Need Computer Tech Help! (Read 707 times)

I was just going to ask about Vista - curious as to if it is worth the upgrade - I'm running Windows XP.

Windows are good for other tasks.

Like gaming. For gaming awesomeness, the PC is the only way to go.

Any word on Vista yet? Stable? Hackable? Usable?

Early returns (2nd or 3rd hand when you get it from me) is more stable, less hackable and less usable. Our guys have exploited some 3rd party software running on Vista and wound up in PR pissing match with MSFT about whether this really does qualify as a Vista security problem. Our camp and just about any impartial 3rd party seems to think of course it does. And then it turns out some of the vulnerabilities that existed in XP are still there in Vista. We have an exploit for this bad boy that works on Vista. The guy quoted on page 2 sits about 5 feet from me. Call it an unproven hypothesis but botnets--and lots of other hackers and malicious programs--prefer Windows because of its ubiquity. Alright that's enough shop talk for me. I come here to escape all this. Sheesh.

The modem that i have is about 2-3 years old. I might have a try replacing them and maybe get some better cables and splitters...thanks for the help. Sorry for starting a religious war.

Splitters can cause a lot of trouble for cable modems as well.

Yes, they can. One thing that might have happened is that the cable modem might have picked up a bad IP address. You might try unplugging the modem for a good 24 hours, then plugging it back in. If things work fine, that's what it was. I've also seen problems with the power supply being......spotty. That can cause issues with connectivity as well.

If your cable modem disconnects after a period of inactivity you should make sure that it's configured to send "keepalive" packets every so often. This should get you an always-on connection. I don't know what kind of cable modem you have but you should be able to configure it via a web browser by visiting http://192.168.1.1 (or whatever your cable modem's IP address is). As far as emacs vs. vi goes... Did you know that emacs is stands for Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift? That you need six fingers on each hand to use it? Most emacs fanatics only need the OS to run emacs since everything else you'd ever want to do can be done inside emacs, including programming new features in LISP (Lots of Idiotic Silly Parentheses). Vi is everywhere so I use it (vim actually). While *I* prefer vi, emacs has it's own, rather extensive following (some might say "cult"), and in the end you go with what you like. Rather than discuss vi vs. emacs, can we talk about something less controversial, like religion or politics?