the advice thread

[One Radical Dude]

Honestly, I haven't used LiveJournal much in recent months. I still use it; however, I hardly make any entries over there nowadays. I still believe it's a nice site. I did use a paid membership, but since I'm using it less, I may do the plus membership thing. MySpace; I registered back in 2004-5 (can't remember), but I never really used it until late 2006. It definitely has its pros and cons. I've had some annoyances with it (random friend requests, especially from those that have no friends and have inappropriate photos on the site), but it is a nice way to communicate with those that don't come here, or don't even use IM.

[jekylljuice]

I did very briefly get roped into this whole MySpace thing in summer 2006, but they flooded my inbox with so much unwanted mail that I decided to cancel my account after barely 24 hours. After which, they pursued me with a few more alerts, telling me that if it was the immense amount of spam which had turned me off, then I had the option of limiting it, but I really couldn't be bothered. Occasionally, I still log into my inbox to find some form of MySpace communication, totally uninvited, but it normally doesn't stay there very long.

[Sparky]

Yeah I forgot to mention the spam and the unwanted friend requests. I have a note in my profile thing saying not to friend me if I don't know you, but people make a game on there of friending as many people as possible. Its a bit creepy. It hasn't gotten so bad as to make me want to cancel the account, but I'd do it if it gets worse.

[Cassini90125]

I've heard about that game. Always struck me as pretty pointless. I'd rather have just a few friends that I actually talk to rather than a long list of people I'll never hear from again. Quality vs. quantity.

[CrazyPhil]

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

I've heard about that game. Always struck me as pretty pointless. I'd rather have just a few friends that I actually talk to rather than a long list of people I'll never hear from again. Quality vs. quantity.

Exactly the way I feel. It's ALWAYS better to have a few good friends that you know and trust than a bunch of people you barely even know. And yes, I made a Myspace back in June, added some videos, pictures, and built it the way I wanted it, but I too started getting spammed with random friend requests and advertisements for certain sites that I won't describe here, so I just set my profile to private and that put an end to most of it, but I kinda lost interest after that and haven't even been on it in over 6 months. I might go back to it and edit a few things, but I don't really have much interest in the whole thing in general.

Oh, and as for advice: If you have a problem with something and you don't know how to fix it, ALWAYS ask someone who does know for help. NEVER, EVER try to do it yourself.

[Cassini90125]

Still thinking about it. A special thank-you to Lynnie, who, when I recently asked her for more information, sent me an epic.

As some of you know, I bought a laptop computer last year. It's a fine machine in every way but it does not run my Sims game particularly well. As part of the process of trying to improve it's performance I recently uninstalled and reinstalled the game. During the reinstall process one of the game's expansion packs sent me a notice indicating that it couldn't find any DirectX files. I searched the unit's hard drive and much to my astonishment, there are no DirectX files of any sort on the machine. No DirectX 9.0c, no DirectX 10 either, and I think the latter is supposed to come installed with Windows Vista. I can find DX9c easily enough on my main system but there seems to be no trace of DX in the same folders on my laptop. Yet oddly enough, the registry keys are present. It's very confusing. Given that this is a Vista system and not XP I'm wondering if I missed something. I downloaded a copy of DX9c but I'm reluctant to go ahead and install it for fear of overwriting something that may be present but I haven't been able to find, and a general worry about doing damage to the system in general. I'm not a tech person, so however you look at it I'm feeling a little overwhelmed, and frankly I'm not sure what to do. Yes, I did pass this info along to a couple of tech sites but I'm hoping for some answers here, too, if anyone has any. Help!

[Ridureyu]

Technically I'm on Myspace, but I never go there. I do update my livejournal from time to time, though.

[Lynnie]

Originally Posted by Cassini90125

Still thinking about it. A special thank-you to Lynnie, who, when I recently asked her for more information, sent me an epic.

Hehe, you're most welcome. And for the record, it was late at night when I typed all that up, and even though I was trying to be as thorough and detailed as possible, I'm sure my sleepiness could be seen in some of it. I have all that info saved on my hard drive, and if you want I can "sort it out" better to at least make it easier to read and therefore, understand. Just holler. 'Tis my pleasure.

Hmm, I'm not sure what this DX is. Is it an .EXE? Is it a drive? But I think I know where you're getting at. I'm wondering if, when you installed the game the first time, there was some type of compatibility problem with it (having already been present with Vista), and that may have possibly been one of the reasons the game ran so slow. When you uninstalled the game, it may have had a "hold" on the DX somehow, and in doing so, the DX was warped. It's possible it had been warped slightly to begin with, otherwise the game may have had better compatibility. The DX might still be there, but the computer thinks it's something else and may have "moved" it or renamed it. But then, if the computer thinks it's something else, my guess is it's useless now anyway. If you're sure the DX9c is compatible with Vista, I'd think you can go ahead and download it. If you've looked everywhere for the DX10 and can't find it, especially when you already know where it should be, it's simply not there anymore, and if it is, it's posing as something else that's useless now. That's my guess.

But yeah, wait and see what the tech guys at the other sights say. They may be able to do more than just "guess". Good luck.

[Cassini90125]

The only thing I'm certain of at this point is that I long for the days when I played with Lego.

You'll get a better explanation of DirectX if you Google it instead of asking me. It's a graphics/gaming program but that's about all I know.

[Ridureyu]

It's a pity that Legos are so expensive these days.