The only problem Ive had with Hp stuff is some of the printers take an age to install, Im taking hours. Ive been lucky enough to get to play with most of the new IT stuff a local council institution gets for the past few years. I totally agree that Dell is a waste of time, and I dont think I would ever buy a HP printer, but Ive been reasonably impressed with HP monitors.
As far as the junk software manufacturers cram into thier machines, Ill be formatting and reinstalling a stripped down XP as soon as I get it. Probably dual booting with Vista.
A freind of mine runs a 17" HP laptop as her main work computer, and she runs her own programming company.
But then Im sure theres enough anecdotal evidence to support any manufacturer if you look hard enough.
Thats why I never buy hardware without doing serious research first, Im still months away from making up my mind I reckon

edit- and yeah, warranties are an absolute scam, and not just at the consumer level, it gets much worse when government legislation forces an institution to have it :|

Last edited by mantis9, Tue, 29 May 2007 15:57.

Ive been looking at the HP 17" laptops myself.
I have a 19" monitor I use with my PC and I couldnt imagine going down to anything less than 17".
Studies have shown (cant remember where so I dont have proof, sorry) that adding screen space increases productivity for doing most things.
When I get it I will be hooking the 19" up to it to use both monitors for work
Ive not looked deeply into the prices of your stuff, but it does sound like you are getting a great deal there.
The HP I want isnt that cheap hmmm, seems I have more research to do.

Anyone been to the frets on fire forum?
They have a much smaller community than here, and a red forum theme
Alot of people there are abusive and rude to noobs, much more so than here.
Ive had times of being frustrated with this forum, but I always come back because there is a hardcore group of people here who are really nice

From the wembly stadium website -

Quote :

The Sliding Roof and the Pitch

One of the key challenges of the design team was to keep the famously high standard of the Wembley pitch while, at the same time, designing a stadium with stands that are higher and closer to the pitch than the original stadium and give better uninterrupted views.

Many new stadia have suffered from poor pitches as the stands in the stadia can leave large sections of the pitch in almost permanent shadow. Grass demands direct sunlight to grow effectively.

For this reason, the sliding roof remains an integral part of the design for the new Wembley. Options such as a palletised pitch (moving a patchwork pitch in and out of the Stadium between events) or regularly re-laying the pitch were rejected as inappropriate for Wembley.

Instead, computer models have been made of air movement and sunlight on the existing pitch and the unique moving roof designed for the new Stadium.

So by the sounds of it, it doesnt close up fully.

90,000 people is alot, but they reckon at the first ever FA Cup final at Wembley in 1923 200,000 people rushed the gates and swarmed onto the pitch, it was all standing back then. The start was delayed for 45 minutes and when they did kick of, the ball never went out of play as spectators lined the pitch right up to the touchlines. Bolton beat West Ham 2-0

Id love to go see an American Football game at Wembley, no reason why it shouldnt happen. We get most of the games on tv here now, there must be a big following. Me? Im a Redskins fan Got an Uncle in Washington.

I think the new stadium is an impressive site, I was lucky enough to see it from the air returning from Spain recently. It was an impressive site, with the Thames snaking past it through London, the Millenium Dome a bit further up. Wowzers.

Quote from thisnameistaken :

Bleh... I have a hard time drumming up sufficient enthusiasm about important things these days, never mind getting all puffed up about computer games.

That said, Miyamoto is a legend. If Will Wright and Shigeru Miyamoto were in a fight, and Wright was winning, I would jump in.
:chair:

And then I would step in front of you and thats how wars start

Congrats on your acheivement!
That must have been alot of fun

hello, resident thread killer here

Really nice photos, good work!
The site looks good as well.
I actually like the welcome page, I normally think they are a waste of time,
but your site is about asthetics so it works for me. Its nicely laid out.
The only thing Id say, is if you are serious about growing your site,
Id look at using CSS more, tables are seriously old school.

Hijack this does a scan and produces a log file, post that on tom coyotes forum and experts there will tell you what to do. Whatever you do, dont use hijack this to remove any of the entries unless they tell you to.
links in my first post.

Give hijackthis a try, no internet is a common problem caused by this stuff.
Post your log and let the experts have a look, then you know for sure when its finally clean. Good luck.

As well as running up to date AV and firewall I keep Adaware and Spybot installed to keep things clean. Spybot gives very easy access to the startup list with (admittidly incomplete at times) info about each entry.
If things get really bad get Hijackthis, youll need to post the scan logs from this on a forum (not this one) for experts to look at.
Linkage -

adaware
spybot
hijackthis
forum to post hijackthis logs

What about if Im not offended, but I want you to change it anyway?
Like zeugnimod said, I find unneccesary animation annoying.
You cant say, well dont look at it, our brains are hard wired to focus on movement. Its not a major thing, but you did ask.

Thats a hard one to diagnose without sitting in front of the computer, but like danowat said, its probably IE7 being crap.
For those of you who would like to go back to IE6, this page should help -

http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone

standalone versions, needs no installing, very useful for web developers
Ive moved to Opera myself, Firefox started crashing on me.

Fox hunting aside, if someone threatened me with a shotgun, I would have phoned the police..

Ive just found this and had to post.
Wow Bob wow. When I win the lottery youve got a very well paid job for life helping me set up my cars
Thats seriously impressive, if only I knew how to use it!
I know your still developing it, but even a basic manual would be useful.
Just to help people like me who want to get involved, but dont have the time or knowledge to just sit and fiddle.
Great work, you are a leg-end

Quote from RevengeR :

heres mine

Thats an awesome photo, got a link for the original?

A photo I took on a recent trip

Im all over it like cheap aftershave, of all the clones out there, Frets on fire is by far the best.

The original DC look-a-like -

The gum never worked for me, in fact it made me feel sick.
The desire to smoke is directly related to stress for me.
Ive managed to cut down on most of the needless fags you have just because you can. I try to wait until I really really need one.
So in a way, I am finding some will power at last.
In normal situations I can go up to about 4 days without a fag, until I get stressed or have a drink. The drink is deadly, I just can not drink without smoking. Thankfully I dont drink that often, but I hate myself when I do because I smoke so much.
Im gonna check out the book Scawen mentioned, I totally believe there is a big psychological part that goes with the chemical addiction.
Final point, I dont believe in New Year Resolutions. If you are serious about changing your life, you dont need a special day to do it, you do it when you are ready. Do it because you want to, when you are ready to.
Ignore the people who say it is easy, everyone is different (thankfully)

Id be up for this The outdoor circuit at MK right?
The website shows pics for an indoor and outdoor circuit at MK.
Would definately prefer an enduro over sprints.

Quote from Krane :

That I don't believe. How does it have force feedback when all it has is some fluid thingy making resistance to the wheel?

It definately doesnt have FF, quote from website -

Quote :

At ECCI, our position is that force feedback steering wheel effects in racing simulations are purely gaming effects and do not reflect a real world experience. Although they may be of some use to those who can read them, they most often are disruptive to control for someone relying on their real world driving instincts. Drawing on real world racing experience, we at ECCI understand that tire feedback and vehicle collision effects do not primarily manifest themselves in steering wheel reactions.

However after reading all the info on the tech, Im intrigued
Not that Id consider paying that much for a wheel without a lottery win, but Id like to have a go on one

*bump*
and, anyone got any more scripts to share?
Im looking for more examples to learn from, Ive almost got my head around it.

Like a lot of others I was racing before the stats started being recorded on LFSWorld. But I looked up my first race on it anyway -

LFS Endurance League Practice - 21:07, 12 Aug 2003 - Fernbay Black - 4 laps

Catalyst - FXO
1. 3:20.100
2. 3:12.200
3. 3:09.270
4. 3:09.450

Oxygene - FXO
1. 3:19.540
2. 3:14.560
3. 3:14.140
4. 3:11.720

thd - FXO
1. 3:21.540
2. 3:17.180
3. 3:15.640
4. 3:14.600

mantis9 - FXO
1. 4:50.170
2. 3:15.880
3. 3:17.040
4. 3:14.330

Predictably slow, even thd beat me

Quote from mantis9 :

To add to this and the few earlier comments, at the end of the race, with the map shown on the right, once the leader crosses the finish line the map disappears....

I have since realised that if you press Ctrl + Tab to hide the results the map comes back, so this is not a problem for me any more

I feel so spoilt, with a crappy BT line in the middle of the uk 378 out of the 457 servers LFS found were under 100ms.
The lowest 14 were all at 32ms. The next 3 were at 33ms and the next 50 servers were all at 43ms. Anyone know why that is?