rayzoredge

I've heard of FoxIt, and I was wary, but since I'm on a work computer now I figured I'd give it a try here.Already it has props because it doesn't annoy you with having to update every single darn time you run the program, and it doesn't throw in a background service to allow for "faster startup" (or at least I don't see one). Opening a 51MB PDF file now takes under a few seconds. Major recommendations for FoxIt for PDF application. Nero is one horrible piece of junk that is very much like Adobe in taking up half a gig of valuable hard drive space when alternatives like Infrarecorder are free and much, much smaller. (Has anyone in the WORLD found a use for Nero Scout?) Sure, I still need Nero for NeroVision, but hopefully, I'll find a good peer-reviewed solution for burning my videos to DVDs playable on most DVD players.I will fully attest to 7-Zip being a far-superior compression utility... and it's free. WinZip is pretty much free since you can always suppress the registration/buy-me prompts, but why stick with garbage when you can have something that works better?uTorrent is also my torrent client of choice... and I'm fortunate enough to have found it as my first. I tried clients like Azureus afterwards, but found out that uTorrent is pretty darn simple, not to mention small and not very taxing on resources. Never tried BitComet, but from what the article says about its annoyances, I'll steer clear.Keep your eyes peeled for open source, free programs out there. There seems to be an alternative for everything nowadays... and I don't doubt that they're better than proprietary choices, but personally, I'll let everyone else play guinea pig and do the recommending before I make my dive in and bolster reputability as well.

As much as I love your opinion, I hate to say that the unfortunate reality is that more than half of the nation, I'm sure, is ignorant and/or just plain stupid to put aside petty differences to actually focus on what's important.It's the harsh reality of things. People are going to hold grudges and slander opposing parties and/or people based on their political affiliations, the color of their skin, their sex, etc. Down in Mississippi, people are suspending kids and shunning others that even utter the President-elect's name. It's ridiculous and at the same time, very sad and pathetic how we as Americans can be so hypocritical to the founding principles that we pride ourselves with. Does that make any sense to anyone at all?Your argument against harassment with headlines, political propaganda, biased news, and exposure to such rubbish is one of the reasons why I hate political riff-raff. But everyone is entitled to an opinion, and the status quo of the United States is a prime example and living proof as to why Plato deemed a democracy the worst form of government possible. And as much as I'm for equal opportunity and the freedom to live, I sadly have to agree with a long-dead philosopher that our downfalls and faults are to be blame on the very principles that make this country so "great."Ah, the irony.

The reason why you haven't heard any investing ideas is because most instant-millionaires don't know what to do with that exorbitant amount of money, nor know what to do to keep it to themselves.If you read up on a lot of articles about millionaires that snagged their fortunes through the lottery, you'll read that most people squandered it off and actually lived rather miserable lives, during and post-winnings. Money changes things. Sometimes it even changes people. And we can say what we want to say, but for the most part, a lot of our winnings can drive us to poor choices and eventual bankruptcy if we're not careful.If I won the lottery, I would throw a good chunk of it into a high-yield savings account... let's say a majority of it. With the remainder of the funds, I would go out and purchase a modest, two-story Dutch Colonial style home on a decent piece of land (20+ acres). I would pay off my car, purchase one for the significant other outright, and make some purchases that I've been wanting, other than the furnishings and the goods to the new house (like a nice home theatre system, furniture, etc.) like a mid-range to near-new-tech laptop or desktop computer, games, movies, etc. After all of that is said and done, I would donate thousands to charities of my choosing, and help out friends and family with SMALL grants over periods of time with the interest gained through savings. I would still be working, but whether I remain full time or actually work part-time to spend time with the kids and the girl will probably be something of a possibility. As far as a lifestyle goes, I will still try to remain as frugal as I've been (with the exception of the moderate spending on luxuries before unavailabe to me).Then again, give me $10 million and see how closely I remain with these outlines of a plan that I have put out here.

Seems to me that this is a very dumbed-down explanation of the many manual settings and tweaks that you have to your disposal on a camera such as a dSLR... which works for me and I'm sure for most people, considering that I can agree with most of everything you've lain out here. A lot of the terminology and the power behind having manual settings to a camera can and will be very confusing to people who are just starting to delve into the more advanced techniques and controls of photography, so I can thank OP for actually making the terminology and components of the settings available to you easier to digest. Just to touch up on a few things, aperture value should be set lower for macro shots (such as flowers, as deemed the case by the example given by OP) to give more of a focused effect on your subject, and the opposite holds true for imagery that you want to capture multiple depths (such as landscape photography).ISO speed can be a godsend or a recipe for grainy photos, as easily learned by fiddling with your own camera. You will notice that a higher ISO (nearing the 1000's) will yield you quicker captures, allowing for better pictures at night, but at the sacrifice of introducing unwanted grain in your photos. In there lies the predicament of choosing what ISO speed you will need for your night-time photography, since you want to be able to actually take pictures at night without throwing picture quality out the window.Finally, to add to shutter speed characteristics, a longer shutter speed will not only allow more light to be captured for an image, but also capture the movement of light and can be utilized to generate effects "on film." For example, setting your shutter speed duration to be longer can create the "flowing water effect" that you see in most landscape photos done by "professionals," allow for time-lapsed photography that you've seen with the example of beams of light traveling on a highway, or even capture the movement of stars as the Earth rotates and makes its orbit.

I love the cardboard idea, onscreen. Might as well trick the camera into thinking it's ready for picture-taking... although I'm sure I won't be thinking of snagging the cardboard out of my pocket for every quick shot.Manually setting the ISO would be ideal also, I'm sure, but I hate the noise that high ISO values introduces, especially upwards near 1000. I'll have to figure out a happy balance before I venture off from Auto to see what the best value would be without sacrificing contrast/brightness in my pictures. Then again, I can always lighten things up in Photoshop... but I don't think that color results would be very good coming from a dark source. BuffaloHelp: I would LOVE to upgrade to another lens, but considering the fact that the next best thing for this camera would be a lens that costs more than twice what I paid for the darn camera, it's not exactly an option... especially when I'm running broke already. (I'm kind of peeved that a camera this expensive already requires even more money sunk into it to do what it's supposed to do: take pictures.) There are the cheaper Opteka knockoffs, but as much of a cheapskate I am, I won't stoop down to it because of the dreaded Error 99 problem that plagues most Rebel users and non-Canon accessories. Even the Canon IS lenses start around $400 a pop. It's amazing how much photography will cost the consumer, and all this talk of aperture, shutter, ISO, etc. makes me feel like purchasing an $XXX lens will yield little if any real-world results as far as real-world value is considered. Hopefully I'm drastically wrong on this, but I'm more of an amateur photographer than an enthusiast or a quasi-professional on the topic, which, as much as I'd love to get into tweaking every shot, doesn't apply very well when you're trying to get those imperfectly-perfect shots of kids, pets, or wildlife that won't sit still.

I've registered using the e-mail I registered with Xisto, I've posted over 5 posts, and it's been over a week and I have a $0.00 balance. Is there something I'm missing? I don't mean to be a baby about this, but then again, I'm not earning anything for my posts anymore...(Figured I'd post this here as opposed to PM'ing Opaque or any of the staff to allow for this question to be answered by anyone instead of bogging specific people. )

Thanks for the help guys.I followed my gut feeling with using CHKDSK and after hours of scanning, ScanDisk found and organized the orphaned files. Just didn't log into reply in this topic... consider the case closed.Now, here's a good question: What would cause files to behave this way, to be "orphaned?"

I already know I'm being dumb posting something with that title.On Halloween, I noticed that Auto mode does not work as nicely as it does on a Canon Rebel XT at night with the stock lens. When I go to take pictures, the camera is tricked with focus, lighting, and I'm sure a ton of other factors in automatically-adjusting for the picture that it thinks I want to take. This resulted in a lot of badly-focused shots, a lot of strobe-like flickering of the flash because of bad lighting, and the stubborn character of the Rebel XT not allowing you to take a picture at all if conditions are supposedly unsatisfactory to the camera. (All of this, coupled with a Halloween night with kids and not being able to capture the moment as often or as well as I wanted to literally had me so irked that I was ready to smash the camera into tiny, tiny pieces. )I was wondering what it was that makes the camera behave this way. Sometimes there would be sufficient lighting, an actual subject to focus on, and all the camera would do is flicker the flash like a strobe and refuse to take the picture. Sometimes it would NOT be able to focus on my subject. I know that most of the faults that the camera had was to blame on poor lighting conditions as well as my desire to use it as a point-and-shoot (which I'm sure is a no-no), but then again, why shouldn't I be able to do that with a $700 camera?A lot of searching on the Internet provided a lot of tips on night photography... with a tripod and longer exposure times. Is it possible for a guy to be running and chasing children down to take pictures of subjects that don't exactly stay still for a photo at night?

I can only throw out what I know about the Canon Rebel XT, as I own and operate one.One thing that you're going to hate is the reality that a larger lens will take better quality pictures than a smaller lens. So physically, along with a larger lens will be a larger camera housing and such. Believe me when I say that I'm with you on size being a turn-off. I love being able to put my camera in my pocket, then be ready to take the camera out at a moment's notice to snap a shot. The portability factor is an awesome thing to have.The Canon Rebel that I now own is not exactly a beast compared to other cameras, but it's not one to fit in the pocket of your jeans, either. (Not like I'll ever transport it that way anyway.) I bought a decent nylon case for it at Walmart and it's really not that much trouble in carrying it in the case. The pain that I have with it is taking it out and putting it in, not to mention having to juggle the camera and the case when I'm on the move. It's something that you'll learn to live with in order to do a little better than the usual snap-and-shoot.dSLRs, in my opinion, only make their mark on the field of photography if the user knows how to uses them effectively. I'm an amatuer photographer (just like every other college kid on the block who owns a dSLR because mommy and daddy bought them one or they survived on a diet of ramen for long enough ) and the photos that I take are a bit better than most pictures that I take with my old snap-and-shoot (an Olympus C-765), but I find that the strength in a dSLR not only lies within the power of tweaking how you take pictures, but how fast you can take pictures, how the camera processes them, etc. In all reality, with a camera you want to capture the moment. With my Olympus, I could capture a 4MP, 2288x1712 px JPG moment every few seconds between shots. With my Canon, I can take an 8MP, 3456x2304 px JPG moment in less than a third of a second between shots. The capability of being able to make more shots within a certain timeframe gives you more of a chance to catch that perfect moment instead of having to wait and possibly missing it already justifies what I paid for a dSLR. (And for all of the blurry, crappy snapshots you made on burst mode on that dSLR to get that one or two perfect shots of your child on a moving carousel, you can always review and delete. )dSLR's, as I've mentioned, are capable of making those shots that a normal snap-and-shoot can't thanks to the plethora of controls you have over your picture-taking, provided that you educate yourself on what they are and what you should use them for. Various effects, like simply opening up the lens to take a picture for half a second as opposed to an instantaneous shot to create the effect of flowing water, can make a photo seem every bit as professional as the landscape calendar photos you see at the mall. It also opens up different opportunities for photos too... like fireworks. (I've never been able to take good pictures of fireworks, but with my Canon, I can now capture the light trails of an exploding firework... "just like the pros." )Of course, with all of this power comes the sacrificial turn-offs like the size of the camera and as well as the gigantic price tag. When I chose to go with a dSLR, I went for older instead of newer... which meant that I snagged my $700 Canon Rebel XT for less than $400, and I'm pretty happy with it for the most part. There are some things that I hate about my Rebel, but I don't regret actually snagging it.Do your homework on cameras before you go out to purchase a specific one, too. I trust the guys down at CNet Reviews, but peer reviews won't hurt either.Have fun looking for a camera. You actually can learn a lot about them along the way.

You would imagine that anything still under development, patching, or improvement will always stay in beta.I think that it's not exactly what we think when they leave BETA on the GMail header. GMail is part of a suite of online applications that we can use that seems to be constantly in Beta. Just look up at the top-right navi bar of links... there's already a notification for new features! Everything within the Google suite is under development and under improvement, so it would make sense to keep things in BETA until there is a final release where the GMail project (or any of the Google applications) will finally rest as it is.It could also be a draw where people would flock to the BETA version of things to feel like they're playing around with the latest and greatest... and although I can't say that GMail is the greatest online free e-mail client ever, I can't complain much about it either, considering it IS the best one I've used so far.

Here's a thought: Why is the government and state even involved in what should be an individually-exclusive issue? I love how we use the freedom of speech and such to death, then tell someone else that they can't think, say, or do something (within the confines of law). So what if a man and a man love each other? Woman on woman? Does it affect you? It really doesn't. And if you want to abolish it because of your so-called religion, you probably have the freedom to exercise the right to mind your own business, because everyone has a right to exercise religion. And if my definition of religion still stands as a set of beliefs, I think people should exercise the belief that they can go ahead and have the freedom to love anyone, as long as it's mutual. It's a stupid argument. And it's great how many AMERICANS are out to see this banned, considering the irony of the principles that we preach... and take back.

I hate to have to ask, but why is Windows Explorer being dumb?Just the other night I copied 12GB worth of video files from my brother (Futurama episodes). It happened to be my last 12GB, leaving my 500GB external hard drive with less than 300MB of free space. I turned the hard drive off, packed up, and left for home.Booting up the same hard drive to search for its contents, I was surprised to have about 13GB of free disk space left on the hard drive. I figured that maybe my brother actually said that he was going to copy those episodes but forgot to, so I did my usual gig and tried copying a 700MB file to it. Windows Explorer told me that there wasn't enough space. I looked all over the hard drive for these new Futurama episodes but to no avail. There was nothing different about my drive, content-wise.I'm sure you can see the confused look on my face right about now.Aside from deeming a M$ product inferior and blame it on bad coding, how would I go about actually being able to see my missing files and tell Explorer that it's stupid and should be telling me what the real free space amount should be? I'm just now setting ScanDisk to run on next boot-up, which will be fun... considering how slow it is. (By the way, can anyone recommend other software that does what ScanDisk does, but better, and possibly more? Like how Diskeeper is vastly better than M$'s Disk Defragmenter?) ANY answers or suggestions OTHER than blaming it on the FAT32 filesystem would be awesome, considering the drive is NTFS. Thanks!

I thought it was awesome and funny how you insinuated in thinking that I was a girl. Sometimes it can be hard to tell on Xisto though... I forgot about the whole status gig. And that can go on a rant for me about how people are sheep and follow with the latest trends (or in this case, need their materialistic goods in order to show off that they "are better" than others), but I'll save that for another thread. In that case, I'm sure that the same women with these mindsets materialistically deserve the very best that their boyfriends can get them, and if us guys can't provide, we're no better than dirt, are we? There are some mixed ideas that I've read in other places during my research between diamonds and cubic zirconias. Some women would rather have the diamonds, as we all believe them to be the ultimate symbols of love, life, and a hefty down payment to be followed by bill after bill after bill; and some women seem more sensible with rather wanting the cubic zirconia or the cheaper rings, preferring that money saved to be put towards patching the house, throwing more money at mortgage payments, etc. (It almost seems like there are the two extremes where one girl is materialistic and probably naive of the more practical uses for the money spent on something like a diamond ring as opposed to the other girl who can think past the ring and love a man for who he is, regardless of his choice in provided jewelry, instead concentrating on more practical priorities.) And it's just funny how as much as my argument still stands with wanting to be practical with cubic zirconia, I still want to be able to saw off an arm and a leg to give my girl this idea of having a diamond, platinum combination...

You know what's funny? We had a job site at Google in Massachusetts... at one of the book-scanning centers. It's pretty crazy how there are dozens and dozens of machines, all linked up and equipped with scanning software. People that work the machines literally turn the page, have the scanning equipment "take a picture" of the pages, then the person flips the page again. It's such tedious and boring work... and I can imagine how they can turn out a couple of hundred books a day. That's a lot of copyrighted material... I'm assuming that Google will be creating an online library of sorts, to include but not be limited to the classics, encyclopedias, popular literature, and possibly new books in the future. They might allow free access or offer access for a small nominal fee. However they want to do it, it would be more than awesome, and I'm sure there will be tons of praise as well as critique for the project.But that's just my speculation.

So I'm in that boat where I'm looking at jewelry just in case things go well , and I've done my research... which come from many, many biased sources. And I'd hate to jump onto the bandwagon, but I almost want to because of the hype that's built around the ever-popular platinum band with the diamond rock on it. It's crazy to think that we have synthetic stones that look close to if not identical to the real deal. Cubic zirconia is the closest by far, and it's apparently an amazing deal, considering the likeliness of a diamond coupled with the value that steals the title of "being cheap." But who's to judge? Most jewelry specialists can't even tell the difference between the two with the naked eye, so why does the consumer fret over not having diamonds over their cheaper counterparts? The only aspects that diamonds have superior to cubic zirconia are the refractive index of light, or the "brilliance" as light is refracted from the cuts in the rock; the weight (as CZ is 1.7 times heavier than a diamond, but then again... is it really that cumbersome to wear?); and the hardness of the material, which is actually quite comparable (with diamonds scoring a 10 as opposed to CZ's 8.5 to 9 on the Mohs hardness scale). The same goes for platinum. Yes, it's an amazing metal. It has some great qualities and is very hard, doesn't require as much maintenance as white gold, and whatnot. Then there's palladium, which is whiter, requires less maintenance than white gold, harder than platinum... and no one screams over it. Is it that much of a "cheaper" metal? Will people really look down on others if they are wearing rings that look identical? Could you really tell if someone was wearing a platinum band as opposed to white gold, palladium, or even highly-polished rhodium, silver, or tungsten? Seriously. So why does the idea of having a diamond seem so much better to most people, even though you would save hundreds if not thousands on getting something that's actually BETTER as far as it goes with value comparisons? Rarity could be a possible argument, but again that's based on an idea, and you would be paying more for an IDEA of a more precious item as opposed to one that possibly looks or is (physically) better. What are your thoughts? I'm actually interested, considering that I'm probably going to be in more of a situation to actually think about practicality/value over paying money for the idea that it's better in the future. Plus, I'm sure that it would help most guys out by hearing your thoughts, girls.

Less-annoying UAC? (We'll probably end up shutting it off regardless of how "less-annoying" it is.) A similar code foundation to Vista, which is still having compatibility issues as of today? (That should go well. ) As much as I'll love bashing this pre-emptively, I wouldn't mind having a look.Windows 7 is also supposed to re-introduce cloud computing, a concept based on running programs off of main servers, preventing the requirement of installing programs locally onto your machine. Basically, Microsoft wants to copy Google with online productivity capability and will be introducing an online way of creating and editing documents via the Internet without having to install Office onto your computer. Google Docs isn't getting a heck of a lot of kudos just yet, but I think there will be more use of this sort of concept when it becomes more mainstream and when more people realize what Google Docs is. I'm not holding my breath on this one. Then again, Microsoft is trying to sway us that have been tainted with the "power" of the Vista experience and realize something that may possibly be... dare I say better?

Here's another opinion to bolster your choice for Call of Duty 4. The game is quite graphic. It's got great visuals. Being realistic is kind of pushing the term, as you can get shot, hide for a few seconds, then return to the fight with no problems at all. (There is no concept of health, but if you are harmed constantly for too long or take a lethal hit, you will die. However, if you are near-death, resting for a few seconds will return you to "full health.") I would like to say that this game is vastly immersing. The campaign is very short but is chock full of war-themed fun, and with a good speaker system or set of headphones, you'll feel like you're virtually there. (Props to the sound boys that worked on CoD4. ) The sounds are realistic and the weapons seem to work as they do in real life. (I recall easily the similarity in sound and operation of the Mk19 grenade launcher you get to play with as the U.S. Marine later in the game.)Battlefield 2 is quite a fun game to play with but also possibly frustrating to play online. There are TONS of things that you can do in-game, like drive any vehicle, fly any plane, and even pilot helicopters, but I can personally say from experience that learning aircraft requires a vast learning curve. The game is more realistic in the fact that no one lasts long if they get shot in the right places, and there is a lot of thinking-on-the-run as online play does not allow you the luxury of time... nor does the ruthlessness of hardcore players. There are two ways to play the game also: as a commander of the team that you're on, or as the foot soldier. Commanders cannot make other players do anything, but they can call in air strikes, artillery, place beacons, and many other things that a soldier cannot. (It's also a responsibility too, especially with communication and intelligence being a huge part of the game.) I would recommend BF2 also, even if you do decide that your son plays on a local server with AI (which, thankfully, BF2 has bots for). It's not as graphic (although rag-doll physics are apparent), but then again, if you're buying war games for your kid, he should probably be of a mature-enough age to distinguish what's right and wrong, real and not.

I LOVE the comments on YouTube! They make me feel so much better about myself... I agree that there are some, if not a heck of a lot of ignorant and/or retarded people out there. Some people do it because they know they'll get a rise out of others... others are unfortunately born and raised. And now, an image we can all relate to... humorously: Notice from truefusion: Image removed for containing foul language.

First amendment, brother. It sucks, but it's like every other gig with freedom of speech and expression and whatnot. What I'd like to get rid of are the duplicate videos, the ones that make you think it's something else, and the outwardly retarded (although that goes against the argument of freedom of speech). There are ways to flag and report a video, which I would think that would help in removing a video, but as far as retarded crap about politics or conspiracies or whatnot, we should be more thankful for educated, supported-with-good-arguments-and-sources possibilities for different scenarios of things. Take the happenings of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, for example. Believe what you believe, but you can't completely belittle the other possibilities when they make decent arguments to other possible happenings that possibly help explain what happened on that day. Gotta keep an open mind, right? I think it's funny how the world works where everyone thinks everyone else is an idiot to some degree if their views don't coincide with their own. But hey, an opinion is an opinion and should be valued as such, right?

No pornography, SM?There goes my idea on how to use my hosting...

You must be a pain junkie. Receiving an injection (or a blood draw) feels like a very hard pinch to me. Even I don't exactly enjoy giving IVs to myself... it's not something I dread or can't deal with, but it's most definitely nowhere near pleasant.

I have to agree too that the title should say something towards "Xisto - [Thread Title]" or "Xisto - Forums - [Thread Title]" or something like that. That way if people look for the text on their Firefox tabs or bookmark a thread or whatever, it's easily identifiable. I was kind of weirded out with "Open Discussion," but I recognize Xisto by the white and blue V symbol (which a lot of forums share, I'm gathering) and not so much by what my tabs say.I did a Google search for just Xisto and we come up on top, followed by sites that have their say about Xisto and one hit for a pheromone site. I don't think people will really have a problem as far as Google, and you won't have a problem having people score hits on this site since it tops out everything else.Edit: Oops... just noticed the change. Throw Xisto up there too, like how I suggested?

Wow.It's VERY unfortunate how it took up to this point for her to have opened up with the things that have bothered her, and it shouldn't have happened this way. Since it has though... I'm not sure what I can tell you since I don't know the situation to its entirety. Then again, that's probably why they call it "advice..."Right off the back, you're going to need to make that honest effort to get a better job. I don't know how since I don't know your work history or how much you expect to be paid in your next job, but you're going to either need to earn more as far as wages, work longer hours, or both. If you want to live separately, you're going to need to take into account living expenses as a single person as well as a good surplus to be able to help support the children. (That's not a mandatory thing, but I'm sure that's something you would want to look into continually doing.) Take a look in renting an apartment and see what you can afford, and establish a budget to include utilities, other bills, and plan to have extra cash for rainy day funds or for leisure. Research rates and take value of what you're paying for services into account. I have no idea where you're from or how good utilities are in your area, but you're going to have to do some homework to see what's right for you and especially when the budget's tight, what you can and cannot live without.I'm sorry that something like this happened. It's extremely sad to know that there wasn't much open communication enough to have actually sat down and talked about problems to come up with solutions and deal with them as opposed to keeping the feelings inside and blowing up like this.

Depending on how much money you have and your situation, you will have to choose from a good handful of options.If you're older than dirt and getting to the retirement age, safe securities like bonds, IRAs, and even blue chip mutual funds and stocks will be nice choices. It might already be too late though if you're thinking of investing at the age of 60+... definitely no real growth potential unless you are willing to take risks and know for a fact how long you will be living. (Make sure you make that will out for your kids!)If you're a young fella, take a look into the stock market and buy mutual funds. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. I cannot stress this enough. Mutual funds come in different flavors... in large cap, mid-cap, and those that focus on small businesses. Then there are the ones focused on growth, a blend of growth and stability, and the slow-growers. Whipper-snappers like me will want to invest heavily into growth since we're young enough to take the hit if the market goes down, like what I'm experiencing right now. The general trend of the market is a gradual incline, so taking that into effect, continually investing over a lifetime will net you quite a bit of profit in the long run.An even quicker but much riskier proposition is actually investing in stock of individual companies, although you must have the luxury and ability AND knowledge of the companies you wish to throw your money into. No one wins them all, but knowledge and experience will net you more than you will lose, hopefully.Bonds, CDs, and other like securities aren't the greatest of investments when you look at it from a growing point of view, but you will definitely be keeping up with inflation and break even in the end. It's also a forceful way to keep you from touching your money, which can be a good and bad thing, depending on what you're expecting as far as future expenses or other money vessels.IRAs may be for the older, but it's always good to start young. Throwing money into an IRA at the age of 18 and continually-contributing to the account can net you thousands that you can enjoy after retirement, assuming that you keep contributing. It's also a good way to keep yourself from spending that hard-earned dollar unnecessarily when you will more likely need or want it after retirement.There is also the possibility of investing in metals like the gold standard, but I'm not very knowledgeable on how that is or if it's as good or bad as anything else I've listed here.

I was just wondering if anyone was sharing the same problem. And yes, I intend to send some correspondence to see if I can get an answer as to why this happens. After installing the Download Statusbar extension for Firefox thanks to SM's Look-Like-Chrome-with-Firefox thread, I immediately loved how the annoying download status dialog stopped popping up with everything from program downloads to saving pictures. Lately, I've been saving a lot of awesome pictures from PixDaus. (I totally recommend that anyone go visit the site, as it has some inspiring and outstanding photography as well as image manipulation. ) I save them one by one, using the slow right-click-to-save method since I like to pick out what I save. The status bar tabs each image as it completes downloading, but as of late it hasn't anymore. Also, even though the image saves to my hard drive, in the original Downloads dialog box the downloads never even start, but they are queued to start. I cannot clear the list, and now I cannot clear the status bar. That's not the real issue that I have qualms with, though. Now when I start up Firefox, it takes an extremely long time to load. (Try about a minute's time.) When it does load, Firefox opens up anywhere from 50 up to 99 dialogs saying that a download failed and to try again. (These would be all of the images that I saved previously from another session.) Of course, trying to open up the group in the taskbar to select the actual browser is near impossible, so I have to close the Firefox group as a whole and then try to run Firefox again, in which the same thing would occur or I will be able to actually use the browser. I'm going to disable the Download Statusbar extension to see if this keeps up. Anyone else run into this problem?