EggmanEEA

Set up VNC as a service and it'll start every time windows starts. I do this with 2 other computers (I have 3 servers all being controlled from one) and in the past 3 months it hasn't let me down yet.

Hasn't anyone learned the easy way to break someone's gaming habit? Steal the power cord. They might replace it, but you can steal it over and over again!

Yeah, and I wonder what high school computer class designed that DS release too...looks like crap to me. Another way for Nintendo to keep on sucking the public dry with their ancient franchise.

The funniest thing I see in that picture is the fact that he LOOKS proud to be posing with all that gear!

And what, their first reviews weren't good enough? IGN just wants to get some more traffic is all and they figure they can take the very-much-alive DC scene and turn them into loyal readers. IGN can kiss my butt, that site is 95% advertisements and paid reviews, its like an online Yellow Pages and somewhere in there is a few piss-poor written reviews hidden underneath 50 flash ads.

I still prefer Usenet, I've been using it for almost 7 years now and its gets everything I want/need. I'm sure the learning curve is a bit steep at first but once you understand how it works and get yourself a good premium news provider, you're set.

LOL, you didn't just see the big screen TV his girlfriend just bought? You think phillyman makes that kind of money working at Kinko's? (j/k, couldn't resist)

They didn't stop putting component output on the gc afaik, same plug just different connectors and wiring. Like SAV said though, they're increasingly hard to come by nowadays, but you could probably find some 3rd party quality cables from other companies. I know Monster Cable made a composite cable for the GC (red/yellow/white), but I know they didn't make component cables for GC.

But that's too obvious!!! Celebs live in the limelight and make you think they're doing something, and behind your back they're doing something else. Schrooms would be hallucinogenic and wouldn't help his accuracy for jumping around too much, he'd stumble and fall everywhere. He'd definitely have to be doing rails to keep bouncing around like that all the time!!! He's always jacked!

I think I used their site for maybe 5 torrents, and it was always a "fingers crossed" and hope you get the files before all the seeders screw off on you. Knowing how sites like that operate, they most likely have the backup server off-site and will just turn it on after they re-locate to another facility. It's akin to a drug dealer moving to a different corner of the avenue...your fix is still there you just gotta walk a bit farther.

Err...there's nothing really to beat in the game, its that bad (and easy). Trust me 101% this is something you just do NOT want to play if you have played even a few of the other Zelda's. I think a vote should be called to see if the CD-i versions of Zelda should be buried beside the few million E.T. cartridges in the Atari landfill!

Considering myself a rather avid A/V junkie, even I won't be buying into the BD/HD war that's brewing already. I have about the same number of movies you do and I have a lot of watching still to do! I'll only be interested when one of the formats is available for the PC in the higher capacity range (~50gb per disc) and has dropped in price. 25gb discs just doesnt cut it for me, regardless of price. I would love to take my archive and squeeze it down to 10% of its original size rather than 20%. Although probably by the time I get around to doing that, you'll be able to find 500gb hard drives in boxes of Cracker Jacks.

Ah yes, I will show my unit as well, but forgive the crummy resolution, I don't have a digital camera so I had to use my dvd camcorder's snapshot mode to take it. It's a 36" Sony Wega Hi-Scan Trinitron FD (KV36HS510). As you can see, the picture's very bright even for the cruddy snapshot I took. The only reason I went with this is that it was the best CRT on the market, its perfect for console gaming, and price was right too, got it for a hella discount on clearance. Here's an actual "official" pic of it (although small, and not even on Sony's website anymore): **addon** Ah yes, I also forgot to mention that it weighs in at a measly 236 LBS. Trust me, moving it off a moving truck, into the house, down a flight of stairs and across a 20' room is NOT fun. That's when you really appreciate how much a rear-projection or lcd/plasma weighs.

If I had to replace my Pioneer deck, i'd run out and try the following: Sony DVP-NS70H (only one minor inconvenience of a 2-pixel wide bar at the very top of the screen in full-screen mode) or, Philips DVP5960/37 I say "try", since most retailers have a return policy of 7-14 days and should give you enough time to test it out to make sure you enjoy it. Remember, all upscaling really does is make the image look a bit sharper in higher resolution, its still a low-grade DVD with the annoyances of compression and jaggies. Component is the best analog signal available, and having the best component cables will give you the best analog output if you're not using HDMI. I use it on my DVD player to my TV and the playback is incredible on my Pioneer 578a deck. If you want to do upscaling with your hdmi-upscaling dvd player, you'll need to have an HDMI connection anyway. HDMI is better since its pure digital, and makes the biggest improvement on colour output and a rock-solid stable image on the screen. If you're moving up from s-video, its like night and day. Not at all. 20-25 feet is a typical "long" cable length and HDMI and DVI can both go that long without loss of signal (glitches). There are cables that can even go up to 50 feet but you'll pay a lot more for them and they can be harder to find (since they aren't usually needed by most consumers). The only thing I can say is buy quality cables from a good "certified" HDMI manufacturer (there's only a few that are certified: Monster, Sony, JAE, Audio Technica and a few others). IF you have to pay retail price for a 20-25' cable, expect to pay probably up to $200 for the best, and around $125 for the mid-line. Be sure you know the difference between DVI-A (analog) and DVI-D (digital), and check which one is on your video card before buying a cable to match. Buying the wrong one (the pin-outs look almost identical) will result in no output. Remember, in the end it all depends on the original source material as to how good it looks on the tv. If you have quality connections between all source and output, it'll make anything look as good as its supposed to. Its not going to make a 30 minute 50mb AVI look stellar! I assume you're downloading Hi-Def digital content (probably from a 1080i source such as hi-def tv episode captures).

I'd ask the question too...how many people here remember playing Mario Bros. on the 2600? I yearned for the arcade-quality graphics but the 2600 just couldn't deliver that promise (in hindsight of course, but who were we to know that someday we could have better?). I typically spent most of my time back in the pre 8-bit days in the arcades, since nothing in my mind at home was better than the arcades and the best games were always there. Maybe poor old Luigi is a lot older than his brother is and the symptoms of old age are creeping up on him, or what I think is he collected way too many coins during the bonus levels and rather than bank it away for future use like his brother Mario did so he could by his way to success, Luigi used it to buy cocaine and then became a heroin addict later on. Muahahaha....

Hmm....had another look at your picture and just had to inquire... Where is your 5.1 surround? Please, PLEASE don't tell me you intend on watching movies on that bad boy and think you can get away with the 15 watt 2.1 system inside..... If so, I will personally courier up a trout so you can smack your own self.

Nice choice of DLP's, Samsung has definitely upped their quality over the last 4-5 years and finally are producing quality stuff that is eating away at the higher-end consumer stuff like Sony, Pioneer, LG and Panasonic. (Yes, LG & Panny makes some damn fine stuff now) I worked for a retail a/v shop for a few years and I'll tell you one thing if you're shopping for a big screen TV....WAIT FOR A SALE! TV's here in Canada up to 32" have less than 5% profit in the sale, they try to beef up the sale with high Gross Margin (GM) products like cleaners, cables, stands and accessories. A $50 cable could only cost the company $6, and they make up nicely for the low profit on the TV sale. Over 32" is another ballpark, the profit in those bad boys can be as high as 40% (average is about 20%). As a salesman I used to check the cost vs. sale price on stuff during "good sales" (usually xmas, boxing day, major holidays, back to school etc) and the stuff in flyers is just candy to get the people in the door, cause it doesn't make them a damn cent. They either hope to beef up the sale with accessories, or sell you something higher-end that might not be on sale but could be better in terms of quality, sound, or might even be better for your situation of what you're going to do with the TV. If I can say one thing since you already bought the tv, do NOT be cheap on the cables, don't buy crappy cables and think your TV will make up for the crummy signal. Buy the middle-class cables, the highest quality ones just have more shielding and will only help if you're running more than 12' (doubtful). If you have any questions please me know, this is one of the other areas of my expertise I can help out with

You'd think they would invent some sort of program that could "remember" all the mods you do to an install of a forum board (or any php-driven site) so when the major upgrades come along and you gotta install all the crap again, you wouldn't need to spend a day to re-mod your site. Upgrading is a double-edged sword for sure!

Based on your totally inaccurate comment about MAME and roms, I shall quickly enlighten you to how MAMEDev works. Dumping Arcade Boards: 1. person buys arcade board 2. person either dumps arcade board or sends to a person who has hardware to dump the roms/etc. 3. roms are verified numerous times and are usually dumped a few times to ensure correct crc 4. roms are sent to a repository where the developers of MAME have access to the "new" stuff, which they can then work on in their leisure (remember...its a free project and all work is done in their own spare time) 5. Is the game still available commercially? If not, its "ok" (its actually NOT, but don't get me started on copyright stuff). If it is, shelve it until its out of circulation and the manufacturer won't really step in and put the smackdown law on the whole project (ie. what most people then confuse as "hoarding") 6. the MAMEDev make a breakthrough and get the rom to "working" status, and it is added to a release build of the public version of MAME. 7. The rom is then "released" to the public and then people scoop it up and add it to their pile of roms. Here's how I see RetroMags working: 1. person buys magazine 2. person either scans the mag or sends it to someone who can 3. mags scanned, cropped, made into cbr or pdf or whatever 4. 5 year rule...is it younger or older? If older, let's give it out publicly to everyone for free. If its younger, let's make sure we don't get sued by the owner of the mags and give them some "breathing room" of what we do. Remember, what MAME and RetroMags both do is , in a court of law, AGAINST the law. You cannot reproduce any form of literature/game without the written consent of the author (in this case, Nintendo's publishing company). So, Phillyman is really taking a chance by doing any of this, and hopes to keep his nose off the grinding stone by giving that "breathing room" that some companies "seem to" live by of their works being digitally copied and spread around the world to others. Maybe it's their way of Public Relations for the poor who could never afford the mag or play the game in the first place. My hats off to everyone who sticks their neck out for the good of the preservation aspect of the project, they see the real need to preserve, collect and enjoy whats important to them. If you don't fancy waiting 5 years to read the current issue of a magazine thats on the newsstands, then go out and buy the damn thing yourself and stop your friggin' whining. ps. phillyman, can I have an exemption to use foul language in the future?

Hah, thats great! Its the first handheld that had a modchip made for it too. That chip looks almost as big as half the screen on the psp. That'll serve Sony right for allowing enough room for a modchip to be installed (in any of their consoles, sheesh!) I don't know enough about manufacturing, but why don't these manufacturers put epoxy on the chips or various parts of the board that might be used for potential modding as a deterrent? The hackers might be able to get at the chip eventually and design something, but it would be difficult for the average joe to do it then. Dunno, maybe its something they can't do, I'm more just thinking out lout atm. Maybe Sony does it like this, then goes after the hackers and then hires them for their next console's security

Don't waste your time with the Spectrum stuff, it's all available free from World Of Spectrum's many ftps around the world. Actually right now PleasureDome (the emulation torrent site) is about to get a 27gb archive of Spectrum magazines posted on a torrent, which I'm sure some people here would love to get their hands on as I *believe* its pretty much every single Speccy mag there is. All it seems Mort wants is payment for his hours of work he put into scanning the mags. A good return on investment? Definitely in the long run, but he's selling something that is an extreme niche product, he'd have to advertise to hell to get enough return on investment. If it's beer that most of the extra bucks go towards, I sure hope his scans aren't blurry!

Wonder if he'd provide a discount for a full archive purchase...

Maybe Phillyman is onto something....Nintendo can rely on Retromags to fill all their backorders for magazines to customers, and Nintendo can save money by not having to stockpile magazines in a warehouse somewhere, and can pass the savings on to the customer on the Wii console with cheaper games!! "Save a tree...download a Retromag!" Makes sense..doesn't it?

I prefer my ratty LP of Buckner & Garcia's "Pac-Man Fever" blasting over my vintage 1950's turntable.

I blame Lev. Oh wait, sorry, wrong decade. I blame phillyman!