I almost bought a Zune. I had the opportunity and someone had given me $200 worth of gift cards at Best Buy...but I bought iPod. I have had second thoughts after the purchase but for me it was iTunes which had so many podcasts I was subscribed to for my 1st gen shuffle that I was weak and sucumbed to the lemming effect that is iPod. If you ask me if I think that the Zune kills the Sandisk offering then most definitely YES!!! The Zune actually is probably the best MP3 players on the market, I have just helped so many people with their iPods I already was comfortable with it.

If you do buy a high capacity MP3 player then I need to teach you about Bittorrent. There is so much in the news and they (the gov) are shutting down sites daily, that I don't think it's going to be around much longer. Get while the getting is good! I have downloaded so much and still haven't even scratched the surface of my 80 gigs. And I have the programs to convert video from Bittorrent and YouTube to fit on the small screnn. One of my buddies had to bring his daughter to a lil get together....I had so many videos on my mp3 player that it entertained her for hours...lol (I love animation)

I don't usually download any new music and, if I do, I use LimeWire (and then I disconnect from it, so I'm in and out fast) (it's not a website but I don't want to get into too many details here because I know it's all probably illegal -- yeah, probably, haha).  The only reason I even download any newer music is if I like a song that I heard on TV.

 

I don't buy new CDs, unless it's something like a greatest hits CD or maybe world music or New Age type of stuff.  In fact, I can't remember the last time I bought a CD.  I own nothing that's on the Billboard charts right now, LOL.  I have a collection of my own that I like a lot.  I've never counted how many CDs I have but it's probably around 400.  I could spend days just downloading my own stuff, and I will, one day, if I get a large capacity MP3 player.

 

I had been looking to buy an 8 gig player but I'm wondering if that's going to be enough?  I don't even use the MP3 player that I have (1 gig) which is why I hesitate to buy anything new.  I have a Sandisk  It's nice but I'm in the mood for a new toy and I'm waiting for my government rebate check!  (unless I get laid off ... which is always a possibility since they're doing lay-offs in my firm)

 

Brent, you did indeed help. I didn't know about the chipsets and apparently neither did sonny boy, so you did guise me there. It just took me a little while to find them. Thanks for the guidance.

Brent -- Do you know anything about the Antivirus 2009 spyware?  I thought I had gotten rid of it.  Everything was working just fine until today.  Last week -- in fact, it was also on Saturday -- I accidentally and stupidly installed something on my computer that I thought was an upgrade of AVG 8.  Well, it wasn't and I should have known better since I did it all so fast, I didn't even pay attention to where I was downloading it and with all my computer experience, there's just no excuse for how stupid that was on my part.  Anyway, it wasn't an upgrade of AVG; it was a spyware called Antivirus 2008 and I spent the better part of last Saturday getting it off my computer.

 

So I have to assume that I never did get the entire program off my computer?  Anyway, it now seems that another one wants to install itself and it's called Windows Vista Antivirus 2009.  Approximately every other time that I go into Internet Explorer, I get a pop-up that says I have lots of viruses and I need Windows Vista Antivirus 2009.

 

I ran Revo Uninstaller and there were lots of unusual registry entries which I deleted (including all the related files that went with it -- I didn't even know if I was doing the right thing but at that point, I didn't care).  I ran Spybot -- it found a few things.  I ran the Panda software -- it also found some stuff (23 instances of spyware!) and got rid of it.  I'm running out of ideas and that stupid Antivirus program just gave me another pop-up.  I feel like I'm losing my mind.  I've tried using every cleaner program I had on my computer, and I thought I was rid of it.  But it just keeps coming.  It wants to install something on my computer and it's sometimes difficult to even close the screen that wants to do the installation.  I end up having to close all my windows.  It has become a horror.

 

Any ideas about what this thing is that won't leave me alone?

I ran Panda again and it found 74 spyware files.  Weird.

I bought a program from PC Pitstop called Exterminate.  It seems pretty good ... it found some more minor viruses and spyware. 

 

Another problem I'm having is that when I click on the Internet Explorer icon, it doesn't pop up instantly.  I have to click it a lot before a screen pops up.  And I'm getting some pop-up pages every now and then -- I just got one as I was typing this.  Where are they coming from?  They seem to pop up out of the blue.  And all my pop-up blockers are checked. 

 

I also feel that my computer takes a long time to boot up, even though I've run "msconfig" many times and eliminated as many startup programs as I could. 

 

::: sigh :::  I'm so sick of all this .... I have an anti-virus, I have a firewall ... it all seems so pointless if I still get spyware.

this keeps popping up when I go into Internet Explorer ... then it opens another window and starts "scanning" my computer ... Even when I close it, it pops up again.  If I leave it alone, another pop-up occurs.  I thought I had gotten rid of this but evidently I didn't.

 

Should I reformat my hard drive and start from scratch?  This is driving me nuts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That can be a really nasty thing. Usually I boot into safe mode and start by running smitfraudfix and vundofix. Then combo it with spybot search and destroy and adaware. Also trendmicro.com has a free online scanner called housecall.

It's me again with another question. It's not all that important but there are some things I'd like to do...here it is. I have a LiteOn 18x dvd writer with Nero 7 Essentials software. I can burn cd's just fine but not dvd's. What I wanted to do is make my own videos (with family photos) with music and effects and put them onto dvd's for the family. I can do it on cd's but can only play those on the pc and nothing else. I wrote to Nero and they sent me a link telling me I had an older version and I needed to update. Only problem with that is, it is over 300mb!! My ol' puter won't take that. I also downloaded DVD Flick and still can't do anything. Any suggestions?

Peaceful- bring me up to speed on your computer. Windows version (98, 2000, XP) the amount of ram and amount of hard drive space both total and free and I'll try to come up with a solution. The biggest problem I see is that most of the programs to do the best job need a ton of hard drive space (the files generated are big) and lots of ram. Some of the newer programs don't run on 98 either.

Great question UP. There are several programs that you can use to do this. I use one called Videora iPod nano Converter, which is free but made specifically to convert to iPod video. I have used it to convert then hook my iPod up to a TV's inputs and watch them. If your MP3 player can do mpg4 video it will work. Another way is the online service http://vixy.net that allows you to convert to different formats by cut and pasting the address from your web browser. I found that it was a little difficult finding the exact settings at first, but after playing a bit it now is just a couple of clicks and I got what I want. Give the make and model of your mp3 player so I might be able to give you more exact information!

Ok, hope you can se this ok. I just did a screenshot and hopefully it will give you all the info you need. If not let me know how to find everything. Thanks.

 

 

Oh chit!! I can't read it. Anyhoo. I have XP and it says I have 1 GB of Ram.