jaclaz

Well, there is no way, with a tester/multimeter to say if a circuit is grounded properly (and certainly reading *wherever* 12V has nothing to do with grounding a 200-250V AC circuit). The phase/live is not (please read should not) be a problem, however, if there is a leak or bridge deliveriing some voltage to the chassis, it is easy enough to invert (re-insert, rotated by 180 degrees) the plug. jaclaz

Maybe unuseful, but have you tried running CRU? Some reference: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171222-getting-1600-x-1200-resolution-on-a-new-pc/ jaclaz

You lose. A similar approach ("named" pins for "live" and "neutral" or "polarized" plug/socket) only apply in the UK and in Denmark, in the rest of Europe it is indifferent (as the plug can be inserted both ways in the socket), i.e. plugs are not polarized, with the exception of the French standard (which however has not a standard for polarization in France), but that is observed In Czech Republic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_power_plugs_and_sockets Spain uses the German Schuko plugs/sockets. Still, a socket may be grounded fine, but there could be parasite currents on both the live and neutral cables, and Dogway's PC, new as it might be it's power supply, may have a leak nonetheless. jaclaz

But you have also a broken google AND assumed that the issue was not with Virtualbox, you know, like: https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/11841 http://4sysops.com/forums/topic/windows-server-2012-r2-on-virtual-box-error-0x000000c4/ Have you tried with the "setextradata" command? jaclaz

And not prosecuted : http://almostmakessense.com/?comic=use-common-sense jaclaz

Here you are, be my guest : jaclaz

Maybe connected, maybe not, I have seen stupidly powerful videocards in laptops with the GPU connected to the heatsink by means of "thermal pads" (as opposed to thermal paste) that over the years dried up (or however were not anymore a good means to transmit heat to the). Cleaning and putting new thermal paste worked for them, lowering noticeably temperature. It is very possible that replacing the "dried up" thermal pad with a new one would do the same, of course. jaclaz

Borg are not about war , they are about peace . jaclaz

Not only it is possible, but it also very probable. : But this could also be caused by the fact that over the years and with the experience gathered in fighting the increasing dumbness of the parts of the OS that you find dumb and that you replace/fix/tweak, you have become much better at it. So, not only you may say that "some parts of Windows (and 3rd party applications) are still getting better, moving into the future." , but you could add that at every new release you are faster and more successful in tweaking it to actually make the overall feeling/usability even better. jaclaz

Then temper it! A half-botched, unoptimized system (possibly on the lower level when it comes to processor speed and amount of RAM) HD based vs. a powerful, optimized and tweaked system based on SSD's (and specifically finely tweaked to your specific likings). And the second seemed less clunky than the first in your comparison. Hardly surprising. Just for your interest, I have just driven a friend's BMW 535i over a few hundreds kms trip. Although I have never had a particular liking for BMW's, I have to admit that my 12 years old Mercedes Class C is less comfortable and noticeably slower. jaclaz

Actually I was trying to say that possibly the "average Joe" is less stupid than what appears from the mentioned post, i.e. that telemetry data either did not provide anything useful, or never actually existed or were faked/changed/modified to have the (stupid) decisions appear as a form of democratic vote and not coming from the (perverted) minds of the MS management. When the stupid UI was in development, how many PC's providing telemetry had touchscreens? How was the data coming from a vast majority of users with a keyboard and mouse "transformed" into "swipe this" or "swipe that"? How an interface that has pretty much separate searching "areas" (i.e. local PC vs. Local Network vs. "the Internet" thorugh any browser+search engine) can have provided data supporting the "generic" search everywhere or "Smart Search") of Windows 8 (now a bit changed in 8.1)? Look at how Paul Thurrott (which is already in backtracking mode, however) is drooling with satisfaction at the results of a search for Paris: http://winsupersite.com/windows-8/windows-81-tip-configure-smart-search jaclaz

To be picky (as I actually am), we were told that telemetry results were used to "reshape" the UI (and to change the way we should interact with the stupid OS), and thus we quickly came to the conclusion that the blame was to be put on the mentioned clueless neighbour or on some other more or less demented "average Joe". But what actual data did the telemetry provide? Would it not be a more logical explanation that they did what they already had in their (perverted) minds since day one, and used the telemetry results as an excuse to justify the (foolish) decisions and putting the blame on the collecticity? A new version of "Officer, the Devil made me do it..." jaclaz

Yep. Just as an example, unlike Trip, on my back porch/hallway I have a movement sensor activated rather powerful halogen lamp 150 W . The sensor has an ambient light, so that the motion sensor is not activated if not when it is "dark enough". The sensor also has a switch off timer (if no further motion is detected) after 1 1/2 minutes. When I (or wife) come back home in the afternoon/evening it gives us time enough to find the keys (in a BRIGHT light) and open the door. As well when people/friends come, they are greeted by a well lighted path. Considering the passing of cats (that sometimes trigger the motion sensor ) this thingy is switched on, say, 15 times per day (actually per night). 15x1.5=22.5 minutes or roughly 1/3 of an hour, more exactly 0.375 150x0.375=56.25 Wh per day To be fair I have to add the very low power the sensor needs, less than 1 W, so I have to add around 24 W/h, making it overall 80 Wh per day. Halogen lamps are far less sensible to power cycles and short length of them, and the cost of a "no name" one is around 1.5 €, such a lamp lasts (in real life) 2 to 3 years or more. Trip (assuming he is using a 11W CLF) will "save" energy by having it 24x11=264 Wh per day, i.e. roughly 4 times what I use, with the "advantages" of having a completely unneeded light during daytime and a lower level of lighting at night. If he bought a "good brand" CLF, he probably have paid it around US$ 9.00 or so, i.e. roughly 4 times or around € 6.00 and have hopefully double the life, between 4 and 5 years. jaclaz

Sure , I just wanted to provide you (in case of need) with handy references to "previous art" confirming how your attribution to the Dark Side is/was entirely correct. : The last reference proves how this evil marketing trick was used as far back as at least in year 2000, i.e. 14 years ago, so the nefarious label is not a new idea of the MS marketing folks, but it is in itself outdated or using their own term "legacy" (this time meaning not that "it works"). jaclaz

Yep , that was exactly the reason why I studied and documented the various versions available: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/171749-bootsectexe-various-versions-compared/ There are I believe more versions/models of the "ASUS eee 900" then stars in the sky, can you post please the EXACT model? Have you checked the requirements of Windows 8.1? http://windows.microsoft.com/it-it/windows-8/system-requirements There is a video on installing the Win 8.1 upgrade to a running Windwos 8 on a eeepc 900: it is possible that the issue is with just the "direct install" of the 8.1 and can be worked around. jaclaz

A "good" lamp (both CFL and LED) *should* have on it's packaging two important info's: 1. expected duration (number of hours expected when continuously on before failure) 2. expected number of lighting switches (number of time it can be switched on before failure) There are "particular" CFL's with a high number of rated switches. http://ec.europa.eu/energy/lumen/overview/howtochoose/packaging/packaging_en.htm Point is that these data, at least for CFL's I used till now are very optimistic and are not even go near the much more frequent than expected failures (either number of switches or lifetime[1]) The new GE Led lamps I just installed are, as said, rated for 25,000 hours and 25,000 switches. Averaging the usual 3 hours/day and 3 switches/day, i.e. 1,000 hours and 1,000 switches yearly cycle, they should last 25 years. "Common" CFL's, rated for 6,000/6,000 or 10,000/10,000 i.e. theoretically lasting between 6 and 10 years, should last less "in real life", along results of studies such as: https://www.aceee.org/files/proceedings/2008/data/papers/2_111.pdf which concluded that these are influenced not only by the number of switches, but also by the average time the lamp was on before being switched off, i.e. shorter average on periods correspond to shorter lamp life, and they come to an estimate of a reduction of expected life: that can be grossly approximated by the equation 1 year=1,500 hours. The lowest specs CFL's around (the 6,000 hours type) should thus last on average 4 years. In practice it is rare that a common CFL lamp on average lasts more than one year. jaclaz [1] Yes, I am the kind of guy that does have a luxmeter and that believes that when a lamp takes more than 60 seconds to get to "full light" and it's "full light" is around 50% or less then what it provided when new it is to be replaced. (please consider how these decadence in lighting capabilities is a sign of progress, before a lamp was either on or off (binary), CFL's are anything between bright and very dim over the course of their life).

HIstorically that was a hal mismatching : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/164448/en-us (just to give an idea on how "new" is Windows 8.1 codebase ) Which PC (exact model/make) are you using? Have you checked it to be compatible with Windows 8.1 requirements? jaclaz

Just in case (as an useful reference): http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/legacy-is-not-a-pejorative.html Specifically: http://www.langston.com/Fun_People/2000/2000AHG.html jaclaz

Possibly posting on deviantart to recruit beta-testers for the crack is not one of the smartest ideas around. jaclaz

Let me see if I can understand the theory of the good neowin guys Microsoft is hiring in June/July 2014 a developer to make radical changes to *something* that is planned to be released to the masses in Spring (maybe Summer) 2015? And this when their development cycle is usually counted in years? (normally 3 to 5) Whatever they smoked or drinked at neowin, it must be good stuff. jaclaz

Well, the Surface was not "new" as a brand, it was ALREADY a MS product (just for the record) and this senseless re-use of brand has already created at least one misunderstanding: http://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=9981/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=7/ BTW, the WHOLE "tree" of the product documentation is still on technet: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692162(v=surface.10).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee692130(v=surface.10).aspx etc. I believe that this "Surface" was actually the kind of thingy that has been astroturfed/inserted (vainly) in a number of TV shows. The name of the technology is "pixelsense" as what it really is, i.e. "really huge touch screens at very steep prices" did not get the approval of the marketing guys : http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/pixelsense/default.aspx I guess that the number of Samsung SUR40 actually sold are not impressive (notwithstanding the fanfare with which each and every tech expert has been talking of it in 2011/2012). Maybe because the US$ 8,400 price was not exactly "cheap": http://www.theverge.com/products/sur40/3388 jaclaz

Not really. As long as you have a primary partition entry in 4th slot in the partition table you can have one (but the Extended will need to take any of the first three slots). If you prefere there isn't actually a "Law" saying that: 1) Partition entries in the parittion table should be in the SAME order as their physical placement on disk 2) That the Extended partition should be on the 4th slot 3) That the Extended partition should be the "last one" on disk The other time the issue was pinned down to XP disk management when you used it to change active partitions, and this only happened when you had the partitions "aligned to the Mb" (i.e. somthing that form an XP point of view is "crazy" or misaligned). You could use grub4dos (easier) at boot time or *any* (as plain as possible) partition editor, as the ones you named. I can confirm you that there won't be issues of any kind in normal operation on a large disk in a situation like yours, anything beyond the LBA28 will simply be ignored as you switch the active partition between the first three active ones that are all three entirely within the limit. As soon as a Linux or Windows driver (that do not rely on BIOS services) will "kick in" in the boot process everything will be available "normally" and will function "normally". DOS (or Windows 9x/Me) that do use BIOS will instead be limited. As well grub4dos will have the same limitations, what is strange is that the usb --init in grub4dos does not work for you. Or maybe I just assumed (wrongly) that it provided a LBA48 extension. And I confirm it now. jaclaz

@JorgeA Yep, the same happened in EU, but they started in 2009 and *everything* was phased out in 2012. Here already more than one and a half years since the complete "ban" and obviously any stock has been sold out (or whatever is left is still sold in in the underground market by pushers ). @NoelC Good, another thing on which we agree on. jaclaz

Good , then it's agreed. About the length of the books it is also possible that getting older you became a little more wordy I wouldn't take that as valid metrics. However, we've got a deal. And now, for NO apparent reason: jaclaz

Grub4dos numbers partitions as follows: 1st partition (meaning Primary partition in first "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 0) 2nd partition (meaning Primary partition in second "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 1) 3rd partition (meaning Primary partition in third "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 2) 4th partition (meaning Primary partition in fourth "slot" in partition table) (hdn, 3) Any Extended partition (NO matter in which slot in partition table is) is NOT numbered (as a matter of fact it is not a "real partition/volume", it is a container for volumes). The volumes inside extended partitions are numbered (hdn,4), (hdn,5) ... etc. following their order in the EMBR's chain. If you prefer, in a MBR you can have either max 4 primary partitions or max 3 primaries and one Extended, the Primaries (please read as "volumes" are numbered 0,1,2,3 according to the entry they occupy in the MBR, the Extended (which is not a "volume) will NOT be numbered and the first volume in Extended will always be #4 (no matter how many primary partitions are in th epartition table) When you run the geometry command grub4dos tries to read (and verify consistency) of all volumes, so (because of the LBA28/48 issue) it will analyze (without errors) *anything* below the limit and throw an error about *anything* (i.e. including logical volumes inside extended) beyond that limit. jaclaz