chiiyo

I am a Buddhist/Taoist, and no I don't know which sect of Buddhism I come from O_o. In Singapore all people who claim to be Buddhist often end up also being Taoist, because the two religions have mixed and integrated into each other that you can't really tell them apart (often, people don't even know they are not strictly Buddhist).Buddhism has been covered quite thoroughly by the two Buddhists before me, and basically it's the same idea for me, no god, spiritual enlightenment, but the addition of Taoism makes my religion a lot more... colourful. Taoism is a chinese religion that has a myriad of gods and goddesses in it's culture, with the idea of demons and reincarnation. In Singapore, our "temples" are Taoist in nature, we worship a lot of the gods, like the Jade Emperor, the Goddess of Mercy, the God of the Earth, and we usually even have quite a few statues of Buddha, which technically is a Buddhist symbol.Buddhism came from India, technically, and most worshippers know that, so often the Hindus, trying to build their temples, would offer joss sticks in front of their temples to Buddhist worshippers for donations. Quite a few Hindu temples were built from Buddhists' money. Now that's what I call racial harmony.

Eeek. Safari died. On a Mac. But the rest of my programs were fine, just quitted Safari and restarted it again to post this...Oh well, always knew Safari wasn't the best browser around, I just like using it. Fun though!

Serious?? O_o. I must try it someday then. Cool.

Haha nice to know an actual user review. He really seriously thought it was a 3Ghz p4?? O_o. Goodness. I think I'm being spoilt by being on the Mac OS X for so long. I should go torture myself by using my brother's computer or something...

That would be a yes. As per my previous post.You're getting the laptop with the programs preinstalled? Second-hand? How's the warranty?

I'm quite amazed at the number of mac supporters in this board! I would have never guessed!Well, I've used Mac OSX for over a year now, and I never want to go back to the PC. Agreed, some things on a PC is just better, like game compatibility, and some of the reasons I have for not switching back is purely because I'm too used to the way the mac works, and yes, the fact that my powerbook looks better than the other laptops out there, DOES help... but you know, never having to worry about a virus, seeing everything anti-aliased, having a stable OS that I can hardly crash (I used to crash my PC most of the time. Doing the same things as I do on a mac. In fact I do more on a mac than I used to do on my PC), and I think most importantly, getting huge levels of support on mac forums everywhere.Actually, I belong to the camp that feels that Apple is so special and good precisely because they have control over both the hardware and software side of their products. Because they manufacture the hardware (or at least, know what exactly is going into their computers), they can finetune their software to work hand-in-hand with the hardware. Which is why I usually don't advice people to install Mac OS X on their PC. What's the point?Of course, I might be under the wrong impression here...

Well, usually Macs don't suffer from viruses, especially with the new OSX, because (I'm basically summarising the points from the article I mentioned earlier) most users don't get root access to the system, we all operate out of a limited access account. If I was to install a program, I'd have to type in my admin username and password, which means if a virus was to operate on my computer, it would have to ask me for my username and password, a virus-attacking is something I have to actively participate in (which of course I won't) in order to succeed. Even with my admin username and password, I still don't have root access, it's usually very discouraged to access root.I use the antivirus program I mentioned above mostly just to make sure I don't get virus-infected files from a pc user and pass the virus onto another pc user. The virus won't affect me, I just don't want to be the "spreader" of the viruses.

Okay, I'm not too sure what you are saying here. Are you saying you want to buy an apple laptop and PUT the microsoft programs and photoshop CS and couple other programs in or are you saying you have these programs on your windows laptop or on your dell?? O_o.Well, to answer some of your questions:1. Yes, you can transfer the files, especially if you're talking about files that have the same program in both mac and pc, like Microsoft Word, over to your Dell if you want to. You can either send it through the internet, email, or purchase one of those crossed-ethernet cables to do direct transfer. Or get a thumbdrive or an external harddrive or something. How you transfer it is up to you, the point is that you can, and it'll be perfectly compatible. I know, I transfer word and powerpoint and other files to my classmates on PCs regularly. The files just look better on my mac, that's all. *wink*2. Transferring graphics made on photoshop in a mac to photoshop on a pc and vice versa is also possible, same idea as 1. Just a note though, you probably will have to get photoshop cs for macs because you can't install the pc version on the mac and vice versa.3. Yes, apple laptops have USB. USB 2.0 in fact. We also have Firewire 400 (Firewire 800 if you're looking at the 15" and 17" Powerbooks) and various other ports, as well as Bluetooth, usually in-built.

Well, I haven't personally tried one, but I've played around with one at the Applestore and they're pretty neat. They're REALLY small, like O_o, and really light, and if you have enough money you can go splurge on one of those lovely metal apple studio displays to go with it. Really nice.Basically I'm a fan of everything mac. And the mac mini is really an engineering feat, reminiscent of the G3 cube. Only thing that possibly bugs me is the low-end parts in it, but then, what you pay is what you get. The Mac Mini and the iPod Shuffle has often been touted as Apple's foray into the lower-end market, and so far I think the response is pretty good, I just hope that with a cheaper system, people who used to toy with buying a mac would try it out.Have you seen the iPod shuffle too? I really want one... but not as much as I want my 60GB iPod Photo... *sighs in bliss*

Procedure for developing your own black and white film rolls:(Note: there are books written on this, I'm just recounting and describing the rough process from what I remember)1. Firstly you have to prepare the chemicals that go into the developing container. You would have the Developer, the Stopbath and the Fixer. Each of them have certain requirements such as concentration of the chemical (how much water to mix in) as well as, very importantly, the temperature of the chemical. The requirements would depend on what brand and type of chemical you buy, so you should always check the label on the bottle for the specs. Use ice from the fridge if you have to to lower the temperature of the chemical, and always check the temperature of the chemical with a thermometer. Make sure the Fixer and the Stopbath are still at the optimum temperature by the time you pour them in.2. Prepare your film roll. The roll would have had pictures on it (used roll), so you would want to prevent light from falling on your undeveloped film before developing it, as much as possible. Using a darkbag, or working with the lights off, use a screwdriver to force the film canister open, so you have access to the actual film. Make sure you're wearing gloves, so you won't leave fingerprints all over the film. Slot the film onto the film roll, and continue to wrap the rest of the film around the roll. Put the roll into the developing canister and shut the canister so that no light can get to the film. Now you can take the developing canister out of the darkbag / switch on the lights.3. Following the instructions on the chemical bottles, pour in the Developer and start timing. Agitate the developing canister by turning it upside down to allow the chemicals to reach the film, and then setting it down the right side up, turning it clockwise by ninety degrees, and then repeating the process. The duration of the agitation depends on how long the chemicals are supposed to be used, and that would depend on the chemical instructions on the labels.4. After pouring away the Developer (usually it is not advisable to reuse the film chemicals), pour in the Stopbath and repeat the instructions for the Developer. Do the same for the Fixer. After pouring away the Fixer, run water into the developing canister for a while, and then remove the film from the developing canister, rinse with water, and hang it up to dry. Using a squeegee whilst the film is still slightly wet would prevent water stains on the film when it is dry.5. When the film is completely dry, cut it into strips of five or six (up to your own preference) and keep in film strip holders. Make sure you don't leave them around to be scratched. (Like I did... >_< all my black and white films are now scratched and dirty... takes me absolutely ages to repair it in photoshop, and it's not the same anymore...)

Mac-users can read this article about viruses on macs. I use the freeware they suggested in the article, clamXav, which has a small footprint and does a decent job of scanning my files. So far, nothing caught yet, but it's a good small program to have running all the time. I've heard bad thing about Norton on the Mac platform, mostly about how it's so bulky and not ported well, as well as being expensive, and I've never seen the need to really go beyond clamXav, so I have nothing to say about Norton...

Actually Dynasty Warriors (or Muso, the Japanese name) is about ancient Chinese characters, not samurai.Actually there are quite a lot of new samurai games around... just that most of them are only available in Japanese. For example, some years back I saw an arcade game where you play a samurai using a blade... it's called Tsurugi or something. Then there's the very famous Way of the Samurai, as well as several Shinsengumi games by Konami.

Actually iTunes does a pretty good job of ripping CDs. I use it most of the time on my Mac, not too sure whether the Windows version does the same thing...

Thank you! I will definitely look into redoing my site to be more XHTML... anything to make it more accessible...My current one is made so that even if you switch off CSS, it looks roughly the same, but that also means that a lot of tags are unnecessary...Hm. Any comments about the kinds of webpages created by a blogging software like Wordpress? I've been thinking about streamlinging my website with Wordpress... Are the pages XHTML compatible?

Actually, as an ex-poet myself (haha I don't write anymore!), I used to ponder these questions. I didn't like it when my literature teacher would go, think about what the author was thinking when he wrote this, because from my own experience, I wasn't thinking anything nearly as deep when I wrote the word "in" in between like "drink" and "cockroach" or something, it's just you know, I wrote it there, because it sounded good, not because I wanted to emphasise the small feeling of the cockroach in a vast cup or something like that. (weird example, I know)My friend, who took literature all the way into university, told me something that made me just slightly more happy. Basically, poems, stories, lyrics, all these supposed literary works, are truly only literary works if someone else feels inspired and gets something out of the work. True, there are supposedly very good writers, like Shakespeare and Tennessee, who, for all that's they're worth, might actually really HAVE thought of all that intricate detail when they were writing, but for the rest of the crowd, their work is touted as good because it inspires something in the people who read it, who then spoil it (in my opinion) by taking the poem or story apart and analysing it bit by bit. And overinterpreting it. Which is why the elementary school way of teaching literature is flawed, in my opinion. In the end, if literary works are truly valued by the worth of it in the reader's mind, then what's the point of testing whether you can value the poem using a totally different set of values altogether? It just makes it meaningless. I find literature fascinating because often I'm inspired by what I read, but I HATED ABHORED literature class for the amount of dead-ness it inspired in me when I read.Anyway, give poetry a chance. Read it without pressure to analyse it or take it apart or interpret it, maybe you'd grow to like it. If not, at least you would have read a poem the TRUE way it should be read; with an open mind and heart.

Just a quick question here: Are there any browsers that are not compatible with CSS and XHTML? Or is this generally the standard now? I'm asking about old browsers too. I used to not use CSS because I thought it wasn't supported in some browsers, but I'm not sure whether that's really true or not, so I'm asking...

I'm guessing here, but it's very possible that they might be using a particular weblogging software that allows multiple users. I'm pretty sure Greymatter, b2, Wordpress and MovableType all have the ability to create multiple accounts with varying levels of power, so basically your friend can just direct himself to the login page of the blog software and type his blog, without having access to your ftp and such.

Just a note here, in case you're thinking, why care about the people with the outdated browsers?? Safari (the Mac default browser) has problems showing iFrames. You can see it, but sometimes the coding of the iFrames is not compatible with Safari, and you often get a teensy weensy iFrame instead of a bigger one as specified by the designer. Which means the design is screwed up and usability goes down the drain.I don't want to diss either, just saying if you want to make your site with iFrames, better check with the other commonly-used browsers regarding whether it will display properly or not...

Now this is REALLY cool! I love it how they have the Nikon FM2 alone and the Nikon FM2 with a particular lens...I wonder what it's for really...

I have the Logitech Travelmate (the really small metal polished on with a scroll wheel) that I use with my Apple PBook all the time. It's been a year and it's still working well.I actually think that Logitech is a better brand, because they specialise in making these peripherals anyway. The MX1000 looks really cool, if only it's Bluetooth AND laser at the same time... The only thing is that Microsoft patented the Natural Keyboard idea, so my friend who is a stickler for ergonomic keyboards would only buy from Microsoft.How about the other brands? Macmice? Kensington? Anyone else uses them?

Hmm. at the right side of your banner you can still see the ends of the "spikes" of the rocket even after the rocket has flown to the middle of the banner... is that supposed to happen?What did you use to make the banner? It's pretty nice.

My friend set up dual screens for his computer because he was working on a 3D project, and I've seen how it works. Basically you can customise it so that you don't "stretch" your screen, but add another chunk to it. Like you can have two different wallpapers on the two screens. One screen has the taskbar, the other doesn't, but both screens have desktop real estate, which means you can have files and shortcuts strewn all over both screens. He customises it so that all his video and movie files will pop up on the secondary one (the one without the taskbar) and then he can fullscreen the video and it will only fullscreen on the secondary one, whilst he would be able to talk on msn or surf the net with the other screen. About the "gap", it doesn't matter, because virtually there will be no "gap". Your cursor will flow smoothly from one screen to another, the programming of what goes on which monitor doesn't depend on your positioning of the monitors, which means you can probably put on in front of you and one behind you, move your cursor off the edge of one and see it pop up immediately at the edge of the other. Which makes for a really cool effect. Get enough monitors and make a ring. Surround sound? No... Surround Screen! *laugh*Technically I can set up an external monitor and have additional screen real estate too... but no monitor... >_<

Hmm. Someone posted the specs for the iMac so I guess it's okay to post specs of my Mac here? O_o.12" Apple Aluminium Powerbook1 GHz PowerPC G4512 MB DDR SDRAMGeForce FX Go5200 32MB40GB Hard Drive (very small, I know, I have an external HD that is 30GB and another that is 40GB. But I keep most of my files burned out on CDs and DVDs so I still have around 8 GBs left?)SuperdriveI Will buy the G5 Powerbook when it comes out, my 12"PB is two generations old... The new generation PBs are so cool! Scrollable trackpad, motion sensor that locks the harddrive when the PB is dropping, Firewire 800... But never mind *hugs PB* This one will last me yet...

Hmm, I'm not a gamer myself but I would actually buy the DS before I buy the PSP, I've read reviews and comments for both of them, and although I know that PSP is more feature-rich than the DS, I would want to buy them for the pure reason of GAMING, and in that sense I think the DS is more innovative a more fun in terms of the gaming experience, BECAUSE of the touch screen. Games that make use of the touch screen really change the gaming experience, and apparently there are already quite a few that have been touted to have original, creative and USEFUL use of the touch screen. It is not, I believe, a so-called gimmick just slapped onto the DS. Nintendo came up with a good idea, now it's up to the game makers to make use of the touch screen effectively, and those who have make the DS special.As mentioned already, the PSP's other functions like playing music and watching movies is of little consequence to me, I'm already saving up to get myself an iPod and watching movies on that small screen is not what I would use it for, besides the battery won't last that long anyways. So far the games that the PSP has are not the type of games I appreciate anyway, so this opinion is very much catered to me, in the sense I'm more of a "gameboy" game type of gamer as opposed to the "PS2" game type of gamer. Yeah, still stuck in my primary school days.But yeah, I could be biased because Utada Hikaru did a series of really cool advertisements for the Nintendo DS...

Hi, I was wondering whether anyone would know any freeware that can convert .rmvb files to either .mpg, .mov or .avi files? I have a file in .rmvb format that I can't watch because it's not supported on my system...Also, does anyone know how to convert .wmv files in the wmv4 codec into any of the three formats mentioned above? Macs can't play the wmv4 codec, apparently.Thank you for any suggestions! I don't mind programs that are Windos-based, I can get my friend to help me, but it seems pretty hard to find any freeware that can do the above on either platform...