Linux doesn't require a lot of RAM or processing power, even crappy little Linksys routers can run Linux.  What does require quite a bit of RAM is the graphical stuff, you may want to try something like LXDE or XFCE as a desktop environment if you find GNOME or KDE to be too slow.

As for distributions: I'd try Xubuntu or Debian with XFCE.  Only if those work should you try something like Arch Linux or Gentoo since those require more configuration in order to get a desktop.

There are 4 settings now:

Always Notify - Windows Vista mode, notifies you whenever you make a setting that will affect all users.
Sometimes Notify - Windows 7 Default, you can make changes to system settings but you still need to elevate when copying a file into a system protected folder.
Sometimes Notify (No dim screen) - The same as Sometimes Notify except that UAC will not cause the Secure Desktop to activate on a UAC prompt.
Never Notify - Windows XP mode, UAC is effectively disabled.  You must use Run as... to elevate and Administrator accounts can do whatever they want on the system.

You still can't tell it to remember any settings or have it protect anything other than C:/Windows, C:/Program Files, or your user folder from other users though.  For that, you'll still need to use a HIPS.

802.11g or 802.11n - If you are buying a router today, you want to make sure it uses either of these two standards.  Wireless G is much more common than Wireless N but Wireless N routers can be run in N, G, or B modes.

WEP, WPA, or WPA2 - If you want wireless security, you want to use either WPA if your devices support it.  Most routers will come with WEP but WEP can be cracked provided that the attacker has an appropriate wireless adapter.

Custom Firmware - Some routers can have their default firmware swapped out with custom firmware like DD-WRT.  Usually, the box will not say that it supports custom firmware so you will have to research this yourself.  However, the router that most people use for such a purpose is a WRT54GL, WRT54Gv1, or WRT54Gv2(Not to be confused with a WRT54G2, get a WRT54G/GS/GL instead).

I used a WRT54Gv5 router and once it did I started using a WRT54GSv7.2.  Both of those are Wireless G, support DD-WRT micro, and can use WPA2.

Ugh, AVG Free is so gimped that it can't even detect rootkits.  Feel free to continue using that pile if you want but if you find that it's not working, give Avira or avast! a shot since they CAN detect rootkits.

I don't really like Threatfire but this is more of a personal preference since I wanted it to behave like a standard HIPS but it's even worse than Comodo in that regard.  Comodo's Defense+ is decent, however I find that if I don't tell it to fully trust some games Defense+ will pop up a prompt but it isn't visible.  I'm usually not able to alt-tab over to the prompt, so I ultimately have to logout and login again to resolve the issue.  Perhaps this is due to Comodo not using Native Widgets or something.  I'm currently using Outpost Firewall Pro's HP and it seems to work a lot better than Defense+ even though it doesn't cover as much stuff (like Keyboard Access which COMODO fails at anyway).

I am currently using a trial of Avira Premium alongside Outpost, however I'm considering trying out Norton Internet Security 2009 since it's speed is comparable to NOD32/ESS now and Norton can find more stuff than NOD32.

UPDATE:  I finished trying out NIS 2009 and it did live up to its claims.  Even with every part of Norton turned on, everything ran very smoothly with less resources than my Avira/Outpost combo.

However, when I performed a malware detection test involving XPAntivirus2009 ("Medium Risk") it wouldn't give me options on what to do with the file and instead it just "blocked" it.  I also tried disabling Auto-protect and re-enabling it after the file was unzipped to see if it would only quarantine the file but the file was just deleted.  The same thing happened when I tried a Qhost ("High Risk") sample.  If this wasn't enough, it also threw a safe keygen into its quarantine while I was scanning the computer with no decisions on what to do with a file.  Also, like ESS, it complains when you turn features off but I haven't bothered to see if it turns them back on like ESS.

I guess if you don't like making decisions then Norton 2009 is for you but otherwise you should go with something else that actually values your input such as avast!, Avira, or Kaspersky(Although it still whines when you turn its stuff off).

If you don't have a graphics driver, your system reverts back to a VESA driver which pretty much all graphics accelerators are compatible with.  However, this driver isn't capable of going beyond 800x600 and I don't believe it is capable of 3D rendering.  Since liveangel is getting stuff higher 800x600 in XP, so the Intel driver is installed.

I do have a Intel chip and I could get up to 1280x800 in TS2 without any tweaking.  However, it was much slower than running it on another computer using a Geforce 6100 so there wasn't really a point of "playing" it on the computer with the Intel.  (By the way, the Geforce 6100 was an upgrade from a Geforce 4 chip which wasn't able to get anything higher than 800x600 like that Intel card.)

It's called the Empire badge but you can get the exact same benefits of having the Empire badges by getting the Terra Wrangler badges instead.

Also, if you haven't completed the Terraforming quest yet then you can "accidentally" use the Atmospheric Generator they give you on another planet to improve it instead.  Then go back to your homeworld, say that you need another one, and you'll get another one for 1,000 Sporebucks.  However, if you purchase the one shots by trading then you can get Terra Wrangler faster since you can choose the tool which corresponds to how you need to Terraform the planet.

It's still cheaper than if you created colonies to get the Empire 2 badge anyway.

VMWare Workstation (not free) allows you to drag stuff from the host PC to the guest PC but VMWare has always given me problems.

I use Sun's Virtualbox for virtualization since it's lightweight, cross-platform, and free.  Compared to Virtual PC or VMWare Workstation sharing files between the host and the guest are a little more complicated (it involves mounting a directory in the host as a network share and having the guest connect to it).  Yes, it also works with Vista.

If you happen to go to war with one of your own empires, they will not attack your planets like AI Empires will.  I guess they assume that if you declare war on yourself that you're going to be playing both sides.

Also any creatures that you evolve using the Monolith will demand large amounts of cash from you like the Spode do.  I don't know if they will risk going to war with you over it though since they have a power rating of 1 and they only have 1 or 2 planets.

Other than starting in Civilization stage, you can also get it by starting in Cell stage and having the first three cards of some combination of Red, Green, and Blue.  They cancel each other out, making the result of the Civilization stage the "+1".

For the space card it doesn't matter what order you get the crap in, the only thing that matters is the overall color.

Bard: +1 Blue
Knight: +1 Red
Ecologist: +1 Green
Zealot: +1 Red and +1 Green, +1 Red and +2 Green, +2 Red and +1 Green, +2 Red and +2 Green
Scientist: +1 Red and +1 Blue, +1 Red and +2 Blue, +2 Red and +1 Blue, +2 Red and +2 Blue
Diplomat: +1 Green and +1 Blue, +1 Green and +2 Blue, +2 Green and +1 Blue, +2 Green and +2 Blue
Warrior: +3 Red, +4 Red
Shaman: +3 Green, +4 Green
Trader: +3 Blue, +4 Blue
Wanderer: No Alignment.

Damn, I forgot that you said the thing should be mustachioed.  Then again, I don't know exactly where a mustache would go on this thing.

This victim of ID is named Verma.  I had to put some spit and strike weaponry on him for to survive the creature stage though, I was not going to spend 2 hours using Siren Song to impress everyone.  As for the not having eyes issue, it only affects the first two stages, gives you less sight range, and makes everything dark.  Essentially, there is no real disadvantage to being eyeless.

Creature Stage

Tribal Stage

Civilization/Space Stage

All of the paths taken with this creature were green which gave the Shaman card as the final one.  Also, the right mouth doesn't seem to work during communications.  I wonder if this is because the developers didn't expect someone to finish the game using a split filter mouth.

In other news, it's pretty neat that you can find the planets in your other save games and communicate with them.  However, the fact that it saves them along with the empires near them really makes you think that the universe is probably already populated with all of the creatures you will visit ala Sim Townies.

Encryption on Vuze?  Just go to the Options page, expand Connection, and click Transport Encryption.  Check "Require Encrypted Transport" and set the Minimum Encryption Level to RC4.  Apparently "Plain" is incompatible with microTorrent (Their documation is horrible compared to Azureus so I'm not sure) and it only encrypts the header so don't bother using it.  If you want to allow non-encrypted connections select the applicable box, and if you're super paranoid check the "use cryptoport" checkbox so the data will always be sent to you fully encrypted.

One last thing, you need to be in Intermediate mode or Advanced mode to configure Transport Encryption.  If you selected Beginner, just run the configuration wizard again and select Advanced this time.

The port that you forward to is the one that you told your BitTorrent client to use.

If the popups really bother you, you can tweak Defense+ to monitor less stuff or you can "permanently" disable Defense+.  Disabling Defense+ will still allow the firewall to function but you will occasionally see a Defense+ as leak protection.

As for my experiences with the Comodo, it works a lot better now then it did when I tried it several times in the past.  My biggest issue with it was that it "forgot" your configuration and it even loses its preset schemes such as "Trusted Application".  They only recently fixed this issue, and the bug still exists in the 2 series IIRC.

The reason you're having problems is that RegDelNull probably isn't installed.  The OP did a poor job of checking the link.

Go to http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/regdelnull.mspx, download RegDelNull and place it in C:\, then you'll be able to run the command.

Regedit or Powershell.  For Regedit do Start > Run and type in regedit in the box (In Vista, just type regedit in the startmenu box).

When looking this up, I found many entries similar to this [2-spyware.com].  There's removal instructions on that page but it appears that any legitimate anti-malware program should get rid of it.  Most AVs have this built in but 2 that I believe will remove it are Comodo BOClean and Spybot Search & Destroy.

Uh, no.  Compression will not improve their situation at all, if anything it'll make it even slower.  Decompression might but the gains would be negligible.  The best way to improve those load times (sans upgrading) would be to get rid of any unused downloads or move them somewhere where the game won't find them.  If you're only loading stuff that you're going to use then you're not going to spend time grabbing stuff you're not going to use.

IIRC, If two people are born on the same day then at 6:00p they will both have their Age Transitions triggered.  I don't know if it'll be sequential or simultaneous for the Age up animation though.  Uni's a little bit more difficult to Sync without using cheats since it's judged by the hour, not the day.

If you skip the Grad Party, or use some other party then they might be able to use the same Taxi to go home (Considering the hours till graduation are the same).  I never actually have done this though and haven't played Uni since it came out.

I use CPF 3.0.2.5 Alpha (it's still somewhat unstable and you have to sign up to get it), and this is what pops up whenever I get a global hook.



I've noticed that CPF 2.4 displays some really odd messages when it comes to web browsers saying something like "Photoshop wants to inject a hook into Firefox" or "Some setup program wants to inject a hook into Firefox".  Like you said, if you deny these then it'll prevent your browser from connecting to anything.  This is one of the reasons I stopped using it.

It's really too bad that Quads are still extremely expensive and only in desktops.  Still, if you're choosing between a single core CPU and a dual core always get the dual core.  I've heard the performance is 22% greater but that was before the Core 2 was released.

As for upgrading your existing computer, I'm not sure.  Chances are the Core 2 Duo or Athlon 64 X2 won't work with your current motherboard if it wasn't a recent purchase (About a year I think).

I've had downloads that took 3 days that were about the same size as that stuff pack because there weren't many seeders.  Sims torrents are usually well seeded by comparison.

Yeah, use either Halite or microTorrent on Windows.  Use isohunt as your search engine since it has a massive list of torrent sites that it searches.  Also search The Pirate Bay since it's one of the few sites that aren't covered by isohunt.  Demonoid's a private tracker covered by isohunt so you can find a lot of their stuff without signing up but if you want to use their engine you've got to have an access code or register during their free registration days.

You see, I tried making MATY Wiki once.  The problem with it was that it wasn't hosted on MATY's servers but on free servers since I'm broke (Wikia probably wouldn't have hosted it).  This wasn't so bad but I believe only one or two other people even bothered to edit it.  I ended up breaking it one day in frustration towards the MATY community.

If there's going to be a Wiki, it's going to have to be hosted on MATY.  I'm not going to get free servers again since those always have ads (or lack the necessary software), and it's doubtful that people here are willing to put $10 a month for a wiki.  The software that should be used is called MediaWiki and it's damn simple to install.  Of course, we could have the same Encyclopedia on SMF by adding a forum and putting a bunch of explanations of DAC, SWAF, and the like.

Pissing off a bunch of cat lovers is different than replacing core game files.

I don't entirely agree with this "don't replace core game files" thing.  As long as you backup whatever you replace then it should be fine.  Just be aware that some hacks may screw up your game though.  For patching the patching issue, just replace any modified file with the backed up file.  Then again, the Sims community is one where people don't even know how to open a .rar file so I doubt they'd do this stuff.

The practice of replacing core files wasn't recommended in TS1 either but not many people actually did it.  You could replace the effects of core game files by sticking an .iff file like "PersonGlobals.iff" in the directory which contained the object file's archive (Like "Globals").  The archives, which were .far files, would be the ones modified by any patches.