Bay 12 Games Forum

Given how ridiculously broke I am, sure.  Why not enter.

'Sup, I'll use this thread too

I'm normally a very computer savy person and manage to fix even the most annoying bugs, but today I just can't wrap my head around it.

Here is the current status quo: I just opened MSN and Windows Live Mail and here is what presented itself to me. EVERYTHING ELSE works fine. Just these two windows are all washed up. Maybe something with the AERO stuff went haywire? Also note how in pic two the tool bar is perfectly fine...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The incredible thing is that when I mouse over something, the effect goes slightly away and then slowly comes back. I have really no idea what's going on.

EDIT: Installed both again, nothing changes; updated AMD catalyst video drivers to 11.8, still nothing.

It looks to me like Windows is failing to completely load the programs.  You've already re-installed the programs and updated video drivers.  I'm assuming you rebooted the machine a half dozen times doing the above.  I'm also going to assume you've installed the correct graphics drivers.  You might want to check that one, though.

Since you seem to have been doing things right, I'm going to suggest you disable Aero for a moment and then try the programs.  To do this, go to Control Panel / Personalization and scroll down the list to basic themes.  Select one of those (which don't use Aero) and try the programs.  Let us know if that fixes things.

I have two laptops, A and B. I also have two mice, 1 and 2. Originally, Laptop A had mouse 1 plugged into it, and laptop B had mouse 2 plugged into it. This worked fine for several months.

A couple of weeks ago, however, mouse 1 started becoming intermittent. I would hear the "USB item unplugged" noise, the light on the mouse would go off, and it would stop working. About a second later, The light would come on and it would start working. This would repeat every few seconds, even though the mouse remained plugged in the whole time. This would continue to happen when I changed what USB socket the mouse was plugged into. I managed to find a short term solution by plugging the mouse most but not all of the way in.

I wanted to see if it was to mouse or the laptop that was at fault, so I switched the mice between the two laptops. Laptop A worked fine with mouse 2, but Laptop B was having similar problems with mouse 1. I determined that the mouse was at fault, and chucked it out. That was a week ago.

However, in the past couple days I have noticed similar problems (although to a much lesser degree) when using mouse 2 with laptop A. Is it just coincidence, or is it possible the Laptop A is somehow damaging the mice?

It's possible the laptop is frying mice.  Do other usb devices work alright in the machine?  Make sure the computer has the latest device drivers.  Make sure there's nothing wrong with the usb ports.  How old are the mice?  How do you use them?  This just feels like a broken wire in the connection problem that would result from worn or misused hardware.

Unplug all usb devices.  Go to Control Panel / Device Manager and remove all instances of the hardware in question and reboot.  Windows should re-install the hardware devices.

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I'm going to do a little more searching for both of your problems.  I'm not happy with either solution, but this was what my intuition and a 30 minute google search came up with.

I don't mind trying in a contest I'll inevitably lose, but par for the course, the site won't let me.

Welcome to the first circle of DLL Hell.  In the second circle you'll find programs that need different versions of the same library, but that's a nightmare of another time.

Figuring out what DLL files you need to run a program is fairly straight forward.  Reputable programs will come with a README or some other file that explains exactly what you need to run it, assuming they don't outright ship with the DLLs they need.  Most programs will also throw an error that tells you what it's looking for and can't find.

The big problem here is finding and downloading the DLLs.  Sites that host them tend to be dangerous.  You're best off going to the provider of the library, that is, downloading SDL.dll from libsdl.org rather than dll-files.com.

I'm not aware of a program that manages DLL files for you, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if one existed.  Maybe someone else has heard of something?  I'll look around anyway and get back to you if I find anything that looks reputable.

Actually a better reason to use planes is cost. I doubt spent boosters will be recovered and reused like real ones, a plane you can use over and over and all you spend is fuel.

But really after thinking about it more, rocket carrying planes probably won't happen. You can't control a plane and a rocket you just launched at the same time.

No, that's not quite true.  Making something reusable costs a lot of money in terms of maintenance and general durability.  This is why the government is forcing NASA to abandon the shuttle program.  It's potentially less costly to use single-use equipment because it's so crazy much cheaper to produce and maintain.

And we do have rocket carrying planes in the real world.  JATO and RATO aircraft use jets or rockets to take off faster (such as from a short runway).  Sure, they don't fly in space, but scramjets come darn close and I'm pretty sure SpaceX is actually working on a space plane.

1. Install VirtualBox.
2. Setup a virtual machine.
3. Install a Linux distro of your choice on it.  I VERY strongly suggest Linux Mint for a new user.

I love linux for all the reasons already listed and several more.  But frankly, my experiences have shown that the best way to teach someone why they should like linux is to simply let them play with the system.

When you decide you like it, come back and I'll teach you how to dual-boot Linux and Windows beside one-another.

If you feel like giving Linux a shot, Rhythmbox or gtkpod should work.