JohnMason

Wow, I stand humbled. Both of the pause|break uses are actually pretty handy at times.

Am I sad for budgeting £15k-20k from my future lottery win towards one of these machines... Just so I can run Football Manager with every league loaded at a good speed?

Pause|Break is just as useless these days, isn't it? Then again, a keyboard without those three at the top would just look wrong.

My eligibility is questionable. I either just hit or just miss depending exactly where the end of this year's income falls. Based on last years, not a snowball's chance in hell.

A high end gaming machine will be way above a console in terms of graphics.

If price is a huge factor, 2GB RAM isn't the end of the world. I'm running a comparable system to the one above (but with 2GB ram and an Core 2 Duo E8200 (2.66Ghz dual core) and haven't had any problems with anything yet. So far I haven't found a game that didn't fly by on full settings. Not sure if it's the GT in the 9600 range I have, but really any 9600 should stand up well to any current games?

By now a bajillion other people have it up though. I've heard that it's being distributed heavily via torrent as well now thanks to our parrot-loving Swedish friends. Once something hits the net, there's no getting rid of it!

Fortunately no-one I know was on the list. No-one I thought to search for anyway. Unfortunately, my name was. Luckily it's a relatively common name and they live a reasonable distance from me. Sort of the same city, but I'm central while they are officially in a town on the border. Things like that are why I'm against the leak. Naming and shaming is all fine and good, but innocent people will be mistaken. I've heard of one very liberal guy who works in a university research lab in a very ethically diverse area with a fairly uncommon name unlucky enough to share it with some idiot in the same town who is a member.

All I have to say is... I want my eggs to bleed when i crack them

Wait, so we still pay VAT on duty free goods we have brought in? I thought all we'd be paying is delivery, and that VAT and duty were interchangeable?

Personally i'd "delete" all usb sticks from there. Don't touch the root hubs and stuff (which are hidden by default), but any usb devices should just be deleted. That way they'll load up fresh next time they are plugged in. If you have a usb mouse though, don't delete that one... Or at least remember you are deleting it... I certainly didn't make that mistake then panic when my mouse wouldn't work, honest!

Thats the one I was looking up. Just got round to finding it and it's already posted

Do other sticks work well in your pc? I know that when you put usb devices in to your pc it stores a record locally of it. There's a program you can use to delete those records, I just can't think of the bloody name! If you still have the problem on monday PM me and i'll try to find out. :-)

Instead, she's been suspended for leaving her post?

Pfft, that's why you should be using your friendly neighbourhood USB sellers! What, no, of course I wouldn't have done it myself, but someone would have! ;-) but seriously, there's nothing like a bit of mindlessly attaching things and putting them together like that to really make you appreciate a job where you have to use your mind occasionally. I bet he'll have twice the appetite for normal work for a good... half hour!

Nothing better than being torn apart by bounty hunters, reloading just before the battle and going in slightly more sensibly... 2 grenades via VATS. Lots of legs separated from bodies. :-D

My biggest worry with this is that we've already seen people being wrongly accused of pirating computer games online, so what safeguards are there to prevent this from occurring? If the ISP acts as judge, jury and executioner (illegal under EU laws, but France are considering it anyway) then I'll be very afraid.

As small as possible... I guess you'd want it as cool looking as possible too? Why not make yourself a NES-PC? Build a Nintendo NES PC I've seen Nintendo's going for £20 on ebay, working. A broken one should be even cheaper. Add in a wireless mouse and keyboard plugged in at the back... If I can ever afford to make a media pc, it will have to be a NES PC. edit: Of course, I'm not suggesting you do the whole installing emulators and playing pirate games bit. If I do it, I'm planning on doing everything bar the last step or two. Media PC or not I want a keyboard and mouse and a normal windows front end. edit2: Note: You'll need a Mini ITX motherboard, which generally aren't all that powerful. Still extremely cool to have though!

Me, that's who! Then again, the faster delivery is sort of worth it at a push. A real push...

I think you should change it to "Every time you buy a Mac, Steve Jobs kills a Budgie"? Especially if you can photoshop him and a few birds into the old brown square thing chasing a kitten image!

"Apple™, So stylish, it's to die for"

Last Christmas I splashed out £100 on one of those HP (i think?) boxes that hooks up to your router and tv and can stream from any pc that has the correct (bundled) software. It got a bit of use, but i'm now thinking of either going direct (now i have a hd tv) or maybe finding a way to get my PS3 to do it for me. The HP thing also had that network through your power lines gimmick going for it, which if the pc wasn't 20 yards from the TV would have been awesome. edit: I should set it up in the babies room really.

The only case where this isn't true is if you have only paid £22 tax this year.... In which case £22 would be the correct refund as you shouldn't have paid any with the new allowance. In brighter news, we now get an extra £10 per month each. That'll buy you 2 loaves of bread, five eggs or an inner city new build flat.

Don't we have a "no cold call" register? I'm sure I signed myself and my nan up to one recently? No idea how effective it is though. And that said, business to consumer, sure. However for business to business, it is a necessary evil. A lot of smaller companies would have no way of getting their name out there otherwise. With business to business though, at least you are being paid to put up with the calls:P

Forget fines. It should be a criminal act to intentionally call someone and leave the phoneline silent. They shouldn't be allowed 1 call per week, let alone a few percent a day...