Jabo

Umm, but apart from the springs, the look of the thing and the aquaducts, what have the Romans ever done for us?

So apart from the differences in springs and the look of the thing, is there anything else which differentiate the two? ~S~ Jabo

I'm considering purchasing one of these joystick things, which one should I go for? If not Saitek then who? (I think I know what I should go for, but I'd appreciate some more infomed comment on this than my own opinion

I have a Thermaltake (same make as case) water cooling kit ready to fit into my rig, but I'm sticking with air cooling until I next change the CPU & Mobo (don't fancy having to drain the system to strip the thing down) so I'm running 2 120mm fans (1 front 1 rear) plus a Zalman 'Flower' copper CPU HS/Fan plus the stock fan on the gfx card and am acheiving low-mid 40deg temps in GPU and CPU. I've found that installing the gubbins in a tidy manner and minimising clutter in the case will maximise airflow and therefore improve substantially improve cooling. Since I'm using so-called 'silent' fans, I've also found that locking the fan controls to the maximum means more air without too much additional noise. The only problem is that it keeps sucking the cat into the air vents on the front of the case. ~S~ Jabo P.S. Overclockers.co.uk do a nice range of quiet fans and I believe they ship overseas too.

Indeed, thanks for the comments Roger, I've tried with and without letting Windows 'manage' the connection, with much the same results on the other cards - I'm beginning to wonder whether it's just the way my PC does 'things'. I'll try removing the Linksys software tho' and report back. Cheers ~S~ Jabo

Here's a little problem that's got me scratching my head - perhaps one of you techie types here can help. I currently have a BT Homehub v2.0 router handling my broadband connection, and my desktop connects to it via a Linksys WMP3000N wireless card, but...everytime I start the machine up, the card gives a 'limited or no connectivity' warning and will not connect to the internet until I run the 'repair' option from the system tray icon (it's fine from there on). I'm using the latest drivers for the card, there are no IRQ conflicts that I can see, oh, and this is the third card I have tried (3 different manufacturers too). Any one got any ideas? I'd like to get it sorted out as it's starting to get a little tiresome. Oh, just a couple of other things, my 'spare' USB wireless NIC connects first time every time, and my wife's laptop pc also has no problems AND I'm on my second HH with the same issues...Dunno if this is significant. ~S~ Jabo

Sorry Kling, I wasn't denying your point, it's just that the treatment of Bomber Command personnel after the war makes my blood boil. Like you, I had a family member in BC (also involved with Wellingtons coincidentally), although he was destined to become one of the 55,000. I don't believe that anyone who were involved in the raids on Germany liked the idea of bombing civilians, but as you say they saw it as necessary at the time. It is interesting though that 'normal' politics was starting to rear it's head before the war had even finished and the Western Allies were realising that a) Germany was pretty much trashed end-to-end and that they would be paying to put things right and also that Soviet expansionists were eyeing Eastern Europe as a buffer area. We went straight from one war to another albeit a 'cold' one. ~S~ Jabo

Aha - the old area bombing vs precision targeting debate - the point being that back then, no matter how good a bombadier you might have been, day or night, it is not possible for every aircraft in a hundred mile long bomber stream to put every bomb in the same pickle barrel from several miles up. However, the USAAF maintained that they were aiming at precision targets and a proportion of the bombs would fall elsewhere whereas the RAF said they were levelling the cities to be sure of hitting the targets - I suspect that for the poor buggers on the ground there wasn't much to choose between the two but Bomber Command was demonised after the war at least partly because of the way their strategy was explained. My main problem here though is the abandonment of Bomber Command by the Government as soon as VE day came - Churchill's victory speech made mention of pretty much every part of our armed forces but not Bomber Command, there was and will never be a campaign medal for the men of Bomber Command and precious little mention of the 55,000 aircrew killed on ops either. Jabo

ooooo, I like this program, the effect is fabbo. Spending a lot of time at the moment flying over 1940's England in a Mk1 Spit all weathered and stuff - brilliant ~S~ Jabo

I reckon you'll pay more for a 'branded' external drive m8 - over here 250Gb drives retail for about 120USD - bear in mind though that this is for a 2.5" drive not a standard 3.5" drive which tend to be cheaper, although my supplier has now stopped doing external 250's in 3.5" format as there's next to no demand according to him. You're probably better off going for a 3.5" 500Gb unit which will only cost a few dollars more (I can get those for 120USD! - Maxtor too) but give you double the storage. When it comes to HDDs, I must confess to a certain amount of snobbery, I always go for branded drives usually Western Digital or Maxtor. Dunno why, just been happy with those in the past - running 2x 500Gb WD SATA drives in the box at the moment - why I need 1TB of space I'm not sure, but it seemed like a good idea at the time. ~S~ Jabo

~S~ Sid, thanks for the info - all working properly now! ~S~ Jabo

Fair comment C_G, Dresden is controversial because it came only shortly before the war ended, but don't forget that at that time nobody knew when the war would end especially as Hitler had already promised a 'slash and burn' retreat across the Reich, at the expense of who knows how many Allied, Axis and civilian lives ergo Dresden, Pfzorhiem and all the other smaller targets were viewed as necessary. Much as I'm not a fan of the area bombing campaign, there seems little doubt that without the strategic bombing carried out by the USAAF and the RAF, the war could well have gone on longer and cost many more lives. On a related note Harris' nickname 'Butch' was given to him by the crews he commanded not because he was a butcher of the Germans or Germany, but rather of the RAF.

Dunno if anyone here can help, but I'm having a problem with MAT Manager - I've downloaded and installed the latest version (v2.36), but when I try to run it, it says it can't find either il2.exe or pf.exe - this is a problem because my game file exe is il2fb.exe 'cos of running '46 - how do I get around this (if possible)? I'm using the 352 mod pack if that makes any difference. ~S~ Jabo

Hey Snacko, I've been liasing with Tonar, he's not got the vector file either - sit tight and I'll get the original from the printers. ~S~ Jabo

Sorry about this, but I've booked a room at the Red Lion for Friday and Saturday night - don't all rush at once you should be OK for a couple of months ~S~ Jabo

Wait, wait, we dropped the 'pussies' bit from the logo for fear of causing offence, changing it for 'I f**k on the first date' might not be the smartest thing we ever do. Or have I missed the point

Currently on 40, but about 10 of those are due to my HP OfficeJet and Mcafee, and there's others too for iPods and Nero and stuff, most of which are turned off when I go flying, so I think I usually have about 20 running when I'm in game. ~S~ Jabo

I just know I'm going to regret asking this but eh? ~S~ Confused of Yorkshire

Good point - especially as I only have a single-core PC

Looks like it Kling, there should be no way for the pilot to input a manouvre (sp?) like that. I've got some footage somewhere of the Gripen crash during testing (although I'm not about to post it), but that was down to pilot error on landing (I think) - he got away with it too... ~S~ Jabo

I've just worked through BlackViper's list of services, and I whole-heartedly concur with Stingray - It's a really good comprehensive list. I'm running my machine now in 'Tweaked' mode and it seems fine. Bear in mind though that if you do use this list you must have a) Windows XP

As I understand the internal architecture of 'normal' (non-laptop) multicore processors surely it would be more beneficial to utilise both (or all four) cores especially if you're using dual channel memory? In any case, all the internal cores will use the same FSB, so I'm not sure where the speed increase would come from. I believe that laptop cpu architecture is different to that used in desktops, so that may account for the difference between the guys using desktops and those like RitterCuda who use laptops. Just my two cents ~S~ Jabo

Glad to hear it m8