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Ever heard of Blue Frog? It was an Israeli company's effort to combat spam by automatically sending opt-out comments to spammers. The premise was that any spam e-mail that a spammer sent would be reciprocated by an opt-out request. Since spammers typically send out millions of their much-hated e-mails, Blue Frog would then have to send them back millions of opt-out requests, thereby causing a form of denial of service or simple annoyance. Unfortunately, the spamming mafias flexed their Internet and political muscles and Blue Frog eventually declared defeat.Anyway, an open source consortium of programmers started up Black Frog in response to the demise of Blue Frog. I don't know how that has been coming along. I am curious though, does anybody knows of the state of efforts to combat the endless onslaught of spamming?Spam is becoming very annoying.

That sounds amusing, Mark420, but there may be a problem to this game. If I recall correctly, spam threads could potentially be deleted. This would result in all your "witty" posts and its accompanying credits being deleted. All that hard work, along with the spammers' posts, will go down the drain. On the other hand, if you had fun doing it, then it wasn't a complete waste.Now that you bring up the topic about spammers, I am curious about how the fight against e-mail spammers is progressing--or not (I'll start a new thread for this topic).

I'm curious, is there a way of changing our login (forum) name? When signing up for the first time, I had to pick a name quickly and I came up with this cheesy one. If not, then that's fine.I apologize ahead of time if this question has been answered elsewhere. I either do not remember or could not find the answer to it.

I forgot to mention that the Dell sale included a free battery. This, plus the fact that I really wanted built-in wireless, tipped the balance for me in favor of Dell.Unfortunately, I cannot estimate how powerful a 312 MHz processor would be on the Palm OS. I do know, however, that Windows Mobile consumes both CPU and memory like its Windows XP big brother. I currently set my Axim on automatic CPU speed adjustment to conserve power. It rarely ramps up and maintains full speed unless I am using programs like Windows Media Player. In short, I guess the answer to your question depends on your particular needs (I know, I am not much help there. Sorry).

I wonder how IceWeasel may affect the statistics on Firefox usage. At this point, I doubt that it would make much of an impact, but there is still the lingering concern that the Mozilla efforts are being fragmented. Remember the maxim where it says, I paraphrase, "United we stand. Divided we fall." If the non-Internet Explorer browser users continue to fragment themselves, then there will not be a true winner from this second browser war. Microsoft may still retain its lead and dominate the market.I am a Firefox (and occasionally, Opera) user, so you know whom I am rooting for.

My preference for either AOE2 (haven't played AOE3 enough) or Starcraft depends on the situation. When I am in the mood for a longer and slower game, I tend to prefer the Age of Empires games. Although rushing is still possible in this game, the bunker feature makes this more difficult. Moreover, there are more resources to accumulate and technologies to research. When I play solo, I generally stick to Age of Empires. The depth involved in micromanaging your civilization seems more entertaining.On the other hand, when I want to do a quick melee game with other networked players, I tend to prefer Starcraft. Yes, rushing is easier (and can be a drag), but that is reflective of how it is faster to build up an army and a base.

Wow, 1 terabyte! I can't imagine what to do with that much space. Of course, it would mean that I would not have to delete anything any more, but I still do not know whether I could fill 1,000 gigabytes. That is not to say that I will not invest in a terabyte drive in the future. I'll just have to wait for the prices to drop a bit.It's interesting to note how hard drive space used to be so small and expensive. Nowadays, companies dish our megabytes and gigabytes like pennies.

I'm curious. What is the advantage of going through a service like Sogou instead of GMail? GMail offers over twice the mail space, additional services for your domain, and is backed by a reliable company. I'm not trying to criticize Sogou, but I want to understand what attractive features are available in competing companies, so I can best weigh my options.

Just make sure to read the fine print. I think the catch with the Yahoo Domains $1.99 deal is that you have to purchase a service package other than the domain. Other companies like GoDaddy does that, too, when they sometimes offer very cheap deals (above and beyond their already cheap deals).I have been using GoDaddy for my domains and have had no problems with them. Their prices are relatively good. They are not the cheapest though, especially after seeing some of the prices listed here, but they are reliable.

I also had a similar question a while back, but I guess the thread or question did not garner enough interest to be answered. I have been interested in setting up a wiki, not as the main purpose of the site, but as a complimentary feature. I looked into TikiWiki and phpWiki, and was not too impressed ... or, I mean, they did not satisfy the particular criteria I drafted for my future site.I then thought of MediaWiki, since it was the wiki engine for Wikipedia. It seemed to offer a reasonable amount of functionality that suited my interests. If I recall correctly, its base footprint was not too large either. It may have been around 10+ MB (please don't quote me on that). I have not yet installed it here though, so I cannot vouch for it or for how it works on Xisto.As a side note, an interesting site for previewing and testing web portal engines, blogging software, wikis, forums, and similar content management systems is opensourcecms.com.

Are you speaking of a particular link exchange site or about link exchanges in general?

I have a Dell Axim x50 and was previously a Palm user, so I can hopefully shed some light. When I was looking to upgrade my PDA, I carefully looked into the Palm Tungsten V and my current Axim model. I personally preferred the Palm OS and the design of the Palm models. The reviews, unfortunately, were not favorable for Palm at the time. There were users who claimed the Tungsten V would frequently crash and the Palm company was experiencing an uncertain future at the time. The Tungsten V also had only 1 memory expansion slot and did not have built in wireless connectivity. I eventually decided to go for an Axim. The Axim was also a cheaper option for me, because Dell had a good sale.The Axim x50v would have been more expensive, but I did not necessarily need a VGA screen. The disadvantage of the screen would be increased battery consumption. This problem can be remedied by purchasing an extra battery. The PDA dock for the Axim has a slot for charging an extra battery. There are also third-party sellers for larger batteries, but they are large, bulky, and unsightly.As I look back, I am satisfied with the Axim. There are only a few disadvantages I see at this point. There are fewer software options with Windows Mobile, compared to the Palm OS, although this is changing overall. In addition, the user-interface with Windows Mobile generally requires more taps and is less elegant than that of the Palm OS. Moreover, since the Windows Mobile operating system is bulkier, it consumes more processing power and memory. It is not as responsive as the Palm programs either. Finally, the battery life is shorter.Although I mentioned a few disadvantages about the Axim, they are not dealbreakers. The availability of software was not a big deal, because I did not plan on purchasing much software and there was adequate freeware for my modest needs. The bulk of the operating system was compensated by a more powerful CPU and two slots for expansion cards. And the battery issue was resolved with the presence of an extra battery as a back-up.I am not completely sold out to Windows Mobile though. When I make my next purchase, I do not know whether I will stick with Windows Mobile or switch back to the Palm OS. I am nevertheless considering the PDA phones, such as the Treo, as my replacement PDA. Carrying multiple devices (PDA, phone, pager) is a pain in the neck as it is.

Where I used to work, they had Adobe Photoshop, so I was able to use it then. For personal purposes, I previously used Corel Draw. It had a fairly complete feature set and was a robust program. It unfortunately did a sub-par job at resizing images, whereby the image would appear fuzzy.For the past two years or so, I have exclusively used GIMP. It provides similar features as Photoshop, does an excellent job overall, and is free! The price factor is probably the strongest consideration for me, since I cannot afford the high-end photo manipulation software packages that cost in the hundreds of dollars.

Although this was not completely unexpected, I was surprised that Google ended up acquiring YouTube. For one, Google already has Google Video, which I must admit, has a far less pleasing user interface than YouTube's. It also is not as popular. On the other hand, YouTube is a sinking company with multiple copyright infringement lawsuits about to drag it to the grave. It is also well known to be losing a lot of money. I am curious what Google will do differently to save the company.

Do any of you know whether there is a project timeline that is continually being updated? I saw two or three of them on various Mozilla-related sites, but they seem to be sorely out of date.I have been using Firefox since it was Phoenix, and I really like the product. It has become more bloated and slower over time though. In any case, I still look forward to Firefox 2.0 when it is released out of beta. After hearing what Zerbirus said about the program randomly closing, I don't think I will try out the release candidates at the moment.

I'm not trying to sound condescending, but I thought Google's reach on the world has already been so far and wide that Internet users no longer needed to ask for GMail invites. I guess I was wrong.

True, jellyfish may not have "brains" in the traditional sense. Bacteria and fungi do not have brains either.Jellyfish still have a nervous system. They need food to survive, have for sexual reproduction (not that sexual differentiation is a criterion for being considered a living organism), possess limited mobility and defense mechanisms that react to its environment, etc.

For a first time effort, 96than, your animated banner is very good. I must say that it overall is catchy with a professional feel to it. I like the perception of speed and movement, and the streaks help convey that feeling. The timing interval between horizontal scrolls is also good. It is neither too fast or too slow. The color choices are fine.My only gripe about the banner, which is just being picky, is that the animation never stops. It can be quite distracting. I would suggest to allow the animation to proceed a few times, then having it stop. That way, the initial movement would catch the viewers' eyes, and the still picture afterwards gives them a pause to view the website URL.In short, I think it is a good banner. Besides the endless animation loop, I have nothing to complain about it.

I'm sorry if I had confused you. The phenomenon you describe above is more appropriate to prions, which transform other related proteins to become like them. Think of it like cult brainwashing. Each cult member brainwashes a victim to think and act similarly as the original member. Consequently, the victim transforms into another brainwasher who then seeks other victims. The concept of prions is virtually identical. Viruses, on the other hand, are like parasites that enter the cell and exploit the cellular machinery for its own devious purposes: creating components to build new viruses. To put the scales into perspectives, let us for fun say that the cell is an automobile factory and the virus is Megatron (the Decepticon Transformer). Megatron cannot transform (excuse the pun) the factory into another Megatron. He, however, invades the factory and uses the machinery to create more Decepticons. This is analogous to how viruses invade and replicate within the cell. The dilemma about viruses being considered as lifeforms, however, is that these viruses do not purposefully manipulate the cell by will or foreknowledge. Bacteria have receptors that help it identify where there are increasing gradients of nutrients. Viruses just "float" around until it accidentally "bumps" into a cell. If an interaction exists whereby the virus can enter the cell, it does; otherwise, it continues to "float" around. The individual virus does not mutate or adapt to unfavorable conditions. Viruses merely exist and replicate as a result of serial biochemical reactions. In the same way, computer viruses have a predefined pattern of invasion and replication. It is not a misnomer to call them viruses, because their existance and interactions are very similar to that of biologic viruses. So, this begs the question, are computer viruses alive? My above points are not meant to serve as arguments in favor or against viruses being considered living organisms. They are merely intended to be food for thought. So, please don't start deconstructing my statements, because they are not meant to be points of debate.

Just a few technicalities ... prions, which are the proteins mentioned earlier that cause Mad Cow's Disease (BSE or bovine spongiform encephalopathy), do not actually multiply in the traditional sense. That is, they do not take raw products and transform them into replicants of the original. Instead, they convert already existing proteins to conform to their shape. The resulting protein then has the same replicative (or transforming) properties as the original protein.As for chesso's ideas, they are pretty good considering your lack of background in biology. But for accuracy's sake, viruses do not "feed off something". They simply utilize your body's cellular machinery to produce DNA or RNA and proteins that become new viruses. The fundamental processes involved are virtually identical to that used in cells.

I do not have a web hosting service and cannot imagine the intricacies involved, but I can understand the frustration when users demand the world in a hosting service.But can we blame them? Sure, it is unreasonable to complain and bicker for more bandwidth, hard drive space, less posting requirements, or whatever the case may be. On the other hand, we as a society have developed the mentality that everything Internet-related and computer software should be free. Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo compete for our attention by providing more and more features for less ... er, I mean, no money. The open source movements have pushed forward the concept that quality software can and should be available free to users. In a contrasting, but relevant, thought, computer-related piracy holds a firm grip on the social conscience about personal rights to software or services.By the way, I am not saying that the people who complain about free hosting are justified in their actions. I am just trying to share why I think it is not all surprising that people clamor for more and more. Hey, we all search for the best values out there.

Well said, Vyoma. I understand that building quality websites take time. But, at least you are ahead of the game by planning ahead.

You present an interesting twist to the traditional concept of distributorship. Amazon, or whatever affiliate you have, will provide the products, while you merely sell them. You keep the commission and however much you mark up the price on eBay. On second thought, that sounds like you are the distributor and the front end seller, which is a double whammy for profit.Although you lose the benefit of passively earning money, as tamer3kz pointed out, you will probably earn more profit by taking a proactive stance. There is nevertheless one possibly glaring problem. Some affiliate merchants strictly prohibit the direct or indirect personal purchase of their products. Given the model that you propose, you could argue that the purchases are not for your personal use. On the other hand, that is not immediately apparent to the merchants. Moreover, regardless of who the ultimate recipients of the products are, I would not be surprised that merchants interpret their policies to include reselling by affiliates as a violation of their terms.As far as I know, Amazon and a few other affiliate programs hold by the above policy. But, if you can find an affiliate program that is not as strict, then your business model could potentially work. Good luck and do keep us informed on your progress.

It is interesting how this thread continues long after the original poster had probably his bought new laptop or desktop--or both! This just shows how relevant a topic it is for all of us. I myself am contemplating purchasing a new machine within the next year to replace my aging Dell Inspiron 8xxx (yes, it is ancient). I also wondered about whether to get a laptop or desktop. The last few computers I had were laptops, but there is definitely the appeal of desktops. For a bang-for-buck ratio, desktops deliver much more power and are more easily extensible. With a desktop, I can also invest in a 500-inch monitor so I don't have to squint to see the small details on the laptop screen. I would also feel more comfortable leaving my desktop on 24/7/365 to act as a server (not to replace Xisto, of course; but for intranet or VPN purposes) than I would my laptop.But, despite all these advantages from having a desktop, I think my next computer will once again be a laptop. Laptops are quickly coming down in price and are similarly rising in power. They are adept at handling most applications (maybe except for the more power-hungry games). The screen sizes have not changed much, but I can live with a 15- or 17-inch monitor. I mean, I have been using them for as long as I can remember.The ultimate clincher for me in getting a laptop is that I value my mobility. I enjoy moving from the office to the living room to the bedroom to the wherever whenever I feel like it. I enjoy bringing my computer with me to the cafe when I need a change of venue to do work. I enjoy bringing my computer across the country to family reunions or various meetings. The portability of a laptop versus a desktop is practically impossible to beat. So, as it turns out, maybe the next time I purchase a desktop is when I will not use it as a replacement for my primary computer, but as an adjunct for the home network.

While I posed a question about the potential abuse of the system (i.e., fraud), I am by no means trying to discourage you or criticize the concept. I think it is a great idea. I see that the more high-profile websites you gather in your group, the greater is your leverage when asking for advertising dollars. It also communicates the "prestige" (for lack of better words) of each website in your group. It is no mystery that the behemoths in industry have more bargaining power than the Mom-and-Pop shops down the street. This should work well in the Internet realm as well.Keep us updated about how everything is progressing. I am certainly interested in seeing you succeed in this endeavor.