Sarah81

Very sweet indeed. I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, exactly, but that's probably just me *grins* (I'm a dork, I know it.)

If people who don't speak English as a first language can make perfect sense on this forum, then so can those of us who grew up learning to read and write this language. I hate wading through posts filled with chatspeak, l33t and other indecipherable garbage. I really do. I don't expect *perfect* grammar or spelling, but I would rather see someone misspell or mess up an attempt to write correctly, than not even bother and instead post meaningless "hey dis is sux0rz" or whatever.

We have HOV lanes all over the States too. Dallas (city next to mine) has them ... as does Colorado. So, a guy in Colorado used a dressed-up mannequin for over a year so that he could access the HOV lanes without being fined. They finally caught him - and the judge passed down a weird sentence. The guy had to walk around at a major intersection with his dummy and hold up a sign explaining why he was there. Funny but hopefully more effective than just having to pay the fine.

humanforsale.com says I'm worth $1,639,530 right now. Too bad I don't actually *have* any of that right now *grins*But really: what would you all do if you had a million bucks in cash, tax-free, and could spend it any way you wanted?I'd give to my church (tithe) ... share with my family ... pay off student-loan debts ... get a vehicle ... and that's all I can think of off the top of my lil' head right now.

AOL and Yahoo! aren't going to charge private users. They aren't going to give us bad service, either.Read the entire article. They're thinking of offering companies the OPTION of guaranteed in-box delivery by paying a small fee per message sent. These "paid messages" merely bypass spam filters, that's all. (In return: any company who uses the "seal of approval" service risks account termination if they abuse the fact that their messages go directly to in-boxes.)And when they say that they'll give paying customers preferential treatment, they only mean that these e-mails won't go through the spam-filtering process. All of the messages that you and I send and receive now go through the filters, so NOTHING is going to change as far as we're concerned.I don't see Yahoo! or AOL suddenly changing how they deal with our unpaid messages. They wouldn't be stupid enough to intentionally dump our legit messages into spam or bulk folders just because we, the private users, don't pay for delivery services.

I'm surprised that people still bother trying MS software before it's been out (i.e. bug-fixed) for a year or so. I learned very quickly that Microsoft eventually comes up with something good ... but not before they release obscene numbers of updates, patches and security fixes.Then again, I don't use IE unless I visit a site that requires that particular browser. I'd rather use Firefox - it's more user-friendly, far more stable, and the price (free!) is right *grins*As for Vista: I'm not upgrading anytime soon. XP does everything that I want, and more - and the versions I have (Pro and Home) are very stable at this point.

I don't mind loud noises in the background. I grew up with four younger siblings, so even just a normal dinner-table conversation could get pretty loud. (We're polite - we don't often all decide to talk at once and then shout over each other to be heard - but the sheer number of people talking and doing things to make *everybody* at the table laugh just makes for loudness.)From that I developed an ability to basically tune out distracting noises. Unless it's a sound that I don't hear often - maybe a maintenance employee banging on something just outside my apartment - I honestly don't hear it or even register the noise.Even with that nifty ability, I still listen to my MP3 player on the way to and from classes. (I love music - right now I don't have anything playing, but that's actually an odd thing because some CD or iTunes or something is usually on.)So, my music doesn't have to be very loud for me to enjoy it. I can see why some of you prefer not being able to hear what's going on around you - conversations, normal street noise, the crazy guy on the street corner screaming about aliens in his head or whatever - though.

My brother loaned me his XBox, so I'm playing:-State of Emergency (Rockstar Games) - Kaos mode is simply the best. Especially if I put in the "infinite time" cheat. -Grand Theft Auto III and Vice City. I can't believe he hasn't bought "San Andreas" yet.And Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2x. Lil' bro is pretty cool for letting me borrow his game system while I'm off at college *grins* He'll get it back in May - hopefully with some new games if I can get some money together.I generally don't play newer games (i.e. anything about SNES/Genesis level) because I get dizzy and feel nauseated after about 15 minutes. The XBox isn't too bad, though, at least for certain titles. Good thing, too - I'm a huge fan of the entire GTA series.

It never occurred to me that Yahoo! Mail did not until now support the "dot" in the username section of the address. I wonder why they didn't do this sooner? Oh, who cares - at least now people can try to get new usernames that aren't completely whacked out (i.e. with twenty digits after the letters).

You can Google "disable print screen" and come up with examples and discussions like these, but most Internet users will figure out how to get around disabling the "print screen" command. Here are a few other things you can do to help deter thieves: 1. Watermark or otherwise mark your images using photo-editing software. Even just putting your URL on the photo will help deter thieves - and if they steal anyway, their visitors will notice your URL and might visit your site. 2. Get a blog and set security to "friends only." Use this forum for posting things that you really, really don't want other people to steal. 3. Post copyright notices for text and images. Put one in the HTML "comments" as well as one that users can see on each page of your site.

Google sort of has to limit users: hence, the invitation system and the "wait for it" thing with Google Pages. If everybody in Internet Land could sign up without invitations or waiting, the system would overload and we'd end up with just another very slow, badly-conceived system.

My Mom used to make me clean *her* computer - even after I got my own and only used hers to check my e-mail every now and then. The oldest brother, who's just a couple of years younger than I am, rolls his own cigarettes. This brother of mine holds his cigs between his fingers while he types, even though he could just rest it in the ashtray next to the computer. (And yes - we all know that smoking around a computer is a really bad idea.) The worst part is that, because they're hand-rolled, they don't have any filter. All the loose tobacco in the end of the cigarette will just trickle right out if the thing's held upright, like when my brother's typing. So one day, when I was home from college on break, Mom told me that her keyboard wasn't working right. You couldn't press the keys down enough to register with the computer. Okay ... I disconnected it and took it to the kitchen table to take all the keys off and give it a good cleaning. When I got all the keys off the thing, I lifted up the keyboard and turned it upside down. TONS and TONS of cigarette tobacco (loose and unsmoked) and even more cigarette ash fell out and all over the table. I swept it into the dustpan, which was nearly half full of this garbage. Ugh. I showed it to Mom and said, "This is why your keyboard didn't work. There was too much crap clogging it up." She glared at the dustpan full of stuff that we knew belonged to my brother. Then she made her computer area a no-smoking zone, which took care of the problem.

*drools*The first thing that comes to my mind is MUSIC STORAGE. I have quite a bit of music ... but even if I quadrupled my collection, I wouldn't make even a small dent in that drive.But oh, the challenge of trying to take up some of that space!Heh.Seriously though, this really does sound like something companies, not private people, would put to the best use.

I hate cjb.net's popup and pop-under ads. Firefox misses some of them, so they pop up every time I click on anything. Too bad the site owners haven't figured out that nobody in their right mind pays any attention to their dumb ads.

Wow. That's a sweet idea. The drive doesn't seem to be any larger than other flash drives, so users who care about security won't be deterred by added bulkiness. What will techno-geeks think of next?

Well ... if the asteroid holds its course, which could change between now and its expected arrival, it'll probably smash the earth to bits.But I would be about 130 years old when that happens, assuming of course that I'm still alive.Then again, I've heard about potential asteroid collisions with the earth all my life. It seems like scientists are always coming up with this doomsday prediction, but it hasn't actually happened yet. So. If it happens, fine. I'll die just like everybody else. But if not, well, I guess I'll still be sitting here listening to scientists try to scare the snot out of us all every few years or so *smirks*

Wow. Just when I think I'm spoiled enough, people invent an even better way to get - and stay - online. Sweetnes!Too bad I'll have graduated from this college before this new technology becomes popular and affordable enough for the university to bother with it. I could use a better signal here in my apartment. Heh.

Hmm. I hate watching my siblings play this SNES game called "Breath of Fire." Anyone remember that one? I think the whole concept is dumb. You don't get to just full-out attack the enemy. Instead, you get to pick one attack move, then stand there and do nothing while the enemy counter-attacks, etc...and the guy with the best magic potion or whatever wins.People like it, obviously, but that sort of gameplay is boring to me.

I remember them, but I never knew anybody who had one. So, I never got to play. Was/is it any good?

Well ... seeing as the Razr's a $200 phone retail (at least around here) ... I wouldn't expect the sucker to be free without some sort of catch like a frustrating and lengthy rebate-submitting process.Cell phone services will have to understand that we can sell our contracts (there are sites online that will help you do just that) and move on to try a different cell-phone company. When they figure out that we can jump ship when customer service turns to poop, they might treat people a little better. Or they'll just keep dumping on people and we'll keep complaining *grins*

I'm mildly concerned about the potential of increased file size for the new Firefox. The main reason I ditched Netscape - Firefox's grandpa *smirks* - was because the application became so huge and slow and annoying.But I think that Firefox has a *very* long way to go before reaching that point. I hope Mozilla learned from Netscape and won't go near that problem.Does anybody know if the updated version will solve the problem of Firefox randomly crashing? I still haven't figured out what's wrong with mine (v. 1.5.0.1). And it just occurred to me that I don't hear much about Netscape one way or another anymore. Weird. That used to be *the* browser to use if you hated IE. Oh, how things change in just a few years.

That's it! I officially do not need any more reasons to move to the UK *grins*No, not really. I just hope the U.S. jumps on this soon too.

Let's see ... going by systems that have been in my house - they weren't necessarily ones that I personally bought, but someone in the immediately family coughed up money for them:*systems that my brother the video-game freak bought because he loves having old systems:-Atari 2600 (didn't work - no cables)-Turbo Grafx 16 (same story)-Sega Genesis (love that system - used to play it with my cousins all the time)*systems that we had, and actually got to use, because Mom and Dad paid for them:-NES (with the Four Score add-on so that four of us could play racing games against each other)-SNES-N64 (with the virtually-mandatory expansion pack so my sibs could play Zelda)-PlayStation-PlayStation 2-GameCube (laser's messed up on it right now; otherwise I'd have major plans to go home and play it over Spring Break, hehe)-XBoxOh, and of course a desktop computer - the best gaming console ever if you ask me *grins*Right ... my sibs also have original Game Boys lying around somewhere, and Game Boy Color somewhere. And I used to have a Sega Game Gear, which was about fifty times cooler than GB because it had the color screen. Who cares if it sucked down AA batteries as fast as I could throw them in? *snickers*

The first thing that I would do? Check into upgrading the current system. That might actually be less expensive than buying a new desktop and upgrading it to meet your specifications. I say that because you're talking about upgrading to Vista at some point. Not necessarily right after the new OS comes out (which I wouldn't advise anyway), but you're right about it requiring more memory to run. (When has Microsoft released a new OS that *hasn't* required more? Hehe.) If I were you, I would consider doing minimal upgrading on the current system so that it will do what you need and saving the rest of your money for a new system after Vista's been out for awhile. That way you won't have bought and upgraded a system only to find that it's not what Vista needs. For what you're talking about investing in a system, you can get a really good one from Dell after Vista's been out awhile and the new, bigger system requirements are pretty much the standards installations across the boards. Then again, I pretty much always recommend putting off chucking the current system for as long as possible simply because technology improves and drives prices down for yesterday's stuff.

Well ... it's good that the mother is being charged with the appropriate crimes. I feel bad for her daughters. They'll probably need quite a bit of therapy to help them get through the nasty things that have happened to them. *sighs* I don't understand what makes some people do stuff like this.