When I got that guy for my paper delivery kid, I thought "Game Over".  Glad to know it's not the first symptom of a BFBVFS.

Found a bug in the opportunities.  It looks like if you have accepted two opportunities at the same location, the first is unfulfillable, and the second is also possibly borked.  Or, maybe, it is just these specific opportunities.  I first signed on for the culinary career "Bad Apples" opportunity, which required growing 10 bad apples, then for the gardening skill "Limes are Key" opportunity, which requires growing 4 very nice limes and returning them to the same restaurant.  After accepting the second opportunity, the tag menu for the first just repeated the second (even though the title was correct), so that the "give apples" (or whatever) option was "give limes" in both menus.  When I took the apples to work with me, they were removed from my inventory, but the opportunity came up as failed at the deadline.  So, BORKED, for sure.  Furthermore, the lime tree I planted for the second opportunity will not go any higher than "growing" (no "mature", etc.), even though it's been a week and I've tended to it as required.  No idea if that's part of the same borkage or not.  Great fun.

That little arrow is the undo button.  No idea how you might switch hands.

I am enjoying the game muchly right now, but will probably get bored as the fun and interesting bits start repeating.  One thing I do like is the little drag-able bar on queued actions that lets you make them more worthwhile, like changing "clean up dishes in room" to "clean up dishes on lot".

Thanks to the advice in this thread, I set smooth edges to low and got the crib bedding back.  I had fought with that for weeks and could find nothing.  Now, however, I get the flickering.  It goes away if I set the edges back to high, but so does the bedding.  Damn!

I'm pretty sure I read about it in RL.   

The Gspace add-on for FireFox and Gmail will allow you to back things up to your e-mail account.  You get about 7GB per account (and it's constantly rising), and it is cheap as free.  There's no fancy automatic backup, and it's slow as hell (it is still e-mail), but it works most of the time.  You can only do a certain amount at once before they think you are some crazy bot and log you out for the day, but after the original uploading, little bits go quick.  Sometimes the downloading sticks on big files, but you can always just open the "e-mail" the item is stored under and download it directly.  I used four accounts to back up my entire hard drive (at least the stuff I wanted) when my motherboard fried and I had to build a new box.  It took me weeks, and I'm still tediously downloading the back-up, but it is FREE!  Also, I think Google is not going down the tubes any time soon, so your data should be pretty safe from deletion.

Sorry for the Necromancy, but I've just started playing AL, and this really bothers me.  Here's my two cents: Simsample has it right.  I have two lowered Lack shelves hanging in an apartment, but they are not just dimmed, they are completely blacked out like any stuff in non-played apartments.  It's as if lowering the shelves has put them in the apartment below.  Anyone found a solution?

When I got it and could actually take a look, the thermal paste and fan were A-OK.  The computer is built and runs fine.  She decided on XP Pro, 'cause the old game she wanted to play turned out to be Myst, and that doesn't really run on Vista.   

The most intensive thing she will be doing is downloading music, maybe the occasional movie.  I love how cheap memory is now.  She's getting a 1GB stick of Kingston for $14!  That's friggin awesome.

ETA: The parts are bought now, and I think I will stick with the thermal paste Intel sends.  It can't hurt, in a box this slow! 

Problem is, the cheapest Core2Duo is $55 more.  That's $55 she doesn't have.  At least it's a dual core Celeron.

I would only do Home (Basic or Premium) for my friend's system.  Something OEM would be easier to deal with, activation wise, but you're so right about this particular computer not playing well with something like Vista Ultimate!  I would just worry that she would update and the activation would be borked.  She will have to have auto-update on, I'm sure, and I also suspect she will not be very diligent about backing up files, so the idea of having to reformat and reinstall Vista is not only unpalatable, but also completely plausible.  I will probably set the system up with XP, and then offer to upgrade it to Vista if she wants.  She will be so excited about the new toy, she won't want to wait for me to do anything else. 

From what I understand, pirated Vista is pretty hard to keep activated.  As most of her computer experience is from an early 90's high school programming class, I think she will be fine with XP.  I do hope to build a computer to run Vista x64 someday (and of course I don't want to pay for it), and wouldn't mind experimenting now, but if it takes a lot of keeping up with, I won't inflict it on her.  She likely won't know the difference!

I know what you mean about the processor, and the ramz, Jesslla!  Some of these parts, though name brand, had me cringing.  I would love to upgrade everything just a bit more, and then a bit more.  I would eventually end up building MY dream computer, and having to pay for half!  I went low on things that can be easily upgraded (memory, graphics), as she is a waitress and can easily be convinced later to buy something for cash.  I do have some specific questions, though.  Will the fan that comes with the processor be enough?  I'm pretty sure it will, though I would never use it in my own build.  Also, can anyone tell me anything I need to know about thermal paste?  

As for the OS, I will either be using an old copy of XP pro I have, or if she is convinced she needs Vista, I will be figuring out just how to pirate that.  It will be useful information in the future.

She hasn't touched a computer for more than 15 minutes in 15 years.  She will surf the internet and download music and movies.  She may, sometime in the future, want to play some pretty crappy games, but until then integrated graphics will be just fine.  She trusts me to build this, even though it will be my first build.  Anyway, budget is the most important factor, so we went as low quality as we could without making it useless to spend the money (I offered her my ten year old computer with a few upgrades for free).  This comes to about $400 at NewEgg:


--Intel Celeron E1500 2.2GHz LGA 775 65W Dual-Core Processor Model BX80557E1500          $62.99

--LOGISYS Computer PS575XBK 575W ATX12V SLI Ready Power Supply              $29.99

--APEVIA KI-COMBO-SV Black/Silver PS/2 Wired Standard Keyboard and Optical Scroll Mouse Combo Set      $20.00

--HP L1710 Silver 17" 5ms LCD Monitor                                                                               $119.99

--Kingston 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) Desktop Memory Model KVR800D2/1GR    $13.99

--Western Digital Caviar RE WD2500YD 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive           $39.99

--GIGABYTE GZ-X5SPD-500 Silver SECC Steel / ABS ATX Mid Tower Computer Case           $37.99

--LG 20X DVD±R DVD Burner w/ SecurDisc Tech Black SATA Model GH20NS15          $20.99

--Foxconn G31AX-K LGA 775 Intel G31 ATX Intel Motherboard                       $59.99

Am I making any grave mistakes here?  Is anything glaringly missing that I am oblivious to?

I would really appreciate any opinions!

I have seen so many original case mods, some fun, some beautiful, and some just... bad.
I would love to make one from wood, but I am not a skilled woodworker.
It would be great to make one from stained glass (which I do have skills with), but the weight and fragility would probably be a problem.  The atrocious led lights so many case-modders throw in randomly would be lovely behind stained glass.

Did you try deleting groups.cache?  Clicking on the icon and getting nothing is a syptom of a corrupted groups.cache file, isn't it?

Firstly, the material it's made of differs widely: plastic, aluminum, steel.  
Then there are all sorts of variables in construction: rolled edges (so you don't cut off your fingers), swing out drive cages (for ease of accessibility), fasteners (clips or screws,etc.).
Those Lian Li boxes are beautiful, simple, and exquisitely made, but damn, they are expensive!

It is fun, isn't it?
I am so broke that even buying parts individually is probably too much for me, but I still make a wishlist of all the parts I would need to build a dream computer on a budget every few months.
As for a list, off the top of my head, you need:
power supply
motherboard
processor
hard drive(s)
memory
dvd drive (what you are looking for here is DVD read and write, but I think by the description you have DVD rom, but only CD rw)
graphics card
sound card
cooling devices

Umm, is that it?  Maybe someone else will add to it.

ETA: To decide on compatibility among your parts, you need to choose a motherboard as the plugs are the important bit.  You seem to have narrowed it down to LGA 775, which is what your processor is, so you're cool on that.  Also, what OS are you planning on using?  That will definitely affect your choice of memory, etc.

You might also consider replacing the cooling fan on the processor, or just buying one without and putting on your own, as intel fans are not all that great. 
Also, depending on your graphics card choice, you may need more cooling and/or more power.

Isn't NewEgg beautiful?

ETA:  If you are on a budget (and who isn't?), I recommend the ATI Radeon HD 4670 with 512 MB on-board memory.  You can get one for around $80, and it will easily play Sims 2 on all high settings, and if you later decide to get another and crossfire them, they will be comparable to very high-end graphics cards (not crossfired, obviously) for about half the price.

Just google cable management; there are all sorts of clips and ties out there, both to nail in and adhesive.  I think 3M even makes some removable ones, although those might be the Christmas light clips jesslla mentioned.

Honey, let's just calm down a little, and read our previous posts, shall we.
See the part where you wrote ABoDe. 
Well, whether you pronounce it a-bode or abo-dey, it is still neither Adobe nor Abobe.

No, actually, Abode sounds more like home, or a dwelling place.  Perhaps you pronounce it differently than I? 

Oh, thanks for that.  I especially hate the message when loading my test-'hood just for a binary search ; this will come in handy.

When I load up my testing 'hood over and over again, that message quickly becomes annoying.  I've actually contemplated attaching all those sub-'hoods just to shut it up, which is ridiculous.

Yes.
Happy Birthday, Adolf Hitler!