dontmaimyourself

Gmail as my main email service, although I also use Windows Live Mail, and I regularly access my Gmail account from Windows Live Mail Desktop. The reaon I prefer Gmail is mainly becuase of it's anvanced filtering and labeling system, which I find to be more extensive then Windows Live Mails folder system, I also like the actually competant spam filter which keeps my Gmail inbox free from junk at all times.As for Instant Messaging I use Windows Live Messenger, because non of my friends used Google Talk, which for me is the better IM client, due to it's clean interface and lack of useless bloat I'm not going to use, that just plain p*** me off (winks and nudges anyone)

The methods you suggested wouldn't create free energy, it's still just old fashioned energy transfer, while they are all very possible they would not create free energy, they would create energy however, and the dynamo-wheel suggestion is something I have wondered about for a while, I'm fairly sure some electric cars can indeed do this (correct me if I'm wrong) but it still requires more energy to be put in than is obtained through this process. The current hopes for clean energy are still very much old technology, all of which do not make energy. As already stated Nuclear Fusion is very very difficult to achieve in a controlled manner, and the steorn technology has not been tested. While it is theoretically possible to create 'free' energy (by means of fusion) the resultant heat output, i.e . the heat generated in stars, is not practical. And perpetual motion is just a ridiculous notion imho. I'm sure one day that 'free' energy will be a possibility I just doubt that we will be able to make real use of it in our lifetimes, i also fear that the breakthrough may come too late.

Up until yesterday I was eventually going to get a PS3, but then Sony announced the new launch plans; the new numbers, in case you don't know, are US: 400,000, Japan: 100,000, Europe: 0. That's right no Euro PS3's until March 2007 almost a year after the original May '06 launch date (whose slip caused 0 surprise). The delays not the thing that got me what got me was the constant lying about it, and the fact that Sony always, always screw Europe over (well that and the very public mocking of Microsoft's worldwide Xbox 360 launch). I guess the big reason this got to me over the other times Europe has been screwed would be the cause, yeah that's right the bloody Blu-Ray drive. Sony just can't make enough blue laser diodes (despite having commandeered all other manufactured Blue lasers for the drives).It would appear that Sony simply do not want to win the next round, what which the price point the arrogance ('next gen doesn't start until we say so' & and 'the PS3 is too cheap' are my favourites, but '4D gaming' deserves an honourable mention) and the constant lying even Metal Gear Solid 4 isn't enough for me to want a PS3 any more. The main problem for Sony is that essentially there entire company rests on the success of Blu-Ray (and we all know Sony's great record with proprietary formats, with such classics as Betamax, Minidisc and UMD) which in turn rests on the success of PS3.Don't get me wrong I don't hate Sony I still love my PSP and expect to see more when the upcoming AAA games hit, and hopefully studios realise that if the price is right people will buy UMD movies. But where next gen is confirmed I am now 99% certain I will never own a PS3 (something special will have to happen to change my mind something like that Killzone footage was real after all, or they chuck a free HDTV in with the PS3, neither of which will happen) and I look forward to getting a Wii for christmas and then getting a 360 and enjoying Red Steel and Halo.My question is simple, does anyone care about Sony any more?

I tend to read my horoscopes retrospectively to see how much of it actually happened, sometimes there are some correlations other times not but that's just chance anyway. The main problem I have with horoscopes, same with mediums, is that there always so vague that the chances of something that can be interpreted as being 'predicted' is always in the predictors favour. well that I and I'm one of those people that needs physical proof (or at least inferred proof, from detecting the effects of something rather than the actually physical existence of said thing). I'm not saying that for sure horoscopes are not accurate, I'm just saying that until someone can prove it I'll continue to remain sceptical.

Haven't used writer so I can't really comment on that. I can however say that Windows Live Mail Desktop Beta seems to be to be pretty good, granted being based off of Outlook doesn't do it any favours, but the interface is great and it just works, I prefer it to the web interface, which I've never really liked. I don't really think that these are adding emphasis to the platform, they are merely adding new ways to access the information, take a look at all of the desktop apps for accessing del.icio.us or digg, do they make those respective platforms any less 'web 2.0'

Personally I'm not a fan of Internet Explorer 7, I have used all of the releases and while RC1 is clearly better than the old beta's it still doesn't seem that much different to IE6 to me. I will concede that it is clearly faster and allegedly has better CSS support, but those kind of features are of little concern to the average IE user. Worst of all though I absolutely hate the new look, the way that the menu bar is locked in a such an unnatural position simply doesn't work, on a positive note however I do love the tab implementation, especially the new tab button at the end of the tab bar. I have not had any problems with any of the Internet Explorer 7 builds I have used, granted I didn't test them much, I have encountered a problem where RC1 will close but this appears site specific. On a side note Firefox 2 Beta 2, is out now in case you didn't know: Windows: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Mac: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ Linux: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

So that's everyone in America, that didn't move there directly from England then? that's not meant to be taken too seriously though, it's just a few things that annoy me for a start it's Football.. not Soccer, and why must you pronounce leisure so badly? and what the hell is an elevator?Anyway as you may have guessed I'm not from America, so I really don't have a full understanding of just how bad it is there, I know that here there are a few that don't speak English, which I can understand I mean if they've just moved here then that's understandable. It's when they refuse to learn the local language that's just annoying, I also know that certain people don't like it when people speak foreign (to the lone person, not the people talking) near them, however I don't really understand that, I genuinely don't care what language people speak near me, hell they could make one up and it wouldn't bother me. But I can understand how it can be a slightly worrying for people and I can understand why people not speaking the local language bothers people.P.S. every one should perform some form of salute or something to Brainless, for the shear genius he displayed in that post.

Can we go with a more user friendly banner type layout, as I absolutely hate it when sites screw about with the index like this. Anyway I agree that the importance is not on Bush, or even anyone close to the administration seeing this as you have said if this can be used to create an open discussion and to generate more pressure for an impeachment, then that can only be a good thing. On another note I don't really see any major sites getting in on this for fear of reprisals, which although not the main aim of this campaign would help.P.S. loving the red fullstop, really serves to hit home the message.

I was all for Pluto remaining a planet and the others being made planets too, I mean a solar system with 12 planets is more interesting than a solar system with 8 right. And there is still hope as alot of members of the IAU that were not there to vote have expressed concerns about the new definition especially the 'cleared the field around it's orbit' part, that excludes Pluto, so there may be hope. I find the proposed definition (that one that was to enlarge the solar system) to have been not right too, as eventually (in a really, really long time) that would have meant that Earth's Moon would have had to have been defined as a planet (it's actually larger than Pluto). This is what makes me see the sense in Pluto not being a planet, the fact that there are potentially hundereds of larger objects within the solar system that are not considered planets, the fact is that Pluto is itself not special, still it would have been nice of them to have named the new class (dwarf planet) after Pluto, in the form of the proposed Pluton (this is apperently taken by geologists though)

You see your (beastjordan) second post is a little better, in that it actually offers some reasoning behind why you don't like the PSP, still a little elaboration wouldn't do any harm.Firstly I am assuming you don't really fit into Sony's target audience for the PSP (feel free to correct me if I am wrong). I would also like to now why all the games you can yet for it having already been done on PS2 (something which is plainly false: I will guess you are going from GTA: LCS, this is by no means a port of GTA3, again with SOCOM: Fire Team Bravo, they may be part of a franchise but they are by no means ports. there are also plenty of PSP exclusive games out there: Loco Roco, Exit, Mercury, Pursuit Force, Metal Gear Ac!d to name just a few. Add to this the number of quality titles about to be released granted most are part of a franchise but that doesn't make the bad games: Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Tekken: Dark Resurrection, Every Extend Extra. you can also by the way play many flash games, below version 6, in the web browser) is a bad thing, in fact it is a testament to the power of the PSP. I would also like to see why it is Nintendo can rehash Mario so much and no one cares, hell they didn't even try to hide the fact that Mario 64 DS was in fact the same game as Mario 64.Your price issue is also somewhat redundant as I guess you are comparing the PSP to the DS to come to your assumption that the PSP is overpriced, when you should really look at the merits of the PSP when determining the price point. (incidental if you take into account the swift redesign of the DS, you could argue that Nintendo have made a clear attempt to milk the system for all it is worth). You can pick up a PSP now for ?149, granted you will need a memory stick to go with that, and games of course. Contrary to what you may think the PSP is not over priced, Sony make a loss on each console sold.I know it is primarily a games device, but the multimedia features are also key reasons for many purchasing a PSP, I know it was the main reason why I got one, and it hasn't let me down, even with only a 256 MB memory stick, I still managed to fit an hour and a half of pure Deep Purple goodness (it was California Jam if you care) on to it for watching from anywhere, and with WiFi Internet access, you can store the videos on your computer and use Video RSS to transfer them to the PSP from anywhere. These features are aways expanding too as a result of the system update ability, which has added a web browser, more file formats, flash support, and will introduce PS1 game emulation in version 3, all for free (PS1 games will cost though). To get new features from the DS it would cost.but at the end of the day, if you don't like the PSP don't buy one; just don't complain when other people do and if you must complain at least have some valid reasons for it.

It would appear that you are right, although I wouldn't really say that Google Office (Spreadsheets, Writely and to a lesser extent Calendar) was ready for 'prime time' just yet, these applications still have very few features compared to Microsoft Office, and they are still riddled with browser compatibility issues (namely with Opera, now that is hardly universally accessible), however the main core of these technologies are in place.I would also encourage people to look at the steps they have made in making your information universally accessible, i.e. Google Desktop search across computers feature (the core of what I believe will eventually become Platypus, most likely under the name of GDrive). Add to this certain factors as Google Browser Sync, Gmail's don't throw anything away mantra, Google Search History and to some extent the office application named previously, and Picasa Web Albums (people always tend to forget about that) it would appear that Google are readying something of a Google Everything (I'm sure it will yet a better name than this, and be in Beta for ever)Of course all of this will be handily tied to your Google Account making it easy for Google to build a profile of you, which will ultimately be used to target advertisements specifically to each individual, netting Google massive profits, because at the end of the day Google is an advertisement company (something which is nearly always overlooked when discussing the merits and future of Google services)

Well I didn't really use the internet that much before Google made it big, so I really didn't use anything but Google, well I used Yahoo for a while but that was powered by Google, so I suppose that really counts as Google. I know my sister used to use Lycos, but I think that might have just been the cute dog. Now I wouldn't even consider another search engine, I'd just use a better criteria if Google failed me or I'd give up before I used another.

If I had to choose one of those it would be Foamy, it's more in your face comedy, where as Salad Fingers is more wierd, 'out there comedy' and what can I say I'm a purist thats just the style of Comedy I go for in general. If it was a free choice I would have to say Blockhead clearly beats both of them: http://www.theswain.com/.

Well firstly I will say how much I adore Gmail (or Google Mail, as we have to call it here in England, a nice proxy will end that though), it really is the best web mail provider (and indeed the best non search related service Google offers). Regarding the future, as it stands now, it appears to be intergration. You can already add calander events get map links, search the web, see links to other Google services (Picasa Web Albums, and spreadsheets). I would expect to soon see the ability to send Picasa Web photos directly from Gmail, aswell as send Writely and Spreadsheets invitations from Gmail, this would go along way to help tie all of the Google services to gether and drive more traffic to those that do not have as great a following as Gmail does. Also I expect they would be trying hard to solve some of the occasional server problems that still dog Gmail (not as much as they used to thankfully). Although I doubt that Google will be in much of a hurry to upgrade Gmail just yet, given the fact that it still clearly outshines its competitors with some of the older features i.e. Filters and Labels, not to mention the competant spam filter, that you know actually works.

It's not just the US government thats constantly screwing up, especially where the middle east is concerned alot of western countries tend to generally make illte sense and to screw up alot (it just so happens that America is the most powerful country). I must say though that I don't really know how the US system works (being British and all), so I may tend to focus on Bush more than I focus on the inner workings of US politics. To all intents and purposes Bush is an idiot (i'm sure we can all agree, he isn't exactly in possession of a full set) thats not to say that he couldn't still manage the US pretty well, apart from the fact that he has surrounded himself with people who are either yes men/women or are simply not thinking straight themselves.The middle east issue is simple: war in the middle east is good for America, the last thing western governments want is a stable middle east. If that happened and the middle eastern countries decided to look after their own assets (namely oil) the US economy would suffer drastically, that is why Bush and the US government will continue to fight in Iraq and why they will not help solve the Isreal - Labannon crisis, there is simple too much at stake for him to risk that. Anyway in America you're lucky, you'll get rid of Bush, after this term we've had Blair in power for 9 years (he may even see a tenth, if he doesn't step down like he said he would)

Personally these mediums as film distibution are of little concern to me, as a storage medium however thats different, and for that matter I would expect to be choosing BluRay, due to the larger capacity and quicker seek time. the use of BluRay within the PlayStation 3 has always been something which I have been a fan of, and it really annoys me to here people complain that they don't want to watch BluRay films, what annoys me is that they forget games will ship on these too, and thats got to be a good thing 50GB storage for a console game? hell yeah. As games become more complex and so the desire for more visually complex games increases than we will see the power of BluRay, that in my opinion will be difficult for DVD's to beat. HDDVD's will probably 'win' though, despite being technically inferior, they will be cheaper and more familiar to users (due to having DVD in the title), that and knowing Sony BluRay DRM will be insanely restrictive.

Cheers for the heads up, I got my invite a few days ago and I must say this is an exceptional service, even in its beta stage and I hope that when it is finally made public Google can cope with the demand (as they have failed to do in the past, Spreadsheets anyone). I must say though I am a bit confused as to where this fits in to Googles core search stategy (does anything they do lately fit into the 'index the worlds information and make it universally accessibly' mission statement, ok so I guess accessible search does), however I am sure it will dominate the online word processor market (even if Google don't make money from it) it still remains to be seen though how many will shy away from Microsoft Office and go towards the emerging Google Office (as I'm sure that is where this is going). I know that personally I am sold already and in the future if I can use writely I will, of all the features I have seen yet I expect my favourite will be the ability to email documents to writely so I can access them there. Given that writely is still younge and that Google haven't fully opened it yet I will say that this is simple great, even if you do not intend to use the service cesure an invite anyway, just to test it out, you never know it might win you over too.

Mobile Phones that can play Mp3's are increasingly available, although I would not personally refer to them as an iPod Phone (not even the iTunes compatible ones) but they certainly allow the user to listen to digital music, hell you can even get phones that will play videos too, and I'm sure I heard about an 8GB mp3 phone a while ago, but I don't kniow any of the details of that. In my opinion convergance can only be a good thing, it increases the value of a certain product and allows for greater functionality and flexibility which are returned to the user by way of savings (in that these convergant devices are able be sold for less than the total of all the individual devices) but they are also good for the consumer in that they have increased convenience due to the fact that you have to carry less stuff. the way convergance is going I would expect to see some for of small and lightwaight multipurpose device soon. the ultra mobile PC, may be an answer to this in that they can pretty much run anything a PC can, therefore audio, video, voip, internet access, hell even solitaire all in the palm of your hands, sure if we could get this down to the size of a mobile phone that would be amazing, I would certainly buy one.

This was for me a pretty solid update, there a few issues though, mainly that: Video RSS is not streamed, the videos are saved onto the memory stick before they are watchable, a and that pre-converted PSP spacific videos will not work with the new DRIVE:\VIDEO\ file convension, they still have to rest within the DRIVE:\MP_Root folder and follow the MAQ1000\MAQ1***.MP4 convension (for AVC videos, or MA41****\MA41***.MP4), or something like that, which is clearly a flawed system. However iPod converted videos will be fine in the new \Video folder (which also introduces subfolders to the PSP video structure (still only one level of subfolder though)). However any update is fine by my and hopefully this will be fixed soon with a 2.8x update, then we can all get back to waiting for the big one, v3 (or you know playing Lumines (still))

StumbleUpon is a fairly sweet extension, and for me it was one of those thing that when you hear about it you wonder why noone has tried it before. Everything about the service is good, least of all the original idea. This is the first thing I install on a new Firefox installation and has served me well during the long boring hours when nothing happens. I must admit though I have began to lose some interest in it as of late but thats to be expected, certainly in the first few weeks or so this extension will help anyone to find stuff they didn't even know was out there (like the time it found me http://www.howtofoldashirt.com/rg-erdr.php?_rpo=t, I'm now a master at that by the way).

No, I've pretty much been lucky on the Gmail front, the only problem I did have was that Google continues to block Opera from accessing the Gmail Chat feature, This is easily remadied by masking Opera as Mozilla (masking as IE doesn't work as IE uses an ActiveX control to display the chat). I have this problem alot with Google (and it was one of my main reasons for switching back to Firefox) as they continue to block full access from Opera to services that are 100% compatible with Opera (Google Calander and Google Spreadsheets are the main ones) Google Page Creater to my knowledge does not work in Opera, and dragging Pictures in Picasa Web Albums is also not functional in Opera. I ocassionally have encountered troubles with IG (Google Personalised Homepage) not loading properly under Opera, and I continue to encounter the odd 'Document has moved' page in Opera. I have not however encountered any of the propblems (or new problems) when using Firefox.

The fact is however that there are plenty of people out there who will buy it at launch for this rediculous price (or more on eBay) just becuase it is new and they have to have the latest. I know personally I will get a Playstation 3 eventually, but realisticly I would expect to wait at least 1 year and a half after launch untill I will even consider picking on up. And anyway there will not be that many games worth playing for at least that time anyway (the last time I checked there were 6 confirmed launch titles). it is important to measure the value of the system by what it can do and also by how much Sony will be losing on each one, which given the expense of the Cell and BluRay will be quite large, factoring into this the mounting debts Sony has incured and i wouldn't expect to see a drop in price anytime soon. The main question however is can Sony still succeed, well as I said before people will still buy the system (probably not that many casual gamers or undecided people to begin with, but the diehard gamers and Sony fanboys will). The success of any games console still lies with its third party support (an factory which has arguable beed responsible for the success of the PS1 and the PS2, and where Sony are looking to still stay strong, with the recent reports of 10,000 hardware complete devkits being shipped). The future may not be too bleak for Sony what with Metal Gear Solid (a game which Hideo Kojima has said to be "Impossible" on an xbox 360) and Final Fantasy XII (probably the best example of a system seller that Sony has) on the horizon, sure losing Grand Theft Auto exclusivity will hurt this area for Sony. Overall I expect that the price tag will not be too much of an issue once the system has been out there for a while, but it will initially issolate the casual gamers and Sony will imo want to be looking at a price drop sooner rather than later (unless 'Krazy' Ken Kutaragi has his way)

I have a very simple way to speed up sending email messages from Gmail for users of Firefox and other browsers which feature a sidebar. to add this in Firefox simply create a new bookmark (right click the bookmarks toolbar and select new bookmark). the two important paramaters here are the url for the simple gmail compose window (eg the one with out the gmail sections selectors), this url is: https://accounts.google.com/ServiceLogin?service=mail&passive=true&rm=false&continue=http://mail.google.com/mail/?view%3Dcm%26tf%3D1%26fs%3D1&scc=1&ltmpl=googlemail&emr=1 to open it within the Firefox sidebar, you should select the 'Load this bookmark in the sidebar' check box. Note that the compose window is fairly wide so you may have to increase the width ot the sidebar so that the currently viewd page is fiarly small. To do this in Opera simply drag the above link to the Panels menu (if you don't see this press f4), and the link will load in the sidebar (although you could just use the Opera mail client m2, which is built in to Opera)

so yeah I did miss something really obvious, well thank you I guess I'd better get posting then. Thanks for the help and kudos on the speedy reply, 5 minutes I wish I got that kind of service from everywhere.

I'm attempting to transfer 5 credits (regarding a previous request I made here) however I keep encountering a problem whereby I am told that I need to have more credits to transfer, and the transfer is not completed (i.e my credit count is not going down). I currently have ~20 credits, am I doing something wrong or did I just miss something really obvious. I would appreciate help on this issue as it is vital for my previous request to be completed, thank you.