rayzoredge

There hasn't been a Pixar movie that has disappointed me. They've been able to incorporate the fun, excitement, beauty, and greatness that goes into movie-making and animation and turn every one of their projects, whether it be a short or a full-blown masterpiece into things that anyone, any age or any audience can enjoy.Wall-E continues that tradition. I loved it. It was cute, it was funny, and it was even dramatic. Just something about a tiny trash-compacting robot and the adventure that goes along with his story was already enough reason to be curious enough to go and see it in movie theatres... and I'm not a frequent movie-goer. I was sold with the trailer, and I'm glad I spent the money and time to go see it.Highly recommended. Keep your mind open and watch it. You can't be disappointed.

I hate the quality of camera phones.The picture quality, even set at the highest settings that you can possible go, usually come out grainy, full of noise, and off-tone as far as color goes. That's my experience, anyway, with my Motorola i580 which sports an awesome 1.3 megapixel camera. But almost nothing beats the multi-functionality of a cell phone that can take pictures and record video... and maybe I'm just missing out on the more expensive models that can actually take acceptable photos and video, but I would rather carry around my bulky Canon Rebel XT and take a great picture than settle for the portability of a camera phone. Yes, a crappy picture is better than no picture, but if I'm going to be going out to capture a moment, I will have my camera handy. I personally don't go out to pursue taking pictures with my cell phone because of that fact.Then again, it's weird how a night club scene full of adolescents comes to mind when I think of people that actively go out to use their cell phones as cameras... It might be good for MySpace, Friendster, or Photobucket, but it isn't that great to capture all of your moments that way.

Here's a quick and dirty suggestion: Add a credit multiplier for the little award/notation things that people get. You know those little symbols next to some of our names? People score their symbols thanks to being around regularly, being recognized, and consequently, being active. I think it would be a great way to make people more active and in a good way on Xisto. Let me explain this a little better... We all have the option of clicking on a symbol for someone's post to show everyone else that the poster is agreed with, helpful, confusing, funny, or even a frequent spammer. Those of us that are on Xisto frequently become recognized for the kinds of posts that we make. We are agreed with, thanked, disagreed with, etc. If you bring more attention to this feature, regulars as well as newer posters will be encouraged to "rate" other posters as it is a very quick way to do so. Just click and make up a common opinion about someone! It won't be a bad thing because people may have an off-experience and rate someone as unfriendly or whatnot, but if that person is normally nice and just rubbed someone else off the wrong way, the 10 Thanks, 3 Agrees, and 2 Informatives vs. the 1 Unfriendly rating will explain that off-experience. It would be a good thing because it will encourage people to get rid of that dreaded trash can icon next to their names... and this following suggestion will be why. Have positive credit multipliers for good ratings, and negative credit multipliers for bad ones. Here's my idea with numbers: Useful - x 1.25 Zing - ? Thanks - x 1.25 Informative - x 1.30 Gold Star - x 1.10 Disagree - x 1.10 Agree - x 1.10 Artistic - x 1.25 WTF? - x 0.95 Spam - x 0.75 Good Idea - x 1.25 Unfriendly - x 0.85 Bad Spelling - x 0.95 Funny - x 1.10 Basically, what I'm trying to say is to encourage ratings, and with those ratings, people will add the corresponding multiplier in factoring how many credits they receive from making a post at the time of that current rating. Say that I'm a frequent spammer and I've earned that pretty trash can next to my name because a dozen other Xisto members think I have nothing good to contribute. Now for every future post that I make since my inception of that trash can, I will only earn 75% of what I would normally earn as a regular, normal poster. Now who would want that? On the same token, if I'm on a lot and contribute a lot of good ideas to Xisto to make it a better place, or offer informative posts, I can earn those symbols and consequently earn more credits for my extra efforts and insight on matters that I participate in. Once I earn that i symbol, I'll be earning 30% more credits than a normal poster would. This would remove the requirement for a favorites system, discourage spam and one-liner posts, and encourage moreso of an active, engaging online community. What if people don't rate others? Why wouldn't you? It's one click, you don't have to do anything else, and it helps everyone else out. What if someone is unpopular? That's why I put Disagree as a positive multiplier. Someone may be disagreed with a lot, but that person is bringing another argument to the table, which incites different sides to a story instead of having a ton of posts that basically say the same thing and only displaying one side of an issue. I think that this would be a positive change. We might lose some members because of the whole popularity race, but would they have been worth keeping if all they wanted to do was post a bunch of jargon just to earn credits? Also, I know that English is not the primary language of some if not most of the members on Xisto. That's why I didn't put too much of a stress on the negative multiplier... not to mention that there could be something where you can notate that English is not your primary language, in which case the Bad Spelling symbol can be waived as a multiplier. Edit: Also, I want to include a sort of expiration for the ratings... because someone could be stuck with a dozen Spam ratings from a few years ago, but only some people just recently gave that member some Informative ratings and his or her dozen Spam ratings will reflect that he or she is still a spammer. On the same token, someone could have a bunch of Agree ratings and just sit on that rating, earning the multiplier forever until people actually realize that he or she is a spammer and actually rate him or her as such. Something like ratings fading away after a month, regardless of what the rating was or the member's activity. This will maintain the need for ratings to be a regular occurrence, but like I said before, why NOT take the extra half-second to click once to let others know that someone is a spammer or informative member? There are ways to possibly abuse this, but I won't outline them (for obvious reasons). If this idea is a serious consideration, someone can PM me or the moderators and Opaque can talk amongst themselves to work out the kinks. Thoughts?

In the too-long, didn't-read comic strip (which would be boring to most people anyway), they actually thank and admit to utilizing tidbits from Mozilla and Webkit, so it is "cheating," but people were credited appropriately. It even touches on the whole we-have-to-share-the-Internet-and-make-it-safe deal, which is why I'm sure geeks are in an uproar with wanting to get their hands on this and blab praises about it like a lot of people did with FireFox when it first came out. Security should be bolstered with keeping sites from accessing or altering anything on the local machine (thanks to the whole permissions and rights restrictions), but the software can only do so much. If there was a way to inform and remind users what to look for to prevent phishing techniques and allowing hazardous malware to touch the machine itself in a slipstream, within-the-experience sort of way, we might have a winner in user-friendliness. Then again, that could bring upon the annoyance that could mirror Vista's User Access Control. I can see this taking off with more computer-savvy folks, then slowly making its way into the "normal" audiences. Kind of like how FireFox was, anyway.

Go to CNet's review section and utilize the digital camera finder tool. Peer reviews can't go too wrong... Right off the back, I personally would recommend that you go down to an electronics store and actually look, feel, touch, and test out the cameras that they have available to see if you actually like them or not. Take notes, take pictures, and keep in mind what works for you. It's the best way to do things, really, but if you can't do that, filter out your possibilities and read up extensively on your final choices. That's how I picked out my cameras... and that's how I ended up with the Olympus C-765 and my new toy, the Canon Rebel XT, two great cameras. I personally am eyeballing but unfortunately not purchasing Olympus's new line of freeze-proof, crush-proof, shock-proof cameras, and in all reality, most cameras nowadays will do what most people will call "quality photography," but it will take some actual research on your part to actually achieve results that will dazzle, unlike the amateur photography that you see on MySpace profiles or the haphazard snapshoots that tourists go on, arms outstretched, shakey-camming, peering at a dim LCD... we know who we are. (Problem with Olympus's "indestructible" cameras is that you will have to resort to that style of taking pictures, as they do not sport a viewfinder, if you do decide to go with that avenue.)To simplify on quality, bigger is better. The bigger your camera, the bigger the lens, the better quality of imagery the camera will be capable of. It just makes sense... a bigger lens will allow more light. You also have to take into account CCD and CMOS sensors, although with your given budget, you will have to settle with CMOS, although the average Joe like me probably won't miss the quality that a CCD could offer. Watch that megapixel factor... don't be suckered into buying a camera with more megapixels if one with less has more functionality that you can use. Form factor could be important too... if a bigger camera doesn't suit your desire to be able to stuff it into your jeans pocket, you might have to make that compromise between portability and image quality/camera functionality.Have fun with it. It's almost as much fun learning more about cameras and refining your choices as it is to finally have that box in your hands, ready to open a new approach to photography.

Insane.Sitting through the comic, I actually read WHY this could possibly be better than FireFox... and I'll definitely give this one a try when it's available. I'm sure a lot of geeks will be suckered into praising Google just for the fact that the entire project is open-source and freely-available. I really like the sandboxing technique. People are going to eventually have to upgrade to newer, better machines with more memory instead of sticking to dinosaurs like I am thanks to the requirement that Mozilla introduced with tabbed browsing, but I suppose that since it's inevitable, might as well utilize that 2+ GB of RAM to at least bring stability to web browsing.Also, V8 sounds like a fantastic improvement over what we have now, but then again, that could just be me eating up what Google feeds the masses with the comic. I'm sure that other people will actually be familiar with the single-thread concept and understand moreso why the multi-thread processes, the unique identifiers, and the hidden adaptable common properties will boost the performance of JavaScript as a whole and by how much.I'm not sure if the average user will be able to appreciate any obvious functional differences between FireFox 3 and Chrome, but Google looks to be starting another browser fanbase, at least on the more technically-savvy side.

I'm not understanding why you would want to just tailor your website to work with just one browser, because it would limit your audience unless you don't mind and it's a personal web site, but for a professional work, you would want to accommodate as many different possibilities as possible. Personally, I would tailor things first to Firefox, but using code that is universal to all browsers (instead of using IE-exclusive CSS effects, etc.). After designing the page, I would save a copy of that page, try to view it in Internet Explorer or Opera or whatever, then tweak it to look right in that browser by adjusting code or image sources or whatnot, or even making alternative pages that display the same content but in a different way to reflect the best visual that the particular browser can provide. From there, JavaScript has a function that allows for coders to detect a browser and it's easy to see where I'm going here: redirect the user (using that gateway script/page) so that they have a seamless viewing experience, regardless of what browser they have. Another alternative to that which follows the same principle is to use PHP or JavaScript to dynamically create the page based on what they have for a browser, so it literally adjusts coding on-the-fly. I don't remember much from back in the day when I did a lot of JavaScript, but it was something like: if (browser.ClientName == "Firefox") {document.write("<tag>content for firefox</tag>");} else if (browser.ClientName == "Opera") { document.write("<tag>content for opera</tag>"); }else { document.write("<tag>content for whatever else browsers are out there</tag>"); } It's a lot of work to deal with, but at the same time, it's worth every bit if you're going to design a website for a company, or anything really, if you're looking to improve the user experience. P.S. Keep in mind that I haven't done web design in a long, long time, so maybe there's something better than this gateway technique nowadays.

That's an interesting thing to see... a video card with just a heat sink. The funny thing is that I just thought of one of my previous designs that included a VGA heat sink cooler by Zalman that could possibly do the trick with silent cooling while opting out of the possible mess that is liquid cooling. I'm not sure how you would incorporate it into your build, but if you need additional cooling, this cooler may do the trick and even comes with RAM heatsinks. Watch that airflow. As far as graphical capabilities go, the 8800GT would be a steal considering everyone is moving onto the 9000 and 200 series for NVIDIA and abandoning their older cards for newer ones. If you compare the benchmarks, the 8800GT is probably about 3 times faster than the 8600... and I've been seeing these cards for less than $100 USD. Then again, I don't know the noise levels of the fan on that thing, so maybe if you either keep the fan off and snag that Zalman cooler, you can get the performance of a proven higher-end GPU and the noise levels that you might be aiming for. Personally, I can't see how anyone could be picky about noise by the decibel unless those occasional whirring sounds from noisy optical drives drive you nuts. Is it really worth the price tag and the considerations that you have to keep in mind when building a system? Am I missing something here?

I'm a sucker for Microsoft Office XP, praise Windows XP Professional SP2 over most operating systems for compatibility and usage reasons, and don't have too much complaint over any bugs or hassles that I have to deal with. Then again, Microsoft didn't get a dime from me... Wouldn't it just be a cheaper deal just to go out and buy an eeePC in a Linux flavor and then opt to install Windows using an existing license "from a computer that you won't be using Windows on anymore?"

From your system specs and the video card that you selected, I'm guessing you want a very nice machine that can handle some gaming. The problem with anything that deals with gaming is heat, considering that GPUs have to work really hard to keep up the constant load. If you truly want a quiet PC, I recommend liquid cooling but ONLY because you want a quiet PC. I avoid it myself because I don't want to have to deal with the possibility of leaks, or having to change the liquid every 6 months to a year, or any other complications that always comes with newer things, but it has been done successfully many times, as proven by, well, everyone else.I don't have a specific solution right now... but once I get a lot of things that I need done myself and have a bit more free time, and if anyone else hasn't provided anything, I'll let you know what I can come up with.

I LOVE near-indestructible stuff. I really like Cruzer Minis... the ones that you can retract the end and not worry about losing caps. I currently own two 1GB, one 4GB, and one 8GB varieties. Two major complaints about these sticks though: the transfer rate speeds (read and write) and the stupid U3 software that AUTOMATICALLY installs whenever you stick it into any PC. I wish you could just keep it from installing that crap instead of having to find a PC you don't care for, stick it in there, then remove it later when you get bored enough or time with the U3 uninstallation tool.The Cruzer is also washable too, considering that I love leaving the darn things in my pocket. After a few days of precautionary drying, they still work.

I can already feel the rush of PlayStation fanboys running away from this article mouthing the supposed superiority that the PS3 has over everything else in the known world. Amazing stuff. It's insane how they can fit so much processing power into a machine... but then again, I'm sure this supercomputer fills up the size of at the very least a typical server locker. What is this thing powering? The finite measurement of pi?

I just solved the problem. What happened was after I optimized Windows for performance by going into System > Advanced Settings > Performance (Settings) and then optimizing Windows by adjusting for best performance (as opposed to letting Windows choose and as opposed to optimizing for best appearance), the slowdown problem occurred. What I don't understand is why it happens when Windows is optimized for PERFORMANCE... it's like it has a problem trying to deal with any portion of the desktop when you have a resized window of World of Warcraft up, but if you hide the desktop completely, it works without a hitch. I fixed it by setting it back to adjusting for best appearance. Windows never makes sense to me... One day I'll have to hijack her computer again and see what specific option it is that causes it. For the record, I went through my usual routine and disabled services like Windows Update, Windows Image Acquisition, and a bunch of other services that weren't needed (like support for tablet PCs, cameras and scanners, etc.). I'm used to doing this to my own machines, Vista and XP alike (as I finally tried out Vista Ultimate on my work PC) with no problems, but then again this was rather application-specific. I did look online to check out what the newer services did... I went to this site for my information on the newer services and for which to disable. (Those that I wasn't sure of, I set to Manual.) What I forgot about disabling services is that it doesn't free up a heck of a lot of resources (2% less of a constant RAM load on my work PC)... but then again, it's stuff that I'll never use, you know? Why run it? So in all reality, I can blame Vista even though I didn't want to in the first place. But the real problem in this case is on the user end... P.S.: There were no power management changes.

As much as I hate Microsoft, I have to side with Larry here. I have no idea what OP is trying to do with his instructions (that he graciously ripped off another site ) but you always have to be careful of modifying ANYTHING when it comes to system files in an operating system. If what Larry says is true about it being a prefetch file that Windows uses, then it's self-detrimental. Prefetch, if you're not familiar with what it is, is Windows's way of caching frequently-used programs and services so that on call, the program or service launches quicker than normal, as everything that program/service needs to load is already in cache and is paged from what I believe would be the page file from the hard drive. (This is why Vista's ReadyBoost is better than a page file, as the read/write transfer speeds of USB 2.0 is much faster than trying to read from a hard drive... and this difference can be drastic depending on the speed of the hard drive's RPM. Solid-state hard drives need not apply. ) Deleting the prefetch page files will only help you with freeing up hard disk space... but the file is recreated anyway when you start up programs again so that Windows can re-remember what you use frequently. The second thing OP tries to accomplish with his instructions is to skip autodetection of IDE/ATAPI controllers, which will increase your boot time into Windows... by a negligible amount. I am definite that no one would even be able to tell if this made a difference or not.

x2.... actually, x100. People have this whole complex where they either go to see the doctor for every sniffle they have or they never go because they convince themselves through self-diagnosis that they would be okay within a few days. I see and recognize this so much more than most people being an army medic, just because the mentality of it all is that we're tough enough to take anything, but it's such a self-detrimental behavior. Go to the doctor and describe your symptoms. For some reason, as I read your symptoms I thought of mononucleosis, but I'm no doctor, and just hearing the subjective side of things isn't enough for a diagnosis anyway. It's better to swallow your pride and/or fear and get yourself checked out than wait for something else to go wrong, or to wait until your condition worsens.

I am simply irate as to not knowing why this is happening.My friend is running Vista Home Basic. Apparently it was working well until I touched the machine and optimized Vista, disabling services that she didn't need and turning off the eye candy that would slow the machine down. (It's a Dell Inspiron 1501, by the way.) Now when she runs World of Warcraft in her usual windowed mode, it exhibits very choppy frame rates... as in that it pauses/becomes unresponsive every second. However, when she maximizes the windowed mode it runs perfectly fine. I have not tried to run it in fullscreen mode and she won't want to anyway because she uses the windowed mode to be able to use AOL. Also, occasionally during the maximized windowed mode and always during the resized window mode, AOL and Firefox CRAWL and have the stuttering, sluggish performance problem. What's weird is that this only happens some of the time when World of Warcraft is in its maximized window mode, so the problem is inconsistent, leaving me scratching my head.So far to rectify what was done, I set all services back to their default settings and undid all of my changes, but the problem still exists. I installed updated Catalyst drivers (as this computer houses an ATI Xpress 1150 integrated graphics card), which she didn't have installed at the time when it was working fine (before I touched the machine). I've Google'd to see if anyone has the same problem and a lot of people report the problem, but most forums end up with posters blaming Vista and whatnot instead of solving the problem. As much as I hate Vista, I'm stuck with having to deal with it because my friend is as stubborn as they come when it comes to her computer. She definitely will be wanting to keep AOL and World of Warcraft under Vista since she hates XP. (Please don't tell me to just reinstall XP or get rid of Vista or whatever, since it's not a solution I can convince her to do. This is a woman that refuses to use Firefox because she's so accustomed to AOL.)Anyone have any clues? I'm stuck.

I heard about this from my friend. I wonder what made him snap and go off the deep end like that. Apparently he was a normal guy right before the stabbing... but the eerie part is that he seemed to have felt no emotion. Even with the trial, no words. Either he's remorseful, or he's nuts.

In all reality (and I know that this topic is wicked old, but I'm putting this out for informative purposes), if something can be done by yourself, don't ever ship out your stuff for someone else to do. If you don't feel comfortable with something, ask someone who's knowledgeable on the matter or have them show you how to do it as they do it. It's so much easier doing things for yourself especially when it's as simple (to me, anyway) as an operating system reinstallation, and although it seems daunting at first, you'll be glad you did it yourself.I rarely if ever send anything IN to get fixed because I refuse to give up, but in the rare cases that I absolutely know my limitations, I will send it in, but not before insuring the crap out of my stuff first. Learn your toys and your equipment inside and out BEFORE something goes wrong. That way, you can save money, learn something new, and come out better off.

No post count so it's okay? Brave or conservative?

I like being able to vent in blogs or anything online so that people are GIVEN the choice to read about them or not... in that sense, I don't feel like I'm pulling ears just for the sole reason of making them hear me whine. The thing with expecting is that I'm not really expecting. I think I hear where you're coming from now... it's just that I'm actually not expecting for anything to happen, and that's what depresses me because in that way, I'm expecting a future relationship... I don't know if that makes any sense. Maybe that's what you were getting at... I'm not sure. In all reality, if something happens, awesome. If not, I'm still here and trying to stay busy and distracted so I don't think about these kinds of things. But you can only do so much in that department, ya know?The online scene is a hit and miss for me because of what I've become to believe would be best for a developing relationship, not to mention that it didn't work out as I thought the last time I tried something like it. To try to explain how I think about the whole thing: I think that the best relationships would come out of already having known someone for quite some time, as opposed to going out and meeting people by attraction and a few common interests, dating, "matching" personalities on dating websites, etc. My reasoning behind this is that you would know the person already, and if you're lucky enough, the attraction would be a developing, mutual one. It would be best because you would not only know the person inside-and-out, but also know that person's mannerisms, demeanor, and all the other things that you would catch onto with the traditional dating scene and going onto a website browsing profiles. (Searching online for profiles can also set you up for failure, as most people will only put out what they think others want to hear, or flower up their language, and/or even completely omit parts of them that they don't want you knowing about.) Even the less desirable traits can be overcome with someone you already know because if you are still there for each other in friendship, you've learned to accept that person for who they are.I really shouldn't have this as an arguing point against online dating, but my first and only experience (so far) didn't turn out as sweet as the advertisements would like you to believe. The reason why I joined MySpace was because a friend of mine told me to join up to be able to keep in contact with others, and so I did. During the same month, I was in the military and we went to a 30-day training exercise so of course, I was bored. I went online and searched for girls my age in my area just to see what would happen, then messaged a couple of them that seemed interesting (and attractive, of course). Over the course of the month, I got replies back from probably four of them, three of which were underage (pretending to be 18-21) but one that I continued to talk to who was doing college and whatnot. We talked for a few months until I told her that I was really attracted to her and, well, who she put herself out to be, so we took it to the next step and started talking a little more seriously.Then I planned on going back home to visit her.It was going to be for a week. Her parents weren't going to be home because they were going to Alaska to visit her sister, so she had the house all to herself. I would be there for a week, then go surprise my parents with me being home, hang out for a while, then go back to Germany. Seemed like a simple plan, really.Before this, she was very excited that I was coming. She was going to give me a big hug, yada yada, yada yada. When I flew in, jumped onto the bus, and then met her for the very first time at the bus station where she was picking me up, we said hi. Then we jumped into the car. She was with her friend... and I understand that it was kind of awkward to go meet someone in real life that you've never met before. I didn't expect anything to go peachy keen within a short period of time. It would have been self-detrimental.The first night was probably the best, not because we did anything, but because the whole experience went downhill from there. It was when I found out that she was going to be working a lot during the week that I was here, that she was planning on having some parties, and a couple other things that I would have thought that she would have planned ahead for. Parties are not my thing, but that wasn't a big deal... I didn't tell her that. Her knowing that I was coming in to visit and she not having even tried to lessen her hours that week so that we could spend some time was kind of depressing, but understandable because not everyone would want to sacrifice work hours. (It made sense and it didn't make sense, but hey, whatever, right?) It was okay by me because I didn't want to encroach onto anything, and so that night I slept in the same bed with a girl for the very first time in three years (since my previous girlfriend broke up with me during basic training... yay). (We didn't do anything... or were even close to each other since she had a ginormous bed. But I guess it counts... it was still a good feeling to be close to someone again.)The next day she worked. I sat around in the house all day bored crazy until she got back. Then some of her friends came and helped planned and set up for the party. I helped with that. We had the party, she ignored me most of that night, and I think for some reason I slept alone that night... can't remember why or how.She worked the next day, came back, and cleaned the house from last night only to prepare for another party the night after. We didn't get a lot of time to talk, and I couldn't really help clean the house because she was very particular of where things went and how things were done. So what did I do? I went out and walked the dog.Apparently I wasn't supposed to be there in the first place because she got mad at me for walking the dog in broad daylight where the neighbors would see me and know that I was at her house... and apparently the neighbors know her well enough to know her dog and that a stranger was walking him. So that's when I got the talk about not leaving the house so that she wouldn't get in trouble.Now I can't leave the house.There was a wedding that she was supposed to be at and be a bridesmaid or something, so that was something else that was bad timing with my arrival. One day was attributed with that, and so I was at the house again by myself. I'm a little frustrated at this point because I spent my time and money here only to have been with the person I wanted to be with for probably a grand total of a few hours. And so the phone rang and being bored out of my mind and thinking that it was her calling from the reception I picked it up. It was one of her ex-boyfriend's that she was still really good friends with, and he was calling to talk (because he actually talked to her really often). It didn't bother me one bit since I believe that girls should have guy friends (but I still have a jealousy kick because that's how one of my relationships ended... with that girl cheating on me with her guy friend), but apparently it did him. That night when she got back he called and got mad at her for having "some dude" over at her house, so apparently I was a bigger secret than I even would have thought. It wasn't a good night for her, and consequently, I'm already distancing us before we even really had a chance to get to know each other in person.There was a party the next night, and she invited friends and friends of friends, so there was a lot of people no one really knew. To make a long story short, some "nice" guy that was apparently attractive and built and whatnot came to the party and she was all over him, drunker than a skunk. My jealousy tolerance was gone and I hit the hay earlier that night because I didn't want to deal with it anymore, seeing her all over him. At exactly 4AM, I woke up in her sister's room to some noise. Turns out that "nice" guy was having sex with her and causing a ruckus. I was so mad that I was tempted to kick in the door and get violent, but that stupid "better part of me" told me to just leave. So after a brief argument with her friend (who I respected for sticking up for her), I packed up my stuff and walked approximately 7.5 miles (I measured after) down to my friend's house.The day I left I realized my passport was at her house and almost couldn't get back to Germany. After some fidgeting, I made it.So as you can probably see here, that little incident kind of scarred me inside with the whole meeting-people-over-the-Internet thing. It was a one time thing, and it probably would never happen again, which is why I'm wrong for not wanting to deal with that possibility because of this one occurrence, but at the same time, it's enough to scare me away from it and not want to ever, ever deal with that again. I've been cheated on before but never have I been at the scene. And the worst part is that I don't even think we were anything to begin with. I didn't even get a damn hug. She was never mine and I was never hers... so why the heck should I even care?This, along with several other relationship experiences that didn't end very well in the past is why I am the way I am today. And it sucks.Also, and I don't know why, but I've been rooting for my friends' marriage, as in I'm trying to keep both of them sane and happy so that they can get through the rut that they've been in for what has been quite a while now. The stress is getting to them in some ways more than others, and even the husband's computer fried so instead of having him go nuts (because he's a big computer guy) I actually went out and bought a laptop for him to use. I'm almost tempted to go out and get a new one for her too because it would be so much better than the supposed piece-of-crap Dell that she has now, not to mention that she won't be frustrated with it as much and there would be no inferiority as far as having the crappy computer and whatnot... and during these whole thought processes, I'm thinking with my other, more practical brain: "You're a moron. Stop spending this kind of money, because you're going to go into the hole yourself." They can't pay me back for a long, long, long time... it's just financially impossible. Yet I keep offering things and giving things and whatnot just to try to ensure that their lives aren't further stressed by having to sacrifice the things that keep them sane, like an occasional night out or being able to IM other friends online or not be stuck in the house because they wouldn't be able to afford to do anything. And it's so self-detrimental inside with the fact that I still feel so empty inside when I see public displays of affection... I can't even look at them when they kiss. It kills me. And yet I'm still okay with trying to be that supporting wheel, yet I'm not okay pouring money into something that I know won't net me anything more in a relationship department. It's like I'm being used by a girlfriend who's there for my money, except that I'm the one willing to throw out what I can offer for nothing expected in return. I'm not saying that I don't want to do it anymore. I'm just thinking with my other brain and seeing how stupid it looks to be doing this, especially when I'm spoiling a particular group of friends and neglecting others in that aspect. (I always treat my friends to nights out when I can, but I've never gone to lengths where I've loaned/given this much before.)I don't know. I feel like I'm just going through lengths to make myself some sort of martyr when in all reality I'm just griping.

Haha... definitely the wrong category to be posting in. I went to go see the movie after NOT hearing a bad thing about it... and I was pleasantly surprised. I loved Heath Ledger's portrayal of a psychologically-demented Joker (as opposed to being not-so-serious ). His character was definitely one that would get under your skin thanks to his approach to things as well as his demeanor, not to mention that he is FULL of dark humor. (I LOVE his disappearing pencil trick. ) Christian Bale always delivers a rather nice performance in all of the movies that I've seen with him so far, so it wasn't a surprise to see him fit the Batman role. Although Maggie G. isn't, in my opinion, the hottest thing since toasted bread, she looked the character of being Bruce Wayne's cute best friend and crush childhood sweetheart. And Gary Oldman always delivers. I highly recommend this movie to anyone, and for anyone considering the IMAX version, plan on reserving tickets a few days in advance. They're ALWAYS sold out on the night of the movie... which tells you a lot, most likely.

That's the optimistic way to look at it. I know it's my personal issues that are keeping me from throwing this whole thing out the window, but it's so stupid how ridiculously easy it seems to fix and even more stupid how ridiculously hard it is to do something as simple as opening up and talking to people I find an interest in.One problem with your suggestion that I knew would be a great fix is that I don't do any clubs or have any extracurricular activities that would expose me to girls in the traditional sense. Yes, it would be awesome if I could go and meet someone at school, or work, or during activities that I enjoy. Right off the back, I'm kind of set up for failure in this sense, because everyone at work that's attractive - actually, I think it's all of them - are married; I was commuting and will still be commuting to college, which makes meeting people kind of hard because everyone there is doing the same thing: going to school, getting through class, then leaving to go to work... which kind of means a hectic schedule, not to mention less of a chance to actually getting to know anyone; and the only really social things that I do include paintball (which, for girls, will be something that they do with their boyfriends and such), maybe playing mall rat from time to time (but of course I already have my shy bug, plus all the stupid crap that I mentioned above), and... I don't know. I almost want to just pick up a Walmart job just so I can be more exposed to co-workers that are around my age and who I can relate to and such, since that would probably be one of the easiest ways to meet anyone. It would be a stupid move for me to do though unless I wanted to work two jobs as my current job pays well compared to most, and if I work two jobs, where's the free time?As far as my friend goes, it's a sure thing that she's not going to do anything and neither am I, because as much as I want anything, I know my boundaries. It helps out that I really like the husband too... I'm one of his best friends now. I would never do anything to destroy their relationship because I was in that spot once where my heart was ripped to pieces... multiple times. I'm fortunate to have not have experience that during a marriage, but it's still no fun, let me tell ya. You're right that I shouldn't be "using" her as a surrogate girlfriend, but it's like I have all these things I want to do and no one to do them with, you know? I don't know... maybe I'm just a little whacked out when it comes to these things. Who in their right mind would spoil another man's wife knowing that there is no return value as far as that kind of love?

Make sure you have an XP CD, a valid serial key, an SP2 CD (if your XP CD doesn't contain a slipstream of SP2), and a lot of patience. It REALLY helps out if you have another computer with Internet access handy. Actually, it's quite necessary. You'll see why later. BEFORE you do this, download every single driver for every single component in your computer. Look up the make and model of your sound card, your network card, and your video card. Use Google to find XP drivers for those devices. Search through forums to see if other people have attempted to go back to XP with the hardware that you have and see if there are resolutions to driver issues beforehand. This is where you will need your patience. If you can't wait, at the very least find drivers for your network card. Save them to a USB stick or even to your external hard drive. - 1. Back up all of your important data to an external hard drive. (I stress external hard drives because mistakes happen... one of my friends who JUST did this accidentally installed XP over his backup partition.) Unplug it and set it aside. 2. Insert your Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive and restart your computer. 3. When your computer boots, it should try to boot from the CD and prompt you to press any key to boot from the CD. If it doesn't, when you turn on your computer, press F12 and make sure that you boot from CD. 4. The Windows XP setup program will now load (blue screen). After it loads, follow the on-screen prompts to installing Windows XP. When it lists your partitions, clear all of them (read the screens... I can't tell you off the top of my head) and then set up one partition to install XP into. 5. Setup will now copy files to your computer then automatically restart. After restarting, installation will continue automatically. Setup will prompt you for your serial key and to set up some regional and network preferences. The installation should take less than or about 20 minutes, depending on how fast your machine is. 6. After the automatic reboot after the installation, you will be in Windows. Insert your SP2 CD and install SP2. Follow the onscreen prompts, which will result in your machine having to reboot again. 7. This is where you go back to the drivers you downloaded previously and install them to get your hardware to work again if they are not being automatically recognized by Windows XP SP2. This will be the most frustrating part of the whole deal since you will most likely NOT have everything working hardware-wise because of driver incompatibility issues. If you bought a prefabricated computer (such as a desktop or laptop from Dell, HP, etc.), you can go to the manufacturer's website and download drivers from there IF they offer them for XP. If not, be prepared to do some searching if the drivers you downloaded before don't work. The worst part about going back to XP is driver support. Some computers that were "built for Vista" don't have drivers that work in XP... ESPECIALLY the stupid network cards. I once spent two hours trying to get a friend's network card to work on her Vista-turned-XP machine and it was not an obvious fix. You're going to need to be able to do some digging online on forums and such in the worst case.

Does anyone know of any tips post-SP1 that will make a larger difference in performance than simply disabling extraneous services? Please post your tweaks here as I'm at a loss as how to improve performance under Vista. I've disabled a bunch of stuff as per this website, but even after all that I net a 2% gain in RAM freed. I don't notice any performance gain while doing my normal stuff, and I'm wondering if Vista is still a lost cause. Also, how do you disable SxS (side-by-side)? Is there a way? I know it's not exactly fair to be saying that on a machine that barely fits the requirements, but at the same time, you would expect more from a succeeding operating system, no? - Edit: I found an AWESOME forum post by BD2003 that explains performance tweaks for our love-hate operating system. In short, Vista requires a ton of RAM... 2GB to do anything normal and 4GB for best results. A fast processor and video card is also rather paramount... so for the bunch of us who aren't exactly in the market for a new, higher-end machine, "upgrading" to Vista is not the best idea. Even with as much available resources as you can muster, Vista will make mincemeat of it in the numbers department, but in all reality, a higher-performing system will run Vista well as opposed to trying to make it work with, let's say, a prefabricated system "designed for XP." Keep in mind that not everything with a Vista-Ready sticker slapped on it is truly ready to run Vista. I would recommend any system with a multi-core processor with a 2.0+ GHz clock speed, at least 2GB of RAM, a dedicated video card with 256+MB of VRAM and at least a 128-bit memory bus, and 250+GB of hard disk space as MY personal recommendation for minimum system requirements.

There are not a lot of things that irk me too much to the point of me being unpleasant all the time, but there are a few things that will get me instantly pissed off. 1. People that throw cigarette butts out of a window of a car. This gets me every time and probably is my number 1 pet peeve. As soon as I see that butt leave the window, nowadays I lay into the horn and flip them off for at least 5 seconds to make sure that they see me pissed off. I'm very short of just grabbing things to throw at their car, but that would be hypocritical if it was garbage. And yes, it's bad... I shouldn't be reacting so immaturely, but this is the worst thing people can do that pisses me off on the road. 2. People that tell me I'm wrong about something I have an expertise with. There's the chance that I might be wrong about something and I can learn from my mistakes, but depending on how someone tells me that I'm wrong, it can turn a potentially-educational experience into an ugly grudge. If someone flat-out tells me that I'm retarded and don't know what I'm doing, I will be keeping that urge to smack that person right off the bat. 3. My pessimism with girls. I've been in a depressing rut lately with the opposite gender. The instant I see someone that attracts me, I immediately go into a vicious cycle of events, beginning with appreciating the eye candy, then the wanting to be with that person, then wondering about all the things that would keep me from being with that person, the pondering the facts that I'm shy and don't have much self-esteem, then wondering if the potential relationship would even last thanks to our promotion of a promiscuous society (thank you media! ) or to my personal faults or just an incompatibility of personalities, and ultimately leaving me pissed off at myself because I'm so pessimistic about things and the whole relationship thing in general. It makes going out a real pain, and even public displays of affection are very, very discouraging things to me.