Don’t forget to hide the porn pictures and clear your browser history!

Lol, not an issue with me… especially if he shares the entertainment;-) Actually,I prefer fantasy based Hentai. However, I despise the tentacle themes and am turned off by all styles which including violent rape scenes… There is a mind boggling difference between seduction and rape.

According to my Sociology textbook, studies have shown that pornography leads to aggression in males and greater toleration of rape, not to mention it helps add to the subconscious patriarchal mindset in men.

A possibility, but not one I will accept just yet.  Just like, I do not accept that video games “make” anyone act more violent in real life. I do not believe either one of these mediums are responsible for societal decline.

Les: in all fairness, the one thing that will hold gaming back for whatever she wants to do (MMOs?) will be the amount of RAM followed closely by access speeds. Play settings can always be cut way down, or the game can be played in Windowed mode (which, I can understand if you wouldn’t want to).

In other words, get any old laptop, at least a gig of memory (maybe more), and get any affordable graphic card. I know you can fetch that for under a grand; it just won’t be playing some games right off the shelf.

Mostly, it’s just an issue of WOW for me.  I actually play in “gasp” Windows Mode quite often, lol. It enables me to consult Wowwiki or Wowhead and manipulate VENT while playing.

Dell XPS is what I use...it’s a work horse...and many hours of gaming fun.

Oooooooo, Red Flag mental note for Dell XPS.

Les, I know I’ve said this before, but if you build a box, don’t skimp on the power supply.  It isn’t the wattage that matters, it’s the quality.  My favorite machines have used supplies from PC Power & Cooling.  And by “favorite” I mean, systems that have run without a hiccup until their motherboards are ludicrously outdated.

The reason for this is better power regulation.  As line voltage varies, you want a supply that delivers steady, clean power.  Most people buy a cool new case, which is fine.  First thing they should do is take out the cheap-assed power supply and toss it in the trash.

THANKS for the reminder, DOF!

Mostly, it’s just an issue of WOW for me.  I actually play in “gasp” Windows Mode quite often, lol. It enables me to consult Wowwiki or Wowhead and manipulate VENT while playing.

Well, with a reasonably new (but not TOO new) dual core, a HP onboard graphics processor and 2 gigs RAM I can assure anyone that WOW not only plays fine you can switch in and out of it easily even with OpenOffice and Firefox running in the background.

Of course, that’s with XP on the machine too. I got in a month or so before they switched to Vista, so I don’t know what inflated requirements might be required if you end up using Vista.

Since I’m not a gamer, I don’t know the true requirements for WoW.  However, most of the performance issues that can crop up in non-gaming use can usually be mitigated by tuning XP services and effects.  Of course, more memory helps most of all.

A relative of mine bought a low end laptop with Vista basic preinstalled.  With the installed 512MB of RAM, it took literally 3-4 minutes to boot.  Upping it to 2GB cut it in half, but still ...  I’m planning on avoiding Vista as long as I can.

Avoid Vista indefinitely - buy a Mac

This just popped up on the radar, Tom’s Hardware Holiday Buying Guide. Hmmm, they seem to be catering this buying guide to the high end computer builder.

On the drift topic;
Theo - Do you not have your own porn supply? (you don’t have to answer) I find it difficult to think that someone using it long-term who is at ease with using it could reach the conclusion. It makes me feel relaxed, in fact I get the tension out of my system and find am able to deal with women more as people. I do not feel dominant or powerful using it, because I know it’s just an image

Either someone is dominant or they’re not, need for dominance is out of the insecurity of feeling like they need to be, that’s exhibited in their general behaviour.

Patness: Getting them laid would only allow a temporary lapse of otherwise permanent torture

What if that torture was virgity in a society that looks down on it? That would end in the person’s mind. Granted they’d be looked down on even more for raping, but at least they’ve moved on.

Yes it is. You rape a woman, you need two things. One, sex. Two, control

Control would not be your objective if you only wanted to end virginity. It would be a ways+means to the sex that would do that.

Doing this requires harsh callousness, recklessness and disregard for the welfare of the rape victim

The rapist may end up balancing their needs against the percieved ones of the victim. They may feel that on net, they gained more than the victim suffered. Their sympathy may also be stubbed for their victims if they’ve been harshly treeted by women.

Sexually repressed men sometimes hold the view that it’s easier for women, all the woman has to do is wait for a partner to come along, they don’t have to be proactive about it (and it’s the inability to be proactive, and the dependance upon it that causes these men problems). If the man feels life is unfair on him, he may feel like he’s equalizing the score a little.

They may be aware of the suffering, but feel it’s outweighed. In other aspects of life you have to balance your own needs against those of others - you cannot afford to be completely self-sacrificing because that would be a form of hell if you gave everything away, but on the other hand total selfishness may cause harm to begin with. I agree that stigmas must end, that is one of my objectives to work towards.

and you have described to me a number of ways in which you have trivialized rape as an attempt to fulfill a personal need, and not a deliberate attempt to debilitate another human being

It’s not always out of vengance or spite, just disregard.
A psychopathic rapist wouldn’t feel spite for example, they feel no emotion, they’d just be horny and a user

Avoid Vista indefinitely - buy a Mac

That’s simply bad advice in general for anyone who’s expressed any interest in running games on their computer. Worse, since we’re talking about someone who already owns PC games you’re telling them to go out and buy those games again to run on a Mac, or run them on the Mac using Windows which seems to be a good way to waste money on the Apple pricing overhead.

Plus I can’t recall seeing a Mac under a thousand dollars that wasn’t a lot outdated. Even on the top end of the low price retail box PCs you could get a PC with a dual core and a couple of sticks of gig memory for $700, and I’m betting that even a tiny bit of shopping as we come up on Thanksgiving should produce something for around $500 - ignoring entirely the idea of simply assembling a computer for $300 out of old PCs and a new motherboard/additional RAM.

I don’t dislike Macs, but a lot of the reasons to buy Macs started fading away when you’ve got an owner like Les who can fairly easily attend a PC and who (I’m guessing) would have to learn a whole new set of skills to know a Mac top to bottom as well.

However, I despise the tentacle themes and am turned off by all styles which including violent rape scenes… There is a mind boggling difference between seduction and rape.

Mrs. SEB- I will agree with you absolutely about the turnoff of rape and violence.  Indeed, I can’t imagine what anyone finds attractive about it.  But tentacles can be fun…

[buy a Mac is] simply bad advice in general for anyone who’s expressed any interest in running games on their computer…

I have heard that Vista isn’t a great gaming platform either.  Probably better off getting a game console, for what I understand they’re a bargain of price/performance.

But as general advice for people looking to buy a computer to do regular computer stuff, I am beginning to see the Mac as a better option.  Vista is such a piece of crap…

Perhaps, but you can run XP on a PC as easily as Vista still and you can do it for cheaper than you can buy a Mac and replace all of your PC games for it.

To drift the topic further- while we are on the Hardware purchasing kick.

My step son wants/needs net access in his room- new computer for college course, but luckily running XP, so we are looking at wireless.

I’m currently running AOL (and no changing isn’t really an option) through a BT phoneline, at alledgedly 8Meg (the DSL modem icon in the system tray bottom right gives Rx of 7616kpbs Tx 448kbps) The distance is about 25 feet.

Is there anything I should be looking for/avoiding in a router? The ones I am looking at are measuring speeds in Mbps- logically I equate the speed I gave abouve at 7.6 Mbps, or is there some cunning change in definition when you get to routers? Would say 54Mbps be fine, as we can’t go faster than the phone line speed?  The modem is currently physically linked to my computer via USB cable.  Would I have to get a wireless receiver for this one as well?  Is there anything else I should know?

Thanks

What seems to happen when you jump from a wireless router with 10mbps reported to 54 is you seem better performance because the technology used in the 54 is a better technology. If you can afford it I recommend finding a cheap wireless N router.

Here are my recommendations:
Buffalo: in my mind one of the best brands.
DLink: I think I have this one and it is pretty damn nice
Even cheaper DLink
DLink: Cheaper Still

The last one is a G router which should still give you plenty of performance. Cheaper ones can be found if you look hard enough.

Hope something here helps.

MM writes…

...a lot of the reasons to buy Macs started fading away when you’ve got an owner like Les who can fairly easily attend a PC and who (I’m guessing) would have to learn a whole new set of skills to know a Mac top to bottom as well

Actually I am somewhat familiar with Macs, though less so since the advent of OS X. I used to be a Desktop Publishing Coordinator for a local Kinkos back when I was in my early 20s and I had to use a Mac to do the job. I believe that was OS 7 back then, but I’m not sure. Anyway I got to know the Mac quite well. There’d be a bit of a learning curve with OS X, but probably not as huge as someone who’s never touched one and with the hardware being standard off-the-shelf PC hardware these days that aspect of it shouldn’t be a problem. That said, I’m not going to buy a Mac.

DOF writes…

I have heard that Vista isn’t a great gaming platform either.

Vista is fine for games. The issues are the same issues that everyone always has when there’s a new OS release. Namely A) the new OS requires more resources to run at its best and B) the drivers still aren’t a mature as they should be.

People have a really short memory when it comes to OS upgrades it seems. I can remember how back when Windows XP was released everyone who was used to running Windows 98 bitched about the same damn things they’re bitching about with the release of Vista. How the performance isn’t as good, how it takes up too many resources, how the drivers suck, and all of that was true for awhile. Then as people bought newer machines with more power and the standard builds increased the amount of RAM and the drivers matured all of that bitching went away.

I fully expect the same thing to happen with Vista. It’s not perfect, but then no Windows OS ever is. It is a step up from XP and has more than a few advantages in my experience.

Probably better off getting a game console, for what I understand they’re a bargain of price/performance.

I did that, but neither the PS3 or Xbox 360 will run World of Warcraft which is an absolute requirement.

But as general advice for people looking to buy a computer to do regular computer stuff, I am beginning to see the Mac as a better option.

There have been people in the past that I’ve recommended Macs to on the basis of what they wanted to do and how PC literate they happen to be. I’ve suggested it to my parents more than once, but they look at the cost and decide they can put up with Windows for the time being.

Apple would sell a lot more machines if they didn’t jack the price up so much. They’ve always charged a premium (sometimes close to 200% profit) for their hardware and they’ll continue to be second class until they stop doing that.

Double dipping because I forgot to respond to LH’s question:

Is there anything I should be looking for/avoiding in a router? The ones I am looking at are measuring speeds in Mbps- logically I equate the speed I gave abouve at 7.6 Mbps, or is there some cunning change in definition when you get to routers? Would say 54Mbps be fine, as we can’t go faster than the phone line speed?

Here’s what you need to know in a nutshell: First, your internet connection cannot exceed what your DSL modem provides. So if you have an 8Mbps connection then that’s as fast as it’ll ever go.

That said there are advantages to having a higher speed router if you do a lot of PC to PC transfers on your network (e.g. from your PC to your son’s PC without hitting the Internet at all). In that case the faster your router the less time it will take to finish the job. 

The way a router works is it sets up a small network that you hook your PCs into and then it pretends to be a PC itself for your DSL/Cable modem. It then moves data from your home network onto the Internet (and vice versa) as needed. To the Internet it looks like a single computer and to your home PCs it looks like another PC passing along data. Most routers also have a 4 port switch built into them so you can hook PCs up using standard cat 5 cable and that’ll run at either 10 or 100 Mbps depending on the network card in the PCs you’re plugging in. So the speed issue only comes into play when you’re talking about PCs connected using wireless cards and even then it only really matters when you dealing with transfers from one PC to another on your network.

Range is also an issue and, as a general rule of thumb, the faster the router the further its range (not ALWAYS true, but most of the time it is). For most folks 802.11G works just fine giving enough range and speed for what they do, but there’s no harm in going 802.11 Draft N if you want to.

The routers Webs listed are all reasonable choices, but I’ve gotten particularly fond of Linksys as of late. I’m currently using the Wireless-G Media Storage Link Router with SpeedBooster (WRTSL54GS) because it includes a USB port on the back that you can hook up an external hard drive to for a simple form of network storage. That’s probably not a necessary feature for most people, but I find it handy.

Bought a router and USB thingy for his machine, checked I could keep mine hardwired in (saving buying another USB thingy. Got home. Can’t find the AOL installation CD. Have had to explain to a Indian call centre what I need (no problem- just need the software)- delivery 5-6 days.

Bugger.

This is just a guess, but you shouldn’t need the AOL install disc to get him working unless the way AOL broadband works in the U.K. is considerably different than it is here.

Scratch that, even if you DO need it then just download the client from AOL directly to your PC and burn it to CD/put it on a thumb drive. You’ve got one PC working already so just use it to get the software you need.

HA! The story continues.  The reason I needed the disc is for the AOL front end log in screen- I have to tell Ben’s machine its AOL we want to use.  If you don’t connect with AOL first, IE sits there and says ‘No connection’- though I always use AOL’s browser. 

So I phone AOL, spoke to someone in India- after all the normal ‘press 1’ routine, who I am not sure understood the problem, but has ordered the software.

Of course, with in 10 minutes I had found the original disc.

Tried to set up. I leave him installing the little receiver thing that goes on the client computer, while I start on the ‘main’ computer (though as his is newer it’s probably more powerful).

New Problem- Modem/Puter connection is USB, not RJ45. Belkin (online PDF) manual suggests I contact ISP about getting a RJ45 modem. Also, the list of settings on a slip in the box does not include AOL UK. Now I did ask, knowing there was a problem with some stuff, and the guy in the shop said ‘yeah its fine’. Thinking about it I should have accepted more than ‘its all standard’ reply.

Have emailed AOL on the special Tech help page (ie not actual ‘email’- a fill in the box page) asking about Modems.  However, if they don’t give freebies out, need to find somewhere that sells AOL compatable Broadband modems.  Have also asked them about the settings.

If ‘we don’t support it’ answer, back to the shop to complain.

Meantime Ben has net access- I think he is piggybacking our neighbours- whose router is probably just as close a ours will be!  I’ve pointed out the complete lack of security he has.

We did consider a modem router, but to save money on buying a second receiver for Puter #1 we went with the wiring from router only. That saving may well go on the new modem unless anyone knows if you can get a USB to RJ45 cable/adapter thingy.

I’ve still got the setting up to look forward to. My computer degree course was in 1989. We thought email was a pretty neat idea…

You mean to say the modem they supplied doesn’t have a standard RJ45 connector in addition to the USB connector? That’s pretty much standard on most modems.

One more reason AOL sucks ass.

The modem is BT, though it is supplied as part of the AOL start up pack. At the time I bought it I didn’t know, I just got what seemed to be the best fit tech/money wise. AOL doesn’t impose any download limits, and was among the cheapest subscriptions going for the speed.  To be fair I have never had any customer service compliants, I have been upgraded 2-3 times, and am now at 8 meg for the same price, and have never had any problems getting on line. Plus I subscribe to the McAfee pack they do, which works out cheaper than buying a new subscription to a equivalent package each year.

Latecomer to this thread, but here’s my 2 cents:

I play WoW on my first-generation MacBook, which is 2x1.83Ghz Intel Core Duo processors and 1 GB of RAM, and Intel GMA 950 graphics. I’d describe its performance as passable - fps averages about 15-20 but lowers in some of the new places in Outland where Blizzard have employed more sophisticated lighting techniques; Shattrath City can be especially laggy.

I wouldn’t necessarily recommend a Mac over a similarly specced Windows PC. WoW is something you list as being important, and it does work well on OS X, but if you use TeamSpeak or Ventrilo you may have issues. There isn’t yet an official TeamSpeak client for the Mac and the only unofficial client doesn’t work with all servers. The official Mac Ventrilo client also doesn’t work with all servers, especially older ones running 2.1, which means using something like CrossOver.

Though I prefer the OS X user experience, if you’re going to be using your laptop for gaming you probably want Windows. The Intel GMA X3100 is supposed to be much better than the 950 for graphics performance so if you see a laptop with one of those you can probably expect reasonable framerates, but also look out for mobile options from ATi and nVidia, though I imagine they’ll be more expensive.

As far as WoW goes its system requirements are modest but it’ll relish a high-end system, so just go with whatever your budget allows.