rayzoredge

Good 'ol QWERTY, baby. I can't remember how I started, but I do remember taking Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing on the old Macintosh at about 1st grade or so. Since I've kept the fingers on the home row keys, I've had them since forever. I'm interested in learning DVORAK at one point or another just because it would be cool to be able to efficiently type with just my left or my right, but I'm already used to somewhat typing with one hand on QWERTY... just with a little sight assistance when the hand goes to the opposite side of the keyboard that it's unfamiliar with. When it comes to numbers, I'm STILL a little iffy reaching upwards to get the right number, so when I can, I use the 10-key pad (which I'm also proficient with).Found out that I have 150+ spm with 10-key and 95+ wpm using QWERTY, so I suppose that strict regimen paid off. That's actually against the clock and typing up the simple drills that they offer for free online... I'm sure that I type slightly slower casually.

Sound card and hard drive? That's impeccably retarded. Maybe you can snag up a cheap USB SoundBlaster 24-bit external sound processor and mount that thing with Velcro or something to his existing laptop stand after confirming that it works with his existing hard drive and/or snag another 2.5" hard drive after confirming that it is compatible... then expense it out to the company IT budget. And if neither works... well, not sure what to say that's economically-viable. Hopefully using the SBLive! external will work, because a $20 piece of additional equipment might be financially better than upgrading your guy to "a better laptop." I think that's absolutely bad that the company basically gave you the cold shoulder, since they literally can't do anything about it (unless enough people complain about it that they're forced to release an official fix for it). I would think about maybe finding another software solution and return DNS, or send a request for a soft fix to see if you can resolve it that way without having to buy additional hardware just to make something work with the computer that should work flawlessly in the first place.

First off, what you're about to embark on is potentially dangerous and doing anything as root may consider YOU as a WMD to your computer. Keep that in mind. Anyway, when you get into Linux, open up a terminal and type in the following and press Enter: sudo cp /boot/grub/grub.lst /boot/grub/grub-backup.lst This will back up your current GRUB bootloader file. Then continue with: sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.lst If you don't have nano (i.e. if the terminal returns a bash error), then use kate if you have Kubuntu (KDE), or use gedit if you have Ubuntu (Gnome), or just use vi, although I think that the former suggestions would be easier for you. After entering in your root password, this will bring up the infamous grub.lst file. Look in this file for a line with something that looks like: timeout 0 It's probably set at 0 at the moment because you accidentally set it at that value. Replace 0 with the number of seconds that you want the bootloader to give you before selecting the default choice. Save and quit, then restart the computer and see if it works. If you somehow screwed something up and you don't even get the GUI anymore for Linux, during boot up, hit Alt+F2 to bring up the command-line interface (since the GUI display might be screwed up or whatever), log in, then type: sudo mv /boot/grub/grub-backup.lst /boot/grub/grub.lst This should help you out. If not, maybe you have Windows 7's bootloader working against you instead of GRUB? If so, try this: Put in your Windows 7 DVD. After selecting your language, choose to Repair Your Computer. Go to the command prompt and type in each command, hitting Enter after each one: bootrec /fixmbrbootrec /fixboot Restart your computer, and your Windows 7 bootloader should have its default settings back.

Social networking requires common sense. If you don't have it, it's your own damn fault if something detrimental happens, simply because you allowed for that information to be accessed by making it available in the first place. To my knowledge, Twitter was never compromised... only attacked with denial-of-service and by users spreading worms by tweeting executable code. MySpace has its fair share of phishing scams, Flash worms, and malware voluntarily accessed by the less-than-wary portion of the WWW's online audience. If you use a bit of common sense, you can prevent most if not all of the bad things that you hear about afflicting MySpace and Twitter users. Even FaceBook has its evils with bad Apps... but then again, when you continually click on that button allowing the app you're interested in to gain access to YOUR information, you probably deserve to be compromised after having agreed to let 1000 apps gain access to your information because you were bored and wanted to take all of those dumb quizzes. Also, in my opinion, Twitter can be a valuable tool since YOU can protect your own tweets and it is YOUR choice to follow certain feeds or to allow others to gain access to your feed. With that being said, you can utilize the tons of bots that make Twitter a valuable information tool, or use it to give mobile updates to your friends and family if THEY want to, etc. Other social networking sites like FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc. can also be used in valuable roles, but at the same time, it can be used against you. Just keep in mind what you make available to the general public and you should be good to go.

Done.Just about everything you asked in the first survey was covered by my English courses in high school and in college English courses. Guys, +1 on helping SM out. The survey literally takes less than 3 minutes if English is your primary language.

Just an FYI, Windows XP Professional SP3 actually performs better (for the most part) over both Vista and 7, but the margins are something that you might want to look at. For example, XP takes forever to shut down compared to Vista or 7. But everything else inclusive of normal use, to include gaming, warrant no real excitement as far as PC performance goes. XP and 7 actually operate somewhat on the same performance level, but 7 "feels" zippier. A lot of people report this and don't know why, considering that benchmarks prove that they are rather comparable, with XP in the lead (but by a few negligible seconds on certain tasks). This information is based on what I've read a while back, so some current numbers are in order... [January 2009] Apparently, Windows 7 wins in the networking department, but all other differences as far as performance goes is rather menial at single-digit percentage gains and even losses to Windows XP. (Vista users, however, have plenty to gain switching to 7.) But you have to remember that Windows 7 brings a lot to the table, like DirectX 10 support, Aero, and other fancy features as well as security-related interests and other good-to-have things like ease of networking. Kind of funny to actually think about Windows 7 as an upgrade and next step up from Windows XP... which is good, considering that we couldn't stick with the 8-year-old operating system forever. (No, I never actually considered Vista an upgrade path.)

I don't mean to discredit Craigslist by much if I did, but it's just too easy to hit up job-seekers with scams promising stuff or even look like a legitimate job listing for innocent job-seekers that will have no idea that their personal information would be stolen and probably sold to the highest bidder. I've already got spam making its way through my Gmail spam blocker because "I subscribed" to it. B*st*rds.Even with legitimate listings, though, another frustrating thing I've come to realize is that people are HORRIBLE with getting back to you. Here's the deal: If you post a listing asking for help or if you're selling something, don't post and forget about it. At least check it at the end of the day so you don't leave potential customers or employees waiting, wondering if they just wasted their time or if their resume was sent into a black hole. If you want something to sell and you did sell it, don't keep the stupid listing up so that you get pestered with e-mails left and right for something you don't have anymore. (That just seems like common sense to me... and yes, we all forget, but I'm sure that we have sore reminders whenever we have to reply to people that we sold something a WEEK ago.)Surprisingly enough, I've NEVER seen a job listing for completing surveys and crap... but I have seen one about testing products and a bunch with clinical studies, which may or may not be a scam. (Google for the listing text and more likely than not, you'll find that it's a scam. I almost fell for one until I actually raised my red flag and searched for it.)Some scammers are retarded, too. I saw a job listing for a project manager with a description for an administrative assistant.

It's too heavy when your intended audience has to wait too long for your pages to load. Too long is a subjective time period, but all end with the same consequence: when they stop viewing your page and just give up by closing the window or moving on to something else. Most people have some sort of high-speed connection nowadays, but there are a fair amount of people who go by 56K still, whether they are physically or financially incapable of attaining high-speed solutions. Cater to at least DSL customers so that you keep your possible audience as large as possible, then offer a "lite" or text-only version, or even a mobile version, for those that suffer with 56K or around that bandwidth limitation. JPEGs are great for compressing images, but they're not that great in displaying things as you intend for them to be displayed. The JPEG format introduces "artifacts" and doesn't show an image in the best quality possible, but you can compress the crap out of it... which leads to faster load times. You would use JPEGs for photos, large images that aren't affected too much (or if you don't mind) by pixelation and JPEG artifacts, or even full backgrounds, and for the most part, they would only get as large as 300KB or so, depending on how large the image is in dimension. For smaller graphics, depending on what you want to showcase, you would want to go with GIFs or PNGs. GIFs are limited to 256 colors and are capable of animation, and in my opinion, PNGs are awesome with the combination of display quality and compression. (However, PNGs can still get quite large, which then you would use JPEGs for applications in large-image territory.) When you design an image or graphic, save it in those three separate formats and visually compare them. Weed out any obvious degradation and then choose by file size. There used to be a site called Web Site Garage or something, but Googling for it tells me that they shut it down a while back. I used to use it for my older websites to make sure that my pages loaded up quickly without too much of a slowdown when I added dynamic content to it. I'm not sure what's out there now to gauge web site loads, but I'm sure you could find some sort of optimization tool to help you get an idea of what a 56Kbps user would see in contrast to a 7.0Mbps user. (Adobe Flash is awesome with bandwidth restriction, allowing you to see if that cool Flash intro you made would be viable for a DSL or even T1 connection and forcing you to optimize your SWF for the sake of your viewers.) Addendum: Found something in your lane. It's a pretty awesome tool and probably will help a TON of web designers/developers out when trying to optimize for their audiences. It's kind of outdated as the fastest connection is a 1.44Mbps T1, but hey, it works... and it provides lots of information akin to the Web Site Garage program I used years ago.

I understand the "don't tread on me" bit... but doesn't it violate one of the Ten Commandments to do so, though? Why does God say to be the better person and to have mercy on others, much like how he had Jesus do even with all of the heinous crimes committed upon him? Jesus was "tread" on. Does God make exceptions, or is he absolute? Obviously, according to the Bible, he isn't absolute... which makes him inconsistent... not to mention that the Bible apparently has some contradictions to it too. And we all know that Man wrote the Bible, because apparently these contradictions have answers and wrote it in such a way that it is misinterpreted. Would the "word of God" be misinterpreted? You could say that there is no way, since God is perfect, or you can say that there is way, because Man is imperfect. This still doesn't explain why God let the Crusades endure for as long as it did, since, simply put, it was a conflict of interest and disagreement... which ended in years of bloodshed, which is hard to believe that God simply observed. This is exactly why I came up with absolute neutrality as a concept, though. I know that Epicurus didn't do much in touching base on what God really is with just two philosophical statements, but it makes you wonder what Good really is. God is capable of saving, yes... because he's all-powerful and yada yada, and I see your point with it not being necessarily to make up for the fallacies of Man, but at the same time, if I was a good person, and if I witnessed a murder happen but did nothing to prevent a serial killer from slaying an innocent woman and child, would I still be good as I did not myself commit the slaying? It's the same concept with God. Is he still good by just letting things take its course? It's one thing for nature and the food chain, but it's another when baby Brianna is violently abused AND RAPED by her guardians until she finally died and God simply sits on his high cloud and is still regarded as "good." The monsters attributed to her treatment are going to jail for a little over a decade. Can we so easily do such monstrous acts and then ask for repentance later? Can God actually simply just watch as these sorts of things happen down below? If there is a Heaven, why be born of this world only to be potentially tortured as a mortal just to have the hopes to enter the gates of Heaven if you were good? How do we even know if baby Brianna even got the chance to be good? God commenced a flooding to cleanse the world (killing wicked people as well as everyone else except for Noah and his family... are we playing favorites now? Was Noah and his family the ONLY sane family on Earth?) and start anew. Where's the flood now? He did it once... might as well do it again. To end evil, you have to take lives or change them, apparently. If you kill, you're probably evil yourself for killing... or righteous because God gives you that exception to kill. If God kills, it's all right, of course, even though it's a bit hypocritical. (I'm sure some of you are like, "Yeah... go ahead and tell God that he's hypocritical.") If you try to rehabilitate people, maybe you can, maybe you can't. Just look at all the "rehabilitated" criminals we have that are habitual offenders. How about repentance? Like I said, anyone can say they're sorry. There are a special few that could really be sorry. But if God really was our concept of "good," he wouldn't let this kind of stuff slide... or have started anew a while ago. Again. And again. And again, until he would be tired of getting one lucky winning family to gather two of every animal in the world and hitting that reset button. That's why I think that God is absolutely neutral. He's just up there, watching, waiting, maybe making some weird stuff from time to time like the platypus just to screw with our obsession for science and logic. He doesn't have a reason for the Big Bang, or a reason for life, or a reason for anything. He just is. Or he doesn't exist at all... and we're left back to square one.

I'm going to share with you one of the most frustrating things to deal with while on Craigslist.I'm a rather-computer-savvy person, so you wouldn't think that I wouldn't fall for any scammish material. However, I've sent (fortunately, harmless) information to "potential employers" because I'm in search of an additional job.To make it short and sweet for readers: if you respond to a Craigslist posting and you get something that looks canned, raise the red flag. If you send follow-up e-mails to a "person" and they lead you to a website to complete your interview, raise a red flag. If they don't have a phone number, slightly raise a red flag... some people don't want to be called, but scammers really won't want to be called. Also, within legitimate-looking e-mails, pay attention to the URLs the links are sending you to. If it has a referral number, looks out-of-whack, or in any way suspicious, forget it.I'm just sick of this crap on having to deal with fake postings and wasting my time and energy, waiting for a job opportunity that never was. So far I haven't gotten anything requiring anything more than my e-mail address and my physical address (which I could give two flying you-know-whats about anyone knowing), but it is still very, very frustrating. Add this to the telemarketing scam calls I've been receiving on my WORK phone and it's been a hell of a time. (I hope signing up for the National Do-Not-Call list stops a majority of those calls...)

Look at all the pretty lights... Nice BG.

My old thread about Microsoft Silverlight Not sure how much adoption there has been with Silverlight, so I can't comment on its potential as far as a revolutionary step towards... anything.

I like these kinds of threads in the aspect that you can get inspirations on what you want to do with your own desktop. Here's mine that I have on my work desktop... at work. I use different backgrounds from time to time when I get tired of them or when I want a change of pace.

Just from reading your post, rpgsearcherz, I procured that your beliefs include an open mindset to entertain the possibilities that others come up with, yet you attribute everything to one thing that still leaves the unexplainable unexplained: God. If the Big Bang theory were true because scientific method and theory proposes it to be true, and if God made the Big Bang catalyst, then why? Why did God put it there? Obviously, there were some things that came out of it imperfect, but as Descartes says, they have to be imperfect as they are not God. This whole "good" and "evil" that stems out of imperfection begs the questions that I brought up with Epicurean thought: If he is able and willing, and if he doesn't stop "evil," he can't be all good, can he? Wouldn't that be imperfect? Then again, we have a certain understanding of our concept of perfection... and maybe God isn't good or evil. He just is, which is probably perfect in itself: perfectly neutral. Maybe he's autonomous. I don't know. If he is perfectly neutral, then that would explain and be a perfect argument against Epicurean though on God as it becomes a whole different animal, since now, with this thought process, God is actually neutral instead of being "good." Also, to put a twist on your Christian scientist... not all Christians devoutly follow their own principals or even follow with their own religion. Think about all the Christians in the world and within history. I'm no theologist, but I do remember something about "Thou shalt not kill." So how does it make it right that anyone during the Crusades killed anyone else? Christians were killing Muslims, Jews, Pagans, and anyone else that stood in the way of religious dominance. This continued for almost 200 years! If God was truly good, I think he would have at least said something! Even a Monty Python: The Holy Grail-esque appearance would have probably done some good! I just wanted to point out that even though someone claims to be Christian doesn't necessarily mean that they will follow their own religion or religious principals. I don't think there's a Christian-Lite (unless you're talking to Robin Williams, who's Episcopal, or "Catholic-Lite:" same religion, half the guilt!). That's basically like saying that I'm a Christian, yet I'm enjoying my ale and sleeping around, killing those I don't like and exposing myself, then on the following Sunday, I confess and "wash away" my sins... only to do it all over again Monday morning. (Not saying that Christians or anyone really does that kind of thing, but some do... you get my point.)

Just wanted to bump this with a couple of threads that you might want to read before going on this venture. Yes, I read more on the downfalls and the possibilities of failing than the actual way to do it, but I'm glad I did it that way because it was a sore reminder to me that I don't fit into being a freebie trader... just yet, anyway. The advice given is also applicable to a lot of money-making concepts, not to mention that it highlights scams to watch out for. The demeanor these guys project with their posts makes me give them enough credit to be bona-fide with their words. Makes sense... they provide the community with sound advice, want you to sign up with them so that they can pay you to make money for them. No-brainer for them... and some brains required for you. Without further ado: Is Freebie Trading Right for Me? [iMO, required reading] Newbie Advice for New Traders For those of you who are confused with OP's posting, Freebie Trading is a concept you may already be familiar with but don't know the terminology. Think about all those "free offers" and "free trials" you've seen online. You sign up, no obligation, get your free thing, then either cancel on time if you don't like it or forget to (or LIKE the product) and start paying for that product/service. Freebie Trading works off of that concept, hosting those "free offers" for you to try out with emphasis on paying you with credits for accepting offers, then allowing for you to cash in on those credits. How do they make money? They're making money by referring you... more money than they're paying you to try out the offers. The next step from that would be to become a Freebie Trader yourself, offering "free offers" to others and referring them. Reminds me of a multi-level marketing concept, but it seems to only have one level down. To screen yourself to see if Freebie Trading is right for you, or for any potential business venture, there are some fundamental things you have to ask yourself: - As a newbie, can you keep on top of things and cancel trials and offers before you get boned with a fee? - As a newbie, do you have money to lose in the case of a scam, difficulty in cancelling, or forgetting to cancel? - As a newbie, do you already have a flow of income? (Note that although OP says she earned $1000 in a few weeks, not all results are typical. Freebie Trading is FAR from being a decent flow of income, but it does help pay for gas and occasional recreational and shopping expenses...) - As a newbie, do you have common sense? (Yes, this is a requirement to protect YOU and the person who is "greening" you.) - As a newbie, can you follow instructions? (Again, a requirement to protect you and the person "greening" you.) - As an established trader, do you have common sense? (Yes, you can still get scammed.) - As an established trader, can you create a website and be able to advertise yourself in a genuine manner to weed out skeptics and be able to work with your referrals so that you both don't get screwed? Did I miss anything important? For those of you who decide to do it, good luck!

There is no need to associate yourself with any religious party, considering the fact that no one knows for sure what's right. There are a lot of good arguments from all sides and a lot of good philosophy, but in the end, no one can actually prove that they are right in their beliefs. Why else would we have all these different religions? I love how atheists have jumped onto the Epicurean fan boat... because the quotes themselves provoke thought and make you wonder if there is reality in this sort of thinking: At the same time, I'm sure religious buffs are loving the likes of Descartes and his proof that a God exists: Philosophy is such a fun class. I wouldn't really see this moment as negative, but positive. You're opening yourself to more possibilities to a lot of unanswered questions... but of course, you're also going to cloud your mind with a lot of possibilities to those unanswered questions. Maybe that's why I'm personally the way I am: I'm not a true atheist because there COULD be a God out there, but I'm not too keen on that idea because the word of the Bible is pretty much thrown out with the theory of evolution. So what should we believe? I would think that almost everything in the Bible DID happen... with a twist of fiction to help either fathom the idea of supernatural and magical existence to support the idea of God and what God can do, creating a basis for fear and to recruit more members into the belief by intimidation, or just because people saw things differently and put a twist on history to explain the unexplainable (at the time). Then again, what the heck is up with the Big Bang? We talk all about matter and energy only able to convert into one another and never created, everything being constant... and now we're supposed to believe that a Big Bang with the potential energy that encompasses all that we know in our current universe came from something that decided to spontaneously go "BOOM!?"

Nuclear energy is clean, easier and cheaper to obtain (apparently). Also, nuclear warheads are easier to obtain than developing the next best thing... not to mention that nuclear weapons are our super weapon, as nothing else "better" has come around. Take a look at the Tsar Bomba. The damn thing was detonated at 13,000 ft but still did more damage than anything we have yet to witness or on record. With 10 times the amount of nuclear material than Little Boy and Fat Man (which were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II), and with an explosion that literally "glassed" a 25-kilometer radius, which is over 1500 square miles. To give you an idea of how huge that is, if that was dropped over New York, you would disintegrate 75% of the state, cook anything in a 100 kilometer radius, and throw pressure hundreds more kilometers to obliterate houses and blow windows out at the edges of the area of impact. This bomb was hastily constructed with little to no mathematical analysis involved in the planning. The bomb took fifteen weeks to build, was built with "off-the-shelf" nuclear components, and it was even LIMITED in its construction to a 50-megaton potential because of the fears of radiation fallout... which, thankfully, they did, as their calculations did involved nuclear fallout with lethal effects over an enormous area. (Source) When you have that kind of ease into creating something that can literally and completely wipe out a spot on the Earth plus the added shock wave to circumvent the Earth three times, it's no wonder why everyone wants to harness the power as well as use it to shake a bigger stick. It would be nice to keep these true WMDs away from anyone's hands, but when you have defense protocols to make sure you have that bigger stick to wave when someone surprises you with an unfair offensive advantage, the U.S. can't afford not to have nuclear weapons, and neither can any other country. Plus, since nuclear weapons are our best super weapon as a human race, what happens if we disarm ourselves and an alien invasion occurs?

1. Why do you call it the Hitler 'stache? Exactly why it has such a stigma behind it... because we recognize that stigma through the symbol of having a Hitler 'stache. Is it wrong to have one? No. Is it even wrong to do a Nazi salute or to be fascinated with the history of the Holocaust? No... but some people will still see it that way. Even Germans are rather ashamed of their history and it is a general rule not to speak of the Holocaust, period, in any public establishment or anywhere where you can be overheard... especially if you're American. No German likes revisiting that dark chapter of history... and yes, they understand the word "Holocaust," most likely because the word is the same in German. 2. The same goes for Adolf. A while ago, a couple was chastised for naming their son by the same name. Their reasoning was because it was different, unique, and no one else would name their son by that name. (For good reason.) It didn't help this reasoning, however, when authorities and officials saw that the names of the other children were "Nazi-themed." (Try this article here.) Even though a name's a name, kids and adults that know of the history behind the name with either feel badly for those children or shun them in disgust... and that's only because of the history behind it. Makes me wonder what would happen if Adolf Hitler's name would have been Joe Smith... Until history forgets Hitler and his heinous crimes, these two issues will persist. No one cares that Adolf Hitler was a brilliant strategist and propagandist. They'll only find the name as a synonym for a theme of genocide.

Don't look at it as a waste of time. Look at it as a learning experience and some exposure to certain things. I'm sure you picked up quite a few things along the way whether it was from here or from self-discovery, and if you didn't embark on certain endeavors, would you have asked the questions you did? Learned from mistakes? Have the experience you have now?Money-making things are too hyped up and people have too much hope in them, in my opinion. You have to put in the effort and time into developing them AND put the time into letting it work for you, which most people aren't really willing to be patient enough for.Look at what I'm doing. I'm still developing marketing strategy and already having put myself out there on here, Craigslist, signing my e-mails... I'm getting some attention, which is good, but I haven't made any sales or gotten anyone to jump on board with me. Is it discouraging? Yes. But it's only been a month or so for me. These kinds of things take time. Keep that in mind with the next venture with supplementary income. You can never depend on it to rake in thousands, or even hundreds. But that's when you'll be pleasantly surprised, with years of hard work and years of being persistent with it, that it actually is working for you. The possibility of making lots of money in such little time IS fathomable and people have made it work, but one size does not fit all. Some people have more time, more money to invest, more effort available to put into their projects, less responsibilities... you get the idea.If you are really looking into something to do, I don't know what to tell you as far as subject matter goes... but if you have the time, take a look into learning more, training more, and getting randomly inspired. Create your portfolio online. Play around with design ideas. Look at what others are doing and learn what makes them work. UNDERSTAND why they work and apply those concepts to your design(s). The idea(s) will come to you when it comes to you. Don't pressure yourself into trying to do something that you're probably not ready for.

You COULD use the Add/Remove Programs feature... Ta-da! I actually think you would be doing all right with Add/Remove Programs. I think the database is a bit outdated here and there, but you can sort things by popularity, and if you have questions, Google is your friend. You can also look up "best Linux applications" and that search will turn up some decent downloads, but there are so many choices that it can't hurt to try them out to see what you like best. So far, I've tried this method to find games and good programs and I'm content with what came installed with Ubuntu 9.04 and the games I snagged... although I'm not going to really use Ubuntu for any hardcore gaming. At least not on the ancient brick that I'm running it on.

This post contradicts the whole reason why you wanted to start this thread in the first place. Why throw this kind of information out there if you believe that most of the ways of speeding up uTorrent are scams and slow uTorrent down? Why spread stupid when you can stop it right then and there by NOT spreading it? I already like Spyke Jones because I know that he knows there isn't a magic formula... there's only optimization and working with what you have. The reason why you would want to optimize your settings AS LONG AS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE CHANGING is to optimize your contribution AND reception of data in the torrenting community. Really, the only people that do us any justice are the people who can afford high-speed Internet bandwidth like fiber and cable. I know I can't contribute much because I'm stuck with a 1.5Mbps connection with a 25+ Kbps upload, and I'm sure as hell not going to choke my Internet access so that people can download my stuff at a measly 25+ Kbps from me when they can connect to another peer that could possibly offer 150Kbps. You have to understand how the whole concept works to realize what you are doing wrong on your end, and if everyone was just out to download stuff and never seed, the system fails. Your "best way" doesn't work if those "lots of seeders" are dial-up or low-speed cable users like myself, because you will only download at the speeds that THEY are limited to uploading. Yes, it makes sense to aim for a high amount of seeders to increase your chances of connecting with a high-speed peer, but it doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get awesome download transfer rates. Yes, it makes sense that you would want fewer leechers so that you have a better chance of connecting to a peer that best meets your bandwidth limitations. But it's not an absolute. I'm not targeting this at Ash-Bash, but at the audience that this subject matter attracts. There is NO magic formula, like I've said. If you stick with the defaults, you're trusting uTorrent to figure out your connection, your bandwidth, your capabilities, and you're letting it do the best it can by figuring everything out itself. But why not give it a helping hand and use common sense to be able to contribute more to the scene, download at optimum rates, and essentially be part of maintaining the entire system? I sure as heck would hate to be downloading a 700MB Linux distro at 15Kbps because you didn't care enough to set your crap right. However, if you did set your crap right, maybe you would be offering your best speeds to someone who actually IS limited to 15Kbps or to that lone leecher.

Just wanted to let people know that there's a chance to jump on board with the Premier IBO program, which is rather exciting compared to the Basic considering that there is potential for weekly front-end bonus Flex checks, not to mention automatic enrollment into every discount program and service that AmeriPlan offers.PM me for more information.

Little slow for "HOT NEWS!!!," don't you think? As much as I don't really care much or paid much attention to the incident at hand, I think that the whole pep-rally-ish address was retarded from the get-go. It's an address, not a friggin' dictation where you can drown out what the guy says with loud applause after simple words or when you can tell the POTUS that he's a liar. Doesn't this Wilson guy have a political position? If he does, doesn't that already reveal that he can't even keep control of his own emotional outbursts (in which he later apologized for)? That can't look good and definitely won't save face when you call the POTUS a liar. Then again, a politician calling a politician a liar is pretty redundant, no? The guy had no balls. Anyone could stand up and call the POTUS a liar. Come to think of it, that's just a stupid thing to say from many perspectives. We covered the political side of it. As a guy who wanted some news feed coverage and attention on him, he definitely got it. As a guy who was voicing his opinion DURING a presidential address... stupid. (Take your thoughts and comments home... no one cares what YOU think.) You say freedom of speech... I say that even if you have the right, it doesn't make it right to do it. I have the freedom to call anyone here an idiot without just cause. Would I do it? Nah... because I don't think that I should incite such an uproar and then pitifully defend my actions with "the freedom of speech." That's just stupid... and I use my freedom of speech to say so. Feel free to make up that list if you want... it doesn't change what I said above about the freedom of speech, the right to make those statements, AND the common-sense approach of "even though it's right doesn't make it right to do it." Should I even approach the idea of capital punishment? I would love to see every rapist, murderer, and criminal of heinous past to face capital punishment, but would that be "right?" A ton of people who came up with and support abolishing capital punishment would disagree. (Not sure which idiot came up with that idea... but I guess it sucks being "the better person.")To answer your question, I think that it was stupid of Wilson to shout out anything at all, much less something derogatory to President Obama. You want to see balls? I want Wilson to shout out something like that to Kim Jong Il and see what becomes of it. With all the possibilities, I think just the idea of doing that takes balls. My stance on illegals is that they should go through the system. How hard is that? Yeah, it sucks paying taxes... but that's how we get all these nice little things called "health care" and whatnot. Don't want to pay taxes? Get the hell out of our country. Sure, land of opportunity... but I don't think I saw a label for "land where we'll take care of you for free" somewhere...I just don't understand the political stance on allowing anything to deal with illegals. It just doesn't make any sense and it seems nothing but detrimental to the nation. Sure, we'll take them with open arms... but at least have them pay back their dues. And if they can't? Join all the other Americans that can't. A handful of them are bound to get up and off the poor train and be able to contribute to society.

I almost love this thread. Isn't this sort of thing widely-tolerated on most online games, to one extent or another? I love your description of Grand Chase. If it's anything like an FPS, I can relate with Halo 2.I used to love playing LAN games with the guys in the barracks, running CAT5e cable up and down stairs, across the hallway into different rooms, and basically leave a nightmare of cable runs just so that we could play a LAN game of Halo 2. Which was a friggin' blast. No lag, loads of fun with people you knew, and the trash-talking was hilarious, especially over a communicator/headset. Then when that scene slowly started to die and when I found myself with less LAN opportunities, I turned to XBL.Granted, it was fun at times. And granted, I met up with some cool people. But the majority is what set me off from really ever playing Halo 2, or even any other game, on XBL.People. are. horrible. It's amazing what comes out of mouths when you're hiding behind a screen. It was like the Internet, live. People were rude. People swore incessantly. People were racist. People whined when they died and gloated over easy kills. The trash talk was tasteless... and I'm saying this from the point of view being an Army guy that played LAN games with a bunch of other Army guys. You know what the worst part is?Most of these "people" were kids. And I hate to reveal it, but the majority of these kids seemed to be older than 8 and younger than 25.Playing Halo 2 on XBL with this sort of community was ridiculous... and people fed off on each other. It was bad. It made me rethink the coolness factor of that communicator/headset... and it made me wonder if it was even a good idea to let people even talk to each other. Halo 2 had a bad way of presenting the option to mute people: you had to do it in-game and do it with individual people. Unless you were really proficient with the menus and could do it in the 5 seconds you had after you died or before you get killed because you were standing there, you were forced to hear things like an 8-year-old calling you a b*tch and a n*gg*r (true story); constant garbage yelling that, of course, sounds great when you have a BOOM mic IN your mouth (true story); incessant swearing (again, true); kids whining (true true true); the list goes on and on.However, there are a few people who are decent on XBL, and those few are the people I've actually kept on my friends list and more likely, I've met online before I played them. That would be the only draw back to getting XBL for me: to have that medium to be able to play with these guys again, because they reminded me of playing LAN games back in the barracks, because you know these people, you can talk to them, you can trash talk without getting too touchy or be randomly heinous, and it IS a good game, every time, because you can talk about that kind of stuff later. Even if you suck (which I do, compared to a lot of my online buddies... but I WAS pretty damn good and was one of the best in my Army circle), you can talk about how much you suck and how it's funny or trash-talk anyway, because it's fun.Anyway, it's not just Halo 2 with me... it was Command & Conquer: Generals too. I was turned off almost instantly when my first match was with some random person that had a custom map that... you guessed it... gave him a thousand V2's to start with. Starting off with my turtle strategy was kind of useless when I was just first building my base defenses and the cheater was already sending V2's over them and destroying my construction yard...I think one of my best experiences online was with F.E.A.R. There was no talking; only playing. The reason behind that was the only communication to be had was by text, and NO one liked having to take the time to type some crap out. It provided a good community, IMO, since there was more playing, and more standard etiquette of "gg" and "gj" instead of "omfg u sux." F.E.A.R. was funny in that way too anyway when you could congratulate someone else for pinning you to the ceiling with a 25mm Penetrator, killing you with a random flying kick to the face, or even a well-placed mine that made you instantly laugh out loud after going, "What the hell?" The "adrenaline" (or what I would like to call "panic") between close-quarter battles with a shotgun was always crazy and fun and commanded congratulations in order after your opponent reduced you to a bloody mist or decapitated a limb or your head with a well-aimed (or lucky) shot. Weird how that works...

If you are considering that route, think about purchasing something like a Seagate Agent drive. They come in 500GB capacities and are less than $100 USD on NewEgg, or if you can settle for a larger 3.5" form factor, You could also snag a cheap enclosure to use with the hard drive in your other PC. For a 3.5" form factor, I like the Galaxy Metal Gear enclosures, which are cheap (~$20 on NewEgg) and work well. That way, you can just use it as an external hard drive instead of copying things over with a 1GB stick and having to make a million trips. I don't know how to set this up between an Ubuntu-to-Windows or Ubuntu-to-Ubuntu setup, but I believe that you could use a crossover Ethernet cable to create a peer-to-peer network to copy files over the "network" between PCs. I've "heard" of USB cables that can do the same thing, but that's just a step back in transfer rate potential, don't you think? 1.) Set it up right before you go to bed. 2.) Start the copy. 3.) Go to sleep. 4.) ??? 5.) PROFIT! Addendum: Take a look at this thread to see more options about what you're trying to do. Then again, I would rather take the time and backup my files anyway than trust a program to change partition setups without losing data. Then again, GParted has never killed any of my data due to a bad partition. But it only takes one time... TL;DR: Use Partition Magic or GParted.