Ok so it's nearing the end of 2009 and Windows Seven is being released in October.

If your looking to build a new PC with alot of forward viability look at the products from EVGA.

I have spent nearly a year using and testing two of EVGA Mother Boards. The 790 SLi Ftw Digital and the newest Intel chipset based EVGA MB, the X58 3X Sli. WOW!

The first is based on the nvidia 790 chipset and is what they call an enthusiests system board.

Total control over nearly every aspect of the board. It is able to run triple Sli ready Graphics adaptors, this makes it appealling cause you can purchase less expensive single GPU based Graphics cards and enable the Sli function up to 3x's effectivly giving you triple GPU power.

I am using the core 2 extreme Q6850 quad core, 2 of the XFX 9800GT cards SLi enabled, 4gigs og DDR3 1333Mhz,3 SATA 500Gig Seagate drives, Sata Liteon DVD burner, 850 Watt Hiper PS, in a Black Dragon Case.

Ok so the Boards are not cheap, but this about the Geek Factor.

This board should be run with at least a 1000Watt PS, My Hiper will run up to this, but I do not have a bunch of Fans or other doda's using up the wattage. I am running Vista Ultimate 64. This could easily OC to well over 4.5MHZ with Liquid cooling.

There are rumors the 790i based models are being phased out, so look for deals on auction sites.

 Now then the X58 3X Sli, I luv this board, Of course it's for the i7 processor's of wich I am using the 965 Extrem Desktop model, 6 gigs of 1600 DDR3, 2 palit 9600GT Cards, 1000Watt PS, Liteon DVD Burner, all in a HAF 932 full tower, running Vista Ultimate 64.

What can a say, but it's a screamer. EVGA support is always ready to help via emails and has always got back to me in 24 hrs or less. the main issue's I have found were Memory timming and Voltage issue's once I worked that out with them, It's been rock solid. Runs all I've thrown at it. so go to www.evga.com and check out what's new

Well I have searched for a week now and have had no luck finding any posts on why the latest version of Sound Packer does not run with Vista Ultimate 64 bit. Each time I attempt to launch I get Sound Packager - Ear Candy for your Desktop has stopped reponding. I have unistalled it, rebooted, reinstalled to no avail. What's real interesting is it ran fine untill recently when Impulse has been updated like 4 or more times in the last week or two.

Does any one have any Idea's ????[e digicons]B)[/e] I just want it to work [e digicons]:banhammer:[/e]   [e digicons]:waaaa:[/e] Thanks in advance

It’s going around again! IT’S SCAM. Bill Gates and AOL are NOT , I repeat NOT giving away money people! or How about the Nigerian Email Scam! Please check out the following links these will help squash the never ending Email forwarding and other online HOAXES!!!!! that’s continually going on. [link="http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa051299.htm/"]WWW Link[/link] [link="http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/nothing/microsoft-aol.asp"]WWW Link[/link] [link="http://www.consumerfraudreporting.org/fakegiveaways.php"]WWW Link[/link] [link="http://archive.salon.com/21st/feature/1998/09/22feature.html"]WWW Link[/link] [link="http://www.bighoaxes.com/giveaways.html"]WWW Link[/link] These things are to do 1 thing and 1 thing only…….. Choke our Email systems, deliver Viruses and Trojans, Spyware and generally give us Crap! Be smart, Before you forward that next To Good to be True Email, Simply do a search on any of the reputable search sites like Ask.com, Google.com, Ect Using the heading of the original email. And see what you get….You will be surprised to find THEY ARE FAKE! Another thing I find annoying are the constant Email Forwards I get from good intentioned friends and relatives. some are very funny and some are very kind thoughts, but people.... are we lazy or what? why if you recieve something you want to share with your email buddies, can't you simply cut and paste the body of the the email into a new message and send it? Why fatten the email with all those forwards? If you are not sure how to send a funny pic or joke with out forwarding it , ASK! a friend or someone you feel is computer savy how to send an email you recieve on to another person with out forwarding it. Now I am going to let you know a secret..... Most of us see an email thats been forwarded more then one time simply delete them, simply because we do not feel like clicking and clicking and clicking to get to the actual message they wanted us to see. Now I am not posting this to attract alot of negative feedback it's simply to provide Information to those out there that need some help and How do we all learn, By sharing information. This Message brought to you by a Concerned Friend ;)  The1guru[size="4"][/size][size="5"][/size][color="#FF0000"][/color][color="#008000"][/color][color="#008000"][/color][color="#0000FF"][/color]

OK, I've read the Threads about this topic and as retired IT professional,

I have spent hour's upon hour's testing and putting the AntiVirus apps and personal firewall apps through their paces. Symantec, Mcavee, AVG, PC Cillin, Zonealarm,Ect,Ect.


1st) If your using a good router with NAT enabled, you'll have a hardware based firewall along with XP's built in personal firewall turned on,
decent protection without a load on your system resources. and Best of all Free.

if you do not have a router (NOTE: all DSL and Cable modems are in fact a routing device) and most have NAT turned on by default, this protects the ISP also.
They don't want any buga boo's on their servers either. Now if your an unfortunate soul with Dialup, your ISP usually has some type of protection for you, even the local ISP's do this as a part of their services.
They have them for a reason people. your paying for it, Use it! Besides why would you want to spend your hard earned bucks on a solution they normally provide.



2nd) As far as Anti Virus Programs, AVAST personal AntiVirus gets my marks, Free Version just register and they send you a key and allow you to renew forever every year, if your a small business or a Corporation the Full Pro Program is for you at a reasonable price.



Avast uses very little resources and has a small footprint. It will automatically protect you email clients,

Automatically update itself, Help protect you from bad or infected sites, Skinnable, Alows for a Boot time Scan of entire system including any Archival files, zips,Arcs,

Rars, Which means before your OS loads,

Incorparates into Explorer to allow file scans at anytime via explorer right click context menu,

Detects infections as soon as you access an infected file.



In My opinion Avast has fewer False positives then AVG or the other popular antivirus apps and misses less infections then any I've tested.



3rd) Anti Spyware protection. I recommend you install MS Defender as it updates via Windows updates, Scans daily in the background. It's Free!



Spybot Search and Destroy 1.5 Latest version, Has Browser protection, teatimer active scanner.

You have to check for updates once a week, and download them then Imunize again. this will keep you well protected. The teatimer will absolutly keep you from all

known bad sites for spyware and adware, This includes alot of so called free online gaming sites

( they watch everything) and the so called free screensaver sites.

( they almost always load apps in the background you don't want) You can pretty much setup Spybot Search and Destroy to be an automatic deal.



Now if you prefere you can still get Adaware free version but it is limited to manual scans, I am currently testing Adaware 2007, not free, but does have active

scanning and other features turned on that even the last Adaware version personal SE does not have. Anyway the Adaware 2007 seems to be doing it's job.



BEWARE!!!! there are alot of So called AntiSpyware and AntiSpamware Apps floating around on the WEB that are NOT what they claim to be,

They are in FACT! SPYWARE Themselves



I've cleaned a many a system that the Owner stated they were on the web surfing and a pop up came up and said they were infected and they can download a free

Scan of their system, so they clicked on the link and viola they were now infected or Browser Hijacked.



Stay away from the so called Search sites with the free Tool bars, you simply do Not need them. just go to Ask.com or Google.com, livesearch.com, then save the

link in your favorites. With IE7 there is a search toolbar already and you can even change your prefered search site by clicking the drop down from the toolbar(its right

next to the little magnifyer, upper right in the browser.all the browser add ons use resources and some track your every move, dropping cookies on you like

Rain.



One last Note: Always remember to temporarliy turn off windows restore before scanning for Virus's or Spyware. If you use a backup solution, you may have backed

up the infection Too! So Clean up make sure your clean and healthy, then Re-enable system restore and do your backup's





Happy Computing to all

The first step in creating a custom picture is to find the picture you want to use. Once you locate a picture, open it in your favorite photo editor.

Most pictures will require resizing because the final image needs to be bitmap
48 pixels by 48 pixels.

For resizing, something like the free utility IrfanView

see link below

works nicely because it performs the resize easily and displays the height and width of the selected area as you drag the cursor. Make adjustments to your selection until you have a square area selected, then crop the image.

Resize the new square image to 48x48 and save the image as a .bmp file.

To use the image in your user profile you need to move it to the

C:\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures folder.

If you haven't done so previously, you will need to unhide this folder.

1) Open Tools > Folder Options on the Windows Explorer menu.

2) Click on the View tab

3) Scroll down until you see Hidden Files and Folders options.

4) Select the button next to Show hidden files and folders.

5) Click Apply and then click OK.

Now browse to the Default Pictures folder in Explorer and drag your new icon into the folder.

C:\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures

To change the picture for your user, go to Start > Control Panel > User Accounts

1) Click on your user.

2) Click on Change my picture.

3) Select the new picture from available pictures.

4) Click the Change Picture button.

Each time you log in or change users, the new icon will be next to your username.


Link

* Edited for easier reading by Moderator

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