Mordent

I seem to remember watching some random documentary on tattoos in general a while back. While I'd never get one for myself, I have to say that some of the techniques used are damned clever. Sure, the very concept of having eye-tattoos worries most people - me include - but I'll admit when I first saw the results I was actually quite impressed. The particular person I saw received blue ink in the white parts of their eyes (and not just dots, either, more like the blue that you see in the film Dune (spice eyes?), but darker. Anyway, after months of doing parts of their eyes blue (one portion at a time, of course), they wanted to take things a step further...Glow in the dark tattoos, anyone? Now imagine those tattoos...in your eyes. Tiny little glowing specks on a dark blue background. Possibly one of the freakiest things you can do to your eye, as I highly doubt it's reversible. To be fair, anything done to your eyes purely for cosmetic reasons (contact lenses and laser-eye surgery I'm pretty fine with in principle, although I've never needed either...yet) has got to be one of the weirdest concepts out there. Still...not my body, I suppose, so they can do what they like to their own one.

Hmmm...interesting idea. So, after thinking about it, I created a group called "share" (which both my user and her user are part of), and also created a directory called /home/shared/ (permissions "drwxrwxr-x", so a "shared" home folder...). In there I put a directory called music (again with the default permissions of "drwxrwxr-x"), and it's seemed to work fine so far. All directories in it so far belong to me, so now to try logging in as her and seeing if I can get it to work. I'll let you know how it goes. EDIT: Works like a charm! Thanks a bunch! EDIT 2: So after sleeping on the idea, I created a few symbolic links around. This way we can both easily access the shared directory from our home directory, as well as have any private music that we want. Luckily, Rhythmbox (and I would imagine most other applications) follow links when looking for music, so I get both my shared music and my personal music to show up. Shame she hasn't got quite my taste of music, fancy not liking Daft Punk that much...

As time's gone on, I've converted more and more of my music to a standardised naming format in the directory /home/*myuser*/music/. Now, both myself and my girlfriend (who uses my computer a fair bit) use RhythmBox to play music, which works absolutely fine. The only problem is that she can't see the music I have, and I can't see hers. Why? Because her music is in /home/*heruser*/music/. So...what's the easiest way around this problem? Personally I'd rather keep all our music in one place...preferably in /home/*myuser*/music (as it is my computer), but if I have to move it all elsewhere I'm not too fussed...I've tried altering permissions to some extent, as well as trying (in vain) to create hard links, but I've had varying, if low, levels of success with that. I suspect the answer will be something along the lines of creating a directory outside of /home/..., and giving the permissions so that anyone can have a look at it, but is there any other way around it? Thanks for any input!

Got this little gem for Christmas for the Xbox 360, and I'll have to say that so far I'm pretty impressed. The combat system is pretty well polished, in my mind, not to mention the sheer scale of immersion (think Oblivion-esque levels, although you can move pretty much anything). While I haven't got very far in to the game yet (played about 3 hours in, after a retry with a new character build), the first thing that hits me is the detail of the scenery.Sure, inside the Vault things start out bleak, but just wait until you step out in to the Wasteland for the first time...I first stepped out of there at around dawn, and the view was truly breathtaking. I can only imagine what the rest of the map looks like if things are kept to the same standard...My only mini-complaint so far is the surprising lack of...freedom? Yes, I suppose that's the word...anyway, freedom to choose what path you want. However you look at it, there really aren't occupations available to you that seem that obvious. Virtually everyone simply becomes a wasteland survivor, with a rifle in one hand and some other secondary skill in the other. Sure, my viewpoint is a little biased...especially after noticing that a lot of people carry much nicer gear than me...strange how it gradually works its way in to my hands by means of a well placed headshot...anyway, the game is rated 18 (or whatever the US equivalent is) for a reason. I couldn't help myself but laugh just a little manically at my first slow motion critical headshot...not a game for the weak stomached amongst us...Alas, though, for I fear that the PC version of the game would be substantially better, even if the graphics were toned down a little. Thoughts on that?

Any updates on this?

I figured I'd best add a general update of how I'm doing with this little problem, mainly because I'd like a smidgen of help with getting my set up to match my hosted one here (at Xisto - Web Hosting). So, after faffing around with XAMPP, removing that and trying to install Apache, MySQL and PHP separately (I got bogged down in God only knows what trying to get that to work, so I gave up), removing that and then installing the three separate ones from the Add/Remove Software option (i.e. using preconfigured packages), I found the last to be the most successful to date. What I currently have installed (and obviously the relevant dependency packages): php-5.2.6-5 (x86_64)â¨httpd-2.2.10-2 (x86_64) - i.e. Apacheâ¨mysql-5.0.67-2.fc10 (x86_64)â¨While my ability to use Linux is improving, I'm at a slight loss as to how to actually get my setup such that it's nigh on identical to the one at Xisto - Web Hosting. Without touching any configuration files, etc. etc. everything seems great. I tweaked a couple permissions with chmod to let me access the /var/www directory as my standard user (as well as making sure the link I had in my home directory from my last attempt or twelve still worked, which it did). â¨I then opened up a console, changed to my root user and started up Apache (i.e. as root "httpd"). I didn't get any message that anything had worked, but I guess I didn't get any errors either, so I suppose that's alright. Now, after that I had the slight issue of trying to work out why "//localhost/" didn't default to showing the index file (index.php, which contained the phpinfo(); command), nor show any directory listings. This is still a minor, if irritating issue, but by typing "//localhost/index.php" in to my browser it works fine. Oddly, it only applied to the very top file, as all subdirectories (such as "//localhost/somedir" opened up "//localhost/somedir/index.php" - which is the index file in that directory, and the following also worked: "//localhost/somedir/"; "//localhost/somedir/index.php"; "//localhost/somedir/index.php/") â¨What sort of default behaviour do most people expect from typing "//localhost/" in to their browser address bar? Anyway...aside from that little query, I'm back to trying to get my configuration such that most scripts I develop locally perform the same when uploaded. In essence, I'd imagine this has to do with the php.ini file? Has anyone else tried to do this, or had any success? I know that my default setup differs from the one in my hosting plan, as, for instance, magic quotes are on in one and off in the other.â¨Thanks for any help! â¨EDIT: So, I feel a bit slow...seems all I needed to do was to restart Apache ("httpd -k restart") and the whole localhost not showing problem went away. I also had to remove the welcome message, at least for now, to make sure that the page index was showing fine (/etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf, follow instructions in the file), but as they seemed fine I removed my changes and everything seems awesome...now to try to get my build as close to Xisto - Web Hosting's as possible...I don't suppose anyone happens to know a way of exporting PHP settings?

I'd have to say I disagree with you on a majority of these points as being reasons to use Microsoft Office over OpenOffice.org. Although I haven't checked it myself, I'd have to say that the slow performance of OpenOffice that you've noticed will only ever decline as a problem as computers become faster and with more and more RAM as standard. Even now, based on a quick survey of 10 random people that I have on my contacts list for MSN I found that one doesn't know how much RAM they have (and I couldn't be bothered to explain how to find out ), one was using a machine with 256 MB of RAM, but that was only because they were on an old laptop and therefore not using their main machine, and the rest had 512 MB or more (6/8 said 2 GB). Now, admittedly, this may simply be down to the sorts of people I know, but is OpenOffice really that intensitve a programme? As for Word import loss, try importing .odt files in to Microsoft Word and you'll have a whale of a time. Sure, more people currently use Microsoft Office than OpenOffice (just a guess), but the point in favour of OpenOffice is that they're trying to allow people to easily switch. So if you're importing a file created by OpenOffice in to MS-Word you don't? At least OpenOffice can actually open .doc files. Try getting Word to play around with .odt without using any third-party software and getting the format right. It's an absolute nightmare. Sure, OpenOffice may not be able to display Microsoft's work entirely correctly, but you know what the answer to that is? Create it using OpenOffice in the first place! I rarely print documents, so I'm afraid I can't really comment on this one. All I'll say is that of the documents that I have printed with OpenOffice, I've never had a problem. All in all, I still reckon OpenOffice has a lot going for it, and while it's still lacking a few features it's by no means that far behind Microsoft. It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft react if/when OpenOffice is on more machines than Microsoft Office is.

Thanks a bunch, I wasn't sure whether that was the case or not. Haven't used forum software for a while.

So I tried to post in the Hosted Members Area today and found that I couldn't create a new topic. Figures, as I was originally with Xisto (Profile), but didn't sign up for Xisto hosting. Any chance of me being able to post in that area here as well? Thanks in advance!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't all of that information provided as well? If you click past the standard Order page (i.e. as if you were ordering) and put in the domain information you want to use (not only does it give you experience in working out what you want, it also will tell you the price - if anything) you get to the page that allows you to configure/customise the order. Here you can upgrade a lot of the plan, and it also tells you what you'll be getting as default. Based on today's check, I've included the defaults below. Naturally these might change over time, but that's all down to Xisto - Web Hosting, I expect. Disk Space [1000MB] Bandwidth [10000MB (10 GB]) Email [Free Google Mail (10 x 7GB Mail)] Web Builder / CMS / Gallery Pre-Setup [No] MySQL Databases [5] Shell Access [No] Addon Domains [5] Parked Domains [5] Dedicated IP [No] Subdomains [5] Custom Nameserver [No] FTP Accounts [5] JSP [No] Frontpage Extension [No] If you want more than the default options then naturally you can pay more. Some of the upgrades have a setup fee, others just a monthly fee, and some have both. The above list is the basic option, though, and will set you back $1.95 per month, or you can get a year's hosting at a discounted rate ($1.60 per month, or $19.20 for the year, although you have to pay it all up front). Just on a side note, by looking in to this I'd noticed that the number of addon domains, parked domains, subdomains and MySQL databases have been set to 5 each. Sure as heck beats the 1 that I'm sure we used to have to make do with for some of those! Hope this helps!

I've had no problems so far, and your site works fine for me...obviously I can't see your control panel, but there's certainly no network timeouts with the site itself.

Whoops! Meant to have that one as the cons for archiving old topics are the same as the cons for deleting old topics. Eh, no one's perfect...

Fedora 10 64-bit, and I suspect it does have a package for all of the above. The only problem comes with trying to configure them to install in the right place, or to be accessible from where I want them to be. I'll explain in a jiffy... I've had a look at XAMPP (or LAMP, as I assumed it was called. Good to see I've been corrected on that semantic hiccup), and I'll have to say it doesn't look all that bad. The only problem, in my eyes, is that I can't think of a way of setting the "home" directory as shown above. That's the main reason I want to go the long route and try to understand where things are installed. Would you recommend this, or to carry on with having another go at XAMPP? On a different side note, assuming that I do find a way of installing Apache, MySQL and PHP all on my local machine, how would you recommend I try to configure it such that anything I use it for would behave identically to the way Xisto hosting does things. I'm going to hazard a guess it's something to do with INI files, but haven't a clue where to start... Anyway, one option I've considered is the use of links. I've no idea how they work, nor if they're indeed the sort of thing I'm after, but being new at Linux means I have something else to go have a look at. My understanding of links is that you can create a Windows-esque shortcut of a folder in another directory. The difference is, by opening the link you can alter the files, but they have a path of the link's directory. Is this correct? Let me try to explain it better... Let's say I have all of my local server-y stuff installed, so that I have a www directory sitting in a directory called /a/b/c (i.e. /a/b/c/www). If I create a link to this directory (the www one) and place it in a directory called /x/y/z (i.e. /x/y/z/www), and open up this link, is it true that any changes I make to either directory or link will affect the other, and that each has a separate hierarchy, or whatever you want to call it? This is all slightly off topic, but as it's trying to accomplish what I want I don't see why I can't digress slightly. Thanks to all those who have posted so far! EDIT: Drat...an update for you folks, then: After reading through the XAMPP page, and finding this little snippet... ...I decided to give it a go. I downloaded the archive, and ran the following commands from my shell: su<give password>cd <dir of downloaded archive>tar xvfz xampp-linux-1.7.tar.gx -C /home/<my local username>/projects/website/lampp[wait for it to extract]cd /home/<my local username>/projects/website/lampp./lampp startI get the following message: Assuming that I don't want to try and find out how to use a 32 bit compatibility library (unless it's the only way to get the above software working), what other options are there available to me? EDIT 2: Hmmm...so I gave up on XAMPP for now, and instead went for the approach of installing the Apache (i.e. httpd), MySQL and PHP packages separately in the Add/Remove Software option in System -> Administration. After that I played around with permissions and links for a bit, until I had a link to the www directory sitting in my user's home directory that I could use. So...now the dilemma about getting it to actually parse my PHP files...

Overall, I'd have to say that this argument is pretty useless, though, as what would be the point of deleting archiving them? It takes time, effort, adds to confusion ("I'm sure I saw a post from last year in here that I wanted to read somewhere..."), might damage the forum's SEO, and the forum is running fine without doing it. Sure, you don't get as many replies from dead topics, but if you check the date on them before replying then you won't have a problem of no one replying back to you...that said, if someone replies and the thread gets moved back up the time line then more people will see it and people are inclined to reply as well. It's quite possible to resurrect a thread by adding one well thought out post an age after the original one has lost its buzz. In light of that, I decided to make a little list of pros and cons. Pros for Deleting Old Topics: Tidies the forum up...marginally... Anything else? Cons for Deleting Old Topics: Might negatively affect the longer-term users' myCENTs Could take quite a while to work out how to do (pass as to if this is true or not, but the point is that it takes some time) Might damage the forum's SEO. A lot of still useful information would be lost. Pros for Archiving Old Topics Same as "Pros for Deleting Old Topics" Cons for Archiving Old Topics Same as "Cons for Deleting Old Topics", minus the fact that the information would be retained...somewhere. Pros for Leaving Old Topics Nothing needs to be done. All information and threads are retained No problems with SEO. No problems with members losing myCENTs. Cons for Leaving Old Topics ...none? The site's not even slow, so the database must be fine. Any questions?

I'm torn between my need for cleanliness and order (and therefore cleaning up ancient posts), or keeping the information provided by these posts, no matter how minimal. To be fair, I often find answers to a whole range of questions during Google searches which lead me to forum posts on some forum or another that has a topic that should be pushing up daisies.Besides, how do you differentiate between a useful topic and a useless one? Sure, there are some pretty clear cut ones, but there's a lot of fuzzy grey in the middle. If the moderator who's going through some of the older posts (assuming you don't just go for the shotgun approach and move any threads that haven't been posted in for X years and aren't in a tutorial section or similar), why are the expected to know if one of the posts someone made a few years ago is still relevant, correct, or just garbage?Sure, the idea's good in theory, but in practice I'd have to say I disagree...

I'd have to say that I reckon a few of these reviews seem a bit harsh in my opinion. Don't get me wrong, the site is clearly not perfect (and what sites are?), but I reckon the combination of TLD and idea of the site - along with the fact that there's something on there already, whereas often projects end up fading quickly - this certainly has a lot of potential. My real question would have to be about what sort of user you're trying to appeal to most: the casual developer, who wants to quickly and easily add some sort of additional functionality (or whatever) to their site without really caring how it works; the lazy coder, who could probably do something similar, if not the same, given a bit of time but can't really be bothered to make it, most likely due to more of a lack of understanding of programming than time; or the newbie programmer, who's trying to cobble together a site and wants to read through your snippets and work out how they work. Sure, you could take the blunderbuss approach and aim for all three, but I'm sure you'll end up picking one as a speciality in the end. One question I forgot to ask is about the registration idea. I assume people register in order to submit their own snippets? I haven't got time right now to trawl through the site, so sadly will have to make do with what I remember seeing there, but I can't for the life of me remember seeing mention of a user's name in reference to any of the snippets. Do users get credit for the code they submit? It does really only seem fair. Do feel free to correct me if this statement is wrong, though. Overall, I'd have to say the site's got great potential, just make sure you utilise it to the full if you can. Also, I notice you've got ads at the very bottom of the screen? Someone with more experience of advertising could probably talk about monetising your site in more detail, but aren't GoogleAds...what are they callled...pay per click? If no one clicks the ads, you don't get paid? Probably not a bad scheme at the moment, but I'd likely suggest having a marginally more "active" advertising scheme if you plan on making any actual cash. Not necessarily now, while your site's still developing, but eventually it might not be a bad idea... Other than that, I'd have to say I agree with africa in general tweaking of the site. A logo is a must, and a bit of fine tuning is definitely needed with some of the fonts. Still, I'll be a bit more generous and say that, as an amateur coder, your site's certainly something that could be very useful to people and give it a 5/10 at the moment, with easy potential to be a 6 or 7 if the pages are smartened up a bit and given a bit more of a professional edge...personal opinion, only, of course.

Just finished my first semester at university (or college, as I guess you US folk would call it...), and I'd have to say I'm having the best time of my life. While I'd definitely thought of taking half of the things suggested here, I realised that my uni accommodation, like a good few others, didn't allow things such as kettles, microwaves, mini-fridges (basically anything you can cook or cool something with) in your room. Fortunately for me my room was literally adjacent to the floor's kitchen, so I didn't have far to go to get breakfast. I'd definitely agree with people who suggest extension leads (particularly ones with a whole host of sockets on them, as you can never have too many sockets). If you happen to know someone who went (or goes) to the uni you're heading to, I'd definitely suggest picking their brains a bit. By coincidence, one of my friends (a year older than me), goes to the uni that I'm now at, so I have his experience to work off. It also helps that he was in nigh-on identical accommodation to my own, so I had a lot of first-hand experience of what counts as too much to bring for your room and what are the essentials. To be honest, the main thing is making sure you can make do long enough to get anything else that'd make living more comfortable. No need to bring the kitchen sink, but think about what you regularly use at home and so what you'd use at uni. Also, for the love of all things sacred, make sure you pack any cables you need, as a friend of mine managed to forget the power cable for their computer. Not only did they not have a computer that was working in their room, it took up a large chunk of their desk space until they first went home to get it (about two weeks in).

*bump* No one? I could really do with a smidgen of general advice on this, as the ways I've found of doing it so far don't seem to allow the degree of control I want, but are too complex for me to understand.

Watched it today, great film that. I love Jim Carrey in general, and it's pretty damned awesome. I've also got Evan Almighty to watch, but that's for another thread... Anyway, given that the power and situation were similar to Bruce's, I'd likely do somewhat similar to him, although I'll admit that the girl in my life is (hopefully) not going to leave me (). After watching the film, though, you do have to think what man would do with nigh-on infinite power. In the grand scheme of things, our lives are basically insignificant. We're born, we live, we have children, we die. Few people leave that much of a mark that the world would have been that much different without them. Being able to do nigh-on anything at will would be daunting to most, and I know I wouldn't be an exception to that. I suppose it all comes down to whether the power comes the responsibility that Bruce is given. Do we need to take the place of God, or are we merely given powers similar to those portrayed in the film? If the latter, naturally you wouldn't have the hassle of answering prayers, and while I like to think I'd use it for the greater good (perhaps, for instance, informing the authorities of my ability, and therefore asking how I could best help mankind. Naturally there'd be a lot of people who would have conflicting ideas, but as a general overview of problems that I would try to create solutions to: The energy crisis - I'd create a generator that ran without fuel and produced almost limitless torque. This generator could be hooked to any number of gearing systems, each of which would turn at whatever rate is desired, effectively creating a source of infinite energy if you could build around it. I'd probably create a dispenser of these torque machines, too, for when my power ran out and I was back to my normal self. Global warming - To complement the generator, I'd create a similar pair of devices (one which produced the other), this time being able to suck in or absorb gases (such as greenhouse gases) at a controllable rate. World hunger - never-ending food dispenser, anyone? Same idea with the "never-ending food-dispenser dispenser..." Overall, I think the important thing is to create a means of ensuring that anything you do during the week doesn't go to waste. Clearly there'd be 101 strict regulations on the usage of the above machines, but I'd leave that for the governments to deal with. Naturally I'd give it to the UK, of course, simply because I can. Aside from that, I'd probably try to come up with a cure for cancer, AIDS, and various other diseases and so on, just because I can... That sort of thing would certainly leave its mark, although I expect what with limitless food and no disease we'd soon have a few world population problems on our hands...ah well. Oh, and did I mention I'd go take a look at Mars (in some sort of space craft, naturally...can't have the equivalent of God dying, can we?) and come back to tell NASA if they were right or wrong all along? How about you folks?

As I'm sure a fair number of people know, having to upload your site every time you make a change to it to see if it works is hardly a good use of bandwidth or time. That's why all of the pieces of software in the topic title are available to install locally and allow you to develop your website without going through that hassle, not to mention the fact that it's generally a lot more bug free.Now, for those of us who are a bit new to Linux (me included, although I'm gradually getting a little more confident as time goes on), installing all of this in the correct manner on a local machine is a bit of a daunting task. There are 101 ways of doing it, as far I can tell, and the one way I intend to avoid is with the installation of LAMP (or whatever you call it) or similar. as I generally consider these options as "messy" (do feel free to try to change my mind, though).My main concerns are twofold: firstly, I want to have the setup as close to those on Xisto/Xisto as possible (i.e. all PHP scripts behave the same way, etc.), as that is where I'll be hosting my sites so naturally I want to get an accurate testing area for the site development up and running. My second concern is the location of the software. Naturally I want easy access to it, but would rather it be, again, in more of a similar setup to that which is given by the hosting. This is likely best illustrated with a little diagram.../home/myhostinguser <- this is my "home" folder on the hosting server/home/mylocaluser/projects/web <- this is where I want the "equivalent" folder to be on my local machineAs a little side note, does anyone know whether you are able to use the same hosting folder (/home/myhostinguser) for multiple hosting plans, whether you have to use a different one or have to use the same one, or in fact can do either?Thanks in advance to any and all who give advice, be assured I appreciate anything you have to offer.

I'd have to agree, if for no other reason than the fact that PayPal's a pretty well-known company. For a business account I believe that the credit card fee is substantially smaller than with other account types (although don't quote me on that), and is more than enough for almost anyone looking to start up any sort of site and have their users be able to send money.

Hmmm...sounds more like the sort of thing I need to read, but I wouldn't know where to start. Perhaps something for when I have a little more free time on my hands, or if someone else fancies having a go they're more than welcome to. Let me know how you do! Seems odd to me that it can't be easily changed, or at least not obviously...ah well. Thanks!

A quick foreword: after making the switch to Linux a couple weeks back, I'd have to say it's turned out a lot better than I could possibly have hoped. While OpenOffice.org isn't preinstalled, it takes a matter of minutes to download and, being freeware (and open source, at that), it has a large community that have a whole wealth of knowledge. That said, I didn't fancy signing up for yet another forum (mainly because I have other things to do, and way too many forums on my "to check" list as it is, but also because you folks at Xisto tends to have an answer ready and waiting for me ), and the basic searches didn't turn up much. I found the odd thing relating to what I wanted, but of those I looked at none had an answer (or at least not the one I wanted). So...my problem, or more of a query: OpenOffice.org Writer is the particular application I'm most interested in, as it's the one I'm currently using most. That said, I've barely tried the others yet, so bare with me if you think it may apply to them as well... Being the sort of person that I am, I have a certain level of organisation that I'd quite like to achieve in nigh on everything I do. Sometimes, this part of me drives me mad by being stubborn and never quite happy with my work. I may be able to find a workaround, but even then I personally know it's not right, and that bugs me. In the Styles and Formatting "area", you'll notice that there's the option to show the styles by hierarchy. This appeals to me, as I like the idea of cascading styles (the same sort of reason I tend to use CSS), but me being me wants to make styles from scratch, without all of the defaults already there. Fair enough, I can create a style that isn't linked to any others, and it then sits outside of the normal default style's child tree, but annoyingly the default style sits at the top of this little area, and any non-linked styles you add have to be below it, regardless of where they should be alphabetically. So, the way I see it, I have two choices: Ignore it, and create my styles outside of the default, meaning that I have to scroll down most times I want to apply styles, as the blasted thing seems to expand itself quite a lot. Find a way of modifying the automatic styles, i.e. the ones that OO.org ships with, such that I can get rid of the ones I don't want, re-name/structure/organise those I do, as I find it annoying that you can't rename the automatic styles, nor delete them...makes things seem cluttered. Alternatively, is there perhaps a way of showing only the styles that have been applied in the hierarchy menu? As fun as seeing 101 different headings whenever I open up the heading section, I generally stick to using just a few. My next question would be about what would be "good practice" when it comes to this sort of thing? Creating a whole bunch more styles naturally adds to the volume of data with every document, whereas modifying style defaults would have less of an impact on this. I suppose my main issue is having to filter through all of the styles I don't use, but keep appearing as defaults (for example, when inserting a caption). Any thoughts or comments on this?

After last week's update fiasco, system running Fedora 10 seems to be back on track. By that, I mean everything is working pretty smoothly, although there's a few little issues I've yet to resolve: The main one, and the whole point of this topic, is trying to find out how I can change "Desktop" to "desktop" in the "Places" menu. Being an electronic engineering student, I've done what I consider to be good practice and started naming files and directories all in lower case, with underscores instead of spaces, using not much punctuation (i.e. I use the occasional hyphen). For the sake of argument, let's say that my username on my system is "myuser" (i.e. all lower case). In my home directory (i.e. /home/myuser/) there are a whole range of default directories, such as "Documents", "Music", "Templates" and so on. I've managed to rename these to "documents", "music" and "templates" (etc.) without breaking any links such that when I click on the "Places" menu at the top of the screen I see the directories in lowercase and everything seems great. I should also point out that my home directory shows as "myuser's home", which is what I wanted, so yay! I then came to trying to alter the directory called "Desktop", which is the only one left that's giving me any grief. After various web browsing and forum trawling (which was also part of the process when renaming the other directories), I came across a page that pointed me towards "/home/myuser/.config/user-dirs.dir" The contents of that file now look like this (after various tweaking of cases): I should point out that originally a number of the files there, possibly all of them, as I forgot to make a copy and back it up (terrible, I know...), had the first letter of the directories listed in uppercase. I remember changing for certain the desktop one, though, as it complained about some sort of broken somesuch if I didn't...now, that's all very well and good, and when I click on any of the directories in the Places menu it has no trouble opening the right thing. Even the "Desktop" one now opens the correct directory, but it still appears in the "Places" list as "Desktop", and not "desktop", despite the fact that the folder in my home folder is now called "desktop" (and works fine, it even has the desktop icon instead of a folder) Any suggestions as to how I can get around this? It's the only one that's not conforming to my (probably too) rigorous naming scheme. Any and all help or advice would be appreciated, as although it's functioning fine seeing one little thing different that doesn't really have a reason for being different grates against my inner-perfectionist. Cheers!

Not sure how serious or relevant this is yet, as I just got told about it over the phone by my technically incompetent sister, but apparently there's something up with...you guessed it, Microsoft. Apparently Internet Explorer has some pretty heft security holes or somesuch. As I don't use IE I'm not really looking in to it, but to anyone out there who does and wants to let others know, have a look here to start. Amazingly, this doesn't really surprise me...