sonoftheclayr

I have to go Ubuntu and Kubuntu as they are the only ones I have used (I know they are pretty much the same, the only difference being Desktop Environment). I would like to try Fedora but the download is so darn big!

I started off using GNOME on Ubuntu but switched over to KDE a couple of months back, it is the best thing I have ever done, KDE is much faster than GNOME. Back on topic I think it is great that the French government is starting to use Open-Source. Another great step in the on-going war between open-source/free and Windows/closed-source/not free. I don't have anything on my computer that isn't open-source! (Guess what side I'm on?)

The forum is a discussion between developers. We would be creating the game from scratch on a different server (we did have one but that disappeared)

I, along with several others, am making an online game called Galactic Rifts (at the moment). It is a sci-fi text or graphical based game set in the future where you have to conquer other players and dominate. The address is http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ so if anybody would like to help come along and sign up. We are currently in the planning stage so any new ideas will be welcome.

I am pretty sure my computer is overheating as it averages 70 C when idling, after I cleaned the fan out with a vacuum cleaner.I am not sure this is average for a 3.0 GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor but I'm sure it isn't as my laptop hovers around 40 C.The hard disk in it recently stopped working and I was wondering if it could have overheated as well and if there is anything I can do to restore the files off it or at least get the (or some) files of it.Any recomendations for a new fan? I am looking to spend no more then AU$50 and would like a good fan that will keep my system cool.Could you please help as my entire family is biting my head off complaining that they have nothing to do.Thank you,sonoftheclayr

I have a wireless router that simply routes our internet connection through and I think it is great.I just about always have a strong connection from my room (which is right next to the router) and have a good connection, if not excellent, all around the house.I have enabled WPA encryption, MAC address filtering and it no longer broadcasts the SSID. I am not that concerned about security as my town is very small, some 400 people, of those 400 people around 3 would have sat up a wireless network and regularly use it (including me) as well as the community hall (I picked up the signal once).I really don't think anybody would know how to set up wireless on their laptop let alone hack into my internet connection.

I am sure you have all heard of the double zero degrees question.Well, I have an answer.We are going to be using Celsius and Kelvin to figure this out.1) Convert 0 C to K: 0 + 273.15 = 273.152) From 273.15 which is equal to 0 C we double it with a result of 546.3 K, this is twice as much as zero degrees.3) Convert it back in celsisus: 546.3 - 273.15 = 273.15 CTherefore twice as much as 0 C is 273.15 C, interesting isn't it?

Yes the universe is expanding, at a fairly rapid rate too.They recently found out that one of the numbers in Hubble's Theory was off and the universe is expanding faster than we originally thought and that it has expanded more than we thought, how they know this I don't know.But what is going to happen when the universe can't expand anymore?There are several theories some such are:Big Tear (or Rip) - The universe rips apart pulling everything into an empty voidBig Freeze - The universe freezes because it has expanded so far that there is not enough lightBig Crunch - The universe implodes upon itselfThere is always the question "What is the universe expanding into?"If anybody has ever read Cosm you will know that the universe is (sort of) expanding into another universe.There is also the widely believed fact that the universe is in an empty void filled with countless other universes.There are many theories but than we have to ask ourselves "How did all this start?" Creation gods come into the equation here.

Thanks for the help guys, I upgraded the BIOS, Sound card (The sound does work!), Network Card and anything elese that needed upgraded. We didn't get any BSoD's yesterday (First time in a while) after I upgraded the drivers.To anybody else: Don't use windows update to upgrade drivers! Go to the manufacturers website and get the latest version from there, or go to your motherboard's manufacturer and get the driver updates from there (It had updates for all the hardware that came with the computer)

I actually done a persuasive essay last year stating "That Pluto isn't a planet", turns out I was right so I asked my old English teacher and now I get a retrospective A+!It doesn't really bother me much, though, because, when you think about it, Pluto never was a planet under this new definition. It was always misclassified as a planet and has always been a Kuiper Belt Object, and not the largest one at that.In the 90's when people started to think about Pluto not being a planet Clyde Tombaugh (the discoverer of Pluto) said "I don't care what you do with it".

I use XAMPP as the development server on my laptop but recently the Apache version bundled hasn't been working saying that there are "no listening sockets available". It is currently set to the default port of 80 but even when I cahnge it to something unused it still doesn't work.I can't find a version of XAMPP with Apache 1 installed as I heard that downgrading it might work. I can't thinkof anything that would cause it to stop working but even when I close all the programs and stop running all the background services except explorer it still doesn't work.Can anybody help me with this problem as it is really stalling the development of my web page and I am starting to get desperate.

Our family computer is running Windows XP Home SP2 with all the latest updates installed and we constantly get Blue Screens of Death.The most common is DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_EQUAL_OR_LESS in NDIS.sys and portcls.sys.I have googled this many times and found nothing to help but I have heard the two files are for the network card and sound card respectively.The computer has the following specs: - Intel Pentium 4 3.0GHz - Gigabyte 85661FXMP-RZ motherboard with Award v. 6.0 BIOS - NIVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 - No idea what the network card and sound cards are but we use the network car to hook up to ADSL via a Belkin wireless router so I can have the internet on my laptop.It has ZoneAlarm Security Suite installed (whatever the latest version is) and whenever I run a virus or spyware scan (yep, you guessed it) another BSoD comes up, although this one isn't as specific and just gives me a string of numbers.I have checked all the drivers and they are all up to date except for the sound card because I loose the sound whenever I upgrade it.The BSoD's usually come up when we are playing a game namely The Sims 2 and Civilization IV and running a virus or spyware scan.I have also heard that it might be a problem with the CPU overheating or something wrong with the BIOS but I don't know what settings to change.If anybody could help it would be much appreciated because we are all getting sick of the blue screens.

What about in Peter Hamilton's Commonwealth Saga where people are fitted with a memory chip and when they die or when they choose to they are cloned and the memory chip is implanted with all that person's memories? Different body, same person.I have no problems with cloning organs or cloning out diseases, even if they can only prevent them. So what if some people are more susceptible, the diseases will dwindle with less people to prey on, wouldn't they?I don't have a problem with cloning as long as the person being cloned has a valid reason such as medical reasons or if they are dead and it allows them to continue living. I wouldn't mind a clone of myself.So some people might think it is morally or ethically wrong, ethics and morals come from what people think is right and 'not dirty'! I don't get them to be honest, what is the point of saying cloning is morally wrong and then going to watch television and seeing half-naked people walking around? It really depends on the society you live in and how technologically thinking that society is.

That is the most disguisting and pointless website I have ever seen!What's next, Virtual Vomit! I'm not even gonna Google that!(Wheres the green sickly smiley? There should be one!)

In 1997 the International Astronomical Society (IAS, the governing body of Astronomy and objects in space) met to discuss the "Is Pluto a planet" problem.They declared that Pluto would be included as a planet no matter what and now they are meeting to discuss the future of Xena (2003 UB 313) and other Kupier Belt Objects and if any of them can be called planets.The term planet does not have an official definition and, depending on what you look up, there are anything from the 6 'original' planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as discovered by the ancient Greeks) to 100's of asteriods, comets, planetiods, moons, etc. (Any heavenly body that gives off light).So you see, there will be nine planets in the Solar System until September when the IAS declares what a planet is when there might be 10, 11, 12 or still 9.Large Planetoids: - Xena - Quoaor - SednaThere are more but I can't remember them all.

Ever since Columbia broke-up during re-entry in 2003, there has been a lot of media attention towards the safety of NASA's space shuttles. At the time Columbia broke up it had been flying for 22 years (First flight in 1981) and was the oldest in NASA's fleet of shuttles. Columbia had completed 28 missions. To date NASA has lost 2 space shuttles (Columbia upon re-entry and Challenger upon launch) out of the total 8 constructed, however only 5 have been used for manned flights. The Space Shuttles are relatively safe and did not encounter any major re-entry problems until Columbia. Investigations into the Columbia accident showed that the Shuttle was destroyed because some of the Heat Shield that covers the entire shuttle broke off during the launch. As we all know, during re-entry the heat shield failed and the stress and heat became too much for Columbia to handle. Since this acciedent NASA has suspended all flights and has recently launched Discovery for the second time sine the accident. I'm sure we all remember the hysteria Discovery caused last year when she was the first shuttle launched in two years and everybody was worried if it would survive re-entry. Upon launch parts of the heat shield broke off, but this happens on almost every mission, and had to be repaired in orbit during a dangerous spacewalk using new instruments created by NASA since Columbia. All the Space Shuttles will be retired by 2010, Endeavour being the last to retire as it is the youngest, and replaced with the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) which will allow missions to the Moon and Mars as opposed tot he Shuttle which could only go into Earth orbit. In my opinion NASA should have replaced the space shuttles when they were 10 years old, you can hardly expect something that goes into space to withstand the stresses of launch an re-entry for too long. While nothing is wrong with the Space Shuttles, they are getting too old for active service and should be retired a sooon as possible to prevent any further casualties. What are your views on this topic and what do you think NASA should do/should've done to ensure the safety of the Space Shuttles and their crew. I apologise for any errors. Any information I needed to get was from wikipedia. This artice was written by sonoftheclayr and is original.

Hehehe, blaming an iPod?That is ridiculous, like blaming a black cat for bad luck. Okay, not really. But I did get a good laugh out of this story."I think I was struck by lightning because I had some change in my pocket" This story would probably be more ridiculous if he was in a city with tlegraph poles, reception towers, satellites, etc.

Yep! I studied them in Bio class! This Hydra was named after the many-headed lizard that protects Hades.

The short answer: Windows annoyed me.I was fine with Windows 98 and 2k Pro.Then we got XP. It just annoys me.I swear that half the things on Windows XP are there just to annoy you! I really hate the message that comes up when you're in the middle of a really good game of Civ 4 saying that your "Virtual Memory is low and windows is increasing it's free space" I really hate that. Then you have to wait 5 minutes for the game to start working again because it takes ages to bring it up again and ages after that for the virtual memory to have some free space.At the moment the paging file is at 2 GB just so I don't get that annoying message!Right now I am on a laptop that dual boots Ubuntu linux and Windows ME, which is much much better than XP but not as good as 2k.Soon I will get rid of Windows and just run Linux when I get the modem working, and then when we get broadband I will download some other Linuxes instead of ordering Ubuntu, even though it is free.The start menu in XP also annoy me. I want Computer, Documents and eveything else on the desktop, NOT IN THE START MENU! It is also slow.

I was wondering how I would go about resizing an image from a databse without saving it to a file. <?include("settings.inc.php");$get_a=$_GET['a'];$get_b=$_GET['b'];$get_width=$_GET['width'];$get_height=$_GET['height'];$query="SELECT * FROM $get_a WHERE id='$get_b'";$result=mysql_query($query);$image=mysql_result($result,0,"coverimg");$size=mysql_result($result,0,"imagesize");$type=mysql_result($result,0,"imagetype");header("Content-length: $size");header("Content-type: $type");echo $image;?> Obviously the image I want to resize is $image. The page name would go something like this: ?a=books&c=1&width=200&height=300. I would like to resize the image without saving it to file using the variables $get_width and $get_height as the width and height of the resized image. Does anybody have any ideas that might help?

I made a login script for my website that has a sha1 encrypted password stored in the databse and cross-checks that with the password the user supplied.It stores the users name, id, clearance and username in cookies for ease of use around my website instead of connecting to the database every time and doesn't store information such as password and email in cookies, but I am just wondering how secure that is. I would have used sessions but they don't like me.It isn't that much finished but upon registration an email is sent to their email address requiring them to confirm their account before login and the confirmation page requires username, password and email address before they are allowed to log in.Half of my features aren't finished but I know how I am going to do them such as the following: - Resend confirmation email - Forgot my password - Change settings and profile - Automatically delete any unconfirmed users that have been registered for 72 hours (Ample to time to confirm account or to send out confirmation email again)If anybody would like a copy of the completed script or would like to help in any way PM me.

I would say it is ironic that that page does not include the word 'failure' in either the code or output but that didn't deter Google bombers.From that wikipedia link supplied by Alegis I found "Horrid Operating System", one of my favourites. No prizes for anyone that guesses that correctly.

Can't you use POST in XML?I found something like this on w3schools and when I just went to have a look I got a domain parked message.Anyway, I would love to give you a link but I'm sure Google, the god of link givers, would be nice enough to help you out.

I am going to have to say that I also believe Global Warming is false. A change of .6 degrees over the last century? What about the temperature change during the last millenium? Surely that will show that the Earth's average temperature is like a roller coaster and not a steady scenic railroad.I would like to point out that up until a century ago the glaciers in Europe were expanding. Now they have stopped.Global Warming? I don't think so. If these glaciers had been around long enough wouldn't they cover the entire world? It is just a coincidence that the Earth's natural phase of warming up has begun during the Industrial revolution. Maybe it hasn't, for all we know the Earth actually cooled down in the lat 1000 years. Wasn't there a little ice age in the 14th-19th centuries? Wouldn't this have cooled the Earth just a bit. Even if it only lasted a decade that would affect the global climate. Maybe now the Earth is only just heating up to it's former temperature.There have been times in Earth's past where the temperature would've skyrocketed, lik the meteor that supposedly wiped out the dinosaurs, and other times when it dropped, ice ages.I am sure now we are going through a warm phase. Is there actually any evidence to suggest that global warming started during the industrial revolution and was a direct consequence of man's use of coal and steam power? Oh, hang on, temperature records wouldn't go back that far would they? While there is proof to suggest that the temperature has risen over the last century there is none to say that it wasn't rising in the century leading up to the 20th, and then in the 18th, 17th, 16th, etc.I am going to say that 'Global Warming' is a result of Earth warming itself up after the little ice age last mellenia.EDIT: The Little Ice Age lasted from the 14th to mid-19th centuries, not decades but centuries and is thought to have changed the world's temperature by 1 degree celcius. Wasn't the 19th century during the Industrial Revolution? Wouldn't the Earth have started warming up then, in direct conjunction of mankinds widespread use of electricty use and comsumption of fossil fuels.Global Warming has now been proved as Earth's warming mechanism from the little Ice Age, not as a direct result of mankind. Proved by a 14 year old boy. Scientists across the world that believed Global Warming, hang your heads in shame.

According to an article at space.com [ http://www.space.com/2522-pluto-newest-moons-named-hydra-nix.html ] Pluto's two new moons, formerly P1 and P2, have been named Nix and Hydra.