CHiLL

Usually if someone does post a massive wall of text and I want to reply to that person, I'll quote them, but edit out most of the quote, only leaving the relevant text I want to reply to.

Anti-Virus
 
Avira AntiVir Personal - Anti-Virus
Microsoft Security Essentials - Anti-Virus
Avast - Anti-Virus
Comodo - Anti-Virus
AVG Free - Anti-Virus
 
Anti-Malware/Spyware
 
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware - Anti-Malware
SuperAntiSpyware - Anti-Malware
SpyBot Search & Destroy - Anti-Malware
 
Firewall
Comodo Internet Security - Personal Firewall
 
Computer Maintenance
CCleaner - Cleans out temporary and unnecessary files and has a registry cleaner.
CPU-Z - Shows specific information about your processor, motherboard and RAM.
GPU-Z - Shows specific information about your graphics processor.
Speccy - Shows specific information about the core components in your computer.
CoreTemp - Displays temperature information about core components in your system.
SpeedFan - Displays temperature information about core components in your system.
RivaTuner - Advanced graphics card control
TreeSize Free - Displays where all your HDD space is allocated, where it's used up
Launchy - Help you find all your files, folders, documents in a snap
Everything Search - Find your files instantly.
Iobit Uninstaller - Uninstaller
 
De-fragmentation - (Not to be used on Solid State Disk Drives)
 
Defraggler - Disc de-fragmentation.
Auslogics Disk Defrag - Disc de-fragmentation.
My Defrag - Disc de-fragmentation.
Puran - Disc de-fragmentation.
 
Office Applications
 
Open Office - Alternative to Microsoft Office Suite.
OpenProj - Alternative to Microsoft Project
Libre Office - Alternative to Microsoft Office Suite
Wink - Tutorial and presentation creation software
Freemind - Mindmapping software
 
Internet Browsers & Download Tools
 
Mozilla Firefox - Internet browser provided by Mozilla.
Google Chrome - Internet browser provided by Google.
Opera - Internet Browser
Safari - Internet browser provided by Apple.
Seamonkey - Open source browser based on Firefox with integrated Thunderbird mail client.
Iron - Chrome without all the tracking.
JDownloader - Download Manager.
Free Download Manager - Download Manager.
uTorrent - Download manager.
Orbit Download Manager - Download Manager.
FlashGet - Download Manager.
RDesc - Download Manager (Rapidshare and Megaupload)
 
Media Players & Codecs
 
VLC Media Player - Media player which plays nearly all media files.
GOM Player - Media player which plays nearly all media files.
Media Player Classic - Media player which plays nearly all media files.
K-Lite Media Codec Pack - Codec pack containing all the codecs you should ever need.
iTunes - Media Player provided by Apple.
Media Monkey - Music Player.
FooBar2000 - Music Player.
 
Messaging Programmes
 
Windows Live Messenger - Messenger service provided by Microsoft.
Pidgin - Multi-service messenger which can connect to Microsoft, AIM, Google, Yahoo and more.
Skype - Video and telephone calls online...for free!
Trillian - Multi-service messenger
 
Image Editing
 
GIMP - Pixel/Rastor image editor.
Paint.net - Photoshop style image editor.
IrfanView - Image viewer / converter / batch rename / supports vast array of file types.
Photoscape - Image Editor.
 
Desktop Wallpapers
 
Deviant Art - Popular art by the people.
InterfaceLIFT - Wallpapers found here.
 
Video & Sound Editing
 
Handbrake - Multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows
AutoGK - Rip DVD to many different file types.
DVD Decryptor - Rip DVD
VirtualDub - Video capture/processing utility.
Audacity - Audio editor for recording, slicing, and mixing audio.
 
Backup Solutions
AllWaySync - Multipurpose backup programme
Comodo Backup - Backup Facility
 
There will be more to come, and possibly more categories.
 
Feel free to suggest your own for this list.

I've never had my own forum, and I doubt I'll ever have one. That said, a new forum with a small user-base doesn't need many moderators, as there isn't a demand for it.

I would like a car like that, but I would only buy one if I had money to burn, not from working my arse off to save up for one, because there are more important things you could spend your money on.

Blow up the web! Try it here. http://t.co/1k9fnMH7

Yeah, this happens quite a lot. If you have a shortcut or bookmark for Facebook, you can change the address to: https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr to sort out that issue, at least for most of the time anyway.

Yeah, this happens quite a lot. If you have a shortcut or bookmark for Facebook, you can change the address to: https://www.facebook.com/?sk=h_chr to sort out that issue, at least for most of the time anyway.

Yeah, I had to Google Bing...

Yeah, I had to Google Bing...

It doesn't make them smarter, it just means they're learning different things. I don't think kids that young should be exposed to that much technology so early in their life.

The one which isn't 12pm.

A 32-bit operating system can normally only address 4GB of memory in total, however this doesn't just include RAM, but video and other system memory. Since the latter are of more importance, they get addressed first, and your physical RAM gets addressed what ever is left. Some BIOS' come with something called PAE (Physical Address Extension) which is the only other way of getting past 4GB on a 32-bit operating system. Not all BIOS have this though.
 
I would recommend using Windows 7 x64 (which would unfortunately require a full format), because there are very few compatibility issues these days. Even a lot of old legacy software works with it!

The one which isn't 12pm.

I find General Chat and the gaming sub forum are my most active sections. There's no point in me posting within a help thread about a subject I know nothing about, such as Linux, web hosting or most programming languages.

SOPA (UK) Step 1 complete.

Back in around 2004 it was AMD all the way regarding single core processors. But now I'd go for Intel, which I have for my last two complete builds.
 
Back in around 2004, it was all AMD. I'd have never considered an Intel. AMD just dominated the single core processor range. However come dual core or above, Intel have just ran away with the market and left AMD in the dust performance wise. However with Intel, you pay for the performance, which has really left AMD with one market area, being the low/budget end, where their range offers more 'bang for buck'. Meaning their processors for £60 perform better than Intel's £60 offering. But as soon as you come out of the budget range, Intel run away with performance.

LucasArts is generating a ton of attention this week for Star Wars: 1313, which it is promoting as a "mature" look at the Star Wars universe. That means the game will likely be rated "M", which would be a first for a Star Wars game. At E3 2012 this week, we got to see a very early look at the game at a behind closed doors hands-off demo at LucasArts' meeting room.
 
LucasArts has already confirmed that this game will center on the bounty hunter experience in the Star Wars universe. The game itself is set in "Level 1313, a ruthless criminal underground deep below the surface of the planet of Coruscant."
 
The first part of the Star Wars: 1313 presentation consisted of a video that showed how LucasArts was collaborating with other parts of the Lucasfilm family, including Industrial Light and Magic, in the making of the game. That includes using ILM's motion capture technology used in movies like The Avengers to capture real actors' body and facial movements. That data was used in the E3 2012 demo.
 
Then we got a live demo of the game itself, running on Unreal Engine 3 and on a PC. It showed two human characters who were transporting some kind of creature in a spaceship that's traveling inside the bowels of Coruscant, the seat of government in the Star Wars universe. The creature was placed in a shipment container rather than in a regular cage or shackles.
 
Suddenly, the ship comes under attack and the two bounty characters have to fight for their lives in order to avoid crashing. There was a lot of explosions and fire as the characters literally move on top of the wrecked ship as it continues to fall. There's more than a little bit of Uncharted-style gameplay in this demo.
 
The visuals were certainly impressive and the character models and animation were among the best we have ever seen for a live in-game demo. The details and facial movements were extremely lifelike.
 
However, this demo was clearly made just for E3 2012 and it's very hard to tell how the final version will turn out. LucasArts isn't saying much at all about Star Wars: 1313's storyline. Perhaps even more interesting, or frustrating depending on how you feel, is that the characters we saw in the E3 2012 demo are not necessarily the same ones we will see when the game is finally released.
 
While the E3 2012 demo has a lot of possibilities, the fact that LucasArts is keeping so much of Star Wars: 1313 a secret makes it difficult to really evaluate what we saw this week. Indeed, the company isn't even saying when the game will be released or on what platforms.
 
In the end, Star Wars: 1313 was perhaps the only demo of E3 2012 we got to see live that we can't give a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" just because we saw and learned so little of it. Hopefully, LucasArts will show off more of the game in the coming months.
 
Source: http://www.neogamr.net/news/e3-2012-star-wars-1313-impressions
 
It looks like an interesting game, but I fear it's saturating an already saturated Star Wars market.

After months of consultation, the UK government has decided to scrap the boring-snoring information and communication technology (ICT) curriculum.
There was a "broad consensus" that the existing curriculum was "not fit for purpose", according to the Department of Education.
 
Schools still need to teach ICT at key stages, but are now unshackled - "teachers will have the flexibility to decide what is best for their pupils without central Government prescription".
 
We now enter a period of public consultation on a draft of the regulations that will change everything. The closing date for this is 11th July.
 
The consultation - "Regulations for removing the duty on maintained schools to follow the Information and communication technology (ICT) National Curriculum Programmes of Study, Attainment Targets and statutory assessment arrangements" - can be found online.
"Great news announced today by Gov to scrap the ICT curric so schools will be free to teach Computer Science from Sept," tweeted Ian Livingstone in response to the news. He's been an integral part of the campaign, and an advisor to Education Secretary Michael Gove.
ICT lessons going bye-bye is one of two reasons why the UK video game industry should be excited. The other, the Raspberry Pi - a dirt-cheap and tiny PC engineered to encourage grass-roots programming in the same way the home computers of yesteryear did.
 
Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-06-11-uk-govt-officially-decides-to-scrap-boring-school-ict-lessons
 
Well, this is going to make my life in ICT Support a hell of a lot worse. Teachers given control...God help us.

Wine is a programme on Linux that allows you to run some Windows applications on Linux. Sounds good, but it's extremely flakey. Only a handful of applications work, and fewer work well.

I know that everyone hates it, that if you have ever looked into purchasing the program just laughed when you saw the pricing options.
 
You're Welcome.
 
http://geekytweaks.blogspot.com/2009/08/disable-winrar-notification-popup.html

Science. It's bloody crazy!

Exactly 7 years to the day, a website called YouTube launched, created by ex-workers of Paypal. Within a few months it was clear the site was going to be massive, with a huge leap in users, uploads and views. Google decided to gobble up YouTube for a huge sum of $16bn, ensuring that the video sharing site wasn't obliterated by it's growing user base. With Google's resources, the site has become a springboard for tutorial sites such as eHow. The popularity of YouTube can be seen by looking at the amount of views that Jusin Beiber's "Baby" has accumulated.
 
Or, every second, one hour of video is uploaded to YouTube.
 

But it's important to keep that data locked down, as you don't want anyone and everyone to know your whole life.

Quick note that this trojan is in the wild.
 
This appears to be a nasty piece of work, and especially nasty to unsuspecting users.
 
It seems locking or hiding your files isn't enough. This new trojan encrypts all your files, and tries to force you into paying an 'unlocking' fee.
 
Here's links for more information and advice:
 
http://news.drweb.com/?i=2356&c=5&lng=en&p=0
 
http://news.drweb.com/?i=2381&c=5&lng=en&p=0
 
https://community.mcafee.com/thread/44729?start=0&tstart=0

One of my favourite games although I only really played the expansion.
 
There are 2 games I wish had a sequel. One is currently just over the Beta (Guild Wars 2!) and the other is World Of Warcraft.
 
Yes I know WoW is currently launching its 4th expansion but by this time there are so many people that have played it even the causal players from back in the days of old have amazing gear and items with most classes on 85. The game also keeps changing half in an attempt to keep it fresh half so that it can revamp things that have simply gone wrong.
 
Personally a WoW 2 (or if not WoW another game that competed with WoW (Maybe GuildWars 2 will!) will just allow the developers to start afresh with all the crazy ideas that simply couldn't be fit into the current game.