VT-Vincent

This is a tough one. I was in pretty much the same boat earlier this year when Circuit City went out of business. I worked there and I had the opportunity to work the going out of business sale. We had both the PS3 and the 360 in stock at 30% off and of course, I had both of them starring me down every day. There was no question I would end up buying one, but it was just a question of which. I ended up choosing the 360 for the following reasons: - Microsoft's warranty is quite good and the reliability reports for the later units seem to be improving. - Microsoft's Marketplaces - There's a huge library of downloadable content (demos, full games, etc.) and their extensive movie library, most of which is in HD made up for the lack of Blu-ray. It actually worked out better for me since I prefer to rent most movies. - Most of the games I'm interested in are available on both platforms, and Final Fantasy XIII's dual-release sealed the deal for me. - Online gaming is much more organized and thought out on the 360. In the end, I don't regret my choice, it has actually worked out quite well. I know that down the road though, there's a good chance I'll probably own both consoles at some point. The only issue I do take with the system is the noise problem. I actually run a media center right behind my TV constantly for my iTunes content and my emulators and it's actually quieter than the 360. Honestly though, I don't think you can really go wrong with either system.

I think one of my favorite soundtracks as of late has been the Mother 3 soundtrack. It fit the mood and style of the game perfectly while remaining reminiscent of it's predecessor without outright copying it. It's actually amazing how much of an effect a soundtrack can have on a game. I think a great example would be Yoshi's Island on the SNES, that game had an outstanding soundtrack that almost made the game worthwhile on it's own. The DS sequal on the other hand was virtually a direct sequel - preserving the artistic style and basic game play, but they completely ruined the soundtrack and that really killed the game for me.

To the best of my knowledge, you can only set the location bar to display only bookmarks, only history, both or none. You can find this option on the bottom of the privacy tab in options. Now, to actually show both but give preference to bookmarks, you may need to find a plugin to do that. You may also want to consider digging through about:config to see if there might be a buried option for that. Just a word of warning though, you can really foobar the browser by changing the wrong settings in about:config so you may want to consider backing up your Firefox profile before making any changes.

I would have to agree with Shiba. Attempting to pirate software basically boils down to one major (aside from the ethical, of course) issue. All software actively communicates over the internet, essentially "phoning home" and as a result, software developers constantly upgrade their anti-piracy measures while pirates continue to update their exploits. It's basically a spy-vs-spy game where the user is guaranteed to loose. A modified BIOS is really an extreme measure and can even risk hardware damage if any problems arise. IMO, it's not worth the $100-$200 "savings". I also feel the developers are entitled to their money - but that's another issue entirely.

Yeah, you should be fine with any decent 350w to 400w PSU on those specs. It doesn't hurt to go higher, but at the same time it also wouldn't provide any benefit unless you plan to move the PSU over to a newer computer at some point. Good luck with your PC!

It's always a good idea to choose a PSU that has a bit more power than you need, thus allowing for future expansion. Picking a PSU can be a bit of science though - the raw wattage of the PSU isn't the only factor to take into account. The two primary factors are the total amperage of and configuration of the 12v rails as well as the reliability of the power it's distributing. It's a sad fact that the majority of PSUs on the market are of relatively poor quality, carry a high risk of early failure, don't provide the power they're rated for and can potentially damage other components when they finally do die. If your computer is a entry to mid-range computer, I wouldn't worry to much about the particulars. Generally, any quality 450-600w PSU should suffice for a computer in this range. If you have anything like SLI, a high-end processor or a lot of hard drives, then you will want to do a bit of research and determine what your power needs are. Regardless of the PSU you do end up choosing, I would highly recommend reading as many reviews as you can find. One resource I would recommend is JonnyGuru's site. He does some of the most reliable and thorough PSU reviews on the internet.

As long as the fan is still spinning normally and it's still cooling the PSU, you should be fine - for now. If it's making that type of noise though, the fan is on it's way out and you should start looking into a new PSU. I would also keep an eye on it and not run the computer unsupervised. If the fan stops, it can cause your PSU to overheat and worst-case scenario it could be a fire hazard. Out of curiosity, is it a custom-built or a name brand PC?

I think my favorite clip has to be the one with the couple that is expecting and the husband says "I love my wife so much, if she asked me to quit, I probably would." That poor lady...

Mooney, I would agree with Robert that a bad cap on the motherboard would seem to be the most likely cause. I would check every cap on the board thoroughly as they can be difficult to detect. Some blown caps do not ooze electrolyte and may only bulge on the top slightly or may blow out from the bottom and look perfectly fine at first glance. Another likely issue could be your video card. If you board has an on-board card, I would consider removing your dedicated card and dropping down to it temporarily or if you have another compatible video card laying around, swap them to see if the issue improves.

The easiest way to tell if a process is hanging on boot is to check in the event viewer. You can find it under Administrative Tools in the control panel or you can search for "event viewer" in the Start Menu's search box. From there, you can expand the "Windows Logs" section and the two areas you will want to look at are the System log and the Applications log. You'll likely see a few errors listed here, but if you know when this started the best thing to do would be to look at any errors during that time and see if any series of errors started then. If something just appeared within that time window, that's likely your culprit. Also, Vista has a very odd intermittent issue with some external hard drives and storage devices. Just for kicks, I would try to unplug any external hard drives, thumb drives or memory cards before you boot. Vista had this issue with my external hard drive and it added a 3-4 minute freeze to my startup time.

The two I'm watching right now are Gundam 00 and Bleach. I also recently purchased a season pass to Naruto Shippuden on iTunes. I'm really enjoying Gundam 00 and Shippuden, but I have to admit that Bleach's pacing is really starting to grind on me. I just finished up Code Geass, this has quickly become one of my favorites ranking up there with Big-0 and Trigun.

Out of curiosity, did you try the usual CHKDSK/Defrag yet? It's kind of unusual that it's slowing down during the bootup process. You may also want to check the activity log to see if a particular service or application is hanging during the bootup process.

I'm pretty fanatical about organization. I designate specific areas on my network for all of my various content (Project Files, Music, Movies, Games, Backups and Digital Documents). I recently re-tagged my entire MP3 collection and set up a file synchronization system to keep my files consistent between my primary desktop and my laptop. I also set up backup syncs as well as a custom iTunes sync between my desktop and media center. I have over 20GBs of iTunes content and I like to keep it in both locations. Due to the setup I have in place on my media center, I need to be particularly precise with my games. Everything is named using the proper conventions and I have box art for all of my titles. The reason for this is that I actually use GameEx as a game browser/launcher for my media center. It's very nice having access to all of the box art and being able to control everything using the media center remote.

Over the last few years, this has been a tough issue for me as well. I've used several applications and this is what I've found: Norton AV: Symantec has actually improved the product a lot, it doesn't suck up resources like it used to, it nags less and it installs/uninstalls much faster. The definitions always score well and it's fairly easy to use. On the downside (and the reason I stopped using it), the UI is over simplified and most control is taken away from the user. It basically knows what it wants to do and you're not going to tell it otherwise. I don't like tha type of design philosophy. Kaspersky: Kaspersky is a tough one - their definitions are considered among the best as is their scanning engine. Unfortunately, it's issue is the polar opposite of Norton's. It presents too many options and by default it may not be configured optimally. Like many antivirus companies, they create their own terminology which can further obscure what certain options actually do. I've also experienced a plethora of stability issues and false positives using it and this eventually caused me to stop. Windows Live OneCare: Utter crap. Luckily, it has been discontinued. It had some of the poorest definitions and it had some serious stability issues. This was actually my shortest antivirust stint. Microsoft Security Essentials: I'm actually using this right now, simply out of laziness. On the plus side, it's almost unnoticeable as it never nags and doesn't seem to have any noticeable impact on performance... on the downside, that's probably because it's not actually doing anything. Seriously though, it looks promising and is a definite improvement over it's predecessor. You also can't argue with the price. In the end, I really have to conclude that all of them suck. They are a patch to a problem that shouldn't exist and in order to function, they essentially need to exploit the host operating system much in the same way malicious software would. All of them have a tangible impact on performance by nature and have the possibility of detecting false positives and unintentionally damaging other applications. Antivirus is a bad thing, but it's unfortunately a necessary evil. My suggestion would be to use the evaluation periods of any products you're considering and think long and hard before putting down any cash. I also wouldn't purchase any AV subscription for any longer than 1 year increments. You'd be surprised how quickly a good application can go down the toilet.

The most recent game I played was the PC version of Final Fantasy VII. I purchased it many years back and couldn't run it due to it's very specific hardware requirements. As a side project, I built a retro box from eBay'ed up components that was built exactly to the recommended configuration. It ran the game great and I finally satisfied my inner completionist by clocking about 60 hours on the game and getting just about everything.

I recently purchased an iPhone 3G when AT&T was running the refurb sale. I have to say that overall, I'm satisfied with it. The screen is great, the network is good enough and the multimedia/web capabilities are the best available on any smartphone. The only gripes I have about the iPhone are the following: No Tethering (Yet): I really enjoyed the tethering capabilities my Treo 755p had and I see no reason that AT&T can't support it yet. Unfortunately when they do, it's sure to be for a ridiculous price. The App Store: From using Windows Mobile and Palm OS for many years, I have to say that the capabilities of most of the "apps" in the app store a seriously limited. The number of actual quality applications is very slim and the majority of the store is filled with sub-standard games and so-called apps that are really just wrappers for built-in APIs. Apple's policies on approval are also very restrictive and seem to be applied on a whim without rhyme or reason. It's Slow: Since upgrading to 3.0, my phone has been drastically slower. Simple transitions and scrolling actually stutter most of the time.

The only modded console I own is a Sega Saturn. On the topic of consoles I've sold, it's far more than I'd like to think about... just a few of the ones I regret selling would be the Nomad, Virtual Boy, CDX, Genesis/32X/CD monstrosity, SNES, etc.