spent my entire Friday evenin' fixin' me sister's 'puter…

'coz the last time I did it, me nephew, Joshua interrupted the installation a couple of times with the power button… and nonetheless, a couple of things didn't work right…

I promised me sister that I'd fix it later… well, last night became later… I chose the aquarium theme for me nephews… children like to see fishies… pretty kewl screensaver, looks like a real salt water aquarium!

anyhow, since she's pretty much a safe user of the internet, I didn't bother to install ANY antivirus or antispyware in her 'puter…

the only security software I installed (which was actually the 1st thing I installed after the OS installation) is AOL's 9.0 SE (Security Edition)… this is the 1st time I've actually felt that AOL has finally designed somethin' right… prior to their "Security Edition", all their other versions were extremely aggressive in installing icons of itself in every nook & cranny of the OS… I couldn't stand ALL previous versions 'coz it felt like it was the worst adware program you had to install, if you are subscribed to their services…

this is not the original default state… (which was 129MB at start-up… and that wasn't such a good thing 'coz it was usin' ALL of the built-in RAM and then some, at start-up!)

I had to do some tweaks (both old stuff I've known about for 3 yrs. and some new stuff I just learned yesterday! the new stuff I just learned definitely works! it shaved-off 21MB at start-up!) to get my laptop down to this start level…

with the exception of usin' Firefox, I'm gonna see how far I can go without havin' any 3rd party security software installed into my laptop… yup… me laptop's doesn't have ANY antivirus & antispyware installed in it… I'm bravin' the internet without them! and, I'm relyin' on me own chary approach with the internet to keep me laptop safe…

I need to conserve as many resources I can with me laptop to prevent it from slowin' down… it's memory is already maxed out… and, it's disappointin' to know that I can't add anymore RAM…

"This image released by the journal "Science" shows the walking robot Cornell which researchers unveiled Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005, in Washington at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The robot was developed by researchers at Cornell University and uses what the researchers called a "passive-dynamic design" that closely mimics the way humans walk. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Cornell University)"

"This image released by "Science" shows robots which researchers unveiled Thursday, Feb. 17, 2005, in Washington at the national meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. MIT, center, is a learning, walking robot, while Delta, left, and Cornell, right, are two less advanced walking models. (AP Photo/Image courtesy of Steven H. Collins)"

watch all 3 of them walk! kinda kewl!

the top is my new replacement cable-modem! my old cable-modem has a 2 yrs. warranty… and they exchanged it for a DOCSIS 2.0!!! it's an upgrade!!!

below is my bro's recently malfunctioned cable-modem… since his is still under 6 mos., it's definitely under whatever warranty he's got for his… so, I'm lendin' him mine, till he gets his repaired/replaced…

this is my makeshift radiator…

group together the power adaptors for the cable-modem, router, & 2 laptops… bingo! little radiator on me desk!

as of now, I don't know any residential broadband service provider that's faster than them!

imagine symmetrical 100Mbps for $35/mo.!!!

and then, before mid-year, they'll be offerin' symmetrical 1Gbps!!! damn them!!!

wish they were here in L.A.! too bad, they're only in Hong Kong!

uuuuuuggghhh… Ed somehow got his laptop infected with malware & spyware again… despite the 3 antispyware I've intalled into his laptop…

well… even though I think that I've managed to remove the ones that were detected, I think that there could be more that weren't detected 'coz it was actually difficult to remove the ones that got into his laptop… it was a combination of 2 antispyware and several consecutive rescanning (which kept findin' more after each rescan…)… I also found some software that I'm not familiar with in the "Add or Remove Programs" and one of them is quite stubborn to "Remove"… and there are 2 very suspicious Startup Items that I found and disabled it the "System Configuration Utility"… these are the reasons why I still feel that redoin' his laptop is the simplest way to be 100% sure that they're all totally gone…

but, before I take the arduous task of redoin' his laptop, I'm gonna obviously back it up but I'm also gonna be testin' other things with it… I might as well make it into a beta tester before he comes back for it next week or so…

the Genius Bar???

so, if you need help w/ your Apple, you have to ask a "Genius"? are they that difficult to use? the whole idea of needing help from a "Genius" just makes Mac OS X seem more daunting…

awesome monitor!!!