t_h

To be fair those events are well over an hour long and are to promote new products, so to pick out just shy of two minutes worth of superlatives isn't really out of the ordinary in my opinion.

AES, just because it was the most "vanilla" of the lot. With a decent password nobody is going to crack any of them any time soon so the choice was arbitrary really.

Continue using Vista then, as it contains most of the benefit of Windows 7 while still retaining the Windows Classic theme.

I remember two things about Monkey Island from my younger days - they were really funny yet really difficult in places. I used to wish they'd made it a bit easier as not to break up the flow of the story. Classic games though, and one of the few I'd make time for to play these days.

Were the accounts in question Administrator accounts? If so, giving users standard accounts would be a great start.

OcUK are good, but I always check Scan as they can sometimes be a little cheaper. I wouldn't go for a high, high end CPU - I'd save that money and put it towards the best graphics card you can afford if it is going to be a gaming machine. Any modern Intel CPU will be fine. A solid state drive is something to consider, but I wouldn't blow the budget on a large SSD. They're only really going to cut down loading times (are people really that impatient?) and once the data is in memory you're no longer waiting on the hard drive. Speaking of memory, I'd go for 4GB no question as it's really cheap at the moment. Don't spend a lot on a heatsink and fan if you don't plan to overclock. The stock fans are fine and the only reason I'd buy a third party one is they tend to be quieter. Finally, don't skimp on the PSU and case. If you can afford the room buy a large case as they are much easier to work with. Hope that helps.

I've had a few instances of IE8 crashing a few seconds after opening it. Downloading the IE8 installer from the Microsoft Download site and then running it (basically uninstall/reinstall) fixes the problem. In my case a particular piece of curriculum software breaks it.

The crucial thing to remember about antivirus is not to rely on it to save you from doing something stupid. If you browse the web using an (XP) administrator account and your browser gets hijacked, or you install a dodgy plugin, then the malware is running with administrator privileges and can completely own any antivirus you have running - no matter how good it is. Similarly if you habitually download and install programs from untrusted sources - file sharing sites, executable files given to you by other people etc. you risk a malware strike. Ideally you should go direct to the authors site, download the file you need and then check the hash of the file to see if it corresponds. Depends how paranoid you're feeling.

My friend (born 9th September) is due to have a baby tomorrow (09.09.09) I suppose if it happens it will be mildly interesting but at the end of the day it's just our human minds looking for significance in patterns, completely moot to anyone not using our calendar system.

I use Kaspersky AV + Windows Firewall. I just use the basic anti-virus protection because the other features tend to annoy me. I never bother with the superantispyware/malwarebytes/adaware etc I find it unnecessary. Just as importantly is keeping your OS up to date, and also your software - particularly web browser, Flash player, Adobe reader, Office etc. You should also do your day-to-day tasks and web browsing in a standard user account (this is probably more important than antivirus itself.) If you're using Windows 7 or Vista IE8 in protected mode is a good option. Generally the best paid-for AVs are Kaspersky and NOD32, the best free versions are Avira and Avast.

In general, I'd say Alan Turing. He had a brilliant yet tragic life. [ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing]Alan Turing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] In terms of Windows I'd have to say Mark Russinovich. He has God-like troubleshooting skills and anything he says about Windows I take as Gospel. Mark's Blog Stephen Fry is quite a famous geek I like but I would stop short of saying he was an idol of mine IT-wise.

Hi all, I don't usually post in these welcome threads but apparently I need at least 1 post to post URLs which I was attempting to do in another thread! For what it's worth I'm an IT Tech for an SEN Primary in the North West. I've been in the job for 12 months and have big plans for my school. I've been lurking on this site for a few months and have found it quite informative. It's interesting to hear about the trials and tribulations of other people with similar jobs! I've also found the BSF stuff a particularly interesting read. You'll have to excuse my naff username; it's nothing cryptic. I always draw a blank when prompted for one. I'm currently getting stuck into moodle at the moment having never used it before so I may be asking the odd question about that. It seems quite good although not very intuitive in certain places in my opinion. Anyway I'll wrap up now, cya around.