shadowx

The problem is that you will never get it to a household address, the system works by tracking a known IP address to a known street address. So your ISP has a known router, and it's physical address is known to google. (Ie street name) so google just looks at the connection, figures out the last step in the chain that has a registered address (which is the router between your isp and the internet, usually in or near your home city/town) and then it can tell which town/city, and ISP you are from.But you wont discover their actual address.

Perhaps there is no referrer.... If i had a page https://www.salesforce.com/products/platform/overview/ that found the referrer of the person visiting the page, and i just typed in the address in my browser i would have no referrer, as i didnt click a link to get there, i just typed it in. I came from "nowhere". But if i were to search google and then clicked the link my referrer would show as google.The same way that if you get a "hotlink not allowed!" message while clicking on a google image just copy the URL to the image and paste it into your browser, then you have no referrer so it lets you see the image :)It could also be that they have blocked the referrer part of the HTTP headers, you can do this with a proxy, probably a certain firewall config and with browser addons.Why is it such a big deal?

No issue with firefox, but i did an upgrade and had a separate python module manage firefox updates for me, so that could be what saved me. Try removing firefox and re-installing it (should be possible from the Software center.

double click on the time/clock and then set the time manually...Simples

666 is NOT the number of the beast (despite the fact the "beast" doesnt exist and is simply a perversion of ancient gods by the Christian religion to sway pagans into thinking they are worshipping the "devil" and hence turn them to jesus for their only chance of salvation, lets just pretend the beast does exist...) the number is actually 616.666 was a false translation of a poor text, i think they just assumed it must be 666 as it was 6X6 where X was fairly unreadable. Hence those with a fear of 666 have no reason to fear it (theres no reason to fear 616 either... but fools will be fools) The saying "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" is very apt here. The numbers themselves arent scary, they have no scary or dangerous meaning (with exception to 4 in chinese) but if you put a block of fear behind the number all you will ever see is that fear, you are not scared of the number, you are scared of fear itself, the fear that *you* have given that number through belief in superstitions and social conformity.

Karmic means to be related to Karma, so presumably its a Koala that is mindful of its actions... Though in reality i expect it is simply two "K" words that sound good together!I have upgraded through the repositories and not noticed much change, the startup time seems longer though :| but i do like the new login screen, very swave! I may do a clean install... I should really have put my documents on a new partition, in fact, i may have... I'll have to check that. *zips off to check the changelog*

Mozilla is on linux, its the default browser of many distros (versions) and is hugely supported. Linux is much like windows in that it has a GUI (EG, icons, the mouse etc.....) but it is vastly different in the way it works. There is a lot of command line stuff in linux, a lot of program installs (outside of debian based systems (linux has many "bases" debian is one base that ubuntu is built on)) require you to enter command line stuff, it can be as simple as: apt-get install mozilla or a lot more complex involving long commands, directory changing, making, deleting, program execution, decompressing etc.. and it can get messy. But if you use a debian based system (linux is very popular and i use it on my laptop)you can simply click on a button and have a window open where you can select a category of program (lets say Office/Word processing) and then choose between free, open source, closed source, third party etc....... (or just leave it as default) and you will be shown a list of hundreds of programs, you can also search it so if you wanted an MSN clone just type MSN and search for it and you will see tens of clones for MSN, some good, some rubbish (each has a star rating) tick the programs you want, click apply and enter your admin password and it will be downloaded and installed without hassle. Everything is secured with linux in a similar way to windows UAC, if you want to install a program in linux youn eed to have the right access, so it will ask you for the admin/root/your password (depending on what level account you gave yourself, usually entering your own password is good enough) Ubuntu skinned to look a little like windows with the taskbar/start menu: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Ubuntu2 with a nice theme showing the menu's at the top of the desktop: http://www.ozzyfrank.com/Ubuntu/images/ubuntu_screen_res.jpg The add/remove programs window i talked about: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Another huge feature of linux is multiple desktops. By default down the bottom right of ubuntu is a little icon. a Rectangle divided into to. You start up in workspace/desktop 1, but if you click on the right half of this icon you are switched to workspace two. So lets say i have a game running (windowed mode, not fullscreen) on workspace one, if i need to be on MSN or something but dont want to clutter my screen i can click this icon to go to workspace 2 which is completely empty. The game isnt here, there are no windows open, nothing. Just the desktop. I can then load up MSN and it will stay in workspace 2. So now i click the left side of the icon to go back to workspace 1 and my game is there and i can play. If i want to check msn i just click the workspace icon and can view msn without the clutter of the game getting in the way. ITs hard to explain but very useful! Try an ubuntu live CD!

what is it like in terms of resource management/usage? Ive read a lot suggesting it can run on a win XP grade machine (so presumably something like 2ghz CPU 1gb RAM and 40gb HDD?) Like i say i have a fast machine which is superb at running games, i usually spawn before anyone else so i get a few lucky grenades in XD But running Vista and doing "usual" things like browsing and opening/closing files and folders its terrible even though the specs, including the HDD, are good. Vista seems to idle at about 1.25GB RAM and somehow 20-30% CPU usage (how, i have no idea....) even with a lot of features like the enhanced GFX and file indexing off (as i dont really need them, it frees up resources for games ) Im just hoping Wn7 will work a lot smoother and faster!

Vista is awful on my machine... Its a quadcore, 4gb RAM machine (with 1gb on the gfx card so the whole 4gb goes to the operating system, not to graphics) and it is so slow... My laptop with dual core CPU and 1gb RAM runs XP maybe twice to three times faster, i can basically open one or two things at a time on my gaming machine (vista one) its ridic. Win7 is on its way so i will see..... Other than that i might actually have to buy XP off ebay or something O.O

I dont feel sorry for them at all! If they didnt go around destroying small business, stealing copyrighted and patented materials and then paying $100,00 an hour lawyers (ok, that might not be true, but you get the idea) to get them out of trouble then they wouldnt be in this mess!And if they didnt charge ?200 for a disc!!! A bloody disc!!!!! My laptop cost that! Not to mention the price of office too!!And then the fact that half their software doesnt even work out of the box! (Take XP for example, a fresh install leaves on average 5-6 unknown devices, so that leaves me with no network, no USB, no SD card etc... Whack a linux live disk in, as soon as it boots everything works perfectly, so i then have to go and download microsoft updates using linux because their own operating system cant give me access to the internet via LAN! Jeez....Plus if they were more open source they wouldnt have these issues in the first place....

There will be critical security updates before the start of 2010, i assure you. In fairness, thats the way bugs get found, by being let free into the world for someone to discover. By accident or by design. The difference is with MS is that they take too long to patch it, dont patch it fully and since it is closed source only they can patch it, which means even if i know i have a glaring security hole all i can do until ms fix it is to wait...

I think i will updgrade to KK, It's just when i can be bothered. Ive just spent 2 days doing a fresh install from XP SP1 to 3, including drivers (which windows update didnt have) and complete software suites like MS office, Serif and adobe so im not really in the mood to do any updating at home! :)Oh, and then i have two more sets of machines to do... Face/Palm *slap*KK does look good though, i also have Win7 en route to me thanks to a free upgrade voucher so i can finally kick vista in the gonads! Think i will dual boot it though, i have the space and resources and it saves me transferring massive games over and cuts the risk of Win7 being worse than Vista.... Anything is possible with old Gates.

That will turn the entire machine off. Hold the power button until all lights go off. Remove the battery and wait 20 seconds or so. Re-insert the battery, and turn the laptop on. Listen for the fans spinning up and watch the lights. Now, if the screen works you will see the BIOS boot screen, which is what happens right as you turn the machine on you get the black screen with white writing. If you see this then it should be resolved and fixed. If you dont see any white text then the screen or graphics chip is broken. If you can find a spare computer monitor plug it into your laptop (you will see a VGA output socket that looks the same as the monitor socket on a normal computer, plug it in there) Also on your keyboard will see a key which has two squares side by side in a light blue color. Probably on one of the number keys or one of the F1, F2 etc... keys Remember where that key is. turn the laptop off by holding the power button. Then turn it on and watch the computer screen you just plugged in (make sure the screen works and has power and a good connection to the laptop, not loose) does the screen show any white text? Or anything at all? If so then your laptop screen is definitely broken or somehow disabled. IF you DONT see anything on the computer monitor carry on: Remember that key i talked about with the two squares? Turn the laptop on, wait about 3 minutes so the operating system is loaded. Now find on your laptop the "function key" it will be labelled: "Fn" in the same light blue colour as the other key i mentioned. Once you find it press and hold the Fn key and then tap the key with the two squares. This key combination will hopefully switch between laptop screen, computer screen and both screens. So tap it and wait 5 seconds. If neither screen shows anything then press and hold Fn and tap the square key once more. Wait a few seconds. If the screens still dont change then repeat the key tap. If they still havent changed then one of two things: Your laptop is completely dead, do the fans spin? If not it is absolutely dead. Your graphics chip is fried, not much you can do about that except dump the laptop Somehow your graphics chip has not been recognised. Its still there and works but the laptop isnt recognising it. Try a BIOS firmware update (Warning: BIOS updates can be dangerous and could make things worse. Only do this if you feel confident there is no other solution and you know what you are doing.) If the laptop is under warranty phone the manufacturer.

Wrong way around. HTML is for very, very simple sites with just a few pages. PHP is for complex sites with user interactions (forms) and stuff like that. There can be no opinion here, this is cold hard fact!

Ah ok, at least i learned what a meme is (google define and your post ) But for now i shall report this person to the mods. Thanks for the info tho, i actually learned a couple of things!

holy .... What the hell are you talking about? (I actually think this guy is probably below the age limit for this forum. I Really do. Can someone look into this if possible? I dont mean to be harsh but someone below 13 has very little to contribute to the forum and will generally spam etc...)

Thanks for the support Ash Its worth remembering that to get more Cents you need to post better things, that doesnt mean longer, but *better*. I dont know how the formula works but i know that it definitely works. It seems to give each person a rating, and this rating is used to calculate how many Cents are given per unit of information. So as you get a reputation for good posts you will get many more Cents than you do now. Good luck!

It sounds related to the mouse, unplug the mouse and tell us if it continues. If it doesnt continue then it is a mouse driver/hardware issue, try scrolling the wheel forcefully and fast (not to break it) and see if that resets it to normal operation. also try updating firefox go to "Help" then click "Check for updates" install any and all updates you are presented with.If that doesnt help try another mouse. If the problem persists install "YAST" (look on the firefox plugin page) it is a scrolling addon for firefox that smooths out the scroll. perhaps taking scroll control and piping it through the YAST addon will solve it.IF you still have the problem uninstall all addons so the "addons" page is empty, uninstall or disable any software that is involve with your mouse (except the basic drivers) so if you have a gaming type mouse with extra buttons find the disc of drivers, then uninstall those drivers for the mouse, unplug the mouse and put it back in and your operating system will automatically install BASIC drivers for the mouse. If the problem is now gone then it means the drivers for your mouse are causing the issue, search the internet for a recent version of the driver and try again. If you only have a standard mouse then you wont be able to uninstall the drivers. (To uninistall special mouse drivers that came on a disk just whack the disk in the tray and when it loads it should give you an option to uninstall.)Good luck!

You cant, thats not allowed here as far as i know. You will need to just post more *decent* stuff, please stop spamming threads that have already been answered with the same answers as the guy above you! Its a very transparent attempt to get these $6 fast and it wont work, your posts will be deleted if they are considered spam.Write some decent posts!

for now i only want the fingers to move! If nobody saw the mythbusters episode youtube: mythbusters ninja robotic handThat should show you a nice hand mad of bike chains, shoe laces and elastic, heres a little circuit diagram ive mocked up for one circuit for one finger. In the real deal i would have the wire from the battery split into 5 on both sides to provide power to all 5 motors, i think with 2 1.5v batteries i should be ok... but we will see, anyhoo:so basically the cell provides power through the circuit (i think the switch should be on the positive side, but meh, it'd work!) which is broken by the switch. My current idea is either a PBS on the inside of my finger knuckle that is depressed when i make a fist, or two strips of metal on the top side of my finger that make contact when my finger is straight (for that option id reverse it so the motor pulls the finger straight, the spring pulls the finger into a fist) Anyway.... The little diagram in the top right shows the motor and string system. This is for the "Motor makes it straight, spring pulls it into a fist" option.. so by default the finger is clenched into a fist (imagine all 5 digits, fingers and thumb) by the spring/elastic. Then, wearing my glove i extend my fingers which makes the metal contacts engage (imagine two lollipop sticks glued to the top side of your finger, one on the first section and the second after the knuckle, so that when bent they are apart, but when the finger is straight the second stick is lowered onto the first, making a contact) so the motor spins, pulling the string tight and the robot finger straightens. I realized that this only gives me on/off controls, so the glove wont actually follow the motion of my fingers, but using my fingers i can control how far/if the fingers are extended or not (by activating the switch for a split second allowing the motor to pull the finger half stretched etc..) but anyway.... the problem i have is that at 3000rpm the motor will burn out, the string will snap or at the very best it will be far too fast to be realistic, so i need to gear it down. i could like baniboy said use gears/belts but i need 5 of these motors/gearboxes mounted on the back of a hand sized prop (but i guess i culd make a gigantic hand....) so size is an issue. i actually dont have a soldering iron or anything at the moment, i lost my cheapo one ages ago! so its still an idea at the moment.... A rapidly complex one at that!So will a variable resistor slow the motor down or will it just make it incredibly weak?

Right, so im interested in electronics and im not a dim-wit so hopefully this will end well, rather than with my hair on end and steam coming from my ears! I have a background in PHP so i have a logical mind, its just applying it to the real world which IMHO is considerably harder than programming as the laws of physics dont matter there! Here's the plan... To make a robotic hand that responds to my grip. I know it sounds complex as a first project but hear me out... A push button switch (PBS) on each finger tip, or possibly underside of each finger. Essentially this is mounted on a glove that also contains a battery pack of one or two 1.5v batteries. The robotic hand is like the mythbusters one, some bike chain threaded with elastic to make it curl up/grip when resting, and motors which pull on strings like tendons that then make the fingers go straight. Its not perfectly set in stone yet but thats the idea.So, on the glove the switch on say, the index finger, will complete a circuit which sends electricity from the battery pack over a longish (1m or 2m) wire to the motor on the robotic hand which pulls the index finger string, hence making the finger stretch out and ungrip....i might reverse this (have the elastic make the finger stretch out and motor grip) but, thats not the issue... The problem is i cant have my motors spinning at 5000rpm!!!!!! I need about 60-100rpm really. Ive found a device on an electronics site (maplins, big retailer here in the UK) that promises to do just that, it can take 1.5-3v input and tone a motor down to just 60RPM, perfectimo!! However, i was wondering how this works and if its possible to make one myself?I dont suppose it is as simple as a variable resistor only letting through a fraction of the power to the motor, as i expect this would just make the motor spin very lowly but very weakly, which isnt ideal! i need a reasonable amount of torque, nothing amazing but it needs to be able to counteract an elastic band basically. I also need all this to be as small as possible. I dont really have need for a PCB, its just two wires per finger on each of the robotic hand and glove, so really only about 20 wires, two batteries, 5 motors and 5 switches. simples... Its just this RPM issue really, once i can overcome that then i think i can do this... I only thought of it today tho, so its very rough but it has scope....If i can in the future make an accelerometer bracelet i can make it swivel on a base with the help of a simple arduino board, maybe even have a spooky twitch effect when the glove isnt being used I think a full scale arm is a long way off but in theory it just needs a switch to be activated when i stretch my arm (perhaps activated by a string run along my elbow that pulls a switch when i extend) and another switch to be activated when i contract my arm and a few motors... But anyway, can anyone help?!

The last paragraph of rayzoredge's post is exaclty what i mean! Im sure my win 98 machine had a 1GB drive.... Bad times... Not so long ago 4gb machines were servers and mainframes, now they are laptops and desktops.I have a DSLR camera which, if i use JPG and RAW format can easily be over 20mb per photo (two files, one of which is minimum 13mb) then i have UT2007 game which is another few GB gone without additional maps, mods etc... I used to play World of warcraft and my folder for that was 30gb alone (but i couldve reduced it) im not a huge music person as im picky but i have 15-20 CDs on my laptop system. plus downloaded games. In total i h ave my 1.5TB drive in my gaming machine which is disappointingly empty as ive only had it a few weeks, my 40gb laptop drive inside the laptop, another 40gb which is sitting in a USB caddy as the laptop host broke, then a 320gb USB hdd for backups. I have a spare 120gb drive that i have no use for at the moment and a spare 20gb so meh, i have a fair bit of storage And then my mum and bro's laptops probably have 200gb between them XDI was amazed to learn the servers here at work have 32gb RAM, thats bigger than one of my hard drives!! But it needs it, and as computers grow so does data need both in terms on individual file size (HD Video and blu-ray!) and in the amount people download, lets face it, on a 56kbps modem no-one downloaded ANYTHING! But with 50-100mb speeds only a few years away thats a movie in under a minute. That's going to be a lot of downloads to store!EDIT: I suppose it also depends where you live, i live in the UK which, comparatively, is a "rich" country and individuals here tend to be richer than those in "developing" countries, so as a country we can afford to import higher specification devices. Whereas in poorer regions even a 20gb drive would seem huge. i dont mean to say that the UK is superior, but you know what i mean

This is a *really* old thread, but nonetheless i feel nika's contribution is valid...But i would say that if you are going to be coding PHP seriously, or even for fun, you might as well get XAMPP (they do a light version too, and a portable USB version i think) you get your MYSQL databases etc... and even FTP and email server with the full version. It wont slow your internet connection at all, not one bit. It is all contained on your computer. Just make sure your firewall doesnt let people in to it (just get someone else to type your IP into firefox/IE if php pages come up your firewall is letting people in. If there is no page to display you're fairly safe.)This way you get to use MYSQL, FTP, various server settings etc... and you can run a real control panel etc... so it is just like your real webhost and so you can test things effectively.

My gaming machine has 1.5TB drive, so yeh, i think 2TB is reasonable!! You need to think of the future. Its likely you will still be using that drive in 4 or 5 years time (the average user would be) so given the rate of expansion in computing power (it doubles every 18 months) so in 5 years computers will be EIGHT times more powerful than right now it means that data will also be larger to give better quality. Windows for example has grown to a massive size since the old systems!

Da da da........da da da.. da da da da daThat my friends is the tinkle of Jigsaw's genius in song form. Yes, this is the shadox official SAW VI review, exclusive (at the time of writing!) to Xisto. I dont know if thats good or not but i digress! SPOILER ALERT!!! WOOP WOOP WOOP!The film opens in familiar fashion, blurry shakiness resolving into a gritting view of mechanics. a lone woman with a device to her head screams as realisation sets in, the games have begun....We were promised the goriest SAW yet, and they have delivered. This, even to my standards is absolutely extreme. The previous films have nothing on this one, im trying to think of a more brutal trap from the previous films that i can compare to one from this film, but it fails me... There simply is no equal. Allow me to run though them:Opening trap, the "temple" trap (according to the net, thats its name!)This is the one where the woman has a thing strapped to her head, turns out there are screws/bolts either side of her head, in 60 seconds they will crush her skull and tighten about 20 seconds causing immense pain. There is a fat guy opposite behind a grill fence who has the same task and trap, to be freed they must each deposit their own flesh, via a chute onto scales. The one who cuts off the most flesh is released. the fat guy starts slicing at his flab with a knife (provided on a table to each contestant along with a meat cleaver. Both are securely chained so they cant be used as weight) The fat guy has two chunks of flab on the scales. the woman is slowly slicing into her arm with the knife. 10 seconds left....Fat guy is nearly at flab chunk 3 so she grabs the cleaver and hacks her arm off, using her arm to amusingly deposit her severed arm on the scales. The camera angles avoid the cleaver striking her arm, instead showing the facial expressions. And the arm lands vertically on the scales with the severed part hidden, which in all fairness the SAW crew couldnt have made a convincing arm prop, so this works very, very well! She is freed, and we never see her again.Gas mask trap:This film centers around a health insurance exec called William (i think) and how he is bad for not letting the ill get help (we later see Jigsaw was denied life saving treatment) He awakes chained, arms and feet, upright a hospital type mask on with a tube running out of shot. Two large blocks rest either side of his waist holding him securely. The video plays explaining he has explosive shackles on his wrists and ankles that detonate in one hour. we later see that after completing each game he is given one key to remove one shackle, thus 4 games for him. A light illuminates his counterpart in the same device opposite. Jigsaw explains that each breath they take is measured, via the mask/tube and a machine, and that each time they breathe the blocks either side of them close in a bit, crushing them to death at the waist (a particularly horrible death as it would only snap your bones and cause horrific bleeding, not instant death like a real crushing or shooting) Jigsaw explains that Williams formula for judging someones chance of a long life (which he uses to choose who gets life insurance) says that William should survive, as his opposite is an avid smoker who will hence have less lung capacity. So after holding their breath as long as they can each must breath and sure as jigsaw says the blocks crush them slightly. we soon see William bleeding, and then a little later and a few more breaths and his opposite's rib cage is snapped in two leaving him dead and William is freed, obtaining his first key for his shacklesHanging trap:He walks in a room, see two handles attatched to chains infront of him with a window in front and a sign: "Take me" eventually he does hold each one in each hand, one either side. It is revealed that two people stand infront of him with barbed wire nooses standing on hinged platforms. The chains tighten and basically he must hold on to just one chain, saving the corresponding person from a grizzly death. if he doesnt then the chains have such force that one or both will slip from his grasp anyway. It is explained one victim has no family but better health and the other has worse health but a family, she gets saved. The loner dies. William walks on... Obtaining his second key and releasing a shackleSteam room:Nasty nasty place.... grid/grill fencing type dividers lay out a path of crawling and standing parts, leading past jets of steam, hot plates and to a ladder out. The victim, a woman has a device strapped to her chest, basically a harpoon gun that will shoot through her brain in 60 seconds unless she gets the key. She starts her journey, William encourages her to crawl through a jet of steam, she tries but cant. He sees a lever and a sign and knows he can stop the steam, he pulls the lever and gets a jet of steam in the face. hot hot steam, his skin blisters... But alas, he has to help her, so he suffers the pain to help her, this happens a couple of times and she climbs the ladder, he tells her to a look for a key, she sees x-rays of william with a key inside him, he sees them and lifts his shirt to see a long scar near his kidney (hence the blood from the gas mask trap) She has a circular saw in the ladder room grabs it, opens the grid door and slashes for him. A Short fight and he fights her off, the device fires and she is dead. William walks on, getting his 3rd key. one to go....Carousel trap:Any avid saw fan knows this one by now.. all over the internet. A childrens carousel play thing (like a rondabout at a play park) inside a gridded cage spinning with 6 people chained sitting on it facing outwards. A tape explains that a shotgun will fire 6 times at whoever stops infront of it (once per person) like russian roulette it stops randomly. William can save two people by pressing a button. When he does so a spike goes right through his hand, the button is in a device so he cant press it any other way. he saves two people. The rest die. Nuff said!!! a lot of arguing and *BLEEP*ing going on between the victims to try and persuade William they are the best and everyone else is against him. he moves on with the 4th key, free from his shacklesAt all points in these traps there is extreme gore. Even i, a HUGE saw fan, was remarking how harsh cruel and evil this episode was. Very, very nasty!! There is however another game. The grand scheme. Through flash backs we see that William denied a man insurance for heart disease because he didnt mention oral surgery on his application form, and when he needed treatment for heart disease William turned him down. Killing him. This mans wife and kid were in a gridded cage with a vat of acid and a lever with one side "live" and the other "die" on the wall and the same timer that is in each room that William walks in. When the timer says 2 minutes the boy decides to flip the switch to "live" nothing happens. He flips it about but nothing happens at all. A reporter, who turns out to be Williams sister, is in a similar room, but with no switch. She has a tape which she foolishly destroys. William runs through a door with one second to go and find himself in a gridded cage. he is happy to have survived. then the solid metal outer walls of the cage are lifted and it is revealed that Williams cage is between the two other cages, a tape explains that William is the man who led to the death of the boys dad and wifes husband and that the live/die lever is designed for William, the widow and fatherless son must decide if he lives or not.... A verbal battle ensues and the widow decides he should die, she grabs the lever but cant pull it, she cries... The boy says he can, walks forward and pulls the lever. A light above William lights up, showing a roof made of long spikes. A crushing you may think, but no!! the spikes are on an arm (metal arm, not bodily!) and swing downwards, slamming into Williams back. He screams but isnt dead. then a pump starts in each cage under the acid and the acid is pumped into Williams body through the spikes. I should explain that the acid is seen bubbling on the concrete floor, its very strong... over the course of a minute his body dissolves, blood stains come through his shirt, and his body literally melts. At the end we see from behind as his lower body falls away from the rest and his intestines squirm on the floor. I laughed, but not many others did :PAt the same time as this ends various flashbacks have revealed that Jigsaw sent jill, his wife, 6 envelopes, each containing details of a victim, she gives 5 to Hoffman, who sets the traps. Now she has the 6th envelope and is in Hoffmans control room behind him, he sits in his chair, she uses a remote to electrocute him and stun him on the chair. While passed out she puts the reverse bear trap on his face and straps his arms to the chair with leather belts. As she slams the door the pin is pulled and he is aware of his situation. he struggles before realising his escape route... He smashes his hands with the front of the bear trap, crushing and breaking his hands so he can pull them out of the straps (remember SAW I? the guy smashes his foot so he can slip it out of the shackle... uhhu...) but the trap is on and a screwdriver doesnt help. he looks at the door and sees it is glass with metal bars, he smashes the flash, puts the front of the bear trap between the bars and it springs open, bending the bars but only opens a few inches. He is injured but alive. he frees himself, falls to his knees before looking up and screaming, half of his cheek is flapping wildly....and that my friends, will be how SAW VII will begin.. oh yes.... AMAZING!!Now, lets review this... There is another new director this time, hes been on the crew but not is directing, and it shows.... The traps are excellent, truly amazing! However, each one requires the death of one or more others... Which is NOT how jigsaw wouldve planned it in the first few films. Usually each victim has a way of getting out, by themselves or through team work. But this time there is no way for the looser to escape. It pits two people against each other and one MUST die or BOTH die, there is no teamwork to save both players (well, except the steam room i suppose) But apart from that the film fits very well, much better than 5 and on the level with 4. Exceptionally good! The storyline is excellent, the thing to remember with SAW is that the storyline is behind the gore. The gore is there to be fun, but the story is very deep and huge. It is shown that Jill was in on virtually all the traps, at least 3 onwards, she doesnt seem that bothered by it all, and almost helps. It is clear she is more important than just the wife, but how? The story reveals a hell of a lot about her and her importance, it answers many questions and also shows why Amanda is tested in 4/5. It's not just the self harm, she is infact responsible for the death of Kramer's baby, indirectly but its still her fault. Hoffman really works in this film, in 5 it was uncomfortable, he didnt fit in, he couldnt be Jigsaw, it didnt work. But he has embraced his role here, really filling Kramers shoes, he really is excellent. The gore is very intense like i said, but personally i laughed, i have to admit that SAW is no longer a horror flick to me, its amusing, sometimes hilarious (floppy arms in saw 5 anyone? Haha!) but like i said, the fact that the traps are inescapable for the looser ruins it. I am tempted to send an email to the director and find out why this is so... the sets are amazing, different in style to the older films and yet they work so well, much bolder, more light/shadow and a lot more colour. The props are amazing, the fake blood etc... is brilliant, make up is superb and generally the film is very visual and very visually appealing, truly a treasure for the eye. The flashbacks are effective, there are a lot but it doesnt detract from the film so it really really works. the timescale seems linear in that the beginning really does seem to follow on from 5 (you see Straums mangled body being dumped by Hoffman, but of course, the SAW films are never that straight forward....) and the end where hoffman is tested is while he watches the ending scenes of the big game on his screens, but that doesnt mean it is pre-recorded, so there is scope for hoffman actually being far away from the games themselves. there are a few twists such as the fact that the tapes and film suggest the wife and child at the end are his, however it is revealed that they arent. also Jill testing Hoffman in that way was very unexpected. And really, it wasnt a test as Jill never wanted, nor expected him to free himself. Indeed she didnt see the ending so she thinks he is dead. She would be a fool to carry on her life assuming she is safe however as he is sure to make a comeback... Of course the fact that Amanda was responsible for Johns son's death is a huge twist (shee was the reasoin the addict guy went back into the clinic and left in a hurry, killing the baby, so indirectly its her fault as she wanted drugs from him, or was selling them to him), the fact Hoffman kills 2 FBI people (his boss and Perez, who's death was faked to keep her safe) and a researcher who decodes the tapes audibly, so that all 3 hear it is indeed him that made them. But actually, the twists arent as huge as saw 3/4 with the whole screwed up time scales and Hoffman being in on it.Out of 10 i give this an 8.5, it would get 9/9.5 if the traps were more Jigsaw like (IE escapable, and not deadly to one person, more like the "you can escape, but itll hurt" rather than "one of you WILL die, you decide who") I really think you should see it in the cinema with surround sound, high quality etc... not on DVD. Really people, see it. final thoughts:The SAW series has come a long, long way from the fairly simple leg in a shackle thing, its elaborate, hugely complex, and visually stunning. It is however veering away from what Jigsaw would have wanted. I hear there may be 9 films.. I welcome each one but they need to get back on track with Jigsaw and the genius that is.. JOHN KRAMER!