rabbitoid: lol, true. And I think V is right: it's a con. They don't sell those policies except for the fact that they can make lots of money on them.

Bernice: It was disposed of as being not very long lived.

And yes.. really. People tend to get annoyed (well normal people) if their items tend to break just a few months after the manufacturers statuary 1 year guarantee ends. Plus the likelihood of a breakdown within this 1 year increases. Costly to the manufacturer in terms of having to replace goods within the one year, n' costly in terms of reputation regarding quality.

All products are made to last years

really?????


whatever happened to the "Disposable Society"

Artful Dodger: They have a word for these extended warranties in the UK...

CON JOB.

All products are made to last years, usually in electronics at least 5-6

That is just a measure of the confidence the seller has in his product. He's he says that there's a 219:450 chance that his product will go bust before the period is over :)

Just tried to sell me an extended warranty for 219.00. That's for one year and that's a discounted price. Usually it's over 300. Mind you I only paid 450 for the computer to begin with.

can anybody tell me how I can save a pic for backgrounds to emails??? Im using the OE ;)

MadMonkey: Had no choice the other day. Bought an HD and had to install windows. But now the drive keeps up with the rest of me beastie lol

(V): Yes and it can save a lot of hassle in the end. Start with a new clean system

BadBoy7: These are the options I try.

Try going back to an earlier restore point. The option to restore to an earlier saved stable operating system can work .. you should find it through the control panel.

If not... You can try repair windows.. ie boot via your windows cd and attempt a repair.

I'd say try reinstalling the drivers for the laptop re the internet/ethernet, etc via another pc and reinstall them... but it sounds like it's too far gone for that.

Format and reinstall windows via your windows cd is probably the best idea.

BadBoy7: Sorry abou tthe delay, my Modem blew up so not been about

Like i said, it seems pretty bad, but without seeing it (and your along way from me lol)its hard to tell. When things starting geting bad, sometimes you can create more problems by trying to fix the ones you have. My advie would be to Format it & re-instal Windows (or take it back to Factory settings if possible)

MadMonkey: it don't have any internet connection...my pc mechanic told me he thinks it wiped win-sock out cause there's not even any sound audio in it now

BadBoy7: Are you actually getting any Anti virus or Malware messages ?


If so and you have a flash drive and internet access anywhere, download and run Remove Fake Anti Virus.

Sadly, these problems are really hard to solve unless you actually see the screen

MadMonkey: when it got a trojan worm i ran Iobit malware Fighter and it found it and i quarentined it be4 that i had Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware but after the trojan it disabled it and wont let me run that 1...it also wont let me put up my firewall or any security..it even locked up and stopped my anti virus AVAST and not it is saying there is NO internet thingy so it wont conect to the internet to be able to re download any anti virus says something about the internet being disabled

BadBoy7: Without actually seeing what it is saying, it sounds like Malware has infected the machine.

If you cant get on the internet then you have problems, unless you can download onto a flash drive and plug that in. You need to run Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. If that is not an option, try to take anything important off the pc and do a system restore. Personally i would take it back to factory settings and start fresh.

This is just another reason not to use Windows lol

my g/f has a little Mini HP laptop pc and the other night it went nuts and wouldnt do anything...so tday it says it has NO INTERNET CONNECTION...there is NOT even any internet icon at bottom...what does she have to do to get it so it will hook up??? also when it is loading other stuff like on the desk top it freezes and brings up numerious help pop ups and locks up and she has to keep re booting it and then same thing again and again

toedder: Thank you

Justaminute: It should. The iPad uses the Safari web browser by default, which works fine for BrainKing (as for almost any site without Flash). I don't know if it's a special version, like on the iPhone (?), but BrainKing has not been a problem for me to use on any mobile device that had the capacity to run a modern full featured browser. I even use it on my phone with Opera Mobile. Seeing how big the iPad's screen is, using BrainKing on it should be very enjoyable :)

I was thinking about getting an ipad. Can anyone tell me if brainking works ok using an ipad?

toedder: thank you so much :)

Bernice: Take a look here: http://windowslivehelp.com/thread.aspx?threadid=780d83c9-dd37-467b-a1f6-8b469fb5828e

You just need to scroll past the understandable ranting of disgusted customers and the terrible answers by Microsoft support staff - you'll find an answer from "Windows Live John Dominic U.", that apparently helped out the guys in that thread that had that problem. Cliff notes: when sending an email, WLM assumes, that you use Hotmail anyway, because that's just how MS rolls, and creates an album online. Now when you don't use Hotmail or w/e MS ****, then that step fails, and it produces the error number you get, for which apparently 90% of MS staff can't tell what it means. The solution is to send it as an attachment instead of inline - or so I guess, I mainly skimmed that thread. But following that guy's guidelines seems to help.

Bernice: No answers, but a lot of questions. Welcome to yahoo, google, or any other mail provider who's actually answering questions.

rabbitoid: I did google :( no answers tho :(

Bernice: when in doubt, google

So far no luck. entering 0x8ccc0003 into the search, I get a zillion hits, but all of then questions which is just a consolation since it seems you're not alone with the problem.

windows 7 with windows live mail...am getting this error when trying to send an email with a pic attached..0x8ccc0003...can anybody help as to why this would happen? and how to fix it?

toedder: There is a menu and I tried it but nothing. Maybe I'll try the older Ubuntu and see if there's a difference.

Hm, that doesn't sound like BIOS. Iyam that sounds like the message is spit out by the display itself (the wording of the message, particularly "input" indicate so). I don't have a Ubuntu CD handy here, so I can't tell - is there a menu for video mode, i.e. resolution + refresh rate?

toedder: A friend had Ubuntu installed and I couldn't get it to work for him. Now when I install the disk (actually I chose the "try" option, the first thing I get is an error message "Analog Input Cannot display this video mode"

I can see the different pull down menus but if I chose something, nothing happens and the background flickers. It's not an old computer (within 5 years) and runs XP fine. I suppose I have to play with the bios settings or something else over my head?

toedder: Not yet, I'll check it again.

Usually not. On my laptop I have some Intel stuff which was supported out of the box. On my desktop I used a wireless USB adapter/stick, and Ubuntu told me that there were proprietary drivers to install. Does it not work for you?

Do I have to do something special with Ubuntu to get it to recognize the wireless system?

toedder: I currently have 91 gigs to play with. :)

(V): The default for NTFS partitions is that they are mounted in read-only, and with root as the owner, and you will have to change that in order to seamlessly read and write to it. I was just about to start typing out a guide, but I see that of course the Ubuntu documentation has one: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MountingWindowsPartitions - it's actually pretty easy, just that it doesn't work "out of the box". If you have trouble with that or are unsure of details, just ask here :)

And yeah, it obv doesn't matter whether you use just a separate partition or another HD alltogether.

Artful Dodger: Yeah, what could go wrong :D I'd reserve a little more space than that to account for installed applications and app data, but 8-10 GB should be plenty to start with. Of course you can start out small - you can always load the LiveCD and load parted or the GUI version gparted (parted = partition editor) to resize later as you see fit. Congratulations and enjoy your Linux! :-)

toedder: ok, so far so good. Have burned the image file and tested it. Works. I need about 4.4 gigs (as per instructions on the disk) and have that and plenty. Installing alongside Windows for the moment. Then we'll see. What can possibly go wrong?

toedder: .... or use as I have a 2nd HD? As to the tinkering, can you be a little more precise. I'm not unuse to tinkering, but I'd rather be a bit fore warned over what I might face.

Ehm, I meant to say that they DO have write support - just not for ext3, which is what you will want to be using. Ext2 is outdated.

Download and burn to disc is the easiest path. There does exist an installer for Windows, but it won't result in a full featured install, and will generally result in a less stable system. So just burning a CD is the "standard" way. If you have a few GB of space on your hard drive, the installer should be able to just resize your windows partition and install Ubuntu on the free space.

Re: accessing Linux file systems from Windows: there exists a Windows driver for ext2 file systems, and I think two file managers that will do the same. As far as I know, none of them have decent write support. Your best bet is to either dedicate a partition to shared data and format that in FAT (or NTFS, which will need a little tinkering, but nothing too hard), or to use external drives for sharing data between the systems. On my one system that still contains a WIndows installation, I have a FAT partition and link to them from my home folders. Of course it comes with all the disadvantages of those file systems. With FAT you have no security whatsoever. With NTFS you rely on a poorly documented file system. For instance, you won't be able to access the data on NTFS partitions after hibernating your Windows system.

MadMonkey: Cool. So can I just download and install from the hard drive or should I put ubuntu on a disk and install that way?

Artful Dodger: Dual boot is installing the 2 system along side each other> when you install Ubuntu it will ask you all the questions, as in do you want to format the disk and just have Ubuntu OR Install Ubuntu along side Windows. Once that is done, your computer will ask you when you turn it on which system you would like to run. The best thing is Ubuntu will let you access any files you have stored in Windows. Sadly Window will not do the same with Ubuntu, well i have not found a way yet lol, maybe toedder knows.

MadMonkey: what's a dual boot?

toedder: I have an XP. I can try it out with that computer. Can I just download ubuntu and run it or do I have to reformat first?

toedder: as in the motherboard... but from you've said it looks like no problems.

(V): there are no problems with board drivers or is that something WINE would be able to handle, or would be fixable via the UBUNTU software centre?

Well, I'm not exactly sure what you refer to with board drivers. But in general, driver installation on Ubuntu is a charm, as the system will detect all but the most exotic hardware, and load drivers automagically. The only exception is, if your piece of hardware is not supported by open source drivers. In every case that I came across, Ubuntu told me there was a proprietary driver available, and asked whether I wanted to download and install it. I said yes, and the download and installation was seamless. Compare that to hunting down drivers on vendors' sites with Windows. Also there is ndiswrapper, which will let you install and use Windows drivers for hardware that isn't otherwise supported, but that would be mostly old and obscure WinModems, etc. My system even instantly recognized my old TV stick that I couldn't even get the Windows drivers for... (well, not in a couple of hours of search)

It was nice to able alter a few lines in a duplicate of the start up disc to make the screen as you wanted it.

You'll love Linux. In Linux you will be able to change pretty much every setting, behavior, you name it, by editing text files. In Ubuntu less than in some other distros, as Ubuntu's goal is to be newbie friendly, and that leads to them making some decisions that limit control in favor of "easiness". But I don't think you'd usually notice that until you have spent a significant amount of time with Ubuntu and then other Linuxes.

MadMonkey: Sounds good, I'll look into it. My only other question (though logically the answer is no) .... there are no problems with board drivers or is that something WINE would be able to handle, or would be fixable via the UBUNTU software centre?

as to Windows.. I remember PC's before Windows.. when the likes of X tree gold (sp) were the way. Or, as I use to own, the o/s of the Amiga systems (RIP) .. It was nice to able alter a few lines in a duplicate of the start up disc to make the screen as you wanted it.

(V): My first step last year was a dual o/s, but once i got used to most of it, its fine. Of course you will come across problems because as toedder says, people are so blinded to Windows as it comes with every computer you buy. To start with i missed some programs as they will not run on linux based systems, and as mention below WINE will allow most programs to run, BUT if you search the Ubuntu Software Centre the are some great programs that will do the same as any Windows one. Now i am happy with a single boot Ubuntu on here and have a Linux Mint / Windows XP on my backup machine. Sadly i still have to keep up with Windows or i wouldn't get income repairing them

I would recommend to anyone, run a dual boot for a while and get used to it.

Apparently CrossOver has come a long way in game support.

Oh, I'm not sold on the idea that it will fix your strange backgammon color problems though

Artful Dodger: Desktop environments for Linux etc. have improved a lot. It's no more difficult to use some of the modern Linux distributions than it is to use Windows. In fact, I find Windows a lot harder to use.

The problems people have are twofold:

First, there's the fact that they're just used to the Windows way of doing things. The Windows way is in many instances a chore. It's not easy or efficient when compared to the ways of many Linuxes, it's just what people have been taught to accept as "normal". It took some time getting used to, but after a couple of years on Linux, I want to stab my ankle every time I am forced to work with Windows.

The second is the most common problem though. A lot of people don't really know how to run their Windows system properly. But everybody has a few friends, who do stuff for them and explain things to them. So they get by. Because ~90% of such friends use Windows, they might not be of much help with their Linux boxes.

This is no problem for semi tech savvy people, because the information is out there. In fact, where Linux is about 1000 times easier to deal with is solving problems with system or application software. The info is out there most of the time. Forums are very good. Wikis are all over the place. If you google for a problem you ran into, you will find relevant information most of the time. I remember that researching Windows problems meant pretty much wading through pages of search results, only to be lead to one of two things - threads that were about your problem, but that didn't lead to a solution other than maybe "reinstall", or threads that were about something else completely. Of course all those threads were on forums that were plastered with ads. And of course you'd get the same thread copied to different forums countless times. After hours of unsuccessful research, you'd often just reinstall some things. With Linux I'll just head to the community pages of my distro of choice, or the given software (those forums, when they exist, are mostly pretty decent, because it's usually community driven software anyway), and either find a quick solution, or be sent in the right direction. And if you use Ubuntu, like MadMonkey suggested, you'll find yourself using a very user- and newbie-friendly distribution, with a huge and growing community, and generally very, very beginner-friendly documentation and atmosphere around the forums.

It might take some time getting used to it, but if you really try it - I can't imagine you could possibly regret the move. It's so much more pleasant.

(V): For Windows-only software, there are different possibilities, with different pros and cons:

1) wine
The project wine (formerly Windows Emulator, now Wine Is Not an Emulator) is an attempt to create a "Windows compatibility layer" for Unix-like systems. It can run a decent number of software, some better than the others, and some need some extra work to get running. You can check which of your apps will likely run at the AppDB over at WineHQ. But not all programs will rund, and some probably never will. Pro side is it's very resource efficient, and the windows will naturally integrate. Contra is that so much software either won't run or will run, but not be fully functional.

2) Crossover or Cedega
There exist two commercial extensions to wine, Codeweavers CrossOver and Transgaming's Cedega. CrossOver started to specifically support MS Office on Linux, and Cedega's main focus is games. Both have since grown a lot, and both support a great deal of popular Windows software. I think they both should have an AppDB like wine, but I don't use any of them any more, so I can't tell. The Pro side is that way more of your programs will run, that you can vote to get support for your favorite apps (at least that's how it was at Cedega a while ago). The Contra is that still not everything will run, and that it costs money. But IIRC it's not really expensive, so that's no biggie.

3) Dual boot
If you have enough disk space, you can just install them side by side, most Linux distros come with installers that will take care of setting this up automatically, but customizably. Pro side is everything will run just as expected, the Contra is you have a Windows system sitting on your computer ;) But seriously, this has implications. Should you want to reinstall Windows, prepare for some trouble. While a Linux installation won't break anything (Most distros will install the Grub boot loader that let's you chose between different OSes at boot time, and automatically detect and add your Windows installation). But when you install Windows on a system where Linux is installed - Windows will not care. It will simply assume that there is no OS, and will overwrite the MBR of your disk with its own boot loader. You'll have to fix it after installation. Another problem is that to share data between both systems, you'll want to use a file system that Windows can read and write, so you're forced to use FAT or NTFS for your data partitions, which suck.

4) VM
That's what I use when I play Poker. If you have the hardware (doesn't have to be too strong, just remember that the virtual machine will run on less resources than physical installation would need), you can use VirtualBox and install Windows in a virtual machine. Now every time you want to use your Windows-only software, you can start the Windows VM. It can run in full screen mode, as a normal window, or even "Seamless mode", where the Windows windows will be managed by your Windows manager, and will integrate into your desktop. It's pretty awesome ;) Plus, you can simply share data between your Linux host system and the Windows guest in VirtualBox through shared folders. Oh, and the clipboard is shareable, too. And you don't have to reboot every time you want to switch the OS.

If we're talking high end graphics intensive games - dual boot will be the only acceptable solution though.

MadMonkey: you have to know what your doing to use that unless the interface has improved.