RightMark (CPU undervolting and throttling)

THIS IS NOT A REVIEW OF THE SOFTWARE ITSELF. JUST A PERSONAL SCENARIO TEST RESULT.

Undervolting - Using less power to power the CPU, usually less than manufacturer recommended or factory set and results in cooler CPU due to lower speeds and less electricity heat. Also results in damaged (slight chance) or unstable (more chance) system if done highly incorrectly.

Throttling - Not quite sure, dam why did I mention this one now i look like a moron IT student.


I do not recommend doing this if you've never thought about needing it cause you don't then!
I will also not post anything up about how to do it but now you know its call undervolting and cpu throttling and the name of RightMark software your free to Google it yourself. But due to my inexperience and high liabality I am not doing anything on this subject as of now.


I've tried to use RightMark(RM) to cool my CPU down on my laptop and it worked it was cooler as when the laptop was idle it used less power. But when I switch off RM or reverted back from Power On Performance to Vista controlled power settings I'd get a crash dump and BSOD.

Current success:

• Fail, unless using on battery and I really needed the extra life I wouldn't use the it.

Reasons:

• If your doing multimedia it can take a little while to respond and make jitters due ot constant fluctuations in CPU power? (normal as powering up back to full speed takes some sort of time frame) but launching programs aren't affected greatly by the half a second delay.

• The profile settings made are forgotten after RM is closed.

• AND of course it crashes my computer unless i have it on Power On Demand all the time until I shut the laptop down, which is what you'd do when running on batteries. But you would still have to deal with only launching the program when running on batteries.
  
  
• It doesn't have a formal uninstall process. You should run the ?????wipeout.reg file to remove any reg files still installed and then just simply delete whole folder.
  

Reasons against (success result):

• It has a really nice system status bar icons, showing Temp, CPU frequency, CPU load. But the general GUI interface is confusing for a non-undervolter user.

Good ranged wireless router

Today i got a Belkin G (802.11g) router, the shop i got it from was moving to a bigger store so i managed to get a higher-ranged model for less then the short range model.

I am sure I'll have to post something about this router as wired networking was hard enough to set up, I am sure it must be harder with wireless, lol.

Anyways I just wanted to post my thought about super long ranged routers, they are good for schools and offices but for home, unless your in a double story house, think about your neighbours or drive-by people being able to download with your Internet connection, even do illegal things using your account.

Tricky Yahoo! ?

I usually only use Yahoo! for my e-mails. With the new interface in Yahoo! you can select tabs to go to places such as E-mail.

When I put my mouse over e-mails it expands to show this:






I usually sign in and check and then read that 1 or none e-mail and sign out. But this time i actually realised that i always sign in to check because of this image saying i have 9 emails or at least implying that. It always shows 9, sure it can be just an example but do you think its tricky business to get you to sign in so they have an extra hit for their advertisers? if we multiply by many people that's a lot of advertising revenue. Or do you think its a good idea because it makes you think you got e-mail and forces you to check just in case you do have e-mails?

I am never signed in already so that preview function is useless to me. Maybe it could be useful if it shows the right amount of new e-mails but that wold require me to allow anyone who can touch my comuters to read my e-mails....

Firefox 3 is out

Just a reminder first, before you install FF3 consider backing up your profile (favourites and all, search my blog, I have shown you how)

Here is how you get it: Download Selection Page

Here are my thoughts:

• It might be safer internally?

• The user interface has had a change and looks different

• At the moment i have had a very hard problem finding the practical advantage of updating, no add-ons work. I have hit update add-ons and have managed to get about 4 or 5 add-ons working but that is only like 20% of my add-ons working.

• Some practical features would be the new book marks feature where it can list your most used sites etc. Nice little things but I don’t use, yet

• Yet to explore more of it, better update this post later to be more fair, keep an eye out for this post being updated.

Feel free to comment your experience, favourites and hates on FF3.

Win98 Use By Date

I hope it isn't new news to you when reading this but MS has stopped supporting Win98 which means it is past its use by date not that this will affect a lot of people as most have already WinXP.
What this means though is

• MS does not give out support for this OS it is now open to hacking as it no longer has updates from MS to patch up any flaws.
• As MS doesn't support it no longer, manufacturers will not produce software or hardware that have been tested on Win98, some might still work or say that it is compatible as it uses standards e.g. usb sticks but may work but not mentioned as they can't give you technical support if you call them.
• Some services such as broadband will also say such things but computer wizards know how to manually tweak their computers to be compatible, not that you would would want to go online with an out dated computer.

There are still some good uses for win98 though but it depends on what kind of a user you are. Vista for example will consume 500 billion more computer processing power (statistics backed up by my made-on-the spot-statistics company limited) to run so many things like file servers or basic things like that could be done with Win98.

If you have a computer only fast enough for Win98, you could look into a Linux solution, I might be soon but as it is the family computer you have to consider the inertia of using a graphical user-friendly OS. Dam Small Linux etc. is for light weight computer, Ubuntu is too heavy for old processors (at least for mine).

Troubleshooting on the net

I really hate it when you go online and can't find the solution to a computer problem you have but you get a heap of results on the problem but just people describing the problem, no solutions.

I can't really remember all my error messages and solutions so i can't do a really good recount but if it ever come across one I'll post it for this frustration of troubleshooting online isn't long lived ;)

• Win98se OS crashes or deaths = me deleting system files in system folder, the solution, don't delete anything from system folder, in fact, just right click, properties, hidden to hide the dam folder so you never screw up something. Then tools, folder options, view, show hidden folders to access the folder if you need to tweak something.

• Cold boot on computer, one long and two short beeps, finally cracked and just didn't boot not even when it was warm boot. The solutions, replace psu. You have to find out my specs. first before you can find out if your mobo, computer etc. is using the same signals as error alerts.
  

Laptops up to 1/2 price with rebates

It is election time tomorrow and one of the parties (not mentioning name) will be giving rebates on laptops and desktops in the form of tax cuts. The purpose is to make sure every child in Australia has a computer to advance their computer skills and to bridge the digital divide.

The way i see it is people already have computers and this will only benefit 2% of the people who probably don't have a computer or working computer at home. If you ass the people who don't have a working computer maybe benefit 8% of the students.

As most people already have computers and change them so often this offer will even further encourage people to trash their older systems for newer ones with less opportunity costs. Most if not all Australian councils do not have a proper computer and electronic waste recycling system install so this will just increase our land fills like if our current speed of throwing away slow computers isn't already fast enough.

I was planning to get a laptop myself soon and this will benefit me a bit but i do not like the thought of computers becoming more expensive (despite the rebate) as we throw away gold and other elements in computers that are not renewable.

Another view is that prices will rise due to the increased demand and willingness to purchase at a higher price.

It is funny now that since i have started my blog i no longer get ideas. I use to get ideas of new technology and then they would become true products in about 9 months after i tell someone, my theory was that someone was following me and selling my ideas, lol. Must be Deja Ju

Upgrading to Broadband or changing ISP?

There are many things to check for when changing ISP or upgrading to broadband.

My check list would look something like this:

• Price
• Usage cap
• Hours cap
  
• Price of excess downloads
• Contract length
• Migration costs (cost of moving to a different ISP)
• Is uploads counted as downloads
• download and upload speeds
• Set up & hardware costs
• Technical support
• Ease of cancellation of contract
• Reliability and reputation of the ISP
  

Many ISPs try to alternate between the items above to make their ads look good.
for example they may advertise super cheap "Price" and fast "download and upload speeds" but give you a super small "Usage cap" and charge you a "Price of excess downloads" to cover the cheap initial price of the broadband package. So read the find prints carefully.

Promotions such as "whooping super fast broadband at dial up costs" usually have a 200MB usage limit which would mean you'll hit 200Mb super fast with whooping speeds and your wallet will get a whooping slap in the gut.

Is E-mail safe?

Here is my thought of the day:

If the ads in free E-mail services such as Yahoo Mail are tailored to your messages content, that means they have to scan for keywords and that means a computer has to read your message and decide what ad is the most appropriate and most likely to attract your attention.

What does that mean for security and privacy?

Unless of course ads are just randomly generated.

Hidden contacts of E-mail

I have just too many E-mail addresses and not enough e-mails, why can't all my e-mail go to one account. I have converted many of my contacts to my new e-mail address but still can't close my other e-mail accounts.

It is a simple step to close them, just stop using and logging in for a period of X number of days or click a close account link set up by the e-mail service and not use it for a while.

Unfortunately it is not that simple, there are hidden invisible contracts that force you to stay and keep the e-mail account active. The contact is not enforced by law, as it is not a formal contract.
The way it works is if you want to use one of their services you have open an account with them.
In my case it is:


Hotmail = MSN messanger

Yahoo Mail = Yahoo Groups


So as you can see, i have to log in every now and then to see if i got any e-mail or spam in my accounts just so i can continue to use their other services.

Gmail, for Blogger at least is better as you can choose to subscribe to Gmail and open an account. As long as you have an Google account you can choose what services you want and don't want which frees up much more names available for use in e-mail accounts instead of names being hogged by people who want to use the services and not the e-mail.

It is sometimes a good idea to keep more than one e-mail account in case one gets bombed by SPAM for what ever reason but if you don't or can't be bothered to check all the accounts daily then you might miss an urgent e-mail and make someone wait a long time for a reply.

New face for E-mail

Has anyone noticed that Yahooo! Mail and Hotmail has a new interface?
It might just be intertia or what not but i still prefer the old face of E-mail.

They usually give you a choice to choose new look or classic look but i reckon that that is only a way to test the acceptance of the new look and they will remove the classic option when most people don't use it after a while.

This is their new marketing tactic to pull new users and keep old users from moving to other E-mail services but you've got to decide for yourself, is the new look balanced with practical use?

So far i have found it better in Yahoo Mail as the interface is based on Outlook style where you don't have to wait and load each message one after another.

Hotmail to me is just the same practical use as there isn't any areas where real improvements have been made and I am still like in the past getting a lot of promotional e-mail from Hotmail.
Really it is just a new pretty face.

Now Gmail has the most simplistic interface.

Lifetime Warranty

Many electronics and hardware sometimes gives you lifetime warranties, you'll most likely find that they give you planned obsolescence instead but in some rare cases you will find lifetime warranty but how long does it really mean?

Well the word lifetime would assume it's your whole life so as long as your the person who brought and is using the product you should be able to ask for a replacement when it fails on you during your early years of retirement.

This however is not always the case. Sometimes they say the lifetime of the product, well when a product stops working it is therefore dead and therefore has operated up to its lifetime, so this works well .... Usually you have to read the fine print and they will say the lifetime of the product is 5 years, so really it is a 5 year warranty but re-phrased to catch those who do not like to read ant-like sized fonts. This is usually rare because there are standards and laws that should prevent this kind of a assumed condition that does not exist.

With a proper lifetime warranty you should still read the fine text as they always have some kind of a condition that protects them such as physical damage voids the warranty as the product was mistreated or was abused and not operated under designed usage.
I have seen a special condition that i found interesting, for a certain product that I won't mention, if you live in Canada the lifetime warranty is only limited to something like 8 years.

Really with technology and the speed that hardware become out of date, lifetime warranties is the least of your worries. You should think about that before buying some hardware as many brands that offer the lifetime warranty will have an increased price to cover the cost of replacements.
If it did break and it was outdated, what would you do with the brand new replacement of hardware X that you don't use any more and can't be used in new systems? You might as well save that $10 extra for lifetime warranty and invest it into the next upgrade.
Do a Goggle search with product name and model and type in a word like problem, error, etc. to see if it has a high fail rate.

Normal people get better Google results?

When your Google-ing something do you ever think how the author of the site would have phrased his or her speech? Getting similar sentences could increase the relevance of your search results and therefore the chances of finding the site you wanted earlier.

This is especially important when trying to find information in forum sites for computing help.


e.g. My files broke when i put Microsoft Office 2000 on my computer

is different to say

e.g. My files got deleted when installing MS office 2000


It is sometimes hard especially when pros use jargon and abbreviations.
The level of depth the language used also has an affect.

e.g. if your too smart and search "complimentary music available for downloading here" opposed to more commonly used terms "free mp3 downloads" your search results can be largely hurt.

My tip would be to use common and simple language but keep in mind that in some cases especially computers, you may need to search for hdd (instead of hard disk), MS (instead of Microsoft) as some people who are more technical like to shorten their posts but it never hurts to try both long and short forms.

That's just my view anyway, so experiment, it may or may not work the same for you.

Long Live Windows

Windows has a higher death rate than uncoordinated and clumsy arsonist with a tank of petrol and too many matches, right?

Maybe so, I health diet for Windows is usually seen as:

* Defrag
* Scan Disk
* Back Up
* Disk Cleanup

This may be shaped from the fact that under the properties on each hard drive these are the main utilities to run for your hard drive and Windows and is usually advertised as being able to boost performance and speed. I am not denying the advantages of running each.

Some believe that excessive running of these utilities will wear out the disk, what doesn't get worn by use? some think that it may reduce the life of their hardware by years. My view is that most well known brand name hardware manufacturers design their products to last longer than than their obsolete period (i.e. should last long enough to see the day when they are out-dated technology) of course excessive use and the way you use it can make the statement above not so true to you. So i run defrag (only) when i suffer from high loading times and disk access times.

The recommended amount is once a month.

Some people believe that the messy state of the hard rive can wear them out more than the process of reorganising the data on the disk and some software companies even make defrag software that are designed to run constantly to give you a defraged hard drive 24/7

Running all these utilities can take a long time especially scan disk and defrag and especially if you have a large hard drive or have use a large portion of your hard drive.

To save time you can run:

* Defrag -> Auslogic, is faster than Win XP defrag and free too

* Scan Disk -> Only when you suspect that hard disk has an error, data curruption, constant crashes, never ending loading times.

* Back Up -> Use a back up software that compares and synchronises your data to save time because it only has to write data that has been changed. {}

* Disk Cleanup -> Run only once a month or even two months if you don't save much space on each run.

{} For personal use and general purposes of backup which don't involve life changing data, I would recommend using compare and sync backup software as it is much quicker and provides a good enough data backup if done right. If your corporate (which i highly doubt, as you should have your own IT support department to take care of backup) then you may want to use Full and partial back ups for safer measures but if the amount of data that is changes is low then compare and sync will do fine. E.g. if you have 6 Gb of data changed and or created then of course you should use more professional backup measure but if you only need to back up 8MB of changed data and maybe 30Mb of new mp3 song and 40Mb of new digital photos then why bother with difficult back up? just compare for changes, make changes and add the new files to backup disk easy. your done!

My diet is a bit different as i go further than the hard disk utilities:

* Defrag
* Backup
* Reg defrag
* Swap defrag
* Reg repair
* AV and spyware scan
* Security software updates
* Physical clean and layout adjustments

My method can corrupt data or Windows if done incorrectly so i won't entice anyone to try it by explaining how and what to do.

Sony brand loyalty

I am usually a big fan of Sony products but I am really going to be a selective fan now. Today i was trying to get my Sony DVD+RW disc to work again but still another fail. I've just about given up on them despite the fact that I have only used them for 2 write cycles.

SonicStage, the software used for the Sony Walkman mp3 player is also still mucking up on Win 98se and XP so i think ill just find an alternative freeware.

Sony Cameras are so far the only Sony branded product you can bring within 1 metre of your PC without it screwing something up and my rule is Sony PC products are a no go with the expection of Sony digital cameras and memory products, i wouldn't connect anything Sony product to my computer, not one i actually used anyway, maybe an enemies computer.

I am planning to get a laptop and this Anti-PC theory with Sony is making me look at other brands. Sony electronics such as TV and entertainment goods are fine if not excellent.

Some people are against Sony all together as they had rootkit viruses in their product a while back, you can Google it if you want to know more.

Free Gmail account

In the past you had to get invited to get a free Gmail account but recently i asked my sister to join together on another blog i have and she had to sign up for blogger and i realised that you don't need an invite, you could alternatively:

Sign up for blogger > Sign up for Gmail serivce > Unsubscribe from blogger service

In the past it wasn't a bother anyway, many people on the net had a website set up and were inviting anyone who e-mailed them (that's how i got my Gmail)


I don't know if this is a known flaw to Google or what but I am quite sure they wouldn't mind more people joining up. If you want you can ask me and provide me with your (non-gmail) e-mail and I'll invite you. Most of you reading should have a blogger account anyway or if not, you could use my above method anyway.

Partition Magic (Gparted)

I've talked about Partition Magic before and it did seem to work quiet efficiently but recently i have had to partition my hard drive to fit Ubuntu (a Linux distribution), I had had create a partition for Linux it self and a swap file for it too. I also tried to rearrange my swap file partition for Windows.

The result was it took a very very long time, maybe even up to 6 hours if I remembered right. A reason for this too was because i had shrunk and then grew my partition when changing my mind and forgot that it was recorded in the "to do" tasks list which made it re-size and then contradict the operations. But still it takes about 2 to 3 hours to work on 150Gb hard drive which some people may say is outrageous and decide to use an alternative software but I think that if it the long wait can ensure a safer partition then I would stick with this software but because i have not tried any faster partition alternative software I can not say if the faster partition times are due to better programming or as a result of checking less and hence increasing risk level of losing data.

What was of concern to me was that there was a thunderstorm and hail warning in my area of the time of partitioning and I knew that if I were to stop the software with 2 hours to do it would screw up my hard drive fore sure and if a surge or back out happened it would have the same effect so I just hoped very hard that there was still electricity until it was done.
My suggestion for those attempting to partition a hard drive using this software would be to use a UPS to ensure power in the case of lightning (UPS won't last 6 hours in most of the models I've seen and you can't simple save and resume after power is back up) so alternatively i would have a look at the weather and ensure a fine day ahead. This still doesn't solve the problem if you had a black out due to excessive energy consumption in summer or winter due to heating and cooling demands and a PSU would still not save you (I think) so really a faster partitioning software may be worth your investment of time if you wish to partition large hard drives or many (for what ever reason you have so many) or simple just connect up a bike with electricity generating functions and power your PC the healthy way.

In summary, back up your data before trying to partition and have a Windows install CD near-by for the worst of situations.

Vodafone

Vodafone is a telecommunication company.

I just got a SIM card today, yes, 18 years old and finally decided to purchase a SIM card, my friends probably won't believe this for a while. They always knew that the only way to contact me was on my 24 hour hotline otherwise known as E-mail and MSN as I am always in front of the computer.

I had a phone before but let the SIM card go out of service as i didn't top up with credit for ages, I felt it was a financial burden, yes $30 for 6 months is a financial burden for me, I am a student!

Because I am planning to travel a little probably for I might be getting a licence soon (fingers crossed) I figured better get some form of phone to call for help at least if I get lost of have car problems. I liked Vodafone because my sister has it and can use a 365 day plan which means $30 for 356 days which means my financial burden has halved, woo hoo! I don't know how long this will last though, if too many people use this Vodafone may decrease the time in order to stimulate more top ups.

As a tech savvy person i really liked Vodafone's activation process, i got to talk to a robotic computer (who had a female voice rather than stupid MS text to word style tone) and it was really cool to see how precise the system was a "yes" was always detected and never interpreted as a no, that's the best voice recognition software i have ever experienced (have you ever tried to use the mic for MS word to speak type an essay? you might as well be drunk and type an essay) Things like phone number, birth dates were precisely detected. What i still reckon is that it may be recorded and real person listens to the voice recording and adds it to a database.
A problem i found was when reading a number i read ahead and read the 4 5 instead of 54, so i don't know why they accepted it anyway, probably a flaw soon to be exploited.

I tried to activate my SIM over the Internet like they first suggested on the packaging but when i completed the process it just returned to the home page with no answer, i tried to do the whole form again but it wouldn't even load this time so i just assumed it was activated and tried to call some friends and then it told me i wasn't activated and i was being directed to Laura (the computer) and she did the job.

Activation via web, crap and waste of time
Activation over phone with Laura, excellent except that I felt confused about how to correct my 45 54 error.

Is your e-mail provider compatible with E-mail clients?

I one who is lazy and i like to use e-mail client software such as Outlook 2003, well i did until one day it tried to install a missing feature and couldn't be fixed so instead of trying to trouble shoot it i decided to convert to ThunderBird all together, lucky TB had an import feature so i could just add all my addresses and e-mails from Outlook.

One bad thing with ThunderBird is when you open hyper links it doesn't open at all unless if you install ThunderBrowse which is currently the only problem i have found.

One of the annoying things is many services don't support pop and SMTP services no more, that is, the services needed to grab and send mail from your e-mail client. Hotmail and Yahoo do not support it, Yahoo.com.au or .com.something else will usually work but not .com which is what i have. I don't know what i did but i have registered as Australia twice and i have always only gotten .com and could never get .com.au

Gmail (Google's e-mail service) does provide this feature currently. Others stop this service because when you log in to your account on the Internet you will see adverts on the same screen as your e-mail and this generates revenue for the companies that provide you this service, using TB or Outlook doesn't as the adverts are not sent to you or viewed by you in any way. I have a feeling that Gmail will change in the future but for now if you need to be lazy and need an e-mail account i would say e-mail me or send me a message and i will get you an invitation (currently only invited peoples can join Gmail)

If you already have the other accounts like me (i have Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail) then i could only recommend using a TB plugin called WebMail or install a software called freepops of which both i have not been able to successfully use at this time of posting.

Please note, you have to Google keywords i post such as "thunderbird plugin webmail" because i don't want post the link to actual software or what not unless i feel you can not search for it. This is slightly due to the fact that links can sometimes change or be outdated so it is always better to search for the latest versions of my suggested software to avoid missing features and compatibility issues that may arise.

My first computer mod

I posted about cooling my computer more with an extra cooling fan i had lying around. I've done it, the computer seems to be a bit more louder but now that I've closed up my case and bay covers it seems to be ignorable but a noisy computer is much better than a non-working one i guess.
I opened up the front cover of the tower first (didn't know i could do that) and not really surprising, there was groups of cotton ball like balls of dust from two years of operations. I also found that there is a place for my fan at the front of the computer on the bottom and that fan is ducted to the bottom of the tower. The problem i had with that idea was that there was a secondary hard disk in the way, i could work around it but didn't want to fiddle around with that in the future when it comes to cleaning time so i decided to use 2 5.5" bays to hold the fan. I could screw the fans to the metal plate that was there at the front but because the fan would be too close to the holes in the metal plates which it made it loud, i decided to place the fan a bit further back, there was no design for that so there was no holes but i managed to work-around this limitation by using ordinary string and string it trough the holes in the fan and the hold on the side of that bay which are used to screw CD drives in place, i did this on both sides to hold the fan in place in case if i need to move or shake my tower. I hope this design will bring me better cleaning procedures, more efficient cooling and better noise control. You'll hear me whine in future posts if my deign doesn't meet it's perfect intention.

On a different note, I have done something i though was very risky and dangerous. I re-sized my hard disk partitions so i can create a section of my disk to be dedicated to Spooling, Cache of browsers and virtual memory or swap file. These types of files are usually temporary and cause lots of fragmentation (wiki this word if you don't understand) if i can partition this type of data to a certain PHYSICAL area of the disk it can make defraging hard disk easier because the fragmentation is located in one place of the disk rather than all over the disk. Less fragmentation and especially less fragmentation all over the disk will cause faster and healthier hard disk operations which is important on the operating system (OS) disk (i.e. hard drive where Windows is installed) as programs and the OS performance will be affected by time lags of having to seach all over the disk for the other parts of a file stored on the disk.
I used Pmagic 1.8 as a bootable CD by downloading the ISO, the software was one of the best Linux based live CDs, previously when i tested out Linux operating systems it had bad loading times and response times but this software was fast and had excellent image and graphics, way beyond my expectations for a bootable program.
It was also fairly simple to use, which is really good for me as i am new to Linux and their graphical user interfaces. This program allows to you shrink the size of an existing hard drive and use that extra free space as a new partition. I have only used it once so i do recommend it but i also even strongly recommend that you back up ALL your data first ( i used an external hard drive ~ 1:1 size worth my computer but only backed up data, i.e. excluded OS and programs installed) as i can't say that nothing bad will or can happen to your case of using this software, what i also did before using the software was defraged my disks (with AusLogics Disk Defrag, which i am still trailing but so far provided faster results than Windows but lacked features like what files are defragmented and analysing if the disk needs to defrag but why do you need it? just use Windows defrag and then to actually defrag the disk use AusLogics)

After partiting my hard disks i decided to rename my partitoned disks, they use to be called 128, 74 and Gec Soft because the disls were 74GB, 128GB and Gec Soft data disk but now as i have partitioned as new disk the disk is no longer 128GB so i decided to rename all my disks to be more meaningful and now they are Win OS, Data Disk, Achieve and Vram (or virtual RAM as this new partition is intended for RAM or temporary data)

I am a clean freak inside and outside of my computer so now it is really eye sore, a dam Vram disk is showing in "My Computer" and cause i am impulsive and clumsy i know i will click on it so many times and waste time as i am use to Gec Soft disk being the last disk in the list of hard drives. A quick Google search and surely the use of Tweak UI from Microsoft's power tools can help me tweak the computer to hide the nasty icon that i won't need as the data in there should be written by software and deleted automatically when it is not needed or when the program closes.

By the way I use Google instead of Yahoo! because i dislike their business methods and social values, Google search "Yahoo communist" or along those lines to read about their law suits with revealing democratic activities on the net to the government of China which caused democratic fighters and freedom of speech practice-ees to be locked up in jail for 10+ years which i personally think is too much, not even a thief would be locked of for 10 years and they are actually doing damage to the community (not that they should be locked up in the first place). Anyway that's another chapter in this book.

Chow

EDIT:
Cool, Tweak UI can also get rid of MSN's stupid sharing folder in My Computer which is annoying cause i only send single files and don't need sharing folders, the program also allows me to remove Saved Files on this computer from My Computer "menu" (it is not actually deleted only the shortcut in my computer is removed) which is alos good because i didn't like Gecsoft's documents (shortcut to my documents) and all the other users documents showing in my computer. It kinds looks hollow now but i guess it is neater.