sparx

In any case, with newer OS like Win 2000 and XP's NTFS file system and the EXT2 file system on Linux machines, files don't get as fragmented as they would on earlier FAT and FAT32 systems. More info on Wikipedia

Wow !10 years... they sure have passed by.I just can't believe it's been 10 years since I heard this old chestnut....Windows 95: noun. 32 bit extensions and a graphical shell for a 16 bit patch to an 8 bit operating system originally coded for a 4 bit microprocessor, written by a 2 bit company, that can't stand 1 bit of competition.Keep smiling...

UPDATE: After having a little chat with two people connected to Google's operations, I have been sent the following link: Sign up for GMail via SMS GMail will continue to be in BETA for the near future at least. Only more and more people will be allowed to register for it. As can be seen in the HELP / FAQ, this is open only to residents of the USA with a cell phone.

Hi ! How can I edit a post once I've dispatched it? In most forums that I know of, there's a link or a button that allows me to do so, but try as I might I just can't seem to find it here... I've tried switching between the 2 skins available - LITE & AMBIENCE but to no avail. The same thing happens in both IE 6 SP2 and Firefox 1.0.6 Could someone post a screenshot showing me exactly where this little button is hiding please ?

Would you be kind enough to clarify? I was always under the impression that in order to sign up for the MSN messenger service, one needed a .NET Passport -- effectively a @hotmail.com / @msn.com email address. Another person has written something similar about not using yahoo email to sign up for yahoo messenger. It's very simple - Don't use the email service, just use the email address to login to your IM client. The whole point is to connect with your buddies who are on the same service. By using the jabber protocol Google Talk in fact encourages people to use other clients. Also I'm not seeing any adverts in Google Talk yet, but MSN messenger certainly has them at the bottom of the contact list. No service forces you to use their email... being able to log in and use all the services provided by a web-based service company (Microsoft MSN / Yahoo / Google ) with a single login is what they're pushing at the moment. Do more under one roof is the mantra of today's portals.

Actually, since Google Talk is using the jabber protocol, people who use a more feature-filled client can take advantage of it by connecting to the talk.google.com server.I personally have succesfully connected to the Google Talk service using Miranda IM. Of course, the whole point of being able to use voice to interact is pointless on my end as my bandwidth is on average 48 kbps. What is good IMHO, is that byusing an existing Open Source protocol, Google is making the first baby steps toward interoperability. I hate that I can't talk to other users just because I use XX or YY messenger service. IM should be as ubiquitous as email. One shouldn't have to ask - what IM do you use? Just what's your IM ID?

Hmmm.. I read elsewhere that in order to be able to sign up, one needs to access the GMail site from a mobile phone in the USA. Then you get the activation code and URL which goves you a GMail account. Can anyone verify this?

A posting on the Google Blog says that GMail is now available for users to sign up with at the front page. No more exclusivity, no more invitations, no more " My mailbox is bigger thatn yours " ! However, as of now, when I am clicking the link I still can't see any way for a user to sign up... Perhaps it's being rolled out slowly.

After dominating the search scene on the web, grabbing the monopoly of online usenet viewing and search, making email providers sit up and take notice when GMail was launched, mapping the Earth & the Moon, Google have now debuted their new BETA version of the Instant Messenger which includes the ability to communicate by Voice to a fellow user. It's called Google Talk BETA ( but I might start a trend by shortening it to GTalk ! The client is based on the Jabber Protocol so other clients can connect to GTalk users. A list of common clients that can interface with Google Talk (screenshot from the site): Once again Google have demonstrated a responsibility toward using Open Source / non-proprietary protocols. At first glance it appears functional and what I found sets it apart from other messengers is its small size - 900 KB ! Only Miranda IM is smaller and BTW, it supports the Jabber protocol with the help of a plugin.

Apologies, old chap!I was in a bit of a hurry and wanted to improve my credit ratings. Still an informative piece none-the-less.Credit for the piece goes to Debra Shinder from http://www.windowsecurity.com/

What about any negatives? So far, everyone's been gushing about GMail and how wonderful it is... [ to which I agree toa certain degree] Here are my ideas on what Gmail's lacking:- IMAP4 support as pointed out by another user in this thread- A column for size of the message. Very often, knowing the size of the email is critical when you ned to send a largish file to someone whose mail provider may not allow large attachments OR like me, I just like to know what size the email is.- Not Skinnable (via CSS)- Unable to automatically add contacts to address book after sending email (An option to add contacts is available in the email options though!)- No option to REDIRECT an email (forwarding a message inclusive of the original headers)There might well be others, but these few are the ones that come to mind right now. Make no mistake - I do like GMail and use it as a repository to collect emails that clutter up my primary mailbox.

The new logo for IE7 has been released Most prominent is the gold banding and of course the very noticeable change from Microsoft Internet Explorer to Windows Internet Explorer. Seems OK at the outset and it ought to complement Vista's new look. More eye-candy to compete with the Mac, I guess...

Instructions on how to install Apple Computer Inc.'s Mac OS X operating system on any PC with a chip from Intel Corp. or Advanced Micro Devices Inc. were posted to the Internet this week, and they could be found on several Web sites as of Friday. Apple has announced that Mac OS X will run on Intel's x86 architecture chips starting in 2006. The Cupertino, Calif. company has been working on a version of Mac OS X for Intel's chips since 2000, even though Macs currently use PowerPC chips from IBM and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Apple CEO Steve Jobs told developers in June that a switch was necessary to take advantage of the low-power chips Intel is expected to release in the future. At the time, Apple executives insisted that Mac OS X would run only on x86 chips used in Apple-developed hardware. Intel PCs distributed to Apple developers with the x86 version of Mac OS X used a security chip to prevent developers from copying Mac OS to other Intel PCs, according to several reports this week from Mac enthusiast sites. However, several enterprising hackers have figured out ways to bypass the security chip and run the developer's version of MacOS for x86 on any x86-based PC, according to a posting on the Web site of the OSx86 Project. Posters on that site as well as other sites within the Mac community claim to have used the instructions to run Mac OS X on their Intel or AMD PCs, with some posting pictures and videos of x86 PCs booting Mac OS X. The process requires a copy of Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", VMware Inc.'s virtualization software, the PearPC emulator that can run operating systems written for PowerPC on any architecture, Apple's Darwin 8.0.1 software, an x86 processor that supports SSE2 (Streaming SIMD Extensions 2) and two files created by an independent developer that can be downloaded using the BitTorrent file-sharing system. Users must be willing to download pirated software, as the two files have been modified to get around the security technology in the developer PCs, according to The OSx86 Project Web site. The site insists that The OSx86 Project does not support the use of illegal software but wishes to offer a forum for users interested in running Mac OS on x86 chips. Mac OS X users praise its user-friendly design and the scarcity of viruses developed for the operating system. Aside from a brief flirtation with licensing the operating system in the mid-1990s, Apple has maintained control over its operating system by restricting it to hardware made and developed by the company. However, there is a sizable group of PC users that like to build their own systems using hardware from Intel and AMD, and many users in that group have itched for a way to run Mac OS Xon these low-cost machines. Notice from vizskywalker: I did a silly thing, I copied an article from a popular magazine, PC World, that a moderator reads in the hopes of getting many credits. Unfortunately, he easily found me out and I lost more credits than I gained. I will never do this again, and neither should anyone else -CREDITS ADJUSTED!

1. Find a free blogging service, such as http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/. Register a catchy yet philosophically deep name for your new blog: "lifesucks"; "All Things Me"; "Lifehacker"; "Playing With Matches"; "The Internet Slacker", "I Stalk David Hasselhoff".3. Consider one of the many pre-made website templates offered by the blogging service, or one created by you.4. Turn your nose up in disgust at the thought of using a pre-made template for your blog. 5. Spend the next seventeen hours creating a functioning website from scratch. If using Microsoft FrontPageTM, relocate all children and elders to a safe area out of your "profanity zone". 6. Complete your self-made blog template by clicking on the "Publish Website" command in Microsoft FrontPageTM. 7. Watch in shock as the aforementioned seventeen hours of hard work gets permanently deleted off your hard drive by Microsoft FrontPageTM. 8. Swear so loudly all dogs within a five block radius begin running in circles and howling.9. Declare "Screw It" and choose from a pre-made template. Always choose one with lots of kittens and flashing animated gifs.10. Make sure the template is ready for your first blog entry. You can do this by going to your new blog's URL address and seeing if the page loads properly. It will have no posts yet, of course, as you have not actually written your first blog entry. (If you do see a post written by yourself at this specific moment in time, read it! You've traveled back in time to warn yourself about the "Publish Website" command in Microsoft FrontPageTM).11. Click on the "Create Post" selection. The window will reload with a box for you to type text in.12. Put fingers to keyboard in preparation to type your first blog entry.13. Realize in horror that you have absolutely no idea what you're going to write about.14. And you've got a whole blog ahead of you. 15. Stand up and get an alcoholic beverage to calm you.16. Pace back and forth while racking your brain for a great post.17. Cast resentful looks at your computer monitor while drinking the alcoholic beverage.18. Come up with a touching yet funny childhood memory you can write about, like when you and all the other fat kids in the neighborhood used to take down the ice cream man not unlike a pack of lions ravaging a wounded gazelle.19. Or, make your first post about how much you love pets. Remark on the fact that you let your pet pit bull out of the house every night to get some freedom and exercise even though the sirens from the ambulances tearing through your neighborhood constantly interrupt your sleep.20. Or, make a heartfelt confession about how guilty you feel that you could never be a vegetarian because you salivate every time a nature documentary appears on the television.21. Sit back down at your computer desk with your great idea.22. Complete your first post.23. Experience a fleeting sense of satisfaction that you now have a blog with an actual entry, even though it details your sexual attraction to Yoda.24. Immediately phone all your friends and family to tell them the URL. Remind your grandmother that 'stiffwoodysdiary' in your blog's address is spelled "all one word".25. Reload your blog incessantly every two minutes to see if anyone has made a comment.26. Become enraged when the very first comment made on your very first blog entry is "yuo are teh sUxx0r!" from Anonymous27. Go outdoors to calm down and get some fresh air, since you've spent twenty-two hours now working on your blog.28. Tell every person you encounter - jogger, police officer, frantic paramedic - your blog's URL.29. Head back home when an idea for a blog entry comes to mind, such as the rudeness of paramedics who can't be bothered to talk about your blog because they are busy helping some whiner with pitbull bite wounds on his throat.30. When back at your computer, immediately refresh your blog's page to see if any more comments were made while you were gone.31. Grip the edge of your computer desk when the second comment reads "I said yuo are teh sUxx0r!" by Anonymous 32. Click on the "make new post" button on your blog.33. Realize with horror you've totally forgotten the good writing idea.34. Stand up and get another drink.35. Sit back down at your computer desk.36. Write your second post: how people who make dumb comments on blogs should be strung up by their genitals with barbed wire.37. Complete the second post.38. Stand up and get a third drink to calm you down from the blogging experience.39. Watch TV while thinking you shouldn't watch so much television since experiencing life would probably make for a blog that's actually interesting to read. By going out more, you'll be able to continue to spread the address of your blog to bemused strangers, too.40. Accept phone call from your grandmother asking you to change 'stiffwoody' in your blog's name to something more polite.41. Refuse and hang up phone.42. On the way back to the television, refresh your blog's page again to see if there are any more comments.43. Experience relief when third comment is a non-abusive one. Become incredibly depressed when you discover it is written by a fellow blogger asking if you ever fantasize about wearing lederhosen while flailing midgets with kielbasa sausage, and if you'd like to meet up with him for same.44. Stand up and get a much larger, stronger drink.45. Consider making your third post. Repeat verbal declaration made in step #9, forget blogging for now, go to bed.46. Just before you fall asleep, realize with horror you'll need to repeat steps #11 to #45 daily to keep your bragging rights about owning a blog (which, ironically, nobody reads).47. Slip into an uneasy nightmare about being forced to type the word "sUxx0r" on a flaming keyboard while chained to Jabba the Hutt, who keeps demanding "More! More! Jakatooie Blogga Dooie! More!!!" 48. Wake up in the morning. Scream. 49. Read the new comments posted on your blog. Scream again.50. Repeat for the rest of your life.51. Welcome To Blogging!

Disabling Services that one doesn't require is a good way to increase resources on your Windows PC. Here's a good guide to services. Without a doubt, please back up your Registry before and after making changes and be sure to name your backups in an easy-to-recognize manner. Also write down what services you have enabled/disabled so you can keep track of them. Lastly, it makes things simpler and there's less of a chance of screwing something up if you first ask if you're evne slightly unsure about what a particular thing is.

A new worm has been detected by multiple antivirus and security specialists. It's called ZOTOB and is exploiting security holes that have been earlier highlighted in Microsoft Security Bulletin MS05-039. The worm affects Win2000 systems and newer. Win 98, ME etc. are not currently thought to be at risk although, one must always keep the holes plugged. Details regarding what it does exactly and removal instructions can be found at Symantec's site and also at Microsoft's ZOTOB Advisory page The hole allowing Zotob to infect and spread can be fixed by installing MS Security Update 899588 Keep your antivirus up to date as well. Good Luck!

One of the new features that the new OS from Microsoft (called Vista) will be the ability to start programs faster thanks to even better pre-fetching than that in Windows XP. However, this ability is no longer restricted to the new OS with existing users of Win XP being able to enable an even better prefetch than what they currently experience. Tech gurus have come up with a fix, so to speak which involves editing a Registry Key. Backup your registry before making any changes. Do everything carefully and @ your own risk! HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\PrefetchParametersOn the right side, EnablePrefetcher has a default value of 3. Change it to 1 for an improvement.

Here's one more reason to be on the lookout that you don't get infected by CWS. At last count there were well over 50 variants loose in the wild! Sunbelt is a software company that makes the well known anti-spyware called CounterSpy. While investigating a new mutation of the CoolWebSearch trojan, a Sunbelt researcher was astounded to discover that it was being used for identity theft. All manner of personal information is being uploaded to a publicly-viewable web server, including eBay passwords, Paypal passwords and passwords for bank accounts worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. Anyone who knows this web server's IP address can view all of this information! After initially rebuffing Sunbelt when they first made contact, the FBI now is said to be investigating the matter. Sunbelt also has tried contacting some of the victims of this identity theft. CoolWebSearch is a particularly nasty browser hijacker with countless variations. They have hundreds, possibly thousands, of affiliated web sites who all feed traffic into coolwebsearch.com. Many of those affiliates use exploits for various flaws in Windows and Internet Explorer to install browser hijackers. The motivation behind all of this, of course, is money. Coolwebsearch.com is nothing more than a collection of paid listings. If someone clicks the links on their web site, they are paid a small commission from the owner of the site being linked. In turn, CoolWebSearch pays their affiliates to drive traffic to their site. They almost always have used unethical and possibly illegal methods to install this hijacking software. The recommended thing to do is to scan your system using the very specialized CWShredder which removes all traces of CWS.

I have yet to find a single host that cover all my needs. With GMail, I became enamoured first because of the huge space offered. I like to use it as a repository of emails that I need not keep in my primary mailbox. As you've guessed my primary mailbox is NOT GMail, because I still prefer a classical layout which shows me the size of the emails and also because I've been using my primary mailbox for years now and am extremely happy with the service. A lot has been written about the interface and even more has been written and read into the text ADs that are put up. My opinion about this is simple but one which doesn't apply to many people - For sensitive stuff, my email is sent/received in encrypted format using GnuPG. Another factor that awes people (IMHO) is the exclusivity factor: One can't get an account by simply going to the website, you needed to be invited into the coterie of privileged users with GMail accounts. Of course, sites like isnoop.net put paid to that. And now everyone and their grandmother have GMail accounts and over 50 invites to give away. It isn't just the service that counts now-a-days, it's the general user's perception of the user that counts.

I think the main contention of illegal downloads and sharing is the major loss monetarily to the record companies and in turn the artistes themselves. While I agree whole-heartedly that we must all do our bit to respect IP (Intellectual Property), the issue of exposure shouldn't be neglected. If the music wasn't spread around, fans might never hear of new and upcoming music which they might like. I remember in the days pre-dating MP3 players where we used to jog around with cassette WalkMans. Most of my tapes were compilations of music I'd recorded off the radio. I was quite happy with the quality, but gradually as the technology improved, I - like many others - embraced CDs and their huge improvement in sound. That of course was the time before we realized that a glorious connective revolution called the Internet was about to unfold in front of our eyes. For a time, original CDs produced by record labels were the staple and backbone of my collection.Apologies if I'm drifting but what I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't be afraid of technology. Au contraire - we must embrace it whole-heartedly. A lot of people still believe that online file sharing is sounding the death knell for record companies and physical media. It isn't. They will adapt and so will we.

Two other good providers of sub-domains are uni.cc which gives you a sub-domain in the format - http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/& ne1.net which has a similar format offered http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ OR http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ with or without www as a prefix. Both these services are good, reliable and free. More importantly (for me at least) they don't put up any adverts whatsoever!

A number of websites and blogs have picked up a story doing the rounds re: the new name for the upcoming release of Windows currently code-named Longhorn. Strong rumour has it that the new OS will most likely be called Windows VistaThat's according to sources close to the company who requested anonymity. They said that Microsoft unveiled the name in Atlanta on Thursday at the company's internal sales event, known as the Microsoft Global Sales Briefing, or MGB.Word of Longhorn's new name began leaking to the Web on Thursday evening. One Windows site discovered that Microsoft registered the WindowsVista.US domain name. Microsoft is expected to make the official announcement of the new name on Friday morning. (US Time)Microsoft has relied primarily on date-oriented names for many of its products, although it has shied away from those on occasion.The last major version of Windows, code-named "Whistler," eventually was christened Windows XP.Microsoft officials declined to comment on the specifics of a "Longhorn-related" news announcement slated for Friday morning.Longhorn Beta 1 is widely expected to be unveiled next week. Beta 2 is due in the first half of 2006. Microsoft officials confirmed on Thursday the final release is still on track for the latter half of 2006.

Lead Developer Ben Goodger has posted an update to the Development roadmap for Mozilla Firefox. The scheduled 1.1 release this month willnow be renamed to 1.5 and will be released in September. Firefox 1.5 Beta is now set for an August launch. Mozillazine.org Link What does this mean? Essentially, it gives everyone associated with Firefox - both developers and end users something to look forward to and work towards. having a structure and objectives makes for a more efficient and collaborative effort. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Firefox will be able to survive the onslaught of Internet Explorer 7.

The Mozilla teams have had some trouble over the last week... 1. Code was changed in v1.0.5 of Firefox resulting in a lot of extensions not working (it turned out to be something minor) The more notable amongst the extensions was the AIRoboform toolbar. Roboform released an updated version of its Netscape adapter to make it work again with Firefox. 2. Thunderbird v 1.0.5 was released. There was confusion because the previous stable release was 1.0.2, so a lot of us were wondering why the sudden 0.0.3 jump?? Naturally, some extensions stopped working with this version (example - Enigmail is an extension to the mail client of Mozilla / Netscape and Mozilla Thunderbird which allows users to access the authentication and encryption features provided by GnuPG) As an update: Thunderbird 1.0.6 will be out within the next few days and it ought to function like it was intended to. 3. The Spread Firefox site was attacked and was brought down due to an existing hole in the web server, i think. All-in-all, this week seems to be the one where the Mozilla rollercoaster is on the downhill slope.