Random Fix - Computer Help

I purchased an Antec P182 for my cousin’s new computer.  I have past experience with the P180 and it has been nothing but good to me.  I feel it is build solidly and sturdy.

To my surprise, as I was researching for the best price, I came across several reviews at Amazon.com and Newegg.com saying that the case sucked, how flimsy the door is, and that the screws for the motherboard strip easily.

I got a bit worried and started to think, uh oh, maybe I bought the wrong case and Antec just fell off the wagon as far as quality control goes.  But come to find out, all of those people were wrong.  I have no idea how they came up with the screws not fitting properly.  I did not over tighten them nor did I use an electric screwdriver.  I used an old fashioned phillips screwdriver.

The front cover is extremely sturdy and I have NO idea why these people are claming that it is flimsy.  It’s far from.

Hopefully this mini-review will help some of you who are on the fence about purchasing the P182.  Take it from me, who has been working in the IT sector for several years and have been building custom machines for the past 10 years, Antec cases are sturdy, and built to last.

I plan to pick up another P182 for my current computer and for my next build I will be using the Antec Mini P180.

Well, not necessarily.  Windows XP will still be around, it’s just that it is no longer being sold.  However, people are stating that Windows XP copies will still be floating around.  I haven’t heard much if they’ll be marked up since they’re going to pretty much turn into collectors items.

Not really for collecting but just the fact that Vista sucks, and the majority of the customers, especially business customers know it and want to stick with XP.  This means trying to find multiple copies and licenses since most businesses have hundreds if not thousands of computers.

Microsoft will support Windows XP until 2014.  That’s quite some time but that is a big difference between support and make available Windows XP.  If you were considering getting a new computer with XP, try to do it ASAP.  Don’t wait as you may find out that you’re stuck with Vista.

I can assure you, Vista blows.  It’s the same exact operating system that Windows ME was.  The same type of problems, slow downs, random weird crashes, “not responding” messages constantly barraging you due to the fact that it can’t seem to process all that data.  Not to mention the stupid UAC security.  I honestly haven’t seen it help.  I have seen countless computers come through the shop that have Vista on it and still being infected with viruses and spyware.

Sure a message pop ups saying do you want to allow this program access or do you want to allow this program to install?  All people are going to do is say yes.  Who are they to know that this program is bad?  That’s all it takes is a simple click to say yes, install me, I want you, and UAC has no idea that this program that UAC just allowed to install is a virus or a piece of spyware.

Bah, I’m tired and getting sleepy.  I’ll be back to rant more about Vista later.  For now, it’s time to enjoy the weekend.

The final build of FireFox 3 was released as of 6/17/08.  Go here to pick it up.  They’re trying to beat a world record by having as many people as they possibly can download and install FireFox 3.

The bug with Netsuite is still there.  When you attempt to open up a text box to type in text, the box is kept small and not maximized.  It’s hard to explain, I will see if I can come up with something better.

I’m a little late on announcing this on my blog, as the announcement was made a few weeks ago.  Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 will be releasing in August.  This beta will be geared towards the consumer and not just the technical web designers.  I feel that IE8 has ways to go and beta 1 was just so buggy that it was unusable.  However, it was really a technical beta just for web designers and the such.  So it is quite understandable that the beta hasn’t worked very well.  I do have to say that it has a long way to go before being finalized.

I hope that beta 2 will be stable enough to switch to full time.  The first beta of Internet Explorer 7 was stable enough for me to use up until the latter stages of the beta.

They’ve implemented some really cool features that I would like to touch upon in another post.  They finally fixed the bug or maybe it wasn’t really a bug but rather a feature that didn’t exist.  You can now create several links in a folder on the links toolbar and middle click it and what happens now is that it will open all of the links in the folder in new tabs.  Prior to this, an Explorer box would open with all your links in it.  I had suggested this to the IE team for quite some time while IE7 was in its beta stages only to be told that it is a feature that cannot fit into IE7 and will have to wait for the next iteration of Internet Explorer.

With that said, I’m glad they’ve continued development on the browser.  If it wasn’t for FireFox, IE would still be at IE6.0 which we all know sucks and is extremely vulnerable to attacks.  FireFox 3, on the other hand, is coming out soon.  It is currently in its release candidate stages which means it is very close to going gold.  I haven’t played around with it very much but a co-worker of mine has.  There are a few annoying bugs that still need to be worked out.  I still hear and read that it is slow and still uses up massive amounts of memory.  That’s definitely something I wish they would fix.