The Computer Hardware and Software Thread

[Warduke]

Firefox 1.0.6, Thunderbird 1.0.6 and Mozilla 1.7.10 are out.

Get them here.

[Tarababy77]

Seems to be a lot of updates, lately. If they keep this up, we could see a Firefox 2.0 by the end of the year, heehee. =)

[skittles]

Aaron,

And this would be a bad thing??

I'm just enjoying it & enjoying it & enjoying it....

(especially the adblock extension!!!!)

[Tarababy77]

Aaron,

And this would be a bad thing??

I'm just enjoying it & enjoying it & enjoying it....

(especially the adblock extension!!!!)

Definitely not a bad thing... =)

[Warduke]

We won’t see Firefox 2.0 this year, but we will see 1.5.

1.1 was suppose to come out soon, but because there are so many bug fixes and new features, the devs decided to skip 1.1 and just name it 1.5.

And 1.5 will be an amazing release because of one big change…updates will now be available like in IE (one of the few things IE does well.) No more having to download a new version of Firefox every time an update is issued. You’ll be able to just download the update and that will be it. This will be especially welcomed by those on dial-up.

[Tarababy77]

Now that's what i'm talkin' about!!! Here is a question for you. Have you heard or seen any way to get Yahoo Music to work with Firefox??? =)

[Warduke]

Aaron, the reason it won't play in Firefox is because Yahoo Music uses ActiveX and a browser detection script. There is a way around that, but it's pretty complex.

[skittles]

From the New York Times:

Mozilla Plans Faster Growth for Its Browser
By JOHN MARKOFF
August 3, 2005

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 2 - The Mozilla Foundation, developer of the Firefox Web browser, plans to announce Wednesday that it has created a for-profit subsidiary to pursue wider potential for the software.

Since it was introduced in November of last year, Firefox has steadily gained market share in competition with Microsoft's browser, Internet Explorer. Some industry analysts estimate that Firefox is used by as many as 10 percent of all those online. The Mozilla Foundation says more than 75 million copies have been downloaded.

Security vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer have been blamed in part for an explosion of viruses and spyware, prompting some computer users to abandon it.

Foundation executives say they want to help Firefox gain greater use. That will require offering service and support at a fee, which are beyond the scope of the original nonprofit organization, they say.

Mitchell Baker, a former Netscape lawyer who has led the Mozilla Foundation, will be chief executive of the new entity, the Mozilla Corporation. She said in a telephone interview on Monday that while the new corporation would be taxable, its aim was not shareholder returns but furthering the goals of the foundation. The organization was established in June 2003 to promote the open source software movement's creation of a competitive Web browser.

"Our fundamental goal is promoting an open Internet," she said. At the same time, she added, "We could not ignore the fact that Firefox has become a valuable asset."

Most of the roughly 40 employees of the Mozilla Foundation will shift to the corporation, but the operations of the Mozilla project, which develops Firefox, will be unchanged. It is working on Version 1.5 of Firefox, scheduled for release this fall.

One issue the new structure may raise is whether it will alienate Firefox loyalists and volunteers who helped create the software. The corporation will not consider a public stock offering, Ms. Baker said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/techn ... rowse.html
(registration required)

[Feena]

Somehow, I've turned on Parental Control in my Norton Internet Security, and when I try to turn it off it says I have to log on as a Supervisor with a password - but I don't have a password!

I'm over 21!!!! It won't let me into my Yahoo or Hotmail, any news site like Sky, or Aint It Cool News. I've tried going through all the troubleshooting sections but they just say go and find a responsible adult-type person who will take it off for you, you silly little child!

Arggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Please, please, please - is there some way I can turn it off?

[FineyMcFine]

We had an old, castoff computer that we used at home. It was an emachine that was serviceable - and it was free! Unfortunately, a bolt of lightning seems to have fried the ethernet card (10/100). We are not computer experts, but I tried to swap it out with an older computer we had.

After I installed the new card, I noticed that it was not an ethernet card that I installed, but a different card that had two ports for dial-up. I don't know what they're called. Anyway, that was annoying.

However, the old computer was filled with spyware and pop-ups and nothing seemed to fix it - not downloading anti-spyware software, not the Google toolbar pop-up blocker, nothing. So we decided to buy a new one.

We found a Compaq Presario desktop computer for $349 with a $50 rebate at http://www.outpost.com and ordered it yesterday. It seems to be sufficient and somewhat bare-bones in terms of memory and software, but on the other hand, we won't be using it for games or high-level stuff. Just the internet and word processing, mostly.

I'm glad we bought it yesterday; it's unavailable today.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4390905

(Does this seem serviceable to folks who are more knowledgable than I? I know that Willow would swoon in horror and it's not a Mac, etc.)

Edited to fix some typos. I hate typos.

[Tarababy77]

Somehow, I've turned on Parental Control in my Norton Internet Security, and when I try to turn it off it says I have to log on as a Supervisor with a password - but I don't have a password!

I'm over 21!!!! It won't let me into my Yahoo or Hotmail, any news site like Sky, or Aint It Cool News. I've tried going through all the troubleshooting sections but they just say go and find a responsible adult-type person who will take it off for you, you silly little child!

Arggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!

Please, please, please - is there some way I can turn it off?

The only thing I can think of is uninstalling the program as a whole and that will get rid of the parental protection control of NIS. Give that a shot and see what happens. =)

We had an old, castoff computer that we used at home. It was an emachine that was serviceable - and it was free! Unfortunately, a bolt of lightning seems to have fried the ethernet card (10/100). We are not computer experts, but I tried to swap it out with an older computer we had.

After I installed the new card, I noticed that it was not an ethernet card that I installed, but a different card that had two ports for dial-up. I don't know what they're called. Anyway, that was annoying.

However, the old computer was filled with spyware and pop-ups and nothing seemed to fix it - not downloading anti-spyware software, not the Google toolbar pop-up blocker, nothing. So we decided to buy a new one.

We found a Compaq Presario desktop computer for $349 with a $50 rebate at http://www.outpost.com and ordered it yesterday. It seems to be sufficient and somewhat bare-bones in terms of memory and software, but on the other hand, we won't be using it for games or high-level stuff. Just the internet and word processing, mostly.

I'm glad we bought it yesterday; it's unavailable today.

http://shop3.outpost.com/product/4390905

(Does this seem serviceable to folks who are more knowledgable than I? I know that Willow would swoon in horror and it's not a Mac, etc.)

Edited to fix some typos. I hate typos.

Congrats on your wise purchase. Buying something for what is going to be used for is the best'est way to go. Dorks like myself keep wanting what is the best and that gets expensive really quick. Anyhoo, I hope your computer keeps you have for years to come. Smiles. =)

[FineyMcFine]

Thanks for the affirmation, Aaron! We set up our new computer yesterday and it's working great so far. I'm very happy with the purchase. I comparison shopped for a week or two on the Dell, Compaq, and Best Buy websites and Outpost.com definitely had the best deals. Anyone else ever bought stuff for them? Our webmaster at work from about 5 years ago first recommended them to me.

Also, we have decided to use Firefox exclusively - thanks for the tips, teddy! I think I read somewhere that Firefox is the official browser of the kitten board, heh. I like the way it handles bookmarks more than Internet Explorer and the extension options are way cool.

And lemme tellya - I'll be spending as much ca$h as possible to keep the anti-spyware and anti-virus protection software up to date. Oy.

[watty]

Congrats on the purchase, and definitely with the usage of Firefox and the shunning of IE. Don't know much about prices of computers your side of the world, but $300-odd sounds cheap. But ....

I know that Willow would swoon in horror and it's not a Mac, etc.

Willow? Willow? No, not just Willow. Can you see the steam blowing out of watty's ears even from 12 timezones away? ARGH!!! Did you consider a Mac Mini? A cheapo iMac? A portable iBook? GAH! another PC person!

[** er, honey, you're writing this on your dell, not your powerbook ... **]

[Tarababy77]

And lemme tellya - I'll be spending as much ca$h as possible to keep the anti-spyware and anti-virus protection software up to date.

It's not really the amount of money you spend on the software, it's just finding the right one to do what you want it to. Here is a good place to start on some general information on what software does what, for spyware.

CNet's Spyware Center

Hope that helps. Take care. =)

[Feena]

Not quite sure how I've done it, but I'm under Parental Control no longer!!

[Warduke]

Many people have been looking forward to this one for a while...an Instant Messenger by Google.

Well, it's finally here...http://www.google.com/talk/

[FineyMcFine]

On teddy's advice, we also purchased a D-link 4-port firewall router from Outpost.com - there's a $20 rebate on the one we bought, so it ended up costing only $17.99 plus shipping. From what the others seem to go for, this appears to be a good deal and it was easy to set up. I love Outpost - really good deals.

[Nixel]

I love that I have the Kitten bookmarked under fanfic, but that this is consistently one of the first places I turn to for tech support when Google hasn't yielded results.

So, The Beast has a wired connection to a Linksys router (which is wireless and has the two house laptops on it). Blah blah, life is good, we're all networked...when the strangest thing starts happening. I would surf all evening, go to sleep, get up in the morning, and lo and behold my "always on" connection was no longer on. No IP address, nothing. I would have to reboot the computer to get it to connect again. This happens consistently; whenever a period of inactivity passes, DSL drops from the wired pc. The laptops, mind you, keep their wireless connections no matter what.

I did two things today that have given me info, but leave me horribly confused. I looked in Event Viewer and saw a list of warning icons that say:

Your computer was not able to renew its address from the network (from the DHCP Server) for the Network Card with network address D20D30579686. The following error occurred:
The semaphore timeout period has expired. . Your computer will continue to try and obtain an address on its own from the network address (DHCP) server.

I couldn't find any information on what the heck this means or how to fix it. I mean, I get the gist, but I don't know what to do with that. Then I took a look at Network Connections, and there's some Network Bridge icon that I've never seen there before. It says it's a "Mac Bridge Miniport". I can't find any information on what this does, what it is, why it's there, and if it may have something to do with why The Beast is suddenly unable to renew its IP address or whatever after a certain period of inactivity.

So...can some smart Kitten tell me what the heck the Mac Bridge Miniport is, do I need it, and how I can fix this timeout thing that's been happening lately?

Pleeeeaaaaasssssee and thank you.

[Warduke]

Firefox 1.0.7 and Mozilla 1.7.12 are out.

You can get them here.

[Tarababy77]

HOLY MOLY!!! Microsoft Vista is amazing!!! I have a Beta version of it installed right now and I can't stop playing with it. A few minor bugs here and there, but nothing to make me wanna uninstall it yet. Just had to throw this out there. Smiles. =)

[Tarababy77]

Did you all hear??? Opera, the internet browser company peoples... They have made there browser free to the public!!! Not saying that I would ditch my Firefox roots, but I thought it was something worth mentioning... Smiles. =)

[justin]

Note that that's free as in free beer rather than as in free speech

So I'll also be sticking with Firefox

[ambercissism]

Did you all hear??? Opera, the internet browser company peoples... They have made there browser free to the public!!!

So, that explains why I was able to use Opera the other day

[Tarababy77]

Did you all hear??? Opera, the internet browser company peoples... They have made there browser free to the public!!!

So, that explains why I was able to use Opera the other day

Yeappers. So, you use Opera??? Have you used Firefox and if so, what do you think of the two different browsers??? Sorry for the million questions. I have never used Opera before and was wondering the difference. Smiles. =)

[ambercissism]

Yeappers. So, you use Opera??? Have you used Firefox and if so, what do you think of the two different browsers??? Sorry for the million questions. I have never used Opera before and was wondering the difference. Smiles. =)

Sorry, I'm not such a computer whiz so I cannot elaborate what are the advantages that Opera has. Nope, I haven't used Firefox. So, it's the other reason also why I cannot determine the difference between Opera and Firefox. And it's been a while since I use Opera (but I think, I'm gonna start using it again). It's just that I find Opera more "homey" and it's widely use here, to where I live.

[Tarababy77]

No biggie. I was just wondering. As for computer whiz's (lol). I think I am a computer whiz for just about everyone on this board. I just got done building a mini computer with a touch screen for my Jetta so I can watch Charmed, Wonderfalls, Joan of Arcadia, Tru Calling, and just about anything else I can think of.... on demand!!! Now I have to stop being lazy and install it. Yeappers, dorks are in, heehee. Smiles. =)

[justin]

The second Beta of firefox 1.5 is available. http://www.mozilla.org

I've been using it all morning and it seems to be pretty stable. Also, subjectively speaking, it seems to render pages quicker than 1.0.7

[justin]

OpenOffice.org 2.0 is now available.

It's a big file (> 100mb) so don't try downloading it unless you have broadband.

[FineyMcFine]

Can anyone offer a hint about BitTorrent? I downloaded it from http://www.bittorrent.com and then went to torrentspy.com to try to get an episode of Alias that I'm missing, and clicked on "start download" but it never started downloading. That is, it downloaded a 29kb file (saved to disk) but when I opened it with BitTorrent it never got all the files it was supposed to. When I tried to open it again it said "this torrent is already running."

I thought maybe it was due to a firewall issue with my work computer but then I tried it from my home computer too and same thing. Am I not doing something right? The BitTorrent instruction files don't seem to have much basic information about how-to.

[vix84]

I have a Firefox question and hoped someone here could help. I've been using Firefox and recently it was having problems (websites that usually worked on it weren't working) so I closed the window. When I reopened Firefox, it said that my default user profile was in use and I would have to select another user profile. I changed the name of the default user and tried to use it but it still wouldn't work, so eventually I swapped over to a new profile. I'd like to be able to access the old user account and can't find a way to get into it. Any ideas?