Arbitrary

I've got to say that most companies who do something similar to what Cisco did (you know, sue someone because of a name that they thought belonged to them) are rather pathetic. I mean, come on! It's just a name. These companies really don't have to fall head over heels in pain over such a small legal issue. But on the other hand, it is a good opportunity for the suer (aka Cisco) to earn some big bucks out of Apple. And yes, while I agree with nightfox that Apple clearly broke the law, it just seems rather childish to see these companies fighting over something like this. In fact, it seems even more childish that there are laws to protect a certain brand name. I'm starting to think this plagiarism thing is getting out of hand.

I'm sure there are tons of sites that offer free shout boxes, and so here's a few: http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ http://www.yellbox.com/ - offers a swear word filter, ip address banning, remotely hosted as well, I believe http://www.shoutmix.com/v3/login.php - this one's remotely hosted http://www.lpassociation.com/forum/ - a shoutbox in an iframe, really easy to embed http://php.resourceindex.com/programs_and_scripts/chat/shoutbox/ - written in php, there's more than one on that page to choose from http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - once again remotely hosted http://www.oggix.com/ http://www.cbox.ws/ http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/flash-php/ - this one you have to host yourself, it uses a text file to store 'shouts'; uses flash and php http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/chat-scripts/ - another shoutbox that you have to host yourself, allows you to ban ips, filter profanity, etc. http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/chat-scripts/ - a php shoutbox. You can decide if you want to use a Mysql database to store 'shouts' or just a plain text file. http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/chat-scripts/ - php once again. Allows bbcode as well. http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/communication-tools/ - php shoutbox; similar to the ones described before. http://www.hotscripts.com/listing/pyshoutout/ - has css support! http://www.hotscripts.com/category/scripts/php/scripts-programs/guestbooks/ - a php mysql shoutbox http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - another remotely hosted shout box http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ - a php tagboard If you want more, you can always just Google https://www.google.com/search?q=free+tagboard or https://www.google.com/search?q=free+shoutbox Or you can go to http://www.hotscripts.com/ for more shoutboxes that you can host on your own server.

Ditto sounds nice, especially with the copying over multiple computers. Gods, I've always wanted to do that! I usually just use Notepad to keep track of snippets that I might need for later. It always loads pretty fast...so that's my main reason for using it. XD Btw, anyone know exactly what Clipmate offers that might be considered better than Ditto's current offers? Ditto's seem quite nice. ;-)

Most of it, IMO, is just a fad. Sure, there are some people who do end up very angry, secluded, etc because of gaming, but those are probably the same type of people who have problems dealing with any type of addiction and fail to see the difference between fantasy and reality. They're the type of people that would get addicted to gaming the same way they'd get into drugs. But those are very few. The majority of the population will be able to tell the difference between fantasy and reality and make sound decisions for themselves so that they don't end up in sordid situations. Therefore, I do not think playing games makes people choose to kill someone else. That's just a tad too extreme. Most gamers probably can make perfectly sane decisions. On the other hand, I'm inclined to agree with Leafbunk and say that playing too many games changes one's tolerance towards violence. I've noticed this in my younger brother--though this isn't the result of games, more of television. He tends to put little intensity into killing--such violence is often joked about and considered as no big deal. Of course, I'm sure if he actually experienced such violence he probably wouldn't be quite so inclined to take it as a joke. That, I think, depends a lot more on the individual. For instance, I am nowhere near an avid gamer but I'm also quite reserved and feel uncomfortable talking to people. This problem, I think, is one that is created by computers in general and not just games. I've also met a number of gamers at my school who are very talkative. And they don't only talk about games--they usually talk about anything that floats their boat. Some of these people naturally enjoy to talk, and even spending 8 hours in front of a screen doesn't change that. On the other hand, the quieter people can find gaming to be an outlet, which can be a problem. They might find it easier to chat with people than to actually speak with them in person. That poses a big problem--after all, in order to be well-rounded and possibly get a job, a person has to have at least okay social skills. So it's these naturally reserved gamers that I'm worried about. I also think that parents should quit complaining about these companies luring their kids in. They can easily take charge and force their kids to quit gaming if they think their kids are addicted to it. Blaming it on someone else does not solve the problem. Also, it might be easier if parents actually talk with their kids about the possible consequences of gaming (aka addiction) before they get addicted. If gamers are looking out for a problem, that problem is less likely to occur than if they're just blindingly scrounging about. I think some education on addiction before they get addicted might help. Then they'd be able to look for possible pitfalls and avoid them. Then again, this debate is one of those, "there really isn't a right answer".

It is true that allowing the 'best post of the week' thing to be decided by the moderators can end up making things biased. Allowing users to rate each post would be nice, but couldn't a user also create multiple accounts (it's not really that difficult with all those email generating resources out there) and then rate themselves higher? And using yeh's idea, perhaps instead of letting mods decide, we could let users each choose a post that they think is the 'best post of the week'. All those posts will go into a queue and users can only choose one best post per week. (obviously) And then, that could be combined with the earlier idea of using hits and replies to rate each particular post. (Perhaps length could also be factored in? After all, longer posts usually tend to have more well-thought out content). And then, if the moderators want, they can also look at some of the posts and give one of them an additional boost if they really like it. (But this is optional, so that it can cut down a bit on each moderator's work load). Then at the end of the week the points for each post is tallied and the best one is rewarded. Of course, it does entail more programming and therefore more work and time, so that might be rather big problem. And I don't see the current system as particularly horrible either, so maybe such a different implementation style is really not needed. Exactly! It could potentially end up being more broken if we actually do fix it. XD

I also automatically updated yesterday. I guess on the surface there really isn't anything particularly different about version 2.0.0.1 and 2.0, but according to the Mozilla site there has been some security fixes, and I suppose, other minor changes. I like the fact that Firefox updates immediately...updating by myself can be such a pain. Especially since I don't exactly visit the Mozilla site twice a day to check for new updates the way I check my email. ;-)

Gods, I love CSSPlay. It's just...insanely good. I'm at a loss of words. Now if only all browsers could just become standards compliant. =(

I use several different passwords as well, but I tend to divide my passwords among the sites. For instance, if I find a site to be important, say my Gmail account, then I give it a secure password that I don't reuse. But if I find that I don't care about what I do on a site or that my identity is not at stake, then I just give it one of my regular passwords. Also, after the recent switch away from password managers, I've discovered that it's a lot easier now to recall passwords when I'm away from my computer. Before whenever I was at school trying to log in to some account, I'd always forget the password and try digging through my email for it. But now, no such thing happens anymore. Ahh, the wonders of breaking away from a bad dependency. XD

Actually, mirdux, I'd say it's something parents should watch out for, but not necessarily go crazy over. I mean, yeah, sure, just because you see some crazy person driving super fast doesn't mean you should stop others from driving, but if you see the people around you starting to imitate that driver, then yes, it's time to worry. Therefore, parents shouldn't totally block their kids from playing video games, but they certainly shouldn't give in to their every demand either. I remember there was this kid in my computer science class last year who played WoW every single day until nine o'clock at night and then began his homework and stayed up until twelve to finish it. It was quite overboard, but his parents never did a thing about it. Though they probably had total control over finances and therefore could've just stopped paying for the WoW subscription, they never did. But he was lucky and quit during the summer before anything major happened.Then again, parents aren't always right either. Some of them are just a bit too uptight about getting a good education. Too much stress is not a good thing. Therefore, it all comes down to not getting obsessed with anything. Just like drinking too much water could make you explode.

I don't know, it sounds all nice and dandy...but really, couldn't it be taken advantaged of? It's really a lot easier to take advantage of the referral system than it is to take advantage of the current Xisto's system. With the referral system in place, people could refer themselves and then register with a bunch of different email addresses from different computers and then these fake registrants probably won't post at all. That isn't really useful.

Alegis: Yeah, the U.S. Patent site does have a search. But it seems rather confusing to sift through all the muck that's on the page. At least Google does get to the point rather quickly. (Just type in the box dangit!) Apparently the U.S. Patent site boasts patent texts from 1976 until now, and then images for all the patents since 1790. Not sure if Google has any exact statistics on what time period of patents it has. From looking at the results I received by querying 'light bulb', I guess its patent search isn't all that informative, thought it does seem pretty comprehensive. Just looking at the description for each entry for 'light bulb', it's rather hard to distinguish just what kind of thing this patent is. For instance, the first result for 'light bulb' tells me this: Just how does a description of an image help me? I can't see the image just by looking at search results, so I wouldn't have any idea what this person is trying to explain. If Google could offer better descriptions rather than just some randomly picked out phrases from the patent text, it might be more helpful to those browsing. Personally, I think images are helpful in deciding if said pattern is what you wanted, so perhaps they could offer images (on the side) in addition to descriptions. And truth is, this particular patent is kinda weird: Swim Googles. It's probably just a misspelling on the word 'goggles', but heck, it was actually a U.S. Patent! I thought that the people who approved the patents would at least take the time to look over their application for spelling errors, of all things. And apparently, in the rest of the article, it says 'swim goggles' all along, but the title is misspelled and rather misleading. =)

Open Office sure isn't bad. But since I currently have the whole Microsoft Office suite on my computer, I see no point in downloading another office suite. I'm perfectly satisfied with that Office aspect of Microsoft's products. Of course, if I were in college and desperately needed a document editor and couldn't afford Microsoft's Office Suite, then I'll probably go for Open Office. Now, if I could afford Microsoft's Office Suite while cash-strapped, I might just go for it as I do find it better than Open Office. I might like Open Office better if they offered separate downloads for each of their programs. There was one day that I wanted to just download Calc to create a spreadsheet (and since I was on a shared computer, I thought it was pointless to download a HUGE package), I scrounged their website looking for what I wanted, but I could never find it. It might be helpful to some people who are space-strapped and want to save some by not downloading the useless parts.And I agree with Alegis that open source does not automatically make a product good. The regular user really isn't going to care if a product's source code is open to the community or not, because, put it plainly, they're not going to be the ones editing it. Only the few developers will care, but since they're the ones making the product anyway, it's kind of expected that they'd care. Therefore, I think it's better to judge open source products just as you'd judge anything else--quality (such as the things it can get done, the price, possible security issues, etc) and not just some tag thrown on it.

1. A form is set up. 2. The form information is stored in a table that stores all forms. One column in the table should tell if the form is approved or not. (Perhaps a boolean value) 3. The administrator, in a different form, approves the content. The column that tells if the form is approved or not should be changed to true or 1. 4. To create the snapshot: First you'd retrieve the title from the title column in the table. <?php $a = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE id='$id'"); $numrows = mysql_numrows($a); for($i=0; $i<numrows; i++){ $title = mysql_result($a,$i,"title"); $content = mysql_result($a,$i,"content"); }?><?php $ftitle = str_replace(" ", "-", $title); //replace spaces in the title with a hyphen $f = fopen($ftitle.".html", 'w+'); //open the file. Since the file probably does not exist, it will create a new file. $html = "<html><head><title>$title</title></head>$content</html>"; //the html to insert into the file fwrite($a, $html); fclose($a);?> Ermm...I think the last part was what you were looking for, no? I didn't realize until a bit later. Stupid me! XP Notice from vizskywalker: Be sure to put your code in code tags

But let's say you visit a site that doesn't have good intentions (aka a phishing site) and they decide to get the passwords from your password manager. If the browser were secure, then these sites should be unable to retrieve your password. However, if the browser were poorly designed, then the site might be able to get a list of your passwords when you submit a form on the site. That's why password managers are problems--they leave all your passwords out in the open instead of just one if you get tricked to visit and fill out a form at a phishing site. Ex: Let's say there's a phishing site built similar to Gmail. You go there, thinking it is Gmail and fill out your Gmail username and password. If the password manager was secure, you'd only be giving the phishing site your Google username and password. However, if the password manager was insecure, you'd not only be giving away your Google username and password, you'd also give away all other usernames and passwords inside your password manager. Which makes the problem a lot worse. EDIT: Does anyone here know if the Gmail manager is a secure extension? I've been using that for quite some time and it has proved to be very useful for me. However, I'm not sure if I should continue using it because of its security. It is, after all, run by a third party, and one can never figure out their intentions. I'm inclined to say it has positive intentions, but I'll never know....

I would do this for you if I had more time on my hands. (Finals coming up very very soon). On the other hand, perhaps I can recommend some sites that might help you look for someone you want quickly. (Xisto is useful, as most of the people here are tech inclined, but these sites have a wider audience): GetAFreelancer -- This site is pretty much exactly what the url and title say--you can hire a freelancer. They have two different systems of pay, I believe. There's also a lot of people on there. Programmer meet designer -- Technically this site is for programmers who want to seek designers or vice versa, but you can also be management requesting for a programmer and a designer. GetACoder -- Similar to GetAFreelancer in most respects. You can request coding and designing services there. Well organized. http://www.designfirms.org/ -- Helps you look for design firms that might cater to your needs. Can be useful depending on how many people you think you'll need to work on your site. I'd say your project seems rather big and would probably need more than one person. ScriptLance.com -- This is an auction site that works very similarly to GetAFreelancer. Basically you post your project and people bid on it. You can chose the lowest bid or the bidder you think will produce the best output. There's a number of other willing freelance connecting sets if you Google it. Good luck!

Microsoft Word Security Issue Microsoft announces that there are some security problems with many different versions of Word. Microsoft claims that users might get the virus from accidentally opening a Word document sent by an unknown sender. They also claim that they will try to fix it by December 12th. The source article: http://www.microsoft.com/err/technet/security/ Personally, I think most problems would be solved if people simply didn't open email attachments from unknown senders. I mean usually there is no reason to be opening an attachment unless it came from a friend of yours whom you trusted. If it was just a random person requesting whatever and you weren't sure if this person was truthful or lying, you could always reply and ask that they paste it into the normal email body. But of course there's also the chance in which your friend has a virus unknowingly embedded in their Microsoft Word. In that case, this advisory applies...and so...watch out!

Yeah, but isn't Microsoft bascically accusing SUSE of using their code [their "intellectual property"]? If SUSE didn't, then SUSE didn't do anything wrong. And also, I don't see how not licensed under Open Source GPL/GNU makes SUSE vulnerable to Microsoft. Something unlicensed can be stolen by others but that doesn't give them the right to steal from others. Personally, I think the only reason Microsoft is acting in such a childish way is because of their anger. They're just irritated that Linux is more successful than they would've warranted.

I definitely agree that it is not fair to just cheat. If the hackers want to complain, sure, go ahead. But remember that Blizzard is the one that owns the game, and they can do whatever they please to its players within limits of the game. Kicking them out and keeping them kicked out is certainly within limits. And Aka Bar, you may say that these hackers have their adrenaline, but that's not fair play. That's like saying, "Hey, I work in this company and I want more money to be happy. Therefore, I'm going to use company funds for my personal needs." What would the other people in the company think? Would they think that it's okay to let this one person steal just so said person can be happy? I think not. Same principle applies here. And also, Aka Bar, it's not unfair for Blizzard to stop them either. They can do whatever they please to the game.

I agree that such start pages are beautiful, but I fail to see the point of them. I like my browser to load quickly so that I can get to where ever I go, so it's often much nicer for my starting page to simply be about:blank. It loads quickly and I don't have to deal with any mess it leaves. Setting it to some ajax or flash filled page means that I have to wait for it to load before I can begin my work. So far, the Google homepage seems to be very suitable--it's a portal and it loads really quickly.Yourminis.com, sorry, but no. On some days I really need to get some work done and I can't afford being distracted by the "newest videos on YouTube" or whatever. At least Google suggests that I ought to be doing research or something otherwise productive instead of browsing through Digg or YouTube.Also, I'm not sure, but perhaps the other similar topic was closed because it seems like the site is being advertised instead of just being suggested?

I am also tired of all these arguments. I say that Firefox, Opera, Konqueror, IE7 and Safari are all good browsers. Which one you ultimately decide to use depends on you. If you need a bunch of extra things offered in Firefox extensions (say an FTP uploader or the web developer extension..), then maybe you'd choose Firefox. But if you were more into speed and less of a memory cruncher, then Opera would be good to go. The reasons to use each browser abounds; you just have to find one that's right for you. (Preferably not something insecure like IE6 though; I doubt many people would find that right for them...but hey, if they had good other-party antivirus protection, then IE6 might not be a horrible choice) So basically, use each browser instead of deciding based on what others say. Your opinion doesn't have to coincide with the masses. :]

I've heard of Flock for quite a while, but I don't think it's worth it to change to it. First off, it is very similar to Mozilla Firefox, and I'm perfectly content with Firefox right now. I don't see anything particularly attracting about Flock that might entice me to abandon Firefox for a browser that may not be updated as often. I don't blog everyday and neither do I post that many photos on Flickr that I'd need something to manage them for me.If Flock offered some more customizations than Firefox (ones that I could actually use, or some speed like Opera), then I might consider using it. But right now, it just seems like a version of Firefox that's more suited for the bloggers/photobloggers, etc. If I really wanted those things, I could obtain them through extensions anyway.

Hmm...I believe StarOffice uses OpenOffice's code but then they improved on it with their own additions. I also believe that StarOffice is Sun's proprietary service, unlike OpenOffice, which is free. I think Sun originally bought the StarOffice license because they were looking for a way to compete with Microsoft. At some point, they offered StarOffice as a free download, but of course that's all gone now. That being said, I don't think I'd want to switch out of Microsoft's Office Suite now. Sure, I may not like Microsoft's business habits, but I have to admit that it's Office Suite is great, and I couldn't live very long without it. Also, I wish OpenOffice.org could offer their downloads separately so that I can download one thing (say Calc) without getting the rest (the package is HUGE!)

Um...I'm pretty sure that this kid is entirely unable to access harmful sites. It's the parental controls here that are making the difference. A regular user is certainly not going to activate parental controls on themselves (that'd be totally weird), but in this situation, yeah, Vista would be very safe. Except that it's at the cost of the kid not being able to do much with their Internet. But, if this article was aimed at the general population to convince them that Vista is flawless in terms of security, then they're creating a false impression. It's not flawless; I highly doubt any OS is flawless. This article is really only true for the kids whose parents decide to restrict their Internet playground.

Hmm...following whatever Pyost said should get you somewhere, but I just wanted to add my two cents. Since you're going to be reusing the whole "get-the-cube-of-the-sum-of-the-digits" code, you might as well put that into a method and then call that method every time you want to use the code. It'll probably save a bit of space (as well as some headaches) :]

Agreed wholeheartedly. I mean it's not like tehgoogle is making tons and tons of money off of a Google rip-off; it's just a parody. There's a good number of Google rip-offs out there (some better than others), so why would Google single out tehgoogle when tehgoogle isn't necessarily hurting their business? Besides, I've heard that these Google mirrors can help in cases of Google's site being censored in China--people access the mirrors and then access Google skipping the blocked main site. XP Very useful in that respect.