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11.25.98 - GnomeNEWS By now, you've heard that Creative Labs has a couple of new PCI sound cards (Sound Blaster Live!). Along with sucking up less CPU cycles, they aim to make your "sound" experience a little bit more thrilling. Well, thrilling wasn't the word I was looking for after my fiasco with installing this card. Sit back, this is gonna be a long review. First off, their Public Relations department kept ignoring my simple request for more information -- and when I inquired about the chances for receiving a "demo unit" for review, I was told that they didn't have any more. Fine. I went out to the local store and picked up the Sound Blaster Live! Value card. It has less software and non-gold connections, but it performs virtually the same as the "regular" card. Supposedly. Hardware installation was a snap (as I knew it would be). Snap, click, clack, snap. Now, onto the detection and installation of the software. I knew I didn't want 90% of the software package, so I unchecked everything but the DOS Drivers. Which, I figured, I could simply remove from the autoexec.bat if I didn't want to use them. Wrong. Even after "uninstalling" the files and removing the autoexec.bat, it (the autoexec.bat) kept popping back w/ SB parameters upon every reboot. Annoying, to say the least. I thought uninstall meant uninstall? A little registry hacking fixed that... not for novices, indeed. The hardware registration (via the Internet) was also unsuccessful. Ouch. No biggie. I could always do it later. I wouldn't have bothered to complain at that point, but the worst was yet to come. So I go to connect to the Internet w/ my 56k modem, but it connects at 28.8 and doesn't do anything. Oh, I got the icon in the tray, but I couldn't pull up anything online (e-mail, web, ICQ, etc.). Oh crap. I had these Lockergnome issues to write, so getting back online was imperative. I tried everything: reinstalling the modem, deleting the old entries and trying to update the driver, running diagnostics, and doing plenty of cussing. I rechecked my IRQ settings... no conflicts--in fact, I had one IRQ still free! I yanked out my modem's floppy disk (which was the extent of its documentation) and had to dial a long distance number to try to reset it. Oddly enough, that worked. And again, I was connected to the Internet at 56k (44k is my average connection speed). Cool. Now, to download that driver update. Download, download, download... FREEZE. What? Why did my connection stop? Disconnect, reconnect... wait--you're saying the modem isn't there? I know it's there... I put it there myself. I can't turn it off, it doesn't have a switch (it's an internal). Reboot #1. [two hours later] Reboot #38. I thought my modem was hosed... it worked, but then again--it didn't work. I did some work on Joe (thank goodness I still have him around). The next morning, I woke up and ran to a store to get a new 56k modem. After installing that, I ran into the same problem. Well, the sound card was good, and the MIDI sounded awesome, so I started working backwards with the software. TURNS OUT THAT the Sound Blaster emulation was causing the problem. Once I had turned that off, everything ran smoothly. It was a headache to get everything running properly in Windows; however, hardcore gamers might appreciate the SB Live! experience more than I. The MIDI is *PHENOMENAL* (and I love MIDI). The config software is good, and the drivers (as usual) are solid. Do I recommend it? Sure... but caveat emptor. The average person would have wasted more than a DAY on the problems I ran into with my modem. Again, this was *MY* experience. Take it with a grain of salt. Or pepper. CLICK HERE to search for the lowest price on the Sound Blaster Live! Card. CLICK HERE to search for the lowest price on other Sound Blaster Products. GnomePROGRAM Genius v2.0 [2.8M] W9x/NT FREE "Hadley, you're a genius!" I don't think anyone has ever called me a genius before, and I'm glad. If I were a genius, I'd have to be even more eccentric and not comb my hair "correctly". Plus, I'd have to join MENSA. And I just don't have the time for that. Well, the author of Genius (to tell you the truth) must be a genius himself. The program seems to do so much, yet consume so few resources! Not only that, but he's got awesome plans for future versions of this "intelligent" program. The interface is unobtrusive, easy to use (a big plus), and filled with just about every common Internet utility known to the world. On top of THAT, you'll find several other great "offline" utilities in the same program (which help automate common Windows tasks). Smart! [ DOWNLOAD ] [ VISIT SITE ]
GnomeSYSTEM SCSI Setup & Basic SCSI Troubleshooting in Windows "Plug and Play SCSI Specifications: The adapter must support at least the SCAM level 1 protocol for automatic SCSI ID assignment, SCAM (SCSI Configured Automatically) refers to a proposal for the SCSI-3 interface standard, and Automatic termination of the SCSI bus by the SCSI controller must occur. SCSI controllers that do not meet these requirements may be compatible with Windows but are not supported with Plug and Play functionality." SCSI can be a pain, but damn--it's fast! [ DOWNLOAD ]
GnomeCANDY Binary Blitz v3.01 [70k] W9x/NT FREE If you know binary code like the back of your hand, then please step away from the computer for a few years. Can you say that you know binary code better than your computer? Okay, get real. That's impossible--even for Bill Gates. In this game, your goal is to convert decimal (base 10) numbers into binary numbers faster than your computer opponent can. Since the computer would beat you in a split second, it's given a two-second delay between each of its guesses; that time decreases by 5% with every passing round. Talk about a good training exercise! If you're tired of Quake, become blitzed! [ DOWNLOAD ] [ VISIT SITE ]
GnomeFAVORITE Lockergnome's Holiday MIDI Collection Last year I was extremely frustrated because I couldn't find a GOOD Christmas MIDI page. So, I threw together my own. You'll find only the BEST Seasonal MIDI files here, gang. And, if you know of a Winter Holiday MIDI that's missing (and you have a high-quality copy), please let me know! I'm open to all religions, too... my only wish is that the sound quality of the MIDI is superb. Anyway, swing by the page, listen, download, and tell your friends about it. No fluff here... just a simple list with great seasonal MIDI files. [ VISIT SITE ]
GnomeDESKTOP FONT: Shrooms [40k] The average American consumes over 43 pounds of pizza every year. Okay, so I just made that statistic up--scared you for a moment, didn't it? I don't eat much pizza anymore; I'm developing a taste for meat (to compliment my cheese cravings). But when I do have pizza, my favorite topping is mushroom. Yes, I realize it's a fungus, but it's a semi-tasty fungus. And I also realize that there are other types of mushrooms which aren't popular because of their taste. Shroomy dingbats for everyone! [ DOWNLOAD ] [ VISIT SITE ]
GnomeTIP
I'm running IE5b2 (Internet Explorer 5.0 beta 2). I know, you
probably think I'm crazy (and I am). I played around with it on
Joe and didn't find too many quirks. Of course, now that I'm using
it on Mr. Bigglesworth, I'm finding more bugs (but few
showstoppers). For the most part, it's a solid beta... but be VERY
careful. It's slightly faster, but not perfect yet. I was using
the built-in FTP client the other day and I had my first IE5
crash. Then, whenever I'd open an Explorer window to look at my
hard drive's folders, the default icon view was set to "details."
I didn't like that. A few days later, I remembered a tweak that
came from the days of Windows 95. First, open the Explorer window,
arrange the icons the way you'd like them viewed everywhere, then
hold onto the SHIFT+CTRL+ALT keys while clicking on the "X"
(close) button. Ah, much better!
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