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A very strange thing happened to my computer. The other day I was booting up and received a message that my C drive was almost full. I checked it and it was. So I went to system tools and ran disk clean up. This freed up about 3 gigs. I also noticed that there was a game on the disk, I removed it. Then I started looking at my d drive and decided to prune it as well. I got to a game I had and went to remove it it was taking a long time so I went to...

It's one of those software design decisions that makes you scratch your head and wonder, "What were they thinking?" The "it" in this case is XP's most powerful rebuild/repair option, and yet Microsoft chose to hide it behind seeming dead ends, red herrings, and a recycled interface that makes it hard to find and (at first) somewhat confusing to use.But it's worth exploring because this option lets you completely and nondestructively rebuild, repair, or refresh an existing XP installation while leaving already-installed software alone (no reinstallation needed!). It also leaves user accounts, names, and passwords untouched and takes only a...

Thursday I lost the video feed on my computer. Long story-short: The only way to get it up and running was to install a new video card and and new monitor. What kind of phenomenon would cause that? Thanx.

Got a question that I'm ashamed to ask, but hope surely that someone has had to ask it before. I need to be able to access the Internet on my laptop at all times while traveling ... without driving around the airport or some hotel at weird hours. How do I go about doing it? I've looked at Cingular's site since I use them as my cell 'phone carrier and believe I'm reading it correctly in that they offer the service; however and conversely, what I found in pricing I'd have to prep myself for kidney removal. Any suggestions? And...

A few days ago my wife asked someone to install software on her Toshiba laptop, which runs XP Home. Her account (which she signs on as) is (for this purpose) "M." For whatever reason, the friend created a new account on the computer, call it "K." My wife tried using the computer afterward, and when she signed on as M, found that her data files apparently were gone. However, I looked, and saw that all of them were under a new folder for K, within "Documents and Settings." That part is OK. The real problem, though, is that her Outlook...

March 15, 2007 Physicists at the University of Bath will soon begin a research project which could be an important step towards the development of photonic computers – devices run using light rather than electronics – onto the desktop. The project involves research into attosecond technology – the ability to send out light in a continuous series of pulses that last only an attosecond, one billion-billionth of a second. The research could not only develop the important technology of photonics, but could give physicists that chance to look at the world of atomic structure very closely for the first time.

I am trying to reinstall WimXP on an older Dell machine that has accepted it many times before. And now it freezes about 3/4ths the way through installation. I tried taking out a memory chip since it has slots for two of them and even relacing one chip with the other with the same results.No, I'm not going to buy a Mac. Yes, I am going to try a linux distribution. SLAX in particular because I'm burning the disc right now.

A very (VERY) convincing video documentary that the idea of man-made global warming is total bunk. The contributors to the documentary have impressive well-know scientific credentials, (including the co-founder of Greenpeace, and the head of the Meteorology Dept. at MIT) and follow the IDEOLOGY (that's what is is, not science) of Environmental Change from the 1970s to the present. It's a one hour and 15 minute video, but if you are at all interested in the topic, very well worth your time. Builds a convincing scientific case that our current warming trend is Solar related, not due to greenhouse gases....

A New Box From Sony Turns Videotapes Into Shiny DVDs Citizens of ancient cultures made no multimedia records of their own birthday parties, weddings or babies’ first steps. How tragic and boring. When they sat down in front of the TV after dinner at family gatherings, what on earth did they watch? The Sony DVDirect VRD-MC3 converts video from various formats to DVDs, working by itself or with a PC. Yet even in the most recorded, videotaped and photographed society in history, we have our own issues. For example, we insist upon upgrading our recording technologies every few years, each...

I need some suggestions before I reinstall the operating system. When I boot my computer I get a black screen. I can operate in safe mode.

I run Windows 98 (I hate change), and I've had AVG from Grisoft since 1998 ... a free anti virus that is no longer supported for Win98.Is there another freeware antivirus program anyone will recommend?Thanx.Yes, I'm logged in and I'm watching my sister and a moose eat cheeze in the shower ... stuning!

We have an old Dell Dimension 3200 desktop system, using Windows XP Home, with SP2. It has a PS2 type keyboard, which has been working fine until yesterday. At that time, certain keys stopped working ie we hit them but the corresponding character doesn't show up. Interestingly, it's the second and third keys (from the left) of each row, i.e. 2 3, w e, s d, x c. Everything else seems to work. Is there anything I can do from a driver or BIOS standpoint (or anything else), before replacing the keyboard? What's going on? Thanks.

Last week it was the music labels, this week it was teacher unions. Apple cofounder and CEO Steve Jobs on Friday spared no words in criticizing the state of public schools and the teacher unions, saying that schools were never likely to improve until principals could fire bad teachers. The Associated Press notes that Jobs shared the stage with rival CEO Michael Dell to deliver their vision of technology in classrooms. Jobs, who is known to be quite intolerant of what he calls incompetence at his own company, touted a text-book free classroom, but reiterated that no amount of technology...

Kenyan authorities say they have cracked the password on a laptop computer belonging to one of the most wanted Al Qaeda suspects in Africa. A report by the Kenyan newspaper, The Daily Nation, on its Web site Monday quoted anonymous "senior police sources" as saying that the computer "contained vital information on terrorism training and intelligence collection, including spying." The report gave no further details, but said the computer was seized from the wife of Faisal Abdullah Mohammed - indicted by federal prosecutors for his role in the Al Qaeda truck bombings of two US embassies in East Africa in...

I am using PowerPoint 2002, and have created a slide show. It is set up to transition to the next slide every three seconds. So far, so good, everything works. Now I want to have a sound file on the first slide. It should start playing automatically, and continue playing as the slide show progresses. Here's the problem: once I insert the sound file, and start the slide show, the show never advances. That is, it just stays on the first slide as long as the sound is playing. If I press enter, the next slide in the show does...

I need to send a 5mb file to someone. I could do so via an email attachment or I could do it via an FTP service, specifically www.yousendit.com. My concern is the amount of bandwidth I consume in sending the file. Is there any difference between sending the attachment via email and sending an email message with a hyperlink to an FTP server, which the recipient would click on to download the file? Isn't it 5mb of usage in either case? Why would I use one vs. the other? Thanks.

I'm a political junkie (who on FR isn't?). I'd like to record some of the clips and programs that air on the C-SPAN website. What sort of program or software would I need to record and be able to keep these videos? The C-SPAN file extensions are always .rm and RealPlayer is the software that opens the files. Any suggestions are appreciated.

Chips push through nano-barrier New materials have had to be developed to shrink the transistors The next milestone in the relentless pursuit of smaller, higher performance microchips has been unveiled. Chip-maker Intel has announced that it will start manufacturing processors using transistors just 45 nanometres (billionths of a metre) wide. Shrinking the basic building blocks of microchips will make them faster and more efficient. Computer giant IBM has also signalled its intention to start production of chips using the tiny components. "Big Blue", which developed the transistor technology with partners Toshiba, Sony and AMD, intends to incorporate them into its...

I am preparing a presentation on phishing, for my computer law class. I will have them create a hyperlink that apparently goes to a "real" site (e.g. www.realsite.com), but actually goes to a second site (e.g. www.fakesite.com). Question: am I correct that there's a way that www.fakesite.com can "mask" its own URL, and tell the browser instead (falsely) that it's at the "real" site? Is there html that does it? I'd like to be able to explain that concept and how it's done, and appreciate any help. Thanks.

I have a PowerPoint presentation on my Dell Inspiron computer, running XP Home SP2. I have inserted a sound into that presentation. The sound and the PowerPoint file are in different directories. As long as I run the PowerPoint file from the hard disk, and leave it and the sound file in the same location, I realize everything should be OK. Now, suppose I want to run the presentation on another PC. I burn the PowerPoint presentation alone to a CD, then play it on the second PC. I have a feeling that I will lack the sound, right? When...