Avalon

This sounds like an excellent idea Mike. The problem you mention with mySQL access might not be the only thing to consider. Is OpaQue ok with this? Some of these scripts *might* do some funky things to his server, I'd hate to see one of these scripts we test crash the server and stop access for everyone. I know OpaQue has tried to make the servers basically bullet-proof, and has mostly succeeded, but you never know what a rogue script could do.All that being said, if OpaQue is happy with the idea, then I'm more than willing to help.

I found it quite easily. Just type in 'Giresun, turkey' and it should go straight there. The map resolution is not terribly good, but at least it is listed. When using Google Earth, usually you should enter the country as well as the city.

You might want to try a different brand of blank CDs. I have found my CD burner doesn't like some particular brands. While they seem to burn ok, when I try to play them back, some of them just will not work no matter what I try. I changed the brand of CD I use, and all the problems were solved. I guess some of these "no name" brand CD suffer in quality. You get what you pay for I suppose. Try a name brand like "TDK" or "Verbatim" and see if that helps.

Hrm... sorry but this sig doesn't do anything for me at all, the stretching of the render looks all wrong. The background looks kind of bland and I think the size is not really suitable for a sig. Sorry 2/10

That is amazing! It's good to see that some companies see the value in doing this sort thing, in fact, it is very cheap advertising for them. Why? Just look how many people you have reached with this post for start and how many people are you going to personally tell about the service they gave you. "word of mouth" advertising is one of the most effective forms of advertising there is, I think they managed to make it happen successfully with what they have done. Sure it has cost them a set of tires, but how many tires do you think they will sell because of it? For a start, where is the first place you will go when you need another set of tires?

Peter Brock died during a rally race (Targa West Rally) in Western Australia. Here is a link to the full story. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Peter Brock was one of Australian motor racings elder statesmen at 61 years old. He has been a very successful race driver for many years, nicknamed "Peter Perfect" for his driving skill and "King of the Mountain" in reference to the annual race at Mt. Panorama in Bathurst. From memory he was won the Mt. Panorama race more times than any other driver, this may not be correct, but I think it is. He was also instrumental in establishing the careers of many young racing drivers with his "Young Lions" development program for up and coming race drivers. More than this, Peter Brock was, what we in Australian like to call a "Good Bloke". He always had time for his fans, I have met him personally and found him to be a true gentleman with a great sense of humour. This is something not often found in the world of big egos that is motor racing. "Brocky" as he was known to most Australians, will be sadly missed, particularly in the motor racing fraternity. The "King" is dead.

Well I think so, I made a traditional grunge type background and then hit it with the old "smudge" tool in Photoshop. I'm not sure if that is the normal way a smudge sig is done, but it seemed to work for me. It's possibly smudged more on the left side than the right, but there is definitely smudge in there. Look at the top left corner and in front of the chin of the render.

OK Kubi, I haven't made a sig for quite a while, but I'll take the challenge. Hopefully I've still got what it takes to make a good sig. The render is from Unreal Tournament, I think.

This is interesting, it shows that in some places nudity is fine. I think the issue here is not so much nudity, but more the way it is done. Through the ages there have been sculptures and paintings depicting nudity. On the most part, people considered this as "art". I think the problem is the definition of what is "art". Some people that make pornographic movies also consider their work to be art, and therefore feel their work should be available to everyone. While others may not agree with this line of thought, everyone is entitled to their opinion I guess. Personally, I think it comes down to parental supervision and the ability we all have to change the channel if we don't like what is being screened. If enough people refrain from watching what is considered to be "offensive material", the program will be removed, it's that simple. For a long time I wouldn't allow my children to watch the Simpsons. My reason for doing so is that I feel it shows inappropriate behaviour to young children that are easily influenced to repeat what they see on television. It wasn't until I felt they were mature enough to understand that not everything they see on television is acceptable, that I would let them watch it. Perhaps you think I was a little over protective? I felt it was my responsibility as a parent to monitor what my children are influenced by and thereby hopefully set them some, what I consider to be acceptable, social standards to live by.

Hmmm... something disturbs me with this thread, in particular, this comment. I am not a Muslim, but if I was, I would find this very offensive. It seems Muslims in general are being judged by the actions of some extreme individuals. While I also dislike what is being done by these extremists, I don't believe these people reflect the opinions of the majority of Muslims. I know a few Muslims and have found them to be as decent as any "Christian", or any other person, I have met. Let's keep this debate on track, and not bring other social biases into it. The fact is, most western civilization is based on a "Christian" upbringing. Therefore, the laws, teachings and philosophy of the civilization is based on the existence of a God. To think otherwise means you are not thinking like the civilization and will naturally be shunned by it. In general, most people can only identify with and accept like minded people. From what I can tell, religion, what ever one that may be, was used to keep the civilization in order. Without this, the civilization cannot be controlled and chaos will reign. While I personally do not believe in a God, I do see the purpose of having such a belief.

The thing that annoys me mostly about politicians, the senior ones with the real power, is their seemingly complete disregard for anyone but themselves. While everyone else has to go through a great deal for a pay rise, (John Howard's new IR laws) these guys just approve a pay rise for themselves without a second thought. In addition, why are they given a substantial pension AND a very generous superannuation package? These types of benefits are not available to the normal worker and if we to even suggest it, people would think we were mad. Their pensions are based on their years in office, not on what they have achieved. Some politicians achieve very little but polishing those overstuffed sofas with their butts. There are many pictures available of politicians falling asleep during the meetings, and they get paid for this?The only politicians I have met that seem to really want to help the community are the lower level ones that have very little power to make anything happen. Even some of them are only out for their own well-being.

Yes, Steve Irwin was over the top, but this was a man very passionate about what he does. He could not help but let his passion overflow and hopefully have a few more people follow his cause. As an Australian I sometimes found him embarrassing, but you have to admire the fact that his heart was in the right place, (no pun intended about the way he died) and he really believed in what he was doing. Never have I seen a person so 'up' all the time, it was not just an act for the cameras, he was like this all the time. Talk about passion!No matter what you thought about him or the things he has done, Steve Irwin did a lot of good things for the environment. He will be sorely missed as a great Australian character and ambassador.

I don't understand what it is you want us to do with the comic strip. How about an example?

It would appear you favour scan lines in your sigs as they all seem to have them. Not that this is a bad thing, it works quite well for these sigs.Sig 1I think text could be little more transparent and there seems to be a big blank area in the top left of the sig. Nice brushing and coloring.Sig 2Excellent brushing but again I think the text could be more transparent. The lighter band I think would be improved by a 1 pixel stoke top and bottom.Sig 3I really like this one, only minor things I can see is more blending of the render needed and I think a 1 pixel black border would have worked better.Sig 4Can't see much to improve this sig, I love it.

Voting is closed. Congratulations to Saint_Michael for winning this SOTW with 3 votes. Here is the winning sig again. SM, here is your tab

Let me put it this way to you. How would you feel if someone copied one of your sigs and put their own name on it? Not nice.

OMG! Forget about the sig, I looked at your forum and I was totally shocked! Here is the link to your SOTW #5, http://gfxgamerz.fr.yuku.com/topic/258#. Does it look a little familiar? It should, it's a direct copy of our SOTW #44 that was posted over a week before yours. Come on now, it's not THAT hard to think of your own themes for a SOTW is it? You know what we at Xisto think about plagiarism, why would you do something like that?

This is what made me think no straight up. People provide parameters in their requests because it's what they like, it's not about what you like. Also, the size and color could very well be important because they want the graphic to fit in with an existing theme, e.g. a site banner. Aside from that, we need active crew members, at this stage you haven't been here long enough for us to determine how active you will be.

Yes, that is exactly what it is for. And funnily enough, to gain free hosting you must say YES to the following question. It seems a lot of people lie when they answer this question, otherwise we wouldn't see these types of posts.

The funny thing is, being in Australia the 4th of July holiday means nothing to me. It was done for the majority of members.

Once you have hosting your cedits are expressed as days. Therefore for each credit you have, you have hosting for a day. Quite simple really.

Well there is wrestling and then there is wrestling. I certainly would consider competition wrestling such as what you see at the Olympics as a sport. However, the WWE wrestling and others like it are more staged entertainment than a sport. I know hard core fans of this type of wrestling will disagree, but that's my opinion.

Hmm... that is a hard question to answer. It depends on what you consider 'crisp'. It does look a little fuzzy, but I can't tell if that's because of the glow effect or just because it's fuzzy. (if that makes any sense)

You're right, the hotlink protection page is confusing. Basically, here's how it works. Be warned, enabling hotlink protection will stop from hotlinking to all files of the type you specify regardless where they are located on your site. In the "URLs to allow access" box put all the URLs you to have free access to link to any file on your site. This would include any domains or sub domains you use. In the "Extensions to allow (seperate by commas):" box, put in the extension of the files you DON'T want people to be able to link to. Typically this will be images and other files you store on your site, so the extensions could be zip, exe, jgp, gif, png and the like. In the "Redirect HotLink attempts to:" box put a URL to a page or image you want to display when someone tries to hotlink to a file that you don't want them to. I have written a tutorial that goes a little further than this and provides hotlink protection for selected directories. This is the method I use for my site. http://forums.xisto.com/topic/27222-how-to-stop-image-hot-linking-for-a-selected-directory/

SOTW will be put on hold for a week due to the 4th of July long weekend for a lot of people. This will allow people to enjoy their holiday without worrying about missing out on a SOTW competition. Next SOTW will be open on or around the 11th July.