Spider

I'd change .skinbody to float:left and make sure it appears after leftbg in the html (as in immediately after, nothing between them). Should help with IE6 compability as well (where float right always causes problems)

CrashGirl, it isn't Firefox that isn't compatible. It's IE. Especially IE6. The problem is, due to marketshare a lot of sites focus on IE (that renders pages wrong) and ignores the correct way of doing things. As IE6 dwindles (really, there is no reason not to upgrade to IE7) more and more sites will chose to ignore it, because it's a major hassle to make things work for both IE6 and Firefox. Even Microsoft has recognized that their way was the faulty one and IE7 is much more in line with Firefox. (as a web developer by profession, I am swearing a lot about people who haven't upgraded from IE6, they are adding hours and hours of work to my burden on a frequent basis) Edit: And yeah, FF basically never crashes for me, no more than any version of IE anyway.

Already out. http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/downloads/geck.html

It's groundbreaking, in a way, because it's the first (that I've seen) succesful marriage of two schools of RPGs. It offers the exploration and freedom of games like Oblivion and Gothic, while also having dialogue and choice & consequence like Baldur's Gate and the like. It doesn't necessary excel in either department (as in there are games specialized in either that does it better), but the combination makes it stand out a bit.

Ajax will work nicely for this, but it can be done through other means as well. In asp.net you could just use viewstate to reset the controls after the page reloads (postback). And then keep on selecting. I'm sure you can do something similar in PHP. The AJAX solution is more elegant though, but also a bit trickier to get to work properly.

That looks very solid.

They're recommending prebuilt systems that you're going to have to modify yourself. They're also recommending a slightly weaker system, but also cheaper. It's not a bad system by any means, so in my opinion it depends on your priorities. Performance or price. Also, I'm a bit wary of anyone recommending you to get a prebuilt system and then add stuff to it yourself. That's like eating the cake and having it too, except it's just the opposite. You'll still get the hassle of installing stuff (and if you can install a graphics card, you can do the rest as well), but with decreased performance. If cost was not a factor, up to your budget limit, I'd get the system recommended here. It's a good system.

If you don't want to muck about with .ini-files, just have one of your characters pump up survival a bit and you can pretty much chose what encounters to fight.

Basically anything Samsung is good for a monitor. I still stand by the T220. If I was buying a 22" monitor that's the one I'd get. I'd get a 24" monitor instead though (and did, except the company I ordered from went bankrupt, so no monitor for me, and probably no money back either. Not really relevant, I just needed to vent my frustration a bit).

No. Don't do 3GB. Go with the full 4 on RAM. Even with XP. Also, I agree with Mkreku on the 260 if you want to go NVidia. So add my name on the consensus there. As for the monitor, the one I linked to is pretty much as good as it gets in that price range. 22" wide. But maybe you wanted 21" non-wide? There is no reason for you to go with 64 bit XP. Maybe they've fixed it properly by now, but it did have a lot of problems.

I'm confused. The OP says he's got a budget of $1500, which is very reasonable when it comes to a new computer. And still he gets recommended stuff like a 9500GT. I'm sure that's a nice budget card and all, but he doesn't need a budget card to stay in budget. I'd build something like this: Radeon 4850 - $135 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16814102770 ) Intel E8400 - $165 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16819115037 ) 4 GB Corsair DDR2 800 - $39 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820145194 ) A decent intel motherboard - roughly $200 (I'm too lazy to check for a specific one). I'd go for one with Crossfire capabilities. Also one with ddr2/ddr3 combo could be nice if you want to be able to upgrade. Maybe something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813128351 @132.99 (I don't know if it's good though, I'm not all that into the loop on motherboards, but it is better than the two year old one you have listed previously, that I'm sure of). Samsung Spinpoint 1TB HDD - $109 ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16822152102 ) A decent case with a built in PSU - roughly $200 (something like this I suppose: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16811119183, I'm sure there are better ones, just get a 650w PSU or higher) That would land us on 848:- Monitor: SAMSUNG T220 - $299:- ( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16824001273 ) So we're at $1147. If you need to buy another copy of XP (ie you don't have one already you can use), this configuration might break your budget. Newegg has the OEM version for $139, so with that you should probably be able to get a dvd-burner and a flashdrive (I'm guessing a flash card reader here and not a SSD? If you want a SSD things will be quite differently and your budget'll fall through. And it's not worth it). If you spend more than $200 on those together, you're spending too much. I went for 4GB RAM because it's ridiculously cheap and because XP can use all 4. It claims it only recognizes 3.5 (or so) but it does use the rest as well. Don't skimp out on the motherboard. Although this specific time might be an exception. Normally the mb lasts you the longest, but with the next generation of processors being upon us, you won't be upgrading the processor on this MB. Also, don't skimp on the case. That'll probably last you longer than the MB even. The above listing includes some mail-in rebates at newegg. But if you go for the MB I used as an example I think you'll still end up lower in case the mail in thing isn't your cup of tea (not sure how that works). Edit: Or just go with what Mkreku recommended. It's basically the same thing, just Nvidia-based instead of ATI-based.

I think the weightless ammo is a boon. I keep running out of it often enough as it is. So being able to carry more is essential or I'd run out of ammo halfway through every area. Maybe it gets stupid later on in the game, but I'm just exploring. I've done one mission on the main quest, then just side-stuff and I'm level 9 (and am using slow levelling or I'd have been higher).

I didn't even know there was followers in FO1 until several years after I played it the first time.

I don't know. I kinda liked the uncharted planets. I especially liked that they had virtually no tie ins to the story at all. It made me feel like I had a say in what I was doing. What I would have liked is if there would have been a reason for me to do the non-essential stuff. Make the main quest feel a little less rushed (they kept putting emphasis on the fact that time was in short demand) and instead reinforce that the threat you're about to face needed you to get as much resources as you could (and make stuff available that was so expensive that you couldn't afford it if you didn't do a lot of side-stuff). Just make sure that stuff isn't essential to finish the game so the side quests are still optional. Maybe they'll just make the end game a bit easier. Or give cooler bonuses for maxed out characters. Just make it rewarding to do the grinding stuff somehow, while making it feasible that your character would actually consider doing it, instead of going off to fight the big bad rightnow. It helps give that illusion of choice. (and maybe add a bit more variation to the side-planets, not a lot, but maybe have 2-3 different styles of planets at least)

I'll join the line of people that thinks you'll love FO3. For me it's a lot like Stalker in athmosphere and scavenger feeling (so far at least, I'm only lvl 9). Add to that some nice RPG-stats and everything is good. And a vast world where you can go wherever whenever. So basically it's Stalker like Stalker should have been (or at least Stalker like the devs said it would be). Minus the russians. (ok, so combat differs. It's much faster in FO3. It's playable as a straight shooter, but for me that burns too much ammo and results in a dead character a bit too often. Strategic moving and use of Vats is the way to go)

With the difficulty cranked up to "very high" I got killed a couple of times during the tutorial. Also a bit due to not using VATS enough. So for me, it's not that easy. Not exactly hard either and I don't think I'd die if I played it again.

Afaik there sin't a piratable version of Bring down the Sky. I could be wrong though.

You just missed the step where the rabbit turned into Sand. There was a Doomsayer somewhere in there as well, but that was a long time ago.

Usually there is a registry entry or ten to prevent that from happening.

The spectres remind me a hell of a lot more of the Rangers from Babylon 5 than they do Jedi. They do, on the other hand, feel a lot like a carbon copy of the rangers.

No, Anomen came first.

The CPU usually comes with a fan. It's just that it also usually sucks. If you don't plan to do any overclocking and don't care about noise levels, it's probably fine, but it's usually better to get a proper fan. As for what cpu to get, I'd recommend Intel E8200 or higher. Since you're going for a bit of longevity it might be worth looking at a quad core. Currently very few (if any) games take advantage of them that I know of.

It certainly didn't at release. It crashed a bit and had some areas with performance a lot worse than NWN2. After a few patches NWN2 ran a lot better on my computer (haven't tried the enhanced version though). Especially the loading times were horrible.

We don't need floppy, at least not to update bios. I managed to update mine without a floppy. Modern motherboards have built in support for USB-devices and dvd-drives. Don't know about raid though.

I'm pretty sure you used an activation there. The activation is used when you install the game, not when you register online inside the game I think.