rpgsearcherz

It's kind of funny - your story. Everyone seems to think that they can do anything they want and not get caught, but most end up getting caught anyways. The fact that the men had access to the social security numbers is somewhat bothersome though. There's no telling who all got ahold of those, and these days social security numbers are a huge thing when it comes to getting into other people's lives and/or using false ID's.

Lol, you're talking about making bets to win cash is more or less what I'm seeing.On that note, I should start up a "Get rich" scheme as well - Play the lottery!

I had no luck with those sites at all with my other site(xxx.trap17.com). I had many backlinks, and could even see them using google search. If I were to search for my site there would be over 100 results, all showing the full address of my site. But Google webmasters, Yahoo site explorer still, after months, were showing that I had 0 backlinks.Do you know what could cause this to happen?

Your Google Chrome experience is really the same thing as when I used Firefox(many times). Everyone spent all day talking about how "awesome" it was and all, but yet every time that I install it I end up having issues with sites. Whether they freeze, have script issues(as you said) or even download issues. It is what makes me weary of trying out new browsers.

Yeah, I was going to say the same thing as the above post. If there is any way to track the MAC addresses you can pull off the IP that the person is at, and the PD can trace them.Without any software on the laptop, I'm unsure how you could do this, HOWEVER. If they have your accounts saved on the laptop(email or whatever) it is possible to get a trace on their IP as they log into said accounts.Now, this isn't 100% solid as they could be using a free wifi hotspot somewhere, but the chances that they're smart enough to know about the trick are pretty low.Did you save your email accounts or anything on the laptop? More or less anything that they can log into(even FORUMS) with your account.

Wait, can anyone confirm that adsense will actually speed up the crawling of the site?And while I'm on this topic, does your domain have an influence? I was using my xxx.trap17.com domain for around a year, and I was indexed but barely(even with my sitemap up for 7+ months). Along with that, I still had a PR of 0, although I had a LOT of sites linking back to me(due to posting on forums, other sites trading links, posting on blogs, etc.)Do you think that having a TLD(http://www.xxx.com/) will help out with that issue as well, or does it not matter?

My issue was resolved within a couple hours of sending in a ticket. In case any of you others have the same issue(your site not loading), it's due to an IP block.I was also told that what can cause it are things like multiple FTP connections by the same username in a short period, or many failed attempts at logging into your cpanel.Thanks again for the help guys.

There are a lot of people that I know, myself included, that are only with Windows for one reason now : because we can't use Linux for gaming. Sadly...If every game I wanted to play worked on Linux I would learn how to use the OS and switch in a heartbeat. And yes, I know there are many emulators, but a lot don't work on the more recent games. As for not using Linux right now as well as Windows, I just feel that if I am forced to use Windows I might as well just stay with it rather than learn something new, . What we need to do is kick Microsoft out of the gaming monopoly.

This seems more like a spam advertisement than anything.

Definitely true about the Linux thing. When I was downloading my Linux distros to attempt running a host on my own(rofl...It was for learning purposes but ended up becoming epicfail, ) I found the straight downloading of the ISO's off the site to be slow and/or I would get hiccups and have to restart.More or less what torrents do is they...Allow you to resume files. To put this into an easy to understand way I'll try to break it down for you.------Start------I have a file I want to send. To make this easy, let's assume that it's 100 MB's.I load up what's called a tracker, which is where other IP's can connect to get the information about the file parts, who has them, etc.Now I go and "rip" the file into 100 parts, listing the parts in the tracker. It would be somewhat like this:Part 1 - 1 MB - Start at byte xxxxx and end at byte xxxxxPart 2 - 1 MB - Start at byte xxxxx(2) and end at byte xxxxxAnd on and on.Now I post the link to this small torrent file(usually ~40 kb's or less) and others log into the tracker and pull the list of IP's that are sharing the files, along with what parts everyone has.At this point ,they start downloading one part from one person, another from another, etc.Now as for why it is faster, think of it like this...We have 10 people who want this 100 MB file. Now what you could do is send person 2 all 100 mb's at once, and then you and them can send the file to two others 100 MB's at once.Or, to make it more efficient, you would send each of the others 11 MB's of the file, so that although none of them are complete, they can all be downloading the file at once. Person 1 would get the first 11 mb's and already be sharing with person 2, person 2 would be getting the second 11 mb's and the first 11 mb's and would be sharing with person 3, person 3 would be getting the first 3 parts, and so on.This isn't exactly how it works, but it is an easier to understand generalization-------End------So as you can see, for companies that are uploading huge files(As such Age of Conan did with their 10+ gb client), this saves them a significant amount on bandwidth. Instead of them sharing 100% of the file with hundreds of thousands of people, they could share it even 1000 times and everyone would be able to download it at a decent rate.And such is why the question comes up as to whether it is legal or illegal. There are many companies that use it for legal purposes, to cut down their costs. But at the same time, it is also a huge median for software piracy for the same reason.I've actually heard of many companies that use custom trackers for torrents to send files back and forth across their workspace, because programs like utorrent and the like are very small(120 kb) and are very efficient.Hopefully this answers your question a little better, jhlaslip.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking as well. I did look it up too and found that the donations thing where you are being forced to upgrade is only if you are using the monthly payment type(where people can give recurring payments to you).

I have gone through issues like that with Microsoft Office XP as well, only you could just install it on ONE pc. And yes, I find that to be annoying too.More or less I view it as them pushing away customers by making it harder for us to use their software. After all, those who are breaking the laws(pirating their software) are bypassing all of the activations anyways. So why punish us for it?

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with the voice thing being an awesome feature and all, but at the same time it annoys me beyond belief. I've yet to even find one program that works properly with voice recognition, whether it be via phone or online, or even just a PC program(Such as Microsoft Office).

If you want to break it down into what he was asking originally - are torrents legal or illegal?There is one answer. If you own the actual rights to the information(not bought - unless you bought the sole rights to it), then yes, it's legal. Examples are:Home MoviesMovies you madePictures you took(not of games - not on your pc, etc.)Programs you made yourselfAside from things of that nature it is illegal.

I haven't even used Google Chrome yet. Is it really that much different, or is it another one of those "Hey, it's new! It must be better!" kind of things?I'm annoyed at the number of new programs that come out that are "the best," and how many of them in reality are horrible compared to what we already use.Granted, with Google backing it(I love Google, from search to Youtube to gmail) I guess it's a trustable source.

I have another thread here from quite a while ago, and so I feel that since the website(s) have gone such dramatic changes they deserved their own new awakening. If I am out of line by this, please let me know.On to the site. I have finally taken the plunge and gone over into the CMS era, despite my desires. I've finally started to realize how much potential it has for helping keep the site organized. What pushed me over to the dark side, you may ask. My original hand-made website(it uses a template but I added a lot of changes) needed a very small change. Because I had to save the site into 5 different templates because of the navigation bar, it was going to take a while to fix it. Therefore, I noticed that with just a small issue it was going to take a while, imagine a complete overhaul.For this reason, I have gone over into CMS. Now, I would really like you to let me know which site you think will look better for a gaming community. I have put up sample pages as well with flash games, movies, pictures, and have already separated the site into its various sections we will need. It is going to be a mix between a gaming clan site and a general information MMORPG site(listing new games, new information on them, etc. along with the ability for people to join our clan on those games.)On the CMS, I do not have anything up for Vent as of yet, as we do not currently have a server. I will add a vent bar in the future once we get one.So pretty much, please let me know which site you think has the most potential, between CMS and normal. Thanks in advance(for the record, I choose CMS).The site addresses are :http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/(normal)http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ As for the forum link in joomla, it's not as good as I thought it would be(with wrappers) but I think it is better like that than it is with it opening in a separate window. Anyone else have insight as to which one they would rather have?(How it is now or have the link just open a new, full window with the forums in it).Thanks in advance all, and I hope to hear your views.

Agreed with sakmac on this one. Which is pretty much what I was eluding to in my original posts. I kind of think the original poster here was more or less looking for something where he does some writing and then others proofread it for him, plus pay him for the work. If that is what he's looking for, it would not pay much, if at all. Those who are capable of doing the writing all on their own are the ones who get paid, because they usually work under time-frames. Having to send your work to someone else so that they can proofread it, along with send back a copy to you with the issues so you can clarify and/or fix things would not be efficient.Along with reading books(which is a great idea by the way, I never thought of using that as a tool), you can also take classes in college(or high school..I'm not sure your age) which will assist you in the learning process.

I see where both of you are coming from, to a point.I do understand that they work straight out of a book(as both of my grandparents used to work for call centers as well - one for DirecTV and the other for Cingular).At the same time, I can agree that the people I was speaking to were most likely just doing what they were told, rather than what they felt, which is the main reason I will not deal with them again. Their policies are horrible.Imagine you go into a store with a brand new 55" Plasma 1080P HDTV that you just bought for $3800. You bought it 5 hours ago and it was DOA(Dead on Arrival - meaning it doesn't work, straight out of the box). You want to exchange it for another, and they pretty much tell you to go away because it's not their issue now, it's yours. How would that make you feel? What are the chances that you would really ever go back to that store again, especially for such a high priced item?Now back on to my issue...The whole "I won't give you my supervisor" thing was not a policy I don't think. If it was, Dell is probably the only company in the world that says to treat people like that.On another note, it seems that the vote as to whether Dell is really that bad or not is swayed just a little towards the "not so bad" side. Any more stories, guys?

Wouldn't you need a bank account or something for the actual donations though? I know that you can receive without one, but I thought donations required an upgrading of the Paypal account, which also requires a bank account or some other type of verification.

I agree that it's hard to tell what is "legal" and what isn't, but you should use your own discretion with that. As I stated, really any use of torrents and/or archiving media, whether you own it or not, is deemed as "illegal."It even goes as far as saying that if you own a music CD, and rip it to put it on your Ipod, you are breaking the law. That is classified as illegal because you purchased the CD version, not the MP3/WMA/etc. version that you now have in conjunction.To better explore this, it also goes the same with movies. This is why some movies now have a code for a free "digital download" of the same movie. It's not to give out to other people, it is so that you can have a *legal* .avi or whatever format it is, for yourself.The sad part is that although it is not legal to archive the media in it's various formats, many system creators use it to get you to purchase their items. Look at the Xbox, PSP, etc. They all play your mp3 cd's, and even speak of it, but really it's not even legal to have them.So looking at the chances of being charged, they are low. The reason is simple - the law makes no sense.There are thousands and thousands of laws that make no sense at all, and therefore are not followed through with.So you can look at my post as explaining that it *is* illegal, but shouldn't be, and it's clear that everyone but RIAA and MPAA believe the same.

It's nice to see that someone understands where I was coming from when I posted it. It's amazing how many times something happens and it's always the same excuse..."I didn't mean for it to go that far!" Whether it be playing around and shooting a gun off at someone, pushing them out in a street and them getting hit by a car, or a million other things. People need to pay more attention to what they are doing, and what kind of effects it can cause to not only themselves, but others as well. For the record, the story posted above can also be related to cutting yourself(especially for those "emo" people). I have heard of a lot of people at school and otherwise that cut themselves to "let out the pain," and it makes me wonder how many of them end up dying from it. To me, that would be one of the worst ways to die - by loss of blood.

Man, honestly I would love to use phpBB but it is just so hard to get everything right.I'm someone who doesn't really plan out everything he is going to do ahead of time, so for me to edit something, and every 3-4 days edit it all over again to alter it, I could not stand doing that in phpBB.It got to the point where even though I was unhappy with the looks, and lack of features(like quick reply) on my phpBB, I lived with it just because it honestly was not worth the work.If you happen to know a much easier way to install the mods and stuff on phpBB I would love to hear. I would definitely go back to it, were it not so hard to use.

Actually, truefusion, that's not necessarily true. I've had a few cases personally where I have used torrents to download games I have the legal rights to own.Something a lot of people do not consider is siblings and/or children. For example, I let my 8 year old brother borrow my Command and Conquer Renegade discs at one point(he loved games...) and he lost the discs but not the case or the cd key. Downloading the game again allowed me to reinstall it again. After all, I could have just copied the discs to begin with, right?Now as to why I did it, there are many laws I disagree with. I am not condoning the archival backup of your own media, but whether I look at it from a moral standpoint or a spiritual one, I see nothing wrong with it.To turn it into an analogy. Imagine you just bought a new car. You have the car for 3 hours(while you drive it for the first time) and then park the car and someone steals your radio. What are you going to do? Obviously go get another radio(warrantee/insurance aren't being counted here - just roll with it).Now you head out to the store to get your new radio, and you find one that you like. Take it up to the counter and the clerk says "I'm sorry sir, unless you buy another 2009 Dodge Viper, we are unable to sell you this radio." From this point on, you are unable to buy any radios without buying a brand new car.To me, this is the exact same situation. Of course it's a more drastic view, but regardless it has the same principles to it.Even worse is when you pay $300+ for Microsoft Office XP(we needed it for my mother). You take it home, install it and verify it, and obviously it's going to work.A week later your PC crashes for whatever reason, or you get a new HDD, and you reinstall Office XP once you get it up and running again. At this point, you can not verify the program without calling Microsoft and telling them why you need to reinstall it, and speak to them for 10 minutes while they question you about your intentions, why you reformatted instead of just fixing your issues, and on and on.And yes, I went through that quite a few times with Office XP before I finally moved on to OpenOffice. It seems as if their rules are turning from keeping down piracy(who bypass that anyways) to keeping their actual customers unhappy.Again, this is not to condone anything illegal, it is giving my view on what is and is not right. At one point, maybe the companies that make software will also start to care about their customers, rather than just the money they will get.

You know, that's actually a definite possibility. The fact still remains, though, that I will never do business with them again. And yes, I've had issues with other people as well(wow, my ISP is a direct example of that one....I really don't even want to go into it right now) but never been as irritated as with Dell before. If nothing else, it is their whole "You need all of the owner's information to get support" thing that annoys me. Either way, it's nice seeing that they are helpful to some of you! I think something that would be helpful here are examples as to how you had issues with them, and how you ended up resolving them(for example, what method you took to get a new CSR, or something of that nature). I know that many times one person will say they can not help with an issue, but others will. If nothing else, it can be an informational story!

Does anyone happen to know of any clones like these? There are many Youtube clones, where you can host your own videos and others can upload their own just like Youtube, but I am looking for one like the two websites listed above where you just link to the embedded Youtube, Megavideo, etc. files.More or less I want people to be able to view videos and post their own, without me being the one hosting all of the bandwidth and all for it.So, does anyone know of any scripts like those?Thanks in advance.