JDoors

Moved to Comedy Club. Good one.

Hey, did you figure out how to restore it yet? Given what you have? I believe most manufacturers no longer include the OS as a separate CD. A trend I abhor. There may be a number for Sony (or their website) where you can order the CD.

I respectfully disagree: Blame Sony. NOT including software as important as the OS on a separate disk is their fault. I wonder just how much money they save; burning the image on the drive vs. including the CD? Are we talking dollars per PC? Pennies? (Whoa there: I know even 'pennies per' adds up, but Sony isn't the highest volume nor the lowest cost provider, so why do they do it? Would someone NOT buy a Sony if it cost a dollar more?)

Here's a better solution: MORE FANS! (I'm usually obsessivly organised, it's a disease but I lost the link to the site of the guy who built this.)

I wouldn't refrigerate peanut butter (unless it said to on the label). I, umm, guess I don't like it hard. Even the 100% peanuts stuff: I know you have to stir it regardless, so why make it more difficult? I, too, am a 'spooner.' Yummy.

I'm not anti-AOL so as a minority I hesitate to respond, but ... From my experience all you had to do to cancel membership is call them to cancel without accepting their free extension. Yes, you may have to insist, but I'm not stupid, greedy or a wimp so that wasn't a problem for me. I wanted to cancel, not extend my free subscription, and that was that. The only difficulty was finding the correct number to call, though it wasn't THAT difficult to find (it's in their Help section -- should they have to list it on their home page?). Any service run on an automatically renewing basis tends to

Cool as compared to what? Clean power? I guess if you manage to find a way to keep parts at their optimum temperature (in spite of the close proximity of parts that require different ideal operating temperatures) and provided perfect power (even if you feed the component perfect power, is the built-in power supply going to be perfect too?) it would extend the life of the components, but just how much time, money and effort would be needed? There's a cost/benefit ratio in there somewhere and it is taken into consideration during the design and development phase. Since most electronic componen

Like a lot of computer questions the answer is: It depends. You may never run any programs, utilities or services that require extra time to shut down, or you may not have any that are at risk of losing information if they are forced to shut down earlier. Try a conservative change and live with it for a while. If you're not aware of any problems and would like Windows to shut down even faster, give the setting a little tweak and go from there. Since the registry entry has been identified it reminded me that many "tweak" programs automate this selection, you just choose the timeout an

One guess: Run MSCONFIG.EXE. On the General tab click the Advanced button. Uncheck 'Disable Fast Shutdown.' Reboot. Note that fast shutdown has a slight risk of data loss or even file corruption if programs and utilities are not compatible with it. <edit> Whoops, don't know if it applys to XP.

Thanks for the clarification, I'll try to remember the difference -- But I make no promises! <old-timer's disease>

I think you got it into your head there's some type of 'connection,' software, driver, Windows, cable, or other problem when it's quite apparent the flourescent tubes are shot (or more likely, the power/ballast). <edit> 'Nother thought, the logic circuits in the monitor could be fried, supposed to turn on the light when there's a signal but apparently isn't doing so. Either way, it's expen$ive to fix, unfortunately. Tests; Hook a different LCD to your hardware, if it works, it's that monitor. Hook that monitor to a different system, if it still doesn't work, it's that monitor.

Good service AND a good price?

Here goes .... works or not? Works for me. I have Java enabled, I bet that's your problem. Temporarily change your Internet Security to "Medium" or "Default" (which is medium) and see if it works.

Maybe I shouldn't jump in until others who know what "oviinbyrd" is have had a chance but attached images in e-mail are sometimes just a side-effect of the way an e-mail was sent. If you know the sender and the e-mail content is what you expected there is no reason to open those attachments as they simply duplicate what's in the body of the e-mail.

"A form of Trojan" is not really fair or accurate. Remote services are legitimate programs with legitimate purposes (work, repairs, etc.). Trojans are meant to steal stuff or interrupt another computer just because they can (by morons wasting their lives). You probably CAN'T know if someone has compromised your PC with a Trojan, key logger, or other malware, unless you run software meant to root it out. You -might- notice a loss in speed or performance, but you can't rely on that as an indicator: In today's "connected" environment you MUST scan your PC for malware regularly.

Flashback: In 1999 you could get a 'countdown' clock to warn you of the impending doom of Y2K. Quaint, no?

That much of a difference is likely due to a phone company equipment upgrade or repair. You may be enjoying a side-benefit of the local phone company upgrading their equipment for other services. Or they may have switched you to another, clearer, line for various reasons (upgrades, routine maintenance, etc.). You would probably know about it if this was the case, but 'tweaks' and other changes in your system settings can increase your throughput, but probably not to the extent you're getting. Forgot to mention: Your ISP may have upgraded to full or a subset of "acceleration" technologies. Ch

Unless you commonly share your computer with others or are paranoid that the authorities are going to knock down your door to find the last Adobe PDF file you read (for example), MRU's aren't anything to worry about. They are usually usefull, such as a program being able to access the last directory you used, or files you commonly use being available in menus (rather than having to navigate a 'browse' dialog box). Some caveats are if you steal files or if you have material you fear someone will find. There may be trails of where you last stored or viewed those files. Eliminating all those MR

Sure makes sense now ... Why I got it in my head that the OS occasonally or periodically "polls" the MB clock I don't know. So as long as the processor/OS is tied up the clock's accuracy is going to be affected (until the next reboot).

OH MY GOD. I have been ticked about Ask Jeeves losing it's uniqueness and just being yet-another-search-with-sponsored-links-that-have-nothing-to-do-with-what-I'm-looking-for-engine (whew!). So far, and with the test questions that came to mind, BrainBoost works like AJ used to: Ask a question and THE answers come up. Now if I could just remember the dozen or so questions I've had recently that would really have benefitted from such a service. (Ooo! I know, "Why can't I remember anything? ) " Brainboost is not a chatbot. It was designed to answer questions which are factual in nature"

I have to agree with the renaming faction here. Most people install programs and just accept the default menu name. However, you can change it to whatever you want. You don't need to have "MicroSoft Office 2004" when "Office" or "Office 2004" is sufficient (do you really need to know that MicroSoft made that progam every time you open it?). Plus it's shorter and keeps your menus in order. Just rightclick the longest menu item, select Rename from the popup menu and type a shorter name.

Now you've gone and reminded me, I used to know someone who was the trash collector for one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in the area (actually, one of the ten wealthiest in the nation). They took home absolutely beautiful, new, still in-the-box and shrinkwrapped stuff all the time. I have come to the conclusion that rich people's trash is better than my treasured possessions.

I don't know the Oompa-Loompa story. Do tell! In a non-judgemental, sensitive and caring manner of course.

I've never read an official explanation for that but have seen several board questions that described exactly what you experienced. Going by anecdotal evidence it would appear that the processor needs at least SOME time to transfer the BIOS clock information to the OS. If the processor is never given the time to do this then the OS may report the incorrect time. The ones I remember were all slowing down the clock, but since closing that program fixed yours I'll have to remember it can go either way.

That's probably what I meant to say. Several people here have said they can taste the chlorine in their tap water and that's a little troubling. They've recently been eliminating chlorine (or minimizing it, or aerating it out before it gets to the public) due to some pretty bad health concerns. Of course, "everything" is bad for you nowadays so I wouldn't worry much seeing as how chlorine has been in use for decades, but you might want to investigate what your town is doing about miminizing the use of chlorine. As usual, the fix costs big money.