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dalstrs posted:ScoopFree For whatever reasons, my cats only peed in one area of this, making it completely useless. Stupid cats.
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Dec 5, 2010 01:20
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Anyone got a good recommendation for a beginner DSLR camera? Something I could maybe eventually use for my dive photography when I buy a case for it. Though mainly just for general photography for somebody who doesn't have a ton of time to devote to complex professional level photography.
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Dec 5, 2010 01:47
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Aquatic Giraffe posted:Can anyone suggest a good pair of safety glasses? Tell him to polish his glasses with shaving cream or baby shampoo. No fog.
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Dec 5, 2010 03:18
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lunarian posted:Seriously, get yourself some CeraVe. I have psoriasis, too, and I can't live without this stuff. It even allows me to use my medicated creams/gels less often which is nice since I have some pretty nasty scarring and thinned skin from using them everyday. You can get it at Walgreens, Rite-Aid, or Amazon. It comes in a lotion and cream. If yours is pretty bad, I'd go with the cream. Gotta agree with the recommendation of CeraVe. So far it is the only thing that has worked on my extremely dry skin.
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Dec 5, 2010 04:56
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My flavours of the month: Toshiba Laptops If your game is business and you need something that works reliably, than these guys will do the job nicely. I've owned two of these and recommended them as far back as I can remember. They work reliably and anyone I've known who has owned them has never regretted it. That said, they tend to be business focused, which means they don't have a lot of power in the Graphics department. If you want a reliable Laptop make on a budget, these are where to go. Brother, and other Laser Printers in general They review well and do the job nicely. They tend to work on Macs and Windows PCs without much effort. I can count the number of jams I've had in four years on six fingers (that's about six jams), and while I don't print a lot, the fact that in four years I've been running on the starter toner makes the cost of maintaining this printer far cheaper than an Inkjet, which would have dried out a few times by now. $99 (at Best Buy in Toronto, ~$199 on NewEgg.ca, when last I checked) will get you your choice of an all-in-one style unit (which acts as a single workstation unit with a standalone copier function, and it's 86-year-old-user proof to boot!), or a compact model without the scanner, but otherwise includes wireless network features (I haven't used this one, but Newegg reviews speak highly of it). Both of these printers include a starter toner that prints about 1000 pages and use the same toner cartridge, which is good for about 1500 pages. As an aside: If you're considering whether to use a laser printer, I highly recommend that you use a high-bond weight paper. Just as high grade fuel can result in a few extra kilometres of driving, higher-grade paper without talc or other fillers will result in less powder collecting inside your printer, which will reduce the wear inside the printer. I've seen many printers die because their gears have been worn to nothing due to the grinding of dust against their gears, which acts like very fine sandpaper. I feel like a corporate whore for making name-brand recommendations, but I've done a lot of work for people in different walks, and I find that these work really well and are available almost universally.
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Dec 5, 2010 07:26
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Whimsy posted:Toshiba Laptops I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop about five years ago that was a piece of poo poo. One of the hinges broke on it about a year after I got it. I'm assuming they've improved their quality control since then.
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Dec 5, 2010 14:57
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What are the best math books for self-teaching?
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Dec 5, 2010 16:12
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An observer posted:What are the best math books for self-teaching? I would be really interested in this as well. Math used to be my favorite subject in highschool... but it's been so long 
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Dec 5, 2010 16:24
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Whimsy posted:
This is untrue, unless your car says that a certain octane level is required, buying higher-than required is not saving you any money or improving your mileage. If your car requires, say, 93 octane and you put in 89 or 91 (because its all that is available), you will get worse mileage but that is if and only if your car's knock sensor detects predetonation and pulls timing to save your engine.
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Dec 5, 2010 16:29
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Disciple of Pain posted:This is untrue, unless your car says that a certain octane level is required, buying higher-than required is not saving you any money or improving your mileage. Well I noticed my MPG increases when using Shell gas vs. Wawa or Sheetz gas... let's just call it that!
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Dec 5, 2010 17:23
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Johnny Longtorso posted:I bought a Toshiba Satellite laptop about five years ago that was a piece of poo poo. One of the hinges broke on it about a year after I got it. I'm assuming they've improved their quality control since then. The hinge is the weakest part of pretty much any laptop, and a major failing point across the board. Having seen how the average person handles their laptop hinge failure is the least surprising thing on earth.
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Dec 5, 2010 17:24
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Juriko posted:The hinge is the weakest part of pretty much any laptop, and a major failing point across the board. Having seen how the average person handles their laptop hinge failure is the least surprising thing on earth. My 2004 Sony VAIO hinge finally failed a few months ago, after being thrown/kicked on the floor multiple times throughout the years(sometimes hardwood!). It really was a great laptop in the end! The battery didn't even go out until late 2009! On the flip side, I had a friend with almost the exact same model and he was having trouble with it just a year or two after getting it.
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Dec 5, 2010 17:29
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Juriko posted:The hinge is the weakest part of pretty much any laptop, and a major failing point across the board. Having seen how the average person handles their laptop hinge failure is the least surprising thing on earth. My girlfriend's last two laptops were Toshibas, the first one had some major bios issue and would randomly reboot and then hang at a black screen beeping extremely loudly until you hosed with it and got it to reboot again. This was after about a year or so. The second one lasted around 8 or 9 months before the c key just came right off, rendering the keyboard very hard to use. Her new Dell is much nicer, better build quality, better hardware, and cheaper. Plus if something goes wrong, they come to her house to fix it the next day.
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Dec 5, 2010 17:46
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I've had a Toshiba Satellite laptop for 3+ years, and I've never had to do any serious maintenance to it and it's rarely given me any trouble (Vista). I recently bought Windows 7 and it runs awesome.
surivdaoreht has a new favorite as of 18:26 on Dec 5, 2010 |
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Dec 5, 2010 18:22
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Whimsy posted:
My Brother All-in-one is the only machine in a long life of machine owning that I have taken a baseball bat to (office space style) and enjoyed every violent second of it's destruction. Printed terribly, jammed constantly, faxes never worked the first try, but the kicker was: if the COLOR ink was low (separate cartridge), it wouldn't print in BLACK AND WHITE. Replaced it with a much more agreeable Lexmark unit. Incidental, I know, but there's my Brother review.
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Dec 5, 2010 18:23
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Juriko posted:The hinge is the weakest part of pretty much any laptop, and a major failing point across the board. Having seen how the average person handles their laptop hinge failure is the least surprising thing on earth. Which is one of the reasons I like ThinkPads. Solid metal hinges.   They're also one of the few laptops you can get with trackpoints, which work way better than trackpads for me.
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Dec 5, 2010 18:25
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An observer posted:What are the best math books for self-teaching? Not a book, but I found yourteacher.com to be an excellent resource for high school and college math needs. I think there's a demo lesson or something on their site. Plus a couple of vids on youtube. Definitely check it out if you're thinking about refreshing your memory or revisiting a subject you sucked at (me).
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Dec 5, 2010 18:34
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big mean giraffe posted:My girlfriend's last two laptops were Toshibas, the first one had some major bios issue and would randomly reboot and then hang at a black screen beeping extremely loudly until you hosed with it and got it to reboot again. This was after about a year or so. The second one lasted around 8 or 9 months before the c key just came right off, rendering the keyboard very hard to use. Her new Dell is much nicer, better build quality, better hardware, and cheaper. Plus if something goes wrong, they come to her house to fix it the next day. My husband works for Geek Squad, and he says Toshiba and Asus are the laptops he's seen the least complaints about. The most? Dell, HP, Compaq, and Mac. Yes, Mac. Also, our roommate worked for Dell Corporate for a couple years, and he said he'd never ever buy a Dell. He had an awesome discount, and still refused to buy one. From my own experience, I first owned a Dell laptop about 7 years ago. It was okay for about a year and a half, then kinda started bogging down, randomly restarting and stuff, definitely showing its obsolescence. The next laptop I had was a refurbished year-old Toshiba Satellite, which I used for three years without issue, until I bought my current laptop this year, another Toshiba, which I absolutely love. The old Toshiba? Our roommate is using it, with only one issue: one dead pixel on the bottom right of the screen. And it is still running pretty fast, considering it's now four-years-old and is still running Windows XP.
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Dec 5, 2010 18:37
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mike12345 posted:Not a book, but I found yourteacher.com to be an excellent resource for high school and college math needs. I think there's a demo lesson or something on their site. Plus a couple of vids on youtube. Definitely check it out if you're thinking about refreshing your memory or revisiting a subject you sucked at (me). Haha, I'm not refreshing/revisiting, I need to learn it from the ground up on my own 
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Dec 5, 2010 18:49
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An observer posted:Haha, I'm not refreshing/revisiting, I need to learn it from the ground up on my own In my experience, a lot of thrift stores sell old textbooks for next to nothing. I have an entire shelf of old science textbooks from the local Goodwills and most of them were only $1, you could probably snap some math ones up as well. And it ranges from elementary school to college, so you should find something that can suit you no matter your level.
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Dec 5, 2010 18:54
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Sushi Racer posted:My husband works for Geek Squad, and he says Toshiba and Asus are the laptops he's seen the least complaints about. The most? Dell, HP, Compaq, and Mac. Yes, Mac. Also, our roommate worked for Dell Corporate for a couple years, and he said he'd never ever buy a Dell. He had an awesome discount, and still refused to buy one. Your post lost any credibility at Geek Squad. I worked at Best Buy (when I was 17) and not only are their average customers retards, but most of the employees are too. And if you had a laptop that 'bogged down' and 'restarted itself' you probably got viruses or shitloads of spyware and bloatware from the manufacturer.
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Dec 5, 2010 18:55
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big mean giraffe posted:Your post lost any credibility at Geek Squad. I worked at Best Buy (when I was 17) and not only are their average customers retards, but most of the employees are too. I didn't say that Geek Squad agents know what their doing, and that most of them are computer super-geniuses, I just said that the most laptops my husband sees come in with complaints at work are Dells, HP, and Mac. And you don't know poo poo about me or my usage of computers, so don't just assume that it had viruses or shitloads of spyware. I scanned the computer for viruses and spyware on a weekly basis (and not using Norton or whatever lovely program came with the laptop either), and I defragged the hard drive regularly as well. I even reformatted the computer, and it didn't help. The computer just started showing it's age very early on, and the components just weren't working. I took the laptop apart after the manufacturer's warranty expired, and it even seemed like parts had only been soldered loosely onto the motherboard. Not exactly top-notch assembly. I ended up re-soldering some parts, putting it back together, and giving it to a college classmate who just needed a computer for word processing and nothing else, and it did a good job for that purpose. And just for some background about me: my father has been a computer technician since the days of room-sized hard-drives, and I was raised going to computer swap meets and building desktops with my dad from a very young age. I'm not an idiot, and I would appreciate if you didn't talk to me like one. Thanks!
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Dec 5, 2010 19:28
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big mean giraffe posted:Your post lost any credibility at Geek Squad. I worked at Best Buy (when I was 17) and not only are their average customers retards, but most of the employees are too. This. I got a laptop from best buy that was GEEK SQUAD CERTIFIED. I got it home and was severely disappointed with how it ran, since it was a gaming laptop. I reformatted everything 2 weeks later and just installed the basics and my own antivirus program and it ran fantastic. Not to mention they acted like I knew nothing about computers because I was a girl. As for Toshiba, my Dad bought and sold Toshibas for a living and always pawned them off as worthless, slow crappy laptops. This was about 4-5 years ago, but really I never noticed a problem with the quality. For the price at the time they ran great and hardly ever experienced slowdown. They were really god damned ugly looking though. Elephantgun has a new favorite as of 19:34 on Dec 5, 2010 |
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Dec 5, 2010 19:30
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Elephantgun posted:This. I got a laptop from best buy that was GEEK SQUAD CERTIFIED. I got it home and was severely disappointed with how it ran, since it was a gaming laptop. I reformatted everything 2 weeks later and just installed the basics and my own antivirus program and it ran fantastic. Not to mention they acted like I knew nothing about computers because I was a girl. It sucks that you had a bad experience with your local Geek Squad. Every one is run differently, and the one where my husband works just happens to have a whole bunch of guys that actually know what their doing. One of them is another Goon, which we didn't know until he brought up something that my husband had seen on the forums. I bought my current laptop at Best Buy, had it set up by my husband at Geek Squad, and haven't had a single issue with it so far. However, I know that if I had gone to the Best Buy a couple of miles farther away, I would have probably had problems with the Geek Squad right from the beginning. They have a very bad reputation in the area, and they've earned it.
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Dec 5, 2010 19:36
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:Which is one of the reasons I like ThinkPads. Solid metal hinges. The first laptop that I ever had that always worked and never broke was a Thinkpad. Everything before that, Acer, Asus etc. did have issues or just stopped working eventually. My beloved thinkpad takes any beating and just does what it is supposed to do. Sure, a T-series isn't cheap. But worth it.
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Dec 5, 2010 19:41
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Elephantgun posted:This. I got a laptop from best buy that was GEEK SQUAD CERTIFIED. I got it home and was severely disappointed with how it ran, since it was a gaming laptop. I reformatted everything 2 weeks later and just installed the basics and my own antivirus program and it ran fantastic. Not to mention they acted like I knew nothing about computers because I was a girl. They treated you like that because you were shopping with them. Geek Squad is the only place I've ever interviewed for where I wanted to walk out before the interview was over. I'm sure there are some good ones, but they do not seem to be the norm.
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Dec 5, 2010 19:50
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$149.99 for virus removal... I think $99 for OS install... those 2 things are enough to make me hate Geek Squad. Oh yeah and the $99+ backup that only backs up pics and mp3s, oh yeah baby. I think your GS Certified was "GS Optimized" or whatever they call charging $40 to remove the preinstalled BS programs and to make sure your $1k+ product actually works.
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Dec 5, 2010 20:00
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I know that Geek Squad is a service rather than a product but they're seriously poo poo; 90% of the time they just ship your stuff off to the factory to be repaired and then charge your for the privilege, the rest of the times they charge hundreds of dollars just to re-install the operating system or reformat the hard drive. This is the same business that charges people $130 to install their PS3 for them, which literally boils down to plugging in two or three wires. Same with charging $200 to calibrate your television, which you can do in about 5 minutes for free using the THX Optimizer that comes for free on a shitload of DVDs. Their entire business model is built around bored teenagers with almost no actual technical skills fleecing the technologically-illiterate.
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Dec 5, 2010 20:03
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An observer posted:Haha, I'm not refreshing/revisiting, I need to learn it from the ground up on my own You need to checkout http://www.khanacademy.org/ There's loads of resources there and it starts off from the very basics.
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Dec 5, 2010 20:05
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An observer posted:What are the best math books for self-teaching? Etrips posted:I would be really interested in this as well. Math used to be my favorite subject in highschool... but it's been so long mike12345 posted:Not a book, but I found yourteacher.com to be an excellent resource for high school and college math needs. I think there's a demo lesson or something on their site. Plus a couple of vids on youtube. Definitely check it out if you're thinking about refreshing your memory or revisiting a subject you sucked at (me). Linear Algebra: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-06-linear-algebra-spring-2010/video-lectures/ Single Variable Calculus: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-01-single-variable-calculus-fall-2006/video-lectures/ Multivariable Calculus: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-02-multivariable-calculus-fall-2007/video-lectures/
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Dec 5, 2010 20:11
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An observer posted:Haha, I'm not refreshing/revisiting, I need to learn it from the ground up on my own No worries, yourteacher.com starts with something like "1 + 2 x 3 =". Every lesson comes with exercises and a small test. They say their lessons match to specific text books, so you can read up on all of that, if you want to.
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Dec 5, 2010 20:16
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I've hosed around with a variety of Anti-Virus software. Norton, NOD32, McAfee. A little while back I got a bad rear end Trojan from loving around with no firewall on because the previous one's licence had expired. The thing nearly totalled my laptop and I had to do all type of registry poo poo just to get the thing to start again. I came on here to ask for help regarding the registry problem and was directed to Microsoft Security Essentials and I honestly cannot recommend it enough to anybody, whatever anti virus they are using and ESPECIALLY if they don't have one because they're cheap (like me). It's a small free download, it uses next to no resources to run (it's just idle at the moment and is reading 1,968k in task manager). It's caught a couple of things for me and regularly catches small annoying stuff. But that's it, it doesn't constantly ask for permissions, doesn't try to protect you by blocking absolutely everything, doesn't clog up your system running it, doesn't bother you with licences or any other crap. It just runs on your system very quietly and stops viruses. It auto updates daily and you can set it to scan weekly. The scan's are very quick also, a quick scan will take less than 5 minutes (I'm not running a fast laptop either, 2gb RAM 1.6 GHZ processor) a full scan will take about half an hour. It has all the usual crap that you have to pay for with other anti virus software. I have been incredibly impressed with it. Free Download: http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/
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Dec 5, 2010 22:40
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Yet another pen recommendation... I love me some Sensa Pens.  I'll be the first to admit, they are a bit tacky looking, but they are far and away the most comfortable pen I have ever used. The grip has this gel in it that conforms to your fingers, and it helps a lot when you have fingertips that don't like excessive amounts of pressure. The balance is excellent, and I got mine back in 2001 and it's still going strong. Also, they use those Fischer pressurized ink cartridges just in case you really have to write on some grease or in zero gravity or whatever.
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Dec 5, 2010 22:50
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We have now established every single pen on the planet is the best pen.
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Dec 6, 2010 00:19
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uG posted:We have now established every single pen on the planet is the best pen. Except these ones, never have I used a pen that either dried out or exploded so often  However these are the bar none best value in pens  
Cool Web Paige has a new favorite as of 01:26 on Dec 6, 2010 |
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Dec 6, 2010 01:22
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:Which is one of the reasons I like ThinkPads. Solid metal hinges. I have even seen metal hinges fail (chassis separation or join welt crack depending on how it is assembled.) I mean yah, they are stronger, but the issue is users treat laptops like fisher price toys. I used to think it was just something a few people did, but In my day to day I started to realize almost every goddamn person I know will move or even carry their laptops by the monitor like they are a three year old carrying flopsy the bunny. the funny thing is when it finally breaks, and it always does, the wonder why.
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Dec 6, 2010 01:32
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BigSuave posted:Request: There's been a lot of headphone discussion but can someone with some knowledge and experience school me on canalphones? I loved my E2Cs, still have them around for backup. For about the past year (a year ago yesterday actually wow) I've been using Ultimate Ears TripleFi 10's gotten on Amazon when they were a deal o' the day or some such. I'm honestly not familiar enough with high end gear like that to say if they're worth retail (399) or amazon's usual price (239 at last glance) but they ARE very comfy, lightweight, and come with a better assortment of tip sizes and types than the Shures did. Most of my music listening is metal, classical, and folk, and I found the TripleFi sound was noticeably clearer with those kinds of instrumentations and the bass was less muddled. YMMV on that as I understand waht you listen to and how (Mp3, CD, live, etc) makes a fair bit of difference.
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Dec 6, 2010 02:24
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I looked through this thread and i thought I saw a product recommendation for a Logitech Mouse, now I can't find it.
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Dec 6, 2010 04:25
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b0nes posted:I looked through this thread and i thought I saw a product recommendation for a Logitech Mouse, now I can't find it. Here you go.
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Dec 6, 2010 04:45
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TheShineNSB posted:Here you go.
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