travstatesmen

I think that "disability" is a subjective word. It depends on the perspective of the person who is afflicted. This applies not only to ADD/ADHD, but to all disabilities. Take, for instance, the deaf community. Many people who are deaf have great pride in being deaf, and in fact some see those of us who are not hearing-impaired as being the ones who are "disabled". You can have an impairment of some sort, whether it be a physical or an intellectual disability, and it may affect you very differently to somebody else with exactly the same impairment. Not only are there varying degrees of impairment (the old "I'm deafer than you are" scenario), but also the attitude of the individual to their impairment varies with personality, environment, upbringing, and a host of other factors. A great example of such variety amongst the disabled community is the idiot savant. While being disabled by such a developmental disorder, the savant may have a particular skill or talent that he/she is critically acclaimed for, and may even become famous, giving a positive lifestyle, wealth, etc, that many who are considered "able bodied" could only dream to attain.

Yeah, well, the only reason I'm still in Auckland is for the work. There are much nicer places to live than Auckland, which is just another city, much like anywhere else. Sure, we have two harbors in Auckland, the Manukau and the Waitemata harbors, and Auckland is known as "the city of sails" for that reason, as we have a huge number of sailing yachts out on the harbours. But apart from that, yeah, it's a place to find a job. Depends on your skills though, of course. If you happen to be a sharemilker, for instance, there is plenty of work available throughout the rest of the country, and lambing season will often provide work for the physically fit. Metallurgists would no doubt be welcome in the Coromandel and Bay of Plenty region where the gold mining is happening. Speaking of the B.O.P., if you are looking for a quick start to working in NZ, get into the harvest work, such as the kiwifruit industry, there's always plenty of work to be done down there picking, packing, coolstore work, pruning, etc. I've done that before and was able to keep employed, or at least have a surplus of finances, until the next harvest season. As long as you don't mind physically challenging work, that is!But if you are looking for more sedentary work in New Zealand, such as sitting on your backside all day and staring at a computer screen, as I do now, then Auckland is definitely the place to be!

I too, like BigBCC, come from the perspective of having been raised as a Christian and with a belief in God as the supreme creator of everything out of nothing. I tend to think that there is a lot more to existence than we know about, and that the collective experiences of mankind on planet Earth is just touching on some of the possibilities. For instance, the supernatural and the paranormal. People claim to have real-life experience of the supernatural and I don't have any reason to not believe them. People also claim to have have real-life experience with UFOs, and again I have no reason to not believe them. Sure there are hoaxes and there are fakes, but as the saying goes, "where there is smoke there is fire" and I tend to believe that for all these things there must be some sort of truth behind them. This whole thing of ghosts walking through solid walls tends to imply, according to my understanding, an interdimensional being of some sort, something that can exist in time and space and yet pass through them both as if walking on a totally different path at the same time. I think there is science behind all these human experiences, but we just don't understand that science yet. Imagine the power that would have to be wielded to speak something into existence out of nothing. Just that alone, if the record in the Bible is accurate, (and I have faith to believe that it is), then just imagine the power behind those words! People wonder what Heaven is going to be like, and whether we will sit around on clouds all day with harps, worshipping God. No way man! I'm going to be sitting in God's lecture theater, learning as much as I can from him! He can explain these protons, quarks, quasars, tachyons, black holes, interdimensional travel, and other such phenomenons better than anyone!

Yes, we have Fiordland in the far South of the South Island, and it has often been compared to Norway. Also in the South Island, running from top to bottom along the West Coast is the Southern Alps, a spectacular mountain range that also has some of NZ's best ski fields.

It is an interesting conundrum that plays out in the political scene the world over. This is not something that is specific to American politics and your upcoming elections there. A few days after the American elections, we here in New Zealand will be going to the polls also for a new government. Yet we face the same challenges that you do, and the same problem that you have outlined above, rayzoredge. What is politics? Here is one explanation that I have heard. poli = poly (meaning many). tics are blood-sucking insects. So thus poly tics means many blood-sucking insects! Anyway, as to your observation about knowing the candidates, I share your concern. When someone stands for a political office they bring their own perspectives on an issue, such as, say, global warming. But their views must be tempered by the views expressed by the party that they are representing. If their opinions on the issue are opposed to their own party's views then they won't get far. But also, their own background speaks just as loud, if not louder, than their expressed opinions. As the saying goes, "actions speak louder than words". If somebody were to stand for a political office and tout a tough line on big business polluters, for example, and yet it comes out in the media that this same person themselves has a huge carbon footprint, then isn't that hypocritical? Aren't we then getting into the "do as I say, and not as I do" realm of fascism? However, being a politician is just another job. Compare being a politician to being a burgermeister at McDonalds. You could be flipping burgers all day, feeding up the nation on McD's quality, nutritious, healthy potions (yeah right!) and then go home via the gym, get a good workout and eat really healthily at home. You might even be a vegetarian at home in your own private life. But at work you are responsible for feeding that nasty fatty stuff to the citizenship! Shame on you! Bad, bad person! But as you see, we don't have to force our personal lives to conform to our work lives, or the other way around. There is no requirement to be consistent in life. Take the Internet, for example. Do we have to be the same here in cyberspace as we are in real life? No! We can put on any persona that we want to. As long as we are consistent to that persona here, then there is no problem. What I am trying to say is that we can be good at our jobs, whether we flip burgers at McDonalds or whether we run the nation as political leaders, without our personal lives and personal opinions getting in the way. It is just a job! Take as an example your American politician Sarah Palin and the story of her unmarried teenage daughter being pregnant. Firstly, does that make Sarah Palin a bad mother? No! It happens in America and around the world all the time, teens getting pregnant. It is a situation that may not be ideal in the eyes of certain groups, such as in religious circles, but it has to be remembered that it is something that even affects teens of strongly religious families sometimes too! But you can't blame the parents for the teen's life choices! Whether the parents are religious or not! And secondly, does it really affect Sarah Palin's ability to do her job as Vice-President if the McCain-Palin ticket wins? No! Not at all! But it does make a good story, and sells newspapers and increases revenue for the media moguls. And that, in my opinion, is what all the dirty politics is really all about. It's just a show, an extravaganza, put on for your entertainment. When they get into the White House and start doing their jobs, none of it will actually affect what they do or how they do it.

I used to have an iPaq H3760, back in the days before Hewlett Packard gobbled up Compaq. In those days I don't think they had even considered adding voice telephony features to a PDA. I can imagine the trouble you are experiencing, daedworthy, trying to use an iPaq as a phone. If your device has bluetooth functionality, why not try using a bluetooth headset with it for voice calls? Another cool idea is to install Skype on it and use a home wireless LAN or free WiFi hotspot to make voice calls via Skype on the iPaq (again, preferably with the bluetooth headset). The iPaq that I used to have was quite awesome for its time, and even had a 1GB MicroDrive which was molded into a sleeve for the iPaq, which seemed like a Terrabyte of storage space compared to the measly 64MB of installed RAM in the device. No, I couldn't imagine using something that bulky as a telephone. These days I have an HTC Apache, which has all the features of a Windows Mobile 5 based PDA, far superior to the old iPaq, and much easier to use as a telephone, even without the aid of a bluetooth headset. The iPaq wasn't actually mine, unfortunately, but was one of the perks of my job. The Apache that I own now is mine, and I use it all the time for all sorts of things. When they saw my Apache and the way that it was configured, the local telephone retailer said that it was the first time that they had ever seen someone making full use of all the features of a smartphone before! Yeah, I'm a power user of embedded systems, and I'm always looking for new ways to use my smartphone, either with software or hardware add-ons. I have a bluetooth wireless infra-red keyboard and a bluetooth headset. I'm hoping to get a bluetooth stereo headphone system soon for it, and I've played with a bluetooth mouse on it before. I'd also like to get a GPS connection for it one day too. The iPaq? It went back to my boss and I've never looked back. There's always something new around the corner!

I like to be different. My main operating system would be Windows Mobile 5, and I'm thinking of upgrading to WM6 at some time. Yeah, I'm an embedded systems type of guy. On the desktop I run a WinPE system, based on Windows XP Professional. What is WinPE? Have a look at my other thread for a good explanation. I own licenses and CALs for a variety of Micrsosoft client and server operating systems, but my OS of choice, other than WM5, would be Windows 2000 Professional. Or, at least, a Windows XP Professional installation stripped down to look and feel like Windows 2000 Professional. I don't need all the fancy whizz-bang eye-candy that comes with XP, and I am not touching Vista for a few more months yet. I don't like to be on the "bleeding edge" and never have done. Give me a Windows 2000 Pro client, (preferably with a Windows 2003 Server CAL and a beefy server box to connect to), along with a copy of Microsoft ActiveSync and my trusty Windows Mobile 5 based hardware any day and I'll be happy. Sure, I'll probably make the step up to Vista one day, but I'm not rushing out to buy the latest gear to support it just yet.

Ever wish that you could legally install an operating system that is as familiar as Microsoft Windows, without having to learn the arcane intricacies of Linux, and without having to pay the exorbitant licensing that Micro$oft charges? Did I mention doing it legally? I don't mean making use of any form of keygen, serial, crack, etc. Is this possible? How many old Pentium 2 systems with 64MB of RAM and an 8GB hard drive got stuffed into your back cupboard without an operating system license when Microsoft brought in the Microsoft Genuine Advantage program? Wouldn't it be great to dust them off and make use of them again using a Windows-based operating system that isn't going to cost more than the box itself is worth? In a nutshell, how can you get a Windows-based operating system legally without having to pay for it? It is possible. And I am going to reveal the secret to you. What I am talking about is the Windows Preinstallation Environment, or WinPE. It is the cut-down, lean, mean version of Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, or even Windows Vista, that is used during the installation phase of these operating systems, and which gives you that Windows-like interface BEFORE you have even installed Windows fully. Anyone who has installed any of these operating systems has used WinPE and probably didn't even know it! Do you remember the old days of creating a DOS boot disk as a diagnostic tool, to help you if your operating system doesn't boot up properly? I used to have a whole collection of them, for all the different operating systems that I used, along with a selection of my favorite repair tools on individual floppy disks. These days I just use a bootable CD-R disk with the WinPE environment on it, which includes my antivirus, antispyware, registry editing tools, etc all on the same CD-R. And it boots up a copy of Windows straight from the CD-R disk! No further installation required. No messing around with dual booting. You could even have it run from a bootable USB thumb drive if you wanted to! How handy would that be? Your own operating system, with all your own applications and settings, stored on a USB thumb drive that you could plug into any computer and boot from it into a Windows environment! Any computer with a USB port in it could be yours! Another great trick is putting an RDP client, such as Microsoft Terminal Services Client or WinVNC onto your WinPE installation, and using that to access an RDP host session, given that you own the required CAL for this access (sorry, even this idea won't get you around the Microsoft licensing regime entirely). Here is an Adobe PDF file hosted on the Microsoft website that gives a technical overview of the Windows Preinstallation Environment. Here is a step-by-step instructional guide on how to set up a bootable WinPE implementation on a USB thumb drive. And here is a Microsoft Technet document that explains the Windows Vista WinPE features. Sure, there are many limitations on such an operating system, and it's not the type of thing that you can use on all of your computers. For instance, you cannot use WinPE to print from the computer that it is installed on, as the print spooler subsystem isn't enabled. It doesn't support OpenGL or Windows Multimedia, so it's not a gaming platform. It automatically reboots after 24 hours (or 72 hours with Vista), so it is not a stable server platform. But for testing, for instance setting up a web server test bench, it is great! Care is needed in providing the appropriate device drivers, and generic drivers are preferable if you intend to use your implementation of WinPE on a variety of different computers, such as I do with my diagnostic CD-R. Legally speaking, you need to own a fully licensed copy of the source operating system that you are creating a WinPE implementation of. The CAB files from your original installation CD are used to generate your WinPE implementation, so therefore you MUST have a valid license to use it in the first place. Also, you are still forbidden from using WinPE on more than one computer at a time unless you have multiple licenses. But this problem is overcome by making your WinPE installation portable. If it is built on a CD-R or a USB thumb drive, then you can only use it on one computer at a time anyway, whichever computer that CD-R disk or that USB thumb drive is connected to at the time. Just don't go making multiple copies of your WinPE implementation. Simple! There are other ways of using WinPE out there, and one very popular one is called BartPE, created by Bart Lagerweij. It uses similar technology to WinPE, but it is much more flexible than WinPE is by itself. The Windows Preinstallation Environment is truly an admin's best friend!

The LHC created a black hole even before it was switched on! How many billions of dollars have disappeared into it since they started building it? And what benefit is it going to be on a global scale? Is it going to feed the starving millions in Africa? Is it going to bring peace to the Middle East? It seems to be that it is just a black hole, sucking up money for the sake of it. If they spent as much money on figuring out the problems on our own planet as they do on figuring out the problems of the universe, then we would all be better off!

Yes, rayzoredge, I got caught out exactly the same way. I had built up over 100 Credits before I signed up for my hosting package with Xisto, expecting to see 30 of them used as per the advertised offer. But I didn't read the hidden small print either, and when I found that all my Credits except for a paltry 4 were taken to start my hosting I was quite shocked! I know that this problem has been addressed in the Suggestions For Version 3 Of The Credit System, and I hope that it gets adopted. It is too late for me now, and for others, and probably for you as well, but I hope that v3 will fix this problem. Either that or they should change the advertising, and say something like "It takes a minimum of 30 Credits for package 2 hosting, and will consume practically all your Credits when you start getting hosted." And this should be prominent, and not hidden in a link to a post, which is linked from the rules. I've already had my say on how confusing the rules are here, and I think something really needs to be done about it.

Here in New Zealand, our Internet access is stifled, nay, strangled by the ex-State Owned monopoly company Telecom, which with deregulation in the early 1980's was split off from the New Zealand Post Office (a government department), and became one of the first fully privatized telcos in the world by 1990. And yet, this monolithic corporation that sends most of its profits off-shore these days, still for the longest time (until 2006 officially) maintained control over the telephone infrastructure of New Zealand, including that all important "local loop", the cable from the streetside distribution boxes to each individual home. What this has meant for most users is that the concept of "Broadband Internet" has been a farce, a joke at best, an embarrassment on a global scale at worst. We have had terrible record, and in 2006 we rated as one of the worst countries in the OECD for Internet access! There is more information about the state of the Internet in New Zealand available on this wikipedia page if you are interested. So, why do I tell you all this? It is background information about the events unfolding in the lives of Statesmen of Travian and Radio Chick this week. Wifey has her eye on some nice cheap voice call rates, and hubby has his eye on a faster Internet connection, and both dreams are about to be fulfilled as we finally give the monopolistic national carrier the flick. But before the change happens, it's about time that we had a bit of a tidy-up. The home telephone arrangement and our network cabling spaghetti is in serious need of sorting out. Up until now the telephone has been plugged in to a 25 meter extension that can reach practically any part of our home, snaking its way dangerously across the floor. Our in-home computer network is not much better. While we do have an 802.11g WiFi router in the home, the Ethernet connection between the router and the ADSL modem is another cable wandering lazily across the floor, waiting to trip somebody up. So I have been busy moving things around and stapling down the cables, making everything neat and tidy in preparation for the change to the new ISP/telco. As part of the change we will be losing some of the services that we have had from Telecom, such as the "Call Minder" service, which is a voicemail system based at the exchange. Our new telco, Vodafone, does provide such features, but they are not as competitively priced, so we will be going back to a "stand alone" digital answerphone for such facilities. A thermal fax machine that has been collecting dust for years is going to be brushed off and set up as well. We get to keep our existing home telephone number as part of the change, so that is nice. I'm going to need to set up the new ADSL modem that Vodafone have sent me, and configure it into my network. I use Network Address Translation on the internal network, amongst other security features, and all that will need to be configured properly so that I can access the outside world again through the new ADSL modem, and out through the new ISP back to Xisto and the rest of the Internet. Our Internet connection may be out for a day or two, but I plan to have everything back up and running again over this coming weekend. It will be interesting to see how our Internet connection speeds compare between now and after the change. Here is a Speedtest result from right now.... ....yeah, I'll go back again after the change and post another one so that the speed difference can be seen. We are currently using Woosh Wireless as our ISP, but rather than using the Wireless connection that they offer (which we aren't in the coverage area for) we are using a repackaged ADSL connection from Woosh which originates from Telecom, as all New Zealand ADSL offerings used to. I write this as I sit and recover from moving things around the home, to get into the corners and staple the cables down. Now I should start moving everything back again. Once I've read and replied to a few more posts....... .... procrastination ....

So, let me see if I have this straight. You want to copy a file from one pathname, and then find out if it exists in any form in a second pathname, and then paste it to the second path, with an increment on the resulting filename, am I right? An illustration of the concept would be for a backup of your mySQL database, for instance. Lets say you have a CRON job that will create an automated backup of your mySQL database, that puts the resulting database in the same place all the time, overwriting the previous backup with the same name, to save on storage space. But you want to keep multiple versions of the backups on your local computer, so you want a script that will copy the source file from the original backup on the server at, say, http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ and then put it on your local computer, say, at c:\my documents\backups\*.zip but name it incrementally one higher than the previous existing backup. Does that sound like the type of thing that you are after? Let me see if I can put it into a logical flow for you. The code below is not written in any particular programming language and will not compile in its current form, this is just for the sake of clarification of the logic flow.... '**** Declare Variables ****DIM sourcepath$ AS String 'The path to the source file, includes backslashDIM sourcefile$ AS String 'The name of the source file without a loop numberDIM destpath$ AS String 'The path to the destination file, includes backslashDIM max AS Integer 'The maximum number of copies to keepDIM a AS Integer 'A loop counter'**** Main Loop ****FOR a = max-1 TO 1 'Create a decreasing loop counter IF EXIST destpath$ & sourcefile$ & a THEN 'If the filename with current counter's value exists..... COPY (sourcepath$ & sourcefile$, destpath$ & sourcefile$ & a+1) 'Copy the file adding the loop counter + 1 END NEXT 'Break out of the FOR-NEXT loop now END IFNEXT a 'Otherwise, decrement the loop counter by one and try again.Sure, there will need to be much more to it in a final script, such as checking if the maximum has already been reached, and what to do from there, and also error handling for Input/Output errors, etc, but I think that is basically what you are trying to achieve, is it?. Not forgetting that I have omitted any reference to the file extension (*.zip, *.txt, etc). I guess you would want to pass the variables listed above (except for the loop counter) when you call the script, so that it can be used for a variety of purposes, rather than just for one specific project that you have in mind. I'm not a real programmer, but I can understand logic reasonably well. I'm sure that others here can improve on the start that I have made, and maybe put it into a real programming language for you. Hope it helps somehow.

Ah, so is that the definition of a black hole then? A self-negating contradiction? Or shall we just assume that you meant to write: "black holes are made by collapsing stars"? I personally think that the quote above is quite novel, even though it is clearly a mistake. And now that I have it quoted, even if you decide to edit your post, I still have captured it for posterity! Thanks for keeping us informed, educated, ... and entertained shadowx!

Hi there godfather89, welcome to Xisto. Wow, I had no idea that programmers had evolved to drugs these days. I always thought that coders were renown for drinking cola and eating pizza! It shows that I am a little out of touch with the programming fraternity these days. I came here as a gamer, looking for a host for my gaming clan. I'm still working on setting up the website, but there's no pressure on me to complete it as I haven't set up the clan itself yet either, this is all something new that I'm starting. Unfortunately for me, that means that I have the opportunity to stagnate a little. Some people will say that the problem with Xisto is that you have to remember to come back and post here on the forums every now and then, otherwise your hosted site might get deleted. For me, the problem is remembering that I have a hosted site to set up! I get myself into these forums and I forget what I came here for! If you enjoy posting on the forums, as it seems from your comment above that you do, then I am sure that you will do well here.

innosia, from reading your post it would seem to me as though you may be confusing Western culture with Christianity. There is a big difference. I am sure that there are plenty of Christians in places like Korea and China and India who would disagree with your statements that "Christian must be rich", and "christian must be American", and even "Christian is capitalist". Sure, from my post above, you could be forgiven for thinking that I presuppose that all Indians are Hindus. I definitely do not believe that, just as I know that there are many Christians in China. Religion is a personal thing, and you can not really tightly link a particular religion to a particular geography. Here in New Zealand, a very Western country and part of the British Commonwealth, we have a wide variety of religions represented here, even though the predominate and historic religion is Christianity. Religion and culture are not the same thing. I could still be a Christian but be living in your country. I could raise children in your country and they would be considered to be "locals", but I could teach them my Christian faith, and they would (hopefully) choose to be Christian also. But they would be "locals" to your country. How then could you say that "many of local people hates America", or "the local hate jewish" as my children would be "locals" but would not hate Americans or Jews. Religion doesn't have to do with culture or geography, you see. My own neighbors, living here in New Zealand right next door to me, are Muslim. They practice their religion quite openly, and yet they live in a Western country, here amongst the hated capitalists. Does that make them any less Muslim?

Dear Raquib, this is a very sad story. I was born disabled, so I don't know how it feels to suddenly become disabled overnight, but all I can say is I have found that even when your friends and family desert you, Jesus will never forsake you. He loves you, and he doesn't want you to die until you've had a chance to get to know Him personally, and He calls you to be with Him.As I said, I was born with a disability, (Spina Bifida), and had the extremely fortunate chance to be born in New Zealand, a beautiful, forward-thinking country which provides relatively well for it's disabled citizens. This does not mean that I have not suffered. Other people's attitudes have often made life difficult for me, as they have for every other disabled person at one time or another.I really enjoy going out with my darling husband. However, one thing I have noticed is that when I am out with him, a lot of people speak to him, not to me. He is very good, and always says, "Ask her, not me!", but all the same, I wish he didn't have to say this all the time. Another thing I really detest is when I am out walking, kids of a relatively big age seem to find it amusing to imitate the way I move my head when I walk (and the way I walk). They also stare a lot. I've never really learned how to deal with this, I've tried staring back (which I don't always have time to do, as I'm usually busy shopping or something), and even the odd comment ("Hey, mate, would you stop staring at me, please?"). Both reactions usually have mixed results, and usually leave me feeling like I've been rude, or at least failed to teach the person anything. Having said this, it's very hard to think of an appropriate response. Sometimes I find the problem easy to ignore, but at other times, I'm sorry, I just don't feel like being stared at, and this is when having a disability is very hard.There really is not an easy answer. All I can say is, remember you're a person of worth just like everybody else. Nobody can ever take that away from you, because your self-worth is on the inside. For that reason, "Invalid" is not a good word. It means not important, not worthy of being counted. And disabled people are definitely not that.Cheers,Radiochick.

While the discussions above are very interesting, none of it seems to address the question posed in the description of this thread, namely "Hey why do we not have a forum?" Even the original poster, paVer, does not seem to address the question, but tries to defend Christianity. It seems to me that the whole "Spirituality and Consciousness" forum on the Xisto forums is representative of a single religion. The introduction to the forum is an excerpt from Ravi Shankar,1 the founder and key proponent of a form of meditation called Sudarshan Kriya. All of the subforums under the "Spirituality and Consciousness" forums seem to have some influence of such teachings. Now, I know that Xisto and OpaQue are based in India, and therefore that explains the source for such an influence on the forums here. However, the question has been raised by paVer, (and I think it is quite relevant), about why other religions and other world-views are not equally represented? I feel that there is a whole area of the Xisto forums that is "off limits" to me, and a whole area of topics of discussion are taboo because I am not an Indian and I do not share the views of Ravi Shankar, Sri Chinmoy, etc. Coming from a predominately Christian, English-speaking, Western country, I am interested in discussing issues relating to Christianity. I am sure that there will be people from other religions also keen to discuss their own religion also. We are not all Indian on here, nor Hindu, nor do we all read the Bhagavad Gita. Perhaps there could be a shake-up of the "Spirituality and Consciousness" forums to make them more representative of other religions, and not just pandering to one world-view. Having the layout of the current "Spirituality and Consciousness" forums coming under a topic description drawn from one single religion, seems a little bit biased. The description for the "Pray Spiritually" forum is just as biased.... Now, what exactly is that meant to mean? It brings to mind an old saying that I heard once: "If you don't stand for something, then you will fall for anything!" This pantheistic view, that all paths lead to God, seems to be very reminiscent of Bah?'? teachings. While Christians are often characterized and chastised for being overtly active in proselytizing, we do need to remember that, as KainRacure says above, Christians are not the only ones who try to push their beliefs onto others. Trying to force a Christian to accept that Jesus Christ is equal to Allah, Krishna, etc, is just as repulsive to Christians as it would be for a Christian to try to force their beliefs on someone else. Perhaps a review of the "Spirituality and Consciousness" forums should involve a simple list of the major religions in alphabetical order, so that nobody can claim precedence. As for the proselytizing ways of some Christians, we are told by Jesus to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."2 This explains WHY Christians try to convert others to Christianity. But it doesn't explain HOW some choose to do it! As GrinningKittie and others say above, being pushy is not the answer, as it is more likely to put people off. One final question is, (just a little tongue-in-cheek here, not really serious) how many Credits get deducted from OpaQue for quoting Sri Sri Ravishankar in the description of the "Spirituality and Consciousness" forum without properly attributing it? [hr=noshade]References: 1What is Spirituality? 2Matthew 28:19-20 (New International Version) [/hr]

Thanks for the explanation. It does seem to be very robust. I wouldn't mind adding a similar system to a forum of my own one day. Am I right in assuming that this is a custom extension to Invision Power Board, probably coded by OpaQue? I think I may have seen mention of it elsewhere on the forums, but cannot find it now, so please forgive me if I am asking a repetitive question. Is there such a system available for phpBB3, does anyone know?

I am wondering about the Credit System calculations on the Xisto forums. If I were to make a post and submit it, then the calculation system does its magic and attributes a certain number of Credits for that post, right? So, what happens if I later revisit the post and edit it? For argument's sake, if I get am a bit sloppy in my speeling and don't rite proper Inglish, then your algorithm will give me less Credits than if I had been more accurate with my spelling and grammar. However, if after I have pressed the "Post New Topic" or "Add Reply" button I notice the mistakes and go back and correct them, will your algorithm run again on the edited version, ascribing more Credits to reflect the improvements to the post?

In a former life I used to sell computer software, and I totally agree that software manufacturers are a greedy bunch. But one way that they are trying to be less so is by providing their software for trial periods. For instance, Adobe provide 30-day trials of all of their Creative Studio 3 packages that you can download and run the full versions of for 30 days. If after that time you decide that the package you have been using is going to meet your needs, then you can buy a license for it. This 30-day trial model comes in other varieties also, commonly known as "crippleware". Instead of having the full program to play with for 30 days, you might get a limited version of the program, but be able to use it forever. They might disable certain functionality, such as saving or exporting files from the program. Another technique used is called "nagware", where you get the full program, but until you register it you keep on getting popup messages every five minutes reminding you to register, or that output files feature a watermark stating that this file was created using an unregistered version of the software. There are often other sales models employed by the manufacturer too, including different editions of the software, for instance, for upgrading from a previous (licensed) version, or for sale specifically to Academic institutions and students, or for sale bundled with new computer hardware (OEM bundled software). Many of these options are significantly cheaper than buying the software "off-the-shelf". I know that Microsoft does this also. Sure, some people will even take advantage of this type of offer, creating patches that turn the 30-day trial into an unrestricted full product, or removing crippleware or nagware code from the executable. But if you're going to do this, then consider the consequences first. Not only could you be done for software piracy, as mentioned above, but also this has the effect of further increasing retail prices due to decreased revenue for the manufacturer. At least, that is what they say about music production and the MP3 piracy issue. In the long run it is cheaper to stay within the law.

Removing Norton Internet Security is not easy. A long time ago I used to sell and recommend McAfee as the best antivirus package around. Then Norton became the standard, and McAfee fell away, not being as popular. Norton became flavor of the year for several years, and I started selling and recommending it over McAfee. But I stopped recommending it in 2003, and every version of Norton has been pretty lame ever since then, IMHO. The worst of all is the Norton Internet Security suites, and even Symantec themselves seem to acknowledge this. They have released a separate file, called "Remove Norton Internet Security" or RNIS for short. This needs to be downloaded and run in order to successfully uninstall Norton Internet Security. There are many versions of RNIS available on the Internet, depending on the edition of Norton Internet Security that you have installed on your computer. But a good place to start is with this tool from the Symantec website. For myself, I have used the same antivirus program for many years now, and it doesn't need regular signature updates. It uses generic technology to identify viruses and other nasties by recognizing software behavior patterns, rather than by comparing to a virus-specific information database. It is similar to the Heuristic scanner of other antivirus packages, that can identify an infection even before a specific signature file update is released for it. What's more, it isn't bloatware like the other popular antivirus packages are. I don't normally advertise what antivirus package I use on my own computers, but if you're interested in this, -Sky- then send me a PM and I'll give you a link.

I don't really think it is any more dangerous than what J. Robert Oppenheimer1 did with the Trinity test2 back in 1945. Back then there was talk about it being the end of the world too! People thought that Oppenheimer would start a fission reaction that would just go on forever, igniting the atmosphere and destroying the Earth3. I have to agree with shadowx on this. Conspiracy theories will abound wherever there is a lack of knowledge. But the Large Hadron Collider experiments4 are all about pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge, just like the experiment known as the Manhattan project5 was. They pushed the boundaries of science then too. But Enrico Fermi6 was quick to realize that a supercritical fission reaction (an uncontrolled explosion) would be more use in the world that he lived in at that time, rather than a critical fission reaction (controlled chain reaction). So too, I fear, that the scientists of the LHC Experiments may also take the results of their work and turn it into a bigger, badder bomb than the ones released on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The problem, to my mind, is that science for purely scientific advancement of knowledge is not possible because it is not self-funding. The scientific community have to get their funds from somewhere in order to make all this whiz-bang technology available to the scientists so that they can run their experiments. Funding of that nature normally comes from the Government, and the Government therefore feels that they have the right to benefit first from any advancements made by the scientists, as the Government becomes a key investor and stakeholder in the experiment at hand. Therefore, if there is any opportunity for the Government to gain pecuniary advantage from the results of said experiment, then they will pounce on it. This, I believe, is why we saw the first commercial nuclear power plant built in 19567, some 11 years after the same technology was used to obliterate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I'd hate to see what the Government will make out of the findings of the LHC Experiments! And, yeah, I'm not saying whose Government or where. There are enough conspiracy theories around already! [hr=noshade]References 1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer 2https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test 3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity_test%23Test_predictions 4http://home.cern/topics/large-hadron-collider 5https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_project 6http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ 6https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power [/hr]

Greetings Manly man, welcome to Xisto. Others have mentioned the rules already, and you probably know them better than me anyway, being that you've been here before and all. But your thread title was a bit of a worry, and I almost didn't visit your thread because of it! Multiple diseases aye? Well, I know that I can't get infected through the Internet from any sort of human disease that you may be carrying, so that can leave only one thing.... computer VIRUSES. Are your threads all infected with computer viruses? Is that the diseases you speak of? Admitting to that might hamper any chance that you may have had of having people reply to your threads and helping you to earn Credits.

Being from just over the pond, we get Rove every week here also, but we are normally a week behind you lot, so "Rove Live" is more like "Rove a Little Out of Date". I remember when that fiasco with the APEC meeting, and the Chaser getting past security as Osama Bin Laden, we were waiting with baited breath to see what Rove would say about it, but had to wait for a week before it was even mentioned. Although, to be fair, I guess that Chaser's War on Everything is probably on a competing network, so they probably didn't want to advertise it too much. But the same applied to the Olympic coverage, all Rove's comments about the Olympic issues were a week out of synch here.Anyway my wife and I used to love watching Rove, and my favorite part was "What The...?" as well. But since his wife passed away, we have found him to not be as funny as he used to be before. It is much more strained, like he's now "trying" to be funny, whereas previously he didn't have to try, and it's a shame. I like Pete's part in the show too, but I can't stand Hughsey. I think the talking lips section was quite funny, where they get a still picture of a famous person and put Rove's lips in place where the mouth is, and make the still image talk, that's a hoot, the things he makes them say sometimes!Yeah but, nah, it's not quite the same as it used to be. Rest in peace Belinda Emmett.

That sounds very much like the login system that I am using with Lanius CMS. Have you considered using a Content Management System, rather than starting to build your site from scratch? The CMS that I use, (and I'm sure that other CMS packages have similar functionality) allows for page permissions to be set for groups of users. By default there are the following groups in Lanius CMS... Public Registered Editor Publisher Manager Administrator Nobody I can assign permissions, for instance, for registered users to be able to view certain areas of the site, or for Publishers to add content to the site, etc. The back-end uses a mySQL database, and it is all created in PHP. And what's more, I didn't need to write a single line of code to make it happen (which is a good thing, as I'm a hopeless programmer!) A good Content Management System should be as invisible as possible, so your users should not even know that you are using a Content Management System. I have a long way to go yet in customizing my site, and I might even decide against using Lanius as my CMS of choice. But either way, a CMS, any CMS, is easier than trying to write the code yourself. As they say, why reinvent the wheel?