[crucif3x]

I would definitely appreciate an article on ergonomics... I think I have a bunch of things I'm doing wrong LOL Carpel Tunnel by 20!!!!

[jhan523]

Originally Posted by Mowicz

Now the question is...how the heck do I post an article? xD

I guess even if one person would benefit, it won't be a waste of time. (: I'll start thinking about what to write.

When you click on "Articles", you should see "Submit an article...". But yeah, start it out in word and copy and paste.

[crucif3x]

Actually, you need to copy from Word to WordPad first. It's something about the formatting. I learned the hard way :(

[Kira]

Yea the article about ergonomics is a good idea.

And about turning your notebook off every night. I remember hearing from somewhere that it's better to leave your computer on and just put it to sleep instead of shutting it off. Maybe I took that out of context.
Anyways, great article.

[crucif3x]

I dunno from my experience, shutting down and turning it on the next day seems to allow it to run faster. I think it has something to do with RAM usage and some programs staying open behind the scenes.

"Sleep" and "Hibernating" are basically just storing your opened programs and information in the Hard Drive or RAM and then putting your laptop in an almost shut down state. Both are better than leaving your laptop on and allowing needless electricity to be consumed and heat harm your laptop.

Just remember to wait for all the light to shut off when do either sleep, hibernate or shut down. Alot of people just close their screens after clicking the button and burn their laptops accidentally :( Especially alot of HP Pavillion series...

[jhan523]

If you turn off your computer every night then the programs will run faster. You can fix it by having a program that "optimizes" your memory. It basically tries to free up at much RAM as possible. But turning off your computer is the easiest way to fix the problem.

The reason is because some programs just keep on eating memory, I have no idea why but they do. A very good example is Firefox. If you do use firefox, close and open your browser from time to time.

[crucif3x]

Oh wow... yes... Firefox is notorious for this. 15 tabs, 1.5 GB of my RAM space... crazy.

Yeah, turning off your laptop is usually a good thing. Start anew and give your eyes a rest

[Taunton]

Originally Posted by Raeann89

To stay away from viruses you could always install linux!
Check out Ubuntu or Mint.....incredibly easy to use and you will never ever get a virus...vista is terrible!

Unecessary. I'm a gamer and therefore need Windows. I still have XP, and can't wait for 7 to come out (looks awesome so far).

You can avoid malware if you simply know how to take care of your computer and use safe internet practices.

[DannyV]

Originally Posted by tauntobr

Unecessary. I'm a gamer and therefore need Windows. I still have XP, and can't wait for 7 to come out (looks awesome so far).

You can avoid malware if you simply know how to take care of your computer and use safe internet practices.

If you have dual screens and use nvidia's "span" (horizontal or vertical) don't go to 7 or vista. The span has been removed and it BLOWS for my flight simming :( I'm dual booting Vista and XP now.

[Taunton]

Originally Posted by DannyV

If you have dual screens and use nvidia's "span" (horizontal or vertical) don't go to 7 or vista. The span has been removed and it BLOWS for my flight simming :( I'm dual booting Vista and XP now.

I just read a story about that in an nvidia forum... thought you might find the end of it funny:

Great, well I have a free copy of Vista, so I figured it was time to take the plunge and upgrade. I upgrade, it goes shockingly smoothly. Until I'm setting up my monitors and notice I have dual view (where two monitors are presented to the OS), and clone view (where one screen just shows on both), but NOT span view (where monitors are merged into a virtual screen, which in my case was 2560x1024)

I figure, "Oh, it must be the default Vista drivers, I need the new forceware stuff and all will be right with the world". I download the newest nVidia drivers. No luck.. In their release notes I see...

Horizontal and Vertical span modes are no longer available under Windows Vista.
Due to architectural changes in the new Windows Vista Window Display Driver Model (WDDM), span mode cannot be supported in NVIDIA graphics drivers. NVIDIA recommends using the built-in Windows Vista multi-display modes.

I died a little inside.... please... help me.

I can already see how this conversation will go..

1) Ask Blizzard and they will say "Well, we write to the span view standard that the video displays have supported in the past... it will be up to the video driver people to get the resolution to pass to wow to use"
2) Ask nVidia and they will say "Well, we can't make span view work because Microsoft changed how the video driver infrastructure is built..."
3) Ask MS and be told "BWAAHAHAHAH PUNY MORTAL! YoU Will PLaY How We WANT yOu To PLAY!!!, what are you gonna do? Switch to LINUX?!?!?! BWAAHAHAHAHA"

[Taunton]

Originally Posted by DannyV

If you have dual screens and use nvidia's "span" (horizontal or vertical) don't go to 7 or vista. The span has been removed and it BLOWS for my flight simming :( I'm dual booting Vista and XP now.

Apparently Matrox may work to provide spanning in the new versions of Windows:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/ad...o/blackshark2/

[DannyV]

Originally Posted by tauntobr

Apparently Matrox may work to provide spanning in the new versions of Windows:

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/ad...o/blackshark2/

Matrox's products create a semi-virtual monitor for the system to detect. Basically windows detects a monitor that is lets say 3360x1050 instead of two 1680x1050s

[Raeann89]

In terms of playing games...you do Not need Windows!!! Complete misconception that you can't play games on Linux...I'm currently playing the Sims 3 on my Ubuntu right now! If anyone decides to try it, just download the Wine Compatability layer (free software) and Windows 7 is going to be just as bad as Vista - all it is is Vista with a bunch of superficial gui upgrades that will do nothing to improve performance. It's all been done on Linux before, and for free!
What makes Linux better in comparison, is that it is open source...meaning that anyone can change the source code in the developer community in order to fix bugs/security leaks Right away...or if you find a problem on your own you can easily do a bit of editing and it's fixed! Whereas on windows, you can complain all you want about bugs and they will (and more often than not) do absolutely nothing or wait months for the next security update or whatever they call them. You can also only change minute aspects about the gui and can't even begin to explore or change the main components of the boot...while on Linux you can change anything you want to in the whole system...make it look like a mac or even vista if you wanted...and never pay a cent for top of the line software!!

Wow I sound like such a nerd!! haha

[Taunton]

Originally Posted by Raeann89

In terms of playing games...you do Not need Windows!!! Complete misconception that you can't play games on Linux...I'm currently playing the Sims 3 on my Ubuntu right now! If anyone decides to try it, just download the Wine Compatability layer (free software) and Windows 7 is going to be just as bad as Vista - all it is is Vista with a bunch of superficial gui upgrades that will do nothing to improve performance. It's all been done on Linux before, and for free!
What makes Linux better in comparison, is that it is open source...meaning that anyone can change the source code in the developer community in order to fix bugs/security leaks Right away...or if you find a problem on your own you can easily do a bit of editing and it's fixed! Whereas on windows, you can complain all you want about bugs and they will (and more often than not) do absolutely nothing or wait months for the next security update or whatever they call them. You can also only change minute aspects about the gui and can't even begin to explore or change the main components of the boot...while on Linux you can change anything you want to in the whole system...make it look like a mac or even vista if you wanted...and never pay a cent for top of the line software!!

Wow I sound like such a nerd!! haha

Trust me, I know what Linux is, and there's problems with compatibility with graphics, as well as compatibility with peripherals.

Windows 7 will not be "as bad as Vista". Nothing but great things have been said about 7 so far, and as for it's performance, it's expected to run faster and better than XP (the best version thus far).

Apple and Linux fanboys are all the same... Yes, it's great that it's open source, but it's just not practical for a lot of people.

[Raeann89]

For the so-called compatibility and practicality issues, my 73 year old father who has never used a computer before uses Ubuntu without any trouble at all...sure he can't do code but he can get around just fine. It's come a long way in the past few years. You can use proprietary drivers so you can view flash and use java programs...there is essentially no difference aside from the fact that you're not bound to a stupid corporation that will take you for everything you've got. btw, Microsofts share just went down 17 percent last week..Vista is the worst thing that ever happened to them.
Instead of bashing "fanboys" as you call them, why don't you try linux or even a mac (seeing as they're both based on unix) and see for yourself that what you're arguing is false...anything you can do on a windows OS you can do faster on mac/linux. -although I suppose this is getting a little off topic from the original post lol