www.DRRiders.com

That's one thing I don't have is winter blues its mid 60's here rode my bike today. Still pissess me off about the appliance but I found the wiring schematic so i'm going to hot wire the damned thing,i know its one of those idiot switches.

wow.. that sucks. What appliance are you talking about?

One of my friends has the worst bad luck. All his gadgets crap out on him a week after his warranty is up. Been happening consistently for almost 6 years since I've known him.

Washer and it's FIXED eat that maytag repairman. friggen idiot safety switch went open circuit.

Two things both internet related...

WTF is up with all the friggin' 'updates'?!?! I just started using my new laptop (well, bought last year but only used online last summer) instead of the ancient desktop that crashes all the time... and every time I'm online a bunch of updates gets uploaded and when I turn my computer off the friggin' thing takes forever to shut down because of installing all the damn updates. How many friggin' updates do I need? It's filling up my memory every day. This is ridiculous.

The other thing is when somebody posts a question, so someone else takes the time to do some research and post a detailed answer with helpful info and/or links doing their best to help... and the OP completely ignores it. Never even acknowledges the helpful post exists. Come on, people! Have a little common courtesy will ya!?! Would it hurt to say thanks even if you don't agree or find it useful? At least the person tried to help you so show some appreciation. Jeez!

So, I am guessing you use Windows 7 or Vista. Go to system settings, update center and change the setting to "Download only" so you can "install" these downloaded updates whenever you want. (It downloads in the background but doesnt install them)

If you think its still eating up your memory, you can change that to "Notify me of updates" (No download and no install) option to stop it from running in the background. Well, technically its still running but not downloading anything, so it should not be consuming a fair amount of your memory/bandwidth.

PS: Those updates are good for you. I know how much a hacker can infiltrate your computer/data with a simple "Adobe flash player" vulnerability. We dont have to like it, but we all gotta do it I guess..

Yep it's Windows 7. I'll try the "Download only" option. Thanks buddy!

So my cable company calls me that they have a killer deal on a package for Phone+Internet+TV(with HBO) for $90. I was paying $60 for just high speed internet before that. SO I agreed and I was also told this was contract free.

The installation took 3 days including good friday and that saturday and still had problems with phone and internet until yesterday. Today, I got the initial bill, for $280+ out of which monthly is $160 + 1 time installation $48 + pro rate for a potion of months $40 + taxes...

AND it states that this is a2 year agreement.

I am going to war on this one with TWC. If I have to, I will go to the local office that sold me the "Package" o raise hell!!

WTF!!!

[/end-rant]

You can also change the settings so it only downloads the most critical updates, this saves a lot of unnecessary update downloading. You might think a lot of these updates eat memory but maybe they actually save it, I know when I was running Linux that installing updates consistently saved space rather than using up more.

That's a big no-no: saying a contract change is free when it is not. They probably broke their contract by the sales guy telling you that, so see if you can find out what time the call was and what the guy's name is. Always gotta document when stuff like this happens! Documentation, documentation, documentation is the key to winning the battles.

You are right for the most part. But, Windows updating method is quite different from Linux. Starting Vista, every update you make is saved as a snapshot in the system folders in case you have to revert back to that state VIA System recovery. Which eats space.

Also Windows updates are cumulative unlike Linux/Unix/Aix which is almost like a fresh install(for core components at least.)

I would say, if you defrag your drives once in a while and use a program like CCleaner to clear temp files, cleanup registry entries, you can keep windows fairly fast. This is something everyone is supposed to be doing instead of formatting their systems every time it slows down.

All very good points.