mik

Thanks, and such a quick and informed reply!I appreciate the historical context as I do enjoy reading about computer history, which isn't history at all in the conventional sense as it all seemed to happen just yesterday.

Many websites display a contact email address in the format someone(AT)website(DOT)com so that bots looking for emails to spam are unable to read the address.It has occurred to me that if you write your email in escape chars you will have an equal chance of escaping bot detection and your email will appear in the proper format - which is a neater solution and it would allow for the address to automatically fire up the user's mail program with the MAILTO: URL type link, an option not available using the (AT)(DOT) version.For example, my email address would be written ... well I can't demonstrate because all the escape chars just get munged into the correct email address, but you get the idea.Perhaps there are lots of people doing this already.

My question is, why would anyone use the CODE tag when you can use the PRE tag?1. The PRE tag recognises white space, the CODE tag does not.2. The CODE tag requires that you escape some chars, the PRE tag does not.I cannot see anything that the CODE tag achieves that is special apart from sounding as though it is perfect for displaying code which IMO it is not.Thanks.

Apologies for my first (and probably last) rant:Iraq is a horrible war run by Incompetent Civilian General Rumsfeld who has taken matters out of the hands of the military. It is executed in a dishonest way because the Military Generals dare not speak the honest truth to the Civilian General because their jobs are on the line, if they contradict Rumsfeld they get fired, Rumsfeld is saying everyday how great things are going in Iraq, so everyone is marching round the Pentagon saying, Hey! ain't the war in Iraq just a big success ... meanwhile, outside the Pentagon everyone knows this is not true and worse, it is costing lives.Consequently there is no new thinking being applied, tactics are always reactionary, the army is treated badly, planning is in stalemate, and there is a blockage in the system which is Rumsfeld. Of course, once you remove Rumsfeld it will become apparent that the system is still blocked with a host of other blinkered zealots right the way up to Cheney and beyond, but Rumsfeld is the number one bugbear. IMO.Until the system gets unblocked, or until Democrats win back congress, it does not make a difference what anyone says, America is stuck in Iraq as if in a time warp.One other thing. The American people were trapped by stupid, stupid Republican administration, not necessarily by faulty intel (although there is that as well) but by THE RUSH TO WAR. There was never a chance to have a debate, or to suss the pros and cons, or to do PLANNING, or to work out an EXIT STRATEGY, or to realize that while Saddam was exerting his tyranny, he was keeping a lid on Sunni/ Shia/ Kurdish differences, that were potentially EXPLOSIVE, and would BLOW UP IN YOUR FACE if you weren't darned careful. If there had been time to have a DEBATE and PLANNING, none of this would have happened.BTW, the Iraqis kicked the Brits pretty badly when they were the occuping power in 1920, and eventually kicked them out of Iraq altogether, and that showed the Iraqis could mount a very effective resistance when they had a mind. Which is exactly what is happening right now.Why didn't Tony Blair know these things, how did the Brits get suckered a second time, what do they have a foreign office for?

I saw some good TV on BBC (in the UK) on thurs. night, it was documentary about the efforts of two young political activists, Murad and Emin, trying to make peaceful revolution happen in Azerbaijan during the election there last year. They were inspired by similar uprisings in Serbia, Georgia and then the Ukraine (the orange revolution), where mass protests following rigged elections removed authoritarian regimes from power. However, unlike those revolts they didn't have the backing of the West, so instead of overthowing the government after their rigged election, they got bashed on their heads with police batons. What made documentary so brilliant was that the film makers started filming the two activists long before they had any organization going, just when it was a vague idea activists had barely thought of. It is exactly as if you and a friend were talking one day at college and decided that together you wanted to start a peaceful revolution to overthrow the repressive regime that was governing your country. How would you go about it? So all along in the film they were learning how to make a revolution happen and of course you were learning too. In fact early on in the film there are the words "How To Plan A Revolution" stretched across the screen in big letters, just to make the point abundantly clear. Now I know how to make a big uprising in my local town if I want. Another thing that made it into a good film was that camera was able to get to lots of places were filming wasn't allowed. This was because the police seemed a bit dozy and slow to react. They were usually standing around in groups looking sheepish - but eventually something would click and they would suddenly become brutal maniacs, lashing out and beating people senseless with their big wooden sticks as if there was no tomorrow. So the camera was able to catch a lot of dubious police and corrupt-politician action from right close up. Some of it was comical. For example - at the front door of a polling station on election night, where a VERY BIG vote rigging exercise was underway. The voting had finished and boxes with fake ballots were being delivered by van, and inside the building the boxes with the real ballots were being dumped. The front entrance was locked and barred and guarded by aggresive police with dogs - very intimidating - and there was a small angry crowd of election observers that had been thrown out and were trying to get back in. The camera person making the film tries to get closer and gets roughed by the police for his efforts ... so he wanders round the back of the building, which is all quiet and deserted, filming all the time, and just wanders into building through the open back door. He walks into very large room full of people with ballot papers all over the place and men lugging big boxes away to hide them while they wait for new boxes with fake ballots to be delivered. And everyone looks, nobody in the room can understand who this camera person is, where he came from. They stand and stare, meanwhile more filming, nosing around, getting every little detail. They take a long time to realize something is wrong, but when they do they all want to push camera person out the door at once. It was like watching herd of cattle trying to push camera person through very small gap, a caricature of an "angry mob" scene. No-one had the sense that what they should be doing is confiscating the camera, if they didn't want people to know about election fraud, that is. Forgot to say, you can watch the film at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/this_world/default.stm just click on the green "Watch Now" button.

JC05 ... I wasn't too pleased with the results either. I wanted more than 30, google let me down badly. Sorry I missed yours ...

I got bored with what I was doing today so I spent some time looking at what other people were doing with their Xisto websites. Quite amazing what some sites are about. Now I have decided to put all the links up on my site so that anyone who wants can have a look here. If you have any comments good or bad about my own site please feel free to tell me. I am always interested in other people's ideas. There are acres of white space to fill but I am still in "devlopment" mode, getting the site to work the way I want Besides, I still have not decided what I want to do with the site, we shall see.

Here's the story. A paper clip traded for a pen shaped like a fish traded for a door knob with the face of E.T. traded for an outdoor bbq stove traded for a portable generator traded for an instant party ... and so on. You get the picture, but it's important to note, each trade is an upwards trade for something more valuable. This is what Kyle MacDonald has been spending at least some of his time doing since july 2005. But Kyle isn't just trading for trading's sake, he has a plan, and he is well on his way to realizing it. His efforts are helped along in no small way by a fabulous website packed with all the stories of his trades, videos and pictures: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.de/ After reading his website people want to trade with Kyle. Kyle MacDonald is currently on his his eleventh trade. He may have started off slow, but I can tell you his most recent trades have been whoppers! Go to Kyle's website, see what his plan is and how far he has got. Definitely worth a look.

I just checked your website and it looks like you have got things working the way you want. Just wanted to say that your original post, see comment above, got me curious to try out the method explained at http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and I found that it worked OK, in fact it was v. easy to implement and it doesn't need a background image. I will gladly show you what I did if you want.

Reading about your experience signing up for your hosting account and going on to make a website got me thinking about my own experience. I joined 2 weeks ago and applied for hosting as soon as I had enough credits. I did take some time reading some of the previous applications and was a bit surprised to see a number that were rejected ... but then seeing that the reasoning for the rejection was always carefully explained made me realise that the Xisto admins were taking a responsible position, which is a good thing. Anyway, because I had read other applications, it made it all the more easy for me when I came to make my hosting application, and because I was aware that approval was not automatic, when I was approved it sort of felt good. A bit like passing your driving test first time round. And it seems to me that the credit system is quite clever, once you get hosted you realize that 1 credit point translates to 1 free day of hosting, obvious when you think about it, but not obvious if you are at all aware of the complicated points systems used by some other sites. On to making a website. I admit, I only have a vague idea of what sort of site I want, so we will call the current process the "investigation process". I have a friend that has a website selling stuff that is a real utility site, there is nothing that makes you want to stay on his site longer than you have to: just long enough to select item, fill out payment details, click "submit". I shouldn't think anyone visits his site just to browse, how many sales does he miss because of this? Which got me thinking, how would you make my friend's site, your "typical" ecommerce site, more attractive to a larger audience so as to increase traffic and ultimately sales? One way would be to build up your audience first on your chosen subject, then tack on the ecommerce site to an already popular site. That way any first time visitor will (hopefully) be hooked by say reading the forum and then go on to become a regular customer. So my current efforts have so far led me to integrate a blog (WordPress) with a forum (PunBB) and an ecommerce store (osCommerce) into one website. There's a lot to learn and it is all too easy to get sidetracked. 2 weeks ago I had never heard of WordPress or PunBB, or content management systems for that matter, now I find myself downloading and trying out Joomla! and Mambo type programs just for fun.

I really liked your site and that includes the color scheme.With thousands of websites on the internet, it is quite hard to make a site appear individual. You have managed to create a site that stands out and it is the bright colors that help it to do so.Your next challenge will be content. So far you have managed well, it was fun to read.I agree, I would scrap the front page and go straight into content.The fruit art caught my eye, I would have liked it if the slide show was running a bit slower so that you had more time to look at each picture. The designs were exceptional, maybe they deserve a bit more space.

There have been some very good suggestions in the previous posts of ways to make a website load quicker.Here is my own non technical suggestion - (note: requires self discipline).1. Take a critical look at offending (slow loading) website.2. Say to youself, "Right, I am going to redesign this website without using any graphics".3. Redesign your website to give it a fresh new look. Make up for the lack of snazzy images or flashy-type fireworks by clever use of color and good design technique. Learn all the tricks you can do with stylesheets. Have a look at lots of other websites for ideas, bookmark the ones you like, particularly if you like the color scheme, so that you can go back to them at a later date. 4. Take your time with your redesign, what might look good to you one week might not look so good the following week.5. Once you are happy with the look of your new website, or you think that it is as good as you can make it - then you can try adding Flash, sounds, images, whatever.6. Test loading times with/without the extras.7. Take informed decision which extras to keep that do not have too great an impact on loading time.8. Go back over the previous posts (to this post) and check that you have implemented all the good suggestions that were made.

I have searched the forum and no-one seems to have posted about Foxit thus far, it doesn't seem to be very well known. Foxit Reader is small pdf reader, you can get at https://www.foxitsoftware.com/products/pdf-reader/ , it doesn't require installing, all you have to do is unzip the download file and away you go. As an alternative to Adobe Acrobat, it offers two main advantages, namely it is much faster at opening files and reading them, and it occupies just 2 mb of disk space (as opposed to 35 mbs that Acrobat uses on my comp.). It runs on any windows OS from 95 onwards. One disadvantage, it won't open pdf files in your browser. That said, I really like Foxit because it is so fast and light. I have always hated Acrobat because it is sluggish to say the least, I have not got the patience to wait for Acrobat while it winds itself up.

I would recommend FILEZILLA, https://filezilla-project.org/ ... There, it has 2 votes now. Really easy to use, good clear documentation, open source, continually being developed, plenty of features etc. I used to use Cute ftp in a previous job a few years ago when it was freeware so when I recently decided to make a website for myself I was shocked to find that they had starting charging $40, or $60 if you want free upgrades for a year (plus you get support, but who needs support for a program that you are just using at home?). I am really glad that there is so much good free software available these days, you only have to look to find it, I don't know why, but I hate paying for software.

This is the famous Nigerian 419 scam, named after the particular section in the Nigerian penal code that relates to this type of email fraud. Also known as Advanced Fee Fraud. As a widely practised fraud mostly by Nigerian nationals it has proved competely resilient to all efforts of various law enforcement authorities to stamp it out. Quite remarkable, considering that it first started in the 1970's and used telex and fax to get its message out, before going on to email. Go to http://www.419eater.com/ to 1. have a good laugh. 2. see loads of information. 2. find out how some people are figting back.

Depending on where you live I suppose, you could try making some new friends using a dating website(s).I have a friend (female, married twice, divorced twice) who always has several freindships/relationships on the go simultaneously, and all originating through contacts made on the internet.The surprising thing is that knowing her location, you might be forgiven for thinking that no way would internet dating be any good, you know, lowish population area and not the most computer literate part of the world.Yet she seems to have an endless supply of suitors all of whom think the world of her, send flowers, take her on holidays etc.She's been doing this for about 3 years now, the fact that she has not settled down with anybody is her choice, not because there was no-one that she could not ultimately get along with.So I would suggest: Give it a try, but don't go looking for love straight off, rather try and make some new friends, and it is not even important to meet right away, you can have a lot of fun on the telephone, instant messaging, sending each other music etc.

Sorry, have to disagree. I've been using xp for ages now and it is as stable as ... LINUX! I keep my machine running all the time and it has never crashed yet. Unlike my experience with win98 and NT, both of which seemed equally unreliable. One big advantage that xp has is that if a program stops responding you can close the program without having to reboot and it seems to be rock solid in this regard. Same cannot be said of win98. So if you can get your hands on a copy of xp I would suggest you give it a go. Hope you manage to sort out your computer prob.

To keep my computer clean I use:1. Ad-Aware SE Personal - freeware.2. Avira Ativir PersonalEdition (Anti Virus) - freeware.3. Sygate Pesonal Firewall - freeware.But most important, I am very particular about blocking all cookies with my browser (Firefox), with a few exceptions.Currently, the only cookies allowed to get through are:localhostgoogleXistowordpresshuffingtonpost(All trusted sites).If a site doesn't work properly because it needs a cookie, I allow cookies only for that session, then afterwards I check to see that no unwanted cookies are left lying around.So far this system has worked really well, I have not had any spyware on my computer for over a year.

I got 4 credits for my first ever post, so I was quite pleased.I am much happier now that I have found Xisto, I was on another board trying to clock up credit points and it was incredibly hard work, firstly there were not many people posting so the board was kind of dead, secondly the subjects people posted on were kindergarten standard, not to be rude or anything, but if a teacher graded the standard of english used, and the quality of subject matter, and the number of IQ points used up in each post, the teacher would have to come to the same conclusion.

When two companies merge, there may well be a whole host of issues, including websites, that need to be resolved by ... negotiation! Then the lawyers usually get involved if serious issues are involved and the companies have deep pockets. All is usually sweetness and light provided the new company makes lots of profits - but if profits bomb, goodwill goes out the window and the arguments start and it all ends up in court. A good example of ending up in court is that of Enron in the days just before and after that company's bankruptcy. Before Bankruptcy, Dynergy, an Enron competitor agreed a bailout deal with Enron worth $23 billion. To hear the respective company Chairman/CEO's talk about the deal one could be forgiven for thinking there was a lovematch made in heaven. Then Dynergy pulled out of the deal claiming Enron was not being honest about its debt (which was true). Enron promptly filed for bankruptcy. After bankruptcy, Enron sued Dynergy, and after months of court wrangling, Dynergy paid Enron $92 million in settlement. Unfortunately they never got as far as merging their websites, but as it turned out, that was the least of their problems.