Zxian

So you're saying that it shows something like this? I've never seen any type of window like that from the default Windows firewall. As you can see, all the program does is ping Google, and to disprove maxamoto, is named Explorer.exe. Sygate picks up on it immediately. If you can provide a screenshot of a new program trying to connect and Windows Firewall asking what to do, I'll take back (almost) everything I've said about it.

Best way to find out is to try. Glad to be of help!

Umm... CPU-Z will tell you what type of RAM you have as well... look under the memory and SPD tabs. If not, look at Lavalys Everest Home Edition. It'll tell you everything you need about the hardware in your computer.

I think I'll stick with Miranda... much lighter, much simpler. (my miranda uses ~3MB RAM... let alone 8.5MB install) Thanks for the news though! Always a good thing to be informed.

Hehe... why would you want to be a mod? That just means more responsibility... J/K guys! I think that all the mods here are doing a great job of keeping MSFN clean.

That's the problem I have... the files you listed only appear in the Acrobat directory, not in the Office directory. A search for those files only brings up one instance of each on my hard drive. As before, if I try to delete those files and then run Outlook, Acrobat repairs itself, and the buttons come back to the toolbar. EDIT *slaps self really really hard* Why am I such a dumbass sometimes... The options I wanted were available right in the installer of Acrobat... select to "Not available" and problem solved. Thanks for the help anyways... lol

Yes, Norton Ghost does the same thing as Acronis, but True Image is better than Ghost IMO. You have the option of creating an Acronis boot loader so that you can recover your image without having to load into Windows, or you can create a boot CD that you can recover your images from as well. I've simply found Acronis better than Norton.

*throws temper tantrum* Bwaggaahh fraggah...phooey. I tried reversing the order of installs but with no luck. Uninstalled both apps (restarted after removing Acrobat - which tells me there is something Acrobat related loaded with Windows), ran CCleaner on both files and registry, and then installed Acrobat and then Office. I still get this annoying Adobe PDF crap showing up in my Office Apps.

I'm not sure about other firewalls, but I know for a fact that Sygate wouldn't fall for the "explorer.exe" trick. I just made a "program" using Quick Batch File Compiler that would simply ping Google and write the entries to a text file. I named the executable explorer.exe and ran it. Sygate immediately popped up and asked me what I wanted to do. I'll have to disagree with both of you on this one. I have a friend who's computer I set up a while back with Sygate as a firewall (she had bought NAV and wanted to keep using it). She was using P2P programs in an uneducated way and came to me one day saying that Sygate was starting to ask her about all these new programs that wanted to connect to the internet. Turned out (after a visit to HouseCall) that a number of viruses/trojans had slipped past NAV and were trying to "call home". All I did to set up Sygate was ask her what programs she used on the net, ran them, and let Sygate ask me what to do (in this case, allow those programs access). I'd really like to see someone with the Windows Firewall produce the same type of results. I'm not saying that Sygate is 100% (nothing is), but it's definately better than the default. I may not have "scientific" proof per se, but I have plenty of experience to backup my opinion. (I use Sygate in all of my examples because it is the program I am the most familiar with. IMO, it is the best freeware software firewall available - note, IMO. Others may think otherwise, but for the common user a firewall that interacts with the user, at least on a first-time basis, is better than one that completely handles itself.)

WinRAR is the easiest to use IMO. 7-zip gives better compression in most cases, but sometimes not! I made SFX installers using 7-zip and WinRAR for Photoshop, and the 7-zip installer came out 500kb larger... Overall WinRAR.

An hour and a half to bump your own post... I don't know of any reliable freeware backup programs. Acronis is worth every penny of the price that you pay for it. Partition Magic creates partitions. It doesn't manage what goes on them. After the trial of Acronis is over, the partition with your image will remain, but you won't be able to use the program to recover the image if you need it.

Your new PC? *sniff*

Googled "WinKey". http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_desc...fid,5506,00.asp Second link...

If you want to make a backup partition for your desktop, you'd want to use a program like Acronis True Image. The Recovery Partition on your laptop is pretty much exactly this. Again... complete sentences... Periods, capitals, proper punctuation.

Cool... thanks for the update, and good luck to both of you!

It's either a jumper that you move over a couple of pins or removing a watch sized battery for about 30 seconds. That will set everything in BIOS back to default values.

Yup... that's the only one you need.

Well... tried that... Acrobat repaired itself when I started Outlook... There's gotta be something that's registered to load the Acrobat files when Office apps are started... but I can't seem to find it. I'll try installing them in the other order later today.

I'm not sure if Windows is able to do this by default, but for shortcut keys, I always used the program WinKey. It's small, simple, and doesn't use a lot of resources. It'll do exactly what you want very easily.

I don't have a zip drive... on-topic or off-topic. My girlfriend doesn't complain about either.

Well... just got back from a nice weekend and found this in my PM box. I'll let this one slide since phillyman2004 is relatively new here. First off to anyone who might read this, it's better to ask in the forums themselves since more people will have different inputs. As for me, the only programs that I have running are AveDesk and WindowBlinds. As for the calendar, it's a slight modification of the Vertical Calendar docklet for SysStats. You can find all the info you want there as well as links to various SysStats configs. If you have more questions about AveDesk or SysStats, you'll probably want to ask in the Aqua-Soft forums (AveDesk is under Ave's Apps). For the Recycle Bin, I hid the default recycle bin with TweakUI (from Microsoft) and then AveDesk comes with a default Recycle Bin desklet (it's under the PidlShortcut desklet). Most of the stuff you do with Samurize you can probably do with SysStats... you just need to know a little bit of scripting to make it work. If not, stick with Samurize - I don't think it's too bad on resources (I haven't used it in a while). And to find icons... Google and DeviantArt. That's all I can say. Happy modding!

I think that there are some good points and some bad points on the list. For the "common" tasks (basic browsing, e-mail) smartphones are alright. However, I still think that laptops will always have a proper place in the market. I have fairly large hands, and I've used the foldable keyboards for my Palm a while back and I kept on missing the keys. Even after a month of use, I couldn't properly type... With the full size keyboard on my laptop (which I now actually prefer to a "real" keyboard) I can usually average about 60-80 wpm without trying too hard. Also... watching movies on a smartphone? The screen is far too small and the quality of the video/sound that you're getting will undoubtably be worse than that of a laptop (which will most likely be worse than a comparable desktop). I've done a number of lectures at my university, and I can say with complete confidence that no smartphone/pda could replace my laptop as my presentation tool of choice. Just as prathapml said, a laptop is a mobile PC, and that's exactly why I love it. I think that ultimately we will see many more developments in the handheld market. The blending of a cellphone and a pda is something that is probably fairly appealing to many people, and the main hinderance right now is the price (such devices cost about half that of a good laptop here in Canada).

Many people misinterpret the term "open". Your computer/network may be secure enough to stop something unwanted from entering the network, but the Windows Firewall and hardware firewall won't do anything to stop a Trojan or other malware from sending information out from your computer. A proper software firewall is the only thing that will prevent this.

Have you done the usual spyware/virus scans? both with your AV program and online scanners?

@harunaksoy - YES!!! For me... I'd have to say a tie between Dave Matthews Band - Two Step KMFDM - Attak Reload Infected Mushroom - Frog Machine Signum - Coming on Strong Depending on my mood. Anything by Aura - the source of trance is good too...