Robbie.Knox

I always use Windows Media Player. It comes installed with Windows, no stupid ads and it's fairly lightweight.I've only briefly used WinAmp as I found it difficult to get around, and I couldn't find many options for it.I really hate iTunes. It's slow to load, takes up loads of memory and is difficult to use. Also, it makes the iTunes process start up on computer boot, which is annoying.Real Player was good in the 90's, until they turned evil. Now it is similar to iTunes. It's incredibly slow, has tons of ads and automatically starts up when you don't want it to.I haven't tried any of the others, although I really liked Windows Media Classic. It's extremely lightweight, needs no install, and the only drawback is that you can't store albums, etc, which is understandable seeing as it's so lightweight.Cheers,Rob

Just been looking at MyBB. I have to say, I am impressed with it. It is definitely better than phpBB or SMF anyway.I am thinking of coding my own soon though. I am useless at graphics though so if anyone would like to design a default, professional template then I would be very grateful.

I've been thinking about trying to code my own. I really wanted to start a football (soccer) forum, but I couldn't afford an Invision or vBulletin license. I also tried SMF and phpBB and the like but I didn't really get on with them. I found them hard to skin, SMF didn't have as many decent mods as Invision or vBulletin, and although phpBB had loads of mods, they were all for different versions of the software, so you never knew if they were going to work or not.I'm thinking about coding my own Free one, but I am useless at graphics and I want the main User Interface done first. If anyone is able to help me with this bit I'd be very helpful.ThanksRob

Ok cheers guys. I've gone with SMF. I'm just going to have to try to create a theme. I just wanted to use IPB as I'm way more experienced at programming in that rather than SMF.

Yeah thanks for the advice I looked through but decided on IPB. I cant afford 2.2, phpBB has a new version coming out soon so I'd have to upgrade (and all the mods are for different versions, so I'd have to convert them too) and I didn't really get on with SMF.Is SMF compatible with PHP 5?

Ok so I signed up with this host so I can try and start a football (soccer) forum with my Invision 1.3. However, being the plonker that I am I didn't check that this hosting comes with PHP 5, when Invision is built for PHP 4. Now I know that there are tutorials for converting IPB 1.3 for PHP 5, but then if I do that I have to attempt to convert all the add-ons I want, which I would have no idea how to do.Is there anything I can do to use PHP 4 on my hosting account?ThanksRob

Just wandering where lots of the members here are from . I can't help but have noticed a lack of English people around here and a lot of Americans, so I thought I'd find out if there is actually anyone from the UK.Personally, I'm from Bristol in England. Supposedly the best city to live in at the moment in England, and only beaten in the UK by Edinburgh. Shame our football (soccer) teams can't do a bit better though. Big Bristol City fan here.

I think you need Window Blinds to do that. It's from Stardock and costs $20, but you can get a free trial. http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/download.asp

People are going way to over the top on this. Asteroids are nowhere near as bad as some people are making them out to be most of the time. Hundreds of rocks and stuff from space strike the Earth every year, but nothing is done about it. It's just unlikely that an asteroid that big would hit the Earth.In the Earth's life HUGE asteroids have collided with the Earth. If it did wipe out eveyr living organism on the planet, then we wouldn't be here today, as we wouldn't have had anything to evolve from.

Well I've heard that although there are bugs in Vista, it shouldn't really affect the way you use the computer, as any bugs will be ironed out immediately by Microsoft. I mean, they're hardly a small company. They should be able to deal with things like this extremely quickly. And also, you would not have any of the bugs that Vista has, simply because it is nothing to do with Vista. It's just a program which makes your XP look like Vista. Any bugs that you may come across would be because of the pack, and nothing related to Microsoft. I've just reinstalled and I really like it. Improves the look of your desktop a whole lot, and it changes other things such as Task Manager and the explorer window you see when you are for example, browsing your C Drive. Only problem I came across was the sidebar, which I found used a lot of system resources, so I disabled it. Rob

I do like Google's humour. It may seem a bit pathetic but at least they don't seem uptight such as Microsoft. They manage to come across as professional but still have humour.

Hmmm I should go jogging but I don't ever do it. I'd get bored by myself.I used to play golf quite a lot on weekends which obviously involved walking several miles carrying a heavy bag of clubs on your back so I suppose that kept my fitness alright. I also play football loads outside of school with my friends.PE is always tiring. I love it though especially when playing football. I also have a membership up my local gym but I've only used it several times, the last of which was months ago so I've probably forgotten how to work most of the machines!

I used to sign up to these places hoping that I would get a lot of money, but they all turned out as expected; offering nothing. It basically all stems back from those 'get a free Mac' or 'free iPod' things where you had to encourage 20 other people to sign up. Even those survey sites are completely unreliable.

You won't come across any free download sites, purely for the reason that bands will want to make a profit. But there are several sites that will allow you to stream songs for free.I'm not sure if this is 100% correct but try searching for 'Radio Blog' (I remember my friend telling me about this recently). Here you can stream music I think.If not, you could always search for the video on YouTube or similar or go to a legal site such as Yahoo! Music or AOL Music where you can watch music videos for free also.

Well this is obviously a step towards the future. In my opinion, eventually our entire hard drives will be stored online and our computers will only essentially be a connection to the Internet. This will obviously make it necessary to download gigabytes of data at a time. I currently have a 2mb connection and it's good enough for now, the only limit I have is a download limit of 15gb which you obviously have to watch out for. No more is needed to be honest, as loads of sites have an outward connection of 2mb or 1mb just like a home connection, which would make no difference at all.

Yes it contains the icons. I really liked this when I downloaded it except for when I wanted to uninstall it. On the version that I used the uninstaller was crap and left the icons on there and other stuff that I really didn't want on there. I ended up formatting my hard drive and starting all over again. I believe all this has been removed now though and it's all pretty good. May tempt me into downloading it again.One thing though. Anyone know if it uses up much system resources?ThanksRob

I had trouble like this with one of my old sites after I built it for Firefox. I ended up recoding it for IE, and then using Javascript (or PHP can't remember which lol) to see which browser the user is browsing in, and then give them the appropriate stylesheet.

I don't think so. I mean it's hardly making people forget how to spell, and as long as they aren't show offs and write their exams in text speak then it's alright. All it is is shortening a word. As long as it's not a word that they don't know how to spell in proper English then it's ok, and that's unlikely as 99% of people who text on mobiles (i.e. above 11) can spell to an acceptable degree.

I'm not so sure. There's several places similar to that. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ is basically what you need, except people offer projects. Just search freelance web designers in Google and there's plenty of them.

Yeah the Playstation will definitely take off when big games come out. There's bin a small-scale launch list so when GTA IV and Gran Turismo, etc come out it will definitely become much more popular.

I've played guitar for about a year and a half. Started off with one of those Encore beginner packs which included a Squire copy and a small amp. Now got a Marshall MG15CD practise amp and a Vintage Les Paul guitar.

My Mum and Dad ordered me a PS3 on release day in the UK (for my birthday in August) as a present for my 16th birthday and the end of my exams. I really can't wait to get my hands on the PS3. I was tempted on getting a Wii, but I've always been with Sony, having bought a Playstation and Playstation 2, so I trust them to come out with another gem.The things that do it for me are the familiarity with the controllers, and the titles. The PS2 was more successful than the Xbox in my opinion because of the huge number of titles that came with it. Also, the controllers are easy to use and, having used them for 10 years, become second nature when pressing certain buttons.People say about how it's not worth spending so much money on a PS3 when you can buy an Xbox 360 for a lot cheaper. But if you think about it, I think it's a sound investment. You get everything the Xbox 360 has, plus extra power. You can almost guarantee the same amount of games if not more. It had HD compatibility (not sure about the 360) and comes with a Blu-Ray DVD player. Now eventually everyone is going to have to buy one of these, so why not do it now? Also, you get free access to the online Playstation network, compared to the expensive Xbox Live. Not only that, but you can integrate the PS3 with your PSP (if you own one). You also get a massive hard drive.I can't remember the URL but I remember reading an article comparing the PS3 and 360 in terms of price. If you buy the Xbox 360 + the add-ons that would make it level with the PS3, the prices pretty much even out. Bearing in mind PS3 has a bigger hard drive, probably more games, HD support, free online play and next-gen DVD player that you WILL need in several years time.This, for me, makes me choose the Playstation 3 over the Xbox 360.

Gran Turismo 4 is obviously the king of racing games, purely because of it's huge depth. I'm also a fan of the Formula One series, although I find Formula One 97 on Playstation One more entertaining than Formula One 2006 on Playstation 2.Getting my new Playstation 3 in August so hopefully will get to play F1 Championship Edition. Really cannot wait for Gran Turismo HD as well .

Any Football Manager 2007 fans here? Or for Americans as it's called over there, Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007?I've been struggling to get a decent game going lately to be honest, as I find the new game extremely hard. The most annoying thing is having to change tactics every few games which for me makes it a tad unrealistic.Also, anyone heard about new Football Manager Live? This sounds really good and I can't wait to get my hands on that. This way, everyone has a level playing field as you're not playing against any computer-controlled teams.Rob

People keep saying about Web 2.0 but what is Web 2.0? I'm sorry but in my opinion it's a load of rubbish. It's just the method building a website with technologies that people want you to use for some reason. CSS designs are now considered 'Web 2.0'. How does that figure, when CSS has been around for years?Because of this, I find it difficult to to say how browsers will progress into 'Web 2.0'. Eventually we will see everything on the Internet, with our computers serving as nothing but a connection. Our files and information will be stored online in my opinion, however I don't know how long it could be. Could be 10 years, could be 100. However, we will eventually see the end of the web browser as a desktop program. Eventually, our computers will only be a web browser.