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Mailto protocol is either missing (on the machine where it works, under WinXP) or pointing at Thunderbird (on the machine where it doesn’t work, under Win2K). I suppose it could be something in the DDE entries. I’m going to try installing Firefox/Thunderbird on another Win2K machine (as soon as I rebuild another one-all our spares currently have WinXP) and see what those settings are-assuming that this problem doesn’t affect all of our Win2K machines. (Our other Win2K machines use Netscape 4.7-this was the first users machine we converted.)

Mailto protocol is either missing (on the machine where it works, under WinXP) or pointing at Thunderbird (on the machine where it doesn’t work, under Win2K). I suppose it could be something in the DDE entries. I’m going to try installing Firefox/Thunderbird on another Win2K machine (as soon as I rebuild another one-all our spares currently have WinXP) and see what those settings are-assuming that this problem doesn’t affect all of our Win2K machines. (Our other Win2K machines use Netscape 4.7-this was the first users machine we converted.)

Thanks. I just saw an announcement from Real that their download service would offer iPod compatibility. From what I’ve been reading the iPod would seem to be the best-if only it weren’t limited to the iTunes service! I don’t like the limitation on the number of computers either-I upgrade/rebuild our computers too frequently to be comfortable with that type of limit (I wonder if reloading it back onto the ‘same’ computer counts-and what determines whether or not it’s the ‘same’ computer?)-but I can probably live with it since they let me burn each song to multiple CD’s & portables. (And I assume that I can transfer it directly from a CD to a portable without it counting as ‘loading on a computer’? Something I’ll have to ask them, I guess.)

I already practice safe hex, but I’m curious about one aspect of your warning-I’m talking about downloading from legitimate music sources, i.e. music stores legally selling copyrighted music, not P2P. Are you sure that’s “one of the best(?) avenues … for the proliferation of spyware, viruses, Trogans, worms, etc. “? It just seems to me that even one infestation, if it became known (and these days how could it not become known) would pretty much kill the store it came from.

Thanks. I just saw an announcement from Real that their download service would offer iPod compatibility. From what I’ve been reading the iPod would seem to be the best-if only it weren’t limited to the iTunes service! I don’t like the limitation on the number of computers either-I upgrade/rebuild our computers too frequently to be comfortable with that type of limit (I wonder if reloading it back onto the ‘same’ computer counts-and what determines whether or not it’s the ‘same’ computer?)-but I can probably live with it since they let me burn each song to multiple CD’s & portables. (And I assume that I can transfer it directly from a CD to a portable without it counting as ‘loading on a computer’? Something I’ll have to ask them, I guess.)

I already practice safe hex, but I’m curious about one aspect of your warning-I’m talking about downloading from legitimate music sources, i.e. music stores legally selling copyrighted music, not P2P. Are you sure that’s “one of the best(?) avenues … for the proliferation of spyware, viruses, Trogans, worms, etc. “? It just seems to me that even one infestation, if it became known (and these days how could it not become known) would pretty much kill the store it came from.

I know nothing about the reliability of the company, but I ran into a problem with expiration dates built into HP’s ink jet cartridges. Quite a bit of information on it at http://www.alotofthings.com[/url%5D

As far as I know they only sell refill kits so this wouldn’t be a likely source of supply for you, but it seems to me to be a good source of information.

I know nothing about the reliability of the company, but I ran into a problem with expiration dates built into HP’s ink jet cartridges. Quite a bit of information on it at http://www.alotofthings.com[/url%5D

As far as I know they only sell refill kits so this wouldn’t be a likely source of supply for you, but it seems to me to be a good source of information.

Long shot, but are these ‘standard’ printers? I’ve had trouble sharing both serial printers & ‘all-in-one’ fax/printers. Standard printers haven’t been a problem seeing them. Using them has sometimes been problematic, but I’ve always been able to see them once I shared them.

Long shot, but are these ‘standard’ printers? I’ve had trouble sharing both serial printers & ‘all-in-one’ fax/printers. Standard printers haven’t been a problem seeing them. Using them has sometimes been problematic, but I’ve always been able to see them once I shared them.

Well, shoot. It does seem like Lookout has a poor idea of what idle means, but it also seems like they did a pretty good job of writing it so it wouldn’t get in the way of other things that were running. So now I have no ideas. Sorry.

Well, shoot. It does seem like Lookout has a poor idea of what idle means, but it also seems like they did a pretty good job of writing it so it wouldn’t get in the way of other things that were running. So now I have no ideas. Sorry.

I’d suspect Lookout. Not only is it the one change you mention but also that ‘updates its search capability when the comp is idle’ makes it suspect. What does it consider idle? I remember screen savers that were supposed to activate only when the comp was idle-but it appeared that their definition of ‘idle’ was when the keyboard & mouse weren’t being used. They often kicked in when I had other stuff running-downloads, macros, compiles, etc. Anything that ran unattended over their time limit. I quickly learned to either turn them off or at least keep moving my mouse even when I wasn’t doing anything useful with it (other than telling the background software that the computer wasn’t idle).

I’d suspect Lookout. Not only is it the one change you mention but also that ‘updates its search capability when the comp is idle’ makes it suspect. What does it consider idle? I remember screen savers that were supposed to activate only when the comp was idle-but it appeared that their definition of ‘idle’ was when the keyboard & mouse weren’t being used. They often kicked in when I had other stuff running-downloads, macros, compiles, etc. Anything that ran unattended over their time limit. I quickly learned to either turn them off or at least keep moving my mouse even when I wasn’t doing anything useful with it (other than telling the background software that the computer wasn’t idle).

Slight digression. I’m reminded of when I was in charge of a minicomputer here. Looking at the ‘main’ specs it really wasn’t any more powerful than the PC’s of the time-so I asked the manufacturer’s representative why it was so much more ‘effective’? (It really was-if I remember correctly it could handle up to 100 users, with basically dumb terminals (we used emulator cards but I believe that dumb terminals were an option), with a 16-MHz processor & 64MB of RAM.)

The answer I got was that it really had multiple processors. Only one was listed as the CPU but each I/O board also had a processor and the OS was written to take advantage of that. Sort of like PC’s are evolving into today with graphics co-processors, DSP chips on modems, RAID processors, etc.

Based on that experience I agree that for performance you should offload whatever processing you can from the CPU to other hardware. On the contrary side, I also had an Amiga years ago. It had separate processors for graphics, sound, and something else-don’t remember what now-in addition to the ‘main’ CPU. When it came time to upgrade it turned out to be a mess. Much easier to upgrade the single processor in a PC.

Slight digression. I’m reminded of when I was in charge of a minicomputer here. Looking at the ‘main’ specs it really wasn’t any more powerful than the PC’s of the time-so I asked the manufacturer’s representative why it was so much more ‘effective’? (It really was-if I remember correctly it could handle up to 100 users, with basically dumb terminals (we used emulator cards but I believe that dumb terminals were an option), with a 16-MHz processor & 64MB of RAM.)

The answer I got was that it really had multiple processors. Only one was listed as the CPU but each I/O board also had a processor and the OS was written to take advantage of that. Sort of like PC’s are evolving into today with graphics co-processors, DSP chips on modems, RAID processors, etc.

Based on that experience I agree that for performance you should offload whatever processing you can from the CPU to other hardware. On the contrary side, I also had an Amiga years ago. It had separate processors for graphics, sound, and something else-don’t remember what now-in addition to the ‘main’ CPU. When it came time to upgrade it turned out to be a mess. Much easier to upgrade the single processor in a PC.

CD Player as a performance monitor, what a neat idea! I knew there had to be some reason it was added to Windows because it’s never made sense to me to use a $700 (or more) computer to emulate a $100 (or less) boombox.