Mosillivo

The whole password with leet thing is entirely noobish. I may be wrong, but I'm probally right. See, once upon a time, there were SMART PEOPLE... and these smart people learned a trick. That most routers have default passwords of... password! Then the idiots came, and rather than learn complex passwords such as 32gPry9Kql18 they though leet would be better. They were wrong, brute force hacking accounts for leet... and it has a "special characters" table (because the idiots thought that no one would ever guess they used special characters). To be a little more clear, I "believe" you're just changing the admin's password from blank to something stupid (like p?ssw0rD only a noob would do that. jc0FJ4vZVk is a better password a million times over... hell PASSWORD is a better password than THAT). Just press and HOLD the windows key and then press R. That opens the run command line (of course, with vista, you can just "search" but I highly dislike that feature [mostly because they made the startmenu less responsive to "force" me to use search. I keep a clean start menu, highly organized... I KNOW where everything is...) But again, just HOLD the windows key and press R, or open the start menu and search "CMD". Run it. Now type: net user administrator Net user administrator /active:yes and you're done, without the stupid leet. In ADDITION, you can actually copy those two lines (as is, both at once) and right click the "bar" at the top of the window. A menu should open up, select Edit, then paste... it SHOULD automatically execute both of them (or one, depending if you grabbed the "enter / line break" character. RANT Defrags Do's and Don'ts Don't use defrags if you're an idiot. Sorry for the harsh terminology but the fact is the CRAP that is Vista exists because "idiots" use computers. (And I don't mean UAC. Most of the advanced controls have been removed, and I'm not even certain there ARE registry hacks for all of them... so PLEASE, if you have NO IDEA what defragging does... don't use the tool. Don't use Windows Vista Defrag. Anyone who "claims" that Vista is some uber awesome operating system has some serious issues (davey). "System Restore" exists for idiots, dllcache? Idiots. If you're a person who A) Downloads porn "codecs" Watches Porn C) In anyway what so ever utilizes the internet to get porn You probably will get malware. YAY, you get to open up system restore! But other than that, it's rather hard to GET malware... thus making the whole need for system restore seem rather pointless. (Aside from drivers, that is... but a smart person would open up safe mode, uninstall the conflicting drivers and reinstall the old ones. Takes longer, but it doesn't take up 1GB of your hard drive to do it)) Of COURSE, dllcache is SUPERIOR to System Restore when it comes to simple conflicts (Vista doesn't have it?) but if you're not deleting system files... and not installing malware... and most certainly not doing anything cuckoo. You should never see a warning that warrants dllcache. But I, on the other hand, use to have a drive image... so around 800mb and 3min to a perfect install of XP. Unfortunately I'm a little stuck right now while I hunt down drivers Use a Defragger to "Compact" the HD. Now there are a few misconceptions (davey)... a tighter defrag map means your computer gains a MASSIVE speedboost. On load. I procrastinated defragging so my boottime was quite horrible, but after bringing it down to 5% (from around 15% I believe) I noticed an immediate difference between loading times. But you probally mean having it all blue right? Well WRONG AGAIN! Having low density clusters means that the hard drive will have to spin back to the high density area and then back to the individual low density clusters. Basically, more spinning less reading. Now Windows Vista does a wonderful job at creating fragmented files (Seriously, I don't understand it... XP was never this bad), my guess would be Vista tries to manage the drive by placing files at the first availiable spot instead of tacking it onto the end. (I'm not certain if XP actually did that, or if I just kept my drive more compact... but having a 1gb file with 147 fragments is sad... worse is that I have 80% freespace). But back on topic, a good defrager not only "compacts" the drive, it moves files closer to their repective files (such as files in "9gb game" will be close to eachother so the drive doesn't have to work so long and you have shorter load times (mostly between levels, but if textures aren't all in memory there "should" be a noticable difference there [expecally if the directory is heavily fragmented]) But there IS a problem. Some files are constantly modified (Such as the WMI log) so if those expand out, beyond the clusters allocated to it, it'll become fragmented. This is where "analysis" software comes into play. By taking copies of the (mft?) and comparing the changes, defrag software can determine the aproximate amound of buffer space that each file needs to be provided. An easier method involves simply comparing the "creation and modified" dates, but the "buffer space" is aproximated instead. If a file, like WMI, fluctuates between 4 and 32MB then at it's lowest it'll have 28MB "around" the file, but not locked to the file. That means other files can get written into the bufferspace... expecally if new files aren't tacked onto the end instead of being put in the nearest availiable space. I'm not certain if the bufferspace can be locked (the MFT has bufferspace... but that's a special file right?) but even if you manage to lock it, you will mostlikely be reducing the availiable freespace in excahange for reducing fragmation THIS is the tradeoff you have to consider. I'm not certain if Defraggler allocates bufferspace or not (I'm too lazy to find out... but ANYTHING is better than Vista's Defrag "Done in a few min or sevearl hours" [and no reports D:<, at least XP was kind enough to tell you that it didn't want to defrag everything]). DO: Partition your hard drive to separate the operating system, programs, and "documents" from each other. There are some cons... but this reduces fragmation by a Signifigant factor. "Documents" being the most modified files... including temp and temporary internet files. (At the very least, temp and temporary internet files should have their own partition. The biggest slowdown with large files because the computer will "copy" instead of "move" but do realize that both temp and internet can expand to, say 5GB, and contract back down. Of course, your biggest boost will be boot time. Since removing most of the programs from C: will mostly leave just the "system files" your HD "SHOULD" have a less difficult time locating the requested filles (at boot) and loading them into memory. Several "boot optimizers" do this artifically by locating files that are loaded at boot and putting them all in the front of the drive. DO: Disable System Restore. Again, only if you're doing something stupid do you need this. Most people who find themselves in a situation that they might benifit from using it, don't even know how to activate it at boot (because a virus can either disable the system restore... or even allow it but infect system restore files... or even while it is restoring!) The benifits are mostly apperant if you mess around with the system. (You should NOT use system restore as a BACKUP. That is STUPID. System restore will not only restore the lost document, by may overwrite other doccuments that had been modified) DO: Use defraggler (but don't quick defrag except to clear the fragmentation before going regular defrag). Some problems have occured, such as me shutting down while forgetting I was running defraggler and having to do some funky things to get vista running again (The ONE time System Restore would have helped... but system repair works just as well). Well, alot of system repair runs actually... It looked like there was a curropt sector but neither scan disk nor disk scan detected anything. I'm guessing MFT Corruption. But, in general, defraging can only improve performance... when things like VISTA'S defrag run's they compact just like everything else... it's just worse than XP's defrag since XP actually attempts to defrag the system... vista sort of makes a half lazy effort. But REALIZE, Defraggers are typically idiot defraggers. Even if I found a REAL PRO Defragger that would let me manually do all the crazy stuff I think up... I would probally never use it. Defraggers are made for people who either don't want to do those calculations, or probally can't (raises hand). If you get decreased performance it's a bad defragger... if another defragger gives you increased performance over defraggler... it may be a better defragger. Depending on what algorithms are used performance benifits can vary... But just realize that defragger is a misnomer. Defraggler is a Disk Optimizer, it does more than "defrag" (in the sense of file fragmentation) it optimizes disk reads... and that means that it makes "intelligent" decisions on what to do. And just a re on the "don't use the tool" YES, defraggers are made for idiots (seriously, there is no better term... and laymen doesn't cut it... because "idiots" might, say, delete files simply because they can't be defragmented... and some of these files might be NEEDED system files. Or they may mash the buttons, repeatedly start and stop the defragger... complain about their computer being slow while running the defragger... or even try running THREE defraggers AT THE SAME TIME [it'll take a THRID of the time!] DO NOT underestimate the stupidity of the laymen... that is why the term idiot is needed... and that, expecally, is why people who don't have a basic understanding shouldn't mess with defraggers. I have a hard enough time trying to "teach" these people that I "might" actually know a little more (I do admit I am not an expert... but sometimes... you SHOULD listen [and I will listen to you, but substatate your claims more than "you're wrong"] because I DID have a chat with this guy who was running 3 separate defrags... (or so he claimed O.o) and he was going on and on about the superior optimization, how it's faster... better... you know, I think he really was just full of it. But there probally are people who DO think like that, thinking more is better (why settle for one SOFTWARE firewall when you can DOWNLOAD 6!) or that all software is the same (vista has a defrag, why use defraggler? You're just trying to get me to install a virus!) So I appologise for the excessive use of Idiot, but understand I am reffering to the catagory of people that software developers most fear... and also the people that are suppose to be smarter than I. I remember stating how usless System Restore was and this person listed off "decent" reasons, then ended up pulling "virus" out... when I finally popped the question of "have you ever used it". I think driver conflict ARE the best reason to use System Restore... but sigh... it most certainly isn't worth the resources to leave it on. Turn it on when you need it, turn it off (and clear the cache) when you don't. (needless to say, he said "no, but if I ever need to it'll be right there". I still recommend making a drive image immediatly after installing the OS and all the drivers... if you move your programs to a separate partition you can even make it after installing all the "essentials" and still take up less space than System Restore (and without the overhead) only a "few" programs actually need to be installed again, as many programs automatically put their registry keys in if missing... and since the image is of the system only, no "files" are lost (true, a few user files and stragglers will be lost... but try to move as much as you can out of C:). [AND, it's a clean install without reinstalling all that software!] The only issue that occurs is if you have a virus... but I still doubt that system restore could help you. *What can I say.. I'm crazy* Oh, but one note.... the tad about "password" and leet... I totally mean that. Those people are imbeciles. The SMART PEOPLE say johnc@yahoo.com, the stupid people? Johnc AT yahoo DOT com. WHY are they stupid? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%...mp;oq=&aqi= Because my bot found their email address. If you're going to give out your email, do so normally.... or do this I'm user johnc with the mail server yahoo While I can program my bot to detect the irregular words "such as Johnc" it's also more difficult than grabbing new emails off of google. Once upon a time, there may have been bots... but the smart people learned to instant message... the idiots came up with the idea of making their emails "locatable by search engine." (Would you actually believe one of those "smart people" who I actually SHOWED that google trick said that "more bots search for @ than AT (it's an EASY alteration) if you REALLY want to be bot happy, do a url=email... but stop spreading these... stupidities. I can't even imagine why someone decided the admin password should be changed to password... and password in LEET none the less.... but it's idiotic, "password" is not a password, "password1" is not a password. ANYTHING with the word password in it... is NOT a password. XJ97374 is a password.... even "ms-sux" is a better password than password. And the "special characters" leet? Thats just a joke, brute force engines are NOT made by idiots... they account for all the UTC-8 (I think) characters, even the non-web standard ones. The end result of that password is JUST that you're going to be more annoyed typing it than a hacker is going to be breaking it.