So do you think you get a lot of junk mail?

Bill Gates - 4 million e-mails a day! (most spam)

News story: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041118/ap_on_fe_st/bill_gates_spam_2

Now my 150 e-mails I get a day does not seem as bad! :-) (145+ are usually junk)

Was just reading today about Sun's Solaris 10 Operating System release in the next month, and the big news - it will be FREE!

I will have to admit I have never used Solaris operating system, but now I will have no excuse to at least put it on a test PC and play around with it.

News Story: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041115/ap_on_hi_te/sun_solaris10

On my home PC, I have 3 layers of protection - from a DSL modem/firewall, another software firewall/anti-virus software package which I was only first testing, but found it caught a few things and did not take up too much resource, and the norton virus scan.

Simple answer to "should they be let through": always NO unless you are trying to do something on the computer and it does not let you.

For example, I was doing a microsoft webcast meeting/training through microsoft with Microsoft's Live Meeting software, and something was tried to get through and I said no - and then of course it did not work. So I simplely said yet to that only next time and worked after that.

So unless you know you want an outside connection, you can almost always so no. :-)

I said for the longest time that I did not want to change either. IE was what I have alwaysed used, I knew how to use all of it's features, etc.. etc...

Now you could not pull me away from Firefox. Pages load faster, don't have to worry about pop ups or active X viruses, etc...

... and if you don't like it, you could always unistall it. PLUS it will not "replace" your current browser, it will just add a second browser option. (I currently have 5 different browsers on my computer.)

FireFox is what I use all the time. Netscape is what my wife uses so when we visit the same sites, our cookies don't mess things us. IE I still use occasionally. Then a couple others which I mostly just use to make sure my websites I create look good in all browsers.

... and Firefox is free!

Firefox is the way to go. I'm a long time IE user, loved IE, tried Netscape, Opera, etc... always went back to IE.

Firefox is great - Almost eleminated all pop ups (All pop ups?), has a great tab feature so you don't have to open a lot of windows, and it actually loads pages faster!

Firefox

Firefox

Firefox

And I actually had used the ReaGif, but it looks like they also have a ReaJpeg - even though they both look to do the same. (But ReaGif is what I actually used.)

I've always liked my gmail account. I'm not going to use it as my main account, but I will continue to use for something - just not sure exactly what.

I'm really surprised that it is not open to the public yet. I figured it would be public when they released their stocks or what not.

To see what is running at comptuer startup, I use THIS SOFTWARE - StartUpRun - It's free, and shows you what is starting up (From registry, Start menu, etc...)

Whenever I get that question, I always answer with Dell. (Dell.com) It's good, it's simple, and you know what you get (and you can custimize for what you want)

Then you need to look at the following things

Processor (CPU - Pent, Celeron, etc...) - Personally I find this lease important now days. Even the "lowest priced" that Dell offers is pretty darn good, and won't see much of a difference for normal use.

Memory - The more the better. 512MB VERY MINIMUM. 1GB would be good. (more if you can afford it)

Hard Drive - I think 30Gig is the minimum that Dell offers, so it reall depends on what you plan on doing. If you save a lot of music, or other stuff - then you would need a bigger hard drive. If you are a normal user without much, then 30 gig would probable be OK

CD Writer / DVD Writer - CD Writer is a must. DVD writer is nice, but would probable be cheaper to wait and buy one later if you don't need it now.

OK, that is my opinion. Have extra money, get more memory!

Well I now might be able to get over 2000 moves a day now if I try. I got my current high of 1726 on a dial up 56k (well 48k) and what I'm on a 1300k connection now. Now I just need more time. :-)

Wow - doing a Speed Test on my new DSL at home, I'm almost getting T1 speeds. (1.3 megabits per second is my speed.)

Well I sort-of found a solution for the firefox/brainking load issue.

Upgrade from dial-up to DSL - then it loads a lot quicker most of the time, so it is a less of an issue now. :-)

I was playing around with the row layout, it doesn't give me the problem I listed below - but ugh - just don't like it. :-(

I would of course suggestion not having the in-game right table (Game notation), but unless we are able to see what shots were our last shots in the Boat games, I personally need the game notation. My next idea would be to move the game notation under (to the bottom) of the middle frame - under the game board/moves - but for some games, that could be a very long frame.

And then again, my suggestion that has nothing to do with frames - which is to have an option to move the "submit" buttons ABOVE the game board so I can stop having to scroll down on EVERY GAME would be a good option also.

Oh yea... this is Computer board, not suggestions. :-)

OK, I have been trying to break myself of using Microsoft Internet Explorer and have been using Firefox (0.9.2) for the last couple of days.

So far, almost all websites seem to load very quickly - I've never played so fast on GoldToken either. But BrainKing is a different story, and it is actually taking me LONGER to play games on brainking with Firefox.

What is happening is when Firefox starts to load the BrainKing game page, it loads the game graphics. I start to move my mouse towrds my next move, THEN the game notation on the right side of the screen loads and moves the game board to the left - which messes up where I have the mouse located at (and getting ready to click, or possible have clicked)

Anyway, I have not tried to change any settings on brainking yet, but was wondering if anyone know of any settings in Firefox I could change where I can possible pick 1 site (BrainKing) to not actually show anything until fully loaded... or something.

I now have no more invites to give out.

I have not used it too much, but I have got very very few messages that even have ads. If I remember correctly, Google said probable only around 20% of emails would ever have ads - and those are just small ads on the right hand side - no pop ups or nothing like that.

Google mail is still be "Beta" / "Test" mode. Still the only people allowed to use this service has to be invited by a current member.

I still have a few invites that I can use to let people use the new Google gmail.com service - get a new "yourname"@gmail.com - with 1 GB of space for you mail!

Anyway, if you would like an invite - send me a personal message with your e-mail address, and your name - and I'll send you an invite!

I feel your paid - stupid Java and other stuff!

That is one of the reasons I don't play on Pocket-Monkey.com (game site) - I usually have IYT, DailyGammon, GoldToken, and BrainKing up at the same time - switching back and forth playing games, and the Java on PocketMonkey would ALWAYS just make that page jump to the forground and mess me up, so I don't play there.

BrainKing also installed this on the signup page for the user name, which is also annoying - but luckly this is the only time BrainKing does this for me.

(Yes, i know - if I use other browsers with tabs and such, it probable would not be a big problem..... I'm working on training myself to use the other browsers.) :-)

I personally don't like buying items like that from eBay (bought it at Best Buy Store).

There are some "guides" that I used when I choose a camcorder like:

epinions.com - use this site for all kinds of great information & reviews on ALL type of items.

PCWorld

I took a look, but I notice that they don't give things like the camera model number, or other things which might make it easier to do websearchs on.

We bought a camcorder not too long ago, but I rarley use it - I still use my good quality digital camera all the time.

News Story

I was just reading that a security flaw has been reported in Mozilla (which impacts Firefox browser.)

Hum... so I guess that means that Firefox is not 100% safer the Microsoft IE, but only 98% safer! :-)

One of the small PC tools that a friend of mine just gave me, called Startup Run - Which will find everything that automaticly starts up with your computer. (Start menu, registry, etc...) - plus it will give you options to disable, delete, etc...

Utility Found Here

And of course if you don't know much about PC, don't use it since you might end up removing something important. Well you can use it to view things, but be very carefully if you remove/disable anything. :-)

Just to show how board I got, I just got done testing some of my websites with Links & Lynx. (Both old text based browsers) - and as a side note, BrainKing worked better with Links then Lynx! :-)

One thing I do like about FireFox over Netscape - is in Netscape, you may have multiple tabs open which is great, but if you out of habit go and hit the upper X in the top right corner, all tabs are closed.

In FireFox, if you do that - you will get a warning that you have XX tabs open, do you really want to close all tabs - Which I did not, just wanted to close the 1 tab.

Well I will probable continue to use IE for awhile as my main browser since that is what I'm use to, but FireFox is similar to Netscape (Both made by the same "source" / Mozilla). So if you like the new Netscape, you will probable like FireFox.

The only downside I see is that FireFox does not come with all the plug-in's that IE does, (for example, Macromedia plug-in), so it was an extra [easy] step to download the plug-in.

But so far FireFox seems to load webpages A LOT quicker then other browsers, but I have only started using it. (Plus it comes with a built-in popup blocker)

NOTE: I always like to have at least a few different broswers on my PC. Main reason is I use one browser, and my wife will use a different browser - that way we don't have to try to share "cookies" and stuff. Plus I also like to test all my websites in a few different brosers to check how things look.

FireFox Browser - I just loaded the new version, and it does seem to be quicker.

Welcome BIG BAD WOLF as the new Moderator of the Computers board. What does that mean? It only means I'm going to try to get a little more information above.

As you can tell, I've already started adding some information above about the common question of spyware. Please give me any more suggestions on what I could list above - BUT at the same time, I don't want to list too much that it puts the message board too far down the screen. :-)

I've always liked Spybot in the past, but I now use both, and suggest that for the best protection, everyone should use both. (Along with the google toolbar.)

The suggestion I have gotten from major computer people is to use the following 3 products:

1) Ad Aware
2) Spybot S&D
3) Google Toolbar

Google toolbar is good at stoping popups, ad aware removes things that spybot does not get, and spybot removed things that ad aware does not get.

Plus you have to be carefull where you get ad aware since there are some "fake" ad aware programs with the same name... but I have not looked too much into that.

Well first Google announced their gmail with 1000MB of space.

Yahoo then increased their limit from 4MB to 100MB for free accounts.

Today, Microsoft (Hotmail) announced their storage limit for free e-mail will be increased from 2MB to 250MB (with attachment limit of 10MB). [this change later this summer - which with Microsoft means the next couple of years] :-)

Hotmail will also have "Hotmail Plus" for $20 a year - 2GB of online storage, and up to 20MB file attachments.

I have not had a chance to really look at this article, but it talks about a lot of window PC "Free" stuff / Software. Thought I would post it here. (Plus then I would be able to find it when I have more time)

Story: H E R E

My early review on gmail.

I really like it. A couple of the things that I really like about it:

1) The use of Labels instead of Folders. With folders, you put a message into any folder you wanted.

In normal mail, I might have a folder about Hot Air balloons that I put all the Balloon mail into. I might also have a folder called "family" which I put all my mail from family members.

With Gmail you create different labels - so you can place the "Balloon" label on any balloon e-mail. Or the "family" label on any family e-mail.

BUT lets say for example a family member e-mail's me about ballooning. With folder, I would have to choose which folder to put it into. With Gmail, I can give that message MULTIPLY labels, and could quickly find that message under either label.

2) It threads e-mail messages! So if you are having a conversation back and forth with someone through e-mail, it will "thread" all the messages for you so you can quickly skim through all the message in the thread. (or remove the thread if you don't like it.) Very cool once I tried it out.

3) "Starred" message. With 1 quick click on the mouse, you can "star" a message. Then you can quickly look at all the star messages. Just a very cool way to "highlight" a message that you can quickly find later.

Well those are my first impressions about gmail. And actually, none of my e-mails (other then the welcome message from gmail) had any AD's. And those Ad's are not in the message, just to the right of the message - and I barley even noticed them. Very cool so far.

For Yahoo, I currently have 3 accounts that I use - 1 is for some-what important e-mail/newsletters. The other 2 are disposable account where I use to sign up for free things, etc... where the junk can fill & I know I can just go there every month or so and just delete everything... without reading.

Actually for all important everyday mail, I keep a private ISP address - well it's not too private, but given out a lot less then the "disposable" accounts. :-)

Google Mail - 1GB space, plus other cool stuff.

It is still in test mode, and the only way to get on is to get an invite from someone else that is already there!

If you want to get on early, I have a couple of invites to give out. (sorry - they randomly give a few to some of the current test users).

If you want an invite, I need your first & last name, plus your current e-mail address where the invite will be sent. NOTE: HOTMAIL automaticly deletes the Google invites as spam. Yahoo automaticly puts the Google invites in your Bulk Mail folder - so a different address would be the best.

[first come, first serve]

Yea, I tried some of the common names for myself that would have been cool (michael, mikel, bigbadwolf, etc...) Plus I just got done setting up an account for my wife with her nickname, so she will be happy.

YEA - I got a Beta Account!

Details on how to get your own beta account: Basicly the only way to get in right now is to get an invite from a current user - which "random" users are given the option to invite up to 5 people or something like that.

Well check out this website:

Gmail Swap - It is set up where you, normal person can ask/beg/SWAP something in return for an invite. (I posted links to some hot air balloon pictures and said if someone enjoyed them, send me an invite - and it worked.) (NOTE: Invites are also for sale on eBay - tons of them, between $1-$10)

Anyway, if you REALLY want an account early to try to pick a some-what unique name - check out that site. If not, I'm guessing it will be public within a month... but that is just my guess. (I don't think it's worth paying anything of value)

My SBC/Yahoo mail account is now 2GB - but I never use it.

Google Mail - cool that the subject came back up - i'm in the process of trying to get a test account.... if I can get it, I'll post how I did it so others can possible get in early (and get the name you want!)

Aragon - is that 3GB a day or month?

PowWeb - where I host all my sites (coan.net, bagiballoon.org, tcfcs.org, plus others) has recently increased our limit to 5BG a day. Which is a lot since I don't think I've even got close to 1GB in a months time..... but I'll be adding video soon.

Actually I would think there is an option in Netscape that I could set so I did not accedently close everything.... just at that point, I'm usually too upset to look!

Actually i use 3 different browsers regularly - IE, Netscape, and Opera.

Konqueror is kool, but I don't have a linux box anymore. :-(

.... it's mostly when I'm in "auto-internetsurfing" - I'm just so in the habit of going to the little X in the top right corner......

One of the things I like about Netscape is the tabs.... but sometimes I will have multiply tabs open, and want to close one of the tab... but by habit, i close the whole window and ALL the tabs.... Ugh!

After doing a quick search, i did not find anything - but I'll keep looking.

My gut is telling me to keep denying it - possible a "worm" type program that sends out request to random IP addresses (yours) to see if it can get through to something or not.

All I found on the main sites is 7.1 (7.2 might be available as a "test" version, but not released to the public... unless you search for it somewhere maybe?)

http://www.netscape.com - Is where I would start. Haven't looked there recently, but I think they had a few different option on "space" - that is you could just download the browser, or also download all the extras like mail, composer, etc.... or whatever else they had.

Yes. I have Internet Exploror, Netscape, and Opera all loaded on my PC.

I use Internet Explore most of the time, while my wife uses Netscape. (This is mostly because of sites which use cookies for sign ons and such.) (For example, this site - in IE, It has my signon all ready. In Netscape, it has her signon all ready!)

(I mostly use Opera for testing my own webpages to make sure they look good.)

Cool thing about the newer Netscape is that you can use tabs instead of windows for different pages!

On-Line scan of PC for spyware

I have to used the above, and I'm not sure if it "fixes" any problems - but it does scan and lets you know of spyware.

Spyware and such

I would take a look at this program: Spybot - Search & Destroy

It is updated often (And you can download the updates strait from the program) - And I use this program often to to searches on my PC.

Not only does it find spyware, and "highjacking" programs - it also searches for "bad" cookies, or cookies from sites which may use that information for "bad" things. It will also clean and remove files. So it is a good thing to download and use every once and awhile. (Only down side is it is not the most user friendly program, but it should not be too hard.)