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midnightvamp

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Posts posted by midnightvamp


  1. It really depends on the job... To be good at it, you'd have to be pretty dedicated, because you'd be the one that would have to tell yourself to get to work and keep at it, unless you happened to find some part time work with a company. Plus, from my experiances it's rare to get hourly pay as a web designer that works for themselves, because most often you'll be creating up a contract for the finished site... for instance, you offer to do a site for $500 or whatever the price, and then you are expected to do that, regardless if the work takes more or less hours to finish than you expected when you came up with the original contract.Also, programs like Dreamweaver can make websites that look rather well, but most professionals would need to know the coding that goes into the background of it as well... because it tends to write some pretty nasty code. I do use dreamweaver myself for my projects, but I always have to go in there and hand code (or re-code) most of it myself, because if I didn't, the pages wouldn't be using valid code that would be cross-browser compliant, plus, there's many other languages that I use along side of what Dreamweaver does for you, for the added functionality of the websites I create.By the way, I've gone to college and taken a web development course full time for a couple years, and though it did give me a nice basis to start with, there was no way that they could even teach you a fraction of what there is to know about web design and programming in that short time. Since leaving, I've had to spend countless hours teaching myself (and re-teaching in things where the teachers failed miserably!) and I'm still just scratching the surface. My teachers were very right about one thing though - there is no one in the business that knows everything. There are just people that know everything about a few things, or people that know a little bit of a lot of things.I'm just a beginner myself, so, I know that I'm not all the greatest at what I do, but as I continue to work and learn more all the time, things will only improve from where I am now. I've certainly gotten a lot farther than where I was when I started this (and a lot of that came from the years I spent in college, because it's helped me to find the things I enjoy and the things that I'm good at). Plus, I learned a lot of things that I'd never even heard of before college while I was there - even though I'd been 'dabbling' with web design before then.Anyway... since I do my jobs on a contract basis, before I start, I try to make a plan of the things that I'll need to do, and determine around how long it will take me to finish them (leaving room for testing and error correcting - cause that can often take more time than the initial work itself). And once I count it all up, I aim for $20 - $25 per hour to get my total. Like if I suspect a site is going to take me 20 hours to complete, I offer to do the job for $400 - $500 dollars. As I get more experianced and more busy with work, I can raise my prices. (Seeing as I was working for $15/hour (again, estimated through contracts) while I was still a student in college.)Though, my teachers (mind you, some of them I'm sure were liars, because it begs the question 'Why be a teacher, then?') but I had some tell us that they won't even take on work that works out to less than $100 per hour. If I had the chance at a teachers wage, or $100 per hour, I don't think I'd be teaching anymore... I also had another say that it's not rare for him to earn $20,000 in two weeks of serious working. Again, why are they teaching then? They didn't seem to like the job very much lolAnyway, I hope that this gives you some sort of insight... and I would love to see what your sites look like.


  2. I tend to view this global warming issue from both sides of the fence. I know that there is global warming to some degree, but I also know that it's not just the fault of the humans that live in the world.All through out the history of the earth, the climate has changed. Think about the ice age. When the glaciers went and took over for a while. If that were to happen now, would we all freak out and say 'Global freezing! Global Freezing! We must all turn our heaters up to tropical levels and leave the windows wide open! Do your part to end global freezing!"Okay, that would just be silly. Especially since it's not something that would likely happen over night, but over a long period of time. Just like global warming. There's those words again - global warming.So, it's getting warmer now... which scientists have proven has happened before, because the earth works on a cycle. It's gets warmer, it gets colder... it changes all the time. It never stays the same. Thing is... this time, we are helping it along a little to make the cycle happen faster.I don't believe it when they say that we are the sole cause of global warming, but I do think we are a little at fault. We as people, are speeding things up. Is that bad, is that good? I have no idea. If we cut out anything that could make the world warmer, would we halt the gradual warming of our planet? I doubt it. I just think we would go through the warm cycle a little slower than we are.That said... I don't think that we should just stop trying to be 'greener'. Everything that we do to that effect, helps the environment out, which is a good thing. It makes for less smog, and less garbage, and doesn't eat away at all of our fossil fuels so fast. I see that as a plus. Green is good.(This post should in no way be used as a fact... I am not a scientist... but these are just my opinions on the matter. I have no means to back up my opinions other than things that I've read, seen or dreamed up myself.)


  3. Yea, I'm also tending to agree with the people who are saying that Microsoft did that to weaken their competition. It's a terrible thing to do, but when you think about it, it was Google's mail that came out with the best email program lately with the most space and all... and after that, Microsoft tried to copy it, and it still wasn't as good as Gmail is and turned out terribly slow... so what do they do? Find something to knock Gmail down a few pegs. Lets add some code to our Anti-virus program that will find a false positive in something that is present within the Gmail site. I really wouldn't put it past them to do this.Then again, it could be a couple other options as well. Perhaps the people that created and tested the anti-virus program didn't test it enough, and didn't realize that it would go off for the millions of people that use Gmail. And now maybe they are out there trying to fix it now... who knows? Or it could be that they didn't have any idea that it would happen, but the person that didn't test the code enough just got a big promotion for being so sneaky and letting something like that slide out.I don't really know the cercumstances behind it all (cause I don't work there), so it's all just speculation from my point. But the only thing that would really prove to me that they didn't mean to do it would be to fix the problem right away - and if they are feeling really sorry (yea right) to even send out an appology to Google. I'd like to see that day arrive lol


  4. Sorry to hear that you go passed over unfairly. Unfortunately with the world, there will be a lot of times when things like that will happen to you. And I'm, sure this isn't the first time it's happened to you either, so you probably already know that. I've certainly learned it myself time and time again, and I think that it must happen to everyone at some time or another. It doesn't make it right or fair, but hopefully one of the times it might happen to your benefit. On first read, I was wondering why you'd joined the club if you weren't interested in agriculture and that sort of thing, but now I realize that you meant that you don't like the club itself now since it's so unfair and that you really did think it was going to be fun so that's why you joined it. I can see where cangor would have confused that, cause I'm guilty as charged on my first read through as well.All I can say is hopefully, now that he's the president, he might actually show up on time and take his duties seriously... if not, I'm sure the other club members will notice that and even if they don't say anything to you, they'll probably realize that you are the real one that is holding the club together and making it run smoothly. It sucks not to get formal credit for what you do, but I do believe that there is someone out there that notices all the time and effort that you put into something. They may never say anything (which is a shame, because people should tell people more often these things), but I still do believe that they are out there noticing and respecting you for what you've done for them and the club.I don't know, call me naive, but I do believe that you are getting some credit for what you do (even if you never hear it). I really think that there is definitely someone (or a bunch of 'someone's) that notice who really should have gotten the position of the Presidency, and still see you in that role, regardless of the word 'Vice' that you've been labeled with.As for your birthday, I wish for you to receive all the great speaking abilities and ultra-suave powers that you can handle :) Get wishing on those candles girl! (And shooting stars too, if that might help you out as well).


  5. That's a bit ridiculous... It's open source, so it really wouldn't surprise me if Microsoft grabbed the code and used some of it on their own products and then 'patented' it, calling it their own. It's already basically a monopoly out there with that company, and what does the world's richest (or still very close to it!) man really need by trying to get even more money hungry by getting rid of the open source world. Yes, it seems that once again, the rich get richer and the people out there just trying to do something real without trying to dip into everyone's pockets will get in trouble for it.I hope that the case gets thrown out before it even goes through any court proceedings. Yes, I run Microsoft on my own machines... but I've run Linux too and I support the idea of open source. At least it offers the option for people to pick something other than Microsoft. Yes, lets take away the freedom of choice. Great idea. Thanks Microsoft.


  6. Hmmm.... when I read the $600 per month I was already pretty skeptical, cause things that seem too good to be true usually are. Do you have any proof of the payments to you? and just what did you have to do to get that kind of money? Post a referral link over a bunch of forums? Seeing as you only have a couple posts on this forum, it sort of seems that you only joined here so that you could try and get some more referrals. I apologize if I'm mistaken about that. But, if that's the only reason that you did come here though, you could have just stumbled on a really good thing for you. Because from posting here, you can get incredible hosting for a website that you can create, which would be a great way to help you make some money online I would think. And so long as you post, it's free for you! Plus, there's some great things you can learn on this forum as well. Like more ways to make money online.Anyway, best of luck with your money making, and if you are making that much, you must be doing something right, so good for you :) It's always nice to hear that people are making some real money online.


  7. That was really interesting to read :unsure: Thanks! There was a bunch of new information in there for me too, which is always nice :D Forensic Engineering is a new one for me. I've heard of the concepts (cause they would make sense to look in when investigating), but I'd never heard of it being in its own 'branch' of Forensics or whatever. But it makes sense, so I'll have to see if I can find more about that somewhere.I've always been interested in Forensics, and actually wanted to go to school for it but I didn't have the right courses, so I ended up taking something different, but I still read up a lot on the topic and have some good books around the house that keep me entertained on the subject.I'm actually reading the Encyclopedia of Forensic Science. I haven't read it in a little while, but now that I've read your paper, it makes me want to pick it up and read it again lol... Let me see where I left off at... 'Cause of Death'. That's a bit sad, I've only made it to the C's lol. Ah well, I'll get through it too and then I'll have to find another book.I enjoy telling my sister about the 'good' stuff in it, cause I think it's so cool, but it makes my sister all squeemish. So it's a bit funny to see her interested enough to want to hear more, but disgusted enough to want me to stop :(Anyway, thanks for all the good information that you wrote down (whether it was just for credits or not lol), cause it's nice to see topics like this that really interest me. Now I'll be going to read my book on the back deck lol...


  8. Well, I'm not really waiting for any movies to come out, because the one that I want to see, "Next", (the one with Nicolas Cage) is already out. I went to the theatres yesterday night to see it, cause they said that it was playing at 10pm, so we get there, order the tickets for the 10pm show, and they give us the wrong tickets and tell us that it's not playing at the theatre at that time. They gave us the 7:30 showing tickets of it, and since it was about 9:45, those tickets were no good.So, we had to go back to the teller, and we had to choose a new movie to watch... but the only thing that was playing was Disturbia unless we wanted to wait for more than two hours to watch Superman 3, which we really didn't want to do, because it was too late and a LOOOOONG wait. So, we got the Disturbia tickets and they gave us free popcorn for our troubles, but the popcorn was stale and all I wanted was a drink after having the first couple of handfulls lol.Oh well... so, yea, I'm still waiting to see Next. Maybe we'll get out and see it sometime soon before it leaves the theatres (I don't know how long it's been playing for already, or how much longer it will be there). If I don't make my way out to the movies before it's gone, I guess I'll have to wait until it's in the movie stores, if I end up seeing it.Yea, I rambled again, but it was a weird night lol...


  9. I've watched so many anime series' now that it's not even funny lol... I was trying to make a list and it was getting pretty long. I actually started watching it only about a year and a half ago, when I downloaded a music video that someone created to a song that I liked (and the images they used in the background of the movie was from an anime show), and that sort of peaked my interest and made me go.. 'hmmm, I think I want to look more into that'.So, I downloaded the anime series, and I thought it was pretty cool, and I really liked the way that it sounded, since I watched it with subtitles and the original Japanese voices. And I decided that I would try and learn to speak Japanese... and I've learned quite a bit already. I took years and years and years of french class in school, but after only like a year and a half of trying to learn Japanese, I've already passed the amount that I know in French. It's crazy, but I love it.I've also ended up buying several anime series on DVD now and the manga to go along with it. But most of what I watch is still online, but the ones that I really like and want to watch again, I try and find them online to buy... because I've looked around in the stores around here and haven't found any of the anime series' that I've been looking for. They have some of them in the stores, but I guess I just don't like the 'common' shows or whatever lol...Luckily though, I have been able to find a bunch of the manga in the book stores near my house. It takes a while to find the next book usually, cause the selection isn't all that great, but over the time I've managed to get about 30 books or so. My addition to anime and manga is starting to get expensive lol. And the sad thing is that I want to go and buy more right now. I've got a bunch of things that I'm keeping my eye out for that I haven't found yet lol...I even got my sister hooked on a couple of the anime series' that I watch. She's into the really girly ones... I like those typically the best too, but I watch things from all sorts of genres, cause I'm interested in most kinds (except the mecha ones... those just haven't seemed to do it for me for some reason lol).The latest thing that has seemed to "spring" from my anime addiction is my love for Japanese dramas. I've been watching a bunch of those too, and it's been pretty interesting when I find ones that were based on an anime series and to see how they differ and stay the same. I've watched so many of those as well by now... I really do want to make out a list one day, because it's getting hard to keep track of which ones I've seen to the end and which ones I'm still watching, because I don't usually start one and watch it until the end, I start new ones all the time and watch an episode of them all here and there, so I guess it's more like the way that you'd see them on the tv.Mind you, some of the really good ones that I just couldn't stop myself from watching, I've watched all in a row and finishing them off in a day or two (or longer, if they are of the really long shows with lots of episodes).Funny thing, right before I came to reply here, I'd been sitting at my computer and watching anime all morning, so it sort of excited me to see a topic about it lol... I guess that's why I rambled on for so long about it. I should stop now ;) I hope I didn't kill anyone with boredom that decided to actually read through my crazy rambles about my anime obsession lol.


  10. "You can't, like, own space, man." Hee hee... I like how you put that ;)

     

    To me it seems kind of funny to think that someone can "own" the rights to space and what is allowed to go there. Honestly, if that were true, I'd be more apt to believe that it would be owned by some extraterrestrial life force that exists somewhere else in the universe that is far more advanced than we are.

     

    I can see it now... the headline in their latest newspaper (actually probably not a headline, but rather a small story buried way in the middle of the humour section) would read, "Idiot Earthlings Think They Own Outer Space". Then one of the people reading it would giggle a bit, and use their special mind waves to send a "beam of terror" upon the earth, showing us our place in the universe.

     

    Really, what are some people thinking? But I guess you can't fault a guy for trying lol... Or can you? ;)


  11. I use Avast for my anit-virus software. I didn't want to keep paying for Norton either, so I decided to look for a new option when it came to keeping my computer virus free.I haven't really had too much experiance in the area, so I'm not sure if it's a good one or not, but it seems to be working fine for me and it's caught a couple of viruses on my machine since I've been using it. Plus I notice every so often a window pops up that says the virus definitions have been updated or something to that effect, so I know that it's staying up to date (at least more so than it started) which is nice to know too.I really want to find a way to shut of the sound effects though, but I haven't been bothered by it, cause it's only gone off a couple times, but both times I was sitting there with my sound on, and nothing playing through the speakers and all of the sudden a loud siren comes on and says there is a virus... it scares me when I'm not expecting it, so I really should go and find out if I can turn that off before I get another virus (which hopefully I won't anyway).


  12. I've never thought or heard of doing something like that. But it might work, though as csp4.0 mentioned, you're going to want to try that on a site that isn't your actual site, since it would be a shame to either lose the page rank you have now, or have google stop listing your site because you are trying to "fudge" the page ranking system.I know there are a lot of tricks out there that will work, and I'm sure if you search around you might be able to find some of them online, but I'm not too familiar with the whole area myself so I can't really be of much help. I know that my former employer showed me a bunch of tricks that he said he did with Google rankings and such, but that was a while back, and I don't really recall (or understand) much of what he was saying.Best of luck with it ;) Hopefully you can figure something out. Let us know how it goes for you ;)


  13. I'm not really much of a gamer, so it's pretty sad, but I think the toughest (or probably one of the only lol...) boss characters that I've fought was on the original Nintendo and with the game Super Mario Bros 3 and the guy at the end of the first page of stuff to get through. I could never get far enough in the second page to reach the next boss lol.I told you it would be pretty sad ;)


  14. I really get anxious when I have to go into a public place myself... I much more prefer to stay in my own home, or around people that I know. When it's a nice day, I try to get outside and walk around the block a bit, or go into the park for a while. It seems to help me if I give myself a purpose to be somewhere. Like I tell myself that I'm going to the mall to pick up a book or something that I really want, and I try to do that once a week by myself. I used to never go out unless someone in my family was going with me, but I force myself to get out there by myself now, so I can work to becoming my independant too.Maybe this time when I get my book, I'll take some time to read it in the park on the way home instead of on my back porch. Maybe I'll even switch from reading in the back to reading in front of my house, so that I'm a bit more around people. Thanks for the tips and the link, cause that sounds an awful lot like me lol. I'll keep looking back here myself, cause I could use the extra ideas as well.


  15. That was a really really bad site lol... Killed the eyes, the ears lol... if websites could smell, it probably would have killed that sense too :lol:Plus, right after I closed out of the window... it gave me a browser error and it forced shut my other pages I had open. So I'm obviously going to blame that one on the bad website too lol... it's all it's fault :lol:Usually for bad sites, I can critique it, to find out what I would have done differently, and possibly find something that I like about it too, but I was too focussed on having to close that window to keep my sanity in check that actually taking the time to critique it.Mind you, the little link at the side that flashed a "best sites" or something to that effect link was rather amusing, considering the site it was on lol.


  16. Yea, I think that it is a part of their beliefs that make them to do it. They are taught things since they are children that giving their life for the cause is good and they will have a better life after they die and things. I don't really think it's a profession, because it would be the worst one to get into. The only act you do in your job would be die, and then after that, you are dead, so you get no pay for it... I don't know.I think that some people are probably forced to do it, while others really believe it's the right thing to do, and then there are other people that coerce (I think that's not spelled right lol) people into doing it for their own reasons. My dad was trying to explain it to me too... but it's hard to understand why some people can think so totally different that me that something like killing yourself so that you can be praised by god is right... I don't think their are many reasons I would want to die unless it meant to save someone precious to me. And even then, I don't think I could kill someone, unless it was an extreme choice of if I didn't they would kill me or my family.


  17. Hello and welcome to Trap 17! Introductions can be hard for me too, since I never know what to say either, but you did a good job at it lolI'm sure you'll be able to pass along lots of stuff for people to learn and also be able to learn lots of stuff from people here as well. I know that's been the way it has been for me. And if you have questions while you are learning to make your webpages, then it's good to post on this forum, because they've always helped me out with my problems so well in the past. It's really a great and smart group of people here.Anyway, glad you joined, have lots of fun here... and we'll probably see each other around :lol:


  18. By the way... you didn't "list" any of those sites. Google Adsense did after spidering your little paragraph that you filled with all those 'money making' key words. No where on that site did 'you' say how to make money, and I've found that most claims that people make in the Adsense ads aren't really honest. If you really were able to make that much, then maybe you could hire yourself a website designer to make the page a bit more appealing looking. Cause right now, it's really not making me feel like there was even much effort put into it to try and "sell" your little "ideas".I know it's against the Adsense rules to tell us how much you are earning from your site, but I'm curious if people are actually clicking on any of those links... because I'd think everyone would see what through what you attempted to do, snicker a bit and press the back button. No offence... but that's the way I see it.Perhaps you could join all the sites that are listed in those Adsense ads, then post up proof of payment from them all, and then show that on your site. That would definately make me want to click on those links a lot more. But then if you had of joined those sites, you'd probably be posting up your own referral links, seeing as you are probably not the one that started those Adsense campains, and the ones that are would be the ones finding leads, and earning the real "money" off those sites.


  19. I really like the Showcase channels. Like Showcase, Showcase Action, Showcase Diva.... I don't know if they really play all that much of the new shows, but I like to watch lots of the re-runs that they show and the movies are usually good as well. They might play some newer shows - I know I see commercials for shows are are "Showcase Originals" so those must be new (or were at one time)... but I don't usually get the television during prime time, so I just end up seeing the movies and the re-runs mostly. But that's usually where I find myself. On one of the Showcase channels.


  20. Milk... And almost exclusively milk. I rarely drink anything but that. I used to drink a lot of pop and stuff growing up, but for some reason, it just doesn't have the same appeal to me now that it once did. I do drink some tea or juice every now and again, but my favourite is most definately good old plain white milk.


  21. Wow... that's really impressive. I was wondering how they were going to pack things in smaller and give bigger sizes, since every year it seems that the standards just grow and grow and grow some more.I also wonder too how much something like this would cost once it's launched. And how long it will take for it to be something that the public enjoys and gets to use as a regular device... like how we buy our standard 250 GB drives now or whatever... will these be the new standards that come with all machines?I really love to see how new technologies are progressing. They say that they are just speeding up with new things faster and faster than they were ever being produced in the past and that they just continue to grow on such a curve that we have new developments now that take a couple years, that are equivalent to what took decades of production before.But I still can't wait to see just what becomes of this. It all sounds so space age lol... holograms :P I didn't even imagine something like that could be used as a storage device. So cool!


  22. I'm always amazed at how people think that "oh, my dog is so friendly it wouldn't ever bite anyone". If a dog is spooked from something, then it's very possible that the dog may attack, regardless of just how "friendly" it happens to be any other time. They work on instincts, and if they feel threatened, then it's not safe. If you child is going to be near a dog, you really need to be with it, because if something does happen, then at least you can try to minimize what has happened, but especially for little children, I don't think they should ever be left alone with a dog.It's like a story where I'm talking to my friend a little while ago, and she's moved in with her boyfriend who owns a dog that is part pit bull... part boxer... part who knows what else. It's a mean looking dog anyway, but she insists, "oh no! this dog is soooo friendly. It just has to get to know the people it's around first."They take the dog to the park and outside and let it off the leach... and I tell her, you shouldn't be doing that, cause there are kids around... what if something were to happen? She tells me all the time how her dog gets into fights with other dogs, but what if next time it's a little kid? She even lets a little four year old play with the dog alone, and I tell her to stop doing that.I can't stand it. She's always telling me that she's afraid to take the dog outside alone, cause she doesn't think she would be able to control the dog if it tried to run after something, but then she thinks it's okay to leave it off the leach where little kids are around. I don't think she really knows what the problem is, even when I try to explain to her, and I'm afraid that one day it's going to be too late.


  23. I love to watch sports, especially when they are live. Though I've always hated to play them myself. I'm weird that way.Mostly, I like to watch racing, lacrosse, football... that sort of thing. Sports where you won't get hit in the head by a stray baseball or hockey puck lol... unless it's on the television, then that's okay. Cause I'd be safe. I hate having to spend a game worrying more about where the ball is headed than how the game is actually going.I think I've been tainted from having sat too close to people that have had their faces smashed in at games from things getting hit into the crowd near me.

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