Sarah81

Hmm...six versions here in the States alone ... that's almost too many options for consumers. We can barely figure out which fast-food restaurant to visit at lunch!Then again, I hope that one of these versions is actually very close to what I'll actually want and use. Yeah, that would be nice, as it would mean less playing around with the "add/remove programs" menu. *snickers*

For me personally: if a caller has something very important to say, he or she will leave me a voice message. I can check my voice mail from the parking lot, or after I pull off the road. If it's not important, then the caller won't leave a message, and I can just keep driving without worrying about what I'm missing.I realize that some people, such as business executives, must be in touch frequently. They have to take calls, and be on the road for meetings and such. I would prefer that they pull over, but using a hands-free headset is a close second. It's hard for me to talk on any sort of phone (cell or land line) and pay attention to what's happening around me at the same time. I inevitably pay more attention to one or the other, and have to catch up on what I missed. For that reason, I don't think that I'm a very good candidate for driving while talking on the phone. I'd either have to ask the caller to repeat himself every other sentence, or completely miss the fact that the light is red and blow right through it.Either way, it's easier to just not mess with the phone.

Logitech's my favorite brand. I did, however, have a Microsoft Optical thingy that I only paid 10 bucks for (I love going-out-of-business sales) that worked really well for over a year before I switched to a notebook computer.Now I'm using a Targus Mini optical mouse, which is really sweet. It's about three inches long, has a scroll wheel in the middle, and connects to the USB port. It was worth twenty bucks.

When I was a kid, we just called it "mouse crap." As in ... Mom: "Sarah, before you get anywhere near my computer, you have to clean out the mouse crap." Me: "Why do I always have to clean the crap out of the mouse?' Mom: "Because I said to." She's had to do it herself the last 1.5 years or so, since I left to go to college. Poor, poor Mom. But on the plus side, she has a stationary mouse, instead of the old ball-on-bottom types that I used to have to clean every, oh, week and a half or so.

If you're talking about the junk that accumulates as you use the mouse, it's just a composite of dirt/dust, oil from your hands, dead skin cells, etc. And animal hair/dander if you have indoor pets. Basically, the nearly-microscopic stuff that you don't really see builds up on the mouse until you *can* see it. Even my mini optical mouse has that problem. The tiny feet on the bottom get that crud on them. But - the built-in touchpad on my notebook doesn't really get too dirty or crudded up ... possibly because I go out of my way to keep things dusted/wiped down.

Well ... "Jeffrey Dahmer" is one of the first things that come to mind for most people when cannibalism is mentioned, so that's going to turn a lot of people off where this subject is concerned. I can't honestly say that I would support the practice.1. There are plenty of other ways to get all the nutrients that the human body needs. If that weren't true, those of us who live in cultures where cannibalism isn't practiced would all be either dead or seriously malnourished. 2. Even when I'm really broke, I can find some sort of food. It's not like we're talking about eating a plane-crash victim or starving to death here. In that sort of situation, I'd be a lot more open-minded, seeing as people do very desperate things to survive (such as the rock climber who hacked off his own arm that was pinned beneath a rock).Besides: I like food to taste, look and smell good. I can't imagine a cooked human arm or something meeting those requirements.

Interesting idea. Hopefully more people will learn that there are alternatives to Microsoft's browser out there, that won't cost anything. Personally, I have the URL to download Firefox in my e-mail signature. I figure that's my good deed for the decade *grins*

I use AVG free edition, which I like so far. (I've used it since August or September.) It doesn't hog resources like Norton loves to do, and it's free - can't beat that. And just to satisfy my curiosity: what antivirus programs are packaging spy/adware with their software?

I went to Netscape years ago - back when Win95 was the newest Microsoft OS -and only switched away from that browser several months ago. Netscape's really gone down the proverbial toilet lately, what with trying to earn the title of "guys who created the largest, bulkiest, slowest Web browser ever" and all. But Firefox is a lot better in my opinion. Like Netscape, this browser is capable of using tabs instead of new windows. And I can still have different user profiles, easy-to-customize bookmarks, etc. Even when IE7 comes out, I'm pretty sure that I'll stick with Firefox. I'm a sucker for software that doesn't make me crazy *grins*My only complaint is that Firefox randomly shuts down. It's very rare - maybe once every couple of weeks or so - but it's still a mild annoyance. Oh, well.

You can always look at your career training as a step toward what you really want to do with your life. You may not think that your exams, classes, etc. are important compared to any programming that you're interested in doing and learning, but they'll help you out in one way or another. Can you alter your career-training path so that you can learn programming, which seems to be what you really want to do with your life? And to answer your question about programmers without degrees:I have an uncle who taught himself COBOL years and years ago. He spent some time in college, but put in an application to a very large banking/insurance corporation when he was partway through. He never finished his degree but doesn't have to worry about making money - mainly because he still works for that corp., but as a systems analyst (read: more money and a better job than the one he started with).I also have a few pretty good friends who didn't go to college, or finish it if they *did* go, who are doing all right. They have work experience instead of degrees, so employers are all right with hiring them.Here in the U.S., companies place a high value on the piece of paper, but many are willing to make exceptions if you're good and can prove that you're capable of handling everything in the job description.

This one might not be too bad, but the ones that will surely follow should be pretty nasty. I guess now my Mac-using friends will start thinking about antivirus systems, or at least be more careful with what they do online.

Whew! Firefox's popup blocker worked overtime on this site - and still managed to miss three windows before I left the site.This is an interesting site, sure, but I don't see the point for Xisto members. We sit here and post in the forums so that we don't have to either pay for hosting or deal with dumb ads on our Web pages...then we're going to go and subject users to this pop-up frenzy? I think I'll pass on that one.

Actually, I'd say the person who started that e-mail was pretty smart - considering that countless people were dumb enough to actually *open* the stupid thing. And I'm sure that the viruses replicate, so the love just keeps on spreading with each person who doesn't think before he/she opens an attachment. And of *course* the Fibbies would raid the place instead of sending a stupid e-mail. Their multibillion-dollar budget practically *Begs* for the storm troopers entrance. Besides, it just looks cooler on their recruiting videos than a guy sending e-mails all day.

Hehe, I wouldn't mind winning one of those iTunes cards. And yeah, I can definitely see how this promotion is boosting the number of downloads. Wow, that counter's really flying!

I just found this hilarious video made by a guy who has to use Macs for work. This is one of the funniest anti-Mac-computer rants I've ever heard/seen. I feel for the guy because I was stuck using Macs at one of my jobs a couple of years ago and basically went through EVERYTHING that he's griping about in this three-minute video. EVERYTHING. Including trying to help one of my senior-citizen-aged coworkers figure out that whole "twisting hands and fingers all over the keyboard, trying to get the right keys to make the stupid computer reboot, or die, or unfreeze, or catch on fire or something" thing.

This is great news! I was born in '81, so the "AIDS scare" is something that I don't remember very well. Since then, we've obviously come very far in the fight against this virus.There's still a long way to go, but I hope this is a very large move in the right direction. I've only met one person with HIV/AIDS. I met him briefly, when he was in very early stages of HIV, so I can't really say that I've seen how devastating this virus can be. But I know that he, and people like him, deserve to be healthy. Even if this isn't *THE* cure, the scientists working with this treatment will surely learn more through their research and testing. Not that I really want to wait for an actual cure. I'd love to see this stuff in pharmacies and at doctors' offices even before I post this reply. I know that won't happen though.

Case mods? Hmm ... does slapping stickers on my notebook's lid count? *grins* Seriously, that's a nice case. I wouldn't pay to have that sort of thing done (and don't even ask if I could/would do it myself, because that's just not happening, hehe), but it's still nice to look at. But I *do* have a modded microwave courtesy of my artistically-inclined younger brother. This was an old-old-old castoff microwave that we found for me when I moved into my own apt. last semester (the thing still works, so no complaints). So I re-painted it and asked my brother if he could do anything to make it look, you know, cool. Sorry that my camera sucks so much, but you can get the basic idea - he used a silver Sharpie and free-hand drew the flames all over the front.

Wow - it sounds to me like Google put a lot of thought and effort into coming up with this program. As usual, they're taking common sense (i.e. what users would actually want and make use of) into account when they come up with new things. And wow, are they fast!

People probably didn't want to "waste" time trying to help the woman out *because* it was rush hour. They were either trying to get to or from work. I'm sure that a lot of the people honestly didn't notice what was going on. They were probably absorbed in newspapers, MP3 players, whatever. Those aren't excuses. Even though I'm a very cynical and jaded person, I'm sometimes surprised by our overall lack of humanity. Honestly ... had the woman been one of us, we would have wanted someone to do something.

Yep - adults definitely invest in the Legos. Some of the kids I knew in high school (mid-teens) who were still playing with the things at that point ended up being engineers or architects. Gee, I wonder what sparked their interest in those fields. *grins* So, if I ever get the nieces and nephews that I'm already planning on spoiling rotten (an act of revenge against my brothers and sister, of course) they're getting about eight zillion Legos each. Just so that I can laugh when my sibs step on the stupid things at three in the morning.

Yeah, that figures. I already knew that Windows basically deteriorates on its own (hence, the need to reformat so much more often than, say, Linux users). But yeah, I can see how imperfect 3rd-party programming can add to the problem.Not that the problem is that big a deal. Since it's a local problem, not a flaw that can be exploited over the Internet, a lot of us are probably safe. Provided that we don't let complete nutjobs "borrow" our work stations, of course *grins*

I've seen some nasty tats, but that one's pretty bad. For more fun, visit badtattoos.com - a site dedicated to showing off the WORST tattoos I've ever seen in my entire life.

I prefer Yahoo! Messenger. This program takes up less of my computer's resources than AIM - and doesn't annoy me by being affiliated with AOL. That, and I was already a Yahoo! Mail user before I downloaded Messenger, so I was drawn to the fact that I would get e-mail alerts when I used the Messenger software. And I guess that all of my pals being on Messenger is another selling point.

I just bought an iRiver a couple of weeks ago. It's a smaller, older one, but that's okay because I only need the thing to hold about eight hours' worth of music. It's cheaper than Apple's similar offering (iPod Shuffle), has more options (FM radio tuner, voice recorder, that sort of thing) and - oh yeah - it's smaller than the Shuffle.Came with a warranty, the Web site's written entirely in English, and the thing's red, which is one of my favorite colors anyway. My only real complaint is that I can't just use iTunes, which is my computer MP3 player/CD burner software/online radio tuner/etc. anyway, to transfer files from my laptop to the MP3 player. But that's hardly iRiver's fault *grins* and it certainly wasn't worth shelling out a lot more money for an iPod just to have the privilege of using iTunes for file transfers.

I used to use Paint Shop Pro (version 6 and 7) all the time when I was a journalism student. The software worked really well for the basic photo editing that we did for each paper.But then somebody higher than me on the student chain saw other student newspapers doing "cutouts" - i.e. cutting out backgrounds of photos and all that creative stuff - so the next thing I knew everybody was making me cut out just about every single freaking photo in the entire 12-page newspaper. Granted, we only put out an issue every other week, but that's still a lot of cutting out. And the effect is really lost when you're doing it with every photo.Oh, well. That's just one of the reasons I'm an English major now *grins*