (unlikely to happen too soon)? Yes, all of $10 on a $1000+ amount. Big deal. There's no point even bothering. Nah. Vista (with media center and all) already uses some, then 2 users logged in (each with several apps using over 100MB of RAM)... It routinely hits over 2GB of usage (this box I'm writing this on has a commit charge above 4GB even). The rest is plenty fast for anything we throw at it (dual core CPU, big fast SATA drive, etc). I also use that box now and then. Also, having more RAM is future-proofing. (Millionaire kid? LOL, it's a $300 computer) Not that I'd start a new net cafe with brand new gaming PCs and then slap on a 8 year old OS on them, but that's just me. Vista x64 rocks (Win7 x64 is probably even nicer, just haven't bothered yet) Feel free to think 4GB is useless, I've seen it make a HUGE difference, even in everyday stuff (I don't play games), and there are plenty of benches saying different than you (and the more knowledgeable members like puntoMX also do recommend it). I'm not going to argue with you over this anymore as it's a waste of time. Especially when we're only talking about a potential savings of like $10.

Sorry, but I ain't buying it. My sample size for my "findings" is around 2500, and I still think it should be considered as anecdotal evidence. I very much doubt you have as much drives say say, Google would have, and are in a position to do a in-depth analysis of the root causes, etc. Pardon my skepticism. Also, despite what you say, their design has evolved a great deal in the last 10 years or so (bearings, arms, heads, ...) so what was stressing/bad for them and what is now? That's most likely changed too. How would it wear the surface? Sounds like you don't even understand how it works. The heads don't actually touch the platters, and even if they did (not the case), I fail to see how it would wear it out faster than being horizontal. This claim makes no sense. It's not an engine or a motor, it's a voice coil (an electro magnet pretty much), and that doesn't change a thing/doesn't put any extra stress on it in any meaningful way. And no, HDs are very much unlike record players, like I said in my last post. You saying that pretty much discredits anything you said IMO.

Been there before too... You're lucky it's an adaptec controller. We were using one of Dell's PERCs, and to even send a replacement, they wanted to make sure it was the PERC, and they wanted us to run a test first -- a test that happens to wipe the drives Thankfully, we had a backup (tape) from the previous day. Also, getting the data off of those drives can be "fun". Often, even if you're using the same controller (same name, part number and all), it still doesn't work, as it also needs to have the same firmware on it than the old one (same version). That's the ugly side of fancy RAID cards. Their performance and feature set are great, but the prices and data recovery methods aren't so stellar Good luck!

Well, if you plan on traveling a lot with the laptop, you could get a 2nd laptop drive indeed. Or you could VPN home, and access your files over the internet (assuming you got internet access of course). Still cheaper than a laptop HD. But it's hardly a perfect solution. Most enclosures suck hard and will die on you (improper cooling is extremely common in them). And it's all too easy to just drop it over, or have it fall off of a desk, killing the HD in the process (data all gone forever, yay!), and it's a pain to lug around with a laptop too. 3rd option is the laptop drive indeed. By far the most expensive solution (in terms of $/GB). I've never seen a laptop with 2 HDs, but if it's anything like any old PC with more than 1 HDs, you don't get to pick which hard drives spin down separately... Your battery life will suffer somewhat regardless.

So what you're saying is, there's a slight chance he might save all of $10 if he waits long enough for prices to drop (or maybe nothing). Meanwhile, making games run slower, games load noticeably slower, and multitasking quite slower (4GB sure makes a huge difference on vista), meanwhile running in single channel mode? It's gonna cost him easily $1000/seat, when you count the PC itself (tower, PSU, decent CPU, motherboard, gamer's video card, RAM, optical drive, hard drive, etc), decent monitor and speakers, mouse, keyboard, and the furniture of course (desk, chair), and the other stuff that goes with it (power bars, network cables, etc), all the shared stuff (network switch, router, printer, etc) and software licenses (OS, apps, games), and then taxes/shipping and such. Not counting all the other "business expenses" (like renting the place, utility bills or insurance). When you look at the big picture, your skimping on parts (RAM and HD combined) won't even save him 1%, and it will make a noticeable difference for sure. 1GB for a modern gaming PC is plain ridiculous. I don't even go for so little non a non-gaming XP box. Actually, the kids' newest box (which is not built for gaming at all) has 4GB and it really flies.

Then it belongs in the general section, which helpfully says "Talk about anything you like in general! (As long as it doesn't fit anywhere else)." underneath (and it certainly has nothing to do with unattended installs). Another mod will move it. BTW, it made the front page almost a month ago...

Why not? A 4GB kit is around $50, and a 2GB kit is $30 or so. IMO that $20 is well worth it, some games will eventually make good use of it, and he's not gonna be running 32 bit XP forever either (I for one, am no longer using XP, nor a 32 bit version of Windows). It's worth it, even just for future-proofing (besides, I hate filling slots with tiny 1GB sticks, that you'll inevitably "discard" later on, as you buy 2GB sticks for an upgrade, what a waste!) Also, the benches you quoted might have been bottlenecked elsewhere (vid card perhaps, only glanced at it) -- most benches on the web are like that these days... And some other benches seem to show it's not a waste at all: Similarly, I don't see the point in getting a 250GB drive (much less a 160GB), as you're only saving like $10 over buying a 500GB drive (space for large ghost images, large games and what not).

BIOSes detect PCI USB cards past that stage, so the HIDs connected to them won't be detected. But then again, you could get a replacement motherboard from the same era for less than a PCI USB card costs pretty much. Apollo Pro 133A is Socket 370 (or sometimes Slot 1), and if you look around, you could find such motherboards for under $5 (there's even some on ebay for $0.99 with 0 bids). Or you could upgrade. Lots of newer PCs can be had for very little money too.

You can't put a "standard" 3.5" drive in there, it has to be a laptop drive i.e. a 2.5" drive. You want lots of space, for cheap? Then you can buy a plain old 1TB drive (the 3.5" kind) for as low as $88, put it in your desktop, and use a network share to access your files from your laptop (you can even map a network drive if you want to). It's plenty fast for pics, mp3s, movies and the like. A 320GB laptop drive would cost you about the same despite only having 1/3 of the space, and would drain your battery faster too.

I dunno. I wish it was that simple really. Is meowing's sample size large enough to make such claims? Are the "testing" conditions similar enough for this too? (exact same *everything*?) I very much doubt it, and tend to think it's more along the lines of "anecdotal evidence" myself. Except hard drives and record players aren't quite the same! As for the record, it's not held the same way as the platters at all. As for the heads, same thing. The record player's head sits in a groove, causing wear, whereas HD heads are floating above the surface, so it doesn't cause wear "the wrong way", much like a laser doesn't wear a CD mechanically, regardless of orientation. Apples and oranges, and it explains exactly nothing (not logical). Anyways. Drive temps? Too hard to tell for sure. You can't easily say the temps will be better one way or another due to convection alone. Besides, airflow and case design probably make more difference here. Either ways, I'm not totally convinced temp is a such a great metric, judging by Google's Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population paper (which says "Contrary to previously reported results, we found very little correlation between failure rates and either elevated temperature or activity levels.") -- not that I think high temps are really a good thing. Mechanically speaking, it likely depends on each particular drive's mechanical design (bearings used, etc). But they're supposed to be made to work that way too (e.g. the arms are designed for it) Very hard to make broad generalizations here too. And even then, even if it has any impact, just how much is it? The drives will have a 5% higher chance to fail after 5 years? Very hard to come up with any kind of valid or meaningful metrics here. Also, I think there are far more significant issues. From problems with certain models (either hardware or firmware), bad designs (5 platter deathstars anyone?), bad batches, quality control problems, improper shipping/handling/packaging, etc. And of course, how it's "used" (poor case with no airflow to speak of? on a PSU with very high ripple and voltages barely within specs? vibration? PC thrown around a lot? ...) So many factors! It's one of those you can't really prove nor disprove.

The way your loop was written (while, with inputbox in it), it will always try to do the math using "XXXXXX" as a number, so it will always error out. I don't really see what the problem is WRT using do/loop vs a while loop really. Either ways, a simple spreadsheet is far better for things like this... You could enter all your employees (and their IDs), along with their specific hourly rates, etc and have all the math done there. It could also easily calculate your other stuff (like how much you take off their pay for various things, etc). I don't see why you'd even want to use a vbscript for this in the first place.

Yes, because having its GUI's looks being customizable is the only new feature an OS brings Your comparison is like comparing 2 cars, the old one, and the new one (with ABS brakes, airbags, new/better engine, new/better transmission, better fuel economy, more reliable/breaks less often, better stereo system, comfier seats, more space inside, etc), and somehow you say it's disappointing they only changed the color of the paint. There's tons of improvements everywhere, just not in terms of appearance "customizability". Most people don't really care about that either (I sure don't). Most people don't even change themes (the sheer amount of XP boxes still using the out-of-the-box bliss theme is simply stunning). Don't hold your breath, it likely won't be the major selling point of any version of Windows in the foreseeable future either. That won't EVER happen, no matter what they do. You just can't make everybody happy all of the time. I'd say it's having an actual choice in which hardware you get, WAY more software available (games being a major point for many), cheaper hardware, being able to upgrade your hardware, ... There's tons of reasons.

There is no Canadian French MUI, just a generic French one. Most of the differences between the 2 (monetary format and the like) depend on the location you've set (under "Regional and Language options", click "Change the country or region"). Keyboard layouts are also independent of any MUI packs. If you have Vista Ultimate, all the MUI packs should be listed as available updates.

I guess most manufacturers are finally starting to get it right. Samsung SH-S223F/BEBN tested in IDE, AHCI *and* RAID mode. Working fine in all 3. Tested on ICH9R and SB700. It's got to be the loudest drive I've ever seen though.

Something like 99% of the external drive failures I've seen weren't the actual drive being dead, it's the enclosure (the USB-IDE bridge chip inside it) gone bad (*tons* of Western Digital My Book, and tons of no-name enclosures too). Remove the hard drive from the enclosure, and try it inside any old PC, see if it works then.

There's also nCleaner

Have you tried surrounding the file name with double quotes (e.g. "Vista Aero.jpg")? Haven't used makecab in a few years though, don't recall if it had particular issues.

I'd have to second that. While I haven't bought that sound card, everything I've bought from Creative has been a *major* letdown to say the least. Worst drivers ever, along with poor interconnects, high prices, and failing to deliver what I was expecting overall. I'm not going to buy their garbage ever again.

The real problem here is, you seem to fail to understand the obvious -- the exact same stuff numerous people have also told you in your various related threads (and even on other forums), with little to no effect as usual. So in a way, I would call that help. Also, everybody can post, it's a public forum. You don't get to pick and chose who replies or not, people decide of that by themselves. No need to get mouthy.