I don't think it was anything to do with the drive as I have already had it plugged in to format it. I think it may have been that the old PC has been sitting somewhere cold and damp.

Ah... well that's not too bad then. Good luck. man.

I think i may have posted this before, but the problem is ongoing.

Whenever my roommate runs torrents, it kills the the internet for the rest of us. It doesn't matter if he's moving 8 or 800 kb, it becomes impossible to surf or conect to second life.

I've made sure his ports are forwarded. I've capped his maximum download at the reasonable rate of 300kb and uploads at 20kb, and nothing.

When i download torrents on MY computer, i have no such problem.

I usually have to reset the modem after he's done to be able to surf again.

HIs computer is using vista, mine's on windows 2000.

any ideas?

Do you know what client he's using?

Some are more aggressive than others, such as bitlord.

Depending on OS, probably µTorrent or Transmission would be the best options.

Okay, I need a geek.

I record audio on my Mac using various software, one of which is the GarageBand program. I never had any problems using it, until the other day it propmted me to install an update. Normally I would just click 'remind me later', but I chose to install. It popped up the size of the download, which was a lot, so I decided I would do it when I was done using the program. I clicked 'quit', and then once GarageBand had finished loading, it unexpectedly quit itself. I tried to load it back up, an it did the same thing.

I decided to go ahead and download the update and install it, which I did through Mac's own utility for doing so. Afterwords, it said that there was an additional update, so i downloaded that one, too. After both were installed, I restarted my computer and went to start the program, only to find out that the updates did nothing to fix the problem.

I don't know what I did, but I obviously screwed something up.

Pleeeeeeeeeeeease help me, somebody. I use the thing a LOT, and this really sucks.

I take it you don't have Time Machine running on that 'puter.

(If you've just slapped your forehead, go to that and see if you can't restore the configuration from there).

The only other thing really is to completely uninstall the app, start again and be wary of that update when it comes up again.

Not sure, but this may mean you have to uninstall/reinstall the whole of iLife.

he was using bitlord, but then i switched him to utorrent to see if that would help, and it hasn't.

Do you know what your connection's up and down speeds are?

If not, go here and it will tell you pretty accurately (make sure there's nothing else running on the network when you test it though...)

Also, do you know what security your roomie is running?

Part of the problem with bit torrent is that it will open many different connections to other people. I'm assuming you are hooked up to a router with your friend's computer.

What is probably happening is that your internet connection is not getting maxed out, it is your router that is at it's limit of connections.

Check the configuration of the torrent program to limit the number of connections. I don't know what a reasonable number is, but if you can find it, try to cut it in half and see how that works.

*edit

I did a quick search and found this. Looks like you should try setting the global connections down to around 10.

down: 1700kb
up: 650kb

rounded, of course. And he's got mcafee and the onboard windows stuff.

I'll check that in a while, then

i checked and adjusted all of those settings, no improvement.

:|

WARNING...Programming geek talk

I encountered these problems while fixing a DB someone else built.

Instead of determining why an error was being generated, they just coded to ignore it. In all circumstances, through out the entire module.

Used < in comparing strings (ie, if Variable < "0", where variable is a string field.

Converted a string variable...to a string variable.

Would this make sense under any circumstances?

If you asked me, I'd say no. But you'd better not ask me.

Sorry Maven, but this is coder talk - entirely different topic.

Any iPhone users want to share the apps they have installed?

Here are some of mine:

Google apps - mail, reader, calendar, docs, talk, et cetera
Page Once - consolidates information from many different online accounts. things like utilities, financial institutions, social networking, etc.
Bubble wrap - silly bubblewrap popping game
Bubbles - drag your finger around the screen and create bubbles. touch the bubbles to pop them.
Pandora - customized music stations (a must have)
Weatherbug - track weather for up to 3 locations, also includes radar maps
Evernote - gather information though images, notes, and store/categorize them. haven't really used this much, but i guess it will be useful at some point
iPhone Saber - turn your iPhone into a light saber (sort of)
OneTrip - create a shopping list on your iphone - very cool
Save Benjis - tracks prices of all kinds of products
Spanish - spanish phrases

Is there an easy way in PHP to check if a $string contains any of a number of words defined elsewhere?

Like, I get a sentence user has inputted, say it's called $sentence and on one instance it consists of "I have green apples", and I want to check it if for any of the following words; "blue,red,green,tomato".

If it would, I'd like the script to perform certain job and if not continue on. In my example it would, but if the $sentence was "I have meningitis" it wouldn't.

Box Office is great for finding showtimes at nearby theaters using your location.

eBay is quite handy if you're watching an item, selling OR buying

Tomatoes is a fast way to see if that movie your thinking of going to/renting is any good

World 9 is deliciously fun. It makes a Mario noise when you jump or run with the phone in your pocket :)

Somehow, a program has downloaded itself onto my computer. It calls itself "Antivirus 2009". It masquerades as a Windows antivirus program and essentially makes the computer completely unusable.

I have "ZoneAlarm" installed on this computer (don't ask me, wasn't my choice). Nary a peep have I heard about this new spyware. It still insists that there is *nothing* wrong with my computer.

I just downloaded a trial version of Norton Internet Security, and even scanned the .exe file with it. Two hours and one long laborious scan later, Norton is happy to report that my computer is clean.

*Bangs head repeatedly on desk*

I don't freaking know what to do already. I'm on the verge of taking it in to be serviced.

Any last-ditch suggestions*?


*that don't include wiping the harddrive and starting over?

http://www.xp-vista.com/spyware-removal/antivirus2... try here

It's a Smitfraud variant.

I've never understood why, but almost all of the standard security tools have never been able to deal with this, even though it's been around since about 2001.

Not to worry - help is at hand from SmitFraudFix



All you need to do is download this:



Then follow the instructions that are on that page.

Simplified, download it, run it with option 1, reboot in safe mode, run it again with options 2 and then 3 and then reboot normally - one clean computer.

Usually it gets on your system from streaming video sites by telling you you need to update a codec or some such.

Spyware Terminator is about the only antispyware program that will detect if before install.