Noise Controls Driving Me Nuts!

[davejonesbkk]

I'm having tremondous difficulty getting my new laptop to behave like a Victorian era child, which is be seen and not heard. As soon as I got it I went to the volume setting at the bottom right of the desktop screen and muted it...that did nothing...google talk continued to beep and whistle at me, and the dam_n thing made a big 'DING DONG HELLO EVERYONE IM AWAKE' noise when I powered it up in the middle of a Uni lecture...teacher loved that. So after that I went into the control panel settings and edited the sound scheme so that everything was 'off'...so later I install MSN and guess what......'ding dong hello! do you want to know whats new on MSN news today?'...no I dont please go away! and stop the bloody noises! Also I have just been using skype, my friends voice was blaring out of the speakers and he couldnt hear me too good, I was using the external mic on the top of the monitor so I thought maybe there's interference...after plugging in my headphones+mic I can hear him fine (through my head phones) but he's still blaring through my speakers and I have no way of turning him down......this is really starting to annoy me now. So whats the best solution? Is there any kind of program I can download that will control ALL volume??