As some joker could use that to sign up for everything under the sun, I doubt that is really your email address.

Ping results:
Pinging in.gov [208.40.244.65] with 32 bytes of data:
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.
Request timed out.

Ping statistics for 208.40.244.65:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 0, Lost = 4 (100% loss),

When I try to access site through IE:

This page can’t be displayed

•Make sure the web address http://in.gov is correct.
•Look for the page with your search engine.
•Refresh the page in a few minutes

Other devices also do not load except my work laptop will sometimes. I connect it through a VPN.

hm, you could try tracert to in.gov to see if that gives any clues, but if your modem/router is definitely not blocking anything then i'm out of ideas. the sites could be IP blocking you for some reason, or your ISP could be blocking the sites for some reason.

Yeah, use tracert to ensure the packets are leaving your home router, then contact your ISP as it is almost definitely their problem.

No clue where else to put this, but what the hell?

Are LCD tvs safe to repair by yourself? Do you need to do anything special to work on them aside from unplug them?

I remember something about CRT tvs being dangerous if you don't discharge some stored up electricity somehow. Is the same true for LCDs?

I have a samsung with the capacitor plague issue I think, and I believe they've stopped doing repairs per the class action lawsuit. To fix it by yourself is only about $3.50, so I may try that. Don't want to electrocute myself tho.

I don't know but in doing a google search I see there is a Youtube video about repairing an LCD with a bad capacitor.

I've wracked several videos, and one alluded to discharging the capacitor in various methods, but didn't spell out if it was necessary or just a good precaution.

Also, I lack the tools to check if it's discharged or not. Also, soldering tools.

So even if someone says yes, but check to see if it is discharged first and then you solder this or that, you are screwed?

Well for the time being, yes. But I figure I could find someone with tools on craigslist, or have the tool set I left at my folks' shipped up

Found a guy to do the soldering, just waiting on the parts to get here. Just gonna toss a few bucks his way for the couple minutes work he has ahead of him.

PC Build question:

I'm parting together a computer and it estimates the wattage to be around 250W. Now, i've never really payed that much attention to such things and I assume the 650W power supply I picked will more than cover the job, but is there some multiplier I should use to figure out PS size? Like take that 250W times 2 for whatever reason?

I feel like I've heard something like that somewhere before, but I probably just imagined it. I really have no clue about all that power stuff. I am curious why the estimated highest load is so much lower than standard size power supplies these days.

Consider that the heaviest loads will likely come from gaming.

As Sonny said to Cher, "You got me....."

so I think i'm going to dual boot win7 & ubuntu on a 128gb ssd, with a shared 512gb ssd for games/programs/files/etc

Since I don't know much about ubuntu i'm curious if that will work well. I'd probably do 70gb for win, the rest for ubuntu. Some folks online are saying 20-40gb will work fine for ubuntu but that includes a /home directory where they store their files and pics and do program installations.

My assumption, or at least desire, is to do storage and installs on the larger drive. I would be shocked to learn this isn't possible, but i'm also not familiar with ubuntu.

thoughts?

Pro tips for how to get a new website seen please?

social networking? good use of meta tags to get search site hits?

Apple question:

How the **** does OS upgrading or updating work?

If we have an older mac and we wanted to have the most current os, does it cost money? Is it built into the price of the overpriced thing?

all the searching i've done just leads to people asking if they should upgrade to leopard or yosemite or kittycat or wtfever iteration they're on

tia

You should be able to just go to the app store and see if it will let you upgrade to Yosemite. If it's not available or you don't have access to the app store then come back. Apple hasn't charged for OS upgrades for a couple of versions now.

Ugh, we had the wrong restore discs. Apparently for an old laptop. And you can't just use iOS discs to restore a Mac to a fresh ios install. Cuz that'd be ludicrous!

Could have copied and modified the restore disc maybe, until I wiped the hard drive.

Now we have a non-working apple that won't eject the install disc. Fun!

The wife and I are looking at a place that has cat6. Is that a good thing?

It's 25 better than cat5a

Is it just a better quality of networking cable? When I knew anything about wires it was all cat 5. Or is it a different sheath around the wire?

Its the cables and connectors. Cat 6 is better for signal to loss ratios, bandwidth, etc. so better performing in general.

Cat 5e is still great and widely used, but cat 6 will replace it entirely at some point.

Tons of info on cat 6 here http://www.broadbandutopia.com/caandcaco.html

I'll read the link in a little while but is a lot of connections, with presumably a lot of cable, a good thing or a bad thing? Some rooms have connections on all four walls.

All the cat5/5e/6 cables are compatible with each other.

6 is better than 5e which is better than 5.

I'd be surprised if the bottleneck on whatever you were transmitting was the cabling.

A lot of connections is a good thing... you don't have to use them all but they are there if you ever need to.

The only limiting factor is, if you were to plug a laptop into each of the wall points then the device that all of these are connected to must be able to support all of them. But I assume that you are not setting up an internet café / business where that would ever be a problem.

The might be a reason for such a large amount of cabling tho... maybe wifi reception is pretty poor in that building? (thick walls / too large for wifi to reach / interference / etc.) in that case it would make sense to have patch points everywhere.

It's a single family house and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a case of overkill being a bad thing. I assume the owner wanted to make the place attractive to people in today's tech driven world.

Holy crap, Batman! Microsoft must have discovered a ton of holes in their products because there are seventeen updates to install today. Most deal with Win7.