Thomas Bags

I've been trying to find a nicely priced gaming laptop, and after doing a bit of searching I've found MSI GT627-216 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

It has all the specs I want, and can easily overclock with the push of a button

But then I came across Gateway P-7801u http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...

it has better screen, battery, and a slight GPU upgrade, but no idea if it can overclock to the power of the MSI laptop

Without overclocking the Gateway is a much better deal, but if it can't overclock then the MSI can kick it's butt in performance.

So do any of you know if the Gateway is overclockable like the MSI?

also a note, the gateway is no longer available at newegg but they have them in stock at a local best buy

I'm wondering if a banana jack, commonly used on speakers, can fit into the hole of a standard RCA hole?

I'm currently in a position where I will be ending up in switching to AT&T. This has given me the idea of possible purchasing an old used 1st gen iPhone without 3g. I was wondering if it was possible to use the iPhone with just a basic phone plan, minus data plans (I'd rather not pay for that and just use wifi) and such and just connect it to a basic family plan with a set number of text and minutes.

I am wondering if it is possible to use a Jawbone bluetooth headset as a PC headset with a USB bluetooth adapter

I'm looking to buy some potentiometers to test but what is the difference of audio and linear tapers?

I am looking for smallest one possible for a laptop to fit in the case, and for it to at least have as many buttons as a PS2/3 or Xbox pad (2 sticks, d-pad, 4 buttons, dual shoulders, start/select).

Okay well, recently last night I had a quite painful time with a bowel movement. It resulted in just a bit coming out and a lot of blood along with it, which really freaked me out. I checked what came out and it seemed pretty lumpy and such, so I got some laxative and preparation H. Today I have tried several times to pass the rest and no luck so far, but today I also figured out what caused this.

I had eaten a whole tube of those 50 cent sunflower seeds you get from wallgreens or anywhere with shells and all. And well, the seeds did not seems to get digested and I am pretty cut up.

What I was wondering is, is this small enough to just try and let pass or do I need to get it flushed out or something.

I was definitely the most painful movement I've had in my life and I'm definitely not making the mistake of eating seeds hole again.

I need a good data recovery program for a hard drive that has been having some trouble. It somehow managed to loose the MBR and now reads as a RAW hard drive, but if I reformat it I will loose my data, so I would like to try to get whatever I can off it, if any. I'm gonna pitch it afterward because I think it's about dead and needs to be replaces but this is just a last attempt to recover whatever I can.

I have both ingredients, iron oxide (red) and aluminum powder (3.4µ size), but unsure how I should mix them. For one, I'm not sure which ratios provide the best reaction and second I don't know how I can measure them because I do not have a scale.

In your opinion what gets the best quality per bit? This is not only an XviD/DivX question, you can mention any codec around.

While attempting to play a video in iTunes, the window comes up and shows about the first frame but with these pixelated boxes going down diagonally across the video. The computer locks up except for the mouse then for a quick second I get scrambled graphics lines down the screen and it goes black leading to a GPU crash and I must restart my computer.

I'm not sure what is causing the problem but other videos in other programs play just fine, this is iTunes specific. Also I am very worried about this because it looks like it causes harm to my graphics card and do not want to risk anything.

My system information:

Windows XP Pro

iTunes 7.6.2.9

ATI Radion HD 3850 (currently set to 500 MHz GPU Clock and 829 Memory Clock)

Catalyst Control Center 2008.0225.2153.39091

RivaTuner 2.08

I believe I have the most updated drivers and all updates with the latest version of iTunes, so I'm not sure if it's a problem with latest version or something.

Personally I enjoy photography, but not professionally and rather as a hobby and have decided on purchasing my own digital camera. I really have no knowledge of what brand is the best or what I need in terms of specifics of exposure and settings but I have a basic outline of some features I want.

The price range I am looking in is $100-$200 with hopes of hitting somewhere in the middle. I'd prefer the memory card type to be SD because I really love that format and I have bunch of Micro-SDs with adapters for about every single card type there is. Also as far as mega-pixels go, I don't care for ridiculously huge pictures so 6-7 range is just fine. Plus I know it's not how big the picture is, it's how well the camera takes the picture. Also I would prefer a lense that has a good zoom range and cannot only take pictures that are right in front of you. Also size, I would like a smaller camera so I could carry it in my bags but if it's really, really good, size doesn't matter as much.

I am running Windows XP Pro and I have a router, Westell 327W. How can I change my IP address?

I mostly don't understand the popularity of parallel printer ports. I know they can be used for other things than printers but it just seems like such a large and bulky connector that consumers rarely use in their newer PC setups. I can see it isn't ready to be completely phased out but it seems that it is in just about every single new motherboard I see and to me it's just a waste of connectors, space, and power.

As for serial ports I post the same argument, but I do think serial ports are a little more useful than the parallel port.

What is even more annoying is when they are on laptops because its just something that sticks out and makes the laptop just a little more awkward of a shape.

So what is your take on this?

I have someone with an older computer that sadly does not support PCI Express graphics cards and only has a slot for AGP. I know they are now obsolete and old technology but I was looking for the best card for its price, hopefully below $150 and most likely not as high as $200.

This is not a high powered gaming person and just wants a better graphics card for average gameplay, hopefully to be good enough to play something like Half Life 2 on medium or something at 800x600.

Also we are not planning for a new motherboard. We do not have the resources or willing to save up the money for a new system, this is just a basic graphics card upgrade and nothing more.

Okay, well I was just about to come on here and ask what was going on. My BIOS on the computer I was using did not detect my HDD, however the windows install disc and other bootable CDs did. The actual problem turned out to be the jumper pin settings, there was only 1 hard disk but I had it on Master. I tried CS (Cable Select) and it worked. I guess Master and Slave are only for if you use 2 drives on 1 cable. I hope this helps anyone else who has this problem.

Or are there any hints of it being supported in the future?

I have an Athlon 64 2x 3800+ (2-2.2 Ghz) ATI Radion 3850 (overclocked to 730 mHz max, 256 vRAM 1010 mHz max). About how stable and fast do you think PS2 games would run? Also while on the subject, how well do you think PSX (PS1) games would run?

Well first off PSP can read CompactFlash cards with an adapter (Max Media one is the most well known) and then there have been some 1.5 HDD to CF converters (1.5 HDD are basically like iPod hard drives). So do you think it may be possible to rig up a hard disc for the PSP, amping up the storage to something like 10-20 GB (any more I would think it might not recognize).

Or thinking about this, SSD but they are pricey but a good concept I think.

I was thinking of creating one to reduce and nearly eliminate noise generated by a PC case. Basically I guess it would just be a mic and speaker in the case that monitored ambient sound and produced the opposite frequency of the ambient sound and maybe that would create a more silent case. Now I do think there would be a problem with the mic picking up frequency from the speaker but not entirly sure.

What do you think of the idea?