Alegis

If you can see flash v8 movies, flash is enabled and working for all versions. I suggest you try sites like http://www.newgrounds.com/, there are flash menus all over the place. Now for websites with streaming content, that's another case. I sometimes need to refresh as well before the embedded player shows up. Which browsers have you tested it with ?

Faster ? Who notices a difference when it already runs that smooth and has much better options (mailing, very silent etc). Easy? It's not as if any of both are difficult to understand at all; one with the most convenient options "wins then". What is more important however, is the effectiveness of the virusscanner. Great code, and less updates necessary to feel secure "NOD32 is the world leader of the Virus Bulletin 100% Awards" https://www.eset.com/us/about/eset-advantage/ nonetheless, kaspersky is a good virus scanner.

Not using the performance draining horror that is SP2, or resource hogging programs such as Norton Perhaps use a shortcut? I used to do this and I thought there was a special extra command to boost shutdown, but I can't exactly remember. A link http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,455,00.asp

Perhaps a more appropriate fora? Made some screenshots as well, of the new features and UI over there. link. The downside is however, that I'm not using it anymore right now. The beta requires SP 2, and I have a very bad history with SP2. Shortly after writing that topic windows installation failed the boot and I couldn't uninstall SP2 from DOS, so had to transfer data with another windows partition and eventually format disk. Not touching service pack 2 again - ever.

I forgot to link it before, there is an impressive list out there including greek and russian keywords http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb (or more specific : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb%23Ahed_Googlebombs ) My favourites : ******* edit : (word that consists of one's behind and an orifice) ****wit edit : (pretty obvious) Food Nazis Opportunist Vreemdelingenhaat (hate for strangers) Ληστές (thieves) Note: these keywords do not necessarily (in fact, most probable they may not) reflect my personal political stance. I feel like starting one about Sony and their PS3/bluray scheme.

group policy editor? Ah too bad only Pro. Or maybe it's only enabled on Pro. Nonetheless it sounds like a very nice tweak. Currently checking out the changes on http://www.speedguide.net/articles/windows-2kxp-registry-tweaks-157

I'll add 2 to the list I've used before. These sites are good at translation of phrases, and quite accurate if you only wish to translate a word. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://www.freetranslation.com/ Most websites do struggle with chinese/russian. The weird structure, strange characteristics aren't really easy to automate

Checked patch notes, glad these issues are being adressed. The automatic update feature allows smooth updating :DFirefox 2.0 out soon

I prefer windows Media Player as default video/audio player, but I'm quite annoyed by Microsoft's Installation instructions. You can only install Office 2007 and WMP 11 betas if you have Service Pack 2 installed. Now normally I wouldn't mind, but Service Pack 2 isn't as stable for some workstations as for others. Only caused problems for me, and I formatted C drive 2 days ago as the XP installation failed to boot thanks to SP 2. If anything changed, ie. if you can install it on SP1, please do let me know I'm not going to put back the turd pack that is SP 2. I do like the new look of WMP 11

Update to main topic Read the following on a news post on digg.com World of Warcraft passes 50 percent market share Source: http://arstechnica.com/uncategorized/2006/06/6964-2/ Snippet : While I think the game is worth such attention, bit wondered how they spend their funds. Usually dungeon content is badly tested (end-game raiding guilds have been acting as Q&A for too long) and think that with such a huge playerbase and revenue income they can do 'more'. All in all though they are proving great patches. And best of all, they got newer players in the market. Not just stealing market 'shares' from another game.

I've been playing WoW for over 14 months since retail, and before that in beta. I played a lot of Guild Wars during the betas, not that much during retail. Reason for that : WoW. For me, WoW was just a lot better, however I quit as well because it just way too much time to raid almost every night. Guild Wars is a much more easy going game. You got the co-op missions which are pretty fun, but it's a bit repetitive and 'random' (as a WoWer you will immediately notice that healing/rezing is too easy, and mobs pick random targets instead of a threat system) as well that you can only use 8 spells, you won't be able to really use a lot of stuff. Nonetheless, I thought it was fun to play the co-op missions but never really got endulged in the PvP matches; which can actually be pretty fun. Maybe I'll do so now. Graphics are very very nice, and the game runs smooth. I think your first things you'll notice is the lack of threat system and moves. (It's usually just targetting one mob together, and that mob will most likely hit the closest person and practically anyone can tank it). The good parts however is the lack of monthly payment, okay storyline, great graphics, and tense PvP. If you're into PvP however, the spell limit of 8 is a good thing. It means you'll have a lot more customization and different builds than WoW (face it, WoW pvp was always the same) If you can get your hands on a client program, I can lend you my account for a while so you can try it out

The phenomenon called "Google Bombs". Link with a lot to an address with a keyword, and google using it's algorithm will classify it higher. Another google bomb is 'Food Nazis' https://www.google.com/search?q=food+nazis Google's response about the Bush failure thing : http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

What exactly needs to be changed ? make a list of the problems in the picture. This could be elements you'd like removed (or replaced), color adjustments, lighting adjustments ... You can then seek a tutorial for each of these problems. A great portal for photoshop tutorials is http://www.good-tutorials.com/ , however at the moment it seems to be down so I can't hand you a few of them relevant to your case right now. To the left you'll find a bar with categories such as photo retouching.

I've been using this one a year or two ago. Alas, I forgot to reinstall it after a format. I certainly recommend it, I never experienced any performance decreasing problems. It's about the only really nice powertoy for windows XP http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Yes a lot of those products have an online feature in some way. If you merely work offline, you just don't install them. The suite is quite big, and will have lots of stuff you may not need. Shortcuts are the same and the menu tab is easy to get used to. The bigger your screen, the more can fit in those bars so you dont have to click on the "submenus" for a little pop-up window (like the » in 2003). When a submenu has an option window, it has the expand window icon in the bottom right corner of its box in the tab. You can also customize the quick-access toolbar to go back to the old (2003) way, or add/remove buttons (or customize the keyboard shortcuts). Screenie: The Add-Ins feature is like an extensions tab. This could add some nifty features. Word also has a lot of new diagrams, with Smart-Art like I mentioned earlier for Powerpoint. Good question, in case of Word - you can save documents in various formats. A new one being .docxSmart-art saved in .docx is still editable, however when saved to .doc the smart-art object will "degrade" itself to an image; so you can't edit the text any longer. Office XP can't open .docx. I assume once 2007 is out an update for older versions will be released to handle the new coding, but I don't think it's wise to save files in .docx anyways, smart objects are easily made. The .docx I made was smaller of course, (90kb vs 80kb for pure text, 57kb vs 17kb with a document with smart objects) but since other versions can't handle that 'codec' yet... To answer the question, my other system running Office XP had no troubles opening the .doc . Bear in mind though that the nice new default font of Word vista (Calibri) won't be recognised so unless it has the font installed, it will look slightly different When you install the beta you can choose to upgrade your previous office system, or leave it be and install 2007 MS Office system next to it. It is a beta after all, and I know of at least one other person where it wouldn't install.

I've only used paypal once, quite recently, for a few clothing transactions. As those sites worked with paypal I didn't really mind back then. I have however acquired a few sites while surfing the web which may be of interest to the topic. http://www.paypalsucks.com/ Note that they do not reflect my own view on the matter but rather a collection of arguments against Paypal. Seems the more grave ones are an apparant bad costumer service and the ability to call your account invalid and take your money. The stories posted there should reflect that. Their top alternative pick is https://www.free-merchant.com/ , where you control the banking account. Ikobo seems to have the same good features as well, I don't think it would be bad to pick one above the other. Well I'll be sure to avoid PayPal in the future whenever I can, their "freezing" policy upsets me.

Oh Anime ! I was about to finish my end project for history/esthetics about Anime. My favorite series is Full Metal Alchemist for sure. It's a great storyline and plot unlike any other series, mixed with great soundtrack and mix of drama and humour. The humour is silly and good while the drama parts take their pride with the soundtrack, character evolution and setting. The power of alchemy is quite cool and interesting too. Too bad the movie wasn't that good though. I really recommend FMA. Second, Basilisk. Basilisk is about two ninja villages who hate each other for centuries, and a war errupts. The soundtrack is my favorite, anime wise, and the combat is great. The plot may seem dull however I ensure you it is not. Thirdly, Full Metal Panic: Fumuffo. It's a spinoff series from Full Metal Panic, but damn hilarious. other series I remember watching: -Naruto -Bleach -Samurai Champloo -Samurai 7 -Ranma 1/2 -Love Hina -Oh My Goddess -Blood+ -Goldenboy -Full Metal Panic ... I stopped following Naruto and Bleach as the storyline just drifted and the majority of episodes became fillers. I hope to follow Naruto again soon, after the timegap. Naruto is the first serie of Anime I got into (besides pokemon on TV). As for Manga I only read up on Naruto.

I used to make a lot of similiar puzzles, still have some small "Logikwiz" (as it's called here in Dutch) booklets lying about in the house. It's fun and easy to do while in a vehicle or in-between stuff. With the use of a special grid you analyse the data and apply them to the grid. A grid for "4" 'features'. As you can see, there is a block for all the relationships between all features. In this case, the grid for einstein would be All the info is set in the grid, the order doesn't really matter that much as long as it's reversed (the category top right should be second to the left, the top left category is only written once). Also note that for the positioning of the houses I appointed numbers. Now how do you solve something like this? When you know something for sure, like a) the brit lives in a red house, you mark a + between brit and red house. For data you know that is incorrect, you mark a -. There is always one + in each column and row, so when you mark a + all the other's become - as show in the picture. When you fill in all the data you can easily 'copy' characterisks from for example red, to brit by following the row and column of the + in NATIONALITY/HOUSE. There are lots of tricks like this you come up with after making a few puzzles. Sure you can do it without, but when doing a lot of those puzzles it's more enjoyable like this. At first it seems a lot of work to make such a structure, but it's fan and you can easily find shortcuts to solutions. To those dutch speaking, some nice exercises on this page. For the others who may express interest I can translate a few http://home.planet.nl/~d.langers/3gB.html I'm not sure what the English term for these puzzles. Hope you like this method

As I have a bandwidth limit of 10gb, I can't afford downloading the 3.5/4gb builds. However they're mailing me the Vista 2 build, which I expect soon. I was a bit dissapointed in the september build as it had performance issues which have been addressed though by now. How come fool? What if a product is made that dramatically increases your productivity etc on a workstation. You haven't even tried it, and it's beta meaning not a single build released is final. Quite some prejudices you hold there for a product line you're using yourself. Not really. Only perhaps for the premium version for the Aero desktop switching. Also note that Vista will most probably run on apple machines as well, and those sold right now can handle it without a problem. What ?

For those that do not know it yet, Microsoft has released a public beta of Office Vista. This beta will last until Feb 1 2007, which seems long enough for me. Get the beta here: http://www.microsoft.com/err/office/ First thing that comes into mind : the design changed. And great it is. While in Word many options are hidden/stashed away (one could accidentally trigger a different viewing format with keyboard shortcuts and not know how to change it), they're organized here. The insert tab makes it much easier and faster to maintain a document http://users.skynet.be/alegis/office2.jpg A bug here though was that if you customized your installation and removed clip arts, it will keep spamming the error in the insert tab. Insert shapes, or mathematical symbols and equations with ease. http://users.skynet.be/alegis/office3.jpg Instead of digging into an options window with several tabs, it's all "within" the document. Spelling check just got better with contextual spelling checks. Rather than just checking the spelling of each word seperately, it will attempt to find words that are used in a wrong context. The new design makes it easier to work with, yet nothing THAT great if you're already quite advanced with XP. The graphical improvements come with a minor performance decrement when resizing the window, noticeable, but not grave. Powerpoint though has a new feature called SmartArt. You can right click a bulleted list and get more advanced looking lists which again are very customizable and another way of displaying your data. I really like this feature as the lists are pretty. Excel looks just like the same as Word, and improvements are once again minor. There is a new listing feature where you can only show certain queries (like you would with an SQL database), Conditional Formatting feature. The other improvements (tables are what used to be lists) aren't really noticeable at first. The other programs I couldn't be bothered with atm. All in all, it's mostly an interface change which should be a great relief for those inexperienced with the menus. Those advanced, well the powerpoint thing does add something, the other additions to Word and Excel don't and probably wouldn't make you switch from whatever you're using atm. However, beta is free and until feb 2007. It is worth a try, only downside is that it's beta and not stable on some systems (may not install). The install file is HUGE (all=1.5gb) , but customizable. Converters and filters, Insert equations, more silly popart, proofing tools, themes, Visual Basic for applications, fonts ...

So? Even if that were true. Order is given by Nintendo, product owned by Nintendo. It's merely outsourcing if they really did that. Well I did see this one coming, Sony going 'me too!' with Microsoft and Nintendo to justify their expensive media product, aimed at promoting blu-ray. Still, it's not the same at all and few to one game support it. Sony's 'tilt' technology is in a controller held by 2 hands which is not the same at all as nunchuk+wiimote experience.

Smash brosThe characters are way more awesome to me, and it's a better party game. Bigger areas with great camera movement and ranged/melee combat with a great variety of items and big game events (pokemon for example).Favorite character is Fox, although I haven't really mastered him that much that I succeed in beating my younger brother with Luigi. Another great point is the soundtrack, with scores from Zelda, Starfox and Fire Emblem.Really looking foward to Smash Bros Brawl, Pit and Snake look awesome.

Currently using Aero UI (day) theme for Windows XP The theme is part from the Neowin longhorn transformation pack (really something I recommend if you like these styles like I do. Screenshot of the style I'm using : http://users.skynet.be/alegis/desktop220406.jpg I can add sidebars and the likes, but I don't go too far into customizing as I own the vista beta myself as a (legal) beta tester. Which reminds me, the beta 2 dvd mail has yet to arrive ^^

Well, that's of course easy to say now. Perhaps a great decision back then. Interesting fact, I didn't know this. Never had any interest in buying a PS at all (bit of a nintendo fanboy, and PC gamer).

I used to work together with the guy for the activity mod (flash game score system - modified games etc). He is a kind and nice chap, this treatment was quite harsh and uncalled for and phpbbhacks just hurts themselves with it.