patronus4000

Like pyost, I'm too young to remember the good 'ol times of classic games - I was probably not even born then! I have only vague ideas of what an Atari 2600 looks like, as I did some research on computer/video game history in tech class. However, at times I play some of the classic games in 8-bit style online. The pixelated images, the beeps - they all seem to send me back to another time and place when computers were not so advanced, when we could not have "aqua" effects on every software interface.I agree with many that the games we have are very graphically intense and that the actual game itself is...well, not as captivating as they once were. The animators sure do a great job in creating very realistic animations and movements, but what's the use if the game isn't fun? If we removed the fancy animations from the games and replaced them with the 8-bit ones, would players still like the games? For some, I doubt it. Many games I've played are very repetitive and after a while, very boring. (Take games where it takes time to level your stats by repeating tasks over and over and over...) If all the graphic and sound effects were removed, the game would probably be a failure.Games in the past required good gameplay instead of the graphics. And that is what makes people keep playing them, twenty or so years after even when we have many more fancy games to play on our Nintendo Wiis.Serena

Thanks for the pm, Quatrux. =)Wow, good job! You've hacked IE to work with a three-column CSS layout! I must say that I'll be trying this little technique the next time I make a three-column layout, though I'm still a bit hesitant in using Javascript. It is said that about 10% of all computer users have Javascript disabled, and I don't want to single them out of my designing. Just recently when I was working on my three-column design mentioned previously, I ripped all the Javascript out of there that was used to make the navigation appear on all pages (I would use SSI or PHP or something, but their host apparently didn't allow them to do that). The site, thankfully, was small enough so that if I had to change something on the navigation, there's only maybe five pages to edit.OK, enough rambling for me. XD I'll try out this technique, but I'll keep an eye out for another non-Javascript hacks. Again, good job!Serena

I must agree with the majority: WordPress. ^^ It's the easiest to set up (through Fantastico OR manually) and provides plenty of features and adjustments you can play with. The fact that you can install extra plug-ins to enhance your blog (or CMS, because it's becoming more and more like a CMS now) only sweetens the deal. If you do plan to use WordPress, make sure you get the newest version (2.1) here. The one in Fantastico is 2.04, and that's just not new enough. 2.1 has a lot of new stuff, including a remade appearance for the log-in page. Whatever it is, happy blogging! Serena

I use Windows Live Messenger, because I rarely go on YIM anymore, but when I do, it's Yahoo! Messenger. I've tried several other Messengers, but:1. Trillian: Gawd. The most annoying messenger ever to deal with. It never worked, no matter how I tried to set it up. I tried it twice (different versions), and ended up uninstalling it twice. It's just a waste of time.2. Miranda: Kind of confusing, but not too bad. At least it works. XD But I didn't really like the skinning, so I didn't use it, in the end.3. GAIM: I was going to try it, since it had so many features and could log in to all my IM accounts, but I think I was too tired of all these "other" messengers that I never actually went to the trouble of downloading, installing, and configuring it.Oh. And since now I have a GMail account (GMail accounts are now free for all now), I'll probably try Google Talk soon. Serena

LOOL. Funny, funny. XD I can't believe anyone would actually try that, putting up nothing for bid. But then again, there's been a lot of crazy things sold at eBay, and perhaps even crazier eBayers. I'd love to see what people will sell next. Maybe they'll even plan to sell the Moon.Serena

Ahh. Cool. Since they've already discovered this, I expect, if it becomes something everyone wants to develop, it'll be out in twenty years, though it's going to cost a lot. (I, obviously, wouldn't have one until about ten, twenty years after that, until the cost drops. XD) But maybe they could just continue development of those machines that can carve things out of a block of wood, metal, silicon, etc. and make them cost less. We'd still have 3D models, but just not made of paper from the printer. Serena

I use AVG free, avast! Home Edition, Spybot - Search & Destroy, Ad-Aware, and Windows Defender. Despite my having all these applications, I rarely scan. XD It's not that I don't care about my computer's security (I almost get a heart attack when I do catch a virus, which is not too often), but it's just that I never have time to do a full system scan. It takes over half an hour to do a scan with one program, and being the overworked teenager that I am, I don't have that time to spare. On the issue of firewalls, I use Sygate Personal Firewall, but there never seems to be new updates (or if it does, it just never tells me that its updating itself). There won't be any new ones versions though as Symantec acquired Sygate, so I have to get a new firewall before new viruses attack! Oh. And I have the built-in Windows Firewall thing. It's just there. I don't pay too much attention to it. XDSerena

Ahahaha. XD I didn't know you could access Google h4x0r there. Not that I'd want to use it. 1337 hurts my eyes. It's confusing. And, as popular as it is, I haven't seen anyone who was truly fluent in 1337 and actually writes in it. Ooh, that's not made by Google. At the bottom, it says "This parody by Philipp Lenssen is unrelated to the real Google". So technically, this April Fool's search isn't by Google, though it looks a lot like Google. (Philip Lenssen is the blogger of "Google Blogoscoped", which is also known as "80% Google". So, perhaps it isn't completely shocking that Google April Fool's looks almost like the real Google, albeit a bit of padding/margin.) Serena

Wow, pretty cool. You don't even need to sign up! XD (I'm used to Yahoo! and Windows Live requiring sign ups and everything to have a personalized home page.) But, as cool as all their features (embed webpages! awesome!) are, I think I'm going to pass on this one, because, for some reason, if I set this as my homepage, I feel obliged to make sure I read everything there, which wastes my time. And then, I feel guilty if I don't read it, as if I missed some very important news article I wanted to read about or some uber cool image or comic. (In fact, I don't even use my homepage anymore. Firefox is using the previous sessions, so I never see my homepage anymore. Wheee.) But hey, if I didn't feel that way, I would have loved this site. XD Serena

XD I tried to do this too. It worked in Firefox and, I believe, Opera, but not in Internet Explorer. (Another reason why we should all drop IE altogether!) You can set the display: to table-cell, which will display your div as an element that acts like a table cell. But until IE improves its CSS support, I don't think it is possible to make a cross-browser compatible three-column layout. I ended up using tables for the sidebar, content, and navigation with widths in percentages for flexible widths. But if you ever find a way to make a pure three-column CSS layout, let me know! Serena

Happy Chinese New Year to everyone! (Cute images. The ones I got had the usual red and gold image + text on it. Nothing special at all.) Hmm, well, maybe it's where you live. Where I live, there already is no special celebration and all. It's not Chinatown where I live, so obviously, nothing happened. Chinatown in Toronto, however, was probably jammed pack, though I haven't been down there during Chinese New Year celebrations for many years already. So I wouldn't know. XD Serena

Ahahaa. I love these challenges. I think I dropped by this site before, but I didn't have time to play it, so I left. And forgot about it. Right now, I actually don't have time to play it either, given the fact that I still have homework (which I really should be finishing at this moment), but I'll make sure I drop by when I have time. And of course, I agree with everyone: hacking isn't bad! It's just that we've sort of redefined the terms through the years, and now it seems to be bad. But really, all a hacker is is just a computer expert who's really good with programming and such. Now, if only we could redefine this word to its original meaning... Serena

Heh, I used to use this a while back. Maybe about two years ago? It didn't have such a fancy Mac interface then, but nevertheless, it was still pretty cool. I deleted my account because my connection was way too slow to handle Goowy, and maybe also because of the fact that I always, always, ALWAYS keep misspelling its name. (I wrote "Gowwy" there before fixing the spelling. XD) I love their idea of just having a desktop to go, but they really have to try and streamline it. By a lot.Serena

I tend to go by both. I like Trebuchet MS, Georgia and Arial, which are already fonts that many sites use currently. They work well on screen and they look cool, so I'm sure that everyone including myself would be happy with them. ^^ For other things, I also like Courier New (which I use sometimes for the monospaced stuff), Century Gothic, XG Pixo (monospaced, pixelated font), and Morpheus, even though I rarely get the chance to use the latter. As for the size, I generally go for smaller sizes because they look less scary. XD Huge text looks scary to me; I stick to 12px, which roughly translates to 10pt. But my text looks horrible to me for some reason it they're 14px (12pt). They don't match my layout. I'm pretty sure a few of my visitors hate me for having my body text in such a small font, but the only thing I can say is just to zoom in! =D Serena

Well, I wouldn't say the approval system is bad. Pretty much every hosting service has that just to keep everyone from creating random accounts. However, I don't like their new post-to-host system. 60 posts per month! *faints* The member base there posts ads and one-liner posts to meet this requirement, and there is no discussion. As much as I like their new upgraded package (it's 2GB now, and I think they upgraded the bandwidth too), I think their community and system just isn't good enough.Serena

I haven't been hosted on Xisto as of yet (approval pending! ^^), but I must say, I like the community. Right now, I would actually say FusionXHost if it weren't for the fact that they closed down their free hosting division. >__< Honestly, they had awesome service, hosting packages, and a great community, much like this one at Xisto. I've tried AtSpace too, but they don't have enough features and their ads are a bit freaky. XDAs for Freewebs and Geocities, I have left them far behind in the dust. =)Serena

Hmm, I think that goes on in pretty much any country that celebrates the Mid-Autumn festival (China, etc.), no? I have yet to see such a boisterous celebration for this event, because, in Canada, they just don't exist, except maybe in Chinatowns and such. But even then, it'd be nothing close to what was described above. Speaking of which, put quote tags around that! I found that the text above, if not all of it, has been copied from another source. Serena

I've got four of the ones you listed! Yay! You missed PrevX. It's an anti-spyware program. I downloaded the free version of it last year but uninstalled it only because it made my computer too slow (probably because having about four anti-virus/spyware programs and a firewall running at once just didn't allow another one of these programs in). But it has amazingly indepth features and is a pretty good tool all-around. Thanks for compiling this list. I'm sure it'll help a lot of people to secure their computers. It kills me when my friends tell me they don't know where to get anti-virus/spyware software and firewalls to protect their computer and then go on complaining about viruses. Serena

Hey, I fit into all three categories! XDFor me, I play games to relieve stress and to take some time off from school and stuff. However, once I start, I can't stop, so I end up wasting several hours playing games. I get caught up in the "I must raise myself to level x before I sign off" thing. At the moment, the only game I'm addicted to is StepMania, which is a good thing, because the songs are short, meaning that I play less (since I can stop as the intervals are so short). (Did I just make any sense?) Either way, I'm sticking with reading and other more productive things these days, so it's all good.For others, as I have some gamer friends, they just play because they have nothing to do. They often go online, search for games, and play many different games in one day, just to keep themselves entertained. (I think I went through this phrase a few years back.)Serena

*stares wordlessly at the long lists of games other members have listed and blinks* How on earth do can you play so many games? XD (I guess some people can ask me, "How on earth can you read so many novels?") I don't have any gaming platform other than my trusty (or not so trusty?) computer, and the games I actually sort of still play (especially the last one) are: The Sims Deluxe Edition (and Makin' Magic EP), Mall Tycoon 2, and Stepmania. I have a few other games from the past, like BrainQuest (my mom bought it when I was in grade three, or something >_<), Coffee Break Games (which I still play sometimes), and Chessmaster. Heh, I have the most pathetic collection of games. Wheee.Serena

Yeah, dA is certainly an awesome place for artists of all sorts. There is never a limit to the creativity you see there. I get plenty of desktop wallpapers, brushes, and such from there nowadays, and can only stare at the other pieces that are so amazing that I'm speechless. As for me, I'm an artist there too (patronus4000.deviantart.com), though I'm not sure that I rank very high on the unsaid "most awesome deviant artists" list. XD I do pretty much everything - literature, web design, traditional art, photography, and digital art. Serena

At the moment, I prefer digital cameras because I don't have to go to pay to process film where some of them are not going to be the ones I want to keep. It's a waste of money. Also, digital allows you to edit your images on the computer before printing and create some cool photomanipulations. However, at the moment, I'm taking a photography course in high school where we're using 35mm SLR cameras (manual, of course) to take and develop our own black and white pictures. We've just started the course and the only thing we've done is take notes on lens, cameras, film, and f-stops. I think it'll be interesting; I might even embrace film again, but I won't ever leave digital, given that I do a lot of graphic creations on the computer and digital is simply the easiest way to take pictures and store them on my computer.Serena

Nope, the audio doesn't start automatically for me, because I have dial-up. But that's OK; with dial-up, hardly anything loads on time, if you add any special media to it. I won't bother with the "streamlining" lecture, because you deal with converting ebooks to audio, so I guess having a bit of audio is fine. However, as Mark420 said, the HTML should be fixed. I use Mozilla Firefox. The first testimonials box is out of place, due to the image above it pushing it to the side. There's also the thing about centred text. Do NOT center your text! It was the first thing we learnt in our communications technology class in high school. It doesn't look good, especially with the bulleted list. Stick to left or justified - they're the ones users are most comfortable with. Also, you should redesign your page. It has the "look" of sites that promote those weird little "get rich quick by using our free ebook service" sites. I come across these, and I feel as if all it is is a promo, and I should not trust it. Spend a little more time or money (or both, because, as they say, "time is money") to create a nicer, more professional layout. If your customers trust you, it's going to be worth the redesign. Serena

Ahahahaa. Awesomeness. I've never seen a site so small before. Designers (heh, like me) often complain about having too much whitespace, but I guess the more whitespace for this, the better!Really. It's just amazing. It must've taken a while to make everything so small and perfect. I admire the designer for making such an unusual site. Too bad I would never be able to do something like this; while small images are not a problem to create, I'm not about to marquee my very long writing across a 18x18 pixel box. Not to mention most of my friends would be complaining about things being too small.Except that I can't see properly because I was staring too hard at the screen trying to play their games. (I lost Pong 3 to 10. Gawd. I can't play miniature, 18px by 18px games!)Serena